Whenever you get that sense a woman might be pulling away, you’re almost always right. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s over, but it does mean you’re at a critical juncture. How you handle it and respond is pretty much going to decide whether or not there’s a future for you and her…

In these situations, there are just two types of guys. There are the guys who get the outcome they want and the guys who get the outcome that happens to them. You need to take control of yourself and the situation to get the outcome you want. That means understanding WHY she pulled away, HOW you should handle it, and WHAT mistakes to avoid.

Intro: Understand What’s Going On

I want to begin by pointing out that in ALL my interactions with ALL the women I’ve dated or even just hooked up with over the years, as well as ALL the interactions I’ve seen working with clients, women ALWAYS pull back a bit at some point. The degree and extent of this pullback will vary, but there will always be some pullback. By the end of the article, it will make sense—I promise.

Sometimes, women pull back, and it’s very subtle and minor, so much so that you might not even realize she’s doing it, but very often, it IS noticeable. And very often, it throws guys off, and they seek out information, which is probably why you ended up reading a blog post like this. I know. I’ve been there…

Things started off great.

You had a great time hanging out together, and keeping the vibe going over text was easy.

Everything’s simple and easy because she’s making time for you, making herself available. This is an important point, by the way, as you’ll see…

At this point, if you’re like most guys, this is where your thoughts start to wander…

If I had a friend’s wedding coming up or some fancy event where I could bring a plus one, I’d daydream about what it might be like to take her and see myself showing up with this new BEAUTIFUL woman on my arm.

And guess what? She’s probably having those SAME thoughts about you!

That may come as a surprise—but it really shouldn’t. I mean, think about it. You’re not crazy. It’s not like you hallucinated this elaborate fantasy about her in your head. No! The fun you had with her, the good times, it was ALL real! And what’s happening is that you’re moving into the next stage of intimacy. And that’s why she’s testing you, that’s why she’s pulling back, and that’s why you’re at where you are right now, which is a crossroads…

MISTAKE #1: Not Knowing What Comes Next

Until now, everything you and her felt for each other was fueled by attraction. But do you know what comes after attraction? What’s more intense than attraction? If you don’t, listen up. Attraction is just the first stage of intimacy. The second stage is desire, the third is infatuation, and the fourth and final stage is love.

Each stage has its own set of challenges and opportunities. Think of each stage as having its own unique rules and expectations. Also, every stage (except love) has a time limit, think of like an expiration date. Every time you enter a new phase, the clock’s ticking toward a countdown. No relationship is static. People don’t stay together for years because of attraction alone. No, attraction is just the opening act.

So, until you and a woman are in love, understand that transitioning from one stage to the next will be a bit of a rollercoaster. But things get a lot easier when you know the stages and how to approach them… 

You probably already understand this on some level. Most guys know the difference between liking someone and LOVING someone. But the two middle stages—desire and infatuation—trip most guys up. And transitioning from a guy she finds attractive to a guy she desires is the MOST challenging.

To get it right, you need to know why attraction is different than desire. Even more important, you need to learn how to transform attraction INTO desire. See, most guys assume incorrectly that DESIRE is a privilege, something that just “happens.” But getting a woman to DESIRE you is actually a SKILL; it’s a learnable set of behaviors. 

So let’s consider The Four Stages of Intimacy again…

There’s attraction, which is the “I like him” stage. Then comes desire, which is “I want him.” Then, infatuation, “I need him.” And finally, you arrive at love: “I love him.”

As I mentioned, it’s a progression, so each stage builds on the one before it…

It all starts with attraction, which is based on chemistry whether physical, emotional, or both.

Next up is the stage we’re interested in: desire, which is a combination of attraction and value.

In essence, desire is attraction that you’re willing to pay a price for. It’s attraction with a price tag on it. When you desire something, you don’t just like it; you WANT it and you’re willing to do something to get it. This idea that “desire is an attraction with a price tag” is crucial because it gives you a concrete objective, a goal when you’re at that crossroads between attraction and desire. 

So, the stage after desire, infatuation, happens when you combine desire with mystery and novelty.

After that, when you finally fall in love, it’s because you’ve added compatibility, trust, and commitment to that infatuation.

As you can see, our feelings deepen and intensify as we move through each stage because we’re adding more and more complexity. 

But let’s bring it back to the crossroads, back to when a woman pulls away. Like I said earlier, at some point, a woman ALWAYS pulls back. It’s very important to treat this as a TEST, which isn’t a bad thing. It’s actually an opportunity. Rather than bitch and moan and say things like “Why is she doing this to me?” You need to re-frame it. She’s not doing it TO you, she’s doing this FOR you. She’s giving you a chance to take things to the next level. It’s important to adopt a victor mindset rather than a victim mentality.

