You always find something when you’re not looking

When people are in the mood to dish out dating advice, many love to say, “You always find something when you’re not looking.”

The implication is that relationships only come along when you’re so frustrated that you stop looking, like the universe is taking pity on you or something. And the “advice,” if it can even be called that, is what—to stop looking for a relationship?

This relationship platitude is kind of like saying, “When you lose something, it’s always in the last place you look.” It sounds right until you think about it for .2 milliseconds, and then you realize this gives you nothing and you’d be better off burying a statue of Saint Francis upside-down in the backyard.

“You always find something when you’re not looking” also has some ring of truth to it—you’re more likely to find a relationship when you’re not spending 12 hours a day on match.com—but it’s not because you’ve stopped looking.

The people who seem most attractive to members of the opposite (or same) sex are those who seem happy, well-adjusted, confident, and, most important—busy. When someone seems like she has a full and exciting life, other people want to be part of it.

When you “stop looking” (which we would translate as “stop looking desperate”), you’re sending these kinds of signals. Your life seems so cool and interesting that you’re not going to drop everything to look for a boyfriend, and that’s precisely why guys are going to want to be yours.

So the trick isn’t to stop looking; it’s to make it seem as though you’re not looking. To project a persona that seems too awesome to settle for just anyone, and to market your life as something that everyone should want.

This means not skipping your yoga class for a date with a guy you met at Russia House. It means not showing up for singles mixers (do they even exist anymore?) and not begging your friends to set you up.

It means building a life that’s totally fulfilling without a better half. And when one comes along, it means making sure he knows he’s not the center of your universe.

Side note: we’re doing some transpacific traveling from now until the new year, so apologies in advance if we’re not posting as much as you’d like. We’ll be back to our regular schedule as soon as we recover from our NYE hangovers.

Why We’re Just Not That Into He’s Just Not That Into You

We spend a lot of time throwing quick punches at the book all women were reading 5 years ago, He’s Just Not That Into You.

Today, we thought we’d finally explain why we don’t like this book, and why we think it does more harm than good.

Our problem isn’t with the message, which is, in its most condensed form, is basically this: if he’s not actively trying to make you his girlfriend, he doesn’t want to be your boyfriend.

That’s solid advice—too many of us spend hours obsessing about what a text means, trying to explain away the fact that he isn’t calling, texting, or telling you he wants to get serious. Sometimes we are wasting our time and energy on people who, for whatever reason, are never going to change their minds.

The problem is that this is where the message stops. He’s not into you, so get over it and move on to someone who is. And, most importantly, it’s not you—it’s him.

This isn’t always true. Sometimes it is you. Sometimes you’re clingy, or text too often, or talk about your ex, or tell him you’re on a diet, or engage in a variety of other behaviors that don’t reflect the awesome, amazing, self-confident person that you are.

HJNTIY would say, “Fuck him—wait for a guy who loves your neuroses!”

That’s certainly one solution, but a better one might be to behave in a manner that’s attractive to men. To make yourself less available. To project a friendly, confident, and independent personality. To make a guy work for your affection.

There’s definitely a point where you need to forget him and move on. But HJNTIY focuses exclusively on this point—not the before and after, which are usually the more important parts. The before is your chance to seduce, and the after is usually easier said than done. If getting over a crush were as easy as saying, “Oh well, he’s just not that into me!”, Facebook wouldn’t have expanded beyond Harvard.

It’s easy to obsess and hard to break the habit. It’s easy (once you know what you’re looking for) to figure out when a guy isn’t interested. But it’s much harder to avoid having to give yourself the HJNTIY pep talk in the first place.

Making a Guy Jealous (Part II)

Yesterday we talked about why it’s a bad idea to bring up an ex/other guys to make a new guy jealous.

But casually mentioning other men in your life can be advantageous when you’re unequivocally dating, although we’re still not advocating using it to inspire jealousy.

