I Accidentally Texted My Date That He Might Be a Disappointment

The whole disaster hinged on one text I sent to the wrong person, so let me set the stage properly.

I had a first date scheduled with a guy named Tomas. Nice guy from an app, we had good banter, dinner planned for Friday. I also have a group chat with my three best friends called, and I am not proud of this, The Coven, where we dissect every man who has ever spoken to us. Standard stuff. You have one too.

So Friday afternoon I am getting ready and I am nervous, and I do the thing where I over-share my anxiety to the Coven. Except I did not text the Coven. I texted Tomas. Directly. The message read, and I quote myself exactly:

"ok going on the date with dinner guy tonight. lowering expectations. last three have been human disappointments. if he chews weird I'm faking a work emergency and leaving. wish me luck ladies."

I sent it. To him. To dinner guy. To the human disappointment in question.

I did not notice for four minutes, which is four minutes too long, because by the time I saw the little name at the top of the thread say Tomas instead of The Coven, he had already started typing. The three dots. Appearing, disappearing. A man composing a response to being pre-emptively called a disappointment before appetizers.

His reply came in slowly. It said: "Well. I do chew normally, for what it's worth. But no pressure, wouldn't want to trigger the fake work emergency."

I wanted to die. I wanted to be launched into the sun. I typed six different apologies and deleted all of them. Finally I just wrote the truth, which was, "I am so sorry, that was meant for my friends, I am a nervous person and I self-sabotage and you did not deserve that."