When a girl comes back around

[oldmanofthesea]

A girl I dated recently who broke things off with me decided to come back around. We were never serious or exclusive when we dated (she had just gotten out of a long relationship), though we did see eachother 1-2x per week and we talked daily. I went no-contact after the breakup, then ran into her at a social event a month later. We hugged and talked for maybe 60 seconds max before we got interrupted and I told her it was good to see her and moved on to mingle with others. She texted me later that night saying it was great to see me and that she wanted to get together soon so let her know when would be a good day (note that she didn't wait for me to ask - she operates like that, which is not typical to what I'm used to with most women). The next day I responded and told her to come over to my house late in the following week and she agreed and told me she was excited.

She came over, things were cool, we hooked up and had a great time. Neither of us brought up the past or the future, other than she said she'd like to have me over to her place sometime soon and I said I'd like that.

For reasons I don't want to get into in this post, I don't think we will ever get into an LTR, but I would love to keep her as a good/regular FWB and I think she would be into that, but am not positive (she does seem to be a more relationship-oriented person but also wants to "have fun" for a while after her last LTR).

Having said all that, this is somewhat new territory for me. I was married for years and only been dating the last two. Any time I've broken things off with a girl, I'm not interested if they want to come back around. And any time a girl has broken things off with me, I never hear from them again. So this is the first time a girl broke things off with me and came back around. Where I need some input is in initiation of communication. Neither of us have reached back out since we hooked up and had a great time the other night and I'm not really sure, given the circumstances, what the right thing to do here is. My gut tells me she should initiate contact the next few times at least before I start reaching out regularly again, but my gut is also telling me it feels a bit odd to be dead-silent after hooking up - especially given how women are much more emotional about s*x. Thoughts?

 

[HughJasolphd]

Don't make yourself too available for her. Her intrigue in missing you partially came from you being at a social event & being around other women. Since y'all have a past where you were in a relationship, there is unfinished business there in a way- I'd only see her once a week tops if you're gonna go about making her a FWB..because emotions tend to get the best of us, especially if the chemistry between you both was good. Tread carefully.

If you want to see her, give her a time & date , don't let her pick & choose because she'll think you have no options. If she's busy, pull back & wait for her to initiate contact again (she will, especially if she had fun with you when you hooked up the last time)

 

[AttackFormation]

Sounds great. She can come over to you whenever her boyfriends can't arouse her, or she simply gets bored of them, that's the vibe I'm getting from your interactions. All you have to do is just not force anything, let her reach out when her pvssy tells her to.

 

[oldmanofthesea]

I'm specifically wondering about initiation of contact, moving forward, given the circumstances.

 

[marmel75]

I'm specifically wondering about initiation of contact, moving forward, given the circumstances.

Here we go again with people overthinking things. The short answer is you do what you feel like doing and stop worrying about what happens.

 

[oldmanofthesea]

Here we go again with people overthinking things. The short answer is you do what you feel like doing and stop worrying about what happens.

If it everything was that simple, we wouldn't need this forum.

I'm not "worried" about anything. I'm trying to improve my game in a specific situation that is new to me.

 

[marmel75]

If it everything was that simple, we wouldn't need this forum.

I'm not "worried" about anything. I'm trying to improve my game in a specific situation that is new to me.

That's the whole point tho...it IS that simple once you get to a certain point and understand how things work. But you have to go through a lot of instances in situations to understand how it all fits together.

In the grand scheme of things, when you simply KNOW you have it, you act in a way in everything you do that speaks that loudly. At that point, you wont really give a second thought to things you will simply do what it is you want to do and be confident that things will work out the way you want them to.

My advice is to do what it is you want to do. If you want to see her again then act like you do and then work on making that happen.

 

[oldmanofthesea]

That's the whole point tho...it IS that simple once you get to a certain point and understand how things work. But you have to go through a lot of instances in situations to understand how it all fits together.

