Thank you for illustrating my point so clearly.
That probably means no, and depending on the situation, I might jokingly chide the person for not being straight about it. “Hah, okay. ‘No’ was a valid answer too, you know.” before leaving them alone or something. But the point is really to boil it down to a question where there’s no real question of ‘are they actually busy at that time?’ If someone doesn’t respond with at least some level of positivity to a general ‘would you be interested in going on a date at some point’ then it seems likely there’s no point pursuing that further.
In most other situations, when they give a waffly answer, a person can, if they want to, push harder until they get a definitive answer without being considered a creep. Rude, maybe, but it’s not treated as badly as someone ‘not taking no’ when asking for a date. So a person that values direct answers can generally push for one, at the risk of being considered brusque/rude, but not being portrayed as badly as in a date situation.
That plus a date is something that is much more likely to be moved to accommodate than a barbecue or graduation party. And yes, your examples are all terrible because they include a gratuitous insult. ‘Nah, not really interested, thanks for the invitation.’ is something entirely reasonable to say and that I have said.
Mere possibility (“could be”) is an absolutely useless metric.
Do you agree that some responses confer higher probability of a safe, hassle-free outcome for the woman than other responses?
Or are you actually arguing that “no thanks, I’m busy/seeing someone” and “you are pig-ugly and I would never deign to be seen with you” are likely to elicit comparably hostile responses?
There’s a scientific principle well-established in the field of neuropsychology: assholes gonna asshole. I don’t know that women have a magical incantation they can speak that will deassholify some dude committed to the asshole bit he’s been working on all his life.
So I’d rephrase what you said: “It seems like some guys are gonna be assholes no matter what the woman says.”
But there are “safer” and less safe answers - and which ones are going to be safer isn’t a “this almost always works” but a woman needs to read the situation. What works with a strange guy in a grocery store isn’t necessarily going to work for the guy you see at work all the time, or your brother’s buddy, or a drunk guy in a bar, or a guy you “met” on an online dating site that you had the bad judgement to trade email and phone numbers with (he seemed ok, and then, the misogynist bullshit started).
Complete aside but relevant - there is a Netflix movie called Moxie about high school feminists attacking the patriarchy of their high school. Its a little after school special-ly, but its also good.
Very true.
And to be egalitarian, some women are assholes too. 
“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” -Margaret Atwood
I turned down men by saying I was with someone, and for several years in the 90s, the someone was a woman. It was no less effective in shutting down future requests than times when I said I was seeing someone, and the someone was a man.
Yup.
.
And being laughed at sucks, and it can be real asshole behavior, and we can say that and simultaneously say it’s not in the same arena as the threat of violence.
A friend of mine has some body dysmorphia stuff going on and is also an OnlyFans nude model. Every now and then a guy responds to her posts by saying something like (this was the example she gave today) she’s “all jelly and no toast,” a super-shitty way of saying she’s fat.
He’s laughing at her. Given her dysmorphia, it cuts her real deep. Asshole behavior isn’t trivial behavior.
But it’s not murder.
That is exactly Atwood’s point.
Totally. I’ve sometimes seen that quote used to suggest that “being laughed at” is a stupid concern to have, sort of a “Fuck off with your worries about rejection, women worry about murder!” Anyone who equates the two needs to fuck off, but it doesn’t mean that harmful cruelty can’t exist in certain forms of rejection.
Yup Yup. This.
I’ve seen it used to illustrate the idea that men have no effing clue what women go through, which is probably true. Being laughed at is not fun, and if it weren’t a legitimate concern, rhere wouldn’t be a huge anti-bullying movement; however, there are some men with no sense of perspective on the matter. And then, there are the “men have a right to do what they want to women, but women do not have a right to do what they want to men” types, who don’t necessarily approve of murder, but do think that men have a right to behave in a threatening manner to get what they want, while a woman who does anything to bruise a male ego deserves whatever happens to her.
Yeah, definitely agree with that.
For one thing, the men you were turning down probably assumed that your ‘someone’ was a man; unless you told them specifically ‘no thanks, I’m with a woman’ that wasn’t a test of relative effectiveness.
For another thing, women who aren’t seeing anybody don’t have to accept the date either! Not everybody has to be paired off.
And using that excuse, whether or not it’s true, yet again has the additional disadvantage that it implies you would go out with the person if you were single.
Odd that would work. The logical reaction could be: “You’re having a Brazilian that day? Wonderful, I’d love to watch.”
As a matter of fact, that was the case once; I did have a guy ask me out whom I definitely would have gone out with if I hadn’t just had another relationship go from casual to serious the weekend before. I wished there were a way to say “Stay in touch in case it doesn’t work out.”
That’s actually an intentional feature - it shuts them down without implying any sort of fault or undesirability in them at all. It’s not insulting them with a rejection of them personally. You’ll note that this is a feature shared with the “I’m busy that night” excuses.
Keep in mind that the goal is to avoid discovering what they’ll do if they feel rejected.
The vast majority of adult male attention I have received occurred between the ages of 11 and, let’s say 14. I found “I’m twelve,” to be pretty effective. Maybe we should dust that one off.