Join the TEPP Livestream M-F around 7:30pm Central!
Watch replays in the live stream playlist!
The Easy Path Project Live Stream #13
It’s Not About You: The Truth About Why Attraction Doesn’t Guarantee Anything
Welcome to the Easy Path Project live stream! I’m Michael, your host, and tonight marks our inaugural “White Night Wednesday” – a perspective shift where we approach dating from the woman’s point of view.
Sometimes guys think women are these crazy, wild, foreign creatures. I’m going to give you some perspective about how women think and show you that everything about dating, relationships, or getting a girl doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with you at all.
Obviously, you do have something to do with it, but there’s the possibility that a girl will totally be into you – she digs you, you don’t have to win her over, you’ve already accomplished that part – but she still, regardless of her attraction for you, turns you down, says no, or just rejects you.
Tonight’s Topic: Why Women Say No (And It Has Nothing to Do with Your Worth)
Could understanding the real reasons behind women’s dating decisions eliminate the confidence damage that comes from perceived rejection? I think that’s a really big problem young guys have. If you’re even the slightest bit shy, introverted, or have any confidence issues, and then you listen to some of these gurus who say “just approach and that’ll solve all your problems” – it’s like no. You go up unprepared without your full confidence going, get shot down, and then for the next year you lick your wounds thinking “nobody likes me.”
That’s not really the case. Sometimes things just happen. When we start talking about resilience and true inner strength, these things won’t stick with you anymore. You’ll brush them aside and hang onto them as educational experiences, but you won’t attach any value to the rejection itself.
The Real Reasons Women Might Reject You (That Have Nothing to Do with You)
Let me share some invisible factors that influence women’s dating choices that most men never recognize:
1. Career Goals and Major Life Transitions
I know a woman who’s 40 years old and has finally decided she’s going to get a guy and settle down. She’s been a very active dater from high school until now – that’s 20 years of concentrating on herself and her career goals. I’m certain that during that span, she was with several men who were perfectly suitable, but she passed because her career goals mattered more than any particular gentleman at that time.
2. Recently Ended Relationships
Sometimes girls do ridiculous things when they end relationships – they try to make the guy jealous or act out. Hopefully, after getting over being angry or upset, they take time to understand what didn’t work and why. If you’re there during that figuring-out period, it has nothing to do with you. She’s trying to process what happened last time.
3. Family Responsibilities or Personal Challenges
I know a girl whose father tried to move to a different country, didn’t do well financially, and had all kinds of problems. She was handling her own business while dealing with a parent in a foreign country having difficulties. She couldn’t concentrate on dating or relationships because family and personal stuff comes first.
4. Planning to Move or Travel Long Term
I’ve been in this situation myself. When I was younger and traveled a lot, regardless of how I felt about a girl, it wasn’t going to happen because I was a rambling man moving on. If she’s got a job offer somewhere or wants to see France, those opportunities are only available for certain periods of your life. If you happen to be on the opposite side of a life-changing decision, sorry – it wasn’t you.
5. Different Long-Term Relationship Goals
This is usually framed as men only thinking about sex while women have a drastically different timetable. Women are trying to compress a bunch of life goals into about a 20-year window. If you don’t respect that window, things go poorly. She might be ready to settle down and have kids while you’re thinking Netflix and chill, or vice versa – she might want casual while you want something serious.
6. Incompatible Life Plans or Timelines
Her career might be very important, she might need to have children, you might be in school, or have a job with conflicting schedules. There could be a million ways things don’t work out based on timing and where you are in your respective lives.
7. Significant Age Differences
If you’re an older guy with a younger girl thinking it’s just for fun, but she should be looking for a relationship partner to start a family, you have to consider the moral implications. I spent time in another country where children are probably more important than life itself. For a young woman to get to 27, 28, 29 without a kid is unacceptable culturally.
You really do have to communicate about these things, which brings up one of our nine pillars of inner game: moral courage – having the ability to stand up for your morals even when it’s detrimental to you.
