I’m in the camp who thinks that someone who has gone out with you only one or two times doesn’t owe you anything, and that includes a potentially awkward conversation about feelings and emotions. It’s not passive aggressiveness (this has to be the most misused term ever); it’s simply one of many non-verbal ways of communicating disinterest.
It sounds harsh, but the reason they don’t call has nothing to do about your feelings. Ultimately it’s about their feelings, and that is perfectly fine. Not every woman relishes the thought of telling a guy they aren’t attracted to them. It ranks up there with telling a stranger that their breath stinks. Rarely is this even a neutral task; most of the time it’s associated with at least some dread and embarrassment. Add on the fact that not every guy lets such a thing just roll off his back. It can be a pain suddenly finding yourself playing defense.
So you have to ask yourself: what’s in it for that other person to voluntarily take on this obligation of telling you something that can just as easily be communicated through non-action? You say you can’t take a hint, but why is that her problem?
If a woman is really interested in you, she won’t just let you slip away. She’ll call, she’ll text, she’ll send an email, or she’ll conveniently bump into you at the bar that you frequent. If you propose a date that conflicts with her schedule, she’ll propose an alternative. If she does not do anything of this, just assume that she’s not interested and it’ll save you a lot of gray hairs. Don’t take the “busy” excuse literally. See it for what it is: a quick way of saying “I’m not interested enough in you to fit you into my life”.
Speaking for myself, I always understand “busy” to mean “no”. But what about “I’m busy, but we should do it later” or “I’m busy but I’d like to go later”? On the one hand, it’s non specific but on the other, why add that last part if you don’t want to do it later?
I agree that it’s not passive aggressiveness and that it’s not anywhere near as complex as Doug makes it out to be. But here’s a worry I have about your following comment:
“If a woman is really interested in you, she won’t just let you slip away.”
But what if she’s thinking “If a man is really interested in you, he won’t just let you slip away” and waits on her end. And after having waited a while, concludes that he’s not all that interested and moves on?
If a girl said to me, “I’m busy, but we should do it later” I would take that as a possible sign of continued interest. If she said something like, “Um, I’m busy” or “Maybe some other time” I would take it as disinterest. You really have to rely on your inherit talent for reading people. Your childhood was all practice for this moment.
This is precisely why people shouldn’t play fucking games. If you’re interested in someone, contact them. Don’t wait around to see if they’ll let you “slip away” or not.
How about, “I’m busy Friday, but how about Saturday?”
versus
“I’m busy Friday, but we should definitely get together sometime.”
The first woman is busy but wants to see you; the second woman is blowing you off and wants you off the phone.
You make the second one sound like a “no” but only by contrasting it with a more definitive reply. You can invert that trick to get the opposite effect. If you contrast:
“I’m busy”
versus
“I’m busy Friday, but we should definitely get together sometime.”
then the second one sounds like the person replying is (or at least may be) genuinely busy and actually would like to get together.
Yeah, most people wouldn’t just say, “I’m busy” and hang up the phone (unless they REALLY want you to stop calling). The second one sounds like a no in my first example because it is a no. Like you with the face said, a woman who wants to see you will make an effort to see you. Women are looking for men, just like men are looking for women, and when you find one you like, you want to spend time with them.
What I mean is that she won’t let you slip away if she’s interested in you and she has reason to believe you’re interested in her. Say you go out a date and she likes you. If you ring her the next day and she missed your call, more than likely she’ll phone you back. It’s not necessary to call her two or three more times just to be sure. She will not let you slip away.
If you suggest a movie that Saturday but she already has plans that day, she won’t just say “sorry, can’t make it”. If she likes you she’ll say “sorry, that day isn’t good, what about Sunday?” A woman who wants to see you won’t just let just sit there rattling off days until you happen to pick the one that works for her. She will make it easy for you.
If she likes you but is truly busy, she will say “Sorry, I’ve been busy, but I really want to see you so let’s hang out next week after mid-terms are over.” She won’t just say “been too busy to call, my bad.”
If she’s difficult to figure out and is sending mixed signals, there is a way you can make it very easy for yourself. Put the ball in her court and see what happens. This method works especially well on voicemail or email, if you’re having a hard time reaching her and you’re worried that she’s ignoring you. It also works on men.
“Hey, if you want have dinner on Friday, just let me know. There’s a new sushi place that I want to visit. Hope to talk to you soon.”
Then walk away. If she replies back with an okay, then you have your answer. If she doesn’t then you know she isn’t interested. Time to move on.
I see what you are saying, but I think realistically that second response would sound like this:
“I’m busy Friday, but maybe we can get together some other time. I’ll have to see, okay? I’m busy and I can’t plan too much far into the future.”
Cat’s point is that noncommittal vagueness is a major clue to key in on. If you can’t tell whether she’s making a effort to meet you halfway, then she probably isn’t.
If I don’t hear from a man that I am interested in within 2 or 3 days after a first date, I write him off as not interested in me and move on. I wouldn’t be “happy” he “called at all”. Move it or lose it.
I do agree that she’s just not into you but doesn’t have enough spine to come right out and say so.
I’m the same way, I would assume he was calling because he was bored. Now, if I were bored too then I might meet up with him, but if I were busy that week I would probably completely forget that he called.
And yes, if I were interested then I would absolutely follow up with a “Thanks, had a great time!!” email. But if I didn’t do that then I’m not too interested, and I can’t imagine a week of silence would tip the scales in his favor.
In summary, gentlemen, what a lot of us women are saying is that while obsessive attention can be a turn-off, keeping a girl dangling for a week is not a turn-on. It’s not going to make a woman who wasn’t interested more interested, and it is going to put off some who might otherwise have been interested.
