Had yet another weird experience here -- I just seem to be a magnet for these.  I challenged a player to a game, she declined but sent me a message asking if we could play 14 days per move instead of the three in the challenge I had sent, and she sent me a challenge with 14 days per move.  I accepted.  The first thing I noticed was that chat had been disabled.  Now I have had no prior interaction with this member, so the full extent of my input to her was 1) my sending her a challenge and not with any objectionable game title (I kept the default, "Let's Play"), and 2) accepting her challenge.  OK, so she's new, maybe she hit the wrong button.  I sent her a message to find out.  Only then I got an error message because she does not accept message unless they are sent from friends.  I glanced at her page and noticed that she has no place to post notes, either.  Obviously, no point in trying to add her as a friend.

So I played a move or two in the game, and realized that I am perfectly capable of taking on a computer, if that is what I wanted to do.  The fact that I sent a challenge to an actual human (or at least to someone I thought was human at the time) suggests that this was not my objective, and now I could see little point in carrying on this "witness protection" game.  Only I could not figure out how to abort the game.  Happily, she did it for me, and so that is the end of that sad saga, but for future reference, I would still like to know how to abort a game while it is still in its early stages.  After all, one never knows whom (or what) one will encounter here on Chess.com.  Thank you.

Nice

I don't know how to do that either, and I've games I felt that way about. I hope someone can enlighten us.

Well, the bigger question here would need to be answered by a psychiatrist, rather than by someone who knows the ins and outs of navigating Chess.com.  If my only question were about terminating a game, then I could have asked that one with a much shorter posting.

HAHA....you'll never be able to figure people out Vance, especially women! I don't know why some people don't like chat, or messaging, or notes...really weird to be on such a social site and keep to themselves...it's a mystery.

No, look, it's once thing not to be overly chatty, to give short replies that do not invite further discussion.  As in:

"How are you?"

"Good"

as opposed to "Why I'm terrific, thank you, and how are you?".  But this is not that.  This is something way beyond that, and it does not seem that it was in any way targeted at me.  She did not block me specifically.  Nobody can send her a message (other than her friends, but I cannot imagine that she has any), and given the lack of any specific basis for disabling chat with me, I would have to assume that she does that with everyone.

Seems a lonely kind of life, and I'm sure she has her reasons...but I agree that it's not normal, and you're probably right that she doesn't have any, or many friends. My guess is that she probably has a trust issue.

And yet, notice the parallel with the human vs. computer issue I mentioned in my first posting.  Here, if I were being strictly rational, then I would realize that this has nothing to do with me.  It's all her.  Yet being human, it is hard for me, even knowing this, not to take it personally.  What does that say about me???

Maybe so!

If you resign the game..you lose points, so I wouldn't ever do that...although there have been many times I wanted to. Vance..you've got a good heart, that's why it bothers you...and that's a good thing, so don't ever change!

Why thank you!  Right back at you!

Thank you!

There are people, in her defense maybe, who prefer to be loners. Stereotypically society has always had issues with that. It more than likely isn't meant to be an offense, rather it may just be a preference to have as little social contact as possible and still enjoy the game.

What you say may well be true, but I would have honored a request to just play without chat.  In fact, given some of the reactions I have gotten when I said "hello" in other games, now I never chat at all with a new opponent unless that player initiates it, or until the game is over when I will break the ice with "good game".  It's almost like my pulling out a piece and aiming it at you just to defend myself against the possibility that maybe you are packing heat.  In an attempt to avoid having someone be rude to her, she is rude.  Real progress.

She might not be trying to avoid someone else being rude, but may rather simply enjoy solitude to contact. It can be a state of mind that is disconnected emotionally, so while an offense may be apparent, the offense really isn't there at all in her mind.

Another possible scenario is that it's a young person who either has the settings that way on their own or whose parent has restricted them.

Maybe you are right.  Thank you.

Quite welcome

This is absurd. "Lonely", "not normal", "doesn't have any...friends". You drew all these conclusions from disabling chat? Hilarious!

Thanks for warning us Vance, that when somebody accepts a chess game with you they risk being ridiculed for no reason whatsoever...

"After all, one never knows whom (or what) one will encounter here on Chess.com."