Each week, local "women about town" Anjl Rodee and Marilynn Mee answer OnMilwaukee.com readers' questions about relationships, romance and whatever else is on your mind. They point out that this column is "for entertainment purposes only," but they mostly say that so they don't get sued. Send your questions to Anjl and Marilynn at anjlandmarilynn@staff.onmilwaukee.com.

Dear Anjl and Marilynn,

I met a very cool girl online and we made a date to meet. It was nothing heavy, just a middle-of-the-afternoon meeting at a public place. We planned it two weeks in advance and everything was going great. But then the day before she sent a message full of flowery excuses about how she had to work and how she didn't have any money and that her car had a flat. Is this just an excuse to avoid the date? Is this a girl avoiding confrontation or am I being oversensitive? I haven't written her back yet, what should I do?

Dear SWPM no D/D games or STDs,

Marilynn Mee: Ha. Welcome to the world of online dating. Been there, done that, got a few T-shirts. Whether you meet someone at a dating site, myspace or facebook or wherever, sometimes you're just left hanging. And since you don't know the person very well, you never know what to make of it.

Anjl Rodee: For some reason, it seems people feel a little less obligated to be socially correct than they would if they'd actually met in person.

MM: And because of that, when you meet somebody online you just can't take it personally. Maybe she really did just wake up that day and all of a sudden had no money and a flat tire. Or maybe her face broke out, or she just got a bad case of the nerves.

AR: Or maybe her husband was unusually nice to her that morning so she decided not to meet you for lunch.

MM: Or perhaps her three children that she'd failed to mention all woke up with the chicken pox that morning...

AR: Heck, maybe all those excuses were real, or felt real, anyway. Sometimes a person's life can feel overwhelming, and the time just isn't right to add a new character into that delicate mix, even if she's interested.

MM: Let's talk about where to go from here. I would drop her a casual e-mail, which puts the ball in her court. Tell her you'd still like to meet her if she's up for it, and she should let you know where and when would be good for her. Leave it at that. If you don't hear back from her, then it doesn't really matter what the excuse was.

AR: My advice is to give her one and only one more chance. If the first date was this much work to get going, imagine how the rest of the relationship would go!