If She Makes The First Move, Then She Is...

…a woman who sees what she wants, and goes after it. There’s a misconception being spread by a particular relationship expert (I won’t call names), that women who make the first move are thirsty and selling themselves short. She, like a lot of women, don’t understand why a man might not be so quick to approach her. Typically women will just claim that they’re “old fashioned” to justify sitting back and letting men come to them. Then again, slavery is old fashioned too, but it doesn’t make it right. Whatever you do, don’t turn into one of those “a real man ain’t scared to make the first move” types, because eHarmony will be knocking on your door by age 40 when you say all the good men are taken.

It’s not about being scared, it’s about whether or not the odds are in our favor. Men assess the situation and get in where they fit in, which sometimes means staying out of the situation. For example, a basketball player could pull up for the jumper, but if the entire opposing team is guarding him close, he’ll more than likely opt out. Given that not every man is Jordan in the 4th quarter, you don’t want to ruin your chances, so you might have opt out and try another time. It doesn’t help if you have 20 of your girlfriends with you to multiply the humiliation should you perform your best “boy bye” once the stage is yours. You might find it cute while it boosts your ego, but it depletes ours. No other woman is going to want to entertain the guy who just got shot down. Imagine if you saw that happen and he came to you next…..right.

You say “I intimidate most men” and I say, whoa…slow your roll. Sure, it’s a comforting thought how you’re so sexy, and that while only the strong may survive, the meek shall not inherit your earth…but chill. Some men really don’t care whether you say yes or no, they’ll approach you out of sheer apathy because the part of you they really want comes a dime a dozen. The guy who’s looking for that one in a million girl at least cares about the chance to get to know you. Besides, it doesn’t take a "brave" man to approach you the same way it doesn’t take a "brave" man to see somebody shooting at them and refuse to duck. Some dudes just have their ‘give-a-ish’ knob broken. That’s the same guy that sees you coming out the health clinic in tears but will stop you to say, “Ay yo ma, come holla at me”.

You may think it’s unladylike to make the first move if you have the wrong idea about what constitutes one. The first move can be as subtle as eye contact WITHOUT looking away when you see him looking at you, or opening up a conversation with a friendly “hi”. You shouldn’t make any overly aggressive moves like buying drinks or winking. If at some point he doesn’t take the lead in the moves being made, then he’s just not that into you. It’s not a detriment to your ambition so don’t think you have to try harder, because your face will hurt even more when you fall flat on it. There’s a lot of pressure on men to be mind readers and know the difference between a woman who’s attracted to us or just being “flirty”, but if you give us just a little hint, then we’ll fly with it. But giving us a "I haven’t had my coffee today" look when we step to you tends to clip our wings.

Also understand that by first move (and I don’t mean the 2nd, 3rd and 20th), that chasing anyone is an absolute hell-no. Last time I checked, you could only chase something that’s trying to get away from you. Either he wants you, or he doesn’t. Even if you win his game of playing hard to get, at the end of the day he’ll throw it in your face that he never wanted you to begin with should you ever think about leveraging the fact that you deserve to be treated right. Instead, you want to keep the ball in your court so we still respect the fact that there’s many more where you came from. Put the odds in our favor, make a subtle first move, THEN let us come to you. I’m 100% Lance Armstrong positive this will work like a charm. You can thank me later...

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