Are you hating your dating life? With these five tips for meeting men in real life, you can master the meet cute and transform your dating life into your favorite romcom.
Stop worrying about what to message him? Is that possible?
No more typing it out, then deleting it? Or (worse) sending then deleting that WhatsApp message to him? No more anxiety over him reading the message but not responding? Those two blue ticks...
No more wishing you’d somehow come across as cooler, more confident, sexier?
Life really is too short to be spent googling, "how to flirt with a guy over a message," or "he hasn’t text me back in two days." This blog is about emancipating yourself from this energy sucking cycle of worrying about what message you're going to send to him.
Let’s start with the basics. When you’re in the "what should I message him??" cycle you’re already losing. What’s implied in this mindset is that you feel the interaction is fragile: You’re worried about losing his interest, and become self conscious about how you’re portraying yourself.
Either way, it’s somehow on him to choose you.
It’s your responsibility not to lose him.
So am I just telling you to "be yourself"? If so I know what you’ll think, "well that’s great Hayley but every time I try to really express myself to a guy it goes BADLY wrong, so what am I supposed to do?"
I get it. If you’re not having the experiences you want with men, it’s natural for you to prompt yourself to think about what you could do differently and better.
My advice is that what you want to do differently and better isn’t to delete an emoji or only put one kiss not two at the end of the message. The thing you want to do differently isn’t the detail of the message: it’s your mindset, your dating strategy and your self esteem.
Let’s look at how a shift in each of these key areas would naturally change how you go about messaging men.
Mindset shift:
"I’m not here to perform, impress or show how great I am to someone else. I am not being judged. I trust that I am worthwhile and that the best people for me will recognise this."
In my course Attraction Circle I call this the "treasure chest ritual", it’s all about stepping away from any time you find yourself trying to prove yourself to him. I mean this specifically for the early stages of dating.
This could be sharing a link to that piece of work you’re really proud of, what outfit you’re going to wear later, or a piece of poetry you wrote (that last one I have actually done by the way!!)
Instead I want you to come from a headspace where you trust that you have all these great qualities within you. You share them with your friends: But you don’t feel a burden to prove them to him. Share occasionally, but keep your gems to yourself until you know him better.
And if he creates a negative judgement around you, then it’s not your obligation to change his mind, it’s your choice to let him go.
How this translates to a shift in your messaging style: You give less to each interaction. In the early days, you share less, and leave more mystery between you.
Strategy Shift:
"I’m not going to focus too heavily on one guy too early on. I am focused on creating abundance for myself."
We’ve all been there: After months of wandering the dating desert you meet a guy who seems perfect for you, and suddenly all your focus is on him before you even get to know him.
This can lead you down a rabbit hole of analysis paralysis where you sense check every move you make so as not to "put him off" and forget that choosing him is a process that takes a long time. You may also brush off other men you meet during this time, and suddenly become attached to needing this relationship to work out.
Give less.
Keep your mindset tuned into creating abundance. When this comes to your messaging you may explore getting to know multiple people at once. That doesn’t mean you have to have 5 boyfriends, but you may want to chat, meet up with, and go on dates with more than one man at a time.
Primarily, you also want to keep focused on all the things that made you feel happy and secure before he came along. That could be nurturing your friendships, building solo plans for yourself, or keeping up your hobbies.
So rather than driving all your effort into forming a connection with this one guy, maintain a network of connections in your life. Don’t over share with him too early on.
How this translates to a shift in your messaging style: You focus on the people who matter most, and he doesn’t make it onto this mental shortlist until you’ve built more of a connection with him.
Self esteem shift:
"I don’t need to know everything right now."
When you are checking up on his social media, or when he was last online, this could be driven from wanting to KNOW everything about him early on. You might also want to know how your relationship with him is going to turn out.
And again I understand why. If you’ve been hurt before (who hasn’t) of course you want to skip over the `discovery’ phase and just get to the punchline: Is he, or isn’t he, a potential partner for you?
However, as infuriating as it is, you can’t get to that information any faster by monitoring his messages. Instead of trying to "game" the perfect message to send to him, I want you to think about how his communication style is suiting you.
Are you enjoying the pace this is building at? Is he making you feel secure? Does communication flow easily?
These are more useful questions to put to yourself than worrying about what to message him.
How this translates to a shift in your messaging style: You are more self accepting, and see how he interacts with you as a natural filter to whether you’re compatible or not.
It would be easy to tell you "follow my scripts for messaging men," but in doing so I’d just be reinforcing the idea that how you naturally want to express yourself isn’t good enough.
Instead when you get into an incredible headspace around dating, you will NATURALLY become a more powerful communicator with the men in your life.
Right now you may be sweating it out as to what’s the "right" way to message someone you like. However, when you focus on the small stuff ("was that emoji too much?") you take your focus away from the big stuff that actually matters:
- Does communication flow easily between us? Or am I only happy presenting an edited version of myself?
- Am I giving this interaction space to breathe? Or have I accidentally moved them into poll position in my life?
- Do I need to chat to them all day before we’ve built that connection IRL? Or am I over giving because I want to keep their interest?
- Am I messaging them related to how well I actually know them? Or have I got caught up in first impressions?
- Am I allowing myself to have fun and be playful in a way that’s authentic to me?
- Am I rushing to get to a conclusion about "what this could be" or am I going with the flow of how things unfold?
- Am I trying too hard to show them how smart/ sexy/ available I am?
- Do I really need an answer to everything right now? Or can I just sit with this?
If you’re stressing over that last message you just sent them, don’t. You’ve got bigger, brighter and more interesting things to focus on.
Next steps
If you’d love to learn how to date in a way that boosts your self esteem and keeps you motivated, take a look at my brand new programme "Attraction Circle!".
