Do I Tell Her I’m Backing Off Or Just Do It Without Explanation?

How to know when to back off & if you should even mention it when she’s cold & distant.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a new viewer who has been seeing a traveling nurse for much of the past year. He just finished reading 3% Man for the second time. He went on a surf trip and she called out sick from work for a whole week and went on a trip to another state, but didn’t mention any details.

He wonders if he should tell her he’s backing off or to just do it and see how she responds. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

That’s kind of like saying, “Hey, I want you to know that I’m not going to contact you anymore.” No, if she’s doing things that shows that she doesn’t appreciate and value your time and your attention, maybe you’ve been a little needy. Maybe you called too much, you texted too much. Maybe you said things that made you look weak and unattractive one too many times. You can tell she’s a little distant, or you don’t like her behavior, or she seems to be taking you for granted. Just slowly back off and see what happens.

Viewer Email:

Hey Coach,

I’ve just come across your material recently and bought your book and I am on my second time reading it. I plan on reading it until I know it front to back. 

Ten to 15 times, dude. Then every year after that, once or twice a year, maybe once every six months after that, just to keep it fresh. If you put the audio-book on two-speed and then follow along in a digital or physical copy that is, and sit at your desk, the desktop, a laptop computer, or maybe your iPad, you want to concentrate on the material and take the time to do that. You shouldn’t be listening to the audio-book as background noise. I mean you can, but if you’re trying to get good reads in, you need to be sitting in front of a computer concentrating on it.

You can listen to it at the gym, and as background playing it through your Sonos speaker system or whatever in your house, or if you’re driving in your car and you’re listening to it, just remember, when you’re not sitting in front of a computer face-to-face and watching the words as they’re they’re being spoken, which is the most effective way to learn, you should probably discount the effectiveness of listening to it. It shouldn’t be like, “Oh, I got to get through the 10 to 15 reads,” and then maybe you’re paying attention half the time or 10% of the time. So just keep that in mind.

Here’s my situation: I met a travel nurse and we hit it off.

One of the things I want to say about traveling nurses is they tend to be very naughty. They can be nice, but they can be very naughty. So when you look at the top five careers that women go into that cheat a lot, nurses, traveling nurses, doctors, police officers, military, female bartenders, those are like the top ones where they’re just not very loyal for whatever the reason happens to be. So you got to keep that in mind. As I go through this email, you’re going to say, “Aha!” What this guy really has got is kind of a fuck buddy, friends with benefits. Not a girlfriend, because they’ve been seeing each other for most of the past year. So like every three months she usually would go to a different place, but because she was hanging out with him so much, she stuck around and hasn’t gone to another city yet. However, it looks like she may have gone off and gotten some strange.

If you’ve been dating a woman for almost a year and you’re still not exclusive, because she also mentioned she’s not ready for a relationship, you’ve been dating a woman for a year and she’s like, “I’m not ready for a relationship,” she has low attraction. It means you’ve dried her up too much. Plus, more than likely, it’s pretty clear this woman is not very loyal. So you really just need to treat her like a fuck buddy or a friends with benefits. You don’t treat her like she’s special if she doesn’t act like she’s special and deserving.

Her contracts are only three months long at a time and she kept extending them to be with me. We’ve been dating for almost a year, but I admittedly made some mistakes now that I’ve read your book.

If you’re dating for a year and you’re not exclusive yet, you just haven’t gotten her to the point where she feels like she wants to be boyfriend/girlfriend.

We were saying “I love you,” which she said first and even talking about moving in together. Here’s the big red flag: She still talked to her ex on the phone. I didn’t mind too much because he lived across the country and I figured the more he kept trying while I was plowing her, the worse it looked for him.

At the end of the day, they’re still in contact, so that tells me she likes the orbiter, she likes the attention, and he’s probably still trying to get back with her.

After about seven or eight months, I began coming on too strong and wanting to see her too much, which pushed her away.

