Love Life with Matthew Hussey - (Rewind): How to Make Them Call and Text You Every Day

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

What do you do when someone is great on dates but goes radio silent in between? With only three dates in, it’s easy to feel confused and crave clarity, but early dating rarely provides the closure we seek. Instead of getting stuck in overanalyzing their behavior, we explore how to take control of the dynamic by modeling the kind of communication and connection you want to see.If you’ve ever felt unsure about whether to reach out or how to navigate inconsistent communication, this episode will give you the tools to approach dating with confidence and intention.---►► Take back your personal data with Incogni! Use code LOVELIFE and get 60% off annual plans: incogni.com/lovelife►► Transform Your Relationship With Life in One Powerful Weekend. Learn More About my Weekend Retreat at RetreatAccess.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What do I do when there's a long break between texts, but he's great on our dates? We've been on three dates, and we don't chit-chat during. Three dates. So not long. Firstly, we expect a lot of closure very quickly in life. And early dating doesn't offer a lot of closure. You know, it doesn't offer a lot of closure on how someone is. or what their intentions are or why they didn't call back or why they haven't called us in two weeks, but now all of a sudden want to see us.

Early dating is very open-ended. And to an extent, we sometimes underestimate our influence in the equation. So we're so busy looking for closure from somebody else. What do they want? What are their intentions? What are their patterns? Do they like me? Why aren't they texting me?

That we forget that we actually play a role ourselves. in shaping the dynamic early on. Mitch Album said, if you don't like the culture, you have to be brave enough to create your own. He was not referring to dating, but that idea relates to so many different things. We often go into situations

complaining about the culture of the situation. You know, we go to a party and we complain, oh, it's not a very fun party. Well, are you making it fun? Or are you just complaining that the party's not fun? We go on a date and we say that person wasn't flirtatious and, well, were you flirtatious? This person's communication is terrible. Well, is yours strong right now?

Are you being proactive? Are you being vulnerable? And so we're kind of, a lot of us just go through life reacting to culture and complaining about culture instead of being brave enough to create our own culture. culture. And one of the really powerful psychological effects when we decide to create culture is the phenomenon of reciprocity. Reciprocity is this idea that if we act first, that will create a reciprocal response from somebody else. Somebody else is influenced by that action. If I walk down the street and I look at you and you have a kind of grumpy face, I then decide as a result of that, that I'm not going to smile. And then I walk past you and I go, what a grumpy person

that was. There's a kind of reverse reciprocity going on there, right? That your mood right now, at least the way I'm reading it, it may not even be true, but the way I'm reading it is that you're grumpy or you're standoffish and therefore I don't smile at you when we walk past each other. So you've had an effect on me. There's a reciprocity going on there. I'm afraid you're not giving me anything. So I'm not going to give you anything. But what we don't know is what might have happened had you smiled. That might have created a different kind of reciprocity where that person suddenly felt like they could smile because they weren't going to get rejected or you were in a good mood and it lifted their mood. I almost look at a situation.

like this and say, well, what would it look like if we were reverse engineering the kind of dynamic we want to have in early dating? She is saying that the dates are going great, but there's not much contact in the middle. And part of what she is looking for there is some kind of closure. Well, what does that mean? Does that mean he doesn't like me? Does it, it could mean, for example, we could speculate that what it means is that this guy is not really dating with any intention. And we might be right. It might be the case that he's not interested in actually getting to know her or building momentum, which is what someone builds or looks to build when they have true intentions. They want to build momentum. They don't want to leave you in any doubt as to

whether they like you. They want to start to ratchet up the investment and to fill that from you in return. So we could, it would be fair to kind of make a guess that he's not dating with the same intention that she is. And that's why when he kind of wants some instant gratification, he goes on a date with her and he very much enjoys being there. He clearly enjoys her company if he's on three dates with her or he's enjoying something about it. But he doesn't have any intention. He's not doing it with any purpose other than immediate gratification. And that's why she doesn't hear from him in between because he's not actually looking to spend any time investing or getting to know her. That might be true.

