Q: “I went on a great date last week. We made out for, literally, an hour or so and agreed that we would go out again before he hailed a cab for me and sent me home. But I haven’t heard from the guy since. Why would he not text me for a second date if he had as good a time as I did? And what should I do now?”
A: This is a two-part question and I will answer it as such, using my favorite quick-delivery mechanism: bullet points.
“Why would he not text me for a second date if he had as good a time as I did?”
- He didn’t have as great a time as you did, despite the fact that you made out a whole bunch. As I’m sure you already know, us guys can be a terrible crew, and we will make out with a girl we don’t necessarily “like like” just so that we can put our tongues in an attractive female’s mouth and feel like we were at least moderately successful on the first date front. And so we can tell our friends that we kissed a girl. That we kissed her long, and we kissed her good.
- He has realistically been swamped with work, and has either been unable to reach out to you, or has lost himself so much in his career that he hasn’t even thought about texting a girl to further a pseudo-relationship that he doesn’t have enough time for. It isn’t that he didn’t have a good time or doesn’t like you, it’s that he’s unable to make you a pressing priority, which is kind of understandable in many situations. (One of my female friends was recently perplexed that she didn’t hear much from a guy she met on the Tinder after they had a splendid date, until he revealed that he had been missing in action because he was competing in a Food Network cooking show contest that he ultimately won. He reached out to her when it was over with a link to the episode that he dominated, and she almost exploded with excitement.)
- He believes that by not texting you, it will make you think about him more and, maybe, in turn, want you more. If this is his strange approach, it worked. You’re clearly thinking about him a lot if you sent this question in to some random guy like myself. I certainly don’t condone this kind of “hard to get” behavior, but us guys are often petrified of coming on too strong and scaring away a girl we think we might really like by coming on too strong, too hard and too often. The cultural dating dynamic has instilled this ilk of insane thinking into us males. It’s absurd, but true.
- He drunkenly dropped his phone into a toilet, or left it in a cab, or has been plagued by some other sort of technological calamity.
- He has, in his bumbling normal guy way, lost your phone number, and is trying to figure out how in the world he is ever going to find you again.
- He started out very excited to text you and ask for a second date, but felt that he should wait three days at least, on account of society’s ridiculous implementation of “The Three Day Rule.” But in the 72 hours he spent waiting to reach out to you, he decided that maybe it wasn’t worth all the trouble, especially if he was expected to wait a few days to hit you up.
- He is waiting with bated breath (whatever that means) for you to reach out to him and make the next move. We’ve all grown up in a confusing world where you’re told that women want chivalry, but are also extremely invested in feminism. I’ve personally reached a place where, when I hold the door open for a woman, I worry a little bit that she is going to lay into me about how she is totally capable of holding the door for herself, g**damnit, and that if she decides to do so with her nipples hanging out, I shouldn’t question it. The world is a weird place.
What should I do now?
- Text him and see if he would like to go on another date with you. What do you have to lose by doing so? Nothing. Not a goddamn thing. Except for the very real chance that he might not respond, that he might go ghost. And if he does do something like that, who cares? You’re an attractive woman. The online dating pool is your oyster. Log onto OkCupid and check the hundreds of messages you have received, respond to the respectful few who haven’t said something like “Tits or GTFO.”
- Order an abundance of Chinese food, and revel in the notion that the guy who did not text you is missing out on both an abundance of fried wontons and your sexual advances.
- Try to stay alive. More men will come. I mean this literally and figuratively.
