The Best Mentality for Dealing With Flakes and Ghosts

[pancakemouse]

We know that flaking and ghosting is out of control, but too many guys let themselves get caught up it emotionally. I used to be this way, as well.

But over the last year, I’ve finally killed the beast: after texting over 1500 girls throughout my career, I no longer am concerned about getting a reply. As soon as I fire off my most recent text to a girl, she’s out of my mind entirely. Same with interactions, dates, and so forth. Individual girls are simply not on my mind unless I’m actively engaging with them. Even if I have zero other girls I'm currently sleeping with or even texting, I'm able to stay true to this mindset.

How did I cultivate this behavior?

It’s all due to a mentality I’ve slowly internalized:

Every time I finish talking to a girl, whether on the phone, over text, or in person, I expect that I will never, ever see or hear from her again, regardless of what she says.

Meet a girl during daygame or nightgame and send an initial text? She’s not going to text back.

She texts back? She’s not going to reply to your next message.

You scheduled a date? She’s going to cancel.

The date went well, maybe you even had sex? She’s going to ghost.

You’ve been seeing each other for a month? Doesn’t matter. The instant she leaves your place is the last time you’re going to hear from her.

Flaking, ghosting and unreceptiveness is default female behavior. They are not only biologically programmed to reject multiple mates, but socially programmed through unchecked hypergamy which gives them nearly-unlimited options.

Every time a woman does not flake, ghost, or is receptive to you, consider this a bonus. Out of all the possible mates she could have had, she’s chosen you!

How to Operationalize This

Here’s an example of what I do:

I meet a girl from daygame. In the interaction, I’m in the moment with her. As soon as she leaves, I archive her text and don’t think about her again.

If I get a text from her, I devote mental space to thinking about what to text back, then as soon as I send my text, I completely forget about everything that happened.

If we schedule a date, I do some minimum date prep, but I don’t dwell on what the outcome of the date will be. If the date goes well, I send a follow-up text, seed a second date, and then forget anything ever happened.

This has been incredibly beneficial for my mood. My emotional and mental bandwidth go towards other leads and accomplishing things outside of Game, versus dwelling on things I can’t control.

Try it out. I can’t promise it will work right away. As men, we expect responses from girls, and the ego is very hard to kill. But over time, I guarantee you that you can whittle down your dependence on receiving validation and responses from women.

 

[AskTheDom]

I agree with all the above as the go to for a mentally healthy dating life.

At the beginning being left on the blue checkmark or getting a single word response crushed me - girls flaking the date crushed me entirely and I would get angry.
It's by adopting the mindset of that you own nothing to no one and no one owes you shit that I started to approach this better ( and I don't know how also getting better results , or might be the opposite - who knows?)

Great post Pancake :arrow_up:

 

[Squilliam]

Flaking, ghosting and unreceptiveness is default female behavior. They are not only biologically programmed to reject multiple mates, but socially programmed through unchecked hypergamy which gives them nearly-unlimited options.

Every time a woman does not flake, ghost, or is receptive to you, consider this a bonus. Out of all the possible mates she could have had, she’s chosen you!

Honestly this just makes me feel extremely depressed to read.

It makes me feel like I can't actually focus on getting emotionally invested in any girl, rather I have to keep her at arms length, treat her like she doesn't give a shit about me and is going to ghost me afterwards.

I guess I feel kinda bitter about what's going on with my plate, but I'll save that for tonight's log entry.

Your mindset is definitely correct but to me it's extremely disheartening at the same time that I have to adopt a mindset like this to begin with.

I can definitely say that this doesn't work for me currently. If I like a girl and know there's a chance with her, telling myself she'll ghost me just causes me to obsess and be more pessimistic. I think you actually told me that this mindset is bad for me in particular.

That being said, I can see why over time it has helped you.

 

[AskTheDom]

How about before you get emotionally invested in her, she earns your investment?
I mean if that’s a
Too easy, ain’t that valuable right?

 

[Squilliam]

How about before you get emotionally invested in her, she earns your investment?
I mean if that’s a
Too easy, ain’t that valuable right?

I'm not exactly sure what constitutes "earning my investment".

