No Contact After the First Date
This article is based off of a third incoming search “after first date didn’t call cancelled a meeting”. I had originally intended to included this with my previous post on phone calls but soon realized the discussion went well beyond that topic.
If you date online long enough chances are you are going to run into a situation where the person you were speaking to “drops off the face of the earth”. This scenario exists in all types of dating but seems to be the preferred method of ending relationships online.
Things normally go something like this: two people meet and one believes they had a nice time while the other thinks otherwise. The dater who enjoyed the date then attempts to contact the other person only to be met by silence. This situation is not limited to meeting on a date. I’ve had cases where I had thought I was having an excellent email conversation with a potential date only to have her go silent on me. I had this happen to me more than a few times when dating online.
In the beginning, I often made excuses for why they were no longer talking to me. I would think to myself, “They must have had to leave town, I’ll contact her again in a week”. Then I would follow through: I would contact her again in a week only to be met with the same silence. Now I know I was just drawing out a situation a week longer than necessary.
Later, when I had my act together with online dating, one lack of a response ended things immediately. I stopped trying to make excuses and started respecting my own time. That is not to say it didn’t bother me any longer (it never stopped bothering me) but I had learned to move on – it was one of the best decisions I made. Occasionally I was even surprised by someone who would contact me after a week or so with some excuse why she hadn’t responded. Interestingly, at this point my attitude had changed from one of excitement to one of annoyance that she hadn’t respected me enough to let me know she would be out of contact. It was my turn to be silent in these cases.
I suspect many people act as I initially did for a few reasons. First, rejection hurts even if it comes in a round-about way. Second, I feel that people are inclined to respect themselves less than they respect their dates. I would have never stopped talking to someone I was interested yet would convince myself it was acceptable for someone else to do exactly that to me. In reality, barring some personal tragedy, either they were not interested in me or they didn’t respect my time. In both cases, they were not worth my time (and aren’t worth yours).
Regardless of how often it happens, admitting that someone is not interested in you can be painful. Here are a few thoughts on reducing the pain of this situation:
- Give this article on hurt feelings from dating a read. It is not specifically related to online dating rejection but I feel it is a good article to read. If you are basing all your hopes on some fantasy you are building about the guy or girl you haven’t even met yet, the pain will only be greater if/when things don’t work out.
- As I covered in the guide, dating multiple people is some of the best advice I have to offer. When I had three or four first dates planned over a two week time period, a woman going silent, or rejecting me out-right for that matter, hurt a lot less. It also encouraged me to respect myself as I was no longer inclined to keep some fantasy about any one woman alive at any cost.
Brad is a happily married man that found great success (and his wife!) using online dating. He now shares his thoughts and experiences, on this site and in his free online dating guide, to assist others in finding success. 
Very informative.
In my experience (this has happened both to me and I admit I my self have dropped off the face of the Earth once or twice), the easiest way to avoid feeling rejected is to remind yourself that you have no idea what the other person’s situation is. For all you know they may think you are a great prospect but they’re on the verge of getting more serious with someone they met earlier. When you first contact them they are ‘available, but a week later they might not be. Or maybe they have a bad date and decide to take a break. Or maybe (and this is the one I’ve been guilty of) they are new to the process and have simply bitten off more than they can chew and need to drop a few contacts just to keep things straight. Sure it would be nice if they’d let you know that, but the fact is the wild reality of the internet is that most people don’t feel as though they have any sort of obligation to someone they simpy shared a couple e-mail messages with.