Hey Doc,

I’m 39 years young and have been a Doc Love follower for almost two years.

I met Aliza three months ago. From the beginning she texted me every day, and I know your philosophy about texting. When we were on a date she asked me why I didn’t text her back and I said that I wanted to look at her pretty eyes when I talk to her. Afterwards, the texting slowed down but didn’t stop.

Over our last two dates, Aliza and I got pretty romantically close. I thought we were moving way too fast, but regardless, she kept on texting me. I called her on a Wednesday to set up a date for Monday, but she counter-offered with a Friday date and told me she would try to make it work with her work schedule but would have to tell me on Tuesday -- which she never did.

The big change happened last weekend. I went out of town to spend it with my family and she didn’t text me. I thought that was odd. On Monday when I came back to town I called her but she seemed very distant and not at all playful. This was a week ago and she hasn’t texted me or called me at all.

I admit that I made mistakes with this girl: coming on too fast and accepting a definite maybe date.

Here’s my question: What made Aliza change? I don’t want to rationalize, but maybe she thought we were moving too fast also and now she’s slowing it down? Or maybe she’s just structured because she wanted to text all the time? Or maybe her Interest Level is going down? In other words, she has stopped pursuing me.

Doc, Aliza had been amazing right up until last week: she showed up to every single date, she touched me during the date and she laughed at my corny jokes. I don’t want to lose her. In your opinion, can I raise her Interest Level or is Aliza at 50% interest and I’m out?

Sal - who thought he did mostly everything right

Hi Sal,

Saying you wanted to look at Aliza’s pretty eyes when you talked with her was a great line. But like my cousin General Love says, “You didn’t put your foot down with her.”

Women will roll over you with this whole texting fad. They’re brainwashed by these electronic leashes we call telephones. You should have kept telling her that you would prefer to look at her beautiful eyes when you talked rather than doing all that texting that, as you can see now, accomplished absolutely nothing.

In other words, you should have nagged her until she got tired of nagging you. That way you have never gotten into the mess. But you waited too long, pal, and didn’t take control of the situation.

When you saw that Aliza was moving way too fast, why did you go along with it? 

Like my cousin Fast Eddie Love from East L.A. says, “What did she do, put a gun to your head?” Dude, why didn’t you just slow the whole thing down? If you’re a follower of mine, you know you’re supposed to just kiss the girl at her door on the first 10 dates. You’re not supposed to get “romantically close” after just a few dates.

(...and no I do not have a moral issue with sex or a religious one - sex too soon disrupts my core principle of CHALLENGE - if you want to read my take then go to my article "DOC LOVE ON SEX")

Now finally Aliza has stopped texting you. She broke the habit, but the problem is that she broke it for the wrong reason. In other words, she stopped texting you because she has low Interest Level. If she’s turned distant and not at all playful, it’s because her Interest Level has gone south.

What you should do now is call her, act as if nothing happened, and ask her out. The problem of course is that because you went for the definite maybe date, you lowered her interest.

What’s disturbing is that you have “The System” and you’ve been my follower for two years and you’re not going by my rules. What’s wrong with you, man?

What made Aliza change? Simple – all your mistakes. Again, she’s slowing it down now because her Interest Level is dropping. To you Psych majors, she’s not doing it consciously. It could be that she’s structured because she wanted to keep texting with you, but the more important issue is that her interest has plummeted.

Sal, this woman has stopped pursuing you because you pursued her too hard. In other words, you butchered Challenge and that’s why you’re out.

You might not want to lose Aliza, but she never asked you to be her boyfriend. She never asked to see you exclusively. And let me explain something to you that you apparently missed in my book: Interest Level is never 50%. It’s either above it or below it.

Remember, guys: you can’t do almost everything right – you have to do everything right.