unlike anything else

and today I'm going to tell some of my stories

but the truth is this can happen to men,

this can happen to women, to gay people,

straight people — it can happen to you

and that thing is neediness.

On the extreme side,

it's the person who on the first date

starts talking about how they want to marry you

and what they're going to name their kids.

But maybe you've experienced the lighter side which is

you sent a text to someone you like and then

rather than moving on with your day,

you find yourself checking, you're checking,

and wonder why they haven't gotten back.

Whether it's big or small, neediness can ruin relationships

and that's why I want to talk about three of the most

common instances that you might be experiencing

and how to deal with them because quite frankly,

this is the one that ruins the relationships

that you want the most.

So the first thing and one that I have

personal experience with

is in contacting the person every single day

and I will never forget how I learned this —

this was scarred into me.

Way back in undergraduate, I was in my second year

and a friend of mine connected me with a girl

girl that I wound up liking and the story behind it

was that this girl actually had a crush on me

so when we were put together I was like,

"Oh my god, this is gonna be great."

Hungout on Thursday night, had a lot of fun,

and by the end of the night, I was smitten.

So I invited her out Friday and said,

"Do you want to come to this place?"

She was very enthusiastic, she said,

"Yeah, let's do it," and then whatever.

Her plans fell through — we didn't wind up meeting up.

So I said, "Okay, she likes me.

I'm gonna invite her out again Saturday."

So it's Saturday, I said, "Hey let's go out,"

and she said, "Okay let me let you know maybe we can do it,"

and she never got back to me that night.

So I'm thinking, "Okay she definitely likes me,"

so what I did is I've invited her out on Sunday.

And I invited her out on Sunday

and she wrote back some sort of middling response

and by the time that I went to ask my friend

to recoordinate another meeting with us,

she said, "It's over. You blew it. It's too late ,"

she's no longer interested.

And I tell you this story so that you realize

that you often need to create some space

in between seeing someone that you really like.

Now, you can put an artificial amount of time in there

that is a service level thing like saying,

"Okay, I'm going to wait three days — people have different rules,"

but the better truth is to feel your time with things that you like.

So especially after you were maybe to go on a date and it fell through,

make sure the next night you do something awesome.

Could it be a date with someone else?

It could be if that's the way you want to go

but maybe just something that you love to do, a movie that you like,

spending time with friends — especially when you feel yourself

getting very invested in someone that you don't know that well,

go back to the things you love and make sure you're doing them

because if not, you're going to go all in on that person

and it will ruin it.

So the second thing that comes up that I see

is begging and pleading.

Now, you might be thinking, "Okay, clearly I don't beg, I don't plead,

and I haven't done that," but it's more common than you think.

When I say begging, what I mean is you invite someone out,

you say, "Hey would you like to go tonight?" and they say,

"I'm sorry I've got this thing that I need to do,"

and rather than saying, "Okay cool, we'll do it later,"

you say, "Come on, it's gonna be so much fun. You know you want to.

Like, just cancel those plans, it will be great."

And I've done this, absolutely, I have friends who have done this.

But while this seems fun and cheeky the truth is

you're putting them in a position where they

are guaranteed basically to like you less.

This is not cute because what it forces them to do

is to say no to you and the way that our brains work

is we find ourselves saying no, no no, to someone

even if we like them, part of us goes, "Okay, why am I say no to them?

I must not be interested," plus you're asking them to devalue

their own time so that they can invest in you

which tells them that's what you would do for them

which is the crux of neediness — this is you not valuing your own time

or their own time.

The appropriate answer — here as long as it inflate last minute

and it's not a terrible thing where they just like stood you up

after we bought some really expensive tickets or something

which you shouldn't do early on anyway

but the appropriate thing is just be cool, have fun,

and then make plans several days later — very simple.

The third thing here and this is one, again, that I have very personal

experience with is in changing your schedule for the other person

Now, this is one that I've learned and forgotten over and over again

most recently — it had can happen to a relationship that's been going on.

I had been seeing this girl for a period of time,

we really liked one another but for her own reasons,

she started to put in less effort and pull back,

and become less available — and because I liked her

and spending time with her, my response was,

"Okay, I'm going to be more available.

I've got this flexibility, my time is, you know, I can work this time.

My friends are pretty flexible too so if she says we're going out Tuesday

but then cancels, I'll just make sure that I'm free on Wednesday for lunch."

And that went on and as that happens she became less and less available.

It was more and more work for me to actually get her out.

So it came to a head on a sunday night

and we had plans to meet at about ten o'clock.

