You ever find yourself completely ignored and unappreciated by the exact guy you're actively doing the most for? Would you believe me if I told you it's because the nicer you are, the meaner and worse those men will treat you? I know that sounds horrible, but it's the truth, and once you break the seven habits below, you'll finally have men addicted to you instead of ignoring you.
Here's the thing you need to understand before we start: a man's desire to build with you and his respect for you will always be one and the same. Men cannot respect you when you have a lot of nice girl habits going on. So let's go through them one by one.
Habit 1: The Adjustment Addiction
The moment you meet a guy and he mentions his exes were blonde, you're sitting on that date thinking, maybe I should dye my hair blonde, maybe the brunette is going to turn him off. When you come into a relationship, a situationship, or a talking stage fixated on how do I be more of what you want and less of myself, you have an adjustment addiction. And guys notice. Every time he says I like when a woman does that, you're scrambling to change everything about yourself.
He can acknowledge that you'll literally scrub the floor for him, but what he won't be doing at the same time is respecting you. And here's what the adjustment addiction costs you: while you're busy thinking about how to change yourself for him, you're not thinking about what he's bringing to the table. Is he the person you're looking for? Has he shown you he's someone worth investing your time and energy into? It is not your job to make adjustments until you decide this is the guy, and even then, a man who really wants to build with you will appreciate the traits that make you uniquely you. If a man is trying to turn you into his ex, run as fast as you can.
Habit 2: Being a Sacrifice Sally
Picture it. He's been at the club all night, hasn't kept contact with you in three or four weeks, and then he calls: I've been thinking about you, let me see you right now. And you're thinking, well, I do have to wake up at 6 a.m. for my shift tomorrow, but you know what, I'll call in sick. Come over. I'll drop everything for you, even my sleep.
Making it easier for men to spend time with you will never make you more attractive to them. In fact, it makes you a lot less attractive, because they recognize that despite only hitting you up when it's convenient for them, you still drop everything. And when you categorize yourself as the woman who will sacrifice everything whenever he wants, they categorize you as exactly that, and they never give you anything unless it's convenient for them in that moment. Men aren't just going to come into your life and respect you for no reason. They're going to test you to see if you're one of the women who go for the BS or one of the women who don't.
Habit 3: The It's Not That Deep Mindset
Rid yourself of this mindset you hear all over TikTok and Instagram that it's not that deep when someone crosses your boundaries. It is always that deep. If a guy curses you out and calls you outside of your name in an argument, that's it, we're not having any more of a discussion. Until you realize how serious it is when you cross my boundaries, you're not the person I'm looking for. I'll find someone who can control their anger.
The men who come into your life wanting to take advantage of you will actively try to convince you that everything is not that deep. Don't be a party pooper. You don't have to address everything. And when that mindset soaks into your brain day in and day out, two things happen. First, you build up all that emotional weight until you eventually explode. Second, he learns that crossing your boundaries carries no consequences. I used to be obsessed with that mindset too. I thought the coolest version of me was someone who takes everything as it's not that deep. But when have you ever heard a guy say he wants to put a ring on the woman who has no boundaries and no standards?
Habit 4: Doing Both Jobs
This is the habit where you justify a man not doing what he's supposed to be doing. The date went well, then a week goes by and he barely reaches out. Two weeks now. So you think, maybe it's my job to check in, and he hits you with the magic words: I've just been so busy. And what do you do? You apologize for how busy he's been, then offer to come over Friday, pay for your own Uber, order your own Uber Eats.
You end up being your own girlfriend and your own boyfriend. You're managing your emotions and his emotions, and you're thinking he's going to like me more because I'm showing him how much effort I put in. No. What actually happens is he ends up resenting you, because you're not giving him the space to be a man, and you're too swept up in trying to make this work to realize he doesn't even have real interest in you. Sometimes he's doing nothing almost on purpose, as a cry out: do you not realize I'm doing nothing for you? Ask yourself the question some of you have never asked: why am I here? How does this serve me? Is this mutually beneficial, or just one way?
