There are a lot of different approaches when it comes to the psychology of dating. The prevailing wisdom, at least for men, seems to call for playing it cool, perhaps even cold, to encourage the appearance of being a sought-after commodity. This requires either a superior poker face, or an abundance of self-assurance and cockiness on the guy's part, which I suppose aren't two qualities lacking in men out there, at least in proportion to women. (In my experience anyway.) Women, I'm told, like a challenge. There is even another school of thought that calls for the man to actually put down a woman, in order to, I suppose, make her somewhat reliant on him for approval. Men who subscribe to this theory spend considerable amounts of time memorizing patterns, lines and subtle (and even not-so-subtle) put-downs in order to land their prey.

The usual reaction to the latter concept is disgust, or at least cynical resignation. I suppose it hinges on what you see as your ideal relationship state, and lately the majority of the population seems to accept that an "equal" (i.e., no partner is superior or subservient to the other) relationship is the best, and I would be inclined to agree. However, I recall vividly learning at an early age that among my friends and family, there was always one parent who handed out punishments and one who was more yielding. I am thinking specifically of my friend Beth, whose mother was clearly the disciplinarian in the family, in stark contrast to my own parents, where my father usually fulfilled that role. (S'funny the things that stick out, innit?) As far as I could tell, the parent who wielded the belt was also the one who wore the pants in the relationship as well. For obvious reasons, it's hard to say for sure, but that certainly was the case between my parents.

In my own relationships, though, the amount of control I had (or felt like I had) seemed to correspond directly to the amount I was interested in my partner. Basically, if I felt like I could walk away without any real emotional entanglement, then I guess I had little concern about how my actions affected my partner. (For the record, I have never been so mercenary or callous to completely disregard a girlfriend's feelings, I'm just describing the ratio.) This isn't a situation exclusive to romance, by any means: They say the best kind of job to have is the one you can walk away from at any moment without fear or adverse effects. Though it didn't start that way, this was definitely the case with my last employer, where they literally owed me thousands of dollars at the end there, and when the layoffs came, I was happy to walk out the door. The bullshit far outweighed the benefit derived from the paycheck.

Problem is, now I find myself in the complete opposite situation. (In more ways than one, but let's just stick to romance here.) My initial instincts were correct -- I was immediately attracted to this girl -- and I'm having a hard time keeping it in check. Not because I want to appear "cool," but because I would like to avoid drooling on her like a puppy that doesn't get out much. I've posed the question to a few friends now, but I still haven't gotten a satisfactory answer: Which does a woman prefer, to be presented with a challenge and have to pursue, or to have a guy come out and remove all doubt? To rephrase, is it better to seem detached or to confess to strong feelings?

The answer, of course, is that there is no answer. Every woman, every situation is different, and you can only get the promise (not the guarantee) of improved results with a certain approach, but whatever that approach is, I haven't figured it out. Even if I had, it wouldn't matter, because it would imply a certain detachment from the pursued, and what's the point in dating if you don't feel anything?

Having a unified approach does give some reassurance, I suppose. To use an analogy, say that you always land a plane the same way (let's say, with plane right-side up), you're guaranteed a certain consistency in your results. Other things may go wrong, the runway could be unpaved or poorly marked, but you'll always have your landing gear facing the right direction.

Christ, I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore...

To use a more concrete example from my own life, in one situation where I had strong feelings for a woman, I (some would say, rightly, stupidly) didn't tell her my feelings, instead hoping my actions would be evidence enough. This, as you can imagine, didn't turn out well, but I was young and dumb as blind housepainter. So the next time, having learned my lesson, I informed the woman in question of my feelings. Theoretically, this should have improved my chances, but it didn't work that time either. Still, my chances were improved by being up-front, I guess, and its been my policy every since. Not that the situation has come up since then, but it's policy nonetheless.

Still, the quandary remains. I suppose it's still too soon to tell. I hardly know her, relatively speaking, but I'm also not used to feeling something this strong this soon. It concerns me that it could just be a reaction to extended emotional solitude, but it's almost impossible to say. It's not like I can set up a control group and an experiment group.

The most solid advice I've gotten so far is to play it cool a bit longer, and then spill my guts. There are quite simply too many variables to judge her reaction, and at this point I mostly just hope that I get the chance to play things out. It all just seems like so many games to me, but every time I say I'm not going to get caught up in those kind of things, inevitably that little voice comes along and restrains my instincts until I've overthought everything to death. It's not hard to see why people hate dating: It's exhausting...