When Should You Start Dating Again After A Breakup?

Some things to consider if you’re trying to figure out when you should start dating again after a breakup.

In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss an email from a 34-year-old viewer who just found my work after a recent breakup. He was way more into the girl than she was into him. To her they were just casually dating, but to him he was telling his family back home about her and making plans for the future.

Then she pulled back and wanted to date other people and have a more open relationship. He held out hope for a bit, then it became obvious from her Instagram stories that she had moved on. He’s heartbroken, but wonders how long should he wait to start dating again. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

Well, the short answer is, it depends on how long you were together and how serious of a relationship you were involved in.

I got an email, this guy is 34. He, like a lot of guys that don’t know any better, and we’ve all been propagandized by the same movies and TV, he’s driven by a sense of fear and, “I got to lock this girl down. I got to make her mine before some other guy comes along and takes her from me.”

What ends up happening is this guy, he gets way more into this girl than she’s into him. He’s telling his family about her, planning their future together, but it’s obvious that she’s just kind of looking at it as casual dating and, like I talk about in 3% Man, it takes time for a woman to fall in love and it takes time for her to fall out of love.

Ideally, what should be happening, if you want her to fall in love with you and stay in love with you, you should be going slightly slower than she is towards those things. In other words, pushing for a relationship and things of that nature, that’s something you should not be doing as a man because almost nine times out of 10, most guys are going to be pushing way too soon for a relationship before the woman is emotionally ready and she’s going to bounce on them, which is basically what happened in this particular case.

So it’s obvious this guy is heartbroken over her, but he really didn’t date her for very long. Now, if you were in a long term marriage, you were married for 10 years or five years or you’re with your girlfriend for a year or two, typically most people where there’s intense feelings of love, you live together, maybe been together for a couple of years. Statistically, most people take about a year and a half to completely, fully get over a breakup where there’s no more emotional charge left between you towards the ex.

When it’s just a short term thing, especially in this guy’s case, he’s new to my work and he’s just starting to learn. So a guy like this, he should be really getting back out there, get on the horse again, so to speak, and start dating. What he needs to do, he needs to learn what’s in the book, not just read it 10-15 times, but read it 10-15 times while he’s actually applying the women he’s meeting and dating, because there’s a process you have to go through to overcome the way you used to be and replace it with experiences where you’re acting and behaving in ways that are aligned with the book.

Then when you do that, you see that women respond way better than they ever have in the past when you were trying it your way, which typically means over pursuing, calling too much, texting too much, getting too serious too soon, putting the girl on a pedestal, kissing her ass, jumping through your butt, trying to convince her to become your girlfriend. When in reality, it should be her trying to win you over and lock you down and get you to be her boyfriend.

When you look at movies from 60, 70, 80 years ago, that’s pretty much the archetype, is that women were always trying to lock down the most eligible bachelors and the guys were reluctantly going along with it. Eventually, the guys fell in love and agreed and they live happily ever after.

A perfect example of that, which is a healthy archetype for the most part, was the movie It’s A Wonderful Life, which was made, I think, in 1946. That was a long time ago. There’s just a different vibe, a different energy to the way men used to be versus the way they typically are portrayed in today’s movies and TV shows, where they’re just like the bumbling idiot and they need a woman to be the man in the relationship and solve all their problems, and the guy’s like a little man baby, a little child and the woman is basically becomes his mommy and his therapist.

Of course, when you try that in the real world, instead of the world of make believe, you get rejected predictably like this particular guy did. The best thing, the best attitude change, especially if you’ve been dumped or maybe you got cheated on or your girl left you or whatever and then she’s already dating somebody else, you should take time to be alone and reestablish your life.

Maybe if you were living together, you move out, you sell your house that you had together, or you get rid of the apartment that you had together. You get a new place. You reestablish yourself with your friendships. You typically get back in the gym, because most guys, they just let themselves go in a relationship and then they get out of the relationship and they’re overweight. They start losing weight, start going to the gym. They get fit. They get in shape. They start building their confidence.

