The Daily Laws: 366 Meditations

by Robert Greene

You must understand a critical property of love and desire: the more obviously you pursue a person, the more likely you are to chase them away. Too much attention can be interesting for a while, but it soon grows cloying and finally becomes claustrophobic and frightening. It signals weakness and neediness, an unseductive combination.

Masters of selective withdrawal, they hint at coldness, absenting themselves at times to keep their victim off balance, surprised, intrigued. Their withdrawals make them mysterious, and we build them up in our imaginations. (Familiarity, on the other hand, undermines what we have built.)

A bout of distance engages the emotions further; instead of making us angry, it makes us insecure. Perhaps they don’t really like us, perhaps we have lost their interest. Once our vanity is at stake, we succumb to the Coquette just to prove we are still desirable.

Daily Law: The essence of the Coquette lies not in the tease and temptation but in the subsequent step back, the emotional withdrawal. That is the key to enslaving desire.

Direct Your Gaze Outward Seducers are never self-absorbed. Their gaze is directed outward, not inward. The reasons for this are several. First, self-absorption is a sign of insecurity; it is anti-seductive.

Everyone has insecurities, but seducers manage to ignore them, finding therapy for moments of self-doubt by being absorbed in the world. This gives them a buoyant spirit—we want to be around them.

Second, getting into someone’s skin, imagining what it is like to be them, helps the seducer gather valuable information, learn what makes that person tick, what will make them lose the...

Armed with such information, a seducer can provide focused and individualized attention—a rare commodity in a world in which most people see us only from...

Daily Law: When you meet someone your first move is to get inside that person’s skin, to see the world through their eyes.

The Empathic Attitude The greatest danger you face is your general assumption that you really understand people and that you can quickly judge them. Instead, you must begin with the assumption that you are ignorant and that you have natural biases that will make you judge people incorrectly.

Each person you meet is like an undiscovered country, with a very particular psychological chemistry that you will carefully explore. This flexible, open spirit is similar to creative energy—a willingness to consider more possibilities and options. In fact, developing your empathy will also improve your creative powers. The best place to begin this transformation in your attitude is in your numerous daily conversations.

Try reversing your normal impulse to talk and give your opinion, desiring instead to hear the other person’s point of view. You have tremendous curiosity in this direction. Cut off your incessant interior monologue as best you can. Give full attention to the other. What matters here is the quality of your listening, so that in the course of the conversation you can mirror back to the other person things th...

Daily Law: Let go of your tendency to make snap judgments. Open your mind to seeing people in a new light. Do not assume that you are similar or that they share your values.

The technique was invented by the great charlatans of seventeenth-century Europe. To peddle their elixirs and alchemic concoctions, they would first put on a show—clowns, music, vaudeville-type routines—that had nothing to do with what they were selling. A crowd would form, and as the audience laughed and relaxed, the charlatan would come onstage and briefly and dramatically discuss the miraculous effects of the elixir. In the centuries since, publicists, advertisers, political strategists, and others have taken this method to new heights, but the rudiments of the soft sell remain the same: bring pleasure by creating a positive atmosphere around your name or message.

Daily Law: Never seem to be selling something—that will look manipulative and suspicious. Instead, let entertainment value and good feelings take center stage, sneaking the sale through the side door.

Appear to Be an Object of Desire Most of the time we prefer one thing to another because that is what our friends already prefer or because that object has marked social significance When we say of a man or woman that he or she is desirable, what we really mean is that others desire them. — SERGE MOSCOVICI

Few are drawn to the person whom others avoid or neglect; people gather around those who have already attracted interest. We want what other people want.

To draw your victims closer and make them hungry to possess you, you must create an aura of desirability—of being wanted and courted by many. It will become a point of vanity for them to be the preferred object of your attention, to win you away from a crowd of admirers.

Manufacture the illusion of popularity by surrounding yourself with members of the opposite sex—friends, former lovers, present suitors. Create triangles t...

Daily Law: Build a reputation that precedes you: if many have succumbed to your charms, there must be a reason.

The Anti-Seducer Anti-Seducers come in many shapes and kinds, but almost all of them share a single attribute, the source of their repellence: insecurity.

Daily Law: Rid yourself of any anti-seductive tendencies by getting outside yourself and your insecurities and into their spirit.

Make Them Want to Spoil You People often mistakenly believe that what makes a person desirable and seductive is physical beauty, elegance, or overt sexuality. Yet Cora Pearl was not dramatically beautiful; her body was boyish, and her style was garish and tasteless. Even so, the most dashing men of Europe vied for her favors, often ruining themselves in the process. It was Cora’s spirit and attitude that enthralled them.