And, ladies, it is not a bad idea to send a follow-up thank-you email after a first date, with the addition of encouragement in a vague way if you are interested. That is “Thanks for last night; let’s get together tomorrow” might be a bit much, but “Thanks for last night; it would be fun to do it again some time” is good.
I tend to be direct and appreciate polite directness from others.
I was communicating with a lady I met through match by email and several long pleasant conversations over the phone. She had reasons why we couldn’t meet and I waited for months until we finally made a date. She canceled at the last minute. At that point I expected her to say sorry, how about Tuesday, and when she didn’t I just let it go. She contacted me once and I was brief but polite leaving the ball in her court and I never heard from her again.
I tend to take people at their word so “Maybe next week” means exactly that to me. I think you with the face makes an excellent point about methods of non verbal communication. I could take and appreciate a “I’m sorry, I just don’t feel any chemistry between us and don’t think we should go out again” but some guys would want to turn it into more. “Well why? What is it about me you don’t like?”
If you’ve asked a couple of times and get “maybe next week” do yourself a favor and politely suggest " Call me if you’d like to get together again" then move on and don’t worry about it.
It’s not a failing on your part , just chemistry and timing. I’ve also been lucky in that I have had several female friends I could talk to and get the female perspective. It was helpful.
I think this is quite a good question because it’s genuinely hard to come up with the “right” answer (although there are some good replies above giving the various sides of the argument). However if you want to look at it objectively let’s just apply some game theory to the situation.
You’ve (either gender) met up with someone (either gender) for a date and had a good time, and your desired outcome is to see them again and you don’t know for certain how they feel about things (let’s face it, we often aren’t at the end of dates). You want to take a course of action that is most likely to send a positive signal whilst at the same time reduce the chance of sending a negative one. There are only a small number of possible scenarios that can lead to your desired outcome with small variations, they are:
Wait for them to contact you
You contact them - sooner rather than later
You contact them - later rather than sooner
I’m no mathematician but I’ll attempt to ascribe mathematical values to these scenarios. So, looking at the other player’s position when you make any of these moves you get the following results:
Wait for them to contact you
They are interested (to whatever degree) but take this as a sign of disinterest and do not pursue – FAILURE
They are interested (to whatever degree) and see this as a sign that they should make the next move and they contact you - SUCCESS
They are not interested in seeing you again – FAILURE
Scenario 1 has a 1/3 chance of success.
You contact them - sooner rather than later
They are not interested in seeing you again – FAILURE
They are ambivalent in seeing you again but are put off by contact that is seen as premature and therefore lose interest – FAILURE
They are ambivalent in seeing you again but your contact has made them decide to see you again – SUCCESS
They are interested in seeing you again but are put off by contact that is seen as premature and therefore lose interest – FAILURE
They are interested in seeing you again and you contact has made you more desirable to see again – SUCCESS
Scenario 2 has a 2/5 chance of success BUT outcomes two and four are arguably successes because you have to ask if you’d want to date such a person at all (because they’re essentially Charlotte from Sex in the City), so actually I’d put this as a 4/5 in terms of actually getting a desirable outcome rather than just any outcome.
You contact them - later rather than sooner
They are not interested in seeing you again – FAILURE
They are ambivalent in seeing you again but having to wait for your contact has made you less desirable to see again – FAILURE
They are ambivalent in seeing you again but having to wait for your contact has made them decide to see you again – SUCCESS
They are interested in seeing you again but are put off by contact that is seen as late and therefore lose interest – FAILURE
They are interested in seeing you again and having to wait for your contact has made you more desirable to see again – SUCCESS
Scenario 3 has a 2/5 chance of success.
So, to summarise:
You contact them - sooner rather than later – 4/5 chance of success
You contact them - later rather than sooner – 2/5 chance of success
Wait for them to contact you – 1/3 chance of success
Clearly the biggest risk is to send no signal at all leaving your intent uncertain. They’re in the same situation as you and you can end up in a non-productive face off where each player is expecting the first to move, and because no-one does nothing happens. Or they weren’t interested in the first place, in which case all other scenarios are irrelevant anyway.
The scenario with the greatest chance of success is you contacting them sooner. Even where this leads to failure due to your contact being seen as premature I really have to question whether you’ve really lost out on someone whose thought process goes “I did like this person but now they’ve shown they’re interested in me before the sacred [insert arbitrary time period here] threshold I have no choice but to not see them again. It’s a shame, but them’s the rules”.
People here are arguing that in Torpor Beast’s OP situation the mistake he made was showing he was interested in her the next day. I contend that unless the situation has been misrepresented in his post then actually what happened was she wasn’t interested in seeing him anyway (and he was misreading the situation on the date in the first place). As another poster has said well, the first meeting isn’t the first date, it’s the interview to get a first date. If she’d wanted that date she wouldn’t have turned the offer down. You can quibble over whether the ideal time to contact someone is the next day or two or three or whatever, but I find it hard to believe someone who was genuinely interested in having another date with you would actually choose not to because you expressed interest (and if she did then are you really anyway worse off in the long run?). His mistake was continuing to contact someone who wasn’t interested – he had demonstrated he was interested and should have waited for her to respond.
So, in conclusion, if you meet someone and want to see them again the best course of action is a non-threatening demonstration of interest (such as Hazlenut Coffee’s “I really enjoyed last night and hope we can do it again soon” email) sooner rather than later and leave it to the other person to respond.
I’m also in the camp of people who doesn’t get why women automatically have more power in a relationship – it is (perversely) the party who is less interested that has the power because they’re more able to pull they plug. Where women are in an advantageous position is that there are frequently less women than men on dating websites so they get more propositions. If you’ve got to the stage of meeting someone in the flesh you’ve overcome that obstacle.
(No doubt someone who actually has some experience of game theory is going to come in here and tear my model apart now…)
