So, it would probably take all of my fingers and some of my toes to count the various threads that have popped up over the years dealing with talking to SOs or a date about WAM. I'm curious to hear how some of you do with rejection, not necessarily even with WAM.

Recently I talked with a recently single friend and asked them if they were interested in a relationship. They were someone I've known for around 5 years, and always found attractive, but the opportunity has never presented itself until now. She was very kind about telling me how I'm a best friend and that she loves me, but just never like that. She was even sweet enough to follow up the next day, console me, and tell me she was there for me.

Here's the strange thing. As sad as it is to be rejected, I strangely found myself elated. I think it's because she straight up told me "no".

I've been trying to date for the past couple years since my wife and I were separated and then divorced, and it's been...depressing to say the least. I haven't been able to find even a single first date. With some of the few short conversations I've been able to strike up with real people (as opposed to bots), I found the new social "norm" seems to be that if you don't like someone, you just blow them off and ignore them.

Ghosting, is something I've experienced in EVERY SINGLE match, conversation, etc. whether it's on the internet or in person. It's really strange to me honestly because you'd think such a tactic would be mainly just used by insecure or more introverted people, yet it seems like everyone does it now.

I don't have much dating experience because I ended up marrying my first "girlfriend" even after a couple break ups. But in the short time I "dated" or tried to, back in...well like 2000-2002 I found it was different. I was used to hearing, "In your dreams", "get lost creep" and other similar dismissals, but at least they provided a definite closure. Ghosting though...it's like they can't even be bothered to tell you to go away. What's more amazing is when it happens online and that person had to "like" you in the first place.

It's had a major negative impact on me because I score pretty damn high on the "neuroticism" personality trait, so I always tend to thing "what did I do?" and "was it my fault?"

What have your break up or rejection experiences been like? How have you dealt with them? What advice would you have to share with the class?

I really hate ghosting, also, but it has become a necessary evil because when a woman rejects a man on-line, he generally replies with a tirade of insults. The world is fucked up, people can't seem to be civil or courteous.

My only advice about dating is don't try to meet people on-line. Meet people doing something you enjoy, or volunteering. I have had a few promising dates come from kayaking trips (meetup.com), and I've met some dear friends while volunteering. At least you know you have something in common and people aren't likely to ghost when you've met face to face.

Speaking of ghosting, I've been working on setting up a messy meeting with someone for 3 weeks. We finally set a date, I cleared my schedule and made preparations, and now it looks like they've ghosted on me.

I want to be empathetic. I want to think that something may have come up or the person has severe social anxiety, but I will probably never arrange another meeting with that person, and I'll be less likely to meet with anyone else.

Sigh.

I think that's the best advice. The internet is made for ghosting. It's a haunted house. Get out! Get out while you can!

A necropost in a mostly dead forum isn't bad, right? I guess you could call it my social death throes here. Many have suggested things like getting out and meeting someone. The problem I've always had with that is where? Go to a bar... Pass I've had enough violent alcoholics in my life, and some of my doctors argue the stress and abuse they've imposed on my life have contributed greatly to my physical problems let alone the emotional and mental ones. Don't get me wrong, I like a Jameson neat, or the occasional Jonnie Walker Black with a twist. The bar might be and ok place for a fling with that drunk whore Toadette, but it's not the castle where I'll find my princess.

Go to a club... Um, is that really different? It's a obnoxious place full booze, STDs, and fake IDs. The air stinks of AXE body spray and fuckfumes. Also, I'm 36 and that goofy ass picture IS of me. I'm not an alpha, and I'm not a sugar daddy. Also, I'm past that wearing a mask phase and pretending to be something or someone I'm not.

And that there seems to be my problem. I tried bumble recently. It's like a less diseased Tinder. If you match the woman has to make the first move. This is nice for them because it saves a lot of space on their phones from various would be suitors pictures of their eggplant parmigiana recipes. The problem is that most women don't want to break the ice it seems. Either that or five women including one I have met in real life swiped right by accident.

But then it happened one said hello, almost IMMEDIATELY! Naturally I went through all my questions to scan for if they were a bot. My personal favorite is when they say something pertaining to being on birth control or anal, and I respond with something involving a dolphin or fire ants. Anyway, that's off track. This person who we'll call 'Bee' because Bumble seemed truly interested. We eventually exchanged numbers we were 20 minutes away, knew similar places that sucked but were cheap to meet up at. She didn't even mind that a tree had crushed my car and I had no transportation! This was too good to be true!

We talked, for days until the weekend when she had off. She also had Crohn's disease, even longer than me! She was able to get a simple surgery and keep it in check with fairly cheap drugs. Then I told her my story...

