Isn't it difficult to tell when a guy is serious? Isn't it hard to decide when you are ready to be intimate with him, without getting dumped into a category of fwb's? I read an interesting blog post on how a woman can be sure that she is in an exclusive relationship with a guy, to know when it becomes safe to be intimate without losing him.
First I searched for how long to wait with sex in order to know that a guy is committed first. Can you put a time frame on it? Apparently, men put women into two categories, which is a public secret: the FWB's and the girlfriend material. You want to be the latter. To be in the latter, you have to postpone sex until you are officially his girlfriend. But when can you be sure? What are the signs? Or do you need to ask him?
Asking him is not a good idea for plenty of reasons: 1) it kills the mood, 2) it makes him think that you already want to tie him down, while all you want is to know where you stand, 3) he doesn't know the answer yet and he will say something like 'of course' while the reality is different.
You delay sex and intimacy out of fear of being put in the bad category, which is necessary but can be quite nerve wrecking. If it takes months and months and he keeps seeing you as just a friend, you should probably bring up the talk.
But in the meanwhile you can certainly look for the good signs. Let me talk about the inadequate signs first, the signs that seem like you are getting exclusive, but that are actually tricks used by certain types of men to only make you believe like you are a couple.
- spending loads of time together
This is not a guarantee that anything is becoming exclusive. Friends and family spend a lot of time together. It can be over in a few weeks or months and then he will spend a lot of time together with someone else.
- having lots of talks
Talking is also something that can be done with friends and family. I am not saying talking is a bad thing, the more talk the better, but it is not a sign of exclusivity. A lot of men love to repeat the same stories over and over and over and get into philosophy, politics, art... Watch out for these types, the type that circles around these worldly topics to avoid having to ask about the two of you.
- doing chores together
This might seem like a nice way to get to know each other. He shows you the kitchen, the garden, his office, and he puts you to work and you get the feeling like you are helping to build the nest... Just... don't.
- helping each other
Your car broke down on the way home and your new guy comes after you to fix it for you. Nice, but, not enough to call it exclusivity.
- amazing, spiritual sex
Sex will be the main topic in this post, and no, having sex together does not mean exclusivity at all.
- meeting his children
His children probably live with him, so he doesn't have a choice.
- travel together
This is a big step, and it can be a lot of fun, but obviously he can travel with anyone.
- getting gifts
Boy oh boy have I received gifts. Thousands and thousands of euros have men spent on me. It's a serious red flag: overcompensation for the fact that he knows he is not serious, or trying to woo you into bed.
- getting engaged
If a man asks you quite quickly to get married, you should be very careful. He has no patience and just quickly want to 'win' a good wife without thinking about who she might be, how she feels. These men can be the most dominating, and the worst cheaters.
- talking about you to others
He tells you that he spoke about you to his family and friends. You feel flattered and desired, part of his life. But sadly, you have no proof. What exactly did he say? Everyone loves to boast about how they met someone, but did they really talk about you personally and how much they love you and want you to meet their friends and family? The only proof is if you have actually met his friends and family, which I will explain below.
I went through all of these things with different men and I kept seeing the same patterns quite often. With these specific guys, the ones that didn't want to commit to me, I was never called their girlfriend. My boyfriend of three years, however, did. He called me his girlfriend in front of colleagues, family and strangers.
I also never met the parents of these man. That is another red flag. Meeting the children is usually unavoidable but meeting their parents is a very conscious thing that you do. You have to drive over together and introduce each other, and be approved of. Two men instantly introduced me to their children who lived at home, and they showed the exact same symptoms of a man who doesn't want to commit: they over-compensated by talking non stop about eating together with the children and eventually meeting his mother but in the end those things never happened.
Talking about the future is not necessarily a bad thing. I didn't put it in my list because bad guys don't actually ever talk about the future. If he talks about the future with you at the right time, and at your initiative, it's a pretty good sign. Many f-boys and users won't go so far as to actually give you false hope and expectations because then they will feel like they need to show results and they hate that. They want to keep it as easy as possible.
TIPS
How to know you are exclusive
Simple, he has introduced you to his family, friends, well, everyone, as his girlfriend. There are basically witnesses. Anything that only stays between the two of you, could be a lie. Anything good on top of this is great: spending loads of time together, talking about the future... It already implies that you have spend a lot of time together before you can meet his parents. See this as the milestone before you even consider opening your legs for him.
