(1) Beginner

Dating is tough, especially as a beginner. Yet it is possible to remain motivated in dating despite the setbacks – IF you can learn to adapt your goals.

Commenting on my article about how to let a girl go, a reader asked:

Hey man,

Thanks for fleshing out valuable articles. I've been a reader of your site for a long time now. I've had my fair share of success but not enough for the effort I've put in.

Recently I started your 4-girls/day 30 day challenge and I'm having fun with it. It's been 10 days now and I've just got 2 phone numbers which didn't go anywhere. I'm starting to get demotivated. I have a solid process and my fundamentals are good but somehow not seeing success yet.

I'd like to see an article on this subject, specifically about inner game and some tips to overcome this nagging feeling of failure.

Thanks again for all the great work you've been doing man.

Setbacks of course are a part of life. You’ve experienced them, I’ve experienced them. Dating is tough, and by all indications for the average person it is getting tougher.

Many people simply give up on dating for a while, retreating to their careers and their pastimes. Hopefully they maintain social circles – which at least offers the chance of bumping into potential mates occasionally purely by being ‘out and about’ – but in today’s digital screen world, more and more don’t even do that.

If you’ve suffered setbacks in dating but you don’t want to give up just yet, come along with me and let’s talk strategies to keep that motivation up.

Sometimes girls will booty call you late at night. How do you handle these? Can you get a rain check? Who goes to whose place? Here’s the guide.

It’s late one night, you’re just about to get in bed – or perhaps you’re lying in bed already – when out of the blue a girl you know messages you:

Doing anything right now? Feeling bored

What should you do?

What should you say?

The timing is inconvenient (you were just about to fall asleep); can you reschedule her for later?

There’s one thing you need to understand about late-night booty calls and booty texts: whenever you get them, no matter what time it is or what condition you are in, that is a one-time only, limited time offer – and you can either take it then as-is, or pass.

No layaway, no reserving it for later, no rain checks, and usually no counteroffers accepted.

At unexpected times, in unexpected places, women may start talking to you. If you aren’t ‘on’ you can miss these chances. How best should you respond?

Commenting on my article about testing girls for interest before you approach, Sub-Zero asks:

How do you deal with not knowing what to say? There’s times when I guess a girl pings me and I don’t know how to respond or how to close.

For example, would you say that these were pings or invitations?

A: I had one girl say the food I was getting made looks good. I couldn’t tell if it was a ping or if she was making small talk. Anyway, I still didn’t know what else to say. I might have said thank you or something?

B. I was shopping and a girl said something about buying some food for her kid, then she said you probably don’t care what I’m getting my kid. There I didn't say anything because I really had no idea what to say.

So would you say those were pings for me to approach or were they just being social and what should I have said, what do you do or say when you don’t know what to say and are stuck?

Yes, these are both pings (the subject of my article on testing girls for interest). Just like you can ping women to test for interest before approaching, women can ping you too. A ping doesn’t mean she’s ready to hop into bed with you, of course – it just means she’s interested in finding out if you’re someone she can chat with. She might want to date you or might just want to talk. Either way, she’s testing you for openness to a conversation.

The problem Sub-Zero has here, that many guys have, is that women ping you at unexpected times, when you are not prepared to be social. Worse still, because most women expect the man to lead, usually all you’ll get from a girl is a single ping… then she retreats and waits. If you don’t act soon, she gives up, closes off, and runs away!

How can you deal with these situations when girls unexpectedly open you… and where you aren’t already primed for socializing, in any kind of social mood?

There comes a time in life when a man debates settling with a ho. Before taking the plunge, however, you’ve gotta know: CAN YOU turn a ho into a housewife?

Came across a post recently where a guy discusses dating a girl who had a one-night stand on vacation then said she regrets it and wants to “build our relationship again.” Here’s the text:

A girl that I have been dating had a one night stand while on vacation. We confessed feelings for each other prior the vacation and we both said that we want to go for each other. We did not made specific agreements for an exclusive relationship.

I feel betrayed because I told her how I feel and than she did this on vacation. She said she regrets it and she wants to put all the effort and time to build our relationship again. She also said that she is afraid to lose me because of this.

My logical brain says that I have to move on because my trust in her is quite low because of this. But the emotional side wants to give her a chance to the relationship again.

What are your opinions on this matter and how would you handle this?

This is just one example of the scenarios guys will encounter when considering settled relationships with women who’ve been “in the field” for a bit. There are others:

• Women who “had their ho phase” but are “done with that now.”

• Women who have cheated on partners in the past but “have grown.”

• Women who dated multiple men at the start, then “settled on” just the one guy.

• Women who pushed for an open relationship, then later push to close it.

Most guys sense there is something wrong here… some risk or some catch. But they just aren’t sure. The question these men must face is this: can you turn a ho into a housewife?

It’s early into a conversation and you’d like to tell a story. What do you talk about? These 7 examples help you figure out just what tale to tell.

In a comment on my article “How to Tell a Story that Rivets and Captivates”, Greg remarks:

Very interesting article, thank you, I really appreciated it. But now that I know how to tell a story (the form), the problem is what stories to tell (the content). A long list of story examples to tell (one sentence per example, not the complete stories, just the basic idea) (like 30 stories exemples at least) could help in developing or finding one's own stories. Because I don't know about others, but for me, I feel like I don't have any stories to tell.

Sure, story examples. We can talk about some of those.

For this article, I’m going to focus on early conversation stories, since that’s the place the most guys have the most trouble. E.g., “How do I get the storytelling started with a girl I’m talking to?”

We’ll break it down into two categories for this piece: “crazy thing” stories and “cool DHV” stories. Before we begin, I want to preface with a note on the ‘recency’ requirement for early conversation stories.

Are you stuck pining for or pursuing a girl you can’t get or have? Then you need to let that girl go. Easier said than done right? Well here’s HOW to do it.

It’s not an uncommon position for men to find themselves in: there’s this girl a guy’s fallen for, and he just can’t let her go.

I talked about the intoxicating, transfixing aspects of this kind of single-minded fixation upon an individual girl in my article “Can't Stop Thinking About Her? Here's Why You Need to Meet More Girls.” I know that one struck a chord, too, because it’s been read over a million times. Among the other 3257 articles on this website written over the last 16 years, only twelve have more pageviews.

Today I want to talk about one specific aspect of becoming fixated on an individual woman or girl: how to let her go.

How to detach, move on, and live a life without being haunted by a woman it’s best you forgot.

When women are fertile and sexually frustrated, they cause drama. How you avoid this drama is straightforward: sex her mind out when she ovulates.

I can’t believe I haven’t written an article on this before, but it just came to mind I haven’t. When women aren’t getting sexed enough, they cause mountains of drama.

This is an incontrovertible law of female nature. If you haven’t learned this rule, you may find drama exploding from women out of seemingly nowhere. One day she’s affectionate and horny… then the next day she’s an erupting volcano of malevolent fury. What happened?

You’ll get a dozen different explanations, blames, and excuses from her about what precipitated the drama. But the real source of drama if you trace it back is this: either you didn’t lay her at all, or you didn’t lay her well enough.