Let’s say you want him to come to something with you—your office Christmas party. He kind of balks at the idea and seems totally uninterested. You could nag, but it’s better to say something like, “It’s fine—I can just bring this guy Jeff.” When he asks who Jeff is (or even if he doesn’t), you say something like, “Oh, he’s just this guy I went out with a few times last summer—it’s OK, I’m totally not interested in him in that way, although I wish he would get the hint, but he’s a really cool guy and I’ve been meaning to hang out with him.”

You need to establish that this guy wants you, but totally desexualize the relationship on your end (i.e., assuring him that you’re in no way interested). That way, it looks like you’re going out of your way to prevent jealousy (because there’s no way you’d initiate anything with Jeff!), but you’re still allowing your S.O. to imagine the possibilities of you spending the evening with a guy who has the hots for you.

If you are going to evoke competition, you have to make it seem like you’re going out of your way to do exactly the opposite. If you say, “Fine, I’ll go with Jeff—we’re totally into each other!” it makes you look petty, spiteful, and overly dramatic. The trick is to present it as something that seems like the perfect solution—Jeff is totally in love with you, so of course he’ll go, but don’t worry, you have absolutely zero interest in him, so nothing will happen. Everyone wins!

Or let’s say you’ve been wanting him to take you to Komi, but he won’t take the hint. Say something like, “My friend Jeff’s taking me to Komi on Friday—I’m so excited, because I’ve been really wanting to go but it’s wayyyy too expensive for me to pay my own way, but I need some guy advice. A few months ago, he told me that he was in love with me—he’s really awesome and cute, but I just don’t think of him in that way, and I told him, but I think he still thinks there’s a chance—am I leading him on if I go? I mean, I’m totally, 100 percent, not interested, but I know he won’t let me pay because he knows that’s like the easiest way to make a girl stick around—Oh, you didn’t know that? Yeah, paying for girls is like the easiest way to have her eating out of the palm of your hand—not that I’m saying you should do it with me—I like not being totally under a guy’s spell.”

This looks totally innocent—after all, you’re just asking for advice, and he’s being paranoid if he thinks you’re going to end up at Jeff’s place at the end of the night—how many times have you told your S.O. that you don’t think of this totally sweet, cute, amazing guy Jeff in that way!

But if the issue is that he’s not calling, flaking out, whatever, you need to appear unavailable and uninterested. That means you shouldn’t even be in enough contact with him to drop other guys’ names.

Let’s say he invited you to dinner on Saturday, but texted you at 3 p.m. to say that the restaurant lost the reservation and suggest just coming over to his place instead. You could either 1) head to his apartment and keep saying, “Wow, my ex used to take me to such great dinners!” while you’re making out on his couch or 2) say, “Ah no problem—let’s try for sometime next week!”

The problem with the first scenario is that, no matter how subtle you think you’re being, it’s not working. He’s either missing the point or totally turned off by how obvious you’re being—he gets it, you want dinner, but you’re giving him what he wants and he didn’t have to drop 80 bucks, so all he has to do is ignore your whining.

And Jeff won’t work in this scenario, because neither of you is committed enough for it to be an issue. If you’ve only been on a few dates, and he seems like he wants to keep things casual, it’ll look weird if you start talking about Jeff. He has no right to care if you’re dating other people, and rubbing it in his face makes you look a little skanky. And you don’t know him well enough to be asking him “guy” advice, and even if you did, his reaction probably wouldn’t be, “Wow, I need to take her to Komi,” it would be more like, “Wow, doesn’t she have someone else to ask about this?”

Making a Guy Jealous (Part I)

Dear Date the District,

Do you think there’s an advantage to talking about dudes/exes to make a guy jealous?

First, we’d like to commend this reader on her brevity (not that we don’t love those of you who write in with page-long questions).

And then we’d like to dash her dreams of one-stop seduction with a resounding and unequivocal no.

It sounds so good in theory! How many times have you seen your cute coworker chatting up the girl from accounting and spent the next two hours plotting new and improved ways to get there first? Can’t you use that to put him in the same mindset?

