You've said it a hundred times. Maybe a thousand. And every time you say it, you train your brain to freeze the next time she walks into the room.
Leagues are a myth invented by guys who are scared of women.
She's a person. She has bad breath in the morning. She picks songs she can't sing in the shower. She overthinks her own texts.
Walk over. Say something. The league dissolves the second you open your mouth.
She calls you when her car breaks down. When she needs help moving. When some guy she's actually dating treats her badly.
You're the listener. The reliable one. The guy who would treat her so much better, if she'd just open her eyes.
She won't. You trained her to see you as the low-effort option — the friend who requires zero risk and zero investment. Every favor dug the hole deeper.
The "22 Rules" break the pattern. You'll stop auditioning for a role she already cast and become the man she chases instead. It starts with Rule 1.
I do have a lot of friends that I hang out with, and 5 or 6 that are my "best friends" but only one of them is really a good true friend.trv26 said:I know what you mean. I have a very small group of people i tend to hand out with. And even with these, I often don't know how trustworthy they are. Or perhaps its just me that finds it hard to trust people.
You paid for dinner. You drove. You said "whatever you want is fine" every single time. All the effort, no expectations.
And she left anyway — probably for a guy who makes her pick up the pizza.
Painful. Also predictable. Her mind quietly concludes that anything requiring zero effort from her is worth exactly zero. You became a free sample, and free samples get taken for granted.
The 22 Rules flip the dynamic. Small shifts that get her investing effort, money, and time in you — until SHE'S the one afraid of losing YOU.
Yeah, me too and I want a tight crew. My "boys" ditched me tonight.. Which actually doesn't happen often it all but it kind of proves my point that were really not that close at allFive To One said:Yeah i know what you mean. I could skip town and never see my friends again and it wouldnt be the worse thing in the world for me or them.
I just have trouble creating deep bonds with guys.
Anyone know why this may be?
steve_erkle said:now this isn't about girls but stick with me. After watching the show entourage and seeing the bond/ friendship that these guys have I started getting jealous because although I have a lot of friends I don't have a really tight brotherly friendship like I used to have and like the entourage guys have. I feel like I'm missing out . Anyone else feel like this?
Holy ****, man.. Now that I think of it I used to have a really close bond with this dude, who still is my best friend. we were like brothers, and people in school would joke and say we were homos together (elementary school).I didn't want that reputation and the friendship suddenly wasn't so tight becauss i didnt want people to think we were gay. This is probably what is holding me back from opening up.Voice said:Yea I'm feelin you on this one. I got a bunch of different friends, but I'm not real close with any of them. I think maybe its me having a problem getting close to people in general, not just guys or girls.
Look back at your life and try to see what will make you not trust people. I know a part of my life where I was real close to a group of friends, we did everything together. One day they just changed and started doin drugs and sht and totally ditched me, talked behind my back because I wouldn't do the sht they were doing. I made the right decision, but ever since then, I had a hard time making close friends.
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.
Awesome man, you really helped me out a lot. I don't think I'll see a therapist, at least not yet , but you're right about me being insecure about that- I do need to get more chicks. Anyway, thanks bro. And thanks to everyone else who replied too.Voice said:Well first of all, if your insecure about people thinking you're gay, there's only one way to stop this. Get some chicks!
Other than that, I really don't know. Opening up to people requires a lot of trust. If you join a club or class or something similar, you'll find other people more like you. They don't have to be the coolest people in the world, as long as you share interests and ideas, friendships can form. The most loyal friends I ever had were those who didn't care so much about being cool.
Another thing you could consider is therapy. I had to go to therapy when my grandma died when I was younger and it took some time to open up to the therapist. However, once I did I started to feel a certain trust for my therapist I never had before with anyone else. Eventually this trust moved on to other people. Who knows maybe I may consider going back to therapy for this problem itself.