No matter how much we write about this and discuss it endlessly, this topic bears repeating. I was reading a post written by a woman on our Advice site who’d had a series of great dates with a guy and then … he “poofed”, vanished, disappeared — you know the story. She wants to know why, and that is the title of her discussion thread: “Why did he do this?”
It is very hard to change the analytical tendencies of women (and some men too, who also want to know why). But maybe, with repetition and reminders, we can change our way of thinking and save agonizing time spent dissecting every moment of every date with the fleeing party.
When you start to go down this exhausting and emotional path – stop! Do not waste your time trying to figure out why. There could be a million reasons why someone loses interest, from their own hang-ups, fears, prejudices, old baggage or even financial issues. It doesn’t matter. What matters is preserving your sanity and looking ahead – not backwards.
It didn’t work out. You’ll likely never know why, really, so the quicker you can digest and accept that, the more energy you have saved for more important things.
All you need to know is that this person isn’t worth your time – and didn’t even have the decency or communication skills to end things in a mature fashion. So buh-bye!
Has anyone been able to successfully do this? Please share!
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i may be off the subject a little, but i got my answer when i asked why. he said he wouldnt give us a second chance because i gained a little weight. stupid, i didnt change as a person. i changed physically. now that i met someone else who loves the way i look, he wishes we were together again. he has to realize that he lost a great woman and now someone else is appreciating it
Men are simple creatures so the question “why?” is easily answered -and I think women benefit from the answer. If you have had great dates but no sex and the man suddenly disappears, it is because he was looking for short-term mating opportunities and realized he wasn’t going to get it without a lot more work -equivalent to that associated with long-term mating. Each situation may have different confounding factors but sex is at the heart of any male matter:)
It’s just in my nature to ask why. I’ve learned by asking why and one thing that I’ve learned is that some people are just not ready for a relationship. Also, some people are just looking for friends with benefits. And there are times when we know that the other person interested so we give it a try. There’s a guy who is interested in me now but I’m not really interested in him. He seems nice and is very successful but I’m not really attracted to him. I’ve gone out with him a few times to give it a try but I’m still not feeling it with him. This is when I hate dating. I don’t want to hurt this guys feelings but I don’t want to keep leading him on either. I have to go with what’s in my heart, not what is in my head. Yes this guy is nice, successful, doing everything right and is into me, but I’m not attracted to him. So there’s the reason but I’m not going to tell him because it would be rude.
It’ RUDE not to tell him. Grow up and if he is a grown adult he will appreciate the truth.
I agree Ann! If he asks you again, tell him in a nice way that you dont have chemistry, but think he is great. Any guy would understand and appreciate the honesty.
Agree
If there is one thing about women that frustrates me, this is exactly it. I might just chalk it up to the two sexes thinking and reasoning differently, but I have a very hard time understanding the avoidance behavior so many women show around “why”.
All this preoccupation around this idea of being “nice” is bothersome. “Nice” is a cowardly word. Nice means acting in a certain way because it helps you avoid uncomfortable or awkward situations, rather than being “good”, or genuinely caring about the well being of the other person by being direct and honest with him or her. Be good, not nice.
If you’re dating someone, not feeling it, and not breaking it off with him because you want to be nice, you’re doing yourself a favor, not him. If you don’t think a guy is sexy, use a line like “it’s been great getting to know you, but I’m afraid I just don’t feel the chemistry for a relationship.” News flash- he’s going to be disappointed. If he likes you, that’s inevitable- but at least he will respect you for respecting him.
One last point- I think guys are less sensitive to the lack of attraction being a physical attribute. If we’re fat, not muscular, or generally lethargic, tell him. It would probably serve the guy good to see the inside of a gym. I haul myself to the gym even when I don’t want to go; maybe he needs someone to be direct with him if that’s the reason.
WEll said, Chris.
I dissagree with it being rude. Chemistry is everything and you can’t make it happen or fake it. I appreciate when a girl has the “balls” to say why she isn’t interested. I think the “poofing” is VERY rude and I would NEVER give a girl a second chance after doing that. And yes I have had that opportunity to tell them so.
I think it’s best not to worry about it and move on to find the other fish in the sea. I think most men have unrealistic expectations. They see these comedies where really unattractive men have these super model women falling all over them and they think it’s reality. Just think about Sienfeld. George, Jerry, Kramer……..come on! Is that the real word? If she’s beautiful guys and you’re not, she’s probably after your money, nothing more.
I would never go out with a girl just because she was attractive, but I wouldn’t date someone I wasn’t attracted to. There is a difference. And trust me if you been on the dating sites women are just as unrealistic as men. I’ve seen women who are short and overweight want tall guys, in great shape, good looking, good career (aka have money). Yes men can be shallow and that’s probably the reason they are single, but girls are every bit as shallow.
