Stages of Desire (2010)

Originally posted in the first Girls Chase Forum on Thursday, 15 April 2010

This post inspired by Kenji's differentiating "being nice" to girls vs. "seducing" girls, and Miguel's comment that seducing girls is actually being nice to them (and also implying that "being nice" to them isn't really being nice to them).

Got me thinking about desire in general... how come women like badboys who aren't "nice" the way nice guys think they're being nice? And I realized that it was because badboys made women desire things from them more -- and that nice guys jumped the gun. So I put together this little post on Stages of Desire to explain a bit further.

Should be informative and contains a few practical suggestions. These categories can apply to any kind of desire a woman (or anyone) has: whether it's her desire to get to know you better, to sleep with you, to see you every night of the week, to have a relationship with you , to get orgasms from you, to live with you, or to have you whisper sweet nothings in her ear.

Note that the odd-numbered stages are more or less transitional; a woman only stays in a transitional stage for a small amount of time. The even numbered stages are the “set” stages that a woman can land in and remain in for a long time.

Still ironing this out, so open to interpretations / refutations / comments, critiques, and all that good stuff, of course.

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The Stages of Desire


Stage 0 – Indifference

A girl in the Indifference stage is neutral to a kind of value. For instance, when you first meet a girl, she isn't desperately hoping you're going to call her every night right off the bat because it isn't something that's occurred to her to want just yet. She's indifferent; her desire for object XYZ is nonexistent.

Stage 1 – Curiosity (Transitional)

In the Curiosity stage, a girl is interested in trying something, but hasn't actually tried it yet. She will want something – sometimes pretty badly – but since this desire isn't tied to anything experienced yet, it fades away fast and is easily superseded; e.g., she wants to kiss a guy really bad, but he keeps stringing her along and teasing her, until you come along, sweep her off her feet, and kiss her. Now her interest has turned from him to you, and her curiosity in kissing that first guy is probably largely forgotten (much to his consternation).

Stage 2 – Need

In the Need stage, a girl has tasted something – whether she kissed you for the first time, or you her on an incredible date, or you gave her powerful orgasms in bed – and she wants more of it.
While she's in the Need Stage of Desire, a girl will chase after the thing she wants, often pleading, complaining, cajoling, doing nice things, causing drama, and doing anything she can as she seeks to get the thing she wants and needs more of.

When a girl is chasing after and pursuing you, her desire for you is in the Need stage.

Stage 3 – Satiation (Transitional)

In the Satiation stage, she's now getting all that she requires of something she feels she needs. This could mean that after months of pleading, you've finally agreed to allow her to refer to the two of you as boyfriend and girlfriend. She's completely 100% satisfied, and is happily in a state of contentment and bliss – at least until she gets used to having this thing she wants and starts taking it for granted.

Stage 4 – Expectation

Once a girl is used to getting all that she needs of something for a certain amount of time, she moves to the Expectation stage. In this stage, she's grown accustomed to having her needs fulfilled, and begins taking the thing she needed so badly before for granted. She expects to get something good – you might say she feels entitled to it – and if she doesn't receive it, she feels anger and indignation. For instance, say you were in the habit of either calling or seeing a girl every other night, and she was used to this pattern of attention from you and was in the Expectation stage regarding it. Then, suddenly, you don't call her or see her for a week. She'll be hurt; she'll wonder what's going on; and she'll be angry at you for disappearing and not giving her what she expected from you. That's the Expectation stage.

Stage 5 – Burden (Transitional)

The Burden stage is when a woman is receiving too much of something. Say she's seeing a guy who calls her daily. Maybe she chased after this; maybe she wanted him calling her every day. And when he first began doing so, she was glad; she went from Need to Satiation and finally to Expectation.

But then it began becoming a burden; she had to talk to him every night. She couldn't take a night class, or had to make sure to squeeze the call in between work and school, or after class when she was already exhausted; she couldn't go to happy hour and a late dinner with her friends because she had to take forty minutes out of her schedule to talk to her man. She thus begins feeling weighed down and constricted, and starts viewing the thing she previously desired very much as a burden.

Stage 6 – Rejection

The Rejection stage is what a girl moves onto from the Burden stage. After feeling constricted for too long, she'll eventually start outright protesting against and rejecting the thing she's feeling tied down by. She feels a certain disgust for it and wants nothing to do with it anymore, and works to get it out of her life.

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Using the Stages of Desire


The cool thing about the Stages of Desire is that it's pretty useful. Want to know why girls don't chase after an amazing guy forever, even if the other guys around are only OK? It's because Curiosity is a transitional stage and it fades fast. Want to know why women don't stay happy for all that long when they finally get something they've been fighting for for a long time? It's because Satiation is a transitional stage as well.

