aha- so the same thing’s probably happening to you…as a ‘highly sensitive person’ it pains me to say this, but it really is a numbers game. And timing.

I know for sure there are men that I didn’t go out with again that thought the same thing as you Mike.  One I can think of from late summer–nice guy, great job, active and had a lot to offer.  There was something he said (grammar) that just made me think, “I am not going to correct him on what he just said, but neither can I hang out with him and hear him say that without saying anything.”  He also had a teenage boy that sounded challenging, something I wouldn’t want to get involved in (I have teenage kids). 

These things may seem small, however, I am not in the ‘any man will do’ mode, I want to be happy and I want to accept him for exactly who he is.  Plus, I have a full life and don’t have a problem being single.  So like Jadafisk said, why put the guy through the dates if I knew I didn’t put the effort in myself.

Hopefully that gives just an idea of what goes on in someone’s head.  I am positive things like this go through a man’s head as well as things are coming up on a date.  (Like when, on the first date, she scolds him for something he just ordered, that’s a good example!)

#36 Jadafisk

if men were much less likely to attempt to escalate physically on the third.

I enjoy a man who is sexually confident and ‘spicey’.  I like to know that he’s sexually attracted to me and not afraid to tell me.  It makes me feel powerful as a woman–not that I’m going to use that power manipulatively in any way, I feel very feminine when that happens.  (I haven’t been with a man that is crude or immature about letting me know.)  What I have found when it doesn’t happen, even when I know the man is attracted to me but he’s not communicative about it, I lose interest.  What it comes down to, in my mind, is the man is supposed to initiate the sexual interaction, the woman can always say no.  (Obviously this doesn’t apply in a long term relationship .

Keep in mind too, biologically, men are all about sex, they can’t help it, that’s the way men are made.  So I don’t hold it against them because ultimately I’m the one, as the woman, that decides if and when sex will take place.

I didn’t mean ‘red flag’ as in there’s something inherently wrong with a guy (sorry if it came out that way). I meant ‘red flag’ as in the guy and I wouldn’t necessarily mesh together as a couple. You can have two perfectly nice people who just are wrong for each other.

BTW- you didn’t respond to the rest of my post I asked whether you hadn’t ever failed to call a girl back or decided after a date or two that she wasn’t the one for you. I’d be very surprised if you’d never done this, but I guess anything is possible. If you have, what was your reason? Chances are, the girls who are doing this have similar reasons.