How to Be a Real Man
by 
Eric Disco
Recently on the forum, someone posted a question.
“What must a guy do to grow up and become a real man?”
I have strong feelings about that.
It has nothing to do with how many women you bed.
Or how much you accomplish in life.
And it certainly has nothing to do with disrespecting women in general.
Or losing your ability to feel for another person.
Instead, it comes down to one single thing.
Here is the most important thing a guy must do if he wants to be ‘real man.’
If you can do this, you have become a man, mastered inner game, taken hold of your reality:
Take initiative.
That is the most important thing that a man must be able to do.
That is the most important characteristic of the leader, the alpha male, the confident cool sexy guy.
He is able to take initiative.
That initiative can be walking up to a woman and talking to her.
But it can also be any kind of initiative in any social situation.
Speaking up in a group.
Taking the lead in a conversation.
Saying ‘Hi, how are you?’ to a cashier when she says ‘May I help you?’
Sexually escalating when you are with the girl.
Being fun and playful even though you’re scared.
Dropping down into deep conversation and making yourself vulnerable at the appropriate time.
Taking initiative can mean taking the lead.
But it also means acting on your impulse, doing something spontaneously, staying in touch with your inner animal.
I have done many things in my life to ‘become a man.’
I have grown in many ways, from moving into my own apartment in New York City, to starting my own company, to countless other challenging tasks.
But the most important has been learning how to take initiative socially.
There is nothing I have ever done in my life that has been more challenging, nor given me more confidence.
I hold it up as the single thing which has empowered me the most.
By taking initiative you begin taking responsibility.
When you take initiative, you learn to deal with the repercussions of your initiative.
Maybe you creep a girl out. And you walk away feeling creeped out yourself.
Ouch. Doesn’t feel good.
But you take responsibility for that and say “Okay, I learned something. Didn’t mean to do it.”
I accept those feelings and learn not to feel guilty or ruminate over it.
And I take initiative again in the future, even though this may happen again.
I take action in the world and deal with the consequences.
A little boy walks around with the naive idea that he can be nice and inoffensive to everyone.
In reality this is impossible. Every time you take initiative to be friends with someone, you overstep some boundaries.
Every time you push past the friend zone with a woman, maybe even just hold her hand, you are overstepping some boundaries.
You are taking initiative and living with the repercussions of that initiative.
And this is not something you can just do mentally. Perhaps you are reading this post and agree with what I’m saying.
This doesn’t make you a man.
To become mature, you must actually go out and take action. This is something that happens in your body.
Your emotions are in your body, not in your mind. Confidence is in your body, not in your mind.
So by taking physical action in the real world, rather than just mentally understanding concepts, you mature.
By taking small calculated risks, you toughen yourself up to failure and build up your tolerance so that you can take greater risks.
You live through the pain and it makes you a stronger individual.
You accept all of those feelings and decide that you will accept those feelings again in the future.
And I’ll add two more things about ‘becoming a real man.’
This concept holds true for women as well.
Women have different components in terms of their ‘game,’ but the basic path of maturity through initiative happens for them in almost the same way.
Secondly, when you do take a risk and sexually escalate things with a woman you are not doing it unaware.
Being a ‘real man’ is also about respecting women and respecting the situation.
Most guys reading this could probably stand to be more aggressive, to take more initiative, and be more persistent.
But when a woman says No, that needs to be respected.
You of course can walk away if you don’t get what you want. You certainly shouldn’t stick around and get the short end of the stick.
And if she says No, you can always try again later.
But you never ever push past a woman’s boundaries when she has indicated otherwise.
Posted in Initiative and Inhibition | 
15 Comments »
Great post man! I need to work on taking initiative big time. That’s why I screwed up my chances with the last girl I had an opportunity with. I didn’t escalate it sexually becuase I was insecure about being good in bed. I basically did a half ass attempt. Had to much anxiety and my inner animal didn’t just come out. I need to not worry about it so much. You just have to take that risk!
i find the bait and wait approach for more useful for my tastes. taking initiative means you’re seeking out a submissive companion. i prefer to find someone who is willing to take the lead and simple leave the stick on the table and hold the carrot in my hand. it works remarkably well provided you have no expectations upon any social interaction with the lady. in fact, most of the time they are utterly baffled as to why you’re not the one taking the bait of their provocative dress and body language. by refusing to even engage in the typical game, i find it leads to a more meaningful relationship even if you don’t become romantic.
Is She Shy – or Did She Indicate A Boundary?
Eric, great post as always — you are exactly right that taking initiative works.
I took initiative with a woman I like and made some patient progress with her. But now I’m not sure whether she is just shy or if she has in fact communicated a boundary to me and I should stop pursuing her. I honestly cannot tell …
It happened like this:
I grew very attracted to this local woman over a few years. She eventually caught me glancing at her, and then we continued glancing at each other for several more weeks. Finally I knew it was now or never and that I needed to approach her before any more tension mounted.
