Well, see…I guess that’s the difference between men and women. If I asked a guy out repeatedly and got these responses, I’d have caught on at about #2. The promising social exchanges I’ve been involved in would involve "I’m really very busy tonight (this week, this month) but I’m free after the 21st. Give me a call., or I’ll be out of town until the 16th. Give me your number and I’ll call you when I return." If someone repeatedly came off as being busier than the President of the free world, they’re either trying to let me down gently or they really will never have time for me. She never gave him the slightest hint of recripocal interest. She didn’t ask for his number. She didn’t offer hers. She didn’t substitute a do-able date. She didn’t seek out his company for so much as a cup of coffee in the cafeteria.
Her responses were obvious attempts to let this guy down without hurting his feelings. That’s the way it’s done in polite society. Sure, she could have chosen other ways to say it, but she chose these phrases and they’re perfectly understandable as a “no, thank you” response to someone asking her out. His being totally clueless doesn’t make it any easier to put the rude on him. Besides, as I recall, this isn’t just the third or fourth attempt. He’s been doing this for a long time.
He’s possibly one of the sorts of people who thinks that anything except a ‘no’ is not a ‘no’. So say ‘thanks for the offer, but really I do not want to have lunch with you’ and be done with it.
I do think it’s not necessary to be brutally honest; however sometimes if a person persists beyond all reason, it’s time to use stronger language and a firmer tone.
Obviously, there’s an upper limit on the number of times on the intelligence of a man based on the number of times he’s received this response before he gives up. Personally, in the past it’s probably taken as many as 4 or 5 times from the same girl before, not because I was desperate or trying to harrass her, but because each time the response would be different, “Sorry, I have to work” “Sorry, I have family in town” “Sorry, I already have plans with some friends”, yadda yadda.
Simply put, as I’ve noticed from my own relationships, women are more likely to speak in undertones, and more likely to assume them; men are generally the opposite. A woman says “I’m sorry, I can’t tonight.” when the undertone is that she’s completely uninterested… Similarly (sorry, I can’t think of an example right now), I’ve been accused of “saying” things to a girlfriend, because I said something plainly (and meant it plainly), but where undertones COULD be pulled out if you were specifically looking for them.
I’ll admit, a dozen or more times is definitely bad, and he’s really pushing the stupidity limit; BUT, he could just NOT be picking up those signals and REALLY think the conversations are going well.
I don’t discredit your story at all, chances are he’s a creep, but at the same time, it’s hard for me to assume he’s necessarily a creep because I’ve REALLY been that clueless. As an example, although from the opposite side…
There was a girl who was pressed on me for quite some time and would ask me out here and there, which I would politely refuse; she’d give up for a while, and try again a few weeks or months later. We maintained a decent friendship the whole time. One night, as part of a small party, she came over with some of my other guy friends. She was all “dolled up”, gave me a big hug, sat next to me on the couch, and proceeded to lean against me and lay her head on my shoulder. I TRULY, HONESTLY, didn’t think anything of it, and had hell to pay after the party from my brothers because they thought I was being a jerk and leading her on. My perspective: she was dressed up because she was going out, gave me a hug because we’re friends and that’s what I’m used to girls doing as my friend, and she was tired which was why she laid her head on my shoulder. Of course, it’s all obvious to me now… in hindsight, and not being as naive when it comes to how women operate.
I actually have a friend who was being stalked to the point she got a restraining order against him, and he kept sending her letters and showing up at her house because the restraining order was just her “playing hard to get”… I kid you not. Granted, that’s an extreme case, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.
I agree with you though, women shouldn’t have to be mean, but it would prevent a lot of these issues if they wouldn’t beat around the bush either. However, if a guy DOES get to this level of stupidity, you really should be willing to get “not nice”. For instance, let’s say he keeps this up even after you bluntly say “No thanks, I’m not interested, please stop asking.” You don’t have to be mean, but you can certainly stop being nice: “Look, you’re really making me uncomfortable. Please stop, or I’ll have to file a report with the [insert appropriate authority figure here].” It’s not nice, it’s not mean, it’s assertive.
The problem is, whether you’re sending mixed messages or not, whether it’s deliberate or not, you’re still going to be a victim of the perception that women send mixed messages, and men are going to be generally more persistent because of it.
That is a key difference, largely because you’re probably a lot less likely to get that sort of response from a guy. At least when I’ve tried to let someone down easily, it was foolishly always “because” of something, when it really should have just been no… for instance “I can’t, you used to date one of my friends” or “I’m not comfortable dating someone who lives so far away”. While those cases are true, had I REALLY been interested in them, I probably would have been willing to let those things go or I would. I even remember one case where I said no because she wasn’t my type, so she lost weight and joined the track and field team (I used to participate in throwing events in high school) I suppose assuming that my type was someone thin who was into sports.
