The Dap Trap: When Girls Press & Guys "Dawdle, About-Face, Pursue"

There’s a flip-floppy male behavior you’ll see in dating that is so predictable it borders on the comical: something I’ve dubbed ‘dap’, for “dawdle, about-face, pursue.”

As soon as I describe it, every guy reading this will have one or more instances of himself dapping spring to mind. He may wince at the memories.

Guys like to think of themselves as the stolid, self-directed, sensible sex, not prone to emotional flip-flops or indecision. But EVERY guy on the planet has dapped on girls at least once. Most men have dapped several (even many) times.

Running a dating business for 14 years I’ve seen guys dap countless times, often without consciousness of what they are doing (or how it looks to the girl they’re dapping). Though sometimes the guy is cognizant of it… yet still can’t help doing it anyway!

That’s because the ‘dap response’ seems to is powerful and primal, lodged deep within the brain, able to override a man’s reason. It turns even proud, constant men into changeable, indecisive puddles of frantic emotion.

If somehow you’ve never dapped a girl (perhaps you’re just getting started), and you read this article, even if you fully understand what I’m going to talk about, you are still going to do it sooner or later with girls anyway. The first few times you dap, it simply can’t be helped.

So, get ready to discover an irrational, flighty, changeable behavior that rules all men – one you’ve experienced before, or will in the future, without any doubt.

 

What Dapping Is: Dawdle, About-Face, Pursue

‘DAP’ is an acronym, short for three verbs:

• Dawdle

• About-face

• Pursue

These words describe a process men go through in several different areas with women, typically at least once per area (and often multiple times).

The gist of it is that the girl already KNOWS what she wants with the man, and presses him for it. The man, on the other hand, DOES NOT KNOW what he wants with the woman, and is unable to decide.

So, he dawdles.

The woman, after a grace period for the man to make up his mind, then makes the decision for him, and moves on, or starts to move on.

Then, all hell breaks loose. The man makes an about-face. It occurs to him – like a bolt from the blue – that actually, she was the one for him, all along. He realizes he was in error. He is, in fact, WAY more into her than he knew before!

At which point, he pursues. He begins chasing her any way he can: lots of texts, showing up at her place (some guys even show up at her workplace), heartfelt messages where his emotions come pouring out. Any strategy he has at his disposal gets employed to win this girl back. He pops up on dating message boards, making his first post in years or his first post ever, imploring the other members to give him their best tips to win this girl back.

This happens at every stage of courtship:

• A girl show interest in a guy; the guy does not reciprocate (he dawdles). She stops showing interest, at which point he about-faces and pursues

• A guy and a girl are texting, but the guy’s not really that into it (he’s dawdling). She, realizing this, fades away… then, he about-faces and pursues her

• A girl and a guy have gone out a few times. She strongly hints at wanting to hook up with him or go somewhere alone with him. He, on the other hand, is not that crazy for this girl, and figures he’s got time. So he dawdles. After that, they never go out again. However, he about-faces and starts pursuing her hard

• A girl and a guy hook up once or twice. The guy is busy or disinterested, and fails to follow up with the girl. After a few weeks or months of dawdling he remembers her and reaches out. She either doesn’t respond at all, or does, but it’s with “let’s just be friends” or “I’m seeing someone now.” The result? He about-faces and pursues her

• A girl and a guy have a short-term casual fling (otherwise known as friends with benefits). The girl is into the guy and would like it to become something more. The guy isn’t feeling it, and dawdles. So the girl ends the arrangement, deciding she can’t get what she want here. The guy is fine with that at first… then, he about-faces and starts pursuing her

• A guy and girl have a long-term relationship. The guy really likes this girl, he’s just… not ready for that marriage/babies/living together/commitment stuff. He’d prefer to just keep it like it is – where they hang out, have sex, and everything is chill. But the girl, man… that’s just not enough for her. She needs progress, or she’s gone. Women! But then the guy lets her go… good riddance, he thinks at first… until he starts dapping

The only time I haven’t heard a bunch of dapping reports is men divorcing their wives. Seems like most guys once that is over are just like, “Whew! Finally free of that!”

