Ask HN: How do you say 'no'?

I don't want to go because I don't have the adequate time nor interest to engage with extraneous religious activities. For the record, I'm not one of those fedora-wearing know-it-all atheists, I'm just really not interested and I think that going there will be just a waste for both of us' time.

I haven't found a way to no to him. I know that the only and inevitable solution is to firmly say no to him and that should be enough if we were living on an utopical world; on the real world, however, people have feelings and sometimes expect things from others and saying 'no' will probably put you in the position of 'the asshole' and damage your relationship with that person, which is something that I'm trying to avoid.

How do you usually deal with these kind of issues?

People with visible scaring learn a few techniques to stop inquisitive people from asking too much. So, you acknowledge the request. You then quickly, clearly, firmly, decline the invitation. And then you move on.

For scars the format is something like "Oh, I was in an accident. It was traumatic, and I don't like talking about it. Thanks for the concern! But I'm fine now. Hey, what's that?"

Evangelists have a lot of rejection, some of it quite rude, and so this firm but polite rejection should be fine.

Every choice has a cost.