Doc Love Tips: Why You Cannot Forgive a Broken Date

I am going to get this out of the way right now: If she had a true emergency – or legitimately was ill – sure, you can forgive one broken date. You’re not a monster, after all.

But my dating advice for men is to think carefully about why a woman has broken a date and decide to hold higher standards for himself than being a backup date or a low-commitment plan.

Let’s put this on you for a second. How many dates have you broken?

Imagine that you will be meeting an amazing woman today. She’s one of the most attractive women you have ever met, and she gave you her number and responded positively when you called or texted!

How excited are you? How much are you anticipating going out with her? Under what circumstances would you break that first date? I’m thinking you’d need one of your bones to shatter before that would happen. Even then, you’d probably ask for a pass from the hospital so you could go out on your crutches that night.

Point being, when you’ve been truly looking forward to going out with someone that you made a true connection with, how many times has an emergency or sickness prevented that?

So let’s put aside the true emergencies or sicknesses for the purposes of the rest of this article – they are rare enough to be exceptions to this general rule, and you should be able to make that judgment call pretty easily. If she’s going to a family member’s funeral, obviously she has to break your date.

You cannot forgive a broken date with a flimsy excuse and short notice. Maybe she cancels a few hours before (usually they cancel two to three hours before):

• “My girlfriend that I haven’t seen in 22 years is coming into town for the exact three hours we were going to be together tonight.”
• “My boss called an early meeting – I really need to get to bed at 8 to focus for tomorrow.”
• “My parakeet fell in the toilet, and it will take all night to dry him out.”

Something along those lines, right? They seem legitimate. Perhaps they’re even important, but as you think of them, something doesn’t sit right. Would you have broken a date for any of these reasons? If you were truly excited about dating someone, would these excuses truly stop you from seeing them? That’s the filter you should put it through.

Think about how you feel when you have a date you’re excited about seeing. It felt like a countdown to summer vacation when you were a kid (Seriously, remember sitting in class on the last day of school just waiting for that clock to turn to summer?).  Using that filter on her excuse, would YOU have canceled in a similar situation?

If you answer with a definitive NO, then you cannot forgive the broken date. She is OUT, and here’s why: Her real reason for canceling is one of these three things:

• She’s not interested like you are.
• She’s not interested like you are.
• She’s not interested like you are.

Oh, wait, they’re all the same because, YES, that’s the only reason. And you can bet that a flimsy excuse is NOT followed by a true counteroffer for another time.

A counteroffer in my book “The System/Dating Dictionary” means that she will break a date but then offer a specific day and a specific time she could reschedule the date. As in “Sorry I can’t make it tonight due to work, family, etc but I can go out this Friday at 6 p.m. — would that work?”

Vague offers do not count. If she says something like “Call me next week, and we’ll figure something out.”  No good – in fact, again, run it through the filter of how interested you are. If you got the worst flu of your life and you were canceling on her, would you be vague or would you try your hardest to set up a specific day and time to get together again?

So many guys, due to their egos, cannot accept what a broken date is telling them: She’s not interested like you are.

They accept that they are now fifth on the list – or fool themselves that they’re still first (even though she’s got them fifth behind two new guys, two of her friends and binge-watching anything that is new on Netflix).  Always keep in mind my tried-and-true dating advice:

• Women help you when they like you
• If you are not first with her, then you are last

“Doc, I know several couples where the guy hung in there and finally convinced her that he was the one for her!”  Dude, I’d love to be a fly on the wall in those households. Just because a woman is with you doesn’t mean you have her entire heart.

I don’t want to be the guy “settled for” because all you get out of that is her pining away for the guy that got away as she treats you coldly and you wonder what’s the matter with her. And here’s what it is:

*She’s not interested like you are (and since she couldn’t find someone better and you kept hanging in there, you get to be with someone who will treat you like she did you a favor for your whole life since you were too blind to accept this fact!)

Remember guys, she knows exactly what she’s doing when she breaks a date with a flimsy excuse.There is zero sense for you to try to go out with her. A good woman who cares about you will keep her dates with you. Move on to a new adventure!