I’ve been a long-time lurker of the TRP, but I’ll admit that I had never fully internalized it as an ideology because I’ve had a decent amount of success with women in the past as a person y’all might describe as blue pilled, beta or a “nice guy.”

Recently, a few experiences of being rejected and hurt by higher quality women than the ones I’ve dated in the past have gotten me interested in TRP again. I’ve been single for about 3 months now and have been experimenting with shedding any “nice guy” tendencies I have.

Anyway, on to the actual story that I’d like some perspective on.

A few weeks ago, I had 4 dates lined up back-to-back (Thursday, Friday, Saturday afternoon, Saturday night). Yeah, a little intense, but I didn’t have anything better to do.

It was my second time meeting the girl on Thursday. We hooked up and she gave me a very noticeable hickey that night. Not ideal, but I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see how things would play out with the other girls (i.e., would it ruin my chances or would preselection and the possible perception of me as a fboi/player type play to my advantage?)

It was my first date with the girl on Friday. We hooked up that night. Only the third time I’ve ever hooked up with a girl the first time meeting them. I don’t know if the hickey actually had anything to do with that, but at least it obviously didn’t turn out to be a detriment there.

Now, the girl on Saturday afternoon date is the focal point of this story. Let’s call her Mary. We had met on Hinge and she was actually the one who asked me out. We met for coffee & and a walk in the park and I found myself really liking this girl. Edgy and alternative with a full sleeve, but beautiful and very sweet and wholesome with a low n count. The date seemingly went really well. Conversation flowed really smoothly, lots of laughter and she initiated quite a bit of physical contact for someone who was relatively shy, especially for a coffee date. She did, however, make quite a few comments throughout the date about my hickey and me being a fboi. I brushed them off playfully and made sure not to talk about other girls. It turned out that we were both heading to the same music festival next weekend, so we made plans to meet there with our friends and go for dinner/drinks after. After the date, she sent me a text apologizing for being a little late with a bunch of welling eye emojis. Later that night, she added me to her “close friends”/private list on IG and posted a cute private selfie. All signs that everything was fine.

I went on to my Saturday night date. This was my second time seeing this girl as well. Idk if I was just really smitten by Mary, but I found myself really, really unattracted to this girl, to the point where I was questioning myself the whole time why I had asked her out for a second date. I couldn’t stop thinking about Mary. She made a ton of comments about my hickey and kept calling me a fboi all night. This time, I really didn’t care and just played into it, including straight up telling her that I’d fucked someone else last night. She invited me over and we smashed that night. I felt disgusted the next morning.

On my bus ride of shame home at 9 am the next morning, I texted Mary. She replied almost instantly—like within 5 minutes.

Now, as context for what I did next, there are a few things you should know about Mary that I learned from her hinge profile, her IG and our date: she has previously struggled with depression, and had been on prozac for a while (though she was over a year clean at this point). She has an IG story highlight reel dedicated to mental health/relationship trauma. Some of the private stories in that highlight (which, if you recall, I was now privy to) included videos on self-sabotaging relationships due to low self-worth, as well as stuff about how men are trash, etc. etc. She had mentioned this on our date too: “honestly, if i could be attracted to women, i totally would be”. Her hinge profile had a prompt about how she was “just looking for friends right now”. Put together, this is clearly someone who’d been hurt and was very, very guarded.

At this point, I knew that a girl like her wouldn’t be a hookup or a plate (which, iirc, is the reason y’all say damaged girls aren’t worth the trouble), but I liked her enough where I decided I wanted to LTR her after that first date. Feel free to shit on me for that, but she really drew me in.

Now this is where my blue pilled, nice guy self really kicked in. Despite all signs indicating that things were fine (i.e. good first date, adding me to her close friends right after, replying immediately the next day), I thought that it would be a good idea to apologize for the hickey. My thinking was that if I wanted to LTR this girl and break down her guard, I needed to prove to her that I wasn’t a fboi. So I apologized for showing up with a hickey, saying it was inconsiderate, doesn’t represent my intentions with you, etc. etc.

The mood immediately changed. She replied “lol it’s okay, bring your friends to the festival and i’ll pick one without a hickey”, then called me a “frat boy” and said “it’s shocking how people from the same country give off the same vibe/energy/behaviour” (for context, I’m Canadian and we’re in the UK; she had previously studied in the US at a school where there are apparently a lot of Canadians).

But it gets even worse. I texted her the next day asking if she’d like to go out again, just me and her, before the festival. “nah”

“your hickey friendzoned me”

“we could be really great friends”

“I thought a PhD student would be smarter”

“maybe you could show a little more respect to your next date”

I ended it by saying “Alright, I’ll see you on Sunday then” (the festival was on Sunday), to which she says “I’ll see if my flatmate wants to”

I don’t text her until Sunday. She ignores my message all day and our groups never met. Two days later, I notice she’s unfollowed me and removed me as a follower on IG.

The next part is pretty embarrassing: I text her again to get some “closure”, but really to shoot one last shot despite everything being very, very clear at this point.

We have a little chat and she tells me that she “doesn’t fuck wit people who don’t know how to respect women.”

And in response to me asking why it seemed she had a sudden change of heart after I apologized for the hickey, she said “I was just being nice. I wasn’t gonna see you again even if you didn’t apologize.”

So help me out here for next time, guys. What the fuck happened here and what did I do wrong?

I don’t think her explanation is the truth. If you truly weren’t interested in someone, you wouldn’t add them to your very personal close friends list on IG, nor would you reply to them immediately the morning after your date. Ghosting or slow fading would be the play there.

My female flatmate thinks she talked to her friends about it, who convinced her that I was no good for her.

My personal thoughts are this: the hickey made her guarded and wary, yes, but she had a good enough time with me that she willing to let it slide at first and see how things played out. But when I apologized for it, I triggered some type of defense mechanism that got her all indignant and spiteful. That, or girls really just illogically attracted to men who aren’t good for them, and when I apologized, I revealed the beta, nice guy side of me that repulsed her. Idk. What do you guys think?