So now the power is flipped. You cared more about her than she does about you, and that is a bad, bad, bad way to go. Doesn’t matter what a great guy you are, how great you are in bed, how big your bank account is, or how nice your car and your house is. Women care about how they feel about you. That’s the most important thing.

When you come on too strong and you pursue too much, or you over-pursue, you’re basically acting like a girl. When you act like a girl, you’re giving off too much feminine energy, which she was attracted to your masculine side, not your feminine and girly side. When you act like a chick, it dries her up and it starts to elicit platonic feelings in her towards you. So this guy basically got to the point where he noticed things are not going well, and that’s when he came across my book and my videos, and now he’s realized, “Oh, kind of screwing up here.“

We had a talk and she hit me with, “I’m just not ready for a relationship yet…”

So you’ve been dating that long and she’s not ready for a relationship?

…And, “I just don’t think I can provide what you want.”

Which is more of her time, more of her attention. He was focused on locking her down, probably getting a commitment out of her, and he’s basically acting like a woman. So that’s going to turn her off and dry her up. Then she’s going to start looking for greener pastures because what she’s craving is masculinity, because she wasn’t getting enough of it consistently from you.

She never stopped talking to her ex and I made it known that it started to bother me.

Well again, she’s not your girlfriend. So when you see that, you got to recognize that, “Hey, we’re just friends with benefits.”

She became less interested in sex and hanging out over a period of 2-3 months. I unknowingly did a good job of halting all communication and letting her do all the texting…

Yeah, if you’re reaching out to a girl and she doesn’t want to get together or tells you how crazy work is, and she’s just busy and doesn’t have any extra time, what she’s really saying is, “I don’t want to see you. You dried me up.” So when that happens, just don’t call or text her anymore for any reason until she reaches out next. Especially in this case, because this woman is definitely, as you’ll see in this next paragraph, just a fuck buddy, friends with benefits, sex playmate. She ain’t girlfriend or wife material. She has dequeued herself from that possibility.

…But she still would rarely meet up and would only sleep with me once a month.

Yeah, a once a month fuck buddy? You’re probably just one of the guys she’s fucking.

I just went on a surf trip and was using it to clear my head.

It’s definitely clear that you care way more about her than she does about you. You’re a once a month fuck buddy, and you’re thinking of her like she’s your wife or girlfriend.

Before I left, we had a great make out session in her car after work and I told her I would be back the following weekend and to give me a call if she wanted to see me. She said she had a crazy work week…

When a woman says, “Work is crazy. It’s so crazy. My life is crazy. I’m so busy,” what she’s really saying is, “Yeah, you dried me up. My pussy’s drier than a haunted house in the fucking Sahara Desert. I don’t want to see you.” So when you hear that, if she really likes you, she’s like, “I miss you. We don’t do anything anymore. I haven’t seen you.” Instead she’s like, “Oh, work’s crazy. Work’s always crazy,” but she made time in the past, so this guy dried her up and turned her off because he over-pursued and he cared too much. He basically started acting like a chick.

The good news is, even though he did that, it’s really revealed her true character because in the vetting process, it’s pretty clear as you’ll see, fuck buddy friends with benefits, sex playmate. That’s it. Don’t try to turn a hoe into a housewife. Just have fun. When you find a girl that’s got the values and the goals that are aligned with your own, then you can consider that.

…And would just be jealous of me the whole time I was gone.

In other words, “I just don’t want to see you.”

I found out about halfway through my trip that she called out sick for the entire week she was gone and went to South Carolina.

Oh, she went to another state. Interesting…

I found this out…

Because she probably went to South Carolina so she could get dicked down by Chad Thundercock, and not have anybody in her inner circle that knew what she was doing or what she was up to.

…When she sent me a short video of a bird and I didn’t recognize the area, so I looked at the info for the video and that’s where it showed where it was taken (We live in North Carolina for reference).

