It’s never fun to admit that the man we are dating is not that into us. And because of that, we tend to go into denial about how much a man likes us just to protect our own ego. We start to make excuses for his lack or time and interest and we brush it under the rug. Big mistake. There are a number of signs that a man we are dating isn’t really interested. Ignoring the signs, and closing your eyes to what is really going on in your relationship with him is foolish because that man is going to do what he is going to do. Denial is a recipe for pain. It’s just a matter of whether you want to kid yourself and get strung along by him, or not. In this article I’ll go over three major signs that your relationship is going absolutely nowhere, and give pointers on what you can do about it.
Crumb Communications
Nothing will stop a man from communicating regularly with a woman he is genuinely interested in. If you have any sensation that you are being put off by him then those sensations are most likely to be trusted. Trust your gut. If he is regularly busy and unable to talk to you or not wanting to talk to you, he just is not that interested. The most radically busy man ever would still have time to call or text a woman he likes once a day or at the least once every few days. Weeks passing between contact is an alarming red flag that the man you are dating is not interested.
I will almost guarantee that a man you hear from once a week or once every few weeks is beyond busy. He’s dating other women, and he’s probably dating multiple women. If he’s not dating, he’s in between dates and most likely spending time looking and he likely has active online dating profiles. If he communicates with you mainly via text messaging, it is the ultimate crumb communications. There might be three or more of you floating around on his text list. Text is nothing more than a way to manage multiple women in my experience.
Women who realize they are in crumb status with their man usually opt to increase their efforts to try and buoy and shore up the crumb relationship. This is a fatally flawed plan that will not work. The more you try to pitch effort into a crumb relationship the less work your man will actually have to do to maintain status quo with you. He’ll start doing nothing and you’ll start doing everything. If you notice yourself having to call him first or text him first after a number of days to say hello, he’s letting you do the work.
If you are only getting crumb communications then what you should do is going to be very counter intuitive. Do less, and a lot less. You’ll probably fear that you’ll lose him and never hear from him if you stop bootstrapping the relationship along. You will hear less from him. You’ll probably fear that he will have all the more time to meet other women if you let the relationship go slack. He will. But the fact of the matter is, he was likely doing it anyways. You doing all the work isn’t going to stop him. If anything, its removing his ability to chase you since you are a needy doormat, so he’ll be even more inclined to chase someone else.
Stop trying to do work for a man who is only giving you crumbs. Let the relationship drop down to the resting level that he dictates. Start doing a lot less texting and initiating, way less and sit back and watch what he does. He’ll either continue to busily pursue other women and give you mere crumbs and you’ll have to accept it, or you’ll get wise and kick him to the curb. Or just maybe, he’ll notice you doing less work and come around more to see what’s up. The best way to get a disinterested man more interested is to give him less of your attention. Think of it as taking a toy away from a child.
It’s true that once you drop the ball he might waggle off and find someone new but the fact was he was looking and using you while he was already doing it. Don’t let yourself get used while he’s looking for Ms. Right. Right under your nose.
Delayed Follow Up
You can recognize just what a man’s intentions with you are by a few simple signs. One of the signs is to look at what he asks you to do with him. If he takes you out on a date where you have a meal, or spends time with you in the day it means he might be interested in you for real. If he steers you more towards drinks and late night let’s watch a flick at home soiree’s the interest is more likely casual.
In this economy quite frankly everyone is staying home and watching a movie. So how much money he spends on you could be tied to his budget and not just his interest level. Therefore, even more important than if he takes you out on an expensive date, is his follow up behavior after the date. Let’s say you get together with a man and have a wonderful time. If he cares he’ll probably touch base with you the next day or within a few days. That’s always a good sign. If he goes missing for weeks after a get together you have to face the obvious fact that your relationship is casual and uncommitted. If he drops off the map after a get together, he’s sending you a clear message that he’ll come and go as he pleases.
Sometimes a man will follow up with a text or call especially after getting intimate with you. But it may not be because he likes you. In fact, some men will touch base with a women after they become physically involved with her just to prevent her from having buyers remorse on the romantic encounter. They do it as a feather smoothing gesture to keep options open to have a possible future experience with her. A follow up text or phone call after a date is a sign that he has at least some genuine feelings for you. However, those feelings could still well be very casual in nature. He might just be managing your relationship by keeping in touch so as to keep the physical relationship going with you on a casual basis.
Way more important than whether and when he touches base with you again, is whether and when he actually tries to see you again. His whole interest level can be judged on how soon after a date he follows up and wants to actually see you again. That is the single most important element to his interest level: how soon he wants to see you again in person. Not text, not talk, but see you.
If you find that the man you are dating does not follow up for another date for weeks after you see him, you are in a casual relationship. Odds are, this relationship is going absolutely nowhere at all. It’s casual, he’s going to back off and come in as he pleases if you allow it, and pursue other women all the while. A man who is really into you will follow up for the next date either on the date itself or very shortly after. He won’t see you then drift into crumb communications for a couple of weeks.
If you notice no follow up with a man you are dating, start becoming very unavailable. Women tend to judge just the date and what a good time they had. Then they pine for weeks until hearing from Mr. unavailable again. Don’t judge a man just on the date itself. Judge him also on how he makes you feel when you get blown off for a week or two or three or four because he’s ahem so very busy, between dates. That too, is part and parcel in how he is treating you. Don’t forget that when he blows you out for weeks he is saying he is not interested loud and clear. He knows he is blowing you off.
