You’re awesome!
I bet if a man was lucky enough to form a relationship with you, that you’d be an amazing partner. However (and this is a big one) he may never get that far unless you know how to communicate the right values around yourself- verbally and via massages. We all know how valuable being a great communicator is: it’s what makes the difference in building great friendships, progressing in your career, and yes being attractive to men.
Note:
Attraction really is all about how you communicate who you are and what you’re about. It’s not a dress size, a date of birth, or a hair colour.
Put simply: you can have all the right `stuff’ (be well presented, kind, smart, funny etc) but if that isn’t coming through when he interacts with you, he may miss out on what makes you awesome.
An area that I see letting women down, time and time again, when I’m coaching them, is how they communicate who they are via the messages they send. And being honest here, who hasn’t dissected the message they’re thinking about sending to a guy with a group of girlfriends on WhatsApp?
So I thought - hang on, this is an area I can really help with! Knowing what are the right messages to send a guy should be an easy win for your dating life. So to kick start this series of blogs I thought I’d share a few sneaky insights into messages that may feel right at the time, but that you should avoid sending to a guy you like.
1. The epic long WhatsApp takedown
If a guy has been messing you around, I do understand that it can feel satisfying to point it out to him. This usually takes the medium of a long WhatsApp message, where you show that you understand what demons he’s facing, but make a stand that he’s not for you anymore.
Now, I am all in favour of you making a stand for yourself - but how many times have you written a poetically crafted WhatsApp message to him only to feel disappointed by a lame response from him, or no response altogether?
Sometimes we write messages like these as part of our process of letting go: however, be careful that deep down your motivation isn’t to elicit a reaction from him.
Remember also that you are always better saving the thought/ care/ time/ energy you put into that message for yourself.
2. The ????
If you’ve been left on reading or a guy seemed super keen to meet after your last date, then tumbleweeds, I can get the feeling of frustration. You feel like you’ve been lead on. (There’s actually a lot of other stuff going on here - you can read about it in this blog).
So when you’re staring at the space you may be tempted to send a ? or even a ??? to express your anger and confusion. You’re trying to say, "Hey buddy, after all, you said earlier this week, the least you can do is reply to this text!"
Dating is hard because sometimes we meet people we really like, and because we like them so much, we want to push for the conclusion we want. It can be hard to accept that just because you’re looking for a serious relationship, and just because you’re really attracted to this person, doesn’t mean these two things go hand in hand. With love, it’s important to know when to go with the flow, and things that are `meant to be’ (read: workable) don’t need to be forced. Often when we force things, whilst temporarily we may get the reaction we want (they reply to our message etc.) long run the other person is unlikely to turn out to be the one for you.
3. The `I’m totally cool with this really’ message
If a guy you like hasn’t messaged you, or you’ve had a falling out, it can be very tempting to race to make it up with him. You may find yourself constantly writing out, deleted and re-editing messages trying to find exactly the right tone. You may also be in fact pretty upset by his behaviour, but spurred on by not wanting to lose him, you race to reassure him that everything is OK. Sometimes you might do this by sending an innocuous, chit-chat message to him to re-start the conversation and sort of signal to him, `I’m actually totally cool with everything.’
Like so:
Jul 6th
Him: I need more time, sorry.
You: You know what? Forget it!
Jul 14th
You: Hey, so how did that big meeting go for you today?
Whilst this might get him to respond because he feels like you’ve accepted whatever you may have disagreed on; rolling over and collapsing your boundaries to somehow keep him in your life is getting dating back to front.
You don’t find a man you like, then try to push for a committed, loving relationship, regardless of his enthusiasm for one. You find a man that you like, and as he invests in you more and more, you allow your attraction to him to grow.
4. The push him away message
I want you to start to become very mindful of ensuring that your actions and words line up. If you make a threat of something via message, but then don’t follow through on it, it’s hard for him to take your boundaries seriously.
Also if you decide to push him away with a message that you know is only going to add fuel to the fire of the argument, whilst you may think, `well if he wants me, he’s going to have to fight for me...’ this usually works out a lot better in the movies than in real life. Regardless of whether he decides to fight for you, or not, you’re mixing up the feeling of emotional intensity with emotional intimacy.
Trust me, if you’ve seen my TED talk, you’ll know I’ve been there, bought the t-shirt!
Your relationship should feel like a calm, safe, space: not one where you’re constantly pushing him (that’s forcing it again!) to express his feelings to you.
5. The late-night `what are you up to?’ messages
Now I’m going to word this carefully, as I am the last person to tell you that women aren’t allowed to enjoy casual sex. However, if this is what you’re going for making sure that it’s coming from a genuinely empowering space, where you’re okay to get into your cab, and won’t be looking out for a message from him the next day.
When casual sex is bad, is when deep down we’d actually quite like to have something more with the man (or woman) in question but manage to convince ourselves at the moment that this is okay because:
- I already know that he’s no good, but the sex was great, so we’re just using that bit
- I’m over him
- I don’t have time for anything serious right now
- I deserve to have fun
What might be really going on is that you’re contending with some late night/weekend loneliness. You might actually need genuine connection, or to start the challenging journey of getting comfortable with being alone.
I hope this was helpful, I know I maybe being a little more direct than your friends, but trust me it’s coming from a place where I really want you to succeed, and change any unhelpful patterns that are holding you back.
And of course, soon I’ll be sharing some great messages to send - watch this space!
Love,
Hayley
