"Bad Texter" or Just Not That Into You? | Matthew Hussey

do you find yourself in the early stages of dating someone right now and getting increasingly frustrated or even anxious that they're not texting you or calling you as much as you want and you find yourself wondering is this person just bad at texting or are they really just not that into me in which case i am gonna get hurt here this is tricky because early on in dating we don't feel or even have a right to tell someone that they should text us more if we've only just met someone on an app or even we've only been on a date with them and they're texting us less than we would like it's hard to say hey i want you to reach out more because that person might be like hey i just met you and you're not such a big part of my life yet and that's true at that point someone doesn't know us that well we've not become a priority to someone they have other things going on in their life i hope and therefore we might not be getting as much communication as our ego would like but it doesn't mean it's the wrong amount of communication we're getting however over time and by that i mean days and weeks not months the amount of communication should build there should be a trajectory to the communication we should feel like there's momentum building there is a sense of progress if we feel no progress that's a problem so this is the first thing i want you to think about when you're trying to ascertain whether someone is just not great at certain forms of communication or whether they just don't like you all that much is is the communication improving the second thing i want you to think about is the difference between inconsistency and scarcity if someone is inconsistent with their communication if one day they send you lots and lots of messages and they're really gushy and they're all over you and then you don't hear from them for four days that's a problem that's inconsistency and inconsistency is often a red flag it's a sign of something worse might be that they're just seeing multiple people and they're juggling you with other people and they're not really invested in this relationship at all it might be that they've got a kind of novelty-based fast food attitude toward their dating life with you where when they want something they're all over you whether it's attention or validation or sex but then as soon as they don't want something anymore they're off to the next thing and they don't want to know you at all that's a problem scarcity is different from inconsistency scarcity is when the communication isn't necessarily inconsistent but you just don't feel like you're getting enough of it now like i said in the very beginning that might just be because you're not a priority to someone yet and that's okay but as things progress if there's still a scarcity of communication you're not getting as much as you would like then we have to look at is this because someone doesn't like you or is it because they just don't value communication in the way that you do it's hard to have a conversation about this without someone asking like what's the right amount what's the right amount of texting someone in dating what's the right amount of calling when they're not with you and there is no right answer to that it's the answer is somewhere between no communication at all and so much communication that you communicate you have no life in the middle is just compatibility how much do you need how much do they need and that's where a lot of issues arise what's frustrating is that a lot of conversations between people around this end up being debates about texting the value of texting or the value of phone calls it's typical for clients to come to me and say i'm dating someone and they tell me that they just they're a bad texter they're just really i'm just crap at texting i'm just no good at texting or they say i'm just really bad with my phone or i hate phone calls i just i can't stand being on the phone it drives me crazy some people may even have a noble reason for it i just i just try to reduce my screen time i don't like being on my phone all the time i feel like i want to like put it down and if i'm texting all the time then i'm constantly checking my phone whatever the reason the danger is that when we think about that we get drawn into the weeds of what should actually be a much more fundamental conversation the fundamental conversation is not one of arguing about the medium it's assessing your need for closeness closeness is about how connected you feel to a person when you're not spending time together in person in other words each day do you feel like you're connected to that person's life do you feel like you know anything about what's going on in their day or what they're going through or what their moods are what the highlights of their day are do they know anything about your day and if too many days in a row the answer is we're not connected we know nothing about each other's day or how we're feeling then there's a problem of closeness not just a a kind of argument to be had about communication i think that we get dragged down these these alleyways that are not all that important when we argue but i like texting i hate texting but you know i just wish you would text me because i really enjoy it now you're having a debate about texting as a concept but what is your need for a text really it's not your need for words on a screen your need for a text is your need to feel close to somebody i don't really care where people get their closeness as long as they get it if someone doesn't text you but they're amazing at calling you that can solve that problem if someone is great at leaving you voice memos if they're like i hate texting but they leave you these beautiful voice notes and they tell you about their day and they ask you about yours then you have closeness you see it's not about the medium it's about the level of closeness and what i want to encourage you to do is think about this way of framing up the conversation when you bring your grievances to somebody if you're not getting your needs met then i want you to go to somebody and have a conversation about connection and closeness not a debate about a medium so you can say to somebody hey look i know i get that you don't love being on your phone or sitting on your phone on a phone call isn't something that you're naturally