At that point, I’d been “dumped” tons of times via one-sentence e-mails, so it totally seemed like a normal aspect of online dating, not something anyone would take personally. That’s why I was so surprised that he was bothered.

Also, in my experience most women not only care about why they were dumped, but obsess about it and contact men who have dumped them repeatedly looking for “closure,” which is rarely or never provided. So I’m not sure why you would say women don’t want to know and men do.

I also got the impression that he was fishing for ways to keep the exchange going so he could continue to be nasty, and that he wasn’t taking any of the valid (if inappropriately expressed) concerns I had to heart. It’s totally possible that he was just being defensive in the moment, though, and really did change his ways after thinking about what I’d said. I’ll never know.

I am confused about why women are left-wing and men aren’t? I’m sure it’s a result of my profession (academia), but almost EVERYONE I know is RADICALLY left-wing. Plenty of them dudes. This seems to be a regular-person-compatibility issue and not a gender issue to me.

I numbered the e-mails so people could follow along here, not because I thought there were so many of them that it was weird.

It wasn’t the fact-finding aspect that I took issue with. It was the manner in which he expressed himself. There are lots of ways he could’ve gotten the same information without the exchange feeling like a downward spiral. Another time on Match, a guy emailed me and said, “I doubt someone like you would be interested in someone like me, but I really liked your profile.” I emailed him back and said, “No, I’m not interested in you, but I noticed some things about your profile that could be improved” and listed what they were. He thanked me effusively and that was that (we never emailed again).

One of my new year’s resolutions is to remove myself from exchanges like the one above a lot sooner. My emotional energy is too important to me to do otherwise.
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That was a remarkably mild and normal exchange. He was right to be offended by the one sentence email. I can’t imagine being dumped electronically and with one sentence.

I saw no reason to think you or he was the better person or more interesting person or even that you might have been better looking with more prospects as a woman than he is and has as a man. He could have been a Republican and you and your friends Democrat NOW supporters.

Men are built to logically want to understand, scientifically, what cause and effect factors have made things happen, especially to them. Whereas a dumped woman might illogically NOT want to know why a man didn’t call or why he dumped her, a real man will definitely want to know how he can improve with the next woman. Such men, such as this guy, often get some answers and every piece of info can help make the next relationship better

I’ve been in nastier exchanges especially with ideological urban Americans online, usually without having met…such as when someone’s first email was something stupid like “I’m sorry but 33 is too old for me” (when she is 27). My response to that one was “you mean 27 is too old for me” and it went downhill from there as she chanted feminist ideology about the patriarchy trying to date younger women (in non-feminist countries, 27 would be too old for 37).

I remember a woman telling me on the first date about having had a similar bad experience like yours above with the previous man she’d met online.

She said that she called him 30 minutes before their second date to cancel saying “this isn’t going to go anywhere so its best to cancel now”.

I asked her jokingly “so are you going to do that to me and other guys” noting that a last minute cancelation like that was inappropriate.

And she decided to stop liking me then and there. Good riddance. I escorted her out to a taxi and went back in for dessert.

It was clear that she, as an urban feminist, wanted a man who would agree with her on such matters when an alpha male is going to stick up for other men where they might deserve it.

And don’t get me started on women who insist that their male dates accept left wing ideology as a given. A terror attack happens and the man they are with is so dumb for not seeing that it is a ploy by financiers to start another war. When dates end on that note, it isn’t the man whose prospects of finding love and happiness are in question. He’s got more time (evolutionary biology is no theory).

It is part of online dating that people with attitudes that don’t match will get into such a minor downward spiral that takes a few minutes of each other’s time.

The dumper is not going to get the last word in something like this so there was no reason to let it go on past 3 emails…but the exchange really wasn’t that long…he was certainly not to blame for responding to what you wrote so numbering the emails as if there was something wrong with him (or any man) because of the number of emails that were mostly responses to your emails…

In this case, his getting offended at the one sentence resulted in his learning that your friends didn’t like him. Maybe he could have already assumed that, but details really help people process what a reality was. For instance, I am sure he has now processed that he should NOT have been rude to your friend and adjusted his future behavior with others accordingly.

Portrayals of such fact finding behavior as being something a lesser man does, seems to be part of an anglo-saxon paradigm of keeping men under control (Victorianism, Gender Feminism, etc). It seems he was being hated, at least by some of your readers, for trying to analyze and be intellectual about it. When a man really doesn’t care about anything but knowing what happened, it is smart for him to dig for answers.

I see him happily married someday. He blew it with you but he has time. And you weren’t attracted to him physically anyway, so I can’t blame you either.

It just so happens to be one of the most hilarious mistakes I’ve ever made, which is why I posted it here

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And it certainly doesn’t make you look any more of the adult that the exchange is being posted on your blog.

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On another note, it’s hard not to be intensely defensive in this type of situation – on your side AND on his. Your body’s natural instinct is to get on the defense when you’ve been dumped, and it’s also impossible not to get defensive when someone’s verbally attacking your friends and your character/judgment. With two people highly on the defense, strong words are bound to ensue, which always leads to this type of email exchange.

I think you were totally justified in ending it over email, considering it was only a few dates and you didn’t sleep with him. If he couldn’t handle that, well, he shouldn’t be dating in the first place. As for attacking your friends, that was totally out of line and completely unnecessary – just a defense mechanism to make himself feel better, in my opinion.

Man, I could go on and on about this! Suffice it to say: whoa, what a crappy situation. Thanks for sharing, hon.

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heh heh… too funny!

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