This may appeal to the more mature members of this subreddit but I think it’s important for everyone.

I’m in my 30s and don’t want to waste my time with women who aren’t into meeting up and having a good time. Let’s call this the Mark Manson Fuck Yes or No principle. I matched with this girl the other day on a dating app. Very cute, and her profile was meaty with lots of info that I aligned with how I like to live my life. We started chatting, got into a convo about camping, and then I asked for her number. She sent me a message saying she’d like to meet up, and said that maybe we shouldn’t camp on the first date, what with me being a stranger and all.

I texted her later that day and made a playful joke about the camping on a first date message. No response. I spent the weekend in San Francisco and assumed she was busy. Waited 3 days, and shot a text making light of her not getting my joke. She responded and apologized saying she forgot to respond. I thought “um ok...”. We chatted a bit more, and she seemed a bit disengaged, but still engaging. I decided to switch to ask for a date. She responded with “yeah, sure. But I have to go to bed early during the week so yeah. Maybe Thursday?”

My intuition alarm went off at that point and I said “yeah, this chick doesn’t seem into it”. I let it sit for a bit and decided I wasn’t going to pursue. Instead of ghosting I let her know I got the sense she wasn’t really into actually meeting and while she seemed like a cool person, I wanted to go out with someone on the same page as where I was at.

She responded immediately saying she was shocked and didn’t understand why I felt that way, and asked what made me think that. Before I could even respond she sent another message saying “actually never mind, I just reread our messages and I can’t see why you would possibly feel that way. Good luck to you”.

So this is a great example of screening someone and getting info about a potential date without ever wasting your time having drinks with them or potentially dating them for some time before realizing they are not a great partner. This message clearly illustrates this girl is completely lacking in empathy and is defensive, and potentially not even into dating. A proper response is not telling someone you can’t fathom how they could feel how they feel (that’s like a huge red flag), because no matter how someone is feeling, that feeling is their reality and real to them. If someone is perceiving you in a certain way, you have to acknowledge that, regardless of how you’re intending to come across. On top of that, flipping so quickly between being shocked to attacking/being defensive is also a warning sign. I said nothing hostile, just expressed my perception in a healthy way, and she took it into a territory of diminishing my experience. Woof. Regardless of any other feeling I had, ignoring someone for 3 days and telling them you forgot to respond to them is a pretty legitimate reason why someone would feel like you weren’t into them.

If you’re just looking to get laid, this sort of thing is obviously not as important (although I think there’s plenty of signs you can look for to weigh engaging with a woman even on a casual level). But I’m looking for something more serious, and there’s a treasure trove of information about a person even when you barely know them. As I said, I’ve saved myself untold amounts of time potentially investing in someone who doesn’t share similar values with me. I knew something was not right, and it took her a couple text messages to reveal to me that I was right.

Hope some people find this helpful.