How do you guys do the "no contact" thing?

Post Reply New Topic

So there was that girl I met on a dating site. She has quite a few reservations about us dating. In particular we live in different states, she is Adventist I am not, and also she doesn't like my negative talk. However, when I asked her "did you decide not to date me" she says no she didn't make up her mind one way or the other. We typically talk once or twice a week. When we talk, its for one or two hours or even more, so its a good sign. But between those conversations she hardly messages me at all.

In any case, what happened few days ago was that she didn't message me for a couple of days so I asked her what I did wrong. She said she was just busy but then she mentioned that when she told me she went to dentist she expected a sympathy but instead I started asking her whether or not its a sin to pull the teeth which she doesn't think it is. So then I told her how I do feel sympathy I just don't always express feelings. She didn't reply to this. So then a couple of days later I asked her whether the reason she didn't reply is because my explanation sounded like I won't change when I actually will change. She said no she was just busy and then asked me how was my trip to visit my mom.

And this brings me to the topic of this thread. So I felt like the reason she asked me how was my trip was basically because I begged her to talk to me. So I didn't want to feel like she talks to me just because of that -- and I decided not to reply. Then, a couple of days later (that is, yesterday morning) I again received a text from her asking how was my trip, to which I again didn't reply. Then today she sent me yet another text asking about the trip AND asking if I want to chat this week. So I finally replied and told her about a math assignment I was super far behind on -- which is the truth -- and now made a conversation less focused on me but more focused on both of us.

Now here is the question. You see, even thought I REALLY wanted to do the no contact thing for like a month or so, I couldn't, since I don't see how I can totally ignore that really direct question about chatting this week that she asked me over on the third text. I guess if I take any girl other than her then yes I would have been able to stick to the no contact, since all those other girls avoid me anyway. But in those cases its not really no contact: its more like NEITHER of us talk to each other. The way I picture the no contact is when a girl messages me once or twice and hten I totally ignore her. So what would you do when she messages you the third time? Or are you saying that "no contact" dating advice was more applicable to the former types of girls that just don't talk to you?

Wait, what are you trying to achieve? Not replying to someone for a month will more likely than not see them give up on talking to you and try to find someone else, especially seeing as you've never met and you live in different states. What are you even trying to do?

Agreed. That was a really sh*tty thing to do.

I don't see how somebody can keep on complaining that no girl is interested in him, and then behave like this.

The "no contact" advise is something I read on various websites and youtube videos. I agree with the two of you though that this advise made no sense -- which is why this is the very first time I attempted to do that, despite the fact that I been hearing it for many years.

I guess the reason I attempted to do it was more of a defense mechanism than trying to accomplish something since -- like you said -- there is no common sense way to expect it to attract someone (despite what those sites are saying). And the way it can be a defense mechanism is that it can counter-balance all those times when I was being ignored by doing ignoring myself for once. If I had a real prospect of commitment in near future I certainly won't do that. But she seems wishy washy and saying she won't commit until we meet in person and, at the same time, when I suggest meeting she is like "no need to hurry I know its expensive". So with this kind of wishy washingness it doesn't seem like a lot to lose.

But, regardless of the motive, now that I am on the topic, I want to understand what those sites were saying. Two obvious questions are:

1. How did those websites expect the guy to carry out this advice? In particular, what would those websites suggest I say to a girl when she tries to contact me the *third* time (like she did).

2. Why would those websites expect the girl to regain interest after a month of no contact? Are they saying she has no life and no other guys and will just sit there and wait or what do they think? I mean yes, those sites talk about a month or even two months.

I guess I never asked those questions before since -- like I said -- I never really took it seriously before. But now that it finally got my attention, lets ask those questions.

Those websites are sh***y.

