Is Empathy Dead In Dating?

It’s quite common to talk about the potential lack of chivalry since dating apps have taken over.  Dating is so much faster and more accessible, but I wasn’t expecting other qualities I find so important to be on the decline as well. I look for empathy, compassion and generosity as some basic qualities in people when I date.

A couple of years ago, soon after my father passed away I wrote a post as I reflected on my life at the time Link Here “Reflection”.

2 years on I find myself rushing off to another family emergency as my mother is taken unexpectedly into hospital, where she stayed for 6 weeks.  Thankfully she’s now stable and back home to begin her recovery.  I won’t go into what happened there, but the reason for this post are the reactions of people around me during this difficult time.

Just before mum was taken ill, I was happily dating, there were about 2-3 ladies that I’d met and had around 3 or 4 dates with over a period of time.

They were all going pretty well, we enjoyed each other’s company and the fact that we’d had around 4 dates was promising.  For the sake of anonymity I will all them “P” she was from Portugal, “A” American and “S” Swedish.  One of the reasons I love London is the mixture of cultures.  However this obviously didn’t affect how things worked out when the emergency struck.

When my mum was taken ill it was just after I’d come back from a meditation retreat where no phones were allowed (no signal anyway if you wanted to it was so remote).  An amazing time, but on my return I get a call from my brother.  Mums been rushed into intensive care.

Obviously at this point all focus in my life was directed towards hospital and family communication.  Any other communications with friends, social and other plans were immediately dropped as the emergency unfolded.

When I was able I would text or meet P, A and S just to explain what was happening, apologise for my lack in communication and also obviously further dates, but assured them things would be back to normal as soon as mum was better.  I didn’t expect her recovery to last 6 weeks, but nevertheless I did my best to keep them posted so they didn’t think I was being rude.

This was the response I got from these dates during this time.

Lady P.

Ohh my god I nearly lost my Sh$t…

Lady A

Hmm okay…..

Lady S

Who I was the closest with, we’d had some great dates and she out of everyone was kept up to date with what was happening.  Texted while I was away on holiday, after mum was out of Intensive Care, I just had to get away. She basically just started to cut communication then finally….

Not only on text, but while I was on holiday, I mean cooooommmmeeee oooonnnnn!!!

I’ve never had such outcomes en masse while dating, so clearly the fact that I was absent both in person and communication due to focusing on the family, must have been the root cause of all these coming to a very swift end within a very short space of time.

Lady A actually said

To which I replied

That’s when she walked away as she deemed that too much of an inconvenience to her.

So back to the point of this post.  Where has people’s understanding, compassion and empathy gone?  Is that how they would want to be treated should their last remaining parent be taken ill?

Is this possibly just a city thing where people are so pressured that all feelings and understanding fall by the wayside as soon as they are inconvenienced by others?  They walk away rather than rally around to help?

It’s certainly not what I expected from these dates, but maybe it’s a blessing in disguise that I didn’t go any further with these ladies.

What do you think? Have you ever experienced this happening when you had to deal with something in your life and your dates just seemed to ditch and run?  Please leave your thoughts below.