Most women in relationships after a while fall into the Expectation stage on most issues. They start out in the Need stage, until they fight / complain to / reward their man enough to get him to give them everything they want; then they hover around in Satiation for a little while, blissfully happy and content. They then move into the Expectation stage on some things, and begin focusing on other things in the Need department that they want to move on to Satiation.

For instance, early on a girl may want to see her guy four days a week. She's in the Need stage. So she starts pressing him hard to spend the weekend and two weekdays with her. When he finally relents, she's really happy for a while (Satiation); then she gets used to it and comes to expect seeing him four days a week (Expectation).

Now that's she got that, she starts pressing again for something else (Need stage on a separate issue); maybe this time it's that she wants the two of them to move in together. He resists; she presses. Finally, he relents, and they move in. She moves into Satiation on that issue and is blissfully happy; then she moves onto Expectation and is used to it. Now she starts working on her next need – maybe it's marriage; maybe it's children; maybe it's something else.

The Stages of Desire also show why you need to keep pace in a seduction and not take too long; take too long, and her interest starts to fade as she slips from Curiosity back to Indifference. You have to give her a taste of whatever it is you've got her curious about, and move her into Need.

In a seduction, the goal should be to move a girl as quickly as possible to the Need stage.

In a relationship, the goal should be to stick either to the Need stage or the Expectation stage. She's likely always going to have something in the Need stage, though; as soon as one Need moves to Expectation, another Need will surface.


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Skipping Stages


Is it possible to skip stages? Absolutely. Look at the following examples.

A man walks right up to a girl who's just noticed him, pulls her into him, says something seductive, and plants a small kiss on her lips, which she enjoys. He then pulls away, but she leans in to try and kiss him again. Where's the girl? She's moved instantly from being indifferent to kissing him to needing to kiss him again.

Or, a weird guy could walk up to the same girl and awkwardly try to plant one on her; she'll recoil and go straight to Rejection.

It's also possible for a woman to start out in the Curiosity stage (if, say, she spots a guy she really likes the look of and is exactly her type) or the Rejection stage (for instance, if she gets approached by a weird, creepy guy who makes her skin crawl). How often a woman starts out in a stage other than Indifference is directly linked to how judgmental/opinionated she is; the more she judges others, the more likely she is either to want or not want someone immediately before knowing much, if anything, about him.


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Moving Backwards


It's easiest to move backwards from a transitional stage. It's much more difficult to move backwards from a set stage.

If she's curious about you, but you fall off the map for a long period of time, it's easy for her Curiosity to reset to Indifference.

If she's in Satiation, then you take away whatever you were satiating her with and start rationing it out again, she'll fall right back into Need (although she'll probably be pretty pissed about it).

If she's in Burden, and you pull back and aren't quite so overbearing anymore, she'll move back to Expectation.

Moving back from a set stage is not as easy as just giving a woman less of whatever it is that she desires from you. If she's in the habit of expecting orgasms from you every time you sleep with her, and you start only giving her orgasms every other time, she'll resent you for it. Or if she's in the habit of you kissing her passionately every time you see her, and suddenly you stop, she'll resent you for that too. She'll start pulling away rather than moving backward in the Stages of Desire.

Just like with attraction in general, where trying to go backward is never a good idea, so it is with the Stages of Desire. Once you've reached a set stage, you've reached it; you're probably not going to be able to go back.

Use the Stages of Desire as a gauge to figure out where you are with a woman, and where you need to get to. If she's still in Curiosity, get her a taste quickly to move her into a more stable stage (Need). If she's in Burden, ease up a bit before she goes into Rejection and let her move back down to Expectation.

Note that you can move through the Stages as quickly or as slowly as you like; a man might rattle through all six in an hour with a girl and have her tired of his conversation and wanting to end it – or he might keep her chasing after him, perpetually in the Need stage, for years at a time.

Any thoughts you fellas have on shaping this up even better, I'd love to hear them. Again, just writing this up now, so open to all kinds of interpretations.

Yours,
Chase

Hi,

Chase said:

Just like with attraction in general, where trying to go backward is never a good idea, so it is with the Stages of Desire. Once you've reached a set stage, you've reached it; you're probably not going to be able to go back.

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I assume you would always want to stay in the middle, walking the line between Stage 2 and 4. Men will make mistakes and she will resent at some point however.

so why don't you move backwards? or rather just loosen up abit u mean?

