Back when I was doing a fair amount of internet dating, I would have first dates with men with whom I had very enjoyable conversations, but felt no attraction to. They left the date thinking everything was terrific, and I left it thinking “What a nice guy. Such a pity…”
In such a case, saying you’re not interested doesn’t seem sufficient. You had a delightful first date, so it just seems too weird that you would do an apparent 180 and say you weren’t interested. I usually phrased it as “There just wasn’t any magic” or “I didn’t feel any spark.” I would have been perfectly willing to spend more time with these guys, but knew quite well that I would never be interested in a non-platonic way, and I didn’t want to waste their time on something that would never happen.
BTW, I’m sure the reverse happened too, but in that case, the guy would simply never ask me out again, so it wasn’t an issue.
So was I being insensitive or egotistical? I honestly want to know. Not that I’m doing the internet dating thing anymore, but I’m curious. I certainly didn’t mean to be. I knew that what I was doing would hurt a little, but I always figured better a tiny hurt now than a big hurt later.
I for one would like to get the specific reason when I get turned down, so I think you should be grateful for her response. I don’t want someone to be cruel, but I could handle a specific reason better than that vague, “Thanks, but not thanks”. I’m still wondering what it was about me, on my first date with a guy, before we’d even sat down with our drinks and before I’d even had a chance to say more than 20 words, that he found so off-putting that he never called again…he was called away after 30 minutes by a family emergency, and I still don’t know if that was real or a set-up. He’d seen my puictures, we’d spoken many times on the phone…what was it about me that he couldn’t deal with for 20 more minutes? A specific reason would be nice to know. So don’t complain.
I think she was out of line with that comment, she could have phrased things more tactfully.
On the other hand, it’s probably a good thing that you two didn’t move forward in this “relationship”-- this woman doesn’t even realize that you can’t tell how attracted you’ll be to someone physically until you actually meet them.
Some years ago, a new guy arrived at my work. He was Pierce-Brosnan handsome. All the women were drooling over him (or at least admiring his looks). I would get weak-kneed just looking at him from a distance.
During Christmas season, we had a staff party. He asked me to dance. I accepted of course. Then I smelled his scent. I was totally repelled by it. It wasn’t a dirty smell, just not something I could identify, but I was so totally turned off that I never saw him in the same way again.
The following year, he moved in with another woman on staff, and oddly enough, she is another person whose smell bothered me.
On the other hand, I’ve sometimes been physically attracted to guys who are in no way my type, I’ve felt my pulse quicken at the sound of a man’s voice, for instance, and would have been ready to go ahead and… whatever.
JThunder, I hope you find a woman with more common sense and who is totally attracted to you (and vice-versa). Hang in there!
I’m going to disagree with most previous posters, because personnally, in the same situation, I’d rather know what the problem is (I’m assuming here I intend to go on searching another potential date). “I’m not interested” doesn’t help much. “You seem to be too immature”, “I’m not physically attracted”, “I don’t think we share enough interests”, “I do not intend to date someone who hasn’t a stable situation”, etc… can be a helpful hint.
Should one automatically assume that everyone wants to know what the problem is, though? I don’t think that’s a fair assumption to make.
It’s one thing to say, “I’d rather know if the other person feels no physical attraction.” It’s quite another thing to say, “We should notify the other person that we’re rejecting them because we don’t feel any such attraction.”
All that this is saying is that the two cannot communicate.
If one wants to be efficient, why not stop emailing him? This will save time a-plenty. It’s happened to me, and I never wrote back, and vice versa. I never got a second email from anybody that I never responded to.
Also, nobody is being helped by being told what their problem is. Esp on a dating site.
I vote for censuring JThunder’s respondent for rudeness!
I’m one of those women who are defending her (or defending a single statement of hers relayed via message board ).
