Why is the title of this article "How to Make Him Commit?" In general, women are only too happy to commit and therein lies the problem. They usually want to move the relationship along faster than men do, whether it's from casual dating to a monogamous relationship to living together to getting married. They try to convince the man by ineffective methods such as repeatedly talking about it, nagging, whining, threatening, issuing ultimatums, begging, crying and arguing. Would that type of behavior make you want to commit?

What if I told you there was an easier way to achieve your goal? According to the book, Love Tactics, "It's very possible that a person is growing to love you but is not yet consciously aware of it." So how can you help your guy get in touch with his subconscious feelings? What I'm about to tell you will go against every fiber in your being, every bone in your body, but it is, I believe, what usually works best when you want to move a relationship to the next level. It is two simple words: Go away. Yes, that's right, go away. I'd always heard that men fall in love "in the spaces", that is, when we're not around. Unlike women, who are usually quite aware of their feelings for someone, men usually get in touch with their feelings when they realize they miss their woman. If women are always there complaining and begging for a commitment, they miss out on giving their man the gift of missing them.

I was recently listening to a radio show where a young man in his early 20's called in. Since I was taping the show at the time, I have his words verbatim: She would ignore me and I'd want her more. I would ignore her and she'd want me more. We'd both make each other retardedly jealous and then have great sex later. I guess she played me for so long and I played her for so long I'm actually starting to sadly have feelings…Now she's back home for the summer for a month and for once I don't feel like hooking up with anyone else. So I go hook up with another girl, what's that gonna do for me?

So here's this young man who is faced with the situation of not seeing his girl for a month and he realizes he has feelings for her. She didn't need to do anything, except live her life and go home for a month.

A similar situation happened to me. I was living in Italy with my boyfriend of 5 years when I decided I wanted to check out Los Angeles and see if I wanted to live here. The one time the "m" word had ever come up, he'd said rather smugly, "I'm never going to marry you". In typical Lucia fashion, I answered, "I don't care." I had been in L.A. for about a month when he called an asked me to marry him. He'd realized I was the one for him, he didn't need to keep looking and he was willing to wait as long as it took. I had never discussed marriage with him, never had "the talk". I just did my thing and when I wasn't around, my absence forced him to face his true feelings for me.

These examples are generally the rule, not the exception. My girlfriend Pam had been dating Mark for 5 years. They were non-exclusive because whenever one of them wanted a commitment, the other one didn't and vice versa. At the time, Pam was working in Austin and Mark was in L.A. During one of her visits, Pam found an empty condom wrapper at Mark's place. She knew he was seeing other people, but she realized she was no longer okay with that and she was ready for a commitment. When she tried to discuss it with Mark, his response was to yell, "I'M NOT READY!" She went back to Texas, changed her number and mentally prepared to move on. When Mark tried to contact her and couldn't reach her, he was hit with the realization that she was serious about a commitment.

He had lunch with several married friends, who convinced him he'd messed up. He missed Pam and didn't have much interest in any of the other women he was seeing. This prompted him to track Pam down and fly out to Austin. While he wasn't yet ready for marriage, he was ready to take the next step and move in together. Two years later he proposed and I was a bridesmaid at a beautiful wedding overlooking a cliff in Malibu. Mark says his only regret is that he didn't do it sooner!

My last example involves Stacey, who had been living with her boyfriend Jim for over 3 years and was ready to get married. When she had brought up the subject in the past, Jim didn't think it was time. He felt that things were going well, so why change? Stacey had just turned 30 and was tired of calling him her boyfriend. When she went to visit a girlfriend out of town for a week, she was a bit envious that her single friend was able to do what she wanted, whereas, she felt she was stuck in limbo – she couldn't date yet she wasn't married. She never called Jim while she was out of town and when he called her, he noticed she sounded different and asked if anything was wrong.

A month after she went back home, Jim proposed. The reason he waited that long was because he wanted it to be special and had to do some planning. When I asked him what finally prompted him to pop the question, he said that when Stacey was gone he noticed what was missing from his life and wanted to move to the next step.

I want to point out that in each situation, there was no intentional manipulation involved. The women were thinking about themselves and what they wanted. They were tired of waiting and were ready to move on, with or without their man. I don't recommend following any of the examples I've given unless you are being true to yourself. If you really are ready to move on, then do it. However, don't do it if you think it will make the guy come running after you or make him finally propose, because if he doesn't and you go back with him, you've lost all credibility.

To quote Sugar Ray, "When it's over, that's the time I fall in love again.