What is it with women and not returning calls?  Not just providers, but civvies.

I understand that providers are hestiant to call back because of SO's and whatnot.  But I think it goes deeper.

I have a rule of 3 that goes for providers and civvies. I will call them once.  If I don't hear back in say 3 days, I will call again.  If I don't hear back in a week, I'm irritated but I will give it one more chance.  After that, that's it.  I will never call that woman again.

I had one time with a civvie friend that I had to enforce the 3 call rule.  We went 5 months without speaking.  We ran into each other at a party and she says, "Gosh I haven't heard from you in so long."  I said, "Well, I called you several times and I never heard from you."  She replies, "Oh, I don't remember you calling or I would've called you back."  I don't believe it.  She dodged my calls and she knew it.  Why would she expect that I keep calling? That scenario has played out with at least 20 different women in my life.  That's too many to be a coincidence.  

Providers are the same way, I'm not talking about someone you've never met before, I'm talking ones I know.  Calls don't get returned, then I run into them at a M&G and they seem hurt that I didn't call them any more.

Please help me understand this.

Dear Frustratedwithcivvies [and providers too, apparently],

I'm not sure why this keeps happening to you. It would be absurd to think that every woman on the planet never returns calls, as if it were some sort of cultural absolutist rule. Hence, I'm wondering if you have an attraction to women that somehow signal ambiguity or even unavailability? Or would it be the same if a woman threw herself at you first and kept calling and calling?

Maybe it's something in your delivery that signals a demand, an entreaty, an overanxious hope? Just like men, women can smell the slightest hint of desperation and they will withdraw at an instant. The difference is that men can be much more overt about it, while women, not wanting to "hurt someone's feelings" will often act coy or use white lies such as the ones you have described in your posting. It's not an attractive trait, but such are humans.

As to providers not returning your calls/emails to set up appointments - well, I find that a little strange as well. Encounters are the lifeblood of prostitution, so it seems odd that they won't call you back. Or are you saying that they don't call back after they've had one date with you? On the other hand, many providers are superbusy and not the best time managers, so it is possible that your calls fall by the wayside. But someone with stellar reviews, a reputation to uphold and an image to maintain - it would be odd for her not to complete the date if everything else you present in terms of screening, tone of voice when speaking to her, etc. checks out.

Finally, if it's too many women for it to be a coincidence, then you'll need to examine your own behavior. And maybe rent the movie "He's Just Not Into You." There's an instance where I thought the film was more amusing than the book.

I'm balking at the "enforce the 3 call rule..." sounds awfully rigid and going by some strange book of rules,

The Love Goddess

I don't really understand it.

The common thread with both the civvie and the provider example was that I called both of them.  Neither returned my calls.  Yet, when I had a chance face-to-face encounter, they both wanted to know why I did not contact them again.  My feeling is I did contact them, to no avail.  My 3 call rules is the breaking point, in my mind, between showing interest and being a stalker.  Three calls in 3 weeks doesn't seem excessive - to me.  If after 3 calls, someone doesn't call me back.  I assume they don't want to talk to me.  I have no other feed back to go on.  In both cases, the only way I would've known they wanted me to keep calling me was either ESP - which I don't have - or continue calling them for the 4th or 5th or whatever time.  Calling that many times would seem excessive.

Now, it may be true that what I think of as me "showing interest" in a woman, she may perceive as "desperation."  I don't think that applies to the situation above as if they thought I was desperate, and therefore unappealing, they wouldn't have been concerned why I stop calling.  Right?

I have over a hundred civvies in my address book that never called me back.
Some of them I continue to call once every month or two.
Unless she answers and tells me to quit calling, I figure she enjoys the pursuit.
The civvys that do call back and the occasional reward, make the process worth repeating, IMO.

If a man does not return a call, that is rude.  If a woman does not, that is her perogative.

Thus has it always been, thus will it ever be.

I speak with many, many years of experience on this.

We guys just need to suck it up.

makes me feel better I'm not the only one.

Thanks.

One of the parts of persuing woman that I have grown to loathe, whether civvie or provider, is that they seem to feel that playing hard to get, or in this case, hard to get ahold of, is somehow attractive.  If I dealt only with providers who exhibited sufficient professionalism to promptly respond to me, I would delve only in self-pleasure.  

Guys, are we agreed?  Is this the norm in your experience?  And, ladies, are you so distracted and disorganized that you can't do any better or do you find this playing hard to contact a successful method of doing business?

was some insight from LG on how to tell the difference between, "playing hard to get" and "not interested".  That was the point of my original story which I must not have made clear.  I assumed it was the latter, but it was the former.  I could not tell the difference.

(and maybe wealthiest) person in histroy.

In truth, I suspect that often times the gals don't know themselves.  In fact I have spoken to no end of woman who tell me how they hate some ex-boyfriend, and the next time I see them they tell me that they were over at his house the other night.

It's enough to drive me insane sometimes.

As you've discovered, a significant percentage of providers aren't very well organized and don't run their businesses very professionally.  This usually reflects the state of their personal lives as well.

On the other hand, some are very good, and I've met a few on TER that could teach me a thing or two.  The successful ladies tend to be organized and respectful of your time.

However, there's absolutely no way to determine the meaning of a none response unless you know which one of the two groups this woman is in.  An organized woman that never returns your calls probably is telling you she doesn't want to speak with you.  A disorganized woman is simply giving you more evidence that her life is out of control.  

You can call it the "Hot Chick Syndrome" and not returning calls is just one of its many annoying symptoms.  Most of us have dated one at some point in time, and it's infuriating- right up until the time we quit thinking with our little head and say enough.  These women go through adult life acting like 14-year olds because it's tolerated.  The solution is don't tolerate it, just move on.

