August to December 2011 was a crazy emotional rollercoaster for me. I dated and was dumped by a girl with whom I was totally in love. Learned a lot. I'm going to try to break everything down as concisely as possible, sticking to only basic elements and lessons. Hope you learn from my experiences!
ABOUT ME: Tall, good-looking Asian male, early 20s (high passive value). I consider myself an intermediate when it comes to women. I took my BC 1.5 years ago.
ABOUT THE GIRL: Short, really cute Asian girl, early 20s. In my opinion, incredibly sexy. A LOT of experience with boys and boyfriends. She considers herself a girlfriend and prefers being in a relationship. I personally consider her an HB9, but my female friends and female roommate all think I am the better-looking of the two of us.
I'd like to talk about the following sequence of events: [1] the beginning (typical FR/LR type of stuff), [2] the relationship (between when we were officially dating and the breakup), [3] the breakup and post-breakup period (dealing with failure, which I hardly see on the forum), and [4] the last talk with the girl (which happened 4 weeks after the breakup).
[1] THE BEGINNING
I approached this girl on the NYC subway in Summer 2010. This was fresh off of my BC, so I was still very much a beginner. I don't remember much about our first conversation, but it probably wasn't that great. Honestly I was probably awful. She didn't like me much. I somehow got her number, can't remember how. We texted for a little bit and randomly found out we had a mutual friend, who went to college with me. Through our mutual friend, she finds my Facebook and adds me. I see that she has a boyfriend. I immediately stop talking to her.
Summer 2011, I move to NYC permanently. My game has improved over the year. I knew she was a possible lead when I sent a "Happy 4th of July!" mass-text on Independence Day and she responded immediately, followed by us texting more briefly. Her Facebook also indicates she no longer has a boyfriend. In August, I finally text her again, with the intention of running game. I go through A, B, C, and D before she suddenly prompts me about a meetup, which I take as an IOI. We arrange a meetup the next day.
Within the first 20 minutes of our meetup the following day, I realize she is very into me. I still start the ABCs structure from the beginning. By the beginning of C, she is giving me IOIs (leaning into me, laughing at jokes which weren't funny, rubbing her foot on my leg, eyes stuck on me like glue) and is passing basic non-sexual CTs. I continue my hardest to establish connections and trust. She actually tells me the most intimidating thing I've ever heard on a first date: "My parents are so in love even after all these years of marriage, so I know that when it comes to finding a boy for myself, I refuse to settle!" At the end of the meetup, when I walk her to the subway station for her to leave, I do the elephant CT to see if she'll hold my hand. She doesn't take it, which surprises me and knocks my confidence a little. However, right before she leaves, I pull her in for a hug to say bye. I leave my mouth an inch from hers, and she leans in to kiss me. After our second kiss, I tell her, "Two is enough," and we part ways. I make sure to be the one to end the kissing. And of course, I text her later that night to tell her I had a good time.
After that, the next two dates were pretty straightforward. Simple date planning and logistics, running the ABCs structure every time. I knew she was very into me, more than I was into her. At the end of our third date, she offered exclusivity, and I reciprocated. It's this point when things go from casual dating to more serious consideration in one another as potential partners.
After that, I actually started becoming afraid of her. Things were too good to be true with her, and I got paranoid. We were developing serious feelings for one another quickly. She saw my hesitation and insisted that I trust her and let her in. She actually did most the work and took most the initiative. For instance, she was the one to initiate sexual banter via text. She started saying goodnight to me every night. She started making a list of things we would do together. She spent money on me before I spent money on her. Despite her insistence, it took me a while to finally trust her enough. I actually denied sex from her for a while.
It was during this phase when she said the most amazing things any girl's ever said to me. "I've never been this sure about a guy before." "You are SOOO attractive. I can't believe girls used to not like you." "You're kind of my perfect." "I forget how crazy I am about you." "You're one of the best things that have happened to me."
After a while, we were both just falling for each other until in mid-September, when I asked her to be my girlfriend.
Things I learned:
* Appearance really does matter. She told me later that she was so surprised to see how good-looking I was when she arrived on the first date. She said she didn't remember me looking like this in Summer 2010.