In the grand scheme of things, when you simply KNOW you have it, you act in a way in everything you do that speaks that loudly. At that point, you wont really give a second thought to things you will simply do what it is you want to do and be confident that things will work out the way you want them to.

That's awesome, and if you are truly there yourself then I congratulate you on your accomplishment, but if I were at that point for all types of situations, I wouldn't need to be here asking my question would I? Would the universal advice you'd offer to a blue-pill guy for any situation be to simply "do whatever you want to do?" Obviously doing what he wanted to do wasn't working for him due to the lifetime of blue-pull/feminist brainwashing he received, so he looks to learn something different. Therefore, that advice isn't helpful and just comes off as braggy.

Game is something you have to learn and there are things about it that are counter intuitive to someone who was blue-pill most of their life. I've learned a ton in the last two years but what I've learned hasn't covered this specific situation where a girl breaks things off and then comes back. If things don't work out with this specific girl, no big deal, but this situation is going to come up again with other women. I'm trying to learn to balance making her work to earn my attention vs being too much of a cold fish and discouraging her and missing out on a good FWB.

 

[xuzaki]

A girl I dated recently who broke things off with me decided to come back around.

If she left you, you weren't a priority for her. Then she felt like coming back and you're following her lead. Establishing a good power balance sounds like an uphill battle for you at this point. Search online for Iron Rule of Tomassi #7.

My advice is to next her, then find 5 new girls who prioritize you. But it sounds like you have your heart set on trying to make this work. If so, I'd be careful to not show much interest. Listen to your first gut instinct: let her text first and chase you a bit more.

I highly recommend you read the post called "NEXT" on the Rational Male blog. The section titled "Tactical NEXTing" is really applicable to your situation.

my gut is also telling me it feels a bit odd to be dead-silent after hooking up

Doesn't seem odd to me. I wait a few days before texting. Sometimes the girl texts sooner, which is great (it shows interest and has her chasing you).

 

[mrgoodstuff]

If she left you, you weren't a priority for her. Then she felt like coming back and you're following her lead. Establishing a good power balance sounds like an uphill battle for you at this point. Search online for Iron Rule of Tomassi #7.

My advice is to next her, then find 5 new girls who prioritize you. But it sounds like you have your heart set on trying to make this work. If so, I'd be careful to not show much interest. Listen to your first gut instinct: let her text first and chase you a bit more.

I highly recommend you read the post called "NEXT" on the Rational Male blog. The section titled "Tactical NEXTing" is really applicable to your situation.


Doesn't seem odd to me. I wait a few days before texting. Sometimes the girl texts sooner, which is great (it shows interest and has her chasing you).

Would part of making it work be choosing some females who prioritize him and doing most of his interaction with them?

 

[guru1000]

She dumped you, right? Make her work. If she doesn’t, dismiss her.

 

[Rainman4707]

Good advice you have been given. She dumped you, let her do most of chasing.

I agree with marmel. When a man is doing well with women his confidence is high. He doesn't think about things as much.
Women are extremely intuitive. They have a massive radar for this kind of stuff. Sometimes I think women possess some kind of magical power

 

[Rainman4707]

How long ago was it when you hooked up with her? 2,3 nights ago?

 

[Glassguy]

If it everything was that simple, we wouldn't need this forum.

I'm not "worried" about anything. I'm trying to improve my game in a specific situation that is new to me.

Everything is basically that simple. The meltdown is when someone starts becoming outcome concerned.
While you cant control what a woman does, you can certainly control what you do, how you act and how you handle other people's actions and intent.

An outcome indifferent mindset keep everything in line........for you. Think of No Contact. It's not to get her back, it's to move on and not be strung along.

Being outcome indifferent is a more positive spin of the same mentality (putting yourself first and not some woman on a pedestal).

Yeah it would solve most, if not all problems on here if everyone truly had that mentality.