I was thinking something along those lines though. I should stop being vulnerable and wearing my heart on my sleeve with girls that I haven't seen too many times, even if we've fucked.

And I should not let girls I barely know sleep over and spend time with me the next day. Problem is I was so desperate and horny when that happened that I just wanted it too badly to say no.

 

[Zug]

I don't think anyone south of low level male celebrities understand what it's like to be an attractive girl on the apps. Girl I had a date with recently had 330 likes from that weekend after setting up her account. That's a literal tornado of dick circling her. Imagine you're in that position. You're probably not selecting based on looks, other than everyone needs to be 'very' attractive. You're instantly cutting anyone with any negative quality to you - political affiliation, hair color, vax status, height, crooked teeth, cat owner, lack of tattoos, they don't smoke as much as weed as you, they're not into EDM, whatever. At this point, it doesn't matter how arbitrary it is because who cares. Even after that absurd filtering, there is still too many to select from. So it's going to be based on engagement and timing luck. Then EVEN AFTER that, if she forgets about you for a day, why bother touching base, she can just select someone fresh without that infinitesimal baggage.

This isn't something wrong with women or society either, this is virtually how any human acts when given infinite choice. The best strategy to deal with this is to be highly engaging, somewhat polarizing, unique, and move the action forward as fast as possible without making it weird. Also, you want to be able to almost automate that process for two reasons - it's an insane timesink to not do so, and automating it makes it easy to be detached from the results. There needs to be some element of tailoring the texts and engaging them uniquely, but you can nearly automate that too with practice.

The second you hit send, it is out of your hands. You're launching a paper airplane into that dick tornado that's circling her. Understanding that should destroy the part of your expectations that's a result of having wildly incorrect beliefs about what the experience looks like from her side. The rest of the acceptance is going to have to be built gradually from repeated failure. Finally, you should accept it's still going to sting a little each time. It goes way down as your skin get thicker, but it never hits zero. Life is suffering. I don't think finding ways to become numb is a good strategy, you're better off finding ways that pain doesn't bother you as greatly. Finding ways to become numb just leads to Anhedonia. Lowering your attachment levels to be appropriate is the key, and the appropriate attachment level for someone you've texted and never met is slightly above zero.

 

[colgate / bulldog]

Finding ways to become numb just leads to Anhedonia.

egh this sentence describes most of my life and when i get down too

 

[MakingAComeback]

THE WISDOM OF THE MOUSE

Thanks brothers for this great value

Practical, sensible, and oriented towards our self care and growth.

We are MEN OF SELF IMPROVEMENT. We have decided to be the best men we can be - positive forces for good in this world.

Making the journey one of compassion on ourselves, is deeply important, so I want to share that this is also pretty much my approach when it comes to the underlying process of "dealing with" flakes, ghosts, and so on - one further thing I will contribute:

-Every flake, ghost, no pull, no lay, or whatever IS ONE STEP CLOSER TO SUCCESS

REAL HUSTLERS WILL GET THE DOOR SLAMMED IN THEIR FACE 99 TIMES FOR 1 BIG SALE

Ultimately, whatever frame a male has to adopt to make the journey one that is healthy, is positive and should be explored. When I was beating my AA, I used to tell myself every approach, every day I go out and try, and every time I get feedback (two of three of my most trusted advisors are in this thread, Pancake and The Dom, true legends of the game of improvement), I am actually growing 0.001%

Those small %s add up baby

AND WE ALL SUCEED

Thanks for the value today King Pancake as ever

MAC DADDY

 

[Holden]

"Just assume she doesn't like you and will replace you soon with a better man"

What a way to go through life.

The way to not care about flakes is to have lots of sex with attractive women.

If I have a threesome planned with two slim hot 20 year olds I'm not going to cry because a 26 y/o from Bumble cancelled a date or stopped replying.

I do agree with the old PUA advice, somewhat echoed here, that said "always fuck her like it's the last time you'll ever fuck her."

I also don't agree with the hypergamy idea.

When my MLTRs/high-end FBs break up, it's not because they've found a better guy than me. They always leave me for guys who are objectively worse looking than me (and judging by appearances, don't fuck nearly as good) but they promise them monogamy and at some point they'd rather nail down a less-desirable guy and be mono than keep sharing the 'alpha'.

