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People on here have been commenting a lot about women not showing up for dates, which does sound frustrating, but apparently they're not showing up for each other either. I was reminded of this phenomenon by this Substack post, about women preparing home cooked meals for each other in their homes, then having people not show up last second. So my initial theory that maybe young women are scared of men from outside their social circle is not the main thing going on.
What's going on?
I tried going to a local ACX meetup, and it was fine, but after six people initially wanted to do it, only two besides myself ended up coming. Meanwhile, my daughter's pre-K teacher has invited herself to my house. She called today, and went on about a "mandatory home visit", next week, with highly inflexible weekday hours. I did not like it. She said she was going to drop off paperwork and meet my daughter. I said that I would rather bring my daughter to pick up the paperwork. We fought about it. I was perhaps more prickly than is altogether advisable when speaking to a child's teacher. I tried researching how this could be considered an appropriate thing to, not offer, not ask, but mandate. Something, something, building trust, Head Start, maybe the norms of black Americans? Clearly, they have the wrong order of things. If I trust you, I will invite you over. If I don't trust you, I will want to meet at your office. Even social workers know this. Is this related to parents not actually coming to their appointments somehow? It's juxtaposed in literature withattendance, more than understanding.
Also, meanwhile, my older daughter hasn't been invited to anyone's house. We haven't managed to invite anyone to our house. It seems terribly fraught somehow. I mostly do things with one or occasionally two other families with a stay at home mom and a mom who works two mornings a week, respectively.
Also, just because I found it odd, here's Keturah complaining about a situation where someone invited her into the hostess's home, and Keturah came, and then they judged each other for their stance on shoes, that Keturah wanted to keep them on, and the hostess wanted her to take them off.
I liked the culture of Georgians (Kartveli) and Albanians that homes are sacred, guests are from God, and that guests and hosts have important mutual roles and responsibilities.
What's the sociology here? Why are Americans like this, despite seeming deeply unhappy about it?
I'll just say that I have never once had a woman not show up for a date after agreeing to a time and a place. Every other popular complaint seems valid, but this one is fake as far as I can tell.
I haven't dated since meeting my wife on the apps (for obvious reasons) but did a lot in the period leading up to that meeting. I only got stood up once that I can remember, maybe twice, in the sense of 'arrive to the location after sending a confirmation text 24 hours before and receiving a positive response' which was then rescheduled for the next day since she overslept or something (It's been a few years, my memories are blurry). I went on approximately 50 first dates in a year, and found that 'girl ghosts/cancels on the 24-hour confirmation text and never meets after setting a time and a date' was maybe 10-20% of the time? It's been years and I did actually have a spreadsheet a few laptops ago, so all numbers are rough
Admittedly after a few months I feel like I got pretty good at filtering for the obviously flaky/difficult, and I was generally pretty fast to offer an in-person meeting upon matching which in my experience tended to scare off the ditherers and completely meeting-adverse. There's a lot of people on Online Dating who are looking for a forever penpal and/or are absurdly fussy about deigning to meet people in the flesh, and I'd say back before I figured out the signs of them/got attractive enough to graduate from 'maybe' to 'yes' for a lot of those women that a 50%+ Flake/Ghost/dither forever rate on date requests was typical.
I think some level of this debate has to do with what people count as "flakiness." I've absolutely had "girl cancels on the day before confirmation text," and even "girl ghosts and blocks almost immediately after the day before confirmation text." I have had "cancels immediately before the date with reasonable-sounding excuse," which could turn either into ghosting or a rescheduled date, depending on many factors. I have, however, never been left genuinely stood up at a meeting location, but I also, when I dated, would never go to the meeting location unless I got day-of confirmation.
I also think there might be an element of age and/or attractiveness match level involved here. The men I most associate with making the "women be flakin'" complaints are also, often, the men I associate with "I like 'em young and hot," and, yeah, I'll readily agree that "young and hot" is a walking red flag for flakiness, because such individuals who are also eager to settle down and have a well-adjusted personality often end up in a relationship quickly, and long-term presence in dating indicates pickiness, chaos, or lack of serious desire to practically date. A 22 year old is dramatically more likely to flake, and to do it poorly, than a 29 year old. Men have similar dynamics, and young men are fickle as all heck.
There's also the "what does she think the date is" element. A woman who thinks the date is a hookup or a plausibly-deniable hookup is going to be more likely to flake, because that's a high stakes meeting, and "I'm not feeling it" can override any level of "keep to your plans." A woman who thinks it's low-intensity coffee will be less likely to flake.
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