Don't have sex before you are in an exclusive relationship
So, like I wrote, don't have sex with him until you are officially his girlfriend. Don't worry about his sexual needs. As long as you just met, he could be on dating sites, and yeah, he might be sexually starved and you could give him mind blowing sex, but that won't lure him in. He will put you in the bad category. Let him have sex with his bad category. Why should you care? As long as you are not performing any sex on him, you do not risk STDs. Meanwhile you prove to him that you are serious with him and don't go to bed with just any guy. Trust me, I love sex, I love freedom, but the hard sad truth is that men do not respect women who are easy to get in bed. The liberal in you might be afraid of losing his interest if you don't put out, but you need to silence that voice.
Don't have oral sex. You will come accross like a woman who does this with every new guy. And isn't it true? And aren't you lucky you still have no STDs? And if you do this with every guy after only one month of dating, and imagine you keep seeing other men because you decided to wait with sex with "the guy" til its exclusive, but you have sex or oral sex with all these other guys, imagine what happens? Even if you don't have sex with other guys, a man can still think that you do, because you did it with him before you were even sure he loves you. And not having sex with "the guy" is the perfect justification to keep dating other men, on the condition that you also don't sleep with these men.
Meanwhile, you can kiss, cuddle, hug, but try to stay out of his bed. Cuddling can get you very arroused which can seduce you into sex. Also, don't drink alcohol with him. Seduce him with a hint of lingerie, a sexy lipstick, or flirting, but don't get into situations where it's hard to resist sex.
Throw everything back at him
Is he distant? Then you be distant. Is he not texting? You don't text. Is he calling himself lazy? He's doing it to make you believe he has a character flaw, but in reality he doesn't want to do anything with you. Red flag is when he is a hard worker, but in his free time he is a couch potatoe who never does anything with you.
Keep seeing others
But if you have s known each other for a few weeks up to maybe 6 months and things keep developing, it's worth to keep delaying sex. So what about these months, why waste all this time if the relationship might still not be exclusive in the end? To not end up frustrated if he ends up saying that he does not want an exclusive relationship, whether you have sex or not, because you could have spent that time with better men, you need to actually see these men too, keep dating, because as long as you don't feel like it's a real relationship, you have the right to do so. Don't meet up with FWB's if you have any. If your date happens to waste your time, you definitely don't want to waste more time on guys who only want sex. It is exactly the thing you want to avoid with the new guy: end up as FWBs....
Let him take initiative
So, he said you are welcome anytime but still you find yourself always having to invite yourself or propose things to do. Red flag! Take some distance and see if he ever takes the initative to concretely see you. Just because you do a lot together, doesn't mean he took the initiative. Men who are emotionally unavailable will avoid taking real initative, to avoid having to blame themselves if they regret being with you. They will always let you decide, and might tag along, etc. Waiting for you to get into their bed, if they expect you to put out, like someone from a bad category would do.
I know how it feels. It can feel extremely nerve wrecking to not text him first, to show that you want to meet up, or to lose your patience and get so scared that you end up taking initiative once more. Well, this fear is a bad sign, and if you into it, you'll never face the reality: that he is not making an effort. Imagine that, after 3 days waiting since your last date, he hasn't texted. It feels tempting to text write? I mean, it wouldn't hurt just to ask how he's doing right, without asking to meet up? Wrong. Because the text itself is also an initiative. A simple text from hím to ask how yóu are, that is what we want.
Good things come to those who wait. The first couple of days he'll be waiting for you to take the initiative, as always. He'll wonder why you haven't texted back. He'll get curious. Did you lose interest? Are you busy? Have you met someone else? Do you not like him anymore? It will challenge his mind in a way that it will increase your value, without even doing anything! Well, it's not nothing. It takes a lot of courage to not text a guy, to put him aside for yourself. We invest one of the most precious things a woman can have into men: TIME. And a man who doesn't make an effort, does not deserve our time. It's much better invested in ourselves then. So pick up the courage, take your mind off him and continue exercising, reading, working. Once you get busy, you'll forget him for hours, days, and he will actually become less important to you.
And think of how amazing it will feel when you get that text after a week. It's the best feeling ever. Some men can really touch your heart with some simple texts. They surprise you every time. That is the feeling you are looking for. If nothing comes after a week or two, then you should also be relieved, because he is clear that he doesn't fancy you. Just be sure, you could send him a simple "what's up", just to know if everything is alright with, that he was not in the hospital, for example. If he doesn't respond to that, I would give him a call. If that doesn't help, then I would leave it at that and forget about him forever. If you know some of his friends, you could ask how he's doing, and if he is doing well, I would forget about him, because he has clearly forgot all about you. It could be a serious red flag that he has another girl on his mind, or several.
