Models

A Comprehensive Guide to Attracting Women

By Mark Manson

Table of Contents

Models

A Comprehensive Guide to Attracting Women

Introduction: Movement

Part I: Reality

Chapter 1: What Attracts Women

Chapter 2: Emotional Neediness

Chapter 3: Power in Vulnerability

Chapter 4: The Gift of Truth

Part II: Strategy

Chapter 5: Polarization

Chapter 6: Rejection and Success

Chapter 7: The Three Fundamentals

Part III: Honest Living

Chapter 8: Demographics

Chapter 9: How to Be Handsome

Part IV: Honest Action

Chapter 10: What Are Your Stories?

Chapter 11: How to Take Action

Part V: Honest Communication

Chapter 12: Your Intentions

Chapter 13: How to Be Charming

Chapter 14: The Dating Process

Chapter 15: Physicality and Sex

Closing

Conclusion: Moving Ahead

Epilogue: What If It Was a Gift?

Further Reading

About the Author

Copyright © Mark Manson, 2011.

All Rights Reserved.

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Introduction: Movement

In our post-industrial, post-feminist world, a clear model of how to be an attractive man has been lost. Centuries ago, a man’s role and duty was power and protection. Decades ago, it was to provide. But now? We’re not quite sure. We are either the first or second generation of men to grow up without a clear definition of our social roles, and without models of what it is to be strong and attractive men.

Five years ago, when I first began coaching men on improving their relationships with women, I had no idea the rabbit hole of information and development I was about to go down, both for myself and for others. At the time the primary concerns of my dating life mostly revolved around which drink specials were going on that Tuesday night and which one of the five Jenna’s in my phone was the one I met last weekend.

It wasn’t until I sat down and tried to get other men to the point where they had five Jenna’s in their phone that I began to get a glimpse of how deep a man’s emotional and sexual development actually goes, and how difficult it is to inspire a genuine shift.

I won’t lie, in hindsight, getting myself to that point seems easy now by comparison. Growing up, I had always been somewhat of an average guy, although I had little luck with the ladies.

Then in 2005, after being cheated on and left by my first serious girlfriend and first love, I was emotionally distraught and slightly traumatized. I became obsessive. A desperate need for validation and affection from women arose within me and I spent an inordinate amount of time pursuing that validation and affection, far more than most men ever do. I was over-compensating and soon became driven to sleep with every girl who would let me anywhere near her in the Boston area.

This went on for a little more than two years.

My plan wasn’t sophisticated. Really, I read a couple books like this one and basically went out to bars 4-5 nights a week -- approaching, flirting and failing, pushing and pulling, fucking and floundering for those 30 glorious months of experimentation.

It was self-indulgent. But it was a time of growth and a time of movement.

But a couple of years and a few dozen women later, two things happened. First, I began to realize that rampant drunken sex was fun, but not very fulfilling. It began to get old. And it wasn’t exactly affecting the other areas of my life in a healthy manner. I was required to let up and evaluate myself, to question why I was sacrificing so much time and effort to such superficial pleasures. The second thing that happened was I had grown a reputation locally for my exploits. Soon men whom I had never met were emailing me asking if they could come hang out with me, to see how I interacted with women. It was weird at first. But then I decided, sure, why not, just buy my drinks or pay me a bit on the side. And strangely, I feel like that’s where the real journey began. To try and model the internal movement that occurred within myself and then replicate it in other men.

They say if you want to master something, teach it. And this second journey actually ended up being far more educational than the first. When I went out for myself, it was easy. Half the time I was going out to lose myself, to bury my emotions and hopefully wake up in the arms of a stranger. Sometimes it worked. And that’s really all I knew.

But this second journey had a purpose, had a meaning, and suddenly needed an intellectual foundation. I couldn’t just do it. I had to teach it, explain it, and impart it onto others and then get them to do it. This led me in a winding, twisted path. It began with entries into and exits from the so-called "Pick Up Artist" community and thousands of accumulated hours of talking and carousing and teaching. There were models about models and pages about Paige’s. But quickly that path went dead, and I took excursions through social psychological studies, historiographies on human sexuality, strip clubs binges, research on NLP and cognitive therapy, various self-help seminars, hotel rooms with runway models, touch-healing and alternative therapy mishaps, arguments with feminists, and shitty books on popspirituality and pseudo-psychiatry.

Also during this period, I checked myself into psycho-therapy and entered dating a loving and amazing girlfriend for almost two years. The coaching grew. And soon it took me to more than a dozen cities across America, then to countries in Europe, to England and Australia, and I even took field trips as far as Argentina, Brazil, Israel and Thailand, where I discovered that much of what I had assumed about women was merely cultural.

It was a period of immense education and drive, where I made a clear point to not let my thinking be confined by any previous model or paradigm about masculinity or male/female sexuality.

And after all of that over the last five years, this is what I’ve come back with:

There are two movements occurring right now. The first one is a greater movement, a social and emotional movement in western culture. There’s a call for a new masculinity that’s been lacking for generations now. There’s been a void of what men are, what they’re supposed to be, how they’re supposed to behave, and the men’s dating advice industry has largely moved to fill that void, for better or worse.

This book aims merely to be another piece of that -- a healthy, integrated piece -- but a piece nonetheless.

The second movement is happening within you personally. It’s an emotional movement. You’re reading this because you want to change. You want to change your interactions and relationships with the women in your life. You want these relationships to improve. You want these relationships to be abundant. You want to feel confident and empowered around women, those you know and those you don’t know but want to meet. You want to feel in control of your relationships with them. You want to be sexual with them without shame or hesitation or regret or pain.

This second movement is an internal movement. It took me a long time to come to grips with that. Although this second movement often begins by changing outer behavior and results in a change of outer behavior, the process itself is an internal one, a shift of emotional disposition, which in turn affects one’s social life and love life.

This book is designed to guide you through that internal movement.

The larger social movement is merely a backdrop, and is only briefly explained to give context to your current situation. Your failures with women aren’t happening because you say the wrong thing or because you don’t look good enough. Well, that’s not true, you are saying the wrong things and probably don’t look good enough yet -- but these are symptoms of the problem, not the problem itself.

Your failures happen because you grew up emotionally ill-equipped to deal with women and intimacy. The words you say and looks you have are merely a side-effect of that.

If this sounds like some sort of "inner game" diatribe, please don’t be mistaken. I’m interested in real-world behaviors with real-world consequences. But this isn’t just about intellectually understanding how to stand, how to talk, how to behave. This isn’t "faking it until you make it." It’s deeper than that. This is about intellectually learning the behaviors that will cause your emotions to shift, to create a permanent and unconscious route to being the attractive male that you can be.

This is that how-to guide.

This book aims to arm you with the behaviors that will form that emotional foundation you never received in adolescence, to present the masculine model you and I missed out on.

And once you begin this internal shift, you’ll find that the social actions -- saying the right thing, knowing when to go for the kiss, knowing how to approach a woman, etc. -- they will all begin to fall into place, and fall into place in a more profound and powerful way than simply memorizing some lines or following some sort of arbitrary procedure.

The beginning of this book is very theoretical. It’s the big picture stuff. I do this because I think it’s important to lay a foundation to explain the realities of attraction, masculinity and femininity, and what determines your value on the dating market as a man. As the book goes on though, it becomes more and more technical and specific, slowly honing in on necessary actions and habits. I believe it’s important to explain why I’m having you do certain actions and behaviors first.

Part I is an honest look at female attraction based on scientific research, and the realistic consequences of that research in modern life.

Part II is an overview of the dating strategy that I recommend to all men who come to me for help. The strategy focuses on polarizing reactions from women to screen for the one’s most receptive to your identity as soon as possible. We also deal with the painful reality of rejection and how everyone must learn to deal with it.

This is a reality-based strategy, not based on fantasies or the frivolities of wanting to sleep with every woman you meet or dating a Victoria’s Secret model by coming up with scripts of pick up lines. These things are both unrealistic and horribly insecure. Part II is a long-term strategy built to take a man from "no women in my life" to "lots of amazing women in my life" as quickly as possible, with as little effort as possible. Rejection plays an unavoidable part of that process, as we’ll see.

Part III is the first part of our strategy and covers the first of the Three Fundamentals laid out in Chapter 7, building an enjoyable lifestyle and becoming an attractive man. The steps laid out in this part will be specific but will be long-term goals with long-term benefits.

Part IV covers developing courage and becoming a man of action. Men are expected to initiate in all phases of courtship (the reasons why are explained in Part I), and therefore a man who is hesitant, anxious or afraid of initiating will get never get anywhere with women. The advice laid out in this step will require diligence but provide real and lasting change to those willing to dedicate themselves. These steps are medium-term goals with medium-term benefits.

Finally, Part V will cover the nuts and bolts of communicating more effectively, more attractively, more openly, and more sexually. The steps laid out in this section should have immediate, short-term benefits.

My goal is to provide you with both in-depth perspective into your emotions and how you operate, while also giving you practical processes for improving yourself and achieving your goals. If you’re looking for a book full of "say this line and then execute touch-plan X4Z-3," then you’re going to be disappointed. But not only are you going to be disappointed with this book, you’re going to be disappointed with every book that gives advice like that. Because they are band-aid solutions. Until you learn to trust your own actions and learn to pursue women with your own unique style and personality, you have learned absolutely nothing.

This book aims to give you your first real education on women and attraction, the education you should have received a long time ago, from a number of sources, but never did.

And I’ll give you a free preview: it has little to nothing to do with what you’re saying. It has everything to do with body, expression, emotion and movement.

A couple years ago I was in Argentina. There I made one of the most important discoveries in all of my time doing this. I saw a girl at a club sitting by herself. She looked upset. And when I approached her, she didn’t get any happier. She didn’t speak English and I barely spoke any Spanish at the time. She didn’t want to dance and didn’t want to talk to me. She kept shaking her head and motioning for me to go away. But I persisted. Eventually I got her to dance, and then to smile. And what I discovered over the next week was how when it comes to seduction how unnecessary words actually are.

As she and I danced, we touched and played. I played hand games with her, twirled her, made funny faces and communicated with fake sign language. I held her, caressed her and touched her hair. We drew pictures on napkins for each other. When I put my arm around her and she leaned into me it spoke more than 1,000 conversations. We moved and as that movement drove us closer together physically, we came together emotionally until they were one in the same and we came.

Emerson once wrote, "What you do speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say." Seduction is an interplay of emotions. Your movement or lack of movement reflects and alters emotions, not the words. Words are the side-effect. Sex is the side-effect. The game is emotions, emotions through movement. If you learn anything from this book, let that be it.

Our culture has become stationary. We spend our time sitting behind desks, behind screens and in cars. We don’t move like we used to and we don’t feel like we used to.

Over the course of this book, I’ll invite you and hopefully inspire you to move. To get up out of that chair, to go outside, to dare to feel, to experiment and to connect. This will involve getting off your ass, but that’s a good thing. And I will help you with that. And if you promise to move, then I promise change. Slowly, your looks will change, your words will change, and your actions will change. And hopefully, maybe something amazing will happen. Your emotions will shift and move and vibrate and with them the women of the world will feel your resonance and come calling.

I wish you more than luck.

Part I: Reality

Chapter 1: What Attracts Women

"The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years research into the feminine soul, is ‘What do women want?’"- Sigmund Freud, Psychologist

There’s still no clear-cut definition or model of what drives female attraction yet.

That’s the truth.

All I can do here is give you my best theory based on the current research, as well as my wealth of experience and explain what has consistently worked for me. Anyone who claims that they have the definitive answer to what drives and motivates female attraction and sexual arousal is lying to you. The jury is still out. Psychologists, sexologists and biologists have been studying it for over a century, and there’s still not a clear answer.

This much is clear: female attraction does not operate like male attraction. Male attraction is pretty straight-forward: visual-based, focused on physical features and more or less universal. A beautiful girl in California is almost always beautiful in New York, Tokyo, New Delhi, Beirut and Oslo. The variability between how attractive most men perceive her to be is not going to be much. A physically attractive woman is a physically attractive women, and biologically, almost all straight men will respond in a very predictable manner.

This is not true for women, not even close. In fact, women and what attracts and arouses them can be maddeningly unpredictable, contradictory and whimsical.

A vivid experience drove this point home for me a few years ago. I was in a club in Boston approaching a number of women. At the beginning of the night I approached a group of girls who were not very impressed by me. So I stepped up my jokes to try to elicit more of an emotional response out of them. It worked. One of them looked me dead in the eye and said, "You are the creepiest guy in here. Give it up."

Ouch.

Not an hour later I was talking to another group of girls in another part of the club. They were enrapt by some story I was telling, laughing at my jokes, beaming smiles. One of the girls took me by the arm and said, "You are the hottest guy in here, you know you could have any girl, right?"

Same club. Same night. Same guy. Same sense of humor. Same stories. And chances are, similar girls. Completely opposite responses.

The first difficulty in understanding female attraction is that women can become attracted and aroused both physically and/or psychologically. This split between physical and psychological arousal is unique to women as men are almost solely aroused and stimulated physically. This split in sources of arousal makes it hard to perform controlled experiments and therefore test different factors that may influence how a woman feels.

For instance, you may be able to show 200 women pictures of big burly men and ask them how attracted they are to them. But you aren’t able to control their predisposed belief about physically powerful men, the extent of their desire to be dominated, the sexual mores in which they were raised, their sexual histories with similar men, their emotional states at that very moment, their ovulation cycles, when the last time they had sex was, etc. And even if you were able to control such things, they’re so fluid and subjective, it’s hard to measure them.

Men on the other hand, according research, with a few exceptions, always like a certain hip-to-waist ratio, always like youthful features, always like clear skin and shiny hair. This is regardless of age, ethnicity, culture, or psychological disposition. The variance in male preferences is miniscule.

The second difficulty in understanding female attraction and arousal is that research indicates that most women themselves are unaware of when they’re aroused or not.

In one experiment, a researcher measured bio-readings of blood flow in women’s vaginas as they watched various film clips. During the film clips, the women were asked to indicate how sexually aroused they were by the clip. Not only did the bio-readings return no discernible patterns of arousal across the film clips (everything from male-on-male homosexual sex, to innocuous nature clips to films of chimpanzees mating), but the women themselves were absolutely oblivious to their own arousal levels. Straight women often underestimated their arousal by homosexual sex, and homosexual women underestimated their arousal by straight sex. The primary researcher (a woman) entered the experiment hoping to find conclusions about what women prefer sexually. Not only did she come to no conclusions, but she lamented that the experiment only presented more questions about female sexuality than she began with.

In a nutshell, women don’t even know what they want (I could have told her that).

But despite these setbacks, the scientific study of female sexuality has actually been taking off in the past couple decades and they are making some headway. I don’t aim to make this into an academic book, so I’m going to briefly summarize what I find to be the most important points for our intents and purposes. If you’re really into the academic side of things, then check out the Further Reading section at the end of the book.

The Ubiquity of Status

In surveys among literally tens of thousands of women, across all cultures, ethnicities, age groups, and socio-economic standing, and even time periods, there’s one universal quality in men that they all find desirable: social status and resources.

The amount in which they desire it varies from culture to culture and from age group to age group, but the desire for it is universal. Women want men who are more successful, popular and powerful than they are. This is clear.

Where it becomes unclear, and where my personal experience and perspective diverges from the current evolutionary science is how women perceive power and status.

If you look at much of the research, it focuses on wealth and resources. This makes sense for a few reasons: it’s easy to measure, it’s easy to point to, and it fits into a lot of pre-conceived notions and stereotypes of what women are attracted to.

But I think this is overly-simplistic. If it were that simple, women would want to hear about your tax returns and car payments on dates, not where you grew up, what you’re passionate about and all of the other sappy things they love to hear you talk about.

The fact of the matter is, I’ve personally worked with too many wealthy and successful men who couldn’t land a date to save their lives to believe that material wealth provides THAT much of an advantage, or that it’s the end-all-be-all of attraction. Because it obviously isn’t.

If you think about it, the evolutionary perspective of status and wealth is in a bit of a conundrum. Because for women to evolve a preference in men with resources and wealth, then there would have had to been an overt way of distinguishing wealth and resources among hunter/gatherer societies.

Again, without boring you to death with the anthropological details, cave men were not walking around with bank statements and did not have houses or swimming pools to show off. At best, they had a little bit more meat and food than the next guy. That’s not much to go on.

That’s why I believe that women don’t distinguish social status or being an "alpha male" through material possessions -- otherwise every guy flashing his expensive watch at the bar would be getting laid (and trust me, they’re not) -- but rather women judge it by behavior, as behavior is all they had to go on in the caveman days.

Other research backs this up as well. Studies show that women are equally attracted to men that they believe have the potential to be extremely successful as they do for men who are already successful. This would also explain why women find men who display great strength and skills to be attractive, even if they’re dirt poor. It explains why the starving artist has no trouble finding girlfriends to support him, and the college athlete can date super models even though he can’t afford a hamburger.

As a man, you don’t have to actually be rich and famous, you just have to show a lot of potential for being rich and famous to be considered extremely attractive.

I put forth that women judge social status by behavior. Social status is determined by how you behave around other people, how other people behave around you, and how you treat yourself.

These are the three tenants of being a high status and a highly attractive man: treat others well, be treated well by others, and treat yourself well. Later, we’ll see that these make up the Three Fundamentals that much of this book is based on.

The other problem with the classical view of status and resources is that perception of social status depends completely on each woman’s values and belief systems.

For instance, wearing an expensive suit and talking about your Rolex watch will gain you eye-rolls in many nice lounges around the US. But if you go to a small, poor village in the third world, it will be all you need. The reason is that material wealth is seen as much bigger status statement in the third world, whereas in the big cities of the US, it’s not as significant.

We’ll delve into how values and beliefs filter attraction later in the book. But the point is that social status is not fixed, it’s relative. It’s about perception, not reality. And it’s determined by behavior, not assets. Just as I experienced in the night club in Boston that night, one woman can find you supremely attractive while another one will find you supremely cheesy.

Desire to be Desired

The other common denominator of female attraction has more to do with arousal and sexual desire. It’s the desire to be desired. Or at least that’s how the theory currently goes.

For a long time there was a lot of confusion as to what turned a woman on. Random events and actions could have the same effect on her sexually, and there seemed to be no connection.

It had long been thought that female arousal was tied to ideas and the display of security, investment and commitment, particularly from high status men. Unfortunately for psychologists, women don’t light candles and lay in their bathtubs masturbating to the idea of commitment and a white picket fence. They fantasize about far different things.

The new conclusion is that female arousal is somewhat narcissistic in nature. Women are turned on by being wanted, by being desired.

Suddenly, seemingly disconnected events that arouse women -- a romantic marriage proposal in one instance, and a rape fantasy in another -- make sense. Both indicate an extreme display of desire in her by a man. A man who’s willing to sacrifice everything to be with her.

When women say that just because they have rape fantasies doesn’t mean they want to be raped, this is what they mean. What they want is to be desired. They want to be desired to the point that a man loses complete self-control. The actual rape part, I’m sure none of them would actually enjoy.

My experience, and the experience of many dating coaches, supports this as well. It has slowly been discovered over the past five years or so within the pick up industry, that the more physical assertiveness you pursue a woman with, the more aroused she becomes -- sometimes even if she wasn’t interested in you to begin with. Your bold and aggressive pursuit of her often turns her on to the point where she comes around and wants to get to know you.

For instance, we discovered that if you took a guy who used to just stand and chat with a girl and had him put his arm around her and then chat to her, even though many women would reject his physical advance, many of them would also become aroused.

It’s important to relate this back to the original dichotomy of female attraction and arousal mentioned earlier in the chapter. Status attracts women, but by itself, it only attracts them in a way that they want to be your girlfriend, not jump your bones.

On the other hand, being physically assertive and sexually forthright triggers a woman’s sexual arousal and makes her want to have sex.

This is why being wealthy and successful can actually be counterproductive. When I began to become financially successful and travel the world quite a bit, I found that the more I focused on my business and financial success with women I met, the more quickly they would want to get into a relationship with me. Whereas years prior, when I had been broke and living on my friend’s couch, women just wanted to have sex with me.

Wealth and status will always present you with more opportunities than you had before. But ultimately, if you want to become intimate and sexual with women, you’re going to have to learn to convey your desire for her.

But this raises a bit of a paradox and the problem that every man faces when he tries to seduce a woman. How do you show her that you want her, while still remaining high status? Wouldn’t a man of high status have women come to him and not the other way around?

The paradox lies in the idea that a high status man would make himself appear low status by pursuing a woman. But at the same time, by not pursuing her, he would never get her. So what’s a man to do?

Attempts by the Pick Up Artists

Enter the Pick Up Artists. The Pick Up Artist movement is a men’s movement that began in the 1990’s on the Internet. Thousands of guys who had no luck with the ladies congregated on message boards, forums and chat rooms and began trading advice and pick up lines to help each other out.

Within a decade, entire schools of thought had formed, companies were born, and gurus anointed. By the end of the next decade, a multi-million dollar industry had ballooned selling men’s dating advice ranging from old rich men selling platitudes such as "let her come to you," to a computer programmer’s "emotional acceleration model" that promised to use calculus to determine how attracted she was at any given moment.

No, I’m not making that up.

But the most popular thrust of PUA theory was the idea of using lines and routines (entire sequences of pick up lines) to convey to a woman that you were a man of "value" and status.

If there’s one thing the PUA movement understood, it’s that a man has to take care if he’s going to openly pursue a woman but maintain the perception of his status at the same time. These lines and routines that they came up with were pre-conceived conversations specifically designed to hit on a girl while simultaneously keeping her confused as to whether you are hitting on her or not.

The idea was to get her turned on with your witty banter and humor, while simultaneously keeping her guessing as to what your intentions were.

The idea behind it was that you can use simple forms of psychology and framing to make it appear that you are high status (even if you’re not) and act on your desire for her while looking like you weren’t interested.

PUA theory claimed to solve the investment paradox: it taught men how to show interest while not looking like they were showing interest. It showed them how to try hard without looking try-hard. It showed them how to appear high status even if they weren’t high status.

Except it forgot one thing: women aren’t stupid.

You can fake conversations, but you can’t the behaviors that signal a man being high status. You can’t fake self-perception. You can’t fake how others perceive you. And you can only fake how you behave around others for so long before you run out of routines.

PUA theory works very well in just that, theory. But it has one glaring flaw brings that it crashing down like a house of cards. Women don’t perceive status only by the words you say, they judge your status by all of your behavior -- towards them, towards others and but most importantly, towards yourself. Most of this behavior is non-verbal. And most of this non-verbal behavior happens subconsciously and cannot be faked.

The other mistakes PUA’s make is the fallacy of "correlation means causation." For instance, if a PUA goes out, says his routines to a girl and gets laid as a result, he’ll jump onto a forum and proclaim his new routines got him laid. When in reality, it could have been any number of things that got him laid: the fact he looks like her ex-boyfriend, the fact that she was really sad and lonely that night, the fact that she wanted to get out of a dry-spell or she was being peer pressured into hooking up with a guy. Or maybe she thought his lines were cheesy and fake, but when he got drunk and went to make out with her, something about his desire turned her on.

The point is, as men, only so much of the seduction process happens consciously. Most of it happens unconsciously. And most of it happens due to circumstance, psychological profiles and sexual history -- basically things we can never know in their entirety and can therefore never control. Lines and gimmicks have very little to do with it. And often they actually hurt your chances, not help them, as we’ll see later.

I discovered PUA theory in 2005 and the results were more or less disastrous. My experiments with it ended about six months later when a girl pleaded with me to "act normal next time."

So I did. I acted normal, and that actually got me a few phone numbers. I took it from there.

Since then, I’ve seen hundreds upon hundreds of men making complete and utter fools of themselves by running around reciting silly lines to girls. And the few guys who I’ve met who have made these routines work for them, are usually operating with a large number of other advantages which they’re completely oblivious to. For example, I once met a powerful nightclub promoter with big biceps and tattoos who insisted that his lines and routines got him laid, not the fact that he was a buff nightclub promoter with awesome tattoos.

But the point remains: you can only fake behavior for so long. And as we’ll see in the coming chapter, the fatal flaw of pick up lines, manipulation and PUA theory is that ultimately, coming up with theories to pick up women is just as needy and desperate as any other needy and desperate behavior. Sitting at home conjuring up theories about how to attract a girl in the club is just as needy as buying her a dozen roses and begging her to go out with you. It’s just you’re being needy in a way that lies and says you’re not needy. That’s all.

At best, PUA theory acts as a placebo effect to get men out there and taking action. At worst, it deludes them into thinking they’re controlling entire social systems that they have no control over, and lobotomizes their ability to empathize and connect with others in the process.

And women sense this. They’re not dumb. It’s why most PUA theory doesn’t work in the long-run. You may be talking about astrology charts, but they know you’re hitting on them. The answer isn’t finding new ways to mislead women into thinking your high status and confident.

The answer is to be high status and confident. And it doesn’t require being rich or being successful. It requires a new mindset, and from that mindset will flow new and attractive behaviors.

Because there IS a way to behave in a high status fashion while still showing your desire to women. There is a way to unravel the conundrum. You can chase without being desperate. You can pursue without being creepy. You don’t ever have to pretend you’re something that you’re not.

Chapter 2: Emotional Neediness

"We are not held back by the love we did not receive in the past; but by the love we do not extend in the present."- Marianne Williamson, Writer and Activist

How attractive a man is is inversely proportional to how needy he is. The more needy in his life, the less attractive and vice-versa.

Women mostly don’t judge a man’s status by the car he drives or how many VIP tables he buys. They judge it by his behavior, and the behavioral trait they pick up on is neediness.

An attractive man is not needy. An unattractive man is needy. And neediness can infiltrate any and all behaviors.

The notion of neediness isn’t new in relationship advice or social dynamics, although I do believe I’m the first one to propose that the opposite of neediness is actually the root cause of female-to-male attraction.

Here’s what I mean by neediness: being more invested in other people’s perceptions of you than your perception of yourself. Neediness plays out by people chronically investing themselves and their identities to receive validation from others around them.

Women are generally only attracted to men who are less invested in them, than they are in themselves.

By investment I mean the degree in which you sacrifice/alter your own thoughts/feelings/motivations for someone else. By less I mean that as a man, you should only be willing to sacrifice your thoughts/ feelings/motivations for a woman less than she is willing to do the same for you.

That may sound cold, un-PC, and yes, it made me squirm a little bit when I first realized it. But it’s true.

Think about it, for the majority of human history, men had few material possessions for women to judge their status by. Therefore women watched men’s behavior. Ask yourself what kind of behavior would indicate to a woman that a man is high status and fit?

Would it be a man who defers to all of the other men around him, who begs the women to be with him? Or would it be the man who does what he wants, is unfazed by the threats others may pose to him and who shrugs if he pursues a woman and she has no interest in him.

The second man indicates a man of status. If you’re top of the food chain, you have no reason to be inhibited or to defer to others (unless you want to). If you’re bottom of the food chain, you’re entire life will revolve around the deferment to others.

The high status man displays little neediness. The low status man displays much of it.

Neediness is not consciously calculated in women. I guarantee you will not see women walking around with neediness scorecards any time soon.

Neediness is felt. It’s intuited by women by watching a man’s behavior carefully. It’s why women can often become turned off at the most innocuous moment or by the most unimportant statement. Consciously, the action or statement may seem harmless, but unconsciously, it conveyed a large amount of neediness.

As you are probably aware, women can be needy as well. And although neediness is a large turn off for most men, it’s not the endall- be-all that it is for most women.

Ideally, two emotionally healthy individuals will begin a relationship with both low investments in one another and they will steadily let them grow as the relationship grows. In a healthy relationship, the gap between investment between the two parties would never grow too far apart and the man would never become more invested than the woman.

It may still irk some people’s political correctness bone when we say, "the man would never become more invested than the woman," but remember, a woman unconsciously bases her evaluation of a man’s fitness and status by how little or much he’s affected by the emotions and intentions of those around him, particularly her. Obviously if he’s in a relationship with her, he should be affected by her, but never more than she is by him. The minute he let’s her dominate him emotionally, he demonstrates a lack of status. He’s no longer dependable. He loses his ability to make her feel secure. And his attractiveness goes out the window.

Here are a couple of examples. Jim is a nice guy. He tends to be needy in his relationships and has what we would call a high level of investment with any woman that he meets.

Whenever he dates a woman, he will rearrange his entire schedule at her whim. He will buy her gifts and spend most of his paycheck on the nicest dinners for her. He’ll forgo plans with his guy friends and any time the woman he dates gets angry, he’ll sit patiently and listen for her to vent all of her frustrations onto him. Even when he feels that she’s being irrational or treating him unfairly, he won’t say anything because he doesn’t want her to be upset with him.

As a result, Jim’s girlfriends rarely respect him. And sooner or later -- usually sooner -- they dump him. When Jim gets dumped, he becomes distraught and depressed. He’s often inconsolable and drinks too much. Usually he doesn’t feel better again until he meets another woman and the entire cycle repeats itself.

Then there’s Jeff. Jeff has been successful with women for his entire life and has a very low level of identity investment in them. Jeff enjoys going out with his friends and pays no attention to whether the women around him approve of him or not. Often he annoys or offends some girls, but since he’s not paying attention to what they think of him, it doesn’t bother him.

But other times girls become very attracted to Jeff. When Jeff notices, if he finds them attractive, he’ll take their number and ask them out. When he takes them out, he takes them to the park down the street from his flat. He then sits there and chats with them for a while and if he doesn’t like them, he’ll get up and leave. If he does like them, he might take them to grab a beer with him. If at any point she decides she doesn’t like him and leaves, Jeff doesn’t really mind. He figures that he wouldn’t have been happy with her anyway, so why change himself to please her?

Jeff ends up sleeping with a lot of women. His phone is constantly ringing with texts from them, but he only answers them when he feels like it. He’s never rude or nasty to them. But he only makes time for the ones he genuinely enjoys spending time with.

Jim has a high level of emotional investment with the women he meets and dates. He’s very needy. He immediately enslaves what little of his identity he’s aware of to whatever he believes will make women like him.

Jeff has a very low level of investment. He’s very content with his life and proud of who he is. He’s not needy. If a woman doesn’t appreciate that, then he figures he’s better off without her.

Women, as if with a sixth-sense, detect Jeff’s low level of emotional investment. Within moments of speaking to him, and often before even speaking to him, they sense that not only does he have a strong sense of identity, but he’s unwilling to compromise that identity for her. This sub-communicates his high status to them and elicits attraction.

Ask women and they will tell you, they can immediately tell if a man’s "got it," or if he doesn’t. They don’t know what "it" is, but they know if he has it or not. That "it" that they intuitively know in their gut the second they see him walk, hear him talk, or look him in the eye is his level of neediness, how much he’s invested in her opinion of him versus his own.

"It" is often referred to as confidence or self-esteem or being dominant. None of these terms are wrong per se, but they’ve been used in so many contexts and have so many definitions that I’ve foregone them in favor of calling "it" exactly what it is: not being needy.

If this all seems very impractical so far, don’t worry. The majority of this book is based on how to get "it" and how to convey "it" with women immediately, regardless of what you actually say or do.

The Seduction Process

Women have a lot more to lose than men when it comes to sex. As a result, they’re (usually) far pickier in choosing their sexual partners. Whereas most men will stick it in just about anything if given the proper opportunity and context, women hold out, often against their own urges, to make sure they feel comfortable and secure with the man before they have sex with him.

That feeling of comfort and security is once she realizes she’s with a attractive man who demonstrates desire for her. Biologically, this indicates to her that this is a man of status and security. It represents a man who dependable, who won’t waver when confronted with difficult situations and emotional stress. Who will stick by her and her children through thick and thin.

Because men value sex more than woman at the beginning of a relationship, women tend to be less invested and less needy early in the interaction. When a man approaches her and induces her to become more invested than he is, this is the process of seduction. Once she’s more invested in him than he is in her, sex occurs as a side effect of that emotional investment.

Evolutionarily speaking, a man’s biggest biological concern is raising children who are his own and a woman’s biggest biological concern is inducing a man to commit to her and her children. This is a by-product of how human sexuality functions and evolved. Men are capable of impregnating hundreds of women over the course of a lifetime and historically, have been more capable of accumulating resources. Women, on the other hand, can guarantee a man his children are his in return for his commitment.

A man who is highly invested and needy before sex indicates that he’s unreliable. If he’s willing to bend his will and emotions to such an extent just to have sex, then he’s indicating that he’s unlikely to dependable or non-needy post-sex. Whereas a man who is nonneedy around sex, but still demonstrates desire for the woman he’s with, makes her feel secure in the fact that he’s choosing her from a place of control and security, not to fill some hole of validation.

When boy meets girl, there are two ways for the seduction process to occur: boy gives girl the impression that he’s less invested in her than he is; or boy demonstrates that he is actually less invested than she is.

The first method (giving false impression) occurs through flirtation and a man displaying his best qualities about himself. It can also occur through outright manipulation and lying. The second method (him demonstrating less investment) is a passive process that he does within himself and that permeates every aspect of his behavior.

Traditionally, male dating advice has focused on either one or the other. The first method is populated by pick up tactics: lines, routines, gimmicks, and displays of value meant to conjure up a sense that the woman is actually more invested in him than she actually is. The second method is populated by generic advice on confidence and self-development or "inner game."

Both methods work. Although the first is a short-term solution and the second is a long-term solution. And generally once the second method is accomplished, the first begins to happen on its own.

How this process of investment plays out in real-life scenarios is best demonstrated by some examples I’ve come across in guys I’ve worked with. My guess is a lot of what happens in these examples will resonate with your own experience. (Names are changed and some details added for effect.)

When Ryan was in college, he was a leading member of his fraternity. He was in charge of organizing his house’s parties. He was a gregarious guy and liked by most people. At one of these parties he met Jane. Jane took an immediate liking to Ryan and the two began dating. Ryan would organize and throw his parties, Jane would come and bring her friends. They shared stories, experiences and interests. The rest of college went on like this.

After they graduated, Ryan took a job at a bank. Jane got involved in a local charity. Ryan’s social network disappeared and his long hours at work killed any desire for him to go out and make new friends. He began to spend more and more time with Jane. They usually just watched movies and shared a bottle of wine.

As time went on, Jane became more and more involved in her charity events and began traveling to help with fundraisers. Ryan would spend this time alone watching TV or maybe grabbing a beer with one of his old buddies, but it wasn’t the same. After another year, Ryan would openly complain to Jane about her trips. Jane obviously sympathized with Ryan, but she felt pressured and resented him for putting that kind of pressure on her. They began to fight more often. Ryan gained weight. Jane spent more time working away from home.

Ryan decided to plan a lavish trip for the two of them to the Caribbean. He could use some much-needed time away from work, and it would infuse their relationship with some excitement and passion that it sorely needed. The trip returned the romance to the two briefly. But upon returning home reality began to set in once again. Within a few months it was back to business as usual: him overworked and irritable, her distancing herself and traveling.

Ryan began talking about marriage. Jane was hesitant. She cited that her job was getting busier and she didn’t know how much she’d be around to plan a wedding. Ryan had been saving much of his money to buy her a ring. Jane lamented that they were still young and hadn’t really experienced much of life yet. Secretly, in the back of her mind, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Ryan was terrified of just that: experiencing life, and marrying her was just another way for him to escape it.

Dejected, a few weeks later Ryan began to complain that Jane spent too much time with her friends and at work. Indeed, Jane had been staying at work until way into the night, even on days when she didn’t have to. Ryan began pressuring Jane to move in together, but again she resisted, this time fervently. Ryan exploded, he had been giving up everything for her the past few years and she had been nothing but ungrateful. She retorted that Ryan had been suffocating her with his demands for attention and affection. Jane dumped him on the spot.

There’s a good chance the above story sounds familiar to you. You or one of your friends or family members have probably gone through the same process as Ryan: meet girl in a situation of low emotional investment and low neediness, entered relationship with said girl, gradually invested more and more until girl leaves you and dates a guy less invested.

Here’s another story that may or may sound familiar to you, but is just as important.

Daniel is 24-years-old and trying to get over a three year dry-spell. It’s the first time he’s pursued women since his only girlfriend dumped him three year ago.

Daniel goes out to a bar one night and approaches Stacy. Daniel approaches her with what seems like an innocuous question about drunk guys getting in fights. She responds and he follows it up with a number of quirky lines to soon get her laughing.

These are lines and questions Daniel learned from reading a book on women. Daniel has been practicing the tactics for a while and has recently become proficient at using them. After facing countless rejections, he’s finally able to get girls’ phone numbers and even a few dates.

He continues to talk to Stacy throughout a lot of the night about preordained topics he’s comfortable with. He’s able to punctuate each lull with tried and tested jokes he’s used dozens of times. Every time, Stacy laughs on cue. He puts his arm around her and she leans into him.

A week later, after some fun texting, Stacy meets up with Daniel for a date. Once again, Daniel executes everything he’s learned: stick to topics about her passions, move her from venue to venue, never sit across from her but next to her, use a planned excuse to get her back to his place, etc.

There are hiccups along the way, but it all more or less works. Stacy seems genuinely attracted and when Daniel finally works up the nerve to kiss her, she kisses back enthusiastically.

Daniel is ecstatic. He feels like the months of hard work has finally paid off.

The second date goes similarly. Daniel manages to get Stacy back to his apartment where fumbling through his excitement, he has sex with her.

Daniel is on cloud nine, delirious with excitement, he jumps online to his favorite pick up forums and writes up a post detailing how his tactics and lines worked and how everyone else should use them. Little does Daniel realize that it wasn’t his lines and tricks that Stacy fell for, it was the endearing way he laughed at himself whenever he was self-conscious. She thought it was cute and it reminded her of her first boyfriend. She decided Daniel probably hadn’t been with a girl in a while and she wanted to feel needed by someone, so she decided to help him with that.

Daniel continues to go out and run his "game" but he’s always excited to see Stacy again. They see each other a few more times over the ensuing weeks, but something changes. Since he’s already had sex with her, Daniel stops running his lines and tactics that he learned. He slowly reverts back to his normal self. His needy self.

It begins subtly with him agreeing with everything she says, followed by a sudden inability to come up with new and interesting topics of conversation. What used to be vibrant and hilarious bantering has now turned into Stacy showing up, saying whatever she wants and Daniel more or less agreeing with her until it’s time to have sex, really bad sex.

One day, Daniel texts Stacy about meeting up with him that weekend. She was busy studying for a test that night and didn’t reply. Daniel begins to get very insecure about why she’s not responding. He gets on a message board and makes a post about it. The next day, there are numerous replies with all sorts of "antiflake" strategies and possible reasons that she’s not talking to him anymore.

He decides to text her some of these "anti-flake" texts that involve some silly lines and a playful tease. Again, she doesn’t respond. Daniel gets even more upset.

The next day, after her test, Stacy sees her phone and notices four new texts from Daniel. The first one is casual, but each one gets progressively weirder and nonsensical. Stacy is turned off, but willing to overlook it and replies that she was busy taking a test but could see Daniel that weekend.

But Daniel is not so easily fooled. He’s not about to reward Stacy’s "shit test" by immediately hanging out with her. He’s read theories on punishing women for "bad behavior." So he waits a few hours and then texts Stacy that she’s too late and he’s already made other plans with other people. She finds this strange and is annoyed since he had texted her four times, but shrugs it off and goes on with her life.

Two days later Daniel texts her again insinuating that he’s ready to see her now. The condescending and disrespectful tone pisses Stacy off and she doesn’t respond.

Two days later Daniel, drunk and confused on why she doesn’t want to see him anymore, sends a sappy text saying that he really likes her and really wants to see her again and doesn’t know why she doesn’t like him anymore.

Completely confused and turned off, Stacy replies that he’s a nice guy but she just wants to be friends even though she has no intention of ever seeing him again.

I can tell you that I’ve seen both of these stories play out over and over and over again, in hundreds of different forms between hundreds of different people.

Guy meets girl. Guy shows less investment than girl (or induces more investment in girl), sex and/or relationship occurs, guy becomes more invested than girl, sex stops and/or relationship falls apart.

The first story is an example of why it’s important to lower one’s neediness by investing in himself rather than the woman he’s with. It’s the only long-term solution available to keep long-term relationships stable and happy.

Ryan’s relationship with Jane failed because after he graduated from college he lost and never regained the great aspects of his identity that made him so attractive to Jane in the first place -- his social network, his joy and spontaneity, his confidence among friends. As he got cornered into a job he hated, and lost his social network, he began leaning on her more and more to define his identity for himself.

Meanwhile, Jane flourished after graduation, quickly falling into a job she was passionate about and good at. She made new friends and began traveling having new experiences on her own. As Jane became less invested in Greg for her identity, Greg became more invested in Jane, becoming needier and needier. Eventually the relationship toppled over.

Daniel’s experience was different. Daniel’s story is a quintessential example of why pick up lines, routines, value tactics and the like are only short-term solutions. Daniel was needy and highly invested in Stacy’s affection from the start. All Daniel did was use techniques and lines to trick Stacy into thinking he was far less needy and invested than he actually was.

And it worked, a bit. But the irony here, is that what attracted most was not Daniel’s lines, but the authenticity of him bumbling through them to impress her. Stacy found it endearing and genuine. She was in a place in her life where she wanted to feel needed and powerful. She also found the idiosyncrasies of his personality to be cute, as they reminded her of her first boyfriend. So she decided to sleep with him.

But as Daniel’s lines and techniques ran out, the true level of investment became more and more clear. Daniel’s behavior became erratic and Stacy quickly became disgusted by him, eventually cutting him off.

But a lot of guys who follow this type of dating advice don’t even make it that far. They may conjure the impression for only an hour, or even a few minutes before they falter.

Learning pick up techniques and lines without doing genuine identity-level work in order to permanently decrease your neediness ends up only being a band-aid solution. It provides a short, temporary relief from an otherwise permanent problem.

Over-Compensating and Fake Alphas

Another common strategy a lot of men employ is overcompensation. This is often portrayed as the "player lifestyle" imploring men to "be alpha" repeatedly, with little understanding of what that actually means.

The advice comes in all varieties, but usually boils down to this: focus on your own wants and desires to the point of imposing and offending them onto others. Exaggerate your dominance and boast of your strength. Go out of your way to make others feel smaller so that you appear bigger. I used to call these guys "fake alphas" but really they’re just guys over-compensating by beating their chest a little too much.

Fake alphas are often serial-players. Guys who obsessively seek out casual sex and not only regard the women they sleep with poorly, but treat them poorly as well.

This behavior is a mirage. At first a "fake alpha" appears like a man who is non-needy and less invested. But if you look a little deeper, it’s the same old story once again.

The fake alphas portray a "don’t give a fuck" attitude which on the surface appears uninvested to those around them. But the catch here is that the fake alpha doesn’t actually not give a fuck, instead he walks around telling everyone he doesn’t give a fuck.

This is like the guy who says, "I don’t care if she calls me back." And then the next day when she doesn’t call him he calls her a stupid whore and how she was stupid anyway and it’s her loss. But hey man, he doesn’t care, right?

The fake alpha persona’s motive is exactly the same as the ultra nice guy’s persona: to gain attention and affection from those around them. One guy does it by being nice, one guy does it by being imposing and rude. One tries to induce love. The other tries to induce fear. Both are needy.

Both personas are equally dependent on the validation from women and people around them -- the nice guy from his girlfriend/wife, the fake alpha from the amount of women he’s able to sleep with or hook up with. Both derive from a fundamental insecurity.

That’s why it’s not uncommon to see men swing from one extreme to the other, from supplicating nice guy, to over-compensating asshole. Because despite surface appearances, they aren’t so different. Let’s do another example.

Roy was a nice guy all through college. He was a geeky science guy, but adored by all of the girls he hung out with. Unfortunately, Roy adored them as well, but whenever he worked up the nerve to say something, they always told him they just wanted to be his friend. All the while Roy would sit there listening to his female friends complain about their horrible and insensitive boyfriends. All Roy could think was, "But I care about you, I’m sensitive, and I’m right in front of you. Why can’t you see that?"

Needless to say, Roy’s female friends never came around for him. Eventually, when Roy was 25-years-old, he landed his first girlfriend: a depressive and slightly over-weight grad student who worked in his lab. Despite her obvious short-comings, he was smitten with her. But his girlfriend’s emotional instability eventually got the best of both of them and she left Roy after a turbulent year for another man.

Roy’s anger boiled over. He was sick of being walked on. He was sick of being ignored and hurt. His entire life women had never paid attention to him sexually, and the one who finally did wasn’t satisfied. Roy decided he had had enough, it was time to put himself first. It was time to put his own needs first. He read some books about being a player and how to seduce women. These books encouraged Roy to tease girls, put them in their place and act cocky and arrogant around them. He decided to try it out the next few times he went out with his friends.

Roy quickly felt comfortable dishing out insults and teases toward the drunk women he talked to. It felt like vindication for a lifetime of emotional negligence. Some women were offended, but strangely this made Roy feel even more powerful and motivated him to go out even more.

Soon, to Roy’s surprise, some of these girls actually started becoming attracted to him. He began to take them home and sleep with them. At first the girls were drunk and ugly, but slowly and surely, as Roy became more comfortable in his new player persona, the girls became more attractive.

Some of the girls Roy slept with were genuinely intrigued by Roy and wanted to get to know him better. Roy would toy with these women, play phone tag with them, use them for sex a few more times and then invent some sort of conflict or blame her for something she didn’t do as an excuse to not see her anymore. These women quickly got the picture that Roy was not stable nor an enjoyable person to spend time with, so they would move on.

Other girls Roy slept with weren’t as intrigued with him as they were emotionally desperate for some sort of male validation. Generally these women behaved in a dramatic fashion. They would launch into crying fits, call Roy dozens of times over the course of a night or show up to his apartment unannounced. The sex was often incredible, but it was almost impossible for Roy’s own anger and insecurities to not get sucked into the drama of these other women. Dramatic episodes would go on for weeks or sometimes months in a cycle of angry break up back to loving reunion back to angry break up, over and over again, each time getting more intense. Many of these women had experienced sexual abuse in their past. Eventually Roy would tire of their games and break things off permanently, swearing to never let himself succumb to them like that again. But often the next "crazy" girl would be right around the corner.

Once again, what’s happening here is that the fake alpha persona -- the "Don’t Give a Fuck" attitude that imposes itself onto others -- creates the impression of non-neediness. The catch is that only other needy people actually perceive the fake alpha to not be needy. Anyone who is confident and less invested in others will see right through the fake alpha.

A rich man doesn’t need to tell people he’s rich. A confident man doesn’t need to tell people he’s confident. And a guy who "doesn’t give a fuck" doesn’t need to go around telling people he "doesn’t give a fuck."

The persona is actually a front, an act, a compensation, an emotional acting out against the women who hurt him the past. In the end, anger is just as needy as desperation, and the fake alpha is quickly exposed to actually have been highly-invested in sleeping with the woman all along. After all, going out and picking up dozens of women requires a LOT of time and effort, and one doesn’t put that much time and effort into sex with women if one isn’t seeking an absurd level of validation.

Once this becomes apparent to women, they become naturally repelled by it, like they are with the nice guys, like they are with the gimmicky guys.

But there’s an important exception here. There are still a certain amount of women who are as needy as the fake alphas -- the socalled "crazy women." These are women who’s need for male attention and validation from men outstrips even the fake alphas need for attention and validation from women.

I always tell guys, if every girl you date is unstable and crazy, that probably means you’re unstable and crazy. Confident people don’t date unconfident people and vice-versa. Women who aren’t needy don’t date men who are needy. They simply don’t have the patience nor the respect for them.

Think about it, a guy who doesn’t derive his happiness and confidence in himself from how often he gets laid, isn’t going to be willing to put up with a highly neurotic, dramatic and emotionally unstable woman. It simply won’t be worth it. The little validation he receives from being with her will not be worth the headache she gives him.

But a man who DOES derive his identity from sleeping with many women will put up with any type of women. In fact, neurotic and crazy women are more appealing to him because they’re more likely to put out.

Conversely, a confident woman who doesn’t define herself by the man she dates, is not going to have time for a guy who spends his time trying to impress her. The little bit of validation she receives from it is not going to be worth putting up with the fact that she’s dealing with a guy who is far needier than she is, and therefore she’s not going to have any attraction for him.

But if you take a guy who is obsessed with the sexual validation he receives from women (highly needy), then the only women he’s going to be less needy than (definition of status and attraction) are women who are VERY needy for the attention they receive from men.

This is why the classic pick up advice is all geared towards drunk party girls. The type of women you will find drunk in a night club are most likely to be the highest invested in sexual validation of any women you would normally meet. Therefore these tactics or the fake alpha persona is most likely to work on them.

It’s also why there’s a lack of long-term relationships among pick up coaches in epic proportions. Most of them are incapable of maintaining a lower level of investment than the woman in the longrun. This is because all of the tactics that they’ve learned and taught are short-term remedies, not deep, life-long change.

They’ve never actually lowered their identity-investment and become permanently attractive men, they’ve merely thought up more and more ways to conjure higher investment from whichever women they’re speaking to.

But as we’ve seen in these (very common) examples, all people eventually return to their baseline levels of investment. And until one is able to permanently alter their baseline level of identityinvestment in themselves, they will continue to attract the same types of women, and end up in the same failed relationships.

Permanent change to the amount of one’s identity one invests in their relationships with women is hard and a process that encompasses all facets of one’s life. But it’s a worthwhile journey. As a man, it may be the most worthwhile journey.

And the key is probably something you wouldn’t expect. In fact, it’s something that most men turn their nose up to when they here it. It’s vulnerability.

Chapter 3: Power in Vulnerability

"I do not conquer; I submit."- Giacomo Casanova

When most men hear the word "vulnerability," their immediate reaction is to associate it with weakness. In general, men are raised to withhold their emotions, to not show weakness, and to ignore any hint of introspection. On top of that, most of the popular pick up advice out there encourages guys to be aloof, stand-offish, judgmental and at times scathing towards women.

Men have a lot of negative assumptions about the ideas of being more vulnerable and opening up to their emotions. Chances are it makes you a little skeptical or queazy to see this chapter.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to have you hold hands with some wimpy support group and recite lines like, "I love myself and am a happy person."

I want you to think of vulnerability in a more broad way. Not just emotional vulnerability (although we’ll get to that), but physical vulnerability, social vulnerability.

For instance, making yourself vulnerable doesn’t just mean being willing to share your fears or insecurities. It can mean putting yourself in a position where you can be rejected, saying a joke that may not be funny, asserting an opinion that may offend others, joining a table of people you don’t know, telling a woman that you like her and want to date her. All of these things require you to stick your neck out on the line emotionally in some way. You’re making yourself vulnerable when you do them.

In this way, vulnerability represents a form of power, a deep and subtle form of power. A man who’s able to make himself vulnerable is saying to the world, "I don’t care what you think of me; this is who I am, and I refuse to be anyone else." He’s saying he’s not needy and that he’s high status.

Most people think of a man who’s vulnerable as a man who cowers in the corner and begs others to accept him or not hurt him. This is not vulnerability, this is weakness and neediness.

Think of it this way, there are two men. One stands tall, looks straight ahead. Looks people in the eye when he speaks to them. Says what he thinks and is unconcerned with what others think of him. When he makes a mistake, he shrugs it off and maybe apologizes. When he sucks at something, he admits it. He’s unafraid to express his emotions, even if that means he gets rejected. He has no problem moving on to people who don’t reject him, but like him for who he is.

