“Ease off the pedal”: FOX Reporter Charissa Thompson’s blunt take on avoiding dating burnout

Charissa Thompson’s recent dating advice stands out not just for its honesty but for flipping the script on traditional male dating behavior. Instead of advising men to “play it cool,” she encourages the opposite to be clear and confident. In a recent episode of the Calm Down podcast ,Charissa Thompson and Erin Andrews delved into the nuances of dating, offering candid advice to their listeners.Charissa took a moment to address a relatable question many people have silently pondered: How subtle is too subtle in the early stages of showing interest? The question came from a viewer who wrote, "Crushing on this girl, I start most chats laying low to see if she will engage me, bad move?"Rather than sugar coating it, Thompson leaned into her signature no-nonsense style. “I like a guy that is going to make it very obvious that he likes me,” she said, emphasizing that there's power in transparency. But she didn’t stop there. The advice came with a crucial caveat, don’t cross the line into clingy territory.“If you’re sending, if there’s a lot of, I always say this, in a text chain, if there’s a lot of blue and there’s not a lot of the gray, we need to ease off the old gas pedal,” Charissa said.“If you’re initiating the chats, that’s fine. That shows that you’re interested. But is she just like sending you one-word responses? Is she sending you, like, you need to do something to keep the conversation and the activities like moving forward.”She voiced what many have felt but hesitated to say out loud: "Because just like the back and forth after a while, I know the very limited time I was actually dating, I would hate it when it’d just be like pen pal. I’m like, are we doing something? Are we not doing something?"Her point was crystal clear there’s a fine line between building a connection and wasting time. She added, "Like you’re the guy, you make the plan and if I’m on board, then I’ll just come in and come up with ideas." It’s a call for initiative something that too often gets lost in today’s drawn-out digital exchanges.Joining the discussion, Erin Andrews chimed in with a grounded take on when it’s time to stop waiting and start walking away.Taking a cue from Charissa’s “love guru hat,” she posed a rhetorical gut-check for anyone stuck in texting limbo, “How long have you been starting up the chats and laying low? Because if it’s been a while, it may be time to either say, hey, what, are we good? Are we moving on? Or maybe time for you to move on.”Also read: No contract, no problem? Erin Andrews drops bombshell on career-defining momentTogether, their exchange highlighted a shared frustration with passive dating patterns. Their takeaway? Genuine interest should come with effort.If the connection feels more like a drawn-out pen-pal relationship than the start of something real, it might be worth reevaluating who’s really investing in the conversation.