When the Chase Grows Cold

We've all been here.

You just start seeing this really amazing potential. Y'all click like a dream. You text/call each other after the date to say how much fun you had, how cute they looked, how great it blah blah blah. You start texting and calling every day - telling each other goodnight, and how you miss them, and they miss you.

You know the drill.

Then someone goes out of town, or ACTUALLY gets busy and then "wham bam thank you ma'am!"

What started out with fireworks and rainbows and butterflies and happy faces turned into minutes, hours, and days of no communication.

You're sitting there on the other end of the telephone thinking, maybe he lost my number?! Maybe he's shy and doesn't want to text me first? Maybe he thinks I'm not interested...

So.

You give them a call, they answer, they seem congenial and then a few more days go by... you wait thinking, "today he's going to call me!"

And then he doesn't.

"Today he's going to IM me!"

And then he doesn't.

"Today he's going to text me!"

And then... he doesn't

So you text him and see how he's doing.
You ask when he wants to catch up.
He asks you for a day.
You give him Saturday.
He says he has plans, but he'll let you know when they're over, and maybe you can meet up after.

Friday rolls around.

You check in with him, and he mentions his plans for the weekend without any hint of possibly hanging out with you, so you wait, thinking, "he's gonna call me after his plans on Saturday," but then Sunday night rolls around and you're left sitting there thinking, "wait wasn't he supposed to...?"

You've spent the last 3 weeks texting him every 3/4 days, and while he always responds... he never texts first.

Are you his secret charity case?

Probably.

What once began with cute pet names and telling each other, "good night love!" <--- which he started BTWs.

Has now turned into a bother that he doesn't want to shoulder.

What do you do?

I don't know the exact answer to that. If I knew that maybe I wouldn't still be single, and you'd have to read about my annoying relationship in the district.

What I do know is that you have two options really.

The cut-them-off approach or the try one more time approach.

The cut-them-off is pretty standard.

If they don't want to be cut-off, they'll say something. If they don't give two shits in the wind about it. They'll walk off silently into the sunset, and you don't want to spend the rest of you life chasing someone who doesn't want to be chased by you. If they don't make the effort to talk to you then you've just become the little red hen of dating. And nobody wants that.

The try one more time approach is also pretty standard.

But the key here - know when to fold your cards.

Ask for another chance to hang out and if the potential is interested, they'll either confirm or pick an alternative date/time. If they're not, they usually just say they're busy or they'll make some sort of lame excuse without offering up any other suggestion.

Just don't get caught up in the one more time approach because if you keep saying, "once more," or "next time" then you might start to become the creepy stalker. Just a thought.

The most important thing to remember is that you're awesome.

You deserve someone who will chase you. You deserve someone who will text/call/message/email/smoke signal you. And another thing to think about is if someone you're interested in, does these things... then reciprocate.

Don't play hard to get, because the longer you dodge their advances, the greater chance that, you'll miss out. They'll move on. And there you'll be standing in the dust of their new found relationship.

Happy Dating!