She called me at like nine and said,

"Hey I'm really sorry, I'm at my family's and I'm not gonna be able to

make it out tonight and I got I've got plans Monday,

I've got plans Tuesday, I've got work Thursday and Friday so

maybe can do something on Wednesday," and

earlier what I would do is, "Absolutely! Great! Wednesday it is.

Also it's a bummer that you kind of flicked his last minute but

I forgive you," and what I did instead here was very simply,

because my friends had asked me earlier that day, if we could go out Wednesday.

There was no fixed plans but my friends had set it

and so I told her, "I've got plans Wednesday night so I can't,"

and she paused and said, "Wait a second. If you can't on Wednesday

then I can't see this week."

I said, "Yeah that's what it sounds like," and she started going,

"Well, I wanted to just cancel your plans."

I said, "No I'm not going to cancel my plans. I have plans with my friend,"

and I could feel her starting to get more frustrated, nervous and she said,

"Okay let me call you back," and hung up the phone.

Ten minutes later, she called me and she said,

"I'm going to wrap up here. I'm going to finish with my family.

I'm going to see you tonight like we had planned,"

and so she came over and we hung out as we had planned to do at 10pm

and I tell you the story not because this was a huge victory

that she came over on Sunday and not Wednesday

but because this was a turning point in the relationship

where she had pulled away previously

when I started to protect my own time

and invest in the promises or even just the

brief plan that I made with my friend

she began to put in more effort.

She stopped pulling back and she started to match

and becoming more flexible rather than me having the one that was constantly

adjusting for her and quite frankly I think this probably saved the relationship.

So if you sense that this is you, you're getting down this line

where you're the flexible when you're always adjusting for the other person

and you're not, like, changing plans so that they can cancel last minute,

what I really recommend you to do is start becoming a planner.

Meaning at the beginning of your week, set up things that you have to do

even it's as simple as in Thursday night you're gonna watch a TV show

with your roommate so if you could get asked to go out on Thursday night

you can't because you have to watch a TV show with your roommate.

When you protect and respect your own plans, people will respect you more.

This isn't to say that later in a relationship, you cannot have a little bit more

flexibility after you've got a give-and-take but early on it's the kiss of death

to start flaking on your friends for someone else and in fact

one of the best things you can do here is

if it is a more open and inclusive event

like it's a TV show with your friend

and it's not some secret going-out, you can say,

"Thursday, I'm actually watching TV with my friend

and we're going to watch a show but if you're interested,

you're welcome to come hang out with us."

That shows the person that you are inclusive,

that you do value your friends and your plans.

So I hope that those three things help but beyond this,

neediness goes more than the surface level which is what we've covered.

Where neediness this comes from is not feeling like you have options.

Like feeling like that person is your best chance at being happy

and the real way to combat that which takes effort and time

is to create options in your life that doesn't just mean dating other people

that would clearly give you some options on a Friday night

but it can also mean investing in your fitness regimen which you have to do.

Creating a business, more habits, spending time with friends —

the more things that you have in your life that make you happy

and the less willing you are to compromise on those,

actually the more people you will draw towards you

because you are valuing yourself and investing in you

and that is going to signal to them that they need to do the same.

So I hope that this is giving you something to reflect on.

maybe you've seen some neediness in yourself that you can begin to root out.

But I know that this video covers a lot of what happens after the first meeting

but a lot of people have asked me, "How do I actually get that to occur?"

and there are some simple things some simple three things typically that I will say

to a girl that I'm interested in when I want to talk to her

and we set up a video that has that one — click link here.

That's going to take you to another page, you can drop your email,

and then get those three things that, typically, I use to start conversation

many of the times.

Now, do these work for women or gay people, gay men-women?

I'm honestly not sure.

I've only been myself and my experience is limited

so I will say it's absolutely work for guys that are interested in women.

Everyone else, I'm sorry, I don't have the experience and I'm not certain

but regardless of who you are, I do hope that you decide

to subscribe to the channel.

It's not all the time that we do dating advice

but I've seen this happen to a bunch of friends recently

and I wanted to touch on it because neediness is not just

going to kill your romantic relationships, it can actually ruin friendships.

So when you got it, when you started investing in yourself,

things just go better across the table.

So I hope you guys decide to subscribe to the channel.

It's going to be much more than dating — charisma, confidence,

all those kind of things plus celebrity breakdowns.

And of course any comments, go ahead and drop them below.

I hope that you've enjoyed this video

and I look forward to seeing you in the next one.