I do applaud him for not responding with a vitriolic rant or personal/gender attacks, creating an awkward or confrontational situation, or spiraling into defeatism and self hate or doubt. So kudos there.
I do want to make a call for understanding however. The online dating experience as does general dating experience tends to differ between men and women on average. While some women certainly feel the other person should be “grateful they are giving the time of day” (some men also feel this way), short responses or a seeming lack of engagement in conversation aren’t always a sign of this. Often women especially Can reach a point of fatigue as many women have magnitudes more potential dates in their queues and might speak to hundreds of men a week even on dating apps or via texts. Many of these conversations, no matter how pleasant or genuine, can be or seem very much the same.
The only things anyone has to differentiate themselves in early online dating are their profile pics and..
what they say. If what you say is similar to what many other guys have said- there is no specific reason to chose you over them.
What I mean is this- if you are sent to the grocery store to buy your friend a banana, some bananas will not look attractive at all, some are bigger, some are smaller. Within the bananas at the store, a good number will fall into a category where they look acceptable enough. So what would make you choose one specific banana over another? Most people don’t particularly care what brand their bananas are, they wouldn’t leave a store and drive across town because this store only has store brand bananas and doesn’t carry chaqueta brand bananas. If all the bananas are priced the same and are all “organic” or not etc… you need one banana- you’ll leave with one, and you won’t know if it was a good one or not until you’ve paid and invested the time and prepared and sampled the product. At that point you could compare two bananas for flavor and such to pick a best…
banana- but before that point, looking at two acceptable bananas that both look good and you can have either one, which one do you choose…?
Now people aren’t bananas. So we can get a little bit more of a test before we leave the store. We can get a better idea what’s under the peel and what makes it so we should choose to invest time into one versus another.
So that’s what those types of chats are primarily about- they are an audition of sorts where both people try to see if the other person seems like someone it might be worth spending the time and energy to get to know better and if they seem like someone who might cause harm or distress or if they seem safe enough to start to expose vulnerabilities such as deeper conversation and connection or meeting in person or giving your phone number etc.
and many people, but especially women, can get burned out. We can argue that people shouldn’t be on dating sites if they aren’t in a mental and overall state to date, but that burn out is sort of inherent to the process, and really, I don’t know that with what tends to already be a slim pool for men that men should be discouraging women from participating in dating sites just because they are burned out a bit. I think with men and women both when we teach a state of light burnout on relationships we might need some time off but we also might just be hoping and looking for someone who reignites the spark of hope and rewards our patience by showing us it isn’t all flakes and boring or cookie cutter people and bots and bad experiences.
Often times these sorts of responses are defense mechanisms created through pain or harm suffered in past instances where a person was open or quick to earnest connection. So part of the entire process of dating, especially as an adult, is working through those layers of defense that most adults carry. The text is a bit small and hard for me to see, and the resolution seems Poot so I can’t scale it up- but from what I can see it doesn’t look like this fellow is the greatest conversationalist in the world.
It can be- beyond ego or beyond a natural and prudent defensiveness, that he’s just failing to engage her. He may not be discussing topics that interest her, or she may just not have the experience or perspective to offer much input on the subjects he is talking about. Of course it isn’t or shouldn't be strictly up to a man to maintain ingesting conversation, but between two people it is often the case that one needs to be an initiator of things, one needs to be a facilitator..
.. of things etc. it’s very common for some people to be pleasant to interact with but lacking certain skills or drives or traits to interact proactively without some guidance or such. Much like dancing, there is often a leader and a follower. They may switch, and the terms can be misleading (no pun intended) because a good leader is feeling and anticipating and reading the follower, where they want to go, how they move, what they seem to enjoy or are better at and so forth. Not every pair makes for good dance partners and someone you may think can’t dance or is a bad leader or a bad follower might actually be a great partner for someone with the right style or who takes some time to learn the others style.
So to each their own. These things can be complex and nuanced. At the least I do appreciate that the gentleman here didn’t overreact or get offensive. Sometimes two people don’t work or click. It doesn’t inherently mean anything is “wrong” with either one, it means they just lack compatibility. They may have diff ent values or ideas or needs or priorities or perceptions and cognition.
When that happens we can usually just say- indeed. There are other people out there and better than to cause problems or try to change someone else or criticize for not fitting your ideas of how they should think or act, move on and find someone more compatible. Of course, to my earlier points though, sometimes there are things we can learn from these events if they are a pattern and sometimes we might exercise some empathy or understanding or see some value in investing more into getting past what could be just a momentary hurdle.
I do want to make a call for understanding however. The online dating experience as does general dating experience tends to differ between men and women on average. While some women certainly feel the other person should be “grateful they are giving the time of day” (some men also feel this way), short responses or a seeming lack of engagement in conversation aren’t always a sign of this. Often women especially Can reach a point of fatigue as many women have magnitudes more potential dates in their queues and might speak to hundreds of men a week even on dating apps or via texts. Many of these conversations, no matter how pleasant or genuine, can be or seem very much the same.
The only things anyone has to differentiate themselves in early online dating are their profile pics and..
What I mean is this- if you are sent to the grocery store to buy your friend a banana, some bananas will not look attractive at all, some are bigger, some are smaller. Within the bananas at the store, a good number will fall into a category where they look acceptable enough. So what would make you choose one specific banana over another? Most people don’t particularly care what brand their bananas are, they wouldn’t leave a store and drive across town because this store only has store brand bananas and doesn’t carry chaqueta brand bananas. If all the bananas are priced the same and are all “organic” or not etc… you need one banana- you’ll leave with one, and you won’t know if it was a good one or not until you’ve paid and invested the time and prepared and sampled the product. At that point you could compare two bananas for flavor and such to pick a best…
Now people aren’t bananas. So we can get a little bit more of a test before we leave the store. We can get a better idea what’s under the peel and what makes it so we should choose to invest time into one versus another.
So that’s what those types of chats are primarily about- they are an audition of sorts where both people try to see if the other person seems like someone it might be worth spending the time and energy to get to know better and if they seem like someone who might cause harm or distress or if they seem safe enough to start to expose vulnerabilities such as deeper conversation and connection or meeting in person or giving your phone number etc.
It can be- beyond ego or beyond a natural and prudent defensiveness, that he’s just failing to engage her. He may not be discussing topics that interest her, or she may just not have the experience or perspective to offer much input on the subjects he is talking about. Of course it isn’t or shouldn't be strictly up to a man to maintain ingesting conversation, but between two people it is often the case that one needs to be an initiator of things, one needs to be a facilitator..
When that happens we can usually just say- indeed. There are other people out there and better than to cause problems or try to change someone else or criticize for not fitting your ideas of how they should think or act, move on and find someone more compatible. Of course, to my earlier points though, sometimes there are things we can learn from these events if they are a pattern and sometimes we might exercise some empathy or understanding or see some value in investing more into getting past what could be just a momentary hurdle.