* Turning down sex is powerful. Most guys do not turn down sex. Usually it's the girl to do so. If the girl wants sex and you say no, you differentiate yourself from 99% of the guys she was or could be with. This is GOOD for you.
* When you meet a girl, make sure you get her number and connect on Facebook. Your chance with her might come over a year later, but that chance probably won't happen if you guys haven't exchanged numbers and aren't Facebook friends.
* Read the book on improving at sex, Sex God Method by Daniel Rose. It's worth it. It pays off.
Things I did well:
* I was basically the man of her dreams before I met her. I did all the hard work to qualify for all the intangibles she was looking for. All the hard work to make myself look better and carry myself better. It created the attraction I needed to make things happen before I even made eye contact with her.
* Listening. I knew what to say at the right time for our first three dates, the period during which we were still playing games with one another, because I was listening.
* Not messing up when I had already done enough. After a certain point, you don't need to actively provide more stimulus to the girl to create more and more attraction. You just need to sit back and not mess up. I recognized this point early on, so I sit back and let the girl do the work.
Mistakes I made:
* Agreeing to be exclusive by the end of our third date. That is far too early to be making any kind of commitment, in my opinion. Although it was a ridiculously strong IOI, particularly a sign that she's interested in not just sleeping with me but dating me, it's unfair to both the guy and the girl to make such a commitment when you haven't gotten to know one another yet.
* Trusting her simply because she asked me to trust her. I had several bad experiences with girls right before I met this girl. She knew that I wasn't letting her in entirely because of these problems, and she insisted that I trust her, that she wouldn't disappear on me like the other girls did, and that she was an exception. If a girl is saying that she's an exception, it means not that she's ACTUALLY an exception, but that she WANTS to be an exception. Intention and reality are separate.
[2] THE RELATIONSHIP
From this point on, I basically abandoned the ABCs curriculum. I got most of my guidance from William and from my trusted friends who had been in long-term relationships (>2 years) before. Now, most of the time at the beginning of a relationship, there's a honeymoon period where everything is going great and the two people think they're perfect for one another. The honeymoon period, I've heard, can last up to eight months.
For me, the honeymoon period was about two weeks. One week after we became official, the girl came to me, worried. She warned me that she wasn't ready to be in a relationship. She warned me she wanted to be able to give me everything I deserve. I told her I was okay with her not being ready, since I'd likely be very busy during the workweek due to my job anyway. How foolish of me.
The next week, only two weeks into our relationship, we began arguing. All of a sudden, I felt like she didn't like me nearly as much as I liked her, a complete switch from before. We started struggling to see each other, since we were only available on the weekends. She cancelled or rescheduled plans with me 6 weekends in a row, usually for terrible reasons. Even when we finally got to see one another, she usually was late. To make things even worse, if we actually got time together, she'd sometimes bring a friend along.
I began questioning whether or not I was appreciated by her, important to her, or even desirable or attractive to her. I constantly felt like her level of dedication to me wasn't anywhere close to my level of dedication to her. I felt like she didn't respect my time. I felt like she didn't prioritize my happiness at all, while her happiness was my top priority. I felt like our happy moments were few and far between -- most of my time with and without her was spent stressing about why she wasn't happy.
Although I was admittedly pretty unhappy, there were always little moments when the girl would make me feel absolutely amazing. I could tell that for these moments, all her sorrows meant nothing and all she saw was me and the happiness I brought her. I felt her gratitude shine on me, and I would shiver just making eye contact with her as she gazed at me like that. In those moments, I knew she still cared about me immensely. Those moments always made the rest of the chaos worth it. My favorites included our long phone conversations. Those were the only times when she was consistently happy to be speaking with me, and I felt like I had her completely to myself. I felt like a normal boyfriend with a normal girlfriend. She would say really awesome things about me, like how she's thankful for me every day and that I treat her better than her friends' boyfriends treat their friends.
But as I said, those moments were rare. As she reiterated several times, I deserved more than she was giving me. It shouldn't have surprised me that she later requested that we "take a break," but for some reason, I was completely blindsided anyway.
Things I learned:
* The boyfriend is responsible for making the girlfriend feel better, even when it's not the boyfriend's fault that the girlfriend is upset in the first place.
