Was the message missed? Or possibly they were busy at the time and forgot to respond later?

If the few people I keep in contact with didn't try multiple times to reach me - I'd never talk to anyone. I'm hard to reach because the few methods of contact I have, I largely ignore.

I have a phone in my pocket that, without looking at it, I am willing to bet has 3+ missed calls and at least 4 people waiting over a week for a response to a text message and a sister who probably thinks I am dead because the last time I replied to one of her messages was over a year ago.

The fact that people like me exist runs entirely contrary to your claim and is why an explicit response should be socially necessary. If someone interested in dating me didn't try repeatedly, even if I was "ignoring them", they'd never get anywhere. Because chances are I saw their message, cleared the notification, and forgot to respond.

There are polite ways to see whether someone got your message (e.g. a simple "did you get my message?") when you see them in person.

I don't think your example really accounts for the myriad of ways this man could have gracefully handled being turned down.

Doesn't really matter whether some people are bad at responding to messages. It's not an excuse for this behaviour nor should it be a "social requirement" for people to have to turn down unwanted advances explicitly (that's ridiculous).

People get all up in arms about bullying and namecalling or racism against strangers - but psychological abuse is perfectly acceptable.

I feel bad for not responding - but she knew me before my transition and I don't feel comfortable telling a coworker who was romantically interested in me (and made it known to me) that I've transitioned. Especially since I'm still stealth and especially because they know other people I'm still in contact with.

>I don't think your example really accounts for the myriad of ways this man could have gracefully handled being turned down.

Being ignored is not being turned down.

>nor should it be a "social requirement" for people to have to turn down unwanted advances explicitly (that's ridiculous).

Until people have telepathy and can tell when an advance is unwanted without cue, I disagree. Implicitly to you doesn't mean implicitly to everyone. What you might think is giving off one message could be picked up as an entirely different message by someone else. Non-direct communication has the whole problem of not being direct. Here, have an example:

A girl I knew in high school used to avoid me in the halls going between classes. I've made some attempts at speaking to her, but she's never responded and always ran off. Knowing only this implicit information, which of the following is true:

a) she was afraid of me and trying to avoid me

b) she had a crush on me and got embarrassed when I was around

With the information I've given you - it could be either one. Couldn't it? I'll give you the answer though: it was B and we later ended up dating. But it was only because I made the effort to "keep bothering her" because I was picking up "B" as her implicit message. What if she actually felt like "A"? How different would that have been for her?

What if my advances were unwanted attention and were making her feel more uncomfortable? I'd have no way of knowing. (And you'd think of me as some pushy asshole for it, thanks.)

Thinking she has a crush on me, I might be a bit more pushy and outgoing with my advances because I think she likes me. Which would make her feel even more uncomfortable.

If I was interpreting her "A" message as a "B" message, she's making things much harder on herself than if she was explicit about her "A" feelings.

If I picked up on "B" messages but she meant "A" that makes me an asshole in your book.

If she meant "B", and my actions would have been the same if she meant "A" due to the implicit message, I should still be considered an asshole. Since my actions were the same!

Finally, if I assume "A" even though it's "B" would I be an insensitive asshole?

I don't see any way in that scenario where I wouldn't be an asshole. I have to take a chance and hope she means "B" like I think she does for a "mutually beneficial result" to happen (though I'm still an asshole).

This entirely depends on what you mean by "keep bothering her." If you mean, to reference the article, asking to see her naked? Then you shouldn't do it.

If you mean trying to be friendly and spend time with her, then what's the problem?

I've only ever responded to and explicitly contested this point out of context of whatever the article is about.

A person does have to say something in many scenarios. Like the one I gave. Or the result can be very wrong.

>If you mean trying to be friendly and spend time with her, then what's the problem?

If I was making her very uncomfortable and she felt unsafe around me because she was afraid of me if it was "A" and not "B" - regardless if I was acting friendly and trying to spend time with her - I could see a lot of problems with that for her. Of course, I'd be blissfully unaware of them because she wasn't explicit that she wasn't interested.

