Why Coming On Too Strong & Giving The Relationship Vibe Leads To Rejection

Why coming on too strong & giving the relationship vibe leads to rejection & friend zone.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a 31-year-old viewer who had a great first date with a 20-year-old woman and they hooked up. However, on the second date, she said she didn’t want him getting attached because she was moving away after graduation. She tried to friend-zone him which he declined, and said their age gap was the reason. He gave up and took her home.

He wonders what he should do now and is second guessing himself. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

In this particular email, this guy is 31. He had a great first date with a woman who was 20 and they hooked up. However, on the second date, she said that she didn’t want him getting attached because she was going to be moving away after she graduated college. She tried to friend-zone him. He declined. She said the age gap was the reason. So he just basically at that point gave up, took her home, and now he wonders what he should do. Now he’s starting to second guess himself. He is in no-contact.

So as you’ll see from the email, even though he doesn’t really admit that he made mistakes, it’s pretty clear he came on too strong and communicated to her that he was thinking, hoping and planning on her being his next girlfriend, and a hot woman who’s had enough dudes come after them and try to date them, they can tell the guys get needy and clingy.

So what gives it away what he really did wrong was her saying that she didn’t want him getting attached. In other words, she could tell he was starting to already become dopey even on that first date. He was saying and doing things that clearly communicated he was expecting a relationship with her, and for her, it was nice to hook up, but she could tell there was going to probably be too much drama, he was going to get upset, because that’s what happens when most guys that are expecting a relationship don’t get one with the girl. So to avoid any drama and difficulty in the future, she just says, “Oh, it’s the age gap.” When in reality, he turned her off because he was giving off the vibe that he wanted to lock her down. Even though he doesn’t really mention that, all you have to do is look at what she said, because what she said gives insight on what the real reasons is, even though she misdirected would say, “Oh, it’s the age gap.” Age gap didn’t matter. She still slept with him.

Viewer Email:

Hey Coach,

I want to get your opinion on a recent dating experience. I have read the book six times so far. I’m 31 years old and work a part-time job on the weekends in a nightclub. Recently, I met a young woman at the club on a Friday night. She was giving me the “fuck me” eyes, so I approached. We chatted briefly, exchanged names and I told her I would be back. When I came back she had written her number down and gave it to me. I gave her my phone and had her put it in. Later in the night, I bumped into her again and set up a date on the spot with a definite time and place to meet.

So far, everything’s good. He’s doing a great job of picking her up.

We made plans for the following Thursday. Over the following days preceding the date, she kept in contact with me through text.

So she clearly had high interest at first. She definitely wanted to get some.

I would take my time responding as I was busy at work, the gym or out with friends on those days. I would not reach out to her but she kept in touch each day saying good morning, asking how my day was, telling me what she was up to. I took it for high interest.

So she had high interest at that time because he was mysterious. He was the older guy in a position of authority at the club. He worked security. She was attracted to him. She wanted to get some strange. He was mysterious. She’s trying to win him over. He’s acting like a challenge at this point.

The day of the date comes, she asks if I would pick her up at her house and gives me her address (High interest).

Yeah. You barely knew her, but she assumes again, because you’re in a position of authority, you’re surrounded by beautiful women, she assumes you’re probably going home with lots of them and have lots of attention. So I mean, she had social proof.

I pick her up and on the ride to the first stop she asks how old I am. I tell her the truth, 31 years old. I ask how old she was, I assumed 21 or 22. I knew she was still in college. She tells me she’s 20 and has a fake ID. We both remark at the age difference, but continue with the date. She thought I was around 25. We went to eat and then went to a cocktail bar I like.

Now remember, she knows his age at this point, so she’s not, “Oh well, you’re too old for me,” and dips out, but notice, just hold that in mind until later in the email.

She did 90% of the talking, she was very talkative which made it easy to sit back and listen. She tells me about how she has never had a relationship and hasn’t been on a date in a year. I found this odd as she is an attractive girl, but she grew up in a small town of 800 people so it could be that there were no good prospects, or perhaps she is a serial hookup girl.

Yeah, because if she’s just hooking up with random dudes, technically they aren’t dates, they’re one night stands. You see how that works? See how the logic works with her mind? “Oh, I haven’t been on a date in a year.”

At the cocktail bar, she would touch my arm, tap my leg with hers, sat very close to me, all high interest. As we are leaving the second place, I guide her up the stairs and she takes my hand to hold.

I mean, so far, he’s doing good.

