How To Tell If She’s Just Manipulating You For Attention

How to tell if she’s just manipulating you for attention & what to do instead.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a viewer in Brazil who’s a little delusional and gullible. He believes he’s been dating a female coworker for 3 months, but she always cancels their dates and he keeps falling for her games of manipulation. They’ve made out at work a few times, but he doesn’t realize she’s just manipulating him for attention and not serious.

My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

Well, this particular email is from a 26-year-old guy. He’s from Brazil. He’s a little delusional, a little gullible. So he believes he’s been seeing this female coworker for about three months. However, he says every time he sets a date with her, she cancels it. And yet he keeps trying to make dates, and she’s just clearly jerking him around.

And as I go through this email, it’s kind of like a cat with a ball of yarn. And he’s the ball of yarn and doesn’t realize it. And remember, I wrote about this in 3% Man. No one will ever do or say anything to you that you don’t invite them to do. And so he’s clearly inviting this kind of behavior from her and doesn’t realize he’s contributing to it.

Problem is, when you spend so much time being soft and allowing yourself to get jerked around, you make dates and the girl cancels, and right away you’re trying to make another date, she’s gonna see you as soft and weak. She’s not gonna feel safe with you, and the legs are going to close. She’ll definitely enjoy the attention.

And it’s clear this girl is just manipulating this guy all over the place, leading him around by the nose, and he has not come to recognize it yet. And he believes she’s really into him. She may have been at first, but when you behave this way, you’re gonna get a really bad case of blue balls.

So let’s go through his email and see what’s going on, because there are women out there that like attention that’ll dangle the carrot. They’ll promise you more later. And if you’re gullible enough to fall for that, you may become one of their hairy Honda guys, part of their Frankenstein boyfriend project.

And so you got to be careful with women like this that are hot. They know they’re hot. They like attention from men, but they’re only going to sleep with the guys that are the strongest and the most alpha. And guys that behave this way are going to get the carrot dangled, and they’re never going to get anywhere near the promised land.

And it’s incredibly frustrating. Plus, it takes you out of the game. You get all emotionally hung up on somebody that keeps jerking you around, and you don’t have any self-respect. You never stand up to her. Then you’re just going to get walked all over and treated like a doormat. And when other women see that, they’re not going to respect you either.

So this is just not good behavior to allow and invite. And a lot of guys don’t know any better because he’s so focused on how much he likes her. He’s completely ignoring all of the disrespect and the jerking around that she’s doing, but he just keeps going back for another helping of it.

And it’s not like, clicked yet, even after three months, that he’s not getting anywhere. But the good news is he wrote in, he’s watching videos, so hopefully we’ll be able to get through.

Viewer Email:

Hi,

I’m 26, from Brazil, and I work as a bartender at a hotel in Rio. For the past three months, I’ve been seeing a coworker—she’s a hostess at the same hotel.

So I assume she’s probably younger. She’s probably 18, 19, super hot, immature.

The attraction is clearly there: we went out once and kissed, we’ve made out a few times on the staff staircase, and she teases me sexually almost every day.

Well, she knows you want her. That’s why, you know, she’s taking—it’s like thirst-trap kind of behavior. “Oh, hey, look at my butt. Wouldn’t it be nice to date me?” And then, yet, you never get anywhere.

So men who have choice with women aren’t going to fall for that BS. At the first sign of disrespect, especially a canceled date where there is no mention of a reschedule and she’s just blowing you off, you’re never, ever going to ask her out again. And even if she reaches out to you after the fact, she’s got to bring up getting together.

But this woman even does that at one point, I believe, if I remember right, unless I’m confusing it with the second email. But eventually she asks him out, and guess what? She cancels that too.

So at this point, you just don’t engage. This is one of those situations where you’re going to have to draw the hard line in the sand, because I can relate to this guy’s situation, because I was kind of in a similar situation with my girlfriend that had a daughter. I had made so many mistakes, and I was still learning this stuff. I didn’t have somebody like me that I could go to that could really tell me or zero in on what to do.

I remember I had spoken to the late, great Doc Love back in the late ’90s, early 2000. And he was just like, “Yeah, she’s out.” But it’s like I was hooked. I still wanted the girl. I wanted to know what it was like to date her. And women that come along like that, that you’re really into and who are into—at least she was into me at first a lot—but I kept displaying so much beta behavior that she just kept kind of seeing me as a friend.

And when I would try to get out of the friend zone, I just wasn’t able to stand up to her enough and long enough and hold out enough to where she was ready to get it on, until I ultimately gave her an ultimatum. And I’ll get to that in the email here. So back to his email.

