I was lying in bed and a man I’ve been seeing for a while was teaching me his sheet trick, his own personal system for making a bed. He was standing there demonstrating hospital corners and I was watching his hands, thinking about what those hands were doing 30 minutes ago. I was also genuinely learning something about sheet folding. I trust this man completely and it took a while to get here—and that’s what I want to talk about.

I was watching three dating shows at once because I have ADHD and the remote was too far away. One where they sleep in the same bed, one where they couldn’t see each other, and one with a big age difference. Different shows, different networks, and every single man on every single one of them had the same complaint: she wants too much of my time. He feels suffocated and she’s been his girlfriend for 11 days. Then comes the speech: “I need space.” 

If I could tell each of these men one thing it would be: If you’re annoyed with her now, you’ll never make it.

I suspect that most of these men know this, and that’s exactly why they’re asking for space. They’re not invested in the relationship, but are too chickenshit to actually say so. Instead, they lean on the stereotype of the clingy woman, clamoring for the man’s attention. First, if every woman you date feels like too much, that’s worth looking at, not because something is wrong with you but because the pattern is telling you something and the pattern is usually right. You’re probably picking the wrong kind of people.

But let’s say that you found someone you like, and you think she might be great if only she’d ease up a bit. It’s totally valid to want some time to yourself, especially before you really know someone. So let’s talk about why she wants your time when you first start dating, because there are real reasons and they’re not the ones you think, and most of them will go away if you let them.

I’m about to hit you with some unsexy statistics. Fifty-seven percent of women have been harassed by someone they were on a date with, and 97 percent take safety precautions before a first date. This means that while you’re deciding between the blue shirt and the gray shirt, she’s texting her best friend an address and a physical description of you in case she goes missing. If you don’t want to hear that women are biologically attracted to you and afraid of you, I can’t help you. You must care for her.

So after that first date, after she survived and you seem decently normal, she wants your time because she’s vetting you. She needs to be around you because proximity is the only way her nervous system can figure out whether she can fall asleep next to you and wake up okay, and that information doesn’t come through a text message. It comes from being in a room with you, feeling your hand on her back when you walk somewhere together, watching your face when you don’t know she’s looking.

Dopamine is also doing a lot of the work here and it’s the same chemical that makes you check your sports bet nine times before lunch, so when she seems a little obsessed with seeing you again, her brain is running a background check she didn’t consciously sign up for. She’s not obsessed with you specifically, she’s obsessed with the uncertainty of you, and the only way to resolve uncertainty is proximity.

You want to speed this up? Touch her, and I don’t mean sex, I mean put your fingers in her hair during a movie, your hand on her thigh when you’re driving, come up behind her in the kitchen and just stand there for a second with your arms around her while she’s doing something mundane. Fifteen seconds rubbing her shoulders while she’s brushing her teeth will do more for your relationship than any dinner you’ve ever planned because she is collecting safety information through physical contact and doesn’t even know she’s doing it. And notice what she does, not just what she says. She rearranges your bookshelf, she buys the coffee you like, she remembers your mom’s birthday. See it and say something. That tells her nervous system that this one is paying attention and paying attention might mean safety.

There is a rhythm to every relationship and there will be many times when one of you is hot while the other one is cold. Sometimes you need more from her and she needs space and sometimes she’s the one reaching for you while you want to be alone and the whole thing moves like a tide for years. You figure it out because you actually like each other, and you want them to be happy and have an easy life. That’s what love turns into if you let it get there, not the dopamine version but the real one, where you’re folding laundry next to someone and neither of you is talking and it’s the best part of your day.

Once she understands you more and sees that you won’t make her feel unsafe, she will practically push you out the door. You will beg her to watch a movie and she’ll choose the other room. You’ll text from a bar and she’ll write back four hours later with “ha.” The woman who wanted to see you every night will ask you to take the kids somewhere because she needs the house empty, and that is a woman who finished deciding about you and chose to stay.

Teach her your sheet trick. Fold the laundry beside her. Touch her thigh. She’s almost done.