If She’s Playing Hard To Get Do This To Make Her Chase You

How to make a woman who’s playing hard to get to start chasing you instead.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a viewer who got all up in his feelings about a girl he really wanted. He went on a couple of dates at first, but then she would never agree to make dates and always had excuses. He finally gave up. It’s several months later and now she’s reaching out to him again and he asks my opinion on what it means.

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

So this particular email is from a viewer. He got all up in his feelings and was way too focused on how much he liked a girl that he really wanted.

So at first, when they met, they made a couple of dates. He thought they went well, but after that, she always had an excuse. She was busy, and unfortunately, he just kept pursuing, even though he’s been following me for a couple of years.

And this is what happens when a guy kind of ignores reality. You may have heard me say, “You can ignore reality, but not the consequences of ignoring reality.”

And so he kept pursuing somebody that wouldn’t make dates. As the book says, if you reach out, she says no, or she’s busy, maybe you wait a couple of weeks to see if she reaches out. Then you try one more time. If she still gives you a flaky response or won’t make a date, then you just move on.

Well, this guy didn’t do that because he really liked her, and he’s thinking, “Man, we had a couple of great dates. What happened?”

And this is what most men have experienced in dating. They go out with a girl and are like, “Man, it seems like it’s going well.” And then all of a sudden, she just is not available and always has a logical-sounding excuse as to why she can’t see you, or she’s busy, or she’s got this, she’s got that.

And so after many months of not paying attention to her actions, he just kind of gave up. And so several months go by, and now she’s reaching out saying, “Oh, all my girlfriends say you’re like my part-time boyfriend or my pretend boyfriend.”

And he’s like, “Wow, what?”

So this is, like, case in point. I talk about this in the book. The quickest way to get somebody else’s attention is to remove yours.

And unless you get a “Hell yeah, I’d love to see you,” after two attempts, two different attempts to make a date, you just say, “Hey, when your schedule frees up, hit me up. Let me know when you’re available. I’d love to see you.”

And then you just—you never call. You never text again. You just walk away completely.

But when you keep pursuing, because what does the culture say? You got to pursue. Men are supposed to be the pursuer. You just pursue and pursue and pursue.

You think, “Well, I mean, we had a couple of good dates,” and then all of a sudden she’s unavailable, and excuses always sound legit.

But the bottom line is she won’t make time to see you. And when that happens, you just back off.

It’s like I talked about the girl that I went to meet at the club that her family owned, or the bar, I should say. And I get there, and there’s all these dudes coming up and people who knew her.

It’s like I’d talk for about a minute or two, and then somebody would come and pull her away. And then my buddy and I would hang out. I’m like, “Okay, we’ll wait for her to finish this conversation.”

He was watching us, and he was good with the ladies. He always had really hot girlfriends. And after that happened three or four times, he’s like, “Let’s get the fuck out of here, dude. This girl doesn’t care about you.”

And I was bummed. I was like, I felt like an ass because here’s my buddy. He always had hot girlfriends, was always dating hot women. I couldn’t understand what the fuck was going on.

Because I’d gone out on a date with her, and it had gone well. And she’s, you know, back then she’s paging me or calling my cell phone. You know, we used pagers a lot, and then you would usually call somebody back on your cell phone.

And I was like, “Well, that’s kind of weird.”

And then, so I go home. We went somewhere else. We had a good night, but still, I was totally bummed. I was like, “Well, I guess that’s the end of that.”

And then the next morning, like 9:01 a.m., she calls. She’s like, “Where were you? I looked everywhere. What happened? I couldn’t find you guys.”

I was like, “What?”

So it seemed like, because she just kept putting me on the back burner so she could say hi to everybody, or everybody was pulling her away because, again, her parents owned the place. You know, she knew everybody. We went to the same high school together.

And my buddy’s just like, “Just don’t give a shit. Let’s go.”

And then the next morning, she’s like, “What happened?”

I was like, “What?”

Didn’t make any sense at the time, but the quickest way to get somebody else’s attention is to remove yours.

Remember, it’s a scientific fact. Women are more attracted to men whose feelings are unclear.

And especially when a woman gets full of herself, when she gets really sure that you like her, especially if you overcommunicate the interest and give her too much attention, then she kind of picks up on you’re a little soft, you’re a little too much of a nice guy. You probably don’t get anywhere with the ladies.

Most guys keep pursuing, and then they get stuck in the friend zone and thinking, “Oh, well, maybe someday I’ll get my shot.”

Meanwhile, she continues to go through guys she’s dating or one boyfriend after another. You know, he waits six months, a year or two, then she’s single, and he thinks, “I’m gonna get my chance.”

