What do you say to someone who wants to know why they were turned down for a date?

In My Humble Opinion
41

If they were pestering me for answer, I would probably get pissed off, but I don’t think I would go any farther than to say “I’m sorry, I don’t know why, I’m just not attracted to you in that way.”

The only similarly analogous situation I’ve had in my life came in college. There was this girl who was (and still is) a very good friend of mine. Attractive, sweet, intelligent, kind. On paper, there is absolutely no reason why I should not have been attracted to her. However, I always felt our relationship as more familial than romantic. We’ve shared the same bed, I’ve driven her car down to New Orleans (where she’s from) and stayed at her folks house for a few days when she had a summer internship in California (I think it was.) I even ended up photographing, many years later, her wedding.

One day my senior year, I came home to an answering machine message with her, basically, proclaiming her love for me. I was absolutely thrown for a loop. Had no clue whatsoever. After chain smoking a few cigarettes, I called her and basically explained the whole thing. It felt really weird. The whole theme basically came down to the old “I love you as a friend, but I just don’t feel a romantic attraction for you,” hopefully couched in diplomatic terms. After all, this was a person I loved as a friend, but I honestly just didn’t see her “in that way” for whatever reason. Hell, I didn’t know why I didn’t see her in that way, just that I didn’t feel the spark or romantic attraction. Attraction is a funny thing–we can’t really control it, but I do think it’s important in a relationship.

Thankfully, being the person that she is, she was mature and accepting of my reasons, and didn’t press the issue. We’ve remained friends since, as I said above. If pressed, I would have simply stood my ground and continued along the lines of “I’m really sorry, I just don’t see you that way, and I can’t do anything about it.” It sucks, as the other person, when you don’t have control of the situation, but it was the truth, and I honestly didn’t have any answers beyond that, and certainly didn’t want to hurt her purposefully in any way.

The experience has made me a lot more empathetic to the fickleness of attraction, and if I hear a line along the lines of “I just don’t see you that way,” I completely understand and don’t necessarily think it’s just a standard blow-off line, even if it might be.

42

Hopefully people later realize that an honest answer is an act of respect. I’d much rather that than any games disguised as being polite.

But, I’m also a guy who likes a direct , but considerate, honesty. Sometimes hints don’t work with me. If she says “I’m busy this week” when she really meant, “I’m not interested in seeing you again” I tend to believe shes busy because that’s what she said.
It’s annoying to me when people who can’t find a way to be honest, and direct, in a polite way, seem to find fault with the person who didn’t get the hint.

43

“Why don’t you want to go out with me?”

“Because you’re the type of person who would ask me this question.”

44

I have been on both sides of this question, so I’ll try to give my perspective on both.

When I’ve asked, my motivation is usually a combination of being puzzled, as I obviously misunderstood the signals, and one of learning. If I’m getting the wrong signals, I want to know why so I can refine it better. If I made mistakes, I want to know what they were so that I can learn from them and not do them again. I will admit that in one case I got an utterly bizarre response that was in blatantly contradictory, so I poked a bit more than I should have, but my motivation is never to argue my way back into another chance. When I have gotten an honest response, it’s usually been along the lines of things like not really compatible (different outlooks, which I understood and more or less agreed with), too assertive or not assertive enough, etc. That sort of stuff I find useful because I try to learn from these encounters so I better know what I’m looking for and what I’m putting out there.

From the other end, I assume that when I’ve been asked they too are not looking to get another chance but are trying to understand what went wrong. In one case, I simply didn’t think of her like that, and when asked, I said so. Of course, she tried to change the things that she thought was why I wasn’t attracted to her, but it didn’t change how I felt. In another case, I also wasn’t really attacted to her, and she kept prodding but I honestly couldn’t get really specific about it. In other cases, there were other aspects that disinterested me.
Either way, my advice is to be honest and assume they’re looking for an honest response. You don’t have to be hurtful, where if you’re not attracted to them, that’s fine, or if there’s an aspect of their personality or their beliefs, that’s fine too. Obviously, if they start pressing about either insisting that your assessment is wrong or that they can change, then it’s clear that their motivation is for another chance, and you can just end it there. Regardless, I don’t see the reason not to give them the benefit of the doubt and help them with better fortune in future relationships.