Zac

I had a social encounter where a women was in the expectation stage and i stay silent for awhile, before calling out on it when she starts to resent. She eventually tell me why she behaves in such manner and that she fallen for me and all.

i think it's one of the effective ways, like those general advices people usually give.

There's one of your articles, "Addressing Women Objections or another one, "Walk the Line" that i think explains for me, in my opinion.

Somehow the idea is "Just Listen, and give it to her at your own timing"

just not too long though.

Zac

Howdy Zac,

ZacAdam said:

I assume you would always want to stay in the middle, walking the line between Stage 2 and 4. Men will make mistakes and she will resent at some point however.

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Yes - I'd go further than that and say you want to stick to moving between 2 and 3 (neediness and satiation). People value things less they don't feel some pangs of neediness around, but also value things more when they are able to have feelings of achievement ("I GOT it!").

Once it's in expectation, she's taking for granted that she'll get what she wants from you (time, attention, intimacy, sex, etc.), and it doesn't provide the same emotional returns it does when she's in 2 or 3.

ZacAdam said:

so why don't you move backwards? or rather just loosen up abit u mean?

Zac

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The problem with moving backwards is that it's "taking away," and people tire and burn out when you take from them. Like, if I work for a big corporation you're applying to, and you go through a string of interviews wrapping up with one with me and I tell you, "Zac, I'm going to hire you and pay you $50,000 a year," and we go into negotiations and you say, "Chase, the lowest I can possibly settle for is $70,000," and finally I agree to pay you that and we agree that you'll be hired at that rate. You relax. Then a week later you receive an email saying that because of the higher salary requirements, we're going to need to put you back in the interview process and have you talk to a couple of other people before we're sure if we can really extend you this offer. It's very frustrating, and there's a chance (assuming you have other options) that you just walk away, or that you become resentful and never make a very good employee if I ever actually get around to hiring you.

If you're going to move backwards, it should never feel like moving backwards... and that's where the art comes into play.

Chase

HI Chase,

Chase said:

The problem with moving backwards is that it's "taking away," and people tire and burn out when you take from them. Like, if I work for a big corporation you're applying to, and you go through a string of interviews wrapping up with one with me and I tell you, "Zac, I'm going to hire you and pay you $50,000 a year," and we go into negotiations and you say, "Chase, the lowest I can possibly settle for is $70,000," and finally I agree to pay you that and we agree that you'll be hired at that rate. You relax. Then a week later you receive an email saying that because of the higher salary requirements, we're going to need to put you back in the interview process and have you talk to a couple of other people before we're sure if we can really extend you this offer. It's very frustrating, and there's a chance (assuming you have other options) that you just walk away, or that you become resentful and never make a very good employee if I ever actually get around to hiring you.

If you're going to move backwards, it should never feel like moving backwards... and that's where the art comes into play.

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You hit the right notes for me on this one. It's frustrating because you were to realize that your before and current relationships is something you can't alter the stage with your family and friends.

Maybe proper reasoning and comfort will lessen the not so ideal relationship. I think here is where honesty is important.

For me, i have slow and pace down the expectations of what my loved ones and they actually kind of let me go, although without a fight or some anger, maybe slight resentment.

It's like as a child, the father promises the child things but never fulfill most of them.

However, Hope that all our members future relations with everyone is shaped without expectations.

Btw, there's an article, your rating of

Nice Guys : 70%
Bad Boys : 27.5
Genuine Man : 2.5%

I hope you can elaborate me much on this. My perspective shows me something like this,

Nice Guys : 45%
Social Guys : 20%
Bad Boys : 30%
Genuine Man : 5%

Hope you can get back to me. I wonder how you made the statistics. I firmly believe you have a statement and masterful experience to give me a nugget on this.

Thanks,
Zac,

ZacAdam said:

It's like as a child, the father promises the child things but never fulfill most of them.

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You've got it Zac. I long ago adopted the philosophy of "under-promise and over-deliver."

When you under-promise, you deal with upset up front, with people disappointed that you're not going to give them much. So you deal with that, handle it, and then new, lower, expectations are set.

Then, you over-deliver compared to what was promised, and they're THRILLED.

Use this and you can have women who are blissfully happy with far less from you because it was more than what they expected than other men's girlfriends are with them for delivering far more than you are.

You might tell a girl you'll be out of the country a lot and can only see her once every couple of weeks. Then you start seeing her once a week, and she's on Cloud Nine.

Some other guy tells a girl he can see her every day, but ends up having to work late because of his job some days and can only meet her 5 out of 7 days of the week, and she's annoyed, angry, or outright furious, and telling him he needs to cut back and give her more attention.

It's really pretty incredibly stuff when you start digging into expectation management.

