- Joined
- Nov 8, 2020
- Messages
- 15
You've done everything right from your view so far. Being warm in the initial interaction. Dropping an icebreaker text, and then, accounting for individual differences, riffing on your texts going forward.
An issue that pops up time and time again is the question: She doesn't pick up - and instead asks "what's up" - now what?
It's important to account for the difference between the bashful, apologetic "sorry I'm in a meeting" girl vs the "everything ok?" kind of girl. The path forward is much more ambiguous because it's an ambiguous statement. Maybe she's nervous, maybe she really is busy. The irony here is if she picked up the phone you'd be able to gauge her reasons for doing this.
Now my experience.
The first kind is easier to handle. I usually text them to lmk when they're done, or I simply call later. No biggie. More often than not they get in touch - however I've had a few that convert to another kind: the topic of this post - the call-avoidant type. I've had a few girls that straight up stated they did NOT want to talk on the phone for (insert flimsy reasoning) followed by restating their "whats up"? I've been riffing on approaches since I've not seen much discussion of this scenario on the boards. A few approaches that come to mind:
1) Hanging back in silence and calling later. Maybe half success rate. At which point the courtship process (if unsuccessful) turns a lot more gamey/ flakey from the girls side. I like this one a lot when it works, but it makes things really unpredictable when it doesn't. I've occasionally managed to turn things around with a ping weeks later if I'd connected well with the girl - but again, total chance.
2) Telling them to call/ text when they're free. I favor this approach somewhat with the apologetic types - even if the girl takes a long time to respond they often apologize when getting back in touch. Less gamey when things fail, perhaps mirroring on their half, since the 1st option involves me ignoring their question. And yet, it still feels wrong. Depending on what stage of courtship we're at, it can destroy momentum if she happens to forget a day or 2. And then the phone-call becomes a big deal for her, and she converts to a call avoidant.
3) Switching to text instead. I've not tried this more than once - my gut instinct and (general wisdom) on the boards tells me that it's a bad idea all round. In my sample size of 1, the girl was slow to reply then got flakey on the details of the date.
The consensus seems to be even if a girl doesn't pick up, she'll be glad you tried to call anyway. Maybe this is more true for girls you've had little time to make a strong impression on. But what about social circle girls? Acquaintances? When I think back to my courtships, I'm sure there's a correlation between age and call-avoidance too.
My stance as of now: It tends to polarize early-courtships in a weird way. Causing upticks in flakiness where the above scenarios play out. Some that I'm sure would not have happened if we simply stuck to texts.
The times that a girl picked up have always gone over amazingly well for me. But seeing how polarizing it seems to be, I'm not sure if it's worth it for girls I'm more interested in.
What's the board's experience with this?
An issue that pops up time and time again is the question: She doesn't pick up - and instead asks "what's up" - now what?
It's important to account for the difference between the bashful, apologetic "sorry I'm in a meeting" girl vs the "everything ok?" kind of girl. The path forward is much more ambiguous because it's an ambiguous statement. Maybe she's nervous, maybe she really is busy. The irony here is if she picked up the phone you'd be able to gauge her reasons for doing this.
Now my experience.
The first kind is easier to handle. I usually text them to lmk when they're done, or I simply call later. No biggie. More often than not they get in touch - however I've had a few that convert to another kind: the topic of this post - the call-avoidant type. I've had a few girls that straight up stated they did NOT want to talk on the phone for (insert flimsy reasoning) followed by restating their "whats up"? I've been riffing on approaches since I've not seen much discussion of this scenario on the boards. A few approaches that come to mind:
1) Hanging back in silence and calling later. Maybe half success rate. At which point the courtship process (if unsuccessful) turns a lot more gamey/ flakey from the girls side. I like this one a lot when it works, but it makes things really unpredictable when it doesn't. I've occasionally managed to turn things around with a ping weeks later if I'd connected well with the girl - but again, total chance.
2) Telling them to call/ text when they're free. I favor this approach somewhat with the apologetic types - even if the girl takes a long time to respond they often apologize when getting back in touch. Less gamey when things fail, perhaps mirroring on their half, since the 1st option involves me ignoring their question. And yet, it still feels wrong. Depending on what stage of courtship we're at, it can destroy momentum if she happens to forget a day or 2. And then the phone-call becomes a big deal for her, and she converts to a call avoidant.
3) Switching to text instead. I've not tried this more than once - my gut instinct and (general wisdom) on the boards tells me that it's a bad idea all round. In my sample size of 1, the girl was slow to reply then got flakey on the details of the date.
The consensus seems to be even if a girl doesn't pick up, she'll be glad you tried to call anyway. Maybe this is more true for girls you've had little time to make a strong impression on. But what about social circle girls? Acquaintances? When I think back to my courtships, I'm sure there's a correlation between age and call-avoidance too.
My stance as of now: It tends to polarize early-courtships in a weird way. Causing upticks in flakiness where the above scenarios play out. Some that I'm sure would not have happened if we simply stuck to texts.
The times that a girl picked up have always gone over amazingly well for me. But seeing how polarizing it seems to be, I'm not sure if it's worth it for girls I'm more interested in.
What's the board's experience with this?
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