Now, the second man hunches over, eyes dart around and is unable to look someone in the eye without getting uncomfortable. He puts on a cool persona that is always aloof. He avoids saying things that may upset others, and sometimes even lies to avoid conflict. He’s always trying to impress people. When he makes a mistake, he tries to blame others or pretend like it didn’t happen. He hides his emotions and will smile and tell everyone he’s fine even when he’s not. He’s scared to death of rejection. And when he is rejected, it sends him reeling, angry, and desperate to find a way to win back the affection of the person who doesn’t like him.

Which one of these two men is more powerful? Which one is more vulnerable? Which one is more comfortable with himself? Which one do you think women would be more attracted to?

From an evolutionary perspective, vulnerability makes perfect sense as an indicator to women of a male’s status and fitness. Let’s say there’s a tribe of 20 men, all hunter gatherers, all men with more or less equal possessions (or lack thereof).

Some of the men in the tribe are constantly reactive to what the other men tell them. They don’t admit faults. They change their behavior and what they say to win the approval of the other men. When something doesn’t go their way, they look to blame someone else. What would this say about their status in their tribe? If they’re basing all of their behavior on the approval of the other men and are constantly covering for their weaknesses, it says that they’re low status, not trustworthy, needy, and probably not going to be a dependable father.

Now imagine other men in the same tribe who are unfazed by the neediness or temper tantrums of the other men around them. They focus purely on their task at hand and don’t change their behavior based on what others think of them. When challenged, they stand up for themselves, but when wrong they also admit their fault, as they see no reason to hide their weakness. They have a sense of honor. They don’t react to any of the other men around them, rather, the other men react to him.

This behavior implies high status, a man who is dependable, comfortable in his strengths and weaknesses, a man who can be counted on and who is likely to rise through the ranks and provide for his family.

He’s likely to succeed and likely to be a dependable father.

My belief is that women have been naturally selected to choose high status men based on their behavior first, and then their looks and accomplishments second -- as looks and accomplishments tend be reflected by high status behavior, not the other way around. This high status behavior is a man who is comfortable with his vulnerability, who isn’t afraid to express who he is, warts and all, to the world. This plays out in multiple arenas -- in the life decisions he makes (Part III), the extent of his courage (Part IV) and the way he communicates to others (Part V).

Chances are, if you’re reading this and are bad with women, then you’re bad with women because you don’t express your true feelings and intentions very well at all. Perhaps you’re afraid to approach women you find attractive, or ask them out on a date. Perhaps you consistently fall into boring conversation topics because they’re "safe" and shallow and you don’t have to risk offending or inciting anyone with them. Perhaps you’re stuck in a job or lifestyle you don’t truly enjoy, but because other people always told you that it was a good idea and you didn’t want to upset or disappoint others. Perhaps you haven’t exercised or groomed yourself to the extent that you could because you didn’t want to stand out too much. Dressing extremely well makes you feel uncomfortable, smiling at strangers makes you feel creepy, and the idea of hitting on a woman openly scares you because of the possible rejection.

All of these are symptoms of a root problem: an inability to make yourself vulnerable.

Many men, like you, and like me, were raised in such a way as to not express our emotions freely. For whatever reason -- maybe our home situation, maybe childhood trauma, maybe our parents didn’t ever express their emotions either -- we’ve grown up with habits embedded deeply into us to keep us stifled and bottled up. Don’t be controversial. Don’t be unique. Don’t do anything "crazy" or "stupid" or "selfish."

I was the same way. My entire young life I was terrified of anyone not liking me. The mere thought of someone hating me, girl or guy, would literally keep me up at night. As a result, every aspect of my life revolved around people-pleasing, hiding my faults, covering my tracks, blaming others. And needless to say, I barely had any success with women. And when I did finally get a girlfriend, she left my ass for a man who could actually express himself.

This all may sound hokey and new-agey. Trust me, it’s not. Connecting with women in this way, by being vulnerable -- as opposed to compensating or becoming a fake alpha -- will result in the some of the best interactions and relationships of your life. In the past three years I’ve had women thank me for having a one night stand with them; women tell me that our week together meant more to them than their entire four-year relationship with their exboyfriend; women ask me to take their virginity because I was the first guy they had ever met who they trusted enough to do it. I have beautiful women from all over the world that I keep in touch with years later and share wonderful memories with -- some of whom I spent less than 48 hours with.

Vulnerability is the path of true human connection and becoming a truly attractive person. As Psychologist Robert Glover says: "Humans are attracted to each other’s rough edges." Show your rough edges. Stop trying to be perfect. Expose yourself and share yourself without inhibition. Take the rejections and lumps and move on because you’re a bigger and stronger man. And when you find a woman who loves who you are (and you will), revel in her affection.

But opening oneself up to vulnerability, training oneself to become comfortable with your emotions, with your faults, and with expressing oneself without inhibitions doesn’t happen overnight. This entire book is kind of a how-to guide for vulnerability disguised as a seduction manual. But it’s a process, and at times is a grueling one.

The Pain Period

When undertaking any self-development or change in behavior, there’s going to be an initial "pain period." The pain period typically happens in the beginning of the change and forming a new habit. And it’s, well … it’s usually quite painful.

Whether it’s body-building, learning a new language, starting a new job, there’s going to be an awkward and difficult period where you’re going to struggle, fail at times, and most of all, feel vulnerable.

Most people absolutely hate this feeling and avoid it as much as possible. Being vulnerable hurts. It’s embarrassing. That first time you approach a girl in a bar in your life, chances are you’re going to be freaking out. And if she doesn’t react well, you’re going to feel really stupid. That first time you pick up to call a girl you like. The first time you go in for the kiss. These are all nerve-wracking moments that are not very pleasant to go through.

And chances are, the more you’ve bottled up your emotions throughout your life, the more painful these actions are going to be. As vulnerability researcher Brene Brown says, "The less you talk about your shame, the more of it you have."

This book presents many ways in which to change your life: how to dress better, express yourself better in conversation, approach women on the street, make women laugh, become physically intimate, build a network of friends who make you happy and much more. But all of these things have one thing in common, they’re going to require you to open up to being vulnerable. Whether it’s forcing yourself to make some new friends, or forcing yourself to go in for that kiss that you’ve always been afraid to go for on the first date, you’re going to be making yourself vulnerable.

And the feeling is going to suck. A lot.

You’re going to feel uncomfortable. You’re going to come up with rationalizations about how you’ll do it next time. You’ll plan ahead, procrastinate and then re-plan and then procrastinate again, and then decide you need to read this book a couple more times -- all because you’re scared to death of that vulnerability.

Maybe you’ve already been through this. Maybe you’ve already spent months or years avoiding taking action because you’re afraid of the consequences. Maybe you’ve put off that career change, that wardrobe upgrade, joining that dating site. Maybe you’ve missed opportunities with women who liked you because you were too afraid to make a move. Maybe you convinced yourself that you needed to "know how" first. Maybe you convinced yourself that you needed to see someone else do it first.

These are all forms of avoidance. And we’ll get into them and pick them apart ruthlessly in Part IV. But the point is making yourself vulnerable is really, really, really hard and can be really, really, really painful. And the less vulnerable you’ve let yourself be throughout your life, the harder it’s going to be to start.

But slowly, you will chisel away at yourself. You’ll humble yourself, expose yourself, and then learn that it’s OK. It’s OK to be rejected. It’s OK to make mistakes. It’s OK to say something stupid. Women will not dislike you for your rejections and mistakes or saying something stupid.

They’ll like you for your ability to be OK with being rejected, to make mistakes, and to say something stupid. The man who always has the perfect line to say to her is a man she will not trust. Because he shows no vulnerability and his words are inauthentic and therefore needy.

The man who has some good lines and some bad lines and is able to admit the latter and laugh at the former, this is a man she will trust and a man she will open herself up to, both emotionally and physically.

That’s because a man who becomes comfortable with his vulnerability becomes the opposite of needy. If neediness is prioritizing others’ perceptions about you over your own, then vulnerability is the exact opposite. Being vulnerable forces you to accept and prioritize your own perception over those of others.

Why? Because you have no choice. As you make yourself vulnerable, you will experience rejection. And as you experience rejection, you will be forced to upgrade your own sense of self worth. There’s no other option. Slowly, but surely you’ll chisel a "Don’t Give a Fuck" attitude out of yourself that is genuine yet giving at the same time.

But this can only be done by consistently exposing yourself and opening up your emotions and true thoughts first to yourself and then to those around you.

This isn’t pretty at first. The worst part of the pain period is the fact that most people who have been stifling their emotions their entire lives have pent up a lot of anger, frustration and shame over the years. Typically, the older you are, the more you have pent up. And when you start to express this anger and shame, it’s not pretty.

You may find yourself behaving irrationally, developing strange beliefs, or becoming angry at many people. In many cases, this is why I support men who struggle with vulnerability to see a therapist as they go through this process.

Often, part of the pain period requires men to become an overcompensating fake alpha. For many men, this is part of the process. They’ve been walked over by women their entire lives and so as they open up and become more vulnerable, they unleash a lifetime of frustration onto the women they meet and sleep with. The danger of this is becoming convinced of and comfortable with this type of worldview. Some men over-compensate and never come back.

But most do. For some they need to over-compensate to survive the pain period. Others don’t need to compensate at all, for them it’s just a long hard struggle to self-actualization.

Whichever your path ends up taking, maintaining some form of selfawareness is going to be key.

Some of you may be reading this and thinking, "Well, that’s all fine, but I already express myself really well, and am pretty aware of my emotions."

Really?

See, I don’t buy it. In all of my years doing this, the single common thread between every man I’ve worked with who has problems with women is either a lack of awareness of his own emotional motivators, or an inability to express his emotions freely with those around him. And that sad part is, almost all of these men THINK they’re fine. We always think we’re fine.

But I’ll say this: if you consistently find it difficult to keep a girl interested in conversation. If you suffer large amounts of anxiety around women. If you feel like you need to prove something to others or yourself. Then there’s something there. Trust me, there’s something there. And there’s something you’re not expressing or some emotion you’re not in touch with.

Vulnerability of Showing Desire

The true power of vulnerability is that it resolves the investment paradox. The investment paradox, as mentioned in the previous chapter, is the conflict between the two aspects of female attraction. Women are attracted to men who are of higher status than themselves (or in our terms, less needy). They are also aroused by men who desire them. The paradox is that typically, if a man shows desire towards a woman, then he’s also showing some degree of neediness or that he’s lower status.

The common term for this is "putting her on a pedestal."

The Pick Up Artist community side-stepped the paradox by coming up with tricks and tactics which are able to show women desire while simultaneously giving the appearance of not showing desire or being needy. This works, but only in the short-term.

Vulnerability short-circuits the paradox. A man comfortable being vulnerable will not behave in a needy way. And when desire is shown without neediness, it is attractive. When desire is shown with neediness, it is unattractive.

Think about it this way. Tom approaches Sally. Prior to talking to her, Tom hovers over her shoulder for a good 30 seconds. He’s a little drunk. Once he works up the nerve, he leans in, and has a big grin showing both excitement and nervousness. He asks for her name and sticks out his hand. His voice wavers a bit as he tells her how pretty she is. She’s flattered but a little uncomfortable. She says, "Thanks." He holds her hand a little too long and stares at her and says, "No, really, just so, so pretty …" It’s getting a little awkward now. Sally kind of wants her hand back. Tom is looking around now and seems to be scrambling mentally to think of something else to say. He finally comes out with a weak, "Where are you from?" Sally’s now completely uncomfortable and finds an excuse to leave.

An hour later, Bill approaches Sally. Bill is well dressed and seems to be in control of all of his actions. When he approaches Sally he walks directly to her and unapologetically stands directly in front of her. She looks up at him as he sticks out his hand. He says, "Hi, my name is Bill, I thought you were very beautiful and wanted to say hi." His handshake is as firm as his voice. His slight smile shows confidence -- confidence that even if she told him to fuck off, Bill probably wouldn’t really care. Sally gives a meek "Thank you" and blushes. Bill then sidles up next to her putting his arm halfway around her and begins to tell her a story of something that happened earlier in the night. He doesn’t ask if she wants to hear a story. He doesn’t wait for her to ask him something. He just starts talking, as if what he has to say is the most important thing in the world. And again, if she didn’t want to hear it, Bill would probably just go find another girl to tell his story to. And that’s fine.

As mentioned in Chapter 2, women are tuned into a man’s overall behavior and demeanor -- not what he says, not how much is in his bank account -- but they look at what his behavior is and what it says about his level of neediness.

The way to combat neediness is by opening up to vulnerability. If you look at romance novels (which, by the way, I actually recommend you don’t, unless you’re a masochist like I am), you’ll find more or less the same story-arc in all of them. Strong male hero, sometimes a bit of a "bad boy," but usually a strong male who lives life on his own terms -- i.e., a "doesn’t take shit from anybody" type of guy. A female hero who pines for hero. They meet and at first they don’t get along. Man is insensitive or there are just too many barriers to them being together. But as the novel goes on, the male hero’s flaws are slowly exposed, and he’s forced to accept them, and (usually) with the help of the female hero, forced to come to terms with his vulnerability. He eventually opens up his inner-most feelings to her, becoming a strong bad boy, but with a heart, she supports him and guides him, they fall in love and live happily ever after (or sometimes someone dies tragically). The end.

Romance novels are basically pornography for women. There’s a reason they follow the same general themes and story-lines the same way real pornography follows the same general themes and (lack of) story lines.

Women want a strong, independent, high status male -- a "doesn’t take shit from anybody" bad boy -- but they want this bad boy to have a depth and a sensitivity that they only open up and show when they’re around her.

To me, it might as well be reading a Martian cookbook, it makes no sense to me. But women go absolutely wild for it. Romance novels have been by far the best-selling genre of books for decades now, and they show no signs of letting up. In fact, data from the publishing industry in 2009 says that the gap is widening. Romance novels are becoming even more popular.

The point is, despite what every fiber of your being may be telling you, opening you thoughts, actions and feelings up to being vulnerable actually defines attractive behavior by men. Being an independent and confident person depends on it. Acting on your desires and making moves on women depends on it. And once she gets to know you, displaying it to her will make her go weak in the knees. Plain and simple.

But there’s a catch. Usually when I give men the vulnerability spiel, their first reaction is to say, "Oh, OK, so I’ll tell her all of these sob stories and she’ll get turned on."

It’s not that simple. We’ll get to this in depth in Chapter 12, but your the meaning of your communication is your intention, not the data conveyed. So telling a woman a sob story with the intention to make her feel sorry for you is going to actually come across as needy and self-serving and not vulnerable at all. It doesn’t work that way.

When women connect with you emotionally and your desire for them, it’s not what you’re saying or the words you’re choosing, it’s the emotion behind those words. If the emotion behind your words is needy and self-serving, then she will become turned off no matter what you say. If the emotion behind your words is genuine and vulnerable, then it will turn her on. Yes, you can fake this stuff in the short-term if you become a good actor. But obviously, I don’t recommend that.

So the catch is that your statements must be authentic. Your statements toward women must be unconditional, otherwise it’s not really being vulnerable. If you tell a woman that she’s beautiful only because you think it’ll give you a better chance of sleeping with her, then amazingly, she will not be very flattered. If you don’t believe me, try it out some time. Give women false compliments and see how they respond. They won’t respond very well.

So the catch is that everything you say must be as authentic as possible. There’s no shortcut. There are no tricks. You say it because you mean it and mean it because you say it. The more nervous it makes you, the better, because it means you’re being authentic and making yourself vulnerable.

How attractive you are is based your non-needy behavior. Your nonneedy behavior is based on how vulnerable you’re able to make yourself. And how vulnerable you’re able to make yourself is based on how honest you are to yourself and others.

Which brings us to our next chapter: the gift of truth.

Chapter 4: The Gift of Truth

"The only thing that’s Capital-T True is that you get to decide how you see things."- David Foster Wallace, Writer

Most men can relate to the idea of having to try to pick up girls without looking like you’re trying. Or trying to be cool without looking like you’re trying. Entire books and schools of dating advice have been built on this idea -- pursuing a woman without actually letting her know that you’re interested in her.

Like I described before, this works, but it’s a short-term solution. Ultimately, it’s needy behavior and no matter how much misdirection you run on a woman, you’re going to eventually show your true self. The only women it’s going to work on are the one’s who are so needy themselves for attention from men that they still perceive you to be high status.

On top of that, walking the tight-rope of pursuing her without her knowing that you’re pursuing her requires a lot of attention and effort. You can slip up easily. It’s very unforgiving and ultimately, not a very enjoyable process. Besides, all of the attention and effort on "gaming" women this way ironically encourages you to be even more highly-invested and needy therefore decreasing her likely attraction for you.

As we covered in Chapter 3, honestly demonstrating your interest in a woman short-circuits this issue. It’s a loophole in the investment paradox.

The debate of whether to show interest to a woman or to not show interest to a woman has been raging in pick up circles and men’s dating advice for well over a decade now. And as time goes on, the show interest camp is slowly pulling ahead. It’s leading to more success, less effort and more honest interactions. And here’s why.

The biggest criticism of showing interest to a woman that you want to be with is that it immediately shows you as highly invested in her responses. When you say, "You’re cute and I wanted to meet you," that translates roughly to, "Hi, I want to be with you and am officially invested in the prospect of it happening."

What they miss though is the sub-communication going on underneath what’s actually being said.

The sub-communication is, "I’m totally OK with the idea of you rejecting me, otherwise I would not be approaching you like this."

Think about it, if a guy wasn’t comfortable with the prospect of a woman rejecting him, he wouldn’t have been honest in the first place. In fact, he would have pretended that he wasn’t actually interested in her!

The fact that he honestly approached her with his intentions, that he puts his nuts on the chopping block and makes himself vulnerable to her immediately, actually sub-communicates a non-neediness and an attractiveness in itself. And it shows desire for her, which is going to trigger her arousal.

What you actually say doesn’t matter; WHY you say it matters.

Always. No exceptions. You can have the best line in the world, but if you’re saying it because you’re needy and are desperate in her response to you, then she is immediately going to sense that you’re highly invested, and therefore low status, not confident and not an attractive man. It won’t work.

This is why selling pick up lines is ultimately a futile process. I could sell you the best 100 things I’ve ever said to women, but I can’t ever sell you my intentions or my lack of neediness. Only you can develop those yourself.

The first time I experienced this first-hand was a truly eye-opening experience. It happened back in 2006. I was still naive and relatively inexperienced with women. In fact, I had been only going out and trying to pick up girls for less than a year, and I was still adamantly convinced that I needed to have the best lines and jokes to get a girl to sleep with me. And that’s when I first ran into one of the most important lines of my life:

"Hey honey, can I pee in your butt?"

Wait, what?

I stood there horrified as my friend shouted this at literally every attractive girl who came within five feet of us.

At the time, to help myself get better with girls, I decided to start hanging out with a couple guys who got laid more than anyone else I knew. The idea was that I’d go out with them, study what they said to women in their interactions and then emulate it.

I’d just listen to what they said, then I’d go out and say the same thing, and then I’d get laid too. Easy, right?

Enter my friend Matt and "Can I pee in your butt?"

Matt was a guy I briefly met once through a friend, but his reputation was widely known. He was in a rock band, had tattoos down his arms, and banged girls like it was his job. I had run into him by chance a week or two earlier and this was my first time hanging out with him for a whole night.

As you can imagine, his "Can I pee in your butt?" comment wasn’t entirely successful. In fact, I think just about every girl ran away from us in horror. Matt was drunk and I was seriously questioning what the hell I was even doing out with him.

But then something funny happened. A couple girls laughed. And then suddenly another girl actually hung around and kept talking to us.

Needless to say, back in 2006, there wasn’t anything written in pick up manuals about how to transition out of a "Can I pee in your butt?" opener. So I stood there awkward and confused, waiting to see how this would turn out.

Next thing I know Matt is telling her he’s going to lick her butthole tonight…

OK, forget this, I’m getting a drink. I don’t want to be associated with this guy when he gets thrown out of the bar.

About ten minutes later, Matt finds me, and surprisingly he’s got his arm around the girl he had been talking to. She’s got a huge smile across her face.

"Hey man, we’re heading back to her place, it was great hanging out, we should do it again some time."

Wow, really? I sat there in the bar alone, trying to piece together what I had just seen. It made no sense, and went against everything I had ever known about women my entire life.

To this day, this was one of the most pivotal nights of my entire development. Was it that I learned that "Can I pee in your butt?" is the right thing to say?

No, actually, I still think it’s a pretty awful thing to say.

What I learned is that regardless of what you say to a woman, the intention and implications of WHY you are saying it are far more powerful.

You can say the lamest and grossest (or funniest, depending on your perspective) thing to women, and if the sub-communication is, "I really don’t care if you laugh or run away horrified, but here’s who I am, take it or leave it," this sub-communicates a rock-bottom low level of neediness, and an incredibly high level of vulnerability.

Does this mean that saying grotesque things to women for no other reason than to self-amuse will get you laid? Not necessarily, but the reasons why have to do with values and demographics (covered in Chapter 8).

Does it mean that you SHOULD go out and try and say things like this? Well, actually, no … and guess why?

The Truth Is Always Shining Through

I’ll go ahead and tell you, I actually did go out and say "Can I pee in your butt?" to women the next week. Can you guess what happened?

Nothing.

In fact, I got a bunch of weird and disgusted looks and not a single laugh. Do you know why?

Because I was saying it looking for a reaction. Once again, I was highly invested and needy in how women responded to me. I simply did not get it at the time: it didn’t matter what I said or didn’t say; if I said it in a way that demonstrated I cared too much about how they responded to me, it would never work.

This is because the truth is always shining through. You can’t fake vulnerability and you can’t fake honesty. By their very definition, it’s impossible.

Pick up theory and men’s dating advice give women very little credit when it comes to this. Women are generally more intuitive to emotions, motivations and social cues. Men are not. We may think we’re very clever when we come up with a cute little line to approach a woman with thinking that she has absolutely no idea that we’re secretly hitting on her.

She does. They always do.

And not only does she know we’re hitting on her, the fact that we seemed so concerned about not getting rejected turns her off. The fact that we had to contrive lines and fake stories in order to start a conversation with her, whether consciously or not, signals to her that we are highly invested and not a truly attractive man.

You cannot fake not being needy for more than a moment. The only women you will manage to fake are women who are drunk or high or who are extremely needy themselves. Truth.

Confident and truly high quality women who are less invested in the attention they receive from men are not going to have much patience for your lines and games. They will either see through them and see you for who you really are: scared to expose your vulnerability; or they will simply assume you’re not worth investing in because you’d rather just talk about spells or games or whatever.

If you are a fake alpha or an over-compensating player, then your obsessive nature around sex will seep through your actions and your lack of actual interest in her as a person will repel any women of true dignity and grace. It will attract needy women full of meaningless trifles and drama, who will only serve to fuel your anger and antipathy towards women further.

You cannot fake vulnerability. You cannot fake truth. Truth has to be a gift, given with no conditions or expectations.

You are who you are who you are. Even if you lie about yourself or act, this is actually saying much more about you and your character than the content of your statements. The truth is always shining through and people will eventually sense a disconnect.

You can tell women that you’re a record producer and are friends with Jay-Z, but chances are, unless you’re a really good actor, people are going to sense subtle inconsistencies in your behavior to back that up. Sooner or later, they will. Then your true identity will shine through, your lack of vulnerability with shine through, your neediness will shine through, and you will be a sad, pathetic and unattractive man.

This is an extreme example, but it plays itself out the same way on a smaller scale. Let’s take a classic example of pretending not to be interested in a girl to get her interested in you.

If you pretend you don’t like a girl, ignore her, act like what she says is stupid or uninteresting, when in fact you do like her, and you are interested in what she says, subtle cues in your behavior and body language will slowly but surely tip you off. It’ll be apparent that you’re being rude to her as a way to compensate for your insecurity around her.

Or, if you do manage to get your insults to work on her, it will be because it’s clear that you’re non-needy and low invested enough that she sees you genuinely aren’t affected by her reactions to you. If this is the case, she was going to be attracted to you anyway, and the fact you’ve been insulting her is gratuitous and unnecessary.

Unconditionality

But what about guys who gush about how beautiful a woman is? What about the guys who buy women drinks and beg them for dates and call them incessantly and tell them how they’re always thinking about them? Those guys are being honest about their intentions and their feelings, but they’re not getting anywhere, are they?

But once again, they are not being honest about their intentions. They may compliment a woman and buy her things, beg for her attention, but their intentions are conditional. They’re not genuine. They’re only giving praise and affection under the assumption that they’ll receive it in return.

Remember, being non-needy means that your emotions and motivations are less affected by her than hers are by you. When you lavish gifts and praise onto a woman who has not done anything to earn it, you are sub-communicating a desperate need for her attention and validation -- a willingness to sacrifice your self-respect and wealth to win over her affection. It demonstrates a willingness to alter yourself for her to greater degrees than she’s willing to alter herself for you. Remember, this is the definition of neediness and being unattractive.

Once again, it comes down to what’s being sub-communicated, rather than what’s being communicated.

When in doubt, check your intentions.

Think about it: the average guy at the bar who goes around buying cute girls drinks … why is he buying them? So the girls will sit there and talk to him. When he comments on how beautiful they are and how he’s so infatuated with them, why is he complimenting them? So that they’ll like him. When he pays for fancy dinners and offers to buy them jewelry, why is he doing it? So they won’t leave him.

These are not gifts or compliments at all. These are deals he’s brokering. Everything he gives to her, he is giving it to her expecting to receive something in return. The drinks are not unconditional. They’re bought with the provision that she stays and talks to him. The compliments are spoken with the provision that she show him affection in return.

This is a subtle form of manipulation, and therefore at its core, dishonest.

Once again, most high value, non-needy women will see through this immediately and not hang around a man who does this. In fact, the only women who will go for a man like this are women who are superficial and willing to trade their affection for material and superficial gain -- these women are soulless and suppress their emotions as much, if not more than the men who buy things for them.

True honesty is only possible when it is unconditional. The truth is only the truth when it is given as a gift -- when nothing is expected in return. When I tell a girl that she is beautiful, I say it not expecting anything in return. Whether she rejects me or falls in love with me, what’s important is that I’m expressing my feelings to her.

I don’t use my compliments as a bargaining tool. I give them genuinely. A needy man will give a girl a compliment without knowing her and wait expectantly for her to repay him in either her company or with thanks. I will give compliments only when I am honestly inspired to give them, and usually after already meeting a woman and displaying to her that I’m willing to disagree with her, willing to be rejected by her and willing to walk away from her because I’m not needy and therefore high status.

When a compliment comes from a man seeking nothing in return, it’s a gift of truth, a piece of his vulnerability and infinitely more powerful as a result.

And this honest compliment inspires women to become more highly invested in return. Paradoxically, seeking no investment from her will inspire her to invest that much more in you.

Beautiful women are complimented on their looks often, and 99% of these compliments are given out of neediness, out of some idealization of who she is or what she can do for him.

Beautiful women have been conditioned for most of their lives to know when a man is being genuine or not, whether the compliment is a gift or a bartering tool.

And when it is a gift, when it is honest, she recognizes and appreciates a man who actually genuinely appreciates her.

Women are people too (believe it or not), and as people, we all value those who value us … genuinely value us, not expecting something in return.

The biggest aphrodisiac in the world is someone who likes you. A woman’s desire is to be desired. But it has to be genuine desire. It can’t be a "I’ll desire you as long as you boost my ego and impress my friends" kind of desire.

Again, we’ll return to the subject of very beautiful women in Chapter 8, but the point is that genuine no-strings-attached appreciation is rare in this world, particularly from men. Women value this and invest themselves in the rare man who can demonstrate his vulnerability to her.

Here’s the litmus test. Look at your actions and words around women and look at the intentions behind them. These intentions are always speaking ten times louder than your actual words. What are they saying?

If you bought a girl a drink so that she wouldn’t leave to talk to someone else, what does that intention say about you? It says you were needy and behaving in a manner that was not attractive.

If you told a girl a story in order to impress her and make her like you, what does that intention say about you? It says you were needy and behaving in a manner that was not attractive.

If you invited a woman to a restaurant in order to impress her with how much money you had, what does that intention say about you? It says you were needy and behaving in a manner that was not attractive.

A man who feels like he needs to buy or steal a woman’s attention or affection through entertainment, money or superficiality is a man who is not confident in his identity and who is not genuinely attractive.

Sure, some women will stick around and go for these things, but they are women who are not confident in their identity either and therefore needy as well.

I should add that these aren’t all-or-nothing propositions either. Look, we all want people to like us, and we all like to impress others. We all need some validation sometime. We all do these things to certain degrees. It’s impossible to be perfectly non-needy all the time.

But neediness is relative. That’s why I say it’s about being less invested than women instead of not invested in women. It’s an important difference.

It’s impossible to be not invested. But it is always possible to be less invested than she is. That’s all it takes. She can be the most invested person on the planet in what others think of her, and if you’re the second most invested person on the planet, she’ll be attracted to you. But not vice-versa.

Setting Boundaries

But delivering honesty unconditionally isn’t just about compliments and appreciation. Unconditional honesty can be brutal and scathing at times as well. And strangely enough, brutal and angry honesty can turn a woman on just as much as the most genuine compliment.

Again, it’s not about what’s being said, it’s about the intention and sub-communication behind it. When you’re willing to cut a woman off and tell her when she’s out of line, when you’re willing to tell a woman what you will and will not tolerate in your life, this subcommunicates the most powerful elements of attraction to her. Far more powerful than an entertaining story or game.

This is why it’s quite possible to piss a woman off and turn her on at the same time. Any man experienced with women has had this happen to him before.

It’s about drawing boundaries.

If a beautiful woman says something that a needy man finds offensive, he’ll ignore it, change the topic, or withhold his true feelings.

A non-needy man will tell her what she just said was offensive.

A man who is vulnerable is unafraid to draw boundaries about what he’s willing to accept and not willing to accept from the people around him.

This is often misconstrued by fake alphas as a free ticket to tell people they’re always wrong, or to basically do what they want without paying attention to the feelings of others.

Again, that’s over-compensation and actually the behavior of someone who is needy in the reactions of those around them.

A non-needy man does NOT seek to impose himself on the boundaries of others, he’s merely interested in maintaining his boundaries.

If a woman makes fun of a non-needy man’s friends, he will not hesitate to tell her that he thinks she’s being a bitch. If a woman says she needs to leave a date after 30 minutes, he will not try to trick her into staying or beg her to stay, he will not yell at her or lecture her on manners. He will smile and say, "Nice knowing you," and not call her again.

When in doubt, check your intentions. If a woman asks to bring a friend on a date, he will say no. He will not agree placidly, or complain to her that what she’s doing is ruining his plans. He’ll simply say no and leave it at that. If she threatens to not come out, then he’ll say, "OK," and go find another woman.

Most questions or problems men email me with, at their core, somehow involve a failure to set boundaries. Whether it’s about a date, a girl not calling him back, a woman making fun of his job, or whatever, his perceived "problem" is simply him not manning up and telling her what he’s willing to accept and not willing to accept.

Typically it has to do with something like the following:

"She really liked me and gave me her number. She responds to my texts, but when I tried to get her out on a date, she made excuses. So then I texted her some more and she said she wanted to see me, but when she did show up for the second date, she was late and said she had to go early. She didn’t kiss me. Now I’m texting her and she’s texting back but won’t agree to go on a third date. What do I do?"

Usually guys like this are obsessive about "the games women play" or how to deal with "tests" from women.

My answer to these men are always the same: if you make it clear from the beginning that you are unwilling to put up with games, then not only will the women you attract stop playing games, but you’ll stop attracting women who do.

In the example above, my plan of action? I would have told her flat out that if she wasn’t excited to be on a date with me, then I’d rather her save us both the time and not show up.

Yes, I will actually say this to her point blank.

I’ve said something similar to this to women probably 5-10 times. Without exception, they’re completely stunned. Their jaws usually drop. Often, they immediately apologize and say that they didn’t mean to be so flakey. Oddly enough, my honesty and complete willingness to be rejected (or to reject them) demonstrates my nonneediness and for the first time, makes them incredibly attracted to me.

Some of the time, they say, "You’re right. I don’t want to date you." And that’s OK. She just saved us both a lot of time and effort.

Your ability and willingness to establish boundaries is inversely proportional to how needy you are. Men who are needy and lack vulnerability will keep their boundaries loose and open, inviting manipulation and other people to walk over them. This is because they are more than willing to alter themselves in order to receive validation from the women they meet.

Men who are not needy establish strict boundaries because they value their own time and happiness more than receiving the attention from a woman.

When it comes to making yourself more vulnerable and making yourself less needy, the first step is to often begin establishing your own boundaries. Learn how to say "no" to people, particularly women. Start having opinions on what you like and don’t like, what you’ll tolerate and won’t tolerate. Be honest with yourself. Painfully honest. And then be honest with her.

The problem with forming strong boundaries is that to form them, you have to be particularly aware of your own desires and emotions. And many men who have been needy their entire lives are not very self-aware.

Men will often have to spend a lot of time seeking truth within themselves first, before they’re able to expose it to others.

Finding Your Truth

Here are some truths that I’ve found out in the past few years:

My overwhelming desire for affection from women probably has a lot to do with the unique relationship I have with my mother. My parents’ divorce left a deep-seated fear of commitment in me that still permeates throughout my sex life to this day. That the death of friend when I was young somehow ended up being one of the most inspiring moments of my life. That a lot of what I considered cool when I was younger were really just ways to sabotage myself and medicate my emotional wounds. That I resent my dad. That I have an obsession with my masculinity.

It’s easy for me to say these things now, and what’s important is not the words. What’s important is the floodgates of emotions that came up as I discovered these truths about myself. As I discovered these things about myself, it allowed me to express previously stifled emotions in my daily life and with women.

Because as I’ve discovered each one of the above truths about myself, I’ve then been able to draw boundaries based on that truth, which in turn makes me less needy.

For instance, when I first started going out, I spent a lot of time beating my head against a wall trying to pick up the "hot" club girls at loud night clubs. You know, fake tans, fake tits, fake hair, fake personalities.

For whatever reason, I couldn’t keep their attention long enough. Eventually, after pushing things further and spending more time and effort in those places than I care to admit, I went home with a few of them.

And … well, it was pretty disappointing.

What I discovered is that there was not anything objectively better or more interesting about these girls. In fact, what I was chasing was status, a pat on the back, basically reliving and redeeming all of my failed high school moments where the pretty girls didn’t pay attention to me.

It had nothing to do with the girls, it had everything to do with me.

And on top of that, I learned something important: girls who make themselves look fake, have little depth to their personalities. And that’s not something I find attractive at all.

Now, when I meet a girl at a place like that who doesn’t show me any depth to her personality, I’m unwilling to put any more effort into getting to know her. My boundary is established: I value curiosity, education, intelligence and authenticity. I also don’t value "fake" looks such as pounds of make-up, bronzer, hair extensions or super tight skirts.

And the irony? Because that boundary is established, I’m not invested in these women much at all, and as a result I get more attention from them ever before.

It’s important to look at the reasons why you’re needy around women and have an honest discussion with yourself about it to try and resolve it.

For instance, perhaps you’re needy around women because you’re a virgin and have no experience with them. Then you need to look at how being inexperienced is causing you to undervalue yourself and seek validation. You must become comfortable with the idea of being inexperienced and be comfortable admitting that insecurity if you wish to gain a lot of experience.

Or perhaps your ex-girlfriend left you for another guy and you’re very angry. You go out with a fervor that borders on revenge, a revenge against all women for the betrayal and hurt you’ve felt. Before you can undo the anger that is causing you to be needy, you need to come to terms with why you’re angry and accept why your girlfriend left you.

For me, a big part of this was accepting that actually, I had been a pretty naive and shitty boyfriend to my ex-girlfriend and I could understand why she would want to leave me. I also recognized flaws and insecurities in her that I hadn’t noticed when we were together, that she hadn’t been such a perfect angel that I thought she was. All in all, I came to terms with the experience and the anger receded, allowing me to let go and become less needy in women I dated.

Another example is a guy who has never been "cool" before. Perhaps he was picked on growing up and made fun of all through high school. Maybe the popular guys in school told him he was gay and a pussy.

Perhaps now he’s older, better looking and more social and is looking to compensate for all of those years of feeling insignificant. But at some point he has to come to terms with this, accept it, and become comfortable admitting it.

Again, if you’re only trying to get girls to impress other guys, then you’re not in a very good place, and you’re very needy. To undo this, you must come to terms with why you’re seeking attention and approval from other men -- maybe it goes as far back as your father -- and then seek to find that approval through other means. Join a sports team. Take your co-workers out for beers. Buy season tickets to the local basketball team. There are much healthier ways to get male camaraderie than to try and impress other guys by getting girls.

For me, I had a combination of the second two examples. I spent most of my adolescence living alone with my mother. As a result, I always related more to girls than boys, and had very few male friends until I reached adulthood. I never could relate to them as well and not having my father around as much drove me to unconsciously seek a lot of approval from other men.

Throw on top of that the fact my girlfriend of four years left me, and I had a lot of anger toward women. Combine the two and you have a perfect recipe for a nice guy turned fake alpha and overcompensating player.

Recognizing and accepting these truths is the only thing that allowed me to resolve and let go of a lot of my investment and neediness toward women’s approval. As soon as my need to impress other guys dissipated, so did my investment on how a drunk girl in a bar thought of me. As soon as I let go of some of my anger towards my ex, some of my need to fuck absolutely everything disappeared too.

As a result, I became less invested and less affected by the actions of the women around me, which in turn made me less needy and more attractive around them.

I became comfortable with my vulnerability.

Seeking the truth within yourself is an arduous long-term progress. An entire book could be written on it by itself (and many have been written). But I guarantee that you have some deep-seated truths that are currently causing you to invest too heavily in how women treat you. Otherwise you wouldn’t have bought this book or read this far.

If you feel like you have some serious emotional issues or believe that for whatever reason you’re basing an insanely high amount of your identity on how women respond to you, then I recommend therapy.

Therapy has a lot of negative stereotypes and judgments that come along with it, but if you take the time to find a good therapist who you trust and gel with, then it can be extremely helpful.

The importance of therapy is to remember that it’s a tool, not a solution. A therapist is there to guide you and motivate you in continuing to find your own emotional truths about yourself. He or she can’t find them for you. A lot of people show up to therapy expecting a therapist to magically fix them. They then get frustrated when all they do is "talk" and get asked annoying questions all session.

Those questions are asked for a reason. Be pro-active in finding the emotional knots in yourself that you didn’t know were there before. You’ll discover some amazing things. That time the neighbor’s kids locked you in a closet all afternoon, or the time your mother went home and forgot you at the grocery store, or a parent’s divorce or death of a loved one -- these all have emotional repercussions that can and probably will motivate you and drive you to over-invest in receiving validation from one specific source or another in your life.

And that source is often women.

Following the advice of this book should help as well. All advice in the book is crafted to help you behave as a less needy man. Enacting these behaviors and becoming more aware of your emotions while you’re doing them should help you down the road to permanent change.

As you’ll see, the book is divided up into three core areas in which to begin implementing into your life and help you to discover your truth and become less invested: building a congruent and attractive lifestyle for yourself, overcoming your fears and anxieties, and becoming socially adept at expressing your emotions and sexuality without shame or hesitation.

All three of these sections will help to chip away at carving out your fundamental confidence. As we’ll talk about in Chapter 7, these things are all inter-connected. When you work on one of them, you indirectly benefit the others, and vice-versa.

Guys used to ask me, "What should I work on, my inner game or my outer game?" My answer was always "both." You can’t isolate the two. Developing your inner game or confidence requires testing yourself in social situations. Developing your social skills and overcoming your fears builds confidence.

Friction and Projection

I’d like to finish up the chapter discussing a couple exceptions when it comes to being vulnerable and non-needy around women. I know at the beginning of the book I made the promise that being less invested in any particular woman is invested in you will make her perceive you to be attractive.

Well, that’s true, but just because she perceives you as an attractive man, doesn’t mean she’ll immediately want to jump into bed with you.

There are two main exceptions that prevent attracted women from wanting to be with you, and they come up often: friction and projection.

Friction is when a woman finds you to be an attractive man but there are external circumstances that prevent her from acting on that attraction or being interested in you.

For instance, let’s say you’re a rock star who spends his nights getting drunk and banging groupies and she’s a born again Christian and has sworn off all sex before marriage. That mismatch in personal values is going to disrupt any attraction there may be and is a genuine piece of friction that is going to prevent anything from happening.

The most common case is the girlfriend/wife. This happens all the time. You meet a woman, you two really click, she’s laughing at all your jokes, smiles when you smile.

But she’s married.

And not only is she married, but she makes a point to cut the flirting off. She’s into you. She likes you. But she values her marriage more than her attraction to you. And there’s nothing you can do about that.

Guys often ask me how to get a woman to cheat on her boyfriend or husband (let’s not even get into the ethics of it), and my answer is always that you don’t get them to cheat; they decide on their own and you just happen to be the right guy at the right time. What gets women to cheat on their husbands is not meeting the most attractive man on the planet, but the removal of the friction between her life choices and yours.

Friction can be as deep as a difference in personal values, beliefs or religion, or logistical. For instance, some legit friction would be if she lives in Australia and you live in New York. That creates some problems for hooking up despite strong attraction.

There’s usually at least a little bit of friction in any interaction. You’re never going to like 100% of any girl and no girl is ever going to like 100% of you. There will be slight differences in values or priorities that will irk you just a little bit, or maybe a lot. There will also be unavoidable situations and events that will cause obstacles to you two hooking up.

Whether this friction prevents a sexual relationship from occurring though will depend on the strength of your boundaries and how strong the value is.

For instance, you may meet a really hot girl who is a cocaine addict. But if you kind of just want to have sex with her, you may overlook the cocaine addiction. Then again, if you have a major moral issue with narcotics, then you’ll probably be turned off and pass up on her.

Ultimately, it’s determined by your values and hers. You can still find her physically attractive, but not want to hook up with her.

Projection is completely different. There are a lot of women who, for whatever reason, are afraid of their own sexuality and/or openly sexual men. They harbor trust issues and resentment with men. Usually this is because they have a history of some sort of emotional/sexual abuse or they’ve experienced a long string of disappointments or anger with boys growing up for former boyfriends.

When confronted with a confident, non-needy man, these women will usually be untrusting and lash out in response. They are not lashing out for lack of attraction, but they are lashing out BECAUSE they are attracted and that strong sexual attraction scares them. Their view of men is negative, and when they are confronted with a positive and attractive man, they’ll often attack you and try to find ways to tear you down.

In fact, the more non-needy and vulnerable you make yourself, the more projection responses you’ll invite from women. The rejections I get these days tend to be harsher than ever before. The difference is that I care far less. I don’t believe that’s a coincidence.

These are the girls who will get angry and say snide things like, "I bet you say that to all the girls," or will find reasons to pick fights with you.

Generally, these women are extremely needy and because of the large investment gap between you two they will try to project that investment onto you.

They will accuse you of being demanding, overbearing, horny, untrustworthy, or weak. These accusations will have little to no bearing on reality, and a non-needy man will either walk away from a girl like this or simply ignore her accusations.

The only men willing to put up with such nonsense are men who are needy as well. If a needy man happens to have nice guy syndrome, he will spend all of his time placating and trying to fix the accusations and problems the girl projects onto him, but which don’t actually exist.

If the needy man is a fake alpha then he will usually lash out right back at the girl and they will engage in a relationship full of petty, unimportant drama, playing out emotions and projecting their histories of pain and marginalization onto each other over and over again, until one of them finally becomes conscious enough to break the cycle and move on. Sometimes this happens quickly. Other times it takes months or years. It’s always unpleasant.

The uncomfortable truth is that the majority of women are going to have high degrees of friction and projection when you meet them. Most of the women you meet, things are simply not going to work no matter what you do. This is fine. This is what is often referred to "incompatibility."

Incompatibility is a fact of life. No matter how you behave or what you’re into, the majority of women out there are simply not going to be interested.

As a result, the reality of incompatibility defines our entire strategy of dating women. To base our strategy on anything else is inefficient at best and downright damaging at worst. The world is what it is, it’s our job to simply present ourselves as boldly and clearly to it as possible, accept the reactions and move on the opportunities. Anything else is a fool’s errand.

Part II: Strategy

Chapter 5: Polarization

"Any individual who wants to be a leader has to be controversial. Otherwise they don’t stand for anything."- Richard M. Nixon, 37th President of the United States

In Part I, we laid out the realities about female attraction and what causes that attraction. We learned that male attractiveness is based on how non-needy he is and how comfortable he is expressing his desire and vulnerability. We also learned the limitations of attraction and how most of the women in the world at any given time are not going to be compatible with you, no matter what you do.

In Part II, the goal is to now lay out a real world strategy based on these theories so that any man can map out a clear way to improve his dating life drastically.

The goals of this strategy are efficacy and practicality. This a strategy based on reality, not based on some sort of mythology about unlocking the secrets of every woman, or lofty promises to be able to sleep with every single hot girl you ever meet.

As a result, the strategy in this book deals with realities that a lot of other dating and pick up advice does not deal with, namely: rejection, race, age, appearance, shame, honesty, emotional connection and did I mention rejection?

You will get rejected. But don’t worry. It’s a good thing.

A lot of dating advice, particularly in the Pick Up Artist realm, tries to promise the ability to have sex with any girl you want to, regardless of … well, pretty much anything. You could be a fat slob living in your mother’s basement, and with the right 2-3 lines you too can date a lingerie model (as if there’s a lingerie model hanging out in a bar in every city).

This is a fairy tale. And not only is it a fairy tale, it’s a fairy tale you don’t actually want to live. Rejection exists for a reason -- it’s a means to keep people who are not good for each other apart. Guys don’t seem to understand if a woman rejects him because he’s short, or because she doesn’t like his hair, or because she finds him boring, then he wasn’t going to want to be around her anyway. Again, it’s guys with a lot of neediness who are willing to completely alter their personalities in order to seduce ANY woman.

You might as well invite the rejection as a means to weed through the women who are not good for you and get to the ones who you will enjoy that much quicker.

But we’ll get into that further in the next chapter.

The concepts in this part of the book are all based on the information from Part I, we take the realities of attraction presented there and flesh them out into a coherent strategy for you to use here. Then in the rest of the book will be diving into the nitty-gritty applications of the strategies laid out here in Part II.

So let’s start at the beginning. There’s an infinite number of women out there, and we can’t possibly meet or even know them all. So our first task is to find a way to narrow them down and screen them in a way that we can manage how to approach them better.

The Three Types of Women

Obviously, you are not going to have interest in having sex with the majority of the women in the world. So we can cross out all of the unattractive ones immediately. If you don’t find a woman attractive, don’t approach her, don’t hit on her, don’t do anything. It’s not practice if she’s not hot, it’s desperation.

That said, decide whatever you like in a woman by your own standards. If you like big girls or curvy girls, go for it. If you prefer black girls with dreadlocks, more power to you. If you like older women or younger women, cool. Don’t pressure yourself to live up to someone else’s standard. And again, for the love of god, if she’s not cute, don’t hit on her.

OK, glad we got that out of the way.

For practical purposes, we can divide up all of the women you’re attracted to into three categories: Receptive, Neutral and Unreceptive.

Let’s start with Unreceptive.

Women who are Unreceptive are just that: they’re unavailable and/ or uninterested in having a sexual/romantic relationship with you. The most common reasons that put women in this category are the following:

- You’re far more needy than she is, and she’s therefore not attracted.

- She has a boyfriend/husband and is happy in her relationship.

- There’s too much friction preventing her from being willing to date you.

- She’s simply not interested or looking for any guy at the moment.

The way to tell if a woman is Unreceptive is if she does not reciprocate your signs of interest and shows signs of disinterest. If you invite her out for coffee and she insists on bringing one of her friends, then she’s Unreceptive. If you call her three times and she never calls back, then she is Unreceptive. If you hang out with her and she talks about how frustrated she is with her boyfriend and how you’re such a good listener, then she’s Unreceptive.

The next category is Neutral. This category is kind of difficult for men to understand because we don’t really have it. We often know within three seconds if we would sleep with a girl or not.

Women aren’t like that. They spend a lot of time being unsure about a guy and need to be swayed one way or the other. They’re fencesitters in many situations.

Women in this category are usually women who you’ve just met or have only spent time with a couple times. The important thing to know is that women do not ever STAY in this category. They eventually polarize one way or the other. And if you never make an advance or show interest in them, then they will ALWAYS polarize towards being Unreceptive (this is the Friend Zone, which we’ll cover in a minute).

Neutral women are generally that, neutral. They will not turn down your offers, but they won’t offer or reciprocate themselves. A Neutral girl for instance, if you touch her on the back will not move away, but she will not move toward you or give you any signal that she likes it.

The goal with Neutral women is to polarize them through your behavior. This may mean being more aggressive. It may mean flirting with them or teasing them. It may mean asking her to dance or asking her on a date. Whatever it is, the goal with Neutral women is to take an action that forces her to move toward one side of the spectrum or the other. Which side she goes to is less important than actually taking action and forcing her to no longer be neutral.

And remember, showing your desire arouses women. Showing neediness turns them off. So it all comes down to how you show them your desire. It comes down to how you polarize them. This, in a nutshell, is what game is.

And the final category. Women who are Receptive are obviously already sexually attracted to you. You can recognize women who are Receptive in two ways: they initiate with you and/or they reciprocate willingly.

Some examples of a woman initiating with you:

- She makes strong eye contact with you and doesn’t break it.

- She approaches you.

- She touches you unprovoked.

- She asks for your number or invites you out with her/her friends.

- She asks you a lot of questions about yourself and seems genuinely interested in you.

- She introduces you to her friends.

- She gives you her number.

- She comes up with some excuse/story/reason for you two to hang out with her, or spend time with her.

These are all concrete examples of a woman initiating with you. Chances are, if you’re reading this book, many of the girlfriends or sexual experiences you’ve had with women only happened because she initiated with you.

That’s fine, but just going about your life, unless you are extremely good-looking, or have a great lifestyle, or manage to meet women through good social circle contacts, not many women are going to initiate with you and not very often.

In fact, most women, especially hot women, even if they’re attracted to you, won’t initiate with you. Remember, women tend to be less invested in sex, and they expect men to initiate in the beginning.

The other way women demonstrate that they’re Receptive is when they reciprocate. It’s important to recognize the subtle difference between a woman reciprocating your advances and a woman being neutral toward your advances. A woman who is Neutral will simply not respond at all. For instance, if you touch a Neutral woman on her back while you speak to her, she’ll just act like you’re not touching her.

A woman who is reciprocating will do something to respond positively to your advance. Think of it as her signaling to you that she accepts your advancing on her and likes it. If you touched a woman on the back and she wanted to reciprocate, she would either lean back into you, lean in closer to you, or touch you in return.

Here are some other common examples of reciprocation:

- She ignores her friends to stay and talk to you.

- She keeps very strong eye contact and laughs a little too much at everything you say.

- When you touch her, she touches you in return.

- When you put your arm around her, she leans into you.

- When you take her hand to move somewhere, she holds it in return.

- When you ask her out on a date, she offers a place to go or mentions something she’d like to do with you.

Most interested women will reciprocate to show that they’re interested. Catching on to how women reciprocate and noticing the signals is something that you develop with experience, but it shouldn’t be too hard if you know what to pay attention to.