* Stand up for yourself. If you feel like the girlfriend is mistreating you, tell her. Don't be a pussy. I had such a hard time saying no to her, which led to the girl believing she wasn't doing much wrong. While I did stand up for myself at some times when it really counted, I should have stood up for myself even more.
* It's a BAD SIGN when a girl says she's "not ready for a relationship." Take your time to figure out why. Maybe you can work around it, or maybe you can't. Either way, you need to manage your expectations and possibly scale backwards.
* As a boyfriend, you cannot allow your happiness to become too attached to the girlfriend's happiness. If the girlfriend is stressing out but the boyfriend seems okay, then the girlfriend will eventually realize she's okay as well. However, if the boyfriend starts stressing out because the girlfriend is also stressed out, then both people will be even unhappier. It's unfair to the boyfriend, but it's his duty.
Things I did well:
* The boyfriend curriculum. My goal was to make myself as good of a boyfriend as I could be, so that she would brag about me to her friends, her friends would be jealous of her, and she knew she'd never find a better person to be with. The fact that she regularly acknowledged how amazingly I treated her and that she bragged about me indicated I did well there.
Mistakes I made:
* Assuming. I shouldn't assume. When she said she "wasn't ready for a relationship," I assumed she meant she wasn't ready but will try to make it work anyway. What she actually meant was that she wasn't ready, so she'll only put in a weak attempt to make it work, because she fears and secretly knows it won't work in the end.
* Accepting everything that the girl does. I shouldn't accept everything. A relationship is give-and-take. I was doing 100% of the giving, and she was doing 100% of the taking. When we argued, I made 100% of the concessions. I devalue myself when I do so much and demand so little in return.
* Dedicating so much to her so early, when she didn't deserve it. We are still basically getting to know one another now, and I was already giving it my all. That was entirely unfair to me.
* Thinking she was long-term material just because she demonstrated she could be a good girlfriend. Every guy and girl puts their best foot forward when they're infatuated with somebody. During this phase, this girl proved she could be an amazing girlfriend. However, to really see if somebody is long-term material, you need to be with them for a long time. That's the only way. You need to see how good the girl will be as a bad girlfriend, not just how good she is as a good girlfriend. It was nice to see that during bad times in a relationship, I can still be a good boyfriend, but it would have been nice if I knew earlier about how bad of a girlfriend she could have been.
[3] THE BREAKUP AND POST-BREAKUP PERIOD
The breakup occurred two months after we were official, shortly before Thanksgiving. It was really, really traumatic for me. I fully expected us to be together for a long time. She didn't even come speak to me in person about it. She texted me. She told me she'd call me later that day to talk about it. How insulting, being told that she'd dump me via phone call later in the day. I told her no, you need to come see me in person to dump me, because I deserve more than that. She argued with me. It was absurd. She wouldn't promise me her time, her trust, her affection, then she took away her exclusivity, and in the end, she wouldn't even give me enough respect to dump me properly. I was so upset that in the end, she wouldn't do anything that was inconvenient for her.
The night she broke up with me, she texted me, "Call me tonight?" I ignored. The next morning, the day before Thanksgiving, she knew I was traveling home for the holiday to be with family. She texted me, "Alright I guess we're not talking then. Have fun at home. Miss you." I ignored. It was so hard to ignore that text. I actually cried when I received this text and cried more on the bus ride home.
I spent the next few weeks trying to sort out my emotions. It was hard because I felt like we shouldn't have broken up. It didn't feel right to me. I didn't even know WHY she broke up with me. She texted me asking if we could talk about 1 week into the breakup. I told her I needed more time. After all, I was still angry.
When I was no longer angry and thereby ready to talk, I texted her back letting her know. She said she wanted to apologize for how things ended. I suggested we meet in person, since I wanted to apologize for some things too. She said she wasn't sure she was ready to see me, since she might not be able to see me without making wrong decisions. Elaborating further, she said that she always says and does things to me to keep me around more because of her attraction towards me, although they're not things I need to see or hear. She wasn't actually ready to talk to me until a few weeks after I was ready to see her.
Hearing at this point, post-breakup, that she still cared about me was very meaningful. I was very touched that she was so attracted to me that she wasn't ready to see me. My unhappiness during our relationship was derived mainly from feeling like she didn't like me. For her to say this now, when we weren't together, really put me at ease. I suddenly was feeling more optimistic. I started making a master plan to win her back.
