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."

And here is the thing. Here is why I am telling this story instead of hiding it forever. Tomas texted back: "Honestly the fact that you lower expectations that hard makes me feel less alone. Still on for 8? I'll chew with intention."

I chew with intention. Reader, I married that sentence. Not literally, we did not work out, but that sentence lives in me.

The date, of course, was cursed from there, because now we both knew about the escape plan and it became the entire theme of the evening. Every time he took a bite he would look at me pointedly, chewing with theatrical slowness, checking if I was reaching for my phone. When the waiter came he asked, "Any work emergencies I should know about?" I laughed so hard I inhaled a crouton and had an actual coughing fit, at which point Tomas said, deadpan, "Ah, there's the emergency," and I nearly died a second time, this time from a salad.

We dated for about two months. It did not last, but not because of the text. It ended because he wanted to move to Denver and I did not want to move to Denver, which is a much more boring reason than the way we began.

I still have the wrong-text in my messages. I reread it sometimes. Human disappointments. I sent that to a man's face and he offered me a second bite. Somewhere out there, Tomas is chewing with intention, and I hope Denver is treating him right.