Last minute cancellation. Take it at face value or throw this one back?

[Itslegitimatesalvage]

I’ve been dating a guy for a little while and last weekend, we spent the night together for the first time. Been chatting everyday like normal but didn’t see each other over the weekend for the first time since we started dating. Arranged to meet after work today, so I drove half an hour into the city to meet him. I was waiting in a coffee shop around 400 meters from his flat, when he messaged to say he’d been in a bad mood since getting soaked going to work that morning and wouldn’t be good company so would it be ok to cancel. I couldn’t exactly argue with him or say he had to come so I said that’s fine and just went back to the car and drove home, but being a few minutes walk from
his flat and told to go home… that’s a hard rejection to swallow. I don’t know whether to let it go and take it as he said; just a bad day or if this is a bit too far to cancel like that. Should I start to distance it, leave it now?

I feel there may be a reason he is 42 and single ...

Itslegitimatesalvage

as always there are a lot of posters projecting !!

id say the biggest issue is here is can’t get over himself and his bad mood to be caring of another person and their needs

single Parents have no option
get your kids up , get you up , coffee and crack on . I’m not saying we are perfect . But we are always managing many stakeholders

but he’s a single and selfish man , and he clearly can’t even imagine the efforts you have to go to to placate kids , snacks , parents etc

I used to date someone who had (now I realise ) major mental health issues
id leave the kids , feed them , have a shower and get there and realise he was in a horrific bad mood 😒

Glad to hear about the flowers, you deserve them for how diminished he made you feel in that coffee shop. Fortunately he won't ever be able to make you feel like that again as the memory of it will be enough to keep you strong.

The only only excuse I would have accepted for this would be sudden onset food poisoning and inability to leave the vicinity of his loo which I could have sympathised with, being in a bad mood after getting soaked is unbelievably lame and more inexcusable the longer you think about it.

You've handled it so well, what like would this clown be if something bad really happened to him?!!.

Think you might have dodged a bullet. He sounds like an inconsiderate arse, and you are worth 100 times better treatment than that x

I would imagine that he will have many ‘bad mental health days’ going forward if you had decided to stay.

you would have shown that he doesn’t need to do anything about them because you had no problems waiting in the wings for him. Plus they would be a good excuse to get out of something or doing something else when something better comes along.

good call.

Somewhat late to this but it occurs to me that the flowers are a way of checking what your price is. Will she forgive the deeply inconsiderate behaviour for the price of a bouquet? if she will that's a pretty good investment on his part because he's establishing how far he can push this.

Curious to know if he's still trying to get in touch OP?

The circumstances/"rationale" for cancelling a date with someone last minute ... (Especially someone you've been seeing a little while, and with whom youve recently had sex for the first time, and someone who's had to arrange childcare) ........

Speak of a person who should not be dating.

It is not fair on other people for him to date .... If he's telling the truth about his reasons.

Got wet hours before, got in a mood, can't get out of the mood (and can't be arsed contacting his new gf to tell her he's cancelling until she's driven nearly half an hour, arranged child are and is sitting in a cafe waiting on him).

And the poster who said even at their most depressed they never treated people like this is on point too.

What a very very special snowflake he is .... who can't do life.

Imagine if you had an actual crisis or actual stress in your lives.

He got wet in the rain; wtaf .... It's almost funny.

He's not right in the head.

I concur with the person who said it's rather obvious why is he's single with no significant previous relationship, kids etc. at 42 years old.

He should be alone.

He can't handle anything else. He is really wasting people's time and emotion being on the dating scene.

Oh and he was punching dating 7 yrs younger too.

He messaged a couple of times, explained a bit more about what was going on. Wasn’t exactly stuff you’d tell someone you’ve only known for a little over a month. I guess I also need to remember that people have other things going on in their lives, and won’t always be open to talking about it.

It doesn’t change how it made me feel, sitting there pretty rejected, or that he didn’t consider my sorting childcare and driving through (with the bloody storm isha that was going on!) but it put it more into context.

I’m not closing the door on him, because up to that point it had been pretty wonderful and with his explanation of what had happened over the weekend, I understand how he was feeling that Monday. But I’m also not putting myself or anyone else out by sorting childcare on weeknights etc. Going to keep dating him but I’m on edge now about being taken advantage of or deprioritised so not investing in this relationship until I see more of who he is.

I know people will disagree and think I’ve caved and lack in self respect etc, and that’s in the back of my mind that maybe I am letting him manipulate me so I’m keeping my guard up while I get to know him a bit more.

Op, it's not about losing self respect. The problem is that you'd like to believe this behaviour was exceptional and was the result of this secret reason that he didn't feel he could tell you about originally. The problem is that most of us have been here, done that, got that t-shirt and we can spot the holes.

For a start, even if the "real" issue was something he was too embarrassed to tell you about, there are better ways to handle it.
for example: Cancel earlier.
or: Cancel at the time (if no other choice) but with a suitably grovelling apology even if there no good reason, "I'm so so sorry, I know that you're here and waiting but I just can't do tonight. Please forgive me and I promise, I'll make it up to you". Similarly, in that situation, you open conversation the next day with ANOTHER apology not try to get back to normal.

Another red flag is that the issue has escalated and he's drip fed to you what the problem was, escalating each time. This is pretty classic too - consciously or unconsciously he's seeing how far he has to go to get you to do what he wants.

