Why does a guy keep calling when I don't call back?

He wants to talk to you.

He doesn’t realize you are giving him a message. Why not tell him? “Thanks for your interest, Jason, but I am don’t want to date you.” or “You’re a great guy, but there is no chemistry between us.” or just “Please don’t call me again.”

Here’s a quik rundown. A couple of months I met this guy online and we hooked up and went out for a drink. On our first date we made dinner plans and they fell through. He did not call me when we had plans that night, it took him 2 days to call me and tell me he was sick that day. I was okay with that, so I called him back and we made plans to go out the next weekend. We had good chemistry, and we went out a few more times. Everything was going good. We had plans to go to a party the weekend of June 27th. I had called him Tuesday prior to that day and left him a message just saying hi. He did not call me Wed., Thur., or Fri, I was curious why he did’nt call, I figured he lost interest, no big deal. He calls me earlier that Saturday and we make plans to hook up around 5pm to go to the party. He did not call me later that day, he did’nt call me on Sunday either, basically he stood me up. He finally called me Monday and left me a message and fed me some lame excuse why he did’nt call, I did not call him back. He called me a week later and left me a message telling me to call him and that I can’t stay mad at him forever, I did not return his call, he just called again today and left me a message asking what I’m doing this weekend, I have no intention of ever returning his calls, I’m not angry at him, I just know that he will dissapoint me again in the future. I have pretty much lost interest in him, so why does he continue to call when I don’t return his calls? Is it just that he wants to get laid? What would you do?

It sounds like he thinks you’re a pushover since you let him off the hook once. Obviously there’s no way to really understand him but it sounds like he was just trying to put in as little effort as possible… probably to get laid. I would just tell him that you lost interest and not to bother calling back. He may continue calling thinking that he can “win you over” using his patented douchy-style of manipulation such as “you can’t stay mad at me forever” Let him know, email or call him, that yes, yes you can stay mad at him forever and he can screw off.

Because you don’t call him back.

I still stick with telling him not to call you again.

Okay, look at how he handles the phone. He is silent for a long period of time and, despite you calling him, he only calls you when he has something to say. He thinks this is normal behavior. Since you haven’t sent him a signal that you’re not interested, he’s assuming that you’re doing the same thing, and that you’ll call him when you have something to say.

You need to let him know that you’re not interested, and preferably why. Until you do that, he has no way to know that his assumption is not true. Once you do that, he’ll understand where things stand.

@cwilbur: “he only calls you when he has something to say. He thinks this is normal behavior”

Yup, that’s pretty much how phones work…

Not calling when you are going to be late by more than 15 mins without notice or plain not showing up at all withou calling especially in the age of cell phones is a clear indication that they don’t care. So it’s not about you being mad, it’s about respect. I would not think much of a friend who did that let alone someone who I dated… Even if it was casual. Change your answer message to say “Hi you’ve reached carebare, leave a message at the beep… If this is bob I’m not mad, I just don’t have any feelings for you”... Or something like that. Otherwise I would ignore it and if you happen to run in to them just say the samething. You lost interest when they showed no respect.

Um, it sounds like he’s only called you two times that you haven’t called him back. If that’s the case, he probably thinks you’ll call him back because that’s what you did all the other times.

@J0E: it’s also normal behavior to call people back when they’ve called you and you weren’t home, even if you don’t have anything to say.