Text Flirting — What to Do When She Doesn’t

I’m usually a fan of advice based on positivity, but sometimes you need to deal with not so great situations.  I just ran into one of these last night, and I’m going to use it as a springboard for this question:  what do you do when your text flirting falls flat?

Here’s what triggered this…a couple weeks ago I went out with some friends, and met this girl Ashleigh (yes, she had the unusual spelling and made sure I got it right).  Over three bars and many drinks we hit it off, and ended up at my place that night and had fun.  You’d think it’d go somewhere…but it ended up awry.

She forgot some jewelry at my house, so I waited until the following evening and sent a quick teasing text “just found a silver bracelet…so not my style, wonder who’s it could be ;) ”.  For any girl into me, that’d work wonders.  Instead…I got a one-word text of “Whoops”.

For anyone paying attention to the rules of tempo knows that her answering my text with one word is a bad sign.  Still, we did just hook up the night before so perhaps she was playing coy.  I left it on ice for a few days and tried again.

Long story short, I used a few casual pinging texts over the course of the next week and a half.  Each time, I’d get a weak response from her.  Sometimes you need to just grin and bear that time period and keep trying, as she’ll come around.  This time, she didn’t.

So, when you’ve had a good exchange with a girl but then your flirty text is suddenly falling on deaf ears, there are a couple things to keep in mind:
1.  Don’t keep digging your hole.  It’s tempting to keep sending her more texts to try to turn it around, but any time she’s giving you weak responses, go quiet and wait to try again another day.  If you instead keep pushing, you’ll permanently hurt her attraction to you.

2.  You can be persistent…but it must be patient.  It’s one thing to text a girl once or twice a week until either she starts responding positively or you lose interest.  What isn’t cool is trying over and over again, day after day.  A good rule of thumb is this:  wait one day after the first text, then for every text that doesn’t go somewhere, wait an extra day.  So, skip one day…then skip two…then skip three…etc.  This keeps you from going into “OMG stalker territory” in her eyes while giving you a shot at turning it around.

Now, in the story I told you here I followed my own text flirting advice and it didn’t pan out.  That happens.  Just to show you another example, a couple months ago I met this girl at a downtown bar.  The first text I sent her got a lukewarm response, so I waited a day and tried again.  Still a weak response.  I waited two days, and got another so-so reply.  I then waited three days after that…and when I sent her a casual joke, I got a great reply and ended up seeing her later that week.

It turns out she had a boyfriend so we didn’t go anywhere, but by being patiently persistent, I met her and her friends out and ended up dating one of them for a while.  The right kind of low-key pursuit in flirting can work for you, you just have to accept that there’s always going to be randomness in who goes somewhere and who doesn’t.

Interested in how to send flirty texts and be successful with seeing her again? Check out this book, which takes you through everything you need to know about what to text her, when to text, and how to handle her both when she’s already into you and when you have to do some work to get her interested.

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Flirty Texts — The Emoticon

I’ve hinted at my feelings about emoticons elsewhere, and it’s time to get into them in detail.  The problem is that many men use them like women, which just doesn’t work…for anyone involved.  They definitely play a role in flirty texts, but you must use them carefully.

The first factor is the simple case of what emoticons to use.  There are a few that no guy over the age of 12 should touch, and others that can be used effectively but sparingly.  Here’s a rundown of some of the most common:

1.  :) — The generic smiley.  This is one that 98% of the time that you want to use it, you really shouldn’t.  It’s not terrible in of itself, as it isn’t as over-the-top cutesy as other smileys, but it rarely gets you anything and risks making you seem too emotional/needy.  The one time I will use it is if I’m picking up a conversation with a girl I haven’t talked to much when I got her number, or if I’m bringing an old phone number back from the dead.

Think of it this way:  the smile on your face as you send that text should be a smile conveyed in words, no symbols needed.

2.  :D — The over-the-top smiley, and all of its brother and sister smileys.  Avoid this like the plague…it’s way too emotionally reaching, and will instantly drop your attraction with most girls.  I’m being serious–it may sound minor to you, but girls will note this.  Even if her every other text uses an extreme smiley, do not use one yourself.

3.  ;) — The wink, which is the one emoticon that has a place in the player’s repertoire.  When it comes to texting, your messages have a high risk of being emotionally flat…you only have 160 characters to work with, and it’s hard to convey sarcasm and teasing well with words alone.

You may use the wink sometimes–no more than once or twice in any one text conversation–when you really need to drive home a tongue-in-cheek comment.  I save it for when I’m teasing her, and occassionally if I need to drive home a joke I’ll break it out.

The art of flirty texts is not complete without emoticons, however, they are a tool best used rarely, and only with certain ones.  The one exception:  if you break a rare smiley that no one else uses, it can have a strong effect and is unlikely to hurt you.  But again, keep it as an occasional spice to your texts rather than the main dish.

Interested in how to send flirty texts and be successful with seeing her again? Check out this book, which takes you through everything you need to know about what to text her, when to text, and how to handle her both when she’s already into you and when you have to do some work to get her interested.

