Couldn't agree more. Let... it... go....

Someone really had to sit down and write a letter to ask about this shit?

Get the fuck over it you giant baby.

Or what if he wanted to meet up and just got nervous? Like, nerves got the better of him when they didn't show up right away... and then maybe he started to come back twice, panicked, walked around the block, and then blocked them out of embarrassment. Who knows? He could be an asshole, but he could also be new to this shit and dealing with his own anxiety/shame/whatever.

Exactamundo...every word.

@4: Altogether possible, but it's an asshole move whether it was nerves or premeditated.

It's also possible that he genuinely wanted to meet up, but (given that he lied about his marital status) his wife's Spidey sense was tingling that something was up, and she was watching him so closely he chose to block them to throw her off the trail.

Dan is generous in telling the LW they aren't assholes - I'm getting more than a whiff of assholes in the letter:
"We were ten minutes late . . . he thought we bailed . . . . I asked why he didn't call or text."
So the couple is rude by showing up 10 minutes (P.S. that means actually 14 minutes and they're rounding down) and somehow it's the bi-guy's responsibility to pick up the pieces and call or text to the no-shows? WTF about the LATE party calling or texting that they're running a little late BEFORE they, you know, arrive late?
I can see why it going off the rails right there. If the party that shows up late is anything other than apologetic, who'd want to swap spit or jizz with them? Yes, it's an asshole move to string them along for an hour, but it wasn't the first asshole move of the day.

And non-assholes could figure out for themselves that no good will come from escalating this.

@DAVIDinKENAI, yes, spot on in both your comments

I wanted to comment on this, but it would just be repetition. See 1-7 above.

Agree with DAVID that the couple are also assholes for showing up late and expecting accountability from the other guy rather than being apologetic. Not to mention that a first instinct towards revenge over something so minor is kind of an asshole flag in itself.

Gee, I don’t know LW. Maybe you could grow up.

All three of these people are such giant assholes you could throw a cat through and never touch sphincter.

Ha! Enough said already on this thread. @13 spot on.

LW, whatever the other practical considerations Dan raised, your proposed acts are just unethical. In the future, bring books or a computer, and go with the mindset that if your third is a no-show, you’ve still had a relaxing hour with your spouse. I think getting stood up by thirds is fairly common (this hasn’t been my experience dating single women, where it has happened only twice), so you’re going to have to accept it’s part of finding an additional sexual partner.

@8/David: “Bi-guys, Homo-flexibles, straight dudes hard up for pussy, and (especially) gay closet cases might all be game.”

I don’t think you’re going to find many straight men willing to suck cock or bottom in exchange for pussy, and since male sexuality seem a bit more binary than female sexuality, I’d say there aren’t that many men to choose from, relative to bi female thirds.

My guess: the guy did come round, checked you from a distance for a while, decided he wasn't interested, and blocked your number so that he didn't have to do any further explanations. Maybe he wasn't interested because he didn't like what he saw; maybe he didn't like the tone of the text exchanges; maybe he finally decided it was too risky to hook up with someone who works nearby. Not nice. Cowardly even. Certainly not OK lying about being married. But not a massive offence/humiliation either. If the purpose of the "going for a coffee" step is to check if you have chemistry, this served its purpose perfectly well - you don't. Let it go. Have the last laugh by finding someone nice you do have chemistry with.

SUCKS isn't an asshole? I beg to differ. Sounds like Mr Married Third also dodged a bullet. Why didn't SUCKS text HIM to tell him they were going to be 10 minutes late? They were rude; he took revenge by standing them up in return; now SUCKS wants to take revenge on him for taking revenge on them. How old are you people?!

Her attitude explains why they're finding it hard to find thirds, which in the conventional wisdom are really not difficult to find. Bi guys, please do keep avoiding this couple of llamas!

What the guy did sucked (for an hour), but what SUCKS did (being ten minutes late) also sucked (just one-sixth as much).

It's sick that the guy inflicted the wasted hour out of cruelty. But not only is it inconsiderate to be ten minutes late (and what bugs me is SUCKS appears oblivious to that), now in the name of self-righteousness SUCKS wants to be cruel themself, so I think what the guy retaliated against is precisely six times worse than what SUCKS wrote to Dan about because they want to counter-retaliate.

Both the guy and SUCKS are jerks. The guy is just (being generous to SUCKS) six times worse. (Wait, per @7 DAVIDinKENAI's superior math, make that 4.3 times worse.)

I'm actually thrilled that SUCKS ran into someone that sucks just like they do. Let the mirror this situation provided be educational you jerk.

I'd say the better song is, "Do You Wanna Build Snowman?" because this LW needs to find a hobby and stop obsessing.

@7,
Agreed. If one is late, one sends a text apologizing and gives an estimate when they will actually show. The LW was at fault there.
True, making someone wait long after that is also wrong and there are several possible reasons already given above.
The thing I dislike most about this is blocking. If you decide that you are not interested in further communication, blocking is a good way to remind yourself not to. However, common courtesy (sadly lacking all around here) dictates that you tell the person you are no longer interested and that you are blocking them to prevent future issues.

