Dumped by silence

The seemingly perfect man that vanishes on you

So a reader writes in to me with her dating story. She meets a man from a dating web site. They start dating and have unbelievable chemistry, good times and laughter. She can’t believe her luck because this man seems too good to be true. They become intimate. Over the course of the next few weeks however, his communication with her starts to go down from phone calls every day, to texts every few days, to nothing at all. Not even a text message. He also breaks a few dates during this period. Weeks pass. Still, no text not a peep. So, she sends him a text asking him well is it over? And he writes back no but can’t we just slow things down and have no expectations … who knows where this thing is heading. So, she responds okat no problem I am fine with slowing things down. And then she figures she should wait until he calls but he never does call her again after that. She notices he is back online with an active profile and updated pictures. She never hears from him again. Done.

The seemingly perfect man that makes us crazy by fading to silent while we make excuses for him

Instead of the swift get it over with breakup, this man just does the fizzle to all silent. It’s crazy making behavior for the woman. If you are a man reading this beware because the fade to silent with no explanation routine can make a lady so crazy she turns into your stalker! Men don’t realize that women sit around for days, weeks, months and even years trying to get over this kind of dismissive treatment. She’ll go through all of the different states of discomfort there ever was while this is going on. She’ll feel like a fool, she’ll feel like a stalker, she’ll feel mad, she’ll feel sad, she’ll feel like she got played, she’ll want revenge, she’ll snoop, and most importantly she might actually start to act like a stalker. She might text him repeatedly, call him leaving messages, follow rules to wait three days then text him, or wait six weeks as suggested by the get him back books and write him an email hoping for another chance, an explanation or maybe some closure.

If anything will make a woman have a grown up adult version of a tantrum, the fade to silent treatment will. She’ll grapple at anything from her teddy bear to her friends to the very man leaving her, to regain her own comfort level, as if this man leaving her has the capacity to help her do anything but feel worse. Then she goes on to all of the self help for daters sites and dating forums and starts blurting out her story so somebody else could tell her the answer of why this happened. She gets all of the pat excuses that are there right out of the forums frequently asked questions. Everything from he is not worthy of you, to he just isn’t into you, to he had or found someone else, to he’s a man and that’s just what they do.

There are a variety of reasons and answers as to why he left, and while you can blame it all on him, in many cases it is something that you inadvertently did that turned him off. In some cases, he just had an infatuation with you and got caught up in the initial illusion of a relationship. Given a little bit of time apart from you to think about the situation, he decided you weren’t girlfriend material for him and stopped his pursuit. If you were intimate early on he probably knew that he was either destined to become more involved with you or less involved with you and he chose less. Here are some considerations that might be going through his head, along with reasons why you should try not to read more into his fade to silent act than you really need to.

He does not have a crystal ball about your future

A man will initially go with the flow of a fledgling relationship. He isn’t going to have the same make or break attitude as a woman will. Even if he has his doubts or think it’s doomed, he’ll usually go with an initial physical attraction. As long as he finds the woman attractive enough to meet, she is fair game. I think deep down men know, far earlier than they admit, where a relationship is heading. But if they disclosed that up front they would never experience intimate encounters which is something that they always want, if she passes his attraction criteria. Since men may get treated to something they always want out of the deal which is physical intimacy they will go along. I think they do try to have a positive outlook because they figure they don’t have a crystal ball. Perhaps they see red flags that a relationship is not likely in the making, but they figure she might surprise me. They let things play out if they are so inclined. Men seem to be willing to ride things out initially and they tend to make decisions whether or not to stay involved after there has been intimacy.

He’d rather withdraw in silence than hurt your feelings with direct rejection

The reasons a man might not wish to continue dating you can be rather ruthless. And you are not likely to know his real truth. Maybe he hates that you smoke, thinks your cats are gross, finds you too made up, lost some attraction after becoming romantic you, decides you live too far away, or he doesn’t like your personality. Maybe you are too old or the wrong nationality or religion. Maybe you are too outspoken and he deems that you aren’t demure enough for him to feel safe taking you as his date to a business dinner. Maybe he finds you boring. Who knows the reasons other than they may be very nit-picky and critical indeed. Rather than have an unpleasant and to him utterly pointless conversation about your flaws, he withdraws in silence. He assumes that some other man might not see these traits as flaws so why bother to point them out to you. Its pointless since its subjective.

