You've replayed it a hundred times. She stood three feet away, scrolling her phone. You had an opening. You composed the perfect line — after she was gone.
For all you know, she's married now. To some guy who said something. Anything.
Openers are cheap. Almost any sentence works when it's delivered within three seconds. The expensive part is the standing there, drafting and deleting, while the window quietly closes.
The "22 Rules" stripped out my hesitation. What to open with, how to keep it alive, and the one habit that costs guys more women than anything else: waiting for perfect.
You asked her if she wanted to grab coffee. Then you asked if the time worked. Then you asked if the place was okay. Then you asked if she'd prefer tea.
Four questions. Four chances for her to say no. Four signals that you're terrified of making a decision.
Plan it. Pick the place. Pick the time. Tell her where to meet you. She'll either show up or she won't.
Either way, you look like a man instead of a scared little boy.
Now, don't take this as me criticizing, it's not. I thought the post was excellent. But I think as men, we need to be careful don't to give away some of the 'power' we do have in an attempt to be completely independent of all things women. If a woman is breaking up with you, then that means there's SOMETHING in your life that you can improve upon, 9 times out of 10. I'm all about the general rule, not the exceptions.dasein said:Note that -all- of the numbered items are purely the man's fault, and none on the woman.
Your buddy Dave has been single for three years and thinks "hey u up" is a valid strategy. Your other buddy Mike just got dumped and told you to "just be yourself."
You showed them her text. You asked them to decode the emoji. You drafted four responses and sent the screenshot to the group chat for a vote.
She's been waiting forty minutes.
Put the phone down. Stop crowdsourcing your love life. Type something that sounds like you. Hit send. Then go do literally anything else with your evening.
dasein said:Wow. There is no way in hell a normal heterosexual man with any significant experience with good looking women wrote that article. That's the most AFC mangina twaddle I've read so far this year (and I generally don't use those terms... but it is what it is). Note that -all- of the numbered items are purely the man's fault, and none on the woman. Note also that despite the title, those aren't signs at all but just cliched flaws or faults that lead to signs of breakup. Here is my list of real signs from experience, not because my weepy platitudinous male vagina told me so to write a BS story for a website, but because this is how it is:
1. A significant change in pattern of behavior that could include many variables, diet, gym, classes, more or less personal or phone contact, dress, spending, drinking, more sex. less sex, nights out without you, a whole host of anomalous change factors possible here. She is beginning to recreate a life without you in it and planning to get back on the horse pronto after she mopes for a weekend about what may take you months or years to get over. She is already broken up, may not even know it herself, and is healing herself so that by the time you aren't conveniently around, her life is already restructured. Keep abreast of her habits and curious changes in them.
2. Your gut tells you something is not right, a fishy feeling of sorts, and you have little or no history of jealousy or clinginess in relationships. Where there is smoke there is fire. If you are good at cards, gambling, stock market, always factor in your subconscious. We receive cues all day every day through every sense that we discount because they can't be verbalized. Get in touch with your subconscious and get caught offguard by women much less.
3. Poker type tells in communications. Telling you too much information, more than is necessary, about comings and goings. Going into infinite detail about minutiae. Strange "testing" tension in the voice, shifting eyes, etc. are possible indicators. Lots of talk about her friends and their BFs, even if framed a bit negatively, she is still telling you, "you don't measure up." These depend on the woman in question, most women are lousy poker players and show their hands constantly.
4. New work friends or groups, lots of phone/text with new people, particularly male "friends." Women almost never break up without a new branch unless you have done something truly abhorrent, they will be cultivating these new branches long before the actual breakup.
5. Sexual, in line with changes in 1, but deserves it's own category. They will reduce the amount of sex overall, then be very demanding of it out of the blue. They will appear or dress unattractively, resist sex under whatever claim, then suddenly demand it in forceful ways. You can see this exact same behavior in people trying to quit cigs or drinking. She is weaning herself off of you, goes as long as she can, then must have the fix. Eventually she can go cold turkey.
6. They become exposed to greater wealth or social status in one way or another, either a new job, a wealthy wedding, a party with celebrities, anything in their lives that persists in putting them among a higher socioeconomic element than you are. You can have a perfect relationship. literally perfect, and this factor alone will create a breakup. Sometimes it's as vulgar as her breaking up a very good multi year relationship based on a tiny chance of hooking a big fish. Be very careful when your woman's life changes such that she is regularly exposed to wealthy people... unless you yourself are wealthy.
Those are the main ones I've experienced over many years and many relationships, but caveat emptor, I don't really do the monogamous relationship thing any more, haven't for some time, and advise against such after you have attained some level of mastery over your sex life and ability to get sex from different women when you want. IMO, monogamous relationships with women in the US are such a bad, biased deal for the man that they should be avoided. YMMV of course. None of them are "new" or any kind of Eureka realization. Others can surely add more to this list.
I actually agree with this. I think some guys have been burned so bad they think women will dump them at the drop of a hat, but generally speaking if she has high interest and you have your sh*t together (job, life, attitude, game), you aren't going to get dumped unless you really let your game go slack and stop caring.speed dawg said:Men who have their sh*t together typically don't get dumped.
That sentence contains at least five follow-up questions she WANTS you to ask. Where in Florida? What brought you here? How long have you been in the area? What do you miss? How does it compare to here?
She handed them to you on a silver platter. And you said, "Oh cool. I come here every week. I love this band. Ummm... pretty crowded tonight."
She smiled politely. Nodded. And never texted you back.
I was that guy for years. Talking too much. Listening too little. Panicking about my next sentence while she was literally feeding me the answers.
Then I found 22 rules that fixed the whole thing. Rule number one: shut up and listen. She'll tell you exactly what to say.
Wise words!dasein said:Listening to conventional wisdom, like that link in the OP, will get young men a biased, feminized version of reality that stacks the cards against men. Don't sit at that table, cards are marked, game is rigged.