I also have a 3 call rule.

If a lady hasn't returned my call after the 3rd time I call her, I find out where she lives and works and follow her around until she responds.

Works every time- at least as far as getting a response/ Not many positive ones, though.

That the civies that your are dealing with are trying to handle many guys at once.

If she really likes you and has time in her schedule she will call you back

If she is hot for you she will try to get you into bed asap.

From my personal experience is much easier for me to handle multiple providers versus multiple civies at the same time. I am sure same applies to women who are providers versus civies.

I pursued a gorgeous woman a few years ago who I had good reason to believe was interested in seeing me.  However, phone calls and emails were almost never returned and I couldn't figure out the mixed signals.

I finally asked her (when we eventually got together).  She told me in no uncertain terms that she wanted to see how much I wanted her and she wanted to see how long I would keep pursuing her so that she knew I was seriously interested.

It's annoying as hell and over the years I have taken two different approaches to it.  If I get absolutely zero response after trying a few times then I simply let it go and don't continue.

If I get some mixed signals then I continue the pursuit until either the mixed signals stop altogether or I finally succeed in setting up a date.

During a three year period ending in 2001; I secured first-time dates with upwards of 500 women.

Because I was explicitly trying to learn about women, I kept detailed notes.

Unlike the original poster, I had a TWO CALL rule. (This applied to civies as I wasn't even aware of prostitution except in the context of gold-diggers at the time.)

I would call, leave a message. (Or send an email.) Wait three days, and then call or email again. That was it -- last time the lady ever hears from me.

Then I would wait a week. After hearing nothing -- because I owned my phone and email carrier so could exercise such control -- I made it so all her subsequent emails would fall into a black hole and not even be delivered to trash, and anytime HER phone called MY phone, it would be re-routed to some charitable organization or another.

Of course, I could afford to be hard-core like that as there were always a bunch of other ladies on tap.

There are absolutely a percentage of women out there for whom this is a game -- a game I absolutely refuse to play.

To me it is not a game. As far as I am concerned, if she doesn't get back in touch with me after two attempts; then my third attempt constitutes criminal harassment or stalking; and I refuse to stoop to such levels because someone wants to play games.

Even worse, there is another allied game I discovered some (thankfully small) percentage of women play. It is the "I'm going to dump you and then expect you to come crawling back and promise to change whatever it is I don't like" game.

Ladies who played that game were invariably very pretty. Likely, their relative desirability made it easier for them to pull off.

What they were NOT expecting is a guy like me with another rule: "Nobody ever gets an opportunity to dump me twice."

I remember a college instructor I was dating who decided to dump me because I disagreed with her views on the use of illegal drugs. Fine -- dumped is dumped. So I made sure her emails went to /dev/null and her phone calls (if any) would go to the Red Cross.

A couple of weeks later I come home to find, quite literally, her tent in my yard. WTF?

She explains that in her world, dumped doesn't mean dumped, it is just a behavioral modification tool to get me to agree that dope use is acceptable.

Yeah, whatever.

She was lividly pissed, and refused to grasp the concept that SHE had dumped ME and I was simply respecting her rights; and that STAYING dumped was MY right.

HOWEVER -- in spite of these two categories; most women I encountered weren't game players and were direct and could be counted on to mean what they said and say what they meant.

So the most aggressive guy wins (her affection)?

Does it matter to her at all which guy "wins"? Or as far as she's concerned, she has narrowed the list to an acceptable amount, and now it's a horse race, so to speak. She doesn't really care which one wins...

Wow, not really the kind of girl I want to be with for any length of time. I want my girl to really LIKE me, not just sit back and wait to see who impresses her the most.

I guess this explains how shows like "The Bachelor/Bachelorette" stay on the air. It never made any sense to me how the main character can tell half a dozen guys "I love you" all at the same time. I guess this behavior is more common than I thought.

I don't care if it's Halle Berry in her prime, I don't want a girl who's in love with five other guys.

Talk about a "tell."


(I have a follow-up question related to this, but I'm too busy this week to post it.)

I agree with LG's answer.  She was testing to see who the Alpha man is and regarding your statement that "she doesn't care which one wins...", she is most attracted to the Alpha man so, yes, she cares who wins as long as he's an Alpha.

You said that you want your girl to like you for you.  Well, this woman would like you for you if you are the Alpha and persisted in the chase and showed her how much you wanted her attention.

It's really pretty simple.  She likes a certain type of man and found a way to screen her suitors so that she could weed out the men that she would not find most enjoyable.

This particular woman is drop-dead gorgeous, Victoria's Secret caliber and could afford to hold out for the right guy without compromise.  

Guys are pursuing her constantly.  She told me that she gets "hit on" so often that she finds just staying at home with a good book is one of her favorite evenings.

She's not only beautiful but also quite cerebral and wonderful.  Keeping up the pursuit was one of the best things I ever did. We have become friends on many levels and her physical beauty doesn't hold a candle to her inner beauty now that I've really gotten to know her.

The lesson for me is that the best things in life and the most valuable things in life do not come easy.  She was worth the effort that was required to be allowed in to her inner circle.

If you have to pursue ANY... woman that hard, why bother? Either she is into you or she isn't period. In my experience... If a woman wants to see you, or contact you she will call or email you back.

Here's the other danger of playing into what I call the 'MAYBE...?' Game. If you allow her to play with your head now... it's only going to continue and intensify until she get's board with you.

Wouldn't you rather date or be involved with an adult anyway? Or, just keep looking.

Maybe you are showing to much of your hand to early in the game... leaving the woman with all the answers and you with none.

I have experienced the same dynamics in business... If someone does not return a call, chances are very strong you will never do business with them... same deal here... go find a new prospect and don't over think it.