You Are Not Entitled to an Answer

Three Days, Two Hours a Night, and a Man Who Loved the Sound of His Own Voice

I was sick. Properly sick. Not the performative kind where you wear an oversized jumper and look interesting. The kind where your sinuses are staging a full revolt, your throat feels like you’ve been gargling gravel, and your body is running on spite and green tea. I’d matched with a guy on Bumble a few days earlier and, honestly, things had been going well. Night one, we talked for an hour. Night two, two hours. We were planning dates one through four. He was in sales. I should have clocked that sooner.

Day three, I was working from home but thoroughly on the clock, and he asked how my day was going and whether he could call me. I told him I felt absolutely terrible. A minute later, my phone rang. He opened with, “oh, you do sound terrible,” and then launched directly into a five minute monologue. About himself. His job. His week. His opinions. I timed it. Five minutes, babe. I sat there, sick, phone to my ear, unable to get a single word in edgewise. Eventually I said, “dude, I might be working from home, but I’m on the clock, I can’t talk right now.” He said okay. And that was the moment I knew.

Ten minutes after I hung up, I told him the date we’d planned for the following day was off, and wished him well with life. He responded immediately wanting confirmation that I’d cancelled and not postponed. Because we were getting along SO WELL. Sir. Did I stutter.

The Monologue Was the Clue I Kept Ignoring

The thing I keep coming back to is this: those earlier conversations I’d enjoyed so much? Looking back, they were him. Almost entirely him. He talked about himself with the relentless enthusiasm of someone who has never once been told to wrap it up. When I did get a word in, he’d loop it back around to his own experience within thirty seconds. Not in a curious, oh that reminds me of kind of way. In a this is actually a segue back to me kind of way.

I noticed it, and I made excuses for it. He’s nervous. He’s a talker. He’s just enthusiastic. We do that. We explain away behaviour that’s telling us something useful because the alternative is admitting we already know where this is going. And when you’re three days in and you’ve already daydreamed about date four, that’s an uncomfortable thing to admit to yourself.

The phone call wasn’t the problem. It was the confirmation. A man who calls when you’ve told him you feel terrible, then spends five uninterrupted minutes talking about himself, is not a man who was listening to anything you said in the first place. He was rehearsing. I was the audience he’d been waiting for.

Sir, I Am Not a Lost Sale

A week passed. Radio silence. I’d moved on with my life, as one does, I had Lulu to attend to and he has very strong opinions about when dinner should happen. Then a message came through. “I know you’ve probably blocked me. Have you reconsidered my request for clarification?”

I want to sit with that for a second. Reconsidered his request for clarification. He’d framed it like a follow-up email. Like he was circling back on a stalled deal. Like I was a prospect who’d gone cold and maybe just needed a gentle touch-base. This is what happens when someone works in sales long enough. The line between a conversation and a pitch starts to blur, and before you know it, you’re sending follow-up messages to women who’ve already told you goodbye.

My response was calm, direct, and very final. I told him the message was a useful reminder, that it was clearly an oversight on my part not to have blocked him already, and that his follow-up had demonstrated exactly why my lack of interest was correct. Then I blocked him. Not dramatically. Just practically. The way you take the bins out.

You Don’t Get a Debrief

We’ve somehow created a culture where people feel entitled to an explanation for disinterest. Like if you can’t provide a detailed breakdown of your reasoning, you’re being unkind, or immature, or emotionally unavailable. And women absorb that expectation more than anyone. We feel guilty for not explaining. We soften the blow so much the blow barely lands. We write paragraphs justifying a decision that we don’t actually owe anyone a paragraph for.

You are allowed to disengage. Full stop. No footnotes required. A week of chatting on an app does not create a debt. Three nights of phone calls does not generate a legal right to answers. The energy you put into something does not obligate the other person to stay in it, and demanding clarification when someone has clearly walked away isn’t persistence. It’s a boundary violation dressed up as sincerity.

What you are entitled to, and this is the only thing, is self-reflection. If someone exits without explanation, the useful question isn’t why won’t she answer me. It’s what did I do, what did I miss, what was I not paying attention to. The answer is almost always there. You just have to be willing to sit with it honestly, which is harder and more valuable than any reply I could have given him.

Bullet Dodged, Lesson Reinforced

I’m not angry about this. I genuinely wish him well, from a very significant distance, behind a block, forever. But I am grateful for the reminder of what it feels like when someone isn’t actually interested in you. They’re interested in having you there. That’s different. One requires curiosity. The other just requires an audience.

The exhausting men aren’t always the dramatic ones. Sometimes they’re the ones who seem perfectly nice on paper, who plan multiple dates and ask how your day is, but who reveal themselves the second things get inconvenient. The phone call was inconvenient. Being told the date was off was inconvenient. The only moment he was truly responsive was when I was walking away, and suddenly he had questions.

That’s not connection. That’s someone realising they’re losing the room. Don’t stick around to give them a second set. You’re not a sales lead. You don’t owe him a pipeline update. Close the tab, pat your cat, drink your matcha, and let the silence be the answer. It’s a complete sentence.

You Are Not Entitled to an Answer – Chaos, Crumbs and Clarity

In this episode of Chaos, Crumbs and Clarity, we're unpacking why you are not entitled to an answer. Specifically, we're talking about the strange little corner of modern dating where a few days of app chat somehow becomes an emotional contract, and suddenly a man you've never met believes your silence requires a formal explanation, a debrief, and possibly a follow-up meeting with management.I have two stories for you. One man who talked almost exclusively about himself, ignored the fact that I was sick, and then followed up a week later asking whether I'd reconsidered his "request for clarification". And another who became offended because I didn't respond to his selfie within two hours while I was lying in a dark room with a migraine. Sir. Please be serious.Because here's the thing. Before you've met someone, you do not owe them unlimited access to your time, attention, reassurance, or emotional labour. You don't have to justify why the vibes changed. You don't need a reason they'll consider reasonable. You are allowed to disengage because something felt off, because you changed your mind, because you met someone else, or because you're in your luteal phase and frankly the entire world can wait.Today we're talking about the difference between ghosting and simply disengaging, why demanding closure can become a boundary violation, the exhausting expectation that women should manage men's feelings for them, and why you do not need to JADE, justify, argue, defend, or explain, when you've already decided you're done. Let's get into it.Key Takeaways:A few days of chatting does not create a debt. Matching on an app, exchanging messages, or talking on the phone does not give someone a claim on your attention. Until you've actually built a connection, you are allowed to walk away without submitting supporting documentation.Closure is not something another person can demand from you. Asking once is one thing. Continuing to push after someone has clearly disengaged is not persistence or emotional maturity. It's refusing to accept the answer you've already been given.You do not need to JADE. You don't have to justify, argue, defend, or explain why you're no longer interested. The reason doesn't have to be good enough for him. It just has to be yours.Pre-date silence and post-date silence are not the same thing. If you've never met, disengaging is part of app dating. Once you've shared an actual date or developed a genuine connection, a simple goodbye becomes basic courtesy. Nobody needs a dissertation, but acknowledging another human being matters.Sometimes they don't miss you. They miss the audience. Someone can seem interested while actually being interested in having your attention. Real connection requires curiosity about you. If the only time they become deeply engaged is when you're leaving, pay attention to that.For more visit ⁠BryJaimea.com⁠ or follow over on IG ⁠@BryJaimea

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