Mate: Become the Man Women Want

by Tucker Max

Women perceive male athletes as more energetic, ambitious, competitive, and promiscuous.

Cowardice, submissiveness, indecisiveness, and passivity are hugely unattractive to women.

Women want to feel safe and protected from danger; if you can provide this safety and protection, you immediately become more attractive. Threats while on a date are usually minor, but women perceive your reactions to them as major cues to your character.

Because having attractive traits is not the same as displaying attractive traits.

Signaling theory states that when you’re trying to display attractive traits to women, you must follow the screenwriter’s dictum: show, don’t tell. You can’t just claim you have a good trait; saying “I’m smart!” means nothing. You have to actually show your intelligence and how it’s already made your life better, in specific, concrete ways.

You could have the highest mate value and the most amazing traits in the world, but if you don’t send out any signals or proofs of your traits, you’re the Invisible Man.

We hear a lot of bad advice from parents and teachers about life, but chances are the worst advice we get is something like this: What matters is what’s on the inside, not the outside. If people don’t take the time to get to know you, then that’s their loss.

Everything you wear, everything you do, every gesture you make tells a story about you. Women perceive these behaviors and traits and then use them to make judgments about your mate value and boyfriend potential.

EVERYONE judges EVERYONE else by what’s “on the outside.”

Women will make very specific conclusions about you based on what you wear.

Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with any choice along the spectrum regarding jewelry or body art. There is only effective and ineffective—based on the women you are trying to attract.

Grooming is very important to women, and they immediately register things like your basic level of cleanliness.

Many guys don’t think about this, but smell is incredibly important to women, and it forms a large part of unconscious attraction. If you smell bad to a woman, there’s pretty much nothing you can do to overcome that. She will be immediately and totally repulsed.

You have probably figured out that very few high-quality women respond to verbal boasting because words are like the women they are determined not to be: cheap and easy. Instead, you need to translate those words into actions. Don’t tell women about your attractive traits and fitness indicators; show them.

Funny guys don’t talk about being funny. They make you laugh. • Smart guys don’t talk about being intelligent. They engage your curiosity. • Confident guys don’t talk about being confident. They make you feel at ease. • Dedicated guys don’t talk about being dedicated. They act loving and faithful.

Most of the time, individual women judge your fuckability by your social network.

But she will get a more complete sense of what kind of man you are, as a potential lover, partner, or father, by looking at all kinds of social proofs: • Can she see that many people know and like you? That’s popularity. • Can she see people paying attention to what you do and say? That’s status. • Can she see people changing their minds to fit your worldview? That’s influence. • Can she see people respecting your skills and expertise? That’s prestige. • Can she see you being outgoing and socially confident? That’s extroversion. • Has she heard of you through media before meeting you? That’s fame.

You need attainable, immediate forms of social proof, not fame fantasies.

Women evolved not to be “gold diggers” but “status diggers”—to favor socially skilled, popular, respected, high-status guys.

It’s prestigious men, not dominant men, who achieve higher reproductive success in tribal societies. Thus, modern social proof is more about having popularity, status, and prestige than trying to act like an alpha male.

Being known in your group (popular), attracting attention by delivering value (high-status), and provoking respect (prestigious) within your social group are the core of social proofs in our species, so that’s what you should focus on.

Social proof is at the heart of the difference between high-status and low-status males.

it’s very hard to make a good living as an introverted hermit, since economic success still depends heavily on social networks and getting along well with coworkers, bosses, mentors, investors, customers, clients, and fans.

When you’re around people, put more effort into eye contact, warmth, active listening, conversation, and other basic social skills. Don’t just do this with women; do it with everyone. Make it a habit. The same social skills work with your male friends and colleagues, and they’ll respond by showing you more respect and warmth.

Projecting confidence—without being arrogant or overbearing—will help you seem far more socially attractive to both men and women.

Join Groups and Classes That Help You Learn Social Skills: If your social skills are lacking, or even if they are just OK, you should invest in improving them. You’ll benefit from the friends you make, the women you meet, and the social skills you learn in improv comedy classes, acting classes, public-speaking classes, and any other activities that teach you how to talk, listen, and command attention.

Volunteering is a fantastic way to boost social skills.

Every hour you spend alone is an hour that you’re failing to build your social skills, your social network, and your social proof.

If you spend all your spare time in World of Warcraft slaying monsters and messaging with your raid team, you’ll feed your brain plenty of cues that you’re dominant and popular, but you won’t build any social skills that you can show to women—much less that they care about.

The good news is that even if you’re not particularly extroverted, you can fake it. All that being outgoing really requires from a mating perspective is some basic human engagement: a warm smile, inviting eye contact, strong open posture, acknowledging her with words like “hello” and “how are you?” instead of the guy head nod or short bus wave. A woman wants to know that you are safe, accepted, and effective in your social environment.

Novelist Milan Kundera wrote, “One of life’s great secrets: women don’t look for handsome men, they look for men with beautiful women.”

Hanging out in public with an interesting female friend automatically makes you more attractive to every other woman.

We’ve emphasized that you tend to become the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Women intuitively understand this. So, if your five friends are smart, you’ll seem smarter. If they’re funny, you’ll seem funnier. The sooner you introduce her to some of your friends, and the cooler your friends seem, the more she will see your virtues through their eyes.

Guys with no friends don’t host parties. Guys whom nobody respects don’t organize events that are well attended. Pulling together a study group that is regularly attended, hosting an annual Halloween party, or acting as captain of your intramural team all display a degree of status and effectiveness that is attractive to women.

If you’re on any kind of team or in any kind of sports clubs (skiing, hiking, etc.), your participation in those groups provides women with powerful social proof of your extroversion, popularity, prestige, and leadership.

Women can get valuable intelligence about what kind of guy you are by seeing how other people interact with you.

To display social proof more effectively, practice being warm and outgoing, cultivate friendships with both sexes, host social events, integrate friends into your dating life, join sports teams and clubs, and take care of a pet.

Here’s the kicker, the thing about wealth you must get: women care less about money itself than about what it represents about the guy who made it.

Almost all women would rather have an interesting, fun, kind husband with a solid middle-class income than a dull, disconnected, workaholic millionaire.

Modern marketing and advertising work by making both sexes feel sexually inadequate and then offering specific goods or services that promise to make them more attractive.

The materialist model of mating success just does not work.

What they evolved to care about is resources (i.e., the stuff you buy with money). Resources are the prehistoric equivalent of money.

Women know that richer dads give their kids an advantage, and they choose mates accordingly.

A woman cares about your money management patterns now because they predict how you’ll earn, spend, and save in the future.

think about money not as an end in itself but as a means for self-improvement and mating success.

“Get Rich” is NOT a good self-improvement strategy, much less a good mating strategy. What you do with your money is the key to material proof.

Almost all women would rather have an interesting, fun, kind husband with a solid middle-class income than a dull, disconnected, workaholic millionaire.

Are you in shape? If you are rich in terms of money, but you’re super skinny and wasting away, like a dumpster-diving freegan, you’re giving unconscious cues to women that you are literally poor in biological terms. And that is very unattractive.

Being in shape is not only attractive itself (as we discussed in the physical health chapter); it shows fitness in most of the other traits (willpower, etc.) as well. If you have or make decent money, use it to buy good food, do good exercises (like CrossFit), and buy a good mattress that helps you sleep better. That will do a lot of the heavy lifting of material proof for you.

but also being a reclusive loner or a social outcast, raises a red flag of unattraction to women.