The Crohn's and even the severity of it no problem.
The fact that the kind of arthritis I have will eventually start to fuse my spine, check
Psoriasis scars, surgery implants didn't even phase her.
Divorced and my ex became a transgendered superhero was also totally acceptable!
I survived cancer twice, hell she thought I was a superhero!

Then we got to the nitty gritty. I told her my living situation. I'm on my own, I live off of Social Security, I'm in serious medical debt and working will result in losing what little insurance I have. I'm broke as a joke and realistically will be that way till the end.

Her entire demeanor changed. No more flirtatious messages. No more anything. She stopped messaging me for a week. Finally just the other day I messaged her and got a response. She disappeared because she didn't know what to say to me. Infatuation and attraction were suddenly well wishes, let's be friends, and 'I'm sorry '.

I hate those words, they're such a cop out. I didn't want her pity. I didn't want her excuses. A simple 'it won't work out' would have cut less than the avoidance and false platitudes.

I told her "I'm sorry for wasting your time"

Usually I'm the one responding to others' stories or trying to provide some sort of solace or reason. But I'm out not. No more witty remarks, no more quotes from men or women better and wiser than I.

Just this simple truth -
Relationships are a transaction, plain and simple. Know your worth.

I've had the displeasure things going with someone go nowhere because I'm too kinky. At this point I don't hold my breath I'll find someone local that would support my kinks or work through my mental hot mess. My recent ex ghosted me at the worst time when I had to take a parent to emergency surgery for appendicitis. She didn't like how I was curious about exploring the dirty and wam sides of my foot fetish but was fine with the worship and sexual aspects. Since then nothing has panned out and conversations on dating sites brought shit all. I'm resigned to the reality niche kinks can hurt my chances of finding someone compatible be it playmate, date, or otherwise. Bars and clubs can fuck off in my eyes as Potatoman covered already.

Being trans and having a wam fetish and only being attracted to women means I've gotten really good at dealing with rejection. You just can't expect other people to accept you for who you are. If they do that's great, if not you move on. Getting hung up on rejection isn't a good use of time. But that being said it's hard enough for me to find a woman interested in dating me so when I do I wait and make sure they are someone trustworthy before opening up about wam. About 50% of the time I've gotten the "wtf's wrong with you" look, the other 50% were willing to at least listen but only a small number willing to give it a shot.

I've found if you start the conversation off with "Please let me buy you chocolate..." it tends to go better

About 15 years ago rejection was really difficult. In the WAM community I had a high profile on line and got constant messages from males. It's harder to accept rejection after someone's thrown themselves at you. About 7 years ago I was poly and had various partners and numerous first dates. Women get ghosted to normally after sharing a face pic or meeting once in the flesh. With each rejection I reminded myself of the ones that did work and asked myself the question did you really want things to go any further with them anyway? Of course occasionally the answer was yes but rarely. Mostly I was just cross at them wasting my time.

In terms of meeting people munches and splunches have been the best place for me. I met my current partner at a munch. I've usually been the one to make the first move and that means facing rejection from someone you've met and might meet again. In fact the relationships I've got the most out of have been with people who rejected me initially. My current relationship is coming up to 6 years. My initial move was to offer friendship. Yes any relationship even a friendship is about give and take so it's about finding someone who wants what you have to give.

Yes! You have to take that time to build a foundation. Munches are a great place to start. I'd love to start a regional Splunch.

Nah, I just think my situation overwhelmed her. After that she never returned a message or call again, just poof. The "waste her time" remark was tongue in cheek as I feel like she was leading me on for awhile. I don't think she was the shy type. She had no problem talking, or being open about her past. It is what it is, I was just venting.

I really connect with this thread.

I think the way people interact online these days, and the way it's seeped over from online life into real life (partly due to people having grown up with it) is totally toxic. It's interesting hearing your experiences of how things differ now compared to 15-20 years ago when you last dated.

I totally get why you felt that way - your friend said "no" but did so in a responsible, caring and above all honest way. That's so rare now. There is no relationship maturity among people these days.

Ghosting has become the default because it's easy and requires no emotional labor. And those who ghost likely weren't that invested in the first place. A lot of people approach or perceive online dating as a game and never actually meet up with anyone, or just use it to look and chat with attractive people for self-gratification purposes. It's a gamification of human relationships. You might see a person on your phone as a potential friend or partner, but they might perceive you as just an image or commodity, not a real person. "Swiping" culture is a big part of this - we're inculcating people en masse into casually discarding each other, making it normal to browse for a partner the way you might choose a product from a catalog or a lobster from a restaurant tank. Relationships are supposed to be about trust, mutual support, responsibility and being willing to build something together. Love isn't something that "happens" to you Disney-style (whereby the presence or absence of a "spark" determines whether or not you have any future, conveniently abdicating responsibility for both parties), it's something that you do.