I believe in communicating what’s going wrong and maybe talk of solutions before I would leave a relationship. Now if it’s over then chances are u already know why I left. Simply put, we must’ve discussed the situation and it went ignored which in turn led me to leave.
Amen to that! Wondering why is such a waste of time and energy. It’s their loss, not yours. The fact is they weren’t interested. It is that simple. So they are obviously not the one and are not worth wasting energy over. It is what it is! They’ve moved on, and so should you!
I recently met a man, who told me he broke up with a woman because she was a bad kisser. He never told her that was the resaon he broke up with her. I mean really… what woman would want a man so shallow that he would break up for kiss quality. If you have a man who leaves for no apparent reason, consider yourself lucky, because there is something wrong with HIM, not something wrong with you !! And you really do not need to know the “why”, just know that you are MUCH better off without him.
Would you stay with a guy who was a bad lover?
It is what it is! The last sentence says it all. If he flaked out without the decency to tell you, then the level of respect and maturity is missing. You don’t need someone like that in the first place.
I have always felt that asking why was pointless. If it got so bad that you had to ask what happened, are you really going to believe the answer they give you anyway?? I wouldn’t. Also, women are guilty of over analyzing, and consequently, they themselves make lame excuses for the guy, i.e. maybe he’s commitment shy, he’s been hurt, he’s intimidated, etc. Put all that crap in a funnel and push it through and one answer comes out the end: he’s not that into you! If a guy is really interested, none of the aforementioned excuses would keep him away from you. IJS….
I wasted 2 1/2 yrs. on a female.I asked her out and all she said was thank you.Never gave me a yes or no.She suddenly disappeared. I figured she was probably seeing another guy anyway.I just moved on.I know now if I see her in public.I have the feeling to just simply not bother or acknowlege her.Ignore her is best.She’ll see me sure.But I’ll treat the situation as if we never met.If she’s up for talk then that’s cool.
I was asked why and I told him honestly that I felt he was neglecting me and so I stopped communicating with him. We started talking again and it turned out to be a waste of time anyway. But I’m glad he asked and that I got to clarify where I was coming from. Sometimes miscommunication is the real problem and it takes one person to brave enough to find out what happened.
One way I have discovered to “get over” a guy and not be consumed with the “whys” is to know deep inside your heart that YOU treated him well! There are a million reasons why someone behaves the way they do and likely it has nothing to do with you anyway. If you can honestly say to yourself that he is a better person for having met you (even if he does not know it), then this frees you up emotionaly and allows you to move on and meet someone worthwhile. Never look back.
I agree with Jazz. I had a few dates with someone I had met on another dating site, and he just disappeared on me. I already got the sense that he was a little flaky, and spent weeks pondering infamous, why did he do that? But I realized that I did nothing wrong. I treated him well, showed interest in everything, and whatever caused our fall-out was probably something going on in his life that had nothing to do with me. And if it was something against me, I’m 100% sure it was something petty and stupid.
I have been dating a guy for 8 months now. He lives 2 hours away from me and i drive to see him when i can. When I see him it is wonderful we have such a great time together. but its when i leave the problem begins. He lives in an area with very little phone service and has no land line… i know recipe for disater in the making. I know he has terrible service but I dont see why an effort cant be made to get ahold of me. So of course i ask him to just make the effort and find a way if he truly cares…. Well it has been about a month and i have yet to hear a word from him. I want to ask him why but mostly i feel like asking isnt going to make what he did to me any better. He has already made me feel like the most insignificant object in his life. I knnow for me its over but i want resolution… and i know that if i hear his voice my mind could be changed in a second. Andi just cant have that…. but moving on and forgetting just seems so far away. Oh well what can you do…
Wow Stephanie, sounds like this guy Andrew I dated last year. I stupidly wasted time trying to get him to call me back, text, when in reality, if he was really interested he would have been jumping through hoops to find ways to communicate. Same with this guy, just forget about it, and it’s not worth your agonizing over the “why”. Who cares? He isn’t that into you, that’s evident, and it’s his loss. The more you fret over it, the more time you are wasting on someone who doesn’t give a damn about you. Stop wasting your time!!! The right guy would bend over backwards to see you and talk to you, not make excuses. Stop torturing yourself!!!!