He says, so she’s teasing him sexually every day, dangling the carrot. The problem is he’s just acting too soft.

But every date we set after that first one, she broke—three times now.

So again, remember, he starts out, “Hey, I’ve been seeing this girl for three months.” It’s—they had one date, and they’ve, I guess, made three dates that she’s canceled, all three of those.

So if a woman cancels a date, it’s like you don’t call, you don’t text, you don’t move forward. And if she doesn’t offer a reschedule, even if she continues reaching out, you’re never going to bring up getting together unless she brings it up first.

On the second one, I traveled across the city in the rain and waited 30 minutes—she never showed, and then called me a liar three times for saying I went.

On the second one, I traveled across the city in the rain and waited 30 minutes. She never showed and then called me a liar three times for saying I went. It’s like this girl’s just disrespectful. She clearly is not raised right.

So she’s enjoying this game of manipulation, and you can just kind of imagine what her home life was like in order for her to think that that’s a good idea, to jerk a guy around. She clearly didn’t have a strong father at home that would jerk a knot in her ass if he found out she was behaving this way.

Again, when you—when a girl doesn’t respect her father or the guy is just not around, this is the kind of trailer-park behavior that you see. And the guys that are the betas, they get the worst of it. They get tortured the absolute worst.

After that, I pulled back completely. Within days, she came to me, apologized, asked why I was acting differently, and then set the next date herself—she picked the day and confirmed the time the night before. On the day, she went silent.

So I assume—I don’t know if he went to the date. Let’s see here.

The next morning, she sent me a voice message saying she had been waiting for me at the beach, then admitted she forgot completely because she was with friends, and finished by blaming me for not texting her.

So it sounds like he probably went to the date, and once again, she was a no-show. He’s probably feeling like a chump at that point, thinking, “Man, I fell for her bullshit again.”

But that’s just—I mean, look at that behavior. She didn’t forget. She blew him off on purpose. Why? Because she knew she could get away with it, and he would still be hooked on her. And then on top of that, she says, “Oh, it’s all your fault.” That’s narcissistic behavior. Again, that’s a girl—clear signs that she came from a broken home.

That’s the kind of thing that should just make you disengage. Slide her over to potential sex playmate, friends with benefits. But that’s it. No girlfriend, no wife, no baby mama. None of that. Just a girl to have fun with. And then when you find somebody that’s actually got their shit together, then you move on with them and say, “I can’t see you anymore. I met somebody else.”

She’s also very insecure. She once broke things off with me because I wasn’t texting her enough, and later admitted she only did it to get my attention.

So she’s purposely—this is passive-aggressive behavior. This is not healthy. This is not normal. So in other words, the “Oh, you’re not texting me enough” was BS. She’s just doing it to see how he responds because it’s amusing to her at this point.

So she probably came from a very manipulative household, and that’s what she learned: games of manipulation. She’s not going to keep her word. Her words are worth nothing. Can you imagine trying to raise kids with a woman that behaves this way?

Granted, she’s young, but still, she’s immature and acts a little nutty. So these girls you don’t even take out on a date. You can invite them over to make dinner or hang out and have some drinks at your place, and you’re going to hook up, and that’s it.

She told me straight out that her fear is that we’d sleep together and I wouldn’t text her the next day. So she demands attention and presence constantly, but never once showed up when it was time to actually go out.

Well, after that happened the first time, you should have stopped. But you kept going after—you kept trying to set subsequent dates, and you kept falling for her BS. And you’re probably one of, like, a dozen dudes in her life that she treats the same way.

Meanwhile, she goes and hooks up with Chad Thundercock, who doesn’t call, doesn’t text, doesn’t do anything, doesn’t take her out, doesn’t spend any money on her. When he’s available, he just texts her, “Hey, come over,” and she comes over because she knows if she doesn’t, he’ll just invite a different girl over. He won’t give a fuck, and then he’ll never call her again.

After that last no-show, I stopped investing completely.

Well, it should have never gotten to that point.

No texts, no dates, no chasing, just polite and professional at work. Three days later, she came to the staff cafeteria, pulled my earphone out, and asked why I was treating her differently. I told her everything was fine. She insisted three or four more times, and I asked her to put my earphone back and finished my lunch. She sat at another table.

Yeah, he’s like, “I’m not going to play your games anymore. I’m not even gonna engage. I’ll be polite. I’ll be respectful. If I see you, we make eye contact, I’ll smile and I’ll wave, and I’ll go about my business.”

