I met a woman. She had a pretty face, and a pleasant figure, and our communication through messages and calls was interesting. I invited her on a date, she agreed, and the evening went perfectly. We talked about various topics, and the spark of flirtation kept igniting from random glances, words, or touches.
The date ended with me walking her home, and for another ten minutes, we said goodbye with a long kiss. Though there was no intimacy (and I wasn’t insisting on it), I enjoyed everything greatly and looked forward to the next meeting and the simple progression of our acquaintance. But…
Neither that evening nor the next day did she call or text. I reached out myself, but all the responses were brief, sometimes accompanied by a couple of emojis. I didn’t give up, and in the following days, I offered to meet her several times, but she consistently refused, citing her busy schedule.
Back then, I understood that something was off; I wasn’t particularly interested in this woman anymore, but something inside me compelled me to keep writing to her. It wasn’t interest driving me, but rather a desire to figure out what was going on.
So what happened?
Later on, when I began to understand relationship psychology better, I analyzed this situation. Where did I go wrong? Was it during the date? No, everything was perfect there, not a single mistake. We maintained visual and tactile contact, there was mutual interest, and at the end of the date, we sealed the pleasant evening with a kiss.
So, it wasn’t about the date or my behavior, because if I had behaved differently, the evening wouldn’t have been so enjoyable. By process of elimination, the focus shifted to my girlfriend, and everything quickly fell into place.
Consciously or not, the woman applied a simple yet effective manipulation tactic on me.
Despite enjoying everything, she wanted to “test my strength” and initiated the silent treatment, which involves:
- Lack of initiative (not messaging or calling first).
- Dry, one-word answers (parentheses, emojis, two or three words maximum).
- Refusal to continue the conversation further.
The task of manipulation is to put a man on an “emotional swing”. Women themselves explain this logic as follows:
After the first date, a man feels like a winner, and to prevent him from relaxing, it’s useful to “bring him down from heaven to earth”.
These “swings” are especially necessary (in women’s understanding) if intimacy occurs after the first date. A woman fears that the man will relax and stop being as sensitive, polite, attentive, considerate, and so on down the list.
If a woman, who has just reciprocated, suddenly slips away, she becomes several times more valuable.
And when a woman with whom everything seems to be going well suddenly distances herself, a man is faced with a difficult choice.
Either you let her drift away, thus losing the woman who is almost yours, just reach out your hand. Or you run after her and try with all your might to bring her back. And very few men in such a situation immediately choose the first option. In my case, they “chase” after the girlfriend — they text first, call first, invite meeting first, and in general, do everything to keep the communication going.
It all depends on the audacity of the girlfriend. For some, it will be enough that the man bends over and briefly becomes a “puppy” obediently following its owner. Another — will train through “hot-cold” tactics. A third girlfriend will demand an “act”, and this act must be expressed in monetary terms.
To me, all of this is a very cunning trick. Instead of fostering pleasant communication, a woman slows it down, even if she is interested in its continuation.
The right solution is one — inaction.
Either the woman will reach out herself (which happened in my subsequent encounters), or she’ll disappear altogether. That’s normal: why would you need such a friend anyway?