The Art of the Chase (Throwback Tuesdays)

aIn the old days, when I had my eye on a dude, I had one strategy: shameless and reckless pursuit. And although this method made for some great stories, it never really yielded optimal results.

But what is the right way to chase a man? And should we even be doing it? He’s Just Not that Into You says no. The whole premise of the book is that the excuses that women make for why men aren’t making an effort with them are just so much bullshit and if he was really into you he would make the effort. So should we women just leave it all in their hands?

Consider this scenario: a few years ago I got the feeling that a casual acquaintance of mine was flirting with me. I was getting vibes but I wasn’t quite certain where he was going with it – was he interested? was he just a flirt? was I reading into things? was he too shy to make a move? I just didn’t know and didn’t want to risk embarrassing myself by making a move on him. The whole thing would probably have fizzled out without anything significant happening had my uber-brilliant sister not stepped in. She mentioned to him at a party that if he wanted to make a move on me, she would be okay with that. And what do you know? A couple of days later he asked me out and everything was lovely after that (until we split up and he married someone else but that’s another story).

Knowing what I know about that dude now, I know that he would never have asked me out if my sister hadn’t let him know that his advances would be welcomed. So does that mean that he just wasn’t that into me? Or was that me/my sister taking a participatory role in the courtship dance rather than putting all the responsibility on the man?

Most women believe that men are dense. So we don’t believe that smiling with our eyes is enough for them to get the message. Instead we offer our numbers, ask for theirs, find them on facebook, befriend their friends, hunt them down at parties, and otherwise make ourselves so available that the man basically has to alter his behavioural patterns to get away from us. Ladies, I have something to tell you: shameless and reckless pursuit is not the business

Men are hunters and we must give them the opportunity to do that. Otherwise they just get bored and we have to work overtime to maintain their interest.

I have a new strategy these days and it goes like this: I give a man three signs that I would be open to his advances. Three subtle signs. If he doesn’t catch on after that he’s either a) too stupid for me or b)not interested in me and he either gets demoted to jump-off status or erased from my radar.

Ladies, how do you chase? Men, how do you like to be chased?