No tags yet.
The question is how long does one wait when your date is late?
John4 invited me for lunch at a rather a snazzy Atlantic seaboard restaurant. Given that the drive there and back from my work place would eat up the lunch hour, the afternoon off work was arranged. I arrived timeously as I am known to do - North American style - I do not subscribe to the "fashionably late" label. Nor do the North Americans. Nothing fashionable about disrespect.
John4 had booked the table in advance as one needs to do in this establishment. I was shown to, and waited at, the table. The waitron offered me a beverage. I declined out of deference to my date. After 30 minutes, yes half an hour, I ordered a beverage from the said waitron. Deference gone. I made friends with the waitron, with the maître d' and other lone patrons. I hopped up a couple of times to look about in case John4 was actually there but had perhaps missed me at my table. No John4. The maître d' told me not to worry, John4 would arrive shortly. He said John4 lunched there most days! He thus knew John4 well.
Post-beverage I announced to the maître d' that I would be leaving. He tried to persuade me not to leave. "Call Mr John4!" he suggested. And call I did. I woke John4. He was having a midday nap. Alert: this is grandpa-style, a midday, midweek nap! "I'll be there in a jiffy, please wait!" he cried when working out that he had missed our meeting time. Missed by 45 minutes no less. I think he may have read the tone in my voice, too: icy is an understatement.
John4 arrived. Un-showered. Dishevelled. Singularly unattractive. Without an inch of embarrassment. John4 didn't care a damn that he was late. John4 is bright. John4 is highly educated and clearly very wealthy. He told me, like they do. So tacky. And John4 has no breeding nor class.
I wondered on my drive home why I had waited for John4. Why had I not left after 15 minutes? Why had I bothered to call John4? What message did my waiting and calling send John4? Desperate Doris? Low standards?
I decided to not be so uptight and "to chill" in the words of my first two born children. The third born dares not tell me to chill. She has learnt from my responses to the "Chill, Mom!" retort. And I accepted another date with John4.
He was late. Again. And he had done his due diligence on me. This prompted his making insulting remarks about my boss. Not a good look, John4. My boss pays my salary. And gives me time off to lunch with Johns.
John4 is still searching for a Mary. Clearly I am not the only one with standards, if not just in the time-keeping and boss deference departments.