When Dates Go Bad: The Withdrawn Dater
Published on December 18, 2007
I was on a date once and for the first fifteen minutes things were going fine. Mid-date, though, something changed and I could actually feel the woman across from me withdrawing from our conversations. Soon, every question I asked was met with a single word answer and she was making no attempts to start any conversations. After several failed attempts at light conversation I saw things were going bad fast so I came right out and asked her what happened – what changed from the beginning of the date to bring us to that point? Her response surprised me: “If you don’t want to be here with me you don’t have to pretend to be interested in me. We can just go home.”
This was not what I expected to hear! I explained to her that while I wasn’t feeling any “fireworks”, I was enjoying our time together. I didn’t try to sugarcoat how I felt. This, along with my genuine shock at her statement, regained her willingness to talk. My date explained that she wasn’t angry with me but with herself and even agreed that she didn’t see our relationship moving beyond friendship. Regardless, she said, she was still upset with herself for “messing up” even if it was a relationship she wasn’t interested in! She never did explain what I did to make her feel this way. Looking back, I can see that I wasn’t fully committing myself to the conversation and she picked up on it.
With all the pressure to succeed gone, we spent the rest of the evening talking about online dating in general. We each discussed the struggles we were experiencing in depth. It was this date that opened my eyes to the fact that a woman has to struggle with very different problems than a man does. She described the worthless spam emails, the times where she would never hear anything from a man again even though the first date seemed to go wonderfully, the random creepy communication, and the amount of email she had to deal with. Just understanding these things made me feel much better about my own dating struggles (my lack of email responses in particular).
So…What’s Your Point?
I tell this story because it is important to realize that things are not always as they appear. A date that is going poorly is not necessarily going downhill for the reason you think it is. When my date became angry, I assumed it was because I wasn’t what she hoped for. I never expected her to suggest that I wasn’t interested in her! Also, just because a date appears to be going badly doesn’t mean you should run to the restroom so you can crawl out the window (although there are times where this is warranted). While this date did not lead to anything greater in-and-of-itself, it did change how I communicated online (it played a major role in forming the opinions I lay out in First Contact). This in turn eventually led me to meet my wife. With that in mind, I would encourage you to be willing to step out of “interview mode” and be open to really talking to the person across from you – even knowing that you may never see them again. You never know what can come from something as simple as being friendly.
Responding to a Withdrawn Date
Here are a few thoughts on responding to this type of situation:
- Avoid giving the appearance of being uninterested. In my story above, I did something to suggest to my date I was bored. Try to avoid my mistake by showing interest in your date. Even if you’re not interested in dating them in the future, it’s not as if ignoring them is going to move things along any better!
- Avoid risky topics or at least tread lightly over them. Your date may have a very good reason to be distant if you cause them to feel uncomfortable.
- Be open and honest. Most people are pretty good at picking up on when they’re being lied to. The fact that I didn’t try to pretend to be more interested than was true saved the evening.
It is natural for someone to withdraw if they believe they are going to be rejected. However, this is not the only reason a person might become withdrawn, or in extreme cases angry, on a date. I will discuss another situation in the near future where my date’s anger was entirely out of my control!
Author: Brad
Brad initially struggled with online dating but over time became quite successful using it. He met his wife using online dating and has been giving advice and helping people improve their results since 2007. He has written a Free Online Dating Guide to help others find success with online dating. You can learn more about his personal experience using online dating and running this website here.
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