She knows how to say “no”. She’s trying to be considerate and give you a face-saving way out.
Yes, i have pointed that out several times, just to be mocked for it. Big Tobacco agreed to no longer places brands in films & etc. So they started to pay just for smoking scenes to show it is cool and accepted.
It’s probably got less to do with being considerate and more to do with keeping us men from going all rage monster, but yes.
I am glad that every woman now has gotten that message, that she has to then come back with “Not Saturday but Friday next week?” if she is interested. How did that message get out?
Women can also, in theory, ask a man out, right? How’s that working out?
We’ve all known it all along. We’re not the problem.
There was a sort of second-wave herpes concern on the back (pun intended) of HIV. People who had recently contracted HIV, and already had herpes, could have the herpes suddenly rage out of control-- they might even have their first outbreak, even though they’d had it for years. Additionally, someone with herpes who had open or tender lesions was particularly vulnerable to catching HIV, due to skin that was already broken, or easily broken during intercourse.
There was also concern that people with cold sores on their mouths could catch HIV from saliva, or transmit it through discharge from a cold sore.
My mother often lamented the fading of a social convention that was always understood when she was young: the 2 times offer.
Basically, according to my mother, anyway, there was an understanding that something-- anything, an invitation, a loan, a gift, a favor, would be offered twice, then not spoken of again.
This gave the potential recipient the chance to say “No” once in order not to appear too eager or needy, or to negotiate slightly different terms while not appearing to “look a gift horse in the mouth.” “I’m busy that night,” could be the truth, and offered in hopes that the invitation would be repeated for another night, but the recipient doesn’t want to say bluntly, “Saturday works better for me,” which boils down to dictating the terms of receiving a free dinner.
The person making the offer offered twice, to make sure the “No” was for real, but not more than twice, so as not to become a nag, stalker, or just someone who couldn’t “sense when to stop”-- which not everyone does with equal grace and ease.
You could bend the rule slightly-- if you really, really needed what was being offered, to the point that you wanted to make your dire situation known, you could accept on the first offer. If you had reason to believe that an offer you were making was being refused because at one time you would not have been in a position to offer, and the potential recipient might not realize your circumstances had changed, or you really felt in someone’s debt, you could offer a third time, and make an oblique reference to your reason for persisting. But then, you REALLY had to be done.
Among all the other things this could apply to, it applied to men asking out women when the two were not an established couple. So, a woman could expect her first “No” to be countered, but if she really was not interested in the man at all, the second “No” would be honored, and she knew that, so the second offer did not annoy her, nor set off alarm bells.
Of course, this convention did not apply to immediate family, very close friends, and people who were established couples.
It seems like a convention that’s useful to me-- maybe less for dating than for other things, but still, a bad one to fade away.
‘I don’t want to go out with you’ does not equal ‘I find you utterly detestable and don’t want to be around you at all.’
I mean, that’s one reason for saying no. But it’s hardly the only one. ‘I think you’re a great coworker/fellow game player/fellow human being/whatever but I don’t want to have sex with you’ isn’t necessarily an attempt at a gentle letdown; often it’s just the plain truth.
This plus your next post about her not knowing how to say no give your take on this subject a certain … flavor that make me want to suggest that you do some close listening to women on this subject.
Women are generally raised in this society to protect male egos. Sometimes just because this is, generally, a white-straight-cis-male-ego-protecting society, but also, we get the message often that in some instances, it is fucking dangerous not to. It can be dangerous to reputation, like when a girl in school says no to a guy, and then he spreads it around that she actually said yes, or dangerous to one’s career in the case of sexual harassment, or dangerous to life and limb.
Don’t worry about giving a woman an extra “chance” to date you. If you think she may really be busy, and wishes you’d ask her again, consider that she could easily have added “but I’d love to some other time.” If you don’t re-ask, and she really wants to go out with you, then let her bring it up again.
You only say that because you don’t know me.
I remember a somewhat different version of this, though not generally applied to asking people out: if somebody offered to pay for something/give you something, you were supposed to say no twice. And they were supposed to ask you three times. The third time you were allowed to say ‘OK, I’ll take your money.’