Everything else, when it ends, guys often end up desperately scrambling to get back in… even if prior to the end they were happy to be (or at least neutral about) getting out.

What gives?

 

Why Dudes Dap

Either sex CAN dap.

However, most of the dappers you’ll see are men. Why do men dap so much?

The reason why is because – at least when it comes to romance and sex – men so often in our modern age are the indecisive sex.

They are:

• Hesitant to show interest
• Hesitant to make moves
• Fearful of coming across weak
• Fearful of coming across needy
• Hesitant to commit to girls

That’s not a condemnation of men. There are some arguably quite valid reasons why modern men are hesitant/fearful of these things. The fearfulness and hesitancy of men is a response to many realities of the 21st Century mating marketplace.

Nevertheless, whether the reasons are good or not, the outcome is that modern men end up becoming fickle and indecisive at major decision points in romance – far more so than women, much of the time.

And just as men dislike fickleness and indecision in women, women seeing it in men are 10x more put off by it. A lot of guys seem to sense this intuitively, and know they are damaging their prospects with a girl with all this fickle indecision and needy chasing, but… they just can’t help it. It’s an automatic response. It is not a rational process they’re going through.

The dapping response is activated by fear of loss. Prior to the A and P in ‘dap’, a man may think he’ll be okay without a girl, and that it is fine to dawdle. He might think he isn’t that into her, that she isn’t that great, or that – as much as he appreciates her – he for sure doesn’t want to get serious about or settle down with her.

However, once it becomes clear to him the girl is exiting or already has exited his life, fear of loss kicks in, and he about-faces and pursues.

 

Is Dapping Due to Dudes Being Less Emotionally In-Tune?

I’ve often wondered if dapping isn’t due to the fact that men are simply less in-tune with their emotions than women are.

A woman growing on you can happen quietly, under your radar, without you even realizing it until suddenly she has gone away. Then, all of a sudden, you’ve about-faced on her and are pursuing, and you didn’t even realize it.

Women in relationships will often give guys a certain grace period to make up their minds about them. Men rarely make up their minds during the grace period. Instead they dawdle, and delay, and stretch things out until the woman can’t or won’t wait any longer and leaves. At that point, finally, men about-face and pursue – but only once she’s already got one or both feet out the door.

We could say women are using takeaways to get men chasing them. In a way, they are.

In another way, they are simply moving on from something that didn’t work out.

They are replacing, instead of chasing.

Yet as any skilled practitioner of the seductive arts has experienced, just as women will chase when you use takeaways on them or they see you being preselected by other women (as you are in the early process of replacing them), the same thing happens with men, who will give chase when women they thought were theirs begin to pull away.

 

Avoiding the Dap Trap

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

After suffering through the dap trap multiple times myself:

• Dapping girls who showed interest in me

• Dapping girls I got partway through the courtship with but did not close

• Dapping girls I was in relationships with who wanted something more

… I decided I did not want to end up in the situation where some unconscious fear-of-loss drive took over and I became saddled with neediness and chasing behavior.

READ MORE: Keeping Your Cool: Don't Chase Women

So I set myself a couple of hard rules:

• “If she shows interest in you, ask her out immediately, or write her off entirely.”

• “If you begin the courtship with her, finish it out, or write her off entirely.”

• “If she wants a more serious relationship with you, give her it or forget her entirely.”

If you’re a beginner, you almost certainly WON’T be able to do this, because the desire to dawdle is simply too strong.

You are too inexperienced; there is too much you don’t know; it only feels sensible to put off deciding as long as possible, maintaining the status quo while you try to collect more information.

As you become more experienced with women, though, it is much easier to be decisive. It also gets much easier to completely write women off IF you decide you are truly done with them. There will always be more girls, and more girls like her, no matter how great she is… so if you decide to move on, you can move on. You will rarely look back, and if you do, it won’t be with any great feeling of loss.

Every woman is unique – but every woman is replaceable, too, for the romantically skilled man.

Yet even experienced men can catch themselves dapping if they aren’t careful. I have watched supremely experienced men dapping for girls they hadn’t even slept with yet… they still go through that process of, “Eh, I don’t really care about sleeping with this girl… well, I am still talking to her, but there’s no rush… huh? She’s not responding as much anymore? I need to figure out how to get her communicating again… oh crud, none of my stuff is working with this girl, what is going on! I really need to figure this one out!”