We walk outside and I pull her close and we kiss. She is very aggressive, sucking my tongue out of my skull. I take her to my car where the make out session continues. I ask if she would like to stay with me tonight, she agrees. We go to her place, grab a bag and head to mine. We performed the indoor Olympics twice that night and once more in the morning. I take my time ensuring she is well satisfied. I take her home in the morning and go to work. I wait to hear from her. We did not speak Friday but she did reach out Saturday with a random text about what she is eating for lunch. I take it as an opportunity to set up the next date. She says she is free Monday, so I made a definite date to pick her up at 3 p.m. to go hiking and get dinner at a restaurant near her house that she recommended on our first date that I hadn’t been to.

Well, unless the weather is really cool and you’re going on a date with a girl going on a hiking trip, I mean, I live in a swamp down in South Florida, so any kind of walking outside, you’re gonna get sticky, sweaty and gross, and if you’re wanting to hook up, that’s kind of gross for later. You know, maybe they live in the mountains somewhere and it’s really cool, so it’s a non-issue, but you couldn’t do that shit down in Florida. Your crotch will be swamp crotch and so will she. Hey, maybe she smells good.

She then mentions that we will need to discuss where we stand and what kind of relationship we want with one another. I say we can talk about it when we see each other. I thought she might be already trying to lock me down.

Great. The dogs just hit my fucking light! Cute…

Well, you gotta roll with the punches.

We don’t talk Sunday and I text her Monday around noon saying I was looking forward to seeing her soon, she agrees. I pick her up and keep the conversation casual waiting for her to bring up the relationship discussion.

So again, this is a second date. You shouldn’t be talking about a relationship or anything serious about locking her down, but you can tell he really likes this girl.

Light looks a little funky. It’s totally crooked. Let me see if I can fix that. Well, how’s that? Fucking dogs.

About an hour into the date, she brings it up and tells me that the age gap is a problem for her. She feels that we will not be aligned on future plans, she plans on leaving town in two years after graduating, she doesn’t want to settle down and have kids yet, she doesn’t want me to catch feelings (Projecting?)…

No, that’s in response to you because you gave off the vibe that you wanted to get serious with her, even though he does kind of allude to it a little bit a little further down in the email. Again, we just have to look at, because remember she they discussed age in the first date. She still goes on a second date with him, but probably as they’re continuing to talk, she could tell this guy wants to get serious with her and can’t be, in other words, he’ll create drama down the road if she keeps dating him because this has happened enough. It just sounds like she’s a hookup and a party girl, so he’s kind of confusing the two.

…For her to then leave in the future two years from now.

She’s trying to save his ego. In other words, she basically feels like he’s not going to be able to handle dating her and he’s going to probably become obsessive, maybe a little stalker-ish, because she’s had that happen with a number of dudes that she’s hooked up with. She’s just looking to hang out, have fun and hook up. Non-attached, easy sex. That’s what she wants, and he’s been communicating that he wants a relationship, and he probably is not going to be able to keep it casual without getting upset. So for her, it’s just easier to tap out now because this isn’t the first guy this has happened with.

I reply that I was just looking to hang out and see where things went, any previous discussion of relationships and children was brought up by her asking me about it. She wants to remain friends.

Well, whatever you said and your responses to her, you gave off the impression you were looking for something serious and long-term. As the book says, your job is to create the opportunity for sex to happen.

I tell her that I’m interested in romance. She says that’s off the table for her. I thought it would be best to remain unperturbed and continue the date as normal with the acknowledgement of her position, I ask if she wanted me to take her home and she said, “No, not yet.”

So again, when a woman says, “Hey, let’s be friends only,” “I’m down to be friends with benefits, but I’m not going to be your platonic friend. If you want to just be platonic friends, I can take you home right now. What do you want to do?” And then you shut your mouth and don’t say anything. Ye who speaks first loses, and she’s like, “Oh, I just want to be friends,” you’re like, “Alright, cool. Well, I’ll just take you home then. There’s really not much else to say,” and then you just drive her home. I would be like, “Well, hit me up if you ever change your mind,” and then you never call or text her again for any reason.

She was awkward for a time, but I was able to open her up again and she became flirty by the end of the date. We still went to dinner, she insisted on paying, which I knew to be the end of the courtship, so we ate and I took her home. I look back now and wonder if I should have pressed her more on her stance, but her mind was made up. She wasn’t asking for my opinion or to be convinced. You never try to keep someone who doesn’t want to keep you. She wants to walk and doesn’t want to discuss it then you express that it isn’t what you want but you wish her well and let her go, she’ll be back. I tried to have a “Take it or leave it” attitude.

I’d like to get your impression and opinion on next steps. It could be that in the few days between the dates she got negative feedback from friends and family, which turned her off to the age gap even though it wasn’t an issue before.

