Over the last 10 -15 years, rotational dating theory or circular dating has become the stock standard advice given to women.
“Date more men!” “Build your man funnel!” “Get more men in your rotation!”, they say.
It’s coming up to 15 years I’ve been doing this work with women in all parts of the world, and in that time I’ve also come to notice some patterns.
Which means I have noticed that in the world of relationship and dating advice, the advice generally falls into two opposing categories.
These two opposing categories come down to:
- Advice designed to make you feel less, detach more from yourself, your emotions and from other humans (but it’s disguised as other things); and
- Advice aimed at getting you to care more, attach deeper and become more vulnerable.
It makes sense that these are the two main categories of advice for women.
Women would respond to either of these extremes at different times in their life. When we have been hurt by men – it’s very tempting (and seems extremely wise) to take the advice that is designed to make you care less, and detach more (from yourself, from men, from the outcome, and from vulnerability).
Moving in the opposite direction to vulnerability (as in, detaching and being less vulnerable) is very tempting for women.
This is because we are naturally very vulnerable. If we feel revealed, it’s easy to feel out of control, because we essentially are out of control if we are feeling.
To be a woman means to be naturally vulnerable at heart in a way that men can’t replicate nor embody. Men are still vulnerable, but not in the same way that women are.
Myself and my husband, D.Shen’s advice falls mainly into the second category. This will hopefully give you a starting point towards understanding why we believe that rotational dating can be a low value strategy.
MORE: 7 Burning Signs A Man Is Being Low Value.
Just to be clear: I’m not here to tell you what to do. It’s your life and you’re free to make your own choices.
So if you feel like rotational dating (the strategy) is what you need in your life right now, go for it. I trust you to find your own way.
I’m only here for a different perspective.
The concept of a woman dating many men at once (in order to avoid getting too attached too soon) started off as the term “circular dating”, taught by Rori Raye over a decade ago.
Rori Raye was a pioneer in giving online dating advice to women, and over the last ten or more years since Rori Raye popularised the term, it has now been re-adopted and re-purposed by other gurus.
So now circular dating can be known as ‘rotational dating’, ‘quantum dating’, ‘multi dating’ or having a ‘man funnel’ (just between you and I, this last one just sounds dehumanising).
Since some women have suggested rotational dating to other women over and over in our facebook group “High Value Feminine Women: Attract & Connect with High Value Men” I wanted to shed some light on the real life consequences of having a rotation of several men that you date.
Before I do that, I just wanted to say one important thing…
Do the quiz: how commitment friendly is my man?
Dating more than one person is not the low value factor
It’s not that it’s bad to meet, talk to and get to know a few men at a time. That can be a normal part of our journey as women, I believe.
Whilst I believe there can be value in almost everything in the right context – what we don’t realise sometimes is the cost to some strategies we use.
The danger is when we consciously use rotational dating as a strategy, because often we use rotational dating to try to fix (a much deeper problem) and we use it out of fear or desperation.
Sometimes we go to rotational dating because we live in uncertainty and anxiety and so we become unable to calibrate ourselves properly to a man.
If we are going to use it as a strategy, we have to be careful and I will explain why.
So let’s explore the 8 shocking reasons why rotational dating can be a low value strategy:
#1. It throws away your natural power as a woman
…In favor of distraction.
Your real power as a woman is attaching deeper, and thereby magnifying your emotions so that you can actually genuinely calibrate yourself to a man.
Rotational dating attempts to reduce that level of attachment by nothing other than distractions; it is a distraction from what is real and raw.
It throws away your intense emotion that you experience when you start to care for a man.
And it throws away this intense emotion in favour of a manufactured, fake detachment that rotational dating promises to give you.
You might feel less intensely and detach more from any one man if you circular date.
But it comes at a huge price; you won’t have the intense emotion, depth and attachment that is actually necessary for men to fall in love with you.
You see, as a woman, it’s in your natural bias to emotionally attach deeply, and often before a man does. (See this post on the Relationship Timeline: Men Vs Women).
This is what we call the “feminine bias for early attachment”, and most women try to reduce this early attachment out of fear and misunderstanding.
But your feminine bias for early attachment is there for a good reason! It is there to HELP you inspire that deep emotional commitment from men.
