OLD – rude people when inactive.

31 comments

1. No, you’re not moraly failing. They are the problem, not you. It’s so annoying and obnoxious!

2. Last time I tried an app I was having message conversations with a couple guys, I fell asleep, and the next day I found a message from one ripping into me for being “uninterested”. Because I went to sleep I guess. Idk, but it’s good they reveal themselves early, a relationship with someone like that would be exhausting.

3. [deleted]

4. People have lives and can’t always chat 24/7. I try to remember that.

   That being said, I’ve also woken up to angry texts from women when I didn’t respond quickly.

5. A lot of conversations die out. Sometimes the other person disappears. Sometimes I forget or started seeing someone. I’ve never sent or received an angry response for a chat dying out. You are probably hitting clingy dudes and you were the one person who sent them a message that month.

6. I’m never rude, because you never know what people are going through. From a male perspective, I take my time read profiles and when I get a match I’m genuinely excited (or I was) and to get crickets after a (nice) line or two you start to wonder what’s wrong with yourself. It happens 3-4x more often then I have some one genuinely wants to meet. I think They’re frustrated and lashing out. I’m not saying it’s right but think that’s why.

   You’re right you don’t owe anyone anything. I’ve tempered my expectations greatly so anytime they talk past a few lines I’m surprised. If I don’t hear back, I assume they’re busy.

   I’ve seen my girlfriends profiles and see how they’re buried with matches so it has to be overwhelming.

   I think the difference is in how often matches come thru for each sex and how people react.
   Dime a dozen vs occasional matches- you could see how they value them differently.

7. This being said, you can have all of the polite flexibility in the world, but if you find yourself going several days without looking forward to talking to someone, it would also be polite to let them know that you are taking a pause from the apps, or just unmatch.

   I’m very much like you. Two to three people is my limit for engaged conversation. I have dealt with the same problem.

   Of course this doesn’t mean that the rude people have the right to be rude after 24 hours or anytime. But you might also be able to save yourself some trouble by actively ending conversations when you reach this point.

8. It’s ridiculous! Once I matched with a guy on Tinder, and when I checked it the next day, there were numerous hello type messages, and then something like, “do women just get on here for validation?!” And then a paragraph after that about how upset he was. Uhhhhh dude. You have no idea why I didn’t answer in 24 hours! What if a family member had just died or something?

9. The rude messages are completely inappropriate.

   However, I unmatch people after a few days if I don’t get a reply. A week is my maximum.

10. This is what I hate about dating apps in general. Its like people don’t know how to make conversation online specifically and everyone seems to default to normalcies like “Hi how are you” when they don’t really mean what they are asking – they’re just regurgitating a greeting they know is safe to use. They expect the other party to be more interesting than they are and aren’t willing to do the work.

    That and some people just don’t have anything to say. It’s all the same old boring ass questions. “where do you work” “what do you like to do”

    it feels like filling out the same survey over and over. That’s now how you spark with someone. I miss open spaces where you could just make conversation with randos in groups and maybe you’d hit off you know? as friends or maybe more.

11. People need to realize more that there is not an obligation to talk to folks. If you cant be patient and ready for long delays get out of the house and meet someone more directly. Evidently you crab walked a little too long instead of pulling the rigger and asking for a date or whatnot.

12. Heard I haven’t dated in a long ish time now. Women are literally throwing themselves At me. Met… learning one, I don’t know what I’m looking for, maybe ever I had. But the comments are real.

13. There’s alot of people, men and women who do this. I like to remind people that often 30 somethings are hit or miss on our ability to maintain text conversations. But trying to continuously get someone’s attention during silence is rude. Even If you’re super excited for the match or something.

    I’ve never done the OLD but I’ve connected with people other ways and when I’m busy at work I don’t look at my phone until the end of the day and I’ll see these types of messages or I’ll get the “what did I do, are you mad at me?”

14. I would say that anyone who complains about any feature of dating apps (OTHER THAN being lied to, or mistreated) shows up in my books as a yellow flag at least. No one cares that you:

    – Feel entitled to a response within a certain timeframe
    – Can’t get a date
    – Feel like you have too many dates (then stop swiping!)
    – Feel neglected (dating apps are not there to support your self-esteem/confidence)

    I’m not saying it’s bad to feel any of the above negative emotions – but venting about/expressing them to another person you’re chatting with on the app is a big no-no for me. It shows a lack of insight.