A lot of the methods of flirting that we’ll cover in Part V will discuss the specific ways in which women reciprocate and how to handle them.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of women you will meet, assuming you’re a typical guy, will be either Neutral or Unreceptive. This is true for the vast majority of the male population, myself included, so don’t worry.

The percentage of women that you meet in each category will vary widely from man to man and also vary widely depending on where you’re meeting women.

For instance, you could be a 40-year-old investing mogul, and at networking events or conferences, you may find that 40% or more women are Receptive and very few make themselves Unreceptive or Neutral.

But that same man can go to a night club full of 20-year-olds and soon find that only 5% of women are Receptive or Neutral, and 95% are Unreceptive.

This is a concept I called Demographics, and I’ve devoted all of Chapter 8 to it, because it’s extremely important.

But a typical, decent-looking guy, in a typical setting will probably garner something like 10% Receptive responses, 40% Neutral responses and 50% Unreceptive responses.

The exact percentages of women falling into each category aren’t really that relevant. But it’s just a good way to map things out in our head. A lot of men, and even a lot of dating advice books, get caught up in stuff that doesn’t matter, such as convincing a married woman to sleep with them, or getting out of the Friend Zone with a girl, when really, if we look at women as falling into these three categories, it’s clear exactly what our goals should be.

Goals with Each Type

We are going to have completely different goals with each category of women. One mistake that many men make when they want to get good with women is that they apply the wrong strategy to the wrong category of women. For instance, they’ll try to convince an Unreceptive woman to become receptive. Or they’ll treat a woman who’s already Receptive as if she isn’t yet. Not only is this a timewaster, but it’s ineffective as well.

The goal with Unreceptive women is to identify them and move on as quickly as possible. They’re time-sinks. Typically, if women are unreceptive, they’re unreceptive for a good reason, and there’s little you’re going to do to change that. And in fact, in almost every case, if you do stick around and try to change her mind about her availability, you’re simply going to demonstrate much more neediness and investment in her, and therefore become less attractive and she’ll become even LESS available to you.

I’ll say this, in six years, after approaching thousands of women, and hooking up with hundreds of them, I can think of less than 10 instances where a woman was flat out Unreceptive towards me and I "won her over." If she shuts you down, tells you to go away, tells you she’s not interested, tells you she has a boyfriend. Move on. Seriously, get over it and move on. You’re wasting your time. There are 3.1 billion women on this planet. She’s not worth it.

The two most common time-sinks with Unreceptive Women are the Friend Zone, and women in relationships.

The Friend Zone occurs when a woman has categorized you as a friend and not a potential lover. For women, these categories are mutually exclusive. A guy is either a friend, or a potential boyfriend/ husband, rarely both. There are exceptions, but they are very rare.

Once in this zone, it’s almost impossible to get out. Yes, it is possible to get out of the Friend Zone. But honestly, for our purposes here, know that the amount of effort required to get out is rarely worth it.

The Friend Zone typically occurs when a man meets a Receptive or Neutral woman but never makes a move. As mentioned earlier, women never stay Neutral and will eventually be polarized into the Receptive or Unreceptive categories. If you don’t act, they will slowly drift into the Unreceptive category.

Why? Because a man who does not act on his sexual urges is a man who is needy and therefore unattractive.

A classic, yet painful example of the Friend Zone happened with my a friend of my most recent girlfriend. When I met her, she was moving into her new apartment. There were two guys helping her move in. One was a tall fellow who obviously seemed eager to please her and help as much as he could. It did not take long to recognize that he behaved quite needy around her and made poor attempts to flirt with her which she did not reciprocate.

She, of course, being an attractive girl, was not highly invested back, and so I immediately pegged him as in her Friend Zone. As it turned out, I was right.

This guy hated me the whole time I dated her. And after we broke up and remained friends, he refused to let her talk about me around him. During this period, he made numerous attempts to get with her, sometimes going as far as having tearful proclamations that he had been in love with her for years.

Needless to say, all of these attempts turned her off and she shut down. It harmed the friendship quite a bit. They had been friends with each other for over four years, and the degree of investment he was showing, even despite his behavior (the fact that he spent four years working up the nerve to make a move) sub-communicated a HUGE degree of neediness.

Obviously, she shot him down. So he became angry. And perceiving me to have been an asshole who didn’t treat her well, he decided to try to be an asshole who didn’t treat her well either. He was disrespectful towards her and would blatantly try to kiss her with no regard for what she thought or felt.

Once again, despite being completely opposite behavior on the surface, he was acting this way because he was still incredibly needy and highly invested. This strained the friendship and she told him that he had to either stop or she would not be friends with him anymore.

The Friend Zone is the biggest possible time-sink because most guys who are stuck in it entertain fantasies that they’re simply waiting for the inevitable to occur. Their perspective is that they are the perfect man for her and one day when she wakes up and realizes how foolish she’s being, she’ll realize that the love of her life had been sitting right there by her all along.

This never happens. Ever.

If you are in this situation now, you need to get it out of your head and move on. Immediately. Typically, if guys have been friends with a girl for even a month or two without ever explicitly indicating their sexual interest in her, it’s usually too late.

You must indicate some sort of sexual interest early on. Otherwise, the longer you wait, the harder it gets and the more likely she will be Unreceptive to you. Again, ask yourself what waiting four years to state your interest in a girl sub-communicates to her. It sub-communicates, "I am so highly invested in you that I spent four years working up the nerve to show you my interest." It’s extremely unattractive. And chances are, she’s known you’ve been interested the whole time but too afraid to show it, which in turn, makes you even further unattractive.

The second time-sink that men get sucked into constantly is women who are happily in a relationship. Unlike the Friend Zone where men will often waste away months or years, a woman in a relationship will usually only waste a few hours, or maybe a few weeks at the most. But still, a time-sink is a time-sink.

A popular myth from the Pick Up Artist community is the idea that any woman will cheat on her boyfriend/husband given the right circumstance. This isn’t true. And even in the cases that it is true, it’s not worth the time or effort.

Research has shown that only about 30% of women will cheat at some point in their entire lives. It also shows that women only cheat when they’re already unhappy with their relationships. My experience has shown this to be true as well. I have never hooked up with a girl who was married or had a boyfriend who was happy in her relationship when she decided to cheat. It was only women who were incredibly unhappy with their relationships who did it. I had little to nothing to do with it.

The reason is simple: a woman who is happy in her relationship is going to be insanely low invested in the attention and affection she receives from other men. Like rock-bottom low. Because these women are so lowly invested, it’s more or less impossible to be even less invested than they are.

Add to that the friction of cheating and hiding the fact that you’re cheating, and a happily married woman is more or less impossible to poach … unless she wants to be that is.

What a lot of men DON’T understand though is that often married or taken women will still flirt with other men for no other reason than they think it’s fun and they like the attention. If a woman is married or has a boyfriend and seems pretty happy in general and is flirting with me (and is drunk), then I don’t take the flirting too seriously.

Guys also struggle a lot with the rejection, "I have a boyfriend." Guys seem to get obsessed about whether this is actually true or not.

Once again, it’s not about whether her statement is factual or not. It’s about her intention. The intention is, "I’m not interested."

Take THAT at face value and move on. Even if she doesn’t have a boyfriend, there’s no point in trying to win over a girl who is willing to lie about something like that to you. And if she does have a boyfriend, then she’s probably happy with him, otherwise she wouldn’t have brought it up.

And that’s really the crux of the matter: women who have boyfriends/husbands who are willing to cheat on them, don’t bring up their boyfriends/husbands … almost ever. Typically, you’ll hear about them either immediately before or immediately after you hook up with them. If they tell you about them right when you meet them, then they’re not interested. If they tell you about their boyfriend while they’re making out with you in the cab back to your apartment, then she’s probably interested. But you don’t need me to tell you that.

So your mission with Unreceptive women is to spot them as quickly as possible, and then politely move on. Rejection in this case is often your friend, as we’ll see later.

It’s not until you find a woman who is Neutral or better that things really begin to get interesting.

Put succinctly, the goal with Neutral Women is to get them to stop being Neutral as soon as possible. As we mentioned earlier, women who are neutral and who stay neutral tend to eventually end up Unreceptive. The way to get them to become Receptive is to demonstrate that you’re less needy than they are. You demonstrate this by expressing your vulnerability and your identity to them freely.

When you express your truth to women, you will polarize them: they will either become Receptive you or they will make themselves Unreceptive. When you express your truth, if you express more neediness in them then they will be not be attracted and will therefore be Unreceptive. Also, if you express your truth and there is a high amount of friction between yourself and her that cannot be overcome, then she will become Unreceptive.

If you express your truth and demonstrate not only that you’re not needy but also frictionless for her (similar interests, values, life situation, etc.), then she will become very Receptive.

A big misconception men have is that they need to behave in a way that makes EVERY woman like them. This is counter-productive, because by altering your behavior to fit whatever she wants means you are hiding your truth, not being vulnerable and therefore are being needy and unattractive.

Other men often stick to plain jokes and safe topics of conversation that end up not polarizing at all for fear of being rejected. This is also a form of hiding one’s truth, not showing vulnerability, being needy and therefore not being attractive.

This is the plight of the Nice Guy. He’s afraid of inciting an emotional response in anybody, much less women (and especially himself), therefore he’ll play it safe and elicit Neutral reactions from woman after woman. And when women are neutral for too long without being polarized, then they will make themselves Unreceptive.

If there is one thing that fake alphas accomplish well, it’s that they will polarize women quickly. Women will know more or less immediately if they’re interested in a fake alpha or not because he will be so overbearing and imposing, she’ll have no choice than to feel something for him.

The fake alpha’s problem is that the few women who become Receptive to him are not the type of women who are pleasant to be around (they’re highly needy and highly invested).

As you can see, Neutral women are where so-called "game" comes into play. Having good game means you can take a woman who is neutral in her attraction towards you and incite her to become attracted. You do this by making yourself vulnerable, sharing yourself unabashedly, and polarizing her one way or the other and being comfortable with whichever result. The exact specifics of "sharing your truth; make yourself vulnerable" will be described in detail throughout the book. Again, we’re still laying the theoretical foundation here.

Finally, we have the Receptive women. Finding these are the best, because they require the least amount of effort. You escalate. You make a move. You move things forward. Assuming you want to, of course.

Receptive Women who were originally Neutral, if you do not make a move and become physical with them soon enough, they will often drift back to Neutral and then to Unreceptive permanently. But I’ve found that women who are Receptive to you to begin with, will usually stay Receptive almost indefinitely. I think these are the only rare occasions when you can actually pry yourself out of the Friend Zone -- these rare circumstances where she was always Receptive you, but for whatever reason, you two weren’t able to be together (you had a girlfriend, she moved away for three years, etc.).

The percentage of women who are Receptive to you will increase proportionally to the quality of your lifestyle, your social status and your looks. The percentage of women that you’re able to move from Neutral to Receptive will be proportional to how good your "game" is, or how well you’re able to communicate and express yourself with women. And your ability to sort through each type of women and meet as many as possible will be determined by how fearless and bold you are when it comes to meeting women.

Most pick up advice obsesses over the avoidance of rejection. Rejection plays an integral process in my strategy. It’s unavoidable, so I figure we may as well develop a strategy that uses it to help us. Rejection exists for a reason. If you are a professor at a prestigious university, then you’re probably not going to enjoy your time with a high school drop out with an alcohol problem. Just because she has a nice ass doesn’t mean you want to be with her. Why you would put the effort to incite a high school drop out with an alcohol problem to become interested in you is beyond me.

Polarizing women into rejecting us -- and when I say us, I mean the REAL us, the vulnerable and unabashed us -- does us a favor by sorting which women are going to make us happy.

Guys often want to have it both ways, they want to be able to avoid painful rejections, avoid saying something stupid, avoid embarrassing themselves, while at the same time being this attractive, amazing guy who women fall to their knees for.

You can’t have it both ways.

The two go together. You CANNOT be an attractive and lifechanging presence to some women without being a joke or an embarrassment to others. You simply can’t. You have to be controversial. You have to polarize. It’s the name of the game. And getting good at the game is learning to open yourself up enough emotionally, learning to express your honest self enough and be comfortable enough with your vulnerability to take those embarrassing moments with the moments of passion. A willingness to polarize is not easy. But it’s necessary. It’s why you’re here right now.

Polarizing to Attract

Our primary strategy with women is polarization. The basic idea is that the more forthright you are about who you are, how you feel, and what you think, the more this is going to weed out Unreceptive Women from the Receptive women, as well as push Neutral women to get off the fence and decide how they feel about you.

The amazing thing about polarization is the simple act of doing it demonstrates non-neediness and will then inspire more Neutral women to become Receptive than other strategies or tactics.

Like I mentioned earlier, the most common strategy with guys who are inexperienced with women is "to be liked by all; hated by none." But when it comes to being intimate and attracting women, this is a horrible strategy. Being hated by nobody usually means you’re not loved my anybody either.

The men who employ this strategy employ it because they’re trying to avoid confrontation and controversy. Many of these men have been avoiding confrontation and controversy their entire lives. It’s part of their fear of vulnerability.

The fact is that sexuality, attraction and relationships are by their very nature confrontational and controversial. You have to either make the decision to accept being controversial and confrontational or you need to accept that you will go through life with everyone being Neutral towards you.

Polarization is what occurs when you express your truth and make yourself vulnerable. When you tell a woman she is beautiful, you are polarizing her. When you tease her about her earrings and put your arm around her, you’re polarizing her. When you wear a custommade suit out to a night club you are polarizing women. When you tell a woman who’s late to a date to never be late again, you are polarizing her.

These are never wrong moves, assuming that they are HONEST expressions of yourself and you are showing your vulnerability.

A man who is highly invested and needy is going to alter his behaviors based on the woman he’s talking to. He’s going to be afraid to tell her that he doesn’t accept her being late. He’s going to be afraid to wear that suit out. He’s going to be timid when he wants to put his arm around her. He’s going to be unable to make himself vulnerable, express his truth, and will therefore not polarize her.

And the women he does meet, he’ll be handed a one-way ticket to the Friend Zone, every time.

A man who is uninhibited about expressing his emotions, and what he wants, will demonstrate less investment and less neediness, thereby attracting a woman and immediately forcing her to decide whether she’s Receptive or Unreceptive. And chances are, unless there’s a lot of friction present, she will become Receptive. You’d be surprised how many women will respond with attraction to nothing other than a man who is bold and willing to make a move.

A lot of men get the sense that this means inviting a mountain of rejection onto you. The surprising thing is this is rarely the case. Yes, you will get rejected when you polarize women. And yes, every once in a while it will be a harsh rejection.

But surprisingly, a LOT of women will react very warmly to these advances. Remember women are turned on by men who desire them. They are also turned on by the behavior of high status. When you’re expressing your truth and showing shameless desire for her, you are demonstrating both of these qualities that turns her on.

Often women who had absolutely no interest in meeting you before, will suddenly become uncontrollably attracted around you.

In my experience, the more polarizing a person is, the more they are flooded with opportunities to have sex and date women.

The biggest mental hurdle to this for many men is the ability to handle rejection. A lot of men have had it ingrained into them all of their lives -- and even by other dating advice -- that rejection is terrible and should be avoided at all costs. That players and alphas or whatever you want to call them, don’t get rejected, ever.

As we’ll see, this is not true at all.

Chapter 6: Rejection and Success

"I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."- Michael Jordan, Athlete

Show me someone who is successful at anything and I’ll show you someone who has been rejected and failed more than you can ever know.

Show me a guy, any guy, who is good with women, and I’ll show you a guy who has been shut down by more women than you can possibly imagine.

Show my a guy who gets laid all the time, and I’ll show you a guy who gets rejected all the time. Guaranteed.

It was Austin, Texas, probably winter of 2007. The harshest rejection of my life. I was out with my best childhood friend late on a Friday night. I see two cute girls dancing by themselves. I approach. I lightly touch one on the shoulder.

She spins around, "GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME! DON’T YOU EVER FUCKING TOUCH ME!"

"Whoa, chill out, I didn’t even do anything!" I try to blurt out between her shrieking. I’m not heard. She shoves me while screaming. I grab her arms to try to calm her down.

The slap comes hard and fast. Totally uncalled for. "GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME! DON’T YOU EVER FUCKING TOUCH ME AGAIN!"

Before I know it bouncers are removing me from the bar.

"I didn’t even do anything, I don’t even know her," I say.

"Shut up and get out before we call the cops." It’d be weeks before I’d work up the courage to approach again.

Another night, another bar. This was probably some time in 2006. I’m talking to a super-cute blonde. College girl. Sorority. Ditsy as hell and a true pain to interact with. You know those people who interrupt you constantly and redirect every possible topic of conversation back to some inane story about themselves? She was one of those. It was like being socially waterboarded.

But she was hot. And I was inexperienced and needy and crazy horny and honestly had nothing better to do. So I talked to her. Painfully and begrudgingly.

Somewhere in between trying to decide whether to drown myself in alcohol, to drown her in alcohol, to stab myself in the face with a broken beer bottle or to stab her … she let loose this little gem.

"By that way, thanks for not being ugly."

I was so disenchanted with this girl, my frail ego completely disregarded the compliment and I honed in on what was so shallow, so immature, I just couldn’t stand by idly any longer.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"I said, thanks for not being ugly."

I imagine my mouth fell open here. But of course she disregarded my incredulity and continued:

"See, no offense, but talking to guys in bars is so boring. And tonight, nothing but these hideously ugly guys have been talking to me and buying me drinks. But at least you’re not ugly."

At least?

She continues: "To be honest, I can’t stand ugly people. Like it seriously hurts my soul to look at ugly people. Like I honestly feel physical pain if I have to look at an ugly person."

I couldn’t contain it anymore, "You must not own any mirrors then."

Her face: disbelief, horror, then anger — in that order, half a second max — then her fruity drink came flying onto my face, followed by a dainty slap.

"Asshole!"

She stormed back to her friends. When I first started going out and trying to pick up girls, I used to be horrified of rejection. And more specifically, the idea of getting slapped or a drink thrown on me, or getting thrown out of a bar, these were all nightmares that would probably have made me visibly shake at the thought of them happening.

But both of these memories are still bright in my mind, as they’re some of the most important learning experiences I ever had — even more important than many of my successes.

Being slapped by a girl is not always the end of the interaction. It’s simply an emotional response. And as a highly emotional response, I’ll always take being slapped over indifference or boredom any day. It’s polarizing. And polarizing women is more important than being pleasant to them.

Being slapped also taught me that you can’t always control how people react to you. Some people are completely out of their minds, or they behave very inappropriately. You can’t help this. You cannot control what happens in every interaction. The sooner you accept this, the better off you will be.

Sometimes you’ll deserve being slapped. Sometimes you won’t. I regret absolutely nothing I said to the sorority girl that night. The drink in my face and the slap were totally worth it. As a man of truth, that’s a value I stood up for: I don’t tolerate superficial people. And even though that girl hated me for it and threw a drink in my face, that was far more satisfying than it would have been to put up with her bullshit for hours on end just to get a lousy lay.

As with any failure, it’s not until you’ve been rejected a certain amount that you realize how insignificant it actually is. How you spent so much time worrying about nothing. And how you’re free to act however you choose.

When I started this journey, I was as horrified of rejection as just about anyone I’ve ever met. I had terrible approach anxiety. I was the consummate Nice Guy, always trying to keep things smooth and pleasant.

The reason men fear rejection is because they’re operating on other peoples’ truths, not their own. In fact, men who fear rejection tend to be oblivious to their own truth, because if they were aware of their own desires, needs and values, what would they have to be afraid of? Why would they ever hesitate to expose their vulnerability to others?

Most men with weak grasps of their truth fantasize about the ability to never be rejected ever. Not only is this a massive manifestation of their insecurity, but it’s not realistic. Being rejected saves me so much time and effort. If I had to go on a date with every single girl I found even mildly attractive, I’d probably lose my mind, not to mention have no time for doing other things I care about.

Most women you meet, you’re not going to click with, but if she doesn’t do you the favor of rejecting you, it’s going to take four hours to figure it out rather than four minutes.

For instance, take the sorority girl. I said what I said and was fine (even pleased) with that rejection for one reason: I was aware of my values and stood by them.

Meanwhile, the girl in Texas who screamed at me seriously bothered me. I was less experienced then and her rejection was harsh and treated me as if I were some sort of sexual predator. At the time, I was not confident in expressing my sexuality and had not established boundaries of having no interest in angry, frantic women like that. For that reason I got very upset over the episode.

I imagine if that happened to me today, I’d probably laugh, shake my head and quietly walk to the next bar, thankful that she made her true character known so early so I didn’t have to waste half my night to find out that she was such a bitch.

The Treasure Hunt

Let’s do a thought experiment. Take 1,000 random women in your city. Out of that 1,000 women, you’ll probably find 200-300 physically attractive — or physically attractive enough to get to know better. Remember, we have to throw out the grannies, the fat chicks, the girl who hasn’t bathed in a week, etc. Only women you find physically attractive. So let’s say 250.

Out of those 250, probably 125 are available. And out of that 125, probably 50 would be interested in going on a date with you, especially if you presented yourself well, polarized and was frank about your intentions.

Up to this point, we’re already down to 50 out of 1000, and literally none of it has been in your control at all. In fact, if you were to go on blind dates with all thousand women, it would be a giant crapshoot to even get to one that there was even mutual attraction with (1-out-of-20 to be exact). Even if each date only lasted a couple hours, it’d probably be an entire week before you finally met one where there was mutual interest.

And keep in mind, these numbers don’t mean some loser guy in his mom’s basement. These numbers are probably pretty accurate for you, for me, for anybody. The fact of the matter is, I’m not interested in 3/4 of the women I see. And out of that 1/4 I’m interested in, more than half are either unavailable or not very compatible with me.

And that’s fine.

Remember, success here is defined by how fast we can sort through the women who won’t work for us, not our ability to get every single one we see.

So taking that 50 that there’s mutual attraction up front, probably 20 of them would be "duds" once you got to know them better -- women who you just didn’t click with for whatever reason (she has different interests in you, different values, etc.). And out of the remaining 30, probably another 20 aren’t compatible with you past a couple of dates (religious differences, inconvenient work situations, different views on relationships, she’s a bipolar, or whatever).

Sidenote: if all you want is one night stands, then you could probably have a legitimate shot with the 50 in which there’s mutual attraction. But if you want something more, then we’re quickly narrowed down to the 10.

That leaves 10 with serious relationship potential. By "serious" relationship potential, I mean beyond two or three months together.

Now, these numbers are very rough estimates and they’re going to vary depending on the person and the environment, but I don’t think they’re unreasonable. For every 100 women walking around you in your everyday life, there’s one woman out of that 100 who can (and will, if you so choose) theoretically make you supremely happy for a significant period of time. There are five out of that 100 that would theoretically sleep with you.

The catch? They don’t show up to your door-step in a FedEx box… as a man, you have to go out and find her.

This is what I call the treasure hunt. And if you treat it like a treasure hunt, it can actually become pretty fun.

But the point is, 95% of the places you look are going to give you nothing. But every place you look and don’t find what you’re looking for will give you more of a clue of where you should look.

What stops the vast majority of men out there from going out and getting what they want (and deserve) in their love lives, is that they take rejection, failure and incompatibilities personally, as if it says something true about them.

The only truth about you is what you decide about yourself. And the more truth you know about yourself, the more you’ll be unaffected by others’ reactions to you and the more attractive you’ll become.

The problem is, there are millions of women out there, and only a small percentage at any given time are going to be receptive to sleeping with you or dating you. You can either go out and find the best one possible, or sit around and hope for one to show up on your door-step. But if you go out there, you have to understand the game you’re playing… you’re going to miss a lot. You’re shooting free throws from half court. You’re playing golf from 1,000 yards away. You’re bowling with a 500 foot long lane. You’re going to miss 95% of these shots. Time to get used to it.

In fact, you’ve always been missing 95% of your shots. The problem is that you’ve probably been purposely taking as few shots as possible because you can’t stand to admit that you’re missing. If you just admit that you’re going to miss most of the time, then you can start shooting as much as you want.

You’re going to whiff on most women you meet. Over and over and over again. But that’s OK. Because every miss gets you closer to the mark. Every failure gets you closer to your treasure. And when you accept that, things can actually become pretty fun.

I imagine most guys, when they first read this article get a little intimidated… "Oh my God, 99 failures? This sounds awful…" It’s really not. Those "failures" often happen in intriguing and hilarious ways — not to mention that you will learn and improve from every single one.

This is a weird analogy, but I think it works. When I was a kid, my friends and I would pull out a blender and mix all sorts of weird stuff in it to try and invent a new drink. We’d take soda, milk, peanuts, strawberries, orange juice and gummy bears, throw them all into a blender and then try to drink it. It was usually absolutely disgusting. In fact, it was just about always disgusting… But every once in a while, we’d stumble across something that tasted really interesting or great. Regardless of what happened though, we always had a ton of fun.

Each woman is a concoction of flavors, whipped together into her own unique personality and style. What we do as men is taste-test them. Many of them will be gross. Some of them will be interesting but not very good. Some of them we will love but will be bad for us. Others we’ll love and never want to stop drinking. The goal is to find that magical combination that we never want to stop drinking. But before that, we have to go through hundreds of other combinations…

Actually sounds kind of fun, right?

It’s Usually Not About You

As soon as you realize that 90% of this "picking up" women stuff has nothing to do with you, is the moment you’re free to pursue what you want without hesitation or fear.

When you get out there and start meeting a lot of women, you’ll begin to notice that there’s a lot to be said about "meeting the right person at the wrong time." I can’t tell you how many times I’ve met an amazing woman but some circumstance was standing in the way. It may be that she’s on vacation and flying 2,000 miles home tomorrow. Or that she just got back together with her long-term boyfriend and doesn’t want to screw it up. Or that her dog just died and she really doesn’t feel like talking tonight. Or that her exboyfriend has been calling her and harassing her and she just wants to be left alone with her girlfriends tonight. Or that the last guy who came up and talked to her grabbed her ass so she’s upset. Or the guy she went out with last night was totally rude and looked just like you. Or it’s that time of the month and she’s irritable and annoyed with the whole "dating" thing right now.

There are a million extraneous circumstances completely outside of your control and at any given time, a large chunk of the women you meet and talk to are going to be experiencing one of them. The best you can do is to let it go and remember, it’s not about you.

Dating is random. It’s a slot machine made of women. We’re shooting for that 5-in-a-100, so the faster you move along to a woman who is receptive to you, the better off everybody is going to be.

Seriously, the difference between being good with women and being bad with women is often only the difference between 8% and 1%. Either way, you’re still failing over 90% of the time, so get used to it.

This is why we approach based on our truth. This is why we polarize women as soon as possible. This is why we approach women looking to see if she fits our values and needs and not the other way around.

Most men when they approach women, they approach thinking something like, "I hope she likes me," or "I hope she doesn’t embarrass me or reject me." It’s all about them. And therefore, when things don’t go anywhere, the men take it personally — they get upset, or angry or butt-hurt that this random stranger with tits isn’t interested right now.

But as we’ve learned, there are an infinite number of extraneous circumstances that we can’t control, and we already KNOW that the vast majority of women aren’t compatible with us in any significant way anyway. So we must remove ourselves from the equation.

Instead of thinking, "I wonder if she’ll like me," think, "I wonder what she’s like?"

Instead of thinking, "I hope she doesn’t reject me," think, "I wonder if we’ll have an adventure together?"

The beauty is that whether she falls in love with you on the spot or she throws a drink in your face… you’ve succeeded. You’ve found out the truth. Your curiosity is fulfilled and you can now decide whether you should move on or not.

This mindset is easier said than done. All of Part IV is devoted to learning how to put this into practice in your life.

Men Who Only Experience Rejection

There are a minority of men who experience only rejection. These men have gone out regularly, approached many women and come home empty-handed time after time after time.

Often, they’ve listened and tried to use ineffectual pick up techniques and tactics, dressed up, and adopted entire philosophies that didn’t suit them.

Without fail, every single man who I meet who receives ONLY rejection, is receiving it because he is no where near his truth. He’s gone out, approached hundreds or even sometimes thousands of women, and barely had any results to speak for. Often these guys are decent-looking, successful and smart and seem to have their lives together. But literally not a single woman they meet is interested in them. How can this be?

My contention is that these men are severely disassociated from their true identity. They’ve got massive amounts of emotional baggage that they’re oblivious to, yet it permeates all of their interactions. They have a horrible lack of self awareness of the emotional needs that are motivating them. Their life and actions are built on conditionality:

I have this job so that people will respect me. I approach these women so that I can feel important. I want to have sex with hot girls to know that I’m valuable.

These motivations and more are going on in the background at all times for them, yet they’ll remain oblivious to them. They’re typically extremely needy and desperate, seeking approval without knowing why and with a complete disregard to how they go about it.

But worst of all, these men tend to lack an ability to integrate feedback. So for instance, if they approach a few women with a technique that they read online and these women all tell him that they find him creepy and awkward. Instead of evaluating why the women found them creepy and weird, they decide that the technique must not work and move on to try another one.

They never stop to consider that the woman was telling them that their intentions and neediness -- their complete inability to be vulnerable and to show their truth is what is creepy, not what they actually said.

Unfortunately, these men are usually beyond help within dating advice. When I tell them what I’ve written here, they always respond with, "I know why I want these women, I’ve got my life together. It’s the techniques that don’t work. Give me the techniques that work."

Ironically, it’s this same complete lack of personal responsibility and complete lack of self-awareness that is unable to accept feedback that drives the women away from them. These men seek to deceive women about their intentions because these men actively deceive themselves about their intentions. Until they stop deceiving themselves, it’s impossible for them to ever stop deceiving women, and therefore let go of their neediness.

They’re terrified of confronting their sexuality, their desire to be loved and to love. So they hide behind techniques and intellectualizing the process of picking up women.

Deceiving a woman who is not interested in you to hopefully become interested in you is only setting yourself up for a more punishment and disastrous failures down the road. Which then leads to further rejection.

Redefining Success

The concept of "success" in modern dating advice is pretty skewed. It’s influenced on the one side from traditional roles and rules — get a nice girlfriend, get married, etc. — and on the other side by unrealistic expectations and social pressures — to be "the man" you have to bed dozens of women, that you should never be rejected, you should be banging models and "10‘s," etc.

Whereas conventional wisdom would tell you that "success" with women isn’t determined by you, but by the women themselves. Women alone choose which guys "have it," while others are left to pick up the leftovers. Other conventional wisdom tells us that success with women is determined by wealth and looks. All of these things certainly play a significant role (as we’ll see), but to define our success by it is a bit extreme and short-sighted. Men put a lot of pressure on one another to be successful, and the idea of walking up to a random girl that you don’t know and being "rejected" by her is ridiculed and a source of embarrassment for many.

Even within dating advice and the so-called "dating science" of Pick Up Artists, they start digging into open-to-close ratios, hook percentages and other esoteric numbers that are meant to measure your "success" of meeting and dating women as a "skill." Some guys track how many women they talk to, kiss or even sleep with… going so far as to even keep spreadsheets.

I’m not chastising this behavior — it can actually be beneficial when used in the proper contexts. I’m just saying it’s a poor objective measure of success.

Choosing how we define success with women is vitally important. If you choose the wrong way to define success for yourself, then the months or years of effort you go into achieving that goal will go to waste.

And we’re not just talking about the metric in which we’re going to put a vast amount of time and effort into, we’re talking about the health of our emotional lives. Women and relationships are one and the same with our emotional health, and so the way in which we perceive women and relationships is going to be reflected in our emotional well-being.

If you choose to believe "success" with women is determined by which woman chooses you or how much money you can provide… well, then there’s a good chance you’re going to be quite lonely followed by ending up with the nearest woman capable of tolerating you for a lifetime.

If you choose to believe "success" with women is a lay-count, or other statistical data, then your love life will become just as objectified as the women you meet… and although you’ll have the quantity of interactions to back you up on paper, all emotional quality will be lost, along with your happiness.

I define success in a qualitative way: maximizing happiness with whichever woman (or women) for each individual.

Success = Maximizing happiness with whichever woman/women we prefer

This may seem like an obvious statement, but the implications are actually quite profound. For most of the men in the world, their "success" with women is defined by:

- Never being rejected.

- Dating a woman who is more attractive than his friends’ girlfriends.

- How many women they can approach or have a date with.

- Quantity of women rather than quality of women.

- If she fits the stereotype of what "beauty" is.

- If she’s the kind of woman you’ve been raised to think you should date.

When we define success as finding the woman/women who will maximize our happiness, our approach takes a completely new light. Instead of seeking for a woman to select us, instead of racking up numbers, instead of winning bragging rights, instead of avoiding rejections — our success is defined by screening through as many women as possible until we find the ones we enjoy.

We screen through these women by polarizing them. We polarizing them by sharing our truth with them openly and freely. And when we do this, women will either become incredibly attracted to us or they will reject us. Either way, they’ll respect us.

And not only do we pursue and polarize the women we believe will make us happy, but we push the interaction. Too many men become satisfied with how many women they can approach or how many phone numbers they can collect. This is not success. This is not success because you are not maximizing your relationships with these women. You are not dating them, sleeping with them, becoming intimate with them or even committing to them.

You’re just validating yourself with how many phone numbers you can get.

So it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty. So far we’ve spent most of the book talking about theory. Whether we get any specific woman or not depends on our level of neediness relative to hers. We kill our own neediness by showing our vulnerability freely.

We express our vulnerability by sharing our truth.

There are three ways in which we share our truth with women. And those three ways will make up the bulk of this book. The three ways are 1) living based on our values; 2) becoming comfortable with our intentions; and 3) by expressing our sexuality freely.

The first way of expressing our truth involves developing a lifestyle that makes us happy. The second way of expressing truth is by being courageous and fighting through our fears and anxieties. And the third way of expressing truth is by communicating well and being uninhibited in our sexuality.

I refer to these as the Three Fundamentals.

Chapter 7: The Three Fundamentals

The Three Fundamentals are the three ways in which a man can express his truth and display a lack of neediness. Improving each one of the Three Fundamentals will improve your results, sometimes drastically. Each of the Three Fundamentals can be worked on independently, but as we’ll see later, improving one of the three often indirectly benefits the other two and vice-versa.

The Three Fundamentals are: Creating an attractive and appealing lifestyle; Overcoming your fears and anxiety around women, and mastering the expression of your emotions and communicating fluidly. The way to improve each of these fundamentals is by drilling deeper into your vulnerability in each one of them. So one way to think about it is that the fundamentals are the categories in which you can improve your ability with women (and general wellbeing), and expressing your vulnerability and seeking truth is the process in which you improve in the categories.

For short, I refer to the Three Fundamentals as: Honest Living, Honest Action, and Honest Communication.

For instance, Honest Living, or creating an attractive lifestyle involves really drilling down and understanding what you want as a man for your life. If you’re in a job you hate with hobbies you hate and friends you don’t like, then no matter what you do or how much money you make, you’re going to have a hard time meeting attractive women that you enjoy and who enjoy being with you. There are specific reasons for this that we’ll get into, but the overarching reason is that you are not living your life honestly to yourself.

If your true passion is art and you push paper around at an insurance firm, then you’re not living honestly with yourself. You’ve compromised your identity in some way to fit what others have dictated it should be -- in this case, you’ve given up what actually makes you happy in order to fit the values or roles of other people in society (having a stable job, working in the corporate world, having a nice house/car, etc.) This displays a lack of vulnerability and a lot of neediness.

If those things aren’t ACTUALLY important to you, then you have a responsibility to yourself to change. Otherwise, you’re always going to be a needy man. How so? Because you’re living 40 hours a week, every week, investing your identity in what others want of you and not what you want of yourself. This is like baseline neediness, and until you straighten this out, you will be needy with EVERY woman you meet, preventing you from meeting the truly amazing women that you could potentially be with one day.

Honest Living correlates directly with the quality of women that you will attract. The more in-tune you are to your lifestyle, the more you take care of your appearance and your health, the higher quality of women you will attract and the greater percentage of Receptive women you’ll meet.

Honest Action is overcoming your fear and anxiety around women. Our anxiety is another form in which we highly invest ourself in others and avoid our truth. Like lifestyle, it also seems to almost be embedded in us and something that requires a lot of thought and effort to repair over a longer period of time.

I call it Honest Action because it is honesty in the strictest terms: if you see a beautiful woman and have a desire to meet her, to not take action and meet her is a form of dishonesty to yourself. If you’re standing in a bar, and you see a cute girl, and you keep looking at her all night afraid to do something, on a deep level, you’re being dishonest to your intentions and sexuality. You’re being needy and unable to expose your vulnerability.

All fear around your sexuality is a result of neediness. If you’re afraid to approach a woman, it’s because somewhere in you you are more invested in her opinion of you than you are of yourself. If you’re afraid to ask a girl to come home with you, it’s because you are afraid of the sexual reality that you want to sleep with her -- you’re more invested in her NOT rejecting you than you are in aligning yourself with your desires.

Overcoming your fear and anxiety also probably has the greatest correlation with a guy’s overall results with women. The reason being, once a guy gets over his fear of rejection, he’s willing to more or less pursue any woman he wants when he wants. Even if he’s a deadbeat (lacks a good lifestyle) or even if he’s terrible at expressing himself (lacks good communication skills), he will eventually meet women who want to date him and sleep with him by no other means than pure numbers. If he’s willing to approach 500 women in a week with no fear of rejection, eventually at least one of them is going to stick.

Honest Action correlates directly to the quantity of women you attract and the speed at which you attract them.

The third fundamental is Honest Communication, or learning to express yourself freely and effectively. This is what most dating advice sells and classifies as “game.” A good sense of humor, the ability to connect with people, telling stories, engaging people’s attention, having charisma, and expressing your sexuality openly, these are all parts of this fundamental. I call it Honest Communication because it’s learning how to communicate your true intentions and emotions. Often we have certain thoughts or feelings, but we don’t know the best way to convey those thoughts or feelings -- this third fundamental focuses on how to do that.

Honest Communication will determine the efficiency and in which you are able to seduce women as well as the compatibility of women you seduce. What I mean by efficiency to seduce is that a man with poor communication skills may have 10 women attracted to him, but because he can’t convey his thoughts and emotions well, he’ll only end up hooking up with one of them.

On the other hand, a man who communicates superbly well may convert seven or eight of those 10 women into becoming sexually involved with him.

Natural Advantages/Disadvantages

Chances are, you’re already pretty strong in one or more of the Three Fundamentals and weak or mediocre at more than one of them. Where your strengths and weaknesses lie will determine not just the quantity of your results with women, but also the types of results you achieve.

For instance, a man with an amazing lifestyle, but poor action and poor communication will be surrounded by beautiful and interesting women but never hook up with them. Classic examples of this are rich or good-looking men who are still single and frustrated. They may have money, connections, power and meet beautiful women regularly (or have beautiful women approach them), but they’re never able to capitalize on their opportunities.

A man with no fear or anxiety with women will be able to approach and hook up with many women, but his effort/reward ratio will be poor and the quality of women will be worse. Often a lot of aspiring Pick Up Artists fall into this category -- they go out 5-6 nights per week, approach dozens of women, fail with almost all of them, but every once in a while convince a drunk sloppy girl to come home with them.

A man with great communication skills but a lot of fear and a poor lifestyle will rarely meet or attract beautiful women, but the few times he does, he will capitalize on his few opportunities. Most socalled “normal” guys or “naturals” are like this. They rarely see opportunities, but when they come along, they take them and do well. The problem with these men is that they never feel like they’re in control of their love-lives. They’re always waiting for that next woman who’s interested to come around. And sometimes they end up waiting quite a while.

The Three Fundamentals are interesting in that they explain why a lot of men implement a lot of dating advice or self-improvement and don’t see any actual change in results. If your weakness is that you aren’t able to communicate coherently or empathize with what other people are expressing, then being encouraged to approach 500 women on the street is going to be an absolute disaster.

If you are broke, live with your parents, and have no job, then being encouraged to spend all of your time and money out in night clubs is only going to get you a bunch of meaningless sex with mediocre drunk girls who have no better options.

If you are scared to death of saying anything to a woman you find attractive, then the best conversation tricks, teasing and flirting lines, or even openers are not going to help you at all.

But as I said earlier, the Three Fundamentals are interdependent -- they feed off of one another. So if your biggest problem is an inability to communicate well, then approaching 500 women won’t DIRECTLY benefit you, but the fact that you’re talking to 500 new people will indirectly help your issue. In the same way, being able to communicate effectively will help guys with extreme levels of anxiety in their development because the few times they do work up the nerve to make a move on women, they will usually do it in a calibrated and smooth way.

It’s important to cater the advice that you implement to your specific issues. Hopefully reading this chapter, you have at least a vague idea of where your weaknesses are. The rest of this book is dedicated to breaking down each of the Fundamentals individually and giving clear how-to guides for improving them. Identifying and focusing on the fundamental(s) you need to work on most will be the quickest route to improving your love life and sex life. Most of you will have one or two main weaknesses and probably one natural strength. But some of you may be weak in all of them. I guarantee you, if you’re reading this, you are not strong in all of them. If you think you are and are still reading this far, then you’re deluding yourself and need to re-read Chapter 4 on finding your own truth and being honest with yourself.

In my experience, 90% of men fall into one of two categories: anxious or socially disconnected.

Anxious guys tend to have the third fundamental down very well. They’re good at expressing themselves and are very aware of social norms and what others are thinking/feeling. In fact, in a lot of cases Anxious guys are TOO aware of what other people are thinking and feeling and therefore have a lot of social anxiety. They’re afraid to approach. They get nervous pushing things forward, they’re scared to ask girls on dates.

Generally though, once these guys DO meet a girl, they do fine. They can converse with her all night. And if she happens to be attracted to him, he’s not such a mess. But it’s the actual being pro- active and making a move that scares him to death. These guys usually spend most of their time focusing on overcoming fear and little time on expression.

Socially disconnected guys are the opposite. These are men who have always been a little bit “oblivious” to what others think and feel around them. Usually they’re guys who have always kind of kept to themselves and grew up more interested in their studies or some subject than the people around them.

Interestingly, men who are socially disconnected almost never have fear or anxiety when it comes to approaching, pursuing or escalating with women. In fact, it’s BECAUSE they’re so oblivious to social cues and what others are thinking/feeling that makes them so fearless around them.

The struggle for men in this category is going to be the third fundamental: learning how to express themselves and understand how people think and feel around them. These men tend to have little hesitance or fear for action, but they tend to just do the wrong actions at the wrong times over and over and over, and rarely understand why.

The first fundamental (lifestyle) tends to be all over the map and is always a work-in-progress for everyone. The better your lifestyle, the easier everything else will be. But the second and third fundamentals are intimately connected to one another: anxious guys are anxious because they’re so socially attuned to others (perhaps even TOO socially in tune with others) and social disconnecters are fearless because they are socially disconnected from others.

The idea is to become socially connected AND fearless at the same time AND have an awesome and attractive lifestyle. The full package. The Three Fundamentals.

But whichever type you are, read all three sections, as even reading about areas in which you’re naturally strong will reinforce your positive habits. And you will probably pick up a few minor pointers on how to improve your strengths even further.

Part III is about Honest Living -- building an attractive and abundant lifestyle so that quality women who are most compatible with you naturally gravitate into your life.

Part IV is about Honest Action -- overcoming your fears and anxieties so that you may act on your impulses and desires without hesitation or shame.

Part V is about Honest Communication -- training you to express yourself openly and effectively, in a dynamic and interesting way that will keep women interested in you and help you make that transition to becoming physical with them.

Parts III and IV are divided into two chapters each. The first covers the concepts and ideas of that fundamental and the second gives specific, actionable advice on how to improve that fundamental. For instance, in Part III (Honest Living), Chapter 8 covers the concept of Demographics and how it affects how women are going to respond to you. Chapter 9 called “How to Be Handsome” then describes how we can use the knowledge of Demographics to make ourselves as attractive as possible to each woman we meet.

Part V has four chapters to cover all aspects of communicating efficiently (verbally, physically, etc.).

And keep in mind moving forward that the foundation behind all of the advice given is the idea that an honest expression of yourself and your desires as a man is the most effective way to demonstrate non-neediness and to therefore create lasting and genuine attraction with women who will make you happiest.

If at any point along the first seven chapters, you felt like something didn’t make sense or didn’t “click,” then you may want to flip back and review it. If not, if everything makes sense and the reasoning behind everything I’ve said so far makes sense, then you’re ready.

Read on …

Part III: Honest Living

Chapter 8: Demographics

“Man sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices his money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”- The Dalai Lama

Before we get into what to say to women, how to make them laugh, how to talk to them, where to take them, how to kiss them; before we even get into basic questions like what to wear, or how to look, what to say first, we have to ask a more important question. A question whose answer will affect and change everything listed above.

Which women do you meet?

Context. You can meet women in coffee shops, but whether they’re cold approaches, business networking events, or a speed-dating event is going to make a huge difference.

This question of where and in what context you meet women is what I call demographics, and it is by-and-large ignored by pretty much all dating advice out there today. This absolutely boggles my mind since social interactions are always contextual and therefore picking up women is always contextual.

The fact is that some books tell a 40-year-old divorced banker meeting women at an art gallery the same thing that they tell a 19- year-old college kid sneaking into house parties. This is stupid. These two guys have completely different priorities, life experiences, personalities, interests, and the women they’re going to meet in those two locations are going to be different in age, education, values, emotional development, appearance and interests. That some books would give these men the exact same lines or strategies to use just goes to show how completely out of tune a lot of men’s dating advice and pick up theory is today.

In fact, time has shown that great swarths of men have become disgruntled and repeatedly unsuccessful with a lot of this advice, and I think most of this vast lack of success can be attributed to ignoring demographics.

The theory of demographics is simple and easy to remember: like attracts like.

If you’re a successful professional who likes fine wine, studied abroad and dresses well, chances are the type of women you’re going to naturally meet and attract in your every day life are going to be similarly-educated, similar-looking women with similar interests and similar success.

When demographics don’t match up, then it causes friction. And as we learned in Chapter 4, friction prevents attraction from turning into hooking up.

A very common demographic mismatch scenario is the bookworm who takes up pick up lines and tactics. Let’s say we have a 35-yearold engineer named John. John has been a bookworm and shut-in all his life. He’s had two serious girlfriends, both lasting more than five years apiece. He’s recently single and has decided that he wants to date and meet as many women as possible before he decides to get married. So John reads some pick up material and begins hitting the night clubs with it.

Now, let’s ignore the lines he uses for a moment -- in fact, let’s assume the lines he uses are very good (even though they’re probably not). He approaches a very hot blond girl named Jenna.

Jenna is 20-years-old and in her second year at community college. She comes from a worse part of town and has been working a retail job at a shoe store for the last five years to put herself through community college, although she doesn’t like anything she’s learning. Her only relief is when she gets to go party at the club each weekend where all of her friends are and where she gets to relish in really hot guys hitting on her and buying her drinks.

John has three degrees, has spent the last eight years working 60 hours per week and never drinks. He’s maybe been to 20 parties in his entire life and has only been drunk twice. He’s passive and analytical and his sense of humor is highly intellectual. He’s softspoken and thoughtful. He’s not dressed entirely well and his hair is unkempt. He wears big glasses and is slightly shorter than average.

It’s not hard to see that when he approaches Jenna, no matter what he says or what line he uses, it’s going to end very quickly, and chances are Jenna is not going to be subtle about her lack of interest in John.

John may come away blaming the lines he used for not working. Or he may blame himself for being ugly or being a little short.

But let’s keep the thought-experiment going. Let’s say two years go by. In those two years John works on himself. He dresses impeccably now -- wearing custom tailored designer clothing that is not only stylish but reflects his successful business persona. He’s groomed and styled very well. He’s gone to the gym and buffed up, gotten contacts instead of his glasses and paid a hair stylist to fix up his hair.

John’s also discovered the fun of partying. He enjoys going out with some of his new young professional friends to drink and dance and have fun. He’s begun spending more time at the beach and has been teaching himself the guitar on and off. He’s gotten laid a few times and realized that attractive women aren’t such a big deal to get worked up about.

Jenna has also changed in the past two years. Since she last met John, she’s dedicated herself to her studies. She just got into nursing school and has been taking it seriously and realizes she’s smarter than she thought she was and that at times, she actually enjoys learning. She also got out of a one-year relationship with a football player who treated her like crap. She’s realized that she needs a guy who is more responsible than she is.

This time when John approaches here (lines or not), they suddenly have an overlapping demographic: John is now an attractive, wellkept, successful bachelor who knows how to let loose, have fun and express his emotions; Jenna is now not only beautiful but also responsible, ambitious and confident.

Now, it’s true that if John practiced and perfected his use of lines and tactics, he may be able to convince Jenna in the short-term that he’s less invested and is actually in her demographic (vague stories about his stripper ex-girlfriends and the like), but hopefully by now you realize how badly these kinds of strategies backfire, particularly in the long-run. Eventually John’s lines will run out and like Cinderella after the ball, and Jenna will be horrified at who she’s actually talking to.

But because John (and Jenna) worked on themselves, broadened their demographics, enriched their lifestyles, and lived their lives how they wanted even more, they came to find an enough overlap and commonality to be attracted to one another.

This is the power of demographics.

A demographic mismatch can be seen in terms of friction. If she loves to ski and ride horses, and you hate the outdoors and traveling, then that’s going to cause friction -- perhaps not immediately, but at some point.

If she values having fun, expressing her emotions openly and what her friends think of her, and you value serious conversation, intellectual pursuits and don’t care much for social gatherings, there’s going to be a large amount of friction from the get-go.

This is unavoidable. Pick up lines won’t change it. Being goodlooking won’t change it. Being rich won’t change it. If you hate what she loves and she hates what you love, it’s not going to go anywhere. Period.

If she dedicates a lot of time and effort to her appearance and enjoys getting attention from good-looking guys, and you don’t shower, dress poorly and haven’t ever seen the inside of a gym, then there is going to be a large amount of friction.

These are the cold, hard facts. Nobody probably tells you this. But it’s obvious and it’s true. Sorry.

The examples are endless. But this explains why sometimes you meet women you just “click” with, and more often than not, you meet these women in situations that you’re having fun and doing what you love.

Lifestyle Choices And Demographics

The theory of demographics has advantages as well: if you play to your strengths, i.e., if you focus your time and energy on meeting women in situations who are likely to share your values, interests and needs, then you’re going to not only experience a much higher degree of success, but you’re going to meet women you enjoy a lot more.

For instance, I love to travel. And I love meeting women who love to travel. It’s absolutely my favorite thing to talk about and typically if I find a well-traveled woman, I find it very easy to pick her up and date her.

When I’m in a random bar in Texas, I rarely meet women who have traveled. But when I go to a European wine-tasting in New York, I almost meet nothing BUT women who love to travel. Or even better, if I actually get up and go to another country and meet other people traveling in that country, I’m going to have an extremely high hit-rate with those women.

If you love dancing or different types of music, then chances are the women you’re going to meet at various dance events and concerts are going to be more compatible with you and you’re going to have much more success with them.

This seems like obvious advice, but it blows my mind how most guys never even consider it and most dating advice completely ignores it.

Bars and night clubs are generally considered “meat markets” or the obvious places everyone goes to meet someone. But think about the people and context in which you’re walking into in a bar or night club: a high energy, generic party situation, where people value having fun and spending time with their friends.