In fact, when they leave, they leave because they're butthurt that I won't commit to them and other guys at my SMV won't commit either so by definition they have to settle for a lower SMV dude. Is that hypergamy?

When they end up back in my bed after 10 months when they break up with their boyfriend, is that hypergamy? Or when old plates text me "I like my boyfriend but he doesn't fuck like you do", is that hypergamy?

I was a bit down when Vocal Girl 'broke up' with me, it seemingly came out of nowhere (in hindsight it didn't - I pushed the threesome question too much despite her resistance and she finally realized I would never commit to a girl who wasn't open to threesomes with me, so she left) but I knew that she'd back sooner or later and 10 months later I was fucking her again and hearing all about how she missed me/my cock.

Nympho Girl 2 had to delete her Tinder because her phone would literally crash every time she opened the app. Now she always drives 2+ hours to my place (and has to lie to her parents about it) to come see me. She texts me obsessively to the point where I have to regularly ignore her which only turns her on more because none of the other guys on her IG ever ignore her. She texts me stuff like "I have to admit it hurts a bit when I see you post Stories with other girls." She has 10k Instagram followers but obsessively checks if I watched her Story.

Caught an old MLTR from years ago accidentally liking a Facebook post of mine that was 4 years old (she was stalking my profile.) Playfully called her out on it and tried to get her to come over and she told me "you know I want to, but what would I tell my bf lol?"

I'm just trying to make a point with real examples here that, god forbid, girls might actually like you.

I don't see the point of trying to get good with girls only to go through life with the mindset of "they don't actually like me."

This is a really weird post to me. Girls reject everyone and they're hypergamous so the rare time I get my dick wet, I consider it a bonus! Thank god that this girl fell through sheer luck through the alpha cracks! But best assume it won't last long!

Is this how winners think?

 

[MakingAComeback]

Again, great post Holden

Man, there's real truth in it. Consider the example of L - she had 600 matches after being on Hinge for ONE DAY. She sent a small handful of likes, like less than 5 - one was me.

She texts a lot to this day, and randomly calls me, dude I don't actually answer as I am working my balls off on IronWill (I do feel bad after).

Sometimes she will make clear there are a lot of other people who are interested in having her time, and she turns them all down for me. I've freakin friendzoned her but she keeps trying to escape. It's really cool and a lovely feeling.

Sometimes, they actually like you, man, and that is the sweetness, the joy, the shit we will remember when we're old and grey.

But like anything, it took evolution to have those kind of experiences with women. When I was so deeply hurt and fucked up, walking around the world as a "subpar male" as I used to think I was, then I gave in to stories that I would never really be loved or have any lady invest in me.

When a lady you genuinely respect and appreciate, who is sexy and fuckin' awesome, turns everyone down repeatedly but you, cancels plans on everyone else but you, whose best friends call her when you're around and excitedly proclaim "are you with Ravi?"" you just feel, damn, I have something man, I have something.....

Truth is, we all do, it's our masculine essence that is sacred and that matters, and is fuckin' sexy, to the right gal.

Whatever specific framework and mindset "tricks" we have to tap into, sure, all good - these are all subject to change, btw, and we keep evolving. Consider people like The Dom who've done this shit for 20+ years, if you hang out with him, you'll see he just internalised certain things over time and through the forcing function of TIME/VOLUME, through unconscious pattern recognition we figure out own own specific individual tricks to keep on getting better and having a better time with girls

Numbers Game + ACTUALLY IMPROVING YOURSELF + SMART Work on your sticking points + Tribes & Mentors + Time + Emotional Healing + Mindset Evolution = SUCCESS

Not so simple an equation huh

But when we keep converging, sharing, and supporting each other, each male can crack HIS INDIVIDUAL part of the equation

MAC

 

[Crisis_Overcomer]

I don't see the point of trying to get good with girls only to go through life with the mindset of "they don't actually like me."

Isn't this a strawman though? If you are talking about Pancake, he didn't say that they don't like him. He just assumes the flake which is different.