I was never more nervous in my life than the day I walked up and talked to her for the first time. We are in our thirties but I knew she was shy and reclusive even before I got up the courage to go talk to her. But as nervous as we both were, and despite the gibberish coming from my mouth, I at least got her to smile genuinely before she turned and bolted.
A week later, to my great surprise, she even came and sat down next to me. She was still very, very shy with obvious walls around her, but this time I managed to engage her in about 20 minutes of decent conversation. I also got her email address with a promise to send her some job information.
I emailed her the job information as I promised — but in retrospect I should have waited longer than two or three days before emailing her.
I waited for a reply but she didn’t even write back with a thank you or anything. Then I saw her again about five days after I emailed her …
And this time she looked mortified that I was in her presence.
To my great dismay she proceeded to pull the hood of the sweatshirt she was wearing down to cover her head. She left the place soon after that — and as she did I saw a woman friend of hers look in me with a hint of concern.
Talk about a disheartening turn of events. I’ve talked and acted to other women in the same way before and never had such a reaction. If anything, they come to know that I’m an allright guy — and with these other women sometimes we date, or sometimes we just hang out as friends. But they never look mortified.
That same evening, again to my great surprise, I got a polite, even friendly email from her, saying thank you for the information I sent her. She said have a good vacation and basically take care until she runs into me again in the neighborhood.
Anyway, now I’m totally confused.
I feel like I was overeager and creeped her out, especially given the way she reacted when she saw me after I emailed her. For all I know maybe her email was just a face-saving way to spare my ego.
I do know she has a certain Eastern European background and that culturally people of this background can be very, very reserved until they get to know someone. Had I known this prior I would have changed my approach.
And of course it’s always possible she’s just not into me.
I do still like her and she did leave the door open to running into me again in the neighborhood. It’s been five weeks since I’ve seen her and I’m tempted to just keep my distance awhile while I figure out if I want to go near her again or just call the effort off. I’m left really spooked by her past reaction.
Anyone care to venture a guess as to whether she is just shy or if she has indicated a boundary, which I now must respect?
Wow Eric, what can I say, just WOW!
@ TotallyConfused
Sometimes women have issues that are way more weird than a guy’s. Send her a cocky mail like “Hey, I notice you’re always staring at me. I know I’m a cute guy, but if you like me, buy me a coffee, don’t just stare. ;) ”
Then continue to approach/meet other women, don’t be hung up on her.
Also, you said you were “glancing at each other for several more weeks”. Several WEEKS is toooo long! Women rarely give sustained eye contact, and when they do, you have to approach immediately. Otherwise, she may not just lose the attraction, she could also lose respect for the man at a deep level. Which is probably what happened.
Just my 2-cents worth. Curious to read Eric’s response.
This is such a fantastic post Eric…I haven’t seen anyone ever articulate so brilliantly WHY we have this burning fire inside of us to get our approach skills handled…why some of the brightest minds feel drawn towards the game…why even men who have got a girlfriend still feel that emptiness inside if they haven’t got this skill down.
It’s not so much about getting laid as about becoming a REAL MAN.
Thank you Eric for not charging us to read your posts.
Hey Man,
Great example.
Firstly, you did a lot of things right here. You took it slow, which is good since she is someone you may be seeing on a regular basis.
You took initiative to interact with her even though you were nervous. Awesome.
This is not such a great idea. I’ve made this mistake before. I really tried to avoid any other premise of interacting with her other than us dating or being friends. It confuses her and not in a good way.
Okay.
There are certainly differences in every woman. Some are confident and outgoing. Some are more shy. And it’s good when you can pick up on that.
But.
You can’t change your game too much based on what you perceive her situation to be. That can get you into a whole lot of trouble. You need to run your game based on how aggressive you normally are. If you try to account too much for her situation, maybe that she’s shy, you might move too slow and get yourself stuck in friend zone.
You don’t know her that well. Even after a 20 minute conversation. You shouldn’t be changing your game up to account for what you perceive as her deficiencies.
Maybe she’s seeing three guys right now. You don’t know.
All you can do is run the best possible game you can.
And this is very very important. Because a lot of guys will start to learn about this stuff, will get better with women. And then they meet a girl they really really like, and their game goes out the window.
All of a sudden it feels like the normal game wouldn’t work. You feel like you need to treat her as nice and sweet as possible and put on the kid gloves, instead of being the cool, fun sexy guy you normally are around women.
It happens to the very best guys I know, including me.
Don’t take it easy on her. Don’t let her off the hook because she’s shy.
So the question is, how long do you persist? If you get a No from her, do you just drop off?
My advice in this situation is to go for it one or two more times. She did make some overtures to you.
Since stuff has gotten confused and muddled here, you may want to be a bit more straightforward with her.
You could even say something like “Oh my god, you should totally take me on a date. But don’t expect me to put out, I don’t do that till the 14th date!”
You could go