Should I Reject or Ignore Unwanted Contact on Dating Sites?

Published on October 11, 2009

Is it better to ignore unwanted contact or come right out and tell someone that you’re not interested? I’ve had this question asked a few times…always by women but I assume some men find themselves asking this question as well. On one hand, simply ignoring people is generally considered rude but on the other explicitly rejecting someone isn’t something most people like to do. For many of us, especially early on in our online dating, this creates something of a dilemma.

So first things first, I’ll explain how I think you should respond and then I’ll go into the details of why:

1. If this is the first time they have contacted you and you’re not interested I would recommend remaining silent. They may not be the right person for you but they’re probably great for someone out there. Rejection gets both old and depressing, especially when done carelessly (and you may not be as tactful as you think you are). If you explicitly reject someone the wrong way, you may not only be ruining their day but also the day of the person they would have met had they avoided a little too much honesty from you!
2. If this is the second (or third or more) time they’ve contacted you, go ahead and let them know you’re not interested but leave some mystery as to why. It’s not your job to fix their profile or attitude or anything else so you may see some major problems with the way they are presenting themselves but keep that to yourself.
3. If they persist, all bets are off and you can be as honest as you want to be. This repeated and unwanted contact begins to approach harassment (even though the person contacting may not see things this way).

Note: If at any point you begin to have conversations of any kind with someone and later decide you’re not interested, you need to let them know. I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t always follow this rule but I should have and you should too.

Why Should I Respond with Silence?
At one time, I was very annoyed by women who never wrote back after I contacted them. My dating habits at the time were that I didn’t want to date more than one woman at a time so I would wait a few days before contacting another woman. I was trying to give the first woman time to contact me back. Over the next few months I learned a few things:

• Trying to only talk to one woman at a time is a good way to have very few dates. This is a bad way to approach dating and the opposite approach works far better.
• Explicit rejection is no fun

With explicit rejection…well, this turned out to be one of those cases where I thought I wanted it until I actually started to get it. When I started receiving the “you’re not my type” emails, I realized it was much easier and less depressing to assume that she had:

• Stopped using the online dating service
• Met someone else and hadn’t had time to remove her profile
• Left the country to volunteer in a third-world country
• Or any other excuse to convince myself that she would love to meet me but other circumstances prevented it

I had women who just wrote back “no”, that one word and nothing more. I had women who wrote back and were more than happy to explain why they weren’t interested, in great detail. I once had a woman write me back a month after I had contacted her to let me know that she had been away but now that she was back she just wanted me to know she didn’t want to talk to me (this one stung in particular since I had forgotten by this point that I had contacted her). I suspect most of these women saw contacting me just to say “no” as “doing the right thing” but I think their attempt to do the honorable thing was a little misplaced.

Finally, if you’re finding yourself on the other side of this question and are getting beat up by a few too honest men or women, don’t take it to heart. You’re going to have to remain persistent to find success whether you’re find rejection in emails or in silence. Don’t let it get you down, it happens to us all!

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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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