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.
When a woman says it, guys hear a confession. A heads-up. A scheduling conflict.
Here's the translation: I don't feel anything. Right now. With you.
Watch what happens when a man triggers actual attraction. The busy career, the recent breakup, the "not in a place to date" — all of it evaporates instantly. The same woman who was guarding her freedom is suddenly free every night.
The "22 Rules" explain why. When the right switches flip, her timeline rearranges itself around you.
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.
Yeah, the 40 year old is damaged goods, no argument here, but it's more physical (possibly beat up *****, 2 kids running around) whereas the stripper is emotionally/mentally damaged goods. To me, mental pain is worse than physical pain. I doubt the 40 year old would play mind games to the level the stripper would. Strippers are no good for your mental health.bigneil said:I seem to be losing the debate.
But MisterD I didn't say wholesome I said MORE wholesome.
No 40 year old divorced mother of 2 is wholesome either.
Everyone has there vices.MM92 said:What is your obsession with strippers?
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.
:crackup: :crackup: :crackup: :crackup:TonyBaloney said:I now add myself to the choir of voices that think Neil has psych problems.
The whole thread of late about breaking NC with the stripper was just nuts, now you have absolutely confirmed in my mind that your suffering in the mind. Poor you. I would suggest a visit to a good shrink, Neil! This is one hell of a big hole your in, aint it?
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.
Exactly! I always knew the stripper was a stripper and (let's face it) sells sex for a living.Mike32ct said:We dont really know the whole story. Did the 40 yo ride the carusel for many years? Did she cheat and then divorce and take some guy to the cleaners? Or was he really an a$shole, and she rightly divorced him?
:nervous: :nervous: :nervous: :nervous: :nervous:bigneil said:Exactly! I always knew the stripper was a stripper and (let's face it) sells sex for a living.
What did the non-strippers have for issues?
1) HB7, 47, Had 2 kids (smoking hot 18-19 year olds), secretly about to go bankrupt in her business and lose her Visa.
2) HB8, 36, Not sure if she could get pregnant, then got pregnant within months of our breakup.
3) HB8, 38, Had 1 kid, Told me she had Herpes right when we were about to have sex.
4) HB7, 42, Had 2 kids, had just divorced Microsoft Millionaire, and was ruthless toward him in front of me.
5) HB9, 40, Had 1 year old twins but had just been divorced and worked for Big Pharma.
6) HB7, 29, Had rage issues and would storm off at the bat of an eye and worked for Military Industrial Complex.
7) HB8, 25, Was an alcoholic and unemployed.
None of them were strippers. I like the stripper better than most of them.
It is man, we're both 23, none of us wants a clapped out 40 year old with a vagina as loose as KFC bucket and we don't want a 20 year old stripper who is clearly deranged and was probably abused as a child.San Jose California said:^Yeah for real. I'm not even gonna vote that's such a dumb poll.
LolSolomon said:keep trying to justify to yourself that just because your dating a "hot stripper" that she is quality because of hot she is or "wholesome" because she has no std's yet she is sliding up and down a pole smutting herself for dollars
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.