And then his interest wanes and he starts treating her like an option instead of a priority? When can you let a guy know you are interested! Is dating just one big game? How do you get a guy to treat you like priority instead of an option? An excellent question that has been posed by women since time immemorial. There he was, totally interested, looking dapper in his buffalo skin while nonchalantly swinging his club at the cave entrance, offering you some freshly killed mastodon meat. There he was, showing up outside your castle window every day in his mostly shiny but frankly also a little rusty armor, strumming his lute and warbling his troubadour songs. What is up with that?! Why do men lose interest? What, if anything, could you have done differently? However, I do know that I have been that man many, many times. In the meantime, it still sucks to be on the receiving end. There are forces that strengthen the bond between two people, and forces that weaken it. For example, seeing a lot of each other generally strengthens the bond. Living far apart weakens the bond. Shared values bond; their violation separates. If the net forces bonding a couple are greater than those separating them, they tend to stay together. Otherwise, they come apart. So far, so obvious. Two strangers are gambling on each other, hoping something may come of it. In the meantime, an endless panoply of potentially better choices are just a swipe, click or happy hour mixer away. Why waste time when a better match is around the corner? Therefore, in the early stages of courtship, people in this age of electronic dating are in Merciless Elimination Mode. You support the wrong candidate? You own a yappy purse dog? Or a cat that sheds? And with the length of courtship going from months see: Emma by Jane Austen , to days see: 20 th century telephone era , to minutes for reading an online profile, and 0. If you think this is lame and stupid, I wholeheartedly agree. Relatives and pets die. Oh no, final exams! People get sued, sick, or sick of getting sued. In my naïveté, I even considered one of the ladies to be marriage material. Never saw either of them again. But in the early phases of courtship e. Time to move on. ANTIDOTE: This is not the kind of thing you can prevent or control. The key take-away from this is that you should not take such vanishings personally. The guy was only so interested to begin with. Men will go out with you for all kinds of reasons. He actually likes you, but he finds your earnest Christian tendencies dampening his enthusiasm. He senses that your enthusiasm for sex is far greater than his. Do men really have all these thoughts? Well, this man has. And I bet many other men have, too. If you want steady boyfriend leading to marriage and 2. And if his interest in you is limited from the start, then things can only go so far. You flipped the chase. This is going to be tasty. Then, suddenly, the gazelle sees you from the corner of its eye, turns around, and starts galloping towards you at full speed. And it kinda does have pointy long horns… Ahh, do I really want to do this? Now he has to rethink the whole situation, perhaps totally losing interest in this particular gazelle. There was the girl who invited me to her senior year final dance in college who was all over me much more than I was all over her. There was the super sweet, cute Midwestern girl in med school whom I tried so hard to charm. There has to be a catch. Much safer to bail than to deal. And at a very primitive level, remember that men enjoy the chase. Why should he be thrilled about your taking away his thrill? ANTIDOTE: Once again, more cluelessness than malice operating here. Best not to take it personally. Sometimes you have to prime the pump to get things going again. When were you planning on taking me out again, big boy? If he takes the bait, game on. He found a supposedly better deal. Once upon a time, I was dating three lovely women. Then I met this really cute, supersmart adventurous grad student at a party. We hit it off, the sex was amazing, and now there were four. And she was perfectly okay with my other liaisons. But if you would like to choose to continue with just me and get deeper, I would really welcome that. And, thinking about them now, they were great women. To them, it was deus ex machina, an abrupt end without explanation. But from this vantage point, you can see the submerged part of the iceberg. And you know what? So did I make the right decision? Was she in fact the better deal? Well, that was one of the most disastrous relationships I have ever had. The woman in question turned out to be a dedicated misandrist translation: she hated men and a pathological liar who casually neglected to disclose the existence of a fiancé in Europe while she was declaring her undying love to me. This all happened before online dating became so pervasive, and way before the swipey apps. And before you get all judgey, were you swiping during a bathroom break when you were on a date with a guy you liked? Your awareness of the existence of such choice also makes you reluctant to invest too much, dooming the whole process from the start. Not much you can do to prevent that these days, except to a select for people who share your relationship goals and are willing to invest some time to get to know you and b refrain from embroiling yourself in digital dating so at least one of you remains interested in the courtship process. There was something funny about the sex. Like most organisms, I like sex. It can be too freaky. It can be too vanilla. There can be issues with noise, lack of noise, or unkempt pubic hair. She may want to smoke weed in my bed and set the bedroom, apartment and whole neighborhood aflame. Perhaps