Getting Perturbed & Butthurt Ruins Attraction & Respect

Why getting perturbed & butt-hurt at women ruins attraction & lowers their respect for you.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a viewer who kept getting perturbed and butt-hurt at a female coworker who was in the process of breaking up with her baby daddy. She expressed her interest, but then would back off because she still lived with her ex. He did many silly and immature things and she tried to friend zone him.

Now he’s in no contact and wonders if she’ll come back. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

In this particular video coaching newsletter I got a viewer who kept getting perturbed and butt-hurt at a female co-worker. The wrinkle in this is that he met a woman at work and who was living with her baby daddy, but was in the process of breaking up with him. Obviously they lived together, they got a newborn and you can just tell this guy is getting kind of impatient and upset. As I talk in the book about these kinds of situations where you’re dealing with women in the middle of a breakup, they just had a breakup or in the middle of a divorce, if you’re going to get involved with these women, you have to expect that they’re going to be hot and cold. They may make dates, they may cancel on you. Again in this case, the girl still living with her ex, and as you’ll see in the email, she tries to make plans with this guy and then gets worried about the ex confronting her like, “Hey, where were you? What were you doing?” Because more than likely, if we remember that 75% of the time the women do the dumping and the breaking up, he probably didn’t want to be dumped and wants to stay together, so there’s that added wrinkle. It’s not just a clean thing.

So he did some silly and some immature things. She tried to friend-zone him at the end just because he kept getting upset with her and kind of acting like she was his girlfriend, or he had some kind of power over her. I think all they ever actually did was kiss one time in the bathroom. I think it was actually at work or whatever. You gotta remember, masculinity is calm, femininity is chaos. If you’re emotionally chaotic, like this guy is, you’re going to ruin perfectly good chances to meet and date the kind of women that you like, because they’re going to think you’re a wacko or a psycho. One minute you’re nice and sweet, the next minute you’re blocking them, or you’re getting upset and you’re losing your temper with them. You can’t do that. You got to think in terms of any of you that had dogs, have kids or nieces and nephews or girlfriends that have kids, it’s like you have to be nice. You have to be fun. You have to be playful. If a dog comes over and he’s like happy to see you and you’re like, “Get away from me, ahh,” and you scare the dog, it’s gonna freak out and run away. If you do that to a kid, “Get away from me, you little bastard,” the kid’s gonna cry and go running away. So metaphorically, if you think about when a woman comes over and you blow your top, you’re scaring her, you’re freaking her out. If you wouldn’t yell at a little kid or a little puppy like that, don’t do it to a girl. You’re going to scare them. They’re not gonna feel safe with you. They’re going to think you’re a lunatic.

So let’s go through his email and see what kind of fun he had, or maybe not so much fun because he’s writing me and he’s bummed.

Viewer Email:

Hey Coach,

I love watching your videos and I have learned a lot over the last six months or so.

I’m 27 and this particular girl is 23. A lot of it makes sense with my particular situation and it feels like it ties into a couple different concepts. Similar to what you talk about in your book with the girl that you were on and off with the kid, I am facing a similar situation.

Well, she was divorced at that point and been divorced for several years, so it wasn’t really the issue. It wasn’t that similar because in this case, this girl is still living with her baby daddy. So if you’re going to get involved with somebody like that, you’re going to have to practice some infinite patience.

It has a twist though, as we are co-workers and she was also recently broken up with her ex when she came onto me. She’s a great girl and we were seeing each other…

You don’t know if she’s a great girl. You just met her, but you could see already he’s kind of put her on a pedestal and giving her all this credit that she hasn’t earned. Again, he hasn’t been dating and sleeping with her, so you don’t really know. You think she’s a great girl, but you don’t know. You don’t know what you don’t know.

…A few months over last summer. She broke up with her ex in January over last year…

So I would assume that’s January of 2024. He broke up with her. We’re now in February of 2025.

…But they had a new born and still lived together until June.

