Expert: Alex Strandberg - 1/10/2009

Question
QUESTION: There is this girl who works with me on shifts (days and nights). She calls me to take a coffe break. I do not show her that I am interested in her and continuously  bust on her and she does laugh at all my jokes even stupid ones.

She goes to gym after our shifts, so once I casually asked her to meet me at a place at 9:30 which is the time she would be free after gym so we could hang-out. she seemed very excited and said she would be there on time. I waited for her around 30min and she didnt show up fortunately I had my guys to fall back on. Next day she acted normal as if I had never asked her out and she was not aware. During conversation the topic comes up that she stood me up, I showed her I am upset for her wasting my time but told her I went out with the guys. She was apologatic and said she was late from gym and thought I would call. After which there was a thaw in whatever we had.

Recently she again starts showing interest. On coffe breaks I would want to go back to work but she wants me to stay on. Comments about my new hair cut and how I would look without spectacles. She showed me her photos from the 3 years back and she was really fat in those pics, so I told her she should hide these hideous pics as I am starting to loose interest.  I thought we were starting to like each other, So today I called her out for a movie and she says I recently made friends with a girl whom I promised to take to the gym today evening. But said she is going to movies tomorrow.

She has lot of guy friends, I have never asked her if she has a boyfriend. And there is this guy who recently moved to where she lives and they hang out regularly.

What do I do now,sometime I feel she is playing me.  I am thinking of forgetting her. But I do like the feeling of being with her.Being in the same workplace I don't know to what extent I could go to convey it. Please let me know what I should do.

ANSWER: Hey Anito,

A little cocky funny? If you don't know what that means it means to playfully bust on a girl.

Showing no interest is just as bad as showing complete interest. Both of them are games designed to get the woman attracted to you. If you get your neediness issues handled and become naturally confident you won't be worried about showing too much or too little.

Is she playing games? maybe. It could be that she is playing games or it could be that blowing people off is part of her personality. There are many girls who will cancel plans or not even show up at all and simply not care. No need to get angry about it because that's just who they are.

If I were you I would raise my standards a bit. The red flags when off when you mentioned that she used to be fat and has MANY male friends. When she was fat almost no men showed her any interest. Now that she is much better looking she wants as much attention that she can get-it's the validation gambit

Odds are good that she has gotten to the point where she loves the attention but wants to see how far she can take it. She might be playing with you because she enjoys the control she NOW has over men.

If you are open to a relationship then this will be an issue. If you are looking to sleep with her and call it a day then you have nothing to worry about.

Alex


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi,

I must admit I am not looking for a relationship cause I think I may not be able to put up with her attitude.

I do talk to her playfully most of the time. But as you pointed out I probably commited the mistake of not showing any interest. I am planning to playfully indicate to her that she has a big ego and shes afraid of going out with me. I feel this would at least give me a clearer response on whether she really does want to hangout with me or not.
Please let me know if I could go with this approach.

And yes I am trying desperately to get out of the needy mode and trying even more not to show it out :)

Big Rgds,
Anito

Answer
It's funny I was spending some time with my sister today and she was telling me about this guy she met at the bar the other weekend that she gave her number to. He called her twice and she avoided his calls both times. He sent her a text asking what was going on and she told him that they should hang out next weekend. Is she going to flake on him? probably

That's the big difference between most men and most women. If a guy gets a date he will tend to follow through on the date. Women on the other hand think nothing of avoiding a guy's call or flaking on a date.

I say the word most and not all women do this because there are women who don't play these types of games.

I suggest that you not worry about whether or not she wants to hand out with you and ask yourself if you really want to hand out with her. If it was me I wouldn't even waste my time talking to the girl. I wouldn't be mad but I know that it's not worth my time chasing a girl like that.

I would get rid of this one. Regardless of how hot she is, how cool she is or how much interest she showed in me I would let her go. There's no point in perusing someone who will frustrate you to the point of looking for answers on a site like this.

An easy way to get rid of neediness is to come from a place of abundance. There is already an abundance of women available to you because there are 3.5 billion women walking the planet today.

Ask yourself, "if I had five women willing to call me or peruse me would I waste time on any one particular girl?" The answer would be no. Come from a frame of abundance and you will no longer worry if one particular girl likes you because there are plenty that do.

Having standards above how she looks will help kill off some of that neediness as well. Start asking yourself how you feel about her and not the other way around.