Is Playing Hard to Get a Turn ON or Turn OFF?
By Marianne Mancusi Beach, GALTime.com Staff
There was a time when I think pretty much every single woman on the planet devoured the #1 NY Times self-help book "The Rules" -- which basically suggested playing hard-to-get was the way score the perfect man--and make him fall in love with you forever. The rules were strict and old-fashioned: don't call him, don't initiate dates, don't put out--the idea was to make the man work hard to earn your affection. Basically, he wouldn't appreciate the relationship if he didn't sweat a little to get it.
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Today, not everyone agrees that playing hard to get is the way to go when it comes to dating. In fact, some experts, like Dale Cooper, PhD and author of "The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Online Dating: And She Lived Happily Ever After", say it's actually bad.
"I think the intelligent guys are 'on' to it and are turned off by it," she says. "It's like, why bother? There are so many women out there, especially if the guy is doing online dating, who don't play 'hard to get,' that men don't need women who play that game."
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And Dale put her money where her mouth is--going out with over 100 men over three years through online dating. (Whew! That's makes me tired just thinking about it!) She says she never once played hard to get--and that men she dated appreciated it.
"I think men really enjoyed the fact that I 'put my cards on the table' right from the start," she says. "Let them know what I thought of them and what I wanted from the relationship."
In fact, she believes this kind of game playing is immature and actually counterproductive in trying to establish a good relationship. "Women who play hard to get may think they're in control, but they're really not," she attests.
Do you play hard to get when you first meet a man? Or are you done with playing games? Whether it's the gal OR guy playing coy, is 'hard to get' a turn on...OR turn off?
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