After my previous blog about Mary and the bad Valentines Day blind date set up something has been coming back to me.  From the post “They talked for a few days, set up plans for Valentines Day, but she couldn’t make it due to her “kids.”  She would continue to text him after that but every time he brought up going out she would dance around the issue until finally they were going to meet for drinks and dinner.  But there were no drinks, no dinner, just a movie and home.”  Then this: “She friended my buddy on Facebook .”

This got me thinking about something that occurs between men and women in the dating world and I don’t think there is one clear cut explanation. . . mixed signals.  Men give them to women and women give them to men, why do we do it?  I will admit in the past I have been very guilty of this myself and when I started to ponder this issue I asked myself “AJ why did you ever do it?”  And the answer comes to me like a 5 year old who just got caught shaving the dog, with a wide eyed, deer in a headlights look All I come up with is “I don’t know?”  

Was it to save the person’s feelings?  Ignore it and hope it goes away?  Was it that I’ve never fully communicated the demand my career can have on me sometimes and I just forget to call?  Or is it just pure stupidity (I’m sure many of them would say stupidity, or some form of expletive)?  Over the years I have definitely learned to communicate better about what I’m looking for in someone, where my headspace is at in dating, and what I’m expecting.

Like I can’t understand why Mary just didn’t say “I’m sorry I’m just not interested.”  Thank God we didn’t pick her for the Blind Date Breakfast.  I’ve had similar situations where it seams like the woman is interested, we text, we talk,  but when I ask them out, they dance around it, or cancel last minute.  Now I get when something comes up last minute (kids, work, family emergency. . . the last day for a big sale at the comic book store I forgot about)  hell it’s happened to me a time or two.  But when it happens with the same person more than once it’s obvious they are not interested.

So have you ever sent mixed signals?  What did you do and why? Leave your comment below.