I once took weeks to debate whether to ask someone out because my chances with any woman have always been abysmal. Rather than just say no, she pretended to agree to meet up, waited a whole week then rudely told me she was ‘too busy for the next few weeks’ which was actually framed as a ‘go fuck yourself’.

While this writing explains why women can’t say no, it makes me ask myself, did she think I was the same as other men who turn nasty and violent?

It was the first time someone made me feel like a monster. I took nearly three years to ask her why she wasn’t more up front. She must have thought I was a pussy for not being more confrontational when she humiliated me. I believe she may be right because I was so taken aback at the time, I was too scared to make a scene and get mocked in public for thinking I had a chance of breaking the strangling stigma of being single at a late age.

My only way to handle being implicitly told to get lost is to keep reminding myself, ‘She’s saving herself up for someone better and you STILL haven’t become worthy.’