Men, Please Stop Insulting Women You Were Just Hitting On After They Reject You

Guys, no one likes rejection — we get it. Expressing your interest in someone only to be told that your feelings aren’t reciprocated sucks, to say the least, but you’re supposed to be an adult, not a petulant child. Insulting the very women you were literally just hitting on after they reject you isn’t just immature, it’s totally f—ked up and not okay.

  1. Women don’t owe you anything. Newsflash, bros: women don’t have to agree to date you or claim we’re interested in you when we’re not just so that you don’t feel bad about yourself. It’s nice that you’re into us, and we’re probably pretty flattered by the attention (depending on how it’s shown, of course), but that doesn’t mean we have to feel the same. Insulting women because they dared not to fall all over you is ridiculous. The sooner you get over your sense of entitlement, the sooner you’ll realize this.
  2. It probably wasn’t personal. Just because someone you like doesn’t feel the same doesn’t mean you’re somehow unworthy or that there’s something wrong with you. When women reject men, it’s rarely a reflection of who you are as a person and more about where we’re at in our own lives. Maybe we’re not looking for a boyfriend or we already have one or you’re just not our type. Why is that such a problem?
  3. You’re only proving we were right to turn you down. When you start insulting women because we don’t agree to go out with you or because they don’t feel like you’re God’s gift to the world of heterosexuality, it basically sends home the message that we were 100% correct in shutting things down before they could get started. We see your true colors when you can flip from telling us how beautiful we are and how much you like us to telling us that we’re fat, ugly bitches who couldn’t get a guy if we begged him, we see pretty quickly what type of person you really are.
  4. You’re embarrassing yourself. Insulting women who don’t like you is the biggest elementary school move in the world. It doesn’t upset us or make us feel bad about ourselves, it just makes you look immature, shallow, and kind of unhinged. You’re not going to ruin our night by flipping the script like that, but you will go home alone, so there’s that.
  5. We know you’re lying. Women can see right through this insulting sh-t. You literally just told us that we’re super hot and you can’t keep your eyes off of us but once we said we weren’t feeling it, suddenly we turned into gargoyles who will die alone with 13 cats because we’re so disgusting? Nice try, bro.
  6. It may be time to reevaluate your approach. Maybe the reason you got rejected was down to your approach. If you’re narcissistic, cocky, entitled, and act like the women you hit on should be so lucky to have your attention, it’s no wonder we weren’t feeling it. The fact that you then result to insulting the very women you were just trying to get to date you or to get into bed with you further illustrates the need for you to seriously reevaluate.
  7. You might need to seek professional help. If insulting women is a knee-jerk reaction to rejection, you could have some deep-seated issues surrounding women, abandonment, rejection, and other emotional and mental traumas that could use working through with a professional. There’s no shame in admitting that you need help and to be honest, your dating life will be 100% better for it once you do work through these issues and change your behavior. Just sayin’.

Instead of insulting women, here’s how to handle rejection

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While it’s gross and depressing that we even have to have this section, here are some pointers on how you should react when women tell you they’re not feeling you romantically.

  1. Don’t take it to heart. Again, it probably wasn’t personal. Sometimes we’re just not in a place where we’re looking to date or be in a relationship. The best and most mature thing you can do is to accept that and understand that life is complicated and it’s not really about you. Don’t let it be a reflection on your self-worth because it’s not.
  2. Keep calm. Instead of bugging out and insulting women who aren’t interested in you, instead, take a deep breath (or five) and stay chill. There’s nothing more obnoxious or scarier than having a guy flip his lid because we dared to reject his advances. Even if you’re secretly fuming (which you really shouldn’t be — again, you may need professional help with this), that shouldn’t show in your words or your actions.
  3. Play it cool. So we don’t want to date you. That’s cool, right? Taking the news well shows us that you’re level-headed, respectful, and mature. In the odd circumstances, it could actually give us space to realize that you’re a really good dude and maybe going on a date with you wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. However, you should never expect this to be the case because it is pretty rare.
  4. Suggest still being friends (but only if you mean it). It should go without saying that if you start insulting women, they’re not only not going to want to go out with you, they’re not even going to want you in their presence. If you do legitimately think we’re cool and you like hanging out with us, you could take the romantic rejection on the chin and let us know that you’d still like to be friends. Assuming you legitimately mean this and aren’t using it as a way to try and worm your way into our bed, we might even be into the idea.
  5. Take no for an answer. Don’t try to change our minds, don’t double-down on your gross innuendos, and don’t think insulting or negging women is some bizarre reverse psychology way of winning us over. Accept that we’re not interested with grace and move on. It’s really not that hard.
Jennifer has been the managing editor of Bolde since its launch in 2014. Before that, she was the founding editor of HelloGiggles and also worked as an entertainment writer for Bustle and Digital Spy. Her work has been published in Bon Appetit, Decider, Vanity Fair, The New York TImes, and many more.