Models: Attract Women Through Honesty

by Mark Manson

Blame is yet another form of neediness. It’s prioritizing others over yourself. As long as it’s their fault, then you don’t have to make yourself vulnerable. But when you practice taking responsibility for everything that happens in your 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.

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. And not only did they have very high sex drives, but they also 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.

Don’t be hard on yourself.

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Fear is normal. Everyone has it in some form, and it's not going away anytime soon. The trick isn't to eliminate it; it's simply to train yourself to behave despite it.

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 worse next time.

The other problem with interpreting the anxiety around women as something that must be removed is that this often only serves to amplify it. Neurobiology has shown us that attempting to avoid or shut out something we’re afraid of only serves to make that fear stronger. For instance, if you’ve ever played a sport and were in a situation where you had to hit one shot to win the game, you know that thinking about the pressure and the situation and trying to be relaxed about it only makes you more nervous and anxious. The actual way to deal with it is to accept it, embrace it, and harness it to make your performance better.

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.

See, a lot of people assume non-neediness means being fearless. But non-neediness simply means to feel the fear and not let it define you. Non-neediness is feeling the fear and deciding that something else is more important. 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.

The way to attack anxieties is through incremental, consistent exposure. Not single, extreme exposure.

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 bolder your action, the greater attraction you’re going to create. The bolder the action, the more vulnerability you show, and the more you polarize responses.

Some dating advice tells men not to compliment a woman too early or too often. The reason for this is that most men who read dating advice 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.

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 adored by 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 woman is going to be creeped out by you. Live with it. So as a wise friend of mine sometimes says, “Give yourself permission to be creepy.” Don’t try to be creepy. And definitely don’t walk around looking to intimidate women. Simply accept that sometimes, miscommunications happen, awkward situations occur, and things get misconstrued. Such is life. As long as you’re respectful in how you express yourself, there should never be a serious problem.

Creepiness is behaving in a way that makes a woman feel insecure sexually.

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, and the more aware and respectful you are of their interests and desires, 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 you disregard her feelings and actions toward you, 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.

Scientific research shows that sexual tension builds when the uncertainty of potential sexual possibilities is presented in an interaction. For example, if I say something with implied sexual innuendo like, “Well, that’s cool you are into cats, maybe I can come over and play with your pussy for a while,” this generates sexual tension because, assuming she doesn’t throw her drink in my face or slap me, it leaves the possibility of a future sexual encounter on the table. It’s a story with no ending, the human brain wants to know what happens next. And in this case, what happens next is probably something sexual. Teasing type behaviors generate sexual tension because they generate uncertainty as to whether or not you’re actually interested in a woman. In the example above, depending on the context and situation, I could be totally joking and being facetious. Or I could be totally serious and masking my desires behind a thinly-veiled joke. She doesn’t know. And that’s what makes it so good. The uncertainty generates the tension.

let’s say you meet a woman and just come right out and say, “I think you’re beautiful, I’d like to take you on a date.” A lot of men cringe at this idea. Needy men hate it because they think it will make them creepy. Narcissistic men hate it because they believe they’re giving their power away. But in reality, it’s one of the most powerful and practical things you can say. Not only is it vulnerable, as we’ve discussed at length, but it also builds far more sexual tension.

See, if a man is having an innocuous conversation with a bunch of small talk, there is never any uncertainty in the woman’s mind as to where things stand. The conversation is shallow and simple and so there’s no question as to why they’re talking or the significance of what they’re talking about. If a man begins to flirt with a woman by teasing her, then suddenly he adds a new dimension by creating uncertainty: Does he like me or not? Why is he flirting with me? But if a man goes the bold and vulnerable route, and is willing to risk rejection, he is rewarded by creating massive amounts of sexual tension, because in a single stroke you have transported the context away from, “What do we talk about next?” to “What will he say or do with me next?” This is extremely powerful.

emotional connections are powerful. Far more powerful than any sort of tactics or tricks you may learn in other 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. 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.

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 deeply with her.

the biggest misconception about generating a strong emotional connection is that it obligates you to some sort of commitment. It doesn’t. Although it’s more likely to cause you two to want to commit to one another, a relationship commitment is an intellectual construct, emotional connection happens organically on an unconscious level.

Do not startle 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 are by approaching them from behind (huge no-no), grabbing them violently, screaming at them, or saying something offensive or weird.

In my experience, the fancier and more creative guys try to get with their opening lines, the more likely they are to a) say something weird and b) come off as 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 ever not needy? She’ll sense this. In fact, it’s kind of amazing. Women really do seem to have a sixth sense about this stuff. 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.

This is where being a good writer can actually help you become 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 have 30 seconds of amazing communication than 10 minutes of mediocre communication saying the same thing.

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.”

With every cold read, one of three things will happen: You’ll be wrong, and she’ll correct you. You’ll be wrong, and she’ll ask you what made you think that. 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.

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.

creating conversations out of statements protects you from what I call “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.

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.