Boys who don't call back

I have a friend who recently went out with a boy who then did not call her back. I do not mean to say that she sat by the phone and waited for him to call her back after their date. I mean that after they had gone out a few times, she invited him out on a date and he just…never got back to her.

In general, I am opposed to the death penalty, and I do not want to be an extremist here, but I think that this is very, very bad behavior. It is worse than putting your elbows on the table or forgetting to thank your grandparents for the birthday check they sent (it's not too late! run, do not walk, to the phone to call them). If you go out with someone (even if you just go out with someone ONCE), and that person invites you out on another date, you must tell the person that you do not want to go. I know that this is a horrible conversation to have. Actually having to look someone in the eye (or, you know, hear his or her voice on the phone) and say, "I do not want to see you again" is awkward. It is uncomfortable. It makes me cringe just thinking about it. But it must be done.

Here is where I must come clean and admit that once I went out with someone several times and then stopped returning his phone calls. I also made the sister of my friend (I was living at her house at the time) tell him that I had moved to Africa. This sounds like an exaggeration made for comic effect, but it is not. It is true that I was moving to Africa. But at the time of his phone call, that move was still a month in the future and I was, in fact, not only in the continental United States but actually sitting on the bed next to her and hissing, "Tell him I've already left!"

It was, to say the least, not my finest hour.

And it makes me sympathetic to people who do things like delete a voice mail from someone who has become nothing but an awkward conversation needing to happen. I have been there. I feel for you. But the truth is, the cringe factor of remembering times when I was rude or inconsiderate or (ugh) outright mean is really, really high even years later. Sucking it up for a few unpleasant minutes really beats regretting, for decades, having been a jerk.