It amazes me how many clients and friends will come to me and tell me the same thing.

I’ve got a date set up.

We’ve been going back and forth on the app.

And then at 6:00 at night, two hours before the date, she’ll text me with a lame-ass excuse of why they can’t meet.

The excuse is usually the same excuse we hear over and over again.

It’s always work related…

I’ve had a tough week at work…

I’ve got a deadline…

I had a really stressful day and I have a headache…

I still have to stay at the office late…

We’ve heard it a thousand times. There must be some white little lie going around the Internet that you can tell people to cancel a date.

Because people use the same ones over and over and over again.

And yet, people will e-mail me and say, they said this, what do I do, David!?!?

Well, it’s real simple.

What do you do in that situation? You e-mail or text her back, however the chicken decided to do it, and you’ll say “that doesn’t work for me.”

Plain and simple, you stand up for yourself.

You’ll say, hey, I understand work gets in the way, but canceling two hours ahead of time shows me the type of person you are.

So I don’t think we need to reschedule.

Boom. You delivered the knock-out punch. Why don’t you say that instead of going, “I understand, it’s okay, you can flake on me at the last minute. I have no self respect, so I will be perfectly fine.”

We can reschedule another night so that you can flake on me one more time, and I’ll do the same thing because I’m desperate and I have no self-esteem. That’s literally what you’re saying if you say that.

I truly believe that the person who flakes on you is showing you what their character is and we can speculate all day long about why they flaked or what was going on or what the real reason is, because I strongly doubt that it’s work if she has used that excuse many times before.

Maybe they’re just afraid to date.

Maybe they don’t have the time to date.

Maybe they’re scared to show up.

Maybe they don’t look like their pictures.

Who cares what the reason is!?

The only thing you need to realize is that they showed their character.

And their character showed up as someone who doesn’t respect you or your time.

You made plans with them instead of making plans with somebody else, and they did not respect your time.

Guess what? That means they did not respect you, so they canceled two hours ahead of time.

Who cares why?

The why doesn’t matter.

They lied, they made up some excuse.

They already showed you they’re a liar who doesn’t respect your time, so why would you want to go out with them ever again?

It’s different if someone cancels at 9:00 in the morning or 10:00 in the morning and says hey, I’ve got a crazy day right now. My day might go a lot longer and I would prefer to see you on a night where I am less harried or less stressed. And they offered you another time period.

That, to me, is a real reason.

But at the last second?

Seriously, fuck off with an excuse like that.

That’s somebody who doesn’t deserve the respect back at all.

As a matter of fact, you need to dismiss them back into the universe, because you need to realize that they did you a favor, and the favor was you don’t need to be around somebody who doesn’t respect you or your time.

Plain and simple.

Move on. Move forward.

It’s all part of dating in this wacky world that we’ve created right now, so move on.