She’s Giving Mixed Signals

What it means when a woman gives mixed signals of romantic interest.

In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss an email from a viewer who met a girl in drama school. He started talking about a play that he was interested in seeing, and she suggested that they go together. He’s a very shy guy, but they went and had a good time. About a month later he worked up the courage to call her to make a date. She enthusiastically accepted.

On the date, he awkwardly tried to put his arm around her, but she didn’t seem to like it. At the end of the date they hugged, but she seemed cold and distant. A week later he contacted her to make a 2nd date. She seemed enthusiastic, but stopped responding when he tried to make plans. He hasn’t heard from her since and asks my opinion. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

So he’s obviously new to 3% Man, but hey, everybody starts out as a beginner. Everybody starts out as a novice. So when I read emails like this, it reminds me of when I was younger and didn’t know any better. This is kind of like a rite of passage, so every guy is going to have to go through things like this to grow his confidence, to learn what he’s doing. We can all feel for this guy, because all of us have been there at some point or will be there if you’re a young guy watching this.

Viewer’s Email:

Hey Coach,

I met this girl at drama school in January 2023 and we connected. She would always be looking in my direction in every class and I could just feel her energy.

Attraction is not a choice. Women know within two or three seconds if they would date you and sleep with you. The reality is, and what’s kind of interesting when you study it, is that we tend to be attracted to other people that have the same facial structure, same facial shape as we do. Eyes, nose, mouth, etc. It’s really fascinating when you look at at couples that are together and how similar their facial structures are.

The reality is, if you’re decently fit and in shape, there are girls that are out there that you’re just going to do it for them for whatever reason. What you find as being beautiful, somebody else might be like, “Yeah, it doesn’t do anything for me,” because I get emails all the time from guys and they’re like, “I met the most beautiful woman in the world. She’s the hottest girl I’ve ever seen.” I see a picture. I’m thinking to myself, “Doesn’t do anything for me, but hey man, I’m happy for you.” Other guys are like, “My girl is a smoke show.” I’m like, “Totally.”

It really isn’t in the eyes of the beholder. Something that’s hard, especially when you don’t know any better and you’re younger, or if you have a negative mindset where you just presuppose things aren’t going to work out for you or women that you like are not going to be into you. The reality is most of them are not, but some of them will.

This girl was definitely interested in this guy because he passed her physical attraction test, but the number one most important thing to women in a relationship for guys is they want a guy that’s got confidence.

If you’re constantly communicating that you lack confidence, you can only do that so much without recovering and doing enough other things that communicate you do have confidence in displaying attractive behavior before she gets turned off and loses romantic interest and attraction, or her feelings just get to the point where she feels platonic friendship for you.

One day after class, she and I got the underground tube together and I told her about a play that looked great and she initiated going with me before I asked. To be honest, I wasn’t going to ask, because Ive always had insecurities and a lack of confidence.

Women help you when they like you. You’re in a drama class together, so you have similar interests. It makes it easy to talk to people. I go through this all the time, especially guys that are like, “How do I meet girls?” Lose yourself in your hobbies, your interests, your passions and the things that you love.

So here’s this guy. He’s taking a drama class and obviously he’s interested in plays and the girl. She’s also interested in the same things and he’s just having a casual conversation. She comes right out and says, “Hey, we should go to that together.”

That’s typically the kind of thing that women will do. They help you when they like you. They make it obvious that they’re interested, but at the end of the day, you still got to be the man. You still got to set the date, be direct, be decisive, definite day, definite time, definite place to get together.

So he didn’t have to do anything. He just showed up. He’s living his life. He’s enjoying his drama class. Then some cute girl likes him and he starts talking to her one day on the way home. Turns out, she’s down to go to the same thing he’s down to go to. Why? People that like the same things tend to like each other. It’s common sense, but most people don’t really think of these things.

This is typically how most people meet the person that they’re dating or in a relationship with. It just kind of happens as a side effect of living your best life, doing things you love and enjoy for fun. In this case, he’s in school.

Anyways, we went to watch the play and the vibes was good and after the play was done, I offered her a ride home but she was so sure she wanted to get the bus. We parted ways.

Well, I definitely would have gone for the kiss. Again, he’s young and I know you’re trying to work up your courage because you don’t want to get rejected, especially if there’s lots of people around. When you get older and you have more experience, it’s not a big deal. You kiss her right in front of everybody. If you’re using the kiss test, then you know you’re not going to get rejected.

In class a few days later, she was bantering with me and jokingly hitting me in the stomach and we would play fight with each other.

So she still seems to be interested at that point.

Our term was finished and we ended up going into different classes. About a month later, I gathered up the courage to call her and ask her on a date.

Even though a whole month goes by, he’s like, “I’m going to shoot my shot. See what happens.”

She happily accepted and gave me 2 options on days, so in other words she was very enthusiastic. We met on a Sunday afternoon and went to an exhibition, went for a drink and a meal afterwards. I was nervous as shit and I know she felt my nervous energy.

Well, the nervousness is obviously communicating a lack of confidence. It’s important that you don’t say things and point out and be obvious that you lack the confidence, because now you’re giving her reasons to notice your unattractive behavior. You’re trying to present your best side to the world and to her instead of your worst side. Instead of saying, in essence, “Hey, here’s all my flaws. I don’t have any confidence at all.”

When we got to the second part of the date, I started to loosen up and we started to have a good laugh with each other and when we went for dinner we had a good laugh and I told her she was stunning and she started to blush, “I think.”

