u/NodsAndNuance

This is something I hear from guys all the time and have experienced once myself. And if you've ever felt this way, chances are you yourself messed up somewhere along the way. Let me explain what I mean.

Disclaimer: everything I'm about to say only applies to the "talking stage" situations where you're still courting the girl and there are no explicit expectations of exclusivity or effort from either side. Neither am I encouraging lying or misleading anyone.

IMO, as a guy, you should always have at least 3 prospects or talking stages going at the same time. If you don’t, then you shouldn’t even be asking “how much energy should I invest in this girl?”

Whenever you catch yourself worrying about whether you’re texting too much, why she’s not reciprocating, or overthinking things, stop and check: Is she the only girl I’m talking to right now?

Chances are she is. And most of these anxious questions disappear once you start meeting new women and keeping multiple prospects in rotation.

For girls, having multiple options is automatic. They'll always have guys approaching them (online and offline) even without putting themselves out there. For guys, it's not automatic at all. You actually have to put yourself out there and constantly meet new people just to have the same level of options a woman gets by simply existing.

(And yeah, there are always exceptions. Some women don't experience this abundance of options. I'm generalising here.)

Second, when guys say “investing energy,” they usually mean texting a lot. I’ve said this so many times: don’t use texting to get to know her, flirt, or build connection. The only purpose of texting should be to set up an in-person meet. And you should flirt or get to know her on text only to the extent needed to get her out. That’s it.

The biggest mistake most guys make is they keep texting for weeks or months without ever getting her out.

Understand this that unless she actually meets you in real life, nothing she says over text really matters. You could be sexting all day, but if she won’t come out to meet you, you’re just being used as a virtual validation dildo.

The best way to know if a girl is actually into you isn’t by what she says. It’s by what SHE DOES. Actions speak louder than words. If she isn’t willing to invest the bare minimum of meeting you IRL, then it’s as good as nothing.

That doesn’t mean you should give up after the first or second “no.” It depends on her excuses, whether she suggests another time, and if it keeps happening. Every situation is different. But that’s a separate conversation.

What you need to understand is this - if she’s not complying with even the basic step of meeting up, then keep talking to her if you want, but treat the talking stage as already dead in your head. Don’t expect anything from it. Use it as practice. Meanwhile, go out and meet new girls and start fresh talking stages.

That’s exactly why having 3+ girls you’re actively talking to and trying to set dates with is so important. It kills neediness, stops you from getting overly attached to one girl, and when one (or more) goes cold, you don’t get too bummed because you know you're regularly adding new girls to your roster. Sounds a bit harsh but so is the dating market in 2026 lol.

I'm definitely expecting a lot of pushback but I'm sure there will be a lot of guys who'll get what I'm saying here. Either way, feel free to share what you guys think.

This is something I hear from guys all the time and have experienced once myself. And if you've ever felt this way, chances are you yourself messed up somewhere along the way. Let me explain what I mean.

Disclaimer: everything I'm about to say only applies to the "talking stage" situations where you're still courting the girl and there are no explicit expectations of exclusivity or effort from either side. Neither am I encouraging lying or misleading anyone.

IMO, as a guy, you should always have at least 3 prospects or talking stages going at the same time. If you don’t, then you shouldn’t even be asking “how much energy should I invest in this girl?”

Whenever you catch yourself worrying about whether you’re texting too much, why she’s not reciprocating, or overthinking things, stop and check: Is she the only girl I’m talking to right now?

Chances are she is. And most of these anxious questions disappear once you start meeting new women and keeping multiple prospects in rotation.

For girls, having multiple options is automatic. They'll always have guys approaching them (online and offline) even without putting themselves out there. For guys, it's not automatic at all. You actually have to put yourself out there and constantly meet new people just to have the same level of options a woman gets by simply existing.

(And yeah, there are always exceptions. Some women don't experience this abundance of options. I'm generalising here.)

Second, when guys say “investing energy,” they usually mean texting a lot. I’ve said this so many times: don’t use texting to get to know her, flirt, or build connection. The only purpose of texting should be to set up an in-person meet. And you should flirt or get to know her on text only to the extent needed to get her out. That’s it.

The biggest mistake most guys make is they keep texting for weeks or months without ever getting her out.

Understand this that unless she actually meets you in real life, nothing she says over text really matters. You could be sexting all day, but if she won’t come out to meet you, you’re just being used as a virtual validation dildo.