I did the same thing, and the next thing you know, she’s already seeing somebody else. Like, “What the hell happened? I was going to get my chance.”

And then you realize that you’re looking for a “Hell yeah.” You’re looking for one who’s like, “I’d love to see you. Hell yeah, let’s do it. Let’s get together. Let’s go out. Let’s have some fun. That sounds great. I’d love to.”

That’s what you’re looking for. And if you don’t get that, then you just stop moving forward.

And a woman can feel that. And when that happens, they all of a sudden go from not giving a damn and being unavailable to all of a sudden they’re wide open.

Like my girlfriend that I was dating, that I wrote about, who had the daughter. It’s like I got to the point where I just pursued too much. I acted too nice. I was a little too soft, a little too squishy, and she lost interest.

I turned her off. I gave her more platonic feelings towards me than romantic ones, even though she’d been really hot for me at first.

And so my mind is stuck on the fact that she was so hot for me at first, and she sucked the tongue out of my throat, and then all of a sudden she just can’t find time in her schedule for me. She’s busy.

And on top of that, she was still reaching out every few days, once a week or whatever, and it was confusing. I’d try to set a date when she was reaching out, and then she just kept having excuses but wanted to see how I was doing.

And in reality, she was seeing other guys, but her interest in me had dropped. But she wasn’t ready to kick me to the curb.

And then when I would back off, her interest would go back up. She’d reach out. She knew she had me or could have me, and then she’d blow me off again.

And so it wasn’t until I stopped moving forward completely, even though she was reaching out.

I remember there was a day, and I wrote about this in the book as well, that she called me, and we talked for a few minutes. And it was hard to do. I didn’t want to do it.

Everything inside me was screaming, “No, don’t do it. She’s on the phone. I love the sound of her voice. I miss the smell of the perfume that she wore.”

And we talked for three or four minutes, and I was like, “Hey, it was really awesome hearing from you, but I gotta run. I’ll talk to you later.”

And I hung up, and I was like, “Huh. What did I do? I just basically told her I didn’t want to see her. Oh my God.”

It was freaking me out because I really liked this girl.

And about two minutes later, my receptionist calls. “Hey, Corey, so-and-so is on the phone.”

And I was like, “I got her.”

Sure enough, I picked up the phone. I was like, “Hey! Long time no see. How you been? I haven’t talked to you in ages.”

And she laughed, and she says, “Hey, you got your desk calendar? You got your calendar out?”

I was like, “Yeah, it’s right on my desk.”

I had one of those big calendars with the big squares in it. This is before iCal.

She says, “I want to see when you’re available so you and I can go to Disney World and do Around the World.”

I was like, she goes from not being available, I’m asking her out, I’m pursuing her. I stop pursuing her, and she started pursuing me.

But even then, when I would ask her out, she’d be busy. It’s like as soon as I let her try to make a date, she knew that she could have me, and she’d go, “Oh, I don’t know. My schedule, this, that…”

And so it was my idea still.

And so when I completely stopped moving forward, even when she reached out, I didn’t bring up getting together because I’d already done it a bunch of times, several times, and she just wouldn’t make dates with me. I kind of gave up.

And then she’s asking me. Then she calls me right back, wants to know when I’m available.

And then on top of that, she’s like, “Hey, do you want to take my daughter to SeaWorld or Disney for the day?” Whatever it happened to be.

And so she made two dates: a date for her and I, and one where I could take her daughter to the theme parks for the day. And then later on, she would meet up with us when she got off work.

And it was just a complete 180. She went from, like, not caring, talking, “Oh, I kind of think of you as a friend. I don’t really think it’s going to go anywhere, but I really like you. I don’t want to lose you. You’re so important to me.”

But when I just completely stopped moving forward and she had to bring up getting together, complete attitude change.

So what it looks like is this guy’s kind of done the same thing here. He was in the same boat, but he was probably just like I was, thinking about how hot she was for him at first, and now all of a sudden she’s cold.

He’s like, “Well, maybe she’ll be in a different headspace next week.”

So, because again, pretty much every dude has had this experience.

Viewer Email:

Dear Coach,

I’ve been a fan of yours for a couple of years now. 3% Man changed my perspective on dating and relationships, and I have tried to apply its lessons in my dating life.

That said, I want your advice on a situation I’m in with a woman I tried to pursue a year ago.

Well, it’s true that men have to pursue, but it’s like you kind of—it’s like if you ever had a hill and you make a nice little snowball, you get it big enough, then you push it, the momentum will carry it down.

