Living with the Kiss-Off

One of the most fun things to discover during your career journey is that a you’ve grossly overestimated the depth of a theoretically congenial professional relationship. Or, if you’re feeling venal about it, that you’ve overestimated the good nature of a person with whom you assumed you enjoyed a healthy and mutually respectful professional relationship. You’re confronted with this fact when this nominal pal gives you the kiss-off.

Kiss-offs (kisses-off?) occur on a spectrum. On the gentlest end is simple silence in response to questions about work, or potential work, or jobs, or a reference, or other related semi-favors and indulgences. Maybe they missed your email? (They did not miss your email.) The other end of the spectrum, and most hurtful to the striving self-centered egomaniac, is when your overtures are received and acknowledged, and then somewhere in the middle of the conversation, the other person vanishes off the face of the earth. But wait! I thought we were friends. Hello? Just circling back on this? Thanks for your time in any event?

The repercussions of getting ghosted in the middle of a professional interaction depend on how friendly and positive the relationship seemed up to that point. Of course people blow each other off all the time in the world of work. They “go dark” or “radio silent” et cetera, and you have to badger them a few times to get a response that the laws of Business say you are owed. But it’s a little different when the power dynamic is lopsided, as when you beseech the nonresponsive party for information or perspective or a reference or, god help you, a job.

This doesn’t mean it’s comfortable on the other side of the seesaw, when you’re tempted to give the kiss-off. Maybe you’re just naturally friendly and this person has presumed too much about the relationship. Maybe you do actually like them, but you can’t help them. Maybe you like them, but you don’t want to give them what they want. There’s nothing wrong with liking someone personally but not wanting to work with them. And yet it’s no fun disappointing people. What if they don’t give up? Are they just persistent or desperate or can’t take a hint? Who wants to keep seeing that in their inbox?

Having inhabited every facet of this situation over the years, I have arrived at two positions. First, if I am being asked for help and can’t oblige, I will say so. It bothers me to ignore people the same way it bothers me (or used to bother me) to be ignored. It’s like how waiting tables yourself makes it very hard to ever give a bad tip. Maybe I’m a little abrupt, but I try not to be rude or callous. There’s a balance to be struck between civility and not encouraging an unfortunately doomed line of inquiry. If I can’t spell out my reasons for not accommodating the request, I do my best to get the point across. But I try to always, always respond and at least provide that confirmation of one’s existence that everyone thinks they want.

Secondly, on the other side, I learned long ago not to take the kiss-off personally. By that, I don’t mean you can’t file the kiss-off in your mental database about the kisser-offer’s character and conduct. You can even hold a grudge if that helps. But mainly you have to take the hint. I myself aspire to champion-level hint-taking (cue groans from those who have considered me obliviously dense to their signals over the years). The key is that someone else’s anxious confrontation-avoidance — regarding a situation you didn’t even know was a confrontation! — is not your damage to internalize.

I’ve enjoyed very involved, substantive, and positive interactions about potential work that suddenly evaporated into the void, for no apparent reason. And then I may even interact with the other party again, either personally or on social media, and we both tactfully pretend the kiss-off never happened. It’s not because I’m still prospecting for their help and don’t want to burn the bridge. It’s a recognition that there was never a bridge in the first place. If you’ve ever given me the kiss-off, don’t worry, we’re cool. [stares unblinkingly at you from the darkness] We’re totally cool.

In such cases, the relationship has been circumscribed by the other party. If what remains is still enough to enjoy in other contexts, who are you punishing by vengefully withdrawing? At best, you’re confirming their suspicions.

Your emotional mileage may vary. Kisser-offers don’t owe you a response, and you don’t owe them a pretense of bonhomie. Nobody owes anybody anything, which is not a tough-love mantra but rather a liberating path to semi-friendly professional interaction unencumbered with utilitarian expectations.

But as mentioned, the wonder of compartmentalization means you’re completely within your rights to privately judge the other party as fatuous and false if that’s how they behave. Sometimes, after all, it’s not that they’re anxious or conflict-averse — they’ve just revealed themselves as inconsiderate, thoughtless jerks. Valuable intel that frees you both from wasting each other’s time and energy in future. Maybe someday they’ll ask you for something, and maybe you’ll get right back to them.