Dude...you're trying to make a 3 month long distance work after she cheated on you....you may not be skinny but you're on your way. Read his opening post or the first page. This is just neediness

So what you're saying is that you need to try hard to distract your girlfriend. Please journal this so we can all see how it works out.

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It sounds like you have confidence you can keep this is going which is great! However, don't let the responsibility of this relationship fall solely on your shoulders. She has her own life and if she decides to move on from you then it isn't necessarily your fault. Don't think that your game can save this by itself. Eventually she will realize what she is missing because she is choosing you and you will become a point of resentment. I'm not saying don't try, but don't expect it to work only because you try. You say she is trying but IF she decides to quit and kill the relationship then she can effectively do that despite your attempts to keep attraction alive. Take it one day at a time and emphasize the positives. Good news is that LDR can keep couples from building resentment because there are only a small amount of memories made each day and they are easy to make positive. When you are in person you have a wide variety of situations you face together, not just SPAM, and it can strain the relationship. Keep your head up, shoot for it, but if she is wiling to drop the relationship then just know it's beyond your power to change that. This isn't something you can just use techniques to control someone long term.

It's a cynical point of view but it's a healthier outlook. I went through the LDR and we were extremely happy but she is very much a anxious/avoidant attachment and so am I. She avoids when things go poorly or when she feels she might be losing something to be with me, and I become anxious. Not always the best combo. Depending on the type of attachment she is, this could work but you sound like an anxious type not a dismissive. She sounds like she might be dismissive as she sounds like she pulled away for a few days. These can be good as two dismissives will give up and two anxious will suffocate. Aim to be secure and hold on loosely. It will keep your game at its peak where you don't feel like you are going to lose something. Life will go on. We are in this together and you'll find many stories like this, including mine. Mine took a positive turn yesterday and our LDR which started today again may not be a long term thing anymore. We will see. Good luck

I was just talking to a female friend (someone who's interested in me but tbh I use her mostly to vent about this sort of shit because she's incredibly socially aware) and it made me realise a lot of things I was doing wrong. I'm just trying to figure out how to go about this still though. Also, she's definetely dismissive.
Everything pua has taught me leads me to think that I need to push her away, rebuild attraction and just go through the whole process all over again to get things to where they were, but idk yet. I feel like if I push her away, and if I just don't message her at all, she's socially busy enough to just be able to rule me out of her life, and realise she doesn't need me, and I need to get her attached right now.


We had a great moment today again, I went to the roof of my dorm to talk to her, she told me she loved me on her own and I said it back. And then when we called again before she went to bed she kept saying she really liked me. The problem is I think she rationally knows that I'm a great guy but I feel like she's just lost attraction and I have no idea how to get it back, and I remember her saying (this before all that happened today btw) that regardless of where we stood, I'd still have her because we'd be friends, and I told her that if we broke up I wouldn't do that at all, and she said she didn't know if she could handle that that well, so I have a feeling that she wants to just stay friends at this point.
We texted again when she woke up, I was fairly playful but I felt awkward still. I'm having a hard time not filling conversation with what we used to have, little nicknames and whatever.
If anyone wants I could post the SPAM logs.



I want to tell her and talk to her about how I feel like she wants to be friends more than be in a relationship at this point but I'm afraid to seem insecure and that'll just push her even further away. But if I keep doing dumb attraction shit, it still feels like I'm not building enough tension with her and that I can't get her to want me enough and she'll just realise this and tell me "let's just be friends" idk what to do at this point.

I think everyone at some point wants to remove themselves of guilt and responsibility for the failure of a relationship they care about. Having a need to not have this be their fault. It's common. Your fear of pulling away aiding in her departure could be unfounded. It's an irrational belief. With my girlfriend, I felt the same way. However I ignored that feeling and it helped tremendously. Dismissive attachment styles will push you away to the length of distance they feel comfortable. If she is pushing you away, then you are too close, too present. Take the initiative to take a step back yourself, and give her the room to fill that space with her own desire for you. Don't disappear, but don't smother.

I'm sure this story has been told in some form or another, but I'll give an example I've made for you. A human held a grasshopper in their hand. To prevent it from escaping, the human held the grasshopper tightly and suffocated it. Another human held a grasshopper in their hand too loosely, and the grasshopper felt unsafe in the hand. It flew away so that it wasn't hurt. One more human held a grasshopper, but held loosely. The grasshopper felt the ability to come and go as it pleased. Only then, when the human let the grasshopper leave under it's own free will, did the human know whether the grasshopper would return willingly as well after seeing the world.

You're the human, and she's the grasshopper.

Too much pressure to make this work and she will crumble. Keep it fun and light.

