The results are in!!! from my situation with the girl in my first post on clarity, and they might not be what you would expect...
So.... we left off last blogpost with me sending a girl a series of three texts that were designed to provide me with some clarity with where she was at with me in the relationship. They were:
Me: Hey! This weekend i'm teaching but i want to make it clear to you that i would very much like to see you! I work 7pm to 2am Friday and Sat nights and sunday 2p-8p.
Me: However, this in-limbo stuff isn't exactly enjoyable, so it's gonna be harder and harder for me to hand in with things after too long here...
Me: I'm trying ;)
I sent these texts at 11:45am and didn't receive a text back from her until the following day at 1pm. To me this meant she was both busy at work and doing some thinking about things. At 1pm I got this:
Her: Haha we're a little to busy for our own good... don't stress it, i've got a crazy schedule this weekend as well... i'm confused about the in-limbo, I just wanted to have lunch talk, give a little bit of an explanation behind my craziness, make sure we could still be friends... maybe later next week or weekend if you're free.
There's a lot of clouded girl jargon here going on here so let me break down the communications:
"don't stress it" - this is her framing me as being stressed out about everything. I'm not stressed, she just might view me as stressing out about this whole situation. I want to avoid her thinking that i'm stressed because if i'm stressed, it means I care more about the situation than she does, therefore i'm thinking about things more than she is and that would mean i'm more invested than she is. This would mean she's in the driver's seat and she's therefore dominant. Can you see how this is a roundabout way that a woman would feel dominant and not know how or why she feels like she has lost attraction? Afterall, she's just making a simple possible read on me. Remember, when a woman can categorize you as submissive, she'll lose attraction for you or not get attracted in the first place.
"i've got a crazy schedule this weekend as well" - in this case it means what it says, but sometimes when girls say this they're giving you a heads-up not to ask them to hangout.
"make sure we could still be friends" - i'm sure you guys get this one. It means she's moved on and is probably already fucking someone else.
"maybe later next week or weekend if you're free" - This means she wants to put me off until whenever it's convenient for her, or "backburner" me if you will. Most guys in this situation would take this offer, but i'd rather figure out right now what's up than wait till who knows when and then feel like i'm begging to hangout with her again just so I can get some answers and closure if need be. In addition, if I do keep texting her, calling, etc. i'm going to feel to her like a guy who chases her. Again this is an opportunity to sink myself by taking on a submissive role, and if I were to take that role, she would instantly lose any and all attraction she had for me.
Overall here what's going on is that this girl has obviously moved on. All people seek to support the decisions that they've made and affirm that they've made the right choice, and this girl is no different. She wanted a commitment from me, couldn't communicate it directly to me, then when she felt like she wouldn't get it she bailed to keep herself from getting hurt. Now that she has made those decisions and has likely moved on to another guy, she unconsciously seeks to support her decisions, and what better way than to treat me like a guy who wants her but can't have her? So what would that treatment look like? Well, she would probably act busy (the first one above), break up and say we could still be friends (second one above), and be vague about plans (third one above). Any compliance from me to the above options and i've become that submissive guy, and she has validated her actions.
Now, here's the odd part that many guys won't believe. I can still get this girl a good percentage of the time. It won't happen today obviously, but time after time i've seen women in similar situations go back to their man. It might take a month, it might take a year, but they often come back. Some people in the community theorize that these women are in effect "nexting" a guy like me when they find out that I won't commit or they start believing on their own that I won't. We call this a "long soft next for temporary exclusivity." In other words, she next's me for a guy who'll give her the exclusivity she desires. Brad and I call this "Disney." as in "She wants Disney dude..."
If I want this girl back (or some guys would do this just to save some face), the best thing to do is to not comply with any of these requests from her and just do this whole "we're not together anymore" thing on my terms; taking closure, remaining dominant, and getting answers now instead of any other option. In other words, we'll be back "on" again now and i'll make definite plans to hangout, or we'll be "off" now, and no in-between for any reason. The key to getting her back is getting her to believe that either both of us were to blame for things going bad, or that neither of us was to blame. If i'd like to get her back, I need to frame the situation like communication was the problem, not that we were wrong for each other. If I can, i'd like to make it so that she can't look back on us and rationalize that:
1. She didn't like me (this'll happen if she frames me as submissive and I take the bait)
2. It was my fault
3. Things weren't going anywhere anyway
So here's what I did. I text her "what do you mean still be friends?" (not because I wanna know, because I want to hear her logic). She says she wasn't looking to be in a relationship with me (which I know is bullshit), so I call her out using some details that prove she was, then she admits "at that point I was looking for a relationship and I wasn't getting any sense of commitment out of you." Bam, now I know the information that will both possibly solve this for me and also allow me to adjust my future behavior if necessary with the next woman. In other words, I can now learn from this experience. Without this info i can only make an educated guess.
After she tells me she wanted that I text her:
Me: I wanted the same thing
Me: I'm slow to get invested in relationships (if you haven't figured that out yet :) ) and I really started liking you in a deeper way, then *poof* you were MIA. I wanted to talk about all that with you but it seemed impossible to get ahold of you at all...
Me: It still seems impossible
**side note, "seems impossible" means that I texted her a few times and she was short with me and didn't want to make plans cause she was "busy with work."**
Her: I will give that to you, I kinda made myself MIA to avoid being hurt I guess. Instead of being an adult and talking about it I run from it. I realized what I did, and wanted to clear the air in a sense.