The first time I ran into somebody who either didn’t know this convention, or pretended not to in order to get out of paying for their share of the gas, cured me permanently of using it. This whole business of trying to use words to mean their opposite just plain doesn’t work very well.
I did say that it’s one of the possible reasons. 
I can remember three occasions where I was a little coy about saying “No” to someone, because they were men I genuinely liked, would be very happy to be friends with, and might have gone out with but for one thing. However, I wasn’t about to say “I’d go out with you if…” That seemed pretty low.
In all cases, I was fairly young. One time, I was only 20, and the guy asking me out was 29, and divorced with young children. I wasn’t prepared to date a guy with kids. Particularly, one kid who was born when I was still in high school.
Another time, the guy was a Mormon, and so was his family. I’m not going to excuse that, except to say, I didn’t want anyone trying to convert me, and pretty much 95% of all interactions I’d had with Mormons involved them trying to convert me. I resigned from an interpreting gig because some Mormons present (not the Deaf people) kept trying to convert me. This guy had never tried, but he came from a big family.
The third guy was a smoker.
I have no idea how a man would react to being told “But for this one thing…” I’m sure not all men would react the same, but I can’t imagine any one being thrilled to hear it. Seems like being able to tell themselves I already have a boyfriend, am a lesbian, or just don’t know something good when it’s in front of me is preferable.
I am aware of this. I’m just saying that according to my mother, people used to care a lot more about social conventions, and it did, in fact, work.
I’m getting confused about your position here.
Your OP started off with something to the effect of, “Why do women find not taking no for an answer so romantic in movies if they claim not to like it in real life?”
Seems to put the blame squarely on women for being self - contradictory.
After some discussion you then shifted to, “It is a problem that Hollywood promotes this behavior in men.”
(Correct me if I misunderstood.)
And now you just seem to want to be able to ask women twice if they’ll go out with you.
Which suggests that the real thrust of the OP was intended to be, “Women say they don’t want to be aggressively pursued, but the movies they like say otherwise, so why shouldn’t I continue to ask women out twice?”
I don’t think there is anything wrong or particularly offensive about asking twice, assuming the first time is not an obvious ‘no’ and you’re not leering or being otherwise inappropriate. A lot of this is common sense, reading body language, and respecting other people’s boundaries. I wouldn’t suggest emulating romantic leads in rom-coms, but again, common sense.
But the underlying implication here, that women may really be lying about what they want, is a problem.
Well, not a issue, I have been married lo these last couple of decades. But back in the day when I was dating, walking away after getting a “soft no” would result in zero dates ever. All my serious dates initially gave a soft no. I am likely sadly out of date on this, which is why I asked- how did the message go out? Because it was not like that in the 70’s . Period.
I will cheerfully concede that I am quite possibly totally out of date and that the modern American liberated woman know the new rules on this. Maybe they have been the rules for decades even. But not back in the day.
Huh. Maybe I’ve just come to accept that I’m riddled with undesirable qualities, but I’d be okay with being explicitly sidelined for a specific attribute. Beats being left to conclude that the reason was that I was wholly unworthy as a human being.
Plus it’s pretty easy to make it be about you, rather than him.
“Sorry, but I’m not really ready to date somebody with kids.”
“Um, you’re a nice guy and all, but I heard from this guy begbert2 that dating a mormon when you’re not one isn’t really a good idea. Differences in religion can cause problems in a relationship.”
“Hack cough cough bleegh. Sorry, cough, I’m addicted to air. Personal problem. Been trying to kick the habit for years.”
Okay, maybe I’m not as tactful about smoking as I could be.
Reasons are, for some people, an invitation to argument and convincing.
Well, it’s over and done with. Probably most of the decisions I made from 20-25 were not good ones, but what can you do?
I concede that immediately.
Different men react differently to different things. (Almost as if we’re different people, though let’s not get ahead of ourselves.) I can totally understand choosing the path of greatest probable success with the greatest number of candidates.
Consent became a thing