The 'Silly' Trick Smart Women Use To Get (And Keep!) A Man's Attention
Give him the chance he desires to prove his love.
Bethany Ferr | Pexels When you first start dating, your main concern might be how to get a guy to like you, or even to fall in love with you — but the initial attraction isn't the most important part of your relationship.
Here're the 'silly' tricks smart women use to get (and keep!) a man's attention:
1. Learning how to get his attention and keep it are two separate things.
Getting a guy to ask you out for one date and keeping him around for five or six more dates requires you to understand the rules of attraction and how to maintain his interest. Too often in relationships, you want to believe love reigns supreme. You want to believe your partner has your back in every way, no matter what.
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Sometimes, that’s simply not true. After all, things can change. So if you want your relationship to last, he has to continue to chase you — even after you’ve been dating for a while.
Don’t believe me?
2. One day, he suddenly stops paying attention.
Recently, someone told me, “I don’t know what happened between us. I mean, we were happy,” she insisted. "He used to invite me everywhere. It was like he never wanted to be away from me. Then one day, it all suddenly stopped.”
I’ve witnessed this too often. Unfortunately, when you constantly make plans with him and ignore your own life, he doesn’t see it as an act of love. This behavior becomes a real turn-off. So every time she changed her plans, even at the last minute, for him, he internalized this and began to see her as less attractive, less valuable.
3. To keep him hooked, he cannot get his way all the time.
The best way to do this is to continue to stand on your own two feet, as supported by a Journal of Personality and Social Psychology study on self-esteem in relationships. Let him know you choose him, you don't need him. You are an independent woman. You have your own life in every single way.
4. You need to tell him, "No" regularly.
Because of this, you must say no to him and his requests at times. Otherwise, he feels as if you’re the pursuer chasing him, which could crush his ego and desire for you without you even knowing what you’re doing wrong.
If you're always jumping at every whim — if you're always available to go out or to meet up at the last minute or answer his texts and phone calls right away — then he feels that you're desperate. In this way, you are no longer worthy of his time, so he will begin to pull away more and more.
Before long, he won’t value your time. A Northwestern University study on attachment anxiety helps us understand why he may even begin to think you're clingy and needy and just downright pathetic. So when that text message comes through, let it sit 30 minutes or longer before you reply, unless you can see that it is time-sensitive text.
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5. You have to make him wait.
Otherwise, make him wait. He will be just fine if you don't respond to him immediately. When that phone call comes through, let it go to voicemail. Remind him that you did, and still do, have a life outside of him.
In other words, you can return his call, or even just text him back later. When he asks you out at the last minute, but you already have plans, don't blow off your plans for him.
6. Never blow off your friends for him.
You definitely don't want to blow off your loved ones to go out with him, as supported by 2022 research on the value of friendship. You can simply let him know you already have plans even if you don't. There should be a bit of mystery there because he still enjoys the sense of curiosity.
While you think he sees your constant availability as a sign you like him, you’re pushing him away by always being available to him. Again, in his eyes, the fact you're so available makes him see you as desperate, needy, and clingy.
7. Give him the chase of his life.
Give him the chance he desires to prove his love to you. Even when you're already in a relationship with him, make sure he understands he doesn't have you locked down.
He should still be chasing you. You know this when you are dating and in the earliest phases of the relationship. But the truth is the chase should continue throughout your relationship, even when you're married.
8. Let him know, you are fine without him
One of the best ways to do this is to constantly show him you can handle yourself. You don't need him.
The bottom line, you should always do what you can to hold his attention and keep him chasing you, not the other way around.
N. Meridian is an editor, author of No Crying for Elena, and freelance writer of various subjects. Her works have appeared on such sites as YourTango, BlogHer, Huffington Post, and WorkItMom.