The Persistent Type - Catch & Release

There is a type of man who is somewhat weirdly persistent in his pursuit of a woman he’s interested in. If you don’t give him your number, he might track you down—through social media, mutual friends, place of work, etc. He is dying to get to know you better. To take you out and treat you well. He seems completely enamored of you. He may even be willing to look like a “simp”, to make a fool of himself, to do whatever it takes to get a chance to be with you because gosh, he thinks you’re just amazing.

Sometimes this behavior comes off as creepy, and many FDS ladies will know this is relative stalker territory, but many of us are not always immune to the way this type of persistence can come off as…charming.

Don’t beat yourself up if you have fallen into this trap. It can happen to the best of us.

Because the terrible irony is that after all this song and dance, after jumping through hoops and making a fool of himself and giving every reason in the book for you to lower your defenses—sometimes over long periods of time, sometimes years—and after you’ve finally given in, finally given him the chance he’s been pining after for so long, he…

…ends it.

We are conditioned to believe that the more effort a man puts in, the more invested he is in you. We can construe this in terms of time and energy as well—he worked so hard, went the extra mile to get in contact, went the extra mile to keep trying, putting his ego aside to elevate you. So how can it be that after all that time and energy spent, after he “caught” you, he was done?

I call these type of men the “catch-and-release” type.

They live for the thrill of the chase. That is their favorite part of the “dating game”. They love the thrill of aiming high, doing all the things they think should happen to win a hard-to-get woman, and once they win, well…it was never about keeping her, because the fun was in the chase, and the catch was the prize. Soon they will find another shiny new thing to run after.

Then there are men who genuinely believe the best prize of the “dating game” is keeping a woman, to value her partnership and companionship for the rest of time. These men are hardly, if ever, the type to engage in high-speed relentless pursuit. Instead they will date respectfully, looking for someone like-minded, and if the woman is not interested, he will let it go.

So keep this in mind, the next time you find yourself charmed by intense persistence. Don’t fault yourself; so much conditioning is hard to undo, and there’s no fault in wanting to feel loved and cherished and adored. But the type to be showy, to come at you so hard and so strong—they’re not fishing for keeps.