The difference between men and women is women are never out of the game. If they’re pretty, they’re always getting hit on. They’re always seeing that there are guys that are interested in them. Of course, when they’re taken, they’re like, “Hey, I’m in a relationship. I’m married. Can’t. Very flattered, but sorry I’m taken.” But the next day that she single, she can easily give out her number because guys are always hitting on her.

Whereas us guys, if you’ve been with somebody for a couple of years, you’re going to be a little rusty on approaching and asking girls out or getting numbers. You may even be a little nervous, whereas before you met your previous girlfriend or wife, you didn’t think about it. You got to the point where asking a girl out or getting her number was like ordering a Happy Meal at McDonald’s. It really wasn’t a big deal, but when you haven’t done it for a while, you’re out of practice. Plus, you’re still feeling the sting of the rejection at the end of the relationship. You’re going to be rusty, and so it’s going to take time to get back into the flow of things.

You may have developed some bad habits as well in the relationship, you may have gone back on some things, especially if you were familiar with the work, you may have gone back and reverted back to the way you were before you came across my book.

What I see a lot as a coach is most of the guys they don’t read the book 10-15 times. They don’t really learn the material. They kind of thumb through it or they read it 3 or 4 times, 4 or 5 years ago. Then they were dating a lot and they were seeing a lot of success. They put the book down and they never picked it up again until they got dumped or they had a breakup. Then they start realizing, “Man, I reverted back to the way I was,” because they never took the time to really read and learn the information.

The longer you’re in a relationship and the more serious it was where you’re living together, that kind of thing. Like when I left my wife after being married for a year we were together. It was three, four years, something like that, total, from the time we met and started dating until I finally moved out. I didn’t go on a date for like six months. I didn’t even want to date anybody. I was so burned out and I was sleeping at my best friend’s at the time. I was sleeping in one of his spare bedrooms. It had no furniture. It was like a four inch foam mattress about that thick and had some sheets over it. I had piles of my clothes and I was having one of the best times of my life, because I was building my company and my business and I was getting after it, doing the things that I wanted because I had committed to being in a marriage. Deep down it didn’t feel right and I didn’t want to do it, but I was young and I was dumb. I didn’t have anybody that could advise me and give me good information.

Obviously, if I had a book like 3% Man, things would have been completely different, but I had to learn all this stuff from scratch. I didn’t know what I didn’t know at the time. It was six months. I didn’t care to date or anything. I was just like, “Now I can really live the life that I want, build it the way I want and stand up for myself,” and no longer do things because I’m trying to be too nice or I don’t want to upset people or I don’t want to disappoint people that have projected all of these unreasonable expectations on me and how I should live.

Then after that, I got back after it, but still, there was a lot I didn’t know and I had to learn. I mean, you guys read the book, you know the process to it. Like I said, for me, after 3 or 4 year relationship at that time, that was it was about six months. I didn’t go out on a single date, didn’t even care. I was just happy to be back on my own, and that’s what it took, because you need time to get to heal, to get over the sting of it, to also not to be tempted to go back.

You just get to a certain point where you feel a sense of peace. Especially if your girl’s moved on and she’s dating other guys. Like you’ll see in this case, she backed away, pushed him away and he held out hope for a little bit. Then he realized that she’s completely moved on, so everything was all in his head. He had created this idea or this fantasy of what he wanted the relationship to be, and he wasn’t really paying attention to how she was really showing up because he was so emotionally invested.

I had a couple of phone sessions yesterday. Both of these guys, same thing. Way more invested in these girls than they were into them and the women weren’t treating them properly. Quite frankly, both of them belong to the streets, but because these guys were so emotionally wrapped up, they just completely ignored all the red flags that were everywhere. They were easy to see. You and I could see them if we were observing them in their relationships, but because they allowed themselves to get hypnotized by the fantasy they were projecting onto the girl, they ended up in a lot of pain.

