I remember it like it was yesterday. She was a flash of black hair and bright white teeth. I was immediately attracted to her easy way of going about things, preferring to follow me than to lead.
Her name was Paige, and she was destined to be my first lesson in why you shouldn’t attempt a serious relationship right after a breakup. She was also my first lesson in what poor relationship management really does to you.
It had been nearly 5 months since my previous girlfriend Gia had split it off with me. She was my first, and I was still in regular pain because of it.
At the time, I was still casually seeing her when I got to know Paige. Even though I was attracted immediately to Paige, I still had feelings for Gia. I’ve actually talked about this exact situation here.
I did everything I now advise not to do. I leaned on Paige as my emotional support system, while not leading the relationship. Over time, Paige’s natural submissiveness morphed into a bitter dominance.
Our relationship would be rocky, fraught with difficulties and tests I failed. She was extremely hot and willing to please, but I still couldn’t let go of Gia who was objectively a better fit for me. At the time, I was suffering from a severe case of oneitis, and wasn’t ready for what I had gotten myself into.
Without knowing it, I had made one of the cardinal mistakes post-breakup. I began dating someone seriously before I was physically and emotionally ready, and I paid the price for it.
I spent several additional months in a rut I had created for myself. The business I was working on stalled. My personal life slid to a halt. All because I hadn’t given myself the proper amount of time. I didn’t take the time to ask myself if I was really ready to start dating.
Are you ready to start dating yet?
As a general rule, you should wait until you no longer hold any negative emotions towards your ex-girlfriend before you start dating seriously again.
You want to get to a place where you can see your ex in the same light as any other person with flaws.
If you could walk by her right now and not bat an eye, you’re ready. Until you get to this point, hold off on dating someone seriously. It will just cause you more pain to try to be emotionally serious.
This can be anywhere from 1-12 months or even longer, depending on the circumstances of your relationship. For example, getting over your first relationship can take longer than subsequent ones.
There are a number of reasons to avoid jumping into a new relationship too early.
For one, if you haven’t given yourself time to reflect on what went wrong, chances are you’ll carry bad habits from your last relationship into your new one. This is especially damning if you were previously too needy.
Carrying bad habits into your new relationship is like buying yourself a one-way ticket to getting your ass dumped. You’ll repeat the same behavior that got you into this situation in the first place. And let’s face it, that’s not a good time.
You know what else is a bad time?
Jumping into a relationship without knowing the types of girl you work best with in a relationship. Even worse, jumping into a new relationship without having improved your women skills from your previous girl.
Take my word for it, it’s a recipe for disaster.
Before you think about getting serious with another woman, take the time to actually improve your women skills and learn more about the different types of women and how they fit with you.
You can do that by dating casually, for now.
Enjoy female company without commitment
If I told you right now that you could be dating and having sex with two women at the same time, without being in a relationship, and without cheating, would you?
Because here’s the thing: you can. It’s easier than you think, and will benefit you tremendously.
These casual relationships used to go by the nom de guerre of hookups. As you’ll see in a second, that moniker misses the point, and isn’t actually what you’ll be doing.
For now though, let’s talk about how you can benefit from dating casually.
Think of it as a chance to get back out there and rebuild your confidence. There’s nothing quite like making love to a new woman for the first time, especially after a bad breakup.
It’ll help you feel like your life is headed in the right direction. Plus, the improved confidence will carry over to other areas of your life including work and school. If you have the courage to approach a beautiful woman, asking your boss for a raise will seem like nothing.
Plus, with dating casually you’ll have to learn to be assertive. Getting your own needs met makes you a better and more fulfilled partner. If you’re not comfortable asking for what you want, dating casually will teach you how to get your own needs met and not feel bad about it. You’ll stop thinking of everything in terms of compromise and start thinking in terms of you.
That might sound selfish, but you won’t be able to maximize the relationship experience for your partners without being happy and fulfilled yourself. Now that you’re single, it’s okay to be selfish.
Dating casually will also lead to the most rapid improvement in your women skills. You’ll get a chance to meet and interact with women from different backgrounds and upbringings. Do it enough and you’ll realize the core tenants of attracting any woman are exactly the same across the board. You’ll learn that all women have the same core set of expectations no matter where they come from.
You’ll learn more about women than you ever thought possible. To get there though, you’re going to have to do some work.
Lead with confidence
The most important skill with women is confidence. Confidence in yourself will carry you to places unseen and unheard of for most.
Women are naturally attracted to confidence, and without it, you won’t be able to fill out your rotation with the women you really want. Women value confidence in the same way men value looks. While you might not give a second look to the overweight woman, you’ll definitely look twice at the slim blonde in heels.