Also, he's now laid some sob story at your feet and he's the victim. Double red flag if the sob story is about how he was actually terrified about how much he likes you because he's never felt this way before/was treated so badly by his ex/ never thinks he's good enough for anyone because of his childhood abuse.

I'm sorry, this all sounds terribly cynical. But like I said, it's experience talking.

Perhaps this is the first time you've had to set a boundary with him.

Telling him that being made to feel disrespected is something up with which you will not put is a positive thing for you, but he may not be used to this kind of response.

It sounds as though he was ok in other ways, so I agree with you that a cautious second chance may be a good approach.

As a side, when I was first dating DH his time-keeping was poor - the first couple of times he was late. Not by much, 15 minutes or so.
The third time he arrived at my house half an hour late. I sent him away with a flea in his ear.

I wouldn't see him for a week but then gave him a chance to redeem himself, which he did. He never kept me waiting again, and has always been kind and considerate ever since.

Honestly he messed up, but has heard you and tried to make ammends. I think you are doing the right thing, continuing to date him. I'm sure you will have your guard up for a while, but see how it goes. Nobody is perfect.

On the previous page I said, The level of commitment he's displaying in trying to reel you back in is quite fascinating.

I feel sad that I was right. He's upped his game to reel you back. I'm not optimistic but I hope I'm wrong.

I'm honestly fascinated by the posters that only ever give anyone 1 chance at something... When, in reality, life isn't black and white and people do actually deserve the benefit of the doubt.

That's not to say that him standing her up was in any way ok, but I'm glad @Itslegitimatesalvage has given him a second chance and I genuinely hope it works out

Oh dear. You are now to set about fixing this poor broken man.

Dating should be FUN, not angst ridden drama.

Fixing up a broken man? There isn’t a thing to fix. His dad passed away recently, which I knew about of course, but his mum had a health scare over the weekend preceding our date weekend and was in the hospital being monitored. He was worried about losing his mum so soon after losing his dad. Then the storm and he got soaked and just felt miserable at work all day.
His mum was out by the end of the week and is fine, so that’s when he felt able to talk about it.

I don’t see that as someone who is broken, just someone having a difficult time in his family.

Again, it doesn’t take away how I felt or how out of order he was to cancel so late and basically stand me up. It doesn’t take away how I felt. But, things don’t happen in a vacuum, not everything is black and white and sometimes people need a little give and take. I’m not jumping in it fix anything, I haven’t told him it was Ok. I told him I was sorry about his struggles, but that he can’t treat me like that and I’m dating but keeping it in my mind.

I don’t understand this though. If something is going on with your personally, why even bother saying you were in a mood because you got wet? 😂

you would just explain at least a little bit about what’s going on, even if you don’t feel comfortable going into full detail. And he could still have the courtesy to see you in person, given you were round the corner, to apologise in a genuine and sincere way. He still didn’t show any respect for your or your time.

instead he was a coward, did it by text, and only started grovelling and coming up with this whole sorry story when you expressed a boundary and were prepared to walk.

if it were me I wouldn’t be buying it, sorry. It looks like he’s just upped the ante as necessary. His original excuse was the real one.

@Muffin777

Oh, I agree. I had some words for him about being a grown man who can’t communicate, even just the basics to make his reason sound less pathetic. I also had a bit of a go because he could have just invited me over for a little bit to explain and I’d have left him to his alone time if he didn’t want to walk down the road. I said my piece.

But people aren’t all good or all bad, they don’t handle things perfectly all the time. I’ve made mistakes. I’m still annoyed at how he handled it, and especially at how it made me feel which was, frankly, humiliated. I’m not ignoring that. But up to that point, I’d never had second thoughts about dating him so… I’m seeing what he turns out to be.

Jesus, judgemental much? Never had a shit say that you wish you’d handled better? Suuure.

OP doesn’t sound like some desperate, naive type. She voiced her irritation and giving him a second chance. Not a big deal. If he does something unpleasant again, I’d wager OP will be out in a second.

Stop smugly catastrophising from afar.

OP - you’re the only one with all the 3D info, everyone here is reading the abridged version in 2D. Fingers crossed he has learnt a lesson about how to behave, but - as you said - he’s also human. One misstep is allowed. Good luck.

Look you are on the alert now so whats to lose by letting things play out. You clearly like him. If something like this happens again you can walk away without a second glance.
The flowers, he is at least making an effort and people do get it wrong and if genuine I suspect he probably didn't realize at the time the effort involved for you initially

I hope it goes well for you both.

You have your head screwed on and I'm sure you won't let that nonsense happen again.

Oh dear good luck with that I’m sure you will be posting sone kind of drama in in the next few months but u will develop feelings for him now have some self confidence and don’t even think of introducing your kids

But he hadn't mentioned the health scare while you were chit chatting away the day before the date, or on the morning of the date or even, just before you set out? On all of those occasions, he was totally fine, just, by his own admission that morning - a bit wet?

OP, you are a grown up and it sounds like you are aware of the potential red flags here but I will just say one more thing then leave you to it: experience tells me that rational, normal people think, "okay, well, we've really had this out and I've explained why that wasn't okay and he was apologetic so this will not happen again." And then... it happens again. And the instinct is to believe there MUST be something more going on because of course, he wouldn't do it again after that previous conversation, surely?

But if you're dealing with someone who is NOT rational, then yes, they absolutely will do ti again and they absolutely will think the new/slightly edited excuse is valid.