Pursue excellence, not the girl – Dating advice for men

Guy’s I want to discuss with you a fool proof strategy to keep that girl who you’re absolutely crazy about, absolutely crazy about you too. And it’s probably not what you’re thinking.

Ok guys so, you’ve come out of a long-term relationship and now want to get back into dating. If you’ve been with the same girl for 10 or 15 years you’re gonna be used to how that one girl acted and reacted, and you would’ve grown comfortable with dealing with her type of personality. But when you decide again to run the gauntlet of pain, shame and disappointment that can be modern dating, you’re gonna come across all sorts of different personalities, some of which can be really damaging to you and completely do your head in. If you’ve ever dated a narcissist you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, my point is that you’ll be off your game, unprepared and inexperienced, no matter how much of a stud muffin you were back in your prime. And there could be an added element of loneliness that you’re having to deal with, plus any other lingering emotions that you still need to process. Breakups with long term partners can be incredibly traumatic, especially if you weren’t the instigator of the breakup, and can cause you to become emotionally unstable, vulnerable and needy.

So, imagine, after breaking up with a long-term spouse, and dating around for a bit, you find someone who you think ticks all the boxes and just blows your socks off. You never thought you’d meet anyone again who made you feel this way, yet here she is. You just want to be around her all the time, to hear her voice, to feel connected to her all the time. When you’re around her she makes you feel so amazing! So, you text her all day, call her every night, make sure you’re available for her any time she wants to be with you. You’re not really worried that it’s always you calling her, or it’s always you having to go to her end of town so you can hang out. because you have a special connection. Yet after a while she starts taking longer to reply to your texts. She’s not as enthused to hang out with you anymore. And sometimes she even surprises you at how bitchy she can be to you. It’s like you can feel she’s slowly slipping away from you for some reason and the connection you had seems to be dissolving. And you start thinking Oh shit! How can I fix this!

So, you decide the best course of action is to double down and throw everything you’ve got at this girl. Flowers, gifts, love letters, you’re gonna shower this chick with so much fuckin love and affection she couldn’t possibly want to get rid of you.

But now she’s gone and blocked you on social media, and she’s not taking any of your phone calls and not responding to her texts! What the fuck???

So what happened? What did you do wrong?

Well, the short answer is, you forgot where your priorities should lie, and you lost sight of what you’re really on this planet for.

When you meet someone who really does it for you, you’re going to experience all sorts of amazing feelings. Joy, fear, panic. It’s gonna be this boiling cauldron of strong emotions that can be really hard to control. You may barely know her, but you can have obsessive thoughts about being with her and her having the same feelings for you, and what your kids are gonna look like and how happy you’re gonna be for ever and ever.

What you’re experiencing is known as “limerence”. Or being “love sick”. And while limerence can make you feel like you’re 10 feet tall and walking on clouds, it also has negative effects. Scientifically speaking, limerence causes a lowering of serotonin levels and an increase in dopamine levels, causing the “victim” (is there another word for it?) to basically act like a drug addict. And the drug they’re addicted to is the other person. It can cause you to completely lose your mind and do things you never thought you were capable of. I mean, how many times have you heard of girls getting restraining orders placed on random guys they’ve just met because they just wouldn’t stop contacting them. That’s the power of love sickness.

Now, men are at a disadvantage when it comes to romantic attraction, because we are attracted visually to the opposite sex. When we see a girl we’re visually attracted to, we tend to almost immediately begin fantasising about what life will be like being her boyfriend, what it would be like having them in bed by your side, all the fun things the two of you could go together. That’s the limerence talking. It can happen pretty much as soon as you begin talking to the girl, within the first few minutes. However, girls fall in love much slower, because their attraction is based on how they feel about you over time. It’s emotionally based. They fall in and out of love slower than men. So after only a couple of dates the guy can be completely bought in to the girl and totally ready to commit, and quite happy to overlook a myriad of flaws she may have. However, the girl is usually still just in the mindset of “he seems pretty cute, he hasn’t pissed me off yet, let’s just see where this goes”. And that’s it!

