Was talking to a soon-to-be new client last night about a situation he’s been experiencing with a recent ex.
And something came up that I wanted to make note of.
A little backstory:
Our friend’s relationship has taken a very classic, tragic arc. They got together a year ago, and had the classic “honeymoon” period. Sex all the time, want to spend all their time together, etc.
But as time goes on, the passion on her end begins to diminish.
Sex goes from an every day thing to an every other day thing. To an every week thing. Until finally, nearly a month goes by without any nookie.
Eventually, the girl drops the bombshell last week:
“I don’t think we should be going out anymore”
And our friend is devastated. He loves her. But hope isn’t all lost.
She’s still texting him every day. And while no doubt her attraction is diminished, she’s still invested.
(Like many girls today, she has low self-esteem. His attention is very important to her well-being.)
But to get that attention she started to act more and more maliciously. Refusing to answer questions so he’d think she was out with other guys. In short: games to get him jealous.
So I told him:
What are you doing?
Because our friend, over and over again, was falling into her traps.
Now, for the sake of brevity I’m not going to focus on all of the other things going on. Suffice to say our friend is being too needy and invested in her, and this is what’s been turning her off for months… especially since, as a low self-esteem girl, she is inherently judgmental of guys who like her.
(As Groucho Marx once said: “I wouldn’t want to be a member of any club that would have me”)
I told him long term we had some things to fix in their deeper dynamic, but short term he had to staunch the bleeding.
First reframe: There is NO reason they should be texting if they’re not going out.
So I told him to basically cut her off. Stop texting her. And if she pushed, say that he agreed about the relationship problems and was willing to work on them… but was going to move on if the weren’t together… and for her not to contact to him anymore.
(This is a higher level approach, designed to minimize bad behavior on her part, and improve the health of their relationship long-term. Ghosting her and playing counter-games creates bad blood, you get some short term power but it’s a race to the bottom)
But as I saw this morning in some texts, our friend made a mistake.
He expressed the boundary… but rather than disengage as we discussed, her got hooked on her response to the boundary.
“are u mad” (reactive)
“that’s how it is sometimes” (arrogant)
In other words… he subcommunicated the opposite of what he said to her.
It’s like going up to someone and saying “I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Does that upset you? Well, so what – I do what I want.”
There is a dissonance, because if the person really didn’t want to talk… he would just not do it.
It makes you look like not only a dick… but a weak dick. Which doesn’t bring the girl closer to you, but just pushes her away.
Don’t worry, I’m going to help our brother clear this stuff up. This is a normal part of the learning process.
But there is a deeper point to all of this.I was giving this guy some pointers on a brief sales call.
But for him to really change his results with women… he doesn’t just need some tips, he needs a deeper realignment.
Which is why *every* client — including the new group-coaching guys — all get a 3 hour deep dive call with me.
When I was designing this new basic program, I knew I had to get rid of most of 1-1 phone-time. I couldn’t handle the volume. But what became clear was that the deep-dive couldn’t go.
It was one of those things that no one else in the industry did… and was a game-changer for every guy who passed through my doors.
Because it fundamentally changes the way you think about women and yourself.
And all tactics are really downstream of that.
Anyway, if you want to get in on one… apply here: www.patstedman.com/application
– Pat