drawn towards but the truth is i just don't feel close to you when we're not together because we we're not in each other's lives we're not talking to each other and that for me is an issue because i don't want to just wait till the next time i see you to feel like i know anything about your day or you know anything about mine so for me it's just i you know i i want to be close to the person that i'm with and i don't feel close when we're not together so can we work on that can we fix that that opens up a dialogue about something much more important than whether someone likes texting and they can't distract you with that conversation and by the way the way i'm having the conversation is something that it's a way to have the conversation further down the line if you're in early dating with someone you've been on a few dates there's attraction there but you feel like you don't hear from the person enough you can point that out you can make fun of it you are a terrible texter and let them respond well i just don't really like texting okay well then pick up the phone and call me i want to hear from you i miss your voice you don't have to be meek about these things you can even be a bit bold but cute at the same time and text someone and say um you need to text me more okay bye kiss a text like that is playfully demanding but it also does send a message to someone and if it ever graduates into a bigger conversation maybe you're in person sometime and you end up talking about it again just don't you don't have to get in the weeds about it just make it a conversation about i i like to hear from you i want to hear from you more and let it be that now if ultimately the result of that conversation is somebody saying i just really don't i just don't like texting i don't like phone calls and i'm only going to be able to give this much communication when we're not together and that really falls short of your needs then you have an issue of compatibility even if you do like me we're not compatible because i've i don't feel close to the person i'm with not nearly close enough to be happy i don't even need to ask myself the question are you into me the question really becomes am i happy am i happy with the way that you communicate and if the answer is no it doesn't matter if they're into you or not of course there are always going to be moments between people where you're 20 apart right it could be that you're in a relationship not just early dating could be you're in a relationship where you have amazing date nights and quality time together when in the evenings but during someone's working day they don't text you as much as you would like but maybe when they're in work mode they really do lose themselves in work mode and that might be a conversation about hey i know that when you're at work you'd kind of just get into a flow and you lose yourself and you don't want to be on your phone in that time i get that but even if you at lunch time just sent me a message telling me that you love me that would go a long way those are conversations about preferences about something that would be nice to have something that would mean a lot to you but it's not necessarily a fundamental conversation about a lack of closeness and connection in the relationship the conversation someone has with you about being a bad texter or being bad with their phone or not liking being on the phone is a distraction the conversation you should be having with someone is whatever is the case about what you do and don't like i need to feel like i'm close to the person that i'm with and if i don't feel that that's a problem for me if someone feels that kind of powerful energy from you talking about something actually meaningful and important not texting they're gonna have to elevate their conversation to and you'll quickly find out whether this is a person who's interested in investing more and making sure there's closeness or whether this was someone who was just using texting as an excuse for the fact that they were never really into the relationship in the first place one of the things i have found over the years is that the biggest barrier to us having standards and being able to communicate boldly and confidently our standards to somebody else is our deeper level confidence when we don't feel we're worthy of great treatment when we don't feel we're worthy of someone's attention or love or a relationship we get meek we don't ask for what we want or if we do we do it in a way that communicates to someone that they can keep giving us scraps because we're not going anywhere the route to an amazing love life is having real confidence at the deepest level and i realized this over 10 years ago which is why i created my retreat program because i wanted a place where i could not give people dating tips but give people the fundamentals of self-confidence and self-worth that meant that they would never ever have a problem asking for what they wanted again and the irony is when we have that energy people start to pay attention to us differently we're attractive on a whole new level not just in our love lives but when it comes to jobs and opportunities and friendships life suddenly starts presenting us with whole new opportunities when we have that energy for the first time in two and a half years my in-person retreat that i've been running for over a decade is back it is a six-day process it is happening in fort lauderdale florida and this might be your last chance to apply so if you want to learn more i want to invite you to find out more at mhretreat.com i have a team of three amazing people emma michael and charlotte who are all waiting to talk to you about the program learn your story and hear anything that you might have to ask come check it out at mhretreat.com and i very much hope that i get to see you in florida you

Channel: Matthew Hussey

Views: 531,350

Keywords: Matthew Hussey, Matt Hussey, Get The Guy, How to Get the Guy, Dating Advice for Women, attract men, keep your man, dating coach, relationship coach, relationship tips, what men want, make him like you, make him love you, how to talk to men, how to attract men, meet men, get the guy, tips for women, flirting tips, texting, calling, love advice, relationships, matt hussey, matthew hussy, mathew hussey, how to flirt

Id: JFgAJ7K_LNQ

Length: 14min 28sec (868 seconds)

Published: Sun May 01 2022