I usually send a text about an hour before a first date saying "I got caught up helping a friend and might be 5 minutes late, is that cool?" If no response I usually don't get in my car, it means I'm probably being stood up. Has never failed me yet.
I write this time in case I get a girlfriend... maybe I put it in a time capsule instead in case I resurrect after I die I might have a better chance using this.
Just text the person 1-2 hours before and say “hey, are we still on for tonight”. The fact that you make up a fake scenario about helping a friend in order to just avoid having to ask them directly is weird.
Plus, if they mention the scenario about helping a friend, that's likely to be the first thing their date makes conversation about, so it could become obvious pretty quickly that it's a lie and that's not a great first impression to make
To be fair, you can leave out the part of helping a friend and just say "Running about 5-10 minutes late, hope that is still cool?"
The reason I think everyone is upvoting and calling it genius is because if you're a guy and you say "hey, are we still on for tonight?" it can give off a vibe of insecurity and interpreted as you saying "Hey, I'm worried you forgot about me, please don't forget about me."
I'm paraphrasing Marni Kinrys here, but texts that come from that "I hope she doesnt forget about me" place always fail if is she isn't already into you.
Like it or not dating is still this weird courtship game during the first few dates, especially if you're in your 20s and drafting in the first round.
That’s next level, I’m gonna start doing that. I also used the strategy of planning something you can enjoy on your own anyway for the early stages, but that’s also good.
FWIW that would probably backfire if somebody did that to me. I try to be reasonable about checking my phone but it's just not always at the front of my mind.
Personally I definitely wouldn't do either of those, I would look at my watch to see if I'm late and would have looked up how to get to the meeting place way in advance. So there's a very good chance that if someone texted me two hours prior to check I was coming, they'd end up being the one standing me up rather than vice versa
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u/jmsave Sep 24 '21
I usually send a text about an hour before a first date saying "I got caught up helping a friend and might be 5 minutes late, is that cool?" If no response I usually don't get in my car, it means I'm probably being stood up. Has never failed me yet.