We guide you through how to use your feminine bias for early attachment to ensure a that you NEVER have to be attached to a man without him being attached to you in our program “High Value Attachment”.
(The promise of this course is to help you to use your innate feminine bias for early attachment to create deeper attraction with men and inspire a deeper commitment from him without you looking needy and low value.)
If You Never Embrace Your “Feminine bias for early attachment”, Men Will Never…
Fall in love with you!
As a man, it’s his natural bias to spend less energy focused on committing to you, at least initially.
And these two opposing interests are supposed to be there. If they weren’t, you’d be more like a man and he’d be more like a woman.
And if the biases were not there, then a man would never fall in love, because your intense vulnerability wouldn’t exist.
(By the way, here’s an article I wrote on How To Be Vulnerable Without Being NEEDY.)
Here’s the bottom line:
The more men you spread your resources through different men and rotate through them, the less intense your emotion will be to the right man.
Which means the less vulnerable you will be, causing them to hang around in your life but never fall in love with you.
You see, your feminine body and responses are there for a reason.
That’s why we as women are naturally so much more emotionally sensitive than men.
It’s not a mistake, it is this way for a good reason. (It’s not a bug, it’s a feature!)
Your REAL power as a woman is your ability to connect with a man and to inspire emotions in his masculine world.
To do that you need to be vulnerable and attuned, and to be attuned, you can’t rotational date because it takes that power away from you.
When you’re not in touch, when you’re unable to trust yourself to feel, then it’s easy to become distracted by “junk food” like circular or rotational dating.
It’s easy to get distracted by multiple average men giving you attention.
As a result, you lose depth, emotion, vulnerability, heart and authenticity.
It’s like choosing to have multiple meals of junk food instead of looking for a hearty and nutritious meal that your body actually craves.
#2: It’s an over-compensation of a woman’s need to attach early.
Women attach early. It’s normal and biologically necessary for us.
MORE: Why Do I Get Attached So Easily? 6 exact Reasons Why.
It’s in our interest, because we are the ones who have to bear, breastfeed and raise babies.
There’s nothing wrong with attaching early.
It’s our birthright, and we better feel unsure, sad, and even hurt when a man we love isn’t reciprocating our level of care and attachment in the relationship.
Rotational dating to avoid feeling and weathering the uncertainty of a man’s level of investment in you, just makes us less calibrated and more distracted.
I can’t stress enough, you have every reason, every right as a woman to attach early, and it’s in your own biological interests to do so.
The Purpose Of Emotional Connection is ATTACHMENT
So, given that we naturally attach early, of course we MAY risk getting attached to the first man we have an emotional connection with!
That’s not a problem. That is in fact the purpose of having an emotional connection – attachment!
Early attachment to a man is not the problem.
It is secretly feeling unworthy of love inside yourself that is the problem.
That’s the issue that also ties into to the other big problem – insecure attachment styles.
Feeling unworthy leads us to develop behaviours that keep intimacy at bay.
Because instead of being comfortable being vulnerable and being comfortable engaging with people, we become more separate and therefore uncalibrated.
Women who operate from anxious attachment or anxious-avoidant attachment have a bigger issue in romantic relationships.
And just by rotational dating won’t fix the problem.
This is because it contracts their emotions and detaches them more from their feelings over time.
Instead, it would help more to understand your core attachment style and how to heal it. If you want to do that, you’re in the right place, because we have a women-specific quiz on attachment styles for you:
Do the quiz: What is my attachment style?
This Is What You Really Need…
Most people who struggle with new relationship anxiety or who attach too much too soon won’t benefit much from detachment. It just holds off the inevitable if you detach to try to manufacture an image of high value.
People who feel unworthy inside especially need MORE feeling, not less.
They need to be more revealed and vulnerable in order to heal.
That’s how they will eventually come to understand themselves, their past and therefore move beyond their insecure attachment style.
More on that in my article: How To Self Soothe Anxious Attachment.
Women who have an insecure attachment style tend to be on an extreme when it comes to sabotaging relationships and over-obsessing, because they literally live in this feeling in anxiousness day-in, day-out.
Women who have an anxious attachment style (which was myself), are on another level when it comes to sabotaging relationships and not trusting men, people, and relationships in general.