So summer of 2024, they finally stopped living together, and really, that’s when you would want to and if you’re going to get involved with somebody, as long as they’re split up and they’re living apart, I’ve done a lot of phone sessions over the years, lots of emails from guys that get involved with women that still live with their husbands and their kids, and they basically become like the side piece where she’s thinking about monkey branching. So what also is kind of going on here is there is kind of a monkey branching situation. She’s trying to move on with her life because she knows it’s not going to work out with the baby daddy, but yet she still lives under the same roof. If we take into account that 75% of the time women are doing the dumping and rejection tends to breed obsession, then more than likely the baby daddy didn’t want to be dumped and wanted to stay together. So again, that’s just more reason why you’ll see hot and cold behavior and you can’t blow your top when that happens.

If you’re going to get involved with somebody like this, you’re just going to have to be infinitely patient, and you should probably keep dating other people, because if she gives you a hard time, “Well, I want to be exclusive,” it’s like, “Come on! You still live with your husband. You still live with your boyfriend. You guys have a kid together. I’m not going to be exclusive with somebody else’s wife or girlfriend when you guys still live together. That’s kind of absurd. Do you imagine me going to my family and going, ‘Hey mom, I got a girlfriend.’ ‘Oh, yeah? Well, when can I meet her?’ ‘Well, she kind of still lives with her husband. We’re still working on that.'” She’d be like, “What? What the hell’s the matter with you? I didn’t raise you like that.” You don’t want to have those conversations.

She flirted with me at a company event in February and asked for my number. I texted her the next day and never got a reply.

So if you know she lives with her boyfriend and she asks for your number, I would just give it. Give out your number and that would be it. I wouldn’t be texting her. The fact that he eagerly texted her the very next day instead of letting her come to him at her pace, it’s just a bad way to go because again, she still lives with the boyfriend, she lives with the baby daddy, and you don’t want to be encouraging cheating, infidelity or getting involved in the middle of a messy breakup when two people are still co-habitating. It’s just a bad way to go. Plus, you start obsessing over it and thinking that you’re moving forward with it.

I mean, at the end of the day, she didn’t reply, and I would assume he knew she had a child because specially women they’re “Oh hey, I have a daughter, I have a son.” Usually they’ll tell you these things right away, because most women that have kids know that a lot of guys are just not going to want to be stepdads to their kids. So if a guy is interested in them and then they tell them, “Well, I’ve got a child,” or “I got kids,” or whatever, the guys that aren’t interested in that go, “Oh yeah, I’m not really looking to date somebody that’s got kids.” Any of you ever dated women with children, that’s usually one of the first things that they’ll tell you is, “Oh, I have a daughter. Oh, I have two boys,” or whatever, because they know there are guys out there that just aren’t going to be interested in that. So why go out on a date and then tell them later? Just get it up front. If he’s not really interested, he goes on down the road, but it doesn’t look like that happened. He was kind of overeager. So he’s texting her the very next day.

I playfully messed with her at work when I saw her next assuming she was just drunk when she asked for my number and she played the drunk card.

So in other words, you’re saying, “Oh, the only reason you asked for my number is you were drunk and you weren’t really interested in me. “You had beer goggles on. Does that sound like something a confident guy would say? A guy who’s used to getting what he wants with women? No. So whether this guy realizes it or not, he’s saying things that are talking her out of liking him instead of he should have never texted her in the first place, especially if she knew she was living with the baby daddy and was in the middle of breaking up with him. You just don’t want to get in the middle of that. You want that whole situation to play out and be done and say, she does text you and invites you for you for drinks, you say, “Well, aren’t you still living with your husband or your boyfriend?” And she says, “Yeah,” then I would say, “Well, I would love to go out and have drinks with you, but I don’t want to get involved with somebody that still lives with their ex. I don’t want to get in any kind of messy situation. If you move out and you get your own place and you’re actually single, I’d love to. You know, shoot me a text and we can go for a drink.” If you come from that perspective and the girl really likes you, often now you’re being a challenge to her. You’re basically telling her you won’t go out with her as long as she lives with this guy.

