It Was One Date, Not a Peace Treaty

A surprisingly large amount of diplomacy can follow one perfectly pleasant dinner.

The man was nice. He chose a lovely place, asked questions, behaved like a civilized adult and perhaps even paid for dessert. Unfortunately, somewhere between the first glass of wine and saying goodnight, you realized you were not particularly interested in seeing him again.

And now apparently you are responsible for international relations.

How do you tell him? Will he be hurt? Will he think something is wrong with him? Should you explain? Perhaps you should give it another date just to be absolutely sure. After all, he was so nice.

This is how one dinner quietly gets renewed for another season.

Nobody Wants to Cause a Diplomatic Incident

Rejecting a perfectly decent man can feel oddly cruel because he has not done anything wrong. It would be much easier if he had insulted the waiter, announced that women become difficult after thirty-five and tried to sell you cryptocurrency before dessert.

Then the decision would practically make itself.

The difficult ones are the nice men you simply do not want.

Nothing is wrong with him. Nothing dramatic happened. There is simply no little internal voice saying, Oh yes, more of this please.

And somehow that feels insufficient. We want a respectable reason for saying no, preferably one that would survive questioning by a panel.

So we start looking for defects.

Maybe he talked too much. Perhaps his laugh bothered you. Perhaps there was something about the way he held the menu.

Poor man. Thirty minutes ago he was simply not your person; now he is being audited for personality irregularities because you need grounds for dismissal.

Sometimes there are no grounds.

Sometimes there is just no desire for a second date.

Guilt Has Excellent Follow-Up Skills

The most amusing solution is agreeing to another date because you do not want to hurt his feelings.

This seems kind in the moment. He leaves happy. You have avoided the uncomfortable conversation. Peace has been maintained.

Unfortunately, you now have another date.

And because you are a decent woman, you behave pleasantly on that one too. You laugh. You talk. You may even accept another dinner because now rejecting him feels worse: after all, you went out with him again.

Guilt is very good at creating evidence against itself.

By the third date, the poor man reasonably assumes something is developing while you are privately wondering how you became involved in a relationship you never actually wanted.

This is usually when resentment arrives, which is particularly unfair because he has been operating with the information you supplied.

He thinks you are interested.

You think you are being nice.

Nobody has received the correct diplomatic cable.

Rejection Is Not a Character Review

Part of the awkwardness comes from treating “I don’t want another date” as though it means “I have evaluated you as a human being and regret to report serious deficiencies.”

It does not.

Dating is full of perfectly lovely people who are lovely for somebody else.

You can admire a man’s intelligence, enjoy his company, recognize that he is attractive and still feel absolutely no urge to see what happens next. Attraction is annoyingly ungrateful that way. It does not appear simply because someone has earned excellent marks for effort.

This is also why detailed explanations rarely improve matters.

Telling a man that there was “no spark” may disappoint him. Telling him that you disliked his voice, found him too serious, thought his clothes were strange and became alarmed by the way he ate asparagus gives everybody far more material than the occasion requires.

It was coffee, not an exit interview.

A brief, kind message can carry the entire situation without convening a summit:

I enjoyed meeting you, but I don’t feel the romantic connection I’m looking for. I wish you the best.

There. Several governments remain standing.

Ghosting Is Often Avoidance Claiming Diplomatic Immunity

Of course, disappearing can seem easier.

No difficult message. No disappointed reply. No moment when you have to acknowledge that somebody liked you more than you liked him.

You simply fade.

And sometimes there are genuine safety reasons to disengage without explanation. But with an ordinary decent man after an ordinary date, ghosting often has less to do with protecting his feelings than protecting yourself from the discomfort of causing them.

That is a very human impulse.

It is also how people end up ignoring cheerful messages from someone who has no idea the romantic embassy has permanently closed.

The awkwardness does not disappear. It merely moves somewhere else and waits.

Occasionally it waits until you run into him unexpectedly.

Splendid.

He May Be Disappointed. Civilization Will Continue.

This is perhaps the part we make much too complicated: somebody can be disappointed by you and still be perfectly all right.

He may feel a little embarrassed. His ego may sting. He may wonder why. He may even spend an evening complaining about dating to a friend who has heard this speech before.

That is not catastrophe. That is being a person who wanted something and did not get it.

We all survive these tiny romantic losses constantly.

And strangely, a clear no can be much kinder than several decorative maybes. It allows both people to leave the situation with the correct information instead of extending a courtship because one woman was too polite to close the meeting.

The great diplomatic crisis, in the end, is usually much smaller than imagined.

One person hoped for another date.

The other did not.

No sanctions required.

No emergency summit.

It was one date, not a peace treaty.