That’s a whole other conversation, that I’ve covered in my article “Why Do I Push People Away? Signs You Push People Away & How To Stop.”
But attaching earlier than a man does is perfectly normal and it leads the relationship into a realm of deeper connectedness.
Because the woman is forced to feel and be vulnerable. This vulnerability allows her to inspire a man to fall in love with her!
And so, the more detached and emotionally removed you are – the less close anyone will feel to you, let alone a man!
No Man Will Feel Close To You If You Do This
I don’t care how buddhist, evolved and wonderful you think it is to be emotionally removed or detached.
Nobody will feel close to you or be loyal to you if emotional detachment is your equilibrium in relationships.
So, knowing this innate vulnerability in women, would you think the best solution would be to go towards the opposite extreme?
In other words, would it be the best solution to just strategically date several men, some of whom will just end up being distractions while you pine over the man you actually want?
Isn’t rotational dating, multi dating, quantum dating or man funnelling, just a way to ameliorate some inevitable conflict and pain?
The conflict and pain that comes with the balancing act of what the woman wants versus what the man wants in a new relationship?
Would it be the best solution to date a few men whom you may not feel anything substantial for, or even trust or respect (and nor would they be capable of earning your respect)?
Here’s what’s important:
To shun a woman’s pattern of early attachment in favour of rotational dating causes you to run the risk of detaching yourself TOO MUCH.
That’s the danger of rotational dating strategically.
And if you do want to keep a rotation, you must be careful not to detach too much, because you will lose out on the best man out there who would provide you with the world.
But to get better at relationships, does not require that we rotational date but rather, grieve and care more!
The point is not to feel less, it is to feel more, because the more you feel, the more you’ll inspire a man to feel FOR you.
The more you avoid processing your emotions, the more detached and superficial you will become.
This will inevitably lead you to show up as the one of many type of woman, rather than the one and only type of woman.
(If you would like to know how to show up as the one and only type of woman, check out my program “Becoming His One & Only” here.)
Does Rotational Dating Solve A Core Woman’s Issue In Dating?
So, is rotational dating the happy middle ground solution to the issue of a woman attaching early?
No it isn’t.
Attunement is!
Attunement leads to you having the ability to calibrate, take it slow and be honest about how you feel and how this man makes you feel.
That is the happy middle ground.
And by that I mean attunement to yourself and to your own feelings in relation to a man, as well as to where he is at.
The more detached and emotionally removed you are; the more you spread your focus across several men, the less close anyone will feel to you, let alone a man!
It’s much like friendships.
The more popular someone is, the more friends or acquaintances they will have, but the less close any of those people will be with them.
So, knowing this innate vulnerability in women, would you think the best solution would be to go towards the opposite extreme and over-compensate for a very natural part of being a woman?
The reason I ask is this:
To shun a woman’s pattern of early attachment in favour of rotational dating causes you to run the risk of detaching yourself TOO MUCH.
Let me use an analogy…
This attaching very early thing is like shooting a basketball hoop.
You try to shoot and realise that you threw the ball way too far right.
The solution is not to keep shooting the ball too far to the left from then on.
The solution is to relax, feel more, adjust yourself, trust the process of learning, and practice.
Eventually, through authentic practice and the vulnerability to surrender and learn, you’ll be more balanced in your approach.
Through this newfound balance, you will gain the skill of shooting hoops amazingly well.
The same goes with relating to men.
You may feel hurt and desperate to find the right man if you’re getting older, as many women do.
But the goal is not to feel less by keeping more men for the sake of not attaching to one man – the goal is to feel more.
Feel more how this or that man hurt you. Feel more how wrong your ex was for you.
Don’t swing too far to the other side (and stay there) to avoid an authentic process that will balance you out naturally over time.
#3: Rotational dating ensures that you will show up as the ‘one of many’
Rotational dating ensures that you will spread your eggs over many baskets and therefore be more superficial and detached from ANY particular man.
Again, it’s not dating more than one man that’s the problem. It’s consciously choosing to keep a rotation that is the problem.
Here’s the truth:
When you show up in the dating world as the kind of woman who intentionally creates a pool or “funnel” of many men, then YOU are actively making every MAN you meet and date a “one of many”.
