Dear Persistent Man,
You may think you have charmed me, but I assure you my polite smile and the fact I have reluctantly allowed you to buy me a coffee does not mean you have me fooled. Smiling in England is, in fact, a reflexive attempt to disguise disgust, a little like closing one's mouth to belch.
If I did find you in any way remotely attractive, rest assured you would know this by certain obvious signs: attempts to engage you in conversation, replying to texts and emails, knocking on your door and responding to your incessant attempts to lure me on a date. The absence of these signs might suggest that I'm not that into you. In fact, the absence of these signs might even suggest something further: I really don't care if I never see you again in my life.
Your compulsive texting, the content of which is usually akin to a bad, high-school English class attempt to emulate a Shakespearean sonnet, is now beginning to bore me. It never entertained me much in the beginning, but now you have resorted to pleas: "Teach me how to cook!" "Please come out for dinner with me!" and the no-BS, direct attempt to pin me down "What are you doing? Let's hook up!" (all of which I ignore) -- I have to say that you are beginning to piss me off.
Firstly, I would never have given you my number had you not dropped that seductive tid-bit my way: that sometimes you employ freelancers. After you subsequently took me out for coffee, ostensibly to talk about work possibilities, but in reality to stare at me across a skinny latte as if I was performing a sex act with a snake (I was not), I realized you were full of bullshit. But undeterred, you sallied forth. Encouraged, indeed heartened by my sullen, sexless demeanor, you took it upon yourself to commit the number one crime of the too-persistent man: you started to engage with me in a flirtatious manner as if the feeling was reciprocal.
Now doubtless I am a cold-hearted, frigid, bitchy Englishwoman with antiquated ideas on dating decorum, but still, I cling dearly to the belief that if you are interested in someone, it's often a good idea to strike up a friendship with that person, and then subtly gauge if the attraction is mutual before sending them creepy emails declaring that you wish you could stare at them all night. Furthermore, if several invitations are declined, it would usually make sense not to initiate new ones. I didn't want to come eat take-out with you, or have breakfast with you, or get in your car and ride to Santa Monica with you, or go for a dinner date with you.
The odds that I will change my mind will not increase should the invitations come thicker and faster. Indeed, had you decided to exercise a certain degree of restraint in your manner, I might have taken you up on something. However, that time has long past, and now your social ineptitude has given rise to a variety of unpleasant and sometimes terrifying suspicions.
In all honesty I have nothing to found these suspicions upon, but you do have a certain look about you, as if you like to asphyxiate women in bed and conceal their limp corpses beneath the patio tiles, or indulge in marathon masturbation sessions while watching disabled dwarf-porn on the internet. Perhaps I am wrong and in reality you spend your spare time coaching malnourished, deprived, inner-city children and providing the love and attention their crack-addicted parents have denied them. However, I no longer want to find out.
Allow me to spell this out for you clearly, should I have somehow obfuscated the issue. I don't want to go on a date with you, and any budding friendship we may have had has been marred by the fact that you have made it very clear you want to get into my pants, and I have made it abundantly obvious that this will never happen.
Yours,
Ruth