So she went south so she could do things like a female James Bond basically, and then come back and not have to worry about getting caught. Remember, this girl is only hooking up with you once a month and you’re driving over to her work and for a make out session in the parking lot? Yeah, no.

I asked her where she was and what was going on. She told me about how she rescued this bird, but nothing about the two hour road trip that she had to take to get there or calling out of work.

So this tells me he’s reaching out to her. You shouldn’t have called or reached out at all. What did you say when you left? “Hey, call me if you want to see me when I get back.” Instead, you broke no-contact because you saw something on social media that was disconcerting. Which is more over-pursuing, the illusion of action. You’re doing more of what’s dried her up, and that’s why she’s not forthcoming, because she doesn’t want to tell you.

If it was a girls trip, she would have posted pics of her girlfriends, so because of the secrecy, I figured it was to meet a guy.

I would say you’re probably right.

I didn’t ask or accuse her.

Because she’s not going to tell you the truth anyways if you confront her with it, but you’re wise enough if you’ve been following me for a while to see that, “Oh, now I know what she’s really doing.”

I just didn’t reply. I’m now back from my trip and have not contacted her at all since she blatantly disrespected me by withholding information.

Well again, you’re thinking of her like she’s your girlfriend or your potential wife, when in reality you’re a once a month booty call. That’s it.

So if you’re a once a month booty call and you’ve been over-pursuing this whole time, you need to stop. No more calling, no more texting. Just wait to hear from her, then invite her over to your place to make dinner in the evening, hang out, have fun, hook up. That’s it. Stop going to her work and bringing her lunch or whatever the other stupid things that you’ve been doing just to get a little kissy-poo in the parking lot.

My question is, do I bring something like that up?

Nope.

Or do I just make myself absent and let her reach out?

Just make yourself absent. This girl is a fuck buddy, friends with benefits, sex playmate. That is it. Therefore, how would you treat her if you were tired of fucking her but you don’t mind fucking her? If she’s excited to see you, you’re never going to reach out. You’re never going to call her. You’re never going to text. You’re not going to take her on dates. If you hear from her, invite her over. Remember, this girl was talking about moving in, and now she can’t even be bothered to hook up but once a month and she’s too busy to see you. Yup. Elvis has left the building, and you’re like the last one to find out.

I immediately downloaded some dating apps and started cultivating other options. 

Thanks for everything!

Bob

Again, the way to handle this is a simple solution for this particular girl. She went from being a potential girlfriend to, “Oh, she’s just one of my fuck buddies. This is one of the girls in my rotation. When she reaches out, obviously she must miss me, so we’ll create a date, we’ll hang out, we’ll have fun, we’ll hook up,” as you continue to look for a high character woman who comes from a good family, if you’re looking for a loyal and faithful girlfriend, because this woman is not it.

I mean, you spent a year with her and this is how she treats you? It’s like she can go on down the road. She belongs to the streets. So that’s what you do. Let her do 100% of calling, texting and pursuing, and for at least the next three times she reaches out, just invite her over to your your place, make dinner together, hang out, have fun, hook up.

If she says, “We never do anything. You never take me out,” I would be like, “Well, it’s pretty clear you’re still talking to your ex. You went to South Carolina. You know, we’ve only been hooking up once a month. It’s like we’re just a booty call for each other. That’s all it is. So when you miss me and you want to see me, reach out, but I’m not going to be your boyfriend. I’m not interested in being in a relationship with you anymore. I’ve kind of seen enough to know what you’re like, and you just don’t seem to me as somebody that’s going to be loyal, but you know what? We can have a lot of fun, but I want you to know that I’m dating other women. When I find a girl that’s got the same values as me, I’m going to settle down and get serious and then I’m not going to be able to see you anymore, but we’ll have a hell of a lot of fun until that moment, because obviously you’re doing the same.” That’s all. That’s how I would treat this girl.

So, if you’ve got a question or a challenge and you’d like to get my help, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen on any page, and book a coaching session with yours truly. Until next time, I will talk to you soon.