[Sue]

After a couple of dates in my city with a guy who traveled to my city to see me, he started talking about getting together in the next couple of months without being more specific as to when. Since I view such generalities as a waste of time, I didn’t respond to a couple of his e-mails in hopes that he would chase me and try to nail me down for a specific date. Instead, he closed out my match on the dating site where we met. Now, here’s my question. Did he think I lost interest after not hearing from me 9 days after the first e-mail I didn’t answer and 3 days after the second e-mail I didn’t answer, or did he just lose interest himself? If It is the former, I’d like to salvage it, but if it is the latter, obviously not. If he just had the wrong impression, what could I do to save it? Thanks!

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Your instincts are correct. Nine days with no response to his e-mail is long enough for him to consider you uninterested in another date. 😳

[Sue]

Is there anything I can do now? I really like him a lot, but I want him to suggest specific dates for getting together rather than just over the next couple of months. Is there anything I can do to salvage this? Thanks

[April Masini, your AskApril]

The first thing you have to do is to understand dating dynamics and how to win men, not lose them. 😳

[quote]…he started talking about getting together in the next couple of months without being more specific as to when. Since I view such generalities as a waste of time, I didn’t respond to a couple of his e-mails in hopes that he would chase me and try to nail me down for a specific date. [/quote]

You can’t have it both ways — either you “view such generalities,” and those people who offer them up as “a waste of time” and stick to that — or you don’t. You can’t have one policy when he talks about dating you some time in the future without a specific date, and then when you don’t hear from him again, decide you want him back — with his “generalities” in tact. 😕

So what could you have done differently? When he talked about getting together in the next couple of months, instead of acting dismissively because you consider “such generalities as a waste of time” 😮 you could have enticed him with reason to see you. You have to remember that he may have suggested getting together down the road because he wasn’t sure about how he felt about you, or about how you felt about him. Maybe he was also dating other women and wanted to see how everything played out. You see, getting a guy to chase you is a little more sophisticated than flat out ignoring him for nine days because you don’t like his policy on asking you out. 🙄 You have to look at the bigger picture. Not every man you meet (or any man you meet, for that matter), will have EVERYTHING you want in one package. So if he’s got lots of other great attributes, but he’s wonky on asking you out on dates, this is actually something that down the line you could work on with him. But not if you cut him off for nine days and he thinks it’s game over. Anyway, you can read more about how to do this, in detail, in the book I wrote for women called Think & Date Like A Man, [url]https://www.askapril.com/relationship-dating-advice/think-and-date-like-a-man.html[/url], that you can buy on this link as an automatic download or on the websites for Barnes & Noble and Amazon. So before you make contact with him or anyone again, you should take a little refresher on the concept of giving chase. 😉

Next, you have to put yourself in his shoes. When you say he “travelled to your city” you make it sound like this is a bit of a long distance relationship begun on a dating site. If he’s investing that much travel into a relationship, he’s going to want a little more reassurance than usual that you’re excited to see him. He’s probably looking at or dating other women from this site at the same time, and like it or not, dating is competitive. From his point of view, why should he travel if you’re ignoring his e-mails? You have to give him something to keep him in the game. Flirting goes a long way — if you’re genuine about it. 😉

So before you decide it’s him you really want, reconsider the long distance thing. You might do better, personally, with someone who’s closer to your area code or zip code. Long distance and travel relationships aren’t for everyone and they’re more complicated than “local” dating.

I’m not sure you’ll be able to get his attention again, but don’t chase him down to do so. 😕 If he comes back for more or contacts you again, use what you’ve now learned. And if he doesn’t, use what you’ve learned from this relationship to better your next one. 😉

Please follow me @AskAprilcom on Twitter and on Facebook at this link: [url][/url].

[Sue]

I can’t contact him now, can I? If I did, what should I say? Isn’t there anything I can do? Thanks for your advice.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

I think I’ve already answered these questions in my last post to you. 😀

[Sue]

Report this postReply with quoteWhat to say when asked for suggestions?
by Sue on Thu Jan 12, 2012 7:27 pm

This is more complicated than it sounds, although I told you about half of it before the latest developments (and thanks for your advice, btw). I’ll recap and boldface the new part at the end.

Out of town guy with whom I e-mailed and called drove several hours to my city for Friday and Saturday dates. Then no contact from him for two days when he e-mailed me about plans for a future visit within about 30 days. After e-mailing me for a couple of weeks about our future plans, he cancelled/postponed our plans, saying we could schedule another visit over the next couple of months. Now he takes 3-6 days (usually somewhere in between) to respond to my responsive e-mails, but he took 0-3 days to respond before we met. No calls since we met whereas there were calls before.

Eventually I figured I had devolved into some sort of out of town girl and decided to stop responding to his e-mails. After a few e-mails from him over about 9 days with no response from me, he closed our match on the dating site where we met. I couldn’t decide whether he thought I had lost interest (I hadn’t lost interest in him, just in his ways) or whether he lost interest in me period.

I sent him an e-mail and we resumed e-mail communication. My e-mail was light and breezy and made no mention of my having seen him close out our match. We resumed e-mailing.

His most recent e-mail is flirty, mentions making plans for another date, and asks whether I have any suggestions for plans. Before (when he was leaving my city after our two dates), he mentioned meeting in a third town which is close to mine and no closer to his than mine (and hence no more convenient for him), but is just a change of environment which offers new things to do. I had been receptive to meeting in a third town when we had the momentum of our two dates. Now that our momentum has wained and time has passed, I’d be more comfortable with him visiting my own town again, especially since it seems to me like he’s pulled back a little after we met.

What is the best way to respond to the last lines of his e-mail from day before yesterday which state: “I’ve been trying to think of our next plan. What do you suggest?” Thanks

[April Masini, your AskApril]

It sounds like he’s not all that interested….. but if you want to see if you can flirt with him a little, and see what he’s made of, you can say something like, “Gee, I was really hoping I’d get to see what YOU came up with!” 😎

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