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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.
Non-neediness means you respect yourself AND others. Narcissism means you only respect yourself. Neediness means you only respect others.
Hold your line. Don’t go around breaking somebody else’s.
Be honest with yourself, painfully honest. And then be painfully honest with her.
Again, if you’re only trying to get women to impress other guys, then you’re not in a very good place, and you need to take a serious look at your motivations. 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.
As you’ll see, the book is divided up into three core areas: 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.
There are two main reasons that prevent attracted women from being with you, and they are both quite common: I call them friction and projection.
Friction is when a woman finds you to be an attractive man, but there are value differences or external circumstances that prevent her from acting on that attraction or being interested in you.
Ultimately, your values determine your behavior. And that’s kind of the point of all of this: YOUR values determine your behavior, not what you think she wants, not what you think others want, but what is best for you and best for the relationship.
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.
When confronted with a non-needy man — a man without these similar emotional hang-ups and distrust — 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, particularly if you’re a man who feels threatening to them. Their view of male sexuality is negative and when they are confronted with an honest and attractive man they’ll often attack you and try to tear you down for it.
You are going to be incompatible with most of the women in the world and to hold any hopes of being highly compatible with most is an illusion of grandeur and a figment of your own narcissistic tendency.
Our job is not to attract every woman, but to screen for women with a high potential of being attracted to who we really are.
The goals of this strategy are efficacy and practicality.
The first step to being more attractive is to see rejection as a means to eliminate women who won't make you happy from your life.
The most common reasons that put women in this category are the following: • You’re far needier than she is, and she’s therefore not attracted to you. • She has a boyfriend/husband and is happy in her relationship. • There’s too much friction preventing her from being willing to date you, such as a difference in values, difference in interests, bad logistics, etc. • She’s not interested or looking for any man at the moment.
The goal with Neutral women is to polarize them through your words and behaviors. This may mean flirting with them or teasing them. It may mean asking her on a date. It may be as simple as smiling at her from across the room. Whatever it is, the goal with Neutral women is to take an action that forces her to make a decision about how she feels about you.
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 few make themselves Unreceptive or Neutral. But that same man can go to a nightclub full of drunken 20-year-olds and soon find that only 1% of women are Receptive or Neutral, and 99% are Unreceptive.
The goal with Unreceptive women is to identify them and move on as quickly as possible. They’re time sinks.
This is the plight of the highly needy “Nice Guy.” He’s afraid of eliciting an emotional response in anybody, especially women (and especially himself); therefore, he’ll play it safe and elicit Neutral reactions
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 and incite her to become Receptive to you quickly. You do this by making yourself vulnerable, sharing yourself unabashedly, and polarizing her one way or the other and being comfortable with either result.
Sensing that I could easily get stuck dancing with her all night without actually polarizing her, I asked that we go get a drink. I told her I'd like to get to know her a bit better and talk. She obliged. At the bar, the first question out of my mouth is one of my favorites for Neutral situations: "What's your favorite thing in the world?" This question will tell me two things: how passionate and self-aware she is about her own life, and secondly if we have anything in common. Women who are not passionate or self-aware I drop very quickly and go meet someone else.
Men 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.
Being hated by nobody usually means you’re not loved by 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.
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.
I don’t regret what I said to the sorority girl, though in hindsight, I probably didn’t need to be rude to her — if that happened today, I’d just excuse myself and walk away.
I see every rejection simply as some form of incompatibility.
Remember, it’s “Fuck Yes!” or no. And if I’m not getting a “Fuck Yes!” then I’d much rather have a no than a “Meh, OK.”
I define success in a qualitative way: maximizing happiness with whichever woman/women I prefer to be with. Success = Maximizing happiness with whichever woman/women we prefer
their “success” with women is defined by: • Being married or not being single. • 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 some stereotype of what “beauty” is. • If she’s the kind of woman you’ve been raised to think you should date.
The three ways are 1) living based on our values (lifestyle); 2) becoming comfortable with our intentions (boldness); and 3) by expressing our sexuality freely (communication).
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. Choosing to not live a lifestyle based on our values and interests is only being dishonest with ourselves. It reflects a higher investment in others than in oneself. Therefore, it is unattractive. Not acting on our desires and asserting ourselves where appropriate is showing more investment in others
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Lifestyle, Courage, and Communication: I refer to these as the Three Fundamentals.
The Three Fundamentals are: 1. Creating an attractive and enriching lifestyle. 2. Overcoming your fears and anxiety around socializing, intimacy and sexuality. 3. Mastering the expression of your emotions and communicating fluidly.
For instance, Honest Living, or creating an attractive lifestyle involves really drilling down and understanding what you want as a man for your life and then working to make that a reality. 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.
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 neediness.
All fear around your sexuality is a result of feeling inferior or unworthy. If you’re afraid to approach a woman, it’s because somewhere inside you are more invested in her opinion of you than you are in your own opinion of yourself. If you’re afraid to ask a woman 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.
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.
In my experience, almost all men who struggle with relationships fall into one of two categories: socially anxious or socially disconnected.
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 judgmental attitude are promiscuous women who are untrustworthy. Social psychology refers to this as the assortment effect and it's been demonstrated in many studies.
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 it does for women. In fact, studies have found that the average 45-year-old male is still considered as physically attractive as the average 18-year-old male. The main reason is that studies have also found that women judge a man’s status far less on actual physical dimensions and far more on style, grooming, and how men present themselves.
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 not going to make you happy. So you’re not missing out on much.
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, but take an active role in the organization, start a meet up group to find other people who want to visit them, or create a forum for commentary.
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.
There, now let’s move on to the two biggest factors on your appearance, the two F’s: Fashion and Fitness.
Vocal tonality is definitely overlooked by men. It’s not just having a sexy voice that’s important; it’s having an expressive and a loud voice.
We actually have two “voices”: a “head” voice and a “chest”
Here are some other stories I’ve been telling myself lately: That I’m too good for these girls; it’s my subconscious’s favorite story right now. I tell myself, “I’ve been with dozens of women hotter/smarter/cooler than her, so why should I bother?” Yes, I recognize myriad things that are wrong with that thought.
The only important "skill" in dating is learning how to stop buying into your own bullshit, to stop believing your own stories.