Hi guys,

Recently I met this cute girl in my class and hit it very well with her. Our class was having a casual party and we chatted a lot with each other. She was giving all the signals: hair playing, looking at me attentively, laughing at my silly jokes etc. We also built some kino by toasting and patting on her shoulder. So I asked her out for dinner when the party's done, to which she happily said yes (she was smiling when I asked and didn't blink her eye when saying this).

So I texted her 2 days later. No reply. I then called the same night, to which she replied a text: "no need to worry about dinner, but I'd love to see you." So I texted back suggesting going to an art exhibit. Still no reply.

I then called a week later or so. She recognized my voice and sounded surprised & happy on the phone. I asked her how she's been, and she said she's sorta busy and is going abroad that weekend. I was really shocked, and to catch my last chance to see her (really like this girl), suggested that we get together for dinner before she would leave. She said readily that she could allocate her good-bye party to another day and find some time. So I got off happily knowing she's going to tell me what time would work.

Then by Friday afternoon, I still didn't hear anything. The idea that she's leaving the country kept popping up in my frenzy mind. I couldn't help but called her twice and sent another text message (stupidest move hew!). Soon she replied saying she couldn't do dinner and she has a bf (wtf!)

I tried to be totally cool and replied a text saying it's not a problem and wished safe trip. Now there's been no contact. What should I do guys?

It's important to realise that I know exactly what happened, judging purely from her reaction, and not because of what detail you went into about what you did. I could read what you did and assume it went perfectly, but her reaction says so much more about what happened that night.

She was definitely into you that night, if she was flirting back, responding positive to kino, etc. Judging from what happened since then, it's blatantly obvious you didn't move far enough for her that night. If she's expecting things to get hot and heavy, and it doesn't, the deal is off. That's just biologically the way it works. She assumes you're either not interested, or don't know what to do next, or maybe even feels like she's not worth it (in some cases this can lead to a second chance but it's the worst reason since it's associated with low self esteem). Hell she may have just been horny and wanted to use you for your body that night. There's no way for you to really know at this point because you never made the move.

So things are going well, and there's no reason not to progress things forward, it's fun, it's exciting ... and you don't progress forward. What happens next? You try to contact her a day or two later to find out what's happening next, and she's polite for a while, how can someone not give at least one response? You had a nice conversation etc. social graces require her to at least politely respond. But eventually it becomes clear you're not going to give up and she has to fake unavailability, a boyfriend, or just stop replying altogether if she goes through this sort of thing quite often. When a woman "strings you along" after the first few responses, it's only because she's struggling with the guilt that you haven't actually done anything "wrong" but she needs to politely get you to stop contacting her in this fashion. Most seasoned women just flat out stop responding after the first response, in this situation.

The bottom line is you already failed that night, when the biology test that's got us here through millions of years of evolution, has come up "fail" for her. That's it. It's easily explained, but is the source of a lot of awkward conversations between men and women. Often this test fail can't be reverse-engineered into words easily when it's discussed, and women will often give confusing, and even contradictory reasons as to why you're no longer an option. The way you said X, when you did Y - and if she's pressured and being caused to feel negative about it, she'll even twist the past postive experiences to actually be negative ones. It's not a concious decision. You didn't qualify as a mate and the avenue is now cut off, and that includes discarding previously positive experiences. They are now seen in the current light that she sees you now.

So, what actually happened, and how did you fail the test. Well, as described, things were going well. There is NO reason not to progress. There are countless examples of men, who decide to make a move given the current way things are going, and sometimes get rejected, but are so cool with it, it causes more attraction. You have to remember this. You have to see progression, not just as something you want to do (because that can get creepy, everyone knows that) but as something that she possibly wants to do. How do you know? If you're escalating, and she's ONLY responding positively, you NEED to escalate further. Until she stops responding, or responds a little negative. That's your job as a male, to take the initiative to find out how things are going. Biologically, women "understand" this, and when you make a move, eg. go for a kiss, and she rejects you, but it's reasonable to her "well I was giving off strong vibes" she won't instantly respond negatively. It's how you react to the rejection that then matters. That's also another biological test. If you're cool with it, it means you "get it", and she will feel comfortable that it's not easy to make you awkward, and that indicates a level of strength in your person that can't easily be faked, and that's super attractive. Most of the time, if she's flirting back as strongly as you said, 90% of the time it will end up in the bedroom anyway.

But the two main things to learn here, and these are NOT guidelines, these are FACTS;

* If she wants you to progress, you NEED to progress
* If you are rejected and are completely gentlemanly about it and keep things moving like it didn't happen, that will actually earn you more points than if you never tried anything.

