Last week, I matched with a girl on Bumble. We bonded over both being big fans of reddit and set up a date for Thursday night. I prefaced it by saying I would be busy all weekend which will be important to remember for later.

We texted occasionally before the date, but not much. There was some light flirty, sexual joking, but nothing overtly graphic. I think less is more, especially before the first time you meet someone. I actually believe that allowing a woman to make a sexual comment and letting it go largely ignored is a great benefit. It demonstrates that you aren't desperate.

We met up at a subway station and walked to the bar together for a couple drinks. While we were there, we talked about some of our previous experiences with bad dates which I find to be a fun first-date topic. She specifically mentioned guys who had been clingy or felt entitled to taking up all of her time, another thing worth remembering for later. We discussed the challenges of dating while living abroad, e.g. language and culture barriers, smaller dating pool, etc...

She was very complimentary, calling me a "10/10" (I have a beer belly and man tits) and made jokes to the server how we had been married for two years, so I felt pretty good about my chances. We finished our second drink, then decided to get a road beer and take a walk at the riverside park nearby.

It was a chilly, rainy night, so it lent itself very well to initiating some good kino (she was wearing just a thin, low cut dress, so I was "keeping her warm") and quickly turned into a make out session in the park. After 10-15 minutes, I simply asked "Do you want to go back to my place?" No silly excuse. We both knew where we wanted it to go, so I kept it straight-forward.

In the cab, she was all over me, initiating more kissing and being quite hand-sy. Once we got back to my place, we got immediately down to business, no "Netflix and chill" garbage. We ended up staying up until about 4 am and had sex several times, so I'd say it went quite well.

Pretty much a textbook first date pull up to this point, and I couldn't have been happier about how it went.

Fast-forward to Saturday.

We had a bit of a longer conversation through text, discussing specific kinks we're into, sexual fantasies, past experiences, etc... We matched pretty well on all levels here. She expressed a lot of excitement to get back together again.

Later in the day is when trouble struck. As I had said before our first date, I had a very busy weekend planned. She texted me at 11:30 PM asking to come over, and I politely declined. I said I was tired and that I would need to be up early Sunday, so I would prefer to wait and find a better time. She immediately got pretty cold and gave me the "well, I just think it's funny..." line which I ignored and went to bed.

Sunday, no contact.

Monday afternoon, I sent her a message:

"Sorry we couldn't get together Saturday, but I had a great time with you and I'd like to see you again if you're interested. Have a good week =)"

I know some people will probably nitpick me for apologizing to her unnecessarily, but honestly, it's a pretty transparently hollow apology. It's not like I'm on my knees begging to see her again. I'm not above trying to mend a fence if it won't cause me too much trouble, especially when things had gone so perfectly up to that point.

It's been two days and no answer, but I'm okay with it. The ball is in her court. If she's really willing to hold a grudge over something so minimal when she has already admitted that she's had a hard time finding quality dates, that's on her. It's hypocritical of her to assume that because she's a good-looking girl that I'll drop everything and make time for her when she has said she found the same behavior in men unattractive.

I have other options, so it's not the end of the world for me.