Dating

Once upon a time, there was one subject that absolutely terrified me when women brought it up in conversation: their past relationships.

I mean, if anything felt like a death sentence for forward progress with a woman, it was her digging up her troubled past and spilling it all over my lap. Time and again, I found that my interactions with women ended soon after they began divulging their storied relationship history -- "Great, another gal looking for a shoulder to cry on," I'd think. "I'm doomed."

It took me a little while to crack that nut, but I did. When women start telling me about their past relationships now, it's almost a slam dunk that we become lovers.

How'd I make such a dramatic shift, from past relationships being a conversation killer to them becoming seduction rocket fuel? Well, it came about from me deciphering a few important concepts -- and that utterly shifted the way I approached women discussing their past relationships.

The most frequent email I get from readers is of the very gracious, magnanimous variety, with readers reaching out to say thanks for writing your blog, your book, etc., and sharing perhaps some of the successes that have come from, in part, applying what they've learned from my materials.

But hands down the second most frequent email I get is the one that reads something akin to this:

“Hi Chase, I've been reading your site and I wish I'd come across it sooner. You see, there's this girl I like, and I guess I didn't move fast enough with her, because now she's cold and distant and I don't know what to do. Is there anything you can recommend I do to turn it around?”

I get about 2 or 3 of these emails a week. And as traffic to this site continues rising, I'm confident the number of them coming in will only increase.

And I commiserate. I've been there lots of times; watching a girl you really liked shut down and go cold on you when formerly it seemed like she was yours for the picking is maddening, gut-wrenching, and about as big a sucker punch as you can get. It's awful.

So, I want to lay it down here today, for all those guys out there pulling their hair out like I used to -- a complete guide on how to get a girl back.

A reader writes in a comment on the post about building emotional connections:

"This worked great with a beautiful young lady I was interested in. We had many things in common. She got presumptuous and began whining & nagging about her car repairs. I was a gentleman throughout yet she felt perfectly entitled to tool me!! How would you treat her inappropriate request? Oh I forgot to mention this demand was asked of me after the third date..."

That's an unfortunate outcome for our reader, losing a girl he had a great connection with to presumptuous requests, but it's all too common a scenario, and it's one that gives us an outstanding jumping off point for getting into a meaty topic: dealing with dating situations where women complain, try to get stuff from you, and push to use you.

For the relationship equivalent of this phenomenon, check out "Women and Drama." What I want to talk to you about today is dealing with this when it happens on dates -- and how you can sidestep, shut down, and otherwise flummox women's attempts to get favors and "gain the upper hand," so to speak.

I think you'll find it invaluable.

I had a reader recently contact me, a little confused as to why a girl who'd seemed to like him had turned down the first date idea he'd proposed and counter-offered that they go golfing instead. His idea had been for the two of them to go swimming at the pool that she worked at, where he met her.

This is one of those things that, on the surface, in the moment where you're trying to think of date ideas, it seems like a great one: should be easy for her (she works there, so she's already there and doesn't have to go anywhere), safe to assume she likes it (she wouldn't work at a pool if she didn't like swimming), and it's fun.

But in fact, on further reflection, this is ends up being one of the great many bad first date ideas a man could have, and on top of that it's a very easy dating mistake to make. The reasons why this and many other first date ideas make for bad first dates are a little cloudy and a little hard to see until you're trained to look for them.

Today, I'm going to break out what those factors are that differentiate a good first date from a bad first date, and help you make sure you only ever have great dates (or, at least, great date ideas!) going forward.

You can thank me later -- when all your dates are awesome.

In the recent post that discusses whether you should pay for a date, a reader comments:

A woman's perspective: If you invite her, you pay. If the guy asked me, so he should pay. I really don't think this is unreasonable. I do, however, think that it is unreasonable to invite someone out and then expect them to pay for themself or for both of you- probably they would, out of politeness, but would be very angry about it and would never see you again.

I once met a great guy who basically made me pay for the dinner he invited me to. I wrote him off and never saw him again. What a cheapskate!!

All I'm saying is that basically, if you follow this man's advice and don't pay for a woman on a date when you invited, you will lose your chance with her. Nobody expects you to spend a week's wages on a fancy meal. But if you invite, you should pay. Same as when I invite (and I do, and so do many women), I pay.

Lisa

Anyone who knows me in real life knows I think women kick ass. All my current and former lovers count me as one of their best friends, if not their very best friend, and I frequently discuss a lot of deep relationship and social dynamic stuff with women. I find that the average woman has a much firmer intuitive grasp of the way people are and the way people work than the average man does, and when you explain advanced social concepts, women are often quicker to parse them, pick them up, and arrive at intuitive mental corollaries than men are.

That said, and I hope no one takes it personal, but... women are the WORST on the planet at giving out dating advice for men.

A reader writes in:

Hi Chase,

Just a quick message to say I've learnt a lot from your insights and blog over the last year. I decided to improve myself after hitting an embarrassing rock bottom with a girl I had been chasing after for over a year and your website has helped me do just that. These days I know I can go out and acheive high success with very attractive women of my choosing.

The problem is, I have now reached a point where I would like a girlfriend and I currently have two 2nd dates and 3 first dates with potential girlfriends. I am at a point where its almost too easy to get girls highly interested even past the first date. You teach a lot about how to get girls interested but I wondered if you had any advice about how to let girls down easy without coming across like an asshole. I enjoy having a choice of women for the first time in my life (!) but I don't like the idea of just enjoying the 'sport' of it.

I know there's probably no easier thing to do than to just to pick the one I like the most and dump the others but I just thought I'd ask your thoughts anyway,

Ta,
E

No doubt, that can be a tough one: how do you let a girl down without being a bad guy or a total heartbreaker? It can make you feel like a pretty underhanded guy – maybe even like you were just leading her on – when you have to turn her down when you know she was hoping to be with you.

But, in fact, there is a right way to do it.

Ever meet a girl, and get her contact information, and then start chatting with her via phone or text message, and then go to set up a date with her – maybe to get some food, maybe a drink, maybe to just chill and hang out and watch a movie at your place – only to have her offer a counterproposal that suited you far less? Perhaps she suggested going shopping, or that you join her out with a group of her friends, or come to some party she was attending.

Ever accept one of those counteroffers? If you did, you may very well have kicked yourself for going later, when you ended up getting slotted into the friend zone and never got together with the girl. Maybe, just maybe, a guy tooth-and-claws it, and fights off her other suitors, and eventually on Date #6 he gets her in the sack, but of course by that point she has him firmly pinned down into boyfriend territory. And maybe she even does end up becoming his girlfriend because by that point he's invested so much in her that he thinks she's better than the other women he has available.

This is what happens when you don't date on your terms. You don't get the girl most of the time. Actually, most of the time, you waste your time, and get slotted into the friend zone, or become a potential boyfriend at best.

Solution? Stop dating women on their terms, and start dating them on yours.