Female Mind

Today I want to talk about a strange and confusing topic for a lot of guys - namely, getting mixed signals from a girl.

You know what mixed signals are: one moment, she's flirty and warm with you, and you get excited, thinking you're getting somewhere with her. The next moment, she's cool and aloof - and you're really not sure what happened.

Then, out of nowhere - BAM! You're back get warm, flirty behavior from her.

So does that mean she likes you, or does that mean she doesn't?

Lately, the team and I have found ourselves moderating a lot more negative comments on the site than usual. Some of these are from people who believe that seduction is wrong, but a growing number are from people who believe that it's impossible for men to learn how to get women because all women are bitter women who simply aren't interested in men.

It's kind of a strange but interesting viewpoint. On the one hand, clearly SOME women are interested in men, since there're a little over 7 billion of us human beings on the planet. If you look around at the sheer volume of human beings around you - all products of a man picking up a woman at some point in his life, having sex with her, and impregnating her - you start getting the feeling that at least some women somewhere are open to meeting men. At least a couple billion of them, anyway.

On the other hand, I realize that there are some jaded women out there. I see the terms "bitches" and "feminazis" thrown around a good bit as examples of terrible people who make men feel bad about themselves. But, honestly, I have a really hard time meeting any women like this in real life - for the life of me, I don't know where all these "bitches and feminazis" who hate men actually are.

And even if they really exist... I only have one question for the guys who are so upset about them: who said you had to date those girls?

Yesterday's article about when you should have sex mentioned part of a female reader's comment on the article "I Don’t Chase 'Em, I Replace 'Em." The comment, though, was actually a fair bit longer than that, and touched on another subject too:

“While I agree that the 'replace' mentality is efficient for picking up large quantities of women in a short time, I think it limits the quality of the women. I can categorically say, that there is a strong correlation between a woman's desirability status and the extent to which she will require a man to chase or demonstrate interest/value.”

Our commenter here has a very valid point - however, the nuance to that point is what interests us most.

Because, as you will see, how resistant to sex a woman is depends upon:

• The quality and quantity of her choice with men, and
• How this man in particular stacks up against her other options
  

... and that even among resistances, there are very different kinds of resistance to sex, and these are based far more on the woman's level of sexual experience with men, and her level of experience with a man who makes her feel the way this particular man does.

(if you're looking for an article on how to overcome this resistance, we've already got a great post up on it here - "How to Get a Girl in Bed: 10 Crucial Tips for Making Her Yours" - this piece is really about identifying the different kinds of resistance, understanding what each sort says about the girl you're getting it from, and understanding what you need to do and who you need to be not to get it)

Let's dive in.

One of our female readers commented the other day on the article "I Don’t Chase 'Em, I Replace 'Em," about not waiting around for women who aren't interested / are pushing things off indefinitely, saying:

“Matt's letter suggested that you cut a woman off if she won't sleep with you on the first date... that cuts out a lot of good women, including me! If all guys thought like this, I'd never get a boyfriend (or laid) again!
(also, it should be noted, many men claim they 'won't date' a girl who will have sex on the first date, so you can't blame us for taking it slow)”

The topic is one that's been brought up a number of times by male and female commenters here, and done so in a variety of ways. Because the general advice for men on Girls Chase is contrary to conventional advice (i.e., take women to bed as lovers fast, not slow), it tends to provoke excitement in some, but confusion, questioning, or ire in others.

So - when should you have sex?

We've discussed the process of women's attraction expiring for men who fail to move things forward fast enough, but are there other reasons a man ought to take things fast with women he likes, and not slow, as the advice from the mainstream instructs?

And what about for women - is it better for women to make men wait, and if so, how long?

Today, I'm exploring both sides - so buckle up.

In "How to Pick Up Girls in Bars and Clubs," we had a look in passing at why dance clubs and dance floor game are so difficult to get real results with women in, aside from make outs and rapid escalations that usually don't ever lead to anything much more.

There we called it "emotional spiking," but this spiking is actually the result of a far broader and more common phenomenon seen everywhere in life and love, dance clubs being only among the more extreme examples. The phenomenon is one I've dubbed emotional cresting, and it creates some interesting wrinkles in how your interactions with people - women and men alike - play out.

Emotional cresting is about taking emotions to their extremes - those emotional spikes we mentioned before. It follows the process of emotional escalation that we mentioned as so crucial to the process of preparing a woman for intimacy in How to Make Girls Chase, except that it's an intrinsic part of everything.

There's great power in emotional cresting, but there's also significant danger to your interactions in it as well - because the higher you crest, the bigger the crash is if you can't maintain that emotional momentum.

On the new forum join bonus post where I asked for suggestions for the limited-time ebook offered to the first group of forum members, a reader weighed in with his preference:

“I'd like some tips and tricks, and knowledge about longer term relationships - for example, how to bring a girl out of that 'brick wall' sulk! I seem to attract fiery and moody, and I would like to know how other people deal with this. Never too old to learn?”

While this didn't make it into the ebook in question, I've been trying to get through each of these and tackle the ones that weren't addressed there on the website here.

If you've been in a relationship that lasted any substantial length of time, you've no doubt encountered what our commenter here is talking about - that sulky, pouting, dreary moody girlfriend situation.

For men in relationships, there are few things more dispiriting than a girlfriend, moody and sulky, skulking around the apartment, acting like somebody stole her bag of cookies, and you have absolutely no idea why. It can make you want to pull your hair out and exclaim, "Out with it already, woman!"

If she'd just TELL YOU what the problem was, by George, then you could address it at least!

Well, if it's any consolation, science is here to tell us we're not crazy, and women really DO do this and feel this a lot more than men.

And I'm here to tell you what to do about it so she knocks this off and starts acting a little more chipper again.

No doubt you've had the experience of having things all locked with a girl - she's agreed to a date, say, or she's decided that, yes, she's coming to this restaurant or bar with you, or, yes, she's coming home with you.

And then, the girl changes her mind.

It can be enough to drive you crazy. All that work just to get her to say "yes"... and then she goes and says, "Wait, on second though - no!"

Or, you're out with a girl and she says, "Let's get some ice cream. Can we get ice cream?" So you say sure, and start heading to the ice cream shop. Then, out of the blue, she says, "Wait, no; let's get some Mexican food. Come on, I want Mexican." So then she turns the two of you around and now you're walking back the way you came, in the direction of the Mexican food she's now so certain she wants.

And God help you if you should find yourself out with a gaggle of girls, where you're the only man and you're not in charge... the endless back and forth between one girl saying, "I want this!" and then minutes later saying, "Wait, I want this!" and the next girl saying the same thing and other girls yelling, "What should we DO?" and still more girls yelling, "Come on! Let's just go!" can be enough to drive a man mad.

Where does all this indecision stem from - and what can you do about it as a man?