Okay, now that I think about it, thats not entirely correct. Here are some examples where I did that before:

1. So my first ex was treating me like a little kid. For example, I mentioned to her that I like to take random buses to explore the city, and she didn't give me a key to her appartment since she was afraid I would take a bus from there. Which is not true: I told her I take buses from my own place when I am by myself, not from hers. Also she would have me follow her to the grocery store and not really interact with me or ask me what to buy, kind of like little kid follows their mom. Luckily, I happened to have transferred schools after we were dating for 8 months (no it had nothing to do with her, it was entirely academic). She was planning to come join me few months later, and I basically viewed that as a disaster. I mean when I was in the previous school she was like two hours drive from me, so she would drive all the way to my place, pick me up, and drive me to her place. Now if she were to move to where I was transferring to, she would basically stay at my place and I would be stuck with her. So what I did was I stopped replying to her phone calls and emails, and I lied to her that my battery at the phone acts up and all the computer centers are closed for the summer break (just to clarify, that was 2004, so I didn't have my own laptop back at those good old days). She broke up with me two months later. And then I took it personally and got all defensive about it.

2. As you guys might have gathered, I am rather long winded. Most of the girls don't have enough patience to respond to my lengthy emails, much less write lengthy emails of their own. But there were a few girls that matched my long windedness (well, REALLY few, from the past few years I could count them on my fingers) and I was super-excited to talk to them. I mean I totally LOVE when a girl sends me a long email, I take it as a sign that she cares about me. But you see, I wanted to make sure to reply to everything they said, every detail. So I would reply line by line. But I wouldn't just write a line for each of their line, instead I would write a page. So if their email is already, say, 3 pages long, then my reply would be 30 pages long. Well, as long winded as I am, I write 5 pages, not 30 pages. But I didn't do that math, so I actually tried to go ahead and do the line-by-line thing I just described. Then, after I spent like three hours and only got through small part of what they wrote, I would put it off to finish it later (I would email to myself the part that I already wrote). But since I was busy with my school work, I kept postponing getting back to that reply, so I never actually wrote them a reply. One thing I "could" have done was to just send them whatever I have, or even send them a separate email saying I am still working on that reply and then just ask them how they are doing and stuff while I was still working on it. But it never occurred to me to do it. So I simply didn't send them anything at all. Then when they lost interest I started protesting and telling them how I will do what I just said from that point on and wanted them to give me a second chance, but they wouldn't.

3. There was a girl that was also sending me the long emails but -- unlike those other girls I just described -- she wasn't talking "to" me but rather she was talking "at" me. Meaning she would just ramble about her own life even though I never said/asked anything about it. So I would just tune her out. But it wasn't a conscious decision. It was more like I wasn't thinking about her. But then at some point it occurred to me "hey, I first met her on a dating site, didn't I? So why don't I try to date HER, clearly she is interested since she is sending me all those emails". So then, in fact, I responded to one of her emails and asked her if I still have a chance. She invited me to come visit her place and in fact stay there for two days (she was far away) so I did. But then it didn't work out for a different reason. I brought physics with me to work on it, so I spent the first day of those two days doing physics but then, after that day was over, she told me she specifically took that day off from work due to my visit and I just blew it by doing physics. So then I wanted a make-up, which she said I still had a chance at -- namely the next day -- but I felt like it wasn't good enough, since she didn't take the next day off the way she took off the previous day. So then I lost the temper over it, and she rejected me for throwing that temper tantrum.

4. There was a girl who approached me in a math class back in 2005. But then when she learned that my mom shelters me she said she only wanted to be friends. Her reasoning was that if sheltering is what I expect from someone I date she can't handle it. But she was wrong: even though yes, my mom shelters me, I don't like it, so why on earth would I expect the woman to do the very thing I don't like? In fact, this girl came half a year after I ghosted the girl I described in part 1, and the reason I ghosted the girl in part 1 is precisely BECAUSE she treated me like a little kid which I didn't like. So if girl number 4 thinks I like this, then why on earth would I have ghosted the girl number 1? In any case, the girl number 4 was open to talking about it, but the way the conversation went put her off so then she said "if you want to meet and hang around its fine but I don't want to talk about this topic I am done talking about it". Now, we were meeting each other in the morning every day. So then I didn't show up for the meeting the next morning we were supposed to have. She kept calling me and asking me what was going on. I pretended to be sick and made a sick voice and told her I am at the library where we were supposed to meet -- but I wouldn't tell her the place of the library where I was at, I just kept saying I will come to where she is -- but actually I wasn't at the library, I was at home. I enjoyed having her call me every minute worried asking what was going on. But, after 10 minutes of this, I just turned my phone off. Then I came to the library few hours later, and she wasn't there any more. There were few ohter times when I acted that way towards her but they weren't as obvious. Like for example one of those times I was supposed to come to her appartment in the evening. So I came to the library where she was in order for us to go togher to her appartment. But I wanted to see whether she would "remind" me thats where we were going. So I walked a bit faster than her, and was walking in front of her. Since she didn't tell me anything I then just walked off in a different direction. All in all she just kept getting more and more distant until eventually she said she was going "up north" for the summer and would get back to me, and I never heard from her.