In my experience, there is a 1 in 10 chance you can have another shot at this woman, and it's almost always due to disappearing entirely and ending up in contact somehow - most likely not through you contacting her (maybe yes if you see something about her and say hi - eg. see her in the street or see a comment of her's on Facebook) but most likely through randomly bumping into each other again.

The end result of this one is to write her off completely and move on. Hold this experience in your mind with the next girl, watch for how she's feeling, and take the initiative to explore and further the interaction, it's your job as the male.

No it was not the case. It's casual but there were professors etc around. She also came with a friend of her father, so we were definitely not expecting to make out... But we knew each other before that from class and she always showed this level of interest...

We were not friends on fb...is it possible to ask a mutual friend to connect somehow? I'm so sad now I'm thinking about making funny Youtube videos to impress her lol

Oh, your timeline of events is clearer now. That changes my interpretation of the night entirely. I thought you were flirting at a party, and instead of progressing, you set up a dinner date for another night. What actually happened was all the flirting was happening during class, and then you spoiled it by saying "Bam! Dinner date!"

I will mention - saying "I'm taking you out to dinner" CAN work, if it's in the situation that you're walking in, and claiming what you want. You have a lot of confidence, so much that she's trusting you enough to just go with it. I saw it on "Catch me if you can" and I thought I'd try it for myself, next time I was hitting it off with someone. And you know, it worked. But because I way very ballsy and clearly claming what I decided I wanted. However, it was mostly based on looks, and that meant when dinner rolled around, it was very awkward because we were clutching at straws trying to think of something to talk about. If I was as practiced then as I am now, I would have ended the dinner as quickly as possible and bounced somewhere else just to spice things up a bit.

But anyway, back to your situation.

When you announce “dinner”, it has cultural connotations. When you ask a girl out to dinner, it’s a “date”. And when you ask a girl out on a date, you’re saying “I am now officially starting the courtship process.” This causes several things to happen;

• If it’s not the ballsy situation above, then it’s probably after you two have been getting along well for a bit, and flirting. And then it looks like “Wow I’m turned on by this girl, I’m asking her out on a date”, which is the opposite of the ballsy “I’m claiming you and taking you out on a date.”
• You kill all the mystery and the possibility of things being allowed to progress more naturally
• You put her in “courtship mode”, which is a place in her head that’s usually filled up with needy guys that took her out on a boring “official date” from the outset. It’s not the place in her head where relationships started naturally or spontaneously. There is a good chance she is going to enter “I have to get rid of this guy” mode once she wakes up the next morning and realises what she agreed to.
• You express too much interest, by diving into “I want to date you!” talk, which is not good for someone you only spent a bit of time with, so far, no matter how good it was, even if you had sex.
• You put a lot of social pressure on the both of you to treat this as a “date”, and you barely know each other
• You’re requiring the both of you to spend a decent chunk of time and money (dinner cost) on each other and you may not even get along that well, you don’t know yet.

That is why the unspoken tradition is generally to “meet up for coffee” (even though actually saying “let’s meet up for coffee” is kind of lame). The bottom line is, you just have to find any simple, low effort excuse to meet up again. If something requires a lot of effort, it’s going to be a risk of a time & money investment for not much reason yet, and the person pushing for it is going to look needy. A low effort meet-up can be a lot of things. It could be coffee, it could be during your lunch breaks if you work near each other, it could be something you’re already going to and inviting her along, it could even be a huge exciting music festival that you both happen to be going to that weekend with separate groups of friends but agree to text and bump into each other while you’re there - the bottom line is low effort, not so much what you’re doing.

And the way you set this up is very casually - "hey we should chat again sometime, what are you doing for lunch on X..." etc. that kind of tone. and personalise it a bit if at all possible, anything, eg. "... you can tell me how X went" or "maybe by then X won't have blah blah, hahaha" that kind of thing. Whatever the conversation provided. This is not EVERY situation, but it's a good guideline.

This approach works a lot better because it avoids all the problems above. You get to meet up in a very low pressure, casual situation, have a chat, see how you get along, you may have the option to continue spending time together that day and extend the night with a movie, clubbing, dinner, whatever takes your fancy. And if time constraints don’t allow, well at the end of your “coffee” or whatever it was, you have the option then of setting up something like that.

And you had the perfect reason - the party your class was throwing. You would have told her you were looking forward to seeing her at the class party (and personalise it a bit). Because if she liked you as much as she did during class, she'd probably never want to leave once you're both hitting it off at the class party, and you could then offer to "bounce" to some other place as the night gets on a bit, if at all possible. It could be dinner, could be a movie, could be a walk in a nearby park. Or it could just be exploring the venue together, eg. sneaking out into the back rooms and trying doors to see which ones are open, and finding where they store things, feels a bit naughty.

