Hey so I was wondering what are the reasons some women don’t just say no? This seems to happen alot where someone will agree to a date but will ultimately flake last minute.
Little back story for this question:
So I asked this girl out who I liked, she said yes and even suggested a day. She seemed keen too go on said date (at least I thought so). We’re not friends or in the same circle of friends so there’s no awkwardness for being rejected. Anyways a day before the date I received a voice message of her explaining that she couldn’t do it that day and can we do it another day. I put the ball in her court and said if/when she wants to grab a drink let me know. She said she’d keep me updated. (I don’t expect a follow up). It’s been a week since then and I’ve removed her number as she’s clearly not interested.
So my question is why not just reject the guy? Why give him hope that there’s a chance when there really isn’t?
I think most men would agree that rejection isn’t as painful as getting our hopes up and knocking us down again.
EDIT: I don’t need to hear about how badly men treat women with rejection anymore, there’s hundreds of replies like that now and I’ve read them all and looked at the links that have been sent. It’s terrible what happens but I get the message
33 comments
If you could live as a woman for a few months, you would know why. Maybe 1 out of 15 men you reject directly get crazy, aggressive, and verbally abusive. It’s enough that it happens to you once and you will do your best to avoid it. I’ve seen men send 30 insulting and abusive messages in a row, after they’ve been rejected. Calling her the worst possible things. That’s why many women try to reject more indirectly and slowly, to avoid an angry outburst like that
I can offer up an explanation
When I was younger, naive, and a people pleaser I didn’t know how to say NO
Gave my number to dudes I didn’t wanna give it to, agreed to dates, all that. When they’d text me later to set something up, I’d reject them through text
Now that I’m a little older with more dating experience, I know how to give a polite rejection so all parties are on the same page
Plus women are socialized to be polite & agreeable. Keep that in mind
Not saying it’s fair or good, but it’s an explanation
>I think most men would agree that rejection isn’t as painful as getting our hopes up and knocking us down again.
Consider me one of the few who don’t. I just move on to the next lady, homie.
Dating isn’t a sport, nor is it something you should grab your Bible and “hope” it ends up in your favor. You date so you can determine **both interest and compatibility**. If someone doesn’t express clear interest, great, they can fuck off. I don’t want to date them and you shouldn’t either.
Women have a myriad of reasons why they don’t express clear disinterest, mostly out of valid fear that the guy might freak out at them. I’ve seen it happen so many times. Hell, when I was much younger and dumber, *I* freaked out. People get hurt when they are rejected, some worse than others, and a lot of them lash out. Unfortunately, how a man lashes out is a weighted dice roll. A dude could be the most rational and chillest guy in the world, but once they’re hurt, they could hurl a shitton of violence the woman’s way, and it’s impossible to predict.
That’s not to say it’s *right* that a woman will avoid rejecting men. I’m just saying it is what it is. That’s why you may have to either take it on the chin or gracefully address it with her with the expectation that the answer will sting.
That goes in to some heavy stuff. Women tend to be more agreeable, and avoid any kind of conflict. It’s just easier to go along with it, and be passive. That, and some people just don’t take no for an answer. Depending on their experiences, they just want you to go away and leave them alone, but won’t say that.
A little concerned about the amount men in this post saying it’s a cop-out. Women are r*ped / assaulted / killed for “just saying no”, so i think being safe is more important than hurt feelings.
Very simple – because some guya can’t take rejection and start acting like jerks.
Typical conversation that pretty much every woman had at least once:
Man: wow, you are so beautiful, will you go on a date with me?
Woman: No
Same man as 20 seconds ago: You fucking ugly, fat bi*ch, I hope you die.
Plus threat of stalking after that.
It’s not necessarily a case of leading someone on. Sometimes, when you’re feeling just “meh” about someone, you think you’ll give this person a chance and see how it goes. And then you change your mind. It’s quite possible that the girl in question wanted to see you when she suggested the date. But as time went on (and perhaps something more interesting in her life came up), she changed her mind about wanting to see you.
It could be a number of reasons, like struggling to say no face to face, girls are sometimes taught to not just say no to someone who asks them out, sometimes it’s an inbuild need to please someone and not say no
Sometimes it’s being afraid of the reaction if you say no to the wrong person. Women have to be a bit carefull how they say no.
