Mind Of Man: Here’s Why We Don’t Call You Back
Posted by: John DeVore
Filed in:
guys
10:00AM, Wednesday April 15th 2009
Fine, I’ll level with you. After all, we’ve been through so much together. You’re like foreign exchange students to me. Not unlike sisters. But I wouldn’t feel gross if I “accidentally” walked in on you while you showered. TMI?
Chances are the reason he hasn’t called you back is because he doesn’t want to talk to you. Maybe he can’t talk to you. Maybe he’s fighting pirates, composing an opera, shampooing orphaned kittens.
If he hasn’t called you back, don’t hemorrhage. Don’t instant message your bestie to bitch and moan. I’ve observed many of you in the wild; bitching and moaning begats more bitching and moaning. A dude not calling you back will snowball into ridiculousness. The simplest, most reasonable answer is the right one. His phone could have been turned off, his grandmother could have died, he could have been hit by a truck and has amnesia. Simple, right?
Women are so fatalistic when it comes to interpreting male actions or inactions. We’re not tea leaves, financial data, or post-modern fiction. Odds are if we haven’t called you back, it’s not because we think you’re a loony bird fatty who smells like olives and is crazy.
Women are so fatalistic when it comes to interpreting male actions or inactions. We’re not tea leaves, financial data, or post-modern fiction. Odds are if we haven’t called you back, it’s not because we think you’re a loony bird fatty who smells like olives and is crazy. It’s probs because we’re flakes, our dude brains crammed with video game scores, baseball statistics, and pure white noise. If he says he’s “busy,” it’s because he’s “busy.” In manese, “busy” does not translate to “I hate you.”
Of course, there is the other hand. I’ll speak from my experience, but the reasons I’ve “not called her back” range from the flighty to the downright selfish and douchey. I’ve not called her back because I was thoughtless or because I was spineless. A couple of times, it was because of her expectations of what our relationship would be versus what was real, and I didn’t have the energy or the heart to painfully explain the truth of the situation, and I hoped that she’d just … disappear. Which is also spineless. I’ll confess to having been through a post-breakup, slightly sadistic, deeply angry phase where I didn’t call or text back because I could. It’s remarkable how love can sometimes rot and decompose into cruelty.
In dating, you’re either playing a mind game or taking brave, slightly drunk leaps of faith. Personally, if I wanted to date a mind game, I’d curl up nekkid with a Sudoku book. So, me let me reiterate. He’s probably busy, flustered, thinking about you, juggling life. If he’s not that into you, you’ll know it. If he’s not that into you, you probably knew it before he had a chance to not call you back.
There are dozens of reasons why he didn’t call you back, text you back, Facebook, Twitter, or email. But there’s only one reason why he does call you back: because he wants you. And that’s a 110 percent true fact. Now, it could be he just wants to park it inside you. Well, I mean, he definitely does. But that’s not the entire equation. Calling you back is different than desperately sweating you at a bar like a horny swamp donkey. Remember that dudes are not complicated. We’re pretty binary when it comes to this stuff; it’s either game on or game off.
We call you back because we’re crazy about you. That’s what men do. Shut-up beta males. (Don’t take that from me. Stand up for yourselves.) When we meet someone whose smile is a Martian raygun set to “amazing,” it is our manly responsibility to woo. Steal her heart at all costs. Call her back and ask her about her day. Text her witty, casual regards. Email her sweet “whaddups?” Read her blogs, her Twitters, absorb her brain. To be clear, when the game is on, we play to win.
Of course, sometimes bros can come off ... a little too eager. We can call and text a little too much. Or say and text the wrong things. For instance, hypothetically speaking, we can get drunk and in a cab home transform into a horrid Lord Byron/Quasimodo mash-up and drop multiple, overly affectionate texts. Not obscene, or inappropriate … emo ... and slightly desperate. This can happen. Or so I’ve heard. And then maybe y’all are like, “Whoa, cowboy. We’ve been on two dates.” This is when you should remember all those times we didn’t call you back.
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magz
wrote on April 15 2009 @ 11:13 am: [report]
Thanks John!
I just broke it off with a dude who was, I thought, waiting for me to disappear.
In the first week after our first date he introduced me to all his friends at a party, texted me and called me just because. Then, nothing for 5 days after he started a new job, fine. Then a call and a date. Cool. Then, nothing for 6 days (a few of those days he had off)...nothing…complete silence. Soooo…called him and invited him over and got a vibe of ehhhh…so called him out on it and we decided to break it off.
