I love the answers to this so let me give you two scenarios
1. The chat rooms.
I have chatted with girls (no really I have, properly chatted with words and everything) and had a right giggle lots of flirting and then we have gone to cams and the convo has ended, not even a fire or personal emergency, just cancelled and the person has swapped rooms. Now I know I am not Tom Cruise and if fairness I am chilled with that but I am also considered handsome with a cute smile (hey you have to grab every compliment). For me to just drop and run tells me two things, a) she should really have just hired a movie if she wanted one of the top 10 hottest blokes on the planet, and b) she really is not very nice because that behavior is rude (I expect it of a young bloke) - now because of the wisdom of my years (woot 37 and still burning it at both ends) it is now just water offf a ducks back but when I was younger that would have been pretty brutal.
So I think looks are a big part of a womans decision making than they care to admit when meeting for the first time.
In alot of examples women will know a person for a long time just as a colleague or a neighbour and that time as a friend removes the looks fact as the women sees the real guy, I am sorry to say that but I think women are no different from guys on this.
2. History (Cal's history)
I dated a few girls in school, some stunning some not, but each one was a beautiful person. I know that they liked me for me, the good and the bad. There were a couple of girls though that while we spent 24/7 together just wanted to be friends, I was a bit of a duckling back then but 'had a nice personality' anyway long story short, the amount of 'hellos can we get together' mail i have had from friends reunited and facebook' with those girls now seeing a swan and wanting to see if it could have worked has amazed me, about 20 now. In honesty it would be a nice ego boost if those things gave me an ego boost and maybe it should frustrate me but really with experience comes an understanding that people are often just at a different place in there life sometimes.
Overall I think it really does depend on what you want out of life and where you are at that moment. For me it is nice to be with a younger women because they are less cynical about life, are more excited about experiencing new things, are interested in learning about how to be good, no i mean bad, no i mean good at being bad.
Right time for my