Wrong Number

I'm always a proponent of phoning vs. texting when you first meet a girl. Here's another piece of support for my argument - an entire confusion and near-disaster would have been avoided with one simple phone call.

About a week and a half ago I made plans with a friend who lives outside Toronto to meet up for dinner. He told me he'd "be in town for work" and wanted to see me on Sunday night. When he messaged, I didn't have his phone # saved, but I recognized the area code as belonging to my friend S.H. who had phoned me on my birthday. I was busy at the time of his message, so I quickly saved his name in my phone, made plans to meet up Sunday evening and left it at that.

We messaged a few times over the past week to confirm plans, pick a resto and a time, and tell each other how excited we were to see each other. All along I assumed I was meeting my friend S.H., who I've known for years. Never in my messages did I mention any of the details of our friendship. In fact, upon re-reading my messages they were extremely generic, on both sides, and they really could have been sent to anyone in my contact list.

So tonight I showed up at his hotel to meet him in the lobby as planned, but instead of greeting him with a big smile and a hug, I gave the guy sitting on the couch a strange look and asked what he was doing in the city. I expected to see S.H., and instead the guy who approached me was an airport acquaintance - let's call him Newark Airport - a cute guy I'd befriended during a delay in January.

Needless to say I was surprised and confused, and I don't even want to think about what kind of expressions I was making while my mind raced between the options:

1) Is this actually S.H. and he looks different than I remember?

2) Pretend I knew I was meeting this guy all along and hope that S.H. wasn't going to step off the elevator

3) Explain my error and confirm that, yes, in fact, this was who I had been texting.

I chose the latter and it took me the walk to the restaurant to recover my cool, explain that I am in fact a sane, organized person, and reassure my friend that I was happy he was now my date. It was in fact a very pleasant surprise - Newark Airport was nothing but funny, charming and very cute. It provided a dramatically different vibe to the evening that I wish I'd been prepared for - flirting with a new guy takes a different level of preparation than catching up with an old friend - but all in all I'd deem it a success.

I will just ensure that in the future I call the guy I'm meeting with before I book the reso.