You probably relieved some pressure on her by saying you would still be friends after, and pressure on yourself. It can be taken advantage of course, but you don't want to force her to stay with you by fear of losing you altogether. Just know that pick up works for getting laid, because getting laid isn't that much of an investment. If a PUA tried to find a stranger and impregnate them willingly then I doubt the success rate would be high. The greater the investment and opportunity cost, the less likely that even good game can keep her there. Just be realistic.

I can't even begin to express how this helped me change my view of this. If shit doesn't go right it doesn't whatever, I'll just let her have her space, and I'll just keep doing what I've been doing, I'll just keep being myself with her, being playful, and enjoying my time with her. If she wants to stay with me, fine, I'll appreciate this and reciprocate with trying hard to maintain our relationship, if she doesn't, that's fine too, I'll find other women, and she'll find someone else, we'll go our own ways, life goes on.
And I told her we couldn't be friends after we broke up, to be quite honest I don't think maintaining a friendship with an ex would help me in any sort of way, especially if I was emotionally attached.

I've been talking to new people already, talking to women (just talking really, and I've been slowly realising it wouldn't be that hard to find someone I'd be happy to be with regardless since I'm fairly decent looking and fun to talk to) reconnecting with friends, and going back to bodybuilding and my work. I never skipped my routines or anything, and I kept talking to my friends still, but it wasn't the same because I let her occupy a lot of space in my head, and I needed to free that, to let her out so that losing her didn't seem so bad in the end, and to let new people in so that I'd have some sort of "pillow" to fall onto if shit went south.


We had an excellent day today, with the whole rooftop thing, I'm getting rapport back, and as I'm getting it back, I'm pushing myself away slightly, and I'm letting her come to me, giving some back when she gives a lot, so she doesn't feel discouraged, but rather encouraged to give me more. I'm still struggling to push myself away from the whole "boyfriend mode" thing I still have in me. Ie. following goodnight with love, baby, whatever, compliments, emoticons, writing too much on replies, and in general giving too much. I'm working on going back to being playful, fun really light negs and re-qualifying her so I can justify all the rapport and all this I'm giving her instead of just giving it all too easily and coming off as needy.

I wouldn't totally cast away from port. You have to make sure she feels safe. Just like in the grasshopper example, if you don't hold on really at all, then the grasshopper feels like you might drop it and flies away. Give her security in the sense that you aren't necessarily cooling down either, but in the back of your mind be ready to accept that if she does decide otherwise, you will survive. It sounds like your head is more in the right place and you have more realistic expectations. As I have always said, you do your end of the work not to screw up things, and she does her end of the work too. You two are responsible for the health of the relationship but you can only control your side. So focus on what you contribute and enjoy it while it lasts.

(I'm gonna try to document what happens in the next few weeks here so I'll at least have something to look back at, I realise I'm not in the best state right now and not taking the best decisions, I'll try and make this as less exhausting to read as I possibly can until I can post SPAM logs)


We talked again last night, it was more pillow talk stuff. We talked about her work, just irrelevant stuff tbh, we flirted very lightly, we talked about what we wanted to do when we were together, she wants to try a lot of new things in London (we're both meeting there in August), clubbing, drugs, whatever, asked me if I wanted to get high with her, and that we should visit a sex shop together and wondered if I had a high tolerance for drugs, it was all light hearted though since I was fairly humorous through the whole thing and we ended up talking about weird alien dildos, I feel like our sexual flirting feels a bit wrong now though idk? at least for me emotionally but she usually initiates it though.

NOTE 1: I feel like she's partly being flirty with me out of guild of what happened, I might be overthinking though.

NOTE 2: She's been reading a lot of romantic books lately, I think she's been using it as an escape, she was reading when I woke up, I feel like I handled it wrong, she told me she'd call me when she finished it which was like 10 pages and I didn't push it, I just told her how she wouldn't be able to do that when she was with me because I'd provably be annoying or teasing her or whatever playfully, I didn't really know how to handle it. I didn't make much out of it though.

After all that it eventually got to us talking about how much we want to be together, she told me how if she could she'd trade any day in our future to have it now, when we were older, she mentioned two kids. I took that and I told her about what day I'd trade if I could, it was some sappy thing about me coming home late from work, we had a house, big but not too big, she was waiting for me, with a little girl on her lap, I put her to bed and then we layed together talking about our days and fell asleep together. We had little moments of silence afterwards I usually like to have with her, she tells me she really likes me ( I dont like this that much tbh I feel like she's trying to figure out if I'm her friend or someone she wants to be with romantically ). I told her I loved her first tonight, and she said it back. And then we said our goodnights.






