Models: Attract Women Through Honesty

by Mark Manson

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.

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.

Again, some self-awareness is critical. Take things one at a time, stairstep 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.

Courage is a habit. 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.

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 disrupt social norms and it requires quite a bit of vulnerability.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

Teasing polarizes, often hard and quickly. Therefore it’s a good tactic, but not always exactly pleasant.

Generally women who don’t enjoy being teased really appreciate genuine compliments, so I switch it up.

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.

- 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.

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.

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?

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

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.

Pre-Approach Signals - Non-Accidental Eye Contact: When in doubt, assume it’s not accidental. Humans are programmed 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 with 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 whate...

- 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 ...

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 ...

- Flipping or Playing with Her Hair: Classic sign...

- 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 wide...

- Standing Closer to You Than Normal: self explanatory. Pay attention to wher...

- 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...

- 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 ...

- 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 bright 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 t...

Being physical on women is a necessary habit that most men 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.