Engaging Before A First Date

[SH03C]

Hi all. I’m interested in some feedback on how to keep a girl interested prior to a planned date. Here’s the scenario:

I started going back to the gym again a few months back and took notice to this very cute personal trainer. At some point I started to feel maybe she had some interest, i’d catch her checking me out and then from there we began to make casual eye contact walking by each other and such.

About a week and a half ago (Monday May 6th) I finally built up the courage to go talk to her and get a feel for whether there was some interest. After I was done working out I walked to her desk in the back, passing all the other personal trainers desk, and just started small talk about diet prepping for a Spartan. It went great, I was cool calm and collected, I left on a nice kino gently holding her hand after we exchange names. Didn’t immediately pull her hand back so this was a good sign.

I next saw her again for the first time since then on Monday (May 13). I decided to approach her as she was re-racking some weights and just asked how her weekend was and talked a bit more about our past conversation and other things. Turned out from this convo we learned that we had gone to the same college and shared some topics about that until another personal trainer blatantly interrupted us. Convo ended there. After finishing my session I said screw it i’m just gonna ask her if she wants to grab food sometime, I walked up to her desk on the way out. It was the first thing I said when I approached and she said yeah. We chatted for 2 or 3 minutes, I handed her my phone and she put her name and number in there.

The next day (Tuesday) I texted her and we made plans for dinner on Sunday. Although it was only about 8 texts it was good vibes. She seemed genuinely interested in making plans and included a few exclamation marks (!).

I then saw her the next day or yesterday (Wednesday) while working out. I didn’t text her all day and made a point that I wouldn’t approach her as I didn’t want to come off too needy and felt 3 consecutive days of approach would be a desperate look. She did notice me at some point, when she was walking through the gym I saw her glancing at me.

From here I want to gather some opinions on how best to engage in the coming days. Today is Thursday and the date is Sunday, i’ll Likely see her again at the gym Saturday afternoon too. Should I text her today or Friday? Or just say hi Saturday? What topics of conversation might you also recommend?

As far as the date goes, I should be ok. I’ve got a good track record there but all in all I’m just terrible with text convos.

Thanks for your insight!

 

[cola]

There is no cookie cutter answer for this. In your situation specifically, if you do in fact see her Saturday, casually mention how you “have never been to the restaurant you are going to, and you are so stoked, looking forward to the cheat meal”.

You should be able to gauge her likelihood of flaking by her response. On the other hand, should you not see her Saturday, I’d reach out Sunday around noon and just casually text her “Hey, just want to make sure we are still on tonight”..

This does give her an easy out, but it saves you the effort of preparing for a date that she has no intentions of attending.
Furthermore, the same way you approached her, continue to line up dates so one not happening is inconsequential.

 

[SH03C]

There is no cookie cutter answer for this. In your situation specifically, if you do in fact see her Saturday, casually mention how you “have never been to the restaurant you are going to, and you are so stoked, looking forward to the cheat meal”.

You should be able to gauge her likelihood of flaking by her response. On the other hand, should you not see her Saturday, I’d reach out Sunday around noon and just casually text her “Hey, just want to make sure we are still on tonight”..

This does give her an easy out, but it saves you the effort of preparing for a date that she has no intentions of attending.
Furthermore, the same way you approached her, continue to line up dates so one not happening is inconsequential.

Thanks for the response Cola.

So you would not recommend re-engaging via text today or Friday but rather take the next approach sometime over the weekend?

Much appreciated.

 

[cola]

Thanks for the response Cola.

So you would not recommend re-engaging via text today or Friday but rather take the next approach sometime over the weekend?

Much appreciated.

Nah, I wouldn’t re engage her, if it were me, of course. I would just confirm the plans early Sunday so my time isn’t wasted, and the evening can be salvaged if she decides to renege.

 

[marmel75]

For me personally, I have almost a zero flake rate if I stay engaged with them leading up to a date if its several days out. When I tried to follow the "only text to set up a date" advice and then go ghost til the day of my flake rates were much higher.

Other people might be successful at dping that but im not...its kind of a personal choice and what works best for you. A text or two a day is fine. I often play a question game where we ask each other a question each day up to the day of the date (mine are always interesting fun ones) if I'm several days out and they LOVE it...have had women tell me how much fun that was and how unique it was cause nobody else does it...and of course none of the women I have done that with have ever flaked and my bang rate with those women was significantly higher than normal...

Being unique, fun and interesting befote meeting can do wonders for you getting laid.

 

[SH03C]

For me personally, I have almost a zero flake rate if I stay engaged with them leading up to a date if its several days out. When I tried to follow the "only text to set up a date" advice and then go ghost til the day of my flake rates were much higher.

Other people might be successful at dping that but im not...its kind of a personal choice and what works best for you. A text or two a day is fine. I often play a question game where we ask each other a question each day up to the day of the date (mine are always interesting fun ones) if I'm several days out and they LOVE it...have had women tell me how much fun that was and how unique it was cause nobody else does it...and of course none of the women I have done that with have ever flaked and my bang rate with those women was significantly higher than normal...

Being unique, fun and interesting befote meeting can do wonders for you getting laid.

I do agree. I think in my circumstance I need to keep momentum, things moved from an initial conversation to a date within a week and only 3 approaches.

What’s an example of the question game? This could be something to consider.

