While you're on vacation in sunny CA, you text message frequently.  Fun, flirty little messages.  When you get home, you actually talk on the phone and set a date for Thursday.  You're nervous and excited but try not to think too much about it.  Then there's car trouble so you postpone the date until Friday.  Still all good as you have a great conversation on the phone and you get to go have dinner for your brother's birthday that you didn't think you'd make.  Friday morning comes and you're looking forward to the evening.  You teach a private first thing then when you're done, check your phone for messages.  There's one canceling the date with no explanation except "I'm sorry".  Of course you have to ask if you're being blown off just for tonight or for good.  The answer that comes back is surprising and yet not really. The way it is all communicated via text message, well that's the hard part.  Something like this should have been done with a phone call but then that tells you so much about him.  One little text message tells you the measure of the man.

When you reach out to your girlfriends, you receive amazing support and love, which is no big surprise.  When your mother asks how the date went and you tell her the saga, she replies with one word, "asshole".  When you go out for drinks with your girlfriend, you realize that this is just a little blip in your life.  In the end, he wasn't the right one for you, which you knew already, even though he did make you laugh alot.

So you rethink this whole online dating thing.  It feels so unnatural and yet how else do you meet people these days?  And you realize that nothing has to be decided today.