Rejection.

"Lets be friends."
"I'm not interested in dating right now."
"It's not you, it's me."
- Countless phrases used by the fairer sex to reject others.

I admit: I have used more than one of these. I hate to generalise, but we tend to avoid messy confrontations. We prefer to keep our ends neatly tied up. We would rather not have a bloody mess on our hands. And that's kind of what emotions are like: a sort of subtle warfare.

I'm not attempting to justify this behaviour at all. A part of me does think it a little despicable and honestly, I think it's best to be straightforward with someone. It should be okay to tell them: "I'm just not interested in dating you." (Maybe not in those terms, though.)

What I'm trying to say is this: we use these soft rejection lines because we don't want to hurt anyone. Because ultimately, we don't want anyone to hurt us.