Dear Aaron,

How do you know to move on from courting a girl? I believe in being sincere and trying my best, but some of my friends say it only makes me look desperate. But I’ve also seen so many cases where in the end, the girl gives the guy a chance and they end up together.
-des-

Dear des,

Thanks for the very sincere and honest question. To put it briefly: women definitely appreciate sincerity and effort. On the other hand, too many unreciprocated advances only make one look desperate and start making the lady in question start staying away. How do you find the balance?

The key here is whether she reciprocates or not. If your advances are met warmly by her and she starts showing positive signs to you herself, go ahead and continue. Example: You ask her out for a meal but she rejects you because she’s busy. However, she proposes an alternate date and time instead for you to meet. Another good example: You do a random act of kindness for her, like surprising her with a thoughtful gift. She reciprocates by giving you a mini surprise of your own. Example of bad situation: you constantly ask her out, but she always has an excuse to not make it.

What about the guy who perseveres and puts in tons of effort until the girl gets touched and gives him a chance? Yes, they might end up in a relationship, get married and apparently live happily ever after. But guess who holds all the power in the relationship? Trust me – you don’t want a ‘heavily tilted to one side’ relationship like that. You want one where there is balance and effort from both parties. Thank me – your friends won’t call you a wuss or say you’re ‘whipped’.

So, to simply answer your question: you move on when you realize she’s not responding warmly to your efforts anymore. Don’t make the extremely common mistake of doubling or tripling your efforts if she’s being cold.

On a final note, you really don’t need gargantuan efforts to convince or persuade anyone to fall in love with you. It doesn’t work that way. All you need to do is put yourself out there with sincerity and honesty. And if she doesn’t appreciate your time and effort – move on because there will be someone else who will.

 

Dear Aaron,

I have many female friends and am fine talking to them. However, when it’s with the girl I like – I get really nervous and always do or say the wrong thing. Do you have any tips on how to be less nervous?
-g-

Hey g,

You sound rather young, so firstly I would say – don’t worry too much about it as you’ll get better with age and more experience.

Let’s examine the cause of your nervousness. You only get nervous around the girl who you like, whereas you’re fine with other girls. I’d venture to say this is because you worry too much about what she thinks about you, whether what you’re saying sounds funny and whether what you’re doing looks cool.

In most things in life, we tend to get overly attached to the result of our actions. Particularly, in our ‘Asian culture’ pursuit of As in exams. But focusing too much on the end result can have the negative impact of putting ourselves under tremendous pressure and causing us to fumble. Which is what’s happening to you. Think Pirlo at the penalty spot taking a high pressure penalty for Italy at the Euros. If he’s thinking ‘the hopes of my nation rest on me scoring this very important penalty’ the pressure would surely overwhelm him. But if he mentally blocks out the crowd and noise, and just focuses on the task of kicking the ball as powerfully and accurately as possible, the pressure doesn’t affect him so much.

What I’m getting at is – instead of letting your mind wander and think ‘if I say this wrongly, she’s going to walk away and never come back’ (which will then cause you to freeze up), just focus on taking small steps forward. Instead of thinking for the perfect thing to say, just honestly say what’s on your mind. Instead of policing your actions because you’re worried she won’t like what she sees, do what you would normally do if she’s not around. And instead of hesitating to call her and ask her out, just go ahead and do it.

It’s easy to say ‘don’t worry, don’t think, don’t let the pressure get to you’, but your best friend here really is experience. So just keep at it, keep taking action even when you’re nervous, and you’ll improve greatly with the learning and experience.