How to Recover when a Girl Flakes, Pt 1: Types of Flakes

Girls flake for a variety of reasons, legitimate or otherwise. How does one figure out which and respond accordingly to maximize the odds of finally meeting up?

On the Girls Chase boards, reader Dark Knight was asking what to do and how to deal with a girl flaking – specifically how to recover. Flakes are one of the more frustrating courtship issues that guys deal with; especially for newbies who don’t yet have the skills to have a funnel of women. Quite simply, if you don't have absolute abundance, a flake can feel like a huge missed opportunity and a big failure on your end.

Dark Knight describes what confuses him about flakes:

I think most of us are familiar with Chase’s article on "What to Do When Girls Flake.” And I believe it is good advice, but there is one key ingredient missing and that’s about how to follow up on flakes. In the article the girl Chase mentions is extremely apologetic, but lots of times there are also girls who try to act like nothing happened. If you don’t call her out, it just gets “forgotten,” which of course is not true, but convenient for the girls narrative. This makes it like comparing oranges to apples. Because at this point it feels like it’s damned if you do and damned if you don’t. For this reason the article becomes confusing for a lot of guys. I have read some comments across the board but they are quite varied and spread out, which prevents it to be a coherent entity.

Suppose:

You arranged a date, girl agrees to it: then flakes out. 

*If you act like it’s not a big deal it’s fine and dandy: BUT you can kiss your scarcity goodbye. There is a big risk in being friend zoned, or put unto the backburner, because you give the girl an opportunity to postpone. In the past I even had this happen with girls who seemed very interested, but because they avoided committing since they do not like risks and maybe they hope for some kind of mythical white prince around the corner: they postponed. Of course when I next them, they fly into a rage. Yeah, that’s how it tends to go. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. The only option seems to be if we put it in context with Chase’s advice, staying warm but maybe less available? I believe however the longer things get drawn out the more they fizzle out.

*If you reschedule fast, again you kill your value and officially become chasing guy. If you don’t reschedule the girl will probably try to get some attention and you effectively move backwards, which again is bad.

*Acting butthurt: Lowers your value and attainability, good luck with giving someone a good validation boost and shooting yourself in the foot.

I think I have summarized this as best as I can. I would really love to see an article which gives some good tactical advice about how to follow this up. Because right now my default is moving on to the next girl, unless the flaking girl REALLY tries to make up again. But even then, I can be too impatient, I don't enjoy “long game.” Whatever the hell that means.

I can empathize with Dark Knight. As a guy, you’re likely very excited about seeing a girl who agrees to go on a date with you. While flaking on a date might seem like a big deal, it shouldn’t be for most guys if you’ve done the attraction work correctly from the start. There are a couple situations in which girls will flake on a guy. Depending on which, you either have a good shot at seeing her again as long as you stay mentally strong, persistent, are warm, and understand her circumstances. Other times, you’ll learn that she wasn’t nearly as attracted to you as you thought she was. This may indicate a mistake somewhere else in the process of meeting her.

Flakes can be tricky to follow up on. It’s an abrupt and unexpected stop to a courtship. Unprepared guys who react in a wrong and uncalibrated manner will find that the opportunity is suddenly gone.