Anyways, we left the restaurant and I tried to put my arm around her and it didn’t seem like she was open to me. So I walked her to the bus stop and we hugged but it was like she was closed off from me. Afterward, I texted her to make sure she got home safe and she texted me back the next day saying she had a good time and would like to do it again.

I typically wouldn’t be sending, “Hey, I hope you got home safe,” Those kinds of things. It’s just a nice guy thing. Besides, she was a cold fish at the end. That’s the kind of thing that’s going to make me pause. Especially if I’m going for the kiss and I get a cheek, or if I put my arm around her.

The other thing is, you should be putting your arm around her when she’s physically bumping into you and standing too close. If she wasn’t doing that and then you put your arm around her, it’s understandable that it would be awkward. This is why you should read the book 10-15 times, so you learn these little subtle nuances of what to look for.

After a few days, her text messages started to go from her texting me in a day to 3 days later and then a week.

So the interest is going the wrong way. Whatever your vibe was, whatever you were saying and doing on that date, her interest went the wrong way.

After that, I was scratching my head in confusion and that led me to buy your book “How To Be A 3% Man” and I couldn’t believe how much I messed up on this date.

Well, it’s the pain of recognizing that you messed up is what causes you to recognize, “I got to change my approach and read the book.“

Anyways, I didn’t call or text her for 2 weeks, and 2 weeks later she messaged me a picture of food saying, “We need to get this soon,” and I replied, “Yes let do it.” She did not reply.

Well, you should have said, “Yeah, when are you available?”

So a week later, I text saying let’s get food and she said, “OMG yes! I’m available either Monday or next Saturday,” so I said “How’s next Saturday 7:30p.m.?” And she didn’t reply for 3 days and when she finally did she tried to change it to the day so I replied, “I’ve made plans for Saturday because I wasn’t sure if we was meeting or not but next time,” but the reality was I hadn’t made any plans. I was just trying to let her know that my time is valuable just as you mentioned in your book.

If she’s waiting three days to reply to you, that’s communicating that you’re really not that high of a priority to her. If she’s really pretty, more than likely there’s other guys. If those other guys she’s going out with or expressing more confidence and you’re doing and saying things on your date and you’re being sloppy on your approach and trying to make a date. It doesn’t look like you were direct and decisive and made a date. You kind of just left things up in the air.

The fact that she waited three days to reply to you is not good. In the beginning, she’s very enthusiastic and now she’s waiting three days to reply. So instead of her interest going up or a romantic attraction going up, it’s been going down. Obviously he read the book after all this happened and he’s like, “Wow, I messed up a lot.”

The good news is he’s got the book and so he learned from this. These painful lessons are the kind of thing that you go, “You know what? I’m not going to do that again. I’m not going to get involved with somebody that behaves this way or acts that way.” Or, “I’m not going to put my arm around a girl when she’s not anywhere near me or not even touching me.”

More than likely, maybe he talked a lot and said a lot of weird, awkward things on the date because again, he hadn’t read my book before he went on it. So there’s a whole host. He probably did everything wrong you could possibly do wrong just because I know what it’s like. That’s how you learn these things. That’s why I was able to pull stuff in the book because I went through all this.

The idea for a young guy like him is to learn from these mistakes, so he can gradually or, I should say, dramatically, cut down his learning curve. Things that took me 10, 15, 20 years to figure out, he can learn when he’s in high school. That’s why you got guys that are 18, 19, 20 years old learning things and become as competent as I was when I was 31-32 when things really started to click for me.

So a week later, I messaged her a video of myself eating the food she loves and I said, “Let’s get some together,” and she said, “OMG yes and you look good in the video BTW.” I said, “Thanks and so do you as always,” and said I’m available Saturday evening and Sunday. She ignored my messages and hasn’t responded since. Bare in mind, I’ve only read 3% Man once, so I need to re-read it

Thanks for the knowledge.

Yours sincerely,

Bob

Well, she hasn’t replied. I wouldn’t reach out or text her again, but obviously every time you go through the book, you’re probably going to want some face palms and go, “Oh, I did that.”

As you see, if a girl really likes you, there’s only so many mistakes you can make. There’s only so many things that you can say that are unattractive that turn her off to the point where she’s like, “I’m out.” That’s going to happen. You have to get over it and just say you’ve got to give yourself permission to fail.

You got to understand that failure is part of life. This is how you learn. This is the process. You have to go through the process. You can’t avoid the process. Embrace it, be excited about it, be bewildered, be grateful for the experience that you had with this girl, because if you hadn’t blown things with her, you probably wouldn’t even have picked up the book.

Maybe it would have taken you a lot longer. At the end of the day, you get burned. You have emotional pain and you recognize, “I can’t keep doing what I’m doing, because if I continue to do what I’ve always done, I’ll continue to get what I’ve always got.”

Hey man, at least you had a date. You were very shy and then you went out on a date. You made some progress. You learned a bunch of things. Now you’ve come across my work. You’re reading it, you’re learning it, so the next time you go out on a date, you’ll be better. You’ll get further along. Maybe you’ll get kissy-poo. Maybe you’ll seduce the next girl you go out with. Maybe the next girl you go out with ends up becoming your first girlfriend or whatever. You never know. Maybe it’s the fifth one or the 10th one or the 20th one. Whatever happens to be, you’ve got to get through the nos in order to get to the yeses.

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 and book a coaching session with yours truly.