Name-calling, racialized insults, sexualised slurs, harassment, stalking and threats of physical violence, from rape to death; these are the aggressive retaliation and rejection tactics employed by scorned online lovers – mostly men – according to a uOttawa study.
University of Ottawa (uOttawa) researchers examined aggressive retaliation to online romantic and sexual rejection by drawing on over a thousand narratives from over 800 uOttawa undergraduate student participants, who described a time they rejected someone online and experienced an aggressive or disproportionate response. Nearly half (47.7 percent) of participants who rejected someone online reported experiencing aggressive responses, with 93 percent of those senders being men, while 67 percent of aggressive responses came from strangers.
The reactions ranged from disparagement, including name-calling, racialized insults, and sexualized slurs, to harassment such as repeated unwanted messaging, persistence despite clear rejection, stalking, and cyberstalking. Some participants also described serious threats, including death, rape, and other forms of physical harm.
“This is one of the first studies to gather so many detailed firsthand accounts illustrating the wide range of problematic ways people respond to rejection online. While previous research has shown that these behaviours exist, our study systematically describes, analyzes, and illustrates through real-world narratives the kinds of abuse people experience,” explains lead author Konrad Czechowski, Assistant Professor in the School of Psychology.
Participants answered open-ended questions describing their experiences, and researchers systematically coded patterns across responses. Each participant was asked to describe the last time they had this kind of an experience, and if this happened to them multiple times, to also describe the most intense experience they had.
Czechowski’s team identified “rejection dynamics,” which capture patterns such as entitlement to consent, contradictory insults, and aggression triggered by even subtle forms of rejection, like not responding or ghosting. These findings reflect established research theory that features of digital communication such as anonymity, invisibility, and asynchrony can reduce social accountability and in turn contribute to the antisocial behavior. While severe responses of death threats (less than 1 percent) and physical and sexual harm (less than 3 percent) were rare, they still spotlight important implications for targeted interventions, including educational campaigns on digital consent and respectful online communication.
“This research can help raise awareness that aggressive responses to rejection are real and a common online issue. It supports education around respectful communication, consent, and digital boundaries in online spaces. The findings also help us better understand how the perceived anonymity of online interactions may amplify hostility and reduce accountability,” adds Czechowski from the Faculty of Social Sciences.
Aggressive Retaliation to Online Sexual or Romantic Rejection: “Because I Hurt His Feelings, He Wanted to Hurt Me Too, was published in Archives of Sexual Behaviour by Czechowski, K., Courtice, E.L., Samosh, J. et al. DOI:10.1007/s10508-026-03409-1.
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