Girls reject everyone and they're hypergamous so the rare time I get my dick wet, I consider it a bonus! Thank god that this girl fell through sheer luck through the alpha cracks! But best assume it won't last long!

Is this how winners think?

Keep in mind the difference in locations. If I'm not mistaken you're in a smallish college town, while pancake has gamed in some of the highest competition places in the US. His experience with girls will vary from yours for many reasons... one of them being location.

To answer your question, here are some examples from my city:

1) Approached a hottie almost a year ago and got her #. Two minutes later she gets approached by another dude who didn't seem to know how to pull the trigger. We had sex a couple days later.

2) Approached a cutie but she deflected and kept going. My friend approaches her, she tries to leave, but her Air pod falls off so she stops. My buddy chats her up and they exchange. She sucked his dick three days later.

3) Matched with a hottie on Bumble who had matched with a friend of mine a year ago. They didn't have sex because the convo died, but I had sex with her eventually.

So we don't thank God if we get laid. But given the competition and girls' nature, we do believe luck and timing play an important role.

My guess is that the higher the competition, the more you gotta develop thinking patterns like Pancake's to protect your sanity. Having approached a ton of girls last year, I def see the value in it.

It would be interesting to see how you would perform in places like the US tbh. My guess is that you would have similar experiences to arcade_fire- you'll bang hotties but you will find it hard to retain them.

 

[Holden]

Isn't this a strawman though? If you are talking about Pancake, he didn't say that they don't like him. He just assumes the flake which is different.

Sure, I was exaggerating a bit to make a point. Still my main point remains that "assume you'll lose the girl" (which isn't that different from "assume she doesn't like you (enough)"...) is not a great way to go through life.

To be complete, my post wasn't so much about pre-retention girls like random girls you approach or match on the apps. Of course I deal with endless flakes and dead convos just like everyone in this game. I just disagree with the mental model of "assume you're going to lose."

Last year was the first year where I flaked on a ton of girls, and lost probably 10 lays because I simply don't have the time (or the desire) to text them when I have my harem going. Isn't abundance what we're all faking here anyway, until we get there? I mean, doesn't game boil down to "act like the guy who drowns in pussy"?

What I'm trying to say is, there's a big difference between "assume she's going to flake" versus "don't care if she flakes."

So we don't thank God if we get laid. But given the competition and girls' nature, we do believe luck and timing play an important role.

I don't think anyone disagrees with this. But the entire point of learning game (getting good with girls) is to minimize the luck factor as much as possible. There's a reason we call it "getting laid" over here and not "getting lucky" like normies do.

My guess is that the higher the competition, the more you gotta develop thinking patterns like Pancake's to protect your sanity. Having approached a ton of girls last year, I def see the value in it.
...
Keep in mind the difference in locations. If I'm not mistaken you're in a smallish college town, while pancake has gamed in some of the highest competition places in the US. His experience with girls will vary from yours for many reasons... one of them being location.

For sure. But status is context-dependent. I'd rather be the biggest fish in the small college town pond, than a small fish in the big megacity ocean.

That said, no one is more curious as to how I'd fare in a big megacity than me lol. It will happen in the future.

 

[pancakemouse]

The way to not care about flakes is to have lots of sex with attractive women.

Such abundance is possible for some men. The issue is that this abundance relies on uncontrollable factors (e.g. genetics, timing) and some less controllable factors (location). As you're well-aware, the sexual marketplace is unequally distributed. The vast majority of men, even those who undergo relentless self-improvement, will not be able to create enough abundance to foster this natural lack of caring and maintain it year-round.

Such men need to pursue stoic acceptance just as much as they pursue abundance. The abundance will provide the natural lack of caring when times are fat, and the acceptance will provide it when times are slim.

(One thing we haven't covered here is cumulative abundance and self-belief forged by past success. I have a "Validation" folder on my Dropbox. When my mindset is starting to falter, I go back and look at all the hot girls I've been with. I'm sure that these cumulative experiences have contributed to a hardening of my mindset in this respect as well)

What I'm trying to say is, there's a big difference between "assume she's going to flake" versus "don't care if she flakes."

