Dear Aaron,

I met Z at an office event a few months ago. We chat quite often over the Internet but whenever I ask her out she can never make it for some reason. She always promises next time, but never agrees the next time I ask. Also, sometimes she replies well but at other times she just ignores me. I feel like giving up but my friends ask me to keep trying. Is it a female thing to be inconsistent?
-TJ-

Hi TJ,

Great question! I’ll try to answer without making any broad generalizations or being sexist.

Do a little bit of research on Google and you’ll find that the query ‘Why are women so flaky?’ is one of the top searches. Flaky is defined by Urban Dictionary as ‘Unreliable, characterized by not following through on agreed plans’. Sound familiar? I wouldn’t say it’s just a female thing though, ‘Why are men so flaky?’ is also a very popular search (albeit less than women).

So why are women perceived to be more flaky? I believe it’s because women try to be indirect about rejection when they’re not interested. So they’d rather give semi-believable excuses and ignore messages, instead of saying the rather cruel words ‘I’m available, just not for you’. Have you heard of stories where a girl gives a guy her number but doesn’t respond whenever he calls or messages? Well, she’s not playing games, but probably just didn’t want to lie or embarrass the guy when he asked for her number. And every time she says ‘next time we’ll go out’, it’s probably so you won’t keep pestering her to go out at that current moment.

Just in case you’re feeling bad about yourself, don’t be. The best of us men get rejected, ignored and have women flake on us too. A lot. Just accept that it’s the way women communicate and don’t take it personally.

In your situation, I’d say Z really isn’t interested to be more than a friendly colleague. If she’s interested, by now she’d have offered or suggested a different time when you two could meet up. As a general guideline, a girl who’s into you is always very consistent.

Dear Aaron,

I’ve read a lot of magazines and articles saying that  women want confidence and a sense of humor in a man. But not all of us guys are so lucky to be naturally confident and funny. I’m still young and just starting work so how can I be more confident? And how do I become more entertaining and funny to women?

-young-

Hey young,

You’ve got a lot of good things going for you here. Firstly, you read, which means you’re constantly exposing your mind to new things. Secondly, you have desire to improve yourself, which is certainly missing from a lot of men in our generation. And finally, you’ve already discovered two things that women find very attractive: (nope, not the BMWs and the credit cards, but) confidence and humor.

Some sociologists state that confidence comes from one’s perception of his/her ability to perform a job in society. And that perception is very much dependent on feedback that the world gives us. So theoretically, if the world keeps giving positive feedback about your abilities to you, your confidence would increase. Take a simple example of something you’re really good at: turning on a computer. You’ll never second guess your ability to turn on a computer, because you’ve done it countless times, you’ve always (I hope) succeeded in turning it on, and you’ve gotten a lot of good things out of turning on the computer (being able to go online, do work, etc).

That simple feedback loop applies to your general self esteem and confidence as a whole as well. If you’re constantly setting new goals, and achieving them well, you’ll build good self confidence. That’s the reason why people take up challenges like climbing Mount Kinabalu, running 43 km marathons or sailing round the world. It’s not about the challenge, but what overcoming the challenge gives you.

As for being entertaining and funny, I wouldn’t put too much effort into that. Sometimes guys try too hard and end up looking like performing monkeys instead of charming, humorous gentlemen. Rather, I’d suggest you start looking for humor in everyday situations. You don’t need to tell jokes or perform tricks. Observe funny people and comedians and the humorous ways in which they view the world. That’s what’s really so funny about them.

Above all, keep having the mindset to constantly improve yourself, and you’ll definitely go very far with the ladies.