Why She’ll Probably Be Back After Backing Away
Why a woman you are dating will probably be back after backing away and what you should do.
In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss an email from a viewer who has been studying my work for about 8 months. He started hooking up with a girl from work for several weeks, then she started backing away. She told him she does this when she gets too close to a new guy. He feels like he did everything right but hasn’t heard from her for 4 days now.
He asks what it means and what he should do. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.
*Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. An affiliate link means I may earn referral fees if you make a purchase through my link, without any extra cost to you. Thank you for your support.
From my perspective as a coach and understanding how people operate, this is totally normal behavior. When you’re in this situation and for every guy that becomes familiar with How To Be A 3% Man — which you can read for free at UnderstandingRelationships.com, just subscribe to the email newsletter — it’s totally natural, but you’ve got to handle it the right way. And if you’re not used to doing this, that silence is what causes men to fall under what I describe in the book as The Illusion of Action to start chasing, which is the worst thing.
But it’s a really good email to help you guys understand and fine tune what that’s like — to just let a woman be, and then deal with the fear of, “What if I never hear from her again? What if she never calls me again?” That little voice on your shoulder, “Oh, just reach out.” If you talk to women, they’ll go, “Oh, just reach out to her, let her know how you feel and how much you care. And just tell them that you like her and it’ll just be wonderful.” And guys that follow advice start doing it, and then all the women do is back away more, friendzone them, push them away, that kind of thing.
This is an art, and this guy doesn’t do everything perfectly. He made a few slight mistakes, which I’m going to go through and point out, because the idea is we want to get better. You want your game to be tight, so when things like this do happen, it’s a little bump in the road and you don’t create the conditions where attraction drops more than it needs to, and then you end up spending more time away from her.
Viewer’s Email:
Hey Coach,
I’ve been following your work for around 8 months now. Recently, I hit it off with a girl I work with. I asked her out directly and made a definite date for a week from then and didn’t talk/text her at all leading up to it.
So far, so good, textbook. You’ve got to wait a week in advance, because you also want to build anticipation on her part, but you also want to give her lots of space to see if she’ll keep it, or try to cancel it. Because you want to be with somebody who’s also choosing you.
I picked her up.
Notice that he picked her up. Obviously, they work together, so they know each other. So, she’s not some some girl he talked to for 5 minutes on a dating app. Which is good, because then you’re controlling the whole situation. She knows you’re coming to her house, you’ve got the address. There’s much less likelihood of her canceling on you.
We went on the date and had a great time. She ended up back at my place and we fooled around but didn’t hook up.
Most women sleep with the guy by second or third date.
I took her back home.
But if you read the two steps forward, one step back process in the book, your success rate will go up.
And when I dropped her off, she texted me saying she had a great time. The following week, she began initiating a lot of communication via text with me and inviting me over to her place, basically every day.
The important thing to understand about that is it’s her idea. She’s reaching out to you, she’s inviting you over. Therefore, it’s okay. The kitty cat’s coming to you, the kitty cat’s saying, “Hey, come on over. I’ve got something for you. Let’s play hide the salami!”
I began going over to her place and spending the night every other night or so to create some sort of distance and space, even though she was inviting me over to spend the night every single day, essentially.
That’s good. The idea is you’re trying to go slightly slower than she is.
In my mind, spending the night every single night after only going on one date was bound to kill the attraction, because that would have communicated that I had no other options and didn’t have a life.
Well, at the end of the day, it’s her idea. But you’ve also got to understand, when that happens, say you do go over a week in a row and every night you’re spending the night there and then all of a sudden she doesn’t call you, she doesn’t invite you over. You see her at work, and she might seem a little lukewarm, a little coldish, even. What if four or five days go by? Well, the fallback position is you wait a week, and then you reach out. That’s where guys lose their shit, basically, in the beginning, when the woman starts backing off, and they’re going, “Oh, my God, what the hell? This can’t be happening again. I thought she really liked me.”
The point being is you don’t get caught up in her emotions. When you hear from her, it’s like a cat. You see the cat, the cat licks you, and the cat’s like, “Eh.” You’re like, “What’s up, kitty cat?” And a little while later, the cat goes back to the room, “Why isn’t that guy chasing? What’s up?” And then a little while later, the kitty cat jumps into your lap and it starts purring. You’ve just got to remember, that’s the way they are.