Likewise, you will see experienced guys dapping with girlfriends quite often. I’ve had several highly skilled, highly experienced buddies end up married to girls they dapped, and others lose girls they dapped. I’m not sure which is worse… to end up losing some girl you didn’t think you wanted then chased after hard when she left, or to end up married with children to that girl you didn’t want but dapped.

To me, both seem rather suboptimal.

If you want to avoid dapping girls, you need to be able to make a decision before the girl pulls away or leaves.

Here’s how:

 

Step 1: Know that Women’s Offers Are Limited-Time Only

Any guy who isn’t a total novice with women knows escalation windows stay open for only a certain time… after which attraction expires.

Yet many guys – even highly experienced guys – manage to convince themselves regardless that this rule does not apply to some specific girl they like, or doesn’t apply to them because they are just that good. They will say things like:

• “Yeah, but this girl’s not like that. I don’t think I need to rush.”

• “I’m good enough that I can keep her interested as long as I like. When I’m ready for it, she’ll still be there.”

Such men are prime targets for an about-face followed by hot pursuit when the girl ditches them or becomes unresponsive to them, simply because (regardless of their experience level) they simply weren’t prepared for it to happen. They didn’t think it would!

So Step #1 for dapping avoidance is to let go of the ego and admit to yourself that you’re not special, she’s not special, and that if you stretch things out and dawdle about deciding on her, at some point – almost certainly sooner than you think – she is going to get gone.

This realization is liberating, let me tell you.

As soon as the ‘specialness aura’ disappears from around you and your women, you are suddenly able to proceed in totally rational fashion – and your outcomes with women shoot up.

 

Step 2a: Decide Quick When She’s Offering

As soon as a girl does ANY of these things:

• Flirts with you hard
• Asks you out
• Hints at going back to yours
• Tries to kiss you / escalate on you
• Tries to have sex with you
• Tries to see you again after first-sex
• Tries to turn it into an FWB relationship
• Tries to turn it into a serious/committed relationship
• Tries to turn it into living together/marriage/babies

A countdown timer should begin ticking in your head.

That is an ESCALATION WINDOW, and you have two options, ultimately:

• Escalate, or
• Lose the girl

These are the ONLY two options!

Guys love to dawdle… they always want more time to make up their minds.

They want to imagine there is a third option of “Keep everything just the way it is, in stasis, with this girl just waiting for me until the end of time for me to make up my mind.”

But they’re not dealing with a fantasy woman – they’re dealing with a flesh-and-blood woman, who wants progress, or, if she can’t get it, wants to move on to find another guy she can have progress with.

Once a girl has announced her intentions by opening an escalation window, there is only a limited amount of time for a man to dawdle, after which time is up, and he loses the girl.

The farther along you are in things with this girl, the more ‘dawdle time’ a girl will allow. A girl who’s been with you for two years and is hoping for commitment is going to allow a longer grace period for you to decide than a girl who’s known you 20 minutes and who just hinted the two of you should hang out sometime. You can take a few weeks or a few months even to decide on the commitment girl, probably, before she drops… with the ask-out girl you’ve got at best a couple of days (and perhaps quite a bit less).

Regardless, when that escalation window opens up – whether you just met her or you’re deep into a relationship with her – a countdown timer begins.

And you will either give her what she wants, or give her up… or you’re going to end up dapping.

 

Step 2b: Realize Decisions Are (Usually) Revokable

One of the most freeing realizations is that romantic decisions/agreements are usually revokable.

Women know this and make use of this all the time:

• They will flirt with guys then decide they aren’t interested

• They will say they want to go out with guys then flake on the dates

• They will go home with guys after heavy flirtation then decline to have sex

• They will start dating guys then say they aren’t feeling it and break up

• They will marry guys then say they’ve grown apart or they need to find themselves and divorce

Etc.

Women, time and again, decide they want guys, and escalate things with them, but then at some point revoke that decision and deescalate or ditch.

