I love this article. My boyfriend and I were talking recently about how well the beginning of our relationship worked (and still works) because neither of us are interested in playing mind games – we are both very honest and strong communicators of our feelings. This article adds another angle to that, an extremely important one.

There’s a great line from the book The Ethical Slut. I can’t be bothered to look it up, but it goes something like this: women have the idea that it’s not OK to be easy. But we see no virtue in being difficult.

I would take this one step further – we are teaching our child that if he doesn’t want to be touched by ANYONE, he says no. That way, he understands that bodies are to be respected as each individual’s preference takes precedence over his own. We live in a culture where we force children to accept unwanted touch from friends, family members and strangers thus creating an idea that if someone you like tells you you SHOULD be touched in a way that’s uncomfortable for you, you should just go with it. That’s very wrong. Little girls AND little boys need to be truly taught by their parents that their bodies are theirs and they have rights. This is the first step in giving adult men and women acceptable tools to combat this awful standard of living where no means yes because we were taught that if someone we care about says yes, we should maybe follow through, regardless of the discomfort.

I believe there should be country-wide lessons starting in elementary school for children on how dating is not about conquest. About what consent means. Teaching the meaning of sex as having value as communication and love between two people, not something a girl “gives up” to a guy who “gets it”… and such other sex-imbalanced stereotypes i could name more language derived assumptions. The language around sex, and dating, needs to change. The assumptions around no meaning maybe and then eventually changing to yes and such need to change.

And here I thought it’s all part of the Darwinian process of sexual selection, a test to weed out the ‘bad’ from the highly ‘exceptional’. If not this then is there a better method? Don’t want our species to devolve into dumb losers now.

Seems like you need some new friends. If your friend were more thoughtful, experienced or both, he might have replied with something like this:

“There are a couple problems with ‘playing hard to get.” First, acting something other than what you feel is not a good way to go about the beginning (or middle, or end) of a romance. That said, availability is at core of the nature of value. Actually being hard to get is attractive: we all want what we cannot have. And this applies both ways – men to women, women to men, hir to hir, etc. It’s complicated.”

So is it a game? Yes, of course it is. Flirtation, a back and forth – these are part of the complex mating rituals of the human species. And let’s face it, they’re fun.

We can resolve this in two ways. First, instead of defining all the things that mean “No,” let’s define yes: only Yes means yes. Second, let’s acknowledge that a give and take are not going to go away, but let’s teach our children that it needs to stop before things get sexual. Yes, this is more complex than a simple “Just say yes or just say no” policy, but love, sex, relationships: these are complicated things. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

“the plot of Pride and Prejudice”

Pardon? In what universe does the plot of Pride and Prejudice involve playing hard to get?

…Author clearly has never read the book Pride & Prejudice, but only saw the Keira Knightley movie.

i am in my 30s and i must admit that the over-sweetness of my female colleagues and friends is not really different from my past and present dates. obviously, there is confusion, ok fine…but, when it deals with women who act as if interested because they wanna know if after all these years in couple are still atractive is stupid and disrespectful… why play hard to get and/or seductive with a man? be respectful and sincere… this message is also for men of course!

I agree very much with your points about mind games and honesty and force. However, I’m afraid you have misunderstood the plot of Pride and Prejudice completely. In that novel, in fact, the “no” is 100% sincere, not a game (the heroine assures another man that she does not play such games when he assumes she is doing so with him) the her does take “no” to mean “no”, and immediately promises not to bother her further on the subject, and he does not. Later when the heroine, after a period of time and with supporting evidence, learns that she was mistaken in her appraisal of his character and because of this changes her feelings about him, he still does not approach her again on the subject of a romantic relationship until after he receives very strong indications from her that her feelings have changed, and he first asks her if her feelings have changed. So, in fact, I would say that their behavior is an excellent example of how people ought to behave, other than judging people too quickly in the first place.