So hopefully now you can see why arranging to meet up casually is so much more effective than “asking her out to dinner”.
After what you said she’s doing now? Fuck no. I already told you, this one is gone. Right now she’s nothing more than a painful lesson that you’re going to keep in your mind for the next girl you hit it off well with. Even though it doesn’t seem like you did anything that bad, it’s over, and this is just what we have to deal with as men. Use the energy to practice hitting on other random girls in the street or at the bus stop or whatever, as you go about your daily business. (Never go out for the sake of hitting on girls, because it will always feel like that and you will give off the wrong vibe)

If her response since that night has been; “no dinner, I’m busy, I’ll get back to you, I have a boyfriend”, she’s clearly pushing you away, and if you make YouTube videos for her, it’s going to be really creepy. While she’s already gone to you, the social implications for this could be very bad. That biological decision has already been made - it's important to understand that it's over now, and nothing can be done to change it. Anything you do will be more "reasons" for her not to like you.

This is what every guy goes through when they had something and then they lost it - it’s not just the feeling of losing something but it’s a feeling of self-deficiency that you did something to ruin it but not knowing what it is. But I’ve fast-tracked the situation for you by explaining what happened, so you can learn from this much more effectively and move on quicker.

I kinda agree with your theory about dinner, myself having experience before with others girls dodging dinner invitation at first but accepted readily more fun activities. But I think dinner is the place where you'll actually connect by deepening the conversation...So I'd definitely push for a dinner after getting to know her a little better. Anyway, that moment I really thought her interest level was high enough to break through the pressure (would never assume that again).

What I could have done better is probably being resilient but taking the process slower. Because I simply couldn't help if she started associating anything she'd do with me with "social pressure". Lunch, coffee, going to a concert? The moment I announced that I would like to see her again means to her that the "courtship process“ started, doesn't it? But I could still keep the process going (contacting once or twice a week), and demonstrating to her the high values to gradually convince her how awesome it would be to go out with me.

Back to the current situation...I'm thinking about making some funny Youtube videos totally irrelevant to her but demonstrating my versatility, and have our mutual friend spread it on fb. That would be a pretty good DHV right? The first rule about PUA is that when your target is showing low interest, you should show low interest and demonstrate high value. She would run back to you automatically...

Um, this girl is not into you. She does enjoy the ego boost you keep giving her by begging for her to go out with you though.

I'm sorry, but if a girl is actually into you she will make time pretty much no matter what is going on in her life. Barring something nuts like having to actually work 90 hours in a week to finish a deadline or something crazy I've never encountered.

You need to chalk this girl up to "Not gonna happen".

And if you MUST keep chasing this girl, for the love of God *pretend* to have moved on. When she gets back, tell her you met this awesome girl on vacation and had a great time or something.

But my advise is really to let this go.

Yeah there are some rules you can never break. As a last resort, maybe. And yeah talking over "dinner" IS more intimate, that's exactly why it can be too much too soon.

You don't "push" for it man... you will feel when she wants it. When you're both talking about how to catch up next, throw a couple ideas out there and see what kinds of things she responds to. When it's time for dinner date it will be very much the right thing to do, you'd be crazy to ignore the vibe. You won't be "pushing" for anything. If you go through your dating life thinking you have to "push" to get anything, you'll always be an AFC. You'll keep yourself there by showing her early on that you have to push for things because you don't get them. You misunderstand - technically, courtship begins the moment you lock eyes. It's always on. But when you spell things out it destroys the mystery and the romance. Yeah you show interest but you don't slap a label on things. The only time that happens is when you're both ready to change your Facebook status to "in a relationship". Yes you show low interest, and demonstrate high value - if she gets to see that or not is always anyone's guess, but that's just the situation at that point. And no it's not a given she'll come running back. It's merely the best course of action in a bad situation.

If she doesn't think you made those videos for her, then no harm done I guess.

And Versalis is right.

new updates

So I added her on facebook and she quickly accepted. I'm going to post photos of my trip to India.

Today I saw her fb status that she's gonna be on a hotel rooftop for friends' birthday party. That happens to be the hotel where I'll be living for the night!!!

I plan to "run into" her during the night. How long should I stay with her? Should I mention our old story, or should I act as if I've completely moved on?

Thanks!

Hey Conker,

Can you give some examples on how to play it off cool when rejected during conversation. For instance, I'm talking with a girl and escalating then I go for a kiss...she pulls back or rejects...how does a guy recover cool?

I've been away for a while - how did the hotel night go?

Media, if you're still listening I'd be happy to give examples.

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