Coffee for One

I sat alone with only my latte for company in Starbucks last Friday. I was waiting for a date who would never come, but of course I didn't know that yet. Let me start from the beginning...

All day I had been looking forward to meeting the Pentagon guy, well he works for DOD but work with me here. Anyway, I was excited to finally meet him since we had been talking via Okcupid for almost two weeks. Additionally we had previously had to cancel two other dates due to the craziness of our combined schedules. So when attempted date number three rolled around I put a little more effort into my hair than usual, slipped on a cute pair of heels, and rushed off to Starbucks.

I ordered the usual venti and then I sat. I sat for far too long. Luckily I had brought some headache inducing light reading (aka a paper analyzing a poem by Pablo Neruda). After waiting ten minutes I gave in and started really working on my paper and began muttering to myself in Spanish. Eventually I looked at my watch and realized that the Pentagon guy was now twenty five minutes late.

Had he already come in, seen me talking to myself like a crazy person and decided he wanted to leave? Sweet Dee had recently told me about the Lemon Law as described in "How I Met Your Mother". Basically this is a rule of dating that states you give your date about five minutes to convince you that they are worth it. If you decide that your date isn't someone you can stand spending more than five minutes with you leave. Obviously knowing this I became extremely paranoid that the Pentagon guy had invoked Lemon Law without my knowledge. Needless to say I was alarmed and more than a little self-conscious at this point.

Suddenly I spotted a guy in line who looked like he could be my date. Was he really showing up thirty minutes late? The mystery man in line wasn't even looking my way, so I stared at him for an abnormally long period of time. Still he refused to look in my direction. Finally he ordered and headed for a table near me. Just as he was sitting down we locked eyes and I thought I saw him smile. "Oh my gosh how stupid can I be? How can I not tell if this is the right guy? I should have looked at his profile pictures more carefully!" Naturally the solution was to text Sweet Dee and ask for advice. Being the super genius as always, this is why we are friends, she suggested I just call him. So I called. And it rang, and rang, and rang some more. The guy I was staring at didn't even flinch. "What if it's him and he has his phone on vibrate? Is this some weird head game he's playing? What if he wants me to walk over to him because he isn't sure it's me either?" Confused and frustrated I left Starbucks and meandered home overanalyzing all the way.

Pentagon guy called an hour later and I let it go to voicemail. Apparently I got stood up because he had a meeting at the Pentagon that went longer than he expected (for non-DC people: you aren't allowed to have cell phones in Pentagon meetings so this is a valid excuse... only in DC). So he left a very apologetic voicemail and I decided to call him back. I guess I was expecting him to immediately offer to set up another date/time we could meet up, however, he did not. Pentagon guy seemed to want nothing more than to interview me about my life despite the fact that it was late at night and I had clearly conveyed to him that I had a very long paper to finish writing. But no, Pentagon guy seemed determined to keep blabbing away on the phone. So I lied, told him I had an incoming call from my sister and I had to go.

That was a few days ago, and he has not called again to set up another date. I really did believe his apology and feel sorry for him at first, but now I'm just a little annoyed. Maybe he didn't want to meet up with me in the first place? If he doesn't call me by the end of the week I think I'll just give up on him. Does anyone else have stories of being stood up? Do you think his excuse was real readers?