When Keen Girls Have Boyfriends

Something I’ve dealt with a fair bit lately with clients is women who have boyfriends being keen to catch up. Summarised in this question …

Q – “I went out on a date with a girl, it was going really well, and she mentioned that she had a boyfriend. What’s up with that?”

A – Personally I see three possible answers here …

1)   Girls don’t operate like guys in the ‘friend’ regard. A girl can give a guy her number with the honest intention of being friends with him (I know, crazy huh! lol). Whether she knows that he is interested in her or not comes down to how socially intelligent she is, it’s likely that she does but chooses to ignore it. For her, it really can be no more than a friendship. Women love legitimate guy friends. My own female friends are often disappointment that guys only want to sleep with them and not be their friends. So the first option is that she could see you legitimately as just a friend. However having said that, I don’t believe that this is going to be the majority of the time, for the simple reason that if she has a boyfriend, she won’t be in a huge hurry to make new guy friends. Something else is likely afoot.

But, if she has made it quite clear that you are just friends, do NOT linger around expecting her to one day become sexually attracted to you. In fact the more you do this, the LESS likely that will happen. You can absolutely turn ‘friends-zone’ around but only by getting on with your own life (including pursuing other women). Only then will you act normal around her, and only then will anything potentially happen. So, you have a new friend, a new contact, cool, next …

2)   The reality is that a lot of girls, a lot of people, are in average relationships. And some are willing to test new grounds, should the opportunity come up. So no I’m not advocating cheating here, but 22 year old Sally who met her boyfriend in high school, who hasn’t really explored life or other guys, and who is often finds herself wondering if she is really is happy in this relationship – when she is faced with an exciting new possibility, it’s likely that she is going to be open to sussing it out. But, she ain’t gonna bail on what she already has right away. And most of the time in this case, they will actually tell you that they are dating someone, likely so that the guilt is off their shoulders. And they know this will unlikely be enough for you to bail (for most men, her having a boyfriend is on par to her living far from the city – little more than a mild inconvenience). Thus you will often get this ‘I’ve got a boyfriend but I’m happy to contact / see you’ type of situation. I find that if a girl wants to see you and has a boyfriend, this is most likely the case – she is either willing to cheat in a one off fling to spice up her life, OR she is testing new potential relationship grounds. Whether you follow it up or not depends on your own moral compass, but I think the things to keep in mind are: A) The drama that it could bring into your life, B) That if you’re only mildly interested in her (as in you would sleep with her once or twice but not date her) you could be ending someone else’s relationship for that.

3)   She could actually be using ‘boyfriend’ as a safety valve. As in, she knows that by telling you this, it will slow things down and she will have more control of the situation. Yes, this does happen. She meets you, she is somewhat interested in you, curious about you, but she isn’t entirely sold. And she doesn’t want to lead you on until she is more sure herself. “I am kinda seeing someone” can give her breathing room. Again, she knows that most guys will not just up and bail after hearing this.

I also find this is also sometimes the case when a girl says that she just wants to be friends, OR when she says she has something to go to after a date. These can also be (not always, but sometimes) safety valves so that she is more in control of how things unfold between you two. Most guys can’t take hints and are desperately keen to rush things forward. Women know this, and no one likes awkwardly having to say no to people, so they sometimes create these little safety valves in certain situations. A perfect example is a client recently who had a girl tell him for the first two dates that she could meet him at 6 pm, but had to go at 7 pm because she “had something on”. Of course come 8 pm, 9 pm, 10 pm, she was still with him, saying she had cancelled the plans – to me, a clear indication that she was using a little white lie to give her more control of the situation. If she wanted out, she had already laid the groundwork. So this CAN sometimes be the case with the “guy I’m kinda seeing”.

Obviously, none of these situations are ideal. If she is hard work at the start, she likely will be even more so the more you go down the track. You should strive to reach a place where you have very low tolerance for any dramatic, manipulative or problematic girls. This doesn’t mean that you have to up and bail on a girl if things aren’t cruising along perfectly, but you should always act as though you’re only a few more approaches away from someone who will compliment your life in a more positive way. Because really, you likely are.