Assuming you’re a guy who loves to party, have fun and hang out with a bunch of new friends, that’s great. But if you’re not that naturally outgoing social type, then chances are you’re not going to be very compatible with most of the people there.

It isn’t until you develop that aspect of your personality or lifestyle that those women will begin to open up to you.

I’m not saying that you should never go to bars or clubs (their benefits will be discussed in Part IV), but the point I’m making is that you should pay attention where you’re meeting women and the type of women that you meet. If you’re a 49-year-old software consultant, overweight, and enjoy reading poetry in your free time, chances are you’re going to have little to nothing to talk about and/ or offer a 22-year-old gogo dancer high-school-dropout down at Lust Thursdays other than your appreciation for her tight ass and her appreciation for your wallet.

What I recommend to every guy before he even begins talking to women is to sit down for a while and ask himself some questions:

- What do you value you in a woman? Honesty? Affection? Intelligence? Curiosity? Similar interests? Education?

- Women with the traits that you value, where do they frequent? Where are you most likely to find them?

- What do you enjoy doing most? Do you love to read/write? Do you play music? Do you enjoy sports and competitions? What are events or organizations that you can become involved in that explore your hobbies?

- If you don’t know what your passions and interests are, take a minute and write down things that you’ve always wanted to do but have never had the time or never worked up the nerve to do. Make a promise to yourself to get involved in that activity or event in some way.

Obviously, not every interest is going to be overflowing with women. If you are a competitive chess player, chances are you are not going to meet many women at chess tournaments. But few people have only one passion or interest. And chances are that you have at least a few things that you’re interested in that are overflowing with women.

Here are examples of some great hobbies/events that you can use to meet women at:

- Dance classes (salsa, swing, ballroom, etc.)

- Political organizations or events

- Concerts and concert promotions

- Amateur sports leagues (ultimate frisbee and co-ed volleyball tend to have a lot of women; in good-shape too)

- Volunteering, charities, charities events (usually overloaded with great women)

- Training courses (leadership, public speaking)

- Cooking classes

- Yoga classes (a goldmine)

- Meditation courses and retreats

- Self help seminars and educational events

- Travel groups

- For the religious: a church or whatever your faith’s equivalent is

- Educational classes (foreign language, CPA, etc.)

Also, meetup.com and livingsocial.com are excellent resources for finding like-minded people and cool events going on in your city.

I have a friend over 40 who regularly dates women 15-20 years younger than him. He’s an excellent dancer and goes to the local dance events in his area every week. He’s successful, smart and professional. He’s cultured and well-traveled. He also networks through European business-people living and working in the US. Between these two groups he meets tons of people and tons of attractive, intelligent women. To kick things off, he often brings them together by hosting events at his house. His huge success (for a man his age) comes not just from his charisma and his “game,” but the fact that he’s narrowed down the demographic of women who he likes and who are apt to like him perfectly and is able to act on it.

A much simpler example is another friend I have who is a professional musician. You would think he’d be getting laid all the time, but he actually spent most of his time in the studio and rehearsal rooms. That’s where the real payday was.

But when he became single again, he began taking cheap and easy gigs, playing weddings, dive bars, cover bands, etc. and quickly met more women than he knew what to do with.

In my own life, I have a strong passion for traveling and culture. Wherever I go, I make a point to join local events or classes where I’ll meet other like-minded people who also travel. When I’m in the US, I spend my time at venues or events that are full of foreigners.

Whenever I’m in the US and I meet a woman from say, Argentina, and I immediately start telling her about the three months I lived in Buenos Aires … in Spanish … it’s pretty easy to pick her up, as you can imagine.

To some people this sounds like “copping out” or like it’s not really learning pick up or game.

But here’s the thing, that’s the kind of woman who’s going to make me happy. She’s going to have shared experiences and values with me. And our metric for success is maximizing happiness, not racking up the most lays, or the having the most impressive game (whatever that means).

It’s easy to get caught up in the unimportant details, and the men’s locker room type of boasting, and easy to forget why we’re really here: we want to be with women who make us happy.

The answer for you is going to be completely different. These are just some successful examples. What’s going to work best for you is going to be entirely different and you’re going to have to experiment.

Again, demographics should not determine where you go or don’t go, but just be aware that it affects every interaction you have with women. If there is too large of a demographic mismatch, then the friction will be incredibly high, and no matter how attractive you are, she’s not going to be able to connect with it.

Chances are this may explain a fair amount of failure you’ve had up until this point.

If you’re interested in spirituality and meditation, pursue it. If you’re interested in politics and being active in your community, pursue it. If you’re interested in food from around the world, pursue it. Take up cooking classes, food tastings, restaurant openings, etc.

Beliefs and Self-Selection

Lifestyle choices may play an obvious role in the demographic of women we would like to meet. If you like to do yoga, then if you go do yoga, you’ll meet other women who like to do yoga. They’ll be likely attracted to you and you likely attracted to them. Duh.

What’s not quite as obvious, but just as important if not more important, is how our beliefs naturally screen the women who come into our lives. When I say beliefs, I mean beliefs about women, sex, relationships and ourselves.

The idea is that our beliefs are reflected in our behavior, and behavior determines which (and how many) women are attracted to us.

For instance, if you believe all women are sluts and untrustworthy, then the only women who are going to be willing to tolerate your behavior are promiscuous women who are untrustworthy. Think about it, a genuinely chaste and respectful woman would be far less likely to put up with you not trusting her or her sexuality.

Another example is the belief that women want and enjoy sex as much as men do. This belief was a big one for me. Many men don’t believe that women actually enjoy or fantasize about sex.

So how would this belief affect your behavior and screen the women who are attracted to you?

If you believe women don’t enjoy sex, then the women who do enjoy sex will most likely not feel comfortable expressing their sexuality around you. And the women who don’t enjoy sex will feel like you understand them.

Thus, you’ll be stuck dating a bunch of women disconnected from their sexuality and uncomfortable having sex.

But if you believe that women do enjoy sex, then the women who do enjoy sex will feel comfortable expressing their sexuality around you, while the women who are not comfortable expressing their sexuality will not be comfortable around you. Yes, this will invite rejections, but remember, rejections are a form of screening for demographics and in this case, it’s doing you a favor!

You’ll end up with a bunch of sexual and sensual women who enjoy being with you. Nothing wrong with that!

Screening women through your personal beliefs is incredibly powerful. I honestly think that most “problems” that men turn to tactics and techniques to overcome, could easily be solved by simply adopting the appropriate beliefs. Unfortunately, beliefs are harder to pinpoint and also harder to implement than simply memorizing some lines or basic rules or techniques. So this approach is not adopted as often.

But I think acknowledging your beliefs and also being able to acknowledge that they may not be true, comes back to what was discussed in Chapter 4: being able to take an open and honest look at yourself and your desires. Becoming a non-needy man requires first and foremost an honesty with oneself. Part of that honesty with oneself involves observing and challenging your own beliefs. If you have lived your entire life believing women are untrustworthy or that women expressing themselves sexually is immoral, then perhaps you should evaluate what kind of women those beliefs are going to attract into your life. And if you don’t want to attract those kinds of women, perhaps you should look at changing your beliefs.

As a concrete example of how our beliefs lead to our expectations which lead to our results, let's take a cross-section of a couple typical beliefs that men have about women and see what kind of results we could expect from them.

The first belief is the assumption that a woman is attracted to you. There are some men who operate on the assumption that all women are interested in them until proven otherwise. There are other men who operate on the assumption that no women are interested in them until proven otherwise.

Obviously, there's no way for any man to always know which women are interested in him at any given time. Men who overassume attraction from women are obviously going to periodically pursue women who are actually not interested. And men who underassume attraction will periodically let go women who are interested, assuming that they're actually not.

The second belief we'll look at is that women play games or are "testing" you. A lot has been made about women and their "tests" that they put men through, particularly in the Pick Up Artist community. I personally believe that these ideas of tests are blown out of proportion, and as we'll see, women will only toy with your emotions if you expect them to do it or let them do it.

Men who are paranoid about games and tests end up trying to outgame these women. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it drives away women who were legitimately honest about their interest.

Other times they lose the game and get lead on by women who were not interested and end up wasting a bunch of time.

Now, let's say you go out and get a bunch of phone numbers over the period of months. And during this period you can have some configuration of these two beliefs. What are your results going to look like?

Assume attraction; Assume women are playing games -- If you assume women are attracted to you, then you're rightly going to pursue every woman you have an opportunity with, whether they actually like you or not. But if you believe that most of them are going to manipulate you and play games with you, then you're going to try to play games with them as well -- not answering calls, postponing dates, teasing and "calling them out" for bad behavior.

Let's see what kind of results these beliefs will likely bring.

Let's begin with women who are attracted to you and are NOT playing games -- they're being upfront and honest about their interest. But because you believe they ARE playing games, you're going to try to "out-game" a woman who's not actually playing games with you. This will actually come off as try-hard and highmaintenance, effectively scaring off the honest and upfront women from becoming involved with you.

Women who are not attracted to you and do not play games will simply flake on you.

Women who are not attracted to you and DO play games will enter into a "game battle" with you in which you'll end up losing, since they are not actually interested. All they will do is waste your time and confuse you.

And finally, women who DO like you and DO play games, will enter into a "game battle" with you in which you may win or lose. But even if you win, you have now attracted a dramatic and manipulative woman who will lie and use you. And to get there, you dealt with a bunch of dramatic and manipulative women who never had any interest in you.

All of the honest and upfront women passed you by, being turned off by your inability to be straightforward with your intentions.

Assume No Attraction; Assume they Don't Play Games - Suppose you assume most women do not play games and most women are not attracted to you, let's see how this will play out on your results.

Because you assume most women are not interested in you, you will spend a lot of time gaming women who actually aren't, converting very few. Women who are not attracted and do not play games will repeatedly reject you. Women who are not attracted but do play games will milk your attention and validation, wasting your time and effort.

Conversely, you will turn off a few attracted women by over-gaming them. The one's who do not play games will either just drop you for being try-hard or they will hook up with you anyway, regardless of what you say. Women who do play games will feign disinterest, but because you assume they're not attracted, and don't play games, you'll believe them and stop pursuing.

What you'll be left with is a handful of women who were attracted to you anyway, who don't play games, but would have hooked up with you regardless of what you said, but you just made it much harder on them -- so all of your effort to win them over was pointless and actually scared some of them away.

Assume No Attraction; Assume They Play Games -- Having both of these sets of beliefs will perhaps lead to the saddest results of all.

Since you will assume almost no women are attracted to you, you will over-compensate, scaring away a great many who actually are attracted to you, and rightly recognizing the ones who are not interested. But since you assume that women play games, you will not trust these women's reactions and waste a lot of time trying to win over women who never liked you in the first place, and scaring off women who originally liked you even more than before.

The only women who will put up with you are women who play games. But because you assume they don't like you, you'll be unlikely to ever pursue the women who are interested but playing games, and you will fetter away your time and effort with the uninterested women who play games as well.

All in all, you will expend a massive amount of time and effort trying to win over women who were never interested and scaring away women who were. But because you believe the honest women who genuinely liked you to be a) dishonest and b) not actually attracted, you will never act on the correct signals, always deferring back to your games and tricks to try to win them over.

Guys with both of these beliefs will often go months or years pursuing women with no results. It's sad to see.

Assume Attraction; Assume They Don't Play Games -- Now let's look at the complete opposite. You believe most women are inherently attracted to you and you also believe that women are honest and upfront about their intentions.

First of all, women who are interested in you and honest about it, you will immediately hook up with. And it will be great, passionate sex.

Women who are not interested in you and up front about it, you will immediately move on, wasting no time or energy.

Women who are interested in you but play games, you will take them at their word and stop pursuing them. Sometimes this will actually induce a woman who plays games to stop playing games when she realizes she may lose you. Other times it doesn't.

Women who don't like you but play games, you will take them at their word and when they don't follow through, you will move on.

What you will end up with are women who are attracted to you and who are not afraid to show it. All of the women who were afraid to show it, you unconsciously screened and weeded out by simply accepting their actions and behavior at face-value. The women who were not attracted or interested in you, you unconsciously screened through by not trying to win them over.

All in all, little time, little effort, and lots of honest, genuine women who are attracted to you, appreciate you and want to have sex with you. Sounds good to me.

Age, Money and Looks

The touchiest part of demographics -- and honestly, possibly the touchiest subject of ALL dating advice -- is that of age, money and looks.

I want to get this out of the way and make it 100% clear. Age, money and looks matter … in some cases a lot, in other cases, not a lot, but they matter. And anyone who tells you that they don’t matter is lying.

Don’t believe the marketing. Don’t believe the hype.

With that said, age, money and looks don’t matter nearly as much as most guys think. And if you’re aware of the effects of demographics, they aren’t that important at all.

When it comes to age, studies show that men’s physical attractiveness peaks at around 31 (a luxury considering women peak around 21) and that our physical attractiveness recedes far slower than women’s do. In fact, studies have found that the average 45 year old male is considered as physically attractive as the average 18 year old male. If this sounds preposterous, hear me out for one more paragraph.

The main reason is that studies have also found that women judge men far less based on actual physical dimensions and far more on style, grooming and how they present themselves. As men, we’re extremely lucky in this regard. Taking a guy from a baggy T-shirt and ripped jeans to a nice tailored suit with a professional haircut will immediately bump him up 50% in the looks department overnight, whereas women, it’s a constant and never-ending battle to maximize their physical appearance as much as possible.

How to be as good-looking as possible will be covered in depth in the next chapter, but for now, just know that no matter how ugly you think you are (and chances are, you’re not that ugly even if you think you are), there’s hope for you. And we’ll take care of it soon enough.

Money is nice in that it demonstrates success and implies other positive attractive traits, but again, its utility is vastly overblown. When it comes to money, once again the surveys and studies have some interesting findings.

The first is that the importance of money/success matters more depending on your age. The older you are, the more money you’re expected to have and the more successful you’re expected to be in order to be attractive. The other finding is that the less well off SHE is, the more important money will be to her.

This is why the stereotypical gold-digger is usually a very beautiful young woman who grew up in poverty. Women who grow up with money or have money usually don’t care about it nearly as much.

But the fact remains that women perceive men with money the same way we perceive women with good-looks: as social status. How each woman defines social status and whether money is a part of that or not is going to vary. But again, returning to the high-end “trendy” night club demographic, ask yourself what kind of girl frequents a ridiculously overpriced night club so she can hang out with C-list celebrities every week and have random guys ogle her and buy her drinks?

A girl seeking a lot of social status … and for these girls, money matters. Success matters. But most of all …

Attractive behavior matters.

Which brings me to my primary point when it comes to age, money and looks. Again, it’s about the demographics.

Ask yourself which demographic of women are looks or money are highly important for? Women who tend to value only good looks tend to be women who have only only good looks. Women who are highly interested in money are going to be women who don’t have other interests or other things going for them.

What I’m saying is, women who ONLY care about things such as looks and money are usually going to be women who you’re not going to be interested in or who are going to make you happy.

With that said, everybody values looks and success to some extent. So it’s not something we can write off completely. You should be as good looking as you can possibly be. And you should be as financially successful as you can possibly be. And even the most interesting and well-rounded and psychologically healthy women are still going to prefer a good-looking and successful man to one who isn’t.

So yes, looks and money matter, so the question is, how do they affect our results with the majority of women?

It’s simple: money, looks and success are all indicators of status. Women are attracted to status. Behavior is also an indicator of status.

The more money/looks/success you have, the less attractive behavior you need. The less money/looks/success you have, the more attractive behavior you need.

Again, this kind of comes back to the concept of “game.” The idea of game is the idea that you can pick up any girl simply by your behavior, not by using social connections, wealth or good looks.

So if you’re short, or older, or not that good-looking, you can still theoretically attract any woman you want, it’s just going to take more attractive behavior.

Another way to think of this is that age, money and looks are universal demographics, and therefore lacking in any one of them is apt to cause extra friction everywhere.

But just because there’s friction, or just because there are less Receptive women is no excuse for not having success in the long run.

The vast majority of guys who get hung up on looks and money get hung up on them because they’re using it as an excuse. It’s absolutely not an excuse. A guy who is good-looking or rich still has to work for his results, he just doesn’t have to work as hard.

Trust me, I’ve coached dozens of guys who were far more professionally successful than me and far more good-looking than me, yet I still get with more girls and hotter girls than them. Being good-looking and being rich is worth nothing if you don’t DO something with it. You can be the richest guy in the world, but if you behave like a timid and weak chump, then girls will be repelled -- well, at least the girls worth having will be repelled.

And as we’ll discuss in the next chapter, anyone can be handsome and look high status if they put enough effort into it. So no excuses, fellas.

And of course, status is ultimately determined by demographics. At a college house party, a burly 20-year-old kid who crushes beer cans on his head is going to have a high level of status to the girls there. At an opening at a local art gallery, he is going to have almost none. A skinny bass-playing hipster is going to have high status at a local indie show and low status at a business networking event. A successful stock trader who wears Armani suits is going to have high status at his firm’s annual Christmas party and very little status at a hippy music festival.

It’s all relative. The key is to 1) recognize your personal interests and strengths, 2) play up those personal interests and strengths and 3) hone in on your target demographic.

Race and the Foreigner Effect

It’s worth taking a moment to mention race and its effect on attraction and dating. A lot of foreign men or men of different ethnicities have a lot of insecurities or false beliefs about their race and their ability to date women of other races. Many Indian and Asian men feel like white women would never be attracted to them. A lot of black men run into threatened responses from white and Asian women.

There are two considerations to take about race. The first is that race naturally polarizes your responses. In a way, this is good. But it’s also going to be a little bit of a more painful experience.

So for instance, if you’re a white guy, then most women will be pretty Neutral towards your race. This allows you a greater amount of overall opportunities, but they’re all opportunities you’ll have to still work for. You’re going to be hard pressed to find a woman who says to herself, “Oh my god, I’m meeting a white guy!”

(The exception is, of course, if you live in a country where white people are a minority, such as Japan or South Korea.)

But if you are Asian, African, Middle Eastern or Latino, then approaching women is going to sometimes illicit a small polarization. Some women are going to immediately be more intrigued and interested in meeting you, and other women are going to be more shut off from meeting you.

In my experience in the western world, Asian and Indian men run into the smallest amounts of polarization. Latin and middle eastern men men run into a modest amount, and black men will run into a significant amount of polarization. There are some women (of all races) out there who absolutely love black men. A lot of women fantasize about black men and wonder what it’d be like to be with one. And there are others who are not interested in them at all.

But if you are a black man, you need to be prepared for this dichotomy of responses. You will get some very harsh rejections -- rejections that your white or Asian friends will not experience often. At the same time, you will meet women who will often want to have sex with you pretty much immediately. And as you probably know, there’s a saying among women: “Once you go black, you never go back.”

Also, typically, if you’re a minority then women of your own ethnicity will be polarized towards you. So, for instance, if your’e an Asian man, then Asian women are going to most likely respond the most warmly to you and more warmly than they would to a white guy or latin guy. If you’re Latino, then Latin women will respond the most warmly towards you and so on.

The reason for this is not only because of cultural similarities (chances are you and her both grew up in Latin households), but also because humans are hardwired to be attracted to members of the opposite sex who have similar physical traits as themselves. This isn’t always the case, but people generally feel the most comfortable around people who are similar to them.

The second effect of being a minority or hitting on women of a different race is that you will have to face racial stereotypes. This is an unfortunate but true part of our world. People make racial stereotypes about each other whether they realize it consciously or not. I didn’t truly understand this until I began to travel widely and met women in countries where white men had certain stereotypes that I had to deal with repeatedly.

I’d like to make it very clear so that I don’t offend anybody in the next section. The racial stereotypes I mention below are not my personal beliefs and are not necessarily true. They’re simply what I’ve observed working and speaking with many men of minority races in the western world. So don’t take this as gospel, but merely observation.

Unfortunately, as much as we’d like to pretend we don’t live in a somewhat racist world, we do. And so while you will meet many, many women who don’t care what race you are, you will meet some who will care, and you will meet a few who may have ignorant beliefs about your ethnicity.

Again, what I’m going to list here aren’t necessarily my own beliefs. They’ve just what I’ve found that men with minorities have to deal with. So if it makes you mad, then be mad at how ignorant most people are. Don’t shoot the messenger.

In general, in western culture the stereotype of Asian or Indian men is that they are hard-working and smart, but traditional, very analytical, and emotionally shut down. The stereotype of Latin men is that they’re romantic and emotional, but also selfish and unfaithful. The stereotype of Middle Eastern men is that they are controlling and somewhat misogynistic. The stereotype of black men is that they are very aggressive and sometimes disrespectful.

I didn’t invent these stereotypes. I don’t even believe them. But they are simply what I’ve observed over my years and years of going out with men, and speaking to them about their experiences.

But racial stereotypes can be used to your advantage. What I’ve found, and what many minority men have found, is that if you can calibrate your behavior to contrast your racial stereotype, you’ll actually create a lot of intrigue and attraction.

For instance, if you’re an Asian man, making an effort to be even more playful and energetic and aggressive will actually net you even more positive reactions than a white guy behaving the same way.

If you’re a black man, behaving in a sensitive and understanding way will often net you more positive responses than if a white guy does it.

The reason this works is because you’re going against your racial stereotype. Consciously or not, many women will see an Asian guy approach her and automatically assume that he’s going to be a boring engineer or something … but if he turns out to be the most engaging and exciting man that they’ve met, it creates a high level of intrigue. Your simple presence and behavior challenges their conceptions of what Asian men are like and therefore makes you incredibly unique right off the bat.

Of course, you will meet many, many, many women in the western world who don’t care what race you are. In fact, I would say most women don’t care what race you are. But unfortunately, there are differences, and so I felt like they needed to be addressed.

The other point of interest is the foreigner effect. Once again, being a foreigner in another country is going to polarize you with most women. In the long-run, this is a good thing (and one reason I enjoy living abroad so much), but it does mean you’re going to have to face a lot more rejection than you would back in your home country.

The degree that you polarize will depend on the country and where you’re from, as well as the stereotypes your nationality carries with it (if any).

Social Proof

One of the more popular concepts that Pick Up Artist theory introduced into the dating world was the concept of social proof and how it affects social status. If you remember from Chapter 1, women are biologically wired to seek out the highest status male possible. Even though this concept of status is murky and not always clear, women have unconscious ways of sensing a high status male.

The concept of social proof comes from influence psychology and is the idea that as humans, when we see many other people valuing something, we will unconsciously value it ourself. For instance, if everybody else is talking about a new movie, we are more likely to want to see it because we’ll unconsciously assume that it’s a good or important movie to see.

This works with people as well. If you’re at a party and someone walks in and everybody in the party stops what they’re doing to turn and say hello to that person, your first thought would probably, “Wow, who is that guy?” Chances are you’d want to meet him as well.

The idea is that this applies to women and attraction as well. If you are that man who walks into a room and everybody stops what they are doing to talk to you, then the women in the room are more likely to perceive you as high status and be attracted to you.

This is why men in power, celebrities, athletes, etc. are desired by so many women.

Despite a lot of shoddy application and theorizing by the pick up artists, this concept and its affect on attraction holds true. The goal, as a man is to cultivate as much social status within your demographic as possible.

So, for instance, if you are a high-powered executive at your firm, then you have a large degree of social status and social proof at work. Chances are, the women who work with you are going to have some degree of attraction for you. But if you go to a night club on the weekend and know nobody there, then your social status is back to nothing. You’re just another guy there.

That’s why once you’ve narrowed down your demographic, you want to cultivate your connections and put yourself into as big of a leadership position as possible. Don’t just join the intramural frisbee team, start organizing it. Don’t just volunteer at a charity event, help find sponsors for it. Don’t just go hang out at a local night club, but become a promoter for it.

Part of living the honest lifestyle is to pursue what you’re passionate about to the fullest extent. If you absolutely love visiting art exhibitions, don’t just visit a bunch of art exhibitions, take an active role in the organization, start a meet up group to find other people who want to visit them, create a forum for commentary. Don’t just pursue your interests, become a leader in your interests. Don’t just choose a demographic of women to meet, dominate that demographic.

Hopefully by now you’re getting a clearer idea of what demographic of women you’re currently attracting and which demographic of women you’d like to attract. In the next chapter, we will get into specifics on how to pursue the correct demographic for you and become as attractive as you possibly can be. But first, I want to address a very popular concern of single men, and a question I have gotten constantly over the last five years: the demographic of extremely beautiful women.

The Most Beautiful Women

In this section, I will address the differences in one specific demographic: the most beautiful women. Let’s arbitrarily say that this section applies to the top 1% of women in terms of physical looks and from here on refer to these women in general as the “Top 1%.”

Being the Top 1% in physical appearance means that more or less 99% of the male population is going to be interested and/or pursuing them in some way. This is a major difference from just about any other woman out there. Even very attractive women may only have 70-80% of the men they meet pursuing or interested in them. But as a Top 1% woman, for all intents and purposes, just about every man she ever meets is going to be (very) sexually interested in her.

Obviously, this is going to have a significant effect on not only their psychology, but also the types of men that they’re attracted to.

There are two primary differences when dealing with the Top 1% demographic. The first is that the most beautiful women rarely ever settle for a man who is not a total package -- or a man who does not have all of the three fundamentals handled. The second difference is that extremely beautiful women are far less needy than the average woman and therefore they’re going to be extremely attuned and sensitive to any neediness in men. Ironically, the fact that these women are so beautiful often causes men to become even MORE needy than usual. And as we learned in Part I, her being lessinvested than normal while being surrounded by men who are moreinvested than normal is a recipe for her being attracted to very, very few men.

But let’s start with the first difference: the fact that the Top 1% rarely ever settle for a men with a major flaw. And by flaw, I don’t mean character flaw -- we all have those -- but I mean a man who exhibits a large amount of neediness anywhere in his life.

If there is one thing that’s true about the Top 1%, it’s that they have a much larger selection of suitors at any time than the average girl. They meet rich guys all the time. They meet musicians and actors and DJ’s and guys with big muscles and nice cars. It’s not that you need any of this stuff (although it helps), but you cannot have a glaring hole in your lifestyle. You need to have your lifestyle together.

A nice job you like, a nice place you like, nice friends you like, cool hobbies you like, good health and good shape, and generally a welladjusted and confident person. Picking up most girls, you can get away without one or a few of that list. The Top 1%, you need to have them all handled. You need to be a complete package.

Look at it from her perspective. The first way she screens men is by confidence and charm. Let’s say she meets 20 men one week and 3 of them are confident (non-needy) and charming and she likes being around them. The first one is VERY good-looking but also unemployed and living with a family friend. He has no car. The second has his life together and is pretty wealthy but is overweight and dresses poorly. The third guy has his life together and is in great shape and takes care of himself.

All else being equal, she’s going to go with the third. It’s not that looks are ALL that matter, but when she has so many options, she has no reason to ever settle. That’s why you need to be the complete package. You don’t have to look like Brad Pitt, or be a millionaire, or be a world-class athlete or something. You really can’t have a major hole in your lifestyle. Treat this as kind of a pre-requisite.

The second major difference is more difficult to handle -- the fact that more beautiful women are less needy than average makes them more difficult than the average woman. But paradoxically, if you try harder to get with a more beautiful woman, then you will demonstrate yourself as even more needy than before. It’s back to the ole “try to look like you’re not trying” conundrum.

The answer is to stop caring about how beautiful they are.

This sounds totally counter-intuitive at first, but it’s true. Top 1% women are treated differently their entire lives by men. These men project their fears and fantasies onto these women, and when they approach them, they’re doing it for their own self esteem and validation, not because they actually care what the girl is like or interested in. Do not be this guy. The fact that you even ask this question means you are guilty of this. I was guilty of this too.

The first step to doing this is to ditch the any sort of rating scale for women. Again, I was guilty of this for a long time, but the ratings scale is toxic in so many ways, the worst of which is that it subtly stereotypes behavior based upon appearance. So the fact that you even recognize in your mind that approaching a “10ʺ″ to be different than a “7ʺ″ is immediately going to affect your behavior towards her. A rating scale is a subtle and unconscious way of putting women on a pedestal and therefore highly-investing yourself for superficial reasons and making yourself more needy. This leads to unattractive intentions which will permeate all of your behavior. Top 1% women will sense this immediately, because Top 1% women have been dealing with needy men their entire lives. They can smell it a mile away.

The other problem with treating women differently based on ratings is simply that it doesn’t work. You’ll meet 10’s who think they’re 5’s and 5’s who think they’re 10’s. Not to mention that your 6 could be my 8 and my 5 could be your 9. At the end of the day, her behavior is more determined on how she sees herself more than how others see her. So it’s pointless.

When you approach, she’s just another woman. You really have to stop caring. I used to get so obsessed about finding “high quality” girls, and I just let it go a little more than a year ago. It’s no coincidence that I pick up the hottest girls of my life now with the less effort than ever before.

A lot of guys have a hard time swallowing this. They want the hottest women because they’re the hottest after all … so if they stop wanting them, won’t they stop getting them?

Not necessarily. It’s OK to recognize a woman’s beauty and to be turned on by that beauty. But it’s not OK to invest one’s identity in attaining or conquering that beauty. Because that leads to neediness.

A beautiful woman will not necessarily make you happier than a less beautiful woman. Any sort of drive or need to have sex with the most beautiful women for the sake of sex with beautiful women and not for the sake of seeking joy, love and connection is a purely selfish endeavor. There is nothing “high value” about a really hot girl, it’s just that guys project their insecurities onto these women and think there’s something valuable about them. If you ask these women themselves, they have no perception of this “value” or “status” in which you speak of. None at all. These are just merit badges in your head, constructed as a sad way to validate yourself.

I’ve been with six models (two runway), a professional dancer, a cheerleader and a successful stage actress. I’ve been on dates with girls who have been approached 3-5 times WHILE ON THE DATE with me. I’ve dated a girl who dated an NBA basketball player before me. I’ve dated girls who guys I didn’t know came up and gave me high fives while she was looking away.

I never, ever, ever, EVER heard one of these girls speak of men in terms of not being cool enough or not being rich enough or goodlooking enough to hang out with them. In fact, I never heard any of them say anything derogatory about men hitting on them EXCEPT for the man’s lack of confidence, lack of respect or lack of authenticity around her.

A typical complaint from a normal girl: “He’s really nice, why doesn’t he ask me out on a date more often?”

A typical complaint from a very hot girl: “Ugh, that club-owner keeps flashing his watch at me. He’s so sleazy.”

People really don’t get it, these girls don’t have it that great. Imagine wanting to date a really great guy, someone who actually cares about you, and literally every single guy you meet starts acting like a total idiot trying to impress you or manipulate you into bed. Meanwhile, your friends who aren’t as pretty as you seem to keep meeting really nice normal guys who actually care about them. It’s actually very frustrating. Imagine having EVERYONE evaluate you for how pretty you are and not your personality or what you say. You’d actually be pretty insecure about what people thought of you.

This is also why the best way to net a Top 1% girl is to connect with her genuinely and emotionally as soon as possible. Find something that you like about her other than her looks and relate that to her honestly.

Or as the old saying goes: “Tell the beautiful girls they’re smart and tell the smart girls that they’re beautiful.”

Guys always assume, the hotter the girl, the harder she is to get. I suppose on a purely supply/demand level, that’s true. There are fewer hot girls and more guys trying to get them. But they’re really no different. The only thing that’s different is that unlike an average pretty girl who only has 50% of guys she meets put her on a pedestal, the super hot girl has 98% of men she meets put her on a pedestal, so she’s going to see through your bullshit immediately.

And in case you didn’t catch it: The rating scale is a pedestal. The concept of “high value” is a pedestal. Coming up with special openers is a pedestal. Most Pick Up Artist Theory is a pedestal.

Believing you have to treat her differently in any way because of how she looks is a pedestal. I recommend guys switch to a binary system of 1 or 0. A “1” is a woman you’d like to be with. A “0” is a woman you wouldn’t. Why you want to be with her or not, how she looks, whether she’s just OK looking or the most beautiful woman on the planet -- none of that matters. Either you’re interested or not. The rest doesn’t matter.

And in the meantime, get your life together. Stop caring about looks so much. Treat her like you’d treat anybody else. Stop approaching her to prove something to yourself. Stop treating her like a trophy or an achievement or a merit badge… and just talk to her. Just the fact that you talk to her like a normal human being with confidence and civility will immediately differentiate you from 99% of the other guys she meets.

Being Something Versus Saying Something

If there’s one take-away from this chapter, it’s that it is far more powerful to be something attractive rather than to say something attractive. You can say the most attractive sentence in the world, but if it isn’t backed up by who you are, then it’s not going to have any meaning. Whereas if you ARE something amazing, then no matter what you say will be attractive, because it will be coming from a genuinely attractive man.

For instance, imagine you meet two different men. One of them is a scrubby, ugly, and shady character. He can’t look you in the eye. He smells bad. He mumbles to himself and scratches himself in inappropriate places. While you’re talking to him, he looks at you and says, “You know, I get a good feeling from you, you’re someone worth knowing.”

How would that make you feel?

You’d probably get the creeps and want to get away from him as quickly as you could.

Now imagine you’re talking to a handsome, successful man who is charismatic and charming. Everything he says is fascinating and interesting. Then he looks you in the eye and says, “You know, I get a good feeling from you, you’re someone worth knowing.”

How would that make you feel?

It’d make your day. Why? Because the second man IS someone. He’s not just saying interesting and charming things, but he IS interesting and charming. Suddenly the words that come out of his mouth have a whole new weight and meaning.

This is why learning pick up techniques and tactics without the fundamental base of a strong lifestyle and identity is more or less useless. Guys can go out and use lines as much as they want -- for weeks, months or even years -- and they’ll never get good results because they’re not portraying themselves well. They don’t have a clear and successful identity. They aren’t in touch with the way in which they’re living their lives.

Because here’s the REAL take-away from this chapter: your life and everything that it encompasses, is a reflection of your emotional investment in yourself. And the more invested you are in yourself, the less needy you are with others.

Men who are more heavily invested in others rather than themselves will float through life doing what others direct them to do. They will wear whatever seems “OK.” They’ll groom themselves to the bareminimum level. They’ll get the normal job or go to a normal school just because that’s what normal people do. They never bothered to strive to do something unique or original or transcendent because that would mean risking not being accepted by others.

And as a result, these men present themselves poorly. They’re highly-invested, needy individuals and this is immediately apparent in their appearance and lifestyle. They dress normally (or poorly), look normal, say normal things, go to a normal job, and live in a normal place.

What does this say about how they feel about themselves? That they feel that they’re normal -- that they fight every day of their life to maintain the status quo. What does that sub-communicate about their value to women? That they don’t have any!

Being sexual and being attractive, by its very nature, is controversial. You must be willing to do something that is going to make you stand out. You are going to have to be willing to risk people not liking you. You have to be willing to sacrifice some people’s approval in order to live life on your own terms.

You have to be willing to polarize people’s opinion of you. The less polarizing you are, the less attractive you are. And if you live an un-polarizing life, then you not going to be attractive or unattractive.

You’re just going to be boring. More of the same. Dime a dozen.

Hopefully this chapter has helped you question what you’re doing with your life, what your identity is, what you want out of your relationships and what kind of women you’d like to attract.

The next chapter is going to get into specifics on how to portray yourself in a more polarizing manner. It’s not portraying yourself in an outlandish manner (although that works too), it’s portraying yourself in a way that stands out. It’s how to be handsome.

Chapter 9: How to Be Handsome

As men, we’re prone to assume that women perceive attraction in the same way we do. Science and psychology show that this isn’t true.

As men, we judge female beauty mostly on physical aspects: cheekbones, facial symmetry, hip/waist ratio, breast size, etc. As such, we often fall into the mistake that women judge our attractiveness with the same metrics: hence obsessions with bench presses, height and penis pills.

Yes, physical measurements play a role in how a man’s appearance is judged, but research shows that other factors are far more important.

That’s why I draw the distinction between being good-looking, and being handsome. Not everybody is born good-looking. But any man, with some time and effort, can become handsome. And in the end, what women want is a man who is handsome.

For some reason, many men seem to have this notion that their physical appearance is set in stone and they rarely have any interest in altering it or making any major changes. Indeed, for a lot of men, they read about this stuff, buy a new shirt that’s a slightly brighter color, get a new watch and consider these “dramatic” changes to their appearance.

Well, here’s a couple unfortunate truths. The first is that appearance is extremely important. The difference between being perceived as handsome and not handsome is night and day. Yes, you can still be bad-looking and get girls, but the difference in the effort/reward ratio is massive. A makeover and wardrobe change can make meeting and dating women three times easier literally overnight. Not to mention all of the psychological side benefits of making you feel more confident, more interesting, more excited, etc.

It really blows me away how little attention or care a lot of men put into their appearance. And often these are the same men who come to me and complain that they’re just too ugly/short/old/Asian and that women are never going to like them.

Not true!

Remember, your outward appearance is a reflection of your selfinvestment (or lack thereof). And your level of self-investment will make you less needy towards others -- therefore making you more attractive. If you don’t put a lot of time and effort into how you look and how you present yourself to the world, women look at that and make unconscious assumptions about your status as a man.

The first and obvious step involves grooming and general maintenance. That means regular showering, shaving and haircuts, wearing deodorant, brushing and flossing your teeth, keeping clean fingernails and wearing clean clothes.

I should not have to be telling you this stuff, but just in case I do, there it is. The above paragraph is non-negotiable, starting today. There, now let’s move on to the biggest factors on your passive attraction and appearance, the two F’s: Fashion and Fitness.

If these two F’s don’t excite you or if your immediate thought is, “Oh, I’ll skip this and go straight to the pick up lines,” then I hate to break it to you, but things aren’t going to get any easier. People are always talking about what’s the “magic pill” to attraction. If there was such a thing it would be the two F’s. Bar none, fitness and fashion will do more attract women in a shorter amount of time than anything else. So listen up, and make a serious commitment to yourself. Because if you don’t make a commitment to yourself then nobody else will.

Fashion

Many straight guys are averse to exploring their style and how they dress because they think it’s “gay” or intrudes on their masculinity. On the contrary, dressing well can help accentuate your masculinity and demonstrate that you value yourself.

Studies have found that whereas men judge the physical attractiveness of women based on physical dimensions and their body, women judge men’s physical attractiveness based on their clothes, grooming and body language.

There are a few rules to dressing well:

1. Wear clothes that fit.

2. Match.

3. Choose good colors for your skin tone.

4. Accessorize.

5. Dress to your personality

Clothes that fit: To start, the vast majority men don’t wear clothes that fit them properly. Men prefer comfort and practicality than to any aesthetic purpose of wearing clothing, so most of their clothing is too big. Many men are also self-conscious about their body, so they buy large clothing to mask it.

Finding clothes that fit is the quickest and most immediate way to make yourself look more attractive:

You should ALWAYS know your measurements. If you’re not quite sure, ask to get measured. Most clothing department stores have a tailor who will gladly take your measurements for you.

With shirts, the shoulder seam should extend to the end of the shoulder, not any further. If it extends past the end of your shoulder, then the shirt is too big.

The bottom of your pants or jeans should rest gently on the top of your shoes (unless you have a specific brand – rocker or hip hop jeans). If you’re stepping on the back of your pants with the heel of your shoe, they’re too long. If your jeans are raising up to expose your socks when you walk, they’re too short.

Your pants should never sag from your waist when you wear them. Plumber’s cracks are NEVER attractive. Here’s an example of jeans that don’t fit:

And an example of jeans and T-Shirt that fit well:

A blazer that’s too big, notice the shoulder seems sagging of the sides:

And another outfit that fits very well:

Matching:Guys have an unbelievable knack for being oblivious to colors and how to coordinate them.

Matching is actually simple once you know what to look for:

- Your belt should match your shoes and/or your accessories.

- If you’re wearing dress pants, your socks should match your pants. If you’re wearing jeans, your socks should match your shoes.

- Your jewelry must all be gold or all silver.

Here’s an easy way to get started. Go out and buy a “black set” and a “brown set”. Buy a nice pair of black shoes, a nice black belt, and a black jacket. Then buy a nice pair of brown shoes, a brown belt, and a brown jacket.

Then buy a few pairs of nice designer jeans with lighter and darker washes and a dozen or so shirts.

Then it’s just mix-and-match.

You pick a pair of jeans, a nice shirt, and then throw your “brown set” or your “black set” on – whichever set compliments the shirt and jeans the best. I like to wear the brown set with lighter shirts and jeans, and the black set with darker shirts and jeans.

Of course, dressing gets more complicated than this, but this is an easy and fail-safe way to start out.

Just as everyone’s built differently, everyone has slightly different skin tone and complexion as well. As a result, different colors will stand out on you and look good, and other colors will clash and look bad. For example, I’m Caucasian with slightly darker skin and dark brown hair. The colors that look best on me are bright blue, green, purple and maroon. Bright red, yellow, orange, brown or grey all look bad on me. Below are some general guidelines of where to start with picking colors. As time goes on though, you’ll hone in on 2-3 colors that you look the best in.

It should also be noted that anyone and everyone can wear white and black.

Dark Skin Tone – African, Indian, Middle Eastern, Darker Latino: You want to wear brighter colors to contrast and accentuate your features. What works: White, Grey, Pink, Light Blue, Khakis, Yellow.

What doesn’t work: Purple, Dark Brown, Dark Green, any dark shade.

Medium Skin Tone – Darker Caucasian, Asian, Lighter Latino, Lighter African, Lighter Indian, Lighter Middle Eastern:

You have the widest range of choices as far as colors as most will complement your skin tone. Earth tones and pastels look the best on you: burgundy, magenta, dark green, navy blue, light blue, black, white. The colors to avoid are the one medium tones that will blend into your skin: tan, beige, dark brown, orange, some reds.

Example of good colors on medium skin-tone:

Light Skin Tone – Light Caucasian, Light Asian:

The key is to avoid bright colors that will accentuate your light skin tone. Colors to avoid: Red, Orange, Yellow, Bright green. Pastels work well (light blue, earth green, maroon, etc.). Dark colors will never look bad on you.

Finally, if you have blue, green or hazel eyes, always favor shirts that match your eye color. Your eyes will appear to “match” your shirt and it will bring them out more giving the sense that you’re more engaging.

Accessorizing: The absolute quickest way to look more stylish today is to accessorize. It literally takes 30 minutes of shopping, yet completely alters your appearance.

The fundamental accessories:

- Watches: Watches are the most fundamental male accessory. A nice watch goes a long way to augment one’s style and status. But be warned, most nice watches are very expensive.

- Necklaces: Necklaces accentuate the neck and the shoulders, creating a sense of power and dominance. Anything from a simple chain to dog tags or a surfer’s leather strap necklace can augment your outfit immediately.

- Bracelets: Whether metal or leather, make sure they match the colors and style of your outfit. Bracelets accentuate your hands and arms. Consider them particularly if you’re skinny and gangly.

- Rings: You can put a ring on any finger. A thumb ring is the most stylish and aggressive. Avoid the pointer fingers and the left ring finger (for obvious reasons). Again, make sure the metal matches your other accessories in your outfit.

- Sunglasses: Go to a sunglasses store and try out a bunch of different pairs. Find a pair that compliments your head shape nicely. Sunglasses cover the eyes, creating a sense of mystery and power in whoever wears them. Make sure the tint matches your outfit (i.e., don’t wear a brown tint with a black outfit) and make sure the frames match the rest of your accessories (i.e., silver frame with silver accessories, etc.)

- Piercings/Tattoos (Optional): Depending on your style and personality, piercings and tattoos can augment EVERY outfit you wear more than any piece of jewelry could. If you’re an artistic person, or into particular music scenes, consider getting these done.

Again, accessories are the quickest way to augment your appearance. You could throw on a T-Shirt and jeans and look painfully normal. But add a cool watch, a couple rings, a necklace and sunglasses, and suddenly you’ll look stylish.

Dress to your personality: Finally, dressing to your personality is important to understand dressing well.

I can’t tell you how many guys I’ve seen who learn about fashion who then go out and buy some crazy stuff: a 40-year-old business executives with baggy jeans and a hoodie, a 20- year-old college student with a $500 suit and sweater vest, or just all kinds of random stuff – LED light belts, gold clock necklaces, top hats, etc. It’s amazing sometimes what people think is “being stylish” when it’s really just being ridiculous.

You are not stylish if you are not dressing to your personality.

In fashion there are various stereotypes always considered attractive by women: the skater/surfer look, the businessman look, the rock star look, etc. For instance, if dressing like a rock star fits your personality, then do it. If you’re a top accounting executive, you should dress like a stylish and successful business man. If you love hip hop and DJ, then you should dress with more of those trends.

Look through magazines and get on the internet. Find people who look like your personality. Then model after those people’s appearance.

For me, it was a combination of rock star meets GQ. I like looking stylish and put together, but with an artistic flair and edge to it because I’m a musician. I found brands that combined those elements. I would wear a hardcore rocker shirt with a nice blazer. I’d combine nicely styled hair with some piercings. It worked for me because it was congruent to my personality.

The other way you can model people’s looks is by going out and observing people. Go to bars and clubs and look at the guys…

Yes, I just said look at the guys. Don’t worry, it’s not going to kill you.

See which ones are the best dressed (they’re often gay). You’ll quickly start to notice that:

1. Most guys don’t dress well at all.

2. The majority of the guys in the venue are dressed exactly the same way.

This is how you don’t want to be. Make note of what “most guys” look like and try to either avoid that look or augment it in a way that’s uniquely your own.

Find the most stylish guys in the venue and make note of their style. You could even ask them where they got their clothes.

Finally, if you’re struggling to get a jump start on fashion, get a fashionable female friend to take you shopping. I shouldn’t have to tell you that women love to shop. And they particularly love to shop for guys.

Good female friends are your best asset if you’re clueless about fashion. They can educate you and give you an unbiased female opinion on what looks hot on you and what doesn’t.

But be warned, just because they have a vagina doesn’t make them a de facto expert. Many women aren’t as knowledgeable about fashion as they seem. Also, many women will try to dress you to THEIR idea of a “hot guy”, not necessarily what works best for you.

Fitness

Obviously, there’s not nearly enough time nor space to give the entire rundown on fitness, nutrition and conditioning. So here I’m only going to provide the bare basics. This is enough to get you started. If you wish to pursue your fitness and nutrition further (and I recommend you do), there are recommendations in the Further Reading section at the end of the book.

I’ll divide this up in three ways: weightlifting, nutrition and cardio. Most guys, when they want to get into shape, they focus on cardio first, weightlifting second and nutrition last. This is completely opposite of importance. Whether you’re looking to gain weight, lose weight or simply tone up, nutrition is by far most important, followed by weightlifting.

1. Lift Weights

No excuses. Lift weights. If you’re trying to gain weight, all of your gains will be stimulated by lifting. If you want to lose weight, lifting weights will raise your metabolism (burning more calories each day) and prevent any loss of muscle as you diet. If you simply want to tone up and maintain good health, weights will shape your muscle for a more pronounced physique.

There’s no way around it: join a gym. Push ups and sit ups WILL NOT do. A pull up bar doesn’t count. Cheap 10- pound dumbbells don’t count. Get to a gym and start lifting and don’t stop. Weightlifting has been tied to so many physiological and mental benefits, it’s stupid. One more time for the thick-headed and stubborn:

YOU MUST LIFT WEIGHTS TO CHANGE YOUR BODY!

Once you get to the gym, start with machines if you’re a novice. But move on to free weights as soon as you can.

You want to focus compound exercises. What this means is you want to do exercises that stimulate multiple muscle groups at a time. Too many guys show up to the gym, pump their biceps for 30 minutes and then leave thinking they worked out.

They didn’t do anything.

Doing three good sets of squats, bent rows and pull ups will yield much better gains in your biceps than curling a dumbbell all day will. These are the exercises you should focus on:

Squats, Bench Press, Military Press, Dead lifts, Leg Press, Back Rows, Pull Ups, and Dips

You could start with these exercises three times a week, split between legs one day, chest and shoulders one day, back and arms the third day.

The reason you want to do these compound exercises, is not only because they work more muscles at a time, but they stimulate your entire nervous system, which helps your body synthesize protein faster and more efficiently. A great “newbie” workout program is called the Rippetoe System. I fully recommend it.

Also, if you can afford it, hiring a personal trainer to get you started towards your fitness goals is a great investment.

2. Nutrition

Consciously determining how much food and what food goes into your body is the most determining factor towards your health and your body’s appearance.

The first thing you must determine is how many calories you need to eat each day. This is easy. Take your weight, multiply it by 15 to get your daily maintenance calories. Then subtract 500 if you want to lose weight or add 500 if you want to gain weight. For instance, I weigh about 180 pounds. 180 x 15 = 2700. I must eat 2700 calories a day to maintain my current weight, 2200 a day to lose weight and 3200 a day to gain weight. If you weighed 150 lbs, you would eat 1750 a day to lose weight and 2750 a day to gain weight, etc.

Counting calories can seem like a big hassle, but it’s pretty simple once you start learning how much is in each kind of food and what kind of calories are present in them. NutritionData.com is a great free site to help you start.

Next, we must decide the proportions of calories to put into our body. This isn’t as important if you’re trying to gain weight as if you’re trying to lose weight. Generally, if you’re gaining weight you want to a 40% carb, 30% protein, 30% fat diet. If you’re losing weight, you want less fat and carbs and more protein. I’m going to leave the calorie proportions to other sites and guides — if you are that serious, you will look them up yourself.

Instead, I’ll make some general statements about what your diet should be:

- NO FAST FOOD. Way too much fat. Way too much salt, cholesterol. This shit really is a nightmare for any health-conscious person. Not to mention they come in ridiculous portions.

- NO DRESSINGS OR SAUCES. This means: any salad dressing, mayonnaise, sour cream, cream cheese, butter, etc. All of these things are PURE FAT, and not the good kind of fat either. (Exceptions: Ketchup, mustard, jelly, guacamole)

- LESS CHEESE. Cheese is great, but it provides a lot of unnecessary fat.

- NO FRIED FOODS. Again, it’s all fat. That means french fries. Sorry.

- BAD CARBS. Bad carbs include just about any grain or starch under the sun. Most breads (especially stuff like Bagels, pastries, croissants, muffins), potatoes (french fries), even stuff like corn and rice. Cut out pasta if you can. There’s a vast amount of research showing that processed carbs are what make you fat — not actual fat intake.

- LESS (OR NO) ALCOHOL. Alcohol calories are useless to your body, they go straight to fat.

- NO SODA. The amount of sugar and sodium fucks with your metabolism and causes you to store more fat.

- Eat fruits and vegetables.

- Eat TONS of lean protein. Baked Chicken. Sirloin steak. Baked turkey. COLD CUTS! No salamni, pastrami, ham, bacon or whatever. Eggs are great too (especially egg whites).

- Milk

- Good fats: peanut butter, nuts (almonds, cashews, peanuts), avocados, eggs.

- Take supplements: multi-vitamins and fish oil. Buy some whey protein and consider getting some creatine (especially if you’re bulking up).

- Constantly check with NutritionData.com for what you’re eating. You’d be amazed what you think is healthy is actually unhealthy.

3. Cardio

First thing, under no circumstance should cardio be your only exercise. Well, I take that back. Cardio is better than no exercise. But if you’re serious about chiseling your body into a modern-day Adonis, it won’t suffice by itself. When you do cardio, not only do you burn fat, but you burn muscle mass as well. You must supplement your cardio with weightlifting to maintain your muscle mass while burning your fat.

