He's tired of the txtmsg tango

The joys of 21st Century Dating, UK version.

2005, however, will live on in my memory as The Year Of The Timewaster. On at least seven occasions in that twelve months I met an attractive woman, had an interesting conversation or three with her, got her number, arranged to meet up with her and then received a txt msg cancellation hours or even minutes before the arranged rendezvous. The last time this happened to me, the woman in question blew out our meeting with an excuse that Wardytron described as being equivalent to: “I’m sorry I can’t come out. I have to contemplate the number seven tonight.”

The simplest and most plausible explanation for this pattern is that none of these women were that interested in me in the first place and agreed to meet with me out of politeness—leaving the question of exactly how polite it is to bail out at the last moment by Short Messaging Service. Another, rather less plausible, explanation is that these women were operating some Rules-type hard-to-get strategy, designed to test whether or not I was really interested. That is, by being spectacularly rude and avoiding me, they are actually signalling their interest—just like Nigella Lawson tried to make me jealous by marrying that Saatchi bloke.

...

If I say I’m going to call a woman, I call her. If I don’t, I probably won’t. I don’t do one-night stands, but I know that some men like to collect notches on their bedposts; still more women like to collect frustrated admirers. Even unemployed, I’m just a little too busy for that now, so would the next interesting woman I meet either behave as graciously and honestly as my fellow dinner-party guest or practise the following form of words in advance of our falsely promising encounter: “Please leave me alone, Mr Strange Slaphead Geek. I am not interested in your over-polished story about the day your dreadlocks got caught in the lid of the ultracentrifuge and I would rather pluck my nose hairs with a blunt pair of tweezers than accompany you on a further evening of such tedium.”

ADDENDUM: Another stood up Brit. Is this an epidemic?