(3) Journeyman

Most guys don’t understand why women create drama in relationships, so their response often makes things worse. Here’s how to deal with it constructively.

How should men effectively deal with drama in their relationships? It’s one of the more common problems men experience. Guys rarely get thrown into a dramatic situation by choice. In cases where the drama is perpetuated by the woman, it is her negative response to a man’s behavior, and it’s an attempt to put her man back in line.

Often, the drama is unexpected, and you are totally unprepared to respond to it in a measured, constructive way. In which case, you typically make things worse.

I talked to one of my best friends in New York City recently about this. We discussed how 90% of the time guys treat drama in a way that makes things worse. Largely, it’s because guys don’t truly understand what the drama is. Like all things with women, the situation isn’t what it actually seems. You can get more information about what to do by reading between the lines from the woman’s point of view.

It’s important not to concern yourself with the drama’s details, for which there could be an infinite number of reasons. Instead, we’re going to cover what factors cause drama and how to respond while remaining attractive. After all, continual drama can result in the decline of the connection between both of you. If you react to it in the wrong way, the chance of maintaining that connection becomes slimmer and slimmer. Or worse, it incentivizes the girl to find a more suitable guy to be with.

Some types of flakes are easier to deal with than others. Let’s talk about the tough ones, like when she’s not that into you or she’s testing you to expose weakness.

As a guy, you’ve likely experienced this scenario: you get excited about seeing a girl who agrees to go on a date but end up feeling frustrated when she flakes on you. It makes the process of getting her out again much more complicated. A girl flaking on a date might seem like a big deal, but it shouldn’t be.

In Part 1 of this series, we covered how to recover from a flake when “life” happens and interferes with her plans. Usually, it’s simply a matter of comfortably rescheduling the date.

However, sometimes it’s not so simple.

As mentioned in Part 1, girls flake for one of three reasons:

• She has a legitimate reason and wants to see you but can’t at that exact time
• She’s not interested enough and is waiting for something better (you're a backup plan)
• She’s testing you because she senses some weakness

Part 1 covered the first reason. Now we’ll cover the other two. You’ll learn what to do when she’s not interested enough and how to react when she tests you.

Unfortunately, these two situations are a bit more complicated. They indicate that the girl wasn’t interested enough or you made mistakes early on. Any mistake a guy makes will drop a girl’s attraction for him. Most of all, if he didn’t create enough attraction when meeting her, his options are limited.

Some guys are naturally good at texting and can create attraction through messaging. If you’re one of them, that’s a great skill to use in flake management. I’m not one of these guys, so I can’t comment much on what to do there.

Other times a girl will sense something is “off” about you, and will instead test you to see what you’ll do and how you’ll react. This is also not an optimal situation, usually surfacing because a guy did something wrong.

So let's talk about solutions.

It’s simple to get somewhere with a girl when you use the floors and ceilings method. Raise her floor, and raise her ceiling, and she will soon be yours.

I just talked to Alek about his neat new series on Female State Control. If you haven't read it yet, check it out (see the link).

When we talked about that, it brought up a way of thinking about how to get somewhere with a girl I've long had, but not discussed much. I've talked about it here and there, especially with deep diving and connection stuff. It's a sort of basic understanding of how progress with women works.

This understanding is what we might call 'The Floors and Ceilings Method'.

This method is very slightly complicated to understand. But not much. And once you have it, it gives you another dimension to understand male-female courtships with.

The method isn't limited to seduction. It also works with sales. It works with new friendship formation. Any kind of new relationship formation, especially where you want to get someone to do something, uses it. We'll focus on using it with women you like in this article, but it applies everywhere.

This is a simple method. I'll explain how it works, and you'll soon see how it applies to so many things.

If you like sex but don’t want a relationship, booty calling is the way to go. But getting and keeping a booty call with minimal pain and drama requires finesse.

Booty calling is a fun-filled lifestyle choice that any man can go for. However, if you want that sweet booty ordered to your door like pizza, you’ll want to communicate this to your woman, or women, without causing too much drama or crushed feelings.

You’ll need a contract.

Failure to set up a proper booty call contract can result in broken-up, hurt women and undesired drama.

I’ve had plenty of casual sex partners. Usually they’re girls who already have boyfriends or husbands and didn’t want to leave their relationships but still desired a little excitement or romance. Or they were too busy with work or school to have a long-term relationship (LTR). Some just wanted no-strings-attached sex with a discreet partner.

Some booty calling meets both the man’s and the woman’s needs, but most have lopsided attraction dynamics. The female will sleep with the male, and give him his “space” in the vain hope that once he realizes how amazing she is, it will turn into a more stable and monogamous “real” relationship.

Some women will sleep with you then quickly realize they can do better and move on. This isn’t real booty calling, as it’s generally the man’s fault for not having the characteristics she desires in a mate. For example, you’re a broke, needy, man-boy with no game who just happened to get lucky.

But for the rest, it’s usually just a player getting as much ass from as many women as possible without handing over his freedom. After all, freedom is a precious commodity.

Yes, some women just want to bang, but the vast majority would prefer a committed relationship with one special guy. Even if they’re willing to share him for a short trial period to seduce the man into monogamy, thus being a booty call.

If you’re trying to go booty calling, either become the master of stringing girls along, or learn how to communicate what exactly it is you desire. Hell truly hath no fury like that of a woman scorned — meaning hurt women can do terrible things to your life — so it’s best to avoid that. Be as honest as possible about your desires and intentions with her. Women being “played” has resulted in more scratched paint jobs, smashed PlayStations, and false rape accusations than necessary.