Second of all, you only want to do cardio if you’re trying to lose weight or maintain your weight. Even then, it’s the least important component and still optional.

What cardio is great for is cardiovascular health, blood pressure, energy levels, etc.

Cardio is pretty straightforward, so I’ll only make a couple comments:

- Walking for 30 minutes is not cardio. It may be if you’re a 50 year old woman and wildly overweight. But if you’re in any reasonable shape, simply walking for 30 minutes is nothing.

- Elliptical machines are probably the best for cardio as far as effortto-calories-burned ratio is concerned. They’re really fucking boring though.

- Running and intense swimming are the best ways to burn calories in the shortest amount of time.

- Unless it’s 20 degrees outside, treadmills are for pointless. You get half the work out as running on a hard surface. Find a track or run outside.

- Don’t run more than 3 times a week until you’ve been running for a long time. Running takes a big toll on your joints and bones. You have to build up some tolerance to it.

- If you play a sport, it can be a perfect way to get your exercise in. Tennis, racquetball, basketball, soccer, etc.

- If you live in a big city (Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco) consider getting around by bike. It’s convenient and extremely healthy.

4. Setting Goals

The biggest problem people seem to have isn’t setting an exercise regimen, but sticking to it. The best thing I can say is to be patient and focus on the practical benefits to your daily life you gain from being healthier. You feel better. You have more energy. You look better. You have more confidence.

Don’t get caught up in magic pills or expect results overnight. The most weight you can gain/lose healthily is two pounds per week. This sounds gradual and slow, but if you think about it, you can lose over 15 pounds in a couple months. If you weight 220 pounds, that’s significant.

So create a plan and take it one day at a time. Don’t expect everything to change overnight. And don’t be afraid of the pain period. Learn to love the pain. As my friend used to say, pain is the feeling of weakness leaving your body.

Body Language

Body language is something that can also be fixed in a relatively short amount of time and can immediately make you appear more attractive.

There’s a popular study that says that only 13% of communication comes from the actual words we speak. The rest is body language and tonality. Think about that for a second. That’s almost 90% of all communication. I shouldn’t have to tell you how critical this is.

To analyze your posture in this section, you will need the help of a mirror (preferably full-body).

1. Start by facing the mirror and then turn 90 degrees to the right or left. You should have a perfect “side view” of yourself. Now look at the “ridge” that extends from your neck to the end of your shoulder. If you’re wearing a shirt, look at the seam that extends from your neck to your sleeve. That seam or ridge on almost everyone will be slanted forward. Move your shoulders back until that ridge or seam is straight – going straight from your neck to your shoulder. That’s the optimal position for your shoulders. Remember that position and remind yourself to hold your shoulders there as often as possible.

2. Next, looking into the mirror, with your shoulders back, raise your chin up until it’s at a 90 degree angle with your neck. Your eyes should be looking dead ahead now – straight into themselves in the mirror, or aiming straight at the horizon if you were walking. Make the back of your neck as straight as possible with your back. Notice when you pull your head up like this with your shoulders back, your stomach naturally comes in, and your back naturally straightens up. This is what we want!

3. Next, look at your feet. They should be shoulder-width apart. Take note of which way your feet are pointing. They should be pointed straight ahead or slightly outward at the most. If they’re pointed inward or very far outward, this will cause posture problems and make you walk funny. Turn them straight ahead, or at a slight outward angle and hold them there. If they continue to point in or out (especially when you sit down), it means that your calf muscles are too tight, and you need to stretch them or roll them with a foam roller.

4. Now, it’s time to walk. Hold the position you’re in – shoulders back, head up, back straight, stomach in, feet straight – and then slowly step in front of you. As you walk, you want to swing your shoulders. Not too far, because that’ll make you look ridiculous, but move your shoulders as you walk. This will create swagger and make you look more relaxed as you walk. It will probably feel weird looking straight up and ahead while you’re walking, but this is good. You want to be able to look everybody in the eye as you walk by them.

5. Finally, slightly swing your arms. If you don’t swing them, you look robotic. If you have them in your pocket, you’re either cold or a pussy. If you swing them too far, you look ridiculous. Just give them a slight swing… to go along with your swagger. There.

Exactly.

Practice this a few times until you can remember how it feels. Take note of the feeling and then force yourself to go back to this position as much as possible.

Go step-by-step if you must. As you walk down the street and you remember: shoulders back, chin up, eyes straight, feet straight, shoulders swagger, arms swing.

ALWAYS LOOK STRAIGHT AHEAD.

Don’t ever look down at the ground unless you think you’re about to trip. Look people in the eye as they walk by – particularly attractive girls. You’ll catch people making eye contact with you. You’ll feel the urge to look away. Don’t. Always make other people break eye contact with you before you break it with them.

Do it until it becomes habit.

These things don’t change unless you consciously force yourself to do them over and over and over again. Keep practicing, your body language can always be better.

Vocal Tonality

Moving on from body language, you’ll never guess what research shows is the sexiest part of the male body.

No, it’s not a giant penis. Or a tight butt. Or rock hard abs. Or giant pecks.

You’ll never guess.

A deep voice.

Guys are spending hours and hours at the gym obsessing over their biceps and bench presses, when the sexiest muscles in their body have always been in their throat. Studies have shown that the physical feature most correlative to attraction and sexuality is, yes, a deep, smooth voice. I couldn’t believe it either.

Vocal tonality is definitely overlooked by guys. It’s not just having a sexy voice that’s important; it’s having an expressive and a LOUD voice.

I’ve met too many guys with great looks and a lot going for them, but horrible voices. So let’s get to work:

Tonality – How do you get rid of that “nasally” voice? All it takes is some practice.

We actually have two “voices”: a “head” voice and a “chest” voice. Basically, when you sing, your head voice does the high notes and the chest voice does the low ones. Your head voice breathes out largely through your nose, while your chest voice through your mouth. The head voice comes from the throat and the chest from the diaphragm.

Try this exercise. Just hum a note, then slowly raise it and then slowly lower it. It should sound like a siren, up high, down low, up high, down low. As you do this, pay attention to where the air pressure in your body is. As you shift from high to low, it goes from your head to your chest, and then back up again.

As you could guess, we want to develop that chest voice. Again, the only way to do this is through conscious practice – reminding yourself countless times to speak from your chest voice until it becomes habit.

Here’s a cool exercise that you can do. Read the following sentence aloud:

“Why don’t you come to the party with me?”

Now, hold your nose and read it again. How different is your tonality? If it’s not very different, you already speak largely from your chest and probably have good tonality. If you suddenly sound very nasally when you hold your nose and say it, you need to work on speaking with a deeper voice.

Keep practicing it until you can say it with holding your nose and it doesn’t sound any different.

Cadence – Another problem guys have is they often talk too quickly. This comes from a subconscious belief that if we don’t get everything out quickly, people won’t listen to everything we have to say.

Forget it. It’s MUCH better to speak too slowly than to speak too quickly.

There’s not a definitive metric for this. But pay attention to if people seem to have trouble hearing you a lot. If people are constantly asking you to repeat yourself, and it’s not loud in the room, you may speak too quickly.

Slow down. Be conscious of your speed and cadence. Don’t be afraid to make people wait for your next words. Practice it.

Volume – This is easy. You’re not loud enough.

What’s that you say? You speak loudly already? You’re still not loud enough. But people cringe when you speak? Louder. What? LOUDER! You’re never loud enough. Ever. Practice it. BUT… don’t yell. There’s a difference between screaming and being loud. You want to be loud. No screaming.

Eliminate Hesitations – Try to eliminate any “uh’s”, “ah’s”, “um’s”, “like’s”, and “you know’s” from your speech.

These are “place-filler” sounds designed to keep the listener’s attention on you even while you’re trying to think of what to say next. Get rid of them.

Implementing both the body language adjustments and the vocal adjustments WON’T happen overnight. In fact, it will probably take a period of months to engrain them fully as habit.

But these things are monumentally important. Not only do better body language and vocal projection engage other people more effectively, but good body language has been shown to affect YOUR moods positively when you alter it. So, as subtle as it is, it’s a paramount lifestyle change that you need to make. It could possibly be the most important adjustment because every woman’s first impression of you will be colored by how you carry yourself and how you sound when you first speak to her.

How to Be Fascinating

One thing that consistently holds guys back is that they come across as just another typical guy. We’re pressured most of our lives to go with the flow, go along with what our friends like and just agree with what those around us think.

As we’ve discussed, this is what most people do -- it’s needy and unattractive.

Attractive men make their opinions known. They’ve had unique experiences and ideas. They’ve tried things most people haven’t tried, done things most people haven’t done, and share their ideas openly and freely.

This section is going to go over some basic life-habits you can develop to help you invest in your own identity, to become more vulnerable in your every day live, to become more fascinating as an individual, and to come across as more attractive to women.

The areas we’re going to cover are: being well-read, developing artistic taste, trying new things, and having opinions.

Being Well-Read: If you don’t read often, start. If you do read, read more often and read better books. Don’t read airport trash or cheesy stuff like Stephen King (nothing against him, but really…). We’re looking for literary merit. Sci-Fi and Fantasy don’t count unless there’s literary merit (J.R.R. Tolkien, Douglass Adams and Arthur C. Clarke are the obvious examples that come to mind).

You want to focus more on the literature. Here are some names to start with: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Vladmir Nabokov, John Steinbeck, Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, etc. You may be rolling your eyes and thinking, “this is like college all over again.” No, there’s a reason these authors are assigned to half of humanity to read at some point. It’s just that we’re too young and stupid to appreciate them when we read them.

Check out “Best Books Ever Written” lists online. You’ll notice the same few dozen books coming up over and over again. Get familiar with them. Develop at least some sort of opinion on them.

I respect Hemingway immensely but don’t enjoy reading him. I think Dickens has the most inventive characters ever. “Catcher in the Rye” spoke directly to me in high school, until I realized it spoke directly to everyone else too. Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” changed my life in college. I think Bret Easton Ellis and Don DeLillo will be talked about decades from now.

But we don’t stop at fiction, non-fiction is just as important, if not more important.

Get interested in new subjects. Read up about evolutionary psychology, socio-biology, neuro-chemistry and futurism. This stuff isn’t your Chem 101 class from college, it’s the cutting edge ideas that we’re learning and figuring out each and every day. Learn what Einstein’s theory of relativity means and how that relates to life and perception in general, or Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. A life without learning is a life without living.

You want be a successful person? The best way is to understand successful people. Read biographies. Read how Napoleon became who he was, or the trying leadership of Abraham Lincoln, or the neuroses of Benjamin Franklin.

Now, the complaint I always get about now is: “I don’t have enough time to read that much.” Not true. That statement really means, “I read too slowly to read that much.” Speed up your reading. It’s not hard at all. Study some speed-reading. I once doubled my reading speed in a single day. Stop reading dumb blogs and ESPN.com and pointless magazines. Decide for yourself, how much value does what you’re reading have and does something else you could be reading have more value?

If a 500 page book seems daunting to you, you read too slowly. Here are some tips to speed the process up:

- Once you get the point of a section (non-fiction), move on or skim the rest of it. This is huge. I probably only actually read 2/3 of the actual words someone writes.

- If the book is written poorly or you don’t enjoy it, stop reading it. It’s OK. No reason to torture yourself. Just be sure you know WHY you don’t like it.

- If a book only has a few chapters you’re interested in, just read those chapters.

- If you feel like an author is being long-winded, skim sections until you get to a part that really interests you again.

- Push yourself to read as fast as you can without missing information. You can probably read twice as fast as you think you can, you just don’t try to.

- Use your finger underneath the lines as you read, believe it or not, this will allow you to comprehend the words faster.

Averaging a book a week is doable without spending more than 30-60 minutes a day reading. I dated a grad student who read three books a week on average. One summer in college, I read a book a day for 50 days, all non-fiction, and all on Philosophy or various social sciences. It was actually probably one of the best things I ever did in my life. You read better and faster with more practice. After that, not only were my classes a breeze for the rest of school, but to this day, I can plow through 300-400 page books in a couple days.

Often, I’ll buy a book at an airport, and finish it by the time I touch down at my destination (if it’s a particularly easy read).

Honestly, that summer has paid more dividends than I can tell you. The perspectives and ideas I had encountered were extremely varied and I was able to relate complicated concepts in a myriad of situations with ease. It expanded my consciousness and my perception of the world, people, life, and why everything is the way it is. Relating to people became easier. It’s probably what made me a good writer.

Challenge yourself to become well-read. 100 books a year for two years. You can do it. It may be hard, but once you get used to it, not only is it enjoyable, it’s incredibly enriching and you feel like a genius all the time.

Artistic Taste: When it comes to deciding what one likes and doesn’t like, most men have very lukewarm reactions one way or the other.

“Yeah, that movie’s awesome,” or “Yeah, I like that one,” or “No, I don’t like that show.” It rarely goes beyond that. There’s no sharing of why one prefers one type of music over another, one movie over another, one author over another. And there’s no connection to the emotions driving that preference.

For instance, a random Joe may say, “I really liked Terminator. It was pretty cool.”

A more interesting person may say, “Terminator was great. But what’s more interesting to me is that it was the first movie I can remember in which you ended up rooting for the villain.”

There’s nothing wrong with being amiable and enjoying similar things to your friends. But one thing that will always make you stand out, particularly to women, is if you’ve not only expanded your horizons, but made your own decisions about your personal tastes, your experiences and what you think about various types of art.

Let’s be real, out of 10 guys the typical single woman meets, 9 of them are into the following things: sports, comedy movies, rock and/ or hip hop music, and the typical guy activities. Again, nothing wrong with this, but what’s going to make you stick out?

We want to shape you into a man with taste, a man with opinions, and a man who can explain exactly why he likes or dislikes everything from 70"s Motown records, to German films, to 19th century literature to impressionistic art. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to go tell you to take a bunch of art classes or whatever. You don’t need to be a super-intellectual snob. This is about developing your own opinions and enriching your life.

When I say “artistic taste,” I mean “art” in the broad sense here: music, movies, television, theatre, art, poetry and literature.

This is kind of an expansion on the first section. We want to be wellread so that we have a good knowledge foundation and that we are aware of the multitude of perspectives in the world. Now, we want to have a mature artistic sensibility so that we can develop interesting opinions on everything from slasher movies to romantic poetry to Angelina Jolie’s ass.

Too many guys let their opinions be dictated by pop culture and their group of guy friends.

“Oh dude, Will Farrell is soooo funny.”

“The new Batman movie is awesome.”

Few guys ever stop and actually think critically about what’s being produced in Hollywood, or in record studios for that matter. But when you do, you suddenly stand out from the rest — and to women, in particular.

So here are some concepts to keep in mind as you go through your life experiencing art and media:

1. Assume everything has a form of value; it’s your job to find it. Nothing drives me crazier than to meet people who are prejudice against a genre of music or type of movie for no other reason than they don’t particularly like the culture attached to it.

For instance, hipsters who diss anything “mainstream” as if music couldn’t be both good AND mainstream. People who criticize abstract art because “a child could make that,” or guys who hates on romantic comedies because they’re “chick flicks.”

I find the whole ironic hipster-scene indie rock thing pretentious and obnoxious, but there’s a LOT of good indie rock and folk music out there that I never would have enjoyed if I didn’t give it a fair chance. I generally don’t like chick flicks, but if they’re done well, not ridiculous and don’t perpetuate horrible sexual stereotypes, I’ve been known to get in touch with my feminine side and enjoy a few (Love Actuallyis a guilty pleasure of mine… shh… don’t tell anybody).

Drop all of this prejudice and adopt this mentality immediately: “there has to be SOMETHING to this form of art, otherwise it wouldn’t have a following, so I should find out what that something is.” Once you find it, THEN decide if you like it or not. Whether you like something or not, you should always be able to appreciate it.

2. Always expand your horizons — start with what’s considered “the best”

Some forms of art will come easily and naturally to you. It takes me literally two seconds to identify rock music that is transcendentally good, or painfully bad. I’ve been listening to it all my life. Country? Classical? Bluesgrass? That takes some more time.

About seven years go, I decided to get into hip hop. I finally figured I was being stupid to brush it all off just because there wasn’t singing involved. So what did I do? I went out and started with what was classically considered the “best” hip hop out there. Tupac, Notorious B.I.G., Dre’s The Chronic among others. I listened to them until I started getting it. From there I slowly expanded out to other artists, from old favorites to newer favorites like Outkast and Eminem (current at the time) until I kind of got a handle on what differentiated different rappers from each other. You notice the different rhyming patterns, the uniqueness of the beats, cadence and lyrical themes. Once you make these differentiations, you have the ability to judge the quality beyond simply “I like it,” or “I think it sucks.”

Do the same with movies. Watch every movie in the IMDB’s top 20 movies of all time. Google critics’ top 10 movies of all time lists and watch everything on there. Watch every movie that’s won an Oscar for “Best Picture.” That’s a good start. It blows me away how many guys in their 20"s (or 30"s for that matter) have gigantic DVD collections, but have never seen The Godfather, Citizen Kane, Casablanca, or The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. How can you truly appreciate modern movies without understanding where they came from?

Watch these movies and try to pick out what makes them so great. If it doesn’t click, it may not be because it’s a “bad movie,” but because you don’t get it. This is like when people try to tell me No Country for Old Menisn’t good because it’s slow and nothing changes. They completely missed the point.

3. Try to understand educated perspectives.

As you’re listening to new music and watching new movies, frequent the following websites: www.allmusic.com, www.metacritic.com, and www.rottentomatoes.com. Read critical reviews and observations.

This isn’t to base your opinion off of what the critic’s say (that’s lame in its own way), but it’s to gain perspective for things you may not have noticed before. If I’m particularly intrigued by a movie, I usually try to read a good review and a bad review to try and understand their point of view and why they felt the way they did about the piece of work.

When you do this, this gives you greater understanding and interpretation of the art form, so future movies you see or albums you hear in that genre, you’ll begin to notice things you never did before: “Oh, Al Pacino totally carried this movie,” “the guitar playing isn’t very inventive in this group, but the songwriting is great,” “this TV’s shows concept is good, but the dialogue is lacking,” “her singing is pitch-shifted and the beats are all redundant.” Etc.

4. Judge art based on its intentions, as well as its result

This is what I call “snob prevention.” This is for the people who may fall into the trap of trying to argue that a movie like “Wedding Crashers” is a bad movie because there’s no greater philosophical statement or merit in it.

Wedding Crashers isn’t trying to make a greater philosophical statement, it’s trying to make you laugh and feel a little good. And it accomplishes that extremely well. So it should be considered a good movie. Sure, comedies aren’t as hard to make as a deep, probing movie like “Citizen Kane”, but that doesn’t make them “bad.”

The same happens vice-versa. People base a movie’s worth on whether it entertains or not. Art has a higher purpose than entertainment. “The Hulk” is entertaining, but it tries to be artistic and philosophical and fails miserably. “The Dark Knight” accomplishes both. One’s a lousy movie and one isn’t. Both are entertaining.

This happens in music all the time as well. People who think Michael Jackson sucks because he sang cheesy lyrics over two chords. Well, he wasn’t trying to be Duke Ellington. He was trying to make simple songs that would make people smile and dance and that were incredibly memorable.

Did he succeed? Absolutely.

I’ve stuck mostly to movies and music as example because I don’t know much about art and I don’t watch much TV. But the same concepts apply. Get a basic feel for what you like and what you don’t like. If you don’t know what the big deal is about something, Google it and read other people’s perspectives until you get a basic understanding …

As for television, the same standards as movies apply. We’re actually kind of entering into a new golden era of television. Five years ago you couldn’t find a good TV show to save your life, now they seem to be everywhere. I personally only watch Californication (a character-driven drama struggling with masculine sexuality and intimacy), The Daily Show (best political commentary on TV) and South Park (do I even really need to say anything?)

But I hear great things about Lost, The Wire, even stuff like Grey’s Anatomy. Check them out and see what you think.

The point in all of this too, is that it should be fun. This isn’t homework. This is about finding cool stuff out there that you will enjoy more and more. If you particularly like something a lot, hop online and learn a little more about it. This entire process should be enjoyable for you.

Personal Examples:

I recently swallowed my vomit and checked out Sex and the Cityat a friend’s recommendation. I had had about six different girlfriends try to make me watch it with them, but I always refused. It actually wasn’t that bad. Although the female characters were pretty solid stereotypes of women (for better or worse), I didn’t find any of the male characters intriguing and the story arc was painfully slow across multiple episodes. So I stopped after 6-7 episodes. I imagine if I was less educated on relationships and romance, and maybe in my 30’s, I would find the show more interesting though.

I also didn’t “get” Lil’ Wayne’s album from last year “Tha Carter III.” I had never listened to Lil’ Wayne before. But I sat down the other day and put it on repeat until I felt justified to form some sort of opinion on it. It took a while to just get a handle on his rapping style. I read AllMusic’s description of his eccentric personality and Wiki’s entry on his rap career. Both helped me put his album in context as I discovered it’s a richly colorful, inventive and sometimes distracted album. The number of guests and producers he has is staggering by itself. Overall, I feel like I appreciate it although I feel like it may have been overhyped last year. All in all, a good album which I’ll listen to again.

Trying New Things: Before we finish up this section, you may be saying to yourself: “This is all nice, but reading Hemingway or developing opinions on Chaucer or Bach will never get me laid in a dance club.”

Well… touche. Although, I’ll make the following points:

1. Being a well-rounded individual is going to make you irresistible in a more long-term dating context, not a same night lay context — therefore this shit is gold for dates, girls you’ve been seeing for a while, and generally connecting with a girl deeply and keeping her around for a long time.

2. The second point I’ll make is what my high school literature teacher always told us: “You read literature because you can NEVER meet enough people.” What I take from this is yes, even though reading Hemingway or Hayek’s perspective on capitalism may not directly get you laid in a dance club environment, what it WILL do is develop your perspective to be more varied, allow you to be able to relate to more people’s experiences and ideas, and generally have a wider body of knowledge for dealing with people in general.

Anyone who has read a lot can tell you, that often the best ideas you take from a certain book often have nothing to do with the book you read.

Anyway, with that said… moving on.

Trying new things. This installment is to battle what I see in way too many guys: the guys who have been caged into the same day-to-day grind, wasting away, spending their life doing things they don’t truly enjoy, and that don’t truly express their identity and personality.

- They go to work (often at a good job)

- They come home and unwind

- They watch the typical sports/sitcoms/movies

- On Fridays/Saturdays they hang out with the same 3-4 friends.

Often times, I meet guys who don’t even have THIS much variance and balance in their life. They’re stuck in 60-80 per week jobs, they work two jobs, they have absolute no hobbies outside of World of Warcraft, etc.

Now, there’s nothing “wrong” with the above list. It represents about 90% of the male population between the ages of 20 and 40 in the Western world.

And THAT’S the problem. Because that means you have the same amount going for you as 90% of the male population, no more, sometimes less.

Ask yourself: if you were lined up next to 10 random guys from a bar you frequent, what would make you stand out from them? Most of them will be fairly educated. Most of them will have decent jobs. Most of them will have taken the one or cool vacations here and there. Most of them will have one or two off-the-wall Vegas story or something.

What do you have that they don’t?

What can you offer that most other guys can’t?

Do you secretly write poetry in your spare time and hide it in your closet? Have you been skydiving three times? Did you climb a glacier in the Alps once? Have you tried eating things like snake, worms, spiders? What have you done that’s cool and interesting and has shaped you as a person?

The possibilities are endless. So let’s do an exercise. Take out a sheet of paper.

One one side, I want you to take 10 minutes and list unique things that you have done or experienced that most people haven’t. It could be everything from climbing a mountain, to writing your school’s play in high school, to recovering from cancer, to going on a 10-day meditation retreat, to starting your own business in college.

Write things that you’ve done that no one or almost no one you know has done or experienced.

Now, turn the paper over. Take 10 minutes and write all of the the things you want to do before you die on it. Assuming money and time wasn’t an issue, list everything you would do before you died. Some examples from my list: write a novel, see the pyramids, learn to box, live in Japan, speak five languages, climb a mountain, etc.

Go nuts. Write until you can’t think of anything else or the 10 minutes are up.

Now, take a look at your lists.

1. If your first list has fewer than 10 things, you REALLY need to get out more.

2. If your second list has fewer than 10 things, you need to put yourself out there and start trying new things and experiencing the world. You lack curiosity and ambition for quality experience.

3. Pick three items from your second list and make it your goal to do them within the next year.

In the end, working all day and night to have a great job and make a ton of money is a very superficial satisfaction. I don’t need to tell you this. Enjoyment of life comes from varied life experience, not from possessions. This isn’t some platitude either, science backs this up.

The more life experience you indulge in, the more developed of a person you’ll become, the more mature your perspective on life and people will become, the easier you’ll relate to women and the more culture, worldliness and value you’ll seem to add to their lives.

Also, the more you invest in yourself, the less needy you become around women, the more attractive you become.

Having Opinions: A few weeks ago I got a text from a former student saying something like: “I know this sounds stupid and obvious, but I just realized something. Simply having an opinion on everything makes you cooler than half the guys out there.”

It does sound obvious and kind of stupid. But it’s true.

There’s a plague of indifference in our society. People who don’t ever step up and really find something that they feel strongly about. Politics? Meh. Technology? Too complicated. Sports? My hometown team. Art? Will Farrell is funny.

That’s about as far as you can get.

If this describes you, then that’s fine, it’s pretty much the status quo. But realize that it makes you just another guy… dime-a-dozen. So why would an attractive woman pick you?

And to our credit, this isn’t something only guys are afflicted by. Ever gone on a date with a girl who has nothing more to talk about than the latest her favorite tanning salon and the weather? I have. Tons of times. It’s painful.

Women suffer from chronic indifference as well. In fact, what may happen — actually, what I hope happens to you — is you take the advice from this article, start applying it, within a year become a well-read, worldly, opinionated guy, and then you’ll email me because every girl you meet seems boring and plain suddenly. This is a good problem to have.

But back to being average — the reason it’s so common stems from the same reason most guys have a lot of trouble with women. We’ve been conditioned to be passive, to be needy, to hide our vulnerability, to be “Nice Guys.”

If you don’t have any strong opinions on anything, then you’ll never ruffle anyone’s feathers, never step on anyone’s toes, never polarize and attract, because you’d rather not be disliked than risk being liked. What you’re doing is emotionally shutting yourself off from yourself. And how can you emotionally connect with another person if you can’t emotionally connect with yourself?

So as an exercise in developing a little passion and learning how to stand for something, I want you to start doing this exercise. This is a “lifestyle” exercise that isn’t done on a sheet of paper in five minutes, but it’s a thought that I want you to keep in your head as you go about your every day life.

When topics, ideas or thoughts come up, I want you to just ask yourself, “How do I feel about that?”

If you see some news coverage on Obama’s Stimulus Package, ask, “How do I feel about that?”

If you see the new Southpark commercial, ask, “How do I feel about that?”

If you hear that your friend is going New Zealand, ask, “How do I feel about that?”

You get the picture. Now, if you find yourself answering, “I really don’t care,” push yourself to figure out something one way or the other.

What I mean is this: my ex-girlfriend went on a rant once about some girl on Facebook who has a kid now. My ex-girlfriend was going on and on about how this girl was a single 21-year-old mother and how awful it was and how she’s disgusted by it and how can that girl be happy, blah, blah, blah…

Now, my first reaction, obviously, is “Who cares?” I really don’t care if some trashy girl has a kid or not. And I really don’t care if the only way I know of her is through my girlfriend’s Facebook.

But why is my ex-girlfriend going off about it? What did this girl ever do to her? I think my ex-girlfriend has more of an issue then the baby-mama ever did. My opinion is that my ex-girlfriend needs to chill out and mind her own business. I said this. And although she got a little mad and defensive at first, my ex ended up agreeing with me and thanked me because my perspective really made an impact on her. It made her stop and think about her own feelings and biases. And that’s rare. Most guys wouldn’t do that. They’d sit there and nod and tell their girlfriend, “You’re right, that’s so messed up.” No ruffled feathers. No one dislikes me.

Another example: guy on the street corner handing out fliers for his church. He’s one of these hardcore, bible-belt ministry types. I always brush past these people. I don’t make eye-contact, I don’t say hello, I don’t even stop if they stand in front of me, I walk around them.

How do I feel about them? Nothing really, I don’t. But how do I feel about the entire situation? Well, honestly, I find it kind of admirable whenever somebody finds something they value so much they’re willing to stand on the street all day in hopes that they can share that something with one person. That’s pretty cool.

On the other hand, I really don’t care to be that one person.

In other situations, it’s just a matter of education. How do you feel about the election? Have no opinion, well try finding stuff out until you do.

Bringing it All Together

Developing an attractive lifestyle is a long-term process. It requires a consistent and penetrating look at your actions, your habits and what you’ve chosen to do with most of your time.

Your job, your hobbies, your friends, your interests, are these things mostly a result of what was told to you or pushed on you, or are they things that you consciously evaluated and chose based on how enriching and passionate they made you feel?

These are important questions. No one can live your life but you. And as long as you sleep-walk through life not ever questioning or evaluating the lifestyle you’ve built for yourself, the same behavioral patterns are likely to creep up over and over again.

Guys often don’t totally believe me, but poor lifestyle choices afflict all of your interactions and communication when it comes to women. Poor lifestyle choices reflect a lack of investment in yourself, which in turn causes you to be more needy around others for validation.

I first noticed this when I worked with guys who still lived at home with their parents. It was bizarre, these guys said all the right things, approached whenever they wanted to, could even flirt well most of the time.

Yet they got absolutely no results. Women never responded warmly to them, and they never seemed quite as motivated or as confident.

Then, a few months later, I went home and lived with my mom for about six weeks for personal reasons. During this period I noticed the same thing: my motivation to meet women plummeted, my confidence and sense of independence became nothing, I didn’t seem excited in my interactions. But as soon as I left and lived on my own again, everything came back.

There’s a certain baseline level of independence and self-sufficiency that your lifestyle must give you for you to be able to move forward. If you’re constantly stressed by work, upset by your friends, and in poor health, then no amount of work on your anxieties and communication is going to help much. You’re effectively putting a ceiling on your development and your potential with women. The other two sections of this book will not be much use to you. You can try, but I can tell you, you probably won’t see much change in your result.

Get your life taken care of. Get healthy. Find a happy group of friends. Find a few hobbies that you love. Develop opinions. Start caring about what you spend your time doing. This increases your self-investment and will make you less needy around others. This in turn will give you the courage to take the correct action and the wherewithal to communicate effectively. This is honest living.

And once you’re living a life true to yourself, your values and your ideals, then it’s time to take action.

Part IV: Honest Action

Chapter 10: What Are Your Stories?

“Life shrinks and expands in proportion to one’s courage.”- Anais Nin, Writer

I parked my car in front of the gym and immediately popped my iPod headphones into my ears. As I get out and walk across the parking lot I catch a glimpse of a slender figure walking toward the door from another angle. I look over. She’s hot.

We catch eyes and hold. She looks away, but only after holding my gaze for a half-second longer than most people would. An instant of sexual tension pops up between us.

She walks into the gym about ten paces ahead of me. I check out her ass. It says “PINK.” It’s those fuzzy kind of tight sweat suits girls wear some times. My mind immediately judges this. For some reason I think she is trashy. I have to stop myself. What do I know? For a moment we’re at the sign-in desk next to one another. I start scanning in my mind for something to say to her. But before I settle on something her phone rings and she answers it. “Oh god, one of those girls,” I instinctively say to myself. Again I have to stop myself. I don’t know this girl. But obviously if I’m dedicating such mental energy to her, I probably should.

For a few seconds in my head I toy with some logistical scenarios that would allow me to open her later… like pretend I have to go to the bathroom so I can come back and hopefully catch her off her phone. No, that’s too contrived. I could just approach her in the gym while we’re working out. But to be honest, that has never gone well for me in the past. Or maybe I do my work out and try to time it so that I’m leaving when she is. Then I would feel like a stalker. Theoretically, these things could work, but my mind’s losing interest. My headphones are blaring and I’ve moved on to my workout for the evening.

I’m not going to lie and say that despite all of my hedging and indifference, that I magically came up with some miraculous opener that saved the day. Because I didn’t open her. In fact, I don’t remember seeing her again or thinking of her until I wrote this. So I didn’t save the day. But then again there was nothing wrong with my day and there still isn’t.

I’m also not going to sit here, as is typical with these types of books, and chastise myself for bitching out, for being a pussy, and for not manning up. It’s not that big of a deal. And I’m also not going to give you, my humble reader, yet another lecture on how you should never bitch out, how you should always, always, always open, no matter what you fucking pussy — even if she’s at the gym, on the phone, juggling knives, doing a hand stand, changing a flat tire or administering CPR — you ALWAYS fucking open, goddamnit… Right?

Let’s be honest, we all pass up dozens of situations like the above on a weekly basis, no matter how experienced or inexperienced we are. We’ve all let hundreds, if not thousands, go, usually without a thought. We’ve all done it. And we’ll all continue to do it.

So I’m not here to rail on you to stop passing up on opportunities. You already know the opportunities you pass up. And I’m sure by now, you’ve had more than your fill of woulda-coulda-shoulda moments. You don’t need me to tell you when you should have gotten off your ass and done something.

I’m more interested in the stories you tell yourself. The stories that we all tell ourselves. Allow me to explain…

When I got into this stuff six years ago, I struggled with approach anxiety as much as anyone as I’ve ever met. I’ve coached well over 150 guys since then, and I’ve maybe only met 3-5 guys who have had worse approach anxiety than I did when I started.

Jump to today. I rarely experience approach anxiety consciously anymore. That isn’t to say I’m some sort of bad ass. I put in my time. I paid my dues. A lot of it was fun and a lot of it sucked and was humiliating. But I did it. I grew. And I’m a better person for it now. Through the basic rote exercise of approaching thousands of women in the most basic or ridiculous scenarios over the years, most of that palpable fear — the hand sweating, the fast breathing, the mind going blank — most of that is gone.

What’s not gone, and as far as I can tell, what will never be gone, is a continued internal resistance to change, whether it be through outright fear, or subtle sub-conscious thoughts trying to sabotage me. That never stops. I don’t feel nervous anymore, but I do feel a dreadful judgment and boredom. “Only prissy girls wear crap like that,” “Oh God, she’s one of those girls who’s always on her phone. I don’t have time for this.” Sometimes it happens pre-approach. Sometimes it happens 30 minutes in. Sometimes it happens on the second date. But always, these judgments aren’t accurate portrayals of her. I don’t even KNOW her. Yet I’m judging her. It’s a defense mechanism. My conscious fear has disappeared, but my subconscious resistance is still alive and kicking.

And from what I’ve observed, EVERYBODY’S sub-conscious defense mechanisms are still kicking. The resistance doesn’t go away. It just changes shape. Over the years anxiety morphs into apathy which morphs into arrogance. The resistance may come while approaching or while escalating or before having sex or a when you want to commit to a girlfriend. We all have our own weak spots, and those weaknesses each have their own form resisting the change we want. One boundary simply gets pushed back into another and another.

Whether you feel incredibly nervous before you approach, or if you procrastinate calling girls you’ve met, or if you tell yourself that you just “don’t feel like” having sex when you’re out on a date with a girl even though she’s obviously into you, this is your sub-conscious resisting change. And your mind is inventing stories to explain that resistance. These stories have emotions tied to them, whether they’re fear, boredom, anger, shame, or whatever — which serve to supplement keeping you in the same place you are right now. It’s your emotional inertia. It’s the status quo. The mechanisms wired into you to keep you there, safe. And we all have them.

Here are some other stories I’ve been telling myself lately: That I’m too good for these girls… it’s my sub-conscious’s favorite story right now. I tell myself, “I’ve been with 25 girls hotter than her, so why should I bother?” Yes, I recognize the myriad of things that are wrong with that thought. Yes, I realize I’m totally pompous and full of shit when I think that. But that’s my point. We’re all full of shit… a lot. All of our stories are. And we listen to them most of the time. We believe them. I know mine’s dumb, just like your’s probably is too. But that’s what pops into my head. That’s the excuse I have to fight through these days. And for me, this one is a constant battle.

Another one that’s been surfacing a lot is that I don’t follow up by phone/text enough because I feel like I’ve somehow earned the right to not work so hard for these girls anymore (if you ever wondered how teaching pick up can kind of screw you up, there’s a nice example). So I don’t call girls back as often as I should. I feel entitled for some reason. Like they should feel grateful and just show up at my door-step when I want them to. Sure, sometimes I genuinely don’t really dig a girl and don’t care if I see her again. But other times I do and I regret not putting in the extra effort a few weeks later.

These are my stories. They’re completely different now than they were three years ago. And they were completely different three years ago than they were six years ago. But they’ve all had the same purpose. To protect the status quo. My emotional inertia.

So what stories do you tell yourself? Because until you’re aware of your stories, you’re not going to be able to change your behavior. Maybe you get very nervous in bars and clubs and tell yourself stories of inadequacy, “Girls like that only like tall guys with muscles.” Or maybe you tell yourself, “I’ll start approaching after a few drinks.” Or maybe you tell yourself that you’re always in too much of a hurry, too busy to stop and say hello to a girl on the street.

Maybe you tell yourself that you need to have something really amazing to say for her to like you. So you stutter and stumble when talking to her, trying too hard and weirding her out. Here’s a story to try out: maybe you’re already amazing.

Or how about this one? Maybe you tell yourself that you’re not even ready to go out yet. You sit at home and read more books like this, telling yourself “Just a little bit more,” or “After I get a raise and a new haircut,” or “once I save up to buy some nice clothes.” And then once you get that raise, or get those clothes, then a new story pops up to take its place. You need to study more inner game first. Or go on a diet. Then you’ll be ready. Yet six months have gone by.

It’s always something, isn’t it? There always seems to be something that you don’t have right this second, that if you had it, you’d be able to act in the exact way that you’d like. Right?

So what are your stories? What do you tell yourself to justify that internal resistance inside you? And what stories can you tell yourself instead to remove as much of that resistance as possible?

People talk a lot about the idea of “skill” in all of this stuff. “Pick up is a skill. It needs to be practiced.” Blah, blah, blah. I think as the years go on, it’s being proven over and over that what you say isn’t so important, how you approach isn’t so important… What’s important is that you move things forward without hesitation… without that resistance that you’re obeying right now by doing nothing, by remaining in the status quo — the same resistance I listened to today at the gym. That girl could have been the love of my life, the absolute perfect girl for me. Who knows? I never will. The only important skill in pick up is learning how to stop buying into your own bullshit, to stop believing your own stories. The resistance is constant. So you must constantly fight against it, to acknowledge the stories you create for yourself, look them in the eye and say, “You know what, I don’t care if she’s on her phone and her ass says ‘PINK’ on it, I want to to meet her.” And then do it. Without hesitation. Without fear. And without apology.

Sure, you’ll have to flex your mental and emotional muscles, and build up your body of self-awareness… but here’s the good news: those are the muscles chicks actually like.

Unfortunately, we all buy into our own bullshit. We all believe our own stories from time to time. And chances are, the more anxiety and fear you have surrounding women and your sexuality, the more of your own stories and bullshit you’ve bought into.

Defense Mechanisms

There’s a lot of unconscious fear bundled up in us and our sexualities. These fears usually manifest in a handful of very specific scenarios:

- Fear of approaching and starting a conversation with an attractive woman

- Fear of stating sexual interest either directly or indirectly (by asking for a phone number, calling a phone number, asking out on a date, etc.)

- Fear of initiating sexual contact (typically the first-kiss situation)

- Fear of actual sexual intercourse

I’m not going to hop into the debate about whether these fears are biological or socially conditioned, as that’s not really important. My experience is that they’re mostly conditioned, although we probably have some genetic pre-dispositions to certain anxieties more than others, just as some people are more genetically pre-disposed to conditions such as depression or shyness or whatever.

The point is, the majority of men experience at least one of the above fears to some degree when it comes to interacting with women. There are a minority of men who will be completely devoid of one or more of the above fears and a very tiny minority who will be devoid of all of the fears above.

These anxieties are manifestations of an unwillingness to be vulnerable. And as such, they prevent you from killing your neediness. Typically, the needier you are, the more anxiety you’ll have protecting that neediness. The more inertia you’ll have.

I don’t know if these anxieties always existed or if they’re a recent phenomenon. But I do know the statistics about anxiety disorders in the past few decades are horrifying as our modern culture is becoming more and more anxiety-ridden by the year.

The recent eruption in demand for dating advice is not a coincidence.

Why we have these sexual anxieties isn’t totally clear and there seems to be as many reasons as their are people.

This is unscientific, but in my experience coaching and working with hundreds of men over the past five years, I’ve noticed correlations between high degrees of sexual anxiety and the following: lack of father-figure growing up, emotionally abusive childhood, childhood traumas, strict religious upbringing, strict cultural upbringing.

The sad fact about anxiety is that once you have it, it’s there and figuring out why it’s there really does no good. You can either avoid it the rest of your life, or you can do something about it. We’re here to do something about it. This section of the book is called honest action for a reason.

I personally think anxiety is the biggest culprit when it comes to preventing men from being attractive and successfully picking up and seducing women. You remove anxiety, and trial-and-error will take care of most of the rest.

Anxiety, almost by its very definition, represents a high-level of investment of your identity in the opinion of others. Again, why this happens, I don’t know. But let’s say you get scared to death to say anything when a beautiful girl sits down next to you. The fact that you’re scared to death demonstrates a high-level of investment and neediness in her opinion of you.

Why our egos and sense of self-worth have become so intimately tied to how receptive women are to our sexuality lately, again, I don’t know. But it is.

This neediness creates a fight-or-flight response in us -- a surge of adrenaline, we begin sweating, our mind starts zipping at a million miles a minute, thinking of everything and nothing at once -- and if we do manage to utter a word, chances are we stutter and sputter and make a red-faced fool out of ourselves …

…leading to further anxiety the next time a beautiful girl sits down next to us.

This is a terrible conundrum, and almost all of us suffer from it. I suffered from it horribly and it took me years to undo. Hopefully with what I learned, it won’t take nearly as long or be nearly as painful for you as it was for me.

The first step to overcoming your fears is to figure out what your pattern is.

When we are confronted with our fears or anxieties, we have a pattern or strategy that we usually use to deal with them. For instance, my pattern is apathy. Whenever I’m confronted with something I’m afraid of, I pretend — or scratch that, I convince myself that I don’t actually care. Over the years, working with hundreds of men, here are some the most common patterns that I’ve noticed:

1. Blame Game — The Blame Game is where, when confronted with something he’s afraid of, a guy proceeds to blame someone or something else for his fear.

For instance, let’s say you’re anxious about giving a presentation at work. Someone who does the Blame Game’s natural response will be to come with all sorts of reasons why his boss is stupid and he’s way too smart to be doing this anyway and how it’s not his fault if things go wrong because he’s been sick and so-and-so didn’t do enough research.

In the context of women, the Blame Game will often result in guys convincing themselves stuff like, “Oh, she’s stuck up,” or “She’s just into guys who are good-looking,” or “She’s too stupid for me anyway,” or “This club is too loud to talk to people,” or “Women in Miami are just bitches, I need to find a new city.”

The excuses and blame are petty and ridiculous and they can run deep. The awful part of the blame game is that with it comes anger and frustration. And if you do it enough, the anger will pile up and you will end up with some pretty angry and irrational beliefs about women. Guys who have played the blame game their whole lives may develop screwed up beliefs like, “All women care about is how much money a guy has,” or “All girls in bars are stupid and shallow.” This can lead to some pretty dark places.

2. Apathy and Avoidance – This has always been my Achilles’ Heel, and it’s quite common. Apathy and avoidance is exactly as it says: it’s when a guy convinces himself that he doesn’t care or that it’s not important to him. I did this for YEARS. I convinced myself that I didn’t care about meeting women, and that it didn’t really matter if girls I liked didn’t find me attractive. Well, after enough years of sitting home alone looking at porn while all of my friends were going through girlfriend after girlfriend, I had a rude awakening: I do care. Apathy and avoidance isn’t the worst response when avoiding our fears with women, in that it usually can’t last forever. We’re biologically wired to pursue women so at some point instinct will win over. Where it IS dangerous is in other areas of our life such as career, family or hobbies. The apathy and avoidance pattern is the root behind the couch potatoes and disgruntled office workers of the world.

3. Intellectualizing – A popular one when it comes to men and dating advice. In fact, I guarantee that this is part of the reason you’re here: you have some sort of fear, anxiety or pain related to women, and instead of actually DOING something about it, you got online and decided to look up an answer that you could study.

Intellectualizing is fairly harmless in that it provides side benefits: you learn a ton of information about a lot of subjects, and ultimately, the intellectualizing will lead to more selfawareness and help clarify what sort of action you need to take. But there are many men who use intellectualizing as just another form of avoidance. It tends to be really smart guys too, which is a problem, because the smarter you are, the more you’re able to intellectualize and convince yourself that you need to learn and understand more.

When it comes to women, this is not the answer. Honestly, if you went out and approached women for a year without ever reading a word of dating advice, you’d probably do OK. Sure, this stuff all helps, but in the end, your best teacher is your experience. There comes a certain point where learning more about a subject is no longer beneficial and on the contrary, is just going to get you more mixed up and confused, since you have no experience to actually apply your knowledge to. Intellectualizing also ends up having a backlash. Once you study a subject enough, it can actually increase your anxiety. By studying it so much you’ve put more pressure on yourself to succeed and therefore build up higher expectations for yourself.

There are more patterns, but these three above are the main ones that I’ve run into with men trying to overcome their anxieties. Also, there’s a pattern within all of the responses to fear that I listed above. All of the responses that come up in the face of our fears do two things: they AVOID the fear and they usually do it by CONVINCING OURSELVES of something that’s not necessarily true.

The blame game guy will convince himself that it’s HER fault. The apathy guy will convince himself that it doesn’t matter. The intellectualizing guy will convince himself that he needs to learn and understand more first.

Also, realize that no one is 100% one or the other. We all do all of these all the time… In fact, we may stack them on top of each other, for example: “I don’t care what the girls here, because they’re all stuck up bitches, so I’m going to go home.”

With that said, we all seem to have a favorite pattern that we fall back to the most.

The key to overcoming your fears is first and foremost to break your patterned response to your fear. This requires a certain level of selfawareness and discipline.

So for instance, when I was learning to approach women, I had a lot of fear and anxiety. And my pattern was apathy. So I’d be hanging out in a bar, see a cute girl I liked, and my immediate reaction would be to say something like, “Eh, I don’t really feel like talking right now,” or “I don’t feel like meeting girls right now.” This was complete bullshit. I had purposely gone out that night for no other reason than to meet girls. I had been reading books and websites all week about nothing but meeting girls. I wanted to meet girls.

It wasn’t until I became aware of this pattern that I was able to start breaking it and forcing myself to talk to that girl I wanted to talk to, even when my mind was telling me that I didn’t want it.

So here’s some helpful ways to break your own pattern:

1. Take a moment and think about what you’re most anxious about. Is it approaching? Is it showing sexual interest? Is it asking a girl out? Is it the first kiss?

2. Now write down your pattern with it. So for instance, “Calling women, pattern is apathy,” or “Approaching women, pattern is blame game.”

3. Now, create a goal for yourself, for instance, “Call every phone number I get, no matter how much I don’t care.” Write it down.

4. Tell a friend or a buddy what you plan on doing and ask him to keep you accountable.

That last item is important. Sharing your fears and having someone keep you accountable is integral to this whole process and makes it 10 times easier. Even the very act of sharing your fear with someone who can empathize and understand goes a long way to relieving the pressure.

You Are Not a Victim

One assumption I’ve lived my life by for a long time now, goes like this: “If it’s a matter of me being screwed up, or masses of people being screwed up (in the same way), then it’s far more likely that it’s me being screwed up.”

Just to name an obvious example. Guys often come to me and say something like this: “I go out and try to meet girls, but the problem is all of the girls in my town are catty and immature. So I guess I just need to move to a new city.”

Really? So, it’s not you who’s screwed up, it’s the 140,000+ single women in your city who are ALL screwed up. That’s a totally reasonable observation.

Or you get guys who claim that EVERY — not some, not most, but ALL — American women are fickle and too individualistic. Or that ALL women who dress provocatively are immoral and cheaters and would never make a good girlfriend.

Guys making negative assumptions and stereotypes about MILLIONS of women for no other reason than to shirk accepting responsibility for their own short-comings. This appears to me to be nothing but a victim-mentality and it pervades a lot of guys’ thinking, some in more obvious ways than others.

This doesn’t necessarily mean the general observations are wrong, it just means you’re interpreting them in such a way to victimize yourself. Sure, American women may be more fickle and pretentious than their European counterparts (then again, they may not be). Women in your town might actually be more closed off than women in a bigger city (or they might not). But you’re choosing to let those observations be responsible for your results, because it’s easier to feel like the victim, to feel like that fucked up and cruel world is short-changing you, rather than admit you just suck at something and nobody else seems to care.

Humans stereotype for a reason: so that we can manage large chunks of information in order to orient ourselves more efficiently. Often, stereotypes can be useful. But often they’re not. Often they’re nothing more than excuses; ways for us to avoid the blame and responsibility for not being satisfied with our results. And these excuses hurt us, and shut us off from opportunities.

So returning to the “women in my town are cold” example. Yeah, they may, on average, be colder than say, Las Vegas women. But are ALL of them? No. Maybe 40%? 50%? But if you write them ALL off as being cold and use it as an excuse and not take responsibility, you’re effectively shutting yourself off from 50% of the women in your town. You’re effectively missing out on hundreds of opportunities.

The same goes for complaints against American women. There are something like 40 million single women in the US. And you truly believe you can’t find ONE good one? Who’s fault is that? It’s your fault. You’re being lazy. You’re being lazy and unfairly judging millions of women all because you aren’t willing to take responsibility for your failures.

I believe strongly in taking responsibility for everything that occurs in your life. Our minds are always looking for ways to avoid pain and failure and rejection, and so they’re constantly churning out rationalizations to keep us impeccable; it’s THEM who fucked up, not us.

Blame is yet another form of investment and neediness. As long as it’s their fault, then you don’t have to make yourself vulnerable. But when one practices taking responsibility for everything that happens in their life, you stop blaming others. It becomes less a question of blame and more a question of sacrifice. It’s no longer THEIR fault that you’re still single because they’re all cold bitches, but now it’s your fault and a question of whether you’re willing to sacrifice the extra effort or not to find a woman who isn’t a cold bitch. Taking responsibility and morphing blame into sacrifice empowers you. It puts the ball in your court and returns you to the healthy reality that the only person in this world who determines your success and failure is you.

The question of blame, responsibility and sacrifice is a profound one in relationships as well. Dysfunctional relationships almost always crumble under the pressure of one person blaming the other for their shortcomings or transgressions. Research has shown a direct correlation between the amount of blame leveled between partners and their propensity to break up (topic for another book). The recipe for a healthy and happy relationship is one where both partners take responsibility for their own emotions and their choice to commit to the other.

Just to give you an example. Before I got into all of this dating advice stuff, I dated a girl for four years in high school and college. I was madly in love with her and she ended up cheating on me and leaving me for another guy. For a long time I blamed her for being a cheating, lying whore and was very angry.

Rightly so.

