Question

How many times can you be stood up in one weekend? Oh, I don't know. I guess it really depends on how the stars align, the personality types of the people in your life, the way-- FOUR! Four times I was dissed this weekend!

Shall we? First on deck was the perfect on paper guy I've made an online connection with but whom I have yet to meet face to face. (We'll call him POP- don't make me spell it out.) This is maddening in its own rite but for now we'll focus on all the bad karma I cashed in this weekend.

He's busy. I get it. He's important. I can tell. So when another week passes and our schedules don't jive, I'm told to wait until the weekend. But as the weekend gets closer, I'm informed that there's a chance he may have to go to Europe last minute for a client. I keep my weekend plans and watch in mild awe as everything goes to hell in a hand basket. He hasn't called and it's beginning to dawn on me that pop is too busy to update me on his travel plans.

Saturday morning, I text my girlfriend who works overnights to call me when she wakes up. There's a reggae fest in Brooklyn and we're supposed to go. Late afternoon she tells me she's at the reggae fest. Strike one.

So I spend the day going back and forth to JFK. This is my new past time on the weekends. Oh, it's so underrated, the A train to the Airtrain, so lovely this time of year. Every time one of my relatives has an extended layover, I'm expected to keep them company in the international terminal. Two things: my relatives travel often and JFK has the most uncomfortable transit lounge in the country.

Saturday's a bust except for my friend who's in as much as a funk and we commiserate on her rooftop with the help of some choice organic materials that take the edge off.
Sunday I have to schlep to Queens to interview an exiled Pakistani journalist. My AP and I make the trek from Manhattan only to find out that he's not home. Repeated attempts to reach his cell are thwarted by his wife who's hard of hearing and projecting her impairment as she screams into the phone, "What?! WHO?!" Strike two.

And Pop sends an evasive email regarding his disappearing act which raises more questions than it answers. In more ways than one, that is strike three.
But all is not lost as a girlfriend has made dinner plans with me. I send her a text at 6:30 and receive a response about two hours later that she forgot/already ate/didn't hear from me... at this point, does the reason really matter? It's painfully obvious that the Gods of Follow Through were angry with me this weekend and I was reminded that more often than not "tentative" really means flaky.