Know what I’m saying?
Most men will sense this.
And that same energy will come back to you, because you’re showing up as disloyal.
So this means that the men you keep in your funnel, no matter how high value they are, will be more inclined to unconsciously make YOU a one of many woman in their life.
Because that’s how you’re showing up.
It’s reciprocal!
It was David Deida who once said that we always attract our reciprocal.
Remember, relationship is the domain of the feminine.
We actually subconsciously and consciously lead a man further into emotional commitment with us through our authentic vulnerabilities!
Our authentic vulnerabilities is part of what makes more men put us in the ‘one and only’ basket, rather than the ‘one of many’ basket.
You don’t want to be the one of many if you can help it. You want to be the one and only.
This is why I made my program “Becoming his One & Only”.
If you want to learn more about the 5 secrets to have any man fall in love with you and BEG you to be his one and only woman, check out my program here.
#4: Rotational dating doesn’t guarantee a mindset of abundance
A woman once said to me:
“Renée, I started a rotation of men because I wanted to feel more abundant. I didn’t want to feel more and more desperate, feeling like there’s no good men out there for me.”
My response was – is a 5 out of 10 quality of connection with 5 men who are about a 6 or 7 in quality still abundance? Or is it just more of a distraction?
What about having abundance through the depth of investment and connection?
Isn’t depth of connection and depth of investment with one good man worth so much more, and wouldn’t it give you so much more meaning in your life than connecting with several 5s or 7s?
What about the depth of connection you miss out on with one person when you choose to have a rotation?
Would having mediocre attention from 10 men who are merely “interested” in you matter more than having devotion from one man who is in love with you?
Using rotational dating as a way to not act from scarcity doesn’t guarantee that you will feel abundant!
And here’s an analogy to help you understand that:
It’s like playing a game or sport with the mindset of trying not to lose rather than trying to win.
There is a big difference.
And as any athlete would tell you, that mindset is the kiss of death to their career!
So, another question for you: does 10 superficial conversations equal in value to one deep conversation?
Do the 10 superficial conversations even carry the same depth of meaning that one deep conversation will?
Using rotational dating as a way to not act from scarcity doesn’t guarantee that you will feel abundant!
Do you think that Audrey Hepburn or Charlize Theron would need to have a rotation?
Sure, they can date multiple men if they want to, but would they HAVE to rotational date men in order to keep their vibe high?
Would they HAVE to as a strategy?
Probably not.
They’re not that desperate, because they probably are aware of their value.
Let me ask you this:
Would Jason Mamoa or Ryan Gosling need to keep a rotation of women to feel abundant and to avoid feeling insecure?
And if they did do that, wouldn’t they feel more slimy to you?
Of course they would, because they’re using women. It’s distraction, and it’s also value-taking.
A part of Ryan Gosling and Jason Mamoa’s HIGH value is that fact that they actually are invested in the one woman/married to the one woman!
Their exclusivity and ability to invest in a woman and her family makes them overall higher value.
Let’s be honest here.
There’s nothing wrong with using strategies in dating, especially in the beginning stages of dating.
We’re all trying to present the best part of ourselves.
As long as the strategies are used to build a deeper connection and a deeper emotional attraction, which gets you closer to your goal of a long term relationship with the right man.
This is something very important for you to consider, and if you’re interested in learning more about dating strategies that make you show up high value, read my article on How To Make Him Chase You & Value You: High Value Women Secrets.
#5: If you have low relationship value, having a rotation won’t change that, it will only make it worse
From the perspective of the high value and commitment-oriented men out there, a woman of low value to men will only look worse when she tries to raise her value by dating lots of men.
Let me explain. If you only have 2 out of 10 overall value, and you focus on building a rotation, here’s what will happen.
When you try a rotational date, you are only going to attract 1s, 2s, or at best 3s and 4s to date you and be in your rotation.
This will only magnify your low value to other high quality men.
However, if you are a 2 or 3 out of 10 as a woman, but you focus on cultivating actual relationship value for high value men, your relationship value will increase by a lot.
If instead of focusing on high numbers of men in your rotation, you focused on having the skills to build connection and attraction, this would be a game changer for your love life.
