The Fine Art of Pretending You Care Less

Nothing makes an intelligent woman behave more mysteriously than liking a man whose interest she cannot quite measure.

Before this unfortunate development, she is perfectly normal. She answers messages when she sees them, accepts invitations she wants to accept and generally understands that Saturday is Saturday.

Then uncertainty enters, and suddenly Saturday is no longer just Saturday. It has become part of the game.

She is free, but should she appear free? He texted, but how quickly may she answer without revealing reckless levels of enthusiasm? She had a wonderful time, but perhaps saying so would make her look far too pleased with something she was, in fact, very pleased about.

Within days, a perfectly ordinary attraction has become a small performance in which enthusiasm must never appear without first being lightly edited.

Suddenly, She Is Very Busy

Dating games usually begin with a woman deciding that her natural behavior requires improvement.

Warmth? Reduce by 20 percent. Availability? Conceal. Enthusiasm? Refrigerate.

She may genuinely want to see him Thursday, but the carefully edited version of herself has apparently decided that Thursday is too available.

So she becomes busy.

Not actually busy.

Romantically busy.

This is a special form of busyness in which nothing needs to be happening as long as the man believes something probably is. A completely empty Saturday can therefore develop the glamour of a private engagement in Monaco.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh, I have plans.”

The plans are laundry and avoiding answering this question too quickly, but mystery has been preserved.

And if you have ever done something similar, you probably know the logic. The point is not really to become unavailable. The point is to look like the sort of woman whose availability ought to feel special.

Games Rarely Appear When Everything Feels Good

Nobody receiving consistent affection suddenly thinks, This is lovely, but perhaps I should introduce a little confusion before lunch.

The urge to play it cool tends to arrive when something feels uncertain. Attention has dipped, communication has become uneven, interest no longer feels obvious, and the mind becomes convinced that perhaps a clever little adjustment can restore the atmosphere.

A little distance. A delayed reply. Less affection. A photograph suggesting one has wandered accidentally into an extremely attractive social life. Perhaps even the faint suggestion that other men exist.

Not necessarily actual other men, naturally. Why clutter the production with cast members?

She is no longer simply enjoying a man she likes.

She is now playing the woman who likes him slightly less.

And once that happens, the question quietly changes from Does he like me? to What version of me might make him like me more?

It Works! Unfortunately

This is where things become annoyingly complicated, because games can work.

Pull away and someone may pursue. Become unavailable and attention may increase. Mention competition and a previously sleepy man can suddenly display the alertness of a meerkat.

Excellent.

Something has happened.

But making someone react is not the same as making someone feel. Jealousy can create urgency, silence can create curiosity, and distance can make someone notice the attention that has disappeared.

None of this tells us whether love has appeared. It may simply tell us that human beings dislike losing access to something pleasant.

Still, the result can feel intoxicating. He called after she stopped calling.

Success!

Never mind that she spent four days miserable and checking the phone with the concentration of an air-traffic controller.

He became more attentive after she cooled down.

Victory!

Never mind that she would actually prefer a relationship in which affection does not need to be periodically withdrawn for maintenance purposes.

The scoreboard looks wonderful.

The romance remains oddly tiring.

Then the Fake Woman Gets the Boyfriend

Suppose all this cleverness works beautifully. Now comes the logistical problem.

The woman he pursued was unavailable, breezy, emotionally unruffled and apparently booked solid until late spring. The actual woman likes affection, enjoys spending time together and occasionally answers messages immediately.

This creates quite a workload.

Miss Detached must remain detached. Miss Impossible-to-Book requires fresh scheduling conflicts. Miss I-Barely-Noticed-Your-Text has unfortunately noticed every text since breakfast.

Soon she is not dating him so much as maintaining the character.

And real personality has a terrible habit of returning. Warm women become warm again. Affectionate women become affectionate. Someone who wants closeness eventually grows tired of behaving as though closeness has interrupted an important appointment elsewhere.

The original woman always returns.

Usually carrying several unanswered questions.

The Joke Underneath the Joke

Beneath all the careful timing and rationed enthusiasm sits one surprisingly vulnerable idea:

Maybe being myself will not be enough.

That is what makes dating games more interesting than simple manipulation. Often, they are camouflage.

A woman worries that her warmth will look needy, her availability undesirable, her enthusiasm excessive, so she edits herself before anyone else has had the chance to reject the original.

Which is quite an achievement when you think about it.

The man may never have rejected her at all.

She simply got there first.

And once you begin rejecting pieces of yourself in advance, you are no longer merely protecting yourself from disappointment. You are helping disappointment redesign you.

So the performance continues. Warmth is trimmed, enthusiasm is softened, perfectly innocent messages are left unanswered for mysterious stretches of time, and the woman who would naturally say, “I’d love to see you,” becomes remarkably skilled at saying, “Maybe.”

All this effort is devoted to one question:

Will he like her more if she behaves less like herself?

Possibly.

But Alexandra has another question.

Who exactly is he falling for—the woman, or the carefully edited version she created for him?