I was dating this guy for about 6 weeks.. Everything was absolutely wonderful and he talked about introducing me to his kids, which are in their late 20s. Within a day we were om the outs because I questioned him about still being actively on a dating site. I simply only wanted to know if he was keeping his options open so I could keep my eyes wide open. I figured he wasn’t ready for a relationship although all the other signs were there. So he text me to tell me that we shouldn’t talk for the time being cause he needed to think, he was in process of moving and he hid his profile. I needed answers and to clarify that I didn’t mean any harm and apologized over and over! I didn’t really give him breathing room cause I wanted answers… And more than anything his forgiveness! Then he sent me another text not to contact him anymore! I have since stopped communicating and hoping he’ll come around after he moves. If he doesn’t I will be left wondering but will move on although it hurts cause we were awesome together.
I was going out with a girl for a month. Asked me if I would meet her mother, which I said yes. Two days later I had dinner reservations and tickets to a comedy show and she just stopped returning calls. A week later she started giving me some lame bullshit but I knew there was probably another guy so I just said goodbye. You never know. I don’t care if someone isn’t in to me, but I really hate the dissappearing act.
Had you made an agreement with him to be mutually exclusive? If not, it was your mistake to ask him why his dating profile was still active. It means you are the jealous type, and that is only the formula for trouble. No man wants that. When you MUTUALLY agree to be exclusive, he will take down or hide his profile. If not then he is a jerk, because he is breaking a promise to you.
This is in reference to Chris’s comment. Thank you. I really needed to read that.
I have always been a “nice” person….. always avoiding hurting other people’s feelings…..always saying yes to everything asked of me because it was so much easier for me to avoid the conflict of saying no. Well, that got me into a lot of trouble, because I changed who I was to be with someone…..and wound up paying the price.
Now I realize that I grew up with the “disease-to-please.” You are right when you say ““Nice” is a cowardly word. Nice means acting in a certain way because it helps you avoid uncomfortable or awkward situations, rather than being “good”, or genuinely caring about the well being of the other person by being direct and honest with him or her. Be good, not nice.”
I used to pride myself on being “nice,” and now it makes me want to puke….especially when I think of all the times I was nice at my own expense. It allowed me to be manipulated by those who professed to love me.
Now I am learning that it’s OK NOT to be nice. I need some assertiveness training to find out who I really am, and to learn ways of expressing that person in “good” ways….rather than in “nice” ways.
So I thank you for your acknowledgement and understanding. It is not that woman are nice on purpose, I believe it is a learned behavior, and that we grew up being nice people because we wanted to be accepted and loved. I am hoping that learning how to be assertive is the answer. I hope this helps your understanding as well.
MISCOMMUNICATION:
Woman, don’t worry about that looser. You sound like your heart is in the right place, and that is awesome. You also sound like u r a great woman. Never forget that your existence does NOT rely on any man. You will always have you, girlfriend!
Relationships hurt alot, just need closer on why?
I agree with Michael. I HATE the dissapearing act and I think that men do it worse than women. I had a very intense 6 weeks with a guy who warned me that he wasn’t ready (newly divorced after 25 years). But when he pulled the “now you see me, now you don’t” act it really made me mad and I wrote him a letter (NOT email). He wrote back a very long heartfelt reply which made me feel better and helped with the closure. That said, he claimed to respect me too much and with his time (kids) and money (divorce) contraints he needed a women that was willing to take some mistreatment (to her detriment). I don’t buy it. We are both successful and middle aged (he is 10 years older than me). I think after being on dating sites for a couple months he realized he could date women 20 years younger than him and he is going for it. Can’t say that if I was a guy that I wouldn’t do the same thing.
I’ve come to notice that the silent treatment has been accepted as a justifiable means to “let someone go”. I’ve never done this to a woman, and never will. Even if it makes me looks like an ass, I would rather a woman know the reasons that I am backing down so that she doesn’t sit and wonder or worry about multiple things. Women do the silent treatment much better than men do (just an opinion) I was in a relationship for two years. At the end we went on break, agreeing to communicate, but that stopped. My oldest friend was killed in a car accident two weeks later. I was broken, and she was silent. Wondering why the woman I loved left me in silence during the week of one of my greatest losses has left me questioning everything about who she was as a person.