THIS MORNING (20 minutes ago)

I realise I'm not in the clearest mindset right now, and so I'm having a hard time rationalizing my actions and playing this "right" so a lot of times I just let myself be completely open with her, which is bad, I feel like I'll "hold on too much" or be too needy.
I'll start posting SPAM logs once I find the chance. I messaged her before she woke up with a message saying that I found an old recording she made me, and it reminded me of how why i liked her because she could be really sweet sometimes. And then I said I hope she was sleeping well and called her an idiot or whatever to defuse it. Idk what I was thinking.
She wakes up telling me she had weird dreams, and didnt remember them.



She then goes on to ask me if chemistry was a real thing because she never felt it before. I asked her what she meant, and she said like in those book where you kiss someone and sparks fly out, and she then tells me that kisses are nice but boys are fuzzy for her and she never felt chemistry. She says she wonders if anyone has that kind of chemistry. We talk about love and infatuation and this sort of stuff. I have no idea what to say or what she wants out of this at this point. She tells me she thinks she's never been in love before (and then says in a dif message "like not long distance") if that was love she was talking about. She says that people in arranged marriages can grow to love eachother and that you can pretty much love anyone. I told her sometimes books set unrealistic spectations for people, and she told me she knows she was just wondering if it was possible in real life.
At this point I realise she doesn't feel this with me and is wondering if it's possible to feel it with anyone, and so isn't sure if she wants to be with me or not. She then tells me I'm an amazing guy and she hopes to rediscover what love is in London, because there's no one she'd rather do it with rather than me.

This sort of crushes me a bit because I realise at this point I let myself become way too emotionally involved, way more than she did. And I tell her that I think she's still trying to figure out what she feels about me or if she loves me or not. She says she definitely loves me, of if not that's the closest she's been to it, she just doesn't know how much ( Idk what this means I think she's trying to figure out if we'll be like the books or something ) and she wants to figure that out with me and she hopes I'm okay with that, she then says that she's sorry and for me to please wait for her.

I then say that I think she's wondering if our ldr will transition to irl or if we'll be dull like all the other men she's been with, or if she likes me romantically or not (this is my fear, that I fucked up atraction and she doesn't like me that way anymore but this made me look so insecure, I'm an idiot) she says yes to the first one, and she says she's definitely interested in me romantically.

I then go on to say that I understand, and that I hope she understands that this is also a huge risk for me, and that it requires me to put so much trust in her, and that I'm putting so much of myself on the line, especially after all this happened I'd already have to trust her through college, and after breaking my trust it made things so much harder. ( Didn't want to push her away completely so I said) But that I was confident in us, but she needs to give me proof that she's earned it. And that I also realise how much pressure I've put on her, so we should just take things a day at a time, and figure things out. That's the best anyone can ever do, and that I know if we want we can make it work, all we need to do is want it.

Before she left for work I told her that I just wanted her to know that what we have is special regardless of what happens, I was confident in things working between us, we've already been through so much and we love eachother and that's what matters in the end, we just need to take things a day at a time and enjoy the time we get together. If we want it we can have it, that's what I honestly truly believe in. at the end of the day we love eachother ,that makes me happy, and im gonna try hard to keep it.

I have no idea what I'm doing at this point, I feel like I'm losing her and the one instinct I have is to hold on, but I know it's fking wrong. She feels much more distant during the day than at night, She gets off work in three hours, and I have no idea what I'm gonna talk to her about.

We were also only together for a few days before she went away, so we were never romantically together, I think this might be one of her fears. That she won't feel what she felt online with me in real life.
She'll also be meeting with some other guy she's friends with in London, and I'm also scared she'll like him more than me when she does, or cheat or some other shit. I'm an insecure mess right now over this.

I think one of the reasons why this is getting to me so much lies in the fact that I've never been left in a relationship, or been cheated on and this is so new to me, and in all honesty I've never been attached to anyone this much.
Plus I'm going through a lot of tests and shit at work and it's just turning me into a mess right now, idk what to do.


I feel like leaving her would be the easiest thing to do, and I want to, but some part of me wants her to come back to me after she realises that she wants me but that isn't happening and I really like her and she's been trying hard to keep us alive, aswell as her provably being the most caring and dedicated girlfriend I've ever had, there are people in my work who get cheated on even when they can physically be with their partners, but if I stay with her, she already cheated on me, I need to trust her not to for the month that I'll be at sea and not able to talk to her except on weekends, and also that our time together when we have it will go well enough for us to work out. This is a crazy investment from my part, but I feel like I shouldn't just take the easy way out. So I'm just stuck in this shit middle ground. I just wish I wasn't as attached to her as I am right now because I feel like she isn't at all to me, and I need to trust her to feel that way but it's something nobody can make another person feel regardless of how good you are.


