Rebuilding Attraction

thekateruth · 2013-09-01T15:26:35+00:00

I often get downvoted to oblivion here, but I thought you may like a female's perspective.

It really depends on what she is going through and if the attraction faded before or after she started her trek through hell.

For me personally, when hit by tragedy, I too stopped talking to a guy I had feelings for (and vice versa). I was diagnosed with MS about 2 months into our relationship, and due to all my conflicting emotions about my diagnosis, I ended things. It had absolutely *nothinnnng to do with him being inferior or bad or whatever. I hated myself, and was angry at my body. In a few months I went from having all my dreams at the tip of my fingers, to being unable to even walk in a straight line. He was beautiful inside and out. Smart, funny. Ambitious, clever. He deserved better than me. I was just a burden. That was my mentality.

It's been nearly 5 years since I've even seen him. In that time i met my first love, got control over my symptoms, and am stronger, more beautiful, and more comfortable with my body (and who I am) than I ever have been. I have almost no insecurity and genuinely like myself and almost everyone I meet. If I ran across that man again, I'm sure there would be chemistry. We may go on a few dates to laugh and catch up. But the likelihood of us dating again is small. It's been 5 years. We are most likely less compatible.

If he had stuck around in the way I'm about to advise you, I am confident that in a month or so we would've ended up dating again. I just needed time by myself, free of the burden of being good enough, to process my new life. All my dreams were crushed, and my body was falling apart. I was 19, and had no idea how to handle that shit. He was too. It happens.

Now. Onto more general things-

Where the danger lies for you is being firmly put into the friend category which will happen if you hang around and become a consistent source of support. If she gets all of her emotional needs filled by you, without the sexual tension/chemistry, that is when you're toeing the friend zone. If she is truly going through serious shit, she is currently incapable of anything but emotional connection right now. When our world crumbles around us, and we feel lost, it's in human nature to cling emotionally to a security blanket. Sometimes it's a person, sometimes a behavior. For me, it was running. I pushed all my friends away in fear and self loathing, and would run and run and run. Mind you, my legs didn't work properly so I would often fall, unable to catch myself. I literally ate dirt. It was not a pretty time. And finally, when I fell so hard I scraped up my face, arms and knees, and literally couldn't stand up to walk home, I sat crying on the road at 330am. It was a wakeup call. "Damnit Kate. You're just going to keep falling. Get a fucking grip, this is your life now. Deal with it or be a pitiful, crying, bloody heap for the rest if your life" I decided then to deal with it.

If I had clung to a person, however, it would have been far worse. Instead of coming to grips in a few weeks over a tough fall, I could have lasted months. People are enablers. We comfort and console. When someone has a soft place to land, a soft security blanket, it isn't so bad. You delve into your pity. When you land on concrete, you grow the fuck up.

I would suggest making it clear that you're open to talk if she needs to, but then stepping back. Don't text every day all day. Check in every week, invite her to coffee or lunch. Maintain your friendship, and be a distraction. When people are going through a rough time, they often need that. If you really want this girl, you needed to fill the role of flirty, and supportive- never go into pure friendship.

When you are together, hold her hand. When you hang out do it in public- this is more of a date than just hanging out at a house like buddies do. Be present and available- but not her primary source of comfort. Turning into a security blanket won't be good for either of you. You need to be her goal for once her shit is straightened out- present, but good enough to wait for.

Alternately, if she has told you she wants time alone completely, give her a week of no contact. After a week, shoot her an easy text or a phone call. "hey kid, seeing how you're doing. Figured you might need a distraction, want to grab coffee and catch up?" Nothing intrusive. But make it clear that you care about her wellbeing and would like to see her, but that you're keeping your distance as requested.

Tldr, yes it is possible, but you have to handle the situation carefully.

Edit- missed a word, and privacy.

Edit2- I can't believe I got gold. Jeez Thank you, thank you! For the record, anyone here can feel free to PM me any time if they have a question or want s perspective. I'm good at talking about dating, women, SEC football, and cooking. And things with yarn. I wish I could be of more help, but know that I'm rooting for all of you!! I want you to have an awesome seduction filled life, and I want you to do it well. With respect, integrity, and self respect. Y'all are great. ((Hugs)).

fl0l · 2013-09-01T14:29:40+00:00

You may have been "too helpfull/nice" to her.

Before downvoting, hear me out, I, in now way, don't advise you to be a jerk or anything like it.

