Here are the rules:

1. You take me out to dinner. We talk, we think we'd like to do this again. We exchange phone numbers and "real" email addresses.

2. We make a second date in my town for dinner. I give you directions for the ferry and all the attendant rigamarole. See you at 5pm on Sunday. I go to the restaurant a little early. I get a table where I can see the door.

3. You are late. Even given possible ferry delays, you are still late. No phone call. No email to my "real" email address, the one that notifies me on my phone when I have email. Curious, I check the online dating site where we met. YOU HAVE LEFT A STEALTH EMAIL THERE saying you aren't feeling well, but you still really want to meet up, and could I do so in Tacoma midweek?

HELL, NO. You didn't even call me to cancel. You wimped out and EMAILED ME at an address you know I seldom check. You leave me sitting in a moderately expensive restaurant, in my town, where I know people, where I order dinner anyway because fuck you, and I get to sit and wave at people and pretend it really was my plan to sit alone, eating spicy shrimp, drinking a cosmo and reading The Robber Bride, and you want to know if we can meet up midweek?

HELL, NO.

4. You don't call me, and you don't get to date me. I don't want people in my life who are too cowardly to call to cancel a date. I'm fine with it if you need to cancel because you aren't feeling well. Are you so weak that the prospect of causing me minor disappointment is a threat? Grow a set.

Have a nice day. Maybe you'll Google me, find my blog, and then finally know why I didn't email you back.