Hi Evan,

This guy I had been talking to for the past couple of weeks called me last weekend. That day we agreed to go out that night. We planned to go out at 5:00. He left me a voice message around 3:00 saying that he was not going to make it at 5:00 and could he call me later. He has a heavy Dominican Republic accent so I couldn’t understand the whole message.  I don’t have is phone number but I do have is email address so, I emailed him saying I couldn’t really understand it. I waited for him to call for a couple of hours then I went out. He didn’t call me until 8:00. He left another message saying “I said could we make it later”. I didn’t call him back. He is one of my vendors where I work so I see him just about everyday. I saw him that Monday and he never brought up that night. I saw him on that Tuesday and again he didn’t bring it up. I also saw him on Wednesday. Wednesday night he called me.

I didn’t answer the phone he just said that he would see me tomorrow.  My question is: should I give him another chance? I would think if he really liked me that he would have been there at 5:00 the first time we agreed to meet. He never told me why he didn’t call until 8:00. Just some reason I couldn’t make it. We have been talking again but I’m not sure if I should waste my time. He asked me if we could try going out again and I told him yes.

Meighan

Dear Meighan,

Some random thoughts before we begin:

You were going out with a guy at 5pm on a Saturday night?

You were going out with a guy whom you can’t understand when he speaks?

You were going out with a guy who pretended for three days that he didn’t flake on you?

Okay, now that we have that all cleared up, let’s get to the meat of your question: should you give him another chance?

Yeah. Why not?

While I think it would be really easy to say from afar, “He’s just not that into you”, there’s nothing that confirms it definitively.

The fact is, he DID call you at 3 to tell you he couldn’t make it on time.

He DID call you at 8 to get together.

And he DID call you again on Wednesday to try and reschedule.

Sounds to me like a guy who is genuinely interested in you. Non-interested guys don’t follow up like that. They put you off until the very last minute and text you at 11pm to see if you’re around. It’s the least effort for the greatest return.

Still, I would proceed with caution, if only due to the fact that he was too immature to deal with the communication breakdown quickly. There’s nothing wrong with going out with an immature and unpredictable guy, per se. It’s getting your hopes up that is the great danger.

So for now, suspend judgment and see how he follows through on future dates – how quickly he calls, emails and texts to set up the next one. If he steps up and acts like a man, you won’t even remember that he screwed up on your first date.

Just don’t count on it.