Typically what happens in that case is she’ll test the shit out of the guy that she’s with. He’ll continue to flail around and literally chase her out of his life, so she gets her own place, or she makes him move out and then she’s got her own place, but if you agree to engage with her when she still lives with somebody else, oftentimes you’ll get stuck in a situation where she continues to live with the guy and she continues to see you, she locks you up exclusively, but yet she still living with the ex. You don’t know what’s going on, and that’s just not a place you want to be. So you want to set some healthy boundaries if you’re going to.

If you’re thinking about getting involved with somebody like this, if she still lived with the ex, I would not have agreed to see her again. I wouldn’t have texted her in the first place, but now the fact that he’s breaking her balls and saying, “Oh you didn’t really like me. You just asked for my number because you were drunk.” And then she says, “Yeah, the only reason I asked for it is because I was drunk,” which again, he’s making himself look unattractive and he doesn’t even realize it.

Over the next few months, she would find ways to get into contact with me and on March added me on Snapchat and then unadded me the next day.

This is hot and cool behavior.

I messaged her messing with her about it and she said saving herself baby daddy drama.

So again, you can tell he’s a little perturbed, he’s a little butt-hurt over it, but if you notice that she’s adding on Snapchat and removing you, it’s like whatever. You shouldn’t even notice that. I wouldn’t even say anything to her because again, we know she’s living with the baby daddy, so we should expect this behavior, but calling her out on it and pointing it out just shows that it bothers you, that you’re perturbed, that you’re upset about it. It’s a bad way to go.

So I just told her if she needs anything to reach out and left it at that. Over the next couple months, I just responded if she reached out to me and obviously during this time period we work together but in different model homes so I would see her at company events and sales meetings.

So it sounds like they work for a new home builder.

In May, she got bold and came on strong wanting to hang out more and within a few weeks the baby daddy moved out. We didn’t start seeing each other until after he moved out.

Again, that’s it. Sounds like she was trying to start something, but living with the baby daddy was just creating problems and drama she was trying to avoid, and she told him as much that she was trying to avoid drama with the baby daddy.

Again, this is why you shouldn’t date or get involved with women that are still living with their significant other, even if they’re supposedly broken up, or they claim they’re sleeping in separate bedrooms, because what you can do is get yourself into a situation where she just stays where she’s at, and now you’re basically her side piece, or her Frankenstein boyfriend or husband project, and you don’t want to be that guy.

Things went great for a little over a month and then like you said, I started to become a little perturbed because she was mainly trying to see me when she had the baby and since he was a newborn it was hard to get to know her on an intimate level as I would want because her attention rightfully so was on her baby.

Well, women often will use their kids as kids as blockers, so they like going out, hanging out and you buying them dinner and drinks, whatever you’re doing, but they bring the child along, so no hanky-panky, no fooling around, no intimacy, no sex, no nothing, because the kid’s sitting there giving you the stink eye. Like, “What are you doing touching my mother like that? Why are you kissing my mom? So you keep that in mind. And really, if a woman’s a good mother, she should not be involving her children with a guy unless they have been dating for a few months.

When I would try to just make plans when she didn’t have the baby, she wanted her alone time, and looking back at it I should have just let her come to me and be patient at the time.

So he’s trying to make dates with just her and him so he can advance things romantically and when she has free time instead of spending time with him, She’s like, “Oh, I need some time alone.” So it sounds like she already kind of viewed him as a friend. She liked his interests. She liked his attention, she liked the validation she got from him, she probably liked him spending money on her, taking her to dinner, buying her drinks, probably paying to feed her kid. I don’t know how old the kid is. A year or two if he’s eating solid food or not, but she’s always bringing the child, and whenever she doesn’t have the kid, she’s unavailable. Well, that should tell you that you’re kind of friend-zoned.

To be honest, I would say still she did 80%-90% of the pursuing, but I do feel she was testing my strength when trying to make plans.