5 days passed and he called me just because last night. Whhaaa???
So confused.
I’m trying to move on, because the way I see it, you like me or you don’t.
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on April 15 2009 @ 11:14 am: [report]
I’m curled up with spider solitaire.
FYI Jon, Lord Byron was a pedophile.
Arty
wrote on April 15 2009 @ 11:29 am: [report]
I think men would be easier to understand if they were more like post-modern fiction.
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on April 15 2009 @ 11:40 am: [report]
@Arty: Dull, flat, and full of words (Read, #&@$%)?
goldheart2
wrote on April 15 2009 @ 11:41 am: [report]
Ok..I get it, why men don’t call back, but none the less it is still a punk move! I been talking to a man for almost 4 months, everyday for hours per day and each conversation was good and wonderful! There was a period when he didn’t call for over 2 weeks. When he did finally call (as I sure as hell wasn’t) he stated that he got “scared”..BS! Anyway, we resumed talking and met for the first time on a Saturday..again, we had a great time and conversation.. and now, no phone call??!! Not even to see if I made it home ok?? It has been almost a week.
Now, if I aint his cup of tea..fine, I can live with that as there are really more men attracted to me than not..so my ego will not be bruised or if he is scared..man up and get over it or whatever the reason, but just on the level of a concerned citizen…give a call don’t leave me hanging!. There are ways to be tactful. And if he is too much of a coward to talk to me..leave a message. Since I was driving, it would take me a while before getting home. Be tactful and say something like “..it’s not you, but me, I am just really can’t promise to be faithful to one woman at this stage… ” or whatever!! He can blame himself..at least front!
So the bottom line is that there is absolutely no reason for a guy not to call even if he intends on not pursuing anything further with the woman!
It really is a courtesy!
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on April 15 2009 @ 11:46 am: [report]
@goldheart2: It seems involved, why not ask what’s up? As arty stated earlier, it is a post modern world, call him, take charge, why does he have to call you?
Fast Eddie
wrote on April 15 2009 @ 12:03 pm: [report]
Your ticked that I didn’t call. Is your hand broken? Forget my number (yes I’m listed), etc. Before we made woopie you found time to contact me. It leaves me to wonder if all YOU wanted was a roll in the sack. Did you say anything like “Lets do this again…soon” or “How about my place next time”. It doesn’t take much for me to get my hopes up for a repeat performance. You could say “I’m tied up next weekend but any time after that…”
Your “Thanks for a lovely evening” says to me “You feed me dinner and drinks, I made your wienie spout. We’re even and maybe when I’m disparate enough I’ll let you do it again”. I don’t need abuse, just an honest statement about what you’d like to happen.
develange
wrote on April 15 2009 @ 12:23 pm: [report]
I feel as though I’ve dated enough at this point to not get worked up about the whole guy not calling thing. It’s one thing if some random guy at a bar or a guy you’ve been casually dating doesn’t call/stops calling . . . and another things if someone you’ve been seeing seriously stops calling.
I started blowing off guys by ignoring their calls, which is equally evil and frustrating. Sometimes I did have that awkward, possibly drunk conversation, the whole “I dont think we should see each other anymore.” And sometimes I’d just ignore all texts and calls until they stopped.
One of the downsides to not calling/ignoring calls is that sometimes the other person just doesn’t get the hint. After ignoring this guy’s texts for nearly five months, he still continued to text me.
If only we could all have direct, mature conversations.
hawaiianpeach
wrote on April 15 2009 @ 12:36 pm: [report]
Once I got sick of a guy not emailing me back for weeks at a time and I blocked him from my email account.
goldheart2
wrote on April 15 2009 @ 12:48 pm: [report]
@CheeEEEEESSS!.... Did I forget to mention that I did call the guy when I arrived home (I did the long distance travelling to meet him) and low and behold, he didn’t pick up his phone. I called to inform him that I arrived home safely and left a message..go figure..so naturally the ball is now in his court.
RichieRich
wrote on April 15 2009 @ 12:54 pm: [report]
“...[A] horny swamp donkey.”
Classic! Absolutely classic!
