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.
Three seconds. That's how long it took. Your shoes. Your posture. The way you held your drink. Whether you looked at the floor or looked at her.
She already filed you away. Interesting. Boring. Safe. Bold. Before you even opened your mouth.
Everything you say after that is just her confirming what she already decided.
So stop rehearsing lines. Fix the first three seconds. Stand tall. Look up. Smile like you mean it. Walk like you belong wherever you're standing.
The words come later. The impression comes first.
Are you nuts @bigneil?(Poon King and da dynamically were on the right path before being executed).
As much as I love sazc and BeExcellent providing female views, we see by their failure to condemn this parasitical welfare system why we never should have let women vote. They think "Well, maybe someday I'LL be useless so let's keep a safety net that requires one human per thread".
Ok, great, but tell that to some of these people battling me every night, instead of joining the battle against me.Are you nuts @bigneil?
Let's get real here & set the record straight. I'm a HUGE advocate of greatly reducing (to those truly disabled persons only) the welfare state in the US. As a landlord I am utterly disgusted by the ability of women to go have babies, and milk the system (Read: MY hard earned tax dollars I can think of 6000 better things to do with), to the tune of 60K per year on free food, free housing, free care, the whole nanny state enchilada. Disgusted.
I see first hand people who milk the disability system because they are lazy...and the US continually reinforces/incentivized the WRONG behaviors. My taxes fund some able bodied leisured poor person which frosts me royally.
This system makes me ANGRY because it punishes me for going out there and doing the right thing and earning a living as a self employed person. I have NO safety net. I never have. I support my children, my ex, and provide wages to people who work for me.
There are no govt handout for me. Are you joking? The system thinks I'm RICH! Just like the system thinks Neil is rich too.
Disassemble the system & suddenly people will actually get off their backsides and have to go work. Every service industry employer in my area has a help wanted sign up. Why?
Because the employee pool that would otherwise take those jobs is getting high & taking mailbox money.
Obviously you know NOTHING about my stance on welfare. Nor have you bothered to ask.
OP's readiness to be her next branch intensifies:Would this be a perfect opportunity to be that new branch when or if she monkey branches?![]()
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.