Why Men Pull Away in Early Stages of Dating

Why men pull away can be baffling especially if they´ve hinted that they like you. But it might be a mind game that if you know how to handle well, will work for your advantage.

Have you ever experienced having a man so all over you just to have him act uninterested the next day? When he pulls back, does that mean he´s no longer interested? What should you do?

First, let´s understand why men pull away early in dating so you would stop cracking your head figuring out why.

Even if a man is into you, he may pull back just to see how you´ll react (Note: may … because not every man feels the need to do so).

This is the scenario:

You and him are in the early stages of dating. You´re attracted to him and he´s attracted to you. In fact, it´s not only that he likes you, but he seemed to be very much into you. In return, you started asking yourself, is he the one?

You look forward to getting to know him better. Started envisioning the possibility of having a committed relationship with him. But then out of the sudden, he disappears. He doesn´t text you or call you like he normally does.

You worry, so you text him. Or you may even try to call him. But what you get is radio silence.

You may send him an emotional email to check if everything´s okay with him. You´re probably thinking that maybe he´s sick. Or if he´s facing the biggest challenge of his life, you want to be there for him. He only needs to tell you what is going on!

But even that email is met with silence.

Pulling away means not calling you. Not sending you emails and text messages. Ignoring your text messages and not returning your calls, or not seeing you for a while. It means not hearing from him longer than usual.

Even if it can be utterly confusing for you when he does that, how you react to his absence is key. It will set the stage if he´s going to fall in love with you, take advantage of you, or pull away for good. It´s difficult to do when you really like him, but it´s important to control your emotions.

Remember that there´s a myriad of reasons why men pull away or lose interest. Men are different and they pull away for different reasons.

With that being said, here are the six possible reasons why a man who seems to like you will pull away:

1. To see how much you need this relationship.

Most men deliberately don´t call just to see how you´ll respond. If you´re upset, it sends him the clear message how much you want this relationship.

And if you badly need this relationship, he knows that he has 100 percent hold on you.

Sherry Argov, in her book, Why Men Love Bitches, calls this a man´s mind game or “mental challenge”.

“It´s human nature for a man to test the waters”, says Argov, “he wants to see how much he can get away with.”

Early in dating, starting from day one, he´s already calculating how much he can get away with. Are you willing to stretch, bow and bend backward just to have a relationship with him?

Are you desperate to have a relationship with him and have you been sending him that message?

What to do?

While this guy is still pulling away from you, decide if you really want to be with him or if you rather move on and be with someone who truly wants to have a relationship with you.

Go out with your friends. Meet new people. Be open to date other men. Get occupied with other things that will take your mind off him.

Stop obsessing about him.

If he comes back and you want to give him another chance, the ball should be in your court. Don´t drop everything and see this guy the same day he finally decides to see you.

If you still like him, tell him that you´re happy to see him, but let him be aware that you´ve been busy. If he asks you out, accept his offer and put it in the calendar. But don´t prioritize your date with him. He needs to wait and he must work for it.

Don´t be too eager to continue the romance with him. Let this dance of romance progress according to your own music.

This man needs some serious doing — he needs to gain back your trust, to assure you that he´s reliable, and to prove to you that he´s worthy your time.

2. To gain reassurance.

When it comes to getting reassurance that you like him, he certainly won´t be verbal about it. He´s very unlikely to initiate that serious talk with you and you certainly won´t hear him say, “Honey, we need to talk. I need to know where I stand with you.”

Instead, he will pull back. He won´t call you. And you probably won´t hear from him for days.

Pulling back is also necessary for him to figure out if you´re the type of woman that he wants to marry.

When you react emotionally, it gives him a feeling of control. And if you react emotionally all the time, over time he will come to see you as less of a challenge. You must know by now that the number one pet peeve for men is a needy girlfriend.

What to do?

It´s important for you to show him that you are interested but it´s also equally important to send him the message that you like to be pursued.

Let him know that you do like him, give subtle hints that you will be happy to go out with him, and you look forward to getting to know him better. But also send the message that you are the prize and if he´s willing to work for it, your love will be his reward.

Make him commit and surrender his heart to you, learn how to be “the woman men adore and never want to leave”.

In the case that he´s pulled away, you may text him telling him that you miss him, and that you wish him a wonderful day, but if you don´t get a reply, you stop there.

Don´t bombard him with more text messages, emails or phone calls.

3. You fall for him long before he does.

“Be slow to get to know a man, slow to commit, and slow to fall in love.” ~ Mimi Tanner

If you fall in love quickly and get head over heels in love with him too soon, long before he falls in love with you, he will pull away.

Always remember that when it comes to love, you don´t want to get there ahead of him.

This is why delaying sex is necessary because unlike men who can easily have sex with a woman without falling in love afterwards, women do fall in love after having sex with a man.

Regardless of how modern feminist love gurus are trying to sell the so-called women´s sex freedom, it is to your disadvantage if you sleep with a man too soon.

Blame it to oxytocin and vasopressin, the hormones that get you attached to a man after cuddling and getting intimate with him.

As the gatekeeper to sex who´s already in love with him, you are likely to surrender the key to the gate early while having a totally different expectations than his.

If you sleep with him before he falls in love with you, it may cheapen the potential of your relationship in his eyes. This scenario will most likely result to heartbreak.

What to do?

Learn how to control your emotion. Now that he´s pulled away, the last thing you´d want is to come off as desperate. Chasing him and being desperate will only lower your worth in his eyes. It will push him away even further.

Give him the space he needs. He may come back once he realizes that even if you love him, your sense of self-respect is much stronger than your need to be with him — or anyone else.