It sucks. I really felt for these guys, but when things like that happen, the sting that comes from that and the learning that comes from that is how you take the negative and turn it into a positive. You learn from that failure. You learn from that mistake. You learn to realize, like this guy, he’s 34, he needs to slow it down and stop being in such a mad dash to get himself a wife or a girlfriend or to lock a girl down because you’ve got to vet women properly. Neither one of the two guys that I spoke to yesterday, they didn’t take the time to vet the girls properly.

The second guy I talked to, he read the book 3 or 4 times, but that was like 4 or 5 years ago and he had a lot of dating success. He thought he knew the material enough. Then he got into this relationship and because he was so enamored with the girl, he just completely ignored all the red flags that were there until it came back to bite him in the ass. You could ignore reality. You can ignore the red flags, if you will, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring those red flags. Eventually it’s going to catch up with you.

Viewer’s Email:

Hey Corey,

I recently came across your work and wanted to share some insights and seek some support regarding a recent heartbreak I’ve experienced. I’m a 34-year-old guy originally from a Middle Eastern background, and I’ve been living in the U.K. for over a decade.

Your book, Mastering Yourself…

Obviously, it’s my second book, How to Align Your Life With Your True Calling & Reach Your Full Potential.

…Has had a profound impact on me. It resonated deeply because I’ve always felt like I don’t quite fit in most environments, and I haven’t had many people who could relate to my journey and life experiences.

Well, when you come from the Middle East and then you go and you live in a Western culture, it couldn’t be more diametrically opposed, because I coach a lot of people that are in the Middle East and from the Middle East, living in Western countries. It’s like, as Master Yoda said, “You must unlearn what you have learned.”

So you have to unlearn the way that you operate in a Middle Eastern culture and then relearn the proper way to interact in the Western culture. Especially if you want to date and be successful with the ladies.

Growing up in a non-compassionate environment, dealing with divorce, and being away from home have shaped me into a spiritual and introspective person. Your words about how abusive environments can lead us to seek answers from the universe and nature struck a chord with me.

But the main reason I’m reaching out is to share my recent experience of heartbreak and to seek guidance. It all started when I approached a beautiful athlete on the street. We had a nice chat, exchanged numbers, and I later discovered that she was my neighbour. Our first date was a simple walk in the park, and I expressed that I saw it as a date.

Although she seemed interested and playful, I made the mistake of talking too much about our relationship early on. Something I’ve learned from your videos not to do.

Yeah, because what’s happening is us guys are visual creatures. You meet a woman who physically matches your ideal. On top of that, she’s got a great personality. Right away, we feel amazing. “Oh, this is going to be my soul mate. This is going to be the girl. We’re going to live happily ever after. She’s so hot. I like her so much. She seems to like me and I really like her personality.” That’s it. “Check, please. I’ll take this one to go.” Meanwhile, women have this attitude of, “Hey, let’s just see what happens,” because they’re driven by how their emotions feel.

A guy’s got to make a woman feel safe and comfortable. Can he handle her at her best as well as her worst? Now this is assuming a normal, healthy woman and not some mentally ill lunatic who makes your life a living hell. At the end of the day, women take time to fall in love and they take time to fall out of love. It’s a process that you just can not rush.

It’s like 3% Man says, it gives you a series of multiple actions and multiple steps that you can take. You’re not over pursuing, you’re not pressuring her. You act masculine instead of feminine, because the more you act like a girl, the more it’s going to wreck the sexual polarity, and she’s just simply not going to be feeling the same thing that you are.

Unfortunately for this guy, he didn’t know any better, because he hadn’t come across my work yet, and so he tended to put her on a pedestal. He made up his mind that this was going to be the girl for him, and he was completely ignoring the fact that she wasn’t in the same place as he was.

I mentioned that I felt a connection but that I was still seeing other women. Surprisingly, she was okay with it, even though she acknowledged feeling a twinge of jealousy.

So in that moment, in that case, you’re going slightly slower than she is and you’re acknowledging, “Hey, I’m dating other girls. I want to see what’s out there. I’m in no rush, but hey, full disclosure.” Now you’re kind of a challenge to her, because whether you realize it or not, she even acknowledges that she’s got the fear of potentially losing you to another woman. If she gets to a place where you’re dating other women and maybe she’s dating other guys, then all of a sudden she’s still dating other guys and her emotions are not in the same place as yours and then you stop dating other women, she’s going to tend to pick up on that.

