L8 4 a D8

Uh-oh Teach. You may be in trouble now... seeing as how you were almost 30 minutes late for our date tonight!!

Let's go back to where it all started -- the beginning.

So this is my third date with Teach. Third dates are great... you know one another well enough to be comfortable, you might even have some inside jokes, and you know that you like one another enough to see each other again. The possibilities start to open up during the third date, and you start to actually consider keeping this person in your life for a little while.

Our first two dates went really well. He continues to surprise me - he's got smarts hidden behind this deep Kentucky drawl. He's funny and laid back. And while I don't like him as much as I like Barback Boy, I do like him and was looking forward to seeing him tonight.

For our third date, Teach and I yet again decided to meet for dinner and drinks. (Okay, mild criticism here: I like to eat, but I'm kind of in the mood to DO something, you know?! Like, Barback Boy and I went canoeing. Oh, and also? I have picked the place each time. How about you show some initiative and YOU pick the place next time?!)

Aaaaanyway, Teach had a fundraiser to attend for one of his friends, who is running in the Olympics, but whose mom doesn't have enough moolah to get there. Noble cause. Really admirable. Knowing that he had these other obligations to attend to, we decided to do dinner late and meet at the restaurant at 8:00.

At 7:55, I receive a call from Teach. "Hey, have you left your house yet?" he asked.

"Yep, I'm actually just parking. Why, what's up?"

"I'm running late. I might be closer to 8:05," he said. "Would that be okay? Are you mad?"

Well no, I'm not mad, I thought. After all, you were considerate enough to call and tell me you'd be late. So I responded, "Nope, not at all. See you then."

To kill some time, I took a nice, leisurely stroll around the block. I window-shopped as I passed by some of the upscale boutiques in the area. And I arrived at exactly 8:05.

No Teach.

So I waited for a few minutes in the lobby. I started getting fidgety. The poor hostess, sensing my discomfort, asked if I wanted to go ahead and be seated. Anything is better than just sitting in a lobby, so yeah, I wanted to be seated!!

I called Teach to let him know that I'd been seated and to just come in and find me. As we are about to hang up, I casually asked him if he'd be there soon.

Well, he's still about 10 minutes away. So no, he wasn't close and he was going to be late. "Go ahead and order a drink while you wait for me," he says.

Well, okay, no problem. A few more minutes is fine. But 20 minutes later, he still isn't there, my wine is getting warm and I, of course, am freaking out. That's when he ambles in.

He was incredibly apologetic. I swear, he must have apologized about a dozen times. But here's what happened. I guess he was late to this fundraiser event. Then, the newspaper and one of the TV stations showed up. (This story is big news in Cincinnati, so this much is plausible.)

Since he had some T-shirts custom designed and was selling them for this benefit, he was asked to be interviewed. He complied, but it put him farther behind. And then a bunch of his friends showed up, so he felt like he had to schmooze with them for a bit. Finally, at 7:55, he realized that he had to leave the benefit for our date... which by the way, was half an hour from where the benefit was being held.

Here's the thing: It doesn't bother me so much that he was late. It doesn't even bother me that he waited until five minutes before we were supposed to meet to call me.

What bothers me is that he told me he was going to be five minutes late, but in reality was going to be 25 minutes late. The benefit was in his hometown, and we were having dinner in the suburb where he lives now. So he KNOWS it takes longer than 10 minutes to get there. So why not just tell me that he's going to be 30 minutes late; I would have been slightly annoyed, but I would have killed some time and been none the worse for the wear.

And when I asked him why he didn't just tell me that he'd be 30 minutes late (and probably asked none too gently, considering I was actually kind of pissed off at that point...) he told me, "Well, I didn't want you to be mad."

But you thought that I wouldn't be mad just hanging out waiting for you for 25 minutes?! I mean, I could give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he's being sincere and had the best of intentions. After all, he is a nice guy.

But on the other hand... is this a sign of things to come? What do you think, America? If a guy is nearly 30 minutes late to a date - pretty much knowing that he's going to be late but not wanting to "make you mad" by being honest about it - do you give him a second chance and see how it goes, or do you drop him like a hot potato and move on to the next?

Grade: C-

[Editor's Note: One of my friends asked me how the rest of the date went. When Teach wasn't obsessing over being late, it went fine. I got over the fact that he was late and wanted to move on to other topics of conversation. He kept saying, "I figured you'd be mad and would leave me," or "I figure I'll never see you again because I was late," and blah, blah, blah. I told him that we should just move on and not talk about it anymore, but he just KEPT COMING BACK TO IT. It was really annoying. But other than that, the date was good.]