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Are You Chasing Him And Don’t Even Know It?

by eharmony Editorial Team - July 14, 2010

If you think you're just being "friendly" by sending him a flirty text or baking him a birthday cake, you could be getting in the way of the kind of courtship you desire.

If you think you’re just being “friendly” by sending him a flirty text or baking him a birthday cake, you could be getting in the way of the kind of courtship you desire.

When we find ourselves falling for a man, it’s normal to start feeling that if we don’t show enough interest in him he might get the wrong message and drift away.  We want to make sure he knows we like him.  So we might do things like:

  1. Calling him because you heard or read about something interesting, or because you knew there was a great band playing somewhere, or someone told you about some great event that you want to invite him to.
  2. Calling to ask why he hasn’t called you.
  3. E-mailing him, texting him, Facebooking him, sending him a cute card, dropping by his house, or in any way attempting to initiate some kind of contact.
  4. Asking him how he feels – especially asking him how he feels about you or the relationship.
  5. Inviting him to come and join you, or in any way acting like the social director of the relationship.

At first glance, these actions might seem completely harmless.  In fact, you may feel that he’ll just see you as being friendly and want to get closer to you. But it’s important to be cautious when reaching out to a potential romantic interest – especially with repeated messages. Many men perceive check-ins, invitations, and questions about the relationship as a kind of pressure; or a woman taking on the role of pursuer. Some men may back off their dating efforts when they sense you are assuming a role they view as traditionally male.

Your desire to touch base and get greater clarity into the relationship feels normal to you, and it may usually occur as a good-hearted attempt to stay in touch with a man who has piqued your interest. But it’s important to understand how he might see this activity. In an online dating environment, it is perfectly acceptable for a woman to initiate contact. But after you’ve had a chance to meet, some men see repeated messages from you as a sign of insecurity – a sign of fear that you’ll lose him. He can feel smothered in a way that dampens his desire to get closer to you.

It Pays To Be Patient

I know how frustrating it is to sit back and let a man take the lead. We want a man to know we’re interested in him. We want to make it easy for him to ask us out again. We want to seem enthusiastic and easygoing.  And often times this means we inadvertently chase him in the ways described above.

It’s true that most men need validation as much as we do.  But there’s a difference between letting a man know you like him and subtly chasing him.  When you chase a man, you don’t give him the chance to show you how he really feels about you.  And my experience has shown that the only way to really be sure of where his heart is at is by creating the space he needs to pursue you.

Lure Him, Don’t Chase Him

For a man to feel like he wants to get closer to you, he needs to feel good around you.  And the way he feels good around you is when he pleases you.  As long as you seem happy to see him and tell him how much you enjoy his company, most man will keep coming back for more.  Stay in your feminine energy by being receptive and open to his attention.  When he sees that you are a woman who is secure in herself and doesn’t need to pursue him, he will be encouraged to step up his game so another man doesn’t beat him to the chase. Once you are in a committed relationship with one man, letting him take the lead and continuing to be receptive to him will fuel his passion for you.  He will adore you and appreciate you, and you will be able to relax in the knowledge that you are a desirable creature he’d be a fool to take for granted.

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