The blonde will have no trouble with her choice of men, while the overweight women will have to settle for less because of her lower perceived value. She might get someone who is needy and insecure, while the blonde ends up with a tall financier who’s brimming with confidence.
The good news is that you can learn confidence, and then use this confidence to create attraction in women.
I teach you how to do that here.
Ultimately though, confidence is built up from having a wealth of experience to draw on. Don’t sweat it if you make mistakes, especially in the early going. These mistakes will be your lessons and confidence boosters to draw from later on.
So, are you ready to get back into it?
The importance of classifying your women
The devil is always in the details.
Pay attention to the details and you will have success. Fail to do so, and it’ll blow up in your face.
However, if you do it right you’ll never be without companionship unless you choose so. You’ll get over your breakup faster, and will always have the confidence that you can get a new woman. You’ll be able to meet and have sex with many beautiful women without needing to be in a relationship.
It’ll make your life awesome.
But you’ve gotta learn to walk before you can run.
I see it happen all the time where a guy breaks up with his ex and then immediately starts seeing women, which is all well and good. The thing is, they immediately start treating the women they’re seeing like a girlfriend.
Then they come to me, confused as to why the girl is suddenly being difficult and expecting many things of them.
It’s time to look at dating in a different way. We’re not doing relationships 1.0
We’re taking this shit to the next level.
I call it the championship rotation. The Raptors just used it to dethrone The Warriors, and you can use it to master your dating life.
The fully realized championship rotation can consist of the following 4 types of women:
- Franchise Player
- Starters
- Reserves
- Prospects
To explain it briefly, all women start as prospects, and as they prove themselves to you, you can move them up or down in your rotation. Once a girl is in a certain category you know how to treat her, which will keep you consistent and confident in what you’re doing.
Before we continue though, you need to read about the championship rotation to understand the rest of this article.
Classifying women will save you from all the major pitfalls of dating. It’ll keep you from being too serious with a girl you just want to see every so often. It’ll keep you from spending money on women you shouldn’t be spending money on. Most of all, it’ll keep the women you’re seeing attracted to you, and always coming back for more.
Ultimately though, the real reason for classifying women is to avoid getting into a serious relationship that will lead you astray in your recovery.
Getting into a real relationship engages your emotions, and will prolong the pain of your breakup because you’re not able to objectively process how you are feeling because you’ll have another person to consider.
Classifying your women, and only dating women that are at best high-level reserves will give you the emotional space you need to grow, while also keeping you in the game.
The reserve dream team
Okay, now we’ve reached the fun part.
For the first 6-12 months after a bad breakup, you’re only going to date women that you’ll place in the Reserves category. These are women that are important to you, play a role in your life and happiness, but that are easily replaceable. You also don’t promise anything to these women verbally.
If you find a woman is trying to make efforts to move herself out of the reserve category you walk away. This goes double is she starts giving you drama, or otherwise being a problem.
It’s like a bench guy trying to get a max contract. It just isn’t worth that.
Dating reserves still means you’re out working on your women skills. It teaches you pickup and relationship skills, and also how to manage your own emotions.
It’ll also give you tests along the way to build your confidence.
Your reserves will want to move up over time, and you might want to move them up too.
Don’t.
How are you supposed to set effective boundaries for yourself and your woman in a relationship if you can’t do so for a casual, low-effort relationship?
Do this enough, and it’ll become automatic.
Plus, just like any team, you can have several reserves playing for you to help bring your dream team to life.
Mistakes to avoid while dating after a breakup
While you’re playing the field again, there are a couple of things you want to be aware of to maximize your success.
1: Don’t fall prey to the ONS/Hookup Mentality
As I’ve said before, I don’t like the word hookup. I also really don’t like one-night stands either. Both are a waste of time. Unless you get lucky and meet a woman that’s already looking to have sex, it’s going to require around 2-3 hours of total time invested to sleep with her.
That’s if your dating skills are spot on. If you’re new to this, it can be even longer.
It’s a huge fucking investment of your time trying to have one night stands constantly with new women. Remember, your focus is on YOU.
If you’re using my dating system right, you’ll put in a few hours of upfront time, and then reap the rewards for many months to come. At that point, you just fire off a text, set a date, and get laid. You’ll have more sex than the ONS guy, while having more time to improve yourself.
That’s part of the reason a lot of pickup types and former players flame out. They don’t spend enough time doing other things, and then lag behind everyone else.
Don’t be that guy, especially after a breakup. You’ll be digging yourself into an unneeded hole.
I advise that you only date women you’re genuinely attracted to. That way you’ll want to keep them around as opposed to just getting yours and moving on to the next one.