Things I learned:
* Breakups are incredibly hard to deal with. You need to do whatever you can to stay sane and get better. For me, that meant avoiding being alone, avoiding things which reminded me of the girl (which was hard, because there were reminders everywhere), and leaning on my friends.
* After a breakup, you go through the Stages of Grief:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model. Don't talk to the ex until after the Anger phase, at EARLIEST. Ideally, you'd already be at the Acceptance phase, but the bare minimum is to go beyond Anger.
* For the first 1 week - 1 month after the breakup, DO NOT TALK TO THE EX. If the ex reaches out to you, give a minimum response, but don't be rude. It's incredibly hard not to talk to the ex, especially when you know that the ex still is attracted to you and is afraid to see you for that very reason. This is the "no contact" period that you might have heard about. It's essential you remove yourself from the ex's life so the ex can realize the void in his/her life after dumping you.
* I still wanted to win the girl back after the breakup, and I found ashleykayer on youtube to have a lot of useful free information.
Things I did well:
* Not talking to her after the breakup. I think I did a much better job of not contacting the exgirlfriend than most people do after their breakups.
Mistakes I made:
* Going to her Facebook constantly. She posted several gloomy status updates and music videos which made me wonder if they were about me. I should have prevented myself from going to her Facebook ever. Maybe I would have gotten better faster.
[4] THE LAST TALK WITH THE GIRL
It took a while, but we finally scheduled a meetup to talk about the breakup. This would be four weeks after the breakup. I wanted to see if we could get back together in a more casual way, since we both still liked each other so much and it didn't make sense for us to not see each other at all. I was worried she broke up with me only because she was afraid I'd break up with her for being a terrible girlfriend, which wasn't the case at all. I didn't care that she wasn't ready for a relationship and that she could only be a terrible girlfriend. I just wanted respect and some time from her, and I was happy. I wanted to support her as she sorted out her life and tried to be "ready" for a relationship.
Unfortunately, she was adamant about being alone. She seriously listened to and considered my proposition, but in the end, she knew this was better for both of us. She was in this position before, where she wasn't ready for a relationship but tried anyway, so she knows from experience that it's a bad idea.
She said it was really selfish of her that we dated for as long as we did and it'd be selfish of her if we were still together. The way I finally understood it was as if she viewed a relationship with me kind of like indulging in dessert, when she knew that it'd be better in the long run to eat vegetables instead. For a while, she indulged in the dessert and pursued a relationship with me, knowing that she wouldn't be able to make me or herself happier. Finally, she had to put it to and end, thus breaking things off with me. I totally agree; it was VERY selfish of her, doing all that work to make me like her and then not putting in any work at all when she realized it wasn't going to work. I was completely ensnared and then destroyed by this girl.
Throughout this entire conversation, she was very honest with me. She told me a lot of things I didn't want to hear. As we approached the end of the talk, my moods became increasingly gloomy. I was incredibly down when she delivered what was essentially her closing statement: "I know that by doing this, there's only a small chance of us getting back together. When I see that you're with another girl, I'm going to be very jealous. You're a catch. I'm going to be kicking myself, knowing that girl could have been me. But, you're my ideal man. I'm confident in how much I like you to think I'll call you after I'm ready to be in a relationship."
Woah, woah, woah. Let's take a look at those last two parts.
First, "ideal man." "Ideal" is a very, very strong descriptor. I would not have called this girl my ideal girl. I think she COULD have become my ideal girl, but she wasn't. And I was (and still am) totally in love with this girl. For her to say this about me, she must think much more highly of me than I thought about her.
Second, "I'm confident in how much I like you to think I'll call you after I'm ready to be in a relationship." For this girl to be "ready," it could take her anywhere from a few months to a few years to forever. It's an indefinite period of time which I estimate to be six months at minimum. For her to say that she likes me today enough to think she'll still like me enough to call me after an indefinite period of time is crazy to think about. Although today I personally hope we'll still get back together at that point, I expect that I'll be over her after that indefinite time span. For her to say this about me, after all her experiences with other boys and knowing that many more boys will be approaching her in the future, she must know that she won't find another guy like me for a long time... or maybe ever.
