Not Your Mother's Rules: The New Secrets for Dating (8 page)

Most women, especially those who don’t know that dating is strategic, text back men in nanoseconds. So we had to come up with a sensible text-back-time plan that women of all ages can use to delay their natural tendency to respond too quickly and to write more than he does. To a “Hi it’s Steven from the other night, how are you?” first text, the average woman will write back in two seconds: “Nice to hear from you! Actually I’m on my lunch break now so heading over to the library to check out a self help book my friend told me about lol. My car needed to be inspected so I left it at the shop this am. So I’m just walking everywhere today. What’s up with you?” These women are spoiling guys now more than ever. Remember, it’s just a first text from a new guy! All he wrote was “How are you?” He did not ask for your life
story. If you took four hours and wrote back a brief response, it would be absolutely fine. No big deal. In other words, don’t interrupt your physics lab, yoga class, or business meeting to answer his text. It can wait!
He
can wait. You feel compelled to text back paragraphs right away… lest what? Another girl will text him and take him away with her quick and witty response? More likely, he will think you are busy and/or with other guys—and that would be a good thing.

It’s important to realize that for a guy, not every text is as earth-shattering as it is for you. He could be texting you while filling his tank at the gas station. For guys, texting can be fun, like a sport or video game. But for a girl, a text from a cute guy is really special, like winning the lottery. In the midst of twenty other messages from girlfriends, coworkers, her parents, and her sister, there’s a text from the guy she really likes and it’s all she can think about.

Before reading our book, she writes back immediately. Within an hour of hasty texting back and forth, they know more about each other than would have been divulged on a first date. During a lull, she goes over the conversation to dissect its meaning—she might forward it to her friends to understand exactly what he is saying. She studies it like an SAT prep book or the Scriptures. Typically this woman ends up in a chatfest that doesn’t lead to a date—certainly not a Saturday night date—and then contacts us for help. She doesn’t understand why her relationships are casual or fizzle out, despite a promising he-spoke-to-her-first beginning. She thought she should be available and text guys back nonstop to keep them interested. Not true!
That’s
why we are writing this book. Stop treating texts like an emergency that requires an immediate response. After you read this chapter, texting back in nanoseconds should feel like touching a hot stove!

There’s another critical piece to this
Rule
: after you do text back, limit the conversation to fifteen minutes or ten total exchanges. This strategy makes him wonder what you are doing, creates anticipation, and forces him to ask you out to have a relationship. All these things are good, so don’t feel guilty about them!

Brittany, twenty-two, met a guy at a party who walked over to her—a promising beginning! He got her number and texted her the next day, “Hey there, so glad we met last night. I was wondering how your day is going.” What was her next move? Four hours later she wrote back: “Nice meeting you too! Work is good but crazy busy!” She had wanted to ask him how his day was going but we advised her against it, reminding her that she wanted him to ask her out. We told her to be witty but brief to prevent endless chatter. He wrote back five minutes later, “What do you do for work?” She wrote back thirty minutes later, “I’m a pharmaceutical sales rep.” He wrote back three minutes later, “Do you get to try out all the drugs for free? haha.” She wrote back twenty minutes later, “nope, lol.” Two minutes later he wrote, “So what do you like to do for fun? Maybe we can go to the movies. Are you free this Saturday night?” She wrote back thirty minutes later, “Yes, that would be great.” Mission accomplished! No chatfest and this
Rules
Girl got a date!

Stacey, twenty-four, had to work a little harder to rope in a guy. She got this text at 8 p.m. on a Tuesday night from a guy she had met at a bar: “Great meeting you last night. That place has really delicious appetizers. How are you doing? Any fun plans this weekend?” First she dissected it on her own. She wasn’t 100 percent sure if he was asking her out or just chatting. With his chitchatty questions, she was worried about it turning into a textfest with no date. She
wanted
to
write back, “No, this weekend is really wide open. Why, what are you doing?” Absolutely not! First of all, he did not ask her out directly or suggest a specific night, so it would be presumptuous to assume that. Because he sent his message after 7 p.m., she waited until the next morning and wrote, “Nice meeting you too… nothing definite for the weekend yet!”

The highlights here: Never assume a guy is asking you out, and don’t volunteer your schedule. Make him pin you down for a specific night. And of course, don’t text him back immediately, and when you do respond, mix it up and write fewer words than he does (see schedule below).

All texts, especially the first one from a new guy, should be responded to with fewer words than he wrote. For example, if he writes, “Hey what’s up? Wanna go out sometime?” you should write back, “Sure, that sounds like fun.” Do not write back, “Sure, that would be great. Work is kind of crazy, but I am free this Thursday night and all weekend and I know a really cool happy hour place.” That would be too many
words as well as too eager. For whatever reason, women can blow men out of the water with their verbiage. By writing more than a guy, you become the more interested party, and thus the pursuer, because the more words you use, the more interested and available you seem. Less is more! Remember, in the beginning you want to seem too busy to text immediately or to text a lot so
he
has to chase
you
.

When we help women with answering subsequent texts, we ask how she and the guy met, their ages, whether they are in fact dating or just texting a lot, how long they have been seeing each other, and what the current situation is. No matter the circumstances, a
Rules
Girl should not text back in less than thirty minutes or three hours, depending on her age. These are minimums! Even if a guy is texting to confirm a date, you can wait an hour to write back. Remember, you don’t live to text—you have a life!

Not sure how soon or long to wait to answer a guy’s text? Look no further! Here is our chart for minimum response times by age with detailed explanations.

Remember, these text-back times are not for answering a guy’s first text. That should
always
be a minimum of four hours or more. But once a text conversation gets going, you should
not
rigidly stick to the response time for your age group. Not only would that be taking too long, but it would also be too predictable. You have to mix it up so he doesn’t know what you are doing and doesn’t suspect you are employing any kind of dating strategy. If you are twenty years old, after your first response, you would then text back in thirty minutes, then five minutes to answer the next text, and then maybe ten to twenty minutes for the next. Then, when he is expecting another text in twenty minutes, throw in an hour-long wait so that you stay unpredictable. Keep him checking his phone in anticipation! While a guy might be caught off guard the first or second time you don’t text back right away, if you don’t text back right away, he will come to expect that and know you are busy doing other things and
like to take your time. He will make up excuses as to why you didn’t write back faster. He will say, “You are so bad with your phone!”

When a guy doesn’t text or text back, women make up excuses for him: “He must be really busy with work” or “He’s probably watching a football game” or “His phone must have died.” But if
she
doesn’t text back right away herself, she feels she is being rude or cold or playing games. Don’t you have a life? Aren’t you busy, too? How can a guy prove whether you are doing
The Rules
or just busy? He can’t.

If you have BlackBerry Messenger, iMessage, or a similar program, a guy might be able to tell if you have read his text. If you don’t respond within a few minutes, he could be insulted that you read his text and didn’t write back quickly. If you have this feature on your phone, don’t read his text until you are ready to answer it.

Sara, a twenty-seven-year-old speech therapist in Seattle, met a hunky realtor at a bar. He spoke to her first, asked for her number, and texted her the next day and the next day and the day after that, but never asked her out. She thought she was doing
The Rules
, but couldn’t figure out where she was going wrong, so she sent us the conversations.