FOCUS: How do you let someone down easy? Do you have any good one-liners that let the person know, "Thanks, but no thanks," and still keep a civil relationship with them? The only acceptable way to reject someone is to tell them the truth. If you're not interested, just say you aren't. It's really that simple. Fuck trying not to hurt their feelings, all that usually ends up doing is making shit worse. ALT FOCUS: Have you been rejected? Were they nice about it, or did you pull a Tobias Funke and go and sit in the shower, biting on a washcloth to stifle the sobs? I was rejected by some girl a few weeks ago in the most annoying way possible. We went out for a couple drinks, everything went well. We were joking, flirting, the whole 9. However, there were two things she said that should have given me a clue this chick was not good news, but I was too drunk and horny to notice: 1) She told me numerous times throughout the night that "this is not the last time we're going to see each other" and made me promise to call her. 2) She kept telling me how much of an asshole she was to guys. After the night was over I took her to her car, banged her, then we both went on our way. I call her a few days later, no answer. She texts me back a few hours later saying she's at work. Then she texts me a day or so later, I text back, no response. She texts me a couple days later to ask if I want to go out and I text back sure and we set a date/time. The day comes and I call her, no answer. She texts me back a couple hours later saying what amounted to "I was busy, tough luck". She didn't even say sorry or anything. At this point I was fed up with her bullshit and called her out on it. I texted her something along the lines of "Listen bitch, this is no way to treat another human being. I have shit to do, and I'm not going to waste my time playing games with you. Goodbye and good luck trying to find a dude with such low self esteem that he'll put up with your self-involved bullshit." Then I promptly deleted her number. Whatever, I banged her anyway. No skin off my back.
It's all about voice inflection. If the first thing you do is put up your hand and say "hell no", then yes; you are a vapid bitch. If you subtly weave "my boyfriend" into the conversation, you're not exactly being direct, but its a helluva lot nicer than acting like your shit means anything. Besides, any actual man at that point would get the hint that you're not available. Personally, I hate hints, but some people like to play that game. Alternatively, how about saying something courteous, but not insultingly dismissive? "Thank you, but I am spoken for." The one time (one. time.) a lady did that for me, I wasn't even hurt by the rejection; I was quite thankful for the courtesy. Focus: I'm typically direct with my let-downs. I try to pad it with words as much as possible, but I don't leave any hint of hope for them. "Thank you, but I am in a committed relationship." Oh hey, that line works for everyone it seems. If i'm ending a relationship, I try to sit them down in neutral territory (always face-to-face), and let them know directly that it isn't working, and I would like to choose to end the relationship. This courtesy is situational, however.. if the girl cheated on me, i'd have shit in a FedEx box and mailed it to her mother. Classy; I know. Alt-Focus: When I was on the scene, so to speak, I spent a lot of time in the friend zone. "I don't want to hurt our friendship.." Or, "I don't feel that way about you; who knows maybe in the future" <That's my least favorite. Nothing came of that relationship except about a year of me following this chick around like a puppy, only to have her get drunk and hook up with some random at the party I helped plan (1 of 2 people..) Edit for detail.
If I knew how I'd pay the bills, I'd gladly go on a nationwide tour simply to educate young men that, if you hear this, run like Hell in the other direction. She is using you for attention, you're dumb enough to provide an endless supply, and inevitably she's going to crush you by hooking up with someone you know who's not nearly as together as you [see above post]. It's only half her fault, though, because you focused more on "maybe in the future" than "I don't feel that way about you", dumbass. [/i really hated high school]
1. "I'm really flattered, thank you, but I'm not interested in seeing you that way." generally works pretty well. If said kindly and with a friendly smile, it seems to go over well. 2. I think anyone who says they've never been rejected is both a liar and completely clueless. I don't think I've ever been super cruelly rejected, except by my ex-husband, and THAT was pretty brutal. "I don't find you physically, intellectually, or emotionally attractive on any level. I don't love you and I do NOT want to be married to you anymore." I was blindsided and more than a little stunned for several days. Of course, in hindsight, I shouldn't have been blindsided...it'd been a year and a half since he'd touched me more than in passing or expressed any emotion. It did finally come out that a large part of the reason he decided he didn't want anything to do with me anymore was that I'd developed outside interests and stopped focusing on him. *shrug* Speaking of dating in the work place, it's not always a total failure.
Not to unfairly accuse anyone here of attention-seeking, but I've found those people who tend not to reject anyone outright because they don't want to be "mean" are sometimes guilty of the above behavior. If you're one of these people, think long and hard about why exactly you didn't just tell the guy/girl "No thanks." Is it really about sparing their feelings? Or are you secretly enjoying the fact that this person finds you desirable, even if the attraction is not mutual? I don't think its expressly a male or female thing. It's an ego thing. People like to be paid attention to, and if someone's giving it away with minimal effort on your part (That's their mistake. Their huge, huge mistake), it's not hard to see why you would unconsciously perpetuate a connection you have no intention of developing in earnest. It doesn't make you a bad person per se, but it is inherently selfish and when it comes crumbling down, the destruction is total and lasting. One clean swipe. Therapists everywhere will thank you.
