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.
The operative here being ",..but, my girlfriend bought her own lingerie". Never buy a woman lingerie, she will never be happy with it. A woman has to do this on her own to feel sexy, make sure it fits her right, and it's HER IDEA. When you buy it for her it's contrived and it is overt and overt is the kiss of death for a man.
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.
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.
Are you talking about myspace?
negative
how did that work out?
Women see some humor in that phrase. It worked well with the women I already talked to.
sometimes thats not true.
Attraction runs on a clock.
She flirted for weeks. Touched your arm. Found reasons to be alone with you. And you were careful. Respectful. Waiting for the right moment.
The moment had a shelf life. It expired around month two, and by the time you asked her out, she'd quietly filed you under "little brother."
One of the hardest lessons inside the 22 Rules: women rarely wait. Interest either grows or it decays, and nothing decays it faster than a man who never moves.
Make the move while she's still inventing reasons to be near you.
good save.
Reminds me of a married woman on another website, who was in a ten year long marriage with a sailor and who, after ten years, wanted a divorce. She said she could no longer have sex with a guy she just "wasn't in love with" anymore. The woman claimed she couldn't stand the marriage any longer and couldn't imagine what she might end up doing (cheating) if she remained married. Her husband classically responded: "You can sleep with other guys if you want."