Reader H.H. is bedeviled by the Boyfriend Zone.
Dear Chateau! you’ve helped me a lot so…
What to do when girls always put me in the “potential boyfriend” category? I’m a sociable guy who usually has no problems talking to strangers, getting people to smile or laugh, etc. I travel, have a cool job, hit the gym every once in a while and know my way around both in a sports bar and in an art gallery.
However, I tend to always be approached or at the very least orbited by 7s and 8s looking for a relationship*. ”I’d like to leave home with you, but I need to know that you’re interested in the long term” or ”I’d like to kiss you now, but I have to find out first whether you’re married”. (I could take them home and fuck them, but I hate to lie.)
I’m more interested in short crazy, one nighters with no strings attached. What’s this? I’ve been afraid that I’m giving out too many nice guy vibes, could that be it? Is there an element of danger missing? Are the sluts not interested? What am I fucking up?
*Of course the next step is to upgrade from 7-8s to 8-9s, but i’m not sure if that problem is connected with this…
When a woman tries to put you in the Boyfriend Zone, it usually means you’re giving off a heavy player vibe. She fears you’ll make her another bedpost notch, but she desires you, so to reconcile the good feeling with the bad feeling, she presses for reassurances that you won’t use and lose her. This is classic anti-slut defense (ASD) posturing.
This is a perfectly natural female response, and you have two ways to tackle it. One, you can tone down your charming jerk vibe in favor of more beta-ish cues of reliability and emotional investment. In game parlance, you’d back off of the teasing and flirting and stress comfort-building and qualification (i.e., “Do you like the idea of traveling with one person you really love?”). You’ll also want to flash hints of vulnerability. “I’ve had my heart broken enough times to know I’m no player.” With these girls, that effervescent connection is king. “I’m just a guy looking for the same thing you are.”
Two, you can screen for girls who want short, crazy flings or one night stands. This means you amp your jerk smirk to 11 and escalate sexually (and logistically). The idea is that you avoid any confusion that you’re potential boyfriend material. Mixed messages are probably what’s confusing girls about your intentions. Normally, this is a good thing, unless you don’t like to mislead girls, which you said you don’t. An unambiguous dispatch of your cad intentions communicated through your behavior filters for girls who want the same thing. You’ll scare away LTR-focused girls, while attracting sluts, unhappily married women, ovulating women, thrill-seekers, rebounds, urban gogrrls on anonymous adventures, highly sexual women, and smart women.
Occasionally, a woman will put you in the Boyfriend Zone because your behavior in some way has pinged her boyfriend radar, and she’s excited about the prospect of dating a man who’s on her wavelength. Her excitement can be so great, she seeks validation for the LTR promise that hangs heavy in the air between you two. This validation seeking can take the form of probing questions about your “commitment to commitment”, because for these women romantic escalation is as intoxicating as sexual escalation. Many players have no compunction about leading these types of women on (and it’s quite easy to be good at it), so if that’s not something you’d do then you’ll have to stick to strategy #2 and actively select for low impulse control girls.
I have some disheartening news. If you’re constitutionally against the idea of leading women on*, you’ll have a harder time finding many 8s or 9s interested in no-strings-attached sex. Contrary popular mythology, most funfunfun girls who’ll agree to what amounts to slutting it up are the wastoids, the desperate, and, if your game is good, the borderline cuties in the 5-7 range. While SCIENCE! is hard to come by, my impression is that blue city 7s rack up more sex partners than 9s. Which makes sense; all women want the alpha male’s sex and the alpha male’s commitment. But only the best women — read: the hottest — have reasonable expectations of achieving both goals. Less hot girls will sometimes resort to giving away their sex for a shot of alpha male money shots and a slim hope of rousing his long game lovingkindness in the post-coital glow (it rarely happens).
This isn’t to say that you can’t find a boner fried hottie who tingles for the flingle. They’re around; they’re just better at concealing, even to themselves, any latent desire for a sexual romp. If you want to be both honest and noncommittal with a beauty, you’ll have a road ahead of you. If you can handle soft-shoeing your NSA message without having a moral crisis, then blazing a trail of microtears through HSMV women will be easier. Hotties are gonna need to see some feints away from pure sexual objectification. Of course, you’ll still want to make them work for your love.
“I’m dating around until I find that one woman I click with.”
PS *”Leading women on” is just another term for nonjudgmentalism. Men who don’t lead women on are, by necessity, more judgmental of the women they meet. Because in fact there is no such thing as true nonjudgmentalism; we’re all judging something about someone else at any given time. Hiding your judgmentalism is good for business if your business is persuading women to giveitaway.
PPS When a girl says ”I’d like to leave home with you, but I need to know that you’re interested in the long term”, the best reply is one that assuages her fears and avoids supplication. That means, don’t jump on her beta bait with forceful vows of fidelity.
BAD:
“Oh, I’m definitely interested in the long term with you. I’ve always wanted a girlfriend.”
GOOD:
“Like you, I want the same things. But I can only answer that once I get to know you and spend time with you.”
Your long term interest is presumed but not guaranteed.
Maxim #45: If a girl isn’t working for your love, she’s making you work for hers. Better to be a love owner than a love laborer.
