Jodi, I’m pretty sure that was a whoosh.
Lucky for me, I’m all ass.
Well, here’s the thing. I don’t want to know so I can change. There’s not a damn thing wrong with me! (except an occasional lack of confidence) I just want to know because I want to know. I mean, I’m not going to cry because someone who didn’t even hang around me long enough to really know me rejected me. I’m definitely not going to agonize about it. In fact, if someone doesn’t call me back, I don’t bother to call them back. There’s no way that I’m going to chase them.
But I still wonder. I don’t think I’m unlovable because someone decided not to date me.
Alternatively, maybe the next guy was her soulmate, who LOVES both turquoise *and * sweat, but on your advice she wore black. YOU RUINED HER LIFE!!! 
Put me in the same category. I almost hesitated to post in this thread because of all the vitriol I have received when I have posted about my own desire to know “why”. If I do something off-putting on a date that I’m not aware of, I’d like to know so I can correct that behavior. If it’s just my basic personality, well, then, I know there’s nothing I can do to improve the future.
Most of the people who say to just accept the fact that there’s no chemistry and move on seem to get a lot of dates. I don’t. When even the total loser guys reject me, I get curious. This doesn’t mean I’m needy or desperate. It just means I want to know if what I’m doing wrong is correctable for the next attempt, or if it’s just a fact of life.
That being said, I feel every date is a learning experience. For example, I never knew how important a man’s shoes were to me until I was on a nice date with a perfectly nice, if slightly geeky kind of guy. He was wearing really cheap, ugly shoes. I’ve never really cared about men’s shoes before, and it would never be a deciding factor, because it falls into the Boyfriend Makeover possibility area. But it’s what he said about the shoes that gave me insight into his situation and his personality. We were window shopping in a very swanky shopping area, and there were some over-the-top expensive men’s shoes in a window display. He made a comment about his cheap shoes. I don’t remember the exact words, but I realized that 1) his financial situation must be a lot more precarious than he had let on, and it made me feel guilty for ordering popcorn at the movie, and 2) he had no appreciation for quality and workmanship and style…everything in his life would always be decided by price point.
Now don’t get me wrong, I would have been put off by someone who gushed over over-priced shoes and continually spent his money on frivolous things. And I’m poor. I wear cheap shoes. But I realize I’m paying a price with my feet for that, and I know that a well-made, well-fitting pair of shoes will last longer and feel better, especially for men, who can wear basic shoe styles year after year. And I appreciate well-made things. He didn’t. A cheapy plastic shoe from Payless that will give him foot pain and make his feet stink was just fine…even if he had the money, he wouldn’t buy a decent leather shoe that fit right and made him look better and feel better. So it was a basic personality flaw that he revealed in that simple comment.
Would I have told him about that if he’d asked? Probably. We were both relatively new to the dating world again, and he had no problem telling me what he had found wrong with his last few dates. I’m sure he’s been telling other women what he found wrong with me. (and I would love to hear that list. Honestly.) If he had asked what didn’t work for me, I would have been honest with him: he has parrots that he is devoted to, and I dislike birds, and have cats. He has an onion allergy and goes out to eat at one particular diner that will cook his food in a special pan they have set aside for him, and clean the grill especially for him: I love to cook, and to eat out, and I can’t imagine trying to cook without ever using onions or garlic, or to only eat at one place. He has a mentally ill adult son who is in prison for embezzlement and computer fraud, and his legal bills and mental health challenges wreak havoc in this man’s life: I have my own messed up adult kids, and am looking for a calmer life. He has no interest in the types of music I like…in fact, no interest in music at all…and I sing in several choirs and play instruments and while I don’t have music playing constantly around me, it is important to me.
Would it help him to know all this? Maybe not in the short run, but if every woman he dates tells him that four huge, screeching birds that live a really long time and regularly destroy parts of his home and bite people they don’t like are a relationship killer, then he can make the decision to put that in his online profile and only date women who also adore birds. Or he could decide he likes the companionship of women more than parrots, and make some changes. Or he could specifically seek out women with onion allergies…that online profile could work so much better for him!
This is how knowing the specifics can be beneficial.
DianaG:
You’ve said what I tried to say, **kittenblue, ** but you did it a lot better and more clearly.
Exactly. Someone doesn’t like your laugh, big deal. There’s nothing you can do about that and it’s actually a non-problem anyway. But if you’re maybe prone to having bad breath and not realizing it, or something like that, it would be useful to know.
Well said, Kittenblue.
I forgot to mention, one thing that does help remove the awkwardness of both parties’ reasons for not calling back is a lighthearted discussion about dating adventures. Now I’m guessing some people would be mortified at sharing bad date stories, but in a way it gives you kind of an advance idea on what the other person finds important.
If I have a conversation with a woman, who jokingly complains she can’t find a guy who ‘walks right’ but can’t really go into specific (has she been dating gimps this whole time? Is this a confidence issue?) and never calls back, chances are I didn’t ‘walk right’ either. Obviously I’m not going to conform to her specifics, because that comes off as desperate. But I do move on knowing what it was.
I get curious, too. But I just don’t see that I have any claim on someone else’s thought-processes, even if it’s about me.
Eh, I wouldn’t bank on that. There could be an almost infinite number of reasons why she’s not interested. Just because she happens to joke about one experience with one person, doesn’t mean that what she’s talking about has any relation to you.
Maybe I’m an odd cookie, but for me, rarely is there a easy-to-pin down reason for my lack of attraction towards somebody. The spark is just not there. The absence of the spark makes me more likely to see a person’s flaws and defects. But the flaws and defects themselves aren’t the root of the disinterest.