Yes, this guy is thick as the wall of a nuclear bunker, but everything that has been done makes the assumption that he’s getting the undertone. Just the opposite of the example above, I explicitly said to this girl “No, you’re not my type”, but the undertone she read (which wasn’t intended by me), was that if she could somehow become my type, I might be interested.
That may be the “way it’s done in polite society”, but that doesn’t mean that everyone is necessarily familiar with the same customs that you are. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending him, he certainly should have figured it out after, oh, the 20th time or so, and so he deserves the pitting if, for nothing else, being galatically stupid. I’m simply saying, please PLEASE dispense with the beating around the bush.
That reminds me of part of the first sonnet from Astrophil and Stella, which has stuck in my memory for some reason ever since we learned it in undergrad:
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show
That the dear she might take pleasure in my pain
Pleasure might make her read, reading might make her know
Knowledge might pity win, and pity, grace obtain.
So, she’ll read it if it’s pleasing to read - she’ll know about his love if she reads about it - knowing about his love might make her pity him - pitying him might lead to her returning his love. :dubious:
About the OP - I am one who avoids conflict like the plague, which means I’ll try to be obvious about my disinterest in someone without actually coming out and saying anything. Actually, one of my friends right now is having this sort of trouble - one of the guys we know is really into her, and she’s been dropping hints that she’s not interested - hints that to her (and to me) seems pretty obvious, but apparently not to him. Sometimes such hints work, but when they don’t, there’s really no other way but to tell him directly that you’re not interested.
Clueless Guy #47 checking in here. I’m going to do this post in two parts:
In general.
I am very, very bad at picking up social cues. I have been all my life. I don’t pick up on facial gestures, tone of voice, that sort of thing. Only recently have I grasped some of the body language things, e.g. shifting position might mean the person wants to get up and leave. So if I get a rejection with a logistical reason, I simply do not have the capability to discern whether that really is the reason, or if she’s not interested. (Side note: Kalhoun makes a good point. A logistical rejection followed by a substitute is a clear sign of interest. But without that substitute, there’s no way of knowing for certain unless you can pick up on the cues.)
Believe me, I want that capability. A lot. It would make my life loads easier. But experience has proven time and again that I do not have it, no matter what I do to try to get it. Maybe someday a switch will flip, or I’ll look up and realize I’ve got it. Until that day, I need something clearer. A simple, “Sorry, I’m not interested” is perfect. It gets the point across without being rude and without bringing in any confusion as to the cause.
you with the face’s creepy guy.
This yahoo is, as has been said, galactically stupid. What I said above applies to the first few rejections. After that, it should be clear that - no matter what the reason - it’s not going to happen. I admire his persistence, but to continually repeat the same behavior and expect different results is insanity.
I am appalled that Kalhoun thinks lying is an acceptable solution to the problem that the OP references. You are as thick and clueless as the creep in question if you do not accept that the only way out is an honest, straight forward no. A lie would come across as just another excuse to this creep, and he would persist. A firm “No” would likely solve the problem, and if it didn’t, YWTF could bring the matter to her HR department.
You keep saying that that YWTF is not comfortable with being so blunt. She is not comfortable with his constant advances either. A single “no” would be easier then twenty more “Sorry, I’m busy” responses. It will take a lot of courage and confidence that she likely does not have, but it would be in her best interest.
Do not encourage her to lie, and take the easy way out. It most likely won’t work. She will not gain any confidence from lying. If it does get him off her back, he may try again a few months latter. A firm “no,” no matter how hard it is for her to say, will work. It will be a boost to her confidence when it does, and should he make any further advances, HR will support her.
I would have opened a pit thread about this, but two threads is enough for this subject.
Why should ywtf worry about sparing the creep’s feelings? He doesn’t seem to care much about hers, if he keeps bugging her. Lying isn’t going to help in this case. Blunt truth–no thanks, I’m not interested–is the only recourse. A complaint to HR is also a great idea.
Politeness is a wonderful thing and we should all strive for it. There are times, though, when it has no place. This is one of those times.
As someone who has been in a situation where I started taking someone out, chatting her up, and progressing on to some feeling about, to then have it announced one day that she wishes she could get this one other guy to ask her out…
Yes, please don’t try for the subtle hint thing. If you’ve been letting me feel you up for two weeks, and are wondering why your subtle hints aren’t getting through, there is probably a reason for this. (I.e. one “maybe” followed by eight "okay!"s just really doesn’t fall under the category of being a hint.)
Establish clear walls, and be honest in stating why someone must stop what they are doing if they try crossing that wall. Don’t be rude, of course, but do be honest and be firm.