8. Different Values Regarding Family, Religion, or Lifestyle
If you’re not the same religion, or your families are feuding like the Hatfields and McCoys or Romeo and Juliet, there might be reasons beyond you. Blood is thicker than water.
9. Long-Distance Seems Unworkable
Even in small towns, travel is getting difficult. If I wanted to date a girl on the opposite side of town, we’re talking about two hours of travel in both directions. If that distance is difficult to navigate, unless you’re the most amazing man ever, she might choose a different path.
10. Workplace Complications
I remember working at a car dealership and chatting up a cute receptionist at the Lexus dealer. When I asked her for coffee, before I got back to my office, I had a blinking light on my phone about intra-company dating policies. Whether she liked me or not, I was off-limits due to workplace considerations.
Additional Factors to Consider
Past Relationship Patterns She Wants to Break
Maybe she’s dated a lot of military guys and wants to break that pattern. If you’re military and she shoots you down despite thinking you’re funny, it’s not you – it’s the pattern she’s trying to change.
Family or Cultural Expectations
I’ve seen this with Indian friends who have pressure to marry within their ethnicity, or Japanese students who stick together in their community.
Emotional Unavailability or Fear of Commitment
People are afraid for various reasons. You have to be vulnerable in relationships, and that puts you at a disadvantage if the other person isn’t caring or compassionate.
Financial Instability
I knew a guy whose friends-with-benefits situation existed because she had enormous student loan debt. Taking on that financial responsibility was a deal breaker for a serious relationship.
Existing Friendship She Doesn’t Want to Risk
Sometimes she’d rather maintain the friendship than risk losing it by dating.
Different Social Circles
If your social circles don’t mesh well, or she has to choose between a possible relationship with you versus a current relationship with someone in her circle, you might be the odd man out.
Lifestyle Differences
You could be a gamer while she’s a social butterfly who likes clubs, or vice versa. Sometimes the growth needed to overcome these differences is too much.
Unequal Ability to Invest Time and Effort
If someone sends you their Google calendar with windows like “I could see you from 4 to 5 or 7 to 9,” they’re clearly prioritizing other things over the relationship.
Mutual Friends Advising Against It
Women seem to value their friends’ opinions more than men do. Even if she’s totally into you at a club, if her friends are pulling her away for whatever reason, she probably won’t fight them to stay.
Intuition
Sometimes they just have a feeling that the timing or situation isn’t right. You might be a groovy cat, but if she doesn’t feel it or feels it’s not correct, there’s not much you can do.
The New Paradigm
Here’s the key insight: recognizing that her decision reflects her circumstances rather than your flaws preserves your confidence and prevents unnecessary self-doubt spirals.
Don’t spend the next year beating yourself up thinking “nobody likes me.” Instead, realize that life plus the girl moving on from you equals an opportunity to move on to the next possibility. If you have a growth mindset instead of a scarcity mindset, knowing there are four billion women out there, once you decide to be the cool guy you are and display it, this won’t be an issue anymore.
Think of rejection as a learning opportunity and move on. It’s not you.
Moving Forward
She’s actually done you a favor by taking herself out of consideration. It gives you the opportunity to find a better fit, and that’s what this is all about.
The best way to keep it from being about you is to ditch all the crap keeping you from being the awesome guy you want to be and prepare yourself for that awesome girl when she comes along. Maybe if you’re truly awesome – if you push her buttons, make her synapses fire, give her the feels – she might overlook some of these other considerations and put things in your favor.
Remember: it’s about building resilience. When uncomfortable or unfortunate situations occur, yeah it sucks and you wish it wasn’t so, but it is, so you deal with it. That’s the resilience part of the inner game we’re developing.
This is the Easy Path Project – maximum life, minimum struggle. We’re trying to get through this as best we can, make the most out of it, but not work our asses off. Just take it easy and slide into the cool stuff.
Join the TEPP Livestream M-F around 7:30pm Central!
Watch replays in the live stream playlist!