I think ghosting often happens because millennials so often react badly to negative feedback. For instance, I had a problem with a younger friend's behavior last year when we were on a trip together, so once we got back I decided to discuss it with him, precisely because I valued the friendship and wanted to repair it (and because I owed it to him to be honest). Turned out he was really unused to getting any kind of criticism from anyone, so he reacted to my clear, polite feedback by having a total freakout - he literally thought that I hated him just because I'd criticized a couple of specific things he did.

A lot of online ghosting is also inadvertent because of the paralysis of choice. People just get so distracted by the options on offer that they can't sustain a conversation with one person, especially if they're not local. This is often because they're not using online dating concertedly with the goal of finding a partner, but casually as a way to pass the time. There is no investment, all the more so if it's a free service.

Millennials also lack life experience compared to previous generations, as increasingly they live life through images and screens instead of real-world experiences. This can mean they just don't know how to confidently handle real-life dating interactions, especially awkward or complex ones. I think this is facilitating people developing more avoidant personalities - more and more I encounter people who seem to want to avoid all discomfort and complexity in their lives and just stay in their little comfort zone. They won't commit to a relationship because they'd rather avoid getting invested in anything, but they won't let you down honestly either because they'd rather avoid conflict. They're afraid to tell you their honest opinion on something in case it's the "wrong" one, and they avoid broadening their horizons and seeking out new challenges because they might fail or feel overwhelmed. So there they stay, basking in the comforting glow of a screen.

What muddoug and Nein said is good advice.

I totally agree with the things you've been saying.
In today's world, sadly the fact is and will always be, that people play or will get played. Almost nobody is themselves anymore. Due to social, political and religious motives.
And when they are taken out of their comfort zones, they do : fight - freeze ' or run away.
The three primary functions the human brain has.
Only people who have been in similar situations, by their own or in their social circle will be able to talk straith and will tell the truth.

For me, it doesn't matter if you at we black/ white/ green or purple. Man / woman or trans and everything in between. Rich or poor.
What matters is the person I'm talking too or meeting.
The same goes for my wife, mrs.jurning.

That being said, the advice by Nein and Muddoug is superb.

Greets, Chris/Jurning

Crushed and defeated again. Yet another person who loves me "as a friend". Not that that's a bad thing I guess.

It's funny, I actually feel some sort of physical pain in my chest area too.

It does deal with rejection, but you might get a better response as it's own thread. I'm astonished at how often this seems to happen to you though. I'd have people flake on me, and I have flaked on people too, but not very often. In my case 90% of the time it's because of health.

Not to get too personal, but what kind of things are you getting flaked on? I feel like it would be more likely to happen on things involving messy or sex than say going out to dinner or a movie. You mentioned the fetish community, so is it pretty much there, or is it happening in other parts of your life too?

I can't blame you for being suspicious, or it making you jaded. Once or twice it's easy to blow off. But over and over again, it really does start to build up feelings of inadequacy.

Well, this is starting to sound a lot more and more like every single producer's inbox regarding customs.

For me any fear would be of fake users trolling me to drive 5 hours just for a laugh, but this is my only fear and I'm sure there are many others (some terrifying).
I know my limitations and would not go to a messy event, just a 1-2-1 but this has not happened for me here (possibly because of the huge number of men to women).
I would be interested to know why people drop out of sessions. Personally if we had spoken on skype and I trusted them I would jump at the change!

Don't know if she'll see this as she isn't on much right now, but Maria (MyPierogative) is the perfect person to talk to about flakes and time wasters. This is a woman on SEVERAL occasions has just dropped everything to go on tour in both the USA and UK. And let me tell you, some of the people screwing her over have left her in positions where she didn't have the money or know how she was getting to her next destination or home.

I feel like dropping out of munches and events though may be too much. Like the last UMD event, I decided I was going because I wanted to hang out with MM and Mmistress because I haven't seen them in awhile. Anyone else that showed up was a bonus, and if they flaked, then I had more time with my friends!

I was ghosted on a pie session last year. We've met before, hung out. There was Lots of communication, plans, then bam. Nothing, and nothing since. It made me more sad than anything, and a bit self-conscious.

I too am up there on the kinkster scale.I don't date anymore after a difficult relationship but we are friends
She didn't want to get messy which is fair enough.
After a change of management at work, a lady who is early 40s came to work in our office. I'm besotted with her ,I sent her a rose and mug and saucy card for valentines day.
To which I had a quiet telling off by a manager because she claimed she had received a nasty note ,we exchanged pleasantries and I had said I was sorry but I sort of given up as I feel meeting someone who likes getting messy whilst in thigh boots and sinking in mud is not really going to happen. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I won't put myself In that position again unless the lady is virtually throwing herself at me

After reading the previous posts by everyone, i think multiple types of rejection are referred to. Rejection during "normal" dating, rejection after confessing the kink of WAM and rejection with regards to WAM meetups (whether paid or unpaid).

