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Evan,
First off, thanks for all the info online and for “Why He Disappeared”. Every time I start to obsess or get emotional now, I take a deep breath and go reread your book.
Last weekend I went on second dates with two men that I’d met online. On one of the dates we had lunch. He asked. The other date, I broke the mirroring rule. When I purchased tickets to the symphony a month ago I figured I would just end up dragging my son along with me. Instead I invited one of the guys a couple of days after our first date. We went, and we had a good time.
Now I’ve just gotten GREAT free tickets to a local concert that I know both men would enjoy. These are VIP box seats with preferred parking etc., and the concert is Saturday! I haven’t heard from either man since the weekend and, while I’m not bothered by this, I don’t want to go to this concert alone (alas, not something I can drag my son to this time).
How do I let the man be the aggressor and how do I mirror while dating when I’m the one with the tickets all the time?
– Meredith
To everyone who hasn’t yet read “Why He Disappeared”:
If he calls, call him back. If he texts, text him back. If he says he wants to get together with you, say you want to get together with him.
a) You should.
b) It introduces a not-so-revolutionary concept that I call “mirroring”. Essentially, when you’re starting to date a new guy, the best thing you can do, to see if he’s genuinely interested in you, is to simply react to what he does. If he calls, call him back. If he texts, text him back. If he says he wants to get together with you, say you want to get together with him. And so on.
The reason that mirroring is so effective is because it honors the way that most men choose to pursue women. We are — in general – much more comfortable with us winning you over than we are with you chasing us down, asking us out, making the first move, and getting down on your knee to propose to us.
This doesn’t mean being arbitrarily difficult or challenging. You should always be warm, receptive and available. You should just follow his lead, that’s all.
Because when you don’t follow his lead — when you start initiating contact and asking him out for dates — you never actually find out how he feels about you.
If you’re doing the initiating and chasing, he may just be enjoying your company temporarily.
Which brings us back to you, Meredith.
You can call up one of these guys and offer him free concert tickets, but is he going out with you because he likes you? Or is he going out with you because he likes music? Or because he’s bored and had nothing better to do that night, so why not take in a free show and maybe make out with you afterwards?
You don’t really know, do you? And you can’t know unless you sit back and let him choose you. If you’re doing the initiating and chasing, he may just be enjoying your company temporarily. But if you do nothing, the only way you’ll hear from him is if he’s genuinely excited and motivated to pursue you.
Finally, the key phrase in what you wrote is this: “I haven’t heard from either man since the weekend”.
And there you have it.
That tells me everything I need to know about how much these men like you.
I don’t know exactly when you wrote this letter to me — was it one day after your latest date with both of them? Three days? One week? All I know is that if it was much more than one day of silence after your date, he’s probably ambivalent about you. Which means that you could ask him out and he may say yes, but it won’t mean much of anything until you let him ask YOU out instead.
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