You’re unperturbed when these things happen. You’re happy that the cat jumped in your lap and purred, but when the cat gets tired, what does it do? It jumps off your lap and then leaves and goes and does something else. The important thing is to let it leave. Where most guys screw up is when the kitty cat jumps off their lap, they’re like, “What’s wrong? Why doesn’t the cat want to stay in my lap?” They start chasing, and the cat gets turned off. What’s happening is the guy is becoming uncentered and unglued. He becomes perturbed by her absence, and women don’t like that.
Women don’t want you to get perturbed. They want you to be excited, “Did you miss me?” “Well, not really. But I’m glad to hear your sweet voice now.” I’ve got a friend of mine. He travels a lot for work. He loves what he does and he’s childlike in what he does, but he’s a man. He’s a real man’s man. And she’ll be like, “Do you miss me?” and he’ll be like, “No.” She’s like, “What? How do you not miss me?” He’s like, “Babe, I’m just being honest.” But he’s being honest with her, brutally honest. In that moment, he’s not really missing her. He’s having fun with what he’s doing.
When I did go over, I was following the three H’s.
Which are: hang out, have fun and hook up.
The sex was great, and I know for a fact she enjoyed it. I never pushed the idea of a relationship and kept everything casual.
Well, all relationships start as casual love affairs. Remember the kitty cat analogy? The cat comes and goes. When I say that in quotes a lot, I see a lot of people getting butt-hurt over that, especially on Instagram. In all fairness, probably a lot of them don’t really understand my work. But it’s important to understand that, because guys get mad when you say that. Especially in the initial courtship, where this guy is at right now, you just can’t run after her. You’ve got to let her be.
During the second week, we went on a second date and I once again picked her up and we ended up back at her place afterwards. She had been really opening up to me and telling me about a lot of traumatic things that had happened to her in the past, (bad relationships, raped in her teens, the list goes on and on).
That shows me that she has a high level of trust and respect for you. You’re being the rock and the mountain, and she feels comfortable opening up to you. Remember, when a woman feels heard and understood, the legs, they open. And when they don’t, the legs close.
And I assured her that none of this stuff bothered me.
Yeah, you want to be unperturbable. You’re just listening, like Sherlock Holmes — listening for red flags, anything that should make you go, “woah!” Because if you get judgmental and you start giving her grief about things, guess what? She’s going to shut down and not tell you. And you want her doing verbal diarrhea so you can make an intelligent, informed decision on whether to continue to proceed or to eject, eject, eject!
Back at her place afterwards, she once again asserted that she had a great time and thanked me for the date, then told me she really liked me and “wouldn’t mind if I stuck around for a while.”
See, guys hear a statement like that and they go, “I’m in! Sold. She’s picked me.” It just applies in the minute. It’s kind of like a Snapchat. It’s got a time limitation that goes, poof! So, be glad that she said it, but understand that it only is indicative of that moment. The guys are like, “Well, she told me that she loved me.” When was that? “About a year ago.” It’s like, yeah, she loved you then, but she ain’t saying it now. Guess what? She don’t love you now.
I kept riding the high and coming over every other night and spending the night with her, hooking up with her every time. I eventually met her son, which she said she only allows with men she wants to stay in her life long-term.
Again, that shows a high level of trust. She’s liking you. But you’ve got to understand, it’s still new. She hasn’t emotionally bonded to you, and she could become like the kitty cat, stop purring in your lap and then haul ass and you won’t see her for awhile.
Last Wednesday, during the third week of us dating, I spent the night at her place after she once again invited me over. It was our best night by far. Incredible sex, she got off in a way I’ve never seen a woman get off before, and we seemed to be getting really close.
She cums like a waterfall!
I left that morning, and all seemed well. Friday came and I hadn’t received a text from her, which was odd, but I shrugged it off.
This is normal. This is what happens. The kitty cat stopped purring and and left. And most guys are like, “What’s wrong? I’ve got to fix it.”
Saturday night, I called her to set up the next date and chat because I was away on a work trip and couldn’t talk in person.
I wouldn’t have called. I would have just let her be. Remember, the fallback position is a week. The idea is you want to be taking measured steps, like the book talks about. Most guys don’t get to this place after the second date. It usually happens two or three weeks in. You’re spending a lot of time with this girl, and then as soon as she backs off, you wait one day and then you’re texting her. So, that was a mistake there. I would not have done that. I would have waited a whole week.
I would have waited a full seven days if I hadn’t heard from her. You’ve got to understand that this is normal. This is how women behave — hot and heavy for two or three weeks, and all of a sudden the brakes are on. Guys that don’t know any better, they freak out. Guys that know what’s going on, they go, “She’ll be back. Just like a kitty cat, she’ll be back.”