Well, you got to pay attention to that. If every time you try to make plans with a woman and she wants to bring her child along as the blocker to prevent any romance from happening, well she likes the free meals and the attention, but she’s doing that on purpose so she doesn’t have to do anything romantically and you should pay attention to that. If a woman really likes you and she’s interested in sex and romance, she’s going to make sure she gets a babysitter so the two of you can hang out together, but she’s not doing that. She’s always bringing the kid. So getting perturbed and butt-hurt about that, all it does is further cement in her mind that she’s doing the right thing by kind of keeping you in friend zone. It’s like she dangles the carrot enough to keep him interested and giving her attention and spending money on her and taking her out, but it never goes anywhere. So he’s paying attention to his interest in her, and he’s like, “Oh, it’s the kid again, damn it.,” But yet he keeps making plans with her.

Even though she asked to be exclusive, I didn’t feel like the effort was there at the time, so I got to the point where I basically told her I didn’t feel that she was in the right place for us to be seeing each other as her and her ex were constantly arguing.

Yeah, if a girl’s asking you to be exclusive and again, he doesn’t say anything. It doesn’t sound like anything happened between the two of them. So she wants him to be exclusive. In other words, not date any other girls so she can have them all to herself, but yet she’s not willing to spend any time alone, so anything romantic can happen. So it sounds like she’s just kind of using him for the free food and entertainment. Women will do this. Not all of them, but some of them will do this, and if you’re young, you’re naive and you don’t know any better, you end up spending a lot of time and a lot of money spinning your wheels and getting nowhere.

I think where I messed up was that I still wanted to talk to her and wasn’t at the time meaning what I said.

That’s another reason why you’re stuck in friend zone, because you kept agreeing to do things on her terms instead of just saying, “Well, why don’t you figure out when you can get a babysitter so you and I can hang out and get to know each other? I think it’s kind of inappropriate for you having a newborn and involving me in your life when we don’t really know each other that well and we’re not really that close.”

It was a hard month or so because I developed feelings for her all year and then we went to our annual sales rally. We still kept in touch weekly at this point.

More than likely, he’s probably doing more reaching out, even though he said earlier 80% to 90% was her. If we just look at her actions and what’s actually going on in here, it looks like he’s kind of bullshitting us and himself a little bit.

The night of the party, her ex would use the baby against her a lot and she was upset. I told her to have fun tonight and we can talk later if she wants. Well, she got drunk and rode the mechanical bull  in a dress and flashed the work party. I was pissed, but didn’t say anything until she approached me.

Again, she’s not really your girlfriend. She still lives with, well, I guess she moved out or the baby daddy did move out in June.

I should have handled it better. She went to her friends, which is her male orbiter basically, and her other friend and told them I was mad at her. This made me even more upset.

So now she’s trolling you, you’re coming unglued and you’re just digging a bigger hole for yourself. Again, this is why this stuff is in my book, to caution guys when they get involved with women like this, but this guy didn’t follow instructions. He only focused on his interest in her, and he kept agreeing to do things on her term, which was she always had the kid and would never spend any time alone. Then he’s blowing his top at her and just continually making himself look unattractive and undesirable. It’s a bad way to go.

My friend and I left the party and later that night she texted me but I was upset and thought she had more class than that. I basically told her I couldn’t take her serious and she unadded me on Snapchat.

So he got butt-hurt and mad. Again, these are just not things you need to say or you need to get upset about. You shouldn’t have been in this situation to begin with. If you’d have just refused to interact with her as long as she was living with that guy, then she would have resolved that situation a lot quicker, and she would have made sure that she got a babysitter or somebody to watch the kid so she could spend time with you because she wouldn’t have wanted to risk losing you. The fact that you kept getting butt-hurt, perturbed, upset and kind of treating her like a girlfriend even though you’re constantly getting cock-blocked with the kid, well that’s on you because you’re not following what’s in the book.

Over the next couple weeks, I felt bad and reached out to tell her I’d like to make it up to her even though that evening still bothers me to this day as it was just not very classy.

