I wish everybody would just be honest. People think that someone will get hurt more if they tell them the truth. The person gets hurt when you DON'T tell the truth!
This misconception seems to happen a LOT in the dating scene. What is wrong with just saying (and I hate to be cliche) "I'm just not that into you!" You are not saying the person is ugly. You are not saying they aren't smart and wonderful, You just aren't that interested in them. Why would they WANT to date someone that wasn't that interested in them anyway? People lead other people on unnecessarily just because they assume that the person would not be capable of handling this. That in itself, is an insult. Many times a person knows right away whether they are going to be "into" this person or not. By not allowing the other person to know all of the information and to decide how they will handle it for themselves, is taking their power away. Assuming that there will be some sort of scene, is taking their power away. Allow them the opportunity to say "It was very nice meeting you. I'm glad you told me. I wish you all the best....Goodbye!" and if they make a scene, then you can turn and walk away.
It causes a huge amount of unnecessary acting and pretending which is a complete waste of time for both people when you don't tell the truth. The person who is not interested expends energy thinking about how to get out of going to that wedding they said they would go to, or making excuses not to get together. The other person expends way too much energy wondering "Why is he/she so distant?" and "What did I say or do wrong?" Sometimes people just want to give others the benefit of the doubt. "Oh maybe she had a bad day at work." or "Maybe he didn't sleep well last night" All kinds of unnecessary questioning pondering and worrying occur when all they have to say is "I'm just not that into you". The interested person needs to hear this from the horse's mouth. The interested person needs to be respected enough to be allowed to just move on.