It also might be true that it's early in dating and within that three date window. He's just kind of got a lot on and a lot of other priorities and it's not the top of his list because she's not the top of his list right now. And that's also kind of understandable in the context of early dating. The point is we don't know and we can spend all our time trying to work that out in a way what that is, is responding to culture, right? The culture of this situation right now with this guy is that they go on dates, have a good time, and then she doesn't hear from him in between. That's the culture. So rather than looking at why is the culture like this, which can be a pointless

exercise with no clear answers, what we can do is apply that phenomenon of reciprocity or make it work in our favor by saying, okay, what would this look like if I was creating? In other words, rather than simply mirroring his behavior, what if I modeled the behavior I want to see? And this is where I want to kind of clear something up, because people have heard us, if they've been a long time listener of the podcast or viewer of our videos, they've heard me or you say some version of don't invest in someone based on how much you like them invest in them based on how much they invest in you yeah now that looks on the surface like a bit of a reactive approach yeah that looks like waiting to see what the culture is and then responding to that so

i just sit back and watch what vibrations come out and i just decide to match them exactly now that that's mirroring to use nLP language and that has its place right that says don't invest more than they are the only problem with that is that if everyone takes that approach and everyone is the two people in a dynamic in dating then no one makes a move because we're all just waiting for the other person to make that first move and then we go okay they did something i'll now do the same amount. At some point, someone has to be brave enough to step out of mirroring and model the behavior they want to see in the other person. So there's mirroring and there's modeling. The modeling is the proactive part. The mirroring is the reactive part. When someone comes to us

and says, in between dates, he doesn't reach out. And I'm following your advice to invest. in who invests in me and to invest as much as they do, well, right now, based on what he's doing, I'm not doing anything. Now, that has the danger that we've just spoken about, which is that not only does it not go anywhere, but you also don't see whether you can get that reciprocal effect that can be achieved if you model the kind of communication you would like to see. So what we then say is, okay, maybe model, be a little proactive right now by modeling what you'd like to receive. That means in a vulnerable and proactive way without a gender reaching out to this person.

It could be in the form of, hey, how's your day? I was just thinking of you. It could be referencing a joke that you both had on the last date. it could be just letting someone know that you were thinking of them or that you'd like to see them again. But you are there modeling the behavior you want to see. And you might even do that a couple of times. It might be that you model the behavior you want to receive by picking up the phone and calling someone, thereby showing them that you are comfortable on the phone and that a phone call isn't a strange thing to you.

That it's actually perfectly normal for you to have a phone call. And therefore, they should not feel embarrassed or ashamed to call. Or they shouldn't feel kind of like they're treading on eggshells around you. They should feel free to pick up the phone. That's modeling. Mirroring can turn from self-respecting behavior, if we're not careful, into a form of defensiveness or protectionism. You didn't text me?

Well, I'm not going to text you then. It can be that kind of reactivity. So mirroring can be strong if it's like, hang on, I'm respecting myself. You're not giving me a lot. So I'm not going to give you a lot. Which should be the case if we model first what we want to see and we find that consistently they do not meet us there. At that point, mirroring makes an awful lot of sense in order to be self-respecting.

But if we just start by a mirroring and we never do anything else, then it's not self-respecting. It's a way to hide. It's a way to be defensive. In the book attached, it's what would be called protest behavior. Right. I'm in some form or another, I'm acting out or hiding as a way of. protesting the behavior in you that I don't like that is now that is following it's not leading leading comes when we model the behavior we want to see mirroring is appropriate when after having

modeled the behavior we would like to see they show that they are either incapable or unwilling of meeting us there and from the nature of this question I see someone who's doing a lot of mirroring, but who hasn't been vulnerable enough yet or brave enough yet to do a whole lot of modelling. What you've just said there is really, really interesting to me. And I think essentially what you're saying is you need to turn it on its head and you need to see reaching out as not an act of desperation, but rather you being willing to ask for what you want.

