I offered to meet him for coffee the following weekend. We had matched less than a day earlier, and I already had plans for this one. I thought I was suggesting a date. Apparently, I was also making a statement about my entire approach to dating.
Until then, it had been lovely. We matched on Hinge around 11 p.m., and the conversation actually had something to it. We exchanged voice notes, talked about our careers and interests, touched on values, and joked around. I enjoyed talking to him. From the way he was engaging, I thought he enjoyed it too.
I'm in my early forties, he's in his late forties, and I work in academia. My career is demanding, but work isn't the only thing in my life. I have friends, hobbies, pets, and commitments that were there before his profile appeared. None of that had seemed especially controversial the night before.
The next day, he suggested a phone call and coffee that weekend. I already had plans for that weekend, so I offered the following one. I also suggested talking on the phone on Sunday evening. There was a call available before the coffee. I felt reasonably confident this counted as showing interest.
He wanted to know what was keeping me busy. Then came his point about being on a dating app: we should be available to pursue connections and meet within a reasonable time. He said things shouldn't be rushed, while questioning the time I had offered. He also asked whether I never met people on workdays.
That was where the conversation changed for me. Asking about a different day could have been ordinary scheduling. But alongside the questions about what I was doing and how available I ought to be, it felt like pressure. My existing plans had somehow become something I needed to defend to a man I'd matched with around eleven the night before.
I hadn't been leaving him unanswered or vaguely promising we'd meet someday. I'd been exchanging voice notes, asking questions, and taking part throughout the day. The interest was real. So was the fact that my weekend was already spoken for. I hadn't realized the two were going to be treated as competing evidence.
I actually prefer meeting in person to texting endlessly. I wanted to find out whether the ease of those conversations would carry over to a real date. He might have felt that waiting another weekend would let the momentum fade; I can't know. What I did know was that I was no longer enjoying the conversation we were having.
Eventually, I politely told him that the pressure around availability made me uncomfortable and that I didn't think we were the right match. I wished him well. That was disappointing after such a promising start, but I wasn't going to arrange a coffee while arguing about whether I was sufficiently committed to arranging a coffee.
His reply was sarcastic: apparently nobody could disrupt my routine, and I would simply move on to more online dates. We'd gone from enjoying each other's voice notes to a parting assessment of my lifestyle. We still hadn't known each other for twenty-four hours.
