Forums » Smalltalk » Rude reply's when turning down an RP request

Am I the only one who have experienced this? I have now twice come acros people who apparently just can’t take no for an answer and decides to be rude about it.

First case was someone who got rude when I told the person I didn’t do supernatural/fantasy RP’s. Apparently the person had stopped reading my profile text after it said I was open to mostly everything (right afterwards it said except supernatural/fantasy) and decided to be rude because if i wrote I did everything, apparently I couldn’t turn down anything.

Second case, I just didn’t think the character offered up fit with what I had in mind, which resulted in the person calling my writing limited. I tried to explain myself, which just ended in the person not wanting to leave me alone and kept writing rude reply’s about it.

I rarely turn down RP’s, but I feel like I should be able to do that without getting rude reply’s? Just wanted to hear if I was the only one who had experienced this I guess.

It's incredibly selfish and childish to get offended at someone turning down your roleplay invite. As long as you were polite, they have no legit reason to get pissy about it. It's like buying tea for someone who likes coffee, then get angry because they won't drink it.


We need to be kind to each other. Spread some love, folks ❤

About 1/3 of my (potential) partners are like this. One time I was chatting with an upbeat individual but the moment I declined their RP offer they suddenly turned into a pile of despair and cry-typed half a dozen PMs to change my mind.

Ultimately your boundaries should be respected as well, not just theirs.

Thankfully this has been a very rare experience for me. I've had people throw a hissy fit if I wasn't into a pure romance plot besides stating it in my profile at the time that conversation took place, though that's been quite a while now.

I usually don't let it bother me too much. This is a hobby, not a job, and if someone's belligerent over something as simple as differing taste, they're not worth your energy.

Rude replies? No. Super clingy and doesn't know when to give up? Yes. I had this one guy send me a message wanting to pair his character and a certain one of mine for a romantic/fantasy rp. I took a look at his character and...well it just screamed Gary Stu. Naturally I decided to gently turn them down saying that I didn't think our characters were compatible.

So they reply back with an idea of how the rp could go and I turn them down again. They then tried to spin another angle how how an rp between the two could work and I turn them again. The cycle repeats like this at least twice more before I got fed up, gave them a very blunt refusal and I screenshoted the logs in case I needed to get a mod's help.

Luckily they stopped there, but I saved the logs for a good while just in case.

That is unacceptable behavior, if you still have those PMs I would report the user's rude replies for a mod to look at. Chances are if they got rude with you they have or will be rude with another, and their behavior won't change unless the issue is brought to their attention.

This has happened so much to me that I basically stopped responding to people when I don't don't feel like starting or doing the roleplay anymore I'm afraid that the number of people who are behaving like this is increasing and that's a big issue.

First and foremost that is shitty and you shouldn't have to deal with someone behaving that way.

Second of all, if someone starts to become rude or shows you this kind of behaviour PLEASE report them to the mods. Report the reply in your inbox to staff so they can also address this person.

This is something that all of us had to learn. A social que about accepting rejection and that not all rejection is bad. If you report this person and they are told by an authoritative figure tha their behaviour and reaction is not polite, they can learn from that. They can learn that this behaviour is not acceptable and that they are better then that. It can help them deal with the rejection.

Your rejections come off very polite and very straight forward and you should never lose that! That's great for you and anyone whom you may come across and have to say no to in the future. Keep up the polite and straight forward attitude!

Thankfully I haven’t had that happen to me here, albeit I’m still pretty new to this site. But I’ve had it happen often enough else where that I do get all tense and anxious when I do reject an offer to rp.

I do try to be very direct and careful with my words. I make it clear that it isn’t their fault and there is nothing wrong with them or their idea, but that if I forced myself to rp with them I wouldn’t have much/any passion for it and we’d both get terribly bored.

Rp is an escape for some people, some who are very lonely and don’t know how to cope with their more uncomfortable feelings. Being kind but firm with your boundaries is really the only way to go about it. And if they just can’t respect that, I agree with what others have said, get a mod involved. You likely aren’t the only person that they’re harassing.

I've unfortunately had this happen to me once or twice here. For example: I have this thing about playing with characters that have some personality and basic history written out; I tend to avoid one page profiles stating how a character looks in one tiny paragraph and nothing else. I even mention it in my do's and don'ts on my profile.

And yet someone approached me with one of these profiles when I was asking for roleplay, and I had to turn them down gently because I didn't feel like being bluntly straightforward about it, you know? They still sent me two more profiles that had little to no information aside from a short paragraph that I had to turn down. Finally they gave up, but not without sending me a short reply saying I'm too much for them to work with.

I don't really ask for roleplay much nowadays because of these kinds of instances and horror stories from others. I'm not picky with who I play with overall, but I do have some standards, you know? (That and I have trouble saying no when someone gets clingy and persistant for RP. I'm a bit of a pushover...)

This is something that happens to me sometimes, and one of the reasons I can be inclined to ghost on a partner if I'm having a bad mental health period. It's very stressful to be politely informing someone "No thanks, good luck though!" and have them throw a tantrum.

We should be able to turn down RPs and not have to deal with a blow up, but not everyone has learned how to take rejection well and not take it personally.

While it's not fun, the best thing to do with rude responses is to tell that person you have the right to turn down RP requests, and that you're sorry they're having a hard time dealing with rejection but that it's their responsibility to deal with. I wish them luck and typically block them (temporarily) so they can't send me any other messages and hopefully calm down and move on.

Ultimately, as long as you're being polite about it, there's never anything wrong with setting your boundaries and standing your ground. You're not responsible for their feelings just because they have a hard time with that, that's for them to get sorted with themselves - you did your part to be polite and exercise your right to say no. We can't avoid this from happening unfortunately, but we can learn how to handle it better.

One of the unfortunate realities of role-playing is that a lot of us are emotionally stunted introverts who don't quite grasp the fact that RPing and even simply chatting online is akin to talking to actual people in person and they still have feelings. It doesn't make them bad people, of course, but I know when I receive that kind of hostile response to a refusal that the other person isn't used to people refusing to "BEND TO MY WILL, DAMMIT!" (actual quote from an RPer I believe deserves to be left unnamed.) I'm sorry you went through this kind of thing, but it's one of the sad problems of our hobby.

EDIT: I realize this is kind of "putting the blame where none is deserved", but something that MIGHT help in the future is to put what you won't do before what you are willing to do in your profile. It should―fingers crossed―save you that kind of hassle in the future. I do wish you the best of luck with your future RP experiences.