Did you get a response from her back when you said you would email her midweek?

You said you gave your final details, has she given you any final details? Like where you will meet? If you do not have that, she should have told you WHEN she would provide that and how.

Question, are you paying her for this public meeting for coffee or whatever? If you are i would think she would be Johnny on the spot with a response(its easy money).

Comment, if at any time she felt like the appointment was too much hassle, she may have just decided to stop all communication and move on.

I personnaly have never waited longer than 24 hours for a response of any kind.

Peaceful - I agree with you for those that have seen ladies and have the referrals. It is unfortunate, but for those that don't have the referrals and still want to see quality, "well-reviewed", ladies - there are some inevitable hurdles. Hence, I am not in 100% agreement with your comments on the rest of your post (as a general rule I do agree more than disagree - just that the newbie aspect creates more grey areas IMHO.)

NetDog - real simple, you are handling this mostly from emails (or so it seems.) Call her, leave a message. "Hi, this is X, we have been exchanging some emails and I was wondering if you received my last email about Y. As you know, I am fairly new and obviously eager to meet you. Just wanted to make sure we are still on for Z (details of public meeting)."

Give hobby phone number if you have one, if not - get one. My trac phone is a piece of shit, but does offer the benefit of no unwanted bills on my credit card. Give email addy if this is all you have, she already has that info. If she does not respond to your message within a day of leaving voicemail, then she is probably not going to respond, so move on. Scenario, you double book due to lack of timely response, she then responds, be honest, "I'm sorry, I didn't think you were still interested so I made some other plans. I would still love to see you, can we reschedule."

Meeting in public place is good start. If you are not paying for that time as part of your agreement with this lady, then remember to tip her for the inconvenience and extra step she is taking outside her nomal SOP. Don't forget to ask her if she would be willing to give you a referral herself.

Honestly, I would send her a message (or as coyote suggests, a voice mail) saying:

"If I don't hear back from you by 5PM today, I'll assume that you have scheduling issues and will not be able to make our Saturday date. Feel free to email me any time if you wish to reschedule our meeting, but I will make other plans for this weekend if I don't hear from you by 5pm today."

go ahead explore your other options, she sounds like a pain in the ass to deal with. first she says rs2k is enough then it isnt. i would have moved on at that point to be honest.

I agree.

It isn't that uncommon for providers to ask for datecheck or rs2k PLUS references. I agree that it's totally overkill but I guess RS2K doesn't really tell them whether you are a good guy or not.

I totally agree, you are having all kinds of luck aren't you ND?

ND - Just to be clear - I am making the huge assumption you are going to encounter the same pitfall of referral requirements for those other options you mentioned, given your relative newness to this. This is why I am suggesting you call her, before going on. Hard to believe and. IMHO way overly used as an excuse, - but some RL people, providers and hobbyists included, have computer issues.

I am sure by now you have seen TOFTF, but it may come down to you having to TOFY (take one for yourself.) Take advantage of the seach features on RS2K - I don't belong so not sure, but most of those sites let you include "newbie freindly" as part of your search criteria.

thats not a cure either ive noticed alot of the "newbie friendly" ladies are newbie friendly because no vet is going to go near them either because of personal issues or they are just outright a pain to deal with.

Thanks for the advice. I actually heard back from her late last night and though there was a small wrench tossed into the works (needing to reschedule on her part). We are back on. I'll let you know how it goes.

I guess I was lucky when I returned to hobbying. I am quite serious now, - what suggestion would you have as I hear this scenario a lot? I certainly do not want to continue to give bad advice. But just saying "move on" is bit vague (no offense intended.) He already joined a referral, screening site - he does not have references, and we both know the perils of giving too much personal info.

To ND - don't forget to bring up her giving you a referral after your session either.

Thanks and definately plan on it.