Are You a Chaser or a Chasee in Dating?

Knowing what you are will help you figure out your compatibility

On paper, Cody seemed great.

He was real boyfriend material. He was respectful, kind, and attentive.

More importantly, he was interested in me.

But being with him always felt a little weird because he was so reluctant to make a move.

I met him at a party and he gravitated to me. We spent the night talking, but there was a strange energy to our conversation. He seemed to like me, but for some reason I just couldn’t feel certain about it.

As the night was ending, I realized that the little connection we formed was about to end, too. So, I took the initiative and gave him my email address so we could stay in touch.

We spent a few days talking over MSN Messenger and he invited me to another party. He found me as soon as he got there. Instead of wandering through the crowd, we snuck out a window and spent the night sitting on the roof talking.

This time, he took the initiative. Before we parted ways, he gave me an awkward hug. That was followed by some uncomfortable silence. Then, he said “Fuck it, I’m just going to do it” and kissed me.

I guess that sort of, kind of made it official. We were dating.

And that was the last time he made a big move.

Cody clearly liked me and took what we had seriously. He called me all the time. He came over to my place on a whim. He inserted himself into my life the way a boyfriend would, even though we weren’t officially exclusive.

But there wasn’t much chemistry between us, and approximately zero passion.

He was timid and not very flirtatious. And after that first kiss, he never initiated physical contact.

I kept signaling to him that I wanted more. I dropped some extremely strong hints that he could push things along. But he never did anything about them.

Over time, things just fizzled out.

I never fully understood why things didn’t work out with Cody. He was a decent guy and I liked him enough. He was clearly interested in me. He gave me the kind of availability I was looking for in a boyfriend. But we just didn’t click. There was just something missing.

When I look back on it now, I know exactly why things couldn’t last between us. Cody wasn’t a chaser. And I wasn’t one, either.

You Need the Chase

I always loved the feeling of being pursued by someone I liked. But until recently, I didn’t know it was something I needed.

There’s a lot that goes into having good chemistry with someone, but one of the fundamental parts of it is whether that person is a chaser or a chasee. If there’s a mismatch on that level, it’s going to be hard to get anything going. And for things to work out, there has to be at least one chaser.

The way I see it, chasers are the ones who will initiate contact and escalate intimacy. They’re the ones who will flirt overtly, pursue explicitly, and seduce the ones they want.

The chasees are the ones who give the green light to all that activity. They show interest in someone and signal that they’re open to their advances. If seduction is a cat and mouse game, they’re the mice.

I imagine there are a lot of people out there who can code switch when it comes to chasing. They can chase their love interest, but then allow themselves to be chased by the next one. Or they can pursue and seduce their partner sometimes, and let them do the chasing at other times.

But some people are really far on either end of the spectrum.

My husband’s one of them. He’s pretty far on the chaser side. In our sexual dynamic, he’s the one who does the pursuing and initiating. When there’s passion between us, it’s because he fires it up.

That’s something he needs. He tells me that not pursuing someone kind of makes him lose interest in them — at least romantically. If someone took such an active role in pursuing him that they didn’t leave him enough room to chase them, he wouldn’t feel invested in it.

I’m on the opposite end. I’m a dyed in the wool chasee.

I’ve done a little chasing in my life, when I wanted someone badly enough. But it never felt natural. It never lasted, partly because chasing someone doesn’t give me the dynamic I need in a relationship.

For me, at least, being a chasee comes down to self-esteem issues. I tend to think people don’t like me, because I tend not to like me. I have social anxiety that runs so deep, I’m terrified of being where I’m not wanted, and I usually assume I’m not wanted.

No matter how much I try to change those thought patterns, that’s just the way my brain works. It assumes other people don’t like me but are just keeping me around because it would be awkward to ask me to leave. Or maybe they’re doing it as some kind of favor to me — give the dorky girl a little attention because it’s the nice thing to do.

Unless I see lots of clear signs that someone wants me around, that’s the kind of spiral I go into. Because of that, I need a lot of reassurance. So, I pay attention to how often they initiate conversation. I look for patterns in their behavior. I look for evidence that my presence is welcome, because I can’t assume that it is.

When it comes to sexual and romantic relationships, I specifically look for signs that I’m being chased.

Chasing behavior gives me everything I need in order to be comfortable and at ease. It shows that I’m desired, not just available and convenient. It tells me I’m appreciated, not just tolerated. And it makes me feel like the person chasing me is trying to draw me in, not gently nudging me away, wondering why I won’t just take the hint and leave them alone already.

When I’m not being chased, I don’t have those things. I just have anxiety and this overwhelming sense that I’m not wanted.

I know to a chaser, all of this probably sounds super lazy and one-sided. But I do put a lot of effort into being chased.

When I like someone, I spend a lot of time and mental energy projecting that. I convey subtle but quite clear signals that I like them. It’s kind of coy and it often comes across as shy. But it’s me giving them the green light to proceed. It’s giving them an opening and encouraging them to take it. It’s carefully choosing my words and my expressions so I can entice them to pursue me. It’s going out of my way to do all sorts of little things to show that I like them and I hope they like me back.

It’s inviting them to initiate and escalate, because if I was the one doing those things, it wouldn’t feel right. Something would always be missing.

That’s what happened to me and Cody. We were both chasees. We both needed the other to move things along. So, eventually we just stalled and then came to a complete stop.

Know Your Dynamic

I recently had a situation with a guy. It always seemed to be heading somewhere, but it never ended up going anywhere.

He’d draw me in, but then would make me feel kind of unwanted. He would start conversations and then I felt like he was kind of dropping them. I kept wondering why he was constantly talking to me even though he seemed to have no real interest in me.

At one point, he told me that he liked me. I told him I liked him, too. And then a whole lot more nothing happened.

Then, I realized what was going on.

He dropped all the little hints that he was interested in me. He made coy comments. He sent suggestive texts and vaguely flirty emojis.

He was doing all the things I do when I like someone.

And he was expecting me to chase him.

I liked him, but that’s just not a role I could play. I can’t do the chasing.

So, in the end, it never went anywhere because neither of us could really move things ahead. We were both waiting to be chased. We were like two traffic lights flashing green at each other but staying firmly rooted in place.

Coming to that realization helped me let go and move on. We just weren’t built for each other.

Without a chaser, there just can’t be any chemistry. So, there was no point in trying to force it.

That’s something I wish I had realized earlier. If I had really understood that there can’t be a strong spark between two chasees (or at the very least, I can’t have a strong spark with another chasee), it could’ve spared me a lot of anxiety and a little heartache.

If you know whether you’re more of a chaser or a chasee, it can help you figure out who’s compatible with you. It might also help you understand why things just don’t seem to go anywhere with that person you’re dating or the situationship you’re in.

Sometimes, we try so hard to make things work. But when you see that your dynamic is off, you might realize you’re probably better friends than partners.

And if you could go either way, figure out what role you need to play. If the person you like needs to be chased, show them a lot of active interest. Otherwise, they might just end up being the one who got away.

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