<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"PinterestFacebookAt dinner with my friends Bea and Edie, Bea was agonizing over how to gently decline a second invitation from an &amp;quot;eh&amp;quot; guy. I felt her pain. But I was glad it wasn&amp;#39;t me.\nI am not good at turning down a piece of chocolate, let alone a nice, interested guy. I always feel bad, and so sorry for the guy. I lose sleep over it. But then part of me goes, Erin, get over yourself. It&amp;#39;s not like he&amp;#39;s going to die if you say no. Still, I hate doing it. Here are 5 ways to say thanks, but no thanks:\n1. The Fade Out. The fizzling out is harder than it looks and requires patience. It often feels mean, and it ends up taking more energy because, let&amp;#39;s face it, you might have every busy excuse in the book&amp;#8212;&amp;quot;I&amp;#39;ll be going out of the country, I&amp;#39;m booked up for the next three weeks,&amp;quot; and still, if a guy is interested, he will keep after you. At some point, you gotta come clean\u2026I mean, you&amp;#39;ve gotta stay busy. He&amp;#39;ll send one last-ditch-effort &amp;quot;just checking in&amp;quot; email, and you literally have to be like, &amp;quot;Thanks! Great! Hope you&amp;#39;re well!&amp;quot; It feels horrible. And so transparent.\n2. The Rejection Letter. In my older age, I appreciate honesty. I don&amp;#39;t want to waste anyone&amp;#39;s time, including mine. Sometimes I send an email like this: &amp;quot;That&amp;#39;s very sweet of you to offer to take me out again, but I don&amp;#39;t feel there&amp;#39;s a potential match here. I had a great time and think you&amp;#39;re a cool guy, but I&amp;#39;m just not feeling a romantic connection.&amp;quot; It&amp;#39;s a bit formal. You can&amp;#39;t send this if you got drunk and made out on Date One. So try not to do that. If you met him or her on a dating web site, it&amp;#39;s nice to say, &amp;quot;I know you will find what you&amp;#39;re looking for.&amp;quot; Feel free to copy and paste that.\n3. The Houdini. Sometimes I screen all calls and delete all texts and emails. When I do this, it&amp;#39;s because I feel the guy misbehaved or disrespected me and therefore doesn&amp;#39;t deserve an answer. So I don&amp;#39;t waste my breath.\n4. The Big White Lie. Sometimes I tell a guy that I got back together with an ex. I think that&amp;#39;s the only believable alibi there is, unless you seem like a person who might go to prison/move to Siberia/join the army on Tuesday. Just make sure your story is plausible, and then try not to run into him at The Gap.\n5. The Pass-Along. Beth once went out with a guy who was not her type&amp;#8212;but he was her friend&amp;#39;s type. So when he asked her out again, she said he was nice but that he&amp;#39;d be really perfect for her friend. He was thrown off for a second, but ultimately intrigued, and he agreed to the set-up. It didn&amp;#39;t end up working out, but it sure was generous of Beth!\nLooking back, these are all pretty wussy (well, except for #5). Even the &amp;quot;honesty&amp;quot; option is executed from behind a computer. But you know what? 95 percent of guys say, &amp;quot;I&amp;#39;ll call you,&amp;quot; and then they don&amp;#39;t. So at least I&amp;#39;m not doing that.\nWhat do you do?\nGet Glamour Wherever You Go! Follow us on Twitter. Friend us on Facebook. Add us to your Google homepage."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/story/4-ways-to-turn-down-a-second-d>