Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Gentle Dismissals

Definition: Dismissals are also known as rejecting, letting down, spurning, turning down offers and proposals for dates and future contact. You have been dismissed when the object of your affections no longer wishes to have contact with you.

Being a fabulously interesting person does have it's drawbacks. You might have found yourself in this instance several times. Perhaps you have gone on one or two dates with this guy, or maybe he is trying to pursue a relationship with him that you are just not feeling. There is no way around it, you have to decline his offer, or else you might wind up with a Bugaboo scenario.

First of all, keep in mind that you should treat him with respect. After all, it does take tremendous guts to meet a perfect stranger and make contact. He has to be given his props for that. However, you just aren't interested. Which is neither of your faults, it's just bad luck on his part ~ you can't be interested in every single man that comes up to you.

So how do you let him down?

There are many ways, and some of them more effective than others. My favorite is "Thanks for the offer, but I'm not/no longer available." It does sound a bit professional, but it gets the message across. Saying that you are unavailable doesn't demean or criticise them in any way. It's infinitely better than the phrase, "It's not you, it's me", or flat out lying and saying you have a boyfriend. Saying that you are unavailable means exactly that....you aren't available. You aren't available to him, for dates, for phone calls, for anything at all.

In college, I came across a woman that felt it was her duty to tell the guys she rejected why she rejected them. Alot of her comments were offensive even to my ears, and I'm sure that she shattered several hearts and turned decent gentlemen into raving Playas. You don't want to do this. Giving them a reason might further heighten their quest for you. They will consider the reason a stumbling block, and feel that they can remove the impediment and move forward in their quest. After all, if you say, "I'm too busy to date right now," or some other inane reason, they can just come back later asking you if you are still busy.

Some of you might argue that just declining phone calls and refusing their messages works as effectively, but really ladies, this just isn't polite. You need to clarify that you have rejected them before you can ignore them. You have to emphatically state that you are no longer interested in seeing them, and hopefully they will leave you alone. Sometimes you might have to reject them more than once (we all know how mule-headed these guys can be!), but you should let each guy that tries to date/sleep with/talk to/court/marry you know when he is out of the running.

However, don't try and lessen the rejecting blow by saying, "Let's be friends." That is an attempt to assuage your guilt and salvage their pride. Which in theory is a good thing, but he still likes you. So being your friend isn't going to take away his liking of you, it is just going to intensify it. Added to the fact that you really didn't want to be his friend in the first place and might grow to resent him for hanging around. Or worse, you start having feelings for him and then you have to eat crow pie, but by then he has already moved on, and so you fall into unrequited love and....see how soap opera-ish it becomes? So just reject him outright and make a clean cut from the onset. He will move on to the next lady and hopefully meet his match.

Meanwhile you will have more time on your hands to meet your match. So it works out nicely for everyone all the way round.

Labels: Dating

Posted by Vixen @ 1:30 AM :: 6 trainees letting it rip!

Talk to Me!

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