Habit 5: Being an Essay Texter
An essay texter tries to spill her whole biography to a man over text while simultaneously trying to learn his autobiography through a screen. Never-scroll syndrome will have you convinced that being present 24-7, never giving anyone the smallest bit of breath from you, is what makes them appreciate you more. It will not. It makes it that much easier for him to say, cool, I don't need to take her on a date, I already see her all day in my phone.
There's a reason things happen in stages. When you go out on a date with someone and you might not see them for a week, that space is doing work for you. He gets to think about you. He gets to contrast what it's like to be around you versus what it's like to not be around you. That's how a man realizes he enjoys his time with you way more than his time away from you, and his desire builds and builds until he says I can't just casually date you, you need to be my girlfriend. And watch out: this habit and the adjustment addiction feed each other. The second a guy says he gets anxious that you don't text much, the nice girl in you wants to live on your phone so he never misses a chance to talk to you. Even if he says he wants that, it will never benefit you.
Habit 6: Come Back Season
Because you're a nice girl and you want to believe in the goodness of people, you always feel like someone deserves another chance, no matter how much time has passed. You know the cycle. You meet a guy on an app, you text, you FaceTime, he never asks you on a date, things fizzle out, a month goes by, and then he's back: I miss you, I haven't heard from you in a bit. And the whole cycle starts again.
When you show people there's no time constraint on putting their best foot forward, you teach them that treating you badly this time means nothing, because they can come back from the dead just by waiting. They never take any opportunity with you as serious, urgent, or scarce. And you pay the real price: stuck on that hamster wheel, you find it harder to emotionally detach from him and harder to build anything new with anyone else. He says to himself, why bother making this important when there are no consequences to my actions here?
Habit 7: Being a Dull Pair of Scissors
A dull pair of scissors can't cut anyone off, and I'm not just talking about your romantic relationships. Anyone in your life who doesn't treat you with respect, care, and dignity. Here's why this one matters so much when you're dating someone new: your past relationships are a prime example of what will happen to the new guy if he doesn't do the right things. When you tell him stories about your ex mistreating you and then still having access to you, he thinks, perfect, I'm way better than that man, so if he got away with that, I can get away with ten times as much.
Why would he treat you like a piece of gold when the guys who treated you like trash still got access? People approach you the right way when there's a sense of urgency, when it's known that they lose access to you the moment they don't treat you how you expect to be treated. You can have men desiring you like a hungry hyena, but it requires work and strategy. It doesn't happen magically, which is why it doesn't always happen.
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Questions women ask me about this
- Why doesn't being nice make a man love you?
- Because a man's desire for you is tied to his respect for you, and men cannot respect a woman with no boundaries and no standards. Being endlessly nice, adjusting yourself, and sacrificing everything reads to him as I can get away with anything here. He can appreciate what you do for him and still not respect you, and without respect he will never build with you.
- How do I set standards with men without feeling mean?
- Understand that it's not meanness, it's a filter. When someone crosses a boundary, you address it directly and you attach real consequences, up to removing access to you. Men test you early precisely to see if you're one of the women who go for the BS or one of the women who don't. The ones worth keeping respect the standard. The ones who complain about it were planning to use you.
- Why do men lose interest when I put in more effort?
- Because you're doing both jobs. When you chase, plan, text first, and manage his emotions, you take away the space he needs to be a man and pursue you, and he quietly resents it. Worse, all that effort blinds you to the fact that he wasn't showing real interest in the first place. Pull your effort back to mirror his and the truth shows up fast.
- Should I give him another chance if he comes back after disappearing?
- Not just because time has passed. When you let men cycle back in with zero consequences, you teach them there's no urgency to treating you right, and you stay stuck on a hamster wheel that blocks you from anything better. If he never addresses what he did and how it will change, the answer is no, no matter how nice the I miss you text sounds.
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