The Most Expensive Mixed Signals

Transcript

When Good Feels Too Good

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Have you ever felt like something sounds a little too good to be true? Not necessarily because there's anything obviously wrong with it. There are no giant red flags waving in your face. Nothing has happened yet that you can point to and say, see, I knew it. It's actually the opposite. Everything sounds good, maybe a little too good. And if you listen to my chic intuition for a while, you already know I'm a big believer in paying attention to that little feeling, not immediately running away, not creating a problem that doesn't exist, but paying attention. Because sometimes your intuition notices the question before your brain even knows what it wants to ask. And in this particular story, it starts with a man from London, a trip to New York, some wine, and eventually the most extravagant date I've ever been on. But strangely enough, none of that is the part of this story that stayed with me. It was what happened afterwards.

The Story And The Thesis

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Welcome to My Chic Intuition. I'm Carmen Ramos, and today we need to talk about what happens when everything looks right on paper. But something still feels a little off. So let me take you back to the beginning. This was

Effort That Feels Like Care

SPEAKER_01 1:25

a man from London, and from the very beginning, the level of effort was different. Every single time I went to see him, there was an Uber Black waiting for me. If we were leaving for dinner, Uber Black. Going somewhere else, Uber Black. There was never this conversation of how are you getting here? Or can you meet me there? Transportation was handled. And I know some are going to hear this and think, okay, Carmen, it's just an Uber. But it wasn't really about the Uber. It was the intention behind it. There was this feeling of, I invited you, so I'm gonna make sure you're taken care of. The night before the concert, we had wine together, we were getting to know each other, talking, and there were definitely some things I was learning that I hadn't known before. Like the fact that he had sons and that he was separated. Now, separated can mean a million different things, and I remember listening to him explain it and thinking, okay. But I also remember feeling like it was a little vague, nothing that made me want to jump up and leave, nothing where I could say this man is lying to me, just information. Information I felt like I probably should have known earlier, and I filed it away.

Intuition Quietly Takes Notes

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Because remember what I said at the beginning: sometimes intuition isn't screaming at you, sometimes it's just taking notes. Then

The $10,000 Jay-Z Seats

SPEAKER_01 3:05

came the concert. We were gonna go see Jay-Z at Yankee Stadium, and when I tell you, these were not normal concert tickets, these tickets were around ten thousand dollars. I know, and I don't think I fully understood just how VIP our seats were until we actually tried to get inside. We we went through the main lobby entrance, they scanned our tickets, and there was a problem. They couldn't figure out where we were supposed to go. Now people are looking at the tickets, someone else gets involved, then they called management, and I'm standing there thinking, what kind of tickets did this man buy? Eventually, management gets involved, and instead of somebody just pointing and saying your section is over there, we literally got escorted in. This was a moment when I realized, oh, these seats are VIP, VIP, and the entire experience was incredible. But here's the interesting part if I ended the story right there, you would probably think you already knew how the story was gonna end. Because look at the evidence. A man flies in from London, he's sending Uber Blacks. Every time he sees me, we're having wine, we're going out, he buys these insane VIP Jay-Z tickets, we're getting escorted into the concert. From the outside, girl, it sounds like somebody is interested, and that's exactly why what happened afterwards was confusing.

