Is Silence Rejection With Online Dating?
Is silence a form of rejection with dating online? If you email a woman and she doesn’t respond, is she not interested? Sadly, yes, silence is rejection when you are dating online. Actually, silence is a pretty bad sign regardless of whether you’re using an online dating site or a more traditional method.
The standard dilemma with online dating is the question: is it better to email someone back and reject them forcefully or just remain silent and allow them to forget about it. Having experienced both forms of rejection more times than I can remember when I was dating online, I can say that the second is far preferable.
Many people remain a little too hopeful and look for excuses as to why someone might not reply to their contact. Silence, though, is an absence of a response. And an absence of a response means that there isn’t enough interest to encourage the response. This, however indirect, ends up being rejection.
Reverse the situation and imagine someone you were interested in contacted you. Would you wait a week to write them back? Normally, no. A very small number of people believe they have to play games to get dates and may wait for a week to respond but they are the exception, not the rule. The rule is that when one person is interested in another, they’ll respond in a timely fashion. Even if someone you contacted did wait a week to get back to you, you have to then ask yourself this question: Am I willing to play games with my dating life? In either case, the lack of response is a bad sign.
As I said above, silence was my preferred method of rejection. Actually, when people have asked me for advice on whether they should directly reject someone, I have suggested silence as the best option.
My advice is to forget about the silence. A lack of responses is not the end of the world and there are many reasons it can happen (many of which have little or nothing to do with you).
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. 
I think silence is best on the first message received. If you’ve been corresponding for several weeks, and then decide you’re not really interested, silence is still okay (although maybe just letting it die naturally by “super slow” responses, works easier and politer).
If you’ve been on a first date, and there was no rudeness or dislike , but you didn’t click….hmm. Personally I’d much prefer a simple polite message saying so, so that I didn’t worry that I offended or annoyed my date. Although I can see why some women would prefer silence as the easier way – it’s not rude, perse.
The most awkward situation I ever had, was where a woman agreed to go out on a date with me, gave me her number, we worked out a tentative time – then she vanished and went silent because she changed her mind. (She finally told me a month later, when I inquired what happened :S). That kind of behavior is the surest way to make the guy uncomfortable, and to lead to potentially awkward messages/emails both ways. Be firm, be clear, be polite.