If A Date Doesn’t Contact You Two Hours Before Meeting, Would You Still Get Ready To Go?

‘One too many times, I’ve been ghosted or cancelled on after getting ready [for a date] and it’s the most annoying thing. So I’m trying this new thing where I do not get ready until I hear from him because I feel like I should be hearing from a guy I’m supposed to be seeing within the two hours that I’m supposed to see him.’

This was the innocent enough rule Kristen Beatty posed about on TikTok last month, receiving over 2.3million views and near 300,000 likes. The TikTok influencer from New Jersey shares much of her dating experiences online, her latest ‘two-hour rule’ idea proving popular with her followers.

‘If we aren’t in regular communication from the point of setting the date up to the day of the date, there is no date,’ one follower agreed. ‘If he’s not excited about it I don’t want it,’ another added. Others even took the rule further, saying ‘if he doesn’t hit you up the day before and the day of to confirm, it’s not happening!’

It’s a relatively harmless rule in modern dating culture when ghosting is a common risk of any pre-arranged plan to meet. It also proved successful for Kristen, whose date cancelled on her an hour before she was meant to meet him. Had she gotten ready for the date, not only would she have been disappointed and wasted her time on an evening she could’ve met up with someone worthy of her, she also would’ve wasted a shit ton of make-up – and that’s the real kick in the teeth.

According to some men though, women choosing to set standards for their date is not acceptable. After LADbible wrote about the two-hour rule and posted their story online with the caption ‘if a date breaks the rule, she cuts contact with them’ (which she never says by the way), Kristen was trolled by those angry at what they deem ‘controlling’ and ‘extreme’ behaviour.

‘The comments were seriously hurtful,’ Kristen said after seeing the article. ‘I don’t know if I’ll post anything else like this because of the judgement I got.’

It’s a depressing turn of events, not only seeing Kristen trolled for such an innocent video, but that the idea of a woman setting boundaries before a date is still so controversial to some. What those people don’t seem to realise is the time, energy and money that goes into any woman preparing for a date.

While men can laze around until 10 minutes prior, jumping in the shower and throwing on jeans, there are few women that wouldn’t set aside at least a couple of hours to get ready for a date. Hell, sometimes the prep starts a full 24 hours in advance. ‘Depending on my hair washing schedule, I’ll usually start “getting ready” the night before when I exfoliate, full body shave and potentially put fake tan on,’ a friend tells me. ‘I’ll probably get my nails done the day off, then washing and styling my hair takes at least an hour. I would prefer another hour to do make-up, then choosing an outfit and all the final touches makes the entire getting ready process very long.’

When you consider how much effort women put into dates compared to men, setting hard boundaries to avoid the risk of ALL that going to waste seems like the smartest thing to do. Because, if a man doesn’t have the decency to message you TWO hours before a date, is he worth meeting at all? It’s not just about wasting our time, it’s about showing that you respect it and are capable of normal communication.

‘Most guys have been conditioned to not appear too "needy", and messaging someone two hours in advance of a date would be viewed by the larger female community as a "clingy needy guy" and it would be him that gets ghosted,’ one man commented on LADbible’s post.

My immediate thought? If that’s the type of guy you’re going on a date with - someone so insecure that they won’t message a woman prior to a date for fear of being considered ‘needy’ – it’s probably not worth your foundation leaving the bottle in the first place. Demanding a man show interest in a date – and not generalise the ‘larger female community’ – is the bare minimum women should expect. Hell, never mind a two-hour window, we’d back a 24-hour rule…

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