Hey guys, bit of a long post in store but I'll try to make it as easy to read and include only the relevant information. I'm having trouble deciding what the right course of action is for my current LTR (~4 months). What type of action/investment would be required to maintain/correct and if it's worth the time. Any opinions/comments much appreciated.

Background Information:

So I broke up with my ex-LTR (6 years) about a year ago and have been spinning plates and increasing my notch count ever since. I was enjoying the care free single life for a while, but I must admit being in a committed relationship is just so much easier and care-free if you need to focus your time/energy on other things. I have a stressful and very energy/time demanding career (and side hobby of being a semi-professional athlete), so going out a few nights a week to wheel girls ranges from difficult to impossible depending if work is busy or if I'm training hard and cutting weight.

So I'm spinning plates, hooking up with the ex occasionally (don't do this, learn from my mistakes), and I meet this girl at a concert through a mutual friend. I'm a bit pissed off due to unrelated circumstances that night, but my game is tight and we hit it off. I end up closing about 2 hours after meeting her. She's in a state of shock as she "literally has never done this before" and I'm just kind of sitting on cloud 9 after manhandling an HB9/10 and running a near perfect interaction. She would later describe it as “like out of a movie scene, where everything just clicks and they’re attracted instantly”. I establish an initial basis of high attraction.

I drop her off and we're talking about meeting again already. Things go sideways during our next meeting. Due to her inexperience with one night stands or same night meeting/hookups she's feeling regretful and slutty, so she throws out huge comfort tests, which at the time I mistake for shit tests (huge mistake) and end up coming off as super pushy and aggressive. I realize my mistake a few days later and send her a message to try and salvage things. She responds well but is extremely busy with exams for school and can't meet for a few weeks. I figure the balls in her court and she'll come around or she’ll just next me.

She finally comes around a few weeks later, hitting me up for a late night booty call. This continues for a while, us meeting up for sex and then usually going our separate ways (she's always busy and I'm fine with it). She's a really cool girl and we start hanging out more. Slowly she starts sleeping over (first due to convenience, then cause we enjoy it), and we get closer and open up a bit to each other. It's clear I'm her AF at this point, we meet when we can and always have great sex, then hang out a bit before going our separate ways. We talk about our situation and she says "you don't have to tell me about it and I don't want to know. Just make sure you wear protection when you're with other girls."

At this point we start hanging out more. She’s way better looking (completely my type) and behaved than my other plates and we have amazing sex. I’m getting kind of tired of going out and securing/maintaining plates all the time so I decide to see where things go with her and pursue hanging out with her more often. I’m not going to push for commitment but I decide to let things run their natural course. Eventually she hits me with this line after a night of more passionate sex, "I think I'm too old to have a relationship just based on sex." I responded that I was willing to see where things went but made it clear I was not eager to rush into anything.

After hanging out a lot over her winter school break we get closer and open up a decent amount towards each other. Then comes the "we're exclusive right?" talk and eventually the "can I call you my boyfriend?" talk. In both instances I make a joke and then go along with it, because it’s what I want, but I want to make her press for commitment instead of me asking for it. Things go good for a while, we’re getting closer together and she’s considering changing her plans after graduation for me. She originally planned on travelling or moving out of the city immediately after graduating but is considering waiting around for me.

As a rule of thumb and a general personality trait, I'm very easy going and aloof in my outwards appearance (despite internally being a classic over-thinker; I tend to want to optimize everything I’m passionate about whether it be work, my sport, pick up, gaming, w/e, I want to be the best at it), but I think in certain situations with this particular girl my attitude might be getting misread as timid and agreeable, since I have more freedom with my schedule, want to hang out with her a lot, and will go with the flow in regards to her schedule.

I am very calm, upfront, and stoic around her. The few times I have had to be corrective she has been very receptive and immediately made efforts to change or address the issues I present. To be honest, I have a hard time getting mad at her because she's so nice, appeasing, and un-confrontational. It seems like she’s sincerely apologetic and feels bad when she lets me down. But maybe I can’t tell if she’s just extremely nice or she’s weaponized the word “sorry” like some sort of Machiavellian master.

Objectively looking at her perspective as LTR material, I’ve come up with the following:

Good signs:

• Great sex, great connection. When we’re together we have a lot of fun and when she’s into having sex she loves pleasing me and letting me use her.

• Is a people pleaser. Always trying to make me happy, do favors for me, asks me if I need anything, helps without being asked or asks what she can do to help.

• Not promiscuous, low partner count. Mostly only LTRs or a few FWB/dating scenarios. I was the first guy to ever get in her pants so quickly (I could tell she was sincere about this due to genuine shame/shock and minor freak out after, I know most girls lie about this though)

• Doesn’t go out much, hates bars and the club scene. Rarely drinks, usually only socially with friends and family and occasionally at parties.

• Close group of female friends that share similar values and for the most part are “good girls” with strong morals from good families.

• Comes from a good family, really good relationship with father who seems to be traditional patriarchal type mixed with some new-age “tolerance”.

• Innocent bordering on naïve. Wants to not believe or ignore a lot of evil in the world.

• Is very honest/genuine, even about her feelings and impulses. She describes her AWALT biological impulses and feelings despite not knowing how to describe them or what exactly is “wrong with her”. Kind of funny as I play ignorant and listen.

Red flags:

• Is an alpha widow. I have found she has some baggage from her first and only really serious LTR (3-4 years) which was out of high school. They broke up “amicably” (he initiated it) when they were travelling abroad at different times. They are still friends, which I usually don’t like but they were through some serious stuff together (cancer), so I can kind of understand (I certainly can’t overtly object). Probably still has feelings for him, they keep in touch and the guy lives abroad for now. Says weird things like she “realized that we’ll never be together and that’s okay” and that she “prefers having him as a friend than as a boyfriend”. She is sometimes worried about my feelings towards my ex-LTR as we broke up rather recently and dated for a long time. She wonders if she thinks I rushed into the relationship with her since because of my ex. I’m quite open about my feelings towards my ex and feel like she might be projecting her perspective of how she feels about her ex onto me, thus feeling insecure at times.