Unfortunately, blocking and ghosting is the new normal.

You're late and it's my responsibility to tell you i'm bailing? Lol..the obligation runs the other way. Flaky hookup shitheads got what they deserve.

Plural @16 "If the purpose of the "going for a coffee" step is to check if you have chemistry, this served its purpose perfectly well - you don't."

Exactly.

They both have a LOT in common...but they need to find partners willing to be abused by what they both have in common.

Wow. I bet what happened is dude is thinking about cheating on his wife and/or closeted, dipping his toes in to test the water. Either he didn't like what he saw and was too chicken to tell it or he had a moment of panic when reality hit and he really was about to cheat or explore his gay side (or both).

It's not about you, LW, let it go. Weird that you are so fixated on it at all. Flakiness when arranging hook ups is expected. And surely bi guys who like threesomes are not uncommon?

And bringing this man's marriage and job into it, when all he did was thinking about hooking up and then bailed for reasons you don't know, is not a last laugh. It's cruel and stalkery- even if you only intend to make him fear that you could expose him, that's you demonstrating your power to destroy his life which is really SHIT behavior and yes makes you a massive asshole, and worse- you have no idea how he'd respond to this. It might force him to fess up, he might take measures to manage what he sees as the potential damage to his life, it might cause him extreme stress- some people fucking kill themselves when they think their secrets are about to be exposed, and he didn't even fucking do anything, he might take it as blackmail, etc. You are a massive asshole, LW, and I recommend you work on putting your own feelings and sense of being wronged into proper perspective and developing some empathy for other people before you continue to engage with others.

Another possibility is that when he saw them in the cafe, he realized they had mutual friends- recognized one of them- and bailed to protect what he thought was his anonymity. Or during the interval while he was gone, he could've looked THEM up online and discovered this.

Way back when in the early days of the net, I was chatting with someone and talking about possibly meeting up when I realized he was a professor in the department where I was studying. I told him that and said we couldn't talk any more and the dude panicked. Wanted me to delete the correspondence, wanted me to reassure him that I wouldn't tell anyone, etc. Seems sort of weird now because everyone flirts and hooks up online these days, but back then it was still pretty new and I guess he was picturing me sharing the emails with other staff or students- he was single and I was an adult and he was not my advisor and everything we talked about was consensual so really there was no reason to panic like he did except for fear of embarrassment. So you never know how people are going to respond. Choosing to bail / disappear might've been something the LW's guy did in a panic. I think it's weird that Dan keeps calling the guy an asshole- we don't actually know. And Dan is always quick to point out that a lot of people back out of cheating- they talk about it online but don't quite go through with it. Could be the case here. Especially if he's also dealing with his sexuality.

Why waste all our time on this sort of question Dan. Isn’t there an etiquette book for douche bags these self absorbed people can go read?

If was convinced that the guy really was an asshole (and it would take more than this to convince me) While enjoying various revenge fantasies, the most I would do would be to report him for abuse at whatever website they were using to arrange the assignation.

@25 EmmaLiz "You are a massive asshole, LW, and I recommend you work on putting your own feelings and sense of being wronged into proper perspective and developing some empathy for other people before you continue to engage with others."

I recommend that Dan include this in the next Reader comments column!

I can't say I don't enjoy when the LW isn't sympathetic. Before reading this letter's comments, I didn't know if anyone else would take exception to the LW being oblivious it also being wrong to be "ten" (probably 14; and then they probably only waited for 46) minutes late without a word about it before, after, or to Dan. I thought maybe it would only bug me; IRL it seems to me most people (not me) consider 14 minutes late 'on time'.

@25 @26 Well said.

If you believe he's a piece of shit, then the less you handle him, the cleaner your hands will be.

curious2 @29 I consider 14 minutes late 'on time' if the person is waiting for me in their home. Showing up on time seems to freak hosts out when they were still straightening up.

If I have to drive more than an hour to get to our appointment and hit traffic, I also feel 14 minutes late is more or less 'on time' for a social call at a comfortable location -- even if I couldn't text to say I'd be late, because driving.

But if I clearly left home too late for a meeting in public without texting that I was running late... well that's definitely discourteous in my view.

Sorry, 10 minutes late -- nevermind 14 -- for a meeting in a public place or someone's home, is late. It just is.

But I agree, LW is way over the line here.

EmmaLiz @25: Gold star comment! I agree it belongs in the reader advice roundup.

Skeptic @28: Unfortunately, merely flaking isn't "abuse." If people who flaked were banned from dating sites, there wouldn't be anyone left on dating sites.