Thanks Marmel!

 

[marmel75]

I do agree. I think in my circumstance I need to keep momentum, things moved from an initial conversation to a date within a week and only 3 approaches.

What’s an example of the question game? This could be something to consider.

Thanks Marmel!

Just ask fun questions like:

"If you woke up one morning and had a magic portal you could walk through that woukd take you anywhere you wanted to go in the world for 24 hours, where would you go and why?"

"If you had to choose between living in a house on a beach or a cabin in the woods, which would you choose and why?"

"What's your best feature and why?"

"If you won a million dollars tomorrow, what would be the first thing you'd buy and why?"

"If you could go back and redo one thing in your life, what would it be and why?"

"What's your favorite movie and how many times have you watched it?"

The key with all of these quesrions is to get them to actually THINK and answer...you can find out quite a bit about their personality and then USE it in date to get laid quickly since you already have a good idea of the type of person they are and you can tailor what you accentuate and deccentuate about yourself to build connections.

Its kind of like cheating because not only do you get a TON of useful information about them predate, they also find it engaging and interesting and are excited to meet someone so out of the norm.

 

[sazc]

Low engagement texting prior to the date gives the illusion of courting. If she's not responsive to low engagement texting, she's not interested

 

[SH03C]

Low engagement texting prior to the date gives the illusion of courting. If she's not responsive to low engagement texting, she's not interested

Sazc thanks for the perspective.

Can you please elaborate a bit more, what do you consider to be low engagement texting?

Are you saying not to text in the days leading up to the date but only the day of?

 

[sazc]

@marmel75 Gave you some examples of low engagement texting. As well, a morning greeting or a simple evening how was your day? without the intention of getting involved in a heavy conversation can go a long way.

If you find yourself attempting to pursue some low engagement texting and she is trying to draw you in to a conversation, just make the comment that you are a bit busy and just wanted to say hi but this sounds like a better conversation for when you meet and you are looking forward to meeting, have a great day, great night. then, if you bring the story back up and ask her to tell you about it you will earn some extra brownie points by appearing interested and invested.

 

[Bokanovsky]

There is no hard and fast rule here. It really depends on what she knows about you and how she perceives you (and also, of course, her level of interest). If she thinks you are a busy guy, she won't expect you to "engage" too much prior to the date because she knows you've got other sh!t to do. I rarely engage in meaningless back and forth texting (i.e. "Hey! How's your day going?") prior to the first date, unless she reaches out to me first. I almost never have flakes.

On the other hand, if you keep bumping into her at the gym, it may be weird to maintain radio silence, as it may look like you've lost interest. Whatever you do, do not overthink it. Go with your gut and do what seems natural at the moment.

 

[SH03C]

There is no hard and fast rule here. It really depends on what she knows about you and how she perceives you (and also, of course, her level of interest). If she thinks you are a busy guy, she won't expect you to "engage" too much prior to the date because she knows you've got other sh!t to do. I rarely engage in meaningless back and forth texting (i.e. "Hey! How's your day going?" )prior to the date, unless she reaches out to me first. I almost never have flakes.

On the other hand, if you keep bumping into her at the gym, it may be weird to maintain radio silence, as she might think you've lost interest. Whatever you do, do not overthink it. Go with your gut and do what seems natural at the moment.

Great reply. This is different for me being I do see her at the gym. We briefly caught sight of each other yesterday while I was there and by the time I left she had gone home for the day.

I’m conflicted between maintaining interest and appearing to be desperate. We made plans on Tuesday via text, I saw her yesterday and won’t visit the gym again til Saturday.

I also agree the “hey, how was your day” is basic and meaningless for the most part. Would it look bad to text her tomorrow or Saturday for the first time since arranging our date?

 

[SH03C]

The problem I see in all of this is that the platform is not set up for you to make the right move.

Usually the best time to engage is when she has made an effort on her part. When she glanced at you, you should have just started a casual conversation to keep that romantic energy moving forward. A romantic relationship is like tennis. She hits the ball to you and you hit it back to her. And now the onus is on HER to hit the ball back to you. But what happened was she hit you the ball and you just let the ball drop.

And now when you pick up the ball and hit it back to her, there's no guarantee she will hit it back to you. There's no guarantee she is even still on the court! Lol.

I see this mistake every single time I log into this site. Guys are so obsessed with not appearing needy that they end up letting the woman play tennis by herself. And then they try to play tennis when the woman has already left the court.

If I were you, I would just show up to the gym on Saturday and see if she is still playing tennis. As soon as she looks at me and gives me a window, I'll just casually engage and try to move forward from there. She moves forward, I move forward. I'm not going to move forward when I don't know where the hell she is at. That would be desperate/needy.

Remember, you can never be needy when you move forward AFTER she has given you a sign/window.

Well, to explain in more detail - when we glanced at each other yesterday she was doing a walkthrough with a client about 30 feet away. Clearly I couldn’t have engaged in that circumstance.

 

[Trump]

If you asked her out and she said “yes”, what are you doing going back to the gym where she works and glancing at her? You have to disappear until the date.

It’s like you guys rob a bank, and then go hang around the area of the bank to increase your chances of getting caught.

Plus, she’s a personal trainer, the chances of her meeting 6’1, 6’2, 6’3 guys are astronomical.