Now, since you got no other women in your life, when she’s not moving as fast as you want, you’re going to tend to fall under what I call the “illusion of action” that’s in my book, where you call too much, you text too much, you’re trying to force things. This makes her feel like she’s losing her freedom and then she’s going to back away. Most guys that don’t know any better, when she backs away, they pursue even more because now they’re driven by fear that they’re going to lose her. What often happens is they literally chase her right out of their life, which is what basically is starting to happen here.

As we spent more time together, I made the mistake of over-sharing and discussing my philosophy of life and what she meant to me.

So he’s gushing about his feelings, which is the kind of thing a woman should be doing. Again, when you watch all the same movies, it’s like what the men always do in the movies. They act like chicks. Again, you watch movies from the 40s and 50s, men were not acting that way at all. They were very stoic. They’re not talking about their feelings and their emotions. It’s the women that are all talking about that. Then the guys like, “That’s so sweet. She’s so cute. Why not? Let’s live happily ever after,” that kind of the vibe.

So the roles flipped. Feminism and all this Marxist bullshit that’s in the culture to make everybody equal, men and women are not equal. We’re completely different. We’re polar opposites of each other. That’s a good thing, because there are things that women do as far as their nurturing personality that they need to have in order to nurture children that us guys are just not going to do because we’re out slaying the dragons and doing dangerous things. It’s all the dangerous jobs.

Almost 100% of them are taken by men, and if you look at the types of jobs that women have, they tend to be a more nurturing type of role. You’re not going to see a lot of women that are plumbers and electricians that are changing toilets and building houses and doing things of that nature. There are some, but if you’ve ever been in the construction industry or an industry where it takes a lot of brute strength, how many women do you see working on an oil rig? It’s an extremely dangerous line of work. There’s not a lot of them out there, because it’s a very physically demanding and dangerous job and women aren’t attracted to those things. It’s just a fact of life.

That’s part of the reason why you look at all these superhero movies. Look what they did with Star Wars. Luke Skywalker is basically an emasculated eunuch at this point. Instead of saving the galaxy, he basically turns into a little bitch and a hermit that lives on an island. Of course, Daisy Ridley, who’s absolutely stunning, gorgeous, and I think she did a good job with her character, but she has no training.

You remember all the original movies. There was so much that went into Luke being trained, but she gets like no training, and of course, she is the Jedi Master already practically. It doesn’t resonate with audiences. It doesn’t look natural. It’s nice that every once in a while you have a superhero girl, but in the real world, these things are just not happening.

That’s why a lot of these movies, when you look at the Ghostbusters remake with an all girl cast, it just fell flat. It’s just not believable. It doesn’t feel natural to us because at the end of the day, it’s make believe and it’s presenting an archetype of women that is out of line with the natural order of things in the way the creator made us. You can do all the make believe and special effects that you want, but the reality is these things are innate in human beings.

I started building expectations of a future together and even spoke about her to my family, as if dating someone like her was an achievement for me.

Basically, you’re communicating, “Wow, you really did me a favor. I would never normally get a girl like you.” Now you’re expressing the opposite of confidence. You’re, in essence, acting like Luke Skywalker did in the new movies where he had no more confidence, and then the big boss girl comes in, Daisy Ridley’s character, and she’s the one with confidence and she’s going to save the galaxy.

Like I said, Luke is just an emasculated hermit beta male that lives on an island. It was so sad, because the way it was originally portrayed in the movies in the 70s, he’s like a guy that turns out to be a hero that quite frankly, didn’t want anything to do with that. He was adventurous. He was excited about what was out in the galaxy. He was excited about becoming a pilot and all the exciting things that would happen when he would get old enough to go join the academy and learn to be a fighter pilot and all these things.

