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After discovering I could get women to chase me, I’ve collected some priceless stories. But is that really how I want to talk about my future girlfriend or wife? With stories of how I got her to jump through all of my hoops?
Of course not. The kind of woman I want to spend the rest of my life with won’t jump through those hoops. She knows doing so won’t get me to pursue her.
Because if I am interested, I will pursue her.
If I am not, I won’t.
It sounds simple. But if everything in life was as simple as it sounded, birth control would be 100% effective, every person on the planet would be a master at parallel parking, and the girl knocking on the door to your Vegas hotel room would actually look like the girl on the card.
I allow myself to get chased because it is amusing, and my ego (among other things) always appreciates a good stroking. But when that special woman, with a twinkle in her eye and a deceivingly innocent smirk on her face, lets me know that I’m not going to catch her so easily, I take off after her while the other girls fade into the distance.
There’s something about the chase that excites me. Maybe it’s the curiosity I have when we make eye contact for the first time. Maybe it’s the thrill I feel when I see her on that second date and have to imagine how sexy she must look beneath that dress. Maybe it’s the tension and anticipation I sense, knowing how badly we want to rip each other’s clothes off, but not knowing if we will reach that point.
Or maybe it’s the risk I take by making myself utterly vulnerable to her, because this chase is far from easy. She stays just outside my reach, subtly letting me know she wants me to catch her, but I have to try a little bit harder. She wants me to prove that I see the same value in her as she sees in herself. She won’t settle for less than the best, and the best does not give up until he has exhausted every possible effort to be with the woman he believes he deserves.
I used to think women should do some of the chasing, that we both need to “invest” the same amount of time and effort. I lived by that belief for three years after my last serious relationship, and of all the women who have done some of the “chasing,” not a single one has caused me to think, “wow, I want to be with her.”
Three women come to mind:
I met Sara in a bar, and we hooked up that night. Two weeks later, she came over, and we hooked up again… just before I sent her home, so I could go downtown and party with my friends. She stuck around for the rest of the year. She was convenient, because if she was going to chase me with that kind of enthusiasm, I knew she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Eventually, she did express interest in seeing me outside of the bedroom. That was the end of her.
I met Kelly when she was working. Later that week, I invited her over. She came over again every week for the next three months, rarely making an effort to get me to chase her. She simply showed up at my doorstep whenever my schedule allowed. She eventually stopped returning my calls and later told me she did so when she realized “we” weren’t going anywhere.
I met Hannah during a weekend trip to Hollywood. She was feisty, a trait I absolutely adore in women. I wanted her, and I was going to do whatever it took to get her. After a few weeks of trying to get her to open up, we hit it off. We spent hours on the phone every week for months. I had never clicked so well with someone. Then she came down to see me for the first time since we met. Suddenly, I felt she was into me more than I was into her. That feistiness was immediately replaced by a desire to chase me, instead of letting me chase her. It was over. I had won. And from then on, I became more and more complacent, until my feelings faded to purely platonic.
Sara, Kelly and Hannah all fell into the “If I am not, I won’t” category. When each of them made it clear that the chase was over, any interest I thought I had in them disappeared. If they had stopped chasing me, nothing would have been dragged out, unnecessary emotions would have never been involved, and the pain I know they felt would have been lessened.
It always feels good to be chased, but I understand now that it only feels good to my ego. On a deeper level, it’s not satisfying to know that I didn’t have to work for it, that the most time I had to invest to get a woman to chase me was the 30 seconds it took to introduce myself. To me, the most valuable things in life require hard work and a considerable investment of time.
Now, I’ll know what to do when that one special woman does rear her head.
Well, unless she already did…
I met Ramona in Vegas. She had a fiery spirit I can’t draw myself away from. But, more than that, she had the nurturing maternal instinct that I fall for.
And I did. I fell hard.