And now look, am I saying that EVERY time a woman pulls back and goes cold, it’s ALWAYS 100 PERCENT-OF-THE-TIME a TEST? Of course not. There could be a MILLION reasons she’s pulling back. But there ARE two things I can say with 100 percent certainty…

1. It’s the most likely reason she’s pulling back.
2. Even more important, even IF it IS some other reason, all the advice I’m about to give is almost always the best course of action regardless.

So, with that in mind, let’s move onto Mistake #2…

MISTAKE #2: Moving In The Wrong Direction

Whenever we’re into a woman and she pulls back, it makes us uncomfortable. Or let’s just be honest here: it’s PAINFUL. And what’s our natural response to pain? Make it stop, right? The classic example is touching a hot stove. When our hand touches a hot stove, what’s our natural response? Move our hand away from the stove.

In a way, our reflex to pain—what we do to AVOID pain, to get ourselves OUT OF pain—is to retreat to what we were doing the moment before the pain began. Our hand was away from the stove, then our hand touched the stove, so we moved it back to where it was before, which is: away from the stove. That’s the intuitive response, right?

But reacting intuitively doesn’t really work when we’re trying to get out of emotional pain, especially emotional pain related to interpersonal relationships. We can’t simply go back to where we were, or what we were doing, before. Instead, the only way to get out of emotional pain is by doing something DIFFERENT. And that usually means we need to change or evolve or mature or—in the context of intimacy—we need to progress forward by moving to the next stage.

But what do most guys do when a woman pulls back? Or let me ask an even better question: what do most guys SAY they want to do when a woman pulls back? As a coach, I hear the answer to that question almost every single day…

How do I get her BACK?

I need to get HER BACK.

What can I do to GET HER BACK?

See where I’m going with this? Going back isn’t the answer. You can’t go back. It would be like saying “To advance in my career, I need to go back to the 9th grade.” Unless you’re Billy Madison, going back to high school isn’t going to help your career.

So here’s the thing. When you’re in the attraction phase, and a woman pulls back, the solution isn’t to try to go back to “the way things were.” The attraction stage is over. It’s done. There’s no going back. This is why classic mistakes at this point are things like apologizing, sending gifts, and pleading.

Think about it: what’s the purpose of an apology? You hope it undoes whatever damage you may have caused so things will return to how they were. What’s the purpose of sending a gift? To get her to reconsider so she goes back to feeling like she did before. And pleading? Same thing. You’re pleading in hopes of getting your foot in the door so things can return to how they were before. You want the pain to stop, which is making you desperate to go back to the way things were before…

And look, the list could go on and on. Almost everything the average guy tries at this point is an attempt to go back. And this is why most guys fail, why most guys are forced to accept the outcome that happens to them. To get the outcome you WANT, you need to think counter-intuitively. You need to start asking the right questions like: what can I do to put a price tag on attraction? How can I turn her attraction to me into desire for me? I want you to keep those questions in mind as we go through the remaining 3 mistakes.

Mistake #3: Primal Brain Decisions

What did we establish as the driving force behind mistake #1? What causes guys to want to go back to “the way things used to be?” PAIN. And specifically emotional pain. But here’s the thing: our brain processes emotional pain the same way it processes physical pain. It’s the same neural pathway, so as far as your brain is concerned, emotional pain equals physical pain.

So when our pain receptors are triggered, our brain registers a threat, which activates the sympathetic nervous system, preparing us for a fight-or-flight response. Essentially, we’re in survival mode, which means we’re only using the primal part of our brain. And the primal brain’s only concern is SAFETY.

It’s not looking at the big picture.

It doesn’t stop to ponder, “Hmm…might I regret doing this later?”

No! The primal brain doesn’t care about later! There is no later! The primal brain only wants one thing, which is to keep you safe. And it wants it NOW!

So this is who you can blame for sending that long, gushy novella of a text that makes you want to throw up every time you think about it. It wasn’t YOU that sent it…no, it was your primal brain. Our primal brains simply can’t handle solving complex problems. And that’s what it is when a woman pulls back, a PROBLEM, it’s NOT a THREAT. That’s a very important distinction. Say it with me: it’s a PROBLEM but NOT A THREAT. 

All this probably makes sense right now but it’s easy to forget the next time you’re triggered. I’ve seen it happen so many times. Maybe something pops up on social media that makes you think she’s out with another guy and then, BOOM. Your heart starts pounding; you’re breathing faster. And then—just like that—it’s no longer you in the driver’s seat. Your primal brain is behind the wheel, making cringeworthy decisions on your behalf.