4. He´s already involved with someone else.

If this is the reason, read why you shouldn´t date someone with a girlfriend.

Some men are intentionally players. And sometimes, you become the center of attention of someone whose pure intentions are to play around. These players may also be involved with someone — either a girlfriend or a wife.

The good news is that having solid boundaries in dating generally weed out the players.

So if a player has showered you with attention and then he realized that your dating boundaries will not allow him to quickly make a score, he will pull away. In that case, him pulling away actually becomes a blessing to you.

However, if you think that you haven´t established and implemented your dating boundaries and there´s a possibility that you got played, do a background check.

Some relationship experts advise women against doing a background check on a man while getting to know him because it implies a lack of trust. And isn´t “trust” supposedly the foundation of any relationships including a budding one?

But truth be told, many women who were raped by their date would have avoided it if only they did a background check early.

What to do?

My advise to you is listen to your gut. If your intuition tells you that you may be dating a player, find out if he´s involved with someone.

Knowing the real reason of his pulling away will save you from grieving the abrupt end of what appeared to be a potential relationship, only it´s not.

And by the way, who wants to grieve a player?

5. Either he´s very unsure of his feelings for you or he´s doing the “slow fade”.

It may be disappointing to hear this but if a man is seriously into you and is genuinely wanting to have a relationship with you, he won´t feel the need to pull back.

On the other hand, if he realizes that he´s not into you but doesn´t have the guts to be honest with you, he will do the “slow fade”.

Speaking from my experience, I´ve dated a few men who pulled away early in dating. Each time it made me vulnerable and emotional.

I used to believe it´s pretty normal for a guy to pull back, put the relationship to a halt, and that it´s perfectly acceptable. It all ended the same, I wasn´t a priority to those men.

Until I met the man who was genuinely into me, there was no pull away drama. From day one he treated me like a goddess, and I never felt disrespected. It didn´t take long for him to decide that I´m “the one” and for me to know that he´s “the one”. That´s why I married him.

On the other hand, some men are not equipped with the ability to tell you in person that he´s lost that loving feeling.

There are actually men who seek advice on how to deal with the situation where the woman falls more and more in love with them while they fall more and more out of love with the woman.

If you had been in a situation where you´re the one who fell out of love or out of attraction and you didn´t know how to tell the other person, then you would understand that it can be confusing and agonizing at the same time.

What to do?

Although none of these information will ease the pain of being in the receiving end of a “slow fade” approach, remember that this is not about you.

This is about his feelings towards you, which does not, in any way, diminish your worth as a high value woman.

Recognize the hurt that his actions have caused you but also be gracious to his lack of ability to be honest with you.

The less anger you feel towards that person the quicker you will get over him and the less emotional damage his “pulling away” will cause you.

If he ghosted you for good, as a matured, independent woman you should be able to accept it and find peace with it.

Shift the focus back to yourself. You still have your career, your hobby, or whatever it is that makes you happy alone, successful and independent.

Men will love and respect you more if you are self-sufficient, confident, and happy with or without him.

6. You didn´t give him the chance to pursue you.

In the book, Are You Right For Me?, author and relationship therapist Andrew G. Marshall shared the story of a male client who was totally smitten by a woman he met at work. He was eager to get to know her more.

They had been out the night before and when he arrived at the office that morning, he was thinking of calling her. But when he logged into his computer, he saw that he got two emails from her. He also got a message from her on his voice mail.

He was still thinking of calling her when the phone rang. She needed him to meet her at the third lobby — rightaway. When he arrived, she shoved a piece of paper into his hand and disappeared. It´s a poem dedicated to her “soulmate”.

He was rubbed of a chance to pursue her. She was in a hurry to get courted by him or to get commitment from him.

What to do?

If you think that you accidentally have chased him, which led him to pull away, chances are he´s still into you. He probably is only disappointed that he´s not able to do the pursuing. Thus, he does not see you as a challenge.

Men love a challenge. They like to work for something they think is important.

Get comfortable with being pursued. Be confident in your femininity and your worth as a woman. Enjoy the process of getting to know each other. Have fun when you are out with him and just enjoy his company for what it is.

Avoid projecting your dreams of a “happy relationship” on him. You will come off as someone who´s desperate for love and commitment. Avoid referring to him as your “soulmate”. You have to spend about three months of getting to know each other and courtship before you´ll have an idea if he´s the one.

But now that he´s pulled away from you, all you have to do is stop right where you are. He´s pulling away because you´re forcing your way to him. Stop moving forward, lean back so that like a rubber band, he will be able to bounce back to you.

As long as his attraction for you is still there, chances are high that he will come back. Play your cards well.

When he´s back, be your happy, attractive self. And again, enjoy his pursuit.

Takeaway!

The answer to why men pull away in early stages of dating isn´t black and white. There are many gray areas in between.

Identifying the reason why he pulled away from you may help in dealing with the pain of not-knowing “what happened”.

It may also help you know if there´s still a chance to get him back. This knowledge will come handy if you still want to salvage your abruptly-interrupted, dating relationship.

The bottom line is, if a man pulls away as a deliberate mind game, he is most likely going to come back. But you have to do the right thing of not chasing him.

If he pulls away because you accidentally chased him, he is most likely going to come back. But you have to do the right thing of leaning back in order to give him space to pursue you,

But if he pulls away because he´s already involved with someone, or because he lost that loving feeling for you, he is most likely not going to come back. In which case, you wouldn´t want him back either, would you?

SIGN-UP: Find Your True Love Project is a 16-week learning course designed to help you find, attract, and marry the man of your dreams.