people are even more particular with sex than with food. Judging by the sheer proliferation and variety of porn sites, the number of sexual proclivities probably outstrips dietary ones by an order of magnitude. So if the two of you find out about this mismatch the first time the clothes fly off, it may just be the last time. This has happened to me many times, often before sex even happens. And sexual compatibility is a big one, encoded at the deepest level of who we are — our DNA. For the love of the planet, keep on moving. A note about porn: thanks to the internet, young men nowadays have access to a quantity and variety of pornography unprecedented in the history of mankind. By sheer volume, this forms the bulk of their sexual education, the setting of their expectations, and the wiring of their neurology. Because you will encounter some outlandish requests, and you will want to say no. Porn is the fast food of sex: perhaps harmless in small enough doses, but a certain destroyer of pleasure and well-being in large doses. Be wary of those who make it the mainstay of their diet. But get better at it. Consult some books, classes and workshops and get thee some skills. He kinda forgot how cool you were. Whereas checking out the Sports Illustrated, Xbox or pony-tailed blonde right in front of him requires no extra work. But once I leave the place, you are now competing for headspace with everything else in the world. I get about 50-70 emails per day, and meet 5-10 new people socially per week. There are also events, meetings, groups, friends, professional and family commitments. But hold on here a minute — everything I said up there is true of everyone in modern industrialized cities. ANTIDOTE: Luckily, the solution to this one is easy: let your presence be known! And as men, by now we know that if you throw any amount of interest in our general direction, no matter how trivial, there is still hope. So if you do want to get fancy, there are subtly effective campaigns of reminding how cool you are which work well. Throw a dinner party and invite him. Or just subtly showcase your full and exciting life. In other words, be on his mental radar. Even if it truly was meant to be, you first need to remind him that you exist. You had incompatible attachment styles. Without getting into the social psychology too much, a quarter to a third of all people have avoidant attachment styles. Of course, you can have a secure attachment style, be perfectly decent to someone, cook meals, be a great partner — and the other party will still escape. Attachment style mismatch often means doomed match anyway. This kind of thing is going to happen with some regularity. And when it does, instead of blaming yourself or getting angry, count your blessings. You just dodged a huge bullet! ANTIDOTE: Attachment styles are established early in life and tend not to change unless you put in some deliberate work. So changing your own style is plenty hard enough without attempting to change your partner. This is not my area of expertise, so I refer you to the aforementioned book. Your first date did not go well. Both parties are auditioning for one another. This is not a formula for two people connecting successfully. That said, there are ways to make it even more likely that your first date is your last. You can be more interested in talking to other guys, and give all of them your business card. Do these things actually happen? To me, yes, and all in the last month. And you know little about your compatibility after one date especially if it goes spectacularly well. Here, allow me to quote myself. Keep your cell phone off and out of view, give him your full attention, and be interested. You were dealing with a professional player. There is a certain class of men who are chiefly interested in RELDs — relationships of extremely limited duration. If you meet him in Belize on a 3-day weekend you have specifically set aside for a fling, then fine — have fun with it. Some players are looking for the quick and easy score. Giovanni Giacomo Casanova are motivated by the thrill of conquest, pursuing persistently until they get their trophy. This is not a formula for making you happy. ANTIDOTE: Like with crack cocaine or polio, when it comes to players, prevention works best. Sometimes, you really did pick your nose or rhapsodize too enthusiastically about your machine gun collection on the first date, so he legitimately ran. Above all: do not take this stuff too personally. What you can do is to get your own house in order. First of all, be good company. You can actually get the audiobook version for free at when you sign up for their 30-day trial. This means you are potentially interested in forging a better version of yourself, and also have one hellva attention span. Merely understanding information, however, does not necessarily translate into transformation. Whatcha gonna do about it, lady? In the end, everyone that you meet is an opportunity to practice being more loving. And authentic happiness comes not from what you can get out of the world but what you can contribute to it. Keep those two principles in mind, and your love life — heck, all of your life — can only get better every day. Ali — so how about if your relationship of 10 months is going this direction? I am actively working on becoming less anxious, as that is causing some problems with other relationships as well. We both want this to work — his only complaint is that I complain, as unfortunate as that sounds. I actually had the pleasure of confirming one of your reasons a while back. I got a text about 3-4 months after the fact from the guy I dated briefly 4 dates, no sex who ghosted me. I was surprised that he took the time to explain why he went