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on April 15 2009 @ 01:03 pm: [report]
@goldheart2: For your benefit, I went back and read it again, it still says what I read earlier, you didn’t call him. FYI, you’ve got 2 ‘e’s missing and have 2 extra ‘s’s, unless you want to leave off the last 3 for sexy! Yes, ball in his court with what you said ala round 2.
torimom
wrote on April 15 2009 @ 07:39 pm: [report]
Girls, I am married now, but I grew up and dated in the age of no texting, no cellphones, no email. I give the same advice as was in the technology-free world of the 80s - if he wants to call you, he will. If he doesn’t, then he doesn’t. Don’t email, text, call, twitter, facebook, IM, or whatever him, as much as you might want to. Wait to hear back from him. If you don’t hear back from him in a couple of days, then chalk it up to experience and MOVE ON.
torimom
wrote on April 15 2009 @ 07:43 pm: [report]
And another thing - I also think it’s really tacky for a guy to email you, text you, or whatever to ask you out. To me, it sounds like “I don’t like you enough to actually pick up the phone and personally ask you out, so you’d do just fine as a booty call in a pinch, if you are stupid enough to actually respond to this impersonal message I am sending you.”
Call me old-fashioned, but the least a guy could do is call you on the phone and ask you out.
Sofjna
wrote on April 15 2009 @ 10:25 pm: [report]
“...looney bird fatty who smells like olives and is crazy.” It wasn’t olives, but I had to help a lady at work a few weeks ago who smelled like pickles. Just saying. It was gross.
@Develange- I’ve done the just ignore them ‘till they go away thing too. We propably all have. And direct, mature conversations would be great, but really, where’s the fun in that?
missduplicity
wrote on April 16 2009 @ 07:03 am: [report]
@CheeEEese:
A pedophile who also robbed from his own family’s cradle. That 13-year-old Byron was always writing about? His cousin.
Excellent article, John. Although, y’know, sometimes, we really enjoy riding the horny swamp donkies, too.
shannac02
wrote on April 16 2009 @ 08:03 am: [report]
Let’s be honest… We’ve all been flaky at one time or another. Bottom line is: If you feel like calling, call. Don’t just call because you’re “supposed to”. Not that I buy into everything that guys will use as an excuse, but, we’re all busy people and if someone is willing to make the time, they are, if not, move on.
Just my two cents!
Gingee
wrote on April 17 2009 @ 08:19 am: [report]
Oh my. This is pathetic, that some men believe gals wait for them to call us, and if they do not call, we will be crushed.
Dudes, get a clue: Call. Don’t call. It won’t matter to those who value themselves.
The smart gal is one whose world revolves around her, she could never love any man as much as she loves herself: If the guy fits into her world, she will find time for him, and here is the thing:
What one guy is not willing to do, ten more are willing and they will do it a lot better than the guy who was just replaced.
We might keep one or two warming up in the bullpen, but c’mon. We are the prize.
Ladies: Either the guy lets in the light or he does not, and if he can add nothing to your life, forget him.
lili dauphin
wrote on April 18 2009 @ 01:43 pm: [report]
Men are simpler than we are.
sambabriza
wrote on April 18 2009 @ 03:57 pm: [report]
How come women never call men?
lindssaurus
wrote on April 26 2009 @ 07:28 pm: [report]
well said gingee
Iammina
wrote on July 6 2009 @ 10:41 pm: [report]
I am with Gingee on this one. I have more important things to worry about and after a few days I probably won’t even remember what the guy looked like anyway. Who cares if they call or not? Is there a world male shortage? I am not needy, I have other interests and I am not lacking male companionship when I want it.
Frederica Bimble
wrote on July 17 2009 @ 11:21 am: [report]
I gave up on the whole “hoping the phone will ring” so now I just don’t give my number out. Also, I agree with torimom. Your advice is golden. I am middle aged and a woman. Everytime I pursued the man thinking I was a modern woman and “knew what I wanted,” the more it blew up in my face. One failed short term relationship after another so now I’m finally “giving up” and allowing all those women’s advice books to lead the way. I have a strong personality and I need a man to have one as well and the reality is, if he doesn’t have enough of a back-bone to return a call or to even push the buttons in the first place, then what will happen a few months down the road? I would steam-roller right over that man. Last year, I met a man who struck me like a bolt of lightening but after awhile I could feel it wasn’t mutual but there was a short time when I could sense that he was interested but I went and blew it by pursuing him. I replied to his emails too quickly. Gave him my number. I did all those things - and I mean ALL of the things - a woman shouldn’t do to get that man she truly wants and guess what? He ran a mile and I felt like a lemon when he didn’t reply to the third email from me. I’m not THAT much of a glutton for punishment so I gave up.
