The Kindest Way to Turn Down a Date
I read an article recently in which men shared some of the lamest excuses they’ve ever heard when being turned down by a romantic interest.
As a woman who gets hit on fairly regularly (women in general tend to get hit on a lot, amirite ladies?), I’ll admit I myself am guilty of this. In my younger days I was queen of the cop-out excuse: everything from “I have a boyfriend,” to “my parents won’t let me date,” and the ever popular “I’m moving out of the country soon.”
I never did it to be mean, of course. In my eyes I was just letting them down easy; I had no idea it was actually worse than flat out saying “no.” The article got me wondering though, if one in fact must be cruel to be kind.
I asked a few of my male friends, and surprisingly, all said they prefer when a woman just says she’s not interested instead of coming up with a lame excuse about an ailing grandma, or a dying pet. While everyone agreed being turned down is a bruise to the ego, they would rather know from the beginning then feel like they are being strung along.
Makes sense.
Especially when you consider there are men who don’t take such responses as rejection, and just keep trying in hopes your “situation” will change somehow. A friend of a friend once asked me out, and when I told him I had a boyfriend, he then proceeded to constantly ask about my relationship whenever we saw each other, as if that were the only thing standing between us.
It made for a very awkward situation – especially when I actually found a boyfriend, who he then approached at a party claiming, “she was mine first.” Ya, we left after that.
Since then, I’ve taken a more direct, albeit polite, approach. I’m sure it takes a lot of courage to ask someone out, so I try to be as respectful as I can when declining a romantic invitation.
There is always that one guy who gets angry and calls you a bitch, but those encounters are usually pretty few and far between. And it’s nothing a good surprise nut trample can’t handle – just ask the last guy who harassed me on BART.