So there was a process, and he becomes like an unlikely hero and center of the story. Then you find out in the end of the second movie that the most evil man in the universe, other than the Emperor Darth Vader, turns out it’s his father and it’s like, “Oh, he’s got to fight his father? What a horrible thing to have happen.” So he’s like a reluctant hero in this case. It was believable. That’s a natural kind of thing.

That’s what great leaders are. Great leaders typically don’t want the notoriety and they don’t really want to be the hero. They don’t want everybody dependent on them. However, when everybody looks around, they’re like, “You’ve got the skills that we don’t have.” He’s like, “All right, I don’t know if I’m going to succeed or not, but I’m going to go for it.” He’s going to be courageous and brave, even if it costs him his life.

So that’s what he did. That’s masculine energy. That’s not feminine energy. That’s masculine energy. When a woman acts like that, that’s why internally it just doesn’t jive with us because it’s out of alignment with the way the creator designed us and made us. You can ignore that at your peril. Just like this guy. He acts like a woman basically, and he gets rejected.

Unfortunately, while I was getting emotionally attached and considering exclusivity, she still saw our relationship as more of a casual hookup.

This is why you should be going slightly slower than her, so she’s the one trying to get you or trying to convince you that you should give up these other girls and be exclusive with her. That is a natural thing.

Men really are the prize, especially when you think in Western society, how many guys make over $100,000 a year or fit and in shape? Well, we know that 74% of all Americans are either overweight or they’re obese. Then I think it’s only like about 3% make over $100,000 a year or 1%, a real small percentage of guys that are at the top and there’s lots of pretty girls out there, but there’s also lots of pretty girls that are messed up and there always have been.

If you’re looking for loyalty, monogamy, exclusivity, family oriented women that were raised in a good, stable home with a mother and a father that loved each other and were good parents and taught a good set of values, it’s very rare. Guys run into a lot of troubles when they try to wife up the party girls, the hook up girls, the girls that you get experience with, the girls that are fun, but they’re not the type of girls that are going to be loyal, faithful and make good long term dating prospects.

During a video call while I was away in my home country, she expressed her desire for a more open relationship, wanting to talk to other guys.

Yeah. This is where she’s not feeling free. She’s feeling the pressure. He’s way more into her than she’s into him, and it’s a turnoff.

She should be seeking his attention and validation, trying to convince him to choose her, but again, the roles have been flipped because of feminism and all his cultural Marxist bullshit, because that’s what Marxism does. The goal is to make everybody equal, including the sexes. Quite frankly, we’re just not, and it pisses people off in the left, but hey, you can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.

This guy is acting in a way that was, in essence propagandized, to act, and it doesn’t work. It’s as simple as that. This is why most guys that don’t know any better, they end up settling for somebody they’re really not that into because that’s the best they can get because they, in essence, have been demoralized. In other words, given up and reaching their full potential. “Well, I’ve got to be realistic and just got to settle.” Meanwhile, they live lives of quiet desperation and it shortens their life. The more you settle in every area of your life, the shorter your life is going to be typically.

It was then that I realized we were on different levels of intimacy, so I decided to pull back. When I returned to the city, we met up, hooked up, and exchanged gifts. However, things took a negative turn when I offended her deeply by discussing my views on women playing masculine sports. I realized I messed up and felt devastated.

Well, I don’t know what he said specifically.

We agreed to meet and talk, and during our conversation, I pointed out some red flags I had noticed earlier. She then suggested we take a break, especially since I was moving to another country for a few months, and that we could reconnect later. I agreed, but it left me in pain for days. I stumbled upon your work while searching for ways to overcome a breakup, and it has given me hope and guidance.

Initially, I held onto the hope that she might come back, but after seeing her hanging out with her female teammate and other guys on vacation through her Instagram story, I realized she meant what she said about wanting freedom.

Yeah. Women don’t dump guys they’re in love with. They dump guys that are like, “Ehh.”

Now I’m left to process the pain and move forward with my life. Your content has been instrumental in my healing process, and I’m grateful for that. However, I still wonder how I’ll know when I’m completely healed and ready to move on.