You basically have to start the pursuit, and usually by the second or third date, if you’ve done everything right, you’re applying what’s in the book, and you got a normal, healthy woman, she’s going to sleep with you.

And after that, usually she’ll start reaching out. Sometimes they reach out before that happens. So once they start reaching out, then you don’t really have to reach out first anymore.

It actually becomes counterproductive because women need that time and space away from you to wonder about you, to think about you, to miss you, to become unsure where they stand with you.

And when you’re always making it clear you want them, and yet they won’t make dates with you, then stop making it clear for them. Don’t say anything. Be ambiguous.

Even if they’re reaching out to you and you’re trying to set dates when they reach out to you, even if they’re doing all the pursuing, if they won’t make dates, then stop asking them to make dates and then keep the conversation short.

If she’s calling or FaceTiming, talk for three or four minutes and say, “Hey, it was really awesome hearing from you. I gotta run. I’ll talk to you later.”

If she’s texting, send a few texts back and forth. “Hey, how you been? What have you been up to?” Blah, blah, blah. And then say, “Hey, it’s great to hear from you. I gotta run. I’ll talk to you later.”

One of two things will happen. She’ll either bring up getting together, or she’ll disappear forever.

Now, the girl in my 20s that I was hanging out with at her parents’ place, it’s like I could never—I didn’t understand, you know, how stopping moving forward and then how to reengage with her.

And plus, we’d go out on dates, and I’d be too scared to make a kiss. I was like, “Well, I gotta get to know her first. I want to be comfortable. I don’t want to get rejected.”

And after a while, she’s like, “This dude’s a beta. He doesn’t even make a move on me.”

And she was hot. She had lots of dudes that wanted to date her. And eventually she realized, “Oh, he’s just another nice guy. He’s just a nice guy. He can be my friend.”

But she just disappeared. And then the worst part was I had called her and left a message, and I didn’t hear from her.

And then I came home from work the next day, and she’d called me at, like, 1:00 in the afternoon or 2:00. It was sometime in the afternoon when she knew my schedule. She knew I was not going to be there.

She actually knew where I worked. She’d been to the job site where our construction office was.

And so she purposely, because she always hit my pager before or would call my cell phone, now she’s calling me at home and leaving a message on my answering—or my voicemail, I think it was. I had an answering machine.

And I was like, “Oh, she did that on purpose. She’s just being nice to return the phone call, but called me when she knew I wasn’t there.”

And I think, I’m pretty sure I called her back, but then I never heard anything. And then occasionally I would see her out.

And it wasn’t until I was with my future wife and dating her that now I would—we’d be at the same place, and I’d feel somebody looking at me. I’d look over, and then there she would be, sitting down, staring right at me, smiling.

I was like, “What the fuck is that?” She didn’t even care, and now I’m with somebody else. Now she’s, you know, looking at me the same way she looked at me when we first met.

I was like, “What is that? What is that? I don’t understand that. It doesn’t make any sense.” But it’s the way they are.

Quickest way to get somebody else’s attention is to remove yours. It’s counterintuitive.

And so it took me a lot of years to connect those dots and figure out what the fuck was going on and how to respond appropriately in those situations.

She and I met at the end of the summer and then went on a couple of dates last fall. At first, things seemed to be going strong, but then it got harder to coordinate dates with her.

So you got to pay attention to that. That’s a sign of lowered interest. Or maybe an ex is back in the picture. Or she found a guy who was more masculine and had better game than you, or she was more attracted to him, whatever it happened to be.

And so again, when you’re in that situation, if you’ve reached out twice and she won’t make dates on either occasion, don’t call or text for any reason.

And then if she reengages and reaches out to you, invite her out for a date. But what if she calls you first or texts you first? Then you try to make a date, and she again tells you how busy she is.

She’s just seeing and stirring the pot to see if you’re still interested. So you’re kind of a backup plan at that point.

And if she reaches out two different times, and both of those times you try to make a date and she still won’t make a date, then you do what I did with my girlfriend that had the daughter, is that you don’t ask at all, even when she reaches out.

And then you cut the conversation short, just like I talk about in the article and video “7 Principles to Get an Ex Back.”

After a couple of weeks of trying to coordinate meeting up but being unable to, she invited me to see her on Halloween. However, I had a prior obligation that night, and then she ghosted me for a few days afterward.

From there, it became a game of cat and mouse…

See, this is where he goes wrong. He’s engaging in a cat and mouse because he’s thinking—I know how it is when you really like someone. You think, “Okay, well, maybe next week she’ll be different. She’ll be in a different headspace.”

