Belittle Miss Sunshine

I met a girl online, and we exchanged some email and planned to meet for happy hour. About three hours before, she texted me, "Sorry, have 2 cancel." That was the last I ever heard from her. I'm not bothered by being texted (since we didn't have a relationship), but at what point do you owe somebody more than the briefest possible blow-off?

--Prematurely Dumped

Sometimes the technology at hand demands that a person send an abbreviated message -- like when their chisel breaks just as they're etching the last letter of "cancel" into the stone tablet. Sometimes, the brevity is the message. For example, in the briefest way, this woman told you everything you need to know about her: "I'm not about to type out eight words of explanation just to preserve some stranger's dignity." In Internet dating, because you're meeting face to online dating profile, the coldly calculating find it easier to treat you like you're just a bunch of digital information that has the possibility of becoming a boyfriend. Being kind and polite takes very little -- just some excuse that suggests you matter enough as a human to put some effort into blowing you off. So, this woman didn't need to give you the real reason, just some reason -- "realizing i'm not over my x so sorry" -- instead of simply unsubscribing to you and your offer of a date like you were unwanted email from Lyndon LaRouche or the Pantyliner Of The Month Club.