So you've got yourself an online dating profile. You've taken the plunge. Which is no joke, mind you, because online daing can be difficult. Quite rightly, personality doesn’t exactly present itself very easily with only a couple photos (that most likely were taken two years and fifteen pounds ago) and a few paragraphs (that may or may not be riddled with embellishments).
But alas, you find a girl that you're interested in and she’s been messaging you back. So far, you like her enough to want to meet her. You ask her to "hang out sometime." Or you bust out the infamous, "you should come over…" Bazing! You get no response. Up until then, she was chatting cheerfully with you. This isn’t the first time this has happened. You're baffled and frustrated and all you want to do is complain that women are stupid, incomprehensible creatures that cannot be reckoned with for all the riches of heaven above.
Okay, maybe you’re not that dramatic about it. But, contrary to what you may automatically conclude, she more than likely was NOT trying to string you along, only to leave you hanging by a thread, wondering what you did wrong. Hear this: Women are not cold-hearted beings. We don’t reject advances from the opposite sex simply for the pleasure of it. If you want a scientific explanation for it, women just communicate socially in a different way than men do (1).
So without further ado, here are a few reasons as to why she did not respond to your request, what you can do about it, and how to prevent it from happening in the future.
1. You asked her to come over to your place.
This is a common pitfall. She didn’t want to say no because she didn’t want you to take it personally. Please guys, think about it. Put yourself in a girl’s shoes. Think of all the rape stories you’ve heard that involved the internet; the kidnapping stories or Lifetime movies that have been in existence about this topic over the last ten years. If she has any brains at all, she’s going to be careful, and that means, not going over to a strange guy’s house when she has never met him before. Women have always had to be vigilant about this stuff. Just because you never have to think about it, doesn’t mean women don’t think about it on a daily basis.
Don’t take it personally, and message her again, saying that if she’s more comfortable meeting you in public during the day, you’re totally fine with it.
And for the second part….
2. You asked to meet up with her at night.
Unless she’s a girl who’s looking for a friends-with-benefits deal, this is a no-no. If you’re looking for a relationship, even if you see nothing wrong with it, asking her to come over to your house at night is code to her for “I want to fuck you.” Maybe you just want to share your Stars Wars vintage film collection with her over popcorn. She doesn’t know that and she’s going to assume the former. Simply put, don’t ask her on first meeting to come to your place at night if what you want is an actual relationship.
3. You brought up the prospect of meeting too quickly, and she didn’t feel ready for it.
While men typically use conversation to achieve a tangible outcome, realize that women use conversation primarily to increase rapport or intimacy.(1)
She simply did not feel that you two had reached the point where she’d feel close enough to you to want to see you and hang out with you in person.
But take solace in the fact that it almost never means that she didn’t enjoy talking to you or that she feels her rapport with you would never have reached that point. But you’ve sprung the question already and now she has shut down on you. To remedy this situation, just send her a quick message basically saying that you understand if she’s not ready to meet up, and you’re more than happy to continue talking online until she feels comfortable about moving forward.
So, how do you know when is the right time to pop the question? It’s quite intuitive really, but some good signs to look for are, a) she’s being very expressive and asks you lots of questions, or b) she’s receptive to talking about deeper stuff than “how are you today” or “what did you do today.” For example, you two have started exchanging more detailed information about each other’s lives, such as family matters or friends.
4. You asked her to come hang out with you and your friends.
You may think that adding the friends to the picture will make her feel more comfortable. Think again. Realize that she may not want to meet a group of brand new people when she has not yet even met you. You can't very well introduce your love interest to your friends if you haven't even met her yourself. It’s an awkward situation to say the least.
Again, put yourself in her shoes. Think about it; just how comfortable would you feel? Would you be down to “hang out” with her friends and paint your nails and talk about hairstyles with them? Yeah, didn’t think so. She doesn’t want to hang out with your friends either. Unless she’s a total tomboy or grew up playing with her brothers all the time, most girls don’t like being the only girl around a bunch of guys.
So now, after reading this article, hopefully you feel less confused and discouraged about the whole online dating thing. Hopefully now, you're no longer asking yourself, "what in the world did I say?" And you may now finally realize that men and women communicate differently but that it's not something to feel frustrated about. It's something to try to understand better, so that in the future, you can set yourself up for success with women.
Sources:
1. Merchant, K. (2012). How Men And Women Differ: Gender Differences in Communication Styles, Influence Tactics, and Leadership Styles. CMC Senior Theses. Paper 513. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/513
2. Vom Saal, W. (2005, October 4). Gender differences in communication styles. In General Chemistry Interaction Simulations. Retrieved from https://employees.oneonta.edu/vomsaaw/w/psy257/handouts/gender_diffs_in_communication.htm
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