How Busy is too Busy?

The answer to this question depends on who you ask. As an extremely busy person, I am asked this all the time when communicating with men online. Usually they will ask probing questions trying to figure out if I will make time for them in my schedule. The answer is: it depends.

First, I will not cancel any of my plans for a date. Most of these men, you never hear from again, so they need to find a time that is good for me if they want to meet. This can be challenging since I keep an extremely full schedule, but it also gives me a very good indication of what the man is all about. If he is respectful and understanding, then he is worth meeting. Any man who questions me too much or acts like me being busy is a problem is almost certainly not the man for me.

While some may not agree with me, my take on this is that a man would expect you to understand if he is busy and would expect you to work with his schedule. What is the difference if it is a women? There is none – other than that some men expect women to cater to their needs without regard to hers. For this simple reason, I know right away if someone will work with my lifestyle. Someone who seems as though he wants all my time and attention prior to even knowing me, will surely be far too needy and clingy for me.

Prioritizing Dating and the Rest of your Life

I have a canned response when someone asks me if I am too busy to date right now. And that response is: “Today everyone is busy and if we all wait until we are not busy to date, we may be dead first.” It is true, if you think about it. Who do you know that is NOT busy? Not very many people can say that.

While I will not cancel anything in my schedule to accommodate a date, I will reprioritize if I meet someone worth a relationship. This is the part that men do not seem to get. They see busy and they think there is no room for them. As in anything important in life, it is all about priorities! When we first meet someone, they have not earned a place in our schedules before other things in our lives. When we establish a relationship with someone, that shifts, and they become a higher priority than some of those other things. For any man to expect a women to cancel other plans to go on a date with them is totally unrealistic, since there is no guarantee you will even like each other. However, when a relationship is being established and people spend more time together, they have earned a place in our schedules. I am uncertain as to why men only see busy as no place for them. It could be selfishness, it could be ego, it could be neediness, or something deeper like control issues. However, I do know that if someone doesn’t respect my life as it is now, and does not want to work on a common time to meet, it puts up all kinds of red flags for me.

NO ONE is too busy to date if it is something that is important to them. Stop asking. If we did not want to be dating, we would not be looking! Don’t be needy, be a gentleman! Happy dating!