15. I’ve received this too. The worst is when they had that OKCupid chat feature and I’d be away from my laptop with the dating app opened. I’d come back to a slew of spammy chats from random men where the conversation would get increasingly hostile about my lack of a response. When it comes to apps, I disable push notifications, and sometimes I’ll come back to them seeing I got unmatched in less than 12 hours because I wasn’t replying immediately.

16. Can I be true here. Everyone are is also busy with their life. That’s not an excuse. But be honest. Ive come to realize that dating shouldn’t not be taken to close to the heart. Because the other person owns you nothing. But if you know that going on serial dating. Lock your profile out or put a notice saying you’re currently unavailable. After 3 days of no answer. I simply flush the date.

    I recently just had to flush a date. Because I was being patient with her and all. But she was just wasting my time. Instead of telling me the honest truth. She wasn’t ready for something serious. I let her go. Because I know my worth and my time is to valuable to be playing only side of the field. To cut it short. Be honest with some secret. If you know that you gonna be dating one or two guys. Lock your profile for the time being. While you get to know the date or your dates.

17. I once went out with friends at 8pm, didn’t look at my phone, and saw at midnight that a guy had matched with me, messaged “hey”, waited 2h, and then insulted me.

18. I just unmatch if it’s been a week with no return message 🤷‍♀️. It’s never gone anywhere with people who don’t show some eagerness. I am not rude.

19. Yeah, there are some dudes who are incredibly rude about this. I recently had someone who sent me a voice message saying “fuck you” after I didn’t respond to a message after 8 hours (it was also during the workday and I was super busy). They need to chill.

20. When it comes to OLD there is often a lack of awareness of what the process is like for the other party, and the lack of immediate feedback that you get versus a face to face conversation exacerbates the men vs women communication and selection issues when it comes to mating and dating.

    With the exception of the top echelon of guys, I think it’s quite likely there is a dimorphic aspect with the level of engagement with the process on OLD. It seems to me that because of how the opportunities stack up, most guys feel they have no choice but to fully engage with the process, and go all in to a level where a lot of women don’t have any need to. Where these types of communication issues occur, men often don’t see or forget that women have an entirely different experience and approach to OLD and vice versa.

    As such, when these scenarios occur, men don’t understand when the woman fails to match their energy and engagement in conversation and get frustrated with feeling like they’re talking to a brick wall. Women don’t understand why the man is so invested, persistent and clingy and get turned off and repelled by what they see as overly persistent creepy behaviour.

    To emphasise, imagine being a fly on the wall somewhere and seeing a series of *face to face* conversations between two people meeting for the purpose of first dates. You look around and see the following occur:Scenario 1, couple engages in conversation. After the man’s turn to speak, the woman says to the man that she’s not feeling it and bids him farewell. The man has a chance to respond before the woman walks away.

    Scenario 2, couple engages in conversation. After the man’s turn to speak, the woman blanks him, turns on her heel and walks away with not so much as a nod or a tic in response. He has no idea if that’s it and he’ll never see her again or if she’s momentarily distracted by something she needs to do, though the lack of engagement **strongly suggests** the former.

    Scenario 3, couple engages in conversation. After the man’s turn to speak, the woman just stands there, not moving and staring at him as if suddenly disengaged from interaction but still present, despite him waving a hand in front of her face to ascertain if she’s alive. He has absolutely no idea what’s happening here.

    Because of the disparity in engagement levels mentioned above, combined with the lack of immediate feedback we get from our conversation being text on a screen. No body language, no environmental contextual cues, men have no idea if they are the man in scenario 1 or scenario 2. You’ve turned into Schrodingers Cat for them and are in a superposition of states between the two. Couple this with the fact that the man expects you to match his investment in the conversation, wouldn’t you think that he’s incredibly frustrated? Now imagine having this happen to the man 20 times with different people in the space of a week, the frustration mounts up to the point where he feel he has no choice but to shout back in to the unresponsive void (his pov, not the mine).

    All of these are generalisations, they’re not the experience for everyone obviously. We’re all different and most importantly **none of what I state above is an excuse for abusive/entitled behaviour**. I’m just calling out what I see with people getting frustrated on both sides of the fence.

