Personally, I can’t recall if this has ever been done:
- Man confesses romantic / sexual interest to woman
- Woman politely declines
- Man lets it go and goes on with his life
How about Andrew Lincoln’s character in Love Actually? He was the best man at the wedding in the beginning of the movie who confessed his love for Keira Knightley’s character at her front door. She kissed him and he appeared to have moved on (although he was hanging around her and her husband in the airport scene at the end of the movie, so it’s up to you to decide if he moved on).
Didn’t this happen with Laurie (male) and Jo in Little Women? I think I recall him proposing to her and then eventually going on to marry her sister Amy when Jo says they would be better off as friends.
This pretty much happens in Men In Black: our hero Will Smith thinks Linda Fiorentino is flirting with him, relays that he’s totally interested; she corrects him, and he of course gets right back to doing his job and keeping things casual and professional with her.
Shakespeare did it in Much Ado About Nothing.
BEATRICE
Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the
world but I, and I am sunburnt; I may sit in a
corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband!
DON PEDRO
Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.
BEATRICE
I would rather have one of your father's getting.
Hath your grace ne'er a brother like you? Your
father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.
DON PEDRO
Will you have me, lady?
BEATRICE
No, my lord, unless I might have another for
working-days: your grace is too costly to wear
every day. But, I beseech your grace, pardon me: I
was born to speak all mirth and no matter.
DON PEDRO
Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best
becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in
a merry hour.
BEATRICE
No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there
was a star danced, and under that was I born.
Cousins, God give you joy!In Agatha Christie’s first Tommy and Tuppence novel, the American millionaire with a kidnapped cousin (a) bankrolls the investigation, and (b) proposes to Tuppence; she politely turns him down, and he takes it so well that Tommy thinks she said yes. Said millionaire of course spends the rest of the book continuing to help our heroes solve the mystery before parting on amicable terms and happily marrying someone prettier.
It happens in “All’s Fair”, an episode of Numb3rs: Charlie meets up with an old girlfriend. They hook up, even, but when he expresses an interest in getting back together permanently, she turns him down. They both move on.
This happens in Above The Law. Street dude walks up to Pam Grier and hits on her, Pam Grier flashes her badge and says “You’ve got three seconds, and two are up.” He says “Whoa, well lady cops need boyfriends too, but you have a good day just the same” and walks off.
Also, in two of the Cherry Ames books (sort of like Nancy Drew, but about a nurse who also solves mysteries) she turns down marriage proposals from a couple of guys. They move on. She wanted to focus on her career. I think that’s pretty advanced for the 1940’s.
Is that how things played out in Shogun? I don’t recall whether the pilot & the samurai’s wife ever got it on, but I know he ended up not with her.
I don’t know how serious it was, but James Bond seemed to put the question to Moneypenny on a fairly regular basis, although they’ve changed that in the reboot.
The first measure of Keith Roberts’ story cycle Pavane (The Lady Margaret) has a scene pretty much like this - it isn’t as ‘pat’ as described here, though. The man (Jesse Strange) is devastated by being turned down and, though he goes on to build a huge and successful transport empire, remains lonely and embittered for the rest of his life.
In Poul Anderson’s novel The Rebel Worlds, Katherine McCormac rejects Dominic Flandry’s love and he goes on to have quite a career in the following novels.
Kirk, to Uhura, in the 2009 version of Star Trek. Granted, he never had a shot because of Spock, but still. Also, I don’t know that it really counts that Kirk continues to express an interest in every single female he sees (so we can add Carol Marcus… for now…). Then again, maybe he’s the ULTIMATE guy who got turned down because it happens ALL THE TIME.
The pilot and the samurai wife definitely got together and it was becoming an open secret. They were heading for an official relationship but other factors got in the way
Also, Julian Bashir and Jadzia Dax in Deep Space 9. He was nowhere near a bad enough boy for her.
Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) falls in love at first sight and pines for Mary Swanson (Lauren Holly) in Dumb and Dumber, but doesn’t seem especially bummed out when she’s reunited with her kidnapped husband at the end of the movie.
I read a bio essay on Michael Bloomberg awhile back. In his youth he was quite the ladies’ man, apparently, and once told a friend he had no compunction about walking up to beautiful women and asking, “Would you like to fuck?”
A friend asked him, “Don’t you get slapped a lot?”
Bloomberg said, “Yeah, but I get laid a lot, too.”
He doesn’t really “let it go,” though - he ends up with her Trill successor, Ezri Dax.
Gunther in the last episode of Friends.
I vaguely remember some last conversation with Rachel. Remind us what happened, please?
:: wipes a tear from his eye ::
That was… that was beautiful, man.