He doesn’t want to be pressured into anything or out of anything or feel controlled by the woman he is dating

If a man senses you are becoming attached but his feelings aren’t exactly mutual, he is going to become concerned about extricating himself comfortably out of an evolving relationship with you. Once he feels obligated he feels that he is getting pressured and naturally looks for opportunities and excuses to opt out. If you spilled a drink on his rug or slammed his finger into his car door and fractured it then those are great reasons. In fact, concrete reasons that he can pin the breakup on are convenient. After all, who wants to tell you that you need to lose ten pounds when they can just blame it on their unemployment or something totally unrelated but believable.

Talking to you or telling you about the breakup means that you might tryto question his decision and change his mind. He may not wish to watch you try and convince him to give it more time when his decision has already been made. He doesn’t want to give it more time therefore he doesn’t want to be convinced through talks with you into giving it more time. Likewise, he doesn’t want to be convinced not to opt out. Texting a breakup or disappearing altogether shields him from having to have that conversation. He already decided what he’s doing and doesn’t want to get dragged into the conversation that might get himself talked out of what he really wants to do which is never see you again. He does not want to be asked why, nor does he want to provide his answer why. In his mind, it is what it is, so deal with it. He doesn’t want to continue seeing you. He’d rather take his chances meeting someone brand new than continue seeing you.

He doesn’t want to invest more money, time or energy

If a man you are dating finds you to be someone he is at least attracted to enough to be intimate with, he will most likely try to be intimate. After that it is a question of if you are a woman he is interested in continuing to be intimate with. There will be an alarmingly cut throat calculation going on in his mind. He has to weigh out how easy it will be to continue seeing you, how much it might cost him in gas and dates, and if he wants to put mental energy and time into getting involved. If you are romantically cautious, he has to figure in how long it will take him to to become romantic with you. If you are religious, he has to decide if he wants to continue dating you without becoming romantic with you since you aren’t that kind of woman.

Into this calculation also goes how much trouble you are or have the potential of becoming. If you’re a cool woman that won’t make demands on him and that won’t press him for exclusivity then he might keep things going at status quo and continue to see you for a while, until a decision becomes more crystal clear. Men wait until they have an emotional reaction to you that tells them what to do. If you make him feel good and he enjoys spending time with you then he will continue to see you. If you are willing to date him non exclusively he can also continue look for someone else and see you simultaneously. If you are likely to demand an exclusive relationship, he might just decide to opt out, especially if he knows its doomed because he doesn’t want pursue an exclusive relationship with you.

If a man doesn’t have the right feeling about you, he might start the slow fade as part of his indecision, laziness and actual inability to make a decision. He assumes that he’ll see you and a few more times and see how it goes and how he feels. If you continue to be a high priced date and expect to be taken out on nice excursions, then he considers the financial aspect and if he wants to spend more money on you. All of these different things go into his decision and if a decision is not crystal clear he will take a wait and see approach over course of a few weeks or months, then decide.

He might enjoy spending time with you or he might just be into the romantic component of your relationship only. Ultimately his decision to see you or disappear on you materializes more clearly and its always closely related to how you make him feel when he is around you. Men tend to go with what their gut tells them to do. At this point if he has enjoyed intimacy with you however sees no future relationship he is well aware that you will be upset if not devastated when he breaks up with you. So he may try to leave slowly, painlessly, and hopefully unnoticeably. It’s like taking a step back from standing in front of a store window. Just a few more little steps back and his reflection will be gone from that window altogether. He just hopes you’ll get the hint or miraculously meet someone else. If he makes himself gone surreptitiously then how mad can you be when he really leaves if he hasn’t even spoken to you in a few weeks. It’s a lessening of his presence in your life to zero. This approach that some men take to exit a relationship is truly maddening to women. Nonetheless, that is exactly what many men are doing when they goes silent on you. It’s more about him trying to extricate than him trying to hurt you. He is fending for himself and so should you.

He does not want to be pushed prematurely for commitment

A woman that comes off as too needy or aggressive will get herself rejected. She might get physically enjoyed but ultimately a man is not going to want to get pushed into anything too soon. If he is enjoying the dating process he won’t be inclined to commit to anyone. If a woman text messages him five times a day and calls him frequently and tries to inject herself into his life against his will he is going to repel that advance. Men are going to radically reject being pushed into anything by a woman. They want to wade in and explore a relationship without being pushed around. They either stay because of how they feel when they are around you or they back out. They don’t want anyone trying to make decisions for them.

