She liked imaginary men best of all...

I did have a date on the books tonight, but mounting evidence dictated that I cancel it. Permanently.

About a week and a half ago an intriguing guy wrote to me and after a series of back-and-forth messages via the site's interface, we set up a plan to have coffee. A few days later during an instant message exchange he let me know that he'd like to wait until after his bi-weekly trip to Vegas to confirm. He explained that the Monday and Tuesday after a Vegas run can be "rough."

I wasn't terribly bothered (little investment makes for supreme peace of mind), but I registered the frequent gambling right away. He's gone twice a month since March of 2006! According to him he only breaks even because even though he wins, once he factors in the expense to get out there and back, he doesn't come out ahead.

As I mentioned, this man's profile intrigued me, and when I agreed to meet him for a late coffee at the One World it was with the understanding that this date would be more anecdote than anything else. It seemed to fit with my goal to be more open...to hilarity, to inanity, to whatever... And I thought he would make me laugh.

I wrote him yesterday morning to confirm for tonight. He responded, letting me know that he'd lost for the first time in a year, but hoped to recoup the thousands of dollars he was suddenly short by way of some other betting pool he was in. He still didn't know about Tuesday (tonight) because he needed to get some sleep, but that he would let me know today (Tuesday). He acknowledged that letting me know his plans on the day of would probably be too late.

Because I had plans last night, I decided to wait to see how I felt after that rendezvous to determine if I still wanted to keep the Tuesday plan with gambler guy. I realized that while I was truly not upset about his lack of commitment to the date we made, that this lack of commitment was not something I should indulge, certainly not for the sake of having a mere anecdote to share on The Baltimore Chronicles.

Between the compulsive betting and the lack of a firm grasp on subject-verb agreement/word choice, I decided to let his ship sail. I wrote him last night when I got back from the bar where I met the second first date and told him that a same-day confirmation would be cutting it too close and that due to my own social calendar, a reschedule was not something I could foresee.
I thanked him for contacting me initially and wished him the best.

This joker writes back and says:

"That was one strange response. So is it my lost or did I just get lucky?" [sic]

So, blog world, there's my anecdote from the date that wasn't.