What's the best way to stop talking to someone without hurting their feelings or ignoring them?

I’m not sure if there is such a way, without the risk of her feeling hurt or ignored.

Don’t worry too much about that, though… Just stop communicating, or send one last message saying that you “were happy to have met her, but were looking for another kind of friendship than what she is offering you”.

Succes and please realize your primary responsibility in this matter is with your own sanity, not hers.

I think @whitenoise is pretty much on the money. It’s good of you to take her feelings into consideration. But you can’t predict how she would feel about anything because her dishonesty makes her too unpredictable. She needs to straighten up (no pun intended)
before she can count on people bending over backward to be kind to her.

If she really pursues a relationship rather than a loyal lover, your leaving might make no difference to her, I guess.

You have to live for you. You can’t begin to fathom what will hurt her or not. Regardless if you do much better to do it now. Don’t be unnecessarily cruel or mean just give it a clean break. No need to get too emotional there couldn’t have been too many dates. Just say you need a break and are not sure you want to be her friend. If she has questions respond truthfully but succinctly, or not.

Best of luck in future endeavors.

You could let her drive herself off by allowing her to see some of the aspects of your character she might find objectionable. A few “That’s so gay“s ought to do it.

Maybe she would make a good wingman?

You are on a dating website so naturally your expectations are that anyone talking to you would be interested in you which would make it very easy to misinterpret someone simply being nice and friendly to you as flirtatious or more.

If I were you I would simply come out and ask her about her feelings towards you so there is no doubt about her intentions in knowing you.

First, if her profile says she’s straight, this makes me wonder why you say “she’s into girls.” Is it possible that she made a joke that you misunderstood, or that she’s into both sexes and looking for a straight relationship now? Either of those options make more sense to me than her creating a profile that would attract the opposite of the attention she’s looking for.

Second, if you aren’t interested in keeping in touch with her, simply tell her so politely, and move on. Don’t ignore her or “forget” to answer her messages, just say that you aren’t interested in a friendship right now and don’t see a relationship happening between the two of you. She might be a little hurt. But people have the right to be treated honestly and fairly. If you ignored her, she would still be hurt, but also have reason to be confused and angry. Don’t make it worse than you have to.

Write her an email and tell her that you find, on further acquaintance, that you don’t want to take the relationship further. Wish he luck in her future dating endeavors.

Tell her you are there for a relationship and not friendship. That you are making serious choices about whom you want to spend time with.

I’m confused about the fact that you are freaked because she is ‘not into you’ but you don’t particularly like her anyway?

If you really are into serious dating, you will be rejecting people hopefully and so will they.

Simple, you just send her an email and say..

” I don’t think we would be a good fit, but best wishes in your search, take care….Marvin.”
Don’t beat around the bush, pun intended.

The next time she writes you, just respond “Thanks, but I sense we are not a match. Best wishes to you on your search.”

And then don’t respond to any more emails; better yet, hide or block her profile and she won’t be able to find you anymore.

Thanks for all the answers, so far.

@LornaLove
The thing is, I was pretty sure she WAS into me. I wasn’t reading things I thought wasn’t there. I’m not sure if she was teasing me or being insincere or not. We seemed to get along great and I was growing attached to her, then I hear one day she’s been with/attracted to women. So there’s clearly no future of a relationship here. I would continue being friends with her if I didn’t feel betrayed. Granted, she may not have technically “betrayed” me, so much as hid vital relationship information/sexual preferences, but its all the same to me. I thought she was straight. But as it turns out, she’s not heterosexual, after all. And her profile is no longer up now, but she says it was a mistake that she put down ‘straight’ when she’s really not.

You are making too big of a deal. Just pretend like you never liked her. Maybe eventually the friendship might fade. If she is not straight then there is no chance of her ever liking you. Just get over it and maybe take a break from internet dating for a while.

“then I hear one day she’s been with/attracted to women. So there’s clearly no future of a relationship here. I would continue being friends with her if I didn’t feel betrayed.

It sounds like she’s probably bisexual. There’s a whole spectrum of bi attraction. Some people are about 50/50 between men and women, but others are mostly into one gender and only a little into the other.

It’s a pain in the ass to be openly bi. A lot of the time, people don’t believe you, and think you must be “really” gay or straight. There are a lot of rude, intrusive, or creepy questions about your orientation and your sex life. On the other hand, bi people can choose to blend into the straight population, meaning they can avoid a lot of the discrimination faced by gay people.So for someone who’s mostly into guys, and only a little into women, it could feel dishonest (to her) to say that she’s bi.

Or she could feel that it’s safer to just say that she’s straight, and once she trusts someone, tell them about her past experiences with women. She could be sexually attracted to women, but only make emotional connections with men. She might be confused about her sexuality. There are all kinds of reasons.

Anyway, the fact that you feel ~OMG betrayed over this and don’t want to talk to her anymore? It’s not a very open-minded reaction to something she was probably nervous about telling you. The fact that you can’t accept her past means that you probably shouldn’t be friends with her anyway.

The classiest thing you could do would be a simple, one-line response like a lot of the jellies above have said. Like, “It was nice meeting you, but I don’t believe we’re a good match. Best of luck,” or something to that effect.

Your feelings are your feelings and nobody tell you that they’re invalid or unjustified. You had a feeling about the way the girl used to talk to you, that she was coming on to you.

If you’re not into the girl now that you’ve found out new information about her, just tell her that you’re no longer interested and no hard feelings. Let it go at that and be on with your life.

Silly enough, I didn’t think of the option of her being bi to some extent.

With that in mind, I think that you might want to check with her explicitly.

To illustrate: I am married to a beautiful woman that isn’t one 100% ‘straight’ and has had experience with other women as well.

That hasn’t stopped me from building what we see as a rather successful marriage together. (Fifteen years now.)

Generally women I wasn’t interested in online, especially if they messaged me first, would receive a brief message from me simply stating that I felt we were not a good match. You could lie too, and say that unexpected life circumstances have come up, and that you’re going to hold out on dating for now.

It’s much easier to end communication if it’s confined to being online, but you seemed concerned about hurting her feelings too, so maybe you can go with my latter option here. I’m not sure what else I could tell you here, but I think you’re wise for trusting your gut instinct here.