Girls flake for a variety of reasons, legitimate or otherwise. How does one figure out which and respond accordingly to maximize the odds of finally meeting up?

On the Girls Chase boards, reader Dark Knight was asking what to do and how to deal with a girl flaking – specifically how to recover. Flakes are one of the more frustrating courtship issues that guys deal with; especially for newbies who don’t yet have the skills to have a funnel of women. Quite simply, if you don't have absolute abundance, a flake can feel like a huge missed opportunity and a big failure on your end.

Dark Knight describes what confuses him about flakes:

I think most of us are familiar with Chase’s article on "What to Do When Girls Flake.” And I believe it is good advice, but there is one key ingredient missing and that’s about how to follow up on flakes. In the article the girl Chase mentions is extremely apologetic, but lots of times there are also girls who try to act like nothing happened. If you don’t call her out, it just gets “forgotten,” which of course is not true, but convenient for the girls narrative. This makes it like comparing oranges to apples. Because at this point it feels like it’s damned if you do and damned if you don’t. For this reason the article becomes confusing for a lot of guys. I have read some comments across the board but they are quite varied and spread out, which prevents it to be a coherent entity.

Suppose:

You arranged a date, girl agrees to it: then flakes out. 

*If you act like it’s not a big deal it’s fine and dandy: BUT you can kiss your scarcity goodbye. There is a big risk in being friend zoned, or put unto the backburner, because you give the girl an opportunity to postpone. In the past I even had this happen with girls who seemed very interested, but because they avoided committing since they do not like risks and maybe they hope for some kind of mythical white prince around the corner: they postponed. Of course when I next them, they fly into a rage. Yeah, that’s how it tends to go. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. The only option seems to be if we put it in context with Chase’s advice, staying warm but maybe less available? I believe however the longer things get drawn out the more they fizzle out.

*If you reschedule fast, again you kill your value and officially become chasing guy. If you don’t reschedule the girl will probably try to get some attention and you effectively move backwards, which again is bad.

*Acting butthurt: Lowers your value and attainability, good luck with giving someone a good validation boost and shooting yourself in the foot.

I think I have summarized this as best as I can. I would really love to see an article which gives some good tactical advice about how to follow this up. Because right now my default is moving on to the next girl, unless the flaking girl REALLY tries to make up again. But even then, I can be too impatient, I don't enjoy “long game.” Whatever the hell that means.

I can empathize with Dark Knight. As a guy, you’re likely very excited about seeing a girl who agrees to go on a date with you. While flaking on a date might seem like a big deal, it shouldn’t be for most guys if you’ve done the attraction work correctly from the start. There are a couple situations in which girls will flake on a guy. Depending on which, you either have a good shot at seeing her again as long as you stay mentally strong, persistent, are warm, and understand her circumstances. Other times, you’ll learn that she wasn’t nearly as attracted to you as you thought she was. This may indicate a mistake somewhere else in the process of meeting her.

Flakes can be tricky to follow up on. It’s an abrupt and unexpected stop to a courtship. Unprepared guys who react in a wrong and uncalibrated manner will find that the opportunity is suddenly gone.

There are, in essence, two main classes of women you can hook up with.

The first class is the women who just want you. These women find you attractive (some, even irresistible), compelling, magnetic. There's something about you they like -- or there might be many things about you they like. They're fascinated by you the moment you walk up, or they've grown attached to you over time as they've gotten to know you. They like you, and they actively want to date you, spend time with you, connect with you, be in physical contact with you.

The second class is women who aren't particularly desirous of you, but they are available to you. Many of these women are just bored. Some of them may be available because they're out to rebel, and you fit the "If I hook up with this guy, I'll really be rebelling against Mom/society/my overbearing boyfriend" idea they have in their heads. Some may be available to you for revenge. For some it might be because they want to have an experience. In each of these cases, these women don't want you or like you so much as they want some guy... and you happen to be the best guy available who makes it easy for such a girl to satisfy her mission.

We've talked about this before on Girls Chase. But I really want to dive deep in this article on the girls in the second class.

Because a lot of guys don't even recognize how many women are out there like this at any given time. The fact is though, if you're good with girls, a lot of the women you get will likely come from this class.

As long as you don’t give false expectations, you need not suffer from player guilt. In fact, denying her sex when she wants it is NOT the way to spare her feelings.

If you're a man, you'd be forgiven for getting mixed up by all the mixed messages society sends you about casual sex. You've probably heard all the following:

• "Casual sex is liberating! We must break the bonds of social restrains on sexuality! Let's enjoy our sexuality, and be free!"

• "Casual sex results from a power imbalance between men and women. Women are forced to trade sex to men sooner than they want to, in the hopes of securing a relationship. It puts women in a difficult spot where it's easy to get hurt."

• "Casual sex is one of the most empowering acts a woman can engage in. By embracing her sexuality, a woman can learn to love herself, and stop being dependent on how others think of her."

• "Casual sex is highly damaging to women, and the casual sex epidemic is doing long-term damage to women's self-esteem and ability to form long-term partnerships."

You're alternately a saint and a devil, a savior and a corrupter for engaging in any intimacy with women you know won't lead to marriage.

Of course, the fact is, humans have sex. And they don't always have sex for marriage. If there are a lot of available sexual partners, many humans will have sex with many of them. This is true regardless of location or era. It is true in the West, and it is true in the East. It is true now, it was true 100 years ago, and it was true 5,000 years ago.

The issue is, if you want to be a player, and you want to feel free to indulge in physical intimacy with women who want to enjoy that intimacy with you, how do you get past any feelings of wrongheadedness about this, or guilt?