The empty magnanimous gesture is a new dating tactic that allows uninterested parties to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings

Drinks at 11pm? How to tell if you are the victim of EMG

Name: EMG.

Stands for: Empty magnanimous gesture.

Appearance: Friendly and enthusiastic.

What is it? A dating tactic.

Good. I need some of those. Dating is so stressful. It’s like a job interview for your personality and face. Indeed. And nobody likes telling a date that they won’t be advancing to the next stage. That’s why Harling Ross of the fashion blog manrepeller.com has recorded widespread deployment of the EMG.

Interesting. What does it do? It’s a way of avoiding someone without hurting their feelings.

What’s wrong with hiding in a cupboard? That works for me. Unless they open the cupboard, obviously. I’m afraid the days of simply hiding in cupboards are behind us now. Dating apps and the smartphone killed them.

Bloody dating apps and the smartphone. They help you to meet lots of people who you want to avoid, then make it very difficult to avoid them. It is undoubtedly a pickle.

Can’t you just ignore the attention you don’t want? If I wasn’t pathetically grateful to anyone who fancied me, that’s what I’d do. You can. That’s called “ghosting”. But it’s considered quite cruel just to stop answering someone’s messages, without any explanation.

Maybe you could carry on replying in a vaguely pleasant way, but never arrange to see them? Yup. People do that too. They call it “breadcrumbing”, because it leaves a trail of bait that strings the other person along. That is also pretty cruel.

Still, it might be useful, in case you want to save them as a backup plan. That’s “benching”. But remember, we are trying to be nice here. That’s the whole point of the EMG. You just suggest a really unappealing date, and hope that the other person will reject you.

Like what? Ross records a woman telling a man that she was free to go for a drink, but only at 11pm on a Wednesday.

That sounds more like sarcasm. Someone else, on being asked out for coffee, suggested trampolining instead, which the man refused.

Risky. Some men might think trampolining sounded fun. Yes, the drawback of the EMG is that people might accept your offer. One of Ross’s correspondents suggested hanging out with their weird visiting cousin, and their date agreed, so they had to invent an emergency excuse to get out of it.

Or invite someone else on a date where they pretend to be your weird cousin? Yeah … I guess.

Couldn’t you just be honest? Say that the applicant to be your boyfriend/girlfriend wasn’t successful on this occasion, but you’ll keep their personality and face on file. Don’t be ridiculous. Honesty takes courage.

Do say: “It’s not you. It’s me.”

Don’t say: “I’m too attractive for you.”