So Mr. Unusual wants to “pencil it in,” which immediately rubs me the wrong way, because in my experience, that particular turn of phrase means “I’m penciling in several different things for that day and will only ink in the best of my options.”
Then I think, maybe that’s not what that phrase means and I’m just overreacting based on one bad experience a long time ago, involving an attorney I dated very, very briefly. He was handsome and charming and seemed only to write in pencil.
So I google the phrase. Apparently, I am actually being generous with my assessment: the internet tells me this is what you say when you make plans you have no intention of following through with. Only nobody says this anymore, because nobody uses filofaxes anymore: they put stuff into their iphones and then delete the things they don’t feel like doing.
Being a cad is much tidier than in olden times.
Mr Unusual, I think, nobody pencils me in, because first of all, I’m worthy of ink, and second of all, you are not a Luddite. Put it in your iPhone. Delete me at your own risk.
And then it dawns on me: He’s given me no information with which to follow through on this penciled-in coffee date. Everyone else has given me a full name and phone number at this stage. I have a first name and precious little else. Not even a direct email.
I hear a sound: A gauntlet has been thrown.
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