A
female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes: Should i call this guy or not? I'm not sure whether to call this guy or not. When we met, he told me that he would like to go to the theatre with me to see a show. The show starts next week ,and it is on for a couple of weeks. We said we might go there next Wednesday, but we could go there anytime. We spoke on the phone after that a couple of times, and we met up in a pub on Wednesday. It went well at first, but then things went wrong. The guy I was out with was sat on one side of me at the bar, and another guy stood on the other side of me at the bar. The other guy started talking to me a lot, so I wasn't speaking to the guy i was out with much. I didn't want to be rude and ignore the other guy or tell him to get lost, so I kept talking to him. I find it difficult to get rid of people as it might seem rude. He wouldn't leave me alone. I turned to the guy i was out with and said "i can't wait until this guy leaves ", and he said "aye right, ok ". I don't know why he said that. Also, i turned to him and said "help" , but he just laughed. He probably thought i was joking when i said that, but i was serious. The other guy asked for my number, and I wrote it down on a piece of paper to try to get rid of him. I'm not sure if the guy I was out with saw that or not. The guy I was out with left quite early ( it was only 7pm ). I asked him if he wanted me to buy him another drink and he said "No it's ok. I have to get going any way".I asked him if he was ok, and he said he was.I asked the guy when he would like to go to the theatre with me ,and he told me he would go next Wednesday, but he told me to let him know if I had changed my mind about going there with him. I said I would call him. Do you think he was annoyed with me ?. And do you think it was because of the other guy?. Maybe I should have asked the guy I was out with to swap seats with me. I thought it was rude that he left , especially because he left me on my own with a stranger. He could have tried to do something about the other guy. Also, we aren't dating yet, so he doesn't really have a right to be moody. Reply to this Question
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female
reader, Keeley345 +, writes (2 April 2014):
Hurray! That's good news. Hope it all goes well x
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (27 March 2014): Good news ( I think! ). I called the guy who invited me to the theatre early today. I asked him if he would still like to go to the theatre, and he said yes. Neither of us mentioned what happened at the pub. He told me that he would order our tickets online. He said he would like to go there with me next Wednesday. He said he will call me on Tuesday to sort it all out with me.
I hope he wasn't just saying that to be polite, but I don't think he would have chosen a day to go there and a day to call me if he didn't want to go, do you?. I think he would have just said he will call me soon, or said he couldn't go or something.
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A
female
reader, CindyCares  +, writes (24 March 2014):
 So if it was just a friendly outing, why do you find weird that he did not act all chivalrous and protective , and that, after a reasonable length of time, and with a reasonable excuse, he went home as just the acquaintance that he supposedly was ?...
You can't have it both ways , OP. I think you both know that even if it was not explicitely called a date , it was more or less meant as such, and he if he got annoyed that's natural. Not that if he had been just a friend , your behaviour would have been appropriate, mind you !
I think that I ( and the vast majority of women ) would be annoyed if I went out with a FEMALE friend and she'd start chatting up a total stranger ,excluding me from the conversation and leaving me to twirl my thumbs and stare into my drink , at her side. ( Unless maybe if I knew she was out on the pull and I had agreed to be her wingman ).
As for him not doing anything when you complained about the other guy, well, one is never very believable when your words say one thing ( I don't like this guy ) and your actions say the opposite ( I DIG this guy ). Maybe he did not want to cramp your style and just excused himself as early and non-confrontationally as possible- which is a very normal and appropriate reaction.
Your date ( or sort of date , or perspective friend , or whatever you want to call it ) could not possibly know that you have social anxiety or are socially challenged or have a poor sense of social boundaries or whatever you want to call it, and he most probably assumed that at your age you'd be able to deal efficiently with this kind of very common social situation without asking for help or calling attention on it and creating an incident out of nothing- because most people could.
By this I am not saying that you are a monster of inadequacy or a social misfit, or that you have done anything terrible and unforgivable - it's not THAT big of a deal. Just, that if you have flaws and inadequacies, at least in a social sense, well, own them and work on them, before putting the blame on other people. They are not responsible for what YOU have trouble with or find difficult to handle.
As for him not " being that much into you ", as I said in my previous post, my surmise instead is that he must be, if the show invitation is still on and he is giving you a second chance- otherwise your first outing would have been enough to cool his jets.
At this point, maybe a call explaining him that you are sorry but you are not very smooth in handling certain things and you are at a loss with pushy people etc.etc. would be opportune , and well received too. That, if you ADMITTED that , for whatever reason, you have acted inadequately and botched things up . But, something tells me that you are far from that and you prefer to think that HE was in the wrong and should have done cartwheels to get and keep your attention.
