Dear Efrum and Frumma,

After a dozen terrific phone conversations with a guy who lives far away, I met him. The first couple hours were awkward, but we finally started to warm up to eachother at the end, and I was thankful that we would have a second date so I could see whether we really got along, but he canceled it and gave a semi-plausible excuse for being suddenly very busy. Naively, I initially believed the excuse so I reassured him that I wanted to see him again so that he wouldn't hesitate to call again, which made it worse when he never did!

There are certainly other fish in the sea, and I am out there fishing, but this guy seemed to have some good qualities that I haven't seen in others.

Is there anything I can do? My current thought is to wait a month or two (when I will be with my family who lives near him) and email him to say that I thought we got along well on the phone and was disappointed that that didn't translate in person, but would like to try again, but I'm afraid that sounds desperate especially after my early obliviousness to his attempt to break off contact.

(In the future, of course, I have learned not to talk on the phone so much even if it will be awhile before we can actually meet, and to treat every first date as a first date even if I feel like I know the person!)

Dana Lechafzchus