A ‘flake’ is when a woman doesn’t text or call you back after you got her phone number. And if you embark on this path and stick with it long enough to start getting phone numbers, you will experience this. In fact, it’s one of the most common problems that intermediate guys face. Essentially every guy that I know who became good with women had to deal with this issue at some stage. You’ll likely go through what I call ‘The Flaky Stage’ where essentially none of your numbers follow up. This generally comes after you actually get decent at approaching and chatting with women, so it’s actually a sign of improvement in one way. If you are knew you should first know how to get a girl’s number.

Flakes Are A Part Of The Game

Flakes happen. They just do. Even when you’re good and experienced, they still happen. However, if you’re out regularly meeting and interacting with women, you don’t need all of your numbers to follow up.

Flakes happen significantly less when you’re more experienced, but when you’re in this flaky stage, they happen a lot. This can be very disheartening and guys very often think that they’re doing something wrong, sometimes even resulting in them giving up entirely. But the most important thing that you can do is to just keep going. Keep doing what you are doing, keep approaching, keep talking to women, keep getting phone numbers, keep texting, keep persisting and keep learning. Soon you’ll be much better at reading women and situations, and you’ll be much less dependent on the outcome of your interactions, both of which will result in more solid phone numbers.

The Flaky Stage

Again, it’s very important to remember that this is a stage where the phone numbers that you get, aren’t worth the time that it took to put them in your phone. But it’s just like not being able to approach – you’ll naturally improve at it in time. So don’t over-analyse what you are or aren’t doing, just stick with it and persist. Keep doing what you’re doing and I assure you that soon enough, one number will turn around, then another, then another.

Face Your Demons

When you start getting flakes, you’ll get annoyed, you’ll get angry, and you’ll get frustrated. All of your insecurities will start coming up. Let that happen. Don’t go crazy, but certainly feel the emotions. Face those demons. Only by feeling them and facing them can you overcome them, and only by facing them will you become more secure in yourself. When you look at it like this, flakes are actually very good for your growth. You’re getting what you need, not what you want. And what you need is probably to just let go a little more. So even though you want women,  dates, what’s actually going to help you the most right now is dealing with some of this inner stuff that comes up. Here is more advice on inner game and confidence building.

It’s Not Your Text Game

This is a huge point. What you’re texting to women accounts for so very little. So many guys get caught up in what to text, when to text, when to call, etc. but for the most part, she already decided if she’s texting you back or not or when you walked away from the conversation with her. It’s the interaction that determined if she’ll flake or not, so don’t get obsessed with what to say in a text. You should also read our text game guide.

She’s Just Not That Into You

Yes, for the most part, she didn’t reply because she was just not that into you. Don’t overthink this, and don’t go into elaborate reasons in your head as to why she might not have followed up. If she was keen, she would have replied. Put your energy elsewhere – like into finding someone who is keen.

Attraction Has A Lot To Do With It

If she wasn’t attracted to you, but you were really nice and you had the balls to approach her, she likely isn’t going to follow up, even if she did give you her number. If you’re out approaching stunner after stunner but you’re not working on making yourself more attractive (physically and personality wise), and you’re just not bringing much to the table, then you’ll likely get a lot of flakes. Women really do appreciate being approached, and they don’t want to discourage guys from trying again on someone else by rejecting you. You must know some cool techniques to create attraction.

She Met Someone After You

If you meet a girl at 10 PM and you had a nice chat with her, got her number and left, but she was out for a big night and met someone at 2 AM (and maybe even goes home with him), guess what – you just likely got bumped. It doesn’t necessarily mean that this guy had better game than you, he just had better timing. This is especially the case if the girl was looking for a hook up that night. Getting the phone number of a girl who really just wants casual fun will almost certainly flake.

It’s Who You Are Way More Than What You Do

It’s you and your mindset that are determining your outcomes way more than what you’re actually doing. Again, this same topic we keep coming back to. She’s responding to you, not what you’re doing, not what you’re saying, and not what you’re texting. A shitty attitude will get you shitty results. Try to be positive. You approached a girl and got her phone number – that’s more than most men will do in their lives. I really do believe that negative people attract negative situations (like never getting a shit ton of flakes).

Focus Misalignment

Don’t get so caught up in getting phone numbers that the quality of your interactions suffers. Be present, be in the moment, focus on the interaction rather than chasing the phone number, and you’ll have better interactions, meaning more girls will text back. Really pushing the conversation and forcing her number out of her (which so many men do) is always going to get you flakes. A shit interaction where you forced the phone number out of her, is not a success.

