Dating Rules

Follow the journey of a young man from shy and dateless, to improving with women, to living the dream… and what happens after.

Dan trudges off to his Thursday morning class, another long day in an endless sea of them ahead. The sole bright spot for him is the girl with brown hair and glasses. She will be there. She’s always in his Thursday morning class.

When he gets there, he grabs a seat, then looks around, waiting for her to show up. She hasn’t shown up yet. The class slowly fills. Some kid takes the empty seat to his left. Damn, he thinks. I hoped it’d stay empty until she gets here. Close to class start time, he sees the girl with brown hair and glasses walk in. He stares at her; her eyes search the room, looking for seats, then briefly meet his. He thinks he sees her smile, but she quickly looks down. She hurries off to a far corner of the room to take one of the few remaining empty seats.

All class, Dan thinks about her. He waits at the end of class, packing his books up slowly. He glances over toward her – it seems like she’s packing up slowly too. At last, after most of the class has filtered out, Dan makes for the exit, and so does the girl with brown hair and glasses. He lets her get right in front of him. She doesn’t look at him, but she glances down and wipes her hair back over one ear. He can’t tell, but he thinks she might be smiling. He feels like he should say something – this is his chance! – but he doesn’t know what to say. The both file out of the classroom; she heads off in one direction. Dan’s headed the other. He slowly walks away from her.

He doesn’t feel bad though. He feels even more certain she might like him now. And next class – he knows – will be the one he makes it happen in.

The semester passes this way. Many days the girl with brown hair and glasses doesn’t notice him or give him any signs, and he thinks she’s lost interest. Sometimes she gives him some little look, or plays with her hair while almost glancing in his direction, and he thinks she must like him still.

Once she sits two seats over from him, and he almost says something to her. He spends the entire class full of nerves, pushing himself to say something. In the end, he tells himself it’d be too awkward trying to talk over two seats – he’ll wait for a better opportunity. Next class, he’ll get a better opportunity.

As summer turns to autumn, then autumn to winter, the semester draws to a close. The fallen leaves on the ground are covered by a light dusting of snow. Finals are over, and it’s time for the students to head home for the holidays.

“Maybe the girl with brown hair and glasses will be in one of my classes next semester,” Dan tells himself.

10 times to give her a phone call instead of send her a text: when her text replies are bland, when she’s a slow text responder, when it’s logistically easier, and more.

We have a cool discussion on the forum right now where one of our members (Big Daddy) chronicles his foray into making phone calls to girls. He began to mix phone calls into his follow-up repertoire after a few of our articles on phone calls here. He was new to calls at the start of the thread, but once past those early jitters he discovered phone calls suit him:

“Even if it doesn’t work out this already works so much better than texting. I mean my calling skills are 2/10 at the moment and I feel like I have 30x more leverage on calls. I’m actually having fun doing this “just for reps.””

In honor of this discussion Big Daddy kicked off, I thought I’d put together a list of the best times to call a girl... instead of send her a text.

Our occasions to call instead of text fall into a few key themes:

• When you need to inject life into the courtship

• When texting is inefficient or doesn’t work
  

• When you need to cover a lot of ground in a short time (like to rebuild a connection, or fix a screw-up)
  

To help make the right times to call clearer, I’ve split these overarching themes up into 10 distinct scenarios.

Our first is when your initial meet was only lukewarm.

Social texting, text message negs, and asking her to answer quicker are a few common texting mistakes you’d do well to avoid.

These days, texting – or the various flavors of instant messaging – has clearly taken over as the preferred form of communication to get newly-met girls on dates and into bed. So much so that many seek out articles, books, and coaches to help them master the art.

Ten years ago, it was perfectly legit to call a girl you just met and set up a meet over the phone. The phone used to be a great tool, because you could show her how cool of a guy you are through voice tonality, which is still a fundamental art for in-person interactions (which is why setting up a meet should be your primary goal when texting). It used to be that I’d turn cold numbers warm through good phone calls – but those days are gone for the most part.

You’d think showcasing good voice tonality over the phone would go a long way when meeting someone new, but if you call a new girl nowadays, she most likely won’t even answer, because she’s not comfortable talking to strangers. The only person who actually calls her on the phone and gets picked up is probably her mom. In other words, you could have a very sexy voice, but if she doesn’t answer the phone, well, I guess you could leave a voicemail and hope for the best. But she’ll probably still think you’re weird for calling. “Dude, voicemail? Who does that? Why doesn’t he just text? Weirdo.”

Like it or not, people now prefer text communication for contacting new people, even when a two-minute call could accomplish the same thing as several texts over the course of hours. Whether or not people realize texting is most often less efficient, it’s always more comfortable, non-confrontational, and safe. So that’s what we do now.

The problem is that a lot of communication cues are lost in written text, even with the use of emojis. And it is more important now to convey your coolness through text than it ever was. Even if you’re just trying to get a date with a hot girl you met during night game or day game, the tool required to get to meet her again face to face is called “text game.”