And what you're doing essentially is modeling, I think, requires a lot of. confidence and willingness to be vulnerable and putting yourself out there. What would you say in terms of, because that's a very counterintuitive thing to do, especially I think for women where we're told that, you know, men will come to us and, you know, we should not ever come across as desperate. We shouldn't be the ones reaching out. We shouldn't be the ones initiating. So I totally agree with you. But, you know, for the person who is feeling like, well, that's all well and good, but, you know, I know that if I say that, I'm going to come across as desperate or it might put him off. How would you kind of combat that way of thinking? You're over-modeling

if it gets to that point. There's a spectrum, right, of pride to proactivity. Imagine pride on one side of the spectrum and proactivity on the other. Hey everyone. Fun fact, Audrey and I are in a major decluttering season of our lives. We are getting the house ready for the baby. We have been clearing space. But honestly, we have also been clearing some mental clutter as we prepare for this next chapter of our lives. So I am doing the same with my inbox. Those random offers, ads and emails from companies, I don't even remember signing up for can feel endless. And that is because our data is constantly being bought and sold online.

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proactivity to open the door to possibility in your love life but enough pride to notice when someone is not meeting you there. And I don't think that has to be a lot. In the context of, for example, the first three dates, that does not mean you're reaching out every day for three weeks. And if after three weeks you realize there's a pattern of him not trying, you stop. It looks to me like once or twice in the first couple of weeks, you be the first one to reach out or give him a call and see where that goes.

I guess I meant, I agree with you, but I guess I meant in terms of, you know, we all know that the way you come across through messages has in large parts to do with how you feel inside yourself within that situation. And I think if you have the back, at the back of your head, if you're coming at it from the point of view of, well, I'm worried that by reaching out and being the one being proactive, even if it is in an appropriate way, in an appropriate, to an appropriate level, I'm going to come across like I'm desperate. I think if you have that energy and that kind of feeling within yourself when you're doing it, you run the risk of just kind of scrambling your head and anxiety and not knowing how to be

and not necessarily them being yourself and your messaging. I just wonder whether there is a way of, I suppose, for someone to step into that power, especially, like I say, as a woman, how do you kind of take control of the situation? in a way that feels organic to you and doesn't make you feel like you're somehow in the back foot by doing so because we hear a lot, men like to chase. I mean, that is something that you hear

even now in the modern dating world. I think you hear a lot of that and I would argue people like to chase but I do think that there is a rhetoric that's spoken quite a lot about that and it then becomes quite difficult for women to manage. That to me is 100% a...

Obviously there are in terms of language and tone, there are good ways to reach out to someone and there are bad ways to reach out to someone. Sending someone a message saying, hey, I was thinking of you, how's your day is a lot different than sending that and then sending a question mark 20 minutes later if you don't hear from someone. We know there's a, we know one makes us cringe to even think about and the other one feels just like a vulnerable act. One feels vulnerable. One feels vulnerable. one feels needy. So there are clearly good ways and bad ways to, to reach out to someone and model. The other part of it, the part that you seem to be talking about, which is just the feeling

that I am in some way being desperate by reaching out, that lacks long-term perspective. so for example we have a retreat program I want people to come and experience the retreat when we talk about the retreat that it's a in a sense it's a vulnerable act because I'm I'm coming out and saying I want you to come to this program yeah in a sense I'm asking I'm saying, hey, I'm asking for your trust to come and join us on something that I know would be awesome if you would come and join us. But I also reserve the right, especially on the in-person retreat, if someone is being a nuisance, if someone is being a, essentially a bad participant in the program, I reserve the right to fire someone from the program.