Against your better judgment, you start convincing yourself things you know are bad moves are “what you need to do.” If you ever feel you “NEED” to do anything, you should probably just put the phone away because that’s your primal brain talking.

You cannot solve problems with the primal brain.

All the primal brain is designed to do is get you to safety as fast as possible. I’m repeating myself because I know how easy this is to forget when you’re in that fight-or-flight state. You need to remind yourself that you’re dealing with a PROBLEM, not a THREAT. Say it out loud! If you’re in public, and you’re afraid that will make look crazy, you’re going to look a whole lot crazier if you don’t remind yourself—trust me.

The primal brain simply doesn’t have the equipment or the bandwidth to handle a complex problem like how to respond to a woman who’s slipping away. It’d be like trying to send an email from a typewriter. Therefore, it’s ALWAYS a mistake to do ANYTHING when you’re in fight-or-flight mode. Hide your phone from yourself if you have to because you should NEVER, EVER make ANY decision—let alone an important one—using your primal brain.

Simply don’t do it!

MISTAKE #4: Moving Faster Than Her

Earlier, I explained how the stages of intimacy are a progression that’s always moving forward, never backward. But we haven’t discussed the speed at which you and a woman move through this progression. This is very important because whoever is moving faster has less power.

I like to imagine it like this: a man and a woman are trains on parallel tracks moving at roughly the same speed. They go on a few dates, have a lot of fun, and vibe over text. Since everything is based on attraction, they move at roughly the same speed. But then the woman slows down a bit; maybe she’s not texting back as fast or she says she’s busy or unavailable for the first time… That adds a bit of scarcity, making her time seem more valuable since—let’s face it—we place more value on scarce things.

 And remember what we know about desire. “Desire is attraction with a price tag.” So when she pulls back, she causes the guy—his train—to speed up. It’s almost like her pulling back adds some high-octane fuel to his engine, causing him to surge faster into the desire phase.

This can be an issue since, like I said a minute ago, if he’s moving faster than her, then he’s the one with less power. It may seem unfair, but a man who has less power becomes less attractive. And that doesn’t go both ways. 

If she’s moving faster than you, she may have less power, but that won’t kill your attraction to her. That’s because men are typically attracted to “indicators of reproductive value,” which is a highbrow way of saying a pretty face, nice rack, and juicy butt. So, if a woman’s moving faster, if she has less power, it may cause you to take her for granted a bit but it doesn’t kill your attraction.

However, women are hard-wired to find men who display “indicators of resource potential” attractive, which is largely determined by a woman’s perception of a man’s power and status. That’s why moving faster than a woman and handing over your power to her makes it almost impossible for her to stay attracted to you. Sure, there are women out there who will date a man with less power and status than her—they exist—but they’re anomalies, exceptions that prove the rule.

Not unlike a guy who has a thing for fat women and only dates women over 300 pounds. But if YOU had a choice between Grace Elizabeth, a Victoria’s Secret model from back in the day or the sorts of women you see working as a Victoria’s Secret model today, I have a sneaking suspicion that you’d go with Grace Elizabeth (see below if you don’t believe me)…

Likewise, there’s a 99.9% chance the woman you want isn’t a .1% anomaly, which means she only finds men with power and status attractive.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re “a gentleman” because you forfeited your power; you’re actually just an idiot! And if you don’t do something to get that power back, you’re going to be a lonely idiot. So pay close attention to the next mistake because I’m going to explain what you need to do next.

MISTAKE #5: Going Tit-For-Tat

When a woman goes cold, there’s a temptation just to mirror her behavior and do the same thing. Fight fire with fire, as they say, but in this case, you’re fighting coldness with coldness. And look, in certain situations, pulling back and going silent is the right move, 100 percent. But here’s why it’s often not an effective response in situations like this…

When a woman pulls back her attention, validation, or availability, matching her coldness can lead to a stalemate where neither party is willing to re-engage. I understand why this can be confusing; it seems like going cold would be the counterintuitive approach. I mean, for most guys, our kneejerk response would be to chase her, so wouldn’t pulling back and going cold be counterintuitive? The answer is: NO. “Counterintuitive” doesn’t simply mean “just go do the opposite.”

Think of it like this. The inverse of an emotion isn’t what we usually think. The opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s actually indifference. If you’ve ever had a crazy ex, they hate you—sure—but it’s because you still matter to them; you’re still “living rent-free in her head” as they say. The ex who has moved on, who no longer has feelings, is the ex who is indifferent; she can be polite and respectful, but it never goes beyond that.