It can be around this stage that the guy can start to over contact the girl, to try to be around her more. He has this feeling of “needing” to be with her. Now this can be endearing for a bit, because having someone who’s gah-gah over you is always good for the ego. But having to deal with someone who’s trying to force themselves into your life grows tiresome really quickly. And this “puppy-love” stage can start becoming a real drama really quickly. That’s when girls, quite understandably, pull the rip cord on the relationship.

The thing is, relationships and dating, like owning your own business, is great for exposing any un-resolved issues or weaknesses you have in your character, like low self-esteem, low confidence or anxiety. When you start having strong feelings for someone they take on the characteristics of something extremely valuable and rare, even if they really haven’t done anything to earn it yet. And if you’re not used to possessing something rare and valuable, you’re going to be constantly afraid of losing it. That someone’s going to steal it from you or it’s going to slip through your fingers somehow. So, in an effort to stop this from happening you start being hypervigilant, and over analysing everything that happens in your interactions with her, as a method of improving your chances of keeping her and stopping her getting away from you. Hence the texting, the calling, the wanting to know where she is all the time. You basically start acting like Gollum in the Lord of the Rings. It’s a bad way to go.

So, what’s this fool proof way that I said I had to maintain the attraction of a girl who you really really like?

Well, so many things in relationships and dating feel almost completely counter-intuitive, and this isn’t an exception.

The best way to keep a girl in your life that you’re head over heels about, and keep her highly attracted to you, is to not allow her to become your single focus.

So how do you do this?

Well, have something else that you’re passionate about, that can compete or draw your focus away from her. Like a hobby or your work. Something that you value highly and you feel responsible for, that can distract your attention away from the obsessive thoughts and anxiety you can have around her and take up your time.

This works even if you haven’t developed your self-worth fully yet.

Now I’m definitely not saying to start being a total dick to her by devaluing her using “negging” tactics or whatever.

What I’m saying is that it’s extremely important to treat this girl like you treat everyone else in your life. Especially in the early stages of a courtship. Don’t stick her on a pedestal, and kiss her arse and try to be super nice to her. It just comes off as being disingenuous and creepy. And quite frankly, no matter what she looks like, she hasn’t earned this level of adulation yet. And she knows this! It makes you look desperate and needy. And if she starts getting a hint that you’re only being ridiculously nice to her because you want something from her in return, then she’s going to start feeling uneasy around you and start pushing you out of her life.

Like other normal people, you have other things going on in your life that you are responsible for, and you need to continue to take care of business as usual. Yes, tell her you think she’s fantastic, but you had a life before you met her and that life still goes on. She complements your existing life, not replaces it.

You should be focussed on your purpose and building your business and career instead, or whatever it is that floats your boat. Whether it’s go carting, surfing or haberdashery. Because these things were around well before she was, and if she leaves, they will still be there. Focussing on being the best you can be at these things will help keep your mind off of her, and help you act normal, instead of spending all day texting her and blowing up her phone, and wondering what she’s doing without you. That’s massive feminine energy there, and it’s a total turn off.

So, once the initial process of courtship has been established, and by that I mean you’ve asked the girl out a few times, you’ve enjoyed each other’s company, she’s comfortable contacting you and you’re both interested in seeing where all this leads, it’s so important to basically synchronise yourself with the speed that the girl wants to go at in the courtship and let her choose how often she’d like to connect with you. This requires you to take your foot off the gas pedal and allow her to contact you at her own pace.

Then when she reaches out to you, you know she’ll be enthusiastic to get together with you. when you’re around her go absolutely nuts on her, fuck her brains out, show her an awesome time. But this shouldn’t be the focus of your life and it’s not what the girl wants from you either.

As much as she pouts and complains that you’re not always free to chat for 8 hours on the phone, she doesn’t want you to be available for her 24/7. In fact, nobody wants to be with someone who has nothing else going on in their life. She wants a challenge. Everyone wants to feel like they’ve got a good deal in a relationship.

And she wants a man that can take care of her in a relationship, especially if they settle down and have kids.

So, remember, don’t pursue the girl, but pursue excellence instead and women will follow.