Welcome week freshman year I was at a deck party with a handful of people I met on my floor. I wanted to put those pussies in their place and display my raw sexual prowess by picking up a random in plain sight. I say 'hi' to a girl and get completely and utterly stonewalled. No eye contact, no words, bitch just kept walking. I started laughing at the sheer epic fail of the situation which got her attention far more effectively than my initial approach. The happy ending to this shitty story is that despite the embarrassing rejection I brought home a less attractive and more promiscuous girl at the end of the night. The memory of getting full on stonewalled will always stick with me. It knocked my retarded 18 year old ego back into check and simultaneously helped me get over my fear of rejection. Having a girl let you know she is not interested from the get go is a blessing in disguise. I've read all about this friend zone stuff but never really had a problem with it in real life. In fact, I've probably hooked up with around half of my female friends*. If we have enough in common to be friends in the first place it makes the hooking up part come naturally. The most attractive and intelligent and fucking awesome girl I have ever been with was after years of platonic friendship. These things seem like they happen naturally if you're not a complete pussy. *(more than 10 and less than shut the fuck up you jackals)
Focus "I've been thinking about our relationship lately. I think we both know it's not heading where we want it to. I care about you a lot as a person. I like you; you're someone I want to know for a long time, whether we have a relationship or not. But I think it's best if we take some time off. Let's end this now and see what happens in the future."
"I'm not emotionally strong enough to be in a relationship right now." Because, I'm not. I do not want to be in any sort of relationship (with you.) Putting that out there makes it known that it's not them, (which it probably is them) it's me. And hopefully that will let them down easily.
So, going with, "I'm not emotionally strong enough to carry your large ass to any social gathering, ever." would be the best bet?
The worst rejection I had was when I hit it off great with a girl at the bar. We had some mutual friends that were there and she ended up coming back with me and my roommates to my house. The entire time she was being quite flirty with me, not all over me or anything but she definitely conveyed interest(I.E. Touching my arm when talking to me, laughing at all my jokes etc...). Eventually it gets late and she asks if she can sleep over. I tell her that's fine and she asks me where my room is, at this point I defy any red blooded male to tell me they would not assume they're fucking tonight. Anyway, I hang out with my roommates for another couple of minutes and head back to my room to find her in my bed in one of my shirts waiting for me. We talk for a few minutes and I make my move to which she stops me and says "Oh, I have a boyfriend I thought *Roommate* told you." "Bitch you're in my bed, wearing my clothes and you've been giving me the eyes all fucking night and now you decide to let me know you have a fucking boyfriend? Get your shit and get your clearly maladjusted ass out of my house."....Is what I should have said to her. Unfortunately I was am far too nice, however this shit still pissed me off to no end so I settled for: "Well I don't want him getting the wrong idea about what happened here so you should go sleep on the couch, you can take a couple of blankets and stuff." Naturally as soon as she left I jerked off and went to bed disappointed, but with some(almost none) of my pride in tact.
He gave me his phone number; I called him and told him that I'd love to be friends but I don't date people from work. He said he was cool with that, we had a nice chat, and I figured that was the end. Then he called me (again, at work) on Monday and asked "if we were still on for Wednesday?" Umm...I don't know how I could have been any clearer.
And how many times do we (hetero males) have to say that this is a somewhat foreign concept. We interpret this as "I still have a shot".
If a guy can't figure out what "just friends" means by his mid-thirties, then I can do nothing for him. He's clearly slow.
In the same vein though, if a woman at any age after 25 can't cut the shit and just speak fuckin' English, then I can do nothing for her. She's clearly never fully left her high-school years behind her.
I want to say that i fucking hate the friend zone. However its were i find i end up most often. My problem is I am a bitch and want to get to know a person before I try to date them... they take that as I want to be friends with them not fuck them... They couldn't be more wrong, I want to put it in every orifice they have, but I don't make that obvious. Why? Because I have a major fear of rejection, like I won't talk to someone ever again after that happens. I will go out of my way to avoid that person, anything I can do to not be reminded of my inadequacy. It took me 26 years to realize this and only now am I taking steps to remedy this situation. Sorry about the rant, but i am drunk and needed it. Also due to drunkenness please disregard spelling and grammatical errors.
One of the problems with the "love to be friends" approach when not coupled with "I have zero sexual interest in you" qualification is that people sleep with their friends (to be base) or fall in love with their friends (to be high-minded) all the time. All around this board are anecdotes of both, though mostly the former I'll grant you. So when you tell a guy who is into you that you want to be friends, it's not as clear a rejection as you might think because of all the examples of friends becoming lovers that are commonplace. That doesn't mean it never works, or even that it shouldn't work, but I think that the idea of "friends" is no longer really mutually exclusive from the idea of "someone I'm sleeping with."