He cancelled last minute: what it means and what to reply

The honest answer will not please you: the first time, it means almost nothing. People cancel for ordinary reasons, and most of the time those reasons are true.

In practice there are not that many possibilities. From the most common to the rarest:

• Something genuinely came up: work running late, a kid to look after, a car that will not start, a cold caught the day before. This is by far the most common case, and nobody can do anything about it.
• He could not face it that evening: he said yes on Tuesday, it is now Friday, he has had a long week and the thought of showering and getting on the tube puts him off. That says nothing about what he thinks of you, it says he is tired and not very brave.
• Nerves: this happens more often than people think before a first date, and it never shows up in the message. He cancels, and he regrets it within ten minutes.
• He has something else on that night: a better offer, plans with his mates, someone else. Here the cancellation is a choice, even if he does not present it as one.
• He was never planning to come: the date existed so that he would not have to say no, and he waited until the last moment to avoid the conversation. This is the rarest case, and also the one that shows itself fastest afterwards.

The trouble is that all five reasons produce roughly the same message. «So sorry, something's come up, I can't make it.» You cannot tell them apart by reading the text, quite simply because the information is not in there. It is in what he does right after, and that is what we are going to look at now.

Look at what he does in the minutes after cancelling, not at what he says to explain it. A long, detailed excuse proves nothing, it proves he is uncomfortable. What counts is whether he offers something else on his own, with a day in it.

The word to watch for is the day. «We'll sort something out», «I'll let you know», «soon» and «once work calms down» are sentences that commit to nothing. «Tuesday or Thursday?» is a sentence that commits. Someone who wants to see you gives days, even rough ones, because that is how a date gets made.

There is an explanation for that, and it is not a new one.

In 1985, three researchers, John Rempel, John Holmes and Mark Zanna, published a piece of work on trust in couples, in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. It has become a classic. They explain that trust is built in three stages, and always in the same order.

The first one they call predictability. It rests on one thing only: what you have already seen the person do, several times. The second is about who they are, and no longer only about what they do. The third is the bet you place on their intentions, with no proof.

So the first stage needs repetition. One cancellation on its own teaches you nothing. It is a one-off, and a one-off does not make a habit. The second cancellation does teach you something, and that is why it weighs so much more than the first. Nothing to do with you being touchy: you finally have enough to form a view, that is all.

The other thing happening that evening is what you are going to do with the cancellation in your own head. In 1990, Thomas Bradbury and Frank Fincham went back through dozens of studies on the way people in couples explain each other's behaviour. It was in Psychological Bulletin, and the result is clear.

People who are unhappy in their relationship always explain their partner's negative behaviour the same way. It comes from him («he's like that»), it will not change («he'll always be like that»), and it colours everything else («nothing works anyway»). Faced with exactly the same behaviour, happy people look at the circumstances first.

The interesting part comes next. Studies that follow the same couples for years suggest that these explanations do not only reflect the state of the relationship: they weigh on it. In other words, the story you tell yourself tonight can change what happens afterwards.

This work is about established couples, not about a second date. What still holds is the reflex: wait until you have seen enough before making up your mind. And the evening you get stood up, that reflex does not come easily...

Three things to do, no more than that.

1. Reply short.
2. Make no reproach.
3. Do not propose a new date in his place.

The third is the hardest, because it is the one that would make you feel better right now. Except that by proposing, you take on something that was his. And you lose the only piece of information the evening had to offer. Hand the question back, and watch what he does with it.

The flat cancellation, with no reason and not another word, works differently. There, you do not hand the question back, because there is nothing to hand back.

Plenty of women take another route and do not reply at all, on the theory that it will make him react. What that sets off at his end looks a lot more like confusion than like a realisation, and you end up with two people waiting for a message.

Say two days have gone by and he still has not proposed anything. You are allowed to follow up, and it does not make you the girl who chases. One follow-up is normal. It is the third one that starts to be a problem.

And this time, yes, you can give days. What was a mistake just after the cancellation becomes the right move two days later. You are no longer sparing him anything: he had time to propose, and he did not.

The second cancellation is a different moment, and it is handled differently. A follow-up does not help much at that point. What you send is a sentence that takes you out of the organising seat.

And if the date does end up happening, all that will be left is finding things to talk about for that first time, starting with the light stuff.

At some point the question stops being what to reply. Four situations say it clearly enough.

Two cancellations and never a new date proposed: that is enough. Bad luck has nothing to do with it. Someone is keeping you available without seeing you, and it can go on for months if you let it.

It is always you who suggests, who follows up, who organises: count the last five dates and look at who started them. When the answer is «me» five times out of five, the problem is no longer Friday's cancellation, it is the imbalance that has settled in without anyone naming it.

He cancels every time it gets a bit serious: dinner at his place, a weekend away, an evening with your friends. If the cancellations always land on the dates that commit to something, chance is a convenient explanation, and it looks a lot like someone who backs off the moment he feels the relationship moving forward.

You spend more time decoding than seeing him: this is the most reliable of the four, even if it is the one you would rather not see. A relationship that starts well does not call for all this decoding, quite simply because there is not much to decode.

And if you are still hesitating, ask the question differently: does he care about you without daring to show it? With some men, the cancellations hide exactly that.

How long do I wait before following up? Two days. That is long enough to let him propose something himself, and short enough that the missed date is still fresh in the conversation.

Can I tell him it upset me? Yes, but not within the hour and not in the same message as your reply. If it matters to you, say it once, calmly, when you see him: «last time was a bit annoying, I'd moved things around.» In a text it almost always reads as a reproach, even when it is not one.

He cancelled but he still texts me every day, what does that mean? That he enjoys the conversation and that the date itself costs him something. Nerves, a situation he is not telling you about, or wanting to keep the contact without going further. The only way to find out is to propose a day and watch what happens.

He has cancelled twice, do I follow up again? No. After two cancellations it is no longer your turn to propose. You can absolutely carry on talking to him if you enjoy it, but the next date has to come from him.

What if his excuse is outrageous? Treat it like any other. An unbelievable excuse followed by a real offer of a date is still a good sign, and a perfectly credible excuse followed by nothing is still a bad one. Look at what comes after, always.