- Today we're gonna talk about mixed messages,
when someone is saying one thing
but then their behavior doesn't back it up, right?
Relationships would be so much easier
if people would just say how they felt,
if they would just say what they mean
and then do that thing, right?
Well, today I'm gonna share with you four reasons
why men give mixed messages.
There's really four camps that they fall in.
And more importantly, what you can do about it
regardless of why they're giving you this mixed message,
how you can respond that clarifies the path forward
with whatever kind of guy that you're dating.
Now, there's one overarching reason
why a guy is giving mixed messages,
and it's not that he doesn't know how he feels,
it's not that he doesn't know what he wants.
The main reason comes down to one nasty four letter word,
and that is F-E-A-R, fear.
He is scared that if he actually does communicate
what he wants, how he feels, all of that
that he's not gonna get ultimately what he wants.
So the first category of fear is the fear of hurting you.
Now, I know this is gonna sound crazy
because he's giving you mixed signals and so you're like,
"That doesn't feel good in and of itself."
But here's what's going on for this guy.
This particular guy
is the guy who's in love with love itself.
This is the guy who wants to find the one,
like he wants to find his life partner.
And so for him, his strategy is that every date he goes on,
he's gotta make that date awesome.
Regardless of how interested he is in you at that moment,
he still wants to make the date with you
as fantastic as possible.
He wants connection, he wants meaning, he wants laughter,
and so he will pour into you and pour into that date
and make it amazing,
and then afterwards go home and assess,
"Hmm, do I really like her?
Do I wanna commit to this?
Can I see a future with this person?"
Here's the problem with this guy's strategy:
he hasn't gotten to know you enough yet
to really be clear if you're the one.
You've only gone on a couple dates.
And so you'll feel this guy really send you mixed messages.
He's like hot and cold,
he's pouring into you and then he's kind of pulling back.
On the dates it's amazing,
and then you just don't hear from this guy.
He's not really pursuing you, and you're like,
"What the heck is going on?
Things were so amazing,
he even asked me to go out at the end of our date.
Now it hasn't been some time and I haven't heard from him."
And here's the challenge:
he knows that he's pouring all this energy into the date
and he knows that you're probably,
he feels or assumes whether it's true or not,
he assumes that you might be getting interested in him,
and so he doesn't wanna communicate where he's at with you
because he kind of overextended himself
into the relationship.
And so if he lets you know,
"Well, you know, if I'm feeling it that much,"
then he's gonna hurt you.
And this is a guy who doesn't want to hurt anybody,
and so he's scared of that.
What he thinks the better strategy is,
instead of just being open and honest with you
and telling you how how he feels,
is to pull back and be a bit more ambiguous
and let his behavior
communicate his level of interest
instead of clear, honest communication.
And I know this sucks,
and I know this isn't at all what you would want,
but there's the driving motivation.
So I'm gonna share with you the three other motivations,
and then I'll unpack exactly what you can do about it.
Let's talk about motivation number two.
The second emotional driver,
this emotional fear
that causes people to send mixed signals,
is the fear of loss.
And this is the guy who isn't looking for the one.
He's not looking for his ultimate romance or partnership.
This is the guy who's really in a phase
of wanting things casual.
And he likes you.
He likes hanging out with you.
He likes going on dates with you.
He likes the time that he spends with you.
He likes the banter.
If you guys are hooking up, he's loving that part.
But he doesn't wanna just be with one person.
He's in a phase where he wants to date
a lot of different people.
You might be in that phase too,
or you might be in the phase where you're really looking
for that one special partnership.
But the problem is, this guy never has the guts
to have that open, honest communication.
Instead, he's afraid that if he tells you
what he really wants,
if he tells you that he just wants to be casual
because he wants to date other people,
that you won't like that,
that you'll get offended by that,
that you will say that's not for you and choose out.
So instead, he drags it on, he drags that casual phase,
the moment before you guys
are actually gonna commit to each other,
he tries to elongate that and stretch it out
as far as possible because he knows eventually,
you guys are gonna have that conversation of,
"Hey, what are we doing?