I’ve read the bulk of these comments and had issues with the very same things described here. It is frustrating when things are going along so seemingly well and then, POOF! The guy vanishes without a trace (sometimes whether we realize it or not we have often times dodged a bullet). I am not one to make excuses for others – either they are interested in me or they’re not. It’s just that simple. And I, like the rest of you, could just sit around pining for the guy that fled the relationship and waste my time in trying to figure out the why. But what purpose would it serve? Just to bring further closure to me? It still doesn’t change anything. In a perfect world it sure would be nice if the departing party would be kind enough to do what I consider such a basic thing (that is, just to be honest and communicate the truth in a loving fashion). Sometimes this is too much to expect from certain individuals. But it doesn’t mean that you stop expecting it. In my quest to connect with my “Mr. Right” I have found that there are other reasons more pressing than trying to figure out the why. I have always considered myself to be a better than average communicator. The more upsetting thing to me, when someone just drops off the grid, is that it causes me to question my own perception of reality. I find myself asking, “How could have been so wrong about this?” (i.e the situation, relationship, character of a person, etc.). The real issue, at least for me, is that I enjoy getting to know people who I consider to have a high level of integrity and honor (not looking for perfection as I am certainly not perfect – just forgiven). When someone just decides to walk away from a relationship and neglects to inform you, it is a dishonorable thing to do as it displays a real lack of concern for you and your heart. It is typically evidence of selfishness. I can deal with the fact that the guy just “isn’t that into me.” The more disconcerting problem to me is that I was wrong about who they represented themselves to be. This prevailing issue has become so bothersome to me that I have gone so far as to include a disclaimer on my profile dealing directly with the issue on the front end. I am hoping that going forward it will eliminate individuals who simply do not have the moral fortitude just to be honest with me.
Why? It’s a simple question with so many simple answers. Why? That’s all I wanted to know. I was with a man who came at me hard core, wanted to be with me every night and all weekend. I was very guarded after my divorce, not the best self esteem, so I wondered what in the world this guy would want with me. He told me it “felt right” and was very attracted to me and wanted to be with me. I started to let my guard down (since I wear my heart on my sleeve) and he disappeared! No more texts, no more phone calls which were both done daily! The thing that irritates me the most is that we talked about how BAD it is to ditch someone over texts, not ever replying back or calling again, and that’s what happened! Why? So now I’m on high alert guarding which isn’t fair to anyone, fool me once shame on me, there will be no fool me twice! It’s complete disrespect for me as a person. I’m very honest with my communication, a relationship will not last without this communication factor!
THANK YOU!
I have been tempted to text him what is so hard with telling me “hey, this isn’t going to work”?
I am mature enough to respect that rather than experience my call or text being ignored SMH
Finally Moving on after loss of sleep and time speculating! Thank you for this blog!
I was so glad to find this article yesterday. It helped me stop beating myself up and let myself off the hook. I am just starting to “date” after a long miserable marriage and nasty divorce. I have gone on some great dates and have always had the “I’d like to see you again.” Just went on 3 AWESOME dates with a guy that I am VERY attracted to…suddenly no calls/texts. But I also find that guys have a lot more “Drama” than they like to admit to — they usually say it’s women with the drama (I beg to differ).
Come on, guys — DON’T BE A TEASE!!! Don’t lead a lady on then disappear. It’s cruel and some of us are scared to death of dating to begin with. Thanks, E-Harmony for a good night’s sleep. If I don’t hear from him — HIS LOSS!
Thank you for your insight, Claire… I had a similar experience with a man whom I had met a very long time ago, before my marriage. We did not have a dating relationship at that time, but after my divorce (I was married for 25 years), we met again by chance and started to date. We just seemed to hit it off… we had a lot in common. I didn’t drop my guard immediately… at my age, I know better (or should have). We dated for about 2 months and then I never heard from him. He just quit all communication. Fell off the map… I was totally devastated. The interesting thing I observed was that every one of my girlfriends insisted I contact him to ask what had happened. I even went so far as to seek the advise of a professional counsellor. She also suggested I ask him for closure. But when I sought advice from the male perspective, two of my guy friends, both told me (independently from one another) NOT to ask, so I didn’t. I found the difference between the sexes in the quest for closure was very interesting. (I wish I had read the “Mars and Venus” books sooner in life!) It’s interesting “honing one’s dating skills after 25 years of marriage…
I find it very disrespectful for the man to blow the person they persued off after a few week of dating. Why fill the womens head with a bunch of b.s. This happened to me recently and my feelings were hurt because he led me to believe things that weren’t true. He acted like everything was fine then nothing. I confronted him but got no where. He didn’t know what to say, it was complicated. So in the end I really have no idea what happened. All I wanted was for him to be honest. It’s cruel to leave the other person wondering what they did wrong, if anything. Honesty shouldn’t be out of the question in any type of relationship. I’ve learned a difficult lesson.
“He didn’t know what to say, it was complicated.” = He met another woman he was more attracted to.
Some people want to leave things ‘open’ do that they may come back to the relationship when their lives, personal or otherwise, are more manageable. If you just enjoy your own life these disappearing types usually work their way back in. Don’t put your life on hold for them though — if you’re not available when they come back it’s their problem. They have always come back when I just back off myself and let them figure it out. Sometimes too late –