Dating : The Chase, The Ghosting, and The Growth

Whether you have been chased or chased someone, we have all experienced the game of chasing in some form. It starts when a person is attracted to someone, pursues them, and then loses interest when the chase is over. We start playing this game in middle school and it carries on throughout adulthood.

In middle school, the chase is fun; a person has a crush on you, flirts with you, texts you and in return, you dance with them at the end-of-the-year dance. As an adult, it more or less starts the same but has many different outcomes and is often taxing.

In this piece, I reflect on my outlook on the chase, love bombing, ghosting, and how to navigate these scenarios. To start, here are some of the common phases in the chase game:

1. A person shows interest in you

2. You play hard to get and hide your interest

3. The person works hard to pursue you

4. You still play hard to get, but are a bit more responsive

5. The person texts you every day

6. You give in, hang out with them, decide they’re a great person

7. You sleep with them to take it to the next level

8. You take the lead with texting, they begin being unresponsive

9. The relationship starts to fizzle

10. The relationship ends, sometimes ghosting involved

Timing and maturity are the drivers of the chase game. A lot of men in their twenties to their thirties+ are usually after sex first and are not of the mindset of finding a partner. Unlike women, men are not on a biological clock to procreate; they feel that they can find a partnership when the time is right.

People who are of this mindset usually know what to say to get you in bed. They’ll act like they want to know everything about you, be very present in your life, and then start to lose interest once they start to feel in control/secure. This can also be referred to as “love bombing”.

“It’s not about care or compassion or tenderness. For the love bomber, you’re no different than a shiny new toy that captures their attention for the moment.” — Craig Malek, a clinical psychologist and author of Rethinking Narcissism. They’re either very out of tune with themselves that they don’t even know they’re doing it, or it is so culturally ingrained that it has become an accepted norm.

The chase usually has two players, the chaser and the person being chased. For the purpose of gender neutrality in this description, we’ll refer to them as the dom (chaser) and the sub (person being chased). However, in my heteronormative experience, the submissive is a woman and the dominant is a man.

As an example, I typically play the submissive role. I’m an emotional, maternal, and empathetic person. It’s easy for me to deeply care about people very early on. The submissive role tends to be the more emotional player. The more time the sub puts into building a connection with someone the more it weighs in value. The longer they feel chased by someone, the easier it is for them to get attached when they let them in.

The dynamic gets more complex when you add sex to the mix. Spending time together and being sexually and physically intimate induce bonding. Scientifically, this is due to the release of oxytocin, and during sex strong energies of emotions and connections are exchanged.

When subs let in doms sexually they also let them in emotionally, this isn’t always the case, but it’s very common. Often this isn’t well realized by the sub and as a result, not well communicated to the dom. Yet the subs unspoken expectation is for the dom to somewhat commit, cater to, and match these emotions. The dom doesn’t get so easily attached and finds it more thrilling to move on and repeat the cycle.

A huge influencer of the chase game is our culture of sex. The internet has given people access to sex in ways humanity has never experienced. Men and women enjoy casual sex, yet it’s more satisfying for men because they reach orgasm almost every time.

The male orgasm is straightforward but for a woman to reach a full orgasm a lot more needs to happen. The partner needs to be committed to making it happen. If women had as many orgasms and men, we’d probably be better at casual sex, and we’d rule the world.

Frequently I debate how soon you should sleep with someone after first meeting them. People have various rules, after the 8th date- after the 4th date, or “when you know you know”. Some people sleep together on the first date, while others wait much longer. My current approach is that there shouldn’t be any rules or games, but ultimately they’re unavoidable so you have to be cognizant and smart.

The driver of excitement for men to pursue women is to sleep with them. If you sleep with someone too soon, you minimize their curiosity and lower their drive to pursue you. Of course, it’s not always like this- it’s very possible to sleep together on the first date and continue to have a lasting relationship.

If you find yourself at any point on the scale of the chase game, it’s best to wait for sex so that you can figure out if you’re emotionally compatible and if your personalities align. The worst feeling is thinking you have a connection with someone, that slowly fizzles out shortly after sex. When you get past the point of chasing each other and have developed trust, it’s easier to feel that sleeping with them won’t change the growth of your relationship.

On Ghosting

A lot of the time, the chasing-game results in ghosting. Ghosting is a modern term for an old phenomenon. In many situations, ghosting is a result of the inability to a) come to terms with emotions and b) effectively communicate them. Ghosting is the act of ignoring someone and closing the line of communication, after developing some form of a relationship, over a period of time.

People are quick to feel ghosted, we’re all so accessible to each other, that if someone doesn’t respond to a text in 2hours, we feel ignored. It’s a sensitive and hurtful tactic that usually negatively impacts the victim. However it happens, the feeling of being ghosted always sucks, and it especially sucks if you’ve been intimate with the person.