Spoiled by her father, she imagined that spoiling her was natural—that all men should do the same. The consequence was that, like a child, she never felt she had to try to please. It was Cora’s powerful air of independence that made men want to possess her. The lesson is simple: It may be too late to be spoiled by a parent, but it is never too late to make other people spoil you. It is all in your attitude.

People are drawn to those who expect a lot out of life, whereas they tend to disrespect those who...

Set Off Viral Effects The moment people know you are after something—a vote, a sale—they become resistant. But disguise your sales pitch as a news event and not only will you bypass their resistance, you can also create a social trend that does the selling for you.

An event that is picked up by the news has the imprimatur of reality. It is important to give this manufactured event positive associations. Associations that are patriotic, say, or subtly sexual, or spiritual—anything pleasant and seductive—take on a life of their own. Who can resist? People essentially persuade themselves to join the crowd without even realizing that a sale has taken place.

Announce your message as a trend and it will become one. The goal is to create a kind of viral effect in which more and more people become infected with the desire to have whatever you are offering.

Daily Law: Seem to be in the vanguard of a trend or lifestyle and the public will lap you up for fear of being left behind.

Friend to Lover I do not approach her, I merely skirt the periphery of her existence This is the first web into which she must be spun. — SØREN KIERKEGAARD

To move from friendship to love can win success without calling attention to itself as a maneuver. First, your friendly conversations with your targets will bring you valuable information about their characters, their tastes, their weaknesses, the childhood yearnings that govern their adult behavior. Second, by spending time with your targets you can make them comfortable with you.

Believing you are interested only in their thoughts, in their company, they will lower their resistance, dissipating the usual tension between the sexes. Now they are vulnerable, for your friendship with them has opened the golden gate to their body: their mind. At this point any offhand comment, any slight physical contact, will spark a different thought, which will catch them off guard: perhaps there could be something else between you. Once that feeling has stirred, they will wonder why you haven’t made a move, and will take the initiative themselves, enjoying the illusion that they are in control.

There is nothing more effective in seduction than making the seduced think that they are t...

Daily Law: Cultivate a relatively neutral relationship, moving gradually from friend to lover. The Art of Seduction: Create a False Sense of Security—Approach Indirectly

Familiarity is the death of seduction.

If the target knows everything about you, the relationship gains a level of comfort but loses the elements of fantasy and anxiety.

Without anxiety and a touch of fear, the erotic tension is dissolved. Remember: r...

Maintain some mystery or be taken...

Daily Law: Keep some dark corners in your character, flout expectations, use absences to fragment the clinging, possessive pull that allows familiarity to creep in.

Daily Law: Make use of contrasts—either develop and display those attractive attributes (humor, vivacity, and so on) that are the scarcest in your own social group, or choose a group in which your natural qualities are rare, and will shine. The Art of Seduction: Appear to Be an Object of Desire—Create Triangles

In those moments when children are waiting for a surprise, their willpower is suspended. They are in your thrall for as long as you dangle possibility before them. This childish habit is buried deep within us, and is the source of an elemental human pleasure: being led by a person who knows where they are going, and who takes us on a journey.

Daily Law: There are all kinds of calculated surprises you can spring on your victims—sending a message out of the blue, showing up unexpectedly, taking them to a place they have never been. But best of all are surprises that reveal something new about your character.

Daily Law: Any kind of heightened experience, artistic or spiritual, lingers in the mind much longer than normal experience. The Art of Seduction: Poeticize Your Presence

All of us are narcissists.

People truly love themselves, but what they love most of all is to see their ideas and tastes reflected in another person. This validates them.

Entering the other person’s spirit is a kind of hypnosis; it is the most insidious and effective form of persuasion known to man.

Daily Law: Find that weakness of theirs, that fantasy that has yet to be realized, and hint that you can lead them toward it. It could be wealth, it could be adventure, it could be forbidden and guilty pleasures; the key is to keep it vague. The Art of Seduction: Create Temptation

Fantasy is so much more pleasant than reality, and since most people do not have the power or courage to create such a world, they enjoy being around those who do. Daily Law: Learn to play with your image, never taking it too seriously. The key is to infuse your play with the conviction and feeling of a child, making it seem natural.

The more absorbed you seem in your own joy-filled world, the more seductive you become.

Be a Source of Pleasure No one wants to hear about your problems and troubles. Listen to your targets’ complaints, but more important, distract them from their problems by giving them pleasure.