For me, after my divorce after a relationship of over 20 years, of which almost 9 years married, i had to find out what i expect from a new relationship (speaking of long term here). To have "everything" (model looks, good job, good character, totally into your taste of WAM) would be nice of course, but that is clearly not a realistic expectation. So i think you would have to figure out which things are most important to you to make a relationship work on the longer term if that's what you're after. For me for example, it would be proper attitude in life, open mindedness/curiousity, being able to have good, fun and interesting conversations, and a satisfying vanilla sexlife. Appearance/looks are not that important, a lot of people have something that makes them attractive in their own way without looking like a model, if you are open to recognize that. Though some personal care is required, evidently. Even that would be hard enough to find in itself, and probably means having to accept some minor downsides. Nobody is perfect, me neither.

I think including "into WAM" into the requirements is a dangerous one, making one vulnerable for rejection and also requiring a bit different approach to dating in an effort to reduce the risk of rejection (and being named and shamed a potential "bonus"). So, unless that is really a hard requirement for you, i'd skip that one, try to build a good relationship and then see if you feel the trust to share your kink at a later point in time.

Moving over to the rejection of the kink. It's clear that can hurt a lot, if you gathered the courage to share that very personal thing and have to face a reaction that show not much respect for you as a person nor for the courage and trust it took to share it. I think expecations are also important here, and having assessed for yourself how important participation of your partner in WAM is for you with regards to how you value the relation in general. Having your first messy session together 5 minutes with the occasional pie that was lying around after you confessed your kink would be great (but not very likely). Open mindedness to start easy and give it just a try too, but you would still be lucky. Acceptance of that part of you without the desire to follow would also be a good thing. Some arrangement (you get messy, the partner goes out for an agreed amount of time to hang with friends) is probably also still a good thing, so you won't have to keep it secret and your kink wouldn't bother yourself too much. For me, acceptance without participation would be the thing i would be hoping for, everything more would be a true bonus. Having a good vanilla sexlife would make up a lot. There are stories of people (both on the UMD forum and in the "Splat!" book of Wamlanta) where acceptance and even participation was the result of sharing the kink, so it is something that is possible.

Rejection in meetups is just fucked up. In my opinion, people should have the curtousy to call something off at least and not ghost the other. Especially if costs (substances, clothing, paid time of crew etc), efforts (getting substances, travelling) and time are spent. But again, that is an expectation. Only thing to you can try to get as sure as possible the other is serious and and limit the loss if you get called off/ghosted. If you both enjoyed that first session, you can always schedule a second one. Still not fun when it happens.

I tried online dating a while and quit for now. Totally not fun, but probably partly due to my choice of where to create a profile. Ratio male/female is off, with badly behaving men scaring the women who were willing to give it a try. Women are flooded with reactions. Also, it doesn't suit me well. I'm more the Hugh Grant type of guy (laughs allowed ), a bit shy at start but once the ice is broken i can be fun/charming. I'm just more fun in real life. So, if i would start online dating again, i would surely look for a platform that would suit me better, would have a better preselection of potential dates. Having some mechanism to present only profiles of people which are looking for a serious dating partner would be a requirement to avoid i waste my energy and time on people just looking for a bit of fun and ghost me when it's starting to get more serious (e.g. set up a meeting to have a coffee).

But i'd probably rather go with the earlier given suggestion to attend offline social meetings that meet my interests to find like-minded people. If you don't like bars or clubs, skip that and look a bit further to things you like to do. Cooking workshops, book clubs, photography groups, a sport you like you can do in a group, hiking, trips to destinations you like, that kind of stuff. Things you would enjoy for the activity itself, even if you would not find a date there you'd have had a good time.

Regarding the mentioned general attitude of millenials or gen Z: I'm not sure to which generation the people who had these experiences belong, but i personally would prefer to stick to my generation/age plus/minus 5 years. The differences in life experience and how the world was during the most forming years in our lives don't make me see myself with someone who is 20 years younger (me early 40's, meaning a person early 20's).

I'd like to stress that the intention of this post is NOT to say "it's your own fault" to everone who had to cope with rejection in any form. Just *absolutelty NOT*. Rejection is never nice and often (very) painful. It was merely intended as providing some guidance to avoid rejection in the future, as i see things and with best intentions. I just hope it could be of any help.

TLDR: I think it is very important to get your expections clear, what is important (or a requirement) or you and what not, and then try to find a way that would suit your goal best.