Hey Seddit,

I wanted to talk a little bit about a really common mistake a lot of guys make: Imagining relationships. To most, if not all of you, this will sound really familiar and you've probably done it a few times (I know I have). You know what I mean: You've been on a date with this girl and you've completed the attraction phase, built some rapport and went separate ways with after a #/K/F-Close. Then, you start thinking about her too much. Before I start explaining why you need to avoid this, let me give you a quick example from my past that would give me my moment of clarity afterwards:

So there was this girl I had known for a while, but we were never really close at the start. When I first met her, she was dating one of my acquaintances and we were introduced at his birthday party. They were at the end of their relationship because he would be going away to study a year in the US. After he had gone and they had broken up, time went on and nothing really happened between me and her except a few messages back and forth on Facebook. Then I decided that we ought to hang out a bit, and so it was. We started seeing each other just going for walks, or sitting at a café, talking. We were quite young so there was never really any "dating" going on. It was the patented Swedish "this-is-a-date-but-lets-pretend-it-isn't-a-date-so-we-don't-have-to-commit" kind of hanging out. We did this for a while, growing closer and usually ending our non-dates with a kiss and some making out. I was thirlled, because I had grown really fond of her and was excited because for the first time in my life, things were going my way with women. I thought about her a lot when I didn't see her, as is common behaviour when you start like really like someone. When the year of my friends absence had gone, it was her turn to go abroad for a year (It's a pretty common thing in Stockholm to take your second year of high school abroad) and she went away to what probably was her best year in her life yet in California.

She was gone, and I made sure not to get too hung up on it. I had gained a lot of confidence from my interaction with her, and moved on to other women pretty fast having decent success. She came back but we didn't pick up where we left. We spent another two years just as we had did when we first met: talking on facebook back and forth. The more we did, the more I began to think of her as I had before she left for CA. We decided that we should meet and catch up on all the years we'd been apart. With this, all the emotion and attraction that I had put away rushed into me like raging water held for years by a now broken dam wall. I started thinking about her a lot again, thinking about how well we clicked, painting scenarios in my head where she was my girlfriend and we shared a great connection. The week before I met her I was basically living with this girl inside my head; I was in my dream world where she was a part of me.

How'd the date go? Take a guess. We were going to watch movies at her place, because her parents were not home (this was suggestive enough for me to assume sexytimes and sent me further into my little wonderland) and the day came. Now I didn't jump at her; I played it cool.
But I still made the mistake, the ultimate attraction killer. During a pause in our movie-watching I went for the kiss as she was sitting on a kitchen bench. Whoa. Did I just attempt to pick this up exactly where we left it say three years before? I think I did. Her mind must've waved every single red flag they could find, because that didn't hit home. We watched the rest in scilence and I got the friend-zone talk when she followed me back to the station. I had failed miserably because I had assumed to much with too little to build on.

Now that the story-time is over you can all put away your snuggie-blankets and let's get our notebooks out and get to the point. You might say that my example is a little bit off because I had something going on with this chick once upon a time, but that does not matter. What I did wrong was not my actions when we were going out or my attempted kiss we met after a long time separated. It was my imaginated relationship that caused the hammer to drop on me, hitting my head hard and sending me to the depths of the friendzone.

You're not going to be that guy who thinks too much about her. Unless you have a long, solitary training by tibetan monks to hide your body language completely, she will notice when you have an emotional attraction to her she cannot live up, or feel the same way about you. Our brains can't tell the difference between a real memory and an imaginated memory that's been stuck in your brain. Eventually, your fake memories will seem as real as can be, and this is when you will crash and burn like an ostrich jumping off a cliff in attempt to fly based on the illusion he has created that he can. I don't care if you clicked when you first met her, or if you made out drunk and she returned your calls. You cannot build rapport and a relationship by yourself. The only thing you're doing by wanting a relation to work out so bad you can't stop thinking about her is making yourself desperate and unattractive.

What you should do is to be confident and match her investment in you. Assume she has just as many other options as you do. If she is that wonderful, pretty and funny girl you want her to be, she will have guys waiting in line for a chance at her. Don't join them. It's fine if you desire her, but you don't ever need her. If you do that, you will get into the mentality that your options are limited, and start scaring away girls that are interested in you because of that mentality showing in the way you act, talk and socialize. You’re not dating a woman until you’ve had a conversation in which it’s explicitly stated that you’re dating.

So how do you stop thinking about her? So far, I don't know any good, 100% way. Just keep your mind distracted from her. Play games, hang out with friends, talk to other girls. Whatever it takes to keep her out of your head until she's standing right in front of you. If you're thinking about her emotionally, start thinking logically; if you're thinking about her logically, start thinking emotionally. Anything to keep your mind off it until you are in a relationship our that enough mutual rapport is built that you know she's thinking about you all the time too.

I've had a lot of trouble with this and it seemed like every time I started seeing a girl, I would start imagining things like this, and in obedience with my mind joined the ranks of guys who were just begging to get a girl to love them. This whole text and lesson might already be general knowledge on /r/Seduction, I don't care. I just wanted to share/vent some of my experiences with you, and I might just help someone falling into that dangerous mentality.

  • Don't imagine things, instead focus on what's real right then and there.

  • Want her, but don't need her.

  • Match her level of investment.

  • Relationships are created together, not on your own.

  • Assessing the situation by creating a fake scenario in your head is ok when you need to decide on committing or not; thinking too much about being in a relationship thus creating a fake relationship for no reason, however, is not ok. Understand this difference. Thanks /u/whitewater09 for this point

Have a great day!

edit: I gone and did bad spelling grammers.

edit2: Thanks for reading this, everyone. Have some upvotes, you sexy ladykillers!