Does anyone else have trouble not caving into emotional manipulation? It is the one area I always find myself resorting back to my old nice guy ways.

A woman I started dating a little while back moved into a condo an hour away. We made plans almost a week prior to go out for a second date. She said she was free after work on Wednesday. She sends me an email last minute the night before saying that she now has no idea what time she will get off work, and she would have to drive from work, to the location, and then back to her place. So she wanted to do next Thursday instead. This was BS because the drive was always going to be a factor. The day/time was her idea. Obviously she was trying to hold out for a better location to drive less.

So I tease her for playing hard to get and then let her know that we will treat it like renting a movie. If you hold out on returning for too long, you pay a late fee and that our next date is on you. She says I am being demanding but that she has no trouble paying for things. However, she thinks we should compromise on the location because it is an awfully long drive for mini golf. So right away she uses the relaxed nature of the date to guilt me into switching locations. I tell her that she is still paying though. She proceeds to send me an email the next day detailing the worst night of her career as a nurse in graphic detail telling me that it is a good thing she cancelled on me because of how bad the night was and how she was forced to stay three hours longer than expected.

The only reason why she would reveal so many graphic details including a man bleeding to death from every orifice would be to make me feel like complete shit. Textbook emotional manipulation 101. So of course, I call her and leave a message saying how sorry I am that she went through such an ordeal and that she should call me so we can talk later. That was a few days ago with no call back. So now I assume she is no longer interested because I ended up wussing out..

Hey dude. I appreciate you don't want to be taken advantage of but you might have overreacted to the cancellation. The response to a female's emotional manipulation isn't male emotional manipulation: if she starts flaking on you, you don't start blackmailing her, even if you're joking or trying to make it playful.

Dealing with flakes, it's always best to react as little as possible. If you have other things going on in your life, you're not going to be waiting around for that Wednesday date. And if you honestly have nothing else going on, at least pretend you do. Don't be the guy who waits by the phone. Be the guy who dates, parties, does business... at all times of the week. Be interesting and independent.

Getting pushy with a flake will push her away. Being non-pushy will make her feel more comfortable. Having a busy and interesting life will seem attractive.

It's also possible she wasn't manipulating you at all. Shit comes up. People make plans based on what they know, and then a crisis comes up. Work is a bitch like that. (And maybe an hour IS a long drive for mini golf.)

It sounds like you've been burned by some girls before with some A-level emotional manipulation. Don't assume that's what every girl is doing to you when she asks for something, or changes her mind about something. I won't tell you to let your guard down, because you don't want to be taken advantage of. But don't let any girl ever see any hint that you might be a jealous, controlling asshole. Most girls have had a boyfriend like that, and being the opposite of that is much more attractive.

Thanks for the advice. Yeah I have been burned by women who used manipulation and took advantage, but it was my own fault for falling for it. So now I am trying to assert myself more and not let myself be taken advantage of.

The question though is how do you draw the line between not being effected and going with the flow to always being at her beck and call? If you always act like you don't care about a last minute switch in plans, it makes it seem like you are always on her time table and you have no respect for your own time.

You're asking the question that you should be asking of a girlfriend. You've gone out with her on one date.

There is no "always at her beck and call". There's only trying to schedule a second date.

If there's a problem scheduling one time, it's way more unattractive to react poorly than it is to shrug it off.

If there's a problem scheduling two times, then respecting your time means spending your time on people who value it, not wasting more time reacting to her.

Good post. Thanks for the advice. With her it was a bit different though because it had been a month between the first and second date. Her grandma died the day of our first date, then she had to go home for a week, I was busy when she got back, then she was dealing with moving the week after that, etc.. Both our lives were busy/hectic. However, we stayed in contact the whole time, with flirting and building sexual tension both with phone calls and email. So there was much more time involved than the usual meet and greet with the first and second date happening soon after.

However I agree with you that I should have just brushed off the re-schedule and then dropped her if she remained inconsistent.

I'm gonna be real blunt. You're playing the game too hard. She wants a closer date? Would you rather drive further or not go out with her? If the answer is "drive further" then fucking do it. If not, then she's not really worth bothering over, correct?

I'm guessing you've spent way more time thinking about this than the drive, so my answer is to learn to compromise. This isn't a point scoring game where if she gets one single thing she wants, you lose.

A while ago I took a girl out and in the parking lot she said "I don't like the looks of this place... can we go somewhere else?". I didn't think to myself "Oh, dear God, if I compromise and go somewhere else, she will soon grab a strap on and fuck me in the ass :/". I said "Sure. I have another place I wanted to take you, but it was a little further away "

It was really no big deal.

Anyway, here is what I would do. Rather than text her, I'd call her. Tell her you've got to be up in a town no more than 20 miles away from her on Thursday(not Friday) and you'd like to meet up with her that night. If she doesn't reply, she's lost interest, move on and stop thinking about it.