And if you focused on cultivating loyalty, maternal instinct, and compassion within yourself, you will raise your value in a way you never knew possible.
You could go from a 3 to a 7 and even to a 10 easily in the eyes of the right man.
Why?
Because it is these traits within you that make a man fall in love and give you the 20 out of 10 relationship experience, which will be the ultimate value in your life.
It’s not your ability to be chased after by lots of average men.
And to any man who falls in love with a woman, in his mind, she’s a 10.
That’s just how men are.
I used to know a friendly woman named Maret at my local gym. She was friendly, she was great at weight-lifting, and she was a stellar cook.
It’s an interesting thing because the first time my husband met her, he genuinely thought she was 50 years old.
Just to give you an idea of how she was showing up from a man’s perspective.
Later on, we found out she was a 35 year old and she was single.
This lady named Maret; she was looking for a long-term relationship, and she was lonely.
She started crushing on several guys at the gym and she would tell my husband and I all about them.
She started crushing on a guy who was about an 8 out of 10.
He was a good looking, fit, ambitious man. And when that guy rejected her, she very obviously started lowering her standards.
Recommended reading: How to Get Over A Crush: 11 Guaranteed Ways.
She moved onto a guy who was about a 5 or 6.
After her and this guy developed a friendly relationship, she made a few discrete attempts to strike up conversations and connections with this guy, but it turned out that he also rejected her.
She then started crushing on a guy at the gym I’d never expect any woman to go for.
He was about a 2 or 3 out of 10 in objective mate value.
So I didn’t catch up with Maret for about 6 months.
Then, randomly in conversation with a mutual friend of ours, I asked him about her.
I asked him if Maret and Stu (this 2 or 3 out of 10) ended up getting together.
He laughed and said “pffft, he didn’t even like her.”
My mouth opened wide in shock. Wow.
That was disappointing for me to hear.
As a woman myself I hoped for nothing but the best kind of relationship for Maret.
I wanted to see her happy.
So, this news was disappointing, but also a life lesson: if men don’t perceive that you have value to them, you can’t even get a low value man to be interested in you.
So, this is to say that your value and rotational dating have no relation to each other.
If you are a 2 out of 10, you’re not going to get 8s or 10s falling in love with you or tolerating your rotation, because they value themselves more than that.
#6: Men asking you for exclusivity or marriage is not the ultimate goal
Women, especially women in their 30s and beyond, often feel like they risk a lot by dating one man.
They feel like they don’t want to get attached to one man, only to have him leave her high and dry one day.
So rotational dating until one man so called “steps up” and asks for exclusivity is a nice kind of safety net, right?
Well, no. And here’s why.
It’s because exclusivity and engagement doesn’t always mean what you think it does in a man’s mind.
MORE: How To Get Him To Commit The High Value Way + 1 Mistake To AVOID.
Just because in the feminine mindset, exclusivity or some kind of official relationship equals value, doesn’t mean it’s actually a good thing.
On the surface, a man asking for exclusivity seems to mean more security and more resources for a woman. But he could be asking for exclusivity for himself.
Rotational dating as a strategy is effectively just trying to short-cut the process of falling in love. And it cannot be short-cut.
It’s women trying to secure resources and some kind of security blanket in case they get burned by a man.
But this strategy of rotational dating or quantum dating doesn’t achieve long term security for a woman.
Because the only true long term security is if a man is in love with the woman.
If he’s in love and she is too, then you create an actual pair-bond.
That pair bond is more valuable than a relationship born out of labels.
That pair bond is also more valuable than a relationship born out of convenience, or just the man and woman trying to hoard someone’s resources because they feel desperate.
If you have any understanding of men at all, you may have figured out that men can ask for exclusivity for many reasons!
They sometimes also marry women for many different reasons! Some of those are very bad reasons.
Men could ask for exclusivity because they want to stop you from taking your resources elsewhere, and not because they are in love with you!
The only thing that has real value is the pair bond and the emotional connection and emotional attraction.
So even if you end up falling into a so called relationship through circular dating or rotational dating, the quality of the relationship may be much lower than if you CHOSE to value connection and attraction.