The conversation was about an hour long and started off great…
Bruh, what’s the phone for? It’s for setting dates. I know he’s on a work trip, but still, I wouldn’t have called her. Now, if she had called you, then you had an hour conversation when you’re away and you can’t see each other, cool. That’s fine, because she initiated.
…but towards the end delved into her telling me that because of her past trauma “she didn’t think she was mentally ready to feel this way about someone yet and wasn’t ready for a relationship.”
So, that right there is the tell. In poker, that’s a tell. That’s a tell that you fucked up. You shouldn’t have called her Saturday night, because the cake was in the oven baking, you got worried and you freaked out. But also, don’t get wrapped up in what she’s telling you. Let me read that again. She says, “because of her past trauma, she didn’t think she was mentally ready to feel this way about someone yet and wasn’t ready for a relationship.” So, that’s how a woman communicates, “I’m feeling a little smothered.” Because, remember, you reached out to her and were talking for an hour. You shouldn’t have done that.
I reasserted what I had previously said about not caring about a relationship and that I simply enjoyed her company, and whether it ended in a relationship or not, I was happy either way.
And so, on some level, she’s going to be going, “Oh, really? Well, what do you think of this silence?”
She then kept on about how whenever she feels this way about someone, she tries to find something wrong and distance herself from them to protect herself from getting hurt.
This is normal. This is how kitty cats think and operate. Don’t get butt-hurt, don’t get upset, don’t get mad. If you want to curse at somebody, curse the big man upstairs. Obviously, the Christians would say that you shouldn’t do that. But at the end of the day, this is the way women are. I’m just here to tell you how it is and not to flip out.
I then asked her if she needed space.
Come on, man.
And she said yes but wanted to stay friends.
You were doing great up until the first time she backed away. You were like, “Hey, you need space, okay?” It’s like, “Yeah, let’s be friends.”
I shot down that idea and in a roundabout way said, “romance, or no deal.”
Good job. But you see how quickly things can go sideways. Remember, he’s getting all wrapped up in her emotions, which he shouldn’t be doing. If he’d had just let her be, he would have probably never had that conversation. She would have probably called after a few days and gone, “I miss you. I can’t wait to see you again. Oh, I can’t wait for you to get back, baby.”
I ended that phone call by telling her that whenever she felt she had “healed enough” to progress things along to hit me up.
That was a great way to phrase it. It was a good save, by the way. The best kind of save in the position.
It’s now been 4 days and I haven’t heard from her, and I don’t plan on contacting her unless she reaches out to me.
Bingo. It might be a week, it might be a couple of weeks, it might be a month. You don’t know. When you see her at work, you can be like, “Hey, babe.” Be sweet, wave to her, go about your business. Remember, James Bond. Nobody should know that you guys are hooking up at work. Even if people come up and say, “I heard you were dating,” you’ll be like, “What? Hmm? I can either confirm or deny these rumors, and besides, gentlemen don’t kiss and tell. And, even if I were, I wouldn’t tell you.”
I struggle to understand where I went wrong.
Well, I just pointed that out. That was the one mistake that I can point out.
How can things go from being so good to needing space in the span of 48 hours?
Well, you suggested space, you dummy. That’s not in the book. You never suggest breaking up. But you violated the principles, pretty simple. I don’t expect you to be perfect. I mean, you’re doing great, mostly. But don’t get wrapped up in her emotions. Don’t act like it’s the end of the world, which is what guys think.
The thing to recognize for yourself and anybody else that thinks this way is what’s your go to? When the shit hits the fan, what do you do? “Oh, it’s the end of the world! She’s not going to like me. She gonna dump me like the rest.” Think about that. That’s your mindset. And so, the way to get rid of that mindset is time and repetition, successful repetitions. You want to catch yourself, and you didn’t catch yourself when you started feeling that way after not hearing from her for one day. Your go to is, “Oh my God, she doesn’t like me. It’s over. She wants space.” And that forced you to fall under the The Illusion of Action.
I know for a fact she’s not talking to any other guys, and her son’s father is out of the picture, so it couldn’t have been that. I maybe initiated 20% of the text exchanges and the rest was her.
Well, quite frankly, if she’s inviting you over every single day, you shouldn’t be texting her at all. There’s no reason for it. It’s still too much. The idea is to get to the point where women just kind of slowly pick the ball up and start running with it, and you just let them be.
Now, what happens with most guys is they’re excited in the beginning to do that, and after that they’re together in a relationship long-term, the guy really stops courting her, in essence. And then, the women want his attention even more because they recognize he’s changed. He’s not like he was in the beginning. But guys that are really super into the woman start chasing. They become the woman, and they chase her right out of their lives.