What are our intentions in this relationship?"
And the earlier you can speak that intention
and have that conversation with him, the better.
Now, the third fear is a fear of failure.
And this is often a subconscious one for guys,
where they'll find themselves pulling back
and kind of giving mixed messages.
They say they like you but then they pull back.
They're not pursuing.
And that is because they're questioning
in their own heart and mind
whether or not they have what it takes
to be the man they think you want.
So you have a particular guy that you want.
You've got particular standards that you want.
You have a particular lifestyle that you want to live in.
And if a guy doesn't believe he can meet you there,
then he's gonna naturally pull back
because he does not want that feeling of being incapable,
not want that feeling of like,
"I'm never gonna measure up for this woman."
I coach a lot of women.
Most of the women are either 35
or all the way up to their 60s,
some women even in their 70s.
Many of them are successful.
Many are running their own businesses
or they've done well in their life
and they're looking for a man
who can meet them where they are.
And one of the biggest insecurities for guys is,
it's not even about providing for the other person,
it's just about matching and saying,
"Hey, look, if we wanted to go on vacation, could we go?
Could you even pay your weight?
Let's go to Europe and let's go spend a couple weeks there,"
because she can do that at this point in her life.
Maybe you can do this at this point in your life,
but he can't.
So one of the reasons why a man will pull away
is because he's got a deep-seated fear
where he's saying to himself,
"I don't think I can measure up to this woman
in this moment in her life."
And so instead, he's gonna go find someone
where he can actually be the man that she wants.
And the fourth fear,
this driver that creates mixed messages
in our human behavior,
is the fear of intimacy.
And there are attachment styles that we all have.
I'm not gonna go into depth on attachment styles.
I've done other videos on the four major attachment styles.
But one of these attachment styles
causes people to just pour into the other person
and make that person feel like a soulmate,
make that person feel amazing.
Maybe you've had this where a guy just pours into you
and it's just off the charts amazing.
And then the moment you get too close,
the moment the relationship
is about to go to that next level,
you feel him just pull away and he'll get cold.
He becomes a jerk, he starts fights with you,
he blames it on you, it's your fault.
He finds reasons to create arguments.
And what that is, is his subconscious mind
kicking in and pushing you away,
because ultimately he's got an avoidant attachment style,
where avoidance, contrary to the name,
will come on very strong
but then push you away once it gets too close
because they're avoiding real intimacy.
So it's that subconscious fear
of being abandoned or being hurt,
or you think that your needs will never really be met
because you grew up in a home
where your needs were never met by your parents,
so you tend to avoid true intimacy.
So that could be another driver
for why a man is giving you mixed signals,
because he does like you
but he's got the subconscious fear
that's causing him to behave in ways that push you away.
Let me give you an example of a client of mine.
Her name is Laura.
And Laura's in her 60s,
and she wanted to find the love of her life,
and so she was dating this guy
and she was dating him for several years,
and it was always this kind of push-pull relationship
where she ultimately wanted to find the love of her life
and be married.
And he said he wanted to find the love of his life.
He said he was open to marriage,
but things were never progressing.
He never wanted to move in.
It was always this kind of keeping it at arm's length
version of their relationship,
and eventually she employed
the process I'm about to describe to you.
And it was basically calling him to the carpet and saying,
"Look, what do you want?
Here's what I want.
If what we want doesn't fit, I'm out."
And so she told him, "I wanna be married,
and if you don't wanna be married,
that breaks my heart because I love you
and I wanna be with you, I would love to marry you.
But if you don't want that, there's someone else who does."
And so she left.
And she's a coach,
and so she could work from anywhere in the world,
so she ended up going to Europe for three months.
And he would call her,
and he would try to strike things up with her,
but never fully wanting to be all-in to this relationship.
And so she said, "Look, if you're not all in, you're out,
and that's okay, but I've gotta let you go."
And so she cut ties with him.
A month went by and all of sudden.