She changed one thing about who got her time. That's all it took.
Priya had a type.
Tall. Charming. A little mysterious. The kind of man who walks into a room and you feel it.
She also had a pattern she couldn't break.
Four situationships in two years. Every single one started hot. Long texts. Great dates. That electric, can't-stop-thinking-about-him feeling.
And every single one ended the same way. Around month three, he'd pull back. Then came the line she could recite in her sleep. I'm just not really looking for anything serious right now.
She thought the good men were gone
By the time she came to me, Priya was tired in her bones.
She'd started believing the story so many women tell themselves. The good ones are taken. The ones who are left don't want to commit. Dating is just like this now.
But here's what I noticed when she walked me through those four men.
She picked all of them the same way. She picked them on the spark.
The flutter. The chase. The chemistry that hits in the first hour. That feeling was her green light, every time.
The one thing she changed
She didn't change her hair. Or her apps. Or her opening texts.
She changed who she gave her time to.
The spark was no longer her green light. It became just one piece of information, not the whole decision.
So when a steady, kind man asked her out, the kind she used to call "nice but boring," she said yes and stayed curious instead of bored.
And when the electric, mysterious one love-bombed her in week one, she slowed down instead of diving in.
She stopped handing her best hours to men who made her feel something fast. She started handing them to men who showed up steady.
What happened next
Within two months, the dating world looked completely different to her.
The same men were always out there. She'd just been screening them out without knowing it.
One of them, a guy named Dev who fixed bikes and called when he said he would, asked her to be his girlfriend after seven weeks.
She told me she felt a little silly for not seeing it sooner.
The lesson
The men you attract are the men you say yes to.
If the spark is the only thing that earns your time, you'll keep getting the men who are best at creating a spark. Many of them are charming on day one and gone by month three.
Commitment-ready men often don't dazzle in the first hour. They grow on you. They show up.
Think about what a big spark actually means. It means your body lit up fast. That can be real love starting. It can also be a familiar pattern from your past, dressed up as fireworks.
A lot of women get the strongest spark with the exact type who's hurt them before. The pull feels like fate. It's really just a groove worn deep.
The steady man feels quieter at first because he's new. He's not pressing the old bruise. Give him a few weeks and the quiet often turns into something far better than fireworks.
When you change what earns your yes, you change who fills your calendar.
"But I can't fake attraction I don't feel"
This is the worry I hear right after I explain the spark thing.
Women picture themselves forcing chemistry with some man they feel nothing for. That sounds awful, and I'd never tell you to do it.
That's not what Priya did. She didn't fake a thing.
She just gave the steady man more than one date before she made up her mind. With the spark men, she'd been deciding everything in the first hour.
Attraction with a good man is often slow to warm up. It's a fire that needs a few logs before it catches, not a match that flares and dies.
Dev wasn't boring. Priya just couldn't feel him yet through the noise of what she was used to.
You don't have to fake anything. You have to stay long enough for the real thing to show up. That's a very different ask.
Why the spark lies to you
Here's something most women are never told about that instant pull.
Your body doesn't spark for the man who's good for you. It sparks for the man who feels familiar.
If you grew up chasing love that ran hot and cold, a man who runs hot and cold will feel like home. Your body calls that feeling chemistry. It's really just recognition.
The steady man doesn't set off that old alarm, so your body stays quiet around him at first. You read the quiet as "no spark." It's actually safety, and safety is what real love is built on.
This is why the spark can't be your only filter. It points you straight back at the past you're trying to leave.
The question that drew the right men forward
Priya used to ask one question on every date, without even knowing it. Do I feel that pull?
It's the wrong question. It tells you who feels familiar, not who's good for you.
The question she traded it for changed everything. How do I feel about myself when I'm around him?
The spark men made her feel anxious, hungry, a little off balance. Dev made her feel calm, liked, and easy in her own skin.
Once she started asking the second question, the right men stopped looking boring. They started looking like exactly what she'd been missing.
You can ask yourself that same question after your next date. It costs you nothing, and it points you somewhere new.
There's a way to draw commitment-ready men toward you without faking a spark or playing games.
Talk soon,
Matthew Coast
P.S. The right man may already be near you, just screened out by the old filter. Here's how to start drawing him forward: show me the shift