Today’s post is for the single brothers out there who are getting back into dating and having some trouble. A brother in our group asked:
“Hey, J.K., I’ve noticed something as I’ve been meeting women and starting to date again. Whether it’s a girl I’ve dated casually for a few months or just a girl I’ve been texting with, women eventually start to ghost me. They just disappear. I’m now starting to assume that every woman I talk to will eventually ghost me. How can I balance having low expectations without indirectly negatively impacting my future opportunities with women?”
Regardless of your past experiences, brother, I don’t think you should have low expectations when it comes to dating women. I think that there aren’t enough men who understand what is going on in a woman’s world. I see it all the time with men who first start dating again after separating from their compulsive behavior, and they’re thoughts I struggled with, too.
Women grow up in a very different world than men do. They grow up in a world where they are fearful of being judged. They grow up in a world where they are at risk of being hurt or sexually assaulted. This means the way they communicate with men is much different than the ways that men communicate with each other.
Over time, I started realizing that many women don’t see the men they’re communicating with on apps or dating sites as “real” until she meets them in person. If she’s swiping on Tinder or has a profile on Plenty of Fish, you’re not the only man she’s talking to. She has all sorts of men throwing themselves at her. Chances are she has many more prospects than you do.
Oftentimes guys are far too communicative and it causes the girl to lose interest. If you’re available all the time it tells her that you don’t have anything interesting going on in your life. You shouldn’t have time to sit around sending walls of text all day. There’s no need to get yourself that invested when you haven’t even met her in person yet.
I don’t recommend spending a ton of time chit-chatting over text when you get a woman’s number. Get her number and set up the first date as soon as possible. You want to engage with her in person sooner rather than later so you become something more than just another name on the list on her phone. The sooner you meet up with her the better.
At the end of the day, though, dating in this day and age is a numbers game. You need to put in the numbers and let the results work themselves out. You’ll probably reach out to 20 or 30 women just to meet up with only two or three of them. I know it seems like a lot but that’s part of the process if you want to get back into the dating game.
There isn’t much you can do to keep a woman from ghosting you aside from maintaining her interest. Don’t make yourself overly available, meet up with her in person within a few days of initiating contact, and let the rest play out.
Both men and women have essentially instant access to hundreds of people for attention and validation. You shouldn’t take it personally when a woman ghosts you. That’s unfortunately just part of the dating process now whether we like it or not. All you can do is keep from investing too heavily into any one woman right away. If you’re overly invested you’ll find yourself feeling hurt if she ghosts.
Instead, continue focusing on yourself, brother. Keep building reboot capital or Pornography Addiction Counseling as you get back into the dating phase. If a woman cancels on you, you have plenty of other things to do. It’s no skin off your back because you’re building a life that’s worth waiting for the right one. You don’t need to take whatever you can get; there’s always another woman out there to meet with.