So in the end, I'm not happy. The girl left me. I couldn't win her back. But, I'm very fortunate to have received all that closure, which most people don't receive in their breakups. I know that in the end, she actually was telling me the truth the entire time. She really did have my best intentions at heart. And she really did care about me so much, even more than I cared about her, even more than I could fathom.
I'm not happy. But I've accepted that I need to move on for now and that she made a decision that's best for both of us. Time apart will do both of us good. And, if it's meant to be between us, it will happen. If that's the case, she'll have to do a LOT more to earn my trust the second time around... but till then, if that's what will happen, we're both working our way to brighter futures.
Things I learned:
* If you want the girl of your dreams, you really do need to become the man of hers... but you need to do so BEFORE you guys even have met! Your journey to become a better man starts today and ends never.
* All the hard work that I put in as her boyfriend, despite her treating me terribly, paid off. She seems to realize she likely won't ever do better than me. I do personally expect that we'll talk again in the future, although I'm not waiting for her.
* When the girl says "it's not you, it's me," take her words to heart. It took me a long time to realize it, but the breakup was indeed 100% due to her own incompetence, not any from my end.
Things I did well:
* Analyzed what I did wrong. I realized I wasn't an unwavering source of positivity when she was feeling down, which I'm working on. I realized that although I do a good job of keeping a level head, when I do manage to lose my temper, I'm quite hot-headed, so I need to improve my anger management.
* I realized that I don't regret a single thing I did with the girl during our time together. Sure, there are things I could have done better, but given what I knew at the time, I did the best I could. I truly gave it my all. All my regrets come from decisions that she made or things she said.
Mistakes I made:
* I might have been a little too clingy during our last talk. I was pretty desperately trying to get her back in my life, and I was truly willing to do almost anything to make it happen. Luckily, I knew that there was no chance if she just wanted to be alone, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. However, I don't think she viewed my emotions for her as clinginess but sincere affection and me being sweet. She seemed very moved by my clinginess, not turned off, which might be the last time that ever happens to me.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
The girl said that, in a perfect world, we would be friends. Not boyfriend/girlfriend, but friends. And then, maybe we'd progress to dating again. It angers me to think she wants me to hide my romantic feelings for her and force a platonic friendship, but I realize now that she would have wanted us to take things very, very slowly. She takes me very seriously as a long-term boyfriend prospect.
I realize there might be some people who don't understand why I love this girl so much, despite how terribly she treated me. The way I look at it, a partner in a relationship provides two things: partner offerings and individual offerings. Partner offerings is what EVERY boyfriend/girlfriend should and can offer, like time, trust, affection, and respect. It's the boyfriend/girlfriend curriculum. This girl was TERRIBLE at the girlfriend curriculum. Sure, she could be worse, but she was already pretty bad. It's because of this that I will look back at this relationship and remember mostly the negative emotions, because our relationship was mostly negativity caused by her negligence.
And then, there's the individual offerings, everything that a boyfriend or girlfriend brings to the table that NOBODY else can emulate. This includes personality, sense of humor, background, perspective, and interests. I totally fell in love with this girl because of what she offered as an individual. This is why, despite how poorly she treated me and how much disappointment and hurt she caused me, I still hope she'll indeed call me when she's ready for a relationship, still hope she'll pick up the slack with the girlfriend curriculum.
If you want to be an amazing boyfriend, you need to excel at BOTH the boyfriend curriculum and your individual offerings. However, please note that TIMING is a prerequisite to make a relationship work. This girl and I are completely into one another, yet we're not together because it's bad timing for her. Both sides of a relationship need to be stable independently before either can enter a healthy relationship. And then, at that point, if both sides are overperforming with partner offerings and individual offerings, you will enjoy an amazing relationship.
But for now, I'm not going to be ready for a relationship for a long time. This was an incredibly disappointing experience overall for me, and I need to dedicate more to myself in the near future. In the meantime, I hope to achieve more of my personal goals (six pack abs, secondary sources of income, buy an apartment, become a better dancer, and career goals) and sarge a lot (increase my experiences with women, get better at sex and relationships). It's finally time to put myself first.
Hope you enjoyed reading about my experiences here as much as I didn't enjoy living through them!
