If A Guy Hasn’t Finalized Saturday Plans by Thursday, Am I Wrong to Make Other Plans?
- Dating, What Men Want
Recently, I went on an amazing four dates with a guy who was objectively handsome, intelligent (three Ivy league degrees), and in a successful, well-paying job. We had excellent chemistry, he was initiating our once-weekly dates, in contact with me via phone/email 2-3 times a week, I was sitting back and mirroring, and I thought everything was going smoothly. After our fourth date on a Saturday night, he immediately asked for a fifth date though he did not specify when that date would occur. He called once more that week and we talked about how great the fourth date was, but he did not specify plans for a fifth date. Eventually Thursday evening rolled around and I still had not heard from him. I wanted to make plans for Saturday, so I went ahead and did so with some friends. When I let him know that I had made plans (I also noted that I enjoyed spending time with him and I was looking forward to going out again), he basically sent me a tersely worded email expressing his disappointment and I haven’t heard from him since.
So, should I have made myself more available to him? I considered keeping my Saturday evening open in the hope I would go out with him, but he hadn’t locked me down, so that’s why I went ahead and make plans. Does mirroring imply keeping myself available so a guy can ask me out up until the day before the date? To me that felt inconsiderate, but to him, he might have been upset because he intended to ask me out, but I had already made plans. I’m very torn on this and I’m not sure how to handle this scenario in the future.
Melinda
Yeah, this is my concept of “mirroring” run amok.
Sorry about that, Why He Disappeared readers; it’s a LITTLE more nuanced than “do nothing.”
Even if a guy is confident, masculine, alpha and interested in you, that doesn’t mean you act indifferent towards him. Which is exactly what you did when you made other plans on Saturday night although he’d already intimated that he wanted to see you again.
Even if a guy is confident, masculine, alpha and interested in you, that doesn’t mean you act indifferent towards him.
So allow me to reiterate once and for all: the purpose of mirroring — which is to say, reacting to his advances instead of making advances of your own — is to avoid chasing the cute guy. It is for anxious, insecure women who always find themselves propping up relationships with ambivalent men by texting, calling and making plans.
Your situation, Melinda, was different. You have a guy who’s seen you four times, who asked you out for a fifth date, who followed up by phone just to connect afterwards, and whose biggest crime was not confirming/nailing down a time for the date itself.
Looking back, don’t you think you would have gotten your fifth date if you’d texted him on Thursday, “Hey sexy, just wanted to confirm we were on for Saturday night. A girl needs a few days to plan what to wear! XO.”
I sure do.
Believe it or not, men don’t play games. They’re interested or they’re not.
This guy was interested in you. And because you didn’t approach him directly with a perfectly reasonable question shoring up your plans, you ended up alienating him.
And if you’re confused about the difference between confirming plans and initiating plans, here’s what it looks like when a woman reaches out to a man out of insecurity that she’ll never hear from him again:
“Hey, Bryan, I haven’t heard from you in awhile. When am I going to see you again? How about a picnic on Sunday? Hope to hear from you soon…”
Believe it or not, men don’t play games. They’re interested or they’re not.
Weak, needy, insecure, desperate — all the things that the first “Hey sexy” text is not.
Long story short: Men don’t play games. You shouldn’t either.
Sorry you had to learn the hard way.
By the way, there’s a great video about this in Love U, called “The 2 Exceptions to Mirroring.”
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