You seem to care for this girl and you may have try to commit too much to her pain, try to soften the break up.

By doing so, you may have done two things :

With over commitment of your part, she couldn't commit to your relation. Its an issue in a lot of relation (friend or couple). If one side of the relation do everything (and i mean EVERYYYYTTHIING), the other side don't feel committed to this because they can't do shit.
By being too frendly, the logical explanation for her is "he do this because he is my friend". When before, she may thought "He do this because he want to go out with me". Its a whoooole different mindset. In one you build attraction, in the other one, you build friendship.

Some of you may think "Fuck, geez, thanks, that what i got for trying to be a good friend". Yes and No.

Of course, by being friendly, you build friendship. It's logic and it's what you get, deal with it.

But, the over committing part is damaging for every relation you try to build (attraction, friendship, etc...). It can go so far as a good method to build relation is to ask for services (cf How to make friend and alienate people or lot of sociology study).

And as the other part : Be yourself, be happy so you can bring hapiness to people.

You don't need to be friendly to help her. Be a fucking awsome human being, continue flirting. She said she wanted to be single so be it. As long as you don't annoy her or push her to much, she will like the flirting part.

I bet she has friend she can rely on. She may not have many flirty friend who make her feel good, attractive and want to try things (it's my own opinion that if want to attact someone you have to add things to peoples life anyway).

Go back to your previous mode, you will see. But my main advice would be "be happy and spread hapiness". You don't need to "harm" you by being friend if you dont want to be a friend. You can still add so much value and hapiness to her life even by not being a friend.

For the leaving the friend zone part, i would say, try going back to the flirty part but if you have committed to being a friend, it's kinda like going back in your words.

Sorry for the babbling, I may have diverged and not reply correctly to the question. I wanted to answer and my head went on his own path :D

PleaseStopThat · 2013-09-01T14:12:11+00:00

Ok, nobody seems to be putting anything forward, so I'll start with my opinion.

From what I've learned about attraction, and from my experience with similar situations, I say it's unlikely that you can rebuild attraction with this particular girl.

I say this because the amount of work a man has to do to change a woman from unattracted to attracted, more likely than not, comes across as non-abundant, clingy, and needy. While it's not impossible to do, there's really no need to. Opening new women will give you probably ten times the chances of finding an uncomplicated, enjoyable attraction.

That being said, might as well try something with this girl, as long as you can force yourself not to care about rejection, which is the most likely outcome.

KhaosTheoryX · 2013-09-01T13:51:11+00:00

The up vote vs comment ratio for this post is very interesting.

AlexCosta · 2013-09-01T14:08:31+00:00

Sounds like oneitis.

Give her space to work out her own life and you continue living your life.

blisterbalm · 2013-09-01T22:59:41+00:00

If a woman was once attracted to you, she can be again.

MongrelNymph · 2013-09-01T15:16:27+00:00

I have been in your place and played it the wrong way. Be honest with yourself and be honest with her.

You don't want to be in her friend zone really, do you? Tell her you don't want to just be friends. Try to make it happen. If it doesnt. Then walk away.

Maybe things can happen later. Probably not. But at least you'll have your respect and integrity.

flowfall · 2013-09-01T14:36:18+00:00

There is too much I have to say about this lol.

I believe there's nothing that can really be "done" about it, either it's there or it's not. I'd take said girl out, have a great time, escalate slowly and see how it goes from there, this way you can gauge how attracted she is to you. I'm making it a point to never be in the friend zone again. If you want something more than a friendship with a girl, don't be friends with her, it's all or nothing for the sake of sanity. I'd stop being so invested in her, and start having fun, treat her like you would any other woman.

Justify_87 · 2013-09-01T15:21:55+00:00

Just take it as it is and go on. You can still hang out with her and do stuff, but lower the frequency and amount steadily. If you hang out with her, show her that you are interested in other women. (don't say it, show it)
But don't make this your "plan" or motivation. There is no chance it will work. Just do it. But what ever the result is, take it as it is.

papeipou · 2013-09-01T15:41:47+00:00

As a female: it's possible, but implausible.

If the connection has been disconnected then it would be fairly intensive to fix that and it's not even 50% to work, in my opinion. I would say you should go to catch up; if the connection is still there, that would be much easier to rekindle.