I hate to hijack, but I have never understood why, if a person wants to go out with someone, they then make out, etc., with someone else. I mean, if it’s something to do while waiting for Mr./Ms. Right, OK, but I still don’t really get that either, but maybe that is because of how I think about dating and sex (which apparently is really weird). I’ve always been wary of asking people who do this, for fear of getting an answer that will further undermine my already shaky faith in human nature.
Well this probably wasn’t a case of what you’re thinking of. Saying “I wish that guy would ask me out” was from her vantage a subtle hint for me to stop my advances. We weren’t to the stage of making out, but more things like me sliding my hand over her behind and such.
But, while true that she should have stopped me from putting my hand on her butt, I never had actually asked her out, assuming that my intentions were understood and that I was being blatant enough in my interest. So you could just as easily say that I never gave her a chance to explicitly say no. (Lesson learned and so on.)
There could be another explanation for youwiththeface’s creepy guy. Perhaps he has totally accepted that ywtf will never go out with him, but he enjoys just asking her. Perhaps he thinks of it as innocent flirting, which is it’s own reward, and he thinks ywtf sees it that way too.
Hollywood has a pattern for this too; the beautiful friendly young woman who has regular flirt-routines with doormen, grocers and the guy at the newsstand or coffee-cart.
"Oh hey there miss Gilmore ! Here’s your coffee, just as you like it!
“Why thank you Honkins ! If you keep making coffee this good, I might have to take you up on that offer of marriage you keep making me!”
As an ex-single, I can say that I personally would much rather have had a straight and truthful “No” and possibly a reason that might have helped me improve my approach for the next hot young thing I was interested in approaching. One alternative I was offered was to be asked to let her think about it, and then several days later when I asked if she had thought, a stammered excuse about “Er… I don’t go out with men from work”, which was patently bullshit since: [list=a]if true, she could have said so at the first time of asking, and [li]within a few weeks, she was… well, you fill in the blank. :rolleyes:[/list][/li]
Hey, as long as I’m a bumbling social inept, I might as well be given some helpful feedback as some return on the emotional investment of setting myself up for being rejected again.
I’m surprised at the way conflict avoidance is defended here, whereas in most threads it’s condemned as passive-agressive bullshit.
If hints like, “Sorry, no time tonight,” are obvious enough to be understood after one or two times, as was argued above, then the hints must be just as confrontational as the polite and honest phrases, “No thanks,” and, “No, really, no thanks.” But they’re not as obvious, and this sort of confrontation avoidance results in leading the guy on. Leading the guy on for the number of times it takes for the truth to sink in, which is at least three times. Then, when the truth sinks in, it’s not just about dealing with the rejection anymore. It’s also become about the shame of having been obtuse, of having been led on, and about the fact that his assesment of the girl’s opinion, which he values highly, has plummeted from she might like me downto not only neutral but even to what a creep. It’s hardly surprising that some guys will react to this cognitive dissonance by clinging to a literal interpretation of the hints as a rationalization.
Think of that what you will, but it’s simply not true that this hinting is about trying not to hurt the guy. It’s about the girl’s feelings at the expense of the guy’s feelings. The girl wants to reject the guy without owning the rejection. That’s passive-agressive.
This guy either has a serious mental malfunction or he’s been on a very short, sheltered leash all his life. These are queues you should recognize from a very early age.
She hasn’t led him on.
She hasn’t responded in a warm, inviting way.
She’s repeated, many times, that she has no time for him in her life.
What’s not to get?
If she’s uncomfortable with the smack down, then she is! She certainly doesn’t owe him an increase in *her own discomfort * just so a lightbulb will go on six months after the switch was tripped. When she chooses to do it, she will. If it causes him more discomfort because someone grabbed that hookah out of his hand and forced him to breathe in a little reality, oh well. Certainly she has a right to protect her feelings, doesn’t she?
Thanks for breaking it down, Kalhoun. You must have experience with this before, huh?
I don’t see how my behavior comes even close to leading him on, guys. Leading him on would actually be taking him up on his offer, all the while knowing that I have zero romantic or platonic interest in him. Leading him on would be flirting with him and batting my eyelashes to get him to desire me, but then coyly rebuffing his attempts to get with me. None of this is going on, people! He has no reason to think I like him. I say hi to him when he says hi to me and will politely raise the corner of my lips a few milimeters when he smiles at me (I guess I’m leading him on by not scowling instead), and that’s the extent of my interaction with him.
By deflecting his advances with a polite excuse, I’m simply exercising social graces that have served me pretty well up until now. When I tell him that I eat on the go, that isn’t a lie. I generally don’t take lunch breaks. That’s not the real reason why I’m not going to have lunch with him, but it isn’t passive-agressive or dishonest to tell him that instead of being more blunt. I save bluntness for friends and family, not acquaintances in a professional setting.