Most inexperienced men seem to have some sort of wiring that states “A deal’s a deal.” If he asks her out, he has to go out with her. If he goes out with her, he has to make a move. If he makes a move, he has to have sex with her. If he has sex with her, he has to date her. If he dates her, he has to marry her. So how can he even LOOK at her if he’s not ready for 10 kids with her yet?!

This is a big part of why so many newbies are hesitant to pursue girls who aren’t super good-looking… in the back of their heads they are thinking, “But if I show interest in her, we could end up married with children!” They’re afraid of ending up on the slippery slope of irrevocable escalations.

As an experienced seducer, you realize that, while when you are dealing with other men, yes, “A deal’s a deal”, when you are yet dealing with women, almost all decisions are fully revocable at any time for either party:

• You can say you want to go out with her, then cancel or flake on the date

• You can invite her to your place, then not make a move if you realize you're not into it

• You can have sex with her and see her a couple times, then stop seeing her if you want

• You can even tell her you’ll marry her, then get cold feet at some point and call it off

• Heck, you can go through with it, then at some point if you want to divorce

Of course, the farther into the relationship you get when you decide to do something then revoke that decision later, the more possibility there is to do inadvertent harm (especially if this girl pinned a ton of hopes on you / attached to you very strongly).

That said, women and relationships come in all types: there are girls who will be crushed that you flaked on that date with them, and girls you can divorce amicably who don’t go through too much anguish over it at all.

Just as a general rule though, revoking decisions carries more weight as you get deeper into relationships, so you do want to be more careful about what you are agreeing to.

Nevertheless, all decisions ARE reversible; probably the only one that isn’t is “Let’s have a kid!”

As soon as you realize the revocability of decisions in man-woman affairs, it suddenly gets a lot easier to act more decisively and jump all over escalation windows.

You simply must realize that just like women can change their minds in romantic affairs, so, too, can men – so it’s often better to go on ahead with something if you’re on the fence about it than it is to stay there waffling until she makes the decision for you… and you find yourself caught in the dap trap.

 

Recovering from the Dap Trap

Let’s say you’ve found this article too late and you’re already dapping a girl.

I know you’re asking yourself, “How can I turn things around with her?”

Well, you can check out my articles on this:

• The Ultimate Guide on How to Get a Girl Back

• How to Get Your Girlfriend Back

• What to Do When a Girl Pulls Away (and Seems to Lose Interest)

But here’s what I would really recommend:

Meet more girls!

Seriously, I cannot stress it enough: if you are stressing out over one special girl you have already blown it with, take all that passion and energy you have and direct it into meeting NEW women you DON’T have all that baggage with!

READ MORE: Can't Stop Thinking About Her? Here's Why You Need to Meet More Girls

Then, when you meet more great girls, some of whom you really like, remember the dap trap, and next time don’t dawdle so long when they open those escalation windows for you.

Instead, be decisive, understanding that you can always revoke decisions later if it turns out not to be a good one, and get things happening with them.

(of course, if a woman opens an escalation window for something you really do not want, you can shut that window, and just enjoy your time with her until she leaves. Nothing wrong with that either. Again, you’re not on some slippery slope where you must escalate without fail every time a girl opens a window. Escalate on the ones you WANT and the ones you THINK you might want. The ones you know you DON’T want, don’t. Simple, right?)

With some luck, that girl you dapped before may notice your renewed success with women and take interest again.

With yet MORE luck though, you won’t notice or care if she does, because YOU’LL be too busy meeting great, awesome, attractive, willing women!

 

Conclusion

The dap trap plagues us all, at some point or other.

As a guy, you can look rather goofy while in it. Here you are, a MAN, supposed to be firm and in-charge of his life and decisive, and now you are flip-flopping around, waffling, indecisive, letting this girl go then chasing her down after. SHE is the rational, decisive one, while YOU are the irrational, emotional one. Total role reversal!

But this is what happens when you experience fear of loss, especially in situations where you are inexperienced losing girls this way.

Just about every guy needs to go through this though to figure out where his head is really at and what he is and is not willing to do with girls.

Figure that out, and you begin acting decisively – and dapping as a behavior melts away.

Chase Amante