45

For what it’s worth, I didn’t hint. I tried really hard to be nice as noted above, but didn’t say, “I’m busy.” What I said was, “You know, Brian, I enjoyed hanging out with you, but we’re looking for different things and another date wouldn’t be a good idea.” When he asked for a further explanation, I said, “I’m a lot younger than you and looking for something far shorter-term than you are. It’s really not going to work.” When he started countering me and asking for more explanations, it got intensely uncomfortable and I finally had to just ask him to take me home. Now I’m sure that there’s all kinds of room for fault in what I told him; however, I felt my response to him was honest and should’ve conveyed a clear “No.”

I agree with you that honest is best. But when you’re honest and you still get pressed, it’s hard not to get annoyed.

46

I would say it either that, or they are looking for a reason to get angry. “I’m not just interested” is hard to work up a steam of bile about, but if you can goad your rejecter into a critique, then you can let fly with a pissed-off critique of you own.

47

Sure sounds like you were polite, and considerate in being honest. I see that as an act of respect, and hopefully, other people will too, even if it’s hard to in the moment. I wouldn’t expect the perfect words form myself or anyone else.

You’re correct, when you’ve made an effort to express your honest feelings, and they persist in requiring an explanation or want to debate, it’s awkward and annoying. You begin to run out of patience. Feelings aren’t a matter of good or bad, or someone being good enough. I think it’s also honest to say, " I don’t feel I should have to explain myself any further. I just wanted to be honest with you"

I spent hours talking to a girl years ago that kept coming around and wanting to patch things up. Later she accused me of being mean to her and I pointed out that she was mean to herself by not accepting my honesty and continuing to put herself in a place to be emotionally disappointed.

From that I learned to try to be in a place where you can end it, and walk away, if you need to.

I guess at some point, depending on the person, you have to firmly put an end to it, and not have contact with them , letting some time pass, and hope there might be some friendship later.

48

and only slightly related, one thing I appreciated about dating mature women is that there were a lot less games, but when they arose, it was even more disappointing. Watching a 50+ person play silly emotional games is a huge turn off.

49

That, along with the “it’s never a purely sincere inquiry for information for information’s sake, it’s always an attempt to reopen the request.” There’s something more than a little passive-aggressive in putting someone on the spot to say they don’t like you, to test the “logic” of their reason for not being interested, etc.

I see guys doing this more often than women (it partakes of a somewhat Aspergian mechanistic belief that facts and logic can overcome what’s fundamentally an emotional (and thus ultimately non-parseable) gut reaction). Well, maybe I see it more often from guys because guys are generally doing the asking even today and so getting more turn-downs.

I can only imagine that women, in turn, react pretty badly to being put on the spot in this way. After being turned down for one request (the date), the poor schlub is making himself a further supplicant with a follow-up request (for information, or really for a second chance to reason her into changing her clear decision). I’d imagine in a good number of instances women who had been on the fence initially about the turn-down have their decision significantly reinforced when they guy takes this whingey follow up approach.

Are there times when it might be helpful for a hapless guy (or gal) to have disinterested advice about specific issues they might address to increase their future dating odds? Maybe in a small portion of cases, but it’s just not worth the transaction costs in general, and one of the realities of dating is that you may just have to walk away with dignity and maybe figure out on your lonseome what you might do differently (different behaviors, communication, target audience) to increase your odds. The only real change doesn’t, in any event, come from third party critiques as much as from a deeply-held self-belief you’ve convinced yourself of.

50

Really? There’s no possibility for someone genuinely confused or looking for what they messed up? Admittedly, it’s often emotionally charged, so even someone who is looking for that may respond negatively, with accusations or pleas, but I’ve personally had more than a couple of these situations go off with a simply exchange of that information. Obviously, it takes both people being mature about the situation, but the idea that it can’t happen is odd to me.

51

As often happens when talking about emotional stuff, I was deliberately exaggerating. Of course there are not only a handful of choices about how this kind of questioning will go.

