Renee: Hi, good to finally meet in person.
Eric: Yeah, finally. You too. Sorry about having to reschedule last week. It’s been a busy stretch.
Renee: It’s fine. Life happens.
Eric: Sorry I’m running a few minutes behind. Work emails wouldn’t stop tonight.
Renee: No worries, I just sat down myself. How’s your week been otherwise?
Eric: Busy. We’re closing out a deal at work, so it’s been a lot of late nights. Yours?
Renee: Good. It’s been a nice week. I just got back from a quick trip to wine country with my sister.
Eric: Oh nice. Where’d you go?
Renee: Sonoma. We found this little tasting room totally by accident and ended up staying half the afternoon. Best part was having nowhere to be for once.
Eric: That sounds fun.
Renee: It really was. I keep thinking I want to go back before the season changes.
Eric: I can see why.
Renee: Have you traveled much this year?
Eric: Not really. Hasn’t really come up.
Renee: So tell me about you. Anything fun happening on your end lately?
Eric: Not really. Just work and the usual.
Renee: Sounds like work has been keeping you busy.
Eric: That’s one way to put it.
A little later—
Renee: This place is nice, by the way.
Eric: Yeah.
Renee: Have you been here before?
Eric: No.
Renee: What made you pick it?
Eric: It’s five minutes from my house.
Renee: Honest answer.
Eric: Saves me from making one up.
Renee: I’ll give you points for honesty.
Eric: I’ll take them.
A few minutes later, Eric glanced at his watch.
Eric: I should probably get going soon. Early morning tomorrow.
Renee: Yeah, of course.
They stood and headed outside.
Eric: This was nice.
Renee: It was.
Eric: We should do it again sometime.
Renee: Maybe.
Eric: Alright. Good night.
Renee: Good night.
—–
Ask many women over 40 about modern dating, and you’ll hear some version of this story.
The complaint isn’t that every man needs to arrive with flowers or plan an elaborate evening.
It’s that many women feel the effort is gone.
The planning.
The curiosity.
The enthusiasm.
The sense that meeting someone new might still matter.
The Problem With Easy Dating Assumptions
Of course, some men are looking for the easiest possible path. They put very little thought into dating because they don’t think they need to. Women aren’t imagining that reality.
But there is another side to this conversation that makes things more complicated. Ask a man why he suggested coffee, or a quick glass of wine instead of dinner, and you’ll probably get a reasonable explanation.
Some men will tell you they’re screening — a low-key first date is how they find out whether they want to try harder.
Others will tell you they’re just worn out. For some, it’s work — long hours or more on their plate than usual. For others, it’s dating itself — enough disappointment that investing much in an evening starts to feel pointless. Either way, there’s not much extra left to give.
And some are resentful, even if they wouldn’t call it that. They’re still angry about a past relationship, and it shows in how little they try now.
From the outside, all three look identical. The same casual venue, the same thin questions, the same vague goodbye. The explanation may differ. The experience often doesn’t.
Of course, Eric’s behavior doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The culture of modern dating has changed. Technology has changed. Expectations have changed. Courtship has become less of an expectation and more of an option. Many women still want it. Many men still offer it. But it is no longer assumed in the way it once was. And that changes the dating experience for everyone.
The Choice Most Women Don’t Consider
By the time Renee sat down at the wine bar, she already had information. Eric had rescheduled. He was late. Neither of those things guaranteed a disappointing evening. But they suggested a level of enthusiasm that turned out to be accurate.
It would be easy to look at Eric and conclude that modern men have stopped trying. But that misses something important. By the time either of them entered the dating world, the rules had already changed. The sexual revolution changed expectations around sex and commitment. The women’s movement changed the economic realities that once shaped courtship. Technology changed how people meet and how easily they move on to someone else. None of those changes are entirely good or entirely bad. But together they helped create a dating culture in which effort is no longer assumed in the way it once was.
Those changes were reinforced by millions of individual choices over time. Eric rescheduled. Renee accommodated him. He was late. She went anyway.
Most women would have done the same thing.
But when Eric rescheduled, Renee had a choice.
She could move directly to finding another time to meet. Or she could leave the next step with him.
Many women don’t give themselves that choice.
They want the date to happen, and experiences like these have become so common that they rarely stop to question what they might mean.
Dating culture may have changed. The challenge for many women is recognizing when an early disappointment is a preview rather than an exception.
Before the First Date
A rescheduled date is not necessarily a dealbreaker. But it is information.
It can raise an important question: Is this a temporary inconvenience—or an early indication of what’s to come?
And how you respond to it can help you distinguish between the men who are likely to give you the dating experience you want and the men who are not.
The ability to make that distinction can save you a great deal of time, energy, and frustration.
Read more about private consultations here.
