It can be physically impossible to
answer them all.
Then they get angry.
Very telling.
You accept ignoring as the better path.
Lesser of two evils.

Don't take it seriously.
It is indeed rude not to reply
but experience proves it the
best choice.

Think of it as their loss,
not yours.

what's the harm in saying hi back? if a person were to walk up to you on the street and just start firing questions at you without giving you a chance to acknowledge them first you'd find that a little weird, yes?


. . .

But who walks up the street and just says "Hi"?! I'd ignore them too, to be honest. If I walk up to someone its to make a comment. Hi, your dog is gorgeous, can I pet him/her?" or some other example. Something besides "Hi" helps break the ice.

I say hi to people in person all the time, with the advantage of body language, I Can tell if its a passing polite hello or an invitation to a conversation

there is no such advantage in texting, the assumption is usually its an invitation to a conversation,,,which isnt always embraced(for whatever reason)

I was always told that no answer IS an answer,,,just move on,,,

Well, although I agree there is no harm in saying "hi" back, I personally have a problem with the one word folks as well. They aren't giving you much to work with or much incentive to want to find out more about them, for that matter. On the street,it's a different situation-- you have the clues of body language, facial expression, etc.like msharmony said, to tell you something about the person. If you were to walk up to the person and just said "hi" on the street, they would probably just say "hi" back (if that) and keep walking unless you actually started a conversation. Here on Mingle, you are really putting the other person on the spot, i.e. in the position of initiating a conversation if you only send a "Hi". It seems disrespectful to me. If you thought enough of their profile or picture to initiate a conversation,surely there is something you could ask them about themselves to get the ball rolling? Just a single question--like "what kind of dog is that in your profile pic"-or "how old are your kids?" or "where did you get that interesting hat?" You can save the 20 questions or Spanish Inquisition for the messages that follow, but for gosh sakes, give me something to work with, people ! ;-)

Thanks kre8karma. That's pretty much the gist of why I didn't reply. She jammed the ball into my court with just a 'Hi'.
And for the record, that's not a dog in my profile pic. That's me during my mountain man phase while living in the Pacific Northwest.

Sorry to the OP for hijacking. I'll start a new thread.

i guess i'm a little different. i feel invisible most of the time, so if a girl says hi i'm going to acknowledge her. whether i find her attractive or not, i'm not going to just ignore her as if she's invisible to me.


. . .

I was always told no answer is sometimes an answer

I have tried it the other way, saying hi back simply to be 'polite', but the moment I try to clarify Im being polite but not really interested, ,the questions and requests for justification come

not to mention, most of what Im not interested in is RIGHT THERE IN MY PROFILE to keep people from feeling like they wasted their time saying 'hi'

Viva la difference ! That is what makes it fun to interact here. As you can tell by the length of my responses, I am very verbal. It may be that when I send a reply, people are really wishing it would only be a single word or two ! Actually, I usually respond to the "Hi's" too. But only with a few words. If they come back with a whole sentence, then we are off and running. But if, after 4 exchanges, the word count is less than a dozen, which happens frequently, I surrender!

LOL. Yes. You look more Pacific NW than Iowa in the photo. Like you've been in the woods awhile. I lived in Seattle for awhile and kept expecting to see a Sasquatch or a Vietnam vet emerge from the woods there--or a bear.Disappointed on all counts, I fear. But, just so there is not confusion, those questions were just examples, not pertaining to your profile particularly

I've been on a couple different sites besides here and one man did just message me with "Hi". I ignored it. That seemed, strange to me.

Anyone else I've been messaged to, I've had the courtesy to write back, usually to politely decline their offers. I'm not trying to say I'm perfect, or overly picky, but I did put down what I wanted in a match, like certain ages, etc. and of course, wanting to meet someone who lives in the same state as I do.

So far, the only people who seem to want to message me are either way too young (I just got divorced from someone 9 years my junior- I'm NOT doing that again!) or my parents' age (I'm not saying older people aren't deserving of love, but I personally think that's too much of an age gap, nor do I want to feel like I was picked simply because I'm younger and they want to go out with a younger woman), or they live across country or another country entirely. To me, there's no point in that, if you are looking for someone for a long term relationship that you can spend time with and see every day, which I do. That isn't too easy when he lives on the other side of the country.

I've also had one... creepy experience, where, as mentioned on my profile- not this site- I am a divorced mother of two, and the guy who wrote me just started in on asking about my children, which made me feel ill at ease right away. Maybe he was just trying to make conversation, or maybe he was some pedophile. Either way, I'm not going to take a chance. Besides, if he's truly interested in me, then ask about me, not my kids, at least, not before telling me about yourself and getting to know me first.

Of course, the one time I DID brave up to write to a man- again, not on this site- not necessarily because I was interested in dating him (he lived in the same state, but 2 hours away in another city), but just to tell him that I admired him, as he wrote in his profile how he had recently lost a lot of weight- which I'm in the process of doing- and that he worked as an advocate for people with autism. My son has autism, so it hit a personal note with me, I guess. I remember in his profile he said he wasn't judgmental and that he knows how hard it is for people to reach out so he would NEVER dismiss someone. Guess what? Never heard from him. LOL Yeah, nice. Maybe working with people with autism doesn't translate into dating someone with an autistic child? I don't know. I'm also a feminist, though, and I do make mention of it in my profiles, not to brag or purposely scare people away, but I do want them to know ahead of time that I'm proud of my gender and I expect being treated as an equal with any partner, so neither of us waste our time if he doesn't feel that way.

Anyway, my latest message was from someone here who lives in New York *Rolls eyes, since I live in AZ* and I don't think English was his first language. I'm not trying to sound like a snob about that, that doesn't matter, but he was VERY anxious, trying to get something started, he kept going on and on about how he wanted to get to know me- in the first freaking letter!- and I began to wonder if he might be wanting a green card more than a lover, and maybe he picked the ugliest woman he could find, thinking I'd jump at the chance to have someone interested in me. Well, I'm not so easy. I wished him well and told him good luck on finding someone who lives nearby and he wrote back AGAIN saying he didn't care if I lived across country. So, I wrote him back saying that I DID care. LOL Thankfully, haven't heard from him since.

..i figure no response is pretty much telling me they're not interested,but i usually don't e-mail anyone because i'm not interested,but that would be different,just out of the blue write someone to tell them i'm not interested,like hi..i would write you but ..i'm not interested..they'd be like WTF..which would probably wind up getting a response ..that i wouldn't answer...