pouf in the first place. He explained that he was simultaneously seeing another woman from across the pond that he was mildly obsessed with and he went off to pursue that with gusto. From my perspective since I am a Tao of dating convert , my approach to dating is similar to that of a student of the men I date. I sit, listen, watch and learn. So, this just served as confirmation that my instincts about him from the beginning were spot on. It was actually very empowering. Now I had an explanation. So, in the end, it always goes back to being ruthlessly honest with yourself. Most likely, the reasons why men go pouf have nothing to do with us. I know you disapprove of my last statement Dr. Ali but I actually love Tinder and Bumble and have met some amazing men there. Anyway, I do believe I understand what Dr. Ali meant with the statements about letting a man chase. If a man is actively chasing you, i. Would you extend that advice to men? The issue I have is that this paradigm tends to be one sided. Women are asked to date less appealing and often less suitable men whereas it is considered perfectly fine that men will only date really hot women hot, of course, being subjective. Why is that men are given the leeway to forgo a second date based purely on appearances, whereas women are told to give him another and another chance? I have had far too much experience with this paradigm to have much patience for it. Even if initially, he did not really find him attractive. And why so much focus on physical appearance anyways?? I think the most important is how he makes you feel. You could date a super hot guy and he makes you feel like crap. Physicall appearance is not everything. Met a guy over a year ago while taking a break from a long term relationship, we had a instant connection and we dated for maybe 2 months. Then, I decided to get back together with my then boyfriend. This summer fling kept texting me every couple of months to check in on me and see if I was still with my boyfriend. Time was finally right for us to get together. We dated for 5 months. About 4 months into it, I asked him to get off the dating sites, even though we had discussed taking our relationship slow, which I was fine with, just not the dating sites. Was I wrong to be upset over the sites? I truly got my hear vested with this guy and he broke it and will no longer talk to me because I got mad about it and told him it was BS! Is this just a typical player? I am so knew to the dating scene and I really want to wrap my head around all of this so I can move on. He has to arrive at the decision on his own. Lean back and mirror him, observe his actions and act accordingly. Seems like Love is getting harder to find without instructions Oooh Diana, sorry about what you are going through. Its smtg subconsciously sucking away my enthusiasm Hi Dr. Met a guy online. Chated for 2 weeks. I know we were great before we even met went on a date. It was so special. Second date he came to my house. He cooked, we hung out for 7 hours. We left the date with another one planed for the following week. I got very comfortable with him and I think I killed the chase. Neither of us contacted the other. Should I contact him? Too much too soon …by third date you should still just be going out for dinnercor movies.. I always go by saying those who rush in normally rush out.. Went on dates slept with people ect…….. I suggest you find someone from somewhere other then a dating site lol. I feel like we have the same avoidant attachment side with maybe a hint of clingyness from my part. Just a hint, lol. So about 2 weeks about my boyfriend broke up with me on the weekend of our 1 year anniversary and said he was no longer interested. We just got back from visiting his parents and that visit went amazing. I just dont know why he did it. He said either we would break up or get married. Why did this happened? We had more of a misunderstanding than anything and he thought I was the one being aloof! I decided to post this, because maybe sometimes, we just overthink things and tell ourselves stories based in no reality. Hang in there for those seeking some guidance, and thank you for your insight Dr. I know this dating stuff is about as personal as things get, but the less personally you take this haphazardness of modern communication, the better you will do. Ali, or anyone reading this, please help me as soon as possible. A guy messaged me on Facebook, we went back and forth, exchanged numbers, then met in person. We have a lot in common. We went on three more dates the next week. After date three, his texting pattern changed. I panicked I guess and asked if he still wanted to see me. A couple days went by, no texts. He said he probably can but has been sick. I said ok, what do you have in mind. He said idk yet. So I said ok, i understand, so maybe some other time. A week went by, no texts. I had something to drink one night and texted him about it. Thinking of you cuz just drank some whisky. I said something else. They are over protective. On our last date, he talked about taking me fishing in spring and to take pictures and start a band with his friend. He wanted to cuddle, and probably kiss. We never did either. He told me many times but always said he had fun. Did I maybe flip the chase? If I did, can I reverse it? Do i sound desperate or clingy? Do I need text him again? Do I wait it out? Does he just need a break? If you had to guess where it went wrong, if it went wrong, where did it? Is it hopeless or am I paranoid? What should I do? But I warn you that this will only make it harder to let this one go because now you know you lost your chance with a great guy. But it gave me closure. Now I have to go listen to that Metallica song.
