Creating an emotional connection VS playing hard to get

[Halo Effect]

Conversations with a girl I'm dating have made me think about what's the best way to actually get into a relationship with a girl. Of course, this is just one girl's view, and we have already established that we're not really compatible with each other. But still, read on.

As most of you know, in the PUA literature we're often advised to be asshole alpha males who play hard to get and make girls feel insecure so that they will chase us. And most of the men here reject that approach, in favor of a more honest and open approach, based on creating a real emotional connection and being "vulnerable".

I am wondering now: can we go overboard with the honesty and showing interest, being vulnerable and creating an emotional connection? And, especially, can we do all this too soon?

My own experience tells me that craving a person's validation is not a healthy foundation for a relation at all. Yet I have also noticed that, in the past, when a girl really, really wanted me, I took her for granted. I like to think that I simply haven't met the right girl yet, but perhaps I have to rethink my approach.

The girl I'm dating told me about the guy she dated before me. He sounds like the typical bad boy; being nice in person, telling her she's special, then not calling for months. After more than a year she still had no idea what was actually going on in his head. Yet she obsessed about him. He was intriguing and mysterious and fun. She thought about him all the time and, she says, she loved him.

I, on the other hand, have made her feel very safe and secure, very quickly. She doesn't worry about whether or not I like her. She doesn't obsess about me and she doesn't miss me much when we're apart. She just enjoys our time together, she can really relax with me, and we have good sex. But she thinks that, perhaps due to my openness and honesty, the "spark" is not there, and she doesn't fall in love with me. The tension and mystery are, perhaps for these reasons, missing.

So the thing is, I make her feel safe and secure in our "relationship" right away. She feels comfortable and at ease with me. This seems to be the opposite of me playing hard to get and her feeling needy and wondering whether I like her. Could honesty and openness, and NOT making her needy and insecure, reduce the chance of a girl falling for me?

The bad boy style of dating does work, at least on some women.. Am I right in thinking that the bad boy style is basically the opposite of being vulnerable and creating an emotional connection?

[Jon]

First, I'd say that it sounds like the girl you are with is a bit emotionally unstable. If she really is into guys that do shit like not calling her for months, and obsesses for a year, not healthy. Also, odd that she said she doesn't think about you when you are not around.

That said, there is something to be said for making yourself too available. I think that's really a matter of lifestyle. You should have lots of your own shit going on. You should also have boundaries. You can be vulnerable, but still be clear about what your expectations are and how fast you are comfortable going.

[Halo Effect]

Jon Wrote:First, I'd say that it sounds like the girl you are with is a bit emotionally unstable. If she really is into guys that do shit like not calling her for months, and obsesses for a year, not healthy. Also, odd that she said she doesn't think about you when you are not around.

That said, there is something to be said for making yourself too available. I think that's really a matter of lifestyle. You should have lots of your own shit going on. You should also have boundaries. You can be vulnerable, but still be clear about what your expectations are and how fast you are comfortable going.

To your first point, I get that it sounds odd that I know this stuff, but we're being very honest with each other and we talked about where our relationship is (not) going and why, and she knows I'm interested in pick up advice too, and I ask her about this stuff. She can basically speak her mind with me. She is actually very stable and one thing that attracted me to her initially was how positive everything in her life was. We haven't had a second of drama.

And yes, I'm wondering about that availability. There's two ways to go about it. One way is to have a life, so you don't have all day to talk to her, but when you DO talk with her, you are honest, nice, respectful and so on. No bullshit.

The second way is to consciously withhold affection at times, to make sure you're not too intimate too soon, to ignore her texts sometimes not because you have no time, but because you choose to do so for the effect it may have. Here you consciously decide that you won't be too nice because you want to keep her guessing.

Is the first way a bad way to go about it?

[Mark]

I think you're seeing these things as mutually exclusive when they're not. You can add mystery, spontaneity, excitement without compromising the honesty and vulnerability. To put it in lame MM terms: comfort and attraction should always be run at the same time. Right now it sounds like too much comfort, no attraction.

There are many ways to make a woman feel the things she's talking about. Not calling her and pretending to ignore her is one. Although like Jon said, that doesn't really lead to a healthy relationship. The other way is by being playful, teasing, surprising her with things... and by the way, being honest about when you DON'T like her, or when you want to be alone or whatever. It's easy to be honest and vulnerable when you're excited to see a girl. But can you still be that honest and vulnerable when you want her to go away, or when she says something that pisses you off? You said that you and this girl have had no drama... every healthy relationship has drama. Every healthy relationship needs drama. But it has to be actual drama, not fake drama. Not "I'm going to hang out with my female friend to make her jealous" drama. But actual "she's so pushy and it pisses me off, so I'm going to tell her to stop" drama. You know, the kind of drama you negotiate boundaries with.