Or she might initially be flattered and think ok I’ll give the guy a date – but then think about it and decide perhaps he’s not really the guy for her… or maybe life happens and she genuinely can’t make it?
Im gonna offer a different perspective.
Im a woman and i love women too.
I also hate rejection and ghosting. But i still love women.
I understand that some of them may have lost interest, gotten busy, found someone else, or just didn’t feel safe.
Ik what its like to give someone my number thinking they seem nice and being harassed for weeks about giving him pictures.
Being stalked, harassed, cat called.
Life’s fucking hard when you’re constantly looking over your shoulders.
So yeah I’ll take my hurt feelings and move on.
Why not reject the guy? Because sometimes the goal is to get away as fast as possible.
Yall claim to like women but then say the most disgusting shit about them when getting rejected. Proving their point in this very comment section.
I told a guy once that I wasn’t interested in a second date and he proceeded to text and call NON STOP for 48hrs. I blocked his number, he found my email, blocked him there too, he changed his number. Had to pretend I did the same.
A lot of guys can’t take no for an answer. They get violent or start yelling and throwing insults. Or in the worst case scenario, they kill.
Fear of confrontation. Being a people pleaser.
Some guys get really upset. Some guys get really angry. It’s also just difficult to hurt someone.
But in your case I think that she might have wanted to go on the date, but wasn’t extremely enthusiastic. She just wanted to give you a chance to see if you clicked, but she didn’t have a crush on you or anything. It could’ve gone either way. But she really couldn’t make it to the date, so she left you a message and actually asked for another day. She expected you to come up with the other date and she wasn’t excited enough to plan it immediately. And then days passed and she just forgot about it or didn’t feel like planning something.
I think she did want to go originally because she explained why she couldn’t go over a voice message and she mentioned another day. If it was me and I didn’t actually want to go, I’d type a message a few days before that I couldn’t go that date and I wouldn’t mention another date (not that I would do this now btw).
Some men are really scary when you reject them and you don’t know that they’ll be like that until it’s too late
I’d just like to note that apart from it being self defense a lot of the time, sometimes people just change their mind, or something comes up in their life.
It’s not unlikely that she had something come up. I can only speak for myself but there are a lot of things that might be more important to me than meeting someone for the first time.
because some people go apeshit when told no and they seem normal right up until that point so there’s no knowing ahead of time who’s gonna flip out
Maybe we fear that we are going to get harmed if we say no, its more frequent than you think unfortunately.
Because the last time I told a guy I wasn’t interested in going out with him, he kept arguing that I needed to give him a chance.
“Why not?! Come on, I don’t bite!”
“I’m a nice guy!”
“What if I’m the one?!”
I tried to block him afterward, but his texts kept coming through, and he wouldn’t leave me alone about “just giving him a shot”.
It was honestly really upsetting, and now I’d rather make excuses until a guy gives up
Some reasons women won’t just say No:
1. Some men don’t listen to No as an answer
2. Some people pressure women untill No becomes Yes
3. Some women get hurt for just saying No
4. Girls are conditioned to be nice from a young age (especially to older men)
5. Girls are often dismissed with phrases such as “boys will be boys”
6. Many Christians purity cultures will tell women they have to “protect the boys from lapses in faith” at the same time while learning to “be subservient to their husband”.
7. Many older women have conditioned girls that fighting is pointless
Saying no doesn’t typically work in our favor.
When I was around 14/15, a guy (maybe 17 at the time) who used to go to my school approached me in a park and asked for my number.
I politely told him I would not & when he asked me why I told him that he wasn’t my type. He then proceeded to call me stuck up and racist & then punched me in the face.
I am currently 24 and it is still something I think about whenever I get approached on a street.
Women have been killed for rejecting men, it’s a terrifying world.
I once said no to a girl and she started to act very weird and disturbing. She started to send unsolicited nudes (girls, i can only imagine how bad this must be for you. It’s really uncomfortable receiving pictures like that out of the blue). She also happened to walk/bike past my house a lot after the rejection. I texted her why she was there a lot all of a sudden and she got very angry at me for thinking she tried stalking me.
While she didn’t threaten me at any time, the whole situation was very uncomfortable. It made me realise that in some instances ghosting or gradually letting the conversation die is just easier. I’m not saying that I think all women would react like this but after some days/weeks of talking you often get a good picture on how one might react to rejection.