But as time has gone on I’ve recognized a few things: 1) I wasn’t exactly boyfriend-of-the-year, and in many ways, her cheating and leaving me wasn’t very surprising; 2) there were plenty of warning signs that I chose to ignore or was just completely oblivious to; and 3) regardless of her actions, I made a conscious choice to commit to her day in and day out, and the risk of being cheated on was always a possibility in that commitment.

In the end, I made the conscious decision that I was willing to sacrifice the risk of being hurt in order to enjoy the commitment of our relationship. And I wouldn’t take that decision back. It was my responsibility.

That’s an extreme example, but again, the application is ubiquitous. I used to have a pretty stern love/hate relationship for superficial club girls. My style of game was (and still is) very much intellectual- and humor-based. I prefer to get girls into interesting conversations where I can show off my mental gymnastics.

For a long time, the ability to hook and attract drunk party girls in high-end clubs alluded me. It frustrated me for a long time and the ‘hate’ part of the love/hate was that I saw them as fickle, stupid and shallow. Now, that may be true, but I was blaming THEM for my lack of success with them. I mean, how dare they not be attracted to me! If they weren’t so dumb, they’d be lining up to bang me, and that’s how the world should be, right?

The truth was, I had to make a choice… was I willing to make the sacrifice in order to learn how to pick up girls like that? At the end of the day, that’s the only relevant question: the girls you meet will be the girls you meet, but are you willing to put in the effort and sacrifice to make something of it? When I did, I found something out: that I don’t particularly enjoy girls like that, even if they are hot. Eventually, I was no longer willing to make that sacrifice. Is it their fault for being who they are? No. Is it their fault I wasn’t able to get with them for so long? No. Is it their fault that I often CHOOSE not to bother with them anymore? No.

But I also discovered that not ALL of them are like that. In fact, many of them are smart, interesting and fun -- and beautiful! But until I opened myself up to that possibility and took it upon myself to find them, I was missing out.

Challenge yourself to find the good and beautiful thing inside of everyone. It’s there. It’s your job to find it. Not their job to show you.

Stereotypes and Responsibility

As I mentioned before, humans stereotype for a reason. There’s an infinite amount of information going on in the world at any given time. Even the simplest of people are highly complex and multifaceted individuals, with varying motivations, emotions, reactions and beliefs. To account for the sheer amount of variables present in any large social situation is absolutely impossible for the human mind.

Therefore we evolved the propensity to stereotype as a simple solution. We observe a few basic actions of a certain type of individual and then we extrapolate that onto an entire population.

The two Romanian women I dated valued manners and courtesy, so all Romanian women must value manners and courtesy.

Germans tend to be taller than average, therefore German women must prefer taller men.

Black guys often hit on fat girls, so black guys must like big girls.

Smart girls never go to night clubs. Tall women are always insecure about height. Girls in short skirts just want attention. Women under 22 are immature and fickle. Girls in clubs are bitches. Lawyers are easy. Latin women just want you for your money. On and on and on and on.

This isn’t to say that stereotypes are always wrong. They’re not. Often there’s a little bit of truth to them, otherwise they wouldn’t exist. But often there’s little or no truth to them either. And often they end up doing more harm than good.

Particularly in the case of picking up and becoming more competent with women, I encourage guys to steer away from stereotypes as much as possible. Even if you’re absolutely convinced that they’re true, they’re just almost never worth buying into. Any stereotype you come up with is going to have far too many exceptions to make it worth your time holding on to it.

And it’s not worth the drawback: relinquishing your personal responsibility to each interaction.

See, the second you decide something like, “German women like tall guys,” or “White girls don’t like Asians,” or “Club girls are all bitches,” or “Law students are easy,” you’re relinquishing your responsibility for the interaction. It’s another defense mechanism; it’s another way for you to say afterwards -- whether you got with her or not -- “See, I knew it! They’re all bitches,” or whatever the stereotype is.

To be more specific, let’s say you decide that all club girls are bitches. There may be legitimate problems you have and legitimate factors you could be improving. You may need to dress better, speak louder, stand up straighter, and be more confident and less invested on the approach. But the second you say, “See, club girls are just bitches,” you remove all responsibility for improvement from yourself. It’s a cop-out and a way of protecting the status quo and your current level of investment.

It’s a way of shirking personal responsibility, and when you shirk personal responsibility, you never improve, you never become more vulnerable, you never become less needy.

The single best advice I can give you if you wish to improve at anything is to take full responsibility and accountability of your results and your actions.

Everything that happens in your life, whether good or bad, you should try to take some sort of accountability for it. We’re only capable of changing and improving what we have control over and if we refuse to take control over our lives, then we can never expect to improve our lives.

Obviously, from an objective point of view, there are always going to be situations which were completely out of your control. I could sit here and rattle off a thousand examples of times where something completely extraneous derailed my interaction with a woman and there was little to nothing I could do about it.

On top of that, we’ve all been subjected to a lifetime of social influences and injustices, many of us were raised in difficult family or educational situations, others of us have been wronged by women in the past.

Are we responsible for all of this as well?

This is a common and insightful question I get from men. If so many things out of my control have happened to me and my relationships, how can I hold myself responsible for things that I had absolutely no control over?

Here’s the point: you can’t always control what happens to you; but you can always control how you respond to it.

You may have no control over the fact that the last woman you dated had abandonment issues and freaked out when you wanted to take a trip with her and dumped you. But you can control how you process it and how you react to it. You can either react to it as a victim or take control, learn from it and move on.

You may have no control over the blond in a short skirt who seems stuck up and rejected you outright for no good reason. But you control how you react to it. You can either react as a victim (all girls like that are bitches), or you can learn from it and move on.

You may have had no control over the fact that your parents divorced when you were young and your father was emotionally distant. You can react as a victim (people are nasty and selfish) or you can learn from it, take control and move on.

I’m not a religious person, but the theologian/philosopher Reinhold Niebuhr wrote a simple prayer that I believe holds a lot of wisdom: “God, grant me the serenity to accept things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” That, in a nutshell, is what personal responsibility and personal accountability comes down to -- accepting what you cannot change, and acting to change what you can.

If a woman rejects you, you can’t control her reaction to you -- but ask yourself: could you have approached with more confidence? Said something more interesting? Could you dress better? Could you look better? Could you be more sober? There are always plenty of things within your control in any given situation. Focus on those and let the chips fall where they may.

Men develop a lot of bizarre rationalizations and beliefs around women in order to protect themselves. I could honestly spend an entire 300-page book on this topic alone. But I’ve limited it to the highlights in this chapter to hopefully make it clear where yours may (and probably) lie.

As you go out and take action and actively pursue women, you’re going to be confronted with these rationalizations and beliefs. Some of them will be new. Others will have existed for a lifetime. Regardless, it will take a lot of awareness and diligence to call yourself on your own bullshit, and unravel these unhealthy attitudes. Always remember that these beliefs and rationalizations were invented by your mind to keep the status quo, to protect your highlyinvested ego.

Sexual Motivation

Another problem a lot of men run into, aside from their fears and their anxieties, is a seeming lack of motivation to get out there and pursue women. It’s one thing to sit at home and read books like this one, it’s something completely different to actually get off your ass on a Saturday and go force yourself to approach women. It takes a lot of effort at first, and some men are easily able to convince themselves that it may not be worth the effort.

Since the advent of internet pornography, it’s become easier than ever for men to satisfy their sexual urges. And in 2011, there’s an entire generation that has grown up always having access to pornography, as much as they want, since they hit puberty.

There are a lot of anti-pornography movements, and there’re even theories about “pornography addiction” that are thrown around. Although there’s no scientific evidence (yet) for porn addiction, here’s something I can tell you that is absolutely true: porn kills your motivation to pursue women in real life.

There’s a bit of an epidemic of apathy going on worldwide, where husbands, boyfriends and even single men are turning to pornography rather than the real life women that they see walking around every day. And it makes sense why: it’s easier, the women are hotter, the sex is more exciting, it’s available at any time with the click of a mouse, it’s (usually) free, the girls never say no, it’s emotionless and there are no obligations or commitments involved.

The problem is that there are some negative side effects. The first being that porn creates very, very unrealistic expectations about sex, about women, and about sexuality. Porn makes money by accentuating and exaggerating sexual ideals. Actual sex with an actual woman often involves awkward moments of figuring out what she likes, what you like, who likes it which way. It also often involves ecstatic moments of emotional intimacy, something porn can never provide.

Also, real women, no matter how hot they are, have imperfections -- imperfections that are covered up in porn by make up and plastic surgery. If a guy gets too accustomed to the perfectionism of porn, he’s going to have a lot more trouble becoming motivated by the girls he sees every day.

The other problem is that porn is so easy, that it encourages men to masturbate … a lot. And as we all know, as men, the more we masturbate, the more interested we become in food and television, and the less we become in women and accomplishing something.

Napoleon Hill wrote a famous section in his classic work Think and Grow Rich called “Sexual Transfiguration.” Hill noticed and theorized, that extremely successful men also had extremely high sex drives. But not only did they have very high sex drives, but they channeled this sexual energy into their work and their accomplishments. Often they would abstain from sex or masturbation for long periods of time and would therefore feel more energized.

Science is starting to back this up. Orgasms, or more accurately, ejaculation in men, actually causes a depletion of various hormones and endorphins which often lead to useful behaviors as well as motivation.

Men who have masturbated constantly since adolescence often masturbate so hard and furiously that they desensitize their penis to realistic scenarios. When you masturbate three times a day for years straight, you often have to grip yourself very hard and rub furiously to get off. This can often lead to sexual issues and impotence when a man actually DOES get into bed with a woman. This is because vaginas are soft, they’re wet, and the sensations they give you are subtle. Your iron-fisted grip does a horrible job of preparing you for the warm lady love.

So here’s what I recommend to you and all men who are looking to get motivated and improve themselves. It’s my patented masturbation and porn diet that I give to men. In fact, I still go on this diet myself from time to time when I want to add a little motivation to my life. It works wonders, and a lot of men have gotten stunning results from it. I’ve talked to guys who literally sat around reading dating advice for years without ever taking action, but on my masturbation and porn diet, within two weeks they were out there meeting women and trying to get dates.

So without further ado …

- End all pornography immediately. Starting today. Delete everything from your computer. Throw out any discs or DVDs you have. And if you have trouble controlling your urges, download some free website blocking software and block every porn site you know of indefinitely. This may sound horrible or extreme, but trust me. You will thank me in a month.

- Limit your masturbation to once a week. Schedule it. Pick a day. I usually pick Monday. Do not deviate from your masturbation schedule! If you want even a larger dose of motivation (and you want to be as horny as a 14-year old), limit your masturbation to once every other week. Again, pick a day and hold yourself to it.

- When you masturbate, you’re only allowed to fantasize about women you’ve met and HAVE NOT had sex with. It could be that woman at work. That girl you met Saturday night. The girl you have a date with that week. Whatever. But she has to be real, and she has to be someone you have not slept with (but obviously want to).

- When you masturbate, use lotion or lube. Do it slower than usual. Drag it out longer than 10 minutes if you can. Take your time with it. Enjoy it. You don’t get to do this every day, remember? -When you’re out and about during your daily life, every beautiful woman you see, every hot girl you talk to, I want you to imagine what it’d be like to have sex with her. Visualize it in your head. Try to imagine her in her underwear. Imagine her giving you a blowjob. Imagine railing her right there on the street with everybody watching. Notice how turned on you get. Chances are your desire to go talk to her is suddenly going to shoot through the roof.

Follow this for a few weeks and you should find yourself pretty damn motivated. If you mess up or give in, just start over again. Don’t be hard on yourself. Ideally, within a couple weeks the idea of going out to approach women should sound exciting to you instead of a chore. This is good. So go out and do it!

Chapter 11: How to Take Action

“Courage is not the absence of fear, rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”- Ambrose Redmoon, Writer

Think back to the last time someone you didn’t want to see tried to hang out with you. Maybe it was that annoying guy at work. Maybe it was your black sheep brother-in-law. Maybe it was a blind date your mother tried to set you up with her friend’s fat daughter. Think of that awkward situation where you had to turn someone down. Think back to the last time you had to politely come up with excuses to not spend time with somebody. How did it make you feel?

Not good.

Rejecting people, whether you’re doing it blatantly (“Go away and leave me alone”) or indirectly (“Oh, I’m actually really busy this weekend, maybe another time”) is actually an awkward and uncomfortable situation that nobody enjoys. Very, very few people in this world ENJOY being an asshole or hurting someone else’s feelings.

Now imagine having to do this on an almost daily basis. There’s nothing gratifying about it, in fact it becomes frustrating and tedious. It also explains why women seem to complain about guys hitting on them or about guys being creepy — they have to reject them and rejecting someone is generally an unpleasant or uncomfortable experience.

Guys who have the perception of women as these ego-centric creatures who laugh at us from their sexual mountain-tops, doling out which man gets (a chance at) the divine pussy-access and which man gets to squander away his time in solitude — it doesn’t work like that.

Think about it. Why do women spend so much time and effort on their appearance? Why do they go to singles’ bars and join dating sites and give blind dates a try? They don’t do it so that they can revel in rejecting a bunch of guys. They’re just as lonely and frustrated as we are. They want to meet a guy. But not just a guy, a great guy. A guy who is confident, charming, fun and interesting.

A guy who isn’t needy, who is vulnerable, and who will honestly express himself to her.

She wants YOU to be that guy. She’s secretly rooting for you. She doesn’t want to reject you. Every time a new guy walks up to her, she’s secretly saying to herself, “Please, please, please be the guy. Be the attractive guy that I can’t say no to.” And then he nervously stutters around buying her a drink and makes uncomfortable jokes about the weather and she’s back to that horribly uncomfortable position of having to reject him again.

Other times it doesn’t even get that far… it’s obvious before he even opens his mouth that it’s game over: he’s dressed like a clown or hasn’t combed his hair in three months. Or he’s too drunk to even look at her directly.

This is also why women are willing to overlook a lot of bonehead moves and mistakes we make if they like us. It’s amazing how many second and third chances a girl will give you if she likes you. She’s rooting for you. She’s your biggest fan. She’s saying, “Oh, he chickened out of asking me out this time, but I’ll find an excuse to call him so maybe he’ll do it next time.” They’re BEGGING for you to succeed. They want it just as bad as you do. All of those women in the bars, they WANT you to be that unbelievably attractive man, that man who makes time stop for them and can make them feel things they’ve never felt before. They want you to be that. And when they reject you, it’s not because they enjoy it, or because they have a big ego, or because you’re too short or your muscles aren’t big enough…

It’s because you didn’t give her that feeling. You didn’t make her spin and fall and laugh and forget where she was or who she was with. That’s what she goes out every night looking for: the man who can make her feel more alive.

The next time you approach, when she sees you coming — and trust me, she usually sees you coming — know that she’s already rooting for you. Secretly, she wants you to succeed as much as you do. And for a moment she’s your biggest fan.

And your role as a man is to take action. It’s all on you. It’s always on you. You move things forward.

And this is where the vast majority of guys falter. An action as simple as opening your mouth, moving your feet in the right direction or picking up the phone. They simply don’t do it. The fear and rationalizations mentioned in the previous chapter are too large. It seems too overwhelming. And so nothing gets done.

And ultimately, no matter how much you read, how much study, how much you watch about dating and picking up women, if you’re unable to take action, you will get no where.

Chances are if you’re reading this, this is not the first book on dating or pick up that you’ve ever read. Some men become self-help and dating advice junkies, reading and reading and reading and never taking action.

In fact, sometimes guys use reading and hoarding information and advice as a WAY to avoid taking action. They feel like if they’re reading a 150 page book on attraction, then they’re accomplishing something right? And as long as they’re accomplishing something, then they don’t have to confront what they’re afraid of: going out and standing in front of a woman and expressing their truth, being vulnerable, subjecting themselves to rejection.

This isn’t a new problem. The self-help and business-advice industries have been dealing with it for decades. The men’s dating advice has been dealing with it as well. But up until this point, it’s done a piss-poor job of motivating men and helping to teach them how to take action.

The classic advice when it comes to guys taking action is more or less to jump into the deep-end until you learn to swim.

The idea was that if you had a crippling fear of approaching women, then you sign up for a “bootcamp” or program where a coach (like myself) takes you out to bar and more or less yells at you until you approach 25 women in one night. What you say and what happens is all over the place, but at least you’re getting off your ass and approaching.

The problem with the overload method of taking action is that it’s short-term and doesn’t create a lasting habit.

What always happened with these situations is that the guy who paid to go out and approach 25 women feels great the next day. But then a week or two later when he goes out again by himself, the coach isn’t there yelling at him, he doesn’t have hundreds (or thousands of dollars) invested in his performance, and he goes back to his old habits and doesn’t take action.

This is highly problematic and is one of the reasons I believe the Pick Up Artist industry is crippling itself and not going to last much longer.

If anyone took the time to look into some very fundamental psychological research on anxieties and fear, they’d find a pretty plain and simple solution to help guys get out and start taking action... on their own, without fear, and with daily success.

The Guide to Overcoming Your Anxiety

The biggest misconception about overcoming your anxieties when acting with women is that the fear is something that can (or should) be eliminated.

Even many of the forward-thinking dating coaches in the industry who have finally come to recognize fear and hesitance as the major culprit of most mens’ lack of success, have failed to recognize this: fear is never eliminated, it is eased and adapted.

Saying you want to get rid of all of your fear is like saying you want to get rid of all anger, or all sadness. This sounds like a noble goal, but research shows that what we end up doing instead is we suppress or avoid the emotions, leading us less capable of dealing with them the next time they arise. Instead, what’s recommended is that we learn to adapt our negative emotions into positive behavior.

For instance, people with anger issues are encouraged to channel their anger through productive means -- exercising, working, writing letters displaying their feelings, etc. To avoid or ignore the anger will only bring it back next time.

When my first girlfriend broke up with me when I was 19, I made a conscious decision. I had laid in bed depressed for a week or two and quickly I realized how ridiculous and pointless it was. I was hurt and I was angry, but laying around in bed and avoiding her was stressing me out.

So I decided to take another strategy. I decided that I would work on myself and literally told myself I was doing it so that she would be sorry she ever broke up with me. I did it out of spite. My inspiration for self-improvement began with revenge.

For the first time in my life, I joined a gym. I began studying more. I went out with a female friend and bought some new clothes. I went to parties with new people I met. The whole time my motivation was the anger and hurt that I had towards my ex-girlfriend.

The same concept can be applied to your fear and anxiety around women.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, most of us have become experts at avoiding these fears and anxieties.

In fact, that very fact that you’re reading this book right now partially means that you’re probably avoiding taking action in some form with women. It’s logical, if you had no problem taking action with women, you would not need a book to sit here and tell you how to do it. In fact, the question would never even come up in the first place, you’d just get up and do it.

The other problem with approaching the anxiety around women as something that must be removed is that this often only serves to amplify it.

Maybe you’ve already gone out and intended to approach a beautiful woman you saw somewhere, but you got very nervous. You probably stood there and hesitated, maybe decided something like, “OK, I’ll get a drink first, and then I’ll approach her,” or “I’ll go to the bathroom, then come out and speak to her.”

But after the drink and the bathroom, she’s still there, and you’re just more nervous than you were before. So now you start trying to come up with witty or interesting lines to say to her. But this isn’t helping, it’s hard to come up with something on the spot, and everything suddenly sounds kind of stupid in your head.

Now you’re really nervous!

Maybe you’ve been reading and taking dating advice for a while and have read about breathing techniques, emotional state, or having a routine stack.

Maybe you try a couple of these techniques. Now, suddenly you’re the guy standing in the middle of the bar doing weird breathing exercises, or pumping your fists in the air trying to convince yourself how fearless you are.

Of course, what you’re sub-communicating to everyone is in fact, how insanely high invested you are in their attention.

And if you’re like most guys, even THIS doesn’t work. And the fact that it doesn’t, just makes you even more insecure -- maybe you didn’t do the technique right, maybe you’re just an exception and no matter what you do, you’re going to be hosed with women for the rest of your life. Suddenly you start thinking back to all of the hundreds of reports on forums you’ve read where other guys just like you somehow were able to approach a girl like this, but for some reason you can’t and now you feel even worse.

At this point, your night has completely gone to shit. You’re totally debilitated from doing anything. And for all of your intellectualizing and techniques to “remove fear,” you’re actually far more fearful than you were in the first place.

In the old Pick Up Artist days, there was something called “The 3-Second Rule” which dictated that once you saw a woman you liked you had three seconds to approach her no matter what. The rule was designed to avoid this scenario.

In Buddhism, there’s a saying that, “What you resist will persist.” And it’s true in this case as well.

The proper way to approach your fear and your anxiety is to accept it, recognize that it’s normal and a part of who you are, and to not even try to hide it from the girl.

Think back to something you’re very, very good at. Maybe you’re really great at some part of your job at work. Or maybe you used to be awesome at Tennis or Chess back in school. Maybe you’re a great public speaker.

All of those activities, when you were called on to put yourself on the line (major Tennis match, big presentation, major meeting to lead), you probably got nervous beforehand. But did that nervousness make you crumble or did it invigorate you?

I used to love giving presentations in school. I was great at them too. And I used to get nervous before every single one. In fact, I’ve given probably 50-60 public talks for my dating coach job over the last four years. I was nervous before every single one of those too.

But the nervousness almost felt good. I was confident in my ability. It was a borderline excitement. I knew I was going to blow everybody away. I knew that they would love me. So even though I was nervous to get up there, I couldn’t wait.

It’s like professional athlete’s who say they can’t sleep the night before a big game. They’re nervous, but they can’t wait to get out there. They’re confident in their ability and thrive on the pressure and the anxiety.

Psychological research actually shows that people perform better at activities under a certain amount of anxiety. In fact, what matters isn’t the anxiety itself, but the person’s confidence in their own ability to perform whatever action they’re anxious about.

So it’s less about the anxiety and more about how competent you feel you are. The less competent you feel, the more the anxiety will hinder you, the more confident you are in your ability, the more the anxiety will help you.

This is actually where a lot of dating advice and pick up theory actually hurts you. They explain these complicated models and theories, give you tons of material to memorize and practice, and present picking up women as some complicated task akin to rocket science that only works once you’ve tried and failed 1,000 times. That’s going to scare the shit out of any guy with little to no experience.

The opposite is true. Pick up is not complicated. And if you can have a conversation with anyone, then you are capable of picking up a woman. There’s nothing to learn, only things to do. And the fear doesn’t go away, you learn to hone it to help you.

I still get nervous every time I approach a girl. I’ve approached probably over 2,000 at this point. I still get nervous every time I go to kiss one. And I’ve probably kissed at least 300 at this point. I still get nervous every time I bring a girl home. And I’ve slept with almost 100 women.

The fear never goes away. What changes is my neediness and vulnerability. The difference between now and 2005, is that back in 2005, I was incredibly needy and highly invested in how women perceived me and incredibly unconfident in my own ability to interact with women. These combined to amplify my anxiety in ways that were unbearable.

Now, if I say or do something that screws everything up (and I still do all the time), I don’t really care. It doesn’t change how I feel about myself, and it doesn’t change my confidence in my ability to interact with women in the future.

What’s important is not the level of anxiety or fear, but your competence at whatever you’re afraid of doing.

So now you’re probably saying, “Well, that’s nice, you’re that confident and non-needy because you’ve been with so many women, but what about a guy who has little to no experience with women?”

Glad you asked.

Because there IS a way to slowly build up your confidence and competence and to slowly de-sensitized yourself to your anxiety.

In the past, when it came to dealing with fear and rejection, all dating coaches basically took the approach of “throw him into the deep end and hope he learns to swim.”

If you were afraid to approach, they would give you crazy lines or push you into very intimidating and difficult social situations, hoping to “scare you straight.”

The idea was, if they could put you in the worst possible situations, then the simple, regular social situations would stop being intimidating.

I guess it’s like taking someone who wants to get in shape and putting them in a marathon right away. It’ll help, but wow, it is NOT going to be pretty or pleasant. So that marathon -- despite how ridiculously painful and difficult it is -- will only give someone some good exercise once, not as a habit.

If that’s it and they never exercise again, then they’re going to revert back to their old out-of-shape selves.

The same is true with our fears.

The way to attack anxieties is through incremental, but high volume exposure. Not single, extreme exposure.

For instance, previously, dating advice would say something like, if you are afraid to approach women, put on a crazy outfit, and go tell a girl that you’re the Tooth Fairy, purposely make a complete fool of yourself and you won’t be nervous around women anymore.

(Seriously, it’s amazing people used to pay for advice like this.)

And sure, this would work. Guys wouldn’t be nervous afterward anymore. But they’d wake up a week later and be back at square one.

To develop lasting change, you come at it from the opposite angle. If you’re afraid to approach women, then you find the EASIEST and LOWEST INTENSITY way to approach, and then do it in high volume.

So for instance, instead of doing the “embarrass yourself” exercise above one time, you would approach 10 women in an hour or two just asking for the time.

Nothing more is required, just what time it is.

Find something easy, but repeat it many, many times.

Then the next day, you go out and ask 10 women what time it is followed by, “How is your day going?”

And each day, you slowly make it harder and more intensive.

Eventually you’ll be able to approach any woman in any circumstance and express your interest in her... without fear, without worrying about what to say or what line to use.

I’ve taken guys who have never approached a woman in their life and gotten them walking up to beautiful women on the street and asking for coffee dates within a matter of days.

And you can apply this to all sorts of situations: getting physical with women, emailing women online, calling phone numbers, sexual humor, conversations with women, etc., etc.

It’s just a matter of knowing how to structure your exposure.

To use a metaphor, for any of you who go to the gym, you probably know that there are two ways to exercise and get strong: high intensity and low repetition, or low intensity and high repetition.

The high intensity, low repetition increases the power of your muscles. Think stacking on tons of weight and only lifting it 3 times.

Whereas the low intensity, high repetition increases your conditioning. Think taking a low amount of weight and doing it 20 times.

Well, we’re trying to condition ourselves, but just socially. And just like in weightlifting, low intensity, high repetition is the way to go.

Any man can condition himself this way and it’s not hard to imagine the benefits of this method.

The easiest example is approaching women. Start with something simple and innocuous. Hell, you could even start by asking clerks and cashiers how their day is going -- they have to be nice to you after all.

But start simple. “What time is it?” or maybe “Can you tell me how to get to the bus stop?”

Do that 10 or 20 times, then go out the next day and approach women the same way, but ask them how their day is going.

Then go out and and ask 10 or 20 women for directions, how their day is going and then ask them a personal question about themselves.

Slowly work up until you’re able to approach women by telling them you think they’re attractive and asking them out on a date. You’ll be surprised how quickly you can get comfortable doing this.

In fact, if you’re like most guys and stick with it, then you’ll begin to get hooked to the adrenaline rush and actually enjoy the butterflies you get when you approach a new woman.

But this method doesn’t just work with approaching. It can work with any aspect of the interaction in which you need to take action.

Afraid to kiss girls on a date? Challenge yourself first to hold their hand. Once you’ve done that a few times, then challenge yourself to put your arm around them and leave it there. Once you’ve done that a few times, then challenge yourself to kiss them on the cheek. And finally, challenge yourself to go for the kiss itself.

All of these goals can be done with the same girl, and even on the same date. But the important part is to stair-step your approach rather than expecting yourself to immediately be banging girls by the dozen after a week.

Get creative. Other sticking points this method can be applied to:

- Stalling out in conversation. Being comfortable talking about yourself.

- Calling girls and asking them out on dates.

- Going for sex once you’ve been out on a date with a girl.

- Flirting and teasing women.

- Showing direct interest. Stating that you’re attracted to them.

Really all it takes is a focused and concerted effort on your part without actually expecting yourself to go from 0 to 100 in one night. Instead, you’ll slowly but surely gain little successes repeatedly, not only building your competence and confidence, but making the whole process a lot more enjoyable, therefore helping you get over your anxiety.

And the great thing about this method is that as you get accustomed to your anxiety and become more confident in your ability, you’ll be even more motivated to meet and date even more women, increasing your confidence and competence further, and easing your anxiety that much more.

There’s momentum to it, which is absolutely integral to developing a healthy and successful love life.

The last thing I’ll say about this method before moving on, is that you should only focus on one thing at a time. And when I say “focus” on one thing at a time, I really mean only quantify one aspect of your interactions at a time.

So if you want to be less nervous approaching women, don’t bother yourself worrying about how to get phone numbers or when to go for the kiss or what texts you should be writing. Just focus on approaching.

But by the same token, when you’re focusing on getting physical and aggressive with women, don’t worry about approached. A very common form of avoidance for men who are terrified of “later stage” parts of picking up women -- escalating, sex, dates, etc. -- is that they’ll actually use approaching more women as a form of avoidance. They’ll have a beautiful woman totally enrapt with them, and instead of seeing how far they can push things they’ll take her number and move on, because they tell themselves they want to keep “working on approaches.” When approaching is not their problem. Getting sexual with women is!

Again, some self-awareness is critical. Take things one at a time, stair-step them slowly until you get not only comfortable with it, but EXCITED about it, and then move on to the next thing. That excitement and enthusiasm will bleed over into the next form of anxiety and motivate you to keep going.

For example, a guy who is scared to approach women should stairstep approaches until he enjoys approaching. Then use that enjoyment to stair-step his way up displaying more interest and communicating more openly. Then use his enjoyment and the adrenaline from that to stair-step his way up being physical with women. Soon, he’ll be getting laid and dating some very cool women.

If this sounds like a lot of work, it’s actually not. It’s actually quite simple and if you’re focused about it and don’t get distracted with all sorts of mundane and extraneous theory, it’s very straightforward and can be accomplished quickly.

I’ve taken guys who have never approached a woman in their life and gotten them walking up to beautiful women on the street and asking for coffee dates within a matter of days. I’ve now helped three guys lose their virginities within weeks of using this method. One of them was 29 years old. One of them was 25 years old. Another client of mine slept with two new girls in the SAME weekend after applying these principles.

If you’d like more information on how to apply these concepts to your own life with quick results, check out the “Further Reading” section at the end of this book.

Courage and Boldness

Feeling fear and acting despite of it builds courage. Any time you’re afraid to do something and feel some invisible force holding you back, yet you push through it anyway, you’re building courage within yourself.

Courage is a form of discipline. It’s taking a certain action even though you feel like doing something else. The difference here is that courage involves acting against fear, whereas discipline involves acting against laziness or fatigue.

Courage is built like a muscle. The stair-stepped exercises in the previous section are designed to progressively build your courage. The more courage you build, the more you’ll be capable of bold actions. Bold actions require a lot of vulnerability and destroy neediness.

Stopping a woman and asking her for the time requires little courage and is not a bold action. It’s well within social norms.

Walking up to a group of six people sitting down, asking to speak to the most attractive woman for a moment, telling her that you find her to be beautiful and you’d like to take her out sometime, is quite bold. It’s bold because it requires a lot of courage to to disrupt social norms and it requires quite a bit of vulnerability.

But there’s a caveat here. You must know that you’re interrupting social norms. You must acknowledge that what you are doing is unusual. Else, if you don’t, you’ll simply be seen as someone who is out of touch and oblivious, which is not attractive.

This is a common mistake that many of the Social Disconnect types of men make. Since they’re so out of tune with social norms, they often have no problem behaving in a bold way. The problem is, they aren’t aware of when they’re being bold or not.

For instance, I once worked with a guy who was very socially disconnected. We were in a shopping mall and we were walking around talking to women together.

As we were going down an escalator, we saw a very attractive girl going up the up escalator on the other side. As we passed her I mentioned to him that he should talk to her.

He immediately began running up the down escalator and began talking to her.

Obviously, this is a very awkward and strange thing to do. And had he been aware of how awkward and strange it was, he would have been bold. But instead, he was just unaware, and as such he immediately creeped the girl out.

This is why if you’re ever going to do something that is unusual -- approach a woman in a strange location, try to kiss her in a strange location, invite her out with you after just meeting her, etc. -- it’s important that you communicate that you realize what you’re doing is abnormal.

“You know, I’ve never done this before, and I know we just met, but why don’t you come to the restaurant with me.”

“Excuse me, this is kind of random, but I thought you were cute and wanted to meet you.”

The more bold your action, the greater attraction you’re going to create. The more bold the action, the more vulnerability you show, and the more you polarize responses.

If you walk around and ask women for the time, you are not polarizing them very much. Most of them will give you the time. The worst rejection you’ll ever get may be, “Oh sorry, I don’t have a watch,” or something similar.

But if you walk around and ask women on dates, you’re going to get polarized reactions -- nervous and excited yes’s, and tense and reserved no’s. If you go even further and try to kiss a woman at an unexpected time, you’re either going to get a very enthusiastic yes or an enthusiastic no.

The point is, greater boldness leads to greater polarization.

This is yet another argument for behaving in an aggressive manner. This is also why one of my mantras that I tell guys is, “Always err on the side of aggression.”

Whenever you’re in doubt of what you should do, err on the side of aggression. Choose the more bold action. Because if you wait around for the safer and less bold opportunity to make a move on her, chances are the attraction will be less or may even dwindle.

The techniques laid out in this chapter are, at the root of them, techniques designed to build your boldness. As you go through life, you’re going to be presented an infinite variety of situations involving women. One of the reasons that I shy away from giving specific techniques or tactics is because if I give you a very specific way to kiss a girl, that may end up only being relevant in 20% of the situations you ever want to kiss a girl in.

But if I teach you how to build your courage, increase your boldness, and overcome your debilitating fear of getting physical with women, you will be equipped to kiss a girl anywhere and everywhere. In the long-run, it’s far more effective and less limiting.

But obviously, bold behavior by itself will only go so far. Boldness must be molded by charismatic and efficient communication. Just behaving recklessly and without abandon will attract women to you, and will give you sexual opportunities (particularly in club and party environments), but without communicating in a charming and interesting manner, and without being aware of social norms, it’s unlikely you’ll get many women to stick around, and your relationships will not be that enjoyable.

You can build up an incredibly attractive lifestyle and persona, focus on the proper demographic, act boldly and pursue women shamelessly, but if you can’t communicate to them your intentions and your personality well, then it will be hard to maintain their interest for very long.

The fifth part will cover how to revamp your communication and how to make good impressions upon everyone you meet.

Part V: Honest Communication

Chapter 12: Your Intentions

“The highest forms of human understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.”- Richard Feynmann, Physicist

In Chapter 4, we talked about how honest vulnerability only holds weight when it’s communicated unconditionally -- i.e., when you compliment a girl or express yourself, you’re not doing it with an ulterior motive, you’re simply expressing yourself.

In the this chapter, I’d like to take that idea further.

You could say men and women almost speak two entirely different languages. Men mostly communicate through facts, stories and data. We discuss sports statistics, how we fixed our car last weekend and where we plan on going next month. If a man says, “I’ll see you at 6PM,” he typically means it literally. If a man tells you that he used to be the best basketball player at his college, you take it at face value, even if he may be exaggerating a little bit. If a man says he dislikes you, then it means he’s not your friend anymore and you move on.

Women communicate more in feelings and specifically, through intentions. Sure, they still pay attention to the facts and stories going on on the surface, but what’s actually communicated to them is the intention and feeling underneath.

This is sub-communication.

This is why your girlfriend can get upset and tell you she hates it when you spend time with your friends one night and then the next insist you go to your weekly bowling league and not see any contradiction in her statements. On the first night, she felt like you weren’t paying enough attention to her. On the second, she felt secure with you and wants you to be happy.

Needless to say, this sort of stuff often confuses the hell out of men. Often for an entire lifetime.

This is why guys often get together and refer women to “crazy,” “psychotic,” “unstable,” “irrational,” or “total bitches.”

The fact that men are oblivious to the emotions and intentions that underline everything women say often makes women feel like men are “heartless,” “cold assholes,” “selfish jerks,” or that they “don’t listen.”

We listen, we just don’t speak the same language.

This is also why a man can study and learn the best pick up lines and routines, walk into a bar and deliver them perfectly and have none of them work. The woman hears his lines, but she’s listening to his intentions. And if his intentions are saying, “I want to impress you, please like me,” then it doesn’t matter how good the lines are. She’s not going to listen to him.

On the other hand, if a man has the right intentions, then he can get away saying just about anything. In Chapter 4, I told the story of the time my friend walked around asking women if he could pee in their butt. Obviously, his words were absolutely ridiculous, and all of the women he approached -- both the ones who rejected him and the one he went home with -- didn’t give his words much credit.

But his intention was loud and clear: I don’t care what you think, I want to have fun tonight, and my idea of fun is a little extreme. Obviously, this scared a few women off. But once he found one who liked his intentions, she latched on quickly and hard.

That’s an extreme example, but here’s another, much more common example.

Pick up theory often tells men not to compliment a woman too early or too often. The reason for this is that most men who read pick up theory have poor intentions: they’re needy and looking to validate themselves through sex or female affection. So when a man compliments a woman out of neediness, it’s going to make a woman feel uncomfortable and objectified.

Now if a man compliments a woman out of genuine appreciation for her, she’s going to hear his intention and be genuinely appreciative of him as well.

Teasing and so-called “negging” of women is another great example. Many men, when they first begin trying to flirt with women, they tease them or “neg” them. Ask yourself this, what’s the difference between a tease and an insult? Both are derogatory statements. Both often incorporate humor. So what’s the difference?

Intention. Teasing is done with a fun and positive intention. Insults are done with a negative intention.

Or what’s the difference between sharing yourself and bragging? Let’s say you play in a successful rock band. What’s the difference between sharing your life experience with a woman (attractive) and bragging to her (unattractive).

Hopefully, you’re figuring it out by now. It’s intention. What is your intention? Are you trying to impress her (needy) and therefore bragging? Or are you sharing yourself (vulnerability) and therefore attracting her?

This relates directly back to everything we talked about in Chapter 2 in regards to investment, neediness and validation. A man who is highly needy will have intentions dominated by seeking validation and therefore be unattractive regardless of just about anything he says. A man who is not needy will have intentions dominated by vulnerability and will therefore be attractive regardless of what he says.

Obviously, there are technical considerations in how you communicate to people, which we’ll cover throughout this chapter and next. But the overarching point is that what you actually talk about has far less to do with your results than your intentions. In a way, we’ve come full circle, and hopefully now you understand why the book began the way it did.

Everything in this chapter and next is going to assume that you are acting based on the right intentions. As mentioned in Chapter 6, if you seem to get rejected by women no matter what you do or say, then chances are your intentions are poor and you’re unaware of it. If that’s the case, then I recommend taking a long, hard look at why you’re approaching women and your beliefs and feelings about women to see how you’re being perceived by them.

Remember, women don’t see your features, they see how you present yourself. They don’t hear your words, they hear your intentions. If you suffer from chronic rejection, then you are presenting yourself poorly and/or have poor intentions. In both cases, you’re needy and therefore will always be seen as unattractive until you take care of it.

Creepiness

The number one fear deterring men from openly expressing their sexual desires towards women is a fear of being perceived as “creepy.”

There are a lot of reasons for this, and I’ll spare you the antifeminism rant that demonized male sexuality in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The point is, most modern men have a legitimate fear of being creepy.

Before we jump into what creepiness is exactly, and what women mean when they complain about it, I need to give the same type of painful-truth serum I gave for rejection:

There’s no such thing as a man who is good with women who isn’t also creepy some of the time.

The fact of life is that if you are a man who expresses his sexuality freely (and you should), some women, some of the time, are going to find you creepy. It’s simply unavoidable. No matter how cool, rich, good-looking and charming you are, at some point, somewhere, a girl is going to be creeped out by you.

So as a friend of mine says, “give yourself permission to be creepy.” There’s no other way. And look, it’s not the end of the world. There’s no Creepy Police who come and handcuff you and take you away for creeping on some girls every now and then. Hell, once you let loose, you may find (as many men do) that being creepy can even be funny at times.

Creepiness is one of these vague concepts that everyone knows but no one can really put into words. If you ask girls what creepiness is, they’ll give you roundabout answers and inevitably fall into examples of creepiness rather than an actual definition.

Of course, their examples are all over the map and seem to have absolutely no rhyme or reason to them.

(For what it’s worth, asking a bunch of female friends this question over the years, I’ve gotten examples of creepiness that have spanned from “he had dainty hands” to “he sips his drink like a girl,” to “putting too many smileys in text messages.” As is often the case, women are terrible authorities on why they like/dislike something, all they know is that they like/dislike it.)

Creepiness: behaving in a way that threatens a woman sexually or causes her to feel insecure.

Remember, the basis of all female attraction comes back to security. It’s why she looks for men less needy than herself. It’s also why she looks for men who speak and behave in line with their intentions. The further you get out of line with your intentions, the creepier you become. For instance, if you approach a woman and stand there and talk about the weather, but she can tell that you’re horny and want to rail her like a jackhammer, then you will be creepy. Your actions and words are completely out of line with your intentions.

If you approach a woman and stare at her breasts the entire time you speak to her, you will also be creepy. Even if you tell her honestly, “You have great tits,” you will be creepy. Not for lack of intention, but because she doesn’t know you and most women are not comfortable being sexual around men they don’t know.

This is why vulnerability is so huge. When you’re vulnerable around someone you don’t know, you’ll inspire them to trust you and become more vulnerable around you. The more vulnerable a woman is willing to be around you, the less likely you will be to creep her out.

(Caveat 1: Vulnerability is still subject to the right intentions. If you tell a girl a sob story for no other reason than to get her to feel sorry for you and sleep with you, then guess what, you’re still creepy!)

(Caveat 2: Sex can be viewed as the ultimate act of vulnerability for a woman. The more vulnerable you make yourself around her -- by leading, by sharing your intentions, by being honest -- the more she will trust you and become vulnerable in return. Sex is a side-effect of that vulnerability.)

Paradoxically, the way to interact with women in a vulnerable way, and therefore the way to combat creepiness, is to accept that some women will find you creepy some of the time. Just as with rejection, the more you’re willing to risk it, the less it will happen. The more comfortable you are with women finding you creepy, and the more uninhibited and vulnerable your actions and words are around women, the less likely they will be to find you creepy. The more reserved and closed up you are about your intentions, the more you attempt to manipulate her and mislead her about what you want and who you are, the more likely you are to become creepy.

Obviously, there are technical aspects of communication that affect this as well. Bad body language, strange conversation topics, uncalibrated humor, inappropriate touching -- these things can all make you creepy even with the best of intentions. This is why I say that at some point you have to accept that you’re going to creep some women out and that’s OK. Because the alternative is to hide your sexuality and hope a woman comes to you... and well, we all know how well that works out.

The Flirting Formula

Flirting is the opposite of creepiness. Flirting is expressing your sexuality in a way that is attractive and fun to women. Sometimes the sexuality of your behavior is overt, sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s implied. But when done correctly, it’s accepted and appreciated by women.

If you research dating advice and pick up tips, you’ll find dozens and dozens of methods of “building attraction” with women. Some of the more popular ones include:

Teasing, bantering, negging, cocky/funny, push/pull, qualification, statements of interest, false disqualifiers, roleplaying, leading and pacing, eliciting values, magic tricks, cold-reading, false takeaways, word games, hand games, betting and competition, etc.

Chances are, you’ve read or are familiar with at least a few of these concepts. If you don’t know what most of them are, then good, don’t worry about it. No, I’m serious, don’t worry about it, because they all follow the same basic pattern.

Flirting: Expressing your sexuality to a woman in a non-needy manner, eliciting her to become more attracted to you.

In a nutshell, what a lot of men refer to as “game” is their ability to flirt with women. How well can they express their sexuality to women with positive responses? If they can do it often, they have “game.”

The tactics or strategies used to do this (teasing, etc.) all do this in their own ways, but they all follow the same pattern. For the sake of time and space (and boredom), I’ll be grouping most methods of flirting into two different groups: teasing and leading. Both teasing and leading types of flirting (whether it’s negging, false takeaways, or roleplaying) follow the same basic formula... they all involve breaking rapport.

Teasing type flirting breaks rapport verbally. Teases involve saying derogatory comments about someone in a funny or pleasant way. Family members tease each other. Friends tease each other. And men and women tease each other when they’re sexually interested in one another.

Your teasing could be anything from making fun of her shoes to giving her a hard time about her drinking habits to telling her she looks like Goldilocks.

Teasing is useful, because you can often stack a compliment into it and be able to display sexual interest without actually complimenting her. For instance, you could say, “You know, if you weren’t so cute, I’d ditch you for saying that.” This is why teasing is so popular within the PUA and pick up tactics crowd. It allows them to demonstrate their interest while maintaining a perception of non-neediness.

Teasing with the proper intention (fun and adoration) conveys the sense that you are non-needy and less invested in her. When a man shows he’s willing to break rapport with a girl, he’s demonstrating vulnerability, and therefore a lack of neediness and investment. The reason is that every time you break rapport with a girl, you’re opening yourself up to be rejected. This sub-communicates a willingness to lose her, which then sub-communicates nonneediness and less investment.

Often dropping even one tease into an otherwise normal and boring conversation will often spark a lot of attraction and interest from a girl.

For this reason, teasing is often the easiest and quickest way for a guy who is inexperienced with women to generate attraction from them. Cultivating genuine and long-lasting attraction, as up until now is a long-term process that requires investing in yourself, your identity and overcoming your fears over a long period of time.

But if one learns to tease well, they can leave the house right now and potentially spark a girl to become attracted to them, even if it’s only for a minute.

Teasing type flirting isn’t the end-all-be-all though, despite what some dating advice may proclaim. You can tease a girl into becoming a little more interested in you, you can even tease her into wanting to kiss you, but you can rarely tease her all the way to the sack. And you definitely can’t tease her into a relationship.

Eventually, you’ll be forced to open up and connect with her on an emotional level and show some vulnerability.

But even then, I encourage men to tease and flirt with all women intermittently -- even friends or girls they’re not interested in. It adds a fun sexual component and sparks more emotional excitement in any of your male/female relationships. And you’ll quickly find out, that women are flirting addicts. They love it.

Also, it’s important to interpret her reactions to the teasing correctly. A lot of women will feign anger or offense, when really they enjoy it. Some women will tease you right back. Some won’t tease you back, but insult you and get defensive. Others will become legitimately offended.

Once again, you must speak the language of intentions. One girl may say she’s offended, but actually be smiling, and become energized and engage you more than she did before. Another girl may say she’s offended and become noticeably sad and not know how to respond to you. It’s important to pay attention how women respond to your teases and adjust accordingly. Not every girl reacts well to teasing and they don’t react well in every situation. So use your discretion.

The second type of flirting is what I call leading type flirting. Leading is a little more subtle, but far more powerful than teasing.

Just like teasing, leading demands that you stick your neck out and make yourself vulnerable, but leading does it by inviting her to comply with an action you take. Think of it as breaking rapport, but instead of doing it by joking, you’re doing it by inviting her to take part with you in whatever you choose to say or do.

Some good examples of leading type flirting are taking her by the hand and moving her somewhere else. Statements of sexual interest. Physically touching her. Asking her personal questions about herself. Inviting her out on a date or home with you.

Like teasing, leading must be done with the right intentions (honest and non-needy). Genuine demonstrations of affection and interest are generally the most welcome and appreciated expressions of sexuality for women.

Leading and teasing often intertwine with one another. You may be tease-type flirting with a girl by roleplaying that she’s your housekeeper and she’s in trouble for making such a mess. You then lead her to a room of the party where you two can be alone and begin kissing her.

Another classic situation is flinging harsh teases immediately followed by sincere compliments. For instance, you could make fun of how indecisive she is ordering her drinks and tell her that indecisiveness isn’t going to lead her anywhere in life. When she responds with some indignation, you could then compliment her on how beautiful her eyes are when she’s mad. This absolutely bamboozles women in a very, very good way. They don’t know whether to laugh or cry, hug you or hit you. And ultimately that conflict of emotions turns them on. It’s a lot of fun. Try it.

If teasing and leading both break rapport with the woman you’re talking to, the next part of the formula involves her regaining rapport. She does this either by qualifying herself (teasing) or complying (leading). If she does not re-establish rapport with you, then it means she is not attracted to you. And you’ve been rejected. End of story.

For instance, if you tease a girl about her shoes and she defends herself or says something like, “Yeah, they are kind of lame, aren’t they?” then she’s re-establishing rapport with you. She’s qualifying herself. Basically what’s being sub-communicated is that you are less invested in her (by teasing) and that she is more invested in you (by qualifying). This may or may not actually be true, but it’s the perception that flirting creates between you two and why flirting generates attraction.

For instance, if you tease her about her shoes and she becomes offended and decides you’re an asshole, well then that means she’s not qualifying herself, she’s not re-establishing rapport, and no attraction is being generated. Either your tease came with the wrong intention, was delivered poorly, or she’s simply not interested in you. The reason isn’t that important.

Leading behavior leads to compliance. It’s the exact same process as teasing, except instead of verbal, it’s through actions. Let’s say you take a girl by the hand and say, “Let’s go get a drink.” If she complies and comes with you, that indicates a lot of attraction. The vulnerability and intention you expressed by leading her indicates non-neediness and low investment. Her compliance indicates high investment. This creates attraction. If she says, “wait, I need to stay with my friends,” then it indicates lower investment and does not generate attraction.

Some people argue that she complies with stuff like this BECAUSE she’s attracted, not that the compliance creates attraction itself.

The answer is both are true. If a girl is already attracted to you, she’ll be apt to follow you more and more. But the leading -- more specifically, the demonstration of vulnerability and non-neediness by making your intentions open and transparent -- generates attraction in her as well. The actual act of having a man taking her by the hand and leading her to where he wants her will turn her on, in and of itself.

Finally, a lot of men get confused when women tease them or lead them in the interaction. A lot of men get insecure in this situation and begin trying to out-tease the teaser or out-lead the leader.

Other men get super sensitive about teasing and see them as “shit tests” and get defensive which absolutely destroys any attraction there may have once been.

Here’s my take on these situations. You’ll rarely have a woman who openly teases or leads you. But when you do, don’t over-complicate things. She’s flirting with you because she likes you. That’s why people flirt with each other, because they like each other. She’s basically giving you a free pass and doing the work for you.

So kick back and relax and let the teases and leading come from her as long as she’s willing. Who knows, if you’re lucky, she may tease and lead YOU all the way to the bedroom!

And what if you’re not attracted to her? Simple, don’t qualify yourself or re-establish rapport. When she teases you or tries to lead, simply don’t go along with it. No harm, no foul. It’s all part of the game.

Ultimately, the way you flirt is less important than the fact that you do it. At some point, if you want to become intimate and sexual with a woman, you’re going to have to express your sexual interest in her, and you’re going to have to do it in a positive way that she’ll be receptive to. Failure to act on your sexual desires will lead you straight to the friend zone with almost all women, and back to the rampant frustration that brought you here in the first place.

Of course this is easier said than done. Especially for some of you. Flirting requires showing vulnerability, risking rejection or offending someone. And at first, you may flirt in needy and supplicant ways, repelling women even faster than you did when you were just a Nice Guy. But eventually, exposing yourself and your sexual desires will force you to be less invested, less needy, more dominant and more attractive. The teasing will help by creating the perception of non-neediness, and the leading will make women more and more receptive to your eventual sexual advances.

But unlike fears or living an attractive lifestyle, flirting and expressing your sexuality requires communicating effectively. It requires competency at certain social behaviors. And social behaviors, like any other kind of behavior, aren’t simply picked up overnight. They must be built and honed through practice. The specifics of which will be covered in the next chapter.

