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.
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.
Remember when you used to be friends with chicks and how they used you like an emotinal tampon as you followed them around? Thinking you were in "looove"?The_Reaper said:I do care - I want to be exclusive with her, but I don't want to demand it to her. I don't know how to go about telling her this - that i want us to be exclusive, without sounding too afc, you know? plus i wont see her for months, so it would give the impression that i'm obsessed with her
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.
And why do you want to be exclusive with her?The_Reaper said:I do care - I want to be exclusive with her, ...
... plus i wont see her for months...
i guess you just want all the girl's attention to be focused on you, insecurity on your part. you may not exactly be dastardly in love with her.. but instead convincing yourself to believe it is so.Francisco d'Anconia said:And why do you want to be exclusive with her?
Freakin' signed.Francisco d'Anconia said:Why should you care? You're not exclusive.