Dating a woman can at times be tough. Yes, we have an abundance of dating apps to make the process a lot easier, but after they’ve done their job of matching us, it’s down to us guys to do the rest with our chat. But what might work on one girl, may have the complete opposite effect on another.
One such single bachelor found that out recently, albeit somewhat accidentally. Sean Kernan is the protagonist of this story, and he not only discovered a new dating trend from it, but he secured himself a successful date.
Starting with that dating trend: ‘negging’. It refers to a tactic employed by a guy, where he will speak down to a woman, and generally just act like a jerk, in an attempt for her to think he’s “just being silly” and as a result, will like him.
A similar tactic can be taken by woman towards guys, of course, but it’s fair to say negging is more likely to be used by the younger lotharios out there, proven by the fact Sean had never even heard of the term (or realised there was a name for his unintentional behaviour).
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But negging is exactly what Sean did, after he was invited out by his friend ‘Katie’, to meet up with her and her friends for drinks. Sean joined them and got himself acquainted, only to then realise that the woman sitting next to him looked remarkably familiar. And that was because he’d seen her on Tinder just a day before. But he swiped left.
It was then after a fair few drinks, that Sean revealed this fact to ‘Rachel’ – just the fact he saw her on Tinder. The latter part comes later. And this is where the story gets juicy.
‘Rachel’ asked Sean if he’d swiped right on her when she popped up on his feed. Poor Sean was put on the spot, and no matter what he did, it wasn’t going to look good. Not only is he a bad liar, so claiming he’d swiped left would’ve only ended up with him digging a hole too deep to get out of, but he paused a touch before he even answered.
“You, didn’t swipe yes?!”
“Well – I knew…you were…close friends with Katie and all…”
Our heart bleeds for Sean.
Fortunately for our budding bachelor, honesty really was the best policy. As the two shared more drinks throughout the evening, with Rachel throwing in the odd joke, “Oh but I’m not hot enough to swipe right on?.”
“Oh well, would you swipe right on her?!”
Sean claims, “In some bizarro-land reality, telling her I swiped left was the sexiest thing she’d ever heard.”
And perhaps because he wasn’t even trying to hit on her, he was able to be more himself. “My experience at that bar did provide an interesting contrast to the times where I was pulling out all the stops, being charming, making reservations, trying to be sweet and funny – but really, just chasing a woman who was only mildly interested, only to watch her slip through my fingers.”
“And then there I was seeing a woman shapeshift when she found out I swiped left on her.”
Sean adds, “If anything it is a testament to the importance of keeping it cool when you are in the initial stages of dating. Don’t be slapping your knee and laughing at everything the other person says.”
“Coming off as overly interested will make you seem like a low-value prospect, like you don’t have many equitable options. Take the edge off your pursuit. Dangle a bit of ambiguity; it is like jet fuel to the attraction.”
Sean didn’t say whether or not he ended up dating ‘Rachel’ or not, but the moral from this story is that it’s always better to be yourself, and be honest with yourself about the type of girl you want to date, rather than go with a “any girl will do” mindset.