Sometimes Lying Is A Good Thing

I've had dates cancel on me many times. Most often the excuses are generic and lame. "My aunt's coming in from out of town," "a friend is giving birth," "it's icky out" are all excuses given to me at the last minute to get out of dates. They've made for some good blog fodder, but I accept them for what they are - little lies told by insecure women who for some reason didn't want to go out on a date with me. Maybe their interest waned, or never existed. Maybe they met someone else they liked. Maybe they got nervous, and couldn't go through with it. And in such circumstances, I understand that you have to lie. You can't tell someone, "The more I thought about it, the less I wanted to go out with you. I was forced into this blind date by my pain in the ass mother, and I'm simply not interested."

Actually, you CAN tell someone that, but that would demonstrate a level of maturity and self confidence that most don't possess - myself included. So we live in a society where we tell each other little white lies to get out of doing shit we don't wanna do. I've done it plenty so I shouldn't be shocked when it gets done to me. In fact, I've grown so accustomed to these lies that are supposed to pass for excuses that I actually prefer them to the truth. That fact became even clearer to me yesterday evening after my conversation with a woman who called to cancel our date for tonight.

"My period is kicking my ass," she explained. "I'm just not gonna be able to do tomorrow night."

"Sorry to hear that, " I said, a bit taken aback by this incredible overshare. "Gimme a call when you're feeling better. I'm free Friday, if you're up to it. Just lemme know."

"We're talking seriously heavy flow here. I ruined the pants I wore to work today. I don't know what my deal is gonna be on Friday."

And I thought the mere mention of her menses was too much of an overshare. Couldn't she just have said her aunt was in from out of town? - which technically wouldn't have even been a lie, if you like menstrual metaphors.

"Okay," I said flustered. "Then just call me whenever. Hope you feel better."

I though that would be enough to end our little discussion of her uterine discharges, but she wanted to continue the conversation.

"God. You ever just have one of those days? It's really a mess."

"No, actually, that's not something I'm familiar with, but I can imagine."

"Oh yeah, right. I forgot who I was talking to for a second. You guys are so lucky."

Not this guy, I thought.

I then ended the conversation rather abruptly by telling her I had another call I had to take, and that we'd be in touch. I figured her openness and candor was so above and beyond that I had to lie twice to restore equilibrium to the universe, so that we can all go on cancelling dates with our little, insecure lies.