2: Don’t talk about your ex
The woman you’re on a first date with doesn’t care about your past relationship. Really, she only cares about how attracted she is to you. Don’t be the guy that feels the need to immediately get his baggage on the table.
Talking about your ex-girlfriend, or how badly your breakup went screams to a woman that you aren’t confident in yourself. In other words, it’ll kill any attraction she might feel towards you.
If you don’t believe me, try it. See what happens.
She’ll listen to you out of sympathy, but as soon as you leave she’ll be telling her girlfriends how weak you are. Consider that the kiss of death.
Women are turned on by guys that seize opportunity. They want a guy that can protect them, both physically and emotionally, not a guy that needs to be protected.
So if she presses you about your previous relationship, deflect it with humor and move on. Humor works wonderfully because it tells her you’re not taking her too seriously. That demonstrates confidence.
For example, if she asks: “Are you single?”
A good response would be: “Easy killer, if you wanna ask me out I’ll need another drink”
Hit her with your best shit eating grin and direct eye contact and you’ll have passed her test.
If you’re not at this level yet, that’s okay. You can also just answer her question honestly, and then change the topic without giving her an answer.
As long as you own being single and don’t flinch any answer will do. She’s only asking because she wants to test your confidence.
3: Don’t date the same type of woman as your ex, or expect any new woman to be your ex
Repeat after me: THOU SHALL NOT WORSHIP THY EX-GIRLFRIEND.
Say it out loud.
You probably felt pretty stupid doing that, right? I know I did. You know what’s just as stupid? Looking for women after a breakup that remind you of your ex-girlfriend.
For one thing, that says that you really aren’t over her yet. On the other hand, no woman is going to be exactly like your ex-girlfriend, which is good.
Trying to find a clone of your ex is going to prevent you from seeing all that the world has to offer. Your relationship with your ex-girlfriend ended for a reason. Starting a new one with someone different, even on a casual level will be a completely different experience.
Having experiences with different women will make you more confident in your ability to attract, seduce, and then keep women. The more you repeat the cycle, the better quality women you’ll get.
Every new relationship you create will be special in its own way. You’ll experience joy, affection, and sexual connection differently with each woman. This is especially true as you improve yourself. The higher caliber women you attract as you get better will make your ex look like peanuts.
I realize I have the benefit of hindsight here, but trust me. The good times, the love and the amazing feelings that you experienced with your ex will be BLOWN away by the experiences you have with new women as you improve yourself.
4: Don’t use her as your therapist
Dating a woman isn’t about vomiting up all your baggage. Look brother, you’re a man. A woman you don’t know isn’t going to pay you any sympathy just because something bad happened to you.
She’ll just leave your ass and find someone who dealt with their issues on their own.
It’s up to you to handle your own issues.
I actually watched this happen the other night while I was out with my girlfriend. The guy couldn’t have been more than 5 years older than I, but here he was unloading his baggage on her like a fucking cruise ship at port.
In about 45 minutes he covered:
- His failed marriage/divorce where he got absolutely raked over the coals
- His unhappiness with his job
- How he’s “making a change” and getting counseling
- His complaints about Trump’s government
The entire time, the girl he was sitting was glassy-eyed and checked out. She was asking questions, but you could tell she was desperately looking for an exit. Her body language was closed off, her legs were crossed, and she was leaning away from him.
Yikes.
This is an extreme example, but you get the point.
Especially when you’re just getting your legs under you, it can be tempting to want to vent your frustrations or just complain in general.
But you’re not at a therapy session. Dumping your emotional burden on her is just going to tell her that you’re weak, and not deserving of her trust.
The same is true of complaining. Women want a man who takes action when faced with challenges in life. Not a weak man who complains about problems he claims he can’t change.
Complaining and burdening her will diminish her confidence in you as a strong, centered man who can handle himself. Also, when are these conversations ever fun?
The whole point of her agreeing to go on a date with you is for you two to have FUN. She’s not going to want to see you again if you two aren’t having a good time together.
So keep it light, get it right, and handle your shit when she’s not around.
5: Don’t let the relationship get serious just because you think that’s just how it works.
She isn’t your girlfriend just because you guys have gone on a couple of dates and had some fun between the sheets.
She isn’t your girlfriend just because you’ve known her for a year and you two have gone on dozens of dates.
She isn’t anything other than a friend until you decide otherwise. I see too many men end up with de-facto girlfriends, where they equate time spent together with her becoming a girlfriend. Time doesn’t do the choosing. You do.
This happens because you aren’t setting clear boundaries like I talk about. If you plan on dating casually, boundaries will be everything. She needs to know where she stands.
Falling into a de-facto relationship is a lazy choice. Plus, these relationships usually flame out spectacularly and lead to more breakup pain. Avoid them.
Talk soon,
Coach Jack