The truth is, I found him attractive but if he couldn’t respond in kind, then he wouldn’t have been able to handle me. He was cowardly. I have been called “harsh” or “rude” in the past. Why? Not because I’m “brutally honest” or anything so tedious but because I will tell a man straight up not to waste his time because I will never find him attractive in the way he’d like. I think it is true that women know whether they like a man within 30 seconds.
Alek
wrote on September 30 2009 @ 06:03 am: [report]
Here’s a clue… The woman can call the guy.
rlehoull
wrote on October 9 2009 @ 04:57 pm: [report]
Nice Frederica, I tried and failed so now I am going to just quit…typical. How many times does a guy need to “try” and fail before we quit? It seems that although you were doing the right thing by being proactive, you were a bit overbearing and maybe either scared him off or made him realize that you were not what he was looking for. If you are as “strong minded” as you say then he probably didnt want to deal with your BS when he didnt want to see you anymore. My feeling is that if a guy is ignoring your calls, legitimately not just busy, you are probably annoying him with questions or opinions or gossip and the easiest thing to do is just ignore you. There are men out there that will tell you anything to sink his twig but many are honest true humans. Seems to me that you need to either get past your highly specific prerequisits for dating or wait patiently for the person that can fit your needs. I am married now and these were the things that used to drive me crazy about women. I have had women just stop calling to break up and I have ignored calls because I just didnt feel like talking to that person. If someone is avoiding you then that should be the end answer to your question. This is not about men and women it is about people and how they interact with one another. Women are just as guilty as men, we just dont sit around writing articles complaining about it. Men are held to high standards when it comes to dating and women feel like “they are the prize”; Well relationships work both ways and until you find that person that compliments your life (not giving compliments but fitting within the lifestyle) then you will not have the story book relationship that you want. Men will always look for the easy road to avoid confrontation and in the beginning all we are concerned about it “your prize”, sounds doggish but it is the truth. Men and women are completely different in their mind sets so you will not find a man that thinks the way you do, except maybe a homosexual.
develange
wrote on October 10 2009 @ 04:17 pm: [report]
@Frederica Bimble—I’ve had mixed results. Some guys have totally freaked if I actively pursued them. With others, they needed it and appreciated it. While I’m fine with a man making the first moves, I’m not going to sit back and wonder what’s going on if he’s being half-assed about it. If he won’t give me answers, I move on.
Most guys I know seem to enjoy pursuing a woman they like. But I don’t really get why a woman pursuing a man should be a turn off, unless she is semi-stalker about it.
I like to think that as a generalization, if the guy isn’t actively pursing you, he isn’t interested. Likewise if he’s sending “mixed signals.” If he’s interested, he’ll probably call, do nice things for you, flirt with you, make plans to see you and be direct about it. But that same guy shouldn’t be offended or that turned off if you take any sort of initiative, whether it be making decisions, plans, kissing, sex, etc.
@rhehoull - i really don’t like generalizations that men and women have completely different mind sets. I think we just tend to DATE certain people who have totally different mind sets. I’ve met many men who seem to want the same things and have similar expectations about relationships as me. And they were straight. We just never dated…maybe someday.
develange
wrote on October 10 2009 @ 04:18 pm: [report]
*rlehoull
sambabriza
wrote on November 14 2009 @ 05:07 am: [report]
I don’t know how many times I have thoughts about bashing Gingee before I actually have to contain myself from arguing about a point, which is irrefutably futile nonsense. So here goes.
Gingee, your view of what women are is not genuine, it’s not original. In fact, it’s not even gender specific. HUMAN BEINGS tend to look out for themselves before others. Sure you get the buddhists and wannabe-christ’s, but they all dropped their selfish disposition in an attempt to become better people.
Look at society- everything revolves around the individual. Money, possession, knowledge… all coveted by any one single person (except babies and jesus). Why should this be any different from love?
Who is the prime benefactor of relationships other than each of us individually?
If you were to die, and take your lover down with you, that is considered murder. And you will probably go to hell while they go to heaven.
Would you want to go out with someone as self-centered and pretentious as yourself?
sambabriza
wrote on November 14 2009 @ 05:09 am: [report]
Sorry if I offended anyone… just had to point out the Randian capitalist.