This is a post written for me, one year ago, before I messed up several chances through texting. This is going to seem like a manipulative post for the first bit but bear with me.

Let's say you meet a girl at the beach.

You flirt and vibe, and now you have plans to hang out again over the weekend.

You text a couple times to confirm, and all systems are a-go.

At this point just PUT DOWN THE PHONE MAN.

What do you have to gain by blowing up her phone? Nothing!

You already got what you wanted: she already decided to go out with you. Confirmation bias shows us that people don't like to go back on their decisions. Once we've decided something, we'll go out of our way to find reasons that we made the right call based on the information we had available to us.

But you do have something to lose by continuing to text her.

Maybe you give her something that makes her question her earlier decision. Maybe text version of you conflicts with the image of you that led her to her decision.

Maybe in person you seemed non-needy, fun, intelligent, and over text you seem needy, boring, and dumb, whether that's true or not.

Or perhaps she just completely misunderstands you. Text is an awful medium for one-on-one communication, and misunderstandings are extremely easy to come by. Maybe you make a dark joke and she assumes you're serious.

Maybe the text conversation fizzles out and she begins to wonder if you'll have nothing to talk about? Maybe she thinks you're a little too available to talk and she wonders if you've got nothing going on?

I'm not saying any of these assumptions are reasonable. But even smart people will misunderstand things or jump to conclusions when talking over text, whether they know they're doing it or not. Sometimes they just get an unconscious feeling. "hmm... I'm not as excited to go out with him anymore. Maybe he wasn't as great as I thought?"

My point is, if you've already gotten to the point where she's decided to go out with you, just let it be!

The natural instinct is always going to be to get excited and talk as much as possible.

She probably feels the same way! Let her imagination run with it and let her get even more excited. Her fantasy version of you will probably excite her as much as your messages ever could.

Here's what I'm not saying.

I'm not saying that texting back and forth with a girl is always bad.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't text some girl from tinder to get to know her.

I'm not saying you should stop texting a girl you're dating to manipulate her.

I'm not saying you shouldn't talk to her the day of to confirm.

I'm definitely not saying you should consciously blow a girl off just to get in her pants.

That stuff is manipulative. Manipulative tactics are toxic.

You're better than that.

You're walking away from the phone, but it's not for those reasons.

You're a guy with friends that want to spend time with him. With people that depend on you. You're a guy with hobbies that light you up inside. You have a purpose in your life that excites you, and makes you wake up in the morning with a fire under your ass and a passion for the day. A passion to overcome challenges and become even more of an awesome guy than you are right now.

You know that women are incredible, but that your true fulfillment comes from these other areas too. So you tell her that you can't wait to see her on Saturday, and that you've gotta go, but you'll talk soon.

And if you feel like you're lying because you don't have anything that you have to go do, and actually would rather sit there texting or thinking about texting girls all day, then you REALLY do have to go, because you've got some work to do my friend. Without great friends, hobbies, passions, and people that otherwise depend on you, you will never be happy no matter how many women you seduce.