How and when to respond to a girl texting back before you do on a first date?

[perpetualsun]

Hey everyone,

Recently had an issue come up that seems minor but has tripped me up a bit. I normally follow Chase's strategy that after a first date without escalation I would just say goodbye, leave, then the morning after the date, text saying how I enjoyed the coffee meet, etc... However, I've had a few cases now where the girl would text me the night of the same day we met. So, for example, we might have met at 5 or 6 pm, then she texts back at 9 pm saying something to the effect of "thanks for coffee, great to have met etc etc"

Now, I normally just text back the night of, saying "hey! same here, you were very pleasant to talk to!", then around noon the next day ask for another meet. This, in my mind, seems a bit too eager on my part. On the one hand, I don't want the girl to go into auto-rejection, but at the same time it seems too fast for me to be texting something too early. Additionally, I have had a case where I waited until the next day to acknowledge the text she wrote, and by this time, she appeared to be much more cold and she lost interest.

Could anyone give me input what might be optimal times to respond back to a girl texting "she enjoyed it, etc etc" before I do? Thank you!

 

[Franco]

Re: How and when to respond to a girl texting back before you do on a first date

perpetualsun,

Now, I normally just text back the night of, saying "hey! same here, you were very pleasant to talk to!", then around noon the next day ask for another meet.

From my experience, responding that same night (or the next morning if she sends it really late at night) the way you did is completely fine. I might re-word it a bit to sound less platonic (i.e. "hey! I had a great time with you too, Jenny "), but I usually respond in a warm way that lets her know I'm not ignoring her or didn't like her.

However, I almost never ask for the next date the very next day. I almost always leave at least 2-3 days in between contacting her again so that you can gain some mental investment from her -- that is to say that you give her some time to think about you and wonder about you and whether or not you want to see her again. If you immediately contact her again the next day, not only does it remove that mental investment, but it can also come across as her being the best investment of your time out of everything else you have going on. If you're a high-value man that has lots of beautiful women lining up to date you, why are you so eager to see this girl again so soon?

So, with that in mind, I would continue replying the same night like you have been. If she contacts you first, that's actually a really good sign that she at least enjoyed the date with you, and it's usually an indicator that she would like to see you again. But, I would experiment this time around with letting a few days pass before you attempt to schedule the next meet. Generally, I've found that girls are much more warm and excited to get a text from you 2-3 days after the first date because they've been fretting and wondering whether or not you were going to contact them for another date, and when you finally do, it gives them a huge burst of positive emotion. That burst of emotion can often translate into a second date. =)

- Franco

 

[perpetualsun]

Re: How and when to respond to a girl texting back before you do on a first date

Wow, thank you Franco, as always such a great and hard-hitting post!!

I forgot to add that in some cases after my text back to the girl, instead of the girl being silent for the next few days, they start asking random questions (which I think is an attempt by them to see if I am still into them or their need for validation). The questions range from: "Hey how was your day" to "Hey you said you lived in new york before, where do you think I should live there?".

In this case, if I were to ignore them for 2-3 days do you think they might fall into auto-rejection or would it still be fine? Thank you again!!

 

[Franco]

Re: How and when to respond to a girl texting back before you do on a first date

I forgot to add that in some cases after my text back to the girl, instead of the girl being silent for the next few days, they start asking random questions (which I think is an attempt by them to see if I am still into them or their need for validation). The questions range from: "Hey how was your day" to "Hey you said you lived in new york before, where do you think I should live there?".

If the girl does this, it probably means she was into you! So definitely not a bad thing.

If she starts asking me questions, I don't ignore them if I can help it. I'll answer them; however, I usually take a long time to respond to them -- anywhere between 3 to 8 hours -- so that she gets the idea that I'm still a pretty busy guy. But if you ignore the texts entirely, then you certainly run the risk of sending her into auto-rejection.

Just make sure to answer questions sparingly and don't have "text chats" (as I like to call them) with the girl where you're sending a ton of texts back and forth in a small period of time. As long as you're avoiding those, then you should be fine. =)

- Franco