There comes a pivotal moment while waiting for a date to arrive at which point you have to make the official call: you’ve been stood up. This moment differs from person to person – some people might give up after waiting fifteen minutes, others thirty, or even an hour for some.  Or you may be in the George Costanza camp and wait about five minutes, after which you eagerly go home, change clothes, order food, and bask in the glory of eating dinner in front of the TV in your underwear. (Wasn’t it George who said something like, “I never met an obligation I was upset to get out of!”?)

No matter your personal tolerance for tardiness, being stood up is no fun. But, how do you determine if someone is just really late, or if there is a legitimate emergency, or if they just aren’t coming at all? If you’re the one running late, how far in advance do you inform your date? If one party is running really late, at what point do you decide to just cancel or reschedule? If someone has a good excuse for being late or not showing up, do you give him/her another chance? As usual, I offer more questions than answers. However, here are some general guidelines:

• I generally give people a ten-minute leeway without question, but I tend to run on the late side myself, so your tolerance may vary.
• If you are going to be more than a few minutes late, inform the person who is waiting for you and apologize when you arrive.
• If you’re waiting on someone who is 5-10 minutes late, try not to make a big fuss about his/her unpunctuality on the first date. Stuff happens – be forgiving. But if it happens continuously and it bothers you, speak up!
• If you are going to be 20 or more minutes late, you better have a decent excuse (or make one up). Call your date, explain, and offer to reschedule if he or she prefers.
• If you’re waiting on someone who is significantly late, call and/or text to make sure you correctly communicated the same date, time, and location. It’s definitely possible that one of you showed up at a different location of the same place, for example.
• Waiting on someone longer than 20 minutes consistently? Possible grounds for dismissal.
• In the event that you get a better offer on the day of the date (or on the way to) and you decide to ditch your plans altogether, please inform your date. Say something came up. I suspect that this happened to me once – I was waiting for a guy to pick me up, and he never showed. After texting and giving him a ring, I got no response and never heard from him again! But don’t worry about his well-being – I could see that he was regularly logging in online and even updated his profile photos not long after that night. Harrumph.

Anyway, the point is: be considerate of people’s time. If someone isn’t considerate of yours, proceed with caution. And if you’re completely stood up? At least you can always spend the evening with an awesome, good-looking person, i.e., yourself.

I was not stood up for my senior prom. I strongly believe that this was achieved by my implementation of my super-intricate monitoring system. I did not let my date out of my peripheral sight for the three weeks leading up to the dance. I basically constantly stared at her. The hardest parts of this were watching her sleep and trusting that when she was in the bathroom she wouldn’t escape through the window. She never did. That girl was a keeper.

Despite a flawed life, I had yet to be stood up coming into last weekend. By this point in my life, I pretty much automatically assume that girls do not want a second date with me, and any communication at all after we separate after the first date is a complete win. This is why the events last weekend did not at all affect me. After our first date a few weeks ago, she had expressed interest in seeing me again. I remember thinking, “Okay Jeremy. She talked to you after the date. You’ve already won. Anything that happens after this is a bonus. Now go to bed. Wait! Brush your teeth first, dammit.”

So we had agreed to meet at a specified restaurant at a specified time. I suppose I wasn’t really stood up. After I suggested the place, she never responded with a text or a call. So it’s not like I went to the restaurant and she just never showed. If that had happened, I would have simply eaten alone, enjoying only myself and the friendly banter with the waitstaff. That actually sounds better than what actually happened, which was just me lying in bed all evening, enjoying friendly banter with my television.

You’re all dressed up and about to walk out the door when your date calls and cancels. You’re super bummed, not just because you got bailed on, but because you don’t want to miss the new restaurant/hot band/comedy show you were scheduled to go to. Why not go by yourself? Don’t let someone else ruin your night! Plaster a smile on that face and go! Why should you stay in and mope because someone else is sick/a jerk/rude? In fact, since you’re looking all hot and sexy, plus you’ve got that smile plastered on your face and you’re confident in your alone-ness, you will probably attract new people. And don’t look at your cell phone the entire time! Enjoy your surroundings (food, music, laughter) and while you’re people watching, maybe strike up a conversation. You never know who you’ll meet!