True outcome indifference (and having an abundance mindset with options) would solve the posts about:

Does she like me?
Flakes
Mixed signals
How long should I wait to text her?
How many dates before sex?
Is she using me?
Is she seeing someone else?
Should I try to get her number?
Is she the one?

Did I miss any thread topics that this doesn't cover?

 

[BeExcellent]

Advice from the old lady:

Outcome independence is critically important. No question. But there is something else. That is intent.

Guru often discusses intent. In a case like your situation your intent ought to naturally drive what you do.

Is your intent to reassure her you weren't pump & dumping? Text her a quick touch base message. A statement, not a question. See if she responds.

Is your intent to see if she will reach out first & do a bit of work to get you back? In that case you wait a few days or a week or whatever & see what she does.

Is your intent to hook up on occasion NSA? Throw her an ask out in a couple of days. See if she bites...

And so on.

If you start from a place of "What do *I* want" then you'll begin with your intent as the focus. Let that guide you.

Now obviously you know her...we don't. So you'll want to calibrate your actions into tactics that get you where you want to go. Some women may totally lose interest altogether if they have to chase...other women will start chasing after you. So her response and style of interaction is a variable you should also consider...but that is secondary.

Your intent comes first.

 

[oldmanofthesea]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

@Rainman4707 it has now been 4 days.

@Glassguy I have learned to use outcome indifference in certain situations but they are for things like approaching women, setting dates, phone number closing, etc. Or instead of being "indifferent", I've changed my definition of successful outcome to mean taking action, as opposed to seeing success only as an outcome that I can't totally control (IE her agreeing to talk to me or give me her number). However, there are other areas where I guess I either still need help understanding how to apply it, or I think maybe it's not the end-all answer, or maybe it is but I'm not yet able to translate outcome indifference to specific actions in all scenarios. Also, how outcome indifferent can or should one really be? Meaning, if you are going to ask a girl out, you DO care about the outcome in that you ideally want to sleep with her. Wouldn't it make sense to ensure you are employing the best tactics to accomplish that goal, so long as you don't get butt-hurt or think you failed if it doesn't end up happening? Take the example of a car salesman. A guy with no training could maybe sell some cars. But a guy who has been trained on sales tactics could sell a lot more cars. It's the tactics that I'm still trying to learn in certain situations, to give me the best odds. For example, one sales tactic is the take-away. It works in dating too. You make an offer for a date and if a girl is wishy-washy about it, you take the offer away and suddenly it becomes more valuable to her. While the take-away makes sense to me now that I know it, it isn't something that would have naturally occurred to me to do back when I first got back in the dating pool. Same goes for the tactic of moving quickly with women. You could say that intent and outcome indifference are the driving factor behind both of these tactics I just mentioned, and I would totally agree with you on that, but after a lifetime of brainwashing, these kinds of things don't always immediately occur to me so it helps me to learn the tactics first, and then I can see how it fits into the overall picture of attitude/mindset/indifference. Does that make sense? I do understand that there isn't necessarily a tactic that works for every situation and circumstance, but I was hoping there were some generally-accepted rules of thumb for how to handle an ex who dumped you and then came back around. I see this situation as pretty unique but maybe I'm wrong. My thought with exes who come back around is that they are going to require different treatment than a girl who you are getting to know initially.

I ended up deciding to reach out to her and set another date. She accepted. It will be interesting to see how it goes. In the meantime, I have other irons in the fire.

 

[Glassguy]

My thought with exes who come back around is that they are going to require different treatment than a girl who you are getting to know initially.

You are correct on this. There can be many variables as to why she is an ex but the end game is the same- she will be on a much shorter leash than someone you just started seeing and she will need to really prove her worth to get back in good graces (either she dumped you or she did something disrespectful and you dumped her). So either way, she has a lot of ground to make up over some new cutie who is wanting to hang out.

I ended up deciding to reach out to her and set another date. She accepted. It will be interesting to see how it goes. In the meantime, I have other irons in the fire.

Good for you. There is not problem with this at all.