And then the next week comes, and it’s just—all you do is validate that you’re still interested. And then she continues hanging out with whoever else she’s hanging out with. Could be an ex-boyfriend you didn’t know about. You don’t really know.

The bottom line is she won’t make dates with you, and that’s all that really matters.

…and it started to feel like excuse after excuse whenever I tried to get a date on her schedule.

Your problem is you kept pursuing instead of stopping.

Weeks turned into months, and months turned into seasons.

So I remember my girlfriend with the daughter. It’s like things were so hot and heavy, and she’s all over me. And then I didn’t see her for, like, two months, even though we had been talking about once a week, every week and a half.

The longest that she would go without hearing from her was, like, 12 days. She would always break and reach out after 12 days. And even then, she still wouldn’t make a date with me.

And I later found out she was still kind of seeing the guy that she had been seeing when I first met her, but they were broken up and still kind of hooking up.

And she was hoping that things would go well with him, but it was never going to work out because her family was in law enforcement, and his family tended to walk on the other side of the law, if you will.

And so they didn’t—you know, just because of that, it was like the Sopranos kind of situation. The families were never going to be okay with it.

So when it was going well with him, or she thought it might turn into a relationship, I wouldn’t hear from her. She’d stay in touch, but it never went anywhere.

And then once it really was done with him, then she became more available. But by then, I’d finally hit the brakes and backed off.

But man, it took me a long time to really figure this shit out. I was able—and so this gives you insight into his mindset.

I was able to touch base with her again at a friend’s birthday in the spring, which was nice…

So he’s like, his whole mindset is, “I gotta get her attention.” The problem is you gave her too much attention, too much validation.

…but she was still playing hard to get, even directly sharing with me texts from the guy she was seeing at the time (or allegedly “seeing”—maybe trying to make me jealous?).

Well, at that point, she’s like the cat, and you’re just another ball of yarn to play with.

Your attitude should be like, “Oh, well, good luck with that. Hope it works out for you.” And you don’t say anything. You don’t say, “Hey, if it doesn’t work out, hit me up,” because you’ve already made it clear that you were interested in the past.

And so what you want to do is you want to be different. If you were tired of fucking her, how would you treat her? You’d be like, “Oh, hey, well, good luck. Hope it works out for you.”

You don’t say, “Hey, if it doesn’t, hit me up,” in that situation because of all the rejections you’ve gotten previously.

Under normal circumstances, you say, “Hey, well, if it doesn’t work out, hit me up.” But in this case, you’ve already tried that, and she’s just looking to see if you’re still interested.

So it would be better to just say, “Hey, well, good luck with that dude,” and not mention anything about you and her getting together.

You just treat her like, “Hey, we dated, and I’m kind of over it.” Or if you’re seeing somebody else, or if you’re fucking three other girls, you’re like, “Why remember how this girl was?”

Every time I tried to set a date, and I got girls blowing up my phone going, “Oh, I want you inside me tonight. Can I come over?”

It’s like, you’re not going to give any attention to a woman who’s like this because you don’t want to be her ball of yarn. You don’t want to be her plaything.

I felt that night and interaction were the final nail in the coffin, and I figured there was no sense in pursuing her after that.

So, okay. He finally was like, “All right, now I’m gonna stop moving forward,” which should have happened a lot longer before that.

But again, this is what happens when a guy focuses on how much he likes a girl and then just ignores that she don’t feel the same way.

And at the end of the day, women like you way more if they think they’re more into you than you are into them. But when it’s the opposite, you get what this guy gets.

And lots of women will bitch about that. “Oh, that’s not true. We want to be pursued.”

It’s like, yeah, but at the end of the day, this is every guy’s experience. And when you ask those women, “Okay, well, tell me about the guys you were most in love with. What did they do? How did they treat you?”

It was like they didn’t do any of this shit. They didn’t do any pursuing. They had to do all of it, and it drove them crazy in a good way.

To my surprise, a few months later, she texted me saying she’d been keeping up a playful lie with a friend of hers and her friends, which involved me being her secret boyfriend.

So in other words, that’s her way of saying, “Hey, my feelings have crept back up on me. I wasn’t expecting that, and I’m thinking about you romantically right now.”

Apparently, it’s been a running joke in her friend group for a while.

So she says something like that, I’d say, “Well, let’s get together for a drink and catch up.”

I wasn’t entirely sure how to react, but out of respect and curiosity, I texted her back. She mentioned it had been a busy few months for her, traveling and working…

“Work’s crazy.”

…and she’s ready to “take things slow” and relax for the rest of the year.