The best way to know if a girl is actually into you isn’t by what she says. It’s by what SHE DOES. Actions speak louder than words. If she isn’t willing to invest the bare minimum of meeting you IRL, then it’s as good as nothing.

That doesn’t mean you should give up after the first or second “no.” It depends on her excuses, whether she suggests another time, and if it keeps happening. Every situation is different. But that’s a separate conversation.

What you need to understand is this - if she’s not complying with even the basic step of meeting up, then keep talking to her if you want, but treat the talking stage as already dead in your head. Don’t expect anything from it. Use it as practice. Meanwhile, go out and meet new girls and start fresh talking stages.

That’s exactly why having 3+ girls you’re actively talking to and trying to set dates with is so important. It kills neediness, stops you from getting overly attached to one girl, and when one (or more) goes cold, you don’t get too bummed because you know you're regularly adding new girls to your roster. Sounds a bit harsh but so is the dating market in 2026 lol.

I'm definitely expecting a lot of pushback but I'm sure there will be a lot of guys who'll get what I'm saying here. Either way, feel free to share what you guys think.

As a man, I used to find dating deeply frustrating. Men approach, chase, prove, entertain. Women stand there and choose. It felt unfair, and honestly, it was building resentment in me toward the whole dynamic and toward women in general. I know a lot of men here can relate to this.

Then I went down an evolutionary psychology rabbit hole, and I thought to myself "why don't they teach this stuff at school? lol."

Let me explain what I learned in the simplest way possible:

Dating is just shopping. No, seriously!

Think about it. In any normal store, the seller is the one proving themselves. Pitching, smiling, justifying their product. The buyer stands back with their arms folded and decides yes or no.

The only time that flips is with ultra-luxury brands like Hermès or Rolls-Royce. There, the buyer has to prove themselves, fill out applications, wait years on a list, because the seller controls something genuinely scarce and high-value.

Heterosexual dating works the exact same way. Most men automatically assume the position of a seller: approaching, qualifying themselves, doing the entertaining. Women default to buyers: evaluating, selecting, deciding.

The script only flips when the guy is high-status (fame or clout) in his environment. And I want to be specific here, because red pill podcast bros have completely butchered this.

Status is relative, not absolute. You don't need to be globally famous. The guitarist every girl on campus knows gets the same effect in his local market as a popular rapper does nationally.

Now, let me break down the science behind it.

In reproductive terms, women pay a massively higher minimum cost (pregnancy, childbirth, years of child-rearing, a biological clock). A bad choice can literally waste her entire reproductive window, or worse, get her and her child killed or starved to death.

So evolution wired women to be extremely selective. She holds the scarce, high-value resource, so she gets to be the buyer.

Men, by contrast, pay almost nothing per attempt biologically. So evolution wired men to approach more, tolerate rejection more, and invest more upfront effort. The cost of a failed pitch is negligible.

Once I understood this, it all made sense. It's not a conspiracy against men. It's not women being manipulative. It's just good ol' biology haha. You can't be mad at that any more than you can be mad at gravity.

But there's a loophole.

You don't have to become the ultra-luxury brand in the context of evolution to get treated like one, at least not fully.

Humans didn't evolve to evaluate people based on facts and CVs. We evolved to make fast decisions based on behavioral and body language cues. Shortcuts. So if you show the behaviors of a high-status man (I swear, I hate using this term), it triggers the same subconscious response, even if you're not fully there yet.

Speak confidently, and her brain assumes you must have something to be confident about. Be willing to walk away, and she subconsciously deduces you have other options. Otherwise why would you leave? She's not consciously doing this math. The evolutionary programming runs in the background and the conscious brain only experiences the output, which is either she gets attracted or not.

There's also the investment dynamic here. We like to think we value something before we invest in it, but it usually works the other way. We invest first, then convince ourselves it was worth it. If you can get someone to genuinely invest in an interaction (answering real questions, qualifying themselves, earning your specific approval rather than the other way around), their brain starts telling them you must be worth it. This isn't manipulation. It's just how our brains are wired - to always measure our status against other. You're either aware of it or not.

Most men are stuck at one of two extremes: the standard script of "be a good guy and wait for women to notice" or the other extreme of endlessly competing on looks or status, which is a losing game because someone will always have more. Understanding the actual mechanism underneath gets you out of both traps.

Knowing this combined with me spending a disgusting amount of time in my early twenties learning start and hold conversations with random strangers is what stopped me from building resentment towards this entire situation and enjoy for what it is.

The one thing no one can outcompete you at is being you. Stop playing by rules someone else wrote.