Women tend to want to arrange more plans with a man who has no follow up game. Unfortunately, becoming the planner and worker bee in such a relationship does a woman no good. It’s like jumping up and down in front of someone’s face screaming for attention when they are clearly wanting to play with someone else and somewhere else. Instead of jumping up and down for attention just leave him alone and go find someone else to play with yourself. Then, he might look up and see you long gone.
Fizzle after < 5 Intimate experiences
Some men come on really strong at the outset of dating a new woman. What women fail to recognize is that men think with their libido and jump through all of the hoops in order to achieve intimacy with you. Obviously, they like you at this stage if they are willing to jump through some dating hoops, but you really don’t know how much. They say that a man is not thinking clearly about a woman until after he has had sexual relations with her. At the beginning, a man just sets out on the goal of intimacy and he does not really consider the brass tacks of your true compatibility. After, his brain kicks in and starts to catch up with his libido. Men quite frankly don’t mind operating in this catch up fashion because they want romantic experiences because it’s a fun thing for them. They know they can decide later if they really like the person.
While a man is enjoying the honeymoon ride in the first months of dating you he is filled with butterflies and the chase. You might not really be able to read his true feelings. A man that has intimacy in mind will do what it takes to please you for a few months in order to get into your knickers. This is what you would call the courting phase or full court press. Some men are truly evil during this phase and misrepresent or conceal their intentions. For example, you might have already been categorized as an I’d get physical with her but not want her as a girlfriend. Often the woman is not even be aware that his decision is made. These men are the types that lead you to believe a relationship is in the cards when they have zero intention of committing to anything but casual encounters with no strings attached. Most men aren’t that insidious but rather are just thinking with their gut. They figure, they’ll go in for the kill and try things out for a few months and the answer as to whether you are relationship material will emerge naturally.
Seeing as a man is going to be way more goal oriented when you first start dating, you have to have patience and really see how he feels after a few weeks or months. If you notice a subtle down shift in his interest level after five or less intimacies it is a major red flag that your relationship is fizzling or will fizzle. Once a man gets his hooks in for a physical relationship and subsequently decides you aren’t the one, he will often execute a slow fizzle to down manage your expectations. He won’t want to hurt you directly so he’ll typically just try to fade out and hope you either accept crumbs now or take the hint and give up on him.
The fizzle phase is the surest sign that you are in a go nowhere relationship. Many women get hooked on a man during the first few months of courtship. Then the man makes a decision that he’s not falling in love so he lays groundwork to disappear out of your life or keep things casual if you are cool with that. Meanwhile women get so wrapped up in the initial promise of the relationship that they don’t realize that they are being fizzled out. They don’t see it and live in the first few dates rather than in the here and now. They start buying all his Oh I have this problem, Busy, Can’t make it excuses and try to pretend things are still peachy keen.
If you notice him fizzling after five or less intimate encounters, then I have news, he is fizzling. Don’t ignore the signs! If you recognize signs of him fizzling then instead of becoming a needy cling on, brace yourself. Brace yourself for the fact that you were intimate with someone who has no intention of getting into a relationship with you. It’s a bitter pill to swallow but you are better off swallowing it than kidding yourself. Because if you go into denial on the fizzle you’ll become a perpetual casual date in a go nowhere relationship and he’ll keep taking whatever you have to offer with no commitment. That, or he’ll just become a walk away Joe after one or a few dates.
If you choose to get romantic with a man within the first few months of knowing him then that is a risk you take. He might get involved with you and realize he’s not falling in love and just dump you. He might have had dubious intentions at the get go or he might have gone in with an open mind and realized you weren’t knocking his socks off enough to be the one. That’s the risk you take when you casually date, and that’s why its best to be very, very cautious about who you get intimate with in this life. You’ll never forget about a man who you go there with so save it for someone that you care about and has a very strong potential to be someone good in your life not just a fly by night user.
If you notice the fizzle out, it’s a sure sign a relationship is not in the cards. Hanging on to a guy that fizzles after a handful of dates is emotionally dangerous. Do you really want to be strung along in a go nowhere relationship consisting of casual dates with huge gaps of dead space in between and him doing god knows what with other dates? The best way to handle a man like this is to slowly start to distance yourself from him too. Brace yourself for the fall and then thank your lucky stars if he actually leaves you alone.
Staying in a relationship that is clearly fizzling with less and less contact and dates after one to five intimacies, is very dangerous. It’s dangerous because these are the types of relationship that go totally dysfunctional and become warped versions of what the man wants. This is a variant of a relationship where he is not going to be your boyfriend but continue to see you if you accept his non-committal behavior. Go-nowhere relationships usually end with the person who is still emotionally invested getting hurt.
If you find yourself in a go nowhere relationship with someone you can’t get away from because you fell hopelessly head over heels, at the very least cut back drastically on seeing the person. Give them the crumbs. See them every few months while you get your own life going. During the in between months you’ll be getting yourself acclimated to never seeing him. And hopefully if you can go for long enough stretches of never seeing him or contacting him, you can get to the point where you never need to see him again since you so rarely see him anyways. Congrats, then you’ll get your independence back and won’t be getting strung along in a go nowhere relationship.
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