Definition
Withdrawal is the strategic removal of attention or presence — going quiet, becoming less available, stepping back — in order to intensify the other person's desire. Greene treats it as one of seduction's most reliable moves: absence, well-timed, does what presence cannot.
The principle is contrast. A person who has grown used to your attention feels its absence sharply, and that felt absence converts into wanting.
Why it matters
How it works
After a phase of attention, the seducer withdraws — fewer messages, cooler tone, less availability. The target, adjusted to the warmth, registers the change as a loss. Because loss looms larger than gain, the target moves to recover what slipped away, and their renewed effort feels to them like deepening feeling.
Withdrawal differs from withholding mainly in what is removed: withdrawal pulls back presence and attention, withholding denies a specific wanted thing. Both run on the same scarcity logic, and both can be honest distance or a calculated move.