In the following paragraph “My friend played by the rules… …get what he felt he had “earned”…” I think the author is putting words into the mouth of “his friend” whom he is interviewing. Although the man did use the word “bitch” to refer to a woman that he wanted to pursue, it does not seem fair to use quotations for the words ‘prize’, ‘cheated’, and ‘earned’. Maybe the author is implying that this self-proclaimed nice guy feels like he is being nice in order to attract women, thereby his nice-ness ought to guarantee his romantic success with a woman and hence why the author can imply a feeling of ‘cheated’-ness. But from my reading, I do not, in any way, get a sense that women are ‘prizes’ to this man. The talk about ‘prizes’ refers to playing games, where the idea is that at the goal of a game is to attain a prize by the winner. However, this is not the goal of a game, the goal of a game is to be a playful diversion. Romance is healthy, positive distraction from everyday mediocrity, but the fact that it is referred to as a game, need not be spun in a competitive light.

To give a charitable reading to this moronic sounding guy (no offense dude, or author whose apparently friends with this dude…), he is calling the hypothetical women who is not giving consent to his advancements a bitch in relation to him being a nice-guy, not a bitch because she won’t sleep with him.

While I cannot disagree with anything that was said, I believe the truth may lie deeper. More specifically, I think it’s also important to ask where the idea that men like women who play hard to get comes from? Why DO men tend to like that?

I may be a man but I’ve always felt like I live in a different world, and I’ve always tried to understand what makes me so different, the different point of views, what makes other people the way they are and how that compares etc…

I think that a worthy hypothesis is to consider that men who like girls that play hard to get, receive this “joy” from their own sense of competitiveness. A vast majority of men enjoy competitions much much more than the majority of women; and although I can’t be 100% certain of this, in my experience, this is not something that is taught… regardless of a childs upbringing I think that sense of competitiveness is simply a part of who they are.

Now I could have a whole discussion on why this could be so and so on but I do have a point I am trying to get to so lets just say that it makes a lot of sense when you think of natural selection and the thousands of years that mankind has been on earth before the sudden changes in the modern era.

The point is quite simply this:
In bringing change to the world, it’s important to aknowledge the things that simply won’t change or perhaps even shouldn’t change. It is only after finding the source of a problem and defining the constants that you can then best formulate a solution.

in this case, the problem is Rape; the source is in the nature of men and how it affects their perspective on the world around them. The constant is the nature of men -> because even though it technically might be possible to change that through DNA manipulation and such, I strongly believe that would be overstepping bounds especially since there is no telling how much more it would change. So that leaves Perspective, perspective, unlike nature, can be taught and is definitely part of our upbringing and while some of you may now be thinking that I went through all that just to say the same thing as what was said above about our society’s media; I respectfully disagree.

Rather than teaching that “No means no” as feminists have been doing for so many years now and rather than trying to stop teaching that “No sometimes means yes” as Miss Albers was suggesting above and which would still conflict with the perspective that most men have that love is some kind of competition where the man must conquer the heart of the woman… I think it would rather be better to teach children that love isn’t some kind of competition! There is no win or lose, there is no “making someone love you” nor is there any “Starting” or “Stopping” to love someone. Love simply is or isn’t and what we perceive as falling in love is about discovering more about the other person and realizing that we love them; falling out of love can be because the love was never there and we finally realize our mistake, or it could be because we wish to lie to ourselves; convincing ourselves that the love is gone because we were hurt and are afraid to be hurt again.

The bottom line is that love is not something to be conquered and I believe that if we teach that to our children then they will grow-up to be better men and women; people who believe in honesty in a relationship and are able to build lasting futures with other people.