ZacAdam said:

I wonder how you made the statistics. I firmly believe you have a statement and masterful experience to give me a nugget on this.

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Oh, those were really just rough statistics I was guessing at based on my experience. You might be living in a place with higher caliber men than I was, or you might be using a different standard for measuring the caliber of the men you're seeing, not sure. Based on my metrics and my experiences, what I wrote was around roughly what I've seen, but it's going to be a bit different for every environment, and especially as you compare one man's subjective standard to another's.

Cheers,
Chase

Chase said:

Use this and you can have women who are blissfully happy

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Hope to keep practicing this on every relationships, friends or any.

ZacAdam said:

what I wrote was around roughly what I've seen, but it's going to be a bit different for every environment, and especially as you compare one man's subjective standard to another's.

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I think it's fair enough. Different for every environment. Very subjective topic to roll out in the hay.

Excellent read, I cant blieve I didnt find this gem sooner. I knew about setting relationship expectations but this is much more in depth on different stages of desire which I like. Makes me realize in the relationship I'm in I have to stop doing some things so often (3 month's exlusive so far). nothing major just things like I kiss her passionately almost every time I see her and what not. Thanks for the read.

How can anyone always stays at neediness stage? How do you create it in a long-term relationship?

Razzputin,

How can anyone always stays at neediness stage? How do you create it in a long-term relationship?

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The only way that you can get a girl to stay in the neediness stage is for her to feel like she never truly has you.

I have several friends of mine who seem to be able to convey this feeling to their girlfriends without even trying. And what is it that these friends of mine have in common? They are all extremely social and they are always talking to new women.

Now, they all don't necessarily 'seduce' new women and go on dates with them and sleep with them, but they are always talking to them and getting investment from them (meaning small things such as smiles, physical contact, etc.) And they'll do this when they go out with their girlfriends too. If your girl continuously sees new women enjoying being around you, then she'll never truly feel like she has you because she'll feel like you could get another girl at any given day and any given time if she doesn't constantly work to keep you around.

I have a guy friend of mine who doesn't have a job and his girlfriend pays for everything for him -- rent, food, clothes, and more. They've been dating for three years, and every time I see them together, she is still always the one "chasing" him. He definitely cares about her, but he never stops socializing and meeting people (or women for that matter).

Unless you decide to conceive a child with a girl (in which case she'll "need" you to help raise it), then the only way to continually make a girl feel like she "needs" you is for her to think she could easily lose you to someone else.

So, my advice is: just because you've entered an "exclusive relationship," never stop and be content with just having her. Always be meeting new people to show her that you're the kind of guy she wants to keep around -- or she'll lose you to someone else.

- Franco

Thanks man. I am usually flirty with people and indiferrent when dating and in inital stages, but after that I commit, I invest. Because; I am genuinely and indiferrent guy at my normal pace, but when a girl deserves it I give it. But that creates a push-pull type realationship, sooner or later. This things make me very upset. How can I enjoy an exclusice relationship if I can not, invest or make good things for my girl. At initial she was doing lots of good things and always wanted to see me. I couldn't stay unresponsive to this. Now things got out of hand and I became kinda emotional.dammit

BUMP!

Can you make a girl desire go all over the place? Say for example: indifferent to, need to , to expectation, to need, etc?

David-

DavidEdge said:

Can you make a girl desire go all over the place? Say for example: indifferent to, need to , to expectation, to need, etc?

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It's extremely difficult moving backwards in steps - once she's reached expectation, she expects to receive whatever it is she receives from you, and will resent you if you don't give it to her. Need is about wanting something but not knowing if she can get it, while also not feeling any specific entitlement to it; in expectation, you'd BETTER give it to her, or else you're just an ass!

I've seen girls temporarily shift back to need from expectation (say, ex-girlfriends you're just reconnecting with), but they get back into the swing of things very quickly and return to expectation in short order.

For practical purposes, it's best to treat the stages the way you treat the passage of time - you can relive an experience under different conditions (e.g., having her form need for something else from you you haven't previously satiated her with; or, starting over with a different girl), but there's no going back and repeating an exact moment exactly as it happened - you can't put a girl back into need on something remotely permanently when she's already been to expectation on that thing.

Chase

I recently entered into a relationship with a girl and was wondering if you had advice on keeping her in the transitional period between needy and satiated or if it was too late at this point. I know I should still show her how desirable I am to other women and the like, but I wasn't sure it was so simple

This answers the question that I wanted to ask... the only way to keep her in the need stage is to always show with your behavior that she has does not own you completely... she still needs to have doubt that at any point in the relationship you can get another lady to replace her.