I think basically a skill we all need to develop is to distinguish those who are genuinely interested vs those who show non-committal interest to avoid being impolite. It can be tricky but will get easier with experience. We can’t live our lives wishing other people would change, we can only change ourselves.
Of course what you’re saying does make sense and would make things much easier but unfortunately it’s very rare anyone finds themselves in an ideal scenario such as that.
women are murdered every single day for rejecting dates from men, no matter how much she knows the dude personally. doesn’t matter how “nice” or “rude” they are because we get killed either way. we would rather be safe and keep our lives than put your feelings first.
I cant speak for everyone, but…. violence. As a woman, its not always in our best interest to say ‘no’, I’ve said ‘sure’ on more than one occasion, just to avoid the guy lashing out at me.
Our safety is more important than your feelings. I’m sorry but you have no idea what it’s like to live as a woman, and how many “nice guys” pose a danger to us.
I’m scared of being killed. Lol. One guy was persistently asking me out at a book store and threw a book at me. Was furious when I laughed after.
If a man rejects a woman, statistically he will not be harmed or killed. His pride may be hurt.
If a woman rejects a man, statistically she is much more likely to be stalked, injured, or killed than a man.
Most men are terrifying to turn down. Doing it this way, we hope to just keep distancing until you loose interest. Much easier/safer.
My experience, my perspective on this topic; Just saying “no” most times doesn’t work. Most see it as a challenge and will push harder in hopes she will cave in and let him be the exception, even to the extent of arguments, slurs, physical violence, or stalking. Historically, most gents do not handle simple rejection well at all and often puts us in real danger. You may feel deceived, but a lot of times a woman will do everything possible, even being petty or avoidant (ghosting), to avoid any confrontation. I get it, it’s just not fair, please try to see it from another perspective.
Fear of violence, stalking, etc.
A few years ago, my life was **so busy** that I totally forgot about social calls/dates constantly. I’m already bad at texting and when I’m super busy, the outside world doesn’t exist. There could be a number of reasons why you haven’t heard from her. A week isn’t very long especially for someone that you weren’t in a committed relationship with.
As for why we (women) don’t always just say “no”?
Just about every woman you know has been harassed at the least and sometimes totally terrorized by a man they turned down outright at some point or another. Obviously, we all know that *”not all men”* but it’s enough of them to make us think twice about saying no. Why some of us wear fake wedding rings when out and about. Why we carry small weapons on keychains and so on.
Then again, she could have wanted to go out with you, thought on it more and decided you’re better off as friends.
***OR*** she *could* simply be telling the truth and will message you when things slow down for her. Maybe if you asked instead of **ass**uming the worst, you wouldn’t be so presumptive and pessimistic. But I digress. Live how you want.
Honestly, I’ve done this before on accident. Life gets busy and I have avoidant behaviors and just completely forget. But only to those who I am somewhat interested in. If I liked him a lot I’d definitely at least keep in touch. I’m doing a lot better about being upfront. Rejecting a guy can be scary.
If she does reach out, she’ll need an explanation for leaving you hanging. But I’m going to assume not enough interest and immaturity on her part.
Former bartender here. I’ve seen a man punch a gal in the face for not accepting his advances. I’ve seen men go from “hey beautiful” to “fuck you you fucking cum slut” for saying they weren’t interested.
This is only one of many examples, but I myself have had to say “no” to the same man for 45 straight minutes (I couldn’t get away bc I was working at the bar) and he stayed at sat at my bar, glaring at me for the rest of the evening getting drunk, then he wouldn’t leave at last call, security had to escort him out, and that mother fucker was waiting for me outside when I left.
Some men can deal with a “no thank you” while other Fucking implode. You never know what you’re going to get. So what I learned is to be as polite as possible to stay safe, and unfortunately, that means someone else’s feelings may need to be slightly less important than my personal safety.
Many people will do the whole “not all men” and whatever, and that’s true. Not all men act like this. But the thing is, is that we can’t tell by looking at you or talking to you if you have emotional stability and maturity and it’s not worth the risk.
I’ve been told “no” directly and it’s much better that than the typical “hints” you have to decipher, the uncertainty is what hurts the most in case you do like him/her, or bothersome when you don’t (when someone you don’t like thinks you do for some reason).
Long live effective communication.