For me whether 10 or 14 minutes late requires a text depends on a few factors. For an initial meeting, not texting will give a poor first impression, so LW definitely should have texted. If it's someone you know, again it depends. Are you supposed to arrive at a specific time or is it a drop-in type thing, like a group gathering at a pub, where you won't necessarily be leaving a friend hanging awkwardly alone? Do you live in a city with notorious traffic jams or unreliable public transport? (Don't text and drive, people.) Is this someone you know is bothered by lateness, or someone who themselves does not highly value punctuality? No way of knowing this about someone you haven't even met yet, and they can't have BOTH been driving, so there is no excuse for them to have not texted to say they were running 10 (or, David is correct, probably 14) minutes late.

@8 "And are dudes willing to hook up with a male-female couple really "few and far between"?"

Bi dudes? Unfortunately, yes. There is no shortage in guys wanting to bang your wife, or you. The ones who are honestly equally interested in both are not that common, contrary to popular belief.

Also, can't figure out the 14 minutes thing - is this some american thing, or an in joke? Letter edited post-comments?

I agree with the bottom-line "let it go". If you can't, though, I might have done this when I was younger: set up a fake account, lure him in, and stand him up. You've cost him exactly what he cost you, he will not know it's you, remote molecule of a chance he might learn something about his behavior.

@36 The way I understand it is this: the commentariat thinks that the LW is probably trying to make himself look good, so the assumption is that while he says "10 minutes", the couple was actually more than 10 minutes late, 14 minutes then being the latest that can be credibly rounded down to 10 minutes.

No American in-jokes that I can see. Then again, I'm not American so maybe I'm missing an in-joke.

@32 EricaP
"curious2 @29 I consider 14 minutes late 'on time' if the person is waiting for me in their home. Showing up on time seems to freak hosts out when they were still straightening up."

It's true, and of course they're freaked out; when being "14 minutes late" is the societal norm, being on time is being early.

The thoughtful factors you (and @34 BiDanFan) point out make sense. And this societal norm ain't going away, so I guess I need to just accept this lateness thing. Even though it's not super convenient because sometimes people ARE on time so I ALWAYS am just in case (which I guess is my hangup).

@36 and @38, no American joke, just David pointing out how people often blur the truth when they're saying something negative about themselves. So they were really probably closer to 15 minutes late, but rounded it down to 10 so they wouldn't seem as much at fault for this situation as they most likely were.

@36, 38 & 40; yes, that's where I was coming from about 14 versus 10 minutes. Most LWs try to make themselves look like the aggrieved party, especially when the LW ignores their own mis-steps (being late, not apologizing). So they likely also fudged the numbers on how late they were.

@34, BiDanFan, Yeah, IT'S AN INITIAL MEETING. I can now show up 14 minutes late to work, on occasion. Can't do that for a job interview. (Shouldn't cry, lie, or talk about how much you like beer, either!).

As to whether many bi-guys or any straight guys would be up for this, it's unclear what the proposed activities are. Both fuck her at the same time (DP or Dan's and Terry's "spit-roasting")? They'll get more takers among straight guys. Get fucked by or suck him off? Yeah, too high a bar for most all straight dudes. But between their assholery and social cluelessness, I suspect the bigger issue is how they've written their post and the initial chatting via texts. Most of us are perceiving them as assholes, rightly or wrongly, because that's how they come across through the Internet pipes, so higher-grade dudes with better options aren't going to bite.

Yasunori @36: The 14 minutes comes from DavidinKenai's comment @7, which we all seem to think hit the nail on the head with respect to this selfish LW.

Curious2 @39: In my party hosting experience, if you say the party starts at 8pm, one person will show up at 7:55 and the rest will begin to arrive at 9. :)

@biju #2: Better the letter than just going ahead with the retaliation.

Retaliation against the 100% of people with whom I arranged OKCupid dates who stood me up over a six month period literally never occured to me as a potential course of action until I read this letter. And I'd argue that I had even more reason to be annoyed, given the total lack of sex partners versus a lack of ADDITIONAL sex partners on some occasions. So, clearly, some people are more prone to antisocial behavior than others, and encouraging the more-prone to seek out checks on that behavior is a very good thing IMO.

@LavaGirl #27: There is, but it's called "The Game" and just serves to make society worse.

@41
Yeah, most activities you describe don't really require a bisexual partner, so i suspect there's the difference you're not seeing. Statistically bisexual men are really rare, look it up.
Because you (and most others) went to build on that assumption, (and on a really weird someone else's assumption about 14 minutes) and holy fuck it went places.
I mean, it really looked to me as if i missed some crucial part of the letter or it got edited after the comments or something.

I guess I don't understand the controversy here.

The couple is not looking for any man who is interested in a three way. They are specifically looking for a BI man- they are looking on Grindr and on kink sites specifically which would eliminate either straight men (on the one) or vanilla men (on the other). We can assume then that they want both MM and MF action in their MMF.

So I'm not aware that bi men are rare- there are rather a lot of them, though many (like the man in this letter presumably) might not be out. Right? And I'd assume that plenty of bi men (like plenty of straight men and plenty of gay men) would be down for a threesome. Right?

Sure, the pool of bi men is probably smaller than the pool of straight men or even the pool of gay men, but surely a bi man down for an MMF is not "few and far between"???