Willem20 · 2013-09-01T16:15:04+00:00

Currently I am in the same kind of situation, I fell in the friendzone because I waited too long. We did kiss, yet it was waaaay too late.

Frankly, I don't 'know' how to get flirty with her again.

It's a long story, but I got her more attracted to me because an emotional connection I interacted on day 1. It changed my perspective towards her since then.

Long story, weird feelings. Some advice in what way I can get more sexual with her again will be appreciated

winnebago0101 · 2013-09-01T15:02:31+00:00

My own experience is that trying to stay "friends" doesn't work well. I've done it and gotten the girl back. But both times it ended up in breakups. But I had oneitis both times. I think the combination of 1) there were reasons we didn't work out to begin with. And 2) the way I was positioning myself as subordinate were the reasons. The second one was complex because both girls found the depth of my live for them attractive. I know this as rake attraction, a man who will do extreme for you can be intoxicating. But I also had set myself up as the one who did all the chasing, under mining the attraction.

So in hindsight, I agree with the advice that to pursue other women and live your life. And if you can genuinely have a take it or leave it attitude towards the girl being attracted to you, then keep that as a long term prospect. If you can't then give it a break, but be really decent about how you part and plan to check in with her in a year. (Don't necessarily tell her that though :)

This one year thing is a trick I play with myself when I have oneitis. Since it's a limited time, it's easier for me to move on mentally. A year or two can create a very different situation. And typically I find I don't really mind after that period off time. My experience with it was I did reestablish friendship with a comfortable "maybe someday" option.

SemanticsLogistics · 2013-09-01T18:41:19+00:00

Yes it can. You literally just do nothing. http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/slaq9/tip_had_a_girls_interest_but_lost_it_just_go_away/

HappyJerk · 2013-09-01T16:13:50+00:00

There's 2 reasons a girl will break up with you:

1) She just doesn't like you and she found somebody better

or

2) You're doing something to freak her out (you're too clingy/needy, you're not showing enough interest, etc...)

As for #1, the way to solve that is by improving yourself so that you are her best option. But the real answer is that if your problem is #1 you're kind of fucked.

As for #2, you have to stop doing that thing that freaks her out. It's hard to figure out what exact thing you're doing (am I showing too much interest, not enough interest, etc...), so your best bet is to just make some distance between you and her and then act towards her like a regular person. And then after some time she might come around to liking you again.

Headhongular · 2013-09-01T16:29:26+00:00

I feel like it's possible, but only if both people have changed a significant amount over time. If the break up was in highschool or early college, then it's possible due to the amount that both people have likely changed. Pretty much if you are both very different people from the first time, yes, but this sounds like a cheesy love story, I would just go talk to one of the other millions of girls like her.

matrix2002 · 2013-09-01T17:15:32+00:00

Anything is possible, but this is very unlikely.

People, not just women, associate certain feelings for certain people. For example, think of a famous beautiful actress and imagine her sitting next to you, you probably get very excited and happy.

So, you have to be very aware of what feelings and emotions she is associating with you.

This is why relationships fall apart, overtime, the associations change. This happens for a variety of reasons, not just because of things you do, but because of how her life is going.

So, you are asking if it is possible to get her to change these emotions that she has when she sees you or thinks about you.

Again, it is very difficult to do this. You have to make a big impact on her, reset what she thinks about you. It could be a big success, reshaping your body, seeing you with a beautiful girl, something like that.

And this doesn't guarantee it will make the impact you want, but it is possible.

kikomeprease · 2013-09-01T19:55:27+00:00

Isn't it better to just move on? Idk. I'm in a similar situation with my ex girlfriend (both at different points in our lives/different priorities). I always thought that if she chose to be single and out of your life and it's just better energy spent looking for something new.

Relaxgodoit · 2013-09-02T03:20:42+00:00

If the energy in your relationship is failing you need to build it up again. You bring energy to the relationship!

The greatest stories of getting back after a bad case of oneitis are always due to one person improving themselves. Its got o be inner game and reigniting new passions between each other. That, or you change your life a little. Start working harder, or going out more often, making more friends, reading, studying, just do something and become passionate in something.

Title	Rebuilding Attraction
Author	WorstOfThem
Upvotes	190
Comments	41
Date	September 1, 2013 11:06 AM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/seduction
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/1lifr0/rebuilding_attraction/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/seduction/rebuilding-attraction.1357752 https://theredarchive.com/post/1357752

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