#7: If you’re not feeling confident, rotational dating is not even a solution
If your real issue is that you don’t truly love yourself or feel confident inside, and need men’s attention on you to “keep your vibe high”, then go and actually work on that deep feeling of unworthiness, rather than distracting yourself with rotational dating!
Rotational dating can’t fix the internal problem of unworthiness.
Let me ask you this: a lot of women treat rotational dating as a way to keep their vibe high and to ensure that they feel good about themselves and so that there’s always a man pursuing them.
Well, what happens when you ARE finally exclusive with a man, and you have this habit of feeling low vibe, unnattractive and unconfident?
Are you suddenly going to just start feeling bad about yourself because you can’t go and date all these other men?
When you’re exclusive, you can no longer multi date, so if you didn’t fix that underlying problem of low confidence or being triggered easily to feel unworthy, you’ll still have the problem within you when you’re exclusive.
Do the quiz: Which of these 8 feminine archetypes am i?
#8: Smart men will see through the rotational dating strategy
Smart men will intuitively look for attunement.
Which means they will look for a woman who is sensitive, nurturing and therefore capable of being ‘at one’ with him and available for deeply bonding to HIM.
If he senses any threat to his long term ability to trust you, or any deliberate attempt to manipulate the situation and to create distance, he may leave.
Men who are smart, who operate from secure attachment and who are secure within their own masculinity wouldn’t bother with a woman who chooses to rotational date in order to ‘weed out low investment men’ and try to make herself more scarce.
Smart men just know intuitively to place value on a woman’s ability and desire to remain LOYAL.
I’ve heard women in our facebook group say “date more men. The more the better.”
Well, there’s a huge price to pay for doing stuff like this!
We’ve already established that for men, loyalty in a woman matters greatly for whether he sees her as his one and only woman, worthy of committing to.
If you show up with dating multiple men as your priority from the start, there’s no way a quality man can see you as loyal.
With this multi-dating strategy, there is simply zero care for being loyal.
Essentially, in order to protect yourself from low value men by rotational dating, you also unintentionally write off the smart men and the truly high value men.
The low value or insecurely attached men may not see through this strategy.
Desperate men, men who don’t feel they have options cannot see past women giving them attention.
They also cannot see through easy sexual opportunities or manipulative women, regardless of the 100 red flags in front of them.
Of course, because these men are insecure, they will take any sex they can get.
They’ll take any attention they can get at almost any cost to themselves.
They will also get sucked into the selfish game playing that the strategy of rotational dating is.
Due to the fact that insecure men perceive that they have less options, they will be more likely to tolerate a woman refusing to let go of all the other dating options until she is engaged.
They will also feel the pressure to get engaged to you when you refuse to stop rotational dating.
Whereas a smart, high value man with actual value within himself would have instantly felt that you were withholding things from him out of fear.
Over To You…
So I wanted to leave you with one final question.
Rotational dating might (on the surface) serve your sense of certainty.
However, do you think that quantum dating, multi-dating, whatever you call it, makes you a woman of value TO MEN?
Really have a think about it.
Consider what costs you might incur to your future dating life if you choose this option.
Best of luck out there in this modern dating world!
By the way, I also have an article on the 9 Dangers of Leaning Back and Why It’s Not Feminine.
Again, it’s ok to date more than one man if that’s just how things have happened for you.
You can’t control everything, and sometimes it happens.
But you can consciously influence choosing to keep a funnel of men.
And you can influence whether you show up as the ‘one of many’ type of woman or the ‘one and only’ type of woman.
Best of luck out there in this difficult dating world!
This was just my perspective. But I do hope my perspective helps you move forward and make good choices for yourself and your dating life.
I’d love to hear from you. What are your views on this topic? How do you feel and what are your experiences with circular dating or rotational dating?
Renee is the founder of The Feminine Woman & co-founder of Shen Wade Media where we teach women how to show up as a high value high status woman whom easily inspires a deep sense of emotional commitment from her chosen man. She graduated with a bachelor of Law and bachelor of Arts majoring in sociology and psychology. She has been a dating and relationship coach for women in the past 15 years and together with her husband D. Shen at Commitment Triggers blog, they have positively influenced the lives of over 20 million women through their articles and videos as well as 10’s of thousands through paid programs through the Shen Wade Media platform.
Connect deeper with her work through the social media links below.