Sorry, but most likely it means she’s sure that she’ll find someone much better than you.
Well, it’s the lack of honesty. There isn’t a thing in the world wrong with not wanting to date someone, but the “I’m sure you’ll find someone much better than me” part is just empty verbiage.
I get why some people feel it’s necessary - they want to disengage from the awkward situation with the minimum of fuss and bother, and a few polite noises feel like the best way to make this happen. But a fair few of us really don’t do insincerity at all and, like I said above, chances are she actually neither knows nor cares whether you will find someone better, just as long as it doesn’t have to be her.
This would apply with equal force if the genders were reversed and I am sure that men also deal a nice line in bullshit when they’re brushing someone off.
“No doubt you’ll find someone who actually likes you, because you’re a swell guy. But that person isn’t me.”
The OP never asked for a response to the woman. He simply wanted to understand what she actually thought. Which may or may not have had much connection to what she actually said.
IMO even sven & Blaster Master nailed it. The question is ill-posed. What she said was “No. blah blah … blah.” And “No.” is the one and only message you can reliably take from it. Due to the vast array of different personaliis out there, you (any you) can’t really get useful feedback / advice from dates that don’t work.
At least not beyond the pitifully obvious things like shower at least weekly, don’t fart loudly upon meeting your date, and if you are on psych meds for gosh sakes actually take them the day of the date.
She’s not interested. But you will, so she’s not lying.
Or maybe not. Sometimes people die alone.
Alone is better than being with someone who doesn’t like you.
I read her comment as saying “I’m rejecting you, but no hard feelings. I wish you the best of luck in finding someone even better than me!”
Of course, one is free to analyze this to death and find fault or ambiguity in it. But little good can come from that.
There are other possibilities. She could have already found him.
What was the last thing you said to her before she cancelled the date and said that?
It honestly sounds like sarcasm to me… My initial thought when you mentioned indecisiveness was that you weren’t being clear about whether you liked her or not, so that she had enough and was sort of rolling her eyes at what she perceived as rejection. I know you later said your indecisiveness wasn’t about her, but could she have maybe taken it that way? If you were hemming and hawing about when or where to get together, could it have come across as a lack of interest in her?
This is how I interpreted it also.
It’s #2.
Don’t read too much into it. It’s one of the standard lines that’s supposed to take a little of the sting out of rejection.
No one here is advocating ignorance in general, but we are saying there are some more interesting and useful questions than others (I mean, we’re all ignorant, just on different subjects).
“Did this woman mean this common polite fiction seriously when declining a date?” is not particularly useful or interesting to answer, compared to, say, “How can I find out who else will accept a date?”, “What fun thing can I do next week?” , “Should I go shopping today or eat leftovers?” or an uncountable number of other questions.
Emphasis added. That’s really it. In all seriousness, she might not even know what she means. She just doesn’t want to date you, so move on. Don’t be the guy who doesn’t know how to let go. Plenty of other fish in the sea, and all that.
Really? I think it’s a very interesting question.
It doesn’t strike me as terribly common or polite, and I’m surprised by the number of people who think it is.
“I’m sure you’ll find someone who’s a better match”, sure, maybe. But “I’m sure you’ll find someone much, much better”? That seems really unusual to me.
If it was meant sincerely (which I doubt), then that poor woman has both an astonishingly low self-esteem and a strange idea of how much of her psyche to share with a casual date. If it was meant as a white lie to let him down gently, then it’s just a really bizarre choice of excuse. If it was meant (as I strongly suspect) as a sarcastic response to her perception that he was waffling over whether he wanted to date her, then it was kinda rude. I don’t see either common or polite enough to not warrant at least a little curious pondering.
Thanks, good advice.
I should specify that this woman has known me for a while; we’ve been acquainted for nearly a year.
The indecision was not about the date or person.
But it’s not empty or dishonest, in fact I think it is fairly blunt and conveys a critical piece of information. She is telling the OP to move on. She is telling him definitively that he should find someone else to date, because he won’t be dating her.
But beyond that, people don’t owe you an honest emotional encounter simply because you are attracted to them. Asking someone on a date engenders no obligation that they open up to you emotionally and give you a rundown of their innermost feelings. If you get a “yes” or a “no”, they’ve done their part. It’s not their job to provide an explanation or usher your through whatever emotional experience you have because of their response.
Ah yes, the Universal Declaration of Women’s Dating Rights, which must be respected no matter the mixed signals or ego-validation or really just making the boyfriend jealous a few individuals among them may be playing under its colors.
But you pay the same level of respect to them and yourself (without the “oh you entitled masher” stigma) with this piece of wisdom, applicable to many situations, which I myself learned much too late: *other people’s bullshit is none of your concern. *
Well, another option is that she really does mean it when she says you will find someone better. People with self -esteem issues never feel like they are worthy, and this would be something they would say.
I know because I hear some version of that line from the ex-wife all the time. She admits that me dating other women, especially one that is a few years younger, and who has a better career, is a huge blow to her self-esteem.
Either way though, just move on. If she is saying it to gently blow you off, then take the hint and go. If she is saying because of self-esteem issues, then, man, you want no part of that.