In my mind, I didn’t over-pursue.
Well yeah you did, this Saturday. That was technically overpursuit. You shouldn’t have done it. You should have just let her be. I mean, it says right in the book, there’s a chapter on kitty cats. I think it’s the chapter, “Women Are Like Cats.” There’s a chapter that says that. You missed the lesson. This is why I say read the book 10 to 15 times.
You have all this time you spent with her, and when you don’t take the time to read the book, that’s what happens. You start doubting and second guessing yourself. And then your negative mindset creeps in there, and then you violate the principles in the book, and she tries to friendzone you, talks about space. It can happen quickly. Your game’s got to be tight, so I say 10 to 15 times. People don’t listen. All I can do is gently lead.
And I kept everything light and casual, despite her dumping her past trauma onto me unexpectedly during the second date.
You should take that as a compliment. It shows a high level of trust and respect for you that she felt she could share these things with you in confidence.
I followed your advice to the letter…
No, you didn’t.
…and still somehow things went south.
Well, I mean, you see how quickly you can screw up.
Should I have stuck to only seeing her once a week for the first 2–3 weeks like you teach…
Well, that’s not actually what I teach. If you knew the book, if you had read it 10 to 15 times, like I say, you would have understood that once the woman starts pursuing you, you just set the next date. That’s why the whole book is designed to go at the woman’s pace. This particular woman is going really fast. Most women don’t go that fast. But if you understood the philosophy, you would have handled it much better.
…instead of going over to her place frequently, despite her being the one inviting me over?
But again, it says right in the book, if it’s her idea, then go for it, bro. That’s where guys get themselves into trouble is when they try to do that. Then the woman feels smothered and she dips out.
Did the frequency of my visits communicate that I was looking for more than I was maybe letting on about?
No, the only problem was the Saturday phone call talking for an hour where you initiated it. So, what happened is, women are like cats. The cat started backing away, started going, “Oh, I don’t know. This is weird. I’m getting the feeling I’m overwhelmed.” And if you had done nothing and let her be for two or three days, she would have had all those emotions, processed those emotions, had conversations with her mother, her sisters, her best girlfriends, maybe her next door neighbor, or her grandmother, or whatever.
And after three or four days, she’s like, “I haven’t heard from him. What’s he doing? I miss him. I miss him so much. Why doesn’t he call me? Did he forget about me? Did he meet a woman on the trip? What’s he doing? I don’t understand. I’ve got to call him. Hey!” Then, when she reaches out, “Hey, babe. It’s awesome to hear from you.” One little fork in the road, chase or not chase? And you went down the road to chase.
I appreciate your response and thank you for your work. Despite the failure, I know I wouldn’t have made it this far without it.
Bob
Like I said, it was really the Saturday thing, but I don’t think it’s the end of the world. You handled it. As you were backpedaling, you were knocked off balance, but you regained your composure and said, “Hey, get in touch.” You let her be. You told her exactly what you needed to. It was a good recovery on your part. So, now you do nothing. You’ve understand it might be a week or two before you hear from her, but if you see her at work, smile, wave, go about your business. Don’t go over to her, let her come to you.
You’ve got to let women come to you. What happened is you started to chase the kitty cat, and the kitty cat freaked out, like, “I’ve got to get out of here!” Just let it go. It’ll come back when it misses you. She’ll be back. I’d be surprised if this woman doesn’t come back after all that time. But, like I said, you’ve got to understand your own mindset, dude. You self-sabotage without realizing it. So, when things don’t go well, you’ve got to catch yourself. Because your mindset is going, “Oh my God, it’s the end of the world! I’ve got to fix something!”
So, lean into the book. You should be reading the book 10 to 15 times, and you could be also going out on dates with other girls. Because she basically said “it feels like a relationship,” so you’re a free agent still. But just don’t tell her about it. Don’t let her know. And spending time with other women will be helpful to you. It’ll help you do the right thing. You can grow that emotional muscle to do the right thing.
So, if you’ve got a question or a challenge and you’d like to get my help, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen and book a coaching session with yours truly.
“Women are like cats. Men who understand this know that sometimes women become confused, too comfortable and need time and space to process their feelings and emotions away from their men, especially during the initial months of the courtship. Men should just let women be and know that the kitty cat will come back when it misses home. It can’t be forced. Chase a cat and it will run away. Leave it alone and eventually, it will come back, sit in your lap and start purring. Like cats, men must let women come to them at their own pace.” ~ Coach Corey Wayne