5. If a girl falls into one of my deal-breaker categories and/or if I start dating some other girl I would stop replying to her. I guess that doesn't really count though, everyone does this.

But in any case none of these examples fit the calculated no-contact thing (with intention of attracting someone) these websites seem to describe, so my question still stands

It makes perfect sense not to want to commit to anything until meeting in person, like committing to an exclusive relationship before you've even met the person is a lot for most people. Also, she may just be avoiding trying to rush you...and that is why she said it can be expensive so there is no hurry. Have you tried to actually make concrete plans like set a specific date and time you could meet up with her? There is the possibility she is not truly interested in pursuing things with you but if so you will find out soon enough.

If you're interested in her though I certainly don't recommend just ignoring her for a month, then she'll most likely assume you've ghosted her and move on.

I think the idea of that advice on those websites is they are assuming the woman will more or less come crawling back. Like ignore them for a month with the assumption you're so important to them, that when you finally break silence and talk to them again they'll be even more all over you and wanting to do anything for you to stick around. Or something to that effect, but I could be wrong we shall see if any other posters have ideas.

Also, I think most women are more likely to get pissed off about being ghosted...and then want nothing to do with the guy if they hear from him again later on, than they would be to want to pick things back up.

Actually I been in a long distance relationship that lasted for two years (from the end of 2012 till the end of 2014). So I was in India at that time, doing postdoc, and the woman I met online was in Nebraska. I came back from India to the US in June 2014, but I went to Mississippi (for a visiting position at that university) so I was still far away from her. We only met twice: once in July 4, 2014, and the other time in Thanksgiving 2014. Yet this didn't stop us from talking about future marriage -- and she was even saying "I do" every time she would end a chat in order to express how much she loves me. But she broke up with me after that thanksgiving visit.



Here is the deal. I don't want to fly to her just for the sake of meeting her since, yes, its too expensive. However if I can find a physics conference near where she is, then I would combine the conference with visiting her. I done that before. I used physics conferences as an excuse to come visit places where I want to go anyway. For example, I always wanted to go to Minnesota and Michigan because of nostalgy (those are the schools I used to be a student at over a decade ago) so I found physics conferences at those places and went there. Incidentally, this girl happens to be from Michigan, which is what got my interest to begin with.

Be it as it may, different areas of physics are really different from each other, so I can't go to just about any physics conference -- it has to be a physics conference relevant to my area of interest. Well, my area of interest is pretty obscure so nothing is "too" relevant. But I guess it has to be in a general sub-field in order not to look completely silly. So for example with that Michigan visit few years ago, I *wanted* to visit University of Michigan (which is where I used to be a student) but I found a conference in Michigan State instead -- so I had to then take extra few days after the conference to visit University of Michigan. With Minnesota, however, I "did" in fact find the conference at the University of Minnesota -- which is the exact school I used to be a student at. But still, notice how I only had this kind of luck twice within past few years, so I can't get too optimistic.

As far as what I told that girl, I told her exactly what I just told you right now, with those exact examples. But she ignored everything I said about the conferences and just reiterated her concern about this being expensive.



But this idea assumes that the girl is super-interested in the guy on the first place. But that contradicts the entire context of it. I thought the context was that the girl was NOT interested, and the guy was given a "no contact" as a strategy to change her mind. But now you are assuming she was TOO interested?

Okay, I guess to be fair, I can recall examples from my life when *I* was the one acting the way that supposed girl was acting. In particular, I wasn't interested in a girl because she had some of the deal breakers but then when *she* rejected *me* for reasons that have to do with my Asperger *as opposed to* her own shortcomings -- then I suddenly became interested just to prove myself. So are you saying those girls are sort of similar to that?

I mean if I look at my own experience then there were plenty of times when *I* fell an urge to prove myself, yes, but I don't remember any examples when I got someone else to try to prove themselves to me.

