In the movies and in the popular imagination, persistence pays off. The guy who chases and won’t take no for an answer eventually wins the love of the girl. In real life, persistence is just a nice word for creepiness. Guys who pursue women with great ardor are always losing the girl to guys who don’t answer her phone calls right away and keep her guessing.
But persistence *can* work if done right. I used to give up on girls as soon as they hit me with roadblocks to our dating progress, resulting in a lot of first and second dates that never got to sex. Eventually I learned that girls will bitch about at least one thing at any stage of dating up until insertion because it is their way of culling the weak men whose self-confidence cannot withstand the tumult.
A little bit of persistence is effective as long as, one, there was a spark of attraction to begin with and, two, it comes from a place of non-neediness. If you must chase a girl, always do it with a cocky grin and the mentality that if she doesn’t get on board with your program it’s no big loss. If she accuses you of some dating breach, turn the tables on her. With girls, offense is the best defense.
An example of persistence succeeding occurred with a girl I dated a while back. The day after our second date I had this phone conversation with her.
Her: I don’t think another date is a good idea.
Me: Where does this come from?
Her: I dunno, you said some things about my job that I didn’t like.
This girl was good-looking so I had no intention of letting her drop unceremoniously without a fight. But getting apologetic wouldn’t have worked. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean it, you took it the wrong way” would have sent her running even faster.
Me: Next time I’ll hold up a placard.
Her: A placard?
Me: Yeah, a placard announcing my jokes before I make them, like, here comes a joke! I understand, sometimes they are missed. This way, if I tell you about a joke beforehand there’s no risk of a cute misunderstanding.
Her: [laugh] Yeah, that might help.
Me: The truth is, I love your job. It reminds me of meadows and bunnies.
What I actually did or did not say about her job was irrelevant in my world. I plowed through her second thoughts as if the substance of her argument was beside the point, simultaneously assuming we would meet again and belittling her grievance. Directly engaging her complaint like a debate team nerd would’ve sounded cloyingly desperate, so I evaded and in the process forced her into my mental framework. I only threw her a bone… “I love your job”… after I had steered the conversation in the direction of my choosing. Had I caved to her reservations, months of fantastic sex with her and all those fond memories would never have happened.
Like seduction itself, persistence is half arrogance, half marketing. You want to get your point across without actually saying how you feel.
Not a bad way of handling things, but how is sarcasm that much better than simply apologizing? (sounds almost like Dr. House wrote your little script). If a woman is simply shit-testing you, then sarcasm can make her seem like an idiot for doing so. If she’s not, then sarcasm will annoy her even more and she’ll think you’re an asshole.
Why not simply say “I believe in being honest with people. So if we out again, at least you’ll know what you’re getting.”
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Yeah, try this 6 months into the relationship. See how well it works.
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I get what you’re saying, but did you ever see the 1990s movie “Reality Bites?” It seemed to implicity say that the loser guys (Ben Stiller) take girls out on dates. The cool ones (Ethan Hawke) hang around at her place, make little effort and get her in the end, after the loser spends all the money.
I took this as a sign that the concept of the “date” was in its twilight phase. It helps to look like Ethan Hawke, of course.
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Ok here’s the another comeback stream
read it with Vince Vaughn delivery in mind
Orig:
Her: I don’t think another date is a good idea.
Me: Where does this come from?
Her: I dunno, you said some things about my job that I didn’t like.
Now Me
(using your term – plowing)
Her: I don’t think another date is a good idea.
Me: head tilts like a Rat Terrier – (silent why?)
Her: I dunno, you said some things about my job that – Me: You know – you’re right – it would be a GITITOF – I totally agree.
Her: Wait – what’s a gititov?
Me: You don’t know? A GITITOF is a “great-idea-that-I-thought-of-first” – *ticking off letters with fingers* “a gititof” – which is the oposite of a “getitoff” Like, you know – like a “GET IT OFF ME!”.
Her: ? you said bad things about my job..
Me: I like you for you – not your job. What do you do again?
Her: My job!? you know – I’m a *******
Me: That was you?
Her: (exasperated but half laughing) – Come on..
Me: No really – I thought you said you “DIDN”T act as a ******* . I was criticizing your lack of not *******ing
Her: laughing
*MORE OF THIS for a while*
Me: See? we’re like rabbits..
Her: laughing
Me: And I love your bunny scent. Smell her hair.
Her: inaudible “awwwww”
Me: We need a meadow. Hmmm, Let’s go – (lead her away)
Her: laughing and more receptive
Me: Seriously I hate your lack of *******ing (walking)
Me: I didn’t even know rabbits could ******* (hand in hand) – so on….
*This is how my mind really works –
it is completely there for me if I like her.
It is completely not if I don’t
I have no idea why everything is the way it is
I come on your site looking for bunny information
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Her: I don’t think another date is a good idea.
Me:
Her:
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What’s up with this forum code? Anyway, as I was saying…
Her: I don’t think another date is a good idea.