 Here’s the thing: when it comes to crushes, guys can be a little more practical. That’s not to say that they don’t pine over one-true loves or spend hours looking at their exes’ Facebook photos, but if they haven’t made an investment, they’re more likely to abort mission if you seem taken.

Girls are more likely to develop crushes and obsess, spending hours trying to analyze what that nod at happy hour meant, why he asked them about their plans for New Year’s. Once the train leaves the station, it’s not going to stop, and it becomes really hard, if not impossible, to hit the brakes on those feelings.   

Guys, on the other hand, usually don’t spend as much time fantasizing about their 60^th wedding anniversary—they’re more interested in the here and now. If a girl’s cute and she’s single, great! If she’s cute and she’s taken, it’s easier for guys to nip a crush in the bud before he gets attached.

If you try to bring up potential competition too early on (e.g., before he’s even asked you out), you could scare him off—not because he’ll assume you’re not interested, but because he realizes the odds are not in his favor.

This doesn’t mean you should make yourself seem available—definitely don’t bring up the fact that you’re single, looking, whatever. He probably won’t assume there’s a boyfriend if you don’t mention one, so there’s no need to reassure him that he’s on the right track.

If you drop masculine names, you also run the risk of looking too focused on finding a relationship. We’ve already talked about why using the term “ex-boyfriend” isn’t buying you anything, but there’s also the fact that the most attractive people are the ones who seem totally self-sufficient, satisfied with their lives, and over any past relationships.

When you start hinting at guy friends in what you want him to think is coded language, you’re opening yourself up to interpretations that aren’t conducive to great relationships.

For starters, you’re basically inviting him to assume that you’re dating other people.

Yes, it’s probably advantageous for most single 20-somethings to be dating several people at once if the opportunities present themselves. But drawing attention to your jam-packed dating schedule is more sleazy than sexy. We hate to have to drop this line again, but it’s the whole lady-in-the-street-freak-in-the-bed thing.

If you take it back to biology, it’s really important for men to find faithful partners because that’s the only way they can be sure to pass on their genes (when a woman sleeps around, she still knows she’s the mother of her child). There’s obviously more to it than that, but the bottom line is that most men aren’t looking for women who seem promiscuous (regardless of how committed they might be to their own promiscuity).

So when you mention your trip to the movies with your friend who just happens to be named Adam, you’re implicitly giving him the go-ahead to keep things casual (and a lot of guys are looking for any invitation to do just that), and you’re also drawing attention to your own lack of innocence, which, as unfair as it may be, makes you seem less desirable.

The bottom line is, if he finds you attractive, he’s probably going to assume that other guys do too. Reminding him that your powers of seduction work on other people does more harm than good.

That being said, there is a but. After you’ve established a relationship (i.e., you’re officially “dating”), it can be advantageous to mention other men—as long as you take steps to desexualize it. More on this tomorrow.

How to Talk to Guys

Spring brings more opportunities to socialize: outdoor happy hours, rooftop parties, drunken kickball games.

There’s an increase in eligible bachelors in close proximity, but how do you increase your chances of hitting it off with one of them?

Most guys will tell you that the more attention you give a girl, the easier it is to bring her home at the end of the night.

A similar strategy can win guys over as well. They might not be as easily swayed by attention alone, but you can make a good impression with a great conversation.

The more favorably a guy remembers a conversation with you, the more likely he’ll be to remember you in favorable terms.

People associate feelings with the situations surrounding those sentiments. When the guy looks back on the conversation, he’ll think, I enjoyed talking to her, therefore, I must enjoy her.

But how do you guarantee a good conversation? It’s actually much easier than you’d think.

You capitalize on two things that people love: talking about themselves and hearing their own names.

We all love talking about ourselves, but we also recognize that manners and basic social norms punish people for making themselves the number one topic of conversation. (Like the friends you avoid because they only talk about themselves.)

A skilled conversationalist makes someone forget that he’s committing a social taboo by engaging him on his favorite subject: himself.

