There is also the off-shoot of, "If you don't have a good enough reason, you are rude for saying no."
I kept refusing to date a guy when I was younger. I was young and inexperienced and couldn't put into words, "You take too much enjoyment out of trying to batter my self-esteem." And he did. If I said anything, he'd mock it in a jeering voice. That was supposed to be flattering attention and his sense of humor shining through. I just said, "You aren't my type" and left it at that. Oh the drama! See, if he had been an alcoholic/beater/rapist/layabout or even refused to buy me flowers I would have been OK. But because I just thought that the way he acted was not to my liking, it wasn't a good enough reason and therefore I was rude and lacking social grace.
I loathed myself because I was told that if I was confident and had good self-esteem, his "jokes" would have slid right off my back. I thought I was a useless jellyfish of a person for letting his jabs prevent me from dating him.
Now I can only cheer when I hear of other people doing the same.
ETA: Sometimes in retrospect I don't know if I had really bad self-esteem or surprisingly healthy, resilient self-esteem. Just thinking about it makes my head nearly explode.