Rejecting unwanted advances can take the form of silence. Especially over text message. It's a pretty common way to reject someone without creating an awkward situation. If one party can't take the hint then they are more likely being wilfully ignorant (don't want to accept rejection). And even if they aren't, it's not an excuse to harass.

> If I was making her very uncomfortable and she felt unsafe around me because she was afraid of me [...]

Women do not make a binary choice between either "being afraid of you" or "being attracted to you." If you are a friendly and reasonable person then you shouldn't have a problem.

If you ask someone out and they say "I'm busy" a few too many times, maybe you just take the hint and move on, no?

The argument that "I'm too ignorant to know when women don't want my attention" is nonsense.

Fuck off with this "not an excuse to harass" bullshit. I've already said it's not an excuse and harassment is never OK. I've already stated, twice now and this is a third time that I'm not taking the actions of the article into consideration so harassment is not the issue here. Do you understand? I want to make sure I'm being very explicit with my communication that this has nothing to do with harassment. I am talking about a scenario of undesired continued communication that does not have the intentions of harassing (sexual or otherwise).

>Women do not make a binary choice between either "being afraid of you" or "being attracted to you." If you are a friendly and reasonable person then you shouldn't have a problem.

You're now taking it out of the scenario. She was avoiding me. There's two reasons I can think of for actively avoiding someone. One of those is fear. The other is embarrassment. If you'd like to open my mind and give me more motives for avoiding someone for this context, feel free. But it seems very binary to me in this scenario.

>If you ask someone out and they say "I'm busy" a few too many times, maybe you just take the hint and move on, no?

And if they are legitimately busy? I'm finding it funny your chosen examples have all happened to me and all of them resulted in relationships. Do you have another example?

>The argument that "I'm too ignorant to know when women don't want my attention" is nonsense

I don't see why you keep making this gendered. I've already provided an example with the genders swapped. It works both ways and has nothing to do with ignorance. It has to do with a failure of communication (which is an important part of getting along and living among other human beings). Please respond to the tldr, this is a test to ensure you're actually reading my responses. When I entered this conversation and until this point it's always been about implicit messages being poor (and harmful) for communication.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and claim you do not understand how communication works. Communication requires the meaning of the message to be understood and agreed upon. When a message is ambiguous in meaning (non-direct, implicit) the meaning of the message can be received in a manner not intended by the person giving the message.

The best example of this is cultural differences in the meaning of an action. Even small things like putting soy sauce on your rice can have an entirely different meaning in Japan than in America. In Japan it can be considered rude while people in America wouldn't even give it a second thought. If I wanted to offend you, I could drown your rice in soy sauce. Now depending on your cultural background - I've either offended you, or you're unaware that my message was meant as an offense. Because this implicit meaning behind a physical mention is interpreted differently in different cultures.

Implicit messages are terrible for communication. The ability for the meaning to be misunderstood or improperly conveyed is astounding. If you want someone to leave you alone it is important to be explicit. Especially when your implicit messages are ambiguous.

TL;DR

At best you can hope that when you mean "A" they assume "A" instead of "B" when "A" and "B" are ambiguous. But there is nothing wrong with assuming "B" and it is your fault for failing to communicate if that occurs because your implicit message was too ambiguous. You failed to communicate your intentions of "A" and that failure is on you.

ps.

America has a culture where people play "hard to get" on purpose. Every example you can think of that is intended to say "stop contacting me I'm not interested" is also used by these same people as a means of "try harder, I'm interested but want to make sure you're serious".

Your situations are ridiculous and not as black-and-White as you make them out to be.

You know what you don't do? Send someone you are interested in 8 texts if they are not responding. You let it go and get on with your life.

Both women and men have harassed their romantic interests. This is not something only one gender is guilty of. Stalking is a thing that happens when one person can't accept the idea that they've been rejected.

That's what happened here. We don't blame the victim in this case just because she happens to be a woman. We don't blame her because she politely rejected this man and he couldn't accept it. That would be disgusting.