I had an interesting coaching call at the end of last year, which had a lot to do with cognitive dissonance. As we all know, girls quickly drop that they have a boyfriend when they want to get rid of you. Some girls spout this out almost reflexively. Heck, I once approached a girl by putting my arm around her waist as I was approaching her sideways, asking her how she’s doing. she’s slowly turning, and says, “I have a boyfrie…”. But then she had fully turned around and was facing me. She gives me the deer in headlights look. I laugh and say, “Changed your mind?” Moments later we’re making out.

But enough about me. The issue that guy was having was that he met this one girl. She hangs out with him one-on-one, and she is receptive to him touching her, i.e. she allows him to touch her. She is a bit passive, but sometimes she initiates some physical contact herself, for instance by sliding up to him so that her thighs touch his. This seems like a pretty clear situation. Yet, he gets thrown off because she occasionally, but somewhat regularly, mentions her boyfriend in conversation. Sometimes she does so in what I thought were quite hilarious circumstances, like her asking him how tall he was (“I know you’re tall, but how tall are you exactly?), only to remark that her boyfriend was three inches shorter. Or she mentions him in a more neutral context, like saying that she learnt about a certain band about him, and now they are one of her favorite bands. The most important aspect, though, is that her boyfriend is literally at the other end of the world, expat’ing in Australia (and doing who knows what).

The issue was that that guy was familiar with the “boyfriend defense” in pickup, so it throws him off when a girl who is clearly interested in him brings up her boyfriend in conversation. I advised him to make a move, and pointed out that she only mentions her boyfriend to put the responsibility on him. Her reasoning is roughly along the lines of, “I told him I had a boyfriend, and if that guy makes a move and we fuck, it’s his fault — because I told him I had a boyfriend!!” Of course, rule number one of women who don’t want to cheat is to not willingly seek out situations in which they could end up cheating on their partner.

Do you know what I like even more than analyzing a problem and pin-pointing the issue: having a client who had balls and does what I tell him, because he told me the other day that he sealed it. Hung out with her, then suggested hanging out at his place — no “last minute resistance” or anything. She was all over him the moment he closed the door to his apartment. He’s been dating her for a few weeks now, and she apparently got rid of her boyfriend in the meantime.