The More You Love Women, The More They Will Love You

This is something I see a lot – a new guy being extremely picky about who he will talk to – “I’ll talk to her and her, but not her or her”. These guys are always getting the most flakes. Stop putting women below or above you. Be more positive to people in general, and people in general will be more positive to you.

Create A Cool Life Where You’re Not Dependent On A Date

If flakes are driving you absolutely crazy, and a lot of negative emotion is coming up when it happens, then it’s an indication that you’re maybe chasing success in this area (phone numbers, sex, women, etc.) to fill a void inside of you. Start working on your life so that you’re not so desperate for someone to come along and make you feel better. When you’re fine in yourself and fine in your life, then other people will want to be part of it. People smell desperation from miles away. Women don’t want to have to fix you or be responsible for you feeling good. When you need it less, then you will get it more (i.e. more girls following up). This is something I’ve seen a lot with guys – them doing everything right, but their bad attitude and perspective keeping success just outside of their reach.

Timing Means That Not All Flakes Are Your Fault

Not all flakes are your fault. Sometimes life just gets in the way. Maybe she’s heartbroken at the moment, maybe she is just busy, maybe she’s ‘kinda’ seeing someone, etc. I recall one women flaking me because she lost her phone, which I would never have believed until I ran into her a few months later and we resumed where we left off.

This is most often not the case – most of the time she just ain’t keen – but it certainly is the case sometimes. Sometimes it actually isn’t you, but her.

Too Much Pressure

Guys so often apply too much pressure. If you push her to talk back to you, or to give you her number, or to come on a date – she’ll very likely pull back. When you’re so caught up in making this one phone number work for you, or this one girl work for you, and you deliberate for hours over what to text and how to “play it right” – all that pressure will come through in your communication, and women will naturally pull away. You’ll also make it much more of a big deal in your head than it actually is. Again, clients are often surprised at the simplicity of my messages – “Hey how was your night?”

Reading The Girl

One of the biggest reasons for flakes is that guys simply have not read the girl properly. They’ve mistaken her being nice for her being interested. This is where you need to step back, stay in the moment, focus on her and the interaction properly and be honest with yourself. Does this girl like you, or is she just being nice? Stop desperately thinking of where you want it to go and how much you want that phone number in interactions. Just calm down, and you’ll learn to read the girl and situation much better. Start being honest with yourself – is this woman responding well, or are just responding. Of course, the latter will flake, even if she was nice enough to not say no when you asked for her phone number.

How To Deal With Flakes

Delete them! Yes, don’t chase them up, don’t keep texting her when she’s not replying, don’t text her again in a month – just move onto the next. All the energy that you’re spending trying to figure out why this one girl isn’t texting back, could be way better spent on finding someone that you do easily click with. Just delete the dead phone number and move forward. This’ll teach you the priceless gift of being able to detach and let go. You can continue to chase it up if you insist, but I assure you that even if you do get her replying, she won’t meet up with you. If she wanted to meet you, she would have replied to your first text, or accepted your date invite, the first time.

Here are your next steps:

Learn To Read Girls

Go and find three pictures of women. They could be in magazines, online, wherever – just find three pictures of women that give you a bit of detail and write a backstory about each of those three women. I want you to try to read these women. Make educated assumptions about who they are. When you look at the pictures, what’s your gut instinct telling you about her? Where do you think she’s from? What indicates that? What type of girl do you assume that she is? What is her personality like? What do you think she’s interested in, and why? Maybe she has darker tanned skin so you might assume that she’s of South American origin? Maybe she looks like the alternative type who’d like yoga. Maybe her extravagant jewellery gives you the impression that she’s a material girl in a material world. Really pay attention to not only what you see, but what you’re feeling. I really believe that our gut instinct can tell us so much when we look at people, but we rarely listen to it. Come up with at least ten assumptions for each girl (and include why you assumed that).

Tuning into this sixth sense, this gut instinct, this ability to read people and to see beyond just the obvious exterior, will really help you connect with women, and people in general. Learning to read people is one of the greatest skills that you’ll learn on this path because it’ll help you in approaching and conversation, but also in business, socialising, etc. When you get good at this, you’ll actually be able to ‘read’ what people are thinking and feeling in situations, and from that, you will be able to relate to them more. This is an incredibly helpful life skill to have.