This is a great article but it’s based on the assumption that people know what they want from the very beginning. In terms of sex this is a bit more black and white, it should never be expected for putting in ‘x’ amount of work. I don’t think like this, a lot of guys don’t think like this. Perhaps your friend is not the exception but he certainly is a conveniently idiotic dolt. But in dealing with a relationship, sometimes people need to figure out what they want or get to know someone first. Sometimes people change their opinions of others as they get to know them. If guys give up on the first rejection, then what? You’re also not taking into account the fact that men tend to jump in head first (it might not be right but it’s a cultural thing, we show our interest first a lot of the time: much of this is linked to emotional infatuation and butterflies) but sometimes we need a bit of time before we’re really really sure. If a girl comes back 110% it’s a bit off-putting because we’re morons in the first place and actually need to get to know her better before we can make more long-term (longer than fling-length) decisions.

Total and utmost trash. THe usual feminist dribble. What is your plan, to legislate flirtation and innuendo? Or is it just going to be invective form the pulpit of moralizing stupidity?

Great article. I think it’s important to point out that just because you don’t play Hard to Get, doesn’t mean you have to be easy. It means being honest about what you want. So if you want to move things forward, do it, but if you want to take your time, take your time, because you want to get to know each other before having sex, or getting serious, or whatever reason. And there are ways to show the other person that there’s a valid reason for taking your time, and that you are genuinely interested in them, not playing games.

Yes, yes, yes, I love everything about this post. I felt conflicted about being as blunt and up-front as I am about dating because it was contradictory to all the advice I’d always been given, but to do otherwise feels dishonest. However, everything paid off when I found my boyfriend. He’s totally clueless when it comes to “playing the dating game” so he didn’t push me, or try to read into what I said. He took my honesty at face value, and every “no” as a “no.” Our relationship is founded on honesty, and it remains an integral part of it. But somehow, I still have guys [coworkers!] who have approached me and very aggressively pursued me, despite my telling them that I am in a relationship with someone I live with, and it takes me being “bitchy” to get them to lay off. I figure it’s better that than informing them how good of a shot my boyfriend is, but isn’t it funny that if they knew he could potentially pose a threat they might respect him more and therefore treat me with more respect?

I tend to shy away from people who “come on strong” even if its not
very strong at all, and that is me being unsure of my level of attraction to them. I want to be SURE of who they are and how I feel about them before I initiate anything so I don’t end up rudely backing out.

I like this article a lot. It really helps explain a lot of things I’ve been trying to analyse for my little brother when he asks me why girls are so rude to him when he’s just looking for conversation at the pub. I’ve theorised with him that sometimes it’s probably a safeguard to not get called “a bitch” when the guy realises that the girl really just wants to TALK. Don’t know how many times I’ve been ditched as a conversation partner when the other person finds out I’m “not on the market” or vice versa. THAT really hurts my self-esteem.

Anyway, I like to take my time figuring out if I like a person. Usually in really non-pressuring environments like at gatherings with more people. I want to be certain that I’m not influenced by what they’re feeling. It’s easy to like someone because they like you. At least in the beginning.

Maybe this can be seen as playing a “hard to get” to someone who’s sure of their attraction?

Sometimes the person “being kept waiting” have got down right pushy and this
usually convinces me that they’re the same as the person in the bar who leaves when they find out I’m not interested physically attracted, that they think my eyes are beautiful but I’m not worthy of being a friend.
And being friends as well as lovers is really important in my view, or you’ll be thoroughly bored when you’re not making out.

Perhaps a guy who unconsciously knows the “rules” and is used to following
them, feels stressed when a girl reverses them and he is all of a sudden on the receiving end of that emotional pressure that comes from someone openly declaring their interest in you, and since he’s following the “rules” the impression he is left with is that the girl is coming on too strong.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this.

My boyfriend and I met,made out, and had sex within the span of about two days. It’s been a few months and we are talking about moving in together. He’s a gentlemen and affectionate, has his sh*t together. Basically anything I could have asked for and more. My point is, playing will get you no where and wont give you better results. He’s not going to not respect you or respect you more if you wait or don’t wait. It all depends on the kind of person they are and if the two of you can communicate with each other.