Well, if the age gap was really the issue, she wouldn’t have gone out on your date. So whatever you guys were discussing, whatever your answers were, you gave off the vibe that you wanted to get serious with her. Again, you can’t do that. It’s like I would have just said, “Hey, it’s only the second date. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. If you’re going to move away in two years, great. You know, doesn’t mean we’re going to even be dating in two months. So I just want to see what happens. Let’s not, like, live in the future. Let’s just live in the moment and have a good time tonight.” I would have redirected her to that because again, this is a second date. It’s really too early to be talking about it, but I would say probably the reason why she brought it up again was she was trying to feel him out, to see if he’s just really kind of a needy, clingy guy.

So here’s where you can kind of realize that how he was behaving, whether he’s starting to kind of treat her like a girlfriend on a first date and continued doing it on the second date, to the point where in the middle of the second date, he basically had talked her out of liking him.

I can acknowledge I had some trepidation after finding out how young she was, but I was willing to proceed if she was. I will not reach out to her as I’m interested in sex and romance and will follow 7 Principles To Get An Ex Back, but what could I improve? 

We exchanged occasional pet names like baby, darling, sweetheart. I would try to match and mirror if she said them, but there were times when I said them unprompted, especially during and after sex.

So he was a little dopey, treating her like he’s gonna make her his girlfriend.

I’ll admit I would say I said them more than she did, it was just how I was feeling in the moment of passion.

Well, you got a little dopey. You vomited your feelings and your interest, and it blew up in your face. Again, women don’t care how much you like them. They only care about how they feel about you. So as she’s probing and asking you questions, you’re going right to that place of you expecting her to become your girlfriend, and she’d been out with enough guys and had seen enough guys become clingy, needy and upset when she didn’t want to get serious, that she thought it was best just to friend-zone you now, because she viewed you as not being able to handle dating her and just being casual and unattached.

So it’s subtle, but the mistakes were made because again, all you got to do is look at her reaction. He does admit in this paragraph, “Well, I was saying it more than her,” so he was talking about his feelings and his interest in their future probably, and more into her than she was into him and she determined that he probably couldn’t handle it. So it was better just to tap out now and stick him in friend zone, because that’s usually what she’s done in the past.

But could this be giving off a subtle relationship vibe?

Yeah, you were. That’s why you got rejected.

I didn’t want to be a cold fish and have her feel like it meant nothing to me, but maybe that’s what she wanted. 

Yeah, well again, your job is to create an opportunity for sex to happen. It’s not to talk about your future or to treat her like a girlfriend when you’re on a first or second date. That’s just too much, too soon.

Was hanging out on a Monday after hanging out on a Thursday too soon, even though it was planned when she reached out to me?

No, because she reached out to you. Again, the age wasn’t the issue in the first or the second date, but it became the excuse for why she friend-zoned you. The reason she friend-zoned you is you became dopey and started treating her like your girlfriend and were ignoring that she wasn’t feeling and acting the same way because, as you said, you got carried away on your emotions and your feelings, so you started acting like a girl. That’s why you got rejected.

You cannot do that and be successful, especially with a young hot girl like that who the last thing she’s looking for is anything serious. She wants to go out with a guy, hang out, have fun and hook up. Not have him get dopey, not have him try to lock her down, not have him smother her, not have him get needy and clingy, and you gave off all those vibes. So that’s why she rejected you and said, “Oh, it was because of the age.”

If age was really the issue, she wouldn’t have slept with you, and she certainly wouldn’t have gone out on a second date. The only time the age became the issue was near the middle to the end of the second date, because she determined, based on what was coming out of your mouth and the way you were acting, that you weren’t going to be able to handle dating her without wanting to lock her down and become needy and clingy, because it’s happened to her enough to know that it’s just better to dip early before the guy gets really hooked on her.

I struggle with the idea that she was concerned about a relationship blooming and holding her back two years in the future as though that was something I asked her for.

This is correct. It’s the vibe you gave off. So she wanted to dip now because she didn’t think you could handle dating her, seeing her and sleeping with her.

We may not even make it two months dating. I feel like she is projecting. No one will ever do or say anything to you that isn’t a direct reflection about how they feel about themselves in a moment. All relationship talk was brought up by her.

Yeah, but you took the ball and ran with it instead of just being indifferent and saying, “Hey, let’s just kind of focus on the moment. We just met. I think you’re a cool girl. I like to get to know you. I don’t know where you’re going to be in two years. I don’t know where I’m going to be in two years. I might move away and go somewhere. So, you know, let’s not talk about what’s going to happen in two years. Again, this is only our second date. I still don’t hardly know you. I don’t know that I would even want to get serious with you. I like you,” but again, because of the pet names and you just took it to that place and then, as you said, you were the one that was mostly doing that, you were treating her like a girlfriend when she was just sounding like she was down to hook up.

