Dinner ran three hours. She laughed at everything. You walked her to her car thinking this one's locked in.
Then: nothing. Two texts. No reply. What happened?
You did what most men do on a great date. You filled every silence, answered every question, and left her with nothing to wonder about. No mystery. Nothing to sit with when she got home.
Rule 3 of the "22 Rules" changes the ending: tell her a little, hold back the rest, and let her imagination do the chasing. The ghosting stops too.
Next Monday you'll feel more confident. After the gym you'll feel more confident. After one more drink you'll feel more confident. After you get a better haircut, a better jacket, a better job.
You've been "getting ready" for two years.
She's standing ten feet away right now. She'll be gone in four minutes. No amount of preparation will manufacture the courage that only comes from moving your feet.
Walk over. Stumble through the first sentence. Let it be clumsy. Let it be imperfect. You will feel more alive in those ten seconds than you have all month.
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.
Agreed , the OP work in some kind of marketing/sale job , these jobs are very unpredictable and make the person very stressed when he cant get customers or make sale because that mean no money .zekko said:I probably should stay out of this but I'll throw my two cents in:
Everyone keeps telling you to keep following you dream and build your business, but it seems like your efforts are constantly disappointing you. Maybe you just need to get into a different line of work. Being an entrepreneur isn't for everybody. When I was in my 20s, I had two different "dreams" that I had that I was following, neither of which panned out for me. I realized that they weren't working so I went on to something else.
That doesn't mean you have to be stuck into a dead end job forever, necessarilly. Find something with some room for advancement, if you can. Or that provides valuable experience.
Life isn't perfect for anyone and you can't expect work to be all pleasure and light. They call it work for a reason. In the US, and on this forum, everybody tries to sell you on this "I love my job, I love what I'm doing" type of thing, but honestly, I look around me in real life and I see damn few people who can really say that. And even for those that do, I bet there are mornings when they don't want to get up and do it. Most of us have to work, they call it labor for a reason. It is what it is.
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.
Absolutely. I would even go further and say with a 9-5, you are free 16 hours a day--and weekends. An entrepreneur has no freedom; he/she is slave to the business 24 hours a day--every day.samspade said:If you are an entrepreneur you have your clients who pay you and are your bosses. There IS no "independence."
guru1000 said:Absolutely. I would even go further and say with a 9-5, you are free 16 hours a day--and weekends. An entrepreneur has no freedom; he/she is slave to the business 24 hours a day--every day.
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.
Golden, and the inverse is true as well. Happy people invite other happy people into their lives naturally.Mauser96 said:One thing I can tell you, is your poor attitude comes through in all aspects of your life. Negativity scares people off.
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.