Just a moment ago, everything was right with the world. A good day at work, a surprise birthday gift from a friend, even your dog is behaving well, then you check your phone and feel a flash of anxiety in your gut.
There is a text message about your phone bill and not a peep from the guy you recently went out on 3 dates with.
When you first started communicating, he was texting you in the morning and wishing you goodnight before bed. Now it’s been almost 48 hours and nothing.
“Oh, this must be the end,” your thoughts start to spin, “I really thought we had potential.” “Maybe he thinks I’m not attractive enough.” “Maybe I talked too much on the last date,” as you feel a flush of familiar sadness come over you.
Then you feel compelled to reach out to him to push away the imminent sadness. “Maybe he is the kind of guy that is hesitant because he doubts I’m interested? I’ll just send him a quick text to open the conversation.”
You think of all possible good openers to reach out to him—-to thank him for your time together, to share a meme from the show that you talked about, or you could send him the link to a treatment for an ailment he told you about.
(Dear reader, if you’re in this place right now and about to reach out to a man—-STOP!)
Instead, I invite you to ponder the following.
Moments ago you felt fine—happy even— your worth was not at all on the line. You were enjoying your day—and then bam! A man’s certain inaction got your emotions all out of whack.
Yet on his side, you have no idea what’s going on for him. Maybe he’s on deadline at work, or he got sick or he needed a bit of introvert space.
Consider that your feelings (that feel so real!) more likely stem from your interpretation about what a man’s behavior means about you—rather than the reality.
Also, take a moment to get real with yourself be answering these questions:
What do I hope will happen if I reach out to this guy?
If I initiated the contact with him, would I feel better knowing that he was simply responding to me?
Most women with a feminine orientation want to know that a man’s thinking about them, they are desired, seen as special and worth a man’s effort and time.
If you reach out to him, you will not end up experiencing any of those things. You may get a positive response from him—but it could be because he’s bored, lonely or polite and you showed up to fill his time, so he went along with it.
But most of the time it won’t change a man’s mind about you because their interest grows in a woman when they sense feminine openness and take risks to connect with you.
If the man you’re dating reached out more at the beginning, but his frequency of contact has slowed down, it could be that he’s thinking things over, settling into a more realistic pace of connection or that he’s identified a reason that you’re not a match for him.
If any of those are the case—-you are still an amazing woman!—and you’ll be completely OK as you continue collecting data about this man based on how he’s showing up for you— without even needing to reach out or ask for get clarity.
If you’re desiring a man who sees something special in you and goes out of this way to show up consistently to make you feel safe and adored—-wouldn’t you want to give him the opportunity to demonstrate that to you?
—-and if you’re not experiencing that from a man or his level of effort has dropped off compared to the beginning—then that is also a great thing to observe because he’s helping you to make a good decision about him.
So hold off on that text! Grown men are excellent at knowing how to use their phones and if they are interested—they’ll go the extra mile to make sure you know it. So instead —go do something you love because you have the power to make yourself feel better!
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If you’d like to explore more reasons why a man isn’t showing up like he did at first—take my free 30 minute training course here.