Signals from girls can be difficult to read

When you read lay reports or field reports where players write about their real-life experiences with girls you could be forgiven for thinking that pretty much all game approaches end either in flames or in glory with no in-between at all.

That is, either the guy walks up and, after a little cheeky banter, the girl is cooing and all over him. Or she blows him out in such a bitchy manner that he is afraid to show his face in town for the rest of the month.

In truth, though, there is a middle-ground between these two eventualities – a middle-ground that manifests more commonly than any of us would like.

Between passionate acceptance and savage rejection there is a vast, blurry landscape filled with luke-warm signals. Girls who kind-of-sort-of-seem-to-like-you-but-not-really. Girls who are sort-of-seeing-some-other-guy-but-maybe-not-and-she-may-be-around-next-week-for-a-coffee-but-maybe-not.

Welcome to the great ‘grey area’ of game. An insufferable quagmire of bollocks, fuelled by the false hopes of men and the prevarication and desire for attention of women.

The difficulty with this space is that often guys quite like being in it – particularly when the girl is very attractive. In that case, many a man would prefer to languish in uncertainty and doubt rather than to be told in no uncertain terms that the girl definitely doesn’t want him.

But as Rollo Tomassi once wrote, ‘the medium is the message’. And the hard truth of the matter is, if, after a reasonable amount of time (not very long) she won’t come out on a date with you, or won’t come out on a second date with you after an inconclusive first, then you must accept that she isn’t interested in you and move the fuck on.

Look, I’ve been there. I’ve been in-thrall to that diminutive hottie who seems to promise everything but actually offers nothing.

I’ve been there.

And it’s never ended well.

Game is all well and good. But as has often been observed, you can’t convert a no girl into a yes girl. The most you can hope for is that you convert a maybe girl into a yes girl. But a problem arises when you mistake a no girl for a maybe girl.

Now to be fair, girls themselves are not helpful in this regard, since what she wants more than anything is attention. And that being the case she would rather give the impression – for a period of time – that she is a maybe girl rather than giving the game away.

But here’s the thing. You are the guy, and therefore it is down to you to determine whether or not this is going anywhere. You can’t leave it up to her.

You are the one who is giving out the attention, and you should be the one to decide whether and when to pull back. Indecision and prevarication are unmanly and will do nothing to improve your chances.

As a rule of thumb I will give a girl three chances to come through – whatever that means in the context of the particular stage of the interaction we’re in.

So, I will give her three chances to respond to texts, three chances to come out on the date, three chances to come home on me (on separate dates). And if, after those three chances nothing tangible has happened, then I will back off and direct my attention elsewhere instead.