Hmm. Maybe that’s why I don’t get the concept of things just not clicking for no obvious reason. I nearly always have a concrete reason for not being attracted to someone. It has only happened maybe once that it just wasn’t working and I didn’t know why. That time bothered me, because I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t attracted to him. For me, the absence of the spark is due to some flaw or other.
Simple curiosity doesn’t mean I think someone “owes” me an explanation of why they rejected me. Some people do come across as thinking that they are owed that explanation, but I hope that I’m not one of them.
Really? You spark with *everyone * unless there’s a specific reason *not * to? I wish that were the case for me, I find “spark” to be a curiously elusive thing.
The thing is, is it was something “correctable” you’d probably get a call back.
Example: If I was on a date and everything was good except one “correctable” or petty thing, like she talked incessantly about her ex, then the good chemistry would mean another date and me saying “Sweetie, I get uncomfortable when we talk abut your ex. Tell me more about you.”
And how far are you willing to go to “correct” a problem? If the deal-breaker was your atrocious table manners, then sure you can make an effort to change that, but what if the answer is “I hate your taste in movies”? Are you going to give up your love of subtitled, foreign films to watch only flicks like Dumb and Dumber.
And what if it is just a fact of life? Do you really want to pummel your self-esteem by finding out that guys don’t like you because your skull is too small? I’d hate having to hear the same thing over and over again if I couldnt’ fix it. Wouldn’t it be better to just wait for the guy who thinks your head is perfectly cute?
If a total loser guy rejected you, it’s a not a relfection of your worth. It only means that he didn’t see you as a good fit. It doesn’t necessarily reflect your appeal. Romance doesn’t work that way. It’s crazy-subjective. So, Loser-Guy rejected you and you think you’re out of his league. You’re a much better catch than what he should expect to get. Okay. But it’s not like you’re merchandise and he just passed on a really good deal. He’s not a pauper who turned down the opportunity to buy a Lexus for $500. Maybe he just didn’t feel the right kind of “click” with you (and if he’s a total loser then it’s no great loss.)
Sometimes you meet someone and you just know that no matter how great they are, you’ll never be able to bond with them. There’s no answer to the “why” or the “what did I do wrong?” There’s no answer to the “Is there something wrong with me?” question. The bottom line is that instinct just said “no, not this one” and that’s that.
What she said.
Most definitely. I’ve met guys that I thought were great: cute, funny, smart, and that I generally got along with quite well. But most times there was never a spark. Not even static. Nothing. I turn 25 next month and so far in my life I can count on one hand the number of guys I’ve sparked with. Sparks are elusive and unpredictable for me, but YMMV.
No, and where did I say that?
I’ve been on maybe twenty dates in my whole life. In the number of times where I’ve not been attracted to someone on or after those dates, there’s always been some reason I wasn’t attracted to the person except the one instance I already mentioned. That excludes the times that they weren’t attracted to me after all, for a reason I did or didn’t know. My lack of experience is probably the reason why I haven’t had many experiences of undefined sparklessness. I’ve had plenty of sparklessness–in fact that’s what nearly always happens–but I usually have some clue about why it happens.
But here’s the thing…there usually is that spark, that click, to start out, or we would never go on the first date! It’s after the first date , when that spark has apparently been stompd out cold, that bothers me…If he liked me enough to ask me out (because how often do total strangers you’ve never shared two words with ask you out) what went wrong on the date?
This makes some sense if you’re asked out in person. For a lot of us, the asking out happens on-line so you don’t find out about the spark until you’re at Starbuck’s.
Since my divorce a year and a half ago, I have asked out one woman in person (and a whole bunch online.) We go to the same yoga studio and we would chat after class and I thought she was cute and she said yes to my sushi invite so I guess there was a little spark but after a meal and a couple of dog walks, it wasn’t happening so that was that. She’s nice, cute, smart and all but there wasn’t anything there. I think that it was mutual but if she asked why I didn’t ask her out again I would be hard pressed to give a concrete reason.
I wasn’t trying to give you a hard time, Telperien, I was honestly curious. I was out of the game for ten years, so this whole dating thing is newish (or at least deja vu-ish) to me, but the one consistent thing has been, well, lack of spark. I’ve been out with some *great * guys lately. Smart, funny, attractive, successful… and I like them. There’s nothing *wrong * with them. I’d like to be friends with most of them. But there’s no spark. It’s not anyone’s fault, and blaming the absence of spark on either of our “flaws” would be like blaming nighttime for the absence of sunlight. The spark is either there or it’s not, and it’s not (usually, for me) about what he’s wearing or what I talked about or our respective tastes in appetizers. It’s about whether our pheromones match up.
Now, I’ve been out with some duds as well, but I wouldn’t presume to tell them what’s wrong with them. Firstly, why would I assume that they liked me any better than I liked them? And secondly, one woman’s dud is another’s dream. There’s nothing in the world more subjective than attraction.
BINGO!!!
I think that I see one of your “problems.”
I have no idea how many first dates I have been on in the last eighteen months. It has to be close to 50. When the date isn’t going very well, the subject will often turn to dating stories. This doesn’t happen every time it’s a dud date but the only time that topic comes up is during a dud date in my experience.
Why is this? Well, it’s definitely something that you both have in common, everyone who has been out there long enough has some funny stories, you can pick up tips on the best places (on-line or meat space) to meet people in your town and it fills up the time until it is polite to call it a night.
Avoid that topic…unless you’re not going to ask her out again anyway.