• Has several close guy friends and orbiters. Some are clear BB guys, others seem pretty cool, good looking, and good with women, so I can’t tell if they’re orbiters or AF she may be keeping as options/to pursue. She is exceptionally good looking and charming though so I could see her snagging some high value (but unenlightened) guys as orbiters. Describes them as “like brothers” and I can tell her subconscious disgust at the thought of sleeping with most of them. There’s 1 or 2 I’m not sure of though and am leaning towards her treating them as AF. Still though, I’m trusting but verifying and have had no indication to think otherwise currently.

• Loves to travel. I used to think this was an admirable quality in women because I mistakenly valued it from a man’s perspective. Travelling increases a man’s value but doesn’t do much for women. She doesn’t party at all and travels for the cultural aspects, but still, she seems addicted to the travelling way of life and finding her high from “the next adventure”. In my opinion girls like this have trouble being content staying in one place (and with one man).

• Is often always busy and tired. Part of being a people pleaser is not being able to say ‘no’ to people and you end up with too many obligations. Has a pretty poor diet and exercise routine at times due to overloaded schedule, which further affects her mood and health. Time spent with me is sometimes just squeezed in where she’s exhausted, hungry, or in a bad mood. Not what I would consider “quality time”. She’s often too tired or too sick to have sex.

• Has anxiety issues due to being an “over-thinker” and a people pleaser. She’s constantly shifting from one expectation to the next and feels trapped if pressured by people. This is quite evident in her body-language sometimes, especially when affected by outside sources making her tired/hungry/anxious/etc.

Incident(s) that prompted this post:

She has done behaviors such as:

  • Claimed she feels trapped or loses independence in a relationship.

  • Will take a while to respond to texts or calls (has always been like this), but I figured this would improve as the relationship went on and attraction/closeness improved.

  • Doesn’t like to be “dependent on anyone” and “doesn’t like to feel needy”

  • Claims to be tired, sick, or simply not in the mood for sex.

  • Seems to have no urgency to see me after long absences (like after getting back from a 5 day trip). Not that this bothers me, but it bothers me she doesn’t feel that way because I’ve known women to be quite aggressive in pursuing a man they’re after.

  • Cancels plans or says “maybe I’ll see you Friday, or Saturday, or whenever.

Now Billy Blue pill would probably read the above and think “Oh gee, that’s just how she is. She’s always been like that and probably always will be. She’s really busy right now and probably having trouble juggling her course load, job, and everything else in her life. No sweat.” But us TRP enlightened know differently. We know if a girl is into you she’ll do ungodly things just to fuck you, get your attention, and keep your attention. It doesn’t matter the type of girl, AWALT when it comes to biological impulses. It is true that some “career oriented” women will often abandon or downplay their AWALT tendencies in order to find fulfillment in work (spoiler alert: they never do). But I tend to think of these women as broken and incapable of loving anyways, so even if that is the case here, that won’t fly.

My initial thought was that attraction was low, or that she was considering me for BB, but I’m not sure that’s entirely true. When we were going through the motions I faced a number of shit and comfort tests (in the form of hypotheticals usually), and while not passing everyone with flying colors, I clearly established I was not BB. When we do have sex she’s very pleasing and submissive and in person she never gets mad, demands anything, or shit tests much anymore. She mostly comfort tests these days as a result of active dread (being very social with her friends, demonstrating I have options in other ways).

I know she's invested in me due to her insisting splitting/covering the bills or buying me things, constantly doing favors for me, and how she feels when she's with me. I know she values me and is scared to lose me, but I just don’t feel like a priority at the moment. Which is fine in and of itself because I enjoy my space, but as an indicator of interest it tips off my gut-reaction alarms as I’ve always known girls to be bothering me constantly to hang out, not the opposite.

I think my major problem is that despite attraction and rapport being high, there is rarely urgency to act because availability is high as well. I think I’m making myself to readily available to hang out with her. Even though it’s not effecting my schedule at all, the fact that she knows she can hang out whenever she wants is destroying urgency and dread. Therefore…

As an action plan, I'm going to start implementing the following:

  • No initiation of calling/texting until situation improves.

  • Occasionally start ignoring texts/calls. Frequency of ignored calls/texts to be somewhat randomized to not establish a pattern.

  • Decline offers to meet up or hang out (especially those with poor logistics, ie coming over when busy/tired or when just about to go to bed). I've already started doing this and being more concious of logistics related to her schedule/mood but with a 5 day absence, I figured poor logistics would still work in my favor.

  • Corollary to the previous point, ensure all meet ups are memorable and in the right mood/tone. Frame our interactions as me being "her escape" from her daily monotonuous and stressful life, not as me adding to her ever growing list of duties/responsibilities.

  • Cancel plans last minute. Same deal with cancelled calls/texts for frequency.

  • Give less fucks.

  • **It should be noted that I plan to initiate this after our next “favorable” interaction. IE after we have fun together and I fuck her brains out. I’m not completely sure on this part yet, but I believe that doing so beforehand could potentially have an adverse effect.

The above is all aimed towards:

  1. Increasing scarcity by limiting availability and thus hopefully driving up demand.

  2. Increasing attraction by reducing predictability (and through passive dread).

  3. Increasing urgency by decreasing reliability.

So TRP community, what do I do? Is this situation too much of a risk or is it worth enduring? Ideally I’d like to keep her as an LTR. I don’t think demoting to plate status is possible, so my other option is a soft next.