In psychology, this is known as emotional valence and activation. Emotional valence refers to the intrinsic “goodness” or “badness” of an emotion, while activation refers to the level of arousal or intensity. To model this, emotions are distributed along a two-dimensional circular space containing arousal (high or low) and valence (positive or negative) dimensions. Indifference would be low arousal and neutral valence, while love and hate are high arousal but on opposite valence sides. This explains why indifference, not hate, is the true opposite of love…

Now, here’s how this can help you. When a woman pulls away, the most common question is: “So what should I do next?” Or more specifically, “How should I reach out to her? What text should I send?” But the question you ask first is: “What emotion am I trying to elicit?” Before you can even THINK about choosing what to write, you first have to consider the right emotion to target.

And you want to target the emotion that offsets whatever negative feelings she may have at the moment. Even if you did everything right up until this point, she’s probably still feeling SOME negative emotions. This is completely normal and something you should expect and anticipate. I mean, thinking about… 

On the one hand, she’s probably excited and intrigued by the possibility of spending more time with you but, on the other hand, she’s probably also a bit apprehensive since most—if not all—women experience some anxiety and hesitation before moving forward with a new partner.

Put yourself in her shoes. She’s probably weighing the pros and cons of getting more serious with you. And this is especially true if she has an avoidant attachment style. If she sees herself as being very self-reliant and independent, chances are this progression point will stir up some negative emotions. 

Also consider things from an evolutionary psychology perspective. Every time there’s a progression of intimacy so too comes an increased chance that she winds up pregnant. She may like you, but let’s be honest—she doesn’t know you well enough to be sure that you’re going to stick around and provide for her and a potential child if that were to happen.

So, what’s the underlying negative emotion when you look at things from that angle? What emotion would encompass the apprehension and anxiety we just described? Give up? FEAR! 

And how do you offset fear? Well, first let me tell you what you SHOULDN’T do, which is try to “tell” a woman you respect her independence or that you’re a trustworthy guy. One thing I’ve learned over the years—and learned the hard way—is this: you cannot TELL a woman anything!

All you can do is only SHOW her through your behavior. You wouldn’t say to a woman, “Hey, just so you know, I’m not a serial killer or anything.” Likewise, you shouldn’t ever send a long, logical text trying to explain yourself or tell her why she should trust you or how she should see you. So if you were thinking about writing a text like that, don’t. You can thank me later…

Instead, go back to our original question: what emotion should you try to elicit? Well, since we established she’s probably experiencing FEAR, the question then becomes: What emotion offsets fear? It’s tempting to assume the opposite of fear is courage. But it’s NOT. According to emotional valence, CURIOSITY is fear’s true opposite. Fear makes us avoid the unknown whereas curiosity drives us to explore and embrace it.

So what text can you send a woman to get her curious? Well, that’s entirely up to you. At this point, I encourage you to think creatively and see what you come up with. In fact, if you come up with something good or find something that works, please leave it in the comments. I’m sure a lot of guys watching will find it useful.  

But look. I’m not going to leave you hanging. I’ve been in your position before and I know sometimes it’s hard to even think straight—let alone think creatively—when a woman starts to pull away. So, I’m going to help you out. I’m going to give you the exact text I used in this situation.

In fact, I used it with a woman I was in a VERY bad place with and I was able to bounce back or, more appropriately, I was able to bounce FORWARD to the next stage of intimacy. And—I’m happy to say—we ended up together and we’re still together to this day. (So I guess you can say it worked.) So, I’m going to give you the text—the exact 14 words—I sent which you can also use to elicit curiosity and offset fear…

Pulling It All Together: A “Curious” Text Message…

Alright, so I’m going to show you exactly what text I’ve found works best in this situation, and it’s a text that I’ve given dozens of clients who went on to successfully re-attract and re-ignite things with a woman who was slipping away. Okay, first I’m going to show you the text, then I’m going to explain a bit about it. So here it is:

Hey so quick favor(ish) to ask. Hit me up when you have a sec…

So what this text will do is get a woman curious but it’s important that you know what to do AFTER she’s curious. And if you’ve read this far, you should know the answer: Turn her attraction into desire. Your next steps need to be putting a price tag on attraction. Now, there is a very specific way to do that, a way that I’ve taught to hundreds of men just like you, who followed the steps and got the outcome they wanted… 

But there’s only so much I can teach in a blog post. If you want to learn exactly what to do next, as well as get an entire course that teaches you everything else you need to know to get a successful outcome, then check out this link: https://www.unlockthescrambler.com/rob. Because I’m going to be honest with you: when you send her this text, it’s going to pique her curiosity, but if you don’t know what to do next, there’s a good chance things are going to go sideways (again). But if you go to this link, you can watch two more videos I made, that are like this post but longer and even more comprehensive, that will walk you through, step-by-step, exactly how to parlay this innocent text asking for a favor into a full-blown date and more. Much more. So go ahead and check out this link.