After this we text back and forth a few more times and she invites me to have lunch "in a week or two" and says she's "not looking for more than lunch with a friend and conversation that is well overdue." I tell her i'm not looking for lunch with a friend, then I tell her the truth about the relationship, that I couldn't commit cause I have a problem with her high consumption levels of alcohol and cigarettes. I tell her I didn't feel comfortable talking about it with her, then I tell her sorry it turned out this way and it was good getting to know her. She says "Understandable. I had a lot of fun with you and i'm glad we at least got to talk (text) about some things."
A couple of thoughts about this. The way we left things was a mutual understanding that we both fucked up communication. I also strengthened the idea that nothing was wrong with us, just how we communicated. The idea here is that when she looks back on the situation she'll know that it was only lack of communication, not that we were wrong for each other, she didn't like me, or something else that would keep her from trying again. Instead, now when she looks back on things, she'll be left to wonder what could've happened between us. Will she wonder that right now today? No. But when she's finished with her new dude or situation, whatever that may be, the first thing she'll do is start reprocessing what happened with us. When she does, that wonder and thought about us can turn into action. Then before you know it, she's stopping my work, facebooking me, or texting me something like "Hey how are you?" or "what have you been up to lately...?" Then it's back on and we start things up again.
So would I see this girl again and give it a real go, or is this wizard master game i'm spitting just designed for me to fuck more and more till forever comes? The answer is i'd love to give it a go with this girl, but I certainly wouldn't just jump back into things, and she should know that if we would ever start to hangout again. It would have to be the right time for me (i'd have to be on the market and not with someone else), and we'd have a lot of talking and mending of things to do before things could straighten out again and we could refresh.
Overall, I feel good about this situation even though I essentially lost a girl. I know this wasn't the outcome that most would've expected out of me for this situation, but the reality is even pro dating instructors aren't immune to lapses in ability or judgement from time to time, myself included. The most important thing was that I was able to learn a lot from the way that things turned out and that both myself and the girl are better as a result of us having met, not worse off. We're both a bit more self-aware and can make better choices in the future. And! Whenever I lose or dump a girl there's room for a brand new one.
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Great post Jake! Could you expand your clarity concept to situations where you are texting with girls trying to get the first meet up? Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI'll include it in my next post! Thanks for reading :)
DeleteHey Jake,
ReplyDeleteTwo situations come mind where I could have used clarity:
1) When my I was separated from my ex-wife
The separation was my ex's idea. It would have been easier for me if she just asked for a divorce because I would have known that the relationship was over. As it was, I didn't know if I should move on or if we were trying to save the marriage. I tried to gain clarity, but either she didn't know what she wanted or she was telling me with "clouded girl jargon," (I love that phrase) and I couldn't understand the answer.
It was especially confusing because she kept saying things like "[I'm] the best man she knows," "[she] wants [me] to be happy," etc. I also had the impression that she felt guilty because she couldn't point to anything that I had done wrong and sometimes it seemed that she was trying to provoke me into reacting in a way that would help her justify her decision.
Now I know that the problem was abdicating too much power in the relationship which caused her to loose attraction and get bored.
Anyway, it was a little more than a year and half before the divorce was finalized. If I could have gained clarity more quickly, I would have saved myself a lot of time, money and emotional distress. What would you have recommended in a "should I stay or should I go" situation like that?
2) I had a long distance uncommited relationship with a woman for about two years. I'd visit her, she'd visit me, or occassionally we'd go on vacation together. I like her, but we never had sex. We'd do just about everything else, but she panicked whenever I pulled out a condom. Eventually I just accepted the fact that we weren't going to have sex and decided to stop investing in the relationship. How could I have communicated that I'd like to keep meeting up with her but couldn't keep making that kind effort if we weren't sleeping together?
Looking forward to your next post!
Thanks,
Jon
Hey Jon,
DeleteYou're right, going through a divorce or seperation situation can be very rough. I recommend pulling back your attention in a non-bitter, unaffected manner instantly upon hearing news like she needs some space, etc. because usually like you've found it's because she has lost attraction. She demonstrates this in her phrases you quoted. Remember there are two sides to attraction, emotional attraction and logical attraction. The phrases she was quoting were her telling herself "All logic points to this guy being great to be with, however, for some reason I don't feel emotionally into this man anymore and I don't know why." I wrote about this phenomenon in my blogpost "The Emergency "AHHH, I'm losing her" Plan." I'm glad you've moved on and learned from this experience. It's important for you in the future to make adjustments to the amount of attention you give the women you date so that you can calibrate her desire level for you. In other words, if you feel like she's losing attraction a bit you should take away your attention and give her less than you have been until she feels the desire for you again. In dating, I like to use "guys night out" to keep a girl wanting me and missing me, and in a longer term relationship, it might be time to visit your folks for a week or head to Europe for a couple weeks with a buddy and cease communication while you do. It's the old "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" thing. Cliche but it's true...
As for your long distance relationship, I think this woman likely needed you to be more aggressive/dominant in the way you "asked" for sex. You should never verbally ask for sex, you should physically be aggressive enough that you get sex. Ideally she'll be turned on enough to want it, so I would focus on learning some more escalation techniques to deal with this type of LMR (last minute resistance).
As far as clarity goes, try and think of things more cut and dry. Did the girl sleep with you? Yes or no. In this case no. Then look at the next lower form of compliance. Did she get naked with you? Yes. Does she want to hangout again? Yes. This makes things a bit more clear to me. She wants to get naked and see you again but she's not down to have sex yet for whatever reason. Obviously this points to her not being turned on enough to want to have sex. She needs to be pushed over the edge a bit more, if you will. Commonly taught escalation and LMR techniques should be your focus to avoid this in the future. Cheers and thanks for reading!