#5: Don’t Frontload the Excitement in the Relationship
When I was young and inexperienced with relationships, I figured that the best way to make sure a girl wanted to stay with me was to provide as much excitement and fun in the relationship as I possibly could. So, I’d take girls to nightclubs, parties with friends, dinners at really nice and fancy restaurants, out to movies, on exotic vacations, and to interesting nooks and crannies around town. We’d go to the beach, to the desert, to the forest; we’d go hiking, boating, the works.
And while I enjoyed this too, I soon learned that it set an expectation that for the rest of the relationship I was obligated to continue doing things like this at the same pace I set out doing them, or run into the “we used to do so many wonderful things together” problem.
See, the thing is, this will happen for you with women: they will take their emotions for you, and give all the reasons you give them as the reasons for why they like you.
So, if you’re an attractive guy who’s great to talk to and good in bed, and you take girls to nightclubs, parties, dinners, movies, vacations, and adventures, then girls will love you because:
READ ALSO – 10 Signs You have truly fallen in love
- You’re attractive
- You’re great to talk to
- You’re good in bed
- You take them to nightclubs
- You take them to parties
- You take them to dinners
- You take them to movies
- You take them on vacations
- You take them on adventures
If you ever fall on hard times though and don’t have the time or the money for those things, or you get tired of doing them, or you burn yourself out… and you stop doing those things… a girl will say to herself, “He doesn’t do all those things with me that he used to do… this relationship isn’t as good now as it used to be, and he isn’t as excited about me as he used to be.”
If on the other hand you’re an attractive guy who’s great to talk to and good in bed, and you never do anything with your girlfriend, she will feel almost or exactly the same degree of emotions she’d feel for you if you did those other things, except that it will be tied to comparably fewer aspects of “you” and “your relationship”:
- You’re attractive
- You’re great to talk to
- You’re good in bed
If you never take a girl to nightclubs, parties, dinners, movies, vacations, or adventure during the early stage of your relationship, you never have to do them or not do them later and have her think to herself, “Things aren’t like they used to be.”
Instead, you can actually do them far less than you’d like to do them at first…and let yourself gradually begin doing them more as the relationship progresses. This will give her a feel of progress in the relationship… instead of a feeling of decline.
These days for me, I don’t do anything with women I’m newly dating other than have them come over to my apartment, talk, maybe watch a movie, maybe eat some dinner there, and have sex. That’s it. No movies, no restaurants, no parties… nothing.
But that’s so un-fun! you might say. Well, my goal isn’t to maximize my fun; my goal is to start a relationship that’s going to be very healthy and strong later, and give me the maximum amount of flexibility to go out or not go out with my girl as I choose to.
There are two “lines” you’ll cross at which you can ramp things up in a relationship:
- The 90-day mark
- The 2-year mark
The first 90 days (or 3 months) are the passionate height of a relationship, when everything is new and she’s still figuring out who you are and what she can expect with you. It’s very important that you give her nothing but the most core aspects of who you are to attach her feelings to. You don’t want her attaching her feelings to anything you won’t always be able to provide with ease later on (like: money, dinners, movies, parties, etc.), whether because of your financial situation, because of the amount of free time you have, or anything else that can change suddenly when you least expect it to.
After the first 90 days are over, you can ramp things up somewhat, and she’ll attribute less of her feelings for you to these than she would have had you done them from the start.
After the 2-year mark is when you can really ramp things up and not suffer much if you need to ramp them down or change courses later. e.g., if you only go out to dinner five or six times during your first two years together, you can start going out once or twice a week after two years, and then go back to never going out after three or four years, and it won’t affect your relationship much. If you go out to dinner once or twice a week from the start, and try to quit going out to dinner a year or two into the relationship, you’ll cause your girlfriend to assume you like her less and feel that the relationship has gone into decline.
READ ALSO – 10 Signs You have truly fallen in love
Do the opposite of what most men do, and give women less at the start of a relationship and more later on in that relationship.
This also extends to things like texting (don’t text her all day… in fact, don’t even text her EVERY day) and phone calls (only talk to her for 40 minutes on the phone every night at the start of your relationship if you want to talk to her for 40 minutes on the phone every night for the REST OF YOUR LIFE together [presuming you remain together long-term, of course]). Set the a minimal tone early, and you give yourself the freedom to make it whatever you want later. Set a maximal tone early, and you’ve locked yourself into that and stripped away the ability to choose from your future self.
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