Damage Control: Everything was going great with this girl. I stayed the night. She didn’t text back, and I’m wondering did she lose interest?
The question
I'm contacting you about an issue that has been bothering me recently. Everything was going great with this girl I met at my friend's wedding. We instantly hit it off, and I got her number. We've been texting back and forth for about a month, and have watched a couple of movies together. I asked her out with a fake parking ticket, but the day of our date she said she was busy, but we ended up hanging out anyway. The next day we hung out again, but got intimate (making out, both our shirts were off), and I stayed the night. That Wednesday she didn't text back, and I'm wondering did she lose interest?
The answer
I do not propose, here, to crack wise about millennials.
They get enough of that already, and they don't like it. They don't like criticism of themselves or their selfies. It lowers their self-esteem, and their selfie-esteem, and they might tweet something nasty about me, ending in a frownie-face, or take an unflattering selfie with me and put it on Instagram.
I would, however, like to offer whatever wisdom I can muster about the timeless art of seduction.
How did I know you were a millennial, sir? All this talk of texts, and the fact you were content to lurk in the grey area between "hanging out" and "hooking up." NG, IMHO: You have to go strong to the hoop.
I speak as someone who punched way out of his weight class, who "pulled" someone way out of his league. My wife Pam is Sexy, Sensible, Soulful, Smart and Sane – all five of the Five Esses™ every bachelor seeks. Didn't hurt she was also tall and shapely and emphatically easy on my corneal tissue.
How did an everyday slob like me tag and bag such a robo-babe? Well, when I spotted her at a party, standing shyly by the canapés wearing a form-following floral dress, I didn't think: "Oh, it might be nice to hang out a bit and check out a movie and, if I'm lucky, maybe make out a bit with our shirts off."
No, it was more like: "Target acquired." From that moment it was all-out warfare. I was reading Sun Tzu's The Art of War at the time and found it to be a handy guide to dating. All you have to do is substitute phrases like "the battlefield" with "the city" and "the enemy" with "object of your interest." (Not that I considered women the enemy. Far from it. I love women, and not in the way some guys mean it, i.e. "I love sex." While we're on the topic, sir, bear in mind this aphorism: "Women love men who genuinely love women." That was a big part of my secret.)
Two quotes from The Art of War I'd like to share:
1. "While we have heard of a bumbling swiftness in war, we have yet to see a clever campaign that was prolonged."
2. "An attack may lack ingenuity, but it must be delivered with supernatural speed."
I attacked with supernatural speed. I came down on Pam like darkness on an innocent peasant village. Also, I had half the city working undercover for me. I turned my ratty little apartment into my HQ, and gave my soldiers and lieutenants field promotions – or stripped underperformers of their duties.
It was all over in 10 days. I met her on a Wednesday. A week from that Friday, the target was neutralized – or, to put it in more romantic terms, we were in love.
Poor Pam! To this day she believes it was "fate," a.k.a. destiny, a.k.a. kismet, that brought us together. Little does she realize it was I, the puppet master, pulling strings behind all the "chance encounters" and "fortuitous circumstances" that ensued. That for a brief period I became fate itself, destiny itself!
To this day, Pam will tell anybody who asks (and they will, often with me standing right there): "Why did I wind up with Dave? Well, for one thing, I was never in any doubt he was interested."
I'm not talking about being creepy, or stalker-ish. But I am talking about not being namby-pamby or wishy-washy. Not being content to "hang out" or "hook up," but (to continue the basketball analogies) put on a full-court press of unabashed romantic interest. Wear your heart on your sleeve, man!
And forget texts. I like the initiative and creativity of your "fake parking ticket" idea (I'm assuming you put a note asking her out on her windshield). Build on that. Otherwise, go for the old standbys: food, flowers and flattery: The Three Effs™. Ladies, am I wrong? Too old-school? I don't think so. I don't care where technology and social media have brought us: We're talking about millennia of evolution here, and I think deep down a woman still knows that a man who comes after her vigorously will also go vigorously out into the world and make her proud.
And demonstrate at all times that you want her, but you don't need her. Very important.
There's so much more to say but I've run out of space. I hit the bullet points, I think. Good luck, soldier!
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