I ask my son each night if he wants to be tucked in and then again if he wants a hug and a kiss. A few times a week I remind him that it is up to him if he has hugs and kisses and if he gives him because he has total rights over his body. He knows to ask for hugs and kisses and I’ve never said no but sometimes I’ve asked him to wait. Reminding children again and again that no one, not their parents, grandparents, aunts & uncles, school teachers…no one has the right to touch them without their consent is critical and this lesson needs to be on going.

We also seem to have this messed up idea about rape prevention in this country. We have a group of college students being taught about rape prevention and it is all women when such a small percentage of women rape. Why isn’t this a mandatory class for all male college freshmen? This is a subject about which I talk to my boys with age appropriate words but as they get older the discussions advance. We need to teach all children about rape and consent but preventing rape is not just up to women. It takes two folks so let’s get both people involved.

I think it’s very sad that Rachel is friends with any man who thinks of the women he dates as a ‘prize’ he deserves to have. Perhaps he should try thinking of them as human beings with free will instead? It also makes no sense that a man like this, who has presumably been prepared to ask the same woman again and again for a date, would find it difficult to ask her just once if it is ok to have sex.

Even as I was reading and agreeing with the article, I had to
note that being less than fully available to spend time with a guy, and
protecting your heart by keeping your feelings private until it’s clear
that the feelings are mutual are very different things than saying no to
sex even though you want it. which is also not a bad idea if you want something to last. I am a classic come-on-too-strong type and I’ve suffered greatly for it. I know there
are tons of books out there about the rules of dating but I think the most helpful thing would be to have a guy friend (who’s not a player and is relatively
emotionally mature) coach me through my dating experiences since I just can’t get the hang of playing playing it cool without feeling manipulative like the author or going overboard and being totally standoffish and missing out.

Wow. This is so powerful. From the concept that women are not really saying no when they say no, to the idea that a man just has to be nice enough and he’ll get what he wants ….. this is great. I did teach this to my son, and as far as I know, the seed grew. I believe if a woman tells him no, he hears no — whether she likes it or not. And my daughter has no problem saying no and no problem saying yes.

We are going against such deeply ingrained centuries of culturalization though. Thank you for saying this so well.

I found this to be a very interesting article. As a man, I’ve always refused to play along when a woman played hard to get. If she acted disinterested, I walked away. I’ve always felt that, while there are many grey areas in life, romantic interest is not one of them. Either you want to be with me or you don’t, and if the answer is anything but “yes”, I’m not interested. Sometimes the women came running after me when I walked away. Other times they didn’t. I think that you’ve really hit the nail on the head; this “hard-to-get” mentality is a symptom of a larger disease, our “rape-culture”, and it’s something that needs to change if we’re going to change our culture. Men need to know where they stand, but they also need to know that ONLY “Yes” means “Yes”. Anything short of that is not enough.

“But aloof never looked good on me.”
Love it. Awesome turn o’phrase.

why maybe should mean no? maybe should mean maybe, yes should mean yes and no should mean no. I think on that men are better than women expressing why they want.

This is a really insightful article on the implications of what “playing hard to get” really means. However, I think that a woman can still practice and foster a “no means no” mentality and allow herself to be pursued by men in relationships. How? By allowing men to make the first move, but not playing mind games. For example, a woman may only want to date men who demonstrate interest in her by making the first move such as asking for her number, telling her they like her, or asking her on a date. She can still do this without “playing hard to get,” or making it into a mind game. All she has to do, is when said guy asks her out, to give a straight answer. E.g. “Yes, I would love to go to dinner on Saturday,” or “I’m flattered but no thank you.” There are no mind games or manipulative tactics involved in this approach; allowing men to make the first move is a simple screening mechanism to see if they are interested and assertive enough to pursue her, and she gives a clear yes or no answer. Of course, if she doesn’t feel like waiting for men to make the first move, she is also free to pursue a relationship with them, and should over course also respect that their no means no. I just wanted to point out that ‘traditional’ dating relationships and/or allowing a guy to make the first move is not necessarily synonymous with “playing hard to get,” or manipulative behavior.

