Managing Expectations

Here’s a cross-post from Boston Lair in reply to a post asking about managing FB expectations. Original post is in italics, my response is in regular text:

Here are my own expectations: I’m not a fan of ONS. I like long-term involvements, but not necessarily exclusive ones. What I would like out of a relationship is someone that I see maybe once a week, but not not someone who monopolizes my time. In any event, I believe it’s premature to even DISCUSS exclusivity unltil you’ve been dating for 3 months with no red flags. And that has never happened in my life.

That’s a fine way to approach it. I’m with you. I divide my FB’s into “regulars” who I see 1-2 times a week and then “backups” who I basically fuck anytime I run into them or they call me to come over. My “regulars” are basically part-time girlfriends who I enjoy spending time with, care about, and often am even emotionally involved with. My “backups” are just a stockpile of warm vaginas for my perusal.

Entropy had a great post with his “gray area” routine. (Thx, Entropy, BTW). I only have two questions about it:

1. When is the best time to use it? (After sleeping together, I imagine, but right after? Do you bring it up, or do you save it for when she brings it up.

You bring it up ASAP, but not necessarily in the context of you and her. You just bring it up as a general belief you have about relationships at that time. If you don’t, the girl is just going to let things go and let things escalate until she thinks you’re a couple. You have to step in and say, “I like you, but this is going to be casual.” Before or after sex isn’t as important as the point when you know you both want to see each other regularly. It’s definitely post-attraction/post-comfort game. Sometimes this is on a day 2, sometimes this is on a day 5 after you’ve had sex a few times.

2. If you make sure you only see the girl once a week, & don’t call her all the fucking time, can you avoid having to verbally explain anything at all? If you don’t want her to assume you’re her BF, how about just not acting like her BF?

If you set expectations, you’ll never explain anything. As for acting like a boyfriend, it’s not that cut and dry. Think of it as being more of a “part-time boyfriend.” If you set expectations correctly, then you’ll never have to deal with being nagged by these girls. I’ve never been nagged by these girls about being their BF because they know if they pressure me, I’ll ditch them for the next girl. THEY KNOW THIS. Not because I say it explicitly, but because they’ve seen that I’m a high-value male who is in control of my emotions and my life. And the girls who still nagged me anyway? I ditched them for the next girl. I never had to tiptoe around the fact that I only spent 1-2 days with them because they EXPECTED it. The times I got in trouble were when I was new to FB’s and the girls expected to see me more often.

I typically take one night a week for each girl. On that night, I’m her de facto boyfriend. As long as I’m with her, she’s MY GIRL, and she knows that. We have dinner, watch a movie, hold hands, drink wine, go dancing, whatever… then we come home and fuck and cuddle and sleep. I wake up the next morning and go sarge other chicks until I see her again.

Managing expectations with an FB is a skill and it’ll take some trial and errors to develop. What surprised me the most was that managing her expectations were twice as easy as managing MY expectations. Girls are more in-tune with these things and can handle dynamic relationships better. You’ll be amazed at how quickly they’ll lower their expectations from you if you establish them strongly and clearly early on. But, the stumbling block that I see tons of guys in the community run into with FB’s is dealing with their own expectations and emotions. Guys find a great girl that they want to keep around and while going through all the trouble to generate an emotional response in the girl, they find an emotional response in themselves — and it usually scares the bejesus out of them. They either freak out and ditch a wonderful girl, or they freak out and become their boyfriend after a week. I had these same mindfucks early on. We’re taught to not have emotional responses. We’re cold automatons that are programmed to charm females out of their underwear left and right… right? Wrong, the joy of women is an emotional joy, so don’t be afraid of it. Our love for women enslaved us as AFC’s — becoming a PUA is mastering that love for women. Be more worried about handling it in yourself than in her, because when the time comes, if you stand your ground and own it, she’ll basically follow any lead you give her.