I give it a wide span of one to two weeks for him, because he is probably already used to you taking all the initiative. Don't start thinking that he just doesn't want to be pushy and that he wants to be polite and let you decide as always. Because, if he did exactly that, he should start to worry even faster if you stopped taking your usual initiative and should be texting pretty soon. If you see each other twice a week then he should text within a day or three or four. Chances are greater that he is not taking initiative because that wouldn't carress his ego as much as when you do it. And the worst case scenario is that he just forgot about you for a week and then remembered to finally take initiative.
Know the difference between a useful idiot and a desirable woman
If you want him to make you his girlfriend, you will have to be desirable to him. Now, make sure you don't become a useful idiot instead of a desirable woman. A useful idiot has sex with him, is always ready to meet up, is the nanny for his kids, buys him gifts, complements him, books holidays for you and him, etc. A desirable woman has a confident appearance, takes good care of herself and her looks, doesn't let his behaviour decide how she feels (even reading this blog might mean you care too much about him already), she will be poised, distant, put herself first, spend time on her work or studies, and will let him take the initiative. Don't expect him to treat you like a queen. During the first few months, you already have to behave as if you are a queen. Not a diva. A respectable woman who puts herself first.
The story of Erika + an experiment
A girl I know, let's call her Erika, has been dating a guy for a month. It's a bit special because of the lockdown. They met just before and decided to keep seeing each other since they both have a lot of free time and because the lockdown might otherwise get lonely, and also because they like each other. They see each other three times a week. After two weeks, the guy got panicked and sent her texts that he wanted to stop it all, that he didn't have feelings for her, and didn't feel a hunger for her like he expected. My friend was very hurt, since she had not really done anything to get him into a relationship. They had just met and talked, played pingpong together and cuddled in the evening. She didn't understand. It was him all along who showed his house, introduced his daughter, took her to the supermarket on the second date for groceries, and told her to buy whatever she wanted (overcompensation!, look how warm I am, look how open I am, look how honest and inviting I am!). A guy rushing everything first and then pulling his tail between his legs is usually an emotional mess, but don't throw away the child with the bath water, I guess.
After a week of feeling sad, smoking too much and crying, she missed him and sent him a happy birthday message and apparently he had missed her. He invited her back over. She was relieved and happy but became quite wary of him. She had seen he was on a dating site, so she would definitely wait with intimacy. In total, three weeks had passed, not much, but they went for walks with the daughter and had lots of fun. He told her how happy she was that she was there. But one night, she went too far and they fondled and had oral sex with him because he would be very passionate once they were alone upstairs. Although he told her how he felt a lot more calm now that things were developing more steadily and more maturely, she became anxious that he might then have lost interest, so she became more distant again.
I adviced her to keep delaying the actual sex until this is a relationship. After one month in total, she met three of his close friends at his house who were clearly impressed that their fried could get a beautiful woman like her. It definitely increased her self esteem. When she left the party, he was the one to kiss her on the lips instead of the cheek. Yet his behaviour was obviously not optimal yet. He didn't actually took the initiative to invite her over. She's the one to suggest. It's impolite and a little humiliating. Definitely not enough to deserve a woman's time and intimacy. On the other hand, no one can take initiative if you are first and take away their chance to do so. This why it can be interesting to wait to let him take the initiative.
I adviced her to always tell him to send her a message, because he always told her to do it. Now she will have to do what feels so uncomfortable to her: she'll have to wait... This is a nice experiment to see if oral sex can make a guy lose his interest. Also, Erika will need to stay clear from his bed and try to build down the intimacy. This is a nice way to "throw things back at him". Anytime the guy becomes too physical, she can say something along the lines of "Weren't we gonna let things grow steadily?". It will make him realize that sex for her is part of a serious relationship, and it will remind him to consider that. Although I don't like the "what are we" talk, I think in her case, with the guy already having sort of broken up with her once, Erika will soon have to ask him something along the lines of "I know you said you wouldn't grow feelings for me but afterwards you were so happy to have me back, so would you like to let things get more serious after all?". And it's a very good idea to emphasize the "have me back" phrase, it sounds a bit dramatic in the sense that, with the way he had treated her, she would have been gone forever if he had not invited her back. And this talk is important in this case because more than a month has passed and she needs to have at least some perspective, after all, he told her before that he wouldn't grow feelings, then two weeks later he introduces her to friends, kisses her on the mouth, takes her for walks in his neighbourhood and tells her how glad he is to have her back. Talk about confusion! If this was just a normal developing bond, then I would not suggest having that talk.
