Should He Call An Old Flame?

Here’s a question I received from a coaching client of mine recently. He asks about a woman he used to date and if he should try and contact her after several years have gone by.

Dear Corey,

I had an interesting question. There was this girl I dated about four years ago. At the time we first met, I did not realize it, but I played the initial meeting perfectly by walking away. She ran after me to get my number. During the next few weeks, we saw each other a few times. Unfortunately, I was very inexperienced, so I did many things wrong by losing a lot of my mystery. Looking back, her interest level at the beginning was probably in the 80-90% range as she was consistently pursuing me. I probably lowered it into the 50% range quickly due to my inexperience. She was a gorgeous girl that modeled, which made my infatuation with her that much more.

I was away at school most of the time, so whenever I would come into town, we would hang out. This only happened every few months. At one point, about a year after we had started hanging out, it had been an extended period since I had gone home. I figured I’d give her a call to see if she wanted to go out. Unfortunately, when I called I got a voicemail, but it wasn’t hers anymore. At that point, I just let it go and went on with my life. That was almost three years ago. I think about her every now and then, wondering what she’s up to, but the only way I would know how to contact her is to send her “old fashioned” mail or go directly to her house. My work is sending me down to a job, which is right near her house, so I started thinking about finding her. I was hoping you had advice about what a good course of action might be to contact her. With the knowledge gained from your book and my experience, I feel I would be much better prepared to see her.

Best Regards,

Tom

Here is my response to him:

Hi Tom,

I know it’s tempting to want to go back and hook up with girls we screwed up with in the past once we learn where we went wrong, and what we should do to get it right…if we just had another chance. I reluctantly put a story about a girl I once dated and blew it with in my book. Years later, when I had figured things out with women, we ran into each other and I got a second chance. I was reluctant to put it in my book, because I know how us guys tend to project our own high interest level onto a woman we like and ignore her interest level in us. I know when I was learning this stuff myself, and the light bulbs were going off in my head, at times I was instantly realizing what I had done wrong with the women I blew it with. Of course, I fantasized about what I would have done differently if I knew then what I know now.

As I said, it’s tempting, but you’ve got to look at the facts and her actions. She moved away and/or changed her number, and did not bother to tell you. However, you kept her number and planned to contact her when you were in town again. When you tried, you found out it was now someone else’s number. In my opinion, I would forget about the past and her. It was four years ago, and you have not heard from her. If she wanted to talk to you, she would have called you by now. She could be married with kids for all you know. The bottom line is, you are doing really well with women these days compared to back then. Be excited about today and this moment. You never know when you’re going to meet a special lady who just does it for you, and who YOU, with all your quirks and idiosyncrasies, (we all have them), for some reason just seem to push all the right buttons of hers. You will simply turn her on when she looks at you. Now that you are a Jedi Master in training, you can do almost everything right now. So relax, your success is assured.

Why struggle to counter the perceptions and beliefs a woman has of you, when you can effortlessly connect with someone new and let it happen just like in a love story. You’ll get to decide how she perceives you — confident and having control of yourself and your emotions. What happened in the past, happened the way it was supposed to happen. We can’t change the past. We can decide who we are and how we are going to show up in THIS MOMENT. It’s the ONLY moment there is. If you are meant to run into this chick again and re-connect, it will happen. It will happen when it’s supposed to happen, and it can not happen any other way. And if it’s not supposed to happen, then you will simply never see her again. Of that much, I am sure.

From my heart to yours,

Corey Wayne

“There is a lesson in almost everything that you do, and getting the lesson is how you move forward. It is how you enrich your spirt.” ~ Oprah Winfrey