Well, in this case, it was such a short term thing. You really weren’t with her that long. It doesn’t warrant spending the next two years of your life trying to recover from it. You should be immersing yourself in this book. You should have a physical or digital copy of it and listening to the audio book on two-speed so you can get through it in about a little under four hours, so you can get your 10-15 reads in and you’ve got to be applying it.

You’ve got to get out there and master this stuff, so the next time you meet a girl that really knocks your socks off, you don’t become all dopey and put her on a pedestal and start ignoring all the red flags. You keep dating other women and you only get serious when one of them is head over heels in love with you and she treats you the way you want to be treated and has the goals and values that align with your own.

Until you find that, you’re going to keep dating, you’re going to keep churning your practice squad, so to speak. Like teams do in the NFL, where girls will be falling off the practice squad, you’ll be bringing new girls on. Other girls might go to your active roster, if you will. Let the best girl win you over, especially if you’re a successful, fit and in shape guy. You’re one of the few dudes. You’re one of the 3% men that women are really pining for. That is the type of guy that all the women want to date, sleep with and that all guys want to be like.

Is there a specific time frame, or is it more about how I feel internally?

Well, like I said in your case, you really didn’t date her for very long, so there’s no reason to take six months or a year or two out of the process like I talked about in the beginning of the video.

If you were in a long term relationship and you were living together, you got to get back to a place where you just get the feel and understand and experience what it’s like to be normal again. In other words, being normal and being single. Having your own place, it’s all decorated. You’re going back to the gym, you’re fit, you’re in shape, you’re going out and you’re having a good time. You feel good.

It’s different for every guy, but it just depends on how the breakup was. Maybe you were the one that did the breaking up and you were just over it. So when you leave the relationship, your emotions and your feelings are pretty normal and it’s pretty easy to move on. It’s much easier to be the dumper than it is the dumpee. So it’s really case-by-case. It depends on the individual.

Your statement, “You have to feel to heal,” resonates with me, and I’d appreciate your insights on this.

Thank you for your time, Corey. Your work has been a source of inspiration and hope for me, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Bob

Well, like I said, what you need to do is you need to fill in your knowledge gap and you need successful repetitions applying what’s in the book with other women.

The more successful you get and the more women you’re dating, hanging out, having fun and hooking up with, what will happen is you just get to a place, and all of a sudden you’ll meet just a girl that’s just so different and so much better. You just click with her so much more than anybody else you’re meeting and dating that over time, gradually you’ll just start spending more and more time with her and less and less time with the other girls, and she’ll be the one pushing for a relationship.

You’ll literally experience the opposite of what you experienced here because quite frankly, what you experienced here, you became the chick in the relationship. So the sexual polarity was completely off.

You’ve got to get to a place where you’re confident and competent to maintain your masculinity or your masculine frame, if you will, and stay centered in your masculine energy like I talk about in 3% Man. When you do that, you’re not going to get all dopey. She’ll be the one trying to win you over. Even though you get a room of 100 women together and saying to you like, “No, it’s got to be 50/50. You’re totally wrong, Corey.” They all say that.

You see right here. You say it’s 50/50. The guy pursued more than she did and got him dumped. Most guys have had this experience when they come on too strong, too much, too soon, call too much text too much. Like I said, the ratio that’s in the book, a guy should never be doing more than 20-30% of the pursuing. You could say that to a bunch of women. Most of them will probably disagree with it. “It should be 50/50,” but try it.

Do 50/50 with a girl and her interest will never go beyond platonic feelings for you, and it’ll be very easy for her to dump you and blow you off because she’s not feeling anything for you. Yet when she’s doing most of the calling, texting and pursuing, that’s natural to women. It comes natural to them. It’s instinctual, It’s innate. You can’t change that with words and propaganda or bullshit. It doesn’t matter.

Women respond to what they respond to, and 200 years from now, women are going to still respond to the same things that are in the book. The communication methods may change, but what causes a woman to feel attraction for a man will never change. It’s innate in all of us, and you can wish it away. You can propagandize people, but the truth is the truth.

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.