How to Say No to an Online Partner

Being a relationship counselor who works mostly with international couples and families, I frequently communicate with couples who met online. When two people are separated with huge distance, they have to develop their relationship by using all possible modern means of communication - telephones, chats, forums, networking websites, etc. But they cannot meet and see each other the same way as we do in the real life. What are the distinctive features of online communication versus the real life romantic communication? What are the secrets of successful online dating and, on the opposite - what should be done if we want to say NO to an online partner?

When I was a high school student, I was a very attractive girl, and many boys tried to invite me on a date all the time. There was a boy who called me again and again, and would come to my door and wait for hours, trying to catch me when I was coming in or out. I was not interested in him at all, and I tried all possible polite ways to stop him from following me. But he kept following me anyway.

One afternoon, he rang on my door again, but I didn't open. I thought he'd left, but after a while I saw him sitting on a bench in the yard. I grew angry at him, and- a thought of saying NO once and for all came to my mind. What I did was this. I took an old white sheet and a lipstick; I wrote across the sheet in huge letters "Sasha, I am NOT at home" and hang this sheet down from my balcony so that no one could fail to see it. I managed to say NO without meeting him eye to eye. The boy disappeared and never bothered me again after this.

Well, was it cruel? Was it stupid? What is childish? I don't know. But it worked. In that situation, a way to say no without looking into the person's eyes proved to be the only efficient way.

Since that time, I had to witness how relationship partners say NO to each other via email, in chats, in forums, and via other ways of distance communication, many times. People do it in all possible ways: Some do it online just in a short message; some do this by phone, others compose long letters and paste them in a chat or a forum, others discuss their situation with a community of online supporters, and some type chat one-in-one till they come to a logical conclusion. All these methods of communication can be regarded as self-expression techniques that can equally work for us or against us, depending on our personalities and on particular situations in relationships.

What features characterize situations of online/distance communication versus the face-to-face ones? First of all, any communication process can be defined as a complex set of linguistic and extralinguistic means of self-expression. When we communicate (confront) face to face, we can use mimics and body language; we can communicate very quickly and expressively by using rich vocabulary of conversational language. Moreover, we can easily control the reactions of our communication partner by being able to see this person all the time.

In online communication (confrontation), the worst things that slow down (or even break) the dialog are:
- inability to see each other during the communication (confrontation) process (this means lack of control over your partner's reactions);
- inability to use full range of linguistic techniques (in type chat, for example, we always have to select good words to put our thought in a short but clear way, and emotional talk does not work as well in writing as it would work in voice communication);
- inability to use extralinguistic techniques - mimics, gestures, body language etc;
- necessity to control the while typing process, analyze it quickly but to be delayed by the need to type everything, which is always slower than talking;
- necessity to adjust to having to read/analyze remarks of the partner and to take time for writing responses, which often breaks the concentration, and affects the emotional exchange between the partners.

YOu probably remember scenes of confrontation between couples in movies. They always start it in the same room, facing each other directly. They grow emotionally hot, then there is a remark that causes a burst of emotion, and then one of the two partners leaves the room. The other may follow, but quite often he/she doesn't, and there is a short exchange of very expressive phrases across the wall. The partners distance from each other, to cool down a little, for in emotional stress they begin to lose ability to think logically; their memory is blocked and the arguments which had been thought over beforehand do not come to mind. After a few moments, the two confronting personalities come up close to each other again and continue the dialog face to face.

This is a typical scheme of saying NO in many words to each other. Unlike face-to-face confrontation partners, the distanced communicators do not have the "pleasure" of following this emotional dynamics; and the whole scene flows in a much calmer environment and, quite often - it lasts longer. Probably, this is one of the main reasons why saying NO in distance confrontation more commonly happens in fewer words and in shorter scenes.

More commonly, the most powerful ways in typechatting or written communication are these-
- attempts of logical explanation;
- convincing;
- providing proofs, facts even figures to stress on one's opinion;
- using all possible means of extralinguistic online communication (smilies, drawings, widely accepted shortenings, abbreviations and symbols, etc);
- using stylistically marked words/phrases;
- appealing to expert's opinions or using widely known citations;
- and even quitting the chat abruptly to demonstrate offended feelings.

The most widely used way of saying NO to a distanced partner remains the same old method that was used by our ancestors - by just writing a goodbye letter to the partner. In modern life, the letter is simply emailed to the partner; but some people prefer to surfacemail it, and some even send it hand-written.

Well, the most difficult part is to develop universal howto tips which would work for all people. I think for those who confront in writing via typechat (this is the highest level of complexity in saying no online) there are just a few:
- saying no firmly supposes doing it shortly. Avoid typing long phrases.
- try to wait till the partner finishes typing his/her remark and write yours only when you have read everything that the partner has typed. Try not to allow situations when there are many replies to your phrase, and you have no time to respond to all of them. If this happens, respond only to ONE of the statements, not to all of them. If your partner wants to stress on a different thing, he/she will repeat the remark again.
- Just as in real-life communication, it is good to keep control of the situation and lead the dialog a little. Try to remain calm and type only the phrases which you thought over well. It is so easy to produce a wrong impression or to be misunderstood.
- try to avoid using idioms or phrases which have double meaning. Again, they may be misinterpreted and lead the dialog away from the main topic.
- Avoid driving away from the main point that you want to deliver. The easiest way to do this is to select a keyword that you want to stress on, and try to use it in each remark that you type. Sentences that do not contain this word, may drive you both away from the main idea of the discussion.
- if you can make the whole discussion short, do it. What's the use of discussing things that have come to a dead end? If you are firm in your decision about saying NO to our partner, just say it and go.
- If you still feel that you are not ready to the final NO, then this is a different story. Do not hint that you are going to say NO, and do not "play" with such statements.

Most of these recommendations may also be given to those who communicate in real life, but in a situation of exchange between two distanced confronting individuals, these rules acquire more importance than any other techniques.