The Best Mental Attitude for Winning with Men

Lesson 23

Men pull away and suddenly lose interest in the women they date. It happens. And although women tend to do it to men as well, it’s something that women are more likely to struggle with due to the fact that men are the gatekeepers of commitment. This is the reality, and a more sobering reality is that men will never truly understand how much it hurts you when they lead you on (whether intentionally or unintentionally) only to dismiss you unceremoniously or disappear without a trace.

But even though this is the reality, as a woman, you still possess an immense amount of power when a man begins pulling away from you. And this power comes from one very simple thing: the meaning you give to the situation.

The meaning you give to a man pulling away will determine how well you handle the situation. It doesn’t matter if he’s just begun to lose interest or if he’s already disappeared off the face of the earth. The meaning you give to these scenarios will determine just how successful you are at pulling a man back to you or recovering from a dead investment.

No guy you’ve been dating for just four weeks should be able to completely obliterate your self-esteem by going ghost on you (especially if you didn’t have sex with him). You may feel disrespected and even a bit miffed, but once you don’t attach a negative-meaning to the situation, your self-esteem should remain intact even after your short love affair with him has ended. Of course, if your boyfriend of two intense years begins pulling away from you, that’s another story. But even in the face of an impending break-up with a long-term beau, placing a negative-meaning on the situation will render you powerless when you attempt to pull him back or recover from losing him.

Give yourself (and your love life) a fighting chance by learning how to develop an optimistic attitude towards men and dating. Doing so will actually stop you from falling into bad dating habits that ultimately drive men away. For example, let’s say you’ve just started seeing a guy, we’ll call him Mike, and on your last date Mike seemed a bit “off” or “not all there” with you in some way. While it’s natural to wonder what could have changed the “vibe” between you and Mike, what you don’t want to do is over-analyze the situation until you stumble down a rabbit hole of negativity.

In this scenario, Mike could simply be dealing with a stressful situation at work or in his family, something totally unrelated to you, that could be affecting his ability to focus on you at the moment. The worse thing you can do in this sort of situation is make it all about you by attaching a negative-meaning to your interactions with him during this time. Instead of thinking that he’s already losing interest, potentially seeing another woman, or about to disappear without a trace, try to relax into your femininity and quiet the “mean girl” inside your head that likes to make you feel miserable when things aren’t going your way.

That chattering “mean girl” can easily turn an iffy situation into something much worse, especially if you allow her to affect your behavior when interacting with Mike. In reality, Mike is just having a really hard time at the moment and will probably be back to his normal attentive self within a week or two. What he might need from you is the guilt-free space to work out whatever issues he’s dealing with, or if you’ve been dating him for awhile, he could probably benefit from some of your unique brand of ‘proactive love’ (something I discuss at length in my book, The 7 Irresistible Qualities Men Want In A Woman).

So instead of allowing yourself to spiral the moment things are looking uncertain with a guy, try to focus on the power you have in that moment and whether or not the issue is something to actually get worked up for. If a man has been calling you, taking you out on dates, as well as respectful and sincere with you, yet all of a sudden there’s a change in his attentiveness, don’t immediately make it about you. Be kind to yourself and stay positive so that you don’t end up making things worse by becoming a burden to him when all he really needed was some guilt-free time and space to sort some stuff out.

Of course, if it turns out that he is losing interest in you, refusing to attach a negative-meaning to the situation will give you the calm, confidence, and clarity you need to either implement the dating strategies that can draw him back to you or get you off that sinking ship so that you can make room in your life for a man who can’t get enough of you.