Recently, a co-worker of mine told me that he has met somebody. A woman to be exact. He’s been texting with her, talking on the phone with her, and talking to her via Facetime or some other video service. He’s been enjoying their banter, and it sounds like in many ways, they have hit it off.

Why hasn’t he physically met her yet? Because she lives in another state.

He reached out to me a little while ago to tell me what I’m telling you, Dear Reader. Apparently, they have hit a “snag.” They have been planning on meeting up, and she had to tell him that she’s short on funds. Things happen, the unexpected shows up, and life throws you a curveball. You can’t plan for every eventuality. When he told me about the latest setback, all I could was say, “Ugh. That’s a tough call.”

It’s a tough call for him. Not for me. I know what I would do in this particular situation, but he didn’t ask me, “Rob, what would you do?” He didn’t ask me, “Hey man, what do you think I should do?” He simply stated that he “doesn’t know what to do” in this situation. As far as I’m concerned, “I don’t know what to do,” and “what should I do?” or “what would you do?” are completely different things. In fact, saying “I don’t know what to do,” isn’t a question. It’s a statement.

I have travelled to be with women before.

One time, I met up with one woman in Vegas, which then turned into her coming to Salt Lake, followed up by me going to where she lived, in Seattle.

The other time I flew from Salt Lake to Delaware to be with a woman.

I had a great time with both women.

That’s because they were invested.

I’m a risk assessor by nature. If the risk outweighs the reward, I’m not going to do it. End of story. That’s where investment comes in. By investment, I mean her investment.

Texting me results in getting a text or two back. Calling me gets you a phone call. Same with video chat. All of those are low risk, low investments.

I’m willing to travel to meet women. I’ve done it before and I’ll most certainly do it again. IF…

She’s invested enough.

The further I have to travel, the more money I may need to spend, the more logistics I need to put up with and go through, require more investment from her.

Low investment from her = low traveling radius from me.

I met a woman a couple of years ago, “Amanda.” Besides the things I talk about in that particular post, I look back and realize that “Amanda” was “low investment” on her end. I’m not going to drive 2 1/2 hours each way for a “hug and a handshake.” It’s too high of a risk for me and isn’t worth my time, money, or energy. That’s why I have a 25 mile radius in general. I’ll drive up to 25 miles or approximately a half hour each way to meet someone, only to get a “hug and a handshake.” Anything beyond that radius is going to require some sort of investment from her.

I realize that there are no 100% guarantees that I’m going to go somewhere and get laid. She absolutely has the right and ability to change her mind. In fact, I have the right and ability to change my mind. That happened one time, probably back in 2004 or 2005, I don’t remember exactly. I do remember meeting a woman online and she was decent looking enough, and she invited me over to her place.

I took a shower, shaved, put on good clothes, brushed my teeth, packed a condom or three, and headed out. She answered the door with her hair in a ponytail. She was wearing a stained T-shirt and sweatpants that looked like they needed to be washed. And she had Dorito breath. The crazy thing is, she had a beautiful home.

I was repulsed by what I saw and my desire for sex dropped to subzero. I talked politely with her for about 10 minutes and then I went home. If she couldn’t bother with the bare minimum, I couldn’t bother to fuck her.

The point is, I realize that there’s no 100% chance you are going to get laid. It happens. Whether she backs off for whatever reason, or you back off for whatever reason. But I do like to “hedge my bets.” And that’s where investment comes in.

She’s willing to pay for her own transportation, or drive herself to meet me? That’s investment. She’s willing to let me come to her house on the first “date?” That’s investment. She’s willing to come to my house, knowing why I’m inviting her there, and she shows up? That’s investment. She’s willing to pay for her own airfare to meet me somewhere? That’s investment. She’s willing to let me spend the night/weekend/week at her place, or she books us a room? That’s investment.

“Amanda” was not willing to come to me, so I gave her the option that I could come to her. “Called her bluff,” so to speak. That’s when I got a bunch of bullshit from her. She simply wasn’t willing to invest. So I never went. It’s really too bad for her, and for me too, we both could have had a great weekend of sex, food, and sightseeing. But alas.