My question: when a woman keeps coming back to confront me but has never once kept a date, is that a test I should keep passing, or is her interest simply below 5 and I’m reading the flirting as something it isn’t?

Well, at this point, what’s going on is she knows you really like her and you’re really thirsty for her, but she doesn’t respect you enough. And quite frankly, she’s a screwball, and so her behavior is not normal anyways.

And so you don’t call, you don’t text, you don’t reach out. If she calls or texts you, I’d wait a full 24 hours to respond. And unless she brings up seeing you or getting together, then you’re not going to bring it up.

And if she does bring it up, then you can just tell her, like, give her an ultimatum, just like I did with the girlfriend that had the daughter. She was jerking me around and, “Oh, I think of you as a friend.” I was like, “I’m not interested in that.”

I was like, “I need to move on with my life. Obviously, this is clearly, after a year, year and a half of this shit, not going anywhere. The only thing we haven’t done is made love yet. So if you’re down, why don’t we make plans to make dinner at my place?”

And actually, what I ended up doing is I made a—it was like a chicken recipe, a crock-pot one. And the crock pot was a crock pot she had gotten me for my birthday. And I said, “I’ll make us dinner. Bring a bottle of wine,” which I believe she brought a bottle of wine over, and we had the delicious meal that yours truly prepared, and we hooked up.

After that, we started making out, and then we took each other’s clothes off, started fucking in the kitchen, and then it moved to the bedroom. And I felt like a big weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

But before that, I remember what had happened was I just finally had had enough of getting jerked around or trying to seduce her, and it wasn’t going anywhere. And then she’s like, “Well, I just think of you as a friend.”

I was like, “We’ve known each other long enough. This thing ain’t going anywhere. It doesn’t work for me. It’s like, I’m not going to be your friend. I’m not going to be your pal. I don’t want to hear from you anymore. I don’t want any more phone calls. I don’t want to talk to you. The only thing I want to know is if you’re down to get together and hook up and make love. Otherwise, this is a complete waste of your time and mine, and I’m not going to do it anymore. I think you’re awesome, but this is ridiculous.”

And I remember she started crying, and she’s—I was like, “Let’s go now. Let’s go back,” because she came into my office unexpectedly and just showed up. I said, “Well, let’s go back to my place and make love. That’s the only thing we haven’t done, was consummate the relationship.”

And she’s like, “Oh, I’m not ready.” I was like, “Fine. You got my number. I don’t want to hear from you. You’re either in or you’re out. You’re either 100% in or you’re out, and I don’t want to ever hear from you again.”

And she’s crying, “Oh, are you gonna take all that away?” It’s like, “I don’t care. This is ridiculous. I’ve never experienced anything like this with anybody. We went back and forth for a year or so, and we’re still not sleeping together. This is stupid. It’s stupid. It’s immature, and I’m not going to participate in it anymore.”

And so that was, like, on a Thursday. And I said, “Well, let me know.” And it turns out, like, the very next day, I was actually playing golf with one of her brothers, who had invited me to hang out because I was pretty tight with her brothers at that point. And they understood women pretty well.

And so they knew that I was—or she knew that I was out with one of her brothers. And so we’re on the golf course. We’d been drinking a bunch. We’re just kind of screwing around, having a good time. And so she called me, and I was like, “Hey, you. What are you doing?” She’s like, “I’m calling you.”

I was like, “Well, are you in or are you out?” Because if she’s like, “Well, I’m out,” I’ll be like, “Well, goodbye. I gotta get back to my golf game.” But she’s like—and she says, “I’m in.”

I was like, “Great. Why don’t we get together tomorrow? I’ll make us dinner. You come on over around five or six, bring a bottle of wine, we’ll eat, and then we’ll make love.” And she’s like, “All right, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

And so she came over the next day. Again, we ate. We had some wine. We started making out, clothes came off. We started fucking in the kitchen, then went to the bedroom. And it completely changed the dynamic.

But she knew I was serious. She knew I wasn’t going to put up with any more bullshit. It’s like, “You come over, we’re hooking up, or I don’t want to hear from you again.”

We can be—you know, because she was doing a lot of insurance for some of my other agents and the girls that worked for him. I was like, “You can do business with them. I don’t care. I’m not going to get involved. Don’t call me. I don’t want to hear from you. Just, you’re either in or out. I’m not going to do this stupid bullshit anymore.”

And so you’re pretty much in a similar situation here with this girl. So let me finish reading the email, and then I’ll tell him what I would do with this particular girl, because she’s clearly probably going to reach out again or come up to him at work. But she’s got to ask about getting together or doing something.