He finds someone else

If a man is dating other women then he might just fade away because a better opportunity presented itself to him. You do not have control over that. He goes by a gut level feeling. If he is with you but realizes he would rather be with his ex or some other woman he is dating, there is not much you can do about it. It’s his choice.

You won’t take no for an answer

Sometimes a man decides you aren’t for him but he notices that you won’t accept it. You keep texting him, contacting him, pursuing him, and throwing yourself at his feet. This can be an ego boost for him initially but it might become annoying over time. If he wants to break it off with you but can’t seem to get you to cooperate, you might find yourself getting treating dismissively, stood up and blown off. He has to resort to mean behavior because his intention is to get rid of you and being nice about it didn‘t work. He knows its mean but figures you are the one who just won’t accept he is not interested therefore if he has to rudely blow you off and tell you to get lost and lose his number then you are the one that pushed him to having to be that rude.

What you should do about it

When a man begins to fade away there is no amount of chasing him that will stop him from fading. The best thing to do is to do nothing about it. Assume that if everything clicks right and you both enjoy each others company you stand a reasonable chance of becoming his girlfriend. If he wants to fade away then let him and don’t chase after him.

Instead of getting caught up in what he is doing women need to make their own decision as to how long they are going to date a man without his commitment to date exclusively. If you don’t like his level of commitment, stop dating him. If he fades away, let him. In other words, instead of leaving every thing up to him start leaving these things up to you. Lets say he does the fade to silence early on and beats you to the punch. Nothing you can do just let him go because trying to convince him to stay with you won’t work. You’ll want to give a man you like as much time as you can for him to get to know you. If you really like a man, try not to push him too hard. Make sure he really enjoys his time with you and then see if he sticks around on his own. That is the only way to keep him around, is if he decides he wants to stick around on his own free choice. If he does, that’s wonderful.

Texting him, pushing him, pressuring him, convincing him, and talking to him about it won’t get you anywhere at all. Just be yourself and let him decide if he likes to be around you. Likewise, you decide if you like to be around him. If he goes silent, let him. If he starts to fade away, you decide whether you want to opt out of the situation as well. If his phone calls decrease or turn to texts that decrease in frequency, you have the power to either to take those phone calls or blow them off because they represent crumbs to you and you want more than crumbs.

It would be nice if a man let you in on his thought process but don‘t expect him to

It really is not that hard for a man to send an email, voicemail or direct message that he felt that elusive spark was missing, did not wish to continue to see you for that reason, felt certain he would not waver in his decision, and wishing you the best of luck. That would have been the courteous thing to do. But instead he chose to fade to silent. Some men just don’t want to do the polite thing and prefer the cowardly disappearing act. However, you have to look at yourself and your own behavior too. Maybe he chose the disappearing act because he felt uncomfortable talking to you.

If he is leaving because you are too pushy then he might feel that such a conversation with you in particular is hopeless because you aren’t likely to take no for an answer. Sad to say it could be a reflection of his perceived viewpoint about whether you would accept disappointing news gracefully. If he knows you are attached to him he might decide you won’t take it well, therefore he goes the cowardly disappearing route and hopes you get the hint. Men that are from your community might take the time to be polite. Men that you meet off the internet who live elsewhere and have little chance to bump into you ever again, are more likely to opt out rudely and not bother giving you a polite departure explanation.

One last thing. If a man is dumping you then clearly he doesn’t like you, right? He is saying, essentially, that he doesn’t care if he ever sees you ever again and will take his chances elsewhere, right? So, you have to ask yourself, how much does he care to be polite and the answer is very little. The threshold of caring is at a low point. Add to that the fact that you may have inadvertently done something to turn him off. Maybe he is a little bit mad about that. When you put all of that together you have your explanation as to whether some men take the easy road right out of a relationship by going silent. They are never planning to see you again and do not care if they ever see you gain. Enough said.

It takes two to make a thing go right

He is not the only one that has control and decision making authority in the relationship between the two of you. You don’t have to stand by like a sitting duck waiting for him to come or go. You can also decide what you want to do and if you want him around you! Worry less about what he thinks about the relationship and worry more about what you think about the relationship. Then maybe he will realize that there are two of you and that if he doesn’t treat you right his choice in the matter of continuing to date you will be taken away from him. Remember, it takes two. If you get dumped by silence don’t over analyze it. Just learn from the experience, move on, and take time to get to know someone before becoming intimate. You’ll be fine.