I’m a guy and when a girl plays hard to get it really turns me off! Life’s too short, I don’t have time to waste on someone who wants to play games or play with my emotions! Well I wouldn’t mind if I am dating a girl and she makes it hard for me to have sex with her.. She might have some trust issues or whatever, and its not a big deal for me, I respect that. I’m a straightforward guy and I understand a NO or a maybe or whatever else (except a yes) as a NO! But playing hard to get like she doesn’t return your calls even though she might be interested is just confusing for me! How do I know you want me to keep calling you or you are just not interested and I am wasting my times and yours? You want a relationship, you’ll have to make an equal effort! Well, I am a guy and traditionally I’m supposed to make the first move, but after that it shouldn’t be one sided.. I used to chase after girls, never been successful, I would just give up when she starts playing the game or rejecting me.. Its really hard for a guy like me to differentiate between the two! So I have decided not to waste my time thinking about this and stop chasing after girls, playing the game etc.. I am a good looking and a nice guy (I’m not just being vain, I have referrals from many people ) and I am young, single but frustrated. Still I am confident that there is at least one girl out there for me who’s not into this bull!

Awesome article on how to blame the victim. Because we don’t have enough of that in our society.

Seriously, no means no. If a woman says no, I don’t care if she’s thinking maybe or yes. I care about what comes out of her mouth. What she has clearly said to me. If she says no when she means yes, and I stop, what’s the harm? She is sexually unfulfilled, and will think about being more free in her expression next time. If she says no, and I THINK she’s thinking yes and I proceed, then I’ve committed a rape/assault. It doesn’t matter what she was thinking, see, because she said no.

Saying mere flirting is asking for it is terrible. But you’re putting the blame on the wrong people. If you were assaulted, the blame for that lies SOLELY with your assailants, not other women.

I remember this very confusing, hormonal period of life. Now on the other side of menopause_ and really taking a look at why I am not enjoying a single woman’s choice of life, (i.e.; where are the other single women friends?), I am really beginning to think that we can continue and continue to do our work as women how are human beings first and empowered to make our own choices until the cows come home. Men are not doing their work. I honestly think this is also why men die before we do. As men age, statistically they become more conservative. If a man’s identity for life is fixed in the material then when he is no longer in his physical prime and ultimately forced to retire… it may sense that he sees himself as finite; unable to grow any more power on many levels. It seems brooding violence is never far from the surface of this limited notion of maleness. What if men found their long-lost playful inner boy-self, healed him, re-parented him, discovered himself in authentic ways before life is all over? What if in this wisdom of self-discovery, he began to mentor men at younger and younger ages, valuing the long journey of being/defining maleness throughout conventional conditioning, and not calling this life for a change? Could we see war, resolution of differences without violence, hierarchy really examined_ in ways that would meet women in the work our lives are about, and make a better world together? I mean what is really so masculine about brooding male frustration about female social gains? Sex in its healthiest possibilities, also just being part of a much bigger picture of collective and gendered potential!?!

Advising against playing hard to get I think is a move in the wrong direction. As long as we’re striving for an egalitarian society, women should be entitled to say No whether they mean it or not and have their decision respected by the guy. Any solution, I believe, lies in inculcating dudes from a very young age.

P.S May Jane Austen forgive you for citing Pride and Prejudice in that context.

http://sexualityinart.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/miss-elizabeths-refusal-of-mr-collins-proposal-of-marriage-from-pride-and-preduce-by-jane-austen/

May her beutiful mind RIP

I would like to introduce the “dating traffic light”:

- RED means “no way, not interested, not gonna happen, kthxbye”

- AMBER means “hmm maybe, give it some more time, let’s hang out some more and we’ll see!”

- GREEN means “yeah, I like you!”