I didn’t pursue her, I tried to let her come to me at her pace and we only talked if she reached out first, other than me telling her I was on my way to pick her up. I would understand if I was doing the majority of the reaching out but I just waited to hear from her and set dates.

So you did well, but the way you behaved and the things that came out of your mouth, you’re too serious, too soon. I mean, this is right out of the book. It tells you not to do that. This is the reason it’s got to be her idea. You direct it back, because again, if you’re dating a girl and she’s talking about, “What do you want in the future? Family, kids, whatever,” it’s a first or second date, there’s nothing wrong with talking about where you see yourself five, 10 years down the road, but you got to understand, it’s not so much what you say, but how you say it. So the way you said it made her feel like you weren’t going to be able to handle just having a casual hookup affair with her.

If the age gap is an issue, why was it not on the first date?

Because it wasn’t on the first date. That was the excuse that she gave you that sounds logical and reasonable, but the reality is you turned her off.

Why make a second date?

Well, she was down to hook up until you talked her out of it in your date. That’s what happened.

It would be easier to understand if she said there was no spark, but it seems like she’s saying there was a spark, she can see a future but now that I know how old you are, it’s an issue.

Again, that’s the excuse. It’s not the real issue.

A relationship will hold her back. So if I was 25 like, you thought all of these issues wouldn’t be there and you would be open to seeing where things can go?

No, that’s the excuse. Your age doesn’t fucking matter, because if it really did, she wouldn’t have slept with you and she certainly wouldn’t have set a second date. It’s just that on the second date, with you drooling all over her, that’s why she dipped you. You made her feel like you weren’t going to be able to handle dating her without becoming needy, clingy and wanting to lock her down, and she just wanted to avoid the drama. She’s 20 fucking years old. She’s in college. She wants to have fun and have a good time. She’s supposed to be the one that chooses you and tries to convince you why you should settle down with her.

If you’re 31, you’ll be like, “Why do you want to get serious with a girl who’s 20 and in college?” So if that was the mindset you had, you should have been like, “Well, you’re pretty young, but I like you. I like hanging out with you and I’m happy to see where it goes, but I can’t say I’d want to have a relationship with you or have kids, I don’t know. You know, let’s focus in the moment. We don’t need to talk about where we’ll be in two years. Let’s just focus on having a good time. The night is young. How about them Yankees?” Then change the subject.

I can only understand the age gap becoming an issue after the first date by believing that she must have talked with friends and family, perhaps her parents, about the date and the age gap and they advised her against it.

Again, that’s not the issue.

Obviously she gave me her number, so she had physical interest in hooking up. Maybe I gave off a relationship vibe at some point…

Yes, you did.

…Where she felt she was losing her freedom.

Yep. You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.

I feel like I shouldn’t reach out now for clarity sake to rehash the discussion as that would be me trying to force myself into her life…

That is correct.

…And continuing the apparent relationship pressure, you must love in such a way that the person you love feels free, and I am making it easy for her to flake out of my life forever. Just not sure how I gave her that vibe…

Well, you gave her that vibe because you mentioned it and you said you were the one that was using all the the pet names and stuff, and she wasn’t saying it. She wasn’t doting on you with the same words, and you fucking ignored that because, as you said, you allowed yourself to get carried away on your feelings and your emotions in the moment of passion. You can’t fucking do that, dude. You didn’t maintain self control.

…It seems like she is assuming due to my age that must be something I want. 

No, it’s the vibe you gave off.

Anyways, would love to get your feedback, just trying to diagnose and see where I could do better.

Wishing you all the best!

Bob

Well, you should just be following what’s in 7 Principles To Get An Ex Back at this point. If she reaches out in the future, invite her over to your place to hang out, have fun and hook up. Pretty simple. Don’t call, don’t text. In the future, she brings that up or she might try to friend-zone you when she does, or if she does reach out in the future, you say, “I’m not going to do anything, I’m not interested in platonic relationship with you. I don’t need a pal. I like you as my lover. You know, I want to keep seeing you romantically. That’d be great. We could do friends with benefits, no strings attached. You can date who you want. You can sleep with who you want. I’m gonna do the same. If it progresses between us and you fall head over heels in love and want to lock me down to be your boyfriend, that’s something I’ll consider at the time, but for now, let’s not talk about the future. Let’s live in the present. We could get kidnapped by aliens tomorrow. So let’s focus on the moment.”

That’s what you should do. Hang out, have fun and hook up, man. Your job is to create an opportunity for sex to happen. Not lock a girl down and get all dopey once you get a taste of the pussy.

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. Until next time, I will talk to you soon.