PS.: I just got a package she sent me a few ago at my house, I haven't had the chance to come open it yet. I feel like it hurts me more staying with her than to just leave right now, it would be so easy. The fact that all my friends and my family because they got a letter from her at their place by accident, know of her makes this harder too. I feel like I'm acting so fucking weak with all this shit.

3 months in she's already cheated on you, likes male attention and you write about this relationship like its way too much work. Three months in, even with distance should not be this difficult. It's the same old story here...guy comes in with a terrible relationship has a lot of talk about how he can leave but somehow he's staying to fight. You can make all the reasons up for why she cheated or doesn't feel sparks i.e. Some bs about you being lame for a week. Whatever the case or whatever bs reason you want to give yourself....its just plain old neediness and lack of self esteem. Y'all are gonna make it to the getting married stage? She couldn't even not go to a dudes house after 3 months. This is the most dedicated and caring gf you've had? Who the hell have you been dating if this is the best?

Like many other guys struggling, if there was a switch to man-up grow a pair of balls and approach every woman you're attracted to situations like this would never happen. One word: Abundance. The antithesis: Scarcity (which you suffer from).

I've been thinking about this. I'm considering leaving her, I was certain I would for the past hour too. The type of man I try to be would not take something like this, but the problem like what was mentioned above was that I lack abundance, and alternatives, and I'm trying to make excuses to take her back now because the one thing I'm scared of is that she might be the best I ever get and that after my trip I will have nothing to do and I'll just regret not being with her. Rationally thinking, leaving her is what I should do right now, and I realise this, but when feelings get involved it's easier said than done. I need to talk to a few friends and think this through.

Think through something you yourself admitted is more of an emotional process. Sounds counter-intuitive to me. Not only that, if you're seeking validation from your friends that's disempowering yourself and looking externally which got you into trouble to begin with.

"Thinking" is what's keeping you entrenched. You've done tonnes of it already, maybe its time for action??

Clearly you're becoming insecurely attached. You're way too focused on the outcome of this, and you NEED this to work for your own self-esteem. You feel that your "techniques" aren't working because you simply don't have the confidence to believe you can attract her without them. I, personally, rarely use anything out of a PUA book. The truth is that many of the basic principles are just good for relationships in general. However, routines and shit are just silly. They degrade your personality and make you reliant on too inflexible of expressions to match situations. Plus you're way too mentally involved and in your head. You must match the situation with new beliefs and perception, not match your old beliefs and perceptions with new situations. In other words, what you read as a PUA technique is never going to be enough to just wing it and do well. Only loosely interpreted techniques or concepts can help. One of those is to be willing to let go. You are OVER thinking, and it's killing your confidence. Can't you accept that if she does lose attraction, then so what? She doesn't like who you are? Neediness stems from the desire to make her, or everyone like you. In turn, that same need to be liked causes you to compromise who you are for who she wants you to be. You're giving her all the power. What you give power to is power OVER you. Do you really want her to feel like she can control you? Seriously, you're overthinking it. She's unrealistic with her books. Just tell her you'll show her what love is, but it will be your own unique way of expressing it/feeling it. Plus, love isn't necessarily a feeling. It is giving yourself to someone. You don't need to dump her, which would be bipolar. You need to take less emphasis on this relationship and focus on your own life. If your life is good, and you are your own person, then she will enjoy your company. The more invested you become in making this work, the more helpless you'll feel. Just relax, AND enjoy her company. For now, that's all that matters. If it doesn't work out in the end, then at least you enjoyed the moments you had.

One thing you're killing yourself with in particular is looking for IOI's. Ignorance can be bliss at times. A relationship isn't always stable, and it can be draining, especially after the honeymoon stage, to always be gleeful and excited. Just because she doesn't say she's gaga over you, or that she isn't necessarily super attracted seeming doesn't mean you should take it the wrong way. The more you attribute this to your own fault, and the less to simple biology, then the more you'll feel desperate to make it work, and hold on tighter, and fuck up.

You're the person who's managed to help me most with this. Thank you.

I'm just relaxing and taking this a day at a time, we aren't talking about what happened anymore, at all. We talked about how it'd be fun to have a bonfire at the beach when we're together, get high, make smores and mess around with eachother during her break from work. I'm just enjoying her company now on the side and mainly focusing on my own life.
I'll update this if anything else happens worth mentioning.





A big thank you for everyone who's helped me clear my mind through all this, this weekend. Cheers, and have a great week guys.