Candidates in “the dating game” are free to pull whichever card they like at any point in the game, regardless of the colour they’ve selected before. It’s possible to go from green to amber, from amber to red, or any other sequence.

The other candidate simply has to accept the choice. Asking for confirmation (or reasons) is ok, but no attempts to convince someone will be allowed.

Problem solved. I don’t ever want to say “NO. Seriously, NO. Absolutely NO.” again and get “oh come on…” as reply because the other side assumes that “ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NO” might still means “yes”.

This is an excellent piece. As a survivor and advocate one of the main issues that we face is the issue of consent, what it is and what it isn’t. From the caveman days of dragging a woman back to your cave by the hair and the resultant culture, women have been fighting an uphill battle in which we are our own enemy. I will take it a step further (and make myself the topic of anger, I’m sure) but I think the Slutwalk culture actually hurts us. Dressing in pasties is your right, by it makes us as a gender look reactive and emotional. We don’t look empowered, we look ridiculous. Speaking up, with intelligence and strength and most of all with logic earns us a seat at the table, the table at which our seat has always been entitled if not honored. Stopping the rape culture means stopping rape, we need to look at how the culture was created. This blog goes a good way towards explaining a part. Nice job!

women that play hard to get, will always lose at the end. and today there are so many women that certainly need to educate themselves much better, just like the women years ago were.

I’m a mature male who enjoyed reading Rachael Kay Albers’s article. If women were to communicate honestly about interest, to Say “yes” when they wanted to and “No” when they meant it, The “game” would change, and men would have to learn new rules. Reading about the frequency of rape charges on college campuses, I’ve wondered if I could institute educational programs there that influenced the “game” to include definitive “no’s” and “stop!” The Sandra Bullock and Sylvester Stallone moment in Demolition Man where she stands and announces her desire to have sex impressed me as a good start to ending equivocation and uncertainty. Can the “game” be changed to include language of candid interest without promises of sex? A couple of years ago a woman was willing to come to my apartment to check me out, talk with me, and assured me that this was not a promise of sex. I’d never experienced that kind of approach. We had a nice talk, and she left after satisying both our curiosities, and nothing happended, and we didn’t pursue it further. But it was an interesting approach. If

As a male I really think you’ve picked an excellent tone here. We are not excusing plain unethical actions but our behaviour stems from a cultural context, which is created by men and women, and we as men are often actively encouraged to be predators. I’ll never forget one particularly pretty, intelligent, dark skinned Indian girl I pursued when I was younger actually said to me word for word “No doesn’t mean no” to which I replied “Well when you say it to me it does”. I didn’t sleep with her for exactly the political reasons you outline in this article, and I kind of still partly regret it.

I absolutely love the feminine form, I really wish I’d been able to share intimacy with more women, it’s one of the great sadnesses in my life. Alas I’m unwilling to trade my ethics for it, play dishonest games (honest ones are fine , act like a predator, sleep with women in relationships (who seem to be much more forward than other women), or go to prostitutes. There is a higher political point and I’ll try very hard to console myself as I get older that I do the right thing, even though it feels quite hollow sometimes.

Attractive women are a commodity to men, I may not value money or power, but when I see someone with a beautiful (to me) woman I do envy them. Unfortunately I’ve found a pretty direct correlation between guys I know who’ve slept with lots of women, and misogyny, it’s the JFK or the Dominique Strass Kahn type who sleeps with all the girls, not the Noam Chomsky type. It’s often the guy you know who is a bit “sleazy” who you see with the really hot girl you had your eye on. I envy them in one respect, having had that intimacy with beautiful women, but I also can’t bring myself to treat women without respect, even if a woman is complicit in it, I just like women/people/beauty/truth too much to do so. I guess I sort of console myself by saying “well a lot of women probably aren’t nice people either, and do you really want them?”. Sadly, probably for evolutionary reasons, that consolation doesn’t work very well…

