We’ve all experienced the empty “I’ll call you.” Well all of us except those intensely beautiful, leggy girls (I hate you by the way). And despite the ubiquity of the phenomenon I am still baffled by it. I guess I can understand it when the promise is slurred as Saturday night draws to a close and you truly believe in your stupor that this is the one for you. After all she shares your love of cheap beer and secret obsession with single-name pop artists who struggle to locate the “s” on their keyboard.
It’s when an individual goes to great lengths to adamantly (and soberly) insist that an additional date is in order after pleasantly spending a sufficient amount of time with each other. Maybe they do it because they aren’t quite sure and they need some time to consider your merits before committing to a second date, but the promise of that call keeps their options open. I’ve got a solution for this one gents, don’t say a word about it and just call/e-mail/smoke signal her after you have had some time to mull it over or at least let her know that you’ve changed your mind.
I’ve heard the argument that they do it to be polite or to protect a girl’s feelings. This is the most asinine excuse I have ever heard. Chances are we are just as on the fence about this thing as you are. The difference is, we won’t feign more excitement about the situation than we are actually feeling, but we will give some borderline potential a second chance to tip the scales in his favor if he wants it. Even if we have prematurely decided we want to take you antiquing and have your babies, we will be more crushed if we spend the obligatory three days awaiting a call that’s never going to come than if we had used those three days to convince ourselves that you were a cad anyway (though the I’ll-call-you lie goes a long way toward proving this theory).
Naturally, with a little help from well-intentioned friends, we run through a number of implausible (but oft used) excuses through our own minds. Anything to save face and shield ourselves from the fact that we are not actually desired by the individual who seemed to adore us just days before.
I realize that contacting the offender to call him on his bluff and elicit some form of explanation is a Zelda Fitzgerald brand of crazy, but I wonder if this isn’t a label that was conveniently placed on those who asked to prevent future uncomfortable confrontation. After all I feel like “so….what’s up with the no call?” is a fair question. It is also one of those questions that may help us navigate are way through future dating experiences. Maybe we did do something ridiculously repulsive that somehow took awhile to set in. If that were the case, we would love to know to prevent ourselves from making such deal-breaking errors in the future. But, alas I fear the mystery of the ghost call shall forever remain unsolved.
Perhaps we should simply chalk it up to nervous immaturity and poor social skills. The individuals who can’t be upfront about their actual intentions (or some less old world term) are likely not worth the fretting they cause.