program. I reserve the right to say to someone, hey, I've welcomed you into my house, essentially. You are bringing a really toxic energy to this room. And it's beneath the standard that I expect of people who show up. So I reserve the right to remove you from my program. That's the standard. That's me saying I've invited you into my home. You've not been the kind of guest that I would have hoped. And therefore, you're no longer welcome in my home. Standards and an awareness that we have standards should dissolve that feeling of desperation. Yeah. And the confident people, the confident people I know, it's like if they get turned down for they try to make plans for Saturday night and they get turned down. They have such

a feeling of relaxed abundance, they're chill about it or whatever. They've got standards. And if you were messing them about, they'd be like, I already made plans. Sorry. Like, I didn't hear back from you. I made plans. There's kind of, because they have that confidence, they're not sending the three question marks and waiting because they just know, I've got a game plan. If that person's going to just stand there and drag their heels and mess around, okay, I've got a game plan. Here's what I'm going to do instead. When you're feeling confident about the fact that on a longer perspective, you have high standards. And what you're really doing is assessing whether someone can deliver, then you just kind of have an internal attitude of it's on you if you mistake my

vulnerability for desperation. And you'll quickly learn. that you've miscalibrated here if you mistake my vulnerability or my proact my initial proactiveness for desperation yeah and of course when you reach out and model the behavior you want to see from them by sending them a text or giving them a call you're going to feel afraid if your confidence is based on whether they like you or whether they're going to think you're desperate if your confidence is based on your intentions and my intention is to, A, be the kind of behavior that I'd like to see, and be to see if you can deliver, because ultimately, what do I want? I want a relationship with someone that can

deliver. I want a relationship with someone who actually can communicate. So if I call you and you're incapable of having a phone call, you're telling you're telling you. You're telling me in one form or another that you are unable to deliver. And that then makes you less suitable for me as a partner. That makes you less interesting to me as a potential partner. Your stock just went down. If my confidence is based on whether you like me, I have a problem because on any given day, anyone you meet could like or not like you. If it's based on an intention to see if you're suitable for me and you can deliver, then I'm not going to be afraid to make that call because the call itself is a qualifier. I'd like to add to that one slight thing, which is also if you can

come to a person and just be the best version of yourself, the version of yourself you're most, the version of yourself you're most proud of. And that means not, you know, giving into anxieties and texting too much. That does mean that as well. But it also means being open, being vulnerable, being able to put yourself out there. And if somebody ultimately does not respond to that in a way that you want to, I do actually think that there is, you can walk away from that situation knowing you couldn't have done any better. And I think there's something quite sort of comforting in that and kind of cathartic in that. And I think sometimes people say, you know, it's so much harder to be rejected when you've been your true self and then you get rejected. I actually think that

needs to be, we almost need to look at it in a different way, which is if your truest best version of yourself is not right for someone, then they're not right for you, because that's literally the version of yourself you're most proud of. Which is a logic that should carry into relationships too. There's sometimes this real feeling of resentment of I gave so much and I did my best and they threw it all in my face. And I think that you have to look at that as no no no what's beautiful about that is i saw how great i can be in a relationship that should give me confidence i showed just how wonderful i can be as a partner now that person turned out to be the wrong person for that but i saw how great i can be and by the way if i modeled the best

the kind of love i wanted to get and that person couldn't meet me there that's actually the most peace of mind I can get. Absolutely. If I just mirrored their shitty behavior in the relationship, well, that didn't tell me an awful lot. Guys, I have spent a lot of time in the last few years thinking about the ways that we hold ourselves back. And I've become so aware of this in my own life. In the last three years, it has become so apparent to me how much my own beliefs, my own deeper

wiring has been getting in the way of more peace in my life, more joy, more happiness and frankly, more results. If you suspect that your own wiring, your own belief systems, are getting in the way of what is possible for you, then I want to invite you into a process that shows you an exact plan for doing the deeper work that really unlocks your potential in life. It is the most special work you can do. That's my belief. And if you're part of this, you will be thanking yourself for years. And where I am doing this is my retreat this October on the 18th and 19th. It is coming up in just a couple of weeks.

If you miss this one, you'll be waiting a whole other year to do this work. And life is too short to wait another year on work that is this important. We have a virtual ticket available so you can do it from wherever you are in the world. It's only $195 to be a part of the entire two-day immersive experience. you get the recordings for two weeks so that even if you're not there on the weekend, you have two whole weeks to watch them after it's done. And I'm even throwing in 30 days of Matthew AI for free for anyone who gets a virtual ticket right now. If you suspect that you are capable of more than you are getting right now, if you know that there are ways that every day you hold yourself

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