I’ve had women approach me and ask me to buy them a drink, just start/try to start kissing me without a word, I’ve had girls who’s names I didn’t know throw themselves at me so that the bouncers at the club had to take them away, women grab my bottom as I walk past and many variations of unsought direct physical contact, female bosses touching me inappropriately at work functions…I could go on, I’m just saying it’s both genders that can behave in a predatory way. What I never get is “Hi, my name is X, do you mind if we have a chat”, a meeting of the minds. Hopefully as a culture we can move beyond mindlessly following evolutionary urges, and move towards a more philosophical discussion of love, loneliness, friendship, lust etc. OK I’ve rambled a lot here, kudos to your blog for initiating this discussion!

Oh I think the whole plausible deniability might come into it btw, watch this Steven Pinker talk for more info https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-son3EJTrU

women that play hard to get are such a LOW LIFE to begin with, and certainly not worth meeting at all. it is bad enough that i had been married at one time, and she turned out to be a FILTHY WHORE since she cheated on me. i was a very caring and loving husband that was very committed to her as well, but it was not good enough for her. it seems that the average woman out there today need at least seven different boyfriends, that is one for each day of the week. GOD forbid, if they knew how to settle for just one. i am a straight man that is very down to earth, good looking, keep in shape, would know how to treat a woman real well, but i seem to meet the women that are not interested in me. and yet they usually go for the ugly men instead, especially if he has a very large bank account. so this is what i mean by very nasty DYSFUNCTIONAL WOMEN that seem to be out there nowadays, and now much more women these days are into other women lately. GOD really did create so much GARBAGE today, and i wish that he would get rid of it.

For me if a woman plays hard she’s no go. If a relationship developed it would never go anywhere because I’m working with a woman who’s default is unhappy till you do something for me. It also gives me a very hard time working out what she does or does not like which further erodes the relationship. I’m glad there are still a few women who are just happy to be with the person they like. Personally I find this inspires me to do nice things and creates and creates a very intoxicating relationship one that’s very romantic and fun.

I absolutely love this article, except for one thing. I must stand up for Jane Austen! The plot of Pride and Prejudice is very much the opposite of this dynamic, and indeed, one of the funniest scenes pokes fun at the expectation by illustrating that the man who thinks that “no” means “yes” is a blithering idiot– see the text of that scene here: http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/ppv1n19.html

Whereas Mr. Darcy doesn’t press his suit in the slightest after the first rejection, and winds up (spoiler alert!) engaged to Elizabeth– because she changed her mind of her own accord. I’d say that P&P, more than any other classic novel and most contemporary ones, is a complete REVERSAL of the “hard to get” dynamic described in this excellent article. Viva Jane!

It is just evolution. Women who don’t play hard to get are not interesting for the male because there is no competition. There must be something wrong when other men dont want her.

very serious men like us looking for a good woman to meet, don’t play hard to get. what is sad is, many women do.

So far I’ve found “hard to get” confusing and emotionally draining. I can deal with yes and no; yes means yes and “no, I’m not interested” should mean “no, I’m not interested”. Who cares what they do and when they’ve done it?

What really gets me is this idea that sometimes vague maybes and “no, I’m not interested”s apparently mean “I secretly do like you and want you to chase me but I’m not telling you”, which are virtually indistinguishable from real lack of interest. Since this ambiguity is not something I’m willing to deal with anymore, I find it somewhat frustrating that there are women who like me and get angry at me for not chasing them in this manner.

I feel horrible with the notion of pestering a woman and increasing her misery if she really isn’t interested. And I also feel horrible knowing that apparently according to some sources, that’s what I’m supposed to do. What happens when you get into this kind of mindset is confusion, hurt, wasted time and energy and irritation for all parties involved. So I’ve decided not to go there.

I’ve recently met women who are a little more open and honest, and I find that refreshing. It lets me know where they stand, and it just feels better emotionally. It’s good that this chasing idea isn’t as pervasive as I thought.