Egg Sandwich 5of7 (Photo credit: Food Thinkers)
I have only been single for four years in New York but it seems like forty. So far in my dating escapades I’ve been stood up, watched as my dates have had meltdowns, broken out into tears, ramble on about an ex, tell me they want to date one of my friends, insult me to my face and expect sex immediately. I have had a few wonderful dates – only to never hear from the guys again for reasons I will never understand. What can I say? It’s been fun.
Lately the trend is a man who I have written about before on this blog – The Coward. A coward will ask me out only to never actually make the date happen. It run into cowards more often than actual dates now. I would say for every date I actually go on, I get about 8-10 men who ask me out, but never follow through. I tell them when I am free and the claim they are busy. This goes back and forth a few times until I give up. The newest ploy is an invitation to a mid-week breakfast date. I have gotten such an offer a few times, yet I have never taken such enticing bait. A typical proposal goes like this,
Well I would love to see you but things are really bad at work for the next couple of weeks. You seem awesome though, and I really love your pictures. Do you really play the ukulele? How about we meet for breakfast sometime next week. That’s the best I can do.
Even if I had a normal 9-5 job. It’s not as if New York City is a calm and tranquil place in the morning, and virtually no one has an easy commute. So what would I have to do? Get up at 5AM, get ready by 6AM to meet you some place at 7AM so I can rush get a cup of coffee and make it to my place of business by 8:00? For that to work we would need to work pretty much in the same neighborhood, which is unlikely in a city with five boroughs and 8 million people.
Lets say I don’t have a 9-5 job. So I am still going to have to get up at 5AM get ready. Get on a crowded train to meet you near your workplace, where we fight to get a table, then rush to get a plate of eggs. You go to work, and I go home. Wow that sounds like fun! I really don’t get enough time on a rush hour train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.
Or maybe you work in Brooklyn, but in an area that is going to cause me to take the Q train into Manhattan then transfer to an L to then walk several blocks in Williamsburg to meet you for that same plate of eggs and make the trek home.
I seriously want to ask these men. Has anyone ever done this before? Has it ever occurred to you why most dates are in the evening and on the weekends? Do you think your God’s gift to women that I will crawl on hot coals to share a brief time in your presence only to have you decide I live too far away, have a weird job, and I am just not worth the effort. And lets not get BRUNCH confused with BREAKFAST. You didn’t ask me for a leisurely weekend morning activity in the East village filled with Mimosas, Bloody Marys and vanilla bean french toast. Brunch is a morning after a drunken night New York tradition! You asked me to breakfast – a meal many restaurants don’t even serve because why should they? No one but tourists goes out for breakfast, unless it is a local place in a residential area of the city, and there is a 90% chance you don’t work on an area with cute little bistros on every corner. Maybe by breakfast you meant a latte in an impossibly packed Starbucks in midtown, the neighborhood where every Starbucks is ALWAYS IMPOSSIBLY PACKED!
The weekday breakfast date is telling me one thing – I am not worth the effort. I get it, as we are just strangers and the likelihood that this is going to be some match made in heaven is slim. So I understand not wanting to jeopardize your job for the sake of a bad date. Something tells me though you are still finding time to go out drinking with your buddies, and occasionally hooking up with random women. You keep an OKCupid profile up more to tell yourself that deep down you really are looking for something with more substance. I get it. But you are probably going to end up liking one of the random women you hook up with, and you obviously couldn’t care less about some online blonde. So instead of insulting me with a “breakfast date” just get off of the site and stop wasting my time. Breakfast is normally the awkward meal you might feel obligated to have AFTER a date, not before!
Related articles
- BrunchCritic.com is the NYC Brunch Resource You Need (alleywatch.com)
- Big City Romance: Sweetheart Spots in NYC (local.answers.com)
- Brunch Is On Sundays And It Is Hilarious! (orangejuiceandbiscuits.com)
- Dating Online: The Coward (julietjeskeblog.com)
- Dating Online: The Liars (julietjeskeblog.com)
- Dating Online: Mr. Online ONLY (julietjeskeblog.com)
- Dating After Divorce: Why is it so Difficult in your Late Thirties? (julietjeskeblog.com)
Follow me on Twitter https://twitter.com/JulietJeske
Add me on Facebook Juliet Jeske Facebook Fan Page
You must admit that the New York dating scene, in all of it’s dysfunctionality , provides you with ample subject matter for your comedy routine. Meeting over breakfast is so much easier in small towns or suburban areas. Just find a Waffle house and settle for coffee made in the longstanding tradition of coarse grind and drip brew. Oh I forgot, car ownership is mandatory in that environment. Then if the date doesn’t turn out well at least you got yourself a filling meal and can peel out of the parking lot in anger and hopefully not have an accident or speeding ticket further down the road as you take your frustration out on the accelerator. I guess it is in that moment that the suburbanite thinks, “I’m sure dating would be much more romantic and exciting in the city with bustling streets and excellent coffee in quaint little coffee shops on the corner …” Thank you for another excellent post.
Pingback: First Dates – What’s Your Take? | My Female Persuasion
Yeesh, it wouldn’t even occur to me to ask for a breakfast date unless, as you mentioned, it was a post-party night brunch! Tighten up NY guys!
Hi, Juliet. I found your blog a couple weeks ago when I was starting my own, and I wanted to say “hello” in the latest entry. I am pretty new to NYC, having moved here last year, and I am always entertained (not to mention, horrified) by tales of socializing in the “new” NYC. This city changes so fast, it’s like a completely different place every time I’ve come here. My brother and I started coming up here in the 90s to hang out/visit family, and he started photographing the city at that time. It was pretty jaw-dropping to see his old photos – I hardly recognized Manhattan!
Currently, I’m looking to make a career change, and I was especially moved by your stories of battling depression and our broken healthcare system. I used your story to illustrate my point – that what we have currently is very dysfunctional – in a recent blog entry. Check it out: http://janemuder.blogspot.com/2013/06/how-healthcare-makes-self-employment.html. It seems that what happened to you in your 20s also happened to me – I bet it’s much more common than anyone would guess, and people would be shocked and disgusted by how awful our healthcare system is if they ever had to buy their own plans or use their insurance more than 1-2x a year.
My blog is pretty new, but I’m making it a habit to update at least 2-3 times a week, so please feel free to link to me, or drop me an email anytime. I enjoyed reading your blog and I look forward to more. Of course, I’m always interested in hearing from new people, too.
Pingback: Dating in New York: Texting – Dating with as little effort as possible | julietjeske
Pingback: Dating After Divorce: Mr. or Ms. Angry | julietjeske
Pingback: Dating Online: The Coward | julietjeske
Pingback: Online Dating: Advice for Men – How to Pick a Good Photos for Your Profile | julietjeske