    I think there’s two things that need could help to avoid this particular type of communication issue. Men could try to temper their expectations, understand that not everyone is as engaged with OLD messaging as them and not receiving a message isn’t the end of the world. Also don’t double text, send a message and move on with your life. Also it goes without saying that being abusive or acting as if they’re entitled to interaction is quite rightly not an option. On the flipside, if women aren’t interested in continuing a conversation, they could be the woman in scenario 1 in the above examples. They could take a whole 20 seconds out of their day to reflect on what the frustration is like for someone who is constantly blanked, refuse to perpetuate the zero engagement method and fire them a quick message to say “ok, but I’m not feeling this, bye”, and move on with their life.

    Ultimately, ***dating is about communication and connection and is best enjoyed when approached with that mindset.*** It’s sometimes easy to forget this with OLD when you’re not directly engaging with living breathing person, but an inanimate screen followed by a series of unthinking left/right swipe opportunities. So if you’re not going to attempt to even try to understand the experiences of the other party, understand the trappings and pitfalls of your chosen dating method and meet them in the middle a little, you’re not going to have a great time out of it, on either end of the spectrum.

    Caveat: What I speak of is the general phenomenon of the disparity of expectations and engagement. Though I understand the frustration on both sides, I don’t believe that my explanation condones slipping into abusive behaviour that OP describes in terms of the content of the messages, but it does at least explain the path that some of those men may have walked down to exhibit their unnecessarily aggressive and entitled behaviour.

21. I think part of the problem I had was I treat this stuff like emails that can be responded to when you have time to devote and people on the other end were treating them like texting people you know which is a little more immediate.

22. If I get ignored, I’ll send up to three polite follow-ups at least 3 days apart each. Then wait another week and say screw it and unmatch. I never get rude. Besides it being kind of childish, like for one they could be in a coma for all I know, and 2 why risk being a rude baby only for them to come out of their coma and say “nevermind this guy’s a jerk!”

23. When my profile was still active, I had a disclaimer right in my bio that I keep my phone on do not disturb and don’t check my messages regularly. I think it helps to give people a head’s up ahead of time that you aren’t intentionally ignoring them. That being said those people sound like entitled douchebags and it’s good they showed you that before you invested any more time in them.

24. When I was single I had guys who got mad at me for not constantly messaging them throughout the day.

    Even though I was working.

25. I’ve never experienced this. I’m an adult so I assume people are busy and have other things to do other than play on an app. If someone responded like this, I’d unmatch.

26. 🚩🚩🚩
    In my experience, people who get angry for such a petty thing tend to be obsessive, jealous, and controlling.

27. I tend to go off the apps for weeks at a time when I’m not up for meeting anyone for whatever reason. I’ve always been amazed to come back and find how many men have blocked me or said something rude.

    Oh well, it’s a self filter. Someone who doesn’t understand that people have lives and that not all of us are staring at apps swiping or chatting 24/7 is likely going to be too needy for me anyway. Plus, it comes off a bit entitled. When the conversation has been surface level and no date has occurred, we do not owe anyone our time or even an explanation.

28. Rudeness is deal breaker for me… if something happens and they immediately jump to being rude/ borderline abusive, that’s a big damn red flag.. all those rude messages are bullets that you dodged.

29. Just unmatch these people. If someone can’t gracefully deal with a lapse in conversation (or a conversation just plain dying), and their response is to fling a rude text message in a fit of pique, this isn’t a person you want to date anyway. Don’t respond with an explanation or get fussed— just delete the match and move on with your life.

30. I’ve been one of these people, and I’m deeply fucking sorry. I wish I could take it back. It’s not okay.

    After leaving my 6 year relationship, spending 10 months unemployed in lockdown, living in a city across the country from my family, and after having a recent falling out with my friend group..

    I was completely alone, my social skills degraded, my understanding of people degraded. I took people not responding to me as an indication that I wasn’t good enough, which isn’t exactly untrue, but that’s no excuse.

    I also wasn’t prepared to meet so many cruel people.

    All said and done…. I lacked self confidence, had way too much time and energy on my hands, and am socially inept.

    I’m finally getting into a better spot, I’m slowly *not* internalizing the responses of the people I talk to.

    Please don’t internalize the pain of these people. Please be understanding. imo the best thing you can do if you want to help is just be honest and set your boundaries, these people are going through something you can’t fix.

    Thank-you for sitting through my stream of consciousness.

31. Of all of the hard core complete rejections I have had in my life, I don’t get to bent out of shape about someone who barely knows me rejecting me. And you have no idea what is going on in their life. Often their lack of response has nothing to do with me.