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Text Flirting — A Matter of Timing

Maintaining the tempo of texting is important…but before you can get into managing your text message flow, you need to time when to contact her.  Let’s go over that…here’s the scenario:  you’ve just met a cute girl at the bar Friday night, and you want to follow up.  Do you call or text?

You’re reading this site so I’m sure you know I’m going to say “text!”, but there’s a good reason for it.  Calling a girl for your first contact is like going all in on a poker hand:  all your chips are on the table and if she doesn’t return your call, you’re probably done.  On the flip side, texting is like probing for interest…with the right first text, even if she doesn’t answer you can try again later.

Also, most 20-something women (and an increasing number of older ones) are compulsive texters, and are simply more comfortable with it than that nerve-wracking first call.  After all, as scary as it can be for a guy to call her and have to make it into an exciting talk…every attractive girl has had awful drawn-out phone talks to nowhere, and so is cautious about getting into them again.  Like it or not, all men pay the price for those who can’t handle themselves with girls.

Now that we’ve agreed on texting her, the next question is…when?  I love Swingers (the movie, for the culturally clueless ;) as much as the next guy, but the era of waiting “exactly two days” is done.  For girls that you meet in nightlife–ie. bars or clubs–I’ve found your best bet for the first text message is within 24 hours.  

If you meet her at 11 PM on a Friday, you can even send the first one as you go home at last call.  If you’ve met the girl during the day or through friends, you can safely bump that window of time up to 48 hours…but again, I would not drag it out.

I can already hear cries of “but isn’t that needy!”, so let me put this way:  playing super aloof may sound like good advice to guys who used to come on too strong to girls, but it’s a trap of its own making.  When you’ve met a girl with alcohol on the table–which is true for most nightlife and house parties–even if she was into you at the time, there’s a risk of her forgetting you quickly…especially if she’s given her number out to four other guys that night.

Instead, you’re better off sending that first text early…and starting your text flirting on the right foot.  From there, you can get more creative with your timing and content of messages.  At the same time, never forget this:  you text her to get her to meet you out, as real gains are only happening in person.  The flirty text is just another tool on the path to having women in your life, though it’s now a critical one.

Interested in how to send flirty texts and be successful with seeing her again? Check out this book, which takes you through everything you need to know about what to text her, when to text, and how to handle her both when she’s already into you and when you have to do some work to get her interested.

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Flirty Text Messages — Keeping Tempo

With the rise of flirty texting, the challenge of finding the right notes to hit when texting girls has become crucial to successful dating.  There are a handful of ways to manage your texting, including one of the most important:  tempo.

Tempo is the rhythm of your interaction with a girl.  The kind of tempo you have comes down to who texts who, how long you wait between messages, and how long those messages are.  Let’s look at an example of bad tempo, then I’ll get into the details of it.

Bad Tempo:
guy:  hey cowgirl, what’s up?
girl:  haha hey you, not much. studying, got an early exam
guy:  oh yeah that’s rough, i’m always studying last minute and rushing to get to class. especially in biology! ;)
girl:  yeah me too
guy:  so, what’re you studying?
girl:  english 201, chaucer
guy:  oh yeah I hated that guy.  way too slow reading
girl:  yeah, gotta go, getting late
guy:  oh ok, goodnight, good luck tomorrow!
girl:  (no response)

Painful to read, isn’t it?  I’ll be the first to admit that I had a conversation or two just like that back in the day, and I have a feeling that if you’re here…you can relate ;)  Let’s take a look at what’s wrong with this picture:

1.  Length of texts
At the start of the text, the girl was pacing the guy and sending texts about equally long.  Note that some of his texts were literally almost twice the length of hers.

This might sound minor, but think about it:  looking over this exchange, who wants who more?  Who’s chasing?  As much as it’s frustrating to have to play games like this, with text flirting you need to be careful not to overplay your hand early on.  

When her responses started getting short, he needed to do the same thing…or just go quiet, which leads us to the next point:

2.  The back-and-forth flow
Here the guy texted first…which is usually going to happen, at least until you’ve slept with or at least gone out with the girl in question.  There’s nothing wrong with that, but, when you text first…it becomes important to have her text last.  

In this case, he could have gone silent on almost any of her texts.  The fact that he kept trying to keep the flow going cost him, as his every text got weaker until the end when he wished her well and got no response.  He started fine, but should have stopped after she sent him the negative response of “yeah me too”, which shows she’s not into the conversation.  Anytime you sense the end coming, don’t try to prolong the texting, but instead end it gracefully by going quiet.  It gives you room to recover from mistakes.

3.  Overly emotional
I’ve said it before, but need to keep hammering this one home:  you can’t show more emotion than she does.  Here he got a good reply on his callback humor, but after that, he was the one using ! and ;) while she was sending him flat replies.

There’s a primer on keeping tempo in your flirty text messages…this can literally be the difference between a girl meeting you out or forgetting you completely, so you need to stay on top of it.  Your goal should be to roughly pace her emotional investment and length of messages, while looking to end texting exchanges on a high note–and on your terms.

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