You do the "no contact" thing by having .... no contact.

You do want to talk with her? You don't want to talk with her?

It's not like she's bitten your head off, you're just a little slow to take a hint.

Your priorities now are either

a) you would like to learn how to be supportive.

b) you need advice on a public forum on how to manipulate this woman.

Now, think very carefully about how you would like this relationship to unfold, you're laying the foundations right now, so do it fair and square with the person who wants to talk to you.

I would just talk to her.....frankly.

Forget this "no contact" crap. It's a stupid game.

Could you please explain this?

Do you think it's a sin to pull a tooth? What's that about?

As someone who attends church and someone who needs a tooth pulled, I'm befuddled.

If you really were on a site that said not to talk to her for a month to somehow make her want you more, I have no idea where they might have been coming from. That just seems stupid to me.

The closest thing I can think of that would be good advice is not to appear too over-eager, like if you message someone and they don't respond for a matter of hours, don't keep blowing up their inbox trying to get them to respond to you, or if you're the only one initiating conversations, just stop and see whether the other person will initiate, and if not, you'll know you're dealing with a one-sided correspondence.

Anyway, I've always disliked the idea of long distance relationships. It's more difficult to judge what the person is really like in real life and you miss out on or are extremely limited with aspects of a relationship which makes it less fulfilling. You can rarely or never go on dates, cuddle, do anything intimate, spend time together in person, etc. And on top of that, you have to eventually agree on where to live, and if neither party are willing to move to be with the other, the relationship is doomed from the start.

Face-Timing on a smartphone pretty much solves most of those problems nowadays.

The Bible talks against tatoos and body piercings because these are permanent changes to the body. So removing wisdom tooth is a permanent change to the body as well, which makes me wonder if it is likewise sinful.

Apart from that, if you take a sin that doesn't involve permanent changes to the body, you can always repent of it. But if you make a permanent change to the body, you can't undo it. Thats what makes it seem so serious.

Also the possibility that microchip implant (which is yet another type of permanent change to the body) is the mark of the beast makes me think along those lines as well.

UPDATE: So, as I mentioned, when she sent me that third text she asked me if I wanted to chat this week. I didn't reply either yes or no. Instead, I answered "how have you been" question by telling her that the professor assigned lots of homeworks for the whole semester (instead of giving weekly deadlines) so I only solved two problems and I was half semester through, so I was trying to catch up, and this week I did 3 more problems so now I have 5 of them done, but I still far behind the goal of getting to the 30 (by the way, this is 100% true). She said she was sorry I was so far behind and wished me luck. She also told me she was busy herself, going to the meetings for her job as well as going to the gym. Then we talked about the gym briefly, and then she said she had to go to bed.

Now, the above conversation was two days ago. I didn't hear from her between then and now. So I am wondering how do you interpret it. Is it

1. Even though I didn't say yes or no to whether I wanted to chat this week, she interpreted my talking about the homework as a "no" so she gave me space that I wanted

OR

2. She wasn't interested in me to begin with -- as evident by the times she was silent for a few days BEFORE I ever tried the "no contact" thing. The reason she messaged me three times in a row is probably because, prior to the "no contact", I confronted her as to why she was quiet, so she wanted to avoid similar confrontation. Perhaps she suspected I was testing how she feels about me -- and since she knew of my insecurities -- she felt sorry for me so she "did me a favor" by sending me those three messages that presumably I wanted (but she didn't). But now that she realized that I was "not" testing how she feels but, instead, I was busy with my homework, she was like "oh good, I am glad he has his attention elsewhere and will leave me alone", so she stopped messaging me.

OR

3. Before the no-contact thing, one thing she mentioned was turning her off was when I kept complaining to her about my social interaction problems with people whom she doesn't even know and was using her as a therapist. Sure, I haven't done it in the conversation after the "no contact". However, I did something else that is similar. When I talked about homework, that was negative, wasn't it. And one thing she said she didn't like about me talking about social situations is, again, that its negative. So since she was tired of negativity altogether, me talking about the homework simply reminded her of what she was tired of (even though I haven't talked about homework prior to that) so that again pushed her away.

What is your opinion?

Last edited by QFT on 18 Oct 2019, 1:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.