The Day After Energy Shift

SPEAKER_01 4:45

So now we're at the day after the concert, and this is where something changed. Not dramatically. There wasn't an argument, he didn't say anything disrespectful, there wasn't some giant red flag where I could immediately go, okay, that's it. It was just the energy. And you know when you can feel someone's energy shift before you can actually explain what's different? That's what I felt. I remember wanting to go to a rooftop. We were in New York, the weather was nice, we just had this incredible experience the night before, and in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, let's continue this, let's go have a drink, let's go enjoy the city. But he didn't really want to. And again, someone not wanting to go to a rooftop is not a red flag. Maybe you're tired, maybe you don't feel like drinking, maybe you just want to relax. There could be a hundred completely innocent reasons, but it wasn't about the rooftop, it was a feeling I got with it. Something felt off. And this is where dating can make you question yourself because your logical brain starts presenting evidence. Carmen, this man just took you to see Jay-Z. Those tickets were ten thousand dollars. He sent Uberblocks every time you saw him, he made plans, he put in the effort. So why are you suddenly feeling like he's not that interested? And that is where I think women sometimes get ourselves into trouble. Because we start using what a man has already done to explain away what we're currently feeling. We tell ourselves, but he did this, but he spent this, but he planned that, but he flew here, okay? What is he doing now? Because I started realizing something. A grand gesture can tell you that someone wanted to create an incredible experience with you, it cannot automatically tell you what that person wants from you afterward. And I didn't know what he wanted. Honestly, I still don't. Remember, I had also just found that he had sons and just found out he was separated, and the details surrounding the separation felt vague to me. So now I had all of these pieces of information floating around in my head while simultaneously feeling this little shift in his energy. Nothing I could prove, nothing I could accuse him of, just my intuition saying pay attention. Eventually he went back to London and afterward he sent me a voice note, and in the voice note he said that he wanted to keep me in touch. I'm like, okay. So again, logically, I'm thinking maybe I read too much into the rooftop thing. Maybe he really was just tired. Maybe everything is fine. He said he wants to keep in touch. Except we didn't. There was no real continuation, no consistent communication, no when am I seeing you again, no next chapter. And that's

Intensity Is Not Consistency

SPEAKER_01 7:59

when I started thinking about something that I think we confuse all the time in dating. An incredible date and an incredible dating intentions are not the same thing. Someone can give you an amazing night, they can take you somewhere beautiful, they can spend money, they can make reservations, they can send the car, they can buy ten thousand dollar tickets, they can make you feel like you're in a movie for 24 hours. And that experience can be completely real, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're building something with you. And I think that's where this story messed with my head a little bit. Because normally when somebody isn't interested, we ex we expect the signs to be obvious: low effort, cheap dates, last-minute plans, barely texting, not wanting to invest anything. But what happens when you get the complete opposite? What happens when the effort is extraordinary and the outcome is exactly the same? Nothing. That's where you have to stop measuring someone's interest only by the intensity of the experience they're giving you because intensity isn't consistency, luxury isn't intimacy, and generosity isn't necessarily emotional availability. And let me be clear, I'm not saying this was his intentions or his intentions were bad. I don't know that. I'm not saying he lied about being separated. I don't know that either. Maybe he genuinely enjoyed spending time with me. Maybe he thought there was potential and changes changed his mind. Maybe there were things happening in his personal life that I knew nothing about. Maybe he went home and simply realized that this wasn't something he wanted to pursue. That's dating. People are allowed to change their mind, but I'm also allowed to acknowledge that something felt different before I had the evidence to explain why. And that's the part I keep coming back to. My intuition didn't tell me this man is a bad person. It didn't tell me he's lying, it didn't tell me run. It just said something changed. And eventually his actions after the trip gave me enough information to understand that feeling. Not because he did something horrible, but because nothing really followed.

Closure Without An Explanation

SPEAKER_01 10:25

And maybe that's one of the hardest lessons in modern dating. You don't always get closure in the form of an explanation. Sometimes a change in behavior is the explanation. And ladies, please hear me when I say this. Don't let an amazing beginning put you in an emotional depth. A man doing something wonderful for you does not mean you now owe him unlimited benefit of the doubt. Enjoy what happened, appreciate the experience. I had an incredible time. I got dressed up, I went to an amazing concert, I sat in seats, I probably would have looked at the price of and immediately closed the browser. $10,000? Absolutely not. Good night. And I got a great story out of it. But I also got a reminder: when you're dating, don't just pay attention to how high someone can take the energy. Pay attention to whether they can sustain it. Because anybody can create a moment, consistency creates a relationship, and sometimes your chic intuition isn't there to ruin the fantasy. It's just there to remind you to keep one foot in reality. I'm

One Foot In Reality

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Carmen Ramos, and thank you for listening to my chic intuition.