THEN you get that sense you've worked for it. And you're right, we don't appreciate relationships we haven't worked for. No boundaries, no drama, no work, no appreciation. You may think you're being honest, but it just sounds like you're being easy-going, or not very in touch with your negative emotions. There's a section in Chapter 4 of my book about boundaries: it gets into how being honest and vulnerable is not always pleasant. In fact, it's often painful and creates drama.

There's an emotional escalation that happens with relationships, very similarly to physical escalation. Sometimes if a woman just physically says "hey, let's fuck" without you guys working up to it, it doesn't feel very exciting. But if you slowly build up to it over a period of hours, then it can be very exciting.

I'll reiterate what I said in the other thread: being honest and vulnerable doesn't mean walking around spilling your guts and feelings to everyone you talk to all the time. It's simply having the WILLINGNESS to spill your guts and feelings should the appropriate situation arise. If you want to create sexual tension, then take it slow. Keep some space between you and her. If you want more of a spark, start goofing around with her, playing games with her, making fun of her, teasing her, etc. And if everything is always "good" and there's never any drama, then chances are there's an elephant in the room and one or both of you is ignoring it.

OR... you two may just not be that compatible. But since this is a recurring thing for you, and knowing you (you're on the reserved side), I'm going to go with the stuff about boundaries and not being honest about negative feelings.

[Halo Effect]

Great responses.

Because I haven't told everything, some things are a bit inaccurate. I did do a few things right, but Mark's post definintely points out some weaknesses.

Not expressing negative emotions is something I found out recently...

I had no idea that I didn't express my negative emotions to girls I'm dating, but the thing with things you're not aware of is that you're not aware of them. Remember the last girl I emailed you about, Mark? Well, things ended in a total train wreck, unsurprisingly. It came as some sort of realisation at one point that I thought.. "Wait a second... I'm ANGRY with this girl. I'm really fucking pissed! But I haven't expressed it or even acknowledged it to myself!"

I pride myself in my self-awareness, yet it took me a while to find this out.

Quote:There are many ways to make a woman feel the things she's talking about. Not calling her and pretending to ignore her is one. Although like Jon said, that doesn't really lead to a healthy relationship. The other way is by being playful, teasing, surprising her with things... and by the way, being honest about when you DON'T like her, or when you want to be alone or whatever.

Obvious, I guess. Now that I think about it, Trainwreck Girl above was very available initially, but when we were together she would make clear how picky she was with guys, which really increased my perceived status of her, and I started feeling all sorts of feelings for her. Not that I want to use her tactics, but it answers my question about whether availability is bad per se.





One area where I think I'm making "mistakes" is that in some situations you can escalate tension and mystery by shutting up and, for example, just locking eyes, or even just doing nothing or walking away. Verbalizing what happens in the situation or something similar can let the tension disappear, which is what I do too often.

Quote:It's simply having the WILLINGNESS to spill your guts and feelings should the appropriate situation arise.

I have a tendency to spill all my guts too soon. So I'm being vulnerable, but I can let things develop a bit slower...

The term "easygoing" also describes me well I think. Things may come too easily when I DO like a girl. I'm going to pay attention to how well I express negative feelings, set boundaries, and so on. Should do more teasing as well.

[Halo Effect]

Quote:I think you're seeing these things as mutually exclusive when they're not. You can add mystery, spontaneity, excitement without compromising the honesty and vulnerability. To put it in lame MM terms: comfort and attraction should always be run at the same time. Right now it sounds like too much comfort, no attraction.

Do you mean that I DO too much comfort, or is it possible that the girl FEELS too much comfort?

I think that her feeling very much at ease and comfortable with me, and her doing more in bed and enjoying sex more than she ever did before, and her being able to talk about anything with me, and feeling very accepted, and so on, are all good things. I guess that's all related to comfort. What I feel is missing with this girl is that my value is not that high. I'm not as appreciated as I want to be. She likes the vibe between us, but something is missing.. Maybe it's as simple as "attraction", as you say.

(I'm really trying to pin this down and understand it.)

[Momento]

First of all you do both at the same time. When you mean emotional connection do you mean during comfort stage? There comes a time that if she likes you and you like her then its okay to emmote.

[Mark]

In the MM model, too much comfort with not enough attraction = friend zone. Too much attraction without enough comfort = flakes, LMR, etc. The major flaws of that model aside, it nails this one pretty well. If you're getting friend zones by a girl, then it means you didn't break rapport enough -- whether that be through playfulness, spontaneity, teasing her, expressing negative emotions towards her, building tension or whatever...