Over lunch, my friend tells me some important things about online dating.
First of all, I’m doing quite well. She can’t even get most of them off the computer.
Seriously? I say. What’s the point of that – to chat endlessly online and never meet someone?
Beats me, she says, but that’s how they work. They’re too afraid to do things in person, I think. Safer to be behind a keyboard. I have most of my relationships via keyboard these days.
So, she says, if you’ve actually met some of these people – you’re doing quite well.
Well, I tell her, I’ve met a bunch of people who have nothing better to do: they’re either unemployed or desperately lonely.
Sounds about right, she says.
Okay, but what the hell just happened today? I mean, finally, a guy who’s got a job and education level roughly equivalent to mine – and I know where he works and have his phone number and vice versa. This guy’s not living under a rock. And he sends me a text to cancel? Is it me, or is that just … tacky?
It’s a text flake, she says. Happens all the time.
There’s a word for this? I say. Does Emily Post know about this?
Yes, she says: it’s pretty standard. What will happen next is, he will follow up and say he wants to get together again, and that will be the last you hear of him.
Mr. Unusual: You’re not unusual at all.
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