Getting an ex back is no easy feat, but what if I told you that it’s actually possible to make your ex chase you?

No, I don’t have a magic bullet phrase or grand gesture for you, but I do have psychological insights to help you get there.

Today we’re going to look at the perfect psychological cocktail of scenarios, events, or factors that you need to accomplish to maximize the chances of having your ex chase you.

Each of these factors is based on real-life research from psychologists and backed by several success stories from our own program. So let’s dive deeper into the 4 main factors that make up the psychology of making an ex chase you.

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Girlfriend Back?

Take the quiz

What Factors Cause Human Beings to Chase After One Another Romantically?

As stated above I believe there are four key factors that are directly responsible for making an ex chase you.

1. Playing hard to get
2. Misattribution of emotions
3. The newness factor
4. Self fulfilling attachment circle

Let’s do an in-depth analysis of each of these factors so you have a complete understanding of them.

Factor #1: Playing Hard to Get

We all have some understanding of what playing hard to get means, but let’s hear from an expert:

“Playing hard to get makes it seem as if you are more in demand—we call that having higher mate value,” says Harry Reis, a professor of psychology and Dean’s Professor in Arts, Sciences & Engineering at Rochester.

The best way to steep this in reality is by understanding the basic law of demand and supply. Let’s look at the most obvious example of demand-supply interactions – black Friday.

I’m sure we all get similar flashbacks or visions when we imagine black Friday – 500 people trampling each other for 100 new TV sets at 50% off. Black Friday sale rushes are a legendary mess for a reason – there is too much demand and not enough supply because everyone wants the same thing – the best deal!

The same can be said for relationships:

As long as your supply (availability) is low and the demand is high, you are perceived as having a higher value.

Now, what seems to trip most people up is that their ex inherently knows supply is high when they go through a breakup. They know you want them back, especially if you exhibited anxious behaviors after the breakup, like begging for your ex back, showing up on their doorstep trying to ask for them back, getting jealous, etc. All those anxious behaviors make your supply way too high, and that’s not attractive.

The best tip to not seem too easy: Act not as available.

Many men struggle with this because they’re always picking up their phone on the first ring or texting back immediately when their ex contacts them.

Stop – let that phone ring, and let that text go unanswered.

You do not want your ex to think you’ve been staring at your phone, waiting for them to reach out. If you wait to respond, it’ll show that you have other things going on and aren’t as available. All of a sudden, demand goes up because your ex knows the supply is going down.

How else can you show your ex that you’re not in high supply?

• Date other people -You don’t even have to date to find love, but you should still go on dates with other people to show your ex that you’re not just waiting around for them!
• Emotionally move on- This is more internal, but it’s absolutely necessary to show your ex that you’re over them emotionally. This is the key to success in the no contact rule and the next point.
• Suddenly end conversations – Here comes my famous quote – it doesn’t really matter who starts the conversation; what matters is who ends it.

If you want to show your ex you’re not in high supply, you need to engage them in a pleasing conversation and then suddenly drop out of the conversation. That’s very difficult to do if you haven’t gotten over your ex emotionally.

When I say you should get over your ex, I don’t mean kick them to the curb and never think about them again. I’m saying you need to get to a place emotionally where you’re going to be okay knowing you may not get them back, and that’s fine.

Accepting that will give you unparalleled levels of confidence that you need to have your ex chase after you.

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Girlfriend Back?

Take the quiz

Factor #2: The Misattribution of Emotions

This is probably one of my favorite concepts ever. It was popularized by an MIT behavioral economist named Dan Ariely. Here’s the gist of the concept:

Sometimes we have an emotion, and we don’t know where it’s coming from, so we stick it onto something that seems sensible.

We basically misattribute those emotions onto something that makes sense for the scenario that we’re in. This research was done by surveying audiences of a specific band. The audience was asked to rate each band member’s attractiveness without hearing them perform.

The band performed and went on an intermission, and the researchers asked the audience to rate them all again. All band members got higher attractiveness scores after the performance.

Why?

People felt so moved, touched, or excited with their performance that they attributed those positive emotions to the band members – thereby increasing their attractiveness score.

Now, this can also backfire, so you have to be careful when using it. I don’t remember exactly who shared this anecdote but it went something like this: a man arranged an adventurous date day filled with guided adrenaline-packed activities so his date would misattribute those positive feelings with him. However at the end of the day his date ended up misattributing those exciting feels with the hot tour guide!

Here’s our ultimate point though if you want your ex to chase you and you want to take advantage of misattribution of emotions concept, here’s what you should do:

Do something exciting or fun or romantic with your ex that will create feelings within them.

Just do something that elicits positive emotions that your ex can stick on to you, and they will keep chasing you to get those feelings again!

Factor #3: The Newness Factor

We live in a society where we are obsessed with new things. When we google something and see an article from a mere week ago, we think “that sold news, what’s new?”. This is true in every single facet of our life. Everyone is in a race to get a new car, new house, new girlfriend, or boyfriend. So how can you create that allure of newness for an ex who already knows you?

Well, at its core, a breakup is someone admitting they can do better than you and find someone more interesting who can fit their needs better. Ultimately you need to tap into the newness factor by finding and revealing new layers to yourself that your ex hasn’t peeled back.

One of the most interesting insights we had when we actually interviewed someone going through a breakup was the reason for the breakup – expectations versus reality. Basically, they thought this person was deeper than they were, but when they peeled back all the layers and got to the center to see not much there, it was a turn-off. So what you can do is add new facets to yourself that you’ve never talked to your ex about, creating new layers for them to discover.

Factor #4: The Self-Fulfilling Attachment Circle

Most of the time, breakups happen due to mismatched attachment styles. Here’s a quick rundown of the 4 main attachment styles:

1. Secure attachment: The holy grail that everyone should strive towards. It entails being self-confident and not reliant on a relationship for your self-worth.
2. Anxious attachment: Anxious attachment style entails anxious behavior like obsessively calling or texting an ex after a breakup and trying to “fix” things prematurely because your self-worth and identity are tied to your relationship.
3. Avoidant attachment: Avoidant attachment style is characterized by hyper-independence that is threatened by emotional intimacy. These people enjoy their own space so much that they push people away.
4. Fearful attachment: Fearful attachment combines the worst parts of both anxious and avoidant attachment styles.

Interestingly, most of our clients tend to have anxious attachment styles, whereas their exes tend to have avoidant attachment styles, creating a self-fulfilling attachment circle. So you have this constant push and pull between people with anxious attachment styles and avoidant attachment styles.

The anxious party will often complain that their partner is not reciprocal with their love. In response, the avoidant will often shut down or use the silent treatment because they don’t know how to respond and feel frightened of emotional intimacy.

Ultimately, avoidants accuse their anxious counterparts of smothering them, and they break up. Then the cycle flips.

We know that avoidant exes only begin to miss you and romanticize about their past relationship after you have moved on. That’s why we recommend that people with anxious attachment styles focus on moving on so their exes can start to have nostalgia about their times together!

One of the best things you can do psychologically to help win your ex back is quite literally to get over them because you will then emit the proper signals that will make your ex chase you.

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Girlfriend Back?

Take the quiz

Conclusion:

Four main factors go into making an ex chase you:

1. Playing hard to get – the less available you are, the more your ex will want you
2. Misattribution of emotions – take your ex on an adventurous date, so they associate those positive emotions with you
3. The newness factor – reveal new layers of yourself for your ex to peel back
4. The self-fulfilling attachment circle – reverse your anxious attachment style by getting over your ex so they can miss you