Sad.

Nonetheless, it is the risk everyone takes when we sign up on a dating app.

We are taking a chance on talking to a stranger.

A stranger that we have never known nor met.

We aren’t privy to this stranger’s history.

All we know is what they have included in their dating profile.

This is what we go off of and we take a leap of fate.

Keeping this in mind, don’t take the fact that she didn’t show up on the date personally.

You are not the first guy who has gone through the ordeal of sitting alone at a location designated for a date, twiddling his thumbs, slowly coming to a realization that their date isn’t showing up.

Alas, don’t throw yourself a pity party.

On the bright side, look at this incident as dodging a bullet.

A woman who doesn’t show up after agreeing to meet up with you on a date, and without the courtesy to give you a heads-up, is a woman you are better off not dating.

I get it.

Her dating profile was interesting and she was attractive.

Physically, she is what you are attracted to.

Beyond her looks, there were several common interests.

Conversations with her were engaging.

She was respectful too.

Nothing like what you have just experienced from her in real life, where she has chosen to not show up on a date without giving you any warning.

The thing is, you never know who you are dealing with on a dating app until you interact with them in person over a sustained period of time.

A dating profile is a marketing tool designed to make a person look like a dream match.

The person who creates it has full control over the information included in it.

Not solely this.

She controls how she goes about chatting with you too, and the words she uses.

These are all controlled environments that she uses to convey whatever image she wants to portray to her matches.

Once that controlled digital environment moves into the real world, everything changes.

This was a date where your match was set to meet you in person.

A real world environment.

A real world environment that she doesn’t have anywhere near as much control of.

Seeing her in person means that you get to see what she looks like in person and how she behaves without any filter.

Up until this moment, she had full control of everything.

She had full control over the photos she chose to post to her dating profile.

Thereby, she had the agency to post misleading photos if she so chose.

She had full control over what she wrote in her bio.

Meaning, she had the agency to lie and embellish as much as she wanted.

She had full control over the text messages she sent you.

This gave her the agency to manufacture whoever she wanted to be to you by carefully constructing the words she would use to respond to your messages.

Upon setting up an in-person meeting, all the control is gone.

She knows it, and she didn’t show up.

Take this as a sign that you have dodged a bullet.

Not only has this gesture demonstrated her poor character, it elucidates a likelihood that the person she was making herself out to be on the dating app was a complete farce.