I have seen this pattern often and recently was reminded when a friend told me about his first date with a woman.

It was great, she was enthusiastic, they had a connection and a fun evening.

At the second date she was cold and distant. He lost interest because of this (sidenote: he has high smv looks-wise, so he isnt needy) and broke it off after the 2nd date. He didnt explain the real reason to her but said it was because of something else. Turns out she was really interested in him.

Then why act cold and distant?

I've seen this very often and wonder why this is.

Is it a simple shit-test?

It might be. I was out with a friend once and two girls approached us and asked if there's any parties. So we spend the whole night together going from place to place. Even to different towns. We all had a fun evening, great connection and they invited us to another event the next day.

So my friend and me show up, we go over to them and instead of saying hello, one of the girls says "see? I told you they would come" to her friend in the most contemptuous tone possible. And then they mostly ignore us and act distant. So after about 30min I give my email to one of them and say "ok, we are going. Drop an email if you two want to hangout sometime. Right now you are insufferable." (This was years ago, cant remember what I said word for word).

She changed immediately. "Maybe I just need to have a drink." And after that both were nice and friendly just like the day before. Great evening and my friend got together with her and they lived together for a year.

So this would be an example that behaving cold and distant on the second date is a shittest.

But I dont know. There could be more to it. If you see shittests as a way of flirting and evaluating the man's smv wouldn't it make more sense for her to be open and friendly and then throw occassional shittests in than to make the whole 2nd date one gigantic shittest?

Especially if he has high smv?

It's gotten to the point that I predict every 2nd date or meeting or even 2nd texting on a social network to be cold and distant and I am correct most of the time.

Is there any way to prevent it by doing something different on the first date? Even if I treat it as a shittest and handle it correctly this pisses me off and I lose interest just like my friend.