Models: Attract Women Through Honesty

by Mark Manson

Your failures with women aren’t caused because you say the wrong thing or look like the wrong guy. Words

and appearances are merely a symptom of a greater internal problem.

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

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.

Seduction is the interplay of emotions.

A man's attractiveness is inversely proportional to how needy he is. The less needy he is, the more attractive he will be to women on average. The needier he is, the less attractive he will be to women on average.

Paradoxically, a man’s lack of need for attention and admiration is itself a magnet for attention and admiration.

A man’s comfort and acceptance of the possibility that some people will not like him makes people like him even more.

A needy man is constantly investing in the perceptions others have in him. He is being extra nice and friendly when

he doesn’t want to be because he believes he must do this to be liked and loved. He is buying a fancy watch and season tickets to the local sports team so that he will be admired and loved. He is coming up with fake compliments or pretending to be a bad ass because he thinks it will get him attention and love.

Whereas a needy man says and does these things for approval, the non-needy man does them simply for the pleasure of doing.

A non-needy man will be more invested in himself than the woman he’s with.

By investment, I mean the degree to which you sacrifice/alter your own thoughts, feelings, and motivations for someone else.

By less I mean that as a man, you should not be willing to sacrifice your thoughts, feelings, and motivations for someone else more than they sacrifice theirs for you.

Would it be a man who defers to all of the other men around him, who begs the women to be with him, who can’t

stand up for himself and whose emotions are dictated by those around him? Or would it be the man who controls his own destiny, is unfazed by the threats others may pose to him and who shrugs it off if he pursues a woman and she has no interest in him?

James is a nice guy. But 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 if the woman he dates gets angry, he’ll sit patiently and listen to her vent all of her frustrations to him, agreeing with her constantly in a futile desperation that she may feel better. 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, despite caring for him, James’s girlfriends rarely respect him. And sooner or later — usually sooner — they dump him. When James gets dumped, he becomes distraught and depressed. He’s often inconsolable and drinks too

I cant do this type of behavior

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 investment in them until he’s gotten to know them well. Jeff enjoys going out with his friends and pays no attention to whether the women around him approve of him or not. At times, he says something weird or gets rejected, but it doesn’t bother him.

But other times girls become quite 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 excuse himself and leave. If he does like them, he might take them to get ice cream or check out a show 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 has a low level of investment. He’s content with his life and proud of who he is. He is confident and non-needy. If a woman doesn’t appreciate that, then he figures he’s better off without her.

Seduction is the process by which a man induces a woman to become as invested in him as he is in her.

…That before meeting a woman, instead of worrying whether or not she will like you, you could wonder if you will like her. …That instead of feeling the need to impress her, you could wonder if she impresses you.

…That instead of sitting there silently wondering what to say next to make her like you, you could sit there silently wondering what she will say to make you like her. …That instead of waiting around for her to call, you could find something else to do while she waits for your call.

…That instead of getting upset about why she doesn’t want to be with you, you could decide that it means you probably wouldn’t want to be with her.

This may all sound a bit selfish. But, in fact, it’s called having strong boundaries and high self-esteem.

Only making time for people who make time for you. Only being interested in dating people who are interested in dating you. Worrying about what will make you happy instead of what will make someone else happy. Looking for a person who meets your needs instead of trying to always meet theirs. Changing yourself to become who you want to be, not what you think women want you to be.

is a nebulous mixture of selfishness, assertiveness, and domination that is achieved not through investing more in oneself, but by minimizing the importance of others.

And the sad thing is, it works — not on all women, not even on most women, but it will work on women who have no confidence, who expect to be treated like shit, and who treat men like shit in return.

So yeah, being narcissistic and overcompensating works. But it leads to unpleasant, shallow, and superficial interactions, constant headaches dealing with women who you don’t actually even really like and who probably don’t even actually like you, women regretting having sex with you, and emotionally unstable girls who bother you constantly. It’s like swimming in the shallow end of the pool — yeah, you’re swimming, but it’s not nearly as rewarding as the deep end, and there’s piss everywhere.

To give an example, if a non-needy man meets a woman who rejects him or is not interested in him, he will assume

that it was either an incompatibility or that it was just not the right situation.

non-needy man doesn’t try to control what women feel about him. Rather he tries to control what he feels about certain women. He

I always tell men, if every girl you date is unstable and crazy, that’s a reflection of your emotional maturity level.

Non-needy people don’t date needy people and vice-versa. They can’t because there’s no attraction to begin with.

women. The key to non-neediness is to have both: respect for both oneself and for women.

All of these are symptoms

As vulnerability researcher Brene Brown says, “The less you talk about your shame, the more of it you have.”

And then I did the super, lame beta thing that every pick up book told me to never, ever, ever do: I asked her if we could get to know each other better first.

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. Become comfortable with being imperfect. It’s your rough edges she’ll be attracted to.

But I’ll say this: if you consistently find it difficult to keep a woman interested in conversation; if you suffer from large amounts of anxiety around women; if you constantly feel a 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. And that’s fine. We all go through it.

Because sharing yourself with someone doesn’t mean just physically occupying the same area. It doesn’t mean exchanging facts with one another. It means opening up about your values, desires, feelings, and dreams. It means exposing your shame and insecurities and doubts and fears. It means living with somebody on an emotional plane, inhabiting that same heart-space together because that’s the one thing we can’t ever achieve by ourselves.

Stop looking at communication as the surface information and instead, pay attention to the emotions and motivations behind everything that you do and say. That's where all of the meaning is.

But communicate with honest appreciation and you’ll be amazed how she lights up in front of you.

“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 level of investment and an incredibly high level of vulnerability.

Always. No exceptions. You can have the best line in the world, but if you’re saying it because you’re needy and desperate for validation and approval from women, then she is immediately going to sense it.

When you’re willing to cut a woman off and tell her when you feel that she’s out of line, when you’re willing to tell a woman what you will and will not tolerate in your life, this sub-communicates the most powerful elements of attraction to her.

But a non-needy man will tell her what she just said was offensive. Let the chips fall where they may. He won’t be an asshole about it. He will simply draw a line in the sand, “I don’t like stuff like that,” and she can choose to step across it or not.

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