We all want to put our best face forward, especially when we’re in the dating scene, but there is such a thing as going overboard to please women. You might think that you’re just putting in the extra effort to win a woman over, when in reality, she’s going to draw away if you reek of desperation. It’s a fine line and difficult balance to keep, but it’s absolutely necessary. You can’t let a woman know you’re too interested or hound her for attention, because that’s not how it works. Once you start dating her, it’s a different story, since you’ve closed the deal in terms of what your goal is. At the beginning, you have to watch what you’re doing and what you say. Here are some of the main warning signs we’ve encountered over the years that made us stop and check in with ourselves.

More than One Follow-up Text

Let’s take an example to convey what we mean here. You go on a date with a beautiful woman and hit it off. It’s an amazing experience, and maybe you haven’t met anyone you clicked with in a while. It’s fine to be excited and want to see her again, but rein in the enthusiasm and play it cool. The warning sign here is when you send her a text, and she doesn’t get back to you right away, so you send another one. This is when warning bells should be going off in your head. If a woman doesn’t write back to your text and you start badgering her for a response, she’s never going to write back. The simple truth is, if you text her as a follow-up to say you had a great time and ask to see her again and she never responds, she probably isn’t interested.

Extravagant Gifts

Let’s make this simple: the only time you should give an expensive or extravagant gift to a woman is if you’re married or have been dating for a long time. Under no circumstances should you be purchasing fancy gifts for a woman you’ve only just met, no matter how much you like her. Even flowers are a little much for a second date. It makes you seem like you’re in junior high school. While it’s fine to be sweet, and maybe get her a red rose or something that’s a little less over the top, be careful and play it cool, especially at the beginning. If you go all out and try to get her a necklace, for example, she’s going to think you’re a little odd. It’s too much, too quickly.

Invitations to Personal Functions

If you’ve gone on at least three dates with a woman over a period of a month – this is a good measure of when you can let your guard down a little bit – and you want to invite her to your holiday office party because everyone is brining a date, you can. Just proceed with caution. This is the absolute limit of what you should be inviting a woman you just started dating to. Weddings and other personal functions are absolutely off limits.