But you don’t want to pounce on a guy and start interrogating him immediately after exchanging names (i.e., asking “What’s your favorite color? What do you do? Where do you live? How many siblings do you have?” before the guy can get a word in edgewise).

Here’s how it works: let the conversation develop naturally at first. But when you hit on something interesting/unique, start asking questions. You want him to feel like an expert in a subject that happens to fascinate you.

So let’s say he mentions that he studied archeology in college. Casually ask him what digs are like. Avoid yes or no questions, and, if you’re really stuck, ask him to explain something complicated (and give him the opportunity to show off useless knowledge).

Again, avoid interrogation. Really listen to what he’s saying—don’t use his response as an opportunity to think up the next unrelated question. Pause after his response, and briefly turn the spotlight on you (i.e., say I/me a couple of times) before asking another question. So if he says, “Yeah, the financial crisis has really hit the archeology industry pretty hard,” say something like, “Yeah, I was really into those Indian Jones movies when I was little, but I feel like their jobs were totally unrealistic. But even with a degree from such a great school [a little flattery never hurts], it’s still hard?”

But don’t turn the conversation back to you. Don’t use his aside as a segue to make it all about you. Keep the focus on him.

If a friend comes up to you, introduce your new companion—and use his name. People love hearing the sound of their own names, and while you don’t want to overdo it (i.e., don’t drop his name in one-on-one conversation--unless you're trying to channel your inner used car salesman), make sure to use his name in place of pronouns whenever you can.

But don’t spend the entire night with him either. After a half-hour conversation, excuse yourself and go mingle. Leave him wanting more, and let him come up to you to continue the conversation.

Favors

Yesterday, we talked about the complexities of exchanging gifts with a newly acquired BF.

But lavish presents aren’t the only pitfalls when you’re stuck in that gray area between dating and committed relationship.

There are plenty of other nonsexual favors that might seem like better ideas than they really are.

When you start dating a new guy, it’s natural to want to prove your worth. You want your guy to know that you can cook and clean, and if you keep bringing small presents over to his apartment, he’ll want to keep you around to keep the treats coming. Right?

Maybe not.

Favors are like anything else. If a guy’s not really working for them, he’s going to wonder why he’s getting them. And he’s probably going to conclude that you’re so desperate to date him, you’ll do anything to be with him.

But these things sometimes appear to be fairly innocuous.

Take, for example, our friend Julie.

Julie dated her boyfriend all through college. They broke up after graduation, but they now live in the same city. After a period of not talking, they became “friends,” and now Julie thinks they’re heading back towards rekindling their relationship.

But Julie’s also worried that there might be other girls in the picture. She’s particularly concerned about one Facebook wall-to-wall with a younger girl.

Julie wanted to send her ex a Valentine’s Day card, because she thought if she didn’t send him one and the other girl did, she’d have no chance of getting back together with him.

But if she sends him a Valentine’s Day card, she might as well make her Facebook status, “Robbie, will you take me back?”

If there’s one thing you never want to be, it’s a sure thing. And when you offer to clean his apartment and make him dinner, you might not think that’s the message you’re sending.

But think about it from a guy’s perspective. Guys, more than anyone, know how much cooking and cleaning sucks. While they might think it’s awesome that they’re getting a cook, maid, and sex slave for nothing, they’re not going to want to go out of their way to date you. If they’re getting all they want and you’re not even in a “real” relationship, why should they bother taking you out for Valentine’s Day?

And when you send your ex a Valentine’s Day card, you might think you’re sending a message you can’t afford for him to miss. After all, if his Facebook friend sends him a card and you don’t, he might think that she’s interested and you’re not. And he might ask her out instead of you.

Except he won’t. Guys aren’t looking to date girls who seem like sure things. They want to date the ones who seem out of their league, the ones who they’re not sure they can get. Yes, we’re starting to sound like a broken record, but it’s worth repeating.