My only advice is this: some reasons for breakups can be corrected. Some reasons are things that cannot be changed (one person has kids, the other doesnt, etc). So there is little to no reason to attempt to cure the reason for the break up if it cannot be fixed. Intent also matters. Maybe she is just good enough to be a booty call right now. Without knowing all the details it is impossible for us outsiders to know.

When talking about being outcome indifferent, it is really about your mindset....not tactics that you feel are best in each situation to spike a woman's interest. While your tactics may change according the situation, the outcome indifferent mindset does not.

This is the key: If a chick turns me down, cancels a date, flakes, ghosts, etc IDGAF. Want to know why? I normally have 3-4 more that I can fall back on and most importantly (abundance) and most importantly, I know there will be more chicks right around the corner.

Think of your car salesman example. 5 people come in to buy a Mercedez Benz. 2 of them go to the bank to get the loan. 2 of them go get their wives to make sure they like the car also before purchasing it.

The last guy comes in and makes and offer well below what the other 4 are willing to pay. Do you sell to his guy? Hell no. You have 4 people coming back to give you what you want for the car. Case and point.

Abundance creates an outcome indifferent mindset. Without abundance OR the knowing there are great chicks out there everywhere and another one is right around the corner, the outcome indifferent mindset would be a very tough thing to honestly pull off.

 

[mikey2012]

You are correct on this. There can be many variables as to why she is an ex but the end game is the same- she will be on a much shorter leash than someone you just started seeing and she will need to really prove her worth to get back in good graces (either she dumped you or she did something disrespectful and you dumped her). So either way, she has a lot of ground to make up over some new cutie who is wanting to hang out.


Good for you. There is not problem with this at all.

My only advice is this: some reasons for breakups can be corrected. Some reasons are things that cannot be changed (one person has kids, the other doesnt, etc). So there is little to no reason to attempt to cure the reason for the break up if it cannot be fixed. Intent also matters. Maybe she is just good enough to be a booty call right now. Without knowing all the details it is impossible for us outsiders to know.

When talking about being outcome indifferent, it is really about your mindset....not tactics that you feel are best in each situation to spike a woman's interest. While your tactics may change according the situation, the outcome indifferent mindset does not.

This is the key: If a chick turns me down, cancels a date, flakes, ghosts, etc IDGAF. Want to know why? I normally have 3-4 more that I can fall back on and most importantly (abundance) and most importantly, I know there will be more chicks right around the corner.

Think of your car salesman example. 5 people come in to buy a Mercedez Benz. 2 of them go to the bank to get the loan. 2 of them go get their wives to make sure they like the car also before purchasing it.

The last guy comes in and makes and offer well below what the other 4 are willing to pay. Do you sell to his guy? Hell no. You have 4 people coming back to give you what you want for the car. Case and point.

Abundance creates an outcome indifferent mindset. Without abundance OR the knowing there are great chicks out there everywhere and another one is right around the corner, the outcome indifferent mindset would be a very tough thing to honestly pull off.

Abundance is easier said than done. Unless you are rock/movie star, how do you get to the stage of abundance. Its hard enough getting one girl let alone 3-4. With full time jobs etc, you simple don't have the time. Unless you are the only guy in the city, how does abundance come about?

 

[marmel75]

Abundance is easier said than done. Unless you are rock/movie star, how do you get to the stage of abundance. Its hard enough getting one girl let alone 3-4. With full time jobs etc, you simple don't have the time. Unless you are the only guy in the city, how does abundance come about?

Really? How hard is it to set up and go on a date? When the date goes well thry want to see you again. Rinse and repeat.

 

[mrgoodstuff]

Abundance is easier said than done. Unless you are rock/movie star, how do you get to the stage of abundance. Its hard enough getting one girl let alone 3-4. With full time jobs etc, you simple don't have the time. Unless you are the only guy in the city, how does abundance come about?

Abundance happens when you have two or more. It just happens. Remember the herd.