The scum of the dating world: The Players

It’s funny how life works. My last post explained the very reason it’s a good time to fall in love. Unfortunately, I spent my time since then consoling my friends as it seems everyone is breaking up.

I asked two of my friends for permission to share some of their experiences as I believe both of them have come into contact with that type of men that have a certain bad-boy allure that drives some women wild. They know how to make a woman feel special and really turn on the charm to get what they want. You know the type - we call them ‘players’.

It is really difficult to define a ‘player’. You will definitely not find a dictionary explanation. Some call them Pick-up-artists, Casanovas or even ‘dating predators’. In the simplest terms possible, I find good synonyms to be asshole, loser and jerk. You may have your own favourite terminology, of course, but the man himself is always the same.

The aim of a player is to win your affection and the mark that this has happened is often that the relationship becomes sexual – they have achieved their conquest. However, this is not always the case. Players these days are more cunning.

For me a player is so called because he is actively partaking in a game. Let’s say you have a rugby player who is partaking in the Super 15. He has to abide by certain rules, he needs to practice and above all the needs to know what the aim of the game is. The same is true for players in the dating world. They have certain rules by which they play. I’ve listed the most obvious ones and I’ve tried to make a few suggestions as to how you can spot whether he is following them…

Rule #1: Be smooth

Did you know that men have Google too? Yes, they simply type in the words “how to get a girl to have sex with you” and BOOM! 814,000,000 results!! Step by step articles on how to manipulate us. The first step from the first article  in this search goes like this:

            #1 Let her see your great side. If you want to have sex with a girl, you        definitely have to be good enough to get her attention. If she thinks    you’re desirable and everything she wants in a great guy, half your         work’s cut out for you already.

You then have the option to go to an article with the heading 10 things women want in a perfect man to tell men exactly what we are looking for. Hell, the founder of The Modern Man, Dan Bacon, even has a website where you can subscribe to his emails and videos. Read his article How To Be A Player: Get Laid, Be Loved and Have Fun! And so their practicing starts.

A player will say all the things you want to hear. Don’t feel flattered that a man says all the right things. It comes from years of practice. He's made all the big mistakes and has plenty of experience with smoothing things over. He knows what you want to hear, because he's learned well from his previous enablers. Don't add yourself to the list.

My one friend, Angie, met this guy and he said the most amazing things. When she asked about the fact that he previously had only dated older women he responded that it didn’t matter that she was younger because she was “perfect for him”. He also told her that he “could see how one could love her”. Of course this was enforced by the daily messages where he addressed her as ‘sexy lips’, ‘sunshine’ and all sorts of freaky names. He would tell her how much he missed her, thought about her and couldn’t wait to see her again. He was good.

Players do this to achieve that euphoric feeling with your response because their ego will have got its much needed feeling of power and control. Fundamentally, players are scared and feel unlovable so they are drawn to many intense, short relationships rather than longer, more sustained attachments which would expose their vulnerability.

Now, when I asked Angie whether she thought the guy was a player, she said no. He didn’t fit the profile of having many short relationships. This guy had been in a 7 year relationship which ended when his ex-fiancée left him for someone with the same name as him and was married a few months later. Okay, so he had his heart broken and has some damage… but according to Ruth Jones in an article on the Psychology of Dating he can still be a player.

 “Often they've had their heart broken, or they're just not getting results on the dating scene. If we're too needy and don't have high self esteem, it makes us unattractive, so the player is often someone with low self esteem who seeks to compensate through manipulation”

I think what really scares me is the fact that both guys my friends came into contact with played the “God card”. Chantel had a particularly bad experience since the guy she had been seeing kept saying that he had been praying for her for such a long time. He felt that God had ordained the relationship. He even sat down and read Bible with her while they prayed over the relationship. This is such a dangerous type of man – a man that doesn't allow ethical or moral consideration to stand in the way of his ultimate goal. He was talking about settling down and making it official. He even introduced her to his parents!

Rule #2: Deny, deny, deny!

Players instinctively play offense from the start, in the hope you might be gullible enough to believe what you hear, rather than what you see. So, if a guy comes right out and tells you that he’s not a player…run!

Rule #3: Keep her interested

A player pays just enough attention to make you crave more, but little enough to make you wonder how interested he really is. This ploy is designed to make you want more - which is what most of us end up doing - and some of us will go out of your way to get his attention via methods you wouldn't normally lower yourself to. That's exactly what he wants - you crawling on your knees for his attention.

Both of my friends could attest to this fact. They never knew exactly where they were standing with the guys.

Rule #4: Sex

These guys are so good in bed that many women will overlook the crap he pulls, just to get the chance to play house with him. Not every man who is good in bed is a player, obviously, but if he is, and if he's also got any of the previous traits, he's probably a player. Unfortunately, this trait is desirable enough that many women are willing to overlook the other traits, if only for a period of time.

Rule #5: Keep the communication to a minimum.

Players don’t want you to become too attached. So they don’t text you first. Chantel spent days wondering whether her boyfriend had arrived safely when he went on a business trip. Unless there's a very good reason, if a man doesn't answer your messages/email/phone call within 24 hours, he's playing a game. And the men who deny the truth of that statement by claiming that some men are just too busy...? They're full of shit. If you really like someone, or claim to love someone, you can find a minute to at least send a SMS to them. No one is that busy! If your man does this on a regular basis, he's playing games.

In the book He’s Just Not That Into You, Greg Behrendt writes:

“Calling when you say you're going to call is the very first brick in the house you are building of love and trust. If he can't lay this one stupid brick down, you ain't never gonna have a house, baby.”

Rule #6: Shift the blame

Players love to make you feel like you're overreacting when you're not. So, Chantel asks her boyfriend why he has been avoiding coming over to her place or why he didn’t call her when he said he would. He then replied by pointing out that she was being clingy and had unresolved issues from the past.

So, what happened with my friends?

Angie had her heart broken when the guy she was seeing bailed at the first mention of heading towards a relationship. She has not received a single message from him. So much for that “you’re perfect for me” mumbo-jumbo.

Chantel had a sneaking suspicion that something major was wrong after her boyfriend after months suddenly became distracted and distant. He didn’t contact her for days and when she made plans or needed him to be there for family commitments he flaked. Her intuition beckoned her to check the dating site on which they met…to find his profile was re-activated and he had updated his information. She left him and called him out by his name, Mr. Manipulator. You can read her rant from the breakup here. Another heart broken.

I love the advice and warning in 2 Timothy 3:1-7 which to my mind at least, serves as some really good advice for single ladies. Please go and read the whole part but see if you can identify something of a player type in these passages:

  

‘they will love pleasure rather than God;⁵ they will hold to the outward form of our religion, but reject its real power. Keep away from such people. ⁶ Some of them go into people's houses and gain control over weak women who are burdened by the guilt of their sins and driven by all kinds of desires” (GNT)

Ladies, you know that verse that is thrown at us from a very early age in church from Proverbs 4:23 (NLT)

 Guard your heart above all else,
    for it determines the course of your life.

I think it’s time to cling to that one again. Do not trust someone else to guard your heart for you. As you begin to unravel the history of a player in their roles, they will show you the signs of what they are presenting to you. Make sure you are aware of the red flags being presented to you and try to identify if he might be playing by the players’ rules. Don't settle for a game when you deserve someone real.