site banner

In dating, do you ever follow up after not hearing back (i.e. ghosted)?

(I was going to wait till Wellness Wednesday to post this as a comment, but the thread's blurb says it's not meant to be a containment and that advice requests can be posted as threads so here we are)

In dating, if you're ghosted, do you a) always move on stoically, b) always give it one more shot, or c) go with a mix of the two depending on circumstances?

After first or second dates, if I text a woman to set up another date and she doesn't reply, I just leave it alone. I sometimes wonder if there is an infinitesimal probability that maybe somehow my text got lost in the pipes, but if she wanted to see me again, she could always text me even if she thought I never contacted her. Sometimes the ghosting can be perplexing, like she'd already messaged me first after the date saying how she had a great time, and then after I respond asking to meet again, I don't hear back. But that's just dating or life in general--many or most people are flaky and undependable. It reminds me of how when I was procuring enterprise software for work that many sales reps don't even reply to requests for a quote. Speaking of sales, I remember reading a negotiation book whereby if you're the one selling, an effective trick to jumpstart wavering/cold leads is to ask them "have you given up on this project". Manipulative, sure, but all is fair in sales, love, and war.

But I occasionally see/hear stories of how some guy was super persistent despite being turned down and would eventually go on to win over the girl. I'm not talking about Hallmark movies from 20 years ago, but wedding announcements in the New York Times from like two weeks ago. But if we do talk about Hallmark, women sure seem to love romance stories featuring love interests who almost always turn down the protagonist the first time around. Reddit loves upvoting stories of how a couple ended up married despite the girl initially swiping left because of some silly reason like she didn't like his hat, but then they somehow met and fell in love. Part of this is probably because Reddit is disproportionately young and single and so wants to believe in second chances, but part of it is we celebrate persistence culturally: in work interviews, a candidate whom the hiring manager is mostly indifferent to but goes above and beyond to change their mind probably gets the job. I've met girls who tell me that guys who don't pursue them more energetically despite not receiving encouraging signals show that they aren't serious, and so disqualify themselves. And a recent ex actually turned me down when I asked her out, but then we hung out as friends a couple of times and she ended up saying yes when I asked a second time.

Now, to be clear, for most of these non-follow-ups I've been subject to, I didn't really think any of them was "the one", or else I likely would have given it another shot. Still, I enjoyed their company and it would have been fun to go out again. And I'd certainly prefer to be the one who decides to "let her go" rather than having her make the decision for me.

So sometimes I look back and wonder if I should have followed up one more time. Maybe go with something simple like "Hey--I really enjoyed meeting you and would love to see you again, but understand if you don't feel the same spark. I wish you the best!". It sounds cheesy and a bit needy, but costs nothing, barring maybe making the girl feel a bit uncomfortable for not taking a super obvious hint. Different women also have different preferences, whereby some will surely respond to "follow ups" more positively than others. And I'm not convinced that ghosting is some kind of self-unselecting filter for women who lack maturity, since there are enough men who take rejections very poorly that it does seem safer to just not reply as a rule of thumb.

So what do you do? Do you have a system for deciding if and when to follow up after not hearing back?

8
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

In dating, if you're ghosted, do you a) always move on stoically, b) always give it one more shot, or c) go with a mix of the two depending on circumstances?

Always a) without second thought. If she ghosts you, she's not worth your time. Either because she's the type of immature bitch who gets a kick out of emotional manipulation, or because she's just plain not interested.

Overwhelmingly likely, the latter. You have to remember that women feel attraction in a way fundamentally different from men. They are fickle, extremely selective, exponentially more hypergamous, and basically all-or-nothing. A woman can't be half-interested in somebody, she is either head over heels or wholly uninterested. If you get ghosted you are already in category two, and trying to flip her back into the other state at that point is fighting a losing uphill battle.

So what do you do? Do you have a system for deciding if and when to follow up after not hearing back?

Play the numbers game. If landing a relationship is one in thousand, you have to churn through a thousand mediocre semi-interested women before one will work out.

If you're even at a position where you have the free time and mental capacity to spare thought for somebody that ghosted you, I'd say you're not yet seeking out enough opportunities. I sometimes have days where I chat with 5-10 new people in a single day, something that takes a lot of time and effort. Effort I no longer have left over to worry about some girl who hasn't responded in 3 days.

Overwhelmingly likely, the latter. You have to remember that women feel attraction in a way fundamentally different from men. They are fickle, extremely selective, exponentially more hypergamous, and basically all-or-nothing. A woman can't be half-interested in somebody, she is either head over heels or wholly uninterested. If you get ghosted you are already in category two, and trying to flip her back into the other state at that point is fighting a losing uphill battle.

Yeah. More time I spend dating, the more I've figured this out. I feel like guy attraction tends to be far more 'oh she's a 6/10, aside from staggering revelations you'll prettymuch stay in the same category in terms of how much effort-to-bang I'll tolerate' whilst girls wildly careen from pedestaling to just death upon hitting an 'ick', especially due to online dating massively increasing the scope of options.

Anybody who's done a decent amount of dating/chatting with women will have seen the hard pivot that occurs. Especially compared to men where the 'hard pivot' tends to be more related to 'obtained sex with X, no longer can be bothered chasing them with the same intensity' or 'realized Y's going to take way more resources than their attraction indicates'

Do agree on the funnel point, but there's always going to be a frustration when a particularly promising lead falls through