I just had a woman reach out to me over the weekend. She found my phone number on one of my dating profiles. Yes, I do that. I’m willing to put that out there. Most women don’t have the guts to text or call, but the ones that do are usually worth my time. She actually tried to call me first, but it went to voicemail because when I go to bed, there’s only a couple of contacts that go through, everyone else gets voicemail. She then texted me right after. I woke up to that. Now, that’s not huge investment, but it’s enough for me to realize that she’s real, interested in me, and worth a text or two.

I got back to her and her english was impeccable. No english as a second language from her. That’s a good sign. She bantered and flirted like a normal human being, and then suggested we exchange photos. I told her, “you first,” and she complied. She was okay, but not great. We continued to talk and she suggested that we meet for drinks. (Do you guys understand investment yet?) I found out she lived outside my 25 mile radius. And that would have been totally okay, except…

I wasn’t attracted to her.

I’m almost positive that had I found her attractive, we would have met up, had a drink or two and a few laughs, followed up by having sex. But she didn’t do “it” for me. I had to pass. She didn’t “get my dick hard” as BullRush likes to say.

Like I said, I’m willing to travel to meet women. I call it “Sex and Sightseeing.” The sightseeing part isn’t mandatory. I’m perfectly fine with staying in a bed and never seeing the sun if the sex is there. Ideally I would like both though. The girl from Seattle and I saw a bunch of Vegas besides having sex. She got to see some of Salt Lake when she came here, and I got to see a bunch of Seattle. Sex was on the menu for all visits.

Same with the woman in Delaware. I got to see some places and some stuff that I would have never seen. That’s the only time I have been to Delaware so far. If “Amanda” had been more invested, she could have showed me around her town, but since she wasn’t…. Now that I think about it, there was a woman, the same year that I was in contact with “Amanda,” that lived about 3 hours south of me. She contacted me first and seemed interested (investment) but alas, the investment wasn’t enough for me to make a 6 hour round trip drive. I’m not going that far for “a hug and a handshake.”

When I first got divorced, I did a Tarot reading for a woman. I don’t remember now what I said or what she asked. But I do remember that she contacted a mutual friend of ours and wanted to know my “status.” Apparently I left a “mark” on her. Fast forward a couple of weeks and she showed up to my house, wrapped her arms and body around mine as we kissed, started stripping as she walked up my stairs, and asked me which direction to my bedroom. She lived 2 hours away, round trip. Not only is that desire, that’s investment.

Getting back to the guy I work with:

There have been some minor setbacks as to them meeting up. He also mentioned some things about her that in my mind, make her sound a little “skittish.” I don’t know her and all the information that I have about her is coming from him, so it’s second hand to me. What I do know, from my own perspective at least, is that she has less investment in what they are doing than he does.

She’s run into money issues, and from what he told me, he’s considering flying her out to him.

Personally, I wouldn’t do that. If he’s making all the arrangements and footing the tab, that’s less of an investment that she has to make. She could flake or ghost, and he’s left with a lighter wallet. Or worst case, she shows up, either he or she, or both, realize, “Yeah, it’s not gonna happen.” Or, maybe it does, but now she doesn’t want to leave. Or maybe she can’t leave. Not because of him, but because of money, timing, etc.

My thoughts is one of two things:

They either postpone their meetup until she has the money to fly herself to a middleground, if that is what they’re thinking, or he offers to go to her. And if she balk’s, hesitates, or gives some sort of bullshit answer? Well, there’s your answer.

Investment is a thing that I look for when it comes to sex and dating. I know it’s never a 100% guarantee that it will happen. But I want to get as close to 100% as I can possibly get it.

One last thing:

I’m okay with meeting women with a low investment if I happen to be in the same area that they happen to be in. What I mean is something like this:

I’m travelling abroad, and it has nothing to do with a woman. I happen to be in a city/state/town that she also happens to be in. She realizes that and hits me up. “Oh hey! You are (here?)” Or “You’re going to be (here?) We should meet up!” And if I have the time, I’ll meet up with her. If it turns into hot monkey sex? That’s a bonus. If it ends in a “hug and a handshake,” that’s okay too. Her low investment is fine, because she wasn’t the reason that I was in town.

If I’m going specifically to meet a woman though, I need a certain amount of investment from her.