Developing an Emotional Connection

An oft-unspoken aspect of seduction that many men feel uncomfortable talking about is emotional connection. Most men gloss over emotional connection for a couple reasons: 1) men tend to be all about the stat-sheet and the high-fiving that comes along with it; and 2) most men who feel a need to sleep with a lot of women have a lot of emotional baggage that they prefer to avoid than to actual deal with.

Your ability to connect with a woman emotionally is proportional to how self-aware you are of your own emotional processes and motivations. As described in Chapter 3, self-awareness and vulnerability will actually cause you to behave in a less needy manner, but self-awareness and vulnerability also give her the chance to know the “real you,” to trust you and to open her own emotions up to you.

Ultimately, this is what every woman wants. If you look at romance novels -- basically the female version of porn -- they all follow more or less the exact same pattern: hard and rugged bad-boy type male hero is troubled but strong, and as he slowly opens up and shares his true emotions and desires with the heroine, she’s able to support him, to save him and ultimately fall in love with him. Of course, they live happily ever after.

This is more or less the blueprint of seduction: a strong, high status, attractive exterior (lifestyle and looks), fearless, and able to open up and share your vulnerable side with her (and theoretically, only her). Women get weak in the knees for this. And it’s not even conscious in them most of the time.

All that’s required is a certain level of emotional self-awareness and vulnerability in your interactions.

And let me tell you, emotional connections are POWERFUL. Far more powerful than any sort of tactics or tricks you may learn in other “seduction” books. When you connect with women emotionally, they really open up to you in ways that you can’t imagine, your interactions and relationships with them become these rich and unique experiences that can never be replicated, the sex is far better, and all mind games, flakes and ambivalence goes out the window.

I've heard abortion stories, rape stories, molestation stories. Had girls cry in my arms the night they met me. I've had girls thank me for having sex with them, tell me that a one night stand with me meant more to them than entire relationships, had them offer to buy me plane tickets to see me again. I’ve had three different women give their virginities to me because they trusted me and the experience they’d have with me.

A lot of pick up and dating advice is what I call “attraction obsessed.” It has a constant incessant harping on being the most attractive/alpha guy possible -- usually by employing all sorts of tricks, games, tactics, techniques, manipulation and other falsehoods. Attraction-obsession comes from a place of insecurity. It seeks validation. It’s needy behavior and therefore self-sabotaging in the long-run.

It's not about attraction. She's attracted to 10 guys a day but doesn't sleep with any of them.

Feeling slutty isn't about a "Oh, I put out on a first date," thing. It's not about number of dates, hours spent together, how many dinners you bought her.

Feeling slutty is about sleeping with a guy who doesn't care about her. If she doesn't trust you or isn't 100% convinced that you really like her and care about her, then she's not going to do it. And if she does, then she’ll regret it and feel dirty.

So how do you develop deep and lasting emotional connections with women, connections that will blow your mind and heart away as well as hers too? Connections that will give you some of the best nights and sex of your life?

Glad you asked.

Here’s the basic pattern, and you should recognize a lot of overlap here with Chapter 3:

- Becoming aware of your own emotions, motivations and life story.

- Taking the lead by sharing those emotions, motivations and life story first.

- Sharing first creates trust and encourages her to open up and share herself in return.

- Ideally, the more this goes on, the more personal the stories become and the deeper the emotions in which you connect with.

For instance, take a simple conversation about music you two like. She likes Jay Z. You like Jay Z. Instead of just saying, “I really like Jay Z,” you can expand and talk about WHY you like Jay Z (remember the “Why?” Game from earlier?)

Instead of just, “I like Jay Z,” you could say, “I love Jay Z. He always reminds me of my brother. My brother used to drive me to school for years, and he would blast Jay Z every morning. Looking back it meant a lot to me, my brother taking care of me like that. My dad was always too busy. So Jay Z always reminds me of that. Those moments of appreciation that you don’t recognize until years later.”

Wow... that’s a little intense, right? That’s the idea. If you feel uncomfortable just reading that and imagining yourself saying something like it, then that’s good. That’s vulnerability. And ultimately, that’s what’s going to make you an attractive man who can emotionally connect with women.

Things can go even deeper as well. For instance, it’s one thing to talk about jobs. Maybe she’s a lawyer and came from a poor immigrant background. It may be obvious that she worked very hard and is very ambitious. You could relate to that by sharing how when you were a teenager, a couple of your best friends were injured in a car accident and how that affected you, scared you straight, and helped you become grateful for every day you have, how you started taking advantage of your time and potential and worked very hard to get where you are.

Whatever it is, open up about it. Challenge yourself to go one level deeper.

And the most important rule of emotional connection is to relate to feelings, not facts. Seduction is about feelings, not facts. This is why you can often meet a woman who shares a LOT in common with you -- same home town, same occupation, same interests, lives on the same street -- and have no connection or chemistry whatsoever. But then you can meet a woman who has lived an entirely different life from you, but if you can relate to the emotional struggles and emotional realities that she’s gone through, you can connect very deeply.

She may be a rich girl whose father died when she was eight and sent to boarding school, and you may have had to work your way up from poverty in India and then move to the USA, but emotionally, you can relate very deeply -- the alienation from home, growing up with no sense of family or support other than achievement, feeling isolated by your talent.

Everybody on this planet shares a handful of universal emotional realities: ambition, shame, alienation, loneliness, achievement, regret, hardship, friendship, love, heartbreak. We’ve all experienced it. The facts change, the feelings are the samel. I don’t care how shallow or dumb or weird or annoying she is, she has it somewhere in her. It’s your job to dig it out and connect with it. That’s where the gold is. That’s where the real magic happens. Challenge yourself to find it. Because once you do, you’ll never go back.

Building and Breaking Habits

Your communication skills are a series of overlapping habits. You have habits of when and how you make eye contact with people, how you speak, your voice inflections, what kinds of questions you ask, whether you lead the conversation or follow, whether you’re curious about others or self-centered, how often you smile, look away or laugh. The list goes on and on.

If you have trouble relating to people, particularly women, then chances are you’ve developed communication habits that are unattractive and are not serving you well.

Some of these habits are simple to learn and fix, such as making more eye contact. Others are more difficult to notice and harder to fix, for instance deferring to the opinion of others when making an observation.

The specific habits that are attractive and unattractive will be covered extensively in the next chapter. But for now, I want to wrap up this chapter by going over the process in which to build and break these habits.

A lot of men get the wrong idea. They’ll read some dating advice saying something like, “touch her on the arm when you smile at her.” Then they’ll go out and do it and it’ll feel very awkward and stilted, so they’ll never do it again.

The reason it feels awkward and stilted is because they’ve never done it before. It’s not a habit for them yet. In fact, NOT touching a woman when they smile is a habit, and they’re trying to break it. And habits are hard to break. They take time. And you have to do them repeatedly.

The trick is to identify the good/bad habits you want to build or break and the focus on them consciously until they’re second nature. This actually doesn’t take a long time. For simple things such as eye contact or posture, it may only take a few weeks. For things such as touching, or making statements instead of questions, it may be even shorter.

Either way, the more you implement the habits, the better your reactions from women will be, therefore increasing your motivation to implement the habits further.

Basically what I’m saying here, is that everything described in the next chapter is not an overnight fix, you have to go out and do it over and over again. Not 1,000 times. Maybe not 100 times. But repeatedly.

And just as with de-sensitizing yourself to your anxieties, you want to focus on one at a time. Two at the most.

Another problem many men run into is that they learn that they need to make strong eye contact, lean back on their back foot, touch on the approach, make observations about her features, qualify her on her passions, smile when she smiles, and touch her when she laughs ALL AT ONCE.

So they go out, and get completely jumbled up and don’t know what to focus on and are unable to focus on all of the behaviors at the same time.

It often actually makes their interactions go worse.

We won’t be doing that. In fact, I think a lot of the minute habits listed above are overrated. I’ll be presenting attractive social habits in more general terms so that 1) you have fewer things clogging your brain and 2) there will still be room to express your personality and unique ticks.

You’ll also notice that many of these habits are directly correlated with overcoming fears and anxieties as discussed in Chapters 10 and 11. For instance, developing the habit of touching a woman when you make a joke relates directly to an anxiety many men feel about showing sexual interest. The habit of smiling when you introduce yourself to somebody ties into the anxiety of meeting new people.

Many of these behaviors are linked to your anxieties. And the interesting thing is that you can resolve them from both sides: fixing your outer behaviors will help alleviate your internal anxiety, and alleviating your internal anxiety will help fix up your outer behaviors.

As always, a lack of fear and attractive social behaviors are rooted in a comfort with making yourself vulnerable, an honest expression of your desires, and ultimately, comes from a non-needy identity that is not invested in what others think.

Chapter 13: How to Be Charming

“Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.”- Mark Twain, Writer

Sometimes even if your intentions are in line and you’re expressing yourself openly, people won’t always perceive you correctly. Communication is always up for interpretation, therefore there’s always going to be a risk that you’re being misunderstood or people are assuming things about you.

For instance, you may ask a girl out for coffee. But perhaps she doesn’t hear you clearly, or perhaps she’s not very adept at knowing when men are hitting on her, so she may not be aware of your sexual interest.

Or maybe you compliment a girl on her dress. But for whatever reason, your tonality and facial expression aren’t clear and she thinks you’re being sarcastic. Maybe she’s insecure and very touchy about men complimenting her, so she responds negatively.

In the long-run, misunderstandings and mis-communication is unavoidable. No matter how clear and how charming you are, there are always going to be women who misinterpret what you say to them as well as your intentions. This is a fact of life and something you have to get used to.

But what we can control is how efficiently and openly we communicate by learning clear and effective communication skills. The better our communication skills, the more clearly we can express ourselves and show sexual interest. The more clearly we express ourselves and show sexual interest, the more likely we’ll be able to connect with women in a sexual and emotional way.

It’s sad but true. There are often situations where a woman will be sexually interested in a man, but their failure to communicate their intentions to one another clearly will derail the entire interaction.

There’s no excuse to let this happen.

And as with all of the Three Fundamentals, you’ll find that clear communication will enhance other areas of your life -- your professional relationships, your family relationships, your friendships, your networking abilities -- just as much as it enhances your romantic relationships and your ability to meet and attract women.

First Impressions

First impressions are crucial. Studies show that we base the majority of our perception of people on the first few minutes we spend with them. This initial perception can extend and influence our relationship to the person for weeks or even months.

If I look at the dozens of women I’ve been with, just about all of them (I’d estimate 90% or so), it felt “on” within the first few minutes of the interaction. We clicked and that first impression of each other led to the potential of sex further down the line.

The biggest misconceptions about first impressions is being overly concerned with what to say to a woman when you meet her. This is secondary, and hopefully by this point in the book, I don’t have to explain why.

You can ask a girl how her day is going, or say the most perceptive or witty thing ever to her in the first minutes, but her first impression is largely going to be based on how you present yourself (looks/ lifestyle; Chapters 8 and 9), your level of neediness (anxiety; Chapters 10 and 11), and your ability to communicate clearly. What actually comes out of your mouth is going to be forgotten or completely irrelevant very, very quickly.

With that in mind, here are guidelines for making a good first impression:

- Do NOT startle her or scare her when you approach her. This is possibly the only death knell for approaching women. If you startle her or scare her when she first meets you, in my experience, there is almost absolutely nothing you can do to recover. You’re immediately labeled “creepy” and she will do anything possible to get out of the situation. Even if she’s polite and talks for a minute, chances are she’s never going to open up and trust you.

Typical ways guys startle or scare women upon the approach is by approaching them from behind (huge no-no), grabbing them violently, screaming at them, or saying something extremely offensive or weird.

- When in doubt on how to approach a woman, simply walk up and introduce yourself and explain to her that you wanted to meet her. I know this sounds drab and boring. But remember, it’s not about entertaining her, it’s about exuding non-neediness and genuine interest in her. During the day, I often prep the introduction by saying something like, “Excuse me, this is kind of random...” Also during the day, I usually tell them that I think they’re cute.

Guys often ask me what my favorite “opener” or “pick up line” is. Literally 80% of my approaches begin with, “Hi, my name is Mark.” I’m not kidding. And they work. It’s all about how you approach her, not what you approach her with.

In my experience, the cuter and more creative guys try to get with their opening lines, the more likely they are to a) say something weird and b) the more likely they are to come off needy. Think about it, if you sit around for 10 minutes trying to think of what to say to a girl so that she’ll like you, how is that NOT needy?

She’ll sense this. In fact, it’s kind of amazing. Women really do seem to have a sixth sense. I’ve noticed that the longer I hesitate and stare at a girl before I approach her, the more likely I am to be rejected. The best approaches I ever do are when I don’t think about it and I spontaneously just walk up and say hello.

- Don’t linger. If you linger and hover around here, it’s almost guaranteed to make the approach feel awkward and forced. Imagine a straight line between you and her, and when you’re ready to go, follow that straight line until you’re standing right in front of her. Don’t stand around and kick the dirt at your feet trying to work up the nerve right next to her.

- Smile. Always smile. Don’t smile like “Holy shit, I just won the lottery smile,” smile. But smile as in you’re a nice, friendly person smile. Lean back. Stand up tall. Speak loudly yet clearly. Make strong eye contact. Introduce yourself and stick out your hand. Give a firm handshake. This is called being a confident human being.

If you follow the guidelines above, around 70-80% of the women you approach should give you either a neutral or positive response, assuming you’re not in an extreme environment. If you’ve handled your looks and lifestyle (Chapter 8), then expect even a higher percentage.

I’d say that about 80% of the women I approach with, “Hi, I’m Mark,” respond either neutral or warmly. And that’s regardless of where I am -- night club, coffee shop, library, hotel bar, etc. It’s where to go after the initial impression where things get tricky and where you’ll get most of your rejections. Unless you’re approaching women in a very polarizing way (in which case you’re welcoming rejection), you really should not be getting massive rejections early on.

If you are getting many rejections right on the initial approach, then it’s one of the following three things:

1. You’re presenting yourself poorly -- i.e., you dress poorly, bad looks, bad style, bad body language. Review Chapters 8 and 9 again.

2. Your intentions are off. You’re approaching for the wrong reasons. The wrong reasons include anything that is not, “She’s cute, I want to meet her.” That means, approaching for statistics, approaching for a “skill-set,” approaching to impress your friends. Approaching because you want to live up to a bunch of crap you read on the internet. These are all the WRONG reasons to approach. When you see a hot girl, you should be motivated by nothing but your desire to have sex with her. That’s it. If you have trouble finding that motivation, refer back to the section on sexual anxiety in Chapter 10.

3. You’re not following one of the guidelines above. You’re startling her. You’re trying to hard to be clever or interesting. Or you’re doing some thing technically wrong (not looking her in the eye, not smiling, etc.)

Like I said, if you have everything together, you should not be getting rejected often on the opener. I’ve coached guys who still had some major flaws (neediness, poor looks, nervousness), but having them follow the guidelines above still got more than 75% of women to at least stop and talk to them for a second.

And really that’s all the opener is trying to do: stop them and get them to talk to you for a second. It’s your conversation skills that get that second to turn into a minute and that minute to turn into an hour.

Conversation Skills

Developing conversation skills is a deep topic, and for the sake of this book, I’m only going to gloss over the most important topics and the advice that’s easiest to implement.

If you’d like to pursue your conversational skills even further, check out the Further Reading section.

The topics that we’ll cover in this section are:

- Using effective language

- Questions versus statements

- Creating endless conversation topics

- Storytelling

- Basics of emotional connection

Using Effective Language: This is the easiest “quick fix” that you can apply to your communication skills. Using effective language means speaking what you mean with the fewest words possible while still maintaining your meaning and intent.

Most people are guilty of this, but some more than others. This is where being a good writer can actually help you be a good communicator. If you’re saying something in four sentences that could be said in one, say it in one. If you are saying something in ten words that can be said in four, say it in four.

In conversation and communication quality always wins out over quantity. We would all rather here 30 seconds of AMAZING communication than 10 minutes of mediocre communication saying the same thing.

It also means removing “um,” “uh,” “ah,” “like,” “you know,” and other fillers from your everyday speaking.

Removing all of these 100% of the time is often impossible (I still drop an “um,” or “you know,” occasionally), but the more of these you remove, the more clear and coherent your speaking will be. Nothing screams a lack of sophistication like somebody who sprinkles “like” and “umm” throughout his stories constantly.

Read the following two sentences out loud: “So, um, I guess what I’m saying is like, that I never really felt at home when I lived, uh, out there, you know, in California. The people, uh, just felt kind of like, superficial to me. And I, um, didn’t like really like it a whole lot I guess.”

“I never really felt at home in California. The people felt kind of superficial to me. I didn’t really like it.”

Don’t speak like a robot either. You can still use all of the inflections, tonality and pacing on the second sentence without having to drop “um” and “like” all the time.

When you read it, you should be able to feel an immediate difference. The first one feels very casual, lackadaisical, even lazy and uninterested. The second one feels serious, stern, powerful, and clear.

If you’ve made it this far into the book, I don’t have to tell you why that’s more attractive.

Questions Versus Statements: Creating threads of conversation through statement is far more powerful than questions. This is because it assumes rapport.

Friends speak to each other in statements, not questions. Questions are a polite way of requesting information of someone. They create the frame that you desire something from her and she is obligated to fulfill your request. But statements make it so that you’re constantly giving away information and value to the other person.

Statements give you a wider array of topics to choose from. Only broad questions feel socially acceptable. Specific and eccentric questioning comes off as odd and unattractive.

For instance, if you’ve been talking to a woman at a bar for a few minutes, saying, “I love olives in my drink. When I was a kid I used to eat them straight out of the jar,” is far more interesting than, “Do you like olives in your drink?” and waiting for her response. In fact, that question is just plain weird. But that statement is interesting, and what many women would consider “cute.”

Questioning should be limited to a minimum. Often, asking her a question is unavoidable to get the conversation rolling. But once it’s rolling, you should make them few and far in between. Many guys talking to a girl in the “interview” style of conversation, which puts the girl on the spot, creates no rapport, and will drive her away.

Instead of incessant questioning, you want to develop a skill called cold-reading. Cold-reading is a skill where you’re able to intuitively “know” something about someone else without actually knowing it.

It’s like being a psychic without the cheesiness.

For our purposes, cold-reading is just a way of creating interesting statements rather than asking questions for information. You don’t ask the question you want to know, but instead you make a mild prediction.

Instead of asking her a question about herself, you guess the answer to your question and then state it. Here are some examples:

“Where are you from?” translates to: “You look like a California girl.”

“What do you do for work?” translates to: “You seem to be a creative person. I bet your job is interesting.”

“How do you guys know each other?” translates to: “You guys look like you’ve been friends for a long time.”

In each situation, the statement makes an educated guess and engages the woman far more than any question will. Instead of asking her about herself, you’re TELLING her about herself. The only thing people love more than talking about themselves is hearing about themselves. But what if you’re wrong?

That’s the best part! A lot of guys worry about cold-reading because they’re afraid to state something incorrect. This is where human nature works in our favor.

There’s no failing with cold-reading. With every cold-read, one of three things will happen:

1. You’ll be wrong, and she’ll correct you.

2. You’ll be wrong, and she’ll ask you what made you think that.

3. You’ll be right, and she’ll freak out at how perceptive you are.

In the first result, she’ll basically just answer the question you based your cold- read on and forget that you were wrong.

In the second result, you’ll be wrong, but she’ll be so intrigued by your guess, that she’ll create a deeper conversation thread about what you observed about her. Later in the chapter, we’ll talk about the importance of creating the deepest threads possible.

In the third result, the few times you get the cold-read correct, she will most likely be surprised at how perceptive you are about her. This will generate a tidal wave of rapport immediately and impress her at the same time.

Here are examples of a cold-read situation with all three different responses:

Me: “You look a bit bookish. You must be a student around here.”

Her: “No, I’m not. But I do love to read, though.”

Me: “You look a bit bookish. You must be a student around here.”

Her: “No. What made you think that? Is it my glasses? I just got them.”

Me: “You look a bit bookish. You must be a student around here.”

Her: “Yeah, I am! Wow, is it that obvious?”

You should cold-read as much as possible. Any time you’re asking a question that requires a factual answer; take a stab at the answer instead of asking.

One night, I met a girl from Chicago. I took a blind guess at which University she went to and was right. She couldn’t get over “how perceptive” I was for a good five minutes. She asked me how I knew and I told her I could tell she was on the intellectual side although I figured she probably moved because the school was located in a bad part of the city. Everything was dead-on despite being educated guesses. From that point on, she engaged me completely in conversation and was more than excited to hang out with me again.

Besides that, creating conversations out of statements protects you from “blanking.” You know when you are talking to a woman and all the sudden the conversation dies and you have no idea what to say? You’re sitting there awkwardly and the more uncomfortable you feel, the harder it is to come up with something. Eventually, you blurt out something boring like, “So… where do you live?”

Using statements can prevent this a great deal. Instead of fishing for a new conversation based on a generic question, you can simply comment about something or observe something. Never underestimate the power of non sequiturs.

“I’m thinking about quitting drinking.” “A car almost hit me on the way here tonight.” “My roommate eats peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches. It’s disgusting.” “I’ve always wanted to visit Africa.”

These will sometimes come across as random. But that’s because they are – they’re whatever thoughts are popping into your head at the moment. It’s better to be random and interesting than predictable and boring. Don’t be afraid to just blurt something out.

This works because unlike questions, statements require no investment from the other person. You can say whatever you want and there’s no implicit expectation for her to generate conversation as well.

Speaking in statements in this fashion – to generate spontaneous conversation – is important in that it forces you to share yourself with her. When you simply ask a girl questions, you aren’t giving any information about yourself, so it’s harder for her to trust you or build rapport. But if you simply state a fact about yourself and then talk about it, you are now sharing yourself AND giving her a chance to chime in with her input as well.

The amazing thing about speaking in statements is if you do it correctly, she will start asking YOU questions. This may not seem like a big deal, but it actually reorients the entire interaction. As I mentioned earlier, whoever is asking the questions is sub- communicating a desire to learn more about the other, i.e., interest, i.e., they’re attracted to them. If she is constantly seeking information from you, you now have the power to control the interaction – you control the information and the conversation.

Endless Conversation Topics: In every topic of conversation, there are countless opportunities to jump off onto other topics – there are countless word associations to be made.

For instance, let’s assume you’re talking to a woman and she says, “I never liked that club. I went there on my birthday last year, and I don’t remember anything past midnight. I woke up on my friend’s kitchen floor.”

This is loaded with opportunities to take the conversation in new directions. You could relate and talk about any of the following:

1. The club she doesn’t like.

2. What you did on your last birthday.

3. The last time you got black out drunk.

4. A story relating waking up somewhere unusual.

Any and all of these topics will be relevant and interesting to the conversation.

If you don’t already do this, it’s a habit you need to ingrain in yourself – just as the comedians ingrain off-the-wall word associations.

Here are a series of examples of statements that women may make. In them I have underlined the “jump off” points. Think of them as intersections with which you can choose which direction to move the conversation. As you read through these examples, try to come up with a statement to relate to each jump off point. This will help teach you to be prepared to speak about any topic on the spot.

1. “I go to Harvardright now. But I want to move back out west. The weather’s too coldup here.”

2. “I’m here with my friends Steve and Carrie. They’ve been dating for six months, but they fight like a married couple.”

3. “We work together downtownin the district. It’s all right, but I’m looking to change careers.”

4. “We were at this party last night. It was crazy. The cops ended up busting itand some drunken kid got arrested.”

Try re-reading through these examples and at each underlined word or phrase, try to immediately come up with a thought or response about it. For example, I see Harvard, and I think of how one time I visited there and their campus looks like a palace. I also think of friends of mine who went to Harvard. These are both legitimate places to take the conversation.

Once you become competent at this, you’ll notice that this is the way in which EVERY conversation flows. Conversations only end when one person says something to which the other person has no jump off points. This is what happens when a conversation “dies.” If you teach yourself to recognize jump off points and take advantage of them as soon as possible, you’ll be able to sustain a conversation with almost anybody indefinitely.

Combining this skill with the ability to cold-read and create conversational threads out of thin air by making statements, and you will literally develop to skill to begin and control any conversation with anybody for any length of time.

This skill is imperative to your success with women. EVERYTHING you do to attract and interest women lies on the foundation of strong conversational skills. Teaching a shy and reserved guy strong conversational ability will immediately translate to improved results.

Storytelling: Human beings, by default, are enrapt by stories, or more specifically, a story-arc. Politicians use them to campaign, teachers use them to explain important concepts, comedians use them to make us laugh, and we use them constantly in our day-today interactions.

But what you probably didn’t notice is that the best communicators you know are fantastic story-tellers.

Have you ever had a friend who would start telling you about something and it just seemed to go no where? Like, they’d start telling you about their trip to Chicago and after describing the hotel and maybe mentioning the concierge, the story just went no where?

Or have you ever known someone who consistently makes jokes that don’t completely make sense, or most people don’t ever seem to “get it?”

Or maybe you’re one of these people… Do people ever stop paying attention to you mid-story? Or do you have trouble making others laugh (intentionally, that is)?

Chances are, these people (or you), aren’t following a strong story arc. For whatever reason, humans have evolved to be absolutely fascinated when information is communicated in a certain pattern. This is true of just about any culture and background.

There are three main points of a story arc:

Set Up: The set up is exactly what it says, you’re setting the scene or the context for what you’re about to say. It’s the foundation of what’s about to be told, and if you don’t set up properly, then your stories, jokes and ideas will always seem to be random. People will consistently comment that you’re really random, weird or “off the wall.”

Content/Conflict: After setting up what you’re going to talk about, you get into the actual content. This can also be the “conflict” in your story. Whatever it is, it’s something that causes tension and expectancy. The content of your story needs to be intriguing and hook people into wanting to know what will happen next. If you don’t build much tension with the content of your stories, you will find people losing interest or get the feeling like you ramble on a lot.

Resolution: The resolution releases the tension from the conflict or content. Resolutions can come in forms of punchlines (for jokes), conclusions (for ideas), or just closure for a generic story. People who don’t resolve their stories and ideas well will often get blank stares when they’re finished speaking, or people asking them, “Yeah, and…?” not realizing that the story is finished.

When I was in college, my first roommate had a funny habit whenever he got drunk. He’d basically turn into a narcoleptic — he’d spontaneously fall asleep in strange places and at random moments. (Set up)

Well, literally the first night I knew this guy, he and I go out to some orientation party. We meet a couple girls and go back to their dorm with them. He and I are totally drunk and I notice he’s kind of stopped talking to his girl and is dozing off in the corner. Kind of weird, but it was like 3AM, so whatever. Suddenly, he says he’s going to go and gets up and leaves. I think nothing of it until I go home, wake up the next morning and he’s still not back. Hours pass and I start getting worried. (Content/Conflict)

It turns out that the guy went out into the hallway lobby, laid down on the floor and slept there the whole night. But not only that, he left his jacket in the girl’s room. So at like 9 in the morning he had to sneak back in, wake her up and take his jacket back. It was pretty hilarious at the time. But yeah, that was my college roommate. (Resolution)

Often adding a line like, “Yeah, that was my college roommate,” is good because it indicates that the story is finished and that you’re finished speaking.

I knew I wasn’t meant for the 9 to 5 world almost immediately. Out of college, I took a nice job at a prestigious bank in downtown Boston. (Setup)

I hated it from day one. In fact, I remember thinking about three hours into the first day, “I wonder how long I have to work here before I can leave?” (Conflict/Content)

My next thought was, “This is probably a bad sign.” (Resolution)

Notice that I allude to the conclusion in the beginning of my story. This is called “foreshadowing” and often helps people follow along. Also notice that it really doesn’t matter how long or short each component of the story is as long as you convey the correct information.

When most people talk about a crazy city, I don’t think they’ve ever been to South America. I lived down there for a few months last Spring and you see things every week that are just beyond our reality here. (Setup)

Like one night, we hopped in a cab to go to another night club. It was a Tuesday at about 4am. The taxi driver promptly turns around and asks us if we’d like to try some of his cocaine. We politely refuse. So the cabbie says in Spanish, “Fine, more for me.” He then proceeds to do lines of coke while driving 50mph with his knees. (Content/Conflict)

We all thought we were going to die that night. (Resolution) All true stories by the way… At the end of this step, I will provide a lot of similar exercises to this for you to practice your storytelling. When I meet guys with poor conversational abilities, storytelling is almost always a glaring reason why.

In the last section, we talked about “jump off points” in conversation and how that’s how we learn to relate to one another in conversation. The examples showed jump off points in individual sentences.

Well, in real life, people speak in more than sentences, they speak to each other in stories. So you’ll want to develop the ability to formulate entire STORIES around jump off points, as well as notice jump off points within entire stories.

This is actually much easier than it sounds, and you probably do it naturally with your friends and family in a lot of situations. The idea is to just do it consistently and naturally and with ANYBODY, including attractive women.

We’ve put together some in-depth exercises to complete Step 5 for you to practice just that.

What I’ve also noticed working with guys over the years, is that for those with trouble with conversation skills and storytelling, it takes quite a bit of practice for them. So if this is your particular problem area, you may want to continue to do the exercises while moving on through the program.

Relating and Connecting: he final goal of a successful conversation is to actually make a personal connection with the woman you’re talking to.

When you are talking to a woman, there are only two REAL subjects of conversation: her and you. Everything you speak about should be, in some way, revealing your identity to her or her identity to you.

This uncovering of identity is what creates the sense of a “connection”. The greater the connection you create, the more she’ll want to spend more time with you and vice-versa.

Making a connection requires three steps: being open about yourself; getting her to be open about herself; relating to her experience.

Most guys have trouble talking about themselves period. The only times they usually feel comfortable talking about themselves is with their mothers or once they’ve known somebody for a few years. As a rule, we tend to be fairly shut off from those around us.

Men feel more comfortable talking about things OUTSIDE of themselves: sports, politics, cars, movies, girls, etc. Women on the other hand are only engaged when they ARE talking about themselves (or each other). This is why they’re constantly gossiping, creating drama or people watching.

To connect with a woman, you NEED to learn to communicate this way. Sorry, but talking about politics won’t create a unique connection with a woman (unless she’s extremely passionate about it).

So what do you talk about? How do you talk about yourself openly? When I tell guys “talk about yourself more. Open up.” A lot of them go out and say, “I’m from New York. I like baseball. I’m 27.” It’s good that they’re sharing themselves now, but that’s a bit shallow.

Take out a sheet of paper and write down three things for each of the following:

- Your passions and favorite things to do.

- Your dreams, ambitions, life goals.

- The best/worst things that have happened to you.

- Your childhood, family life, and upbringing.

Now, go back to each item you wrote down and talk about it to yourself for one minute. Try to be as detailed and honest as possible. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Even when you’re alone sometimes talking about these subjects makes you a little uneasy.

Most men feel a bit vulnerable when talking about these topics, especially to women. That’s the point.

Be willing to share any part of yourself to anyone at any time and on any level. You have nothing to lose by sharing yourself. At the worst, she’ll reject you and – well, she’s going to reject you if all you do is talk about sports and your job anyway, so what’s the problem?

What you’ll actually find is when you share something deeper and personal about yourself, it will be genuine and she’ll immediately respond to that by being genuine herself.

Ideally, sharing these aspects of yourself will encourage her to share them in herself. You want to get her to talk about her passions, her ambitions, her best experiences and her most vulnerable experiences. These are the topics that define us as humans and make us unique – i.e., different from the last 20 guys who talked to her.

These are the topics of conversation that will make you stand out. Why? Because she knows you. Not your favorite sports team. Not the party you went to last week… but you.

And when she knows you and remembers you, she’ll make sure to pick up the phone when you call and meet up with you again.

In Conclusion: When it comes to conversations, there’s a lot to cover. Reading this last section may have been overwhelming for you. If so, just remember: break it up into little chunks, practice one thing at a time.

If conversation is a particular issue for you, and you’d like help structuring it and working on it, then check out some of the resources in the Further Reading section at the end of the book.

But now that we’ve covered how to hold a dynamic and interesting conversation, let’s talk about how to spice it up. Let’s talk about humor...

Humor

Humor is an integral part of being an attractive man. In polls all over the world, when women are asked to rate the most attractive quality in a man, a strong sense of humor almost always wins out.

There’s an old saying, if you can make a woman laugh then you can get her to laugh right into bed. Now, although humor is not a cure-all for anybody’s dating problems, it’s definitely important.

The reason is that a strong sense of humor conveys all of the right traits to a woman. A man who can laugh easily at the world and who isn’t afraid to laugh at the world conveys a low levels of neediness. He also makes women feel good around him. A man who is very serious and very unable to laugh at himself or the world, conveys that he is heavily invested in the perceptions of the world around him and is therefore needy.

Your specific type of sense of humor isn’t so important as much as that you have it. Obviously, different women will respond strongly to different types of humor, but this is less a function of your ability to tell jokes and more of demographics. Focus on what you find funny to you personally, and don’t be afraid to share that with the women you meet. If they laugh, then great! If they don’t, then chances are it won’t go anywhere.

At it’s core, humor is the art of drawing connections between two seemingly unrelated ideas or objects. There are a number of ways to do this, but at it’s core, humor is a creative activity, and therefore will greatly be tied to your ability to uninhibitedly express yourself. Sometimes your jokes will fall flat, particularly when you’re starting out. That’s OK. Don’t laugh at yourself. Don’t make fun of yourself. Don’t try to explain the joke. The worst thing you can do when you make a joke that nobody laughs at is to draw more attention to yourself. Just act like nothing happened and move on.

In this section, I’ll give a brief overview of a few types of humor: misdirection, exaggeration, sarcasm, wordplay and roleplaying.

Misdirection: One of the most common and easiest forms of humor is misdirection. Misdirection occurs when you begin to say something or tell a story which leads the listener to believe you’re making one point, and then out of no where you say something completely different. For instance, here’s a famous line by Steve Martin:

“You know that look women get when they want to have sex? ... Yeah, me neither.”

The line sets you up to believe that he’s going to tell you a story about the time a woman gave him a look like she wanted to have sex with him. But he misdirects you and ends up making a joke about his own sexual inexperience. Here’s another one from Jimmy Fallon:

“There’s a new book out called ‘Why Women Have Sex’ that says there are 237 reasons why women have sex. And folks, David Letterman knows the top 10.”

Again, he sets up the joke by telling you about a new book out relating to why women have sex. But he then takes the idea of of there being 237 reasons why women have sex and relating it to David Letterman’s famous “Top 10” segments on his show and the fact that Letterman sleeps with his interns. It’s the connection of these two seemingly unrelated topics that makes it funny.

Exaggeration: Exaggeration is another mainstay of humor and something that everyone should be able to use. Exaggeration is when you take a quality about something, and blow it completely out of proportion, often in a creative or interesting way. For instance:

“She’s a nice woman though, nicest three acres of flesh I’ve ever met.”

Obviously, no woman actually has three acres worth of flesh. But the exaggeration of her being fat is what causes this line to be funny. There’s also a subtle misdirection in the line (going form “she’s nice” to “she’s fat”).

Typically, the more creative and extreme you are in describing your exaggeration, the funnier it will be. For instance, notice the difference in how funny the following two lines are:

“She was as ugly as a dog.”

“I’ve seen more attractive things in the bottom of an airport urinal.”

Notice the second one is far more extreme and creative. The completely unrelated ideas of an airport urinal and a girl’s face (I’m laughing just typing this) is what creates the greater degree of humor.

In humor, the more specific and odd the details, typically the more funny a joke is.

Teasing and Sarcasm: Whereas misdirection and exaggeration are funny to just about anybody, you’ll run into a minority of women who don’t find teasing or sarcasm funny. Teasing and sarcasm can also vary in degrees of appropriateness, especially depending on where you are. If you’re at a funeral, it’s probably not a good idea to make sarcastic comments about the deceased’s family.

Teasing is when you make humorous comments that are derogatory about someone. Generally, teasing is done in good humor and with good intentions. Teasing with bad intentions becomes insulting and is not welcome by most people.

Teasing is supposed to be fun. The ideal tease will create a mixture of emotions in a girl: defensiveness yet happiness. The ideal reaction is when a girl will say, “Oh my god, I can’t believe you said that,” but will be laughing at the same time and smiling. Here are a couple examples of teases:

(To a girl wearing bright red shoes)

“Are you going to click your heels to go home later?”

(To a girl sitting by herself in the corner looking bored)

“So who put you in timeout?”

(To a girl waving a dollar bill at the bartender to get his attention)

“Is that how you always get men to pay attention to you?”

Be careful with teases, especially to women you don’t know. I said the last one to a woman I didn’t know and got slapped. Then again, I still slept with her, but when you tease frequently and freely, be prepared for a wide range of emotional responses. Teasing polarizes, often hard and quickly. Therefore it’s a good tactic, but not always exactly pleasant.

Sometimes girls will genuinely be offended or sensitive to teasing and not react well. I’d say maybe 1/3 out of women I meet do not react well to teasing or a good-natured ribbing. Make a point to spot these women and let the teasing go. Generally women who don’t enjoy being teased really appreciate genuine compliments, so I switch it up.

Sarcasm is an even darker form of humor than teasing. Sarcasm works on even fewer women, but the women who appreciate it REALLY appreciate it. Chances are a lot of you reading this don’t have a very sarcastic sense of humor. That’s fine. You can just live a sexless and lonely life forever.

(That was sarcasm if you missed it.)

Seriously, sarcasm isn’t for everybody. Sarcasm is when you make an extreme statement that’s completely opposite of what you actually mean. You often say it with complete seriousness and without smiling.

A lot of women won’t get sarcastic humor. They’ll think you’re being serious or they’ll get confused. Others don’t enjoy it very much. But I will say, in my experience, when a woman loves sarcasm, she LOVES sarcasm.

Years ago, I was out with a girl at a bar. We had been flirting all night and she had a very sarcastic sense of humor. At one point she looked at my drink and said, “You drink slow, I’ve already finished my drink!”

I replied with a totally straight face, “Not all of us hate ourselves like you do.”

She erupted with laughter for a good 30 seconds, while simultaneously saying, “Oh my god, I can’t believe you just said that to me.” Needless to say, it was on from there and we went home together.

The Role of Swearing: Swearing and dirty language has an interesting role in humor. Many types of humor, such as sarcasm and exaggeration require a certain level of edginess to pack a powerful punch.

Using dirty language or swear words is kind of a cheap and easy way to make whatever you say more extreme. For instance, adding the word “fucking” into just about any humorous statement will make it pack a little more of a punch.

At the same time, using swear words is kind of a short-cut, and if you use them too often, they’ll get old quickly and sound try-hard. Dropping a well-timed F-bomb can make a funny joke even funnier. But dropping an F-bomb into everything you say just makes you look unsophisticated.

Generally, the older you are, the more I recommend avoiding dirty language. Use it sparingly and only use it when you have a specific reason to. The more you use it, the more attention-seeking and negative you will make yourself appear, both of which are unattractive traits.

Wordplay and Puns: Wordplay is similar to misdirection in that the listener expects one type of meaning and gets another, but wordplay practices misdirection by using words that have various meanings. A few examples:

“Hurry, a passenger is ill. We need to get to a hospital.” “What is it?”

“It’s a building with lots of doctors. But we don’t have time for that.”

Or:

“Surely, you can’t be serious!”

“I am serious. And please, don’t call me Shirley.”

I would say that puns and wordplay are even a rarer form of appreciated humor than sarcasm. Puns and wordplay also tend to be very intellectual. You’ll find few women who appreciate them. And chances are even fewer of you reading this like to say them. But again, when you do find a woman who appreciates them, in my experience she REALLY appreciates them.

Roleplaying and Games: Games and roleplaying are quick and easy ways to inject fun into any interaction with a woman. They’re playful. And they open up plenty of opportunities for other types of humor when you use them.

Games can be anything from basic physical games (hand slaps, thumb wars, etc.) to word games (five questions game, fuck/marry/ kill, etc.). For instance, fuck/marry/kill is easy. You point to three random people in the room and you say, “OK, out of those three people, who would you fuck, who would marry and who would you kill, and why?”

This game can lead to quite of bit of interesting conversation based on people-watching.

Roleplaying can be just as energizing and fun. Roleplaying basically involves giving the woman you’re talking to a fake role, and then playing around with that role. Some of my favorite roleplaying involves marriage/divorce roleplaying.

For instance, when I first meet a girl, let’s say within 30 seconds she says something I don’t like. I’ll say, “That’s it, we’re getting divorced.” It’s funny because I just met her, but you can actually milk a lot of fun out of something simple like this -- i.e., “You keep the kids, I’m moving the Europe.” “By the way, your music sucks, and I never liked your casseroles either.”

If you find yourself having a lot of trouble with humor, I recommend watching a lot of stand up comedians. Some of my favorites are Louis CK, George Carlin, Bill Maher, Bill Hicks, and Chris Rock. Pay attention to their delivery, their timing, their facial expressions. These things can’t be taught in a book, so pay attention to them. Pick a few of your favorite comics and watch their stand up routines multiple times to get a real sense of how they tell a story and how they nail a punchline.

Also, beware of falling into the trap of self-deprecating humor. A lot of men, particularly needy men who are highly invested in other people’s reactions around them, will make fun of themselves and put themselves down in order to get a laugh.

Although this may make women laugh, it’s a needy behavior and lacks self-respect. Therefore, it’s ultimately unattractive. Guys with a good sense of humor who habitually use it on themselves, I recommend turning those same jokes and thoughts onto the women you’re talking to. Instead of making fun of yourself, make fun of the girl you’re talking to. It may feel uncomfortable at first, but you’ll be surprised at how it will blow your interactions wide open and infuse more sexuality and playfulness into them.

Humor is not a cure-all for your problems with attracting and seducing women (if there were a cure-all, it’d be physicality; Chapter 15). Some naturally funny men overly rely on their ability to make a girl laugh and actually over-do it. Instead of being attractive and strong men, they become entertainers constantly seeking attention and validation. The worst part about this habit is that it all happens while making the woman laugh and making her enjoy your company. So a lot of men get confused and actually think that they’re seducing her. She’s smiling. She’s laughing. She likes me. I must be seducing her, right?

Sadly, no. Humor is only useful if used in conjunction with leading her in a dominant manner and pushing things physically with her.

Ultimately, you aren’t ever really attracting a woman unless you’re connecting with her physically and emotionally. And although humor is a very useful tool to HELP you do that. It doesn’t actually do it for you.

Chapter 14: The Dating Process

“I don’t have a girlfriend. I just know a lady who would get really angry if she heard me say that.”- Mitch Hedberg, Comedian

Like it or not, the dating process follows a somewhat rigid process. You meet girl, ask girl on date, correspond with girl, set up date with girl, correspond with girl, set up second date with girl, repeat until eventually you bring girl home with you, and at some point you decide if you’re exclusive, non-exclusive, a casual couple, fuck buddies, soul-mates, or never want to see each other ever again.

There are exceptions to this process, and the process can be sped up to a degree, but more or less, there’s a courtship process that we all must follow.

Our culture has kind of defined a procedure for these things, and any man who wishes to be successful dating and seducing women needs to be aware of the procedure as well as knowing when he can or can’t cut some corners.

The process almost always involves the following: trading of contact details along with following up, dates, either bringing her home or going home with her, having sex, and then figuring out what kind of relationship (if any) will result. In certain instances, the contact details and date can be forgone and you can bring her home (or go home with her) the day/night you meet her. But these cases are rare, usually involve meeting a woman in a party or night club situation and we won’t get into a whole lot of depth about it.

Phone Numbers

There’s a minor obsession in dating advice and pick up theory about phone numbers, correspondence and so-called “text game” or “flake prevention.”

Flaking is a term used to describe a woman who gives you her phone number, says she wants to see you again and then either never responds or returns your call, or never shows up on a date. Flakes can simply be women who never respond to you, or women who respond but keep side-stepping meeting up with you.

Obsessing about flakes and how to win them over is an easy trap to fall into. But in my opinion, this is treating the symptom, not the illness.

The way to prevent flakes is to meet and attract a woman enough so that she’ll never want to flake on you.

Problem solved.

In my experience, 99% of the so-called flake prevention strategies guys implement -- calling at certain times, baiting with open-ended texts, pretending to send a text to the “wrong person,” -- these will rarely convince a girl who was never attracted to you to suddenly become attracted to you. And even if by some chance they do convince her to meet up with you, you’re now on a date with a woman who has no genuine interest being there with you and is probably hoping to cash in on a free dinner.

Similarly, men spend way too much time obsessing over unimportant details like how many times to text each day, how soon to call her, when to ask her out, etc. Setting rigid rules such as “Wait three days to ask her out” or “Never text her twice in a row,” greatly limits you and will hinder the unique connection you spent your time developing with the woman. And by the way, it’s that connection that’s going to get her out to see you again, not the clever text you spent 45 minutes coming up with.

But with that said, here is my version of “The Rules” to calling and texting women:

- Only ask a woman for her phone number if she seems genuinely attracted and interested in you. Only ask for her number if you can see yourself wanting to hang out with her again or having time to hang out with her again. If you meet a girl who is in town for a bachellorette party for three days, is drunk, and you have a serious meeting at work in two days, don’t bother. If you’re concerned that you don’t know how to tell if she’s attracted to you or not, there’s a section later in this chapter that covers signals women give you.

- When you ask her for her phone number, don’t come up with a fancy line or make up a reason. Just ask her for it. If you’re attracted to her, you shouldn’t be afraid to hide it (you’re a nonneedy, dominant man, remember?). If she’s attracted to you, she’ll be more than excited to give it to you. Most women will always give you their number when you ask. Even if they don’t like you or have no intention of ever seeing you again, they’ll give it to you. It’s simply far easier for them to ignore calls from guys they don’t like than to reject every guy to their face.

- Flakes happen to everybody. Get used to it. There are simply too many things going on in most attractive women’s lives to figure out why each one flakes. It could be because her ex-boyfriend started calling her again. It could be because she met her soulmate the day after she met you. It could be because she got in a freak accident and is in the hospital. It could be because she got sick and was bedridden. Sometimes women just don’t feel like dating for a while. Sometimes they don’t remember you well because they were drunk when they met you. Sometimes they lose their phone. Sometimes they just change their mind the next day. And sometimes they just don’t care enough.

There are a million legitimate reasons women can flake other than then not being attracted to you. Trying to figure out which ones are flaking for legitimate reasons and which ones are not is more or less an impossible task. You’re better off just letting it go and moving on. In the end, it comes down to the fact that if she likes you enough, she’ll find a way to make it happen. If she’s not finding a way to make it happen, then she probably doesn’t like you as much as you thought she did.

Think of it this way. If Brad Pitt texted her asking her out, do you think she could suddenly clear her busy work schedule and move her weekend plans back? I think so. If she’s not doing that for you, then she’s just not that interested. Sorry Charlie.

- -My policy with flakes is “Three strikes you’re out.” If a woman flakes once, I’ll try her a second time. If she doesn’t respond the second time, I may or may not give it a third shot, but typically if I do, I don’t put much effort into the third attempt. Often I will only try a woman once or twice. If there’s still nothing after the third attempt, I move on.

- A lot of women will give you excuses why they can’t meet up, cancel dates, push dates back, or simply stop responding. Sometimes they have legitimate reasons. Sometimes they’re making excuses. This is why at the first reason they give, I always give them the benefit of the doubt and try again. The second time, if I’m particularly interested in them and/or I think they genuinely have had two legitimate excuses, I will try them one more time. Often I will even tell them, “OK, last chance though.” After the third try, I just let them go. It’s not worth the time or effort at that point.

- I always text within 24 hours of getting her number. I send a simple text: “Hey Sara, it was nice meeting you.” That’s it. Most girls who are interested in you will respond somewhat quickly. The ones who do not respond to this will usually flake on you.

- From there, I usually wait another day or so and start a text conversation. I like to reference a conversation we had when we met in this text to try and keep some continuity. The goal here is nothing special, just trying to get a little bit of back and forth going. It’s been over 24 hours and I’m seeing how warm the lead still is. Typically, if I can get a text conversation going here, then she’s pretty likely to go on a date with me. If her responses are few and far between, then she’s likely a flake.

Don’t get fancy and try to re-invent the wheel here. Don’t get cute or try to win her over if she’s not responding very much. Your leg work was put in when you met her, now you’re stuck with what you earned. I’ve found that the cuter or harder you try to win girls over by text, the bigger chance you have of looking needy and desperate and losing them.

Joke and tease her if she’s being responsive. If she’s not, stick to trying to get her out ASAP.

- Depending how the text conversation goes, I’ll either ask her out right then and there, or I’ll wait another day or two depending on my schedule. It used to be expected that you call women, but texting has quickly overtaken phone calls. Back in 2005 when I started this stuff, I called every number I got. Now I almost never call a girl unless she specifically asks that I call her. I would say in the last year, over 90% of my dates have been set up through texting.

- I have to say this again. Don’t get fancy or cute in your texts. Texting is, in general, an awful medium for communication. Often if you try to get too sarcastic or witty in your texts, they can be easily misinterpreted or come off with a completely different intention than you originally had. And remember, everything comes back to intention. So clear, blunt language. I tell guys that I only use texting to organize when she and I are going to see each other next. Literally, that’s what 90% of my texts consist of, things like, “Hey, what are you doing Thursday night?” or “I’m busy this weekend, but I want to see you again.”

My text conversations are boring. Just to give you an example of a typical text conversation, I’ve posted below a transcript of the texting I did with the last girl I went out on a date with. Some background first, this was a girl I met in a nightclub at about 1AM and spent no more than 60-90 minutes with her. There was light kissing, but mostly just talking and dancing. No drinking (this is a biggie actually). And before she went home I mentioned that I’d like to see her the next day. She said sure.

Me: Hey Maryna, it was nice meeting you tonight.

Her: You too! :)

Me (next day): Hey, you said you work until 4PM, right?

Her: Yes, do you still want to meet?

Me: Yeah. How about 7:30?

Her: Can we do 8?

Me: Sure. In the city center?

Her: Yes, in front of the X restaurant. Do you know where it is?

Me: Yea, see you there.

Her: See you soon. :)

That’s it. I’d say 75% of my text correspondence looks like that.

But just to show you the other extreme, here’s a more unusual text transcript I had with a girl in England a few months ago. This is about as “gamey” as I ever get.

Me: Hey Natalie, it was nice meeting you tonight.

Her: Hey, I have your phone number now. ;)

Me: Good, talk to you soon.

Me (next day): Hey Natalie, how was the rest of your night?

Her: Great. We were tired and went back a bit early though.

Me: Good. Are you free tomorrow evening? Let’s meet up for a drink.

Her: OK. When did you have in mind?

Me: How about 8 at X, do you know it?

Her: Yes I do. 8 it is. I’ll text you tomorrow. Good night.

Me: Good night.

Her (next day): Hey, I’m overloaded at work and may not be able to meet you tonight. Sorry. I hope you enjoy England.

Me: Come on Natalie. When you’re old and grey are you going to wish you worked more, or wish you went on more dates with American boys?

Her: Haha! Very true. Let me see what I can do.

Her (later): OK, I finished early. I can meet you. :)

Notice how the only bit of “game” I threw at her was when she showed hesitance to meet up. The only reason I did this is because I knew I was going to lose her if I didn’t amp things up, show my desire for her again and polarize things a bit to prevent the flake. I did that. And it worked.

Or did it?

