A Little Lesson in Playing Hard to Get

I have never really been good at the whole dating thing. Well, maybe not dating – I rock on first dates and have been told by many a-man that I am quite the kisser — more the patience part of it. I have a tendency to get super excited, super soon. A common case of falling too hard, too fast. I sit by my phone/computer willing the boy to communicate with me in some way.

By Lauren

An IM?

A text?

Something.

And when it doesn’t happen, I jump into action. A cute text message here. A hilariously witty email there. I am not being crazy or stalkerish; I am just being cute. Giving him something to fall in love with.

I never really questioned my actions (even though every book on earth tells you to play hard to get) until I found myself on the receiving end of the “cuteness.” I met a guy online and began IMing with him. We had some good conversations through AIM, so when he asked me for my digits a few days later I obliged.

So, he called. And he called again. And he texted. And he sent me Facebook messages, IMs, emails, more texts. They were clearly attempts at being cute (“We are in a fight”, “Did you forget about me?”), without success. They were not funny or witty; if anything, they made him look completely pathetic. Did he have nothing better to do than sit around and wait for me to call? Didn’t he have friends, or something else to occupy his time?

And why couldn’t he get a damn clue? I was clearly not responding to any of these poor attempts (and hadn’t in over 3 weeks); was he that dense that he just couldn’t take a hint (lit up in neon lights)?

Turns out, I was the one being super dense. I was literally lying in bed typing an adorably witty text message to a new boy I was crushing on when I saw that I had received one…from the stalker. Which is when I realized (about 3 years too late) that I was a stalker! Everything started flooding in and I finally saw that my oh-so-precious messages were not making boys fall in love with me; they were making boys run away from me.

That whole playing hard to get thing really does work. The whole coming on really strong thing does not.

It was a hard lesson to learn – and expensive, due to the incessant texting – but it was definitely worth it. I have since been playing it cool (even if it takes a whole lotta will power to step away from the phone) and it is working like a charm.

The stalker, on the other hand, sent me another message this morning. He, too, is a bit slow on the up-take, but hopefully one day he will meet someone who will enlighten him.