I will say, though, that I approached this question as if the 2 people involved did not know each other that well. Maybe you’re envisioning something different. Perhaps a close friend is owed a little more of a download (although I still think it puts the other person on the spot to ask).

However, it’s hard to imagine why a mature, secure person would even ask this question of someone they have dated zero times (or once, even). What kind of insight can you expect from this? If the reasons are not obviously guessed (age difference, co-workers, you are in prison), ho in your cases was this “exchange of information” valuable to either party? Isn’t the reason going to be “I don’t find you attractive or appropriate to date” like 95% of the time? Maybe I’m off base here. (I was just reading threads in the Pit, which always makes me feel like my human-understanding meter needs recalibrating.)

52

My earlier post sounds like I’m just joking, but I’m not. I really believe people who ask others to explain the basis for a rejection are lacking something. Social skills, self-awareness, the ability to pick up on nonverbal cues, confidence in oneself, the ability to put themselves in another person’s shoes and realize why that question might be awkward…any combination of these things. And this something probably accounts for why they are being rejected in the first place.

I’ve been rejected before and the thought of asking why never occurred to me. I don’t stand to gain anything from knowing the specifics, and I would always question the truthfulness of any answers I’d get anyway.

53

That’s kind of the problem. It’s rarely a matter of “messing up” and that’s why there’s something wrong with the question.

It’s not like a job that you did incorrectly, like messing up the way you fill out an expense form at work. Then you can ask “What did I do wrong, boss?” and your boss will explain and show you how to do it correctly. Then you fix the error and avoid the same stumbling block next time. Romance rarely ever works that way. “What did I mess up?” sounds like you failed a process in a transaction or missed a goal in a foosball game. If you ask “What did I do wrong?” it just sounds like you’re relationship-clueless.

Say I ask you out on a date. We have a fun date, but when I asked you out, I thought you had Personailty A. Getting to know you better, I realized that no actually you’re a bit more of a Personality B. That’s all well and good, but A is really what I’m looking for. So we had a fun date, but nope. Don’t wanna go on another.

You weren’t misreading signals, I was all enthusiastic about you when I asked you out, but since getting to know you better I’ve changed my mind. You didn’t “mess up”. I just don’t like you enough and you’ll never be able to fix it.

54

Unless the rejected one was acting (in which case he needs a drama coach to review the performance, not the date) ones actions on a date come from their personality. Criticisms of personality are seldom going to work out well.
My “not match” comment wasn’t totally a joke. If you give specifics, the other person will try to address each specific issue, like salesmen do. But I think it really boils down to, in each case, that the person doing the rejecting thinks she can find someone more to here liking, and there isn’t a lot to do about that.

If you really want a critique, it should come from a friend who is not emotionally involved. You are much more likely to listen dispassionately to someone like that.

I’ve seen this from the inside. There are a couple of guys who are nuts about my daughter, and who would marry her in an instant. They just don’t do anything for her. There is absolutely nothing they can change to make her be interested. the only answer to how they can change is for them to be totally different people.

55

Don’t suggest it. One of 'em is probably a mad scientist with a Personality Switch-o-Rama machine in the basement.

56

When I’ve turned a guy down, it always came down to the fact that The Click wasn’t there. Maybe the trigger was the fact that he wore dorky shirts or flexed his biceps too much or did a rimshot effect after he made a joke, but none of those things would have mattered if The Click had been there. Wonder Man has his share of things that would probably drive me nuts in someone else, but because The Click is there, they never became dealbreakers.

Basically, I think ‘Because the chemistry just isn’t working for me’ isn’t just the best answer - it’s almost always the true answer, even if there were more specific symptoms.

57

This;

So spelling out the minor details just doesn’t accomplish anything positive.

58

I feel the same way. Any answers to “why” other than “I just don’t like you like that” are 9 times out of 10 off the mark. That’s just the way romantic interest is for most people. There is truly no accounting for taste.

59

“you mean the actress? you actually asked her for a date?”

60

Heh, I’ve been sorta scratching my head as to why I’ve never felt the urge to ask this question in my (now long past) years of dating - and I think it is this: if there’s a spark, you both know it; if there is no spark, you both know that, too.