Or even, “Would you like to go out to dinner some evening in the next six months?”
“Oh, I’d love to, but I already have something scheduled every evening until then.”
I even had essentially that conversation once or twice, back in the days when I was really really naive about these things.
I have a platonic friend that does this. We’ve been friends for nearly 30 years and see each other every couple of months.
If she busy, fine great, but it sure would make thinks easier to plan if she would suggest another date if my suggestion doesn’t work for her.
It seems like even though we are just old friends, she still thinks the guy should make the plans. Drives me a bit nuts.
“…when a woman says later, she really means not ever.”
Sorry if someone beat me to it.
If I had made that response to a guy, it would mean that I had recently had a very good first date with someone and had scheduled a second. I didn’t want to completely shut down the person asking me out now just in case the first individual didn’t work out after date number 2, but I didn’t want to sound extremely interested either.
The next-to-last girl I dated before I got married made me promise to be straight with her if I ever lost interest. I had every intention of doing so. Unfortunately, two or three dates in, I lost my cell phone, which was the only place I had her contact information stored. I didn’t know her address, and Tracfone wouldn’t let me transfer my number to the new phone without the ESN of the old one, so I couldn’t contact her, either to continue things (my intention) or let her down easy. I’ve sometimes wondered if she thinks I’m an enormous jerk.
Wow. Yeah I guess the point is many people (not just women) can’t give a flat “no” no matter how you phrase the question.
I haven’t tried what I suggested, I just give out bad advice on forums. 
Yeah and with five years of hindsight, the answer is “probably not.” Nothing really happened with her, though we’re still Facebook friends and see each other from time to time. To take her at her word, she has some social anxiety issues, though I kinda think that’s a polite kiss-off; she’s dated other folks. Then again, she still gives me kind of mixed signals from time to time. Nothing happening on my end, though; life’s too short.
Truth be told, I’m five years older now and have more or less lost interest in the “mating dance.” Straightforward is good, though disappointingly rare.
I agree. Part of the problem is that “no” sometimes invites an argument or even an angry response.
So glad this “fun” is way in my past, but I seem to recall the biggest thing for me when being rejected was that I really wanted/needed to know if it was due to “just not right chemistry” vs “an oversight on my part that was avoidable”. That is to say it was it never going to go further even if I did “everything right”, or did I derail the date through a procedural error. You can imagine how hard it was to extract such info. Exactly -:smack: What made it harder was that I wasn’t a serial dater; I wouldn’t ask out just anyone for the sake of going out and seeing what happens; I would only ask out a ladies if I felt some sort of spark from the get go. Follow up dates were wonderful but the rejections hurt deeply.
One reason why it was hard to extract the info you’re looking for is that you set up a false dichotomy, so you’d be trying to extract an answer that doesn’t really exist. For example, maybe in conversation she discovered that you have beliefs or actions that she finds worrying or repellent, so even though there’s basic chemistry she doesn’t want to get involved. I know a lot of people who started dating someone and then realized that they had a big red flag or major prejudice that is simply unacceptable even though they felt the person was attractive otherwise. And if you’re viewing revealing something unpleasant as a form of avoidable oversight, she may not want to be an accomplice to you concealing that unpleasantness from the next person by helping you conceal it rather than fix it. For example, if the ‘procedural error’ was that you were rude to wait staff, that’s something she may not want to help you hide because it’s a common trait in abusive personality types.
He had already ordered the replacement piping.
By procedural error I meant something more like asking a too personal question too soon, or a bad joke. People can make innocent gaffs that are just gaffs and not signs of personality issues.
Back in the early 90’s, I had just started to date this woman and we were out with a friend of hers and that person’s boyfriend. We got into a very goofy, jokey conversation. So I made a joke that involved a quote from the old TV series “The Honeymooners”. It went flat. Okay, that can happen. All of a sudden she didn’t want to date anymore. Still, we remained acquaintances, and one day that incident came up in conversation. I explained it was an obscure joke from the Honeymooners. That’s when I learned she took the joke as a serious comment as was appalled. We both said “wow, what a misunderstanding”. I look at that incident as a procedural error. An innocent remark and a misunderstanding, not a catastrophic character flaw, derailed a possible relationship. Things like that sadden me because I’m sure this happens all the time.