Many dudes have not connected the dots between having a horrible text game and having very few dates. Ask any guy who is decently good with girls, and they’ll tell you there is a clear correlation between text game and actually getting girls close enough to you for sex to happen. But what is good text game? We have several articles that deal with that. In this post, I want to give you guys some additional pointers on how to avoid bad text game.

Okay, guys. Take notes, and don’t do this stuff.

If she eludes your dates, it can feel tempting to ping her regularly to make sure she doesn’t forget you. Yet there are better follow-up strategies than this.

A reader writes in:

“Chase,

First off, I really value your dating advice; it’s rooted in logic and psychology and that’s how I operate.  It resonates in a big way with me.

So my scenario/question...

There is this one girl.

I’ve known her for about 2 years, but we never hooked up because one of us has always been in a relationship.  I own an organic juice bar and she actually came into the store the other day.  Attraction was definitely strong and she extended her number to me.

We went on a date a few days later; local, food, drinks and just established rapport and comfort.  Of course my end game was to get intimate with her, but it didn’t happen.  I was sort of bummed.  No good night kiss?  I can’t remember the last time that happened.  After the date we texted and I asked if I could call her and I did.  We basically stayed on the phone for almost 2 hours, sort of continuing the date convo.

I asked her on the phone, “Why no kiss?”.  She mentioned that she is shy, that she is attracted to me, the fact that I was on antibiotics for strep throat (day 6) bothered her a bit.  We also talked about how she is a bit messed up from an ex and that recently, she was actually falling for someone hard and chased him but it didn’t work out because he doesn’t want a girlfriend.

I’ve been trying to set up date 2 but it hasn’t happened yet.  I’m just keeping the texts short, direct, nonchalant, non predictable non needy, etc.

I really think she is just hung up on this guy (the one she was recently intimate with and doesn’t want a girlfriend) and after some time I’ll be able to meet her again and put the moves on her.  I’m confident once we’re intimate she will be chasing me.

However, I am by no means not seeing other girls.  I always keep about 3-4 in the rotation so I’m not lonely on a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night.

MY QUESTION – Texting is such low effort as is Instagram and DM and things of that nature.  Is it ok to use these methods once in awhile to keep a “girl in the loop”?  I feel that timing is everything sometimes and this may be a method to grab her attention at the most opportune time.  What are your thoughts on this?  I’m not sitting home pining over her.  I just feel like the end goal is so close within reach and don’t want to completely give up.  If this is a viable method for achieving my end goal what would you recommend?  Frequency, context, things of that nature?

Thanks you for you time!”

This is a great question. You get some progress with a girl, it feels like it’s close, but then it doesn’t happen. She doesn’t come out on dates, but she still responds to your messages.

So the question is: do you ping her from time to time to see if she’s available and changed her mind? Or do you not? And if you do, how often?

Teasing girls is fun. It's also attractive because it demonstrates that she knows you don't idolize her or put her on a pedestal. Women like when a man treats her like a person, not some angel.

At some point, you can’t go to the club or the frat party anymore. But when do you get to old to party? And can you ever get too old to meet girls?

We have a few guys on the comments and in the discussion boards who are fixated on age. These guys (in their late 20s or early 30s) worry about the future: they’re not living the lives they want right now, and they fear that in a few years it will be too late. Life will have passed them by, and they will forever regret not having done what they always longed to do. Here’s an excerpt from a recent forum post by Oh Pry:

“I like the idea of celebrating a holiday or special time of the year with a party and going to events with hot girls but at times I do like to get put it into perspective to see how long I have until I start to feel like the old guy in the group.

Even on this forum I doubt members over 30 are spending Halloween going to a party with a hot girl or having a hell of a Christmas party with hot girls doing kinky shit.

Any thoughts on this?”

We also get guys who stop by and express regret or depression that it’s too late for them and there’s little left for them to do. These are mostly men in their mid-to-late 50s... but we get guys in their 20s who express this same sentiment too.

I want to tackle this article from two perspectives. One is the mindset perspective: that is, why it’s counterproductive to worry someday you’ll be too old, or feel depressed because you think you already are too old. The other will just be a straight age-opportunity rundown: what places are available venues to you at different ages?

It’s been years… and now she wants to reconnect. Should you meet her? And beyond that, should you date her?

I received an email recently from a girl I hadn’t heard from in six or seven years.

I’d known her from social circle (back when I still maintained a social circle). She was skinny, fun, and cute, with an endearing California Valley girl accent (and all the expressiveness that entails). She also had that somewhat uptight air about her that can be a little off-putting but is really fun when you break through it and reach the real her.

Anyway, this was not a girl I’d hooked up with. Didn’t really have a good opportunity, and in any event I slept with other girls from that circle who were younger and didn’t have the same walls up she did. I met up with her various times in our shared social circle. Toward the end of my time in that circle, I scheduled a one-on-one meet with her but had to flake on it... and when she wanted to meet again I wasn’t able to make myself available for it. And after that we were in different cities and she fell off my radar. She was 29 years old back then.

So I got an email from her after more than half a decade, just saying she saw an event and wondered if I intended to go to it and asking if I was in town.

And the only thing I could think was, “Wow, 36 years old and still single, huh?”