DREWspective

I’ve written about this before, and have made my views known about it on many an occasion. But not on DREWspective. So here we go.

Following my best friend’s success with online dating, where he claims to have had no less than 15 dates as a result, I decided to give being much more proacitve a go. I signed up to the same dating site as he did and began interacting, as well as going speed dating, winking on Match.com and trying to get things going on Facebook.

Unfortunately—since the Internet is the same as going outside these days—the result for me was exactly the same as before: a whole load of "not interested"s and unreturned emails.

There’s been a lot of them recently, but the icing on the cake comes from two or three girls whom I arranged to do something with. At the last minute they fall silent on me, giving their excuses or no reason at all. But when they do surface, they’ve magically ended up with someone else.

Today’s topic is silent treatment, and I’m going to tell you why I think it’s an evil thing.

First, let me point out that I’m wholly against using silent treatment as a first resort. People who use silent treatment as a first resort deserve to burn in hell.

You’ve probably met people who keep things to themselves and won’t tell you what you want (or need) to know, building up like a pressure cooker until they finally scream and shout and level blame and abuse on you.  You’ve probably met those kinds of people who think they can do whatever they want, and hide whatever important information they want. Those people use silent treatment as a first resort.

Second, let me talk about why silent treatment itself is bad.

For me personally, silent treatment—especially from the opposite sex—is a sign of disrespect, and a lack of responsibility; they don’t respect you enough to give you an answer, and they don’t care what it would mean for you.

Imagine you tried to call someone with your last remaining credit, and they hung up on you. Imagine using your last 10p to send them a text message that they never respond to. How about writing a long, detailed email to someone who doesn’t send even a short one back?

There’s advice circulating around the dating community that guys have to send detailed emails to potential girls if they want to increase their chances of getting a response.  How many of you guys have spent valuable time writig individual emails to girls who’ve written those lazy, cut-and-paste profiles, and got nothing for it? Wouldn’t you feel deflated?

Lots of people say that they don’t respond, no matter what the circumstance or medium, because they don’t want to hurt their feelings. Bullshit. Have you ever stopped to think that not responding would hurt their feelings?

Fair enough, you could argue that some people wouldn’t like what they hear. That would depend on both parties: the person wanting to know should be ready to accept what’s said; the person with the answer has the responsibility of telling them in the best way possible.

Personally, I might not like the answer I get (because I prefer pepole to tell the truth rather than candy-coat things), but in the long run I have far more respect for people who tell me how it is to my face, than people who resort to games and silent treatment.

There may be times when silent treatment is necessary, for example whe someone won’t take the clearly-explained, verbal hint. I say it should always be used as a last resort.

Your thoughts, please.