Back in September, just as the weather turned raw and the leaves changed color and began to fall, a girl caught my eye. I had just parted ways with Courage and I was sitting on the sidewalk right next to JP Licks on Newbury Street. It was then that she caught my eye. I liked her style, her leather jacket was the just the right color brown to perfectly match the shade of the leaves at the time; that still-bright hue of the oranges, yellows, reds and what was left of the greens.
She sat down on the bench a couple of feet away from where I was sitting, impatiently checking her phone, a few times each minute. Eventually she calls someone. They don't answer. She calls again, even more impatient this time. Again, no answer. She dials again. This time someone picks up. It's her friend. You know, [i]that[/i] friend. The one she calls when she needs to vent her emotions? So she starts in on her and reveals her entire situation.
She met a guy on Match.com and they agreed to meet up for a date. They set the time and place and all was in motion. Then earlier that day, he unexpectedly calls and requests they reschedule the time, claiming to have been invited to the Red Sox game by a guy at the office who had an extra ticket. It's an offer he can't refuse and he tells her it'll probably be another 45 minutes. She accepts the change and showed up at the appropriate time. On her way, he called and needed to post-pone the time again. This time because he was still at the game. She had decided to show up and wait, considering she was so close to the location anyhow. Then he wasn't showing up. She called an there was no reply. That's when she called her.
She tells her friend all of that and they start talking about it for a couple of minutes, her listening to the advice her trusted best friend is giving. Then [i]he[/i] calls. She tells her friend and answers him instantaneously.
She's talking times again. She finishes with him and clicks back over. "He just post-poned again! Can you believe this guy?! He says he needs to walk his dog and take a shower!" The friend starts in again. She listens.
If this situation hadn't intrigued me so, I surely would have left and been well on my way on the commuter rail back home again. But here I am too, invested in this enough to stick around and see what happens of the whole thing.
In fact, at this point, I thought he was jerk too. Jerking this pour woman's chain around like that while she waits in the raw-damp cold of fall. I wanted to swoop in and sarge.. er.. "save" the girl, be her knight in shining armor. I decided though, that I'd rather watch the situation play out, as it wouldn't have been serendip of me to interrupt.
She talks to her friend for another half an hour until she gets another call. It's him again. He tells her he is back at his house, dog walked, showered, and ready to leave. He'll be there in just a few minutes. 20 go by and she's getting anxious again. Another call from the jerk and she perks herself up and starts looking around. He's close. She primps and looks around to find him. She gets up, looking harder and harder but still can't see him. I stand up too, thinking I can spot him before she does. He tells her he can see her. She's baffled. I am too.
Then, out of the blue, he comes up from behind and scares her. She gets a little upset but she's more relieved that he had finally shown up. He apologizes and they go in to get ice cream, after she'd been sitting in the cold for over an hour. They come back outside and then he suggests they bring it to his place where it's warm. She agrees and just like that, they're off.
Now, maybe you're thinking this guy is a jerk too, hopefully you're not. You see, he actually made himself much more attractive by doing exactly what he did.
First, he displayed that she's nothing special to him yet by accepting the ticket to the ballgame, notifying her he'd be late and resetting the time.
Then, he rescheduled her a [i]second[/i] time because the game wasn't over yet and he wasn't going to leave early; who does that?
Third, he needs to walk his dog and take a shower, displaying that he can take care of a loved one (the dog) and that he'll be sure to groom himself for her.
Last, he doesn't present himself as timid or even like he did anything wrong, because he hadn't.
You see, he told her he'd be late. He didn't know she was waiting out in the cold, and honestly, it wasn't even his choice. It was hers. The only person responsible for her being out in the cold is her because at any point in time she could have chosen to go home and be done with him. But there she sat, waiting. Lowering her value and raising his. As her emotions began to wear on her, he became more valuable because she invested feelings, energy and time into a man who has better things to do than meet some girl off of Match.com exactly when he said he would. Three times.
At the end of all of this, he really didn't mean to keep blowing her off like that, it's just that his life and what he was doing was more important than someone he didn't know. The moral of the story: Have better things to do than meet women.
~S
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