So if you’re trying to make it up to her, if she’s doing the unclassy thing, you’re basically taking the blame for her behavior, which is beta male behavior. It’s absurd. You basically told her it’s all your fault for what she did. That’s silly. That’s just more approval seeking behavior. “Oh, I don’t want to upset her.”

She told me I hurt her and she was happy to be friends, but didn’t like what happened. I told her no to friendship…

Well, you were kind of friend-zoned a long time ago. You just didn’t realize it or want to admit it.

…And to call me if she changed her mind and went no-contact. She then proceeded to try and make me jealous with the guy friend that also happens to be her model home partner, but I just ignored her. A month later, she randomly added me back on Snapchat and liking my posts. Two weeks later at our office party, she was banging on the bathroom door I opened it and told her to join me. We made out in the bathroom and I walked out and left her in there jokingly.

This is so immature.

The rest of the day we had fun, but since she hasn’t reached out to me and wished me happy birthday on the work group chat which I found odd.

Well, if she didn’t wish you happy birthday, it just shows she didn’t give a shit. Again, that tells me you’re all focused on your interest in her, and we’re ignoring the fact that at this point, she was already kind of turned off and over it, but again, she liked the free meals and the attention you used to give her.

It’s been a month, but I’m not going reach out to her and just go on about my life. I’m at a place now where it’s been a year of this and I’m just over it and if she wants me she can come to me.

Well, that’s what you should have been doing from the beginning, but you didn’t follow instructions.

Honestly even if she did come back, I’m still not sure whether I should consider her seriously or just a sex playmate.

Well again, I don’t know that they actually had sex. It didn’t seem like it. It seemed like they did a lot of hanging out, and he got cock-blocked because she always had the kid with her.

I do really care about her, but I’m conflicted if our values align even though she comes across as a good girl, but when she drinks she can get goofy. Sorry if this was long, but I would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for everything! 

Bob

Well I mean, at this point, I wouldn’t do anything. If she ever reaches out to you, invite her over to make dinner at your place. Hang out, have fun and hook up. Follow what’s in 7 Principles To Get An Ex Back. I wouldn’t be meeting her out or picking her up. If she says she’s going to bring the kid, just say, “Well, I told you before, I’m not interested in friendship. So if you want to see me, let’s get together and have a romantic evening at my place. If you don’t want to do that, then you can call the other guy, one of your other guy friends, and I’m sure they’ll hang out with you and entertain you. I want something more. You need to make more of an effort if you want another shot.” I’d leave it at that. I’d never call or text her again for any reason.

As far as I know, I can’t really tell. It does look like she wouldn’t do anything with you as long as she was living with that guy, but as soon as she kicked the baby daddy out and he moved out, then she wanted to hang out, but you kept getting butt-hurt and perturbed and you kept agreeing to go on dates with her dragging the kid along to basically prevent any kind of romance happening. So that’s on you. You interacted with her platonically for a long period of time, and that’s why you kind of firmly got planted in friend zone, because you weren’t willing to decline her offer to hang out if it meant that she was going to bring the kid along.

Again, women will bring the kid along on purpose, because they want the free meal, the drinks and the attention that you give her, but when you try to advance anything, the kid’s always there. Then they say, “Oh, I’m sorry. You know, maybe after we put the child to bed or after we put my baby to bed, or my son or my daughter to bed, we can fool around, but not in front of little Johnny.” You got to think about things, man. You got to look at what a woman does, not what she says, and you can’t be blowing your top and getting upset at her. It’s just a bad way to go.

Again, getting upset of how she behaves at the office, like she’s not your girlfriend. She did ask you to be exclusive, but again, the way it sounds like is that they just hung out and maybe kissed that one time in the bathroom. I don’t know, maybe there’s more to it. He just left those details out because his email was a little longer than normal, but he made it sound like they just hung out as friends all the time because the kid was always there. If that’s the case, well that’s on him. At the end of the day, you’re in a situation now where you basically should just be following what’s in 7 Principles To Get An Ex Back.

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.