I was never able to not care if a girl flaked until I started assuming she was going to flake.

I can see by Squilliam's response that this mentality won't work for everyone, but it works great for me.

I want to reiterate: when I think about a girl ghosting or flaking, I don't do it in a negative way. I send waves of peaceful acceptance towards her supposed flake, thinking much in the same way that Zug states that flaking and ghosting is rational behavior for a market actor in high demand faced with an abundance of supply.

 

[Manganiello]

I'd you have enough volume, it's impossible to care.

If the girl at 7pm, flakes why would you care if you have a girl at 5,6,8,9?

That can be a reality if people figure out online and live in a big enough city.


I was triple booking dates. That worked for me.

 

[AskTheDom]

How about before you get emotionally invested in her, she earns your investment?
I mean if that’s a
Too easy, ain’t that valuable right?

I'm not exactly sure what constitutes "earning my investment".

I was thinking something along those lines though. I should stop being vulnerable and wearing my heart on my sleeve with girls that I haven't seen too many times, even if we've fucked.

And I should not let girls I barely know sleep over and spend time with me the next day. Problem is I was so desperate and horny when that happened that I just wanted it too badly to say no.

You work hard to have sex, they have to work hard to have your affection and your feelings - seems fair to you?
There is no sleep over unless really really late and no activities together the day after.

I understand that telling a man that has been in the desert for a week that water isn't that special, but every time you find desperate or going against principles that you agreed are best for you before, I'd just like to suggest to reflect a second on it

 

[Squilliam]

You work hard to have sex, they have to work hard to have your affection and your feelings - seems fair to you?
There is no sleep over unless really really late and no activities together the day after.

I understand that telling a man that has been in the desert for a week that water isn't that special, but every time you find desperate or going against principles that you agreed are best for you before, I'd just like to suggest to reflect a second on it

I mean, in all fairness, I didn't have to work hard to have sex with her that time. She literally wanted to direct to house. Also tbh on the 1st date, it was late, so that's why I let her sleep over. Then on the next day I actually didn't hang out with her. It was a different story on subsequent dates.

I get the point that you're trying to make though. If she didn't put out within a few dates then my behavior would've definitely been different.

 

[Zug]

Recommending abundance to guys suffering from chronic ghost/flaking is low-key hilarious. Abundance definitely can help, but abundance mentality doesn't seem to be as useful for some. Highly attractive women tend to be high in neuroticism, and they have more abundance than any non-celebrity male could achieve. Not all elements of having abundance are under your direct control, while your reaction to getting ghosted or flaked on is.

 

[AskTheDom]

Fake abundance will never work for the simple fact that "feeling" like a millionaire doesn't work - You don't know how ti feels like (and your subconscious knows that you are faking it)
You get an idea of how it should like based on the idea that you have, but you don't feel it and it will always be "fake"

What I'm saying Holden is not that people shouldn't have a "fake it till you make it mentality" when approaching and the seduction phase ( clinginess and needy are off putting) - It's a mental reframe to look at flakes for the average guy.
You will see if you take DG seriously that the initial barrage of rejection and flakes send very quickly your "abundance" mentality to the bleachers if you don't reframe it in your mind correctly

 

[Manganiello]

[EDIT: UNLOCKED THIS]

Locking this.

This is too much theory now.

Discussions like this have their value, but it's starting to spin over the same themes.

(Anyone who disagrees about locking this can DM me and I'll open it up if what theyre saying makes sense).


I actually think most people have a point here. But the readers will have to decide what outlook is the most productive for themselves.

 

[Manganiello]

Alright guys. I'm unlocking this.


REASON:
I'm used to inexperienced guys going on and on about theory that's either totally inaccurate or detracts from people actually putting in the work.

So I made the decision to lock this from that lens, when in reality there was actually a valid discussion from some of the more experienced guys with differing points of view. Which in itself is actually very valuable.


--

Tagging all the guys who posted in this thread.

Also if you guys have any comments regarding locking threads like this, lemme know. Its not a perfect system, and we're basically just trying to make the forum a better place.

Zug
Holden
pancakemouse
Squilliam
AskTheDom
colgate
MakingAComeback
Crisis_Overcomer