If you go out of your way to do things for him and show him how much you care too soon, he might think “Hm, this is convenient,” but he’s not going to think, “Wow, I don’t know what I’d do without the fresh cookies and handmade cards and cleaning service—I better keep this one around.”

Guys don’t need an impeccably clean house. When they’re in college, the puke on the frat-house walls isn’t enough to make them move out, and when they settle into the 20-something routine, they rarely invest in vacuum cleaners.

If you want to impress him, act like you’re so cool and desirable that you don’t need to put on a housekeeper’s uniform to attract a boyfriend.

News Roundup: The New Math on Campus

The New York Times recently published an article on the gender imbalance in many of the nation’s prestigious colleges and universities.

The article explores the ramifications of a widely noted trend in undergraduate admissions: female applicants tend to have higher SAT scores, better GPAs, and more extracurricular activities than their male counterparts.

So what happens when girls get to campus and find themselves outnumbering the boys? The article argues that the boys have all the power when it comes to dating, and the girls have to play by their rules. According to the author, college guys are more interested in sex than relationships, and the girls who want “something more” have to settle for casual sex because the guys are calling the shots.

While the gender ratio may contribute to this dynamic, it’s not the root cause of the problem.

The author chronicles the mating rituals these coeds employ to find “the one.” Here are the highlights:

Thanks to simple laws of supply and demand, it is often the women who must assert themselves romantically or be left alone on Valentine’s Day, staring down a George Clooney movie over a half-empty pizza box.

‘I was talking to a friend at a bar, and this girl just came up out of nowhere, grabbed him by the wrist, spun him around and took him out to the dance floor and started grinding,’ said Kelly Lynch, a junior at North Carolina, recalling a recent experience.

‘A lot of my friends will meet someone and go home for the night and just hope for the best the next morning,’ Ms. Lynch said. ‘They’ll text them and say: “I had a great time. Want to hang out next week?” And they don’t respond’

Even worse, ‘Girls feel pressured to do more than they’re comfortable with, to lock it down,’ Ms. Lynch said.

As for a man’s cheating, ‘that’s a thing that girls let slide, because you have to,’ said Emily Kennard, a junior at North Carolina. ‘If you don’t let it slide, you don’t have a boyfriend.’

“Women do not want to get left out in the cold, so they are competing for men on men’s terms,” [Kathleen A. Bogle, a sociologist at La Salle University in Philadelphia] wrote. “This results in more casual hook-up encounters that do not end up leading to more serious romantic relationships. Since college women say they generally want ‘something more’ than just a casual hook-up, women end up losing out.”

‘A lot of guys know that they can go out and put minimal effort into their appearance and not treat girls to drinks or flatter them, and girls will still flirt with them,’ said Felicite Fallon, a senior at Florida State University, which is 56 percent female.

So, basically, these girls aren’t making the guys put in any work whatsoever. This sentiment is oh-so-eloquently by one of the (few) men interviewed for this article:

‘You don’t have to work that hard,’ said Matt Garofalo, a senior at North Carolina. ‘You meet a girl at a late-night restaurant, she’s texting you the next day.’

The issue, it seems, is not the gender imbalance, but rather the way these girls are behaving.

When you make things too easy for guys, they’re going to lose interest. After all, if you seem so desperate to date the nerdy guy who monitors the computer lab, he’s going to wonder what’s driving the desperation. And he’s probably going to conclude that you think he’s too good for you. And if you think that, why shouldn’t he?

When girls are borderline-raping guys on the dance floor and taking them home for a one-night stand, the guys are going to assume they can do better. Not because the odds are in their favor, but because the girls seem really available.

And because we all want what we can’t have (especially when it comes to sex), these guys are going to look for the girls who aren’t giving it up as easily.

And if you read between the lines, that’s what the guys are saying.

‘Guys tend to overshoot themselves and find a really beautiful girlfriend they couldn’t date otherwise, but can, thanks to the ratio,’ [a male North Carolina alum] said.

What this guy’s saying is, the guys want to date girls that seem out of their league. But how can you tell who’s out of your league?

