Out of the blue I receive a text from a man I had a date in the past.

He was telling me that he sent me an email and was eagerly waiting my reply.  Here is the email:

“Hello. I hope this e mail finds you well and getting ready for the holidays.

I’ve been thinking of you a lot these past few months, and came across our first e mail exchange. It brought back some memories, like that of our first date. Its hard (or not hard) to believe it was more than two years ago.

I realized, too, that we never got too far because I was not focused, nor ready to have you in my life.

Even more recently, I know I made contact with you but did not follow through. I know that made you angry and after I did not follow through with the planning of our date, you asked me not to contact you again.

After giving it a lot of thought, I want you to know that I have NOT EVER forgotten about you, was always extremely interested in you, and wanted you in my life. I still feel the same.

Ana, I want to see you again, see you regularly and see where we can take a relationship. I was unable previously to focus on you because I had not yet ended a relationship that wasn’t good, and needed to be ended, but lingered. I have also made some changes or modifications to my work life so I can have more leisure time, and also my business is now focused in Westchester County (where I believe you live still, New Rochelle?).

Ana, I come to you not knowing what is happening in your personal life-perhaps you’re married now, or whatever, but either way, I was not going to forgo contacting you to ask that you allow me to pursue you (court you? perhaps that’s better) again.

I know its short notice, but I have appointments in Westchester tomorrow and I would like to ask you if you would like to meet me for dinner. I have attached a picture of myself to jog your memory, but if you read the e mail threads, who I was (am) should come back to you.

I look forward to your response and hope it is a positive one. I might hope, too, that you are happy I came back to attempt to be in your life…

I realize I missed a great opportunity with you, Ana, and I would like to reclaim it, as well as a place in your heart.

Respectfully, Paul”

I am always willing to give people extra chances, but in this case I am just not willing to try again.  He has asked for chances before and has never followed through with his promises.

I canceled our first date.  After many email exchanges we were eager to meet each other, or so I thought.  On the afternoon of the date he says he can meet at 7 in a restaurant downtown (I am in Midtown).  He says he has a meeting there at 6 that ends at 7 and then he has a haircut at 8.  So he can meet me from 7 to 8.

I was shocked and told him that I didn’t appreciate being sandwiched between appointments.  Also he should have taken into account my location and he should be getting a haircut to meet me.  He offered to cancel the hair appointment and meet me Midtown, I declined.  The deed was done, and the moment was gone for me.

I am not sure how many times he canceled on me until we finally met.  And on that instance he was 30 minutes late.  I was about to leave.  The date was pleasant.  After that we had another date that he canceled because he had to take his dog to the vet.

I am not sure what happened after that, but I knew this was a person that I could not count on, and since he couldn’t be free for dates things fizzled.

I remembered he asking me to dinner a prior time when he was in my neck of woods and I ignored. And this time again it seems he is asking simply out of convenience, since he will be in Westchester anyway.

I don’t want to be convenient.  I want a man to go out of the way for me.

Although he was an interesting person and we had lots to talk about this is one time where I think that I should just let go and consider tried and done.

But here is my question:  Do I reply and say Thanks, but no thanks or do I just ignore it? Even though I want to treat people how I want to be treated which is I always want to be acknowledge and not ignored;  in this case I think I will choose silence.

“You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could’ve, would’ve happened… or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on.” -Tupac Shakur