Natalie never showed up. She called me at about 7:40PM and explained to me that although she really liked me a lot, that because I was leaving England in a few days, she couldn’t justify coming on a date with me. It was clear she felt bad about it, but her values were clear.

I respected that decision and told her that that’s fine, that she’s a beautiful girl and that she deserves a great guy who will stick around. And I meant it.

And unfortunately, this has consistently been my experience. A flake is a flake. No matter what you text. Even if you can create a temporary illusion that she wants to meet up with you. When it comes down to her spending the time to get ready and come out and meet you, there has to be that initial attraction and connection from when you met. I’ve tried every kind of “text game” and line in the book, and ultimately it always comes back to this: how well did you game her when you met her. Because things always revert back to that level.

If anything, being cute and trying to impress will only hurt you, as it will come across as needy and unattractive. One of the quickest ways to lose a girl is by texting her stuff that’s way too try-hard.

When in doubt, be plain and to-the-point.

This often disappoints some guys. They get really excited about sending fancy or brilliant texts that magically change a girl’s mind on a dime. Don’t bother. Short of lying or manipulation, it almost never works.

You’re not going to be texting Shakespearean Sonnets to her. Get her to agree to meet up as soon as possible and then do all of the heavy lifting in person, where you can interact physically, where she can see your intentions and your non-neediness, and where you’re not limited to 120 characters at a time or whatever.

When it comes time to meet for the date, don’t make a big deal out of whether she’s late or not. Most women are late. She’s not “testing” you. She’s probably just a disorganized woman who got nervous and spent an extra 20 minutes in front of the mirror for you. Traffic happens a lot. And some girls are terrible drivers and get lost. I usually give women 10-20 minutes leeway and then if I haven’t heard from them by then with an explanation of why they’re late or when they’re coming, then I go. If she’s apologetic about it, then follow the “Three Strikes You’re Out” rule. If she’s not, then I drop her.

That’s it.

(No, really, that’s all.)

The Perfect Date

Despite how nervous you get before them, dates are perhaps the most straightforward part of this entire process. Go to the right venues, go at the right times, avoid the obvious pitfalls, and you should be in the clear. The guidelines in this step are very straightforward. So listen up …

When to Go on Dates: Don’t do lunch dates, and never make an afternoon date the first date if possible. Just don’t do it. For whatever reason, nothing says, “let’s just be friends,” more than having lunch together.

Save dates for the night time. It builds a greater sense of expectation. There’s more flexibility to spend more time together. It’s more of a commitment. And it leaves the option open for you or her sleeping over.

So the next issue is, which night should you go on a date?

Not all nights are made the same. For instance, most attractive women are always busy on the weekends and have other plans — so getting her out on a Friday is a big commitment and less likely. On the other hand, a Monday night is most likely going to have her needing to get up early the next morning or being stressed out, so if things go well, you’re more likely to have things cut short. As a guideline, asking a woman out on each day of the week go from best to worst as follows:

1. Thursday

2. Wednesday

3. Sunday

4. Tuesday

5. Monday

6. Friday

7. Saturday

As far as when to go, it’s going to depend a lot on what you’re doing. But you want to allow yourself time for at least three one hour activities (more on that later). So anywhere between 6PM to 9PM. Later than that, and you limit your time together. Earlier than that, and you get a day-time vibe and the date will usually run out of steam before she has to go home. You want to time the date, so that you are peaking together at around 10PM or 11PM and she has the, “I need to go home, but I don’t want to yet,” feeling.

Where to Go: Absolutely NO movie dates. Movie dates are terrible. You don’t get to talk, you sit awkwardly next to each other, and it’s impossible to touch her without being awkward (importance of this will be delved into next chapter).

Avoid dinner dates if at all possible. They’re cliche. They’re impersonal. Once again, it’s almost impossible to touch sexually. And believe it or not, a lot of women are self-conscious about eating in front of you, food selection, etc. Also, you can avoid the awkward “who pays?” situation — which we’ll talk about in the next article.

Good date locations are locations that are active, participatory, and allow for touching and flirting. Alcohol is usually helpful as well. Some good examples include: comedy clubs, dance classes, museum exhibits, walks in interesting places (plazas, parks, etc.), concerts, etc.

A lot of places to go will depend on your town. I recommend using Yelp.com to find interesting places around you. For instance, there used to be a bowling alley/night club venue near my old apartment in Boston. It was a lot of fun. You could bowl together (participatory, active, allows flirting) as well as have waitresses bring you drinks.

Bars and night clubs are fine if you both are into those kinds of venues… just make sure that if you go, you end up there alone. A date with friends is not a date. This will often happen if she suggests a bar to go: “Oh, we can meet my friend Cindy there…” Chances are if she wants to hang out with her friend with you, then it’s no longer a date.

Finally, you need to find venues and activities that are close to either your place or her place. What I recommend doing, is researching and finding at least 4-6 good date venues or activities that are within a short drive of your house or apartment. Even better is if you can find a few places that are within walking distance. On top of that, you’ll want to know of good and popular places to go all over town to account for women who may live far from you. There will be times where logistics will dictate that you’ll have to drive out to see her, rather than the other way around. This is fine, but you’ll still often be expected to come up with ideas on where to go or what to do, so there’s no excuse for not being prepared.

The logic is simple: the closer the venues are to your place or hers, the easier it will be to end up at your place or hers at the end of the night.

You need at least 4-6 venues or activities near you to account both for the various personalities of the women you’re going out with, and also because you will want to construct dates that go to more than one venue. More on that in the next section.

Once you’ve researched and found 4-6 venues and activities near your place that you enjoy doing, that are good date activities and are easily accessible, it’s time to start putting them together. The ideal amount of places/activities per date is three.

This may sound weird to you, but this is key. Most men do dinner, drinks and then sit at the table for another hour chatting away. On our dates, we are DOING things… lots of things. We’re going bowling, having drinks, dancing, checking out statues in the park and carriage riding … all in three hours.

There’s something strange in human psychology. Our level of intimacy with one another doesn’t come from how much we talk about, as much as it comes from the experiences we share. These dates are designed to create as much mutual experience as possible in the least amount of time as possible. Here are some examples of solid dates:

Meet for coffee -> get ice cream down the street -> check out the big swing in the park by house

Salsa class -> Drinks next door afterwards -> Your apartment next door

Interactive Improv comedy show -> Walk through the local park -> Dancing at a lounge near her place

Include dancing if at all possible, as it’s the most sexual date activity possible. Also, if you two decide to drink, try to drink as the second or last venues/activities. Basically you want the sexual tension to peak right as it’s time to go home.

How to Act on a Date: As I mentioned before, you want your dates to be interactive. You want to be able to walk around, be able to touch and be as interactive as possible.

For instance, there’s a great place in my city that is half bowling alley, half night club. You can bowl with the girl, have a few drinks then take her to go dance.

The underlying concept to have on a date is that you need to constantly be leading.

Every decision should be yours and she should be expected to follow it. Remove, “What do you want to do now?” from your dating vocabulary. Never say it again.

It should be like this: “Hey, let’s grab some tacos, I know a cool stand over here,” “I got an idea, I’m going to kick your ass in air hockey,” “Let’s check out the Science museum, they have an awesome exhibit on the human body,” etc.

As far as what to talk about, your conversations should be getting deeper and more personal. There should be less teasing and playful banter and more conversations about your lives and what’s important to you. Learn about her past, her passions, her dreams, what her favorite things are.

At the same time, you don’t want to turn this into a job interview (which too many dinner dates turn into), but elicit these topics by sharing them yourself. Again, this is the time to practice the concepts you learned about last chapter, and this is where they should come to fruition. If you do everything well and right, then you should be kissing her by the second half of the first date and even take her home and have sex on many of your first dates.

Finally, the big question in our post-feminism world: who pays? This question plagued me for a while. I used to be of the mind that I shouldn’t ever have to pay for women… but I actually lost a few that way. Sure, I think it’s ridiculous, and I prefer a woman who is fine taking care of herself. But after dating a lot of these women, I realized that there’s an intrinsic sense of chivalry that they enjoy and makes them feel feminine and sexy.

After all, the primary attractor in women is status and security. Taking care of them and paying for them can often lend itself to that. So why not?

The caveat is that most women will offer to pay out of politeness… but you’re supposed to turn them down because it’s the gentleman thing to do (or something like that). Look, I didn’t make this stuff up, but after being on probably 100+ dates with dozens of women, this is what works for me:

Pay unless she physically pulls out her wallet/credit card and stops you. Until she physically does that, just pay. Yes, once in a while you can get women buying you drinks and stuff — there are even ways to influence them to do this — but at the end of the day, unless you’re broke, take care of them. It’s a no-lose move and it will win you points with many of them.

Signals Women Give

The final section of this chapter covers how to interpret signals of attraction that women give you.

Men are notoriously bad at recognizing “signals” women give them when they’re interested. In the courtship process, it’s always the man’s responsibility to take action and make the moves, and the woman’s responsibility to give him signals. The evolutionary reasons were explained in Chapter 1 and 2.

This section will merely be a list of things to keep a look out for. Review it and make a point to note these when they happen when you’re out and meeting women. Ideally, the better you get at conversing and meeting them, the more signals you’ll receive.

Pre-Approach Signals

- Non-Accidental Eye Contact: When in doubt, assume it’s not accidental. Humans are programed to look at and focus on whatever they’re either curious about or that they find attractive. If she’s looking at you even 10% more than the average stranger, then she’s at least somewhat curious/interested in you. I make a point to approach every woman who makes non-accidental eye contact me, and it serves me well.

- Smiling: If eye contact means she’s interested, this means “you better come talk to me!”

- She Approaches You: This goes without saying, although a lot of guys are so oblivious, they even miss this. If a woman approaches you, even if it’s to ask the time, about the weather, for directions, or whatever, chances are she has some interest in talking to you.

- Proximity: This one is subtle, but the more you work on your lifestyle, body language and style, the more of these you will get. It’s when a woman places herself near you when she doesn’t have to. For instance, let’s say you’re sitting on a bus and an attractive woman gets on. The entire bus is empty, yet she comes over and sits across from you. That means she wants you to talk to her. Some other examples are when a woman comes and stands near you in a store or shop looking at nothing in particular for a long amount of time.

Conversation Signals

- Excessive Smiling/Laughing: This is subjective and will require some judgment, but sometimes you will notice one girl smiling and laughing a lot more than others when you speak. Chances are she likes you.

- Flipping or Playing with Her Hair: Classic signal of flirtation.

- Eyes Dilate: Studies have shown our eyes dilate when we look at someone we’re attracted to. Hard to notice, especially in some nighttime scenario. But this gives her eyes a much bigger and wider look than normal… what you may call “big doe eyes.”

- Standing Closer to You Than Normal: self explanatory. Pay attention to where she positions herself.

- Excessive Eye Contact: Same as excessive smiling. If she’s locked onto your gaze during a conversation, that means she’s very interested in what you have to say. Most people break eye contact very often, especially with people they just meet. If she doesn’t, that means she’s interested in you.

- Prioritizes You: Another very subjective one. This can be very subtle. But it’s when her actions subtly show you that she prioritizes you over interacting with others. The classic example here is if you meet a girl at a bar and her friends come over and try to talk to her and she ignores her friends. Most women, if they don’t like you, will drop you like a hot potato when their friends come around. But if she ignores her friends or stays with you instead of walking off with her friends, then that’s a clear indication that she likes to be around you.

Escalation Signals

- Isolates Herself with You: Often times the most overt advances a woman will make won’t be in actually making a move (that’s your job), but they’ll actively work to put you in the easiest situation possible. Let’s say I’ve been hanging out with a girl for most of the night and suddenly she says, “let’s step outside for some fresh air, this bar is noisy,” she’s purposely isolating herself with me as much as possible. This typically means she wants to be kissed.

- Ditches Her Friends For You: Goes along with the above… it takes a lot for a woman to leave her friends behind for a guy, especially one she’s only known for a few hours or one night. If she does this, take it as a green light

- Touches You: Whether it’s un-provoked or her reciprocating you touching her (Chapter 15), this is a clear signal that she likes you and wants you to continue escalating with her physically.

Chapter 15: Physicality and Sex

“My girlfriend always laughs during sex... no matter what she’s reading.”- Emo Phillips, Comedian

I’m going to say this point-blank: getting physical with women, and getting physical quickly and comfortable, is ultimately what will determine how much success you have with women in the long-run more than anything else.

Being physical with women is by far the most integral piece of seduction and dating women. If you have it, you will constantly have options. If you don’t, you will spend a lot of time alone.

I have a friend. He’s a decent-looking guy. He almost never approaches (except when he’s drunk). He’s awkward to talk to. He has a strange sense of humor. But he gets physical with women. He touches them early. He touches them often. And even if they don’t reciprocate or move away. He tries again. He’s always going for it.

And you know what? He gets laid, constantly. Hot women too.

It’s amazing. I used to hang out with him and would watch him awkwardly stumble around conversations, drinking too much, and awkwardly putting his arm around girls as the girls sat there with a look of confusion. I’d watch him and think to myself, “Oh man, what a disaster.”

And then I’d come back 20 minutes later and he’d be making out with her. And then an hour later he’d be going home with her.

He just has no inhibitions whatsoever about going for it. He’s always going for it. And until a girl clearly and firmly tells him “No!” he doesn’t stop, ever. And like I said, he gets girls all the time.

The biggest trigger for arousal for women is being desired. And nothing says she’s desired like a guy trying to kiss her.

Being physical on women is a necessary habit that most guys who are poor with women never do. Most men are a bit shy and hesitant when it comes to “making moves:” touching, the first kiss, sexual touching, etc. Well, that needs to stop. From now on, you are a sexually aggressive and dominant guy and you have no shame … We’ll also discover that women actually prefer you to be this way.

There are two reasons for being physically aggressive. The first is that you want to make her comfortable with being touched by you as soon as possible. You want to set the precedent for the relationship that you are a physical person and that you’re comfortable with your body and hers.

The other reason is psychological. People who touch when they interact with another person are generally viewed as more dominant. All politicians and businessmen will touch somebody on the arm as they greet them and shake their hand. Often times they’ll even touch them with both hands.

Studies have shown that people being touched by somebody when they first meet them not only have a much higher probability of thinking favorably of them, but they also were shown to trust them quicker.

So how do you touch a girl right off the bat?

When you go up to start a conversation with her, just lightly touch her on the arm, near the elbow. Don’t press hard or hold it, as that could startle her, but just a small tap. Once you’re engaged in a conversation with her, you want to use your touching to punctuate the conversation. Think of touching as the exclamation marks or question marks of the dialogue.

For instance, let’s say you make a clever joke and she begins to laugh really hard, you should put your hand on her arm to punctuate the emotion of the moment.

The best way to touch is to integrate physicality into your conversation. For example, using games such as thumb wars, twirling her like a ballerina, or giving high fives are great ways to initiate physical contact. As the conversation goes on, the better things are going, the more you want to be touching and the more personal you want your touches to be.

For instance, when I first meet a girl, I may just touch her on the arm, but 20 minutes later, if she’s attracted to me and we’re having a deep conversation, I’ll have my arm around her and her leaning into me. If you’re both sitting down, touching your leg to hers or resting your hand on her thigh are good ways to create more personal ways to touch her.

Your touching should happen in a progression. In general, you want to start on the outside of her body – her arms and legs – and slowly move closer into her body: put your hand on her back as you move her to sit down with you, put your arm around her lower back as she leans against the bar next to you, etc. Later on, this progression will continue into intimacy: tickling, massages and cuddling (or spooning). And from there it will continue on into kissing, petting and having sex.

Push and pull is a physical flirting technique that is instrumental in creating intimacy. It’s basically touching combined with teasing.

Remember, in flirting, you go through the pattern of showing disinterest (breaking rapport) and then letting her regain your interest (qualifying).

Push and pull is merely translating that into a physical form. Here are some examples:

1. You take her hand and twirl her around like a ballerina. She does it kind of awkwardly. You let go of her hand and say, “NEXT!” and pretend to walk off with a smile. More often than not, she’ll grab you and make you come back. Then you say, “OK, we’ll give it one more try.” You do it again and say, “Not bad,” and hug her.

2. You’re on a date, taking a walk through the local gardens. She says something really cute, so you say, “That’s too cute, I can’t handle it,” and lightly shove her away from you. See if she comes back towards you.

If you push and pull well, you’ll increasingly find yourself in more intimate and emotional situations with her. You can take any of the examples above and transition straight into tickling her where you can end up on top of her and in perfect position to kiss her.

The purpose of push and pull isn’t an ends to itself, it’s a means to give you opportunities to kiss her. One of the most common questions guys always have is, “how do I know when to kiss her?” If you learn to push and pull well, you’ll find yourself in situation after situation where it “feels” right – you’ll both be close, touching and emotionally charged. Opportunities should come up over and over again.

Then, it’s just a matter of grabbing yourself by the balls and planting it on her.

Kissing

When it comes to kissing a woman, there’s an old adage amongst dating coaches: if you think you can kiss her, you probably could have ten minutes ago. We men are notoriously bad at gauging when a woman is ready to be kissed and then actually having the gusto to go for it.

So, in general, it’s safe to assume that anytime you think you could kiss her, you already could have. Too many guys get hung up looking for “sign” after “sign” when girls have been giving them signals all night. Think of it this way: it’s much better to try and kiss her and get rejected than to go the whole night without making a move and never knowing what would have been.

So the rule of thumb is to always go for it.

Quick Note: There are some girls who don’t kiss in public places. They feel like it’s in bad taste and poor form. No matter how much they like you, they won’t do it. If it’s the first time you’re trying to kiss her and she seems to want to do it but won’t, try again in a more private setting.

The same goes for in front of all of her girlfriends. If she’s standing right next to four of her closest friends, she’s probably not going to feel comfortable making out with you. Try moving her somewhere more private.

Also, keep the first kiss PG-13. We want “church tongue” not “porno tongue” on the first time. If you start devouring her tonsils on the first date, she’s going to start thinking you’re a sex-crazed fiend.

If you aren’t sure whether you’re a good kisser or not, a good guideline is that if at least a few girls haven’t complimented you on your kissing before, then you aren’t good enough. If you haven’t kissed enough girls to know if they’d compliment you, then you’re definitely not good enough.

There are other books out there to give guys techniques and form. I’ll just list a few DON’T’s.

- DON’T slobber all over her face.

- DON’T jam your tongue down her throat. Heavy tongue has its place, but it’s usually in the bed room when you guys are naked.

- DON’T peck her like she’s your grandmother.

- DON’T shove your face into hers or apply too much pressure. Kisses are sensual. Imagine you’re massaging her lips with yours.

There’s no quicker turn off than a bad kisser. Seriously, I’ve heard women talk about not calling a great guy back because he was awful at kissing. And even as a guy who’s kissed hundreds of women at this point, I can tell you, a girl who is a bad kisser sometimes makes it not even worth it. It can be unbearable at times. Make sure you get this down.

A lot of kissing revolves around how you use your hands and teeth as well. Your hands should be roaming her body gently, caressing her back, gently holding her neck, pulling her hips into yours.

One of my favorite things to do while making out with a girl is to grab her belt loops on her pants and pull her hips into mine.

As for teeth, gentle love-nips on her bottom lip or her tongue turn a lot of girls on. Be sure to be sensitive with your teeth though, and don’t overuse them. You’ll become a one-trick-pony.

Finally, the first few times you kiss a girl, try to always be the first one to pull away. It shows a non-neediness and control that girls find attractive. It sub- communicates that you’re a sexual guy and you’re comfortable with what’s going on.

Too many guys start making out with a girl and then immediately go into “OK, LET’S FUCK” mode where they practically start molesting the girl wherever they are and devouring her face. Kissing is simply the gateway to greater and deeper intimacy. Kissing is the only sexual action that many girls are comfortable doing in public. It’s an important step, but part of the process, not the destination.

Escalating

So you’ve kissed her. Now what?

Once a girl kisses you, she’s usually going to be comfortable and/or horny enough to go home with you or have you go home with her. This assumes a couple things: that you kiss well and turn her on, and that she feels safe with you. Different girls have different standards for these, so you must be observant.

If she seems less excited after kissing you than she did before kissing you, then you need to kiss and touch her better. If she seems nervous and uncomfortable when you try to get her to leave with you, then she needs to trust you more. That means you have to open up to her a bit more and talk about yourself and build more of an emotional connection. But also be sure you’re keeping her turned on through some flirting and more kissing.

A lot of guys make big productions about getting a girl to come home with them: coming up with elaborate stories and props, etc. If she wants to go home with you, she needs the mildest of excuses to agree:

- “I’ve got the coolest dog, you should come see him.”

- “I’m not tired yet. Want to check out that movie I was talking about?”

- “I make an awesome omelet. Come over. I’ll make you one.”

I’ve gotten girls to come over with statements as simple as, “Let’s hang out at my place,” or “You want to have a drink at my place?” If she’s comfortable with you and attracted to you, she’ll follow your lead. These concepts hold true whether you just met her that night or you’re on a third date with her. The amount of time isn’t as relevant as much as how secure she feels around you.

So, you’ve got her back at your place, you guys are kissing on your couch, where do you go from there? Remember when I said that your hands should gently be roaming her body while you’re kissing? Now that you’re in a private, safe and intimate location, it’s time to roam your hands into more sexual areas.

Start with her breasts. Don’t grab them straight out at first, but let a hand roam onto them and massage it lightly, then move your hand off.

Hair-pulling, believe it or not, turns on most women. You have to do it the right way though. Don’t grab and YANK her hair. What you want to do is just take some in your hand and clench your fist so that there’s a nice squeeze on her hair. This actually feels REALLY good for her.

Another great place is to grab her ass (my personal favorite). Again, don’t do it too aggressively (unless she’s so horny she wants to fuck right away), but give it a nice squeeze. If she responds well – her kissing gets more aggressive, she moans, basically any response other than moving your hands away from her – then keep going. If you’re on a couch or bed, push her onto her back and position yourself between her legs. If you’re standing up, push her against a wall and do the same.

Next, you’ll want clothes to start coming off. If she’s letting you grab her breasts comfortably, you can remove her shirt. If she’s wearing a skirt or dress, try moving your hands up her legs under her dress.

The general principle at work here is that you want to gently push things towards sex until she says stop. If she doesn’t say stop, keep going.

Next, take off your shirt. For whatever reason, when you take off your shirt, it sub-communicates that you expect sex to happen more than her taking any of her clothes off. This is usually where you’ll get the, “We’re not having sex tonight,” objection, if you do at all.

The answer to this objection is always, always, “OK,” and then keep going. Listen to her actions.

The dirty secret about the, “we’re not having sex,” objection is that the only time girls say it is when they are thinking about having it. They wouldn’t say it if they didn’t feel like it was a realistic possibility. What’s actually happening is that they want to have it, but they aren’t sure logically whether it’s a good idea, so they’re telling you that they’re not going to have sex to see if it changes the situation at all.

The ironic thing about the objection is that if you say, “OK,” and stop, then you’re just playing into her anxiety – that it’s not right and that she doesn’t want to have sex with you. But if you acknowledge her objection yet keep going, you’re engaging her emotional and sensual desires (to have sex) while allaying any rational fears (by acknowledging them). Even though they’re completely contradictory, you’re going to make the girl feel better, because now she’s able to relax and let go to enjoy the moment – after all, you’re not having sex that night, right?

If this makes no sense –- what am I saying, of course it doesn’t, it’s women we’re talking about, remember?

Just know this: the correct answer to the “no sex” objection is always an affirmative while continuing to escalate physically.

A quick note about rape: Remember, our general guideline here is that we continue until a woman makes us stop. This means she physically stops you – i.e., moves your hands off of her, moves away from you, puts her clothes back on, etc. – or clearly and verbally says, “STOP!” or “NO!”

There’s a difference with the “We’re not having sex tonight,” objection. She’s not telling you to stop, but telling you what to expect. There’s a huge difference. When a girl says, “STOP,” it means, “STOP.” It’s not a game. It’s not a test. It’s not some clever social trick. It means STOP. To pursue it any further after a woman has clearly tried to get you to stop is rape and you’d be a fucked up individual to continue.

If a girl legitimately stops you, halt everything and ask her what the matter is. Often she’ll have a legitimate concern. Other times, she’ll have a trivial or irrational concern (“I didn’t shave my legs,” “I’m on my period,” “I promised myself I’d wait until the second date,” etc.)

Whether the concern is legitimate or not, always acknowledge it and then gauge the seriousness of the issue. If her protest seems a bit irrational or silly, she’s probably just nervous and needs to be more comfortable with you. Back up a few steps and start again. If you try again and she stops you again, back off and give it some time. If she’s put up a lot of resistance and you decide to call it quits, do NOT get angry about it. If you get angry, then you’re really not going to get laid. She needs to know you understand, even if you really think her complaint is irrational.

You also need to make a choice. How much do you like this girl? If you don’t like her and just wanted to have sex with her, you might choose to leave or ask her to leave. If you really do care about her, then you’re definitely doing the right thing. You have a brain, use some good judgment.

Escalating like this is a skill that every guy needs to become successful with women. If there was one skill in the world that you could have that would make you the most successful with women by itself, it would be aggressively escalating with women. It turns them on. Even when they say no, it turns them on.

And in case you don’t believe me …

Just because it’s impossible for me to exaggerate how important it is to be a physical, aggressive and sexual guy, here’s a post from a single woman on Craigslist. Guys who have trouble with women never seem to be able to get it through their heads that women want us to be aggressive, even if they turn us down. They’d rather have a guy go too far and back off than not far enough. Just see below:

Dear Men of Craigslist,

Look, I know you men have it difficult. Women are just about impossible to understand, much less please. In a post-feminist society, you never know exactly what you should be doing. Women are bloody picky, I know we are. It can be scary, too, when women freak out about what appear to be benign issues. And men who do their best to be respectful, female-positive humans, I salute you, I do.

But please, please just fuck me already. Honestly, I appreciate your thoughtfulness. I like that you want to take things slow. I can totally get behind the idea of emotional connection, but dearjesusinheaven, FUCK ME. We’ve done dinner and drinks. We’ve gone dancing. We’ve cuddled and watched a movie. I’m wearing a low cut shirt and you’ve been staring at my breasts all night. Goodgodalmighty, get to it and fuck me.

When we get hot and heavy, please take charge. Please, please fuck me. Trust me, I’m not going to just lie still – I’ll get involved. But don’t make me force your hand into my panties. That makes me feel like a rapist. We’ve been kissing for a half hour and your hand keeps grazing my ass. That’s nice, but it’s time to move forward. Get on top of me. Don’t make me get on top right out of the gate and start bobbing up and down on your cock like I’m practicing some crazy new aerobic yoga because YOU won’t go down on me. Roll on top and start dry humping like a good boy should. Don’t gently suck my nipples and then pull back when I moan with pleasure. You being coy is totally not what I want. It’s not what WE want.

OK, I know it’s scary. There are lots of women out there who make fucking really difficult. So, I have compiled some handy tips. Don’t think of this as complaining, or as schadenfreude for the Andrea Dworkins of the world. Just some simple tips, for timid men who have forgotten what it means to fuck like men:

1. Taking charge is not bad. Oh, there will be some women who feel that you are pushy. If you are making out with a woman, and she starts to push back, ask nicely if things are moving too fast. If she says yes, say something like “I’m sorry – you just look so fucking delicious. I’ll go slower.” Otherwise, skillfully move forward. If you start kissing a woman, and she responds well, and before long, you’re both on the floor with her skirt pushed up, and you on top of her, it’s not the time to roll onto your back and start awkwardly stroking the top of her head. Seriously, grow a goddamn pair. YOU’RE the man. Act like one.

2. Ohmyfuckinggod, please learn to respect the clit. It’s different for every woman, so ask what she likes. Do not, I repeat, do not just wiggle your fingers around her pussy like you’re trying to tickle her. Do not drum your fingertips against her vulva like you are impatiently waiting at the Sears Tire Center for your receipt. Do not push the clit like it is a doorbell at some house that you need to get inside of. Start by using all four fingers with firm yet gentle pressure against the outside of her pussy. Do not charge in with a single finger and start jabbing at things. And if you really don’t know what to do, ask her. Just ask. “How do you like it?”. It’s a simple question, and most women will answer straight out. If she’s being all coy, ask “Do you like pressure? Is it sensitive?” The clitoris is a varied item, indeed. Treat each one as though you have never encountered one before. Forget everything that your last partner liked.

3. Most women like to be fucked, and fucked well. Yes, there are women out there who want to “make love” every time – sweet, gentle, rocking love with lots of eye contact and loving kisses. Those women are not the majority. The majority like to be pounded. The majority like to have their hair pulled. The majority like a good, solid jackhammering. When a woman is bucking wildly against you, it’s not because she wants you to pull back and slowly swirl your cock around her vagina like you’re mixing a cake batter up there. It’s because she wants you to hold down her arms, or grab her hips, or push her legs above her head, and fuck her harder. Don’t be too afraid of what this means as far as gender equality goes – I am a raging feminist bitch, but I still want to be penetrated like you are planning on fucking my throat from the inside out.

4. A little roughness is nice. Do not pretend that you had no idea that some women like their hair pulled. Do not act shocked if she wants you to spank her (“Really? Spanking? Won’t it hurt?” – yes, it does. That’s the fucking point). We know you’ve read Stuff and Maxim, and that’s all those laddie mags talk about in their “How to Please Her” sections. Start with light, full handed smacks to the area of her ass that she sits on. Judge her response and continue on from there. You don’t have to bend her over one knee and tell her she’s a naughty girl and that Daddy’s going to punish her; save that for the fifth date. Women are less delicate than you think, so don’t worry about breaking her hip.

5. It’s OK for you to make noise. Otherwise, we feel like we are fucking a ninja. Unless you actually are a ninja, and have sneaked into our rooms with vibrating nanuchaku and zippered black pajamas, please, please make some noise. If you’re banging a woman, and she’s crying out and saying your name and moaning, and you can’t even manage a grunt, she’s going to feel like an idiot. You don’t have to make the sounds she is making, but do SOMETHING. You know how when you are watching porn, and the girl does something great to the guy and the guy kind of goes “Ah!”, half grunt, half yell? That’s HOT. Do that. Whisper our name (assuming you know it) gruffly. Groan against her neck when you’re in missionary position. You don’t have to grunt like a mountain gorilla, but if you are totally mute, she’s going to get worried.

6. Most women like dirty talk, in addition to the grunting. If you’d like to get some dirty talk going, ask her if she likes the way you fuck her. If she responds well, continue with something like, “I love fucking you. God, you look so fucking hot.” Is she still moaning in response? “Your tits are so beautiful.” Does that work? If she doesn’t respond well to the term “tits”, you might have to stop there.

If she keep moaning or responding, pass Go and collect $200. Try the following:

“Oh, god. Your pussy is SO tight.”

“You’re so wet – are you wet because you like the feel of my cock ramming you?”

“I think I’m going to come inside you. I’m going to fill up your little cunt.” It doesn’t matter that you’re wearing a condom; we LOVE hearing this.

If all of those work, you can then progress to things like “sexy little bitch” and “dirty whore”. Tread carefully, but please, tread. Do not tiptoe. Do not sit down. Charge.

6. You’re not obligated to eat a woman out. In return, she’s not obligated to choke on your dick. Don’t skip one and expect the other. If you do eat a woman out, the only comment you should make about her pussy is how nice it is. The length of her labia minora, the color of her interior, her waxing job or full bush – you are not John Madden. No time for color commentary.

7. Do not bitch about condoms. Oh, we hate them. Trust us. They hurt us more than they hurt you. But we don’t want to be preggers, and you don’t want to catch anything, right? Don’t whine about condom sex. Do not explain that you can’t come with one on. LEARN to come with one on, or if not, help us figure out what to do with you once we’re satisfied and it’s time for you to let loose your load.

8. We really like it when you come. It’s called a money shot for a reason. Watching semen shoot out of you is one of the most gratifying things EVER. However, do not assume that she wants you to jack it off onto her face. She might, but don’t assume. Seeing and/ or feeling you come is rewarding for us, so there’s no need to deprive us of it, but please do consult us before unleashing. “I think I’m going to come – how do you like it?” is a fair question that shouldn’t rob you of your testicles.

In recent memory, I’ve been fucked by a very aggressive, manly guy, and I’ve been… well, fucked is the wrong term here. I’ve been penetrated by a total and utter wuss. Who am I going to run back to when I’m ready for my fill? Manly McHardon, that’s who.

Sex

It’s finally reached that point with a woman: time to have sex. This section will cover the basics in both being good in the sack, and giving her a pleasant experience so that she’ll keep coming back for more.

Once you’ve got some clothes off and you’re both on a bed, a couch, the bathroom floor – or wherever you plan on doing the dirty – you’ve now entered the realm of foreplay. Sadly, men overlook foreplay because we’re just too damn excited about getting our dicks wet. The more foreplay, the hotter your woman’s going to be, the better sex she’s going to have, and the more likely she’ll be to see you again.

A good place to start is by sucking and massaging her bare breasts. Some girls who like it rougher like it when you gently bite on their nipples, but be careful, not every girl is into that.

From there, you should at least finger her or rub her clitoris. Again, this book is not going to get technical with how exactly to do that. Plenty of other books go into that (see the Further Reading section).

If you enjoy giving girls oral sex, this is an excellent time to do that as well. If you give good oral sex, most girls won’t be able to resist the urge to have sex then and there (some will even grab you and make you do it).

The most important thing to keep in mind about foreplay is the concept of teasing or expectation. As you do the things talked about above, don’t just rush into them and devour her. That can be cool sometimes, but in general, you want to take things slow, create a drawn-out and sensual experience. Girls love to be teased. For instance, instead of just shoving your finger inside her and going at it trying lightly touching her pussy with your fingertips for a few seconds. She’ll go crazy and want you inside her more than ever.

Instead of just giving her oral sex, start off slow by kissing the inside of her thighs, inching closer and closer. Create expectation. Make her yearn for whatever you’re about to do to her. Stuff like this drives girls crazy and makes them incredibly horny. If you do this well and repeatedly, you’ll often get girls pushing YOU down and forcing YOU to have sex. The expectation is too much. They have to have it. So they end up taking it from you.

When it comes to sex, more important than any physical technique – some cool angle or position or whatever – is being dominant. Sexual gratification for women is far more psychological than it is physical, whereas for men it’s mostly physical. A large component of this psychological satisfaction comes from being dominated and surrendering control. Women like to feel like you have the power and the control in the bedroom. They want you to be assertive and strong with what you want. So how do you become dominant in bed?

1. Be loud. Make noise. Grunt. Breathe hard. Women love this because it makes them feel like they can be loud. And when they’re loud they get off easier and more often.

2. Talk dirty. Tell her how sexy she is. Tell her what you’re going to do to her before you do it. Call her a dirty girl and a horny slut. This may be outside of your comfort zone, but realize that in the bedroom the rules change and logic goes out the window.

3. Get physical. Spank her. Pull her hair. Hold her down with one hand. When you change positions, literally pick her up and move her yourself.

4. Don’t ever ask, “Is this OK? Do you want to do X?” Just do it and apologize later if she doesn’t like it. Nothing turns a girl off faster than a guy who defers to her while having sex. Take control. Do what turns you on and that will then turn her on.

The most important habit to develop, by far, is to talk and be loud in the bedroom. There has to be an open forum of communication when you sleep with a girl, especially the first few times you’re together. Sex is always somewhat awkward the first time you’re with a new person. Everybody engages in different practices, habits and prefers different things. It takes awhile to learn each other’s tendencies and adapt to one another’s likes and dislikes.

This requires you to have a sense of humor in the bedroom. Goofy and weird moments are going to happen in the sack and most people are at their most insecure when they’re naked and lying under someone they just met a week ago.

Have a sense of humor. Be understanding. RELAX.

One of my favorite jokes in the bedroom when stuff goes awry is, “They make it look so easy in the movies.” If you can get a girl to crack up, she’ll forget she’s naked, forget she’s in a strange position and forget that you just screwed up and just be with you, laughing with you.

Also, be honest. If you don’t like the way she gives a blowjob, tell her and then tell her how you do like it. But also, be honest with the compliments. Tell her she’s beautiful naked. Tell her you love how she rides you. Tell her she looks sexy in that position.

Be open and honest. Communicate. The most important factor for good sex is how comfortable the two people are around each other.

A lot of men feel anxious around sexuality and actually get nervous once they know they’re going to have it. But if you bring up sexual anxiety, almost every guy will laugh and say, “Must suck for that guy,” as if they don’t have it. The rotten truth is that most of us have some form of it or another. There are a variety of causes for sexual anxiety, but the most common are:

- Inexperience

- Strict religious and/or cultural upbringing

- Negative past sexual experiences

- Past emotional trauma

- Low self-esteem

Ultimately, the causes of sexual anxiety are directly related to other forms of anxiety: neediness, and a fear of vulnerability.

There are two symptoms, and you either have one or the other. You either cum way too fast (less than 10 minutes) or you either can’t get hard or you can’t keep it hard.

But that doesn’t make sense. How can two completely opposite phenomena be caused by the same thing?

It’s basically a permutation of the “fight or flight” response. The idea is that when you become nervous and adrenaline is released, your body wants to get itself into a protected and safe position as soon as possible. One way to do this is to ejaculate immediately. The other is to just not keep it hard.

Either way, these problems suck. I’m not sure which one’s worse. But we have ways to combat this problem.

If you finish way too quickly, try finding a thicker condom. They actually make condoms now that purposely numb your penis so that you can last longer. Try masturbating a few hours before you expect to have sex.

If you have trouble getting it up or keeping it up, get pills. Seriously, there are herbal supplements that you can buy over the counter that act similarly to Viagra. They make you hard as an ox and able to go multiple times. Take a couple before you get intimate with a girl and you shouldn’t have any problems keeping it at attention.

But these remedies are merely band-aid solutions for a larger problem.

The larger problem is not being completely comfortable with your sexuality and having sex. It’s once again a vulnerability issue. This problem reaches much deeper and lurks within our sub-conscious. The most obvious solution is to simply have as much sex as possible. This works. Getting a steady girlfriend is the best way to do this.

Unfortunately, if you want to stay single, this will take a lot of time and effort. And you have to deal with a lot of demoralizing failures. Try taking it slow with the girl once you know you’re going to have sex with her.

Think of it as having to make yourself more secure and comfortable around her until you’re able to have sex. I know it sounds lame, but it’s true. Slow things down, enjoy the foreplay more, and don’t pressure yourself to get to it until you’re good and ready.

Practice closing your eyes and relaxing when you know you’ll be having sex with her. If you have trouble with getting too excited, think about something non-sexual like baseball or video games. If you have trouble getting it up, relax and just look at her and think about how sexy she is.

If you feel that you have some sort of emotional trauma in your past or were raised in a seriously sexually repressed environment, consider seeking counseling or therapy.

Regardless, once you’ve reached this point, you’ve reached the point of maximum vulnerability with one person. Typically, women become more highly-invested after sex and men become less invested after sex. The power dynamic in most couples will switch at this point. The power of choice that the woman had (whether to have sex or not) now usually switches over to the man (whether to commit or not). If this power dynamic doesn’t switch, it’s usually a sign of neediness in the man, and the attraction will not last.

Vulnerability need not be confused with commitment or attachment. It’s still possible to experience an intense and powerful emotional connection with a woman and never desire long-term commitment with one another.

But such emotional connections, no matter how powerful and intoxicating, are fickle and akin to a drug. True, long-lasting emotional connection can only come through submitting to longterm commitment. But that is a topic beyond the scope of this book.

Closing

Conclusion: Moving Ahead

There’s a lot to digest in this book. And if you’re a first-timer who hasn’t started his journey of self-improvement and becoming more attractive to women, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and wonder where to start.

That’s I’ve put together this small Action Plan at the end of the book, to not only give you a clear place to start, but also help you see what you should focus on and in which order.

The Action Plan is divided up into sections of five tasks or challenges. Once you’ve completed at least four of the tasks in each section, move on to the next section. In Section 1, some tasks you will naturally have handled. For instance, if you already work out regularly, then that’s fine. In other sections, an item doesn’t count unless you do it since starting that section. For instance, in Section 5, you’re challenged to have sex with a woman you’ve never had sex with before. Obviously not everyone reading this is a virgin. Some of you may even have sex with a woman in previous sections. But it doesn’t count until you get to section 5.

Obviously, these aren’t rigid rules. But the sections are laid out here to challenge you and give you clearly defined goals and benchmarks to strive for. In all sections, some tasks will be very easy for you. Others will be very difficult. It will vary from person to person, but the idea is to give you a vague path to follow when it comes to improving yourself.

Also realize that this is a long-term process. A lot of these tasks won’t be completed in one night or even in one weekend. A lot of them will require weeks or months worth of effort. But that’s OK. That means you probably really needed to work on it.

Level 1: Your Foundation (Complete 5 of 5)

-Join a Gym: If you’re not already a member of a gym, join one. If you’re not familiar with how to work out properly, hire a personal trainer. Make this a weekly habit.

-Upgrade your wardrobe: Go out and upgrade your wardrobe based on the recommendations in Chapter 8. Challenge yourself to wear nicer clothes than you’ve ever worn before. It’ll change how you feel about yourself.

-Get a nice haircut: Go to a salon and drop the $50 on it. It’s worth it. It makes a difference.

-Job security/satisfaction: This is a complicated one, but if you’re not happy with your work situation, take some time and plan a way to fix it. If you work too much, try to find a way to work less. If you’re unemployed, stop everything else and get a job.

-Pursue one social hobby regularly: Pick a social hobby and pursue it regularly. You may already have one, but if not, find one. It could be dance classes, public speaking courses, language courses, cooking classes, joining a band, etc. Whatever it is, make it social. That means sitting at home and perfecting your model airplanes doesn’t count.

Level 2: Meeting Women (Complete 4 of 5)

-Figure out demographics: Figure out your demographics based on the recommendations in Chapter 7. Write down the type of women you’d like to meet and the places you enjoy going most. Then find venues or events where those two things intersect. It could be independent rock concerts, it could be art gallery showings, it could be salsa nights. Whatever it is, find your niche and pursue it.

-Approach 5 women in one day: Self explanatory

-Approach 20 women in one week: Also self explanatory.

-Join an online dating site and email 10 women: Also selfexplanatory. If you’re under 30 years old, I recommend free dating sites. If you’re over 30 years old, I recommend pay sites.

-Sign up for a singles or speed-dating event: If you have trouble doing the approaching tasks, then this may give you a needed boost in the right direction.

Level 3: Getting to Know Women (Complete 3 of 4)

-Hold at least three 30-minute conversations with women you just met: Can be anywhere.

-Get three phone numbers from women you just met: Just ask, you’ll be surprised how many women will give them to you.

-Go on two dates: They can come from women you met anywhere.

-Approach 25 women in one weekend: For those of you who really want to push your ability to cold approach.

Level 4: Getting Intimate (Complete 3 of 4)

-Kiss two women: Make sure they’re women you’ve met since reading this book.

-Go on a second date with the same woman: Self explanatory.

-Successfully get a woman back to your place: Usually can be done on the second date.

-Get five phone numbers in one week: In case you’re having trouble getting dates, you can do this.

Level 5: Getting Sexual (Complete 3 of 3)

-Have sex with a woman you’ve never had sex with before: Self explanatory

-Kiss a woman you just met that day/night: This is more doable than you think. Recommended you do this in a loud bar or nightclub.

-Go on three first dates with new women: Self explanatory.

Level 6: Solid Game (Complete 2 of 3)

-Have sex with a woman you met that same day/night: Again, recommended you do this with a woman you meet in a bar or night club. Bringing a woman home you meet during the day is more difficult, but not impossible.

-Have sex with a woman on the first date: Make sure it’s a damn good date!

-Kiss three women the day/night you meet them: Can be done on separate nights. Also recommended to do this at a bar or nightclub.

Level 7: Player Status (Complete 3 of 4)

-Have sex with two women in the same 24-hour period: Shower in between optional.

-Have a threesome with two women: Separate challenge from the one above. Cannot double-count your threesome (honestly, if you’re able to get a threesome, you probably don’t need to doublecount it anyway).

-Approach 100 women in one 24-hour period: A marathon, but doable. I know a guy who did this and got over 30 phone numbers.

-Go on 3 dates, in the same day: Not recommended if you actually care about the women, but makes for an interesting day!

Epilogue: What If It Was a Gift?

Over the course of the previous 280 pages, we’ve discovered that attraction flows from women perceiving a lack of neediness and a sense of security in men. This lack of neediness and security arises from having a stronger identity and investment in oneself than in the perception of others. This sub-communicates that as a man you’re dependable, confident and high status (or likely to become high status).

The way to cultivate a higher investment in oneself, the way to become less needy, it’s actually counter-intuitive. We learned that showing vulnerability, both in emotion and action, actually leads to a higher investment in oneself and diminishes neediness.

This newfound lack of neediness then allows you to express yourself more clearly and directly. When you express yourself more clearly and directly, you polarize the reactions of women, opening yourself up to more rejection, but also attracting other women stronger than ever before. The women you attract occurs through a process of selfselection. The rate at which you attract them happens through a process of overcoming fear. And the consistency in which you seduce those women attracted happens through a process of expressing your sexuality. These are the three fundamentals.

Presented in these pages are all of the tools I can ever imagine a man ever needing to renovate himself and become more successful with women. Undoubtedly for you it will be difficult at times. You will run into speed-bumps, detours, distractions, emotional highs and emotional lows. But if you persist and stay optimistic, you will get there. I’m absolutely sure of it.

And in those times that it does become difficult, those times where you do get frustrated and fall back to your needy beliefs, your desire for external validation, where you let yourself become swayed by the whims of others rather than your internal compass, you may feel lost or hopeless. This feeling of hopelessness may last for minutes, hours or days, but chances are if you push yourself, if you genuinely try to change yourself and re-orient how you interact with the world, then you will feel it at some point

. And for those times, let me share with you a phrase that has helped me and countless other men through those dire straits.

The phrase comes from Dr. Robert Glover and his book No More Mr. Nice Guy, one of the best books I’ve ever read on men’s emotional health and development.

The phrase is: “What if it is a gift?”

Whatever happens to you, no matter how bad, no matter how bleak you feel. Ask yourself, “What if it was a gift?” And then try to rationalize a way it could be so.

Because see, in the world of emotions, there are no absolutes, you can usually draw whichever conclusions you desire. So why not choose to draw conclusions of blessings, positivity and gifts.

Ex-girlfriend dumped you and left you for another man. What if it was a gift? Because without her, you would not have been put on this path of self-improvement, and you would have forever been stuck in a relationship full of deceit and no self-awareness.

A woman makes fun of your hair and calls you ugly. What if it was a gift? Such a harsh rejection will steel you into becoming even more confident in the future, and hopefully, will inspire you re-evaluate how you look.

Your friends tell you that approaching women is creepy and that you’re a loser for wanting to do it. What if it was a gift? It shows that what you’re doing, what you’re working on, is pushing social boundaries, is polarizing, and is ultimately making you more controversial and attractive.

When I was 19-years-old, a friend of mine drowned right in front of me. We were at a party on a lake. One minute he was there, laughing, smiling, joking, and the next moment he was gone. Forever.

It was one of the biggest gifts I’ve ever been given. Not because it was good. It was tragic. But because of how it affected me ever since.

Obviously that night was shocking and traumatizing. But I came away from the experience with a keen awareness of how transient this existence is. How any of us can be taken at any moment. How no one is going to live my life for me, and every second I spend sitting around feeling distant from my true desires, avoiding the world and being afraid to engage it, is a second that I’m forfeiting the biggest gift of all: my time here in this life.

His death shocked me, depressed me and scared me, but it scared me into having the courage to take risks, to express myself, to invest in my self-perception more than the perceptions of others. Because after all, sooner or later this will all disappear, and none of it will matter. So you might as well make the most of it while you’re here.

And ultimately, that’s all that I can hope for you. That you make the most of your time here. That you take the tools I’ve laid out here and go out and forge a unique path for yourself, and experience the love, the thrills, and the happiness that this life can reward you.

Because that is what life does: it rewards you. It’s giving you gifts every day.

Are you going to accept them?

Further Reading

1. If you feel you gained a lot from this book and have never read my website, then that is the next logical destination. It’s at www.practicalpickup.com and is regularly updated with articles, musings and stories. Information about my coaching and products are available there as well.

2. If you’d like specific and structured programs to improve your abilities with women based on the ideas in this book, I’ve set up online programs that are designed to take men of any level and progressively give you exercises and goals to improve a specific skill related to women. You can learn more about my online programs below:

Approaching Women: http://www.practicalpickup.com/programs/ approaching/

Conversation and Connecting: http://www.practicalpickup.com/ programs/conversation/

Attraction and Sexuality: http://www.practicalpickup.com/ programs/attraction/

3. My other products:

Pickup Tube -- hidden camera footage of guys picking up actual women by approaching them: http://www.pickuptube.net/

Man on Campus -- Audio course designed for guys who want to meet girls in college: http://www.manoncampus.com/

4.Recommended Reading:

No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert Glover -- the definitive book on helping men break out of habits of neediness and ending “Nice Guy” behavior that sabotages their relationships.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie -- A classic. Best book on how to relate and make strong impressions on others.

The Evolution of Desire by David Buss -- A good scientific overview of sex studies and biological differences in male and female sexuality.

The Definitive Book of Body Language by Allan and Barbara Pease -- A must-read for anyone who has trouble deciphering people’s emotions through body language.

The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida -- A spiritual overview of masculinity and what it means to be a man in a relationship with women.

Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman -- Why your ability to relate and empathize with others trumps intellectual intelligence and determines the quality of your relationships.

The Red Queen by Matt Ridley -- Deep science book about human sexuality and the social implications of our biology.

Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson -- Best book on nutrition I’ve read. A variation on the popular paleo diet. Highly recommended if you’re looking to lose weight.

The Art of Comedy by Paul Ryan -- If you want to learn to be funnier, this is the book for you.

About the Author

Mark Manson is from Austin, Texas, USA and graduated from Boston University in 2007. He began coaching men informally that same year, taking them out to local bars and helping them approach attractive women.

Mark founded Practical Pick Up in 2008 and has since worked with hundreds of men in 12 different countries and four different continents. He’s given over 40 public presentations worldwide and has been interviewed for news shows and magazines.

He operates www.practicalpickup.comwith an array of online coaching programs which have helped literally thousands of men overcome their issues with women and dating.

Mark currently lives a mobile lifestyle traveling and residing across the globe. He can be reached at mark@practicalpickup.com.

Table of Contents

Models

A Comprehensive Guide to Attracting Women

Introduction: Movement

Part I: Reality

Chapter 1: What Attracts Women

Chapter 2: Emotional Neediness

Chapter 3: Power in Vulnerability

Chapter 4: The Gift of Truth

Part II: Strategy

Chapter 5: Polarization

Chapter 6: Rejection and Success

Chapter 7: The Three Fundamentals

Part III: Honest Living

Chapter 8: Demographics

Chapter 9: How to Be Handsome

Part IV: Honest Action

Chapter 10: What Are Your Stories?

Chapter 11: How to Take Action

Part V: Honest Communication

Chapter 12: Your Intentions

Chapter 13: How to Be Charming

Chapter 14: The Dating Process

Chapter 15: Physicality and Sex

Closing

Conclusion: Moving Ahead

Epilogue: What If It Was a Gift?

Further Reading

About the Author