How Much Should You Do for a Girlfriend? The Investment Scales

What’s the right amount to do for a girl you date? How do you know if you invest too much or too little? Two measures: boredom and neglect.

Commenting on my article “Early Boyfriend Distinction – She Helps You vs. You Help Her”, a reader asks (emphasis added):

“Thanks for another insight article especially about how “dynamics” really work and that as long as you can handle situations in the right dynamics, you can break the rules or at least not follow them strictly. Which brings back to a question I have in terms of giving help to a girl. So just a little background, I’m currently dating an au pair, who is considered a foreigner in this country. So I have helped her with a lot of things such as improving her English, help her with application for status extension/change, plus a number of non-fun items, even though after those items we have fun and sleep together as much as I want. So more of an early boyfriend status. So my question is am i doing too much to help her, have you done an article in terms of when offering help to your girlfriend, what is the right amount or how to gauge when to help and when not to help and just let her do it on her own?”

Getting the right balance on how much to do for a girlfriend is an issue for more intermediate daters on up. When many men start out, they pay no attention to a girl’s investment in them, and instead throw as much investment as they can at her to try to woo her. Once they realize this hurts them with her instead of helps, they begin to scale it back. Except, here, they often go too far. How do you get the balance of your investment right, so you do not make her feel either over- or undervalued?

First off, if you’re unfamiliar with the concepts of investment/compliance, or you need a refresher, be sure you’ve read these articles:

• It’s Not Your Investment in Her; It’s Hers in You
• How to Use Compliance Tests to Move Fast with Girls
  
• How to Get Her to Say “Yes”
  

Also read the article linked to at the start of this installment. It discusses the crucial questions of “who’s doing what for whom” in terms of the pre-sex courtship.

Having read those, though, you’re likely still left with one tangled up question: how do I know when I’ve invested too much or too little in her?

There’s not an easy answer to this question, but I’ll do my best to prune some of the vines off it for you here and give you a formula you can work with.