No Means No

I'm reading Pride and Prejudice right now and I'm about 1/3 of the way through. Mr. Collins has just asked Elizabeth to marry him, to which Elizabeth said no. He persists saying that most women reject a man on his first attempt to build his anticipation or get them to try harder or just because rich girls from 18th century England were silly. Elizabeth is a very blunt kind of woman. She doesn't play games.

Mr. Collins just doesn't get it. When a woman tells you no, that's exactly what it means.

If I ever were in the singles game again and asked someone to marry me, if she said no I'd get the point and move on. Of course, I'm so terrified of rejection that the woman may be the one proposing to me.

When I was dating Emily she asked me more than once when I was going to propose to her. I told her I wanted to take the time to make the decision right. I mean, we'd been dating less than a month.

My problem was that every girl I had ever dated I wanted to marry. Of course, I'd never dated a woman longer than a week before. I generally could figure out pretty quick that a relationship wouldn't take me to where I wanted to be and didn't waste time and trauma on it.

So yeah, Elizabeth is not one of those women who are playing hard to get. She just doesn't like you. And that's okay because she falls in love with Mr Darcy. And she's your cousin. And you're her minister. But that's another issue altogether.