When I was dating, I heard several times that it would have been better to be more honest in that kind of situation. This was confusing to me, because I thought “Thanks, but no thanks” was pretty good in the honesty department, also with high marks for tact. I suspect what people often meant by “more honest” was “more specific.” All I can say is that I encountered it several times, as well as many of my women friends. Maybe we’re the only people who have experienced it, I don’t know.
I have also heard men say, about women other than me, that they wish the woman would have been “more honest.” And these aren’t jerks, or dolts – they’re guys who are my friends, so I don’t think they have any major character flaws and I can only assume they are being truthful.
So the idea that it is better to be specific in your honesty is definitely out there in the dating world. You obviously don’t prefer it, but it’s not as if it’s coming out of left field.
She also might be giving you the courtesy of treating you the way she would like to be treated. If someone doesn’t feel a spark, perhaps she would rather know that was the issue as opposed to something she could have done differently, say wear high heels or chew with her mouth closed.
I consider it rude to ever go into details when giving a rejection, unless the person actually asks for it, so in that sense I agree she was rude.
This type of thing is why I always prefer it when the guy ignores me on a dating site if he’s not interested. It’s disappointing to see you have new mail only to discover that it’s just a rejection letter…and if they’re rude about it like this, it adds insult to injury.
However, as a woman, I definitely have to agree there is a difference between “I’m not attracted” versus “You’re not attractive” (perhaps this is a difference in how men and women view the opposite sex?).
I think MaddyStrut’s post above about the guy who looked like her brother is a great example of the phenomenon. There are a lot of guys who I consider good-looking, but for one reason or another the idea of actually doing anything physical with the guy just doesn’t thrill me. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with him, just like there’s nothing necessarily wrong with a guy whose personality doesn’t mesh with mine. Sometimes it’s just a mystery “chemistry” problem.
Well, because maybe she really did enjoy his friendship. See, women have this odd thing where they might actually enjoy you as a person, and have absolutely no interest in you romantically - men, I understand - find this difficult to understand and often live with the “Harry Met Sally” belief.
A number of us het type males actually do like and get the platonic female friend model. What we as a group do not like is ambiguity in a relationship, be it platonic or otherwise. And while some of the female end of it may well be core ambiguity, much of it is a lack of communication.
So I prefer the direct approach myself, and frankly, the usual passive/aggressive, dragitoutforweeksandgodforbidwegiveadirectstatement approach favoured by some women is just punitive and frustrating. Not that men ever do this too. :rolleyes:
Besides, you can always file her away in the “tell her to fuck off if she actually does express interest in you in the future” … it can be strangely satisfying when the roles flip around.
Rejection is not supposed to be pleasant, and it is alright to be hurt by it, and also alright to be more concerned about being clear and direct, rather than needlessly cruel by excessive tact.
Well, if you go by the responses in this thread, it appears that the majority of posters DO believe that “Thanks, but no thanks” is an adequate response UNLESS the man asks for more details.
I guess I never dated anyone in this thread, because that doesn’t match my own experience, which is really all I have to offer. But it does make me wonder if there is a bit of a Catch-22 for some people … being turned down for a date isn’t fun (as I know), so the same man who thought “thanks but no thanks” was too vague would have also thought “thanks, but no thanks, I’m not feeling the attaction” was too blunt.
Perhaps, but we’re not talking about situations like that. We’re talking about situations where the guy merely makes the initial move. Pestering the woman or making unruly comments is another matter altogether.
But you don’t know what her past situations have been like…do you? I mean, maybe you ought not blame the girl, but blame the clueless jerks who asked her out before you and made her think bluntness was the only response that was going to work.
If the woman assumes that all men are like these particular “clueless jerks,” then she’s a bit of a clueless jerk herself.
I think that if the genders were reversed – if a man were to assume that every woman who expressed interest in him was a shrill, whiny bitch, for example – then I think he would be immediately lambasted for such behavior. If a woman chooses to paint men with a similarly broad brush, then she deserves to be chided as well.
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