Me: *pants fall to the floor*
Her: *jaw drops to the floor*
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gatsby – in text it’s not clear, but i didn’t use any sarcasm. it was delivered in a lighthearted style. for the record, she was hypersensitive and misinterpreted my ribbing about her work. looking back, it was clearly a dredged up rationale for her to back out of another date. this sometimes happens to girls who feel the forward momentum is carrying them inevitably towards sex.
if i really did think her job sucked, my level of candor would’ve been contingent upon my desire to bang her. the more i wanted to bang her, the more i would have acted to hide my true feelings.
dba – “i don’t think another date is a good idea.” “wow, you’re just bursting with fruit flavor.”
miik – verbal acrobatics. beats logic every time.
mczee – your first one works just as well.
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Roissy — “if i really did think her job sucked, my level of candor would’ve been contingent upon my desire to bang her. the more i wanted to bang her, the more i would have acted to hide my true feelings.”
That’s exactly my point. Why hide your opinion? Doing so is almost as bad as apologizing. You would care so much about having sex with her that you would, in fact, put aside your own opinion and tell her what she wants to hear? I’m sure that everyone reading this thinks “Well duh, of course he would, as would any other guy.”
Here’s the thing. A woman who actually wants to have sex with you will do so even if she hates every word that comes out of your mouth. Why? Because SHE has already decided to have sex with you, and very little, short of threatening to donkey-punch her while watching midget lesbian porn, will stop her from doing so. (Even then she might still consider it, since there’s no way you could find some on such short notice — little would she know that you have the entire series of “Oompa Loompa Lesbian Lust” I-V).
Bottom line: Don’t be afraid to challenge her criticism of you. If she wants to have sex with you, telling her your genuine opinion won’t matter. If it did, you wouldn’t want to anyway because she would probably suck in bed.
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This stuff just can’t be taught to the masses. I don’t think. You’re a natural…
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Gatsby, if a girl’s already watching midget lesbian porn with you I’m pretty sure some perv-play violence is not going to keep your dick dry.
Assuming the girl isn’t, say, a nun, I’m pretty sure claiming she doesn’t want to date you because you don’t like her job is just a flimsy excuse. Girls need to be better liars than that to be worth keeping around for long.
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Maybe I didn’t have the patience for that sort of thing, but starting around my late 20’s I stopped making second calls. Perhaps that explains my single status until later in life, but I figured that once a girl was beyond teenage cock-teasing age she was old enough to know what she wanted and didn’t want. I took her assessment at face value and moved on.
I was 36 when an older work colleague (in fine Jewish tradition) tried to fix me up with the daughter of a friend. The blind date was OK if not spectacular, but I thought at least worth another try. Unlike women, I didn’t think I had enough information after spending only four hours together, but when I called her back she said she had “plans”. OK, well call me if they change, I said.
Several weeks later my work colleague told me she had been asking about me and wondered why I didn’t call. I told him what happened, and to relay the message to have her call me back. Never happened.
Now repeat this a few dozen times.
The thing to remember is that there’s always another opportunity out there, but it’s up to you to identify them. Just don’t let yourself become her “friend”, because you will be wasting a lot of precious time while she’s out fucking someone else.
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This is a dilemma I have sometimes, as in, if a girl is showing signs of reservations or loss of interest, how do you proceed? Completely forget about her, or try something new and risk wasting more time?
Roissy, why do you think she said that to you? I mean, she did on some level want to screw you, because she eventually did. Do you think she was actually offended or was this just a test for you to stand up to her?
It seems that while women seem to be much more into a guy if they are doing the chasing (and get turned off when he makes a move), some women want the guy to make all the moves. So I put in a bit of effort but if none is reciprocated, next!
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I hate when you make really intelligent points that I can’t take and use for myself.
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I find shit-tests to be pretty funny. If you have the presence of mind to realize how ridiculous they tend to be. When some girl throws up a shit-test on how I slighted her job sometimes I respond, “bitch please, you bag groceries at Whole Foods. Don’t try to pass that shit off like environmental activism, so check this, I read a study that says anal sex is good for downward facing dog.”
As Roissy commented, many high value women throw them up when they become somewhat aware of the trajectory of the interaction and they don’t end after you’ve full closed her either, depending on the speed with which you fully closed her of course.
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It all comes down to how you deal with shit tests or shitty excuses for not wanting to go out with you again. I prefer(red) the direct approach, namely, you call a woman on her bullshit. Since most women are non-confrontational (unless they think you can’t/won’t respond, then all bets are off), being direct usually draws them up short. It should be irrelevant to you whether a woman is playing hard to get or never wants to be “gotten”. Living your life without apology avoids all of the drama many women create in their own lives and seek to create in yours (why they do this, I have no idea, but that’s an entirely different subject). In the vast majority of cases, you lose nothing by being direct, and you retain the one thing that should matter most — your self-respect.
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why do women create drama? this is a rich subject. i have three not-incompatible theories.
1. remember the fundamentals. women dig power. and powerful men usually have drama swirling around them. (think politicians and generals and rock stars). hence, women are drawn to drama as a proxy for power.
2. women are more emotional than men and drama is like a drug that feeds their pleasure centers.
3. women need to constantly test men for their strength and their devotion to them. a woman’s nagging fear is that a man only loves her for her body. drama is their indirect (but more revealing) way of figuring out how a man really feels.
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I agree with your theories, but it depends on the woman. Some women create drama in their lives, while others watch the drama unfold in other people’s lives (Hollywood, politics, friends, family, prime time shows, and soap operas).
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