In a few weeks, I’m relocating to the Caribbean for a new job that will roughly triple my income, so I’m moving on either way—but I’d like to understand whether I missed something.

Bob

So say she calls you and texts you. Talk for a few minutes. Say, “Hey, it was nice hearing from you. I gotta run. I’ll talk to you later.” If she’s texting you, same thing. Three or four texts back and forth. “Hey, it’s nice hearing from you. I gotta run. I’ll talk to you later.”

How would you treat her? If you’re tired of fucking her, you’re not going to give her any more attention. She’s going to have to ask for it. And so say she says, “Well, hey, I really want to get together and see you.” You say, “Look, after everything that’s happened, you know me well enough. I know you well enough. We spend enough time together at work. I want you, but I’m not going to do this platonic bullshit anymore.”

“So the only thing I’m down to do is we can get together, make some dinner at my place, and hook up after we eat dinner. But if you’re not up to that or cool with that or down with it, it’s like, I don’t want to hear from you ever again. We can be nice and cordial at work, but I’m done with this stupidity. It’s like, you either want to get together or you don’t. And if you don’t, I don’t want to hear from you anymore.”

“I’m moving away anyways in a few months.” I mean, I assume she probably knows that, or maybe she doesn’t. Maybe you haven’t told her. If you haven’t told her yet, I wouldn’t say anything about it because it’d be nice to just dip like fucking Batman, and then maybe she’ll fly to where you are and come see you. But who cares?

But at the end of the day, you got to set the hard line in the sand. You’re just too soft. She has to know that you’re fucking serious. Remember, as the book says, the strongest negotiating position is being able to walk away and mean it.

And with this girlfriend of mine, I was done with it. I told her, “I don’t want to hear from you again. Don’t call me and want to hang out or stop by or any more BS. It’s like we’re getting together, we’re fucking each other’s brains out, or I don’t want to hear from you anymore. Plain and simple. I’m not doing this. This is ridiculous. This is not healthy for either one of us.”

And she knew I was serious, and it took some waterworks, and it took her being away from me and me not hearing from her. Actually, no, I take it—I think it was a Wednesday she came in, because I didn’t hear from her on Thursday, but Friday I’m playing golf with her brother. So it was a full day where I didn’t hear nothing. And then she calls me when I’m on the golf course with her brother, and then she came over Saturday.

Now, that’s what I mean. Again, that was like 25 fucking years ago, so it was a long time ago. But you have to do that. You have to let—she has to know that you’re fucking serious. You’re not going to give her the time of day, but she’s gonna have to call you or text you and bring up getting together.

And then you’re just going to tell her this: “This is it. This is what I’m willing to do. You come over, we’re going to fuck each other’s brains out after we eat, or I don’t want to hear from you again.” Plain and simple. And so she’ll either do that, she’ll either come over, or she won’t.

And say you do make plans and she just doesn’t show or anything. You’ll give her your address, everything. Let her know where to go. If she doesn’t want to do that, I’d block her number. And if she comes up to you at work, just say, “Look, I gave you one—” I was like, “This is your last—”

And then the other thing I would add, I was like, “This is going to be the last chance that I’m going to give you. So don’t fuck around. Because if we make plans and you don’t show or you cancel for any reason, you’re dead to me. I don’t want to hear from you ever again. I’m going to block all your numbers. I’ll be nice and polite at work, but I don’t want to talk to you. And if you come over when I’m busy, I’m going to tell you, ‘Leave me alone. I don’t want to talk to you.'”

So come over, let’s hook up, or leave me the fuck alone, because I want to move on with my life. So you’re just at that place where you’re going to have to be a little harsh. And she—because she needs to feel, most importantly, feel that you’re serious.

And my girlfriend, the one with the daughter, she knew I was serious. She knew I meant it. I was over it. Plus, she’d already seen me out, or heard about me out, with another really hot girl that her boss saw. And that was, you know, that had happened a few weeks before that. And it completely changed her attitude.

So that’s where you’re at, my man. Remember, the strongest negotiating position is being able to walk away and mean it. Women—the only way you’re ever going to own a woman’s heart is she has to know that if she pushes you too far, you’re going to walk and never look back.

So you’ve just been too soft and squishy. Don’t ever keep making dates and chasing after a girl that cancels and jerks you around like that, because you created a very difficult situation for yourself. And the only thing that will give you a chance to get out of it is to let her know, “This is it. This is the end of the road here. You come over, we’re hooking up, or I’m blocking you. I’m never going to speak to you again. I’ll be nice and polite at work, but you’re not going to get another chance after that.”

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