Should I "wait to call her back"?
01/12/2009
Dating Tips Home / Online Dating Home / Opposite Sex Channel
So you got her number. Now the question is – when should you call? Call too early, you might come across as “needy.” Wait too long – you run the risk of her meeting some other guy in the mean time. Stop worrying about when to call – read this article by dating guru David DeAngelo and he’ll tell you EXACTLY how to handle these tricky situations. (Then sign up for his free newsletter for more tips just like these…)
If you've seen the classic cult movie "Swingers", then you probably remember the part where the guys are discussing how long a guy should wait to call a woman after he's gotten her phone number.
The scene really hits home for a lot of guys because it gets down to a real-world situation that we all confront and ponder.
I get a lot of emails from guys asking me what to do in this very situation.
The more I've thought about it, the more I realize that this particular question (and the answer to it) are part of a bigger, more important CONCEPT about how to deal with women.
Let me explain.
When a guy asks me "How long should I wait to call her?"
this immediately tells me a few things:
1) The guy doesn't feel like he's in control of the situation. If he felt like he was in control, then it he wouldn't ask, because it wouldn't matter.
2) The guy doesn't really "get" how male/female attraction works. If he did get it, then he'd be thinking in those terms rather than trying to figure out the exact best amount of time to wait before calling.
To put it differently, the "when do I call her back?" problem is part of a bigger concept, and once you understand that bigger concept better, then you'll have an automatic feel for when to call a woman back.
Most guys don't "get" one simple point:
If you want a woman to feel ATTRACTION for you, then you must behave differently than if you want her to feel that "just friends" feeling.
In the world of ATTRACTION, things are completely different.
For instance, our moms taught all of us guys to "be nice" to women. This usually includes being sweet and complimentary when first meeting them, answering all of their questions directly, and giving them what they want when they want it.
But if you want a woman to feel that INSTANT GUT LEVEL ATTRACTION right from the beginning, then you're going to have to put aside this kind of thinking, and start learning some NEW ideas.
For instance:
1) A challenge is generally attractive to women.
2) Teasing and being evasive is generally attractive to women.
3) Making fun of a woman's appearance in a flirty way, as counter-intuitive as it might sound, can lead to ATTRACTION.
I'm trying to communicate the idea that when you're dealing with ATTRACTION, you have to put aside old "normal" ways of thinking and behaving. I would like to mention one more point before getting into the specifics here...
These days, people are becoming very sensitive to having "techniques" used on them.
If a salesman uses a sales technique on us, we immediately get defensive and resistant.
If a panhandler asks for money in a way that smells of "technique" we pass them by without pity.
If a business treats us like a "thing" or a number instead of an individual person, we avoid them or buy elsewhere.
We humans don't like having manipulation techniques used on us, and when we detect that someone or something is using one to get the better of us, we resist.
So let's get back to the "how long to wait before calling her back" issue.
If you think about it, every situation is slightly different. One time you might meet a woman in the morning at coffee, and another time you might meet a woman at a club at 1 in the morning.
If you wait too long to call her back, I think you run the risk of seeming like you're just using a technique on her and you come across as a player who's trying to do your thing on her.
When deciding how long to wait before you call or email, I think it's important to ask yourself this question:
"What will likely INCREASE THE ATTRACTION in this situation?"
Here are a couple of ideas I have used with great success:
1) Email instead of calling first. I personally email the next day. I'll start with a charming email to get the conversation started and then tell her that I'm going to call in a day or two.
This has the effect of making contact with her relatively quickly, but still creating anticipation because you haven't actually talked.
2) Call the next day, and make a joke about the situation. I might call and say, "Yeah, I was watching Swingers and they said to wait three days to call, but I was kind of in more of a one day mood..."
If you didn't get her email address and you MUST use the phone, just do your best to avoid being AVERAGE.
I personally believe that our attention spans as humans are getting shorter and shorter. We have more and more information coming in from television, newspapers and other sources - and we're getting cultural A.D.D. I think that if you wait too long, you're risking either being seen as using a technique, or risking being forgotten altogether.
But if you make the opposite mistake and call too soon (for instance a few hours later), you run the risk of being seen as a needy Wuss who has no life.
In past newsletters, I have written about why it's important to leave immediately after getting a woman's email and/or number.
How long you should wait to call her back is a natural extension of this.
As a matter of fact, if you get a woman's email/number and then you keep coming over to talk to her, it can almost be seen as waiting 5 minutes to call her.
There's no anticipation, and it says all the wrong things.
A couple of other quick pointers for when you're making that first call:
1) Be busy. If you're going to ask her to join you for tea or something similar, make sure you mention two times that you're busy for every one time that you're available.
2) Don't linger on the phone. Make that first call short and to the point. If you stay on the phone for more than a few minutes, you're running the risk of getting into a normal "What do you do?",
"Where do you live?", "Where did you go to school?" conversation. Avoid this.
To summarize, when in doubt wait a day or so to contact her again.
But more importantly, think about the situation in terms of anticipation and ATTRACTION, so when you do make contact it creates the correct context.
And now I have another question...
Do you enjoy learning the PSYCHOLOGY of how to create ATTRACTION with women? And do you enjoy learning the psychology of how to create more internal confidence... and how to overcome your "Inner Game" psychological issues?
Yeah, me too.
In fact, I think that the PSYCHOLOGY of success with women and dating is the MOST interesting part.
Of course, if you'd like to get my best thinking on how to deal with different situations and make a woman feel that magical emotion called ATTRACTION for you, then you need to sign up for my free Dating Secrets Newsletter... and read my book "Double Your Dating".
It's full of all my best thinking and ideas about how to attract the kinds of women that you've always wanted.
Best part?
I'll send it to you to try at MY RISK. Really.
Test it all out, and if it doesn't work, just let me know and I won't charge you.
Check out some great samples, and get all the details here:
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