The talk shouldn't be so serious that it would make him feel like he has to commit already. It should just show whether he wants to keep things growing. And it's definitely still not enough to speak of an exclusive relationship. Remember, Erika will have to wait until she is introduced as the girlfriend to his parents, other family and friends. Everyone! I am sure there are some guys who would even rush into this big step just to get her in the sack, but it's highly unlikely if you fell for a somewhat decent man with a heart. A lot of men will drop out of the race if they have to introduce you to their family in exchange for sex. This is where modernity plays in our advantage: so many women are putting out too fast that men don't even have to introduce them anymore to their family. If a man does this now, it's a huge symbol!
So we have decided to turn this into an experiment. Erika will have a quick chat with this guy to see if he changed his mind, as he made it seem, and she is going to be more careful with anything physical. She will throw anything that he used to slow down emotionally, back at him, to slow down sexually. It's only fair. She will postpone sex until they are so close that she has met his parents. We will then see how this relationship developes and, if negative, we should conclude that oral sex is indeed a bridge too far and cannot be fixed anymore, that it puts you automatically in the bad category, or if, by waiting enough afterwards with any more physical activity, his mind wil be erased and he still wants to keep seeing her and grow feelings for her as she regains her self-respect. Erika will not send him texts again, she'll wait for his, even if it takes a week or two.
Erika ended up sending him one text three days after the last time she saw him, just to ask how he is doing. He didn't send her anything back. I adviced her to wait another three days and to then send a follow-up text with something short to see how he is. She sent him a goodnight message then. Again, no response. I told her it was over, he was not interested in any of her texts. She couldn't understand why he was like this, but she did know he had warned her when he said he didn't have feelings. At least he had been honest, and her gut feeling was right when he made a 180 degree turn and started to invite her again. She decided to return him something the day after without saying anything. He invited her in and she refused. The look on his face had been very cold. She told him she wouldn't come in. Good on her! Erika made the right choice by not trying anymore with this man. Although this story is quite sad, I congratulate the man for his initial honesty and Erika for giving up on him early. A man like this will only want to keep you around for sex. It is very valuable that Erika never gave him that and got out of this nightmare before she did.
On a side note, I know what this man looks like and what his situation his. He was a lot older, a chain smoker and had a lot of bagage. He was not exactly desirable. I knew Erika could have anyone, and it was sad to see her like this. She was caressing the ego of an emotional monster. I could understand how it was so easy for her to resist him. I warn women that this self protective strategy is a lot harder to use when a man is actually very desirable. These men are a lot better at manipulating women. I once chatted with a divine looking man who for some reason told me that he made girl walk on a leash in his appartment as a form of sex game... He even said he found it boring... It is amazing what handsome boys and men can get done... And it's frightening. It was probably the girl's idea, to please him, and I don't mind pleasing a man, but this type has 10 girls on every finger and will only choose a decent girl in the end. They say that 80% of all women go after 20% of all men, but these men will put 95% of all women in the bad category and the other 5% in the bad category. The 95% women who got dumped end up with the other 80% of men, so some end up alone or don't want any of those men.
The important lessons learned is that, if you want true love, you should wait with sex until he truely invests in you and until he has made you officially his girlfriend in front of his parents and friends. There is no other guarantee.
NEW UPDATE: Erika didn't text him at all anymore after their cold meeting at the door. But guess who texted first after three weeks? That's right, the guy. But he proved again to be too cringy to date. He asked how she was. First of all, he asked way too late. Seemed to me like he was just worried she wouldn't like him anymore and maybe to check if she would invite herself over again and be his bait again to get into her panties. Or maybe he was bored again during lockdown. He mentioned nothing about the painful moments before: he didn't care about her... Erika was, of course, not impressed at all. She responded as if she was happy, asked how his daughter's birthday was. The idiot responded that it had been a good party but that there was no cake left for her. Jeesh, how inviting... Erika rolled her eyes, realised what a dumbass he was, and stopped texting him. He was then so "kind" to mention that he was alone for 3 days. She then définitely didn't respond. So you see, it was just another excuse for a low key booty call. He didn't even make the effort to invite her... she had to invite herself, it seems. Good thing she didn't. He belongs in the red district.
After a couple of weeks, she had forgotten about him almost completely, glad how she wasn't his girlfriend, with all the drama and his bad character, boring stories, mediocre cooking, chain smoker's breath and old ass. The old sap was getting a bit too old to still learn how to treat millenial ladies, I guess.
0 Yorumlar