Yes, some people fall at extreme ends of the attractiveness spectrum. But most of us are somewhere in the middle. And, at that point, a lot of it comes down to personal preference. Some guys go crazy for redheads. Others are turned on by blonde hair, regardless of the face underneath it.

It’s the same for girls. Some girls want the lacrosse-player shaggy hair, while others like guys who look like they just got out of basic training.

So when a guy’s trying to figure out if a girl’s out of his league, he’s going to take a lot of clues from her behaviors/action.

If she’s texting him the day after a one-night stand to say, “I had a great time last night. Let’s get lunch this week.”, he’s probably going to assume she’s at least at (if not below) his level. Because if she were out of his league, she wouldn’t be giving him the time of day.

But if she’s not even going home with him in the first place, he might start to wonder if he’s good enough for her. And that’s going to pique his interest, not “[doing] more than [you’re] comfortable with to lock it down,” as the girls in the article suggest.

The guys agree.

‘Even though there’s this huge imbalance between the sexes, it still doesn’t change the fact of guys sitting around, bemoaning their single status,’ said Patrick Hooper, a Georgia senior. ‘It’s the same as high school, but the women are even more enchanting and beautiful.’

Presumably, the “enchanting and beautiful” women these guys are pining over aren’t putting out after the late-night diner.

All the guys are quick to point out how easy it is to get sex. But they all also bemoan the fact that they don’t have girlfriends.

The problem seems to be that the girls who put out don’t seem like girlfriend material. And the girls who don’t suddenly become these “enchanting” beauties that the guys actually want to date.

The girls who do put out aren’t ugly. The article goes into irrelevant detail about the outfits they wear and the time they put into their hair and makeup. So the girls who hold out probably aren’t more beautiful in an objective sense, but they seem more attractive because they seem less attainable.

These women aren’t single because they outnumber the guys. They’re single because they don’t know how to behave in a way that encourages men to date them.

And in cities like DC, where smart, motivated, and attractive women seem to outnumber men with the same characteristics, we could all learn a thing or two from these coeds’ mistakes.

Gender Equality (Or Lack Thereof) in the Dating World

We spent most of last night in a heated debate about gender equality in the dating world.

In our opinion, it doesn’t exist. And here’s why:

From about the age of 0, girls start hearing the same message. They watch Disney movies, and later sit coms and chick flicks, they read “young adult” books, and later romance novels, and they all say the same thing: a woman’s goal in life should be to find the most handsome, charming, and desirable man she can, and the best way to snag him is to “fall in love” with him.

But it doesn’t work like that. If a guy thinks you’re in love with him before you’ve even gone on a first date, it’s going to scare him off.

Furthermore, these messages encourage women to base a lot of their own self-worth on their marital status and/or partner. Single? There must be something wrong with you! Do other girls think your boyfriend is kind of awkward and not that cute? They must think the same thing about you too!

Your love life (or lack thereof) becomes your primary focus. That’s not to say you can’t hold down a job or keep up some semblance of a personal life. But, when push comes to shove, this idea of “love” is the ultimate pursuit. Worth leaving your job for, worth transferring to a different city, worth putting everything on the line.

The truth is, life probably is easier and more enjoyable when you have a partner to share it with. But “love” does not a successful relationship make. Things like trust, mutual interests, and shared values will take you a lot further than lust that feels like something more.

And so our society sets women up to want a partner more than anything else, but doesn’t give them the tools to find one.

Guys, for whatever reason, seem to instinctively understand how to play games. They don’t return calls, they keep you guessing, and they seem less interested in couplehood to begin with.

Girls, on the other hand, watch a women on TV turn down Stanford to follow her crush to NYU and end up getting the guy after she confesses all this to him.

In the real world, this would be a major turnoff. But no one ever explains this to us.

So women are set up to want a partner more than (almost) anything else. But they’re also conditioned to behave in ways that would send most potential matches running in the opposite direction.

This doesn’t mean that women are doomed, but it does mean we have to work harder to overcome the urge to call him when he’s not responding.