Which she’s basically saying, “I haven’t heard from you in a couple of months, and that bothered me. And now I’ve been having impure thoughts about you.”

So again, that’s the hint that she’s thinking something romantic.

From your perspective, Coach, is this a connection worth pursuing, or should I stop taking her seriously?

Well, I would not call or text her again for any reason. So I assume that conversation died and you didn’t do anything. So I would leave it like that because she’ll probably reach out to you again in the future.

I would not start pursuing her again, but under normal circumstances, she reaches out and says those things, then invite her to get together.

Even if she was—well, now, let’s say she was reaching out in the past and you had tried multiple times, even when she was doing all the reaching out, to set dates, and she still wouldn’t do it.

Well, in that case, then you won’t bring up getting together unless she brings it up first.

But here she’s mentioning and hinting at taking things slow. That’s basically her saying, “Hey, I want to see you now romantically, but I want to take it slow because last time you were too hot and heavy, and you were trying to drop the hammer down, and you were going faster than I was ready.”

So that’s her, basically. You know, again, women don’t come right out and ask you out on a date. Most of the time they do things like this where they hint at it. They hint about you and her being involved romantically.

So in that case, make a date. But again, if the time has passed, she’ll probably reach out again because she’ll be wondering, “He didn’t ask me out. Is he dating somebody? Did he meet somebody else? Does he not like me anymore?”

Which will make her reach out to you again. And if she does reach out again, then try to invite her out for a date.

If you’re in a situation where she’s already been to your house, maybe you’d hooked up or almost hooked up, and she was comfortable coming over to your house, then I wouldn’t go on a date or pick her up or meet her out. I’d make her come to your place, just like what it says in “7 Principles to Get an Ex Back.”

I’m very confused by all the mixed signals, and I’m wondering whether, over the last year, she’s actually become more attracted to me.

Well, again, the quickest way to get somebody else’s attention is to remove yours. And you just disappeared, and so it crept back up.

On the other hand, was her attraction to me never strong enough from the start…

But you obviously turned her off by overpursuing and being too nice and soft and squishy. You acted like a nice guy again.

When we don’t know any better, I mean, we all do the same fucking thing, and we don’t know when to disengage.

And so you should have disengaged early on, but you didn’t. You kept pursuing for months and months and months, as you said, for seasons.

Even when she was reaching out to you, you kept trying to make dates, and she kept shooting you down.

So that’s why “7 Principles to Get an Ex Back” says that if she’s been reaching out and you’ve tried to set dates on two separate consecutive occasions, then you don’t even bring up getting together unless she brings it up first.

And again, when she talked about taking things slow and you being her secret boyfriend, that’s her way of saying, “Hey, I want to see you romantically because my feelings have crept back up.”

That’s how it works, man. That’s just the way they’re wired. Women are wired to get a man’s attention, and if you don’t give them enough time and space to get your attention and work for it and be a challenge, as the late, great Doc Love would refer to it as, then you’re going to get blue balls and not get anywhere.

So you need to know when to stop and disengage and then when to reengage.

…and for whatever reason (maybe seeing her top option or two fall by the wayside since then)…

Yeah, I would say whoever else she was hooking up with or dating or seeing is gone. Because again, remember she showed you the part, “Oh, look who I’m seeing.”

It’s kind of her way of saying—and she wanted to see how you react. And if you were like, “Hey, good luck with that,” she’s like, “What? He was so into me. He doesn’t care anymore. Did he meet somebody else? I have a magic pussy. I’ll show him.”

…she’s now interested in giving me another chance because her circumstances have since changed?

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Thanks,

Bob

I would say that’s probably true, but again, it’s because you kind of stumbled onto the fact that you just stopped moving forward. And look, look how it changed her attitude.

So that is the right way. Like I said, my overall critique is you didn’t stop moving forward soon enough.

As soon as you reached out twice on two different occasions in those early months of seeing her, or a few early dates, and she rejected you twice in a row, then you don’t bring up getting together, or you don’t reach out anymore unless she reaches out to you.

And if she reaches out to you and you try to set a date and she won’t, then you say, “All right, well, hit me up when you figure out your schedule.”

And say she reaches out again a week or two later. Same thing. You try to make a date, and she won’t make a date. That must mean that she’s with somebody else, but she wants to see if you’re still available.

And so even if she’s reached out twice and you try to ask her out on two different occasions when she’s reached out twice and she still won’t make it, then even if she reaches out, you won’t bring up getting together unless she brings it up first.

Because if it’s her idea, she’ll say yes to it, and she’ll keep the date. 99% chance she’ll keep the date when she brings it up.

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.

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