Girls do it all the time — they make boys chase them. It’s fun to give the object of your affection a short brief run, just to pique his curiosity and test his energy levels. Guys like to chase women and we like to play hard to get. It just makes our nerves tingle to blow hot and blow cold and despite what they say, up to a point, men like it too.

Ignore Him

It’s a proven fact and you don’t need psychiatrists and counsellors telling you this: Men don’t think too highly of women who fall quick and easy. The chase builds up the sexual chemistry between the two sexes. Says Akanksha, a 30-year-old housewife, “I think men like it when women play hard to get. My husband admitted after marriage that he found my cool indifference very intriguing. He was the popular guy in college and I just ignored his very existence. Of course that was just pretence. He was the first thing I noticed when I walked into class. The best way to get him to notice me was to ignore him.” It certainly worked for Akanksha as her blase attitude had the man in a tizzy.

Let My Man Chase Me
It’s the most tried and tested formula in the world. We crave the thing that’s not easily available. Archie always longs for the not-so-available Veronica instead of the ever-ready, ever-willing Betty. So who are you going to be?

“Definitely Veronica. It’s stupid to let men think that you are theirs for the picking. I would definitely make my man chase me, just to spice it up,” says Rachna, 26, a writer with a dotcom. Pooja, 30, a chartered accountant with a New Delhi-based MNC, says, “My husband was the Casanova in college. Just to irritate him, I played hard to get. I was just trying to prove a point — that not every girl is an easy catch. Somewhere along the way, Cupid struck.” They married after a seven-year courtship.

Don't Go Too Far Playing The I-Don't Care-Game
Rachna and Pooja aren’t exceptions. Most young women today say that they would like the guy to woo them, pursue and try to win them over.

The fun of the game lies in pretending to be totally disinterested when you are actually hoping madly that the object of your affection will come over to talk to you.

But when was the last time you heard of Adam running a marathon to catch Eve? So don’t make your resistance a long drawn out affair. The trick lies in using the technique for just the right length of time — you need to know when to draw the line. A very fine one divides success from failure. “I went too far playing the I-don’t-care game. After chasing me for quite a while he gave up and found someone else. Having lost him I didn’t know how to tell him that I cared without really looking stupid,” says Sonia, a 35-year-old teacher in a Calcutta school. Now happily married, she feels sad when reminded of her college days. “I didn’t repeat the same mistake with my husband whom I met at work,” she adds.

Ananya, a 25-year-old copywriter with a Hyderabad advertising agency, had an I’m-not-available attitude from the very first day in college. She had hoped it would send the guys mad trying to win her over, but quite the reverse happened. Almost all of them ignored her and just considered her to be too snooty and proud. Consequently, by the end of the first year, she had very few friends and no boyfriends. “When most people get nostalgic about college days, I have nothing to say. What is the greatest time for most people, was a nightmare for me and it was all my own fault.” Today, she is a very different person and isn’t making the mistakes of her college days.

If it backfired for Ananya and many others, men too don’t like women who play too hard to get. “It’s really irritating when a girl just puts up an act of indifference. Men can usually see through it. We aren’t as foolish as women think us to be,” says Siddharth, a copywriter with a leading ad agency. He’s of the opinion that women should quit “such stupid mind games which did well in Victorian times”, and be direct and open. But then don’t they get the wrong opinion? “We aren’t asking you to jump into our arms. Just say yes when you feel like it, instead of making lame excuses like I-have-a-dentist’s-appointment when we ask you out.” Point noted.

Being ‘unavailable’ is pretty much like flirting. Unless you’re able to do it the right way, it’s bound to boomerang badly.

So How Do You Learn To Do It The Right Way?
Trust your gut instinct. And to a small extent, by trial and error. And remember — you’re going to win some and lose some. But don’t lose heart, have fun.