Franco said:

Razzputin,

How can anyone always stays at neediness stage? How do you create it in a long-term relationship?

Click to expand...

The only way that you can get a girl to stay in the neediness stage is for her to feel like she never truly has you.

I have several friends of mine who seem to be able to convey this feeling to their girlfriends without even trying. And what is it that these friends of mine have in common? They are all extremely social and they are always talking to new women.

Now, they all don't necessarily 'seduce' new women and go on dates with them and sleep with them, but they are always talking to them and getting investment from them (meaning small things such as smiles, physical contact, etc.) And they'll do this when they go out with their girlfriends too. If your girl continuously sees new women enjoying being around you, then she'll never truly feel like she has you because she'll feel like you could get another girl at any given day and any given time if she doesn't constantly work to keep you around.

I have a guy friend of mine who doesn't have a job and his girlfriend pays for everything for him -- rent, food, clothes, and more. They've been dating for three years, and every time I see them together, she is still always the one "chasing" him. He definitely cares about her, but he never stops socializing and meeting people (or women for that matter).

Unless you decide to conceive a child with a girl (in which case she'll "need" you to help raise it), then the only way to continually make a girl feel like she "needs" you is for her to think she could easily lose you to someone else.

So, my advice is: just because you've entered an "exclusive relationship," never stop and be content with just having her. Always be meeting new people to show her that you're the kind of guy she wants to keep around -- or she'll lose you to someone else.

- Franco

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Whizzy-

Whizzy said:

I recently entered into a relationship with a girl and was wondering if you had advice on keeping her in the transitional period between needy and satiated or if it was too late at this point. I know I should still show her how desirable I am to other women and the like, but I wasn't sure it was so simple

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If you're a very busy guy and you're somewhat "could take it or leave it" about relationships, your relationships will tend to settle in about here.

That's when:

• She wants more closeness from you but doesn't always get it
• She wants more affection from you but doesn't always get it
• She wants more sex from you but doesn't always get it
• She wants more time with you but doesn't always get it

... although I don't think you can really tactics-your way into this; I think you've just legitimately got to be really busy with something that's more important to you than she is, so that even if you'd LIKE to give her more of the things she wants from you (and if you're fond of her, you're going to want to), you really just can't and genuinely just let her have some of it sometimes but are scarce the rest.

One of the reasons I say you can't tactics-your way into it (or "fake it until you make it") is because you'll generally be overriding your own inclinations to "nest" with her if you're anything other than a borderline guy who breaks things off and runs at the first sign of commitment. Which is all well and good until she brings things to a head, which women necessarily do, and if you're faking it, this is the point where you will normally fold, give in, readjust your schedules and priorities, and give her whatever she wants. If you're not, you just explain to her: I'd love to give you what you want, but... I can't. This is who I am and what I have to offer. Maybe it isn't enough for you.

And then she decides if it is or it isn't.

Chase

BIGBOSS

and his brilliance.

Awesome analysis. Really glad this post on desire resurfaced. I think I may have come across it before, but now I'm fully understanding.I know there are posts that have led from this idea, but I'm not sure if I've seen desire presented as mentioned above(could be wrong).

I'm 1 year in and I realize there are areas I've reached Expectation in that I didn't intend to, but I'm curious if you can carefully work your way out of different levels of expectation.

For example, I'm doing a LDR, and scaling back from every day communication is likely impossible(which I'm fine with). But the amount of daily communication varies and could possibly be tampered with over time. Assuming I maintain my busy schedule and a strong frame.

And The Tool, I'm curious, what were the types of things you were able to stop doing? Because if I'm remembering right, you are successfully married... so it seems to have worked for the long term.

Lotus

And The Tool, I'm curious, what were the types of things you were able to stop doing? Because if I'm remembering right, you are successfully married... so it seems to have worked for the long term.

Lotus

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At the time of this I was able to scale back (stop pursuing) to see her so frequently. At the 1.5-2 year mark I was still only meeting up with her 2-3 times per week. Then we got engaged. Moved in together. Now married

I was also able to halt on the expectation that every time I saw her that I would give her explosive passion. (I.E HEAVY excitement upon first seeing her that day. including making out, going directly for sex etc.) Bad precedent to set because as chase says if she comes to expect something and you do not provide it. She will become upset and drama will ensue.

I am probably going to put up a more in depth post soon on the LTR boards about the different stages of relationships and how expectations are affected, formed, and what you will typically see as a relationship progresses. I touch upon it a bit in my (Why your libido stays high and hers does not post) But I feel I can delve deeper.

Relationships are a fascinating organism.