And above all, it means women need to be more savvy about the dos and don’ts of dating. And it means we sometimes need to show each other the way—for example, by not encouraging our friends to drunk-text guys they want to date.

It’s not enough to tell yourself that things never work the way they do on TV and in the movies. You have to understand why they don’t work that way, and what does work in “real” life.

Survey the District: Should I Bother Trying to Tame an Asshole?

Dear Date the District,

Currently, I am in a situation that has the potential to turn into naked-makeout disaster zone or perhaps something more substantial and I would love your advice on it. I have had a crush on this guy from my town since the 1st grade. There is something about him that has always worked for me, and still does 16 years later. While this crush never developed into anything during my formative years, I've recently gotten back in touch with people from high school since graduating college and moving back home. Said crush and I never hung out socially outside of school, and over the course of the last 2 months have seen each other maybe 5 times or so. Every time involves a group of friends either at a bar or someone's house, and alcohol. He has flirted with me a great deal while out with friends every time I go out with him, and insinuated make out sessions that I held out on (up until last weekend that is). Mutual friends of ours have told me that he has never been in a real relationship before, and think that I am "too nice" for him. (Meaning, they don't want to see me attempt to pursue this route with him because I will end up getting my heart broken like the wounded soldiers before me.) We hooked up last weekend, post-bar (not drunk, but not sober) and he attempted sex but I steered him in the direction of a blowjob instead (which was truly difficult because we had intense chemistry and were having a great time together and *sigh* I have been wanting him since the tender age of 6). My question for you is: should I bother putting in the effort with this guy if he's never had a girlfriend? Is there even a likelihood of me potentially being the girl that breaks the mold? (i.e. will your method of projection work on this guy?) And if not, should I abstain from hooking up with him again? It's been awhile since the last time I hooked up with anyone and the dry spell is KILLING me, but I don't want to pretend I'm one of those girls who "doesn't want a boyfriend" and is cool with "being casual" because I get jealous and know that won't work for me. I'm totally lost. Side note: he is a weak thumbed texter.

It’s a tempting trap: if you don’t think it’s going anywhere, why bother playing games? After all, holding out is hard, and it’s easier to just text him first.

Here’s the issue: playing games isn’t guaranteed to work. But not playing games is almost 100 percent guaranteed not to get you what you want.

We see this time and time again. Girls decide that it’s not worth playing games because he’s not datable, or he’s not cute enough, or he’s too much of an asshole to bother. They think the fact that they’ve resigned themselves to not even bother trying will protect them from getting hurt, but a few weeks later, when he’s in major blowoff mode, the sting is even worse—partially because it’s unexpected.

You never know how things are going to progress. This guy could be totally untamable. Or it could be that no girl’s ever made him work for it before.

But if you text him first and give him the naked makeout, you’re never gonna find out. And, chances are, he will start blowing you off. And what for?

We understand the excruciating frustration of a dry spell. But is it really worth the pain you’re going to feel when you go three weeks without hearing from him?

Our advice would be to keep making out with him in public. But don’t take things back to his place. If he texts you at 3 a.m., ignore him (and FYI, that means no texting him back in the morning to say, “Sorry, I was sleeping”).

Girls rarely (if ever) get anything out of playing it straight. If you’re sexually frustrated, invest in a vibrator—they never forget to call.

There’s something to be said for human contact and the validation that comes from proof that your crush desires you sexually.

But won’t it feel worse to know that he did want you at some point and, for whatever reason, isn’t responding to you now?

The more you like someone to begin with, the easier it is to get obsessed when he doesn’t call. If you let him have it that easily, you’re probably going to regret it.

You say you two have a lot of sexual chemistry. Which totally makes sense—if you’ve been waiting for someone for 16 years, the payoff’s going to be even bigger.

But think about the sexiest parts of hooking up. It’s not the blowjob, or the naked dry-humping, or even actual penetration. It’s the sensual kisses, the tentative touches, his lips on your neck, etc. All of this can be accomplished in a dark corner of a bar.

