Received some mixed reviews as you might expect in Part 1.
Some guys related to it wholeheartedly. Others considered the whole scenario dishonorable.
I get it.
I’d be lying if I said these are black and white scenarios. Breaking into someone else’s relationship is always going to be a controversial topic.
But a couple of little points before we go onto the part I know you are all waiting for (what happened next)…
First, the usual:
Everything is context.
If I told you some more details about that guy and how he treated her, would you change your mind? If I mentioned, say, that he was a loser, that he ignored her and treated her poorly… many of you would.
For these obvious reasons blanket statements like “you should never talk to a girl who is in a relationship” are ridiculous. Girls very often stay with guys out of security, and if a girl like this is very attractive… she will always be in a relationship, because some decent-enough guy will always snatch her up.
Moreover, I know plenty of couples who are products of “broken engagements.” They met someone else months before they were to pull the trigger, felt a love they didn’t feel before, and cancelled their current commitment.
Very often this turns out fantastically. One couple close to my family that is a product of this has been blissfully married for 60 years. Imagine if he had not shot his shot?
Second, however, is perhaps the most relevant:
My guy isn’t looking for a quick fuck.
He’s not trying to game her into bed, and then disappear. He’s looking for a girl to marry as well. His intentions on this are high level. The chemistry between them is real, and she’s game to explore it. There is REAL potential here.
Now, some of you might say — is there really potential? Isn’t she low quality because she’s even entertaining this?
Again… I get it.
The best move for her would be to break things off with her fiancee, and thenexplore this connection. Obviously, if she’s moving forward with seeing my client — even platonically — then she is breaking some level of trust. She is “emotionally cheating.”
I agree.
But I think it’s also important to have some awareness of the difficulty of her situation. Picture it: you are in an engagement you don’t want to be in. Probably, you will break it off anyway. Yet, you also don’t want to do anything drastic. He makes almost all the money and you don’t know where you’ll go. You have no family in the area. Plus, these emotions are just coming to the surface, and you are just starting to process them. Suddenly a guy comes into the picture that reminds you of what you’re missing. He’s a catalyst for a question you’ve already had in your mind. Everything starts to speed up. What do you want? What do you do?
You may not like to hear it, but if you have not really thought through a commitment you made – if it was made out of guilt because “he deserves it” and it’s “practical — these periods of questioning are crucial for getting you to actually commit in your heart.
This flirtation is less about my client than about her and where she wants to chart her life.
So no, she is not handling it perfectly, but she’s also not behaving with low integrity. It’s complicated.
But we’ll see with her. Plenty of time to gather more information who she really is.
Let’s move on to the rest of the story…
So, they have their class, and go out to lunch. Amazing time, easy, natural conversation.
She wears her ring, which she’s never worn before. Signaling her boundaries.
“Yes, I’m here alone with you but remember I’m still engaged.”
After a time, my client calls out the elephant in the room. He mentions their connection, and asks about her fiancee
.“He’s stable,” she says. Client says he doesn’t want to do anything to dishonor her. “So don’t.”
Date ends. What now?
This is the point where a woman is either going to pull back or push forward.
She texts him. No pull back. Flirtation continues. And now she’s inviting him out to ride horses. “Date #2” is inbound for next week.
Ok, so how to proceed?
I told my client a simple strategy…
Don’t see her 1-1 too often (they already run into each other a couple of times each week at the gym naturally).
Keep it to every 2-3 weeks. Go do something fun and casual together. A couple of hours.
You don’t want to have enough exposure that she takes your platonic presence for granted (friend-zone). And you also don’t want to overly intervene in the relationship by seeing her more than that (alarm bells, pushing decency).
But after doing this a few times (over around 2 months)
And seeing the attraction developing more and more…
You drop your ultimatum.
“Can I tell you something? I don’t think you want to be with him. I think you want to be with me. And I want to be with you too. But if you decide to stay with him, we can’t be friends anymore. So you need to make a decision.”
Will it work?
Assuming the dynamic continues as it has, I believe it will. Because I’ve seen this formula work time and time again.
Indeed, I did something similar with the girl who would become my first girlfriend… even before I had any awareness of female psychology.
We had dated before, briefly. She had pursued me heavily. But once we were together my neediness kicked in, and a few weeks later she ended things with me.
After a lull, we became friends again, and started going out on “dates.”
Friends turned into friends with benefits. The way things were going, it was certain in my mind we’d end up together officially again.
And then one day I was blindsided: another guy she had had a “crush” on had talked to her, and they had officially gotten together.
But I played it cool. Was “happy” for her. Continued to see her every so often, had a ton of fun, and banked on the fact that our connection was stronger than theirs.
It took 2-3 months, but when I felt their relationship on the rocks — that she was enjoying her time more with me than him — I made my move. She broke up with him that night, and we dated seriously for the next 2.5 years.
Point of all of this?
Well, I think the tactical stuff is pretty clear.
You can agree or disagree with the strategy — aka is she a legitimate target.
Truth is that I will not always endorse such moves by my clients.
I don’t help guys destroy marriages or relationships out of lust.
I don’t encourage dysfunctional, energy-wasting dalliances when there are so many women out there.
I take everything on a case-by-case basis.
Sometimes, I will tell you to fight for a woman. Sometimes I will tell you to leave.
The only way to find out?
Work with me.
You can apply here: www.patstedman.com/application
– Pat