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A
female
reader, Keeley345 +, writes (24 March 2014):
He may have been offended you were paying this other guy attention then again maybe not. I'd suggest you wait until you meet up again and apologize for any offence you might have caused. Tell him what you told us. If he likes you I'm sure he'll understand. If he doesn't then no big loss.
People make mistakes and you did. They need to be forgiven and if he can't get past this then it's his loss. For me having a man who's understanding and forgiving is important. How about you? But don't read too much into what happened. Wait and see how reacts when you meet up next.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (23 March 2014): To Maureen, I thought it was weird that he didn't respond when I told him that the other guy was annoying me too. Maybe he isn't really that into me?. I'm not sure if I have social anxiety, but I do feel nervous around some people sometimes. Even the other guy that was talking to me said that I looked nervous when he was talking to me. I did feel uncomfortable.I'm not good at standing up for myself.Also, he shouldn't have assumed that it was a date, or that we are going to start dating. Cant men and women just be friends?. How would he know that we would start dating?. As I said, he isn't my boyfriend at the moment, so no, he doesn't have a right to be upset, Even when you are dating, you can date as many people as you like, as long as you aren't in an exclusive relationship with anyone.To be honest, I feel put off because he didn't respond about the other guy, and he left me alone in the pub. I'm not really sure if I should contact him again. I would like to explain to him that I wasn't interested in the other guy though.
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A
female
reader, CindyCares +, writes (23 March 2014):
No ? He does not have the right to be moody ?... You sure ?...
He goes out on a date, or anyway with a lady who is supposed to be his companion, and this lady feels obliged to be nice and give attention to a perfect stranger, thereby ignoring and neglecting the original date she was supposed to be in company of ? And said lady / potential date, has the galls to give her phone number to guy no. 2 ( supposedly an obnoxious intruder ) under the nose of guy No. 1 , and he should not be annoyed in your opinion ?...
Maybe you are right : he should not be annoyed. He should be FURIOUS !
He must really like you a lot for still wanting to go see the show with you. Quite a lot.
Otherwise , he could have thought a) that you have no interest whatsoever in him and used the outing as an excuse to get free drinks while you go on the pull with other guys or b ) that it is strange that you feel compelled to be much more polite to a perfect - and obnoxious - stranger than to your original date.
Yes, of course you should have asked to swap seats ! Or, to move at the other end of the bar, or to another table altogether. Or, you should , and could, have stopped the verbal diarrea of guy n. 2 with one of the many, usual, CORTEOUS ,appropriate ways of which Honeypie gave you one example . And no, it was not up to your date to do something about it, it was up to you, - you are 30-35, not a child, not a medieval damsel in distress, you are supposed to be able to navigate this kind of social situation. Moreover, his direct intervention a) was likely to degenerate the accident in a real belligerant confrontation and b ) for all he knew maybe you were lapping up all guy no.2 's attention ( that's probably what it looked like from the outside, with the phone no. exchange and all ) and he decided not to interfere , but just to cut the evening short. I'd say that he showed class, in fact.
..One more baffled Aunt tonight...
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A
female
reader, Honeypie  +, writes (23 March 2014):
 Was he annoyed, yes. Anyone would have been. You COULD have turned you BACK on the second guy... Not engaged him in conversation. You could have said:" if you don't mind you are kind of budding into a conversation here." That is NOT being rude.
You even GAVE guy #2 your number? Are you serious? And you wonder if guy #1 is annoyed?
You need to learn to stand up for yourself. It's NOT being rude to TURN your back on a RANDOM stranger budding into a conversation.
BUT IT IS rude you more or less ignore guy #1 because you don't want to hurt #2's feelings. You don't even KNOW #2
And then YOU thought it was RUDE that guy #1 LEFT? SERIOUSLY? If a girl had walked up to him and kept a conversation going where you were mildly ignored and not really WELCOME in the conversation, where SHE was busy HITTING on the guy you were there with, and he GAVE her his number, you would think that was totally OK?
You put your age bracket to 30-35 - You should be old enough to handle situations like this. IT was NOT guy #1's JOB to tell BOZO #2 to take a HIKE, that was YOUR job, #2 was TALKING to you and YOU encouraged it.
The fact that you can't see your own action were not right in this situation doesn't bode well for any future relationships.
If I was guy #1 I would have presumed you RATHER spend time/date/get to know #2 - because from what you describe THAT was how your actions were perceived BY BOTH guys.
Sorry, if I seem harsh, but I just don't understand how you can be mad at both men when, YOU were the one who made all the happen. It baffles me.
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