With the public makeout, you can cash in on the electrifying sexual chemistry without sacrificing your dignity.

And if he wants to take it further, he can ask you on a date.

Survey the District: How to Make Him Like You Back

dear date the district,

could you perhaps offer some advice as to how a girl goes about asking a guy out?/sparking the attention of a guy? so far the posts have mostly been about how to act when already in the middle of a hooking up relationship or about how to act when being pursued.

Unfortunately, we never post about this because there really is no trick to making a guy like you.

There’s usually an initial on ne sait quoi that makes two people want to jump each other’s bones, and if people could figure out how to force this, match.com would go out of business.

But while there’s no magic potion you can slip in his drink, there are things you can do to make yourself look more attractive to the opposite sex in general.

To start, you have to stop thinking of them as guys.

A lot of girls seem to switch personalities as soon as a guy walks into a room. They get giggly and ditzy. They go into flirting overdrive. They latch on to a guy and try so hard to engage him that it looks like they’re about to attack their potential crushes.

Strong come-ons rarely turn guys on, for reasons we’ve discussed countless times. When a girl seems like a sure thing, the guy looses the thrill of the chase. And while he might take her home that night, he’s probably not going to take her out to breakfast the next morning.

So if 90% of girls turn into man-hungry fiends when they smell male pheromones, you can distinguish yourself by not giving into the urge to go crazy when you’re talking to a guy.

What does that mean? Treat him like a girl. If you were meeting your friend’s new roommate for the first time, you wouldn’t rub her chest and say, “Ohmygod, that sweater looks so soft!”

And you wouldn’t clam up and wait for her to talk to you.

Instead, you’d probably start with something like, “Oh, what do you do?”

If the conversation turned to the subject of her favorite restaurant, you wouldn’t say, “You and I should totally go there some night. Just the two of us.” You wouldn’t get nervous and start talking too much. You wouldn’t brag about how many guys have asked you out this year. If you act the same way around a guy, you give your awesome, bubbly personality the chance to shine through.

But what if you’re already friends with the guy you like (as the reader above seems to be)?

These types of situations tend to get really sticky really quickly. When you like your guy friend, it’s easier for him to (unwittingly) hurt your feelings. Because you have feelings for him, you might subconsciously hold him to higher standards. But because he doesn’t know about your feelings, he doesn’t know to adjust his behavior. And he’ll treat you like he treats all his other friends. That might mean accidentally passing out at 10 p.m. when you two were supposed to hang out later that night.

If your girl (space) friend pulled that move, you’d probably be pissed and give her shit about it, but you’d ultimately accept her apology. But if the guy friend you like does this, you might want to send him a text along the lines of, “omg i can’t believe u blew me off i am so sick of putting up with ur shit do u care about me at all?”

If your girl (space) friend sent you a text like that, it would feel like it came out of left field. And that’s exactly how your guy friend feels too. Psychosis doesn’t look sexy on anyone, so that isn’t the way to win your friend over.

If you want to date him, your best bet is to make him realize how much he likes hanging out with you while making him question whether or not he has a chance with you. This means not dropping everything to hang out with him each time he calls. If your best girl (space) friend asked you if you wanted to come over and help clean her apartment, you’d say no. Don’t give this guy special treatment.

When you feel yourself getting mad or jealous, pretend that he’s a girl that you feel bad for, but don’t really like. You know that friend of a friend who just moved into your neighborhood, and she’s really aggressive and awkward, but you can’t blow her off completely without pissing off your friend?

Instead, you let her down really easily. When she calls for the fifth night in a row, you say, “Oh my God, I would love to come over and hang out with your cats, but I have to work late tonight. Such a bummer though!”

Do the same thing with him. When he texts the next morning to apologize for sleeping through the party he was supposed to take you to, tell him it’s no problem!!! But when he calls you that night to see if you want to come over, tell him you’d really, really love to, but you promised your goldfish that you’d hang out with her tonight.