We have a guest poster today, commenting about a common dating trend seen around town in Austin Texas. Our next guest post is from a man’s P.O.V. *grin*
“Follow Through”
by The Queen of Snark and Shimmy
Boy sees girl. Girl smiles at boy. Three hours later, boy asks girl for phone number. Girl recounts events of the previous evening with friends over mimosas at brunch. Boy never calls. Girl is confused why boy didn’t “follow through”.
In this current day of technology, we can communicate through a variety of different ways. So, let’s assume our potential interest is a bit ‘sober-shy’ and decides he would be more comfortable texting you instead of calling. It’s a start, right? Well, that depends on his texting etiquette. Here is an example of a text conversation that I recently had:
Boy: Hi
Me: Hi back.
Boy: How are you?
Me: Great, and you?
Boy: Good. What are you doing?
Now this is where I start thinking you’ve got to be kidding me, he’s not going to really have a conversation with me like this, is he?
Me: Just relaxing, getting ready to cook some dinner.
Boy: You cook? What are you making? What’s your best dish?
Hopefully you get the point, this continued until I was sure I had just gone at least 50 text messages over my daily limit, my fingers were sore, I had a headache from trying to decipher the text abbreviations, and I realized an hour had passed by and I was starving. Please tell me why it wouldn’t have been easier to just pick up the phone and have this conversation? Yes, he gets credit for following through and contacting me but this is basically how he continued to communicate with me for almost three weeks before I just became frustrated when I saw that oh so familiar “Hi” text pop up.
Maybe you’re an email type of person or want to show off how cute and popular you are so you suggest they look you up on facebook or myspace. *Ding…you’ve got mail* We all know that feeling of excitement that comes over us when we see that familiar first name pop up in our Inbox or you get a friend request from him. All of a sudden you’ve entered each other’s online worlds.
Example numero dos:
“Hey there. It was really nice to meet you the other night. Hope the rest of your weekend was good. So, I’m not sure what your plans are this week but we should grab a drink or something if you’re free?”
“Hey yourself. I had a great time talking to you too! I would like to get together…I’m free Wednesday and Thursday. Just let me know.”
“Great, let’s shoot for Thursday. Have a good week until then.”
Thursday rolls around and you make sure your email is open on auto-refresh, your phone is charged and on the highest ringer. When it starts getting close to noon, you tell yourself that he probably had a busy morning at work and will call you during his lunch break. Three o’clock passes and even though you’re a bit upset you tell yourself that he probably had a lunch meeting and surely he can’t call you in front of everyone. Yep, that calms you down a bit and leaves you thinking he’ll call after he gets off of work to pick a place to meet – and that’s alright because it’s still early in the day.
*Ding…you’ve got mail* It’s your girlfriends seeing if you’re up for happy hour. You decline saying you’ve made plans with boy they heard about at brunch. Smiley faces, good lucks, have fun, and call me with details are sent back. As you leave the office, you make sure you’ve got full bars the whole drive home on your cell phone. You get home and log on to your email immediately…nothing. It’s not until ten o’clock that night that you finally resign yourself to the fact that you’ve been blown off or…maybe he got into a car accident on his way home (oh no), his dog got sick and he’s at the vet (hope the poor little pup is ok), he had to work late (I should have called him and offered to take him dinner), and numerous other excuses that might be a possibility.
The next morning *Ding…you’ve got mail*, it’s all your girlfriends asking for the scoop on the night before with the boy. Before writing them back, you log onto Facebook to see if Mr. Blow Off has a status update on their page and instead see a new comment on their wall “Had a great time last night, let’s do it again soon!” or “Dude, you were out of control last night. How’d it end up with the beer tub girl?” Either way, you come to face with the fact that he didn’t suddenly get food poisoning and just didn’t follow through.
Now, it might be a bit unfair to constantly put the blame on the guy, as I know girls who have dropped the ball on several occasions. But, please, girls wanna know, what is the point of going through all the effort in the beginning if you don’t plan on following through? In baseball, the batter follows through when swinging at a pitch. In basketball, the player follows through when he shoots a free throw. In football, the kicker follows through when making the game winning field goal. If they don’t, they start riding the bench instead of racking up the stats.
Does there need to be an iPhone application to remind us that we need to follow through? Should we program it into our blackberry and set an alarm reminder? Perhaps not… perhaps all we need to do is play by the Golden Rule and follow through because we would want someone to do that for us.
So, boys and girls, I challenge you to step up to the plate, throw the hail mary out by asking for their phone number, and follow through! Just remember, play fakes are always a possibility as is running into your opposition the next time you’re out on the playing field.