Also keep in mind that he always pops the question when I’m standing in front of my suite (his suite is across the hall from mine). Usually there are people milling around. It looks classier and less embarrassing (for both of us) for me to respond with “Sorry, I don’t take lunch. Thanks for asking, though” instead of saying something like “No, sorry, but I’m not interested in having lunch with you. Why? Because you’re too old for me and I’m just not feeling you like that.” Someone overhearing the latter might walk away with a bad impression about me that they wouldn’t have if they heard me say the former.
No, I want to reject the guy in a way that will be as painless as possible for both of us. That’s not passive-agressive.
For all this talk about honesty, I have an idea most people wouldn’t be able to handle hearing it in practice. It looks good on paper, but trust me, after hearing “your face looks like a truck hit it”, “your breath stinks like dog shit”, “your dick is too small”, “you’re too dumb”, “you’re technically old enough to be my grandfather and I don’t do senior citizens” I’m sure the beauty of this so-called passive agressive subtlety would be appreciated.
If I’m doing the asking, if I’ve asked once it’s her turn. That gives her plenty of freedom to not ask and let it die, whereas if she’s interested the fact that I asked her once should be sufficient to clue her in that if she issues an invitation it will be favorably received.
If I’m the one being asked (and asked, and asked, and asked…), that’s kind of rare but the best thing is to say something serious in a light and casual way: “No thanks. It’s nothing impersonal like me being busy or it not being convenient that day, I just don’t like you.”
I personally believe, honesty is always the best policy. I may sometimes do what is called a “Jesuit lie,” but I usually try to be direct with people in situations like these.
Indeed I have, and I suck at the smack-down. Maybe it is female-conditioning-from-an-early-age-SmileSweetheart-be-nice-there’s-no-need-to-be-hurtful training. Maybe I genuinely feel that the person, while clueless and socially inept does not deserve to be hurt and humiliated. Whatever the reason, it makes me extremely uncomfortable. The smack-down is a last resort for me.
When I hear so many guys on the Dope lamenting on their unlucky love lives, I’m hoping threads like this would show them that most women aren’t cold-hearted bitches who want to stomp all over their hearts if they’re not interested. I don’t know any women who play that silly hard-to-get game. But at the same time, they don’t want to hit an unwanted overture like a linebacker at the Superbowl. There is a middle ground. It involves picking up on subtle hints that are intended to show you that while you aren’t my cup o’ tea, I still value you as a human being and don’t wish to cause you distress. If that includes an innocent fib or two (or three), I’ll choose that route over the direct dismissal every time.
Incidently, I don’t know about you, but I’m always afraid that “I’m not interested” might be interpreted as “I find you uninteresting”, and I find that to be one of the most hurtful things a person could hear about themself.
I was once accused of being mean by a guy with unrequited feelings for me. Why? Because I continually said no to him nicely. He interpreted the “niceness” as me leading him on, and the “no” as me being mean. Really, I shouldn’t have been bothered by this accusation, but it did hurt. And it made for a very awkward situation between us, since he had painted me into tight corner. Be the brutally honest bitch, or be the nice “tease”. It was no win situation, because I didn’t want to be either.
Finally, I had to get mean and be brutally honest because his craziness was driving ME crazy, and guess what happened? He had a freakin’ nervous breakdown. Just like I feared.
I didn’t ask for that. I didn’t ask to be sucked into his low self-esteem and his desperation.
You know why people lie? It’s because they’re afraid of explaining themselves. If someone asks if they can have my number and I say “no”, they usually want to know why. If I say, “I’m just not interested”, they will want to know why. Every fucking answer I give, they want to know WHY.
Their “whys” gradually strip away at my cool exterior, until I finally lose it and become Crazy Bitch. And this doesn’t happen at the club–where it’s expected that people are accepting offers for potential “hook-ups”. This happens on the subway or when I’m walking down the street, minding my own business.
I shouldn’t have to flip out on people when I’m minding my own business. If I tell you, “No, that’s alright” if you ask for my digits, YOU DON’T NEED TO KNOW WHY. But lots of these honesty-loving men don’t get this. They think they are owed an explanation. YOU ARE NOT, JERKS!
I think on a subconscious level, these kind of men use “Why?” as a way to guilt women into either being untruthful (e.g., swapping “I’m a lesbian” for “You’re too agressive and you stink”) or aquiesing to their request (I can’t think of a good reason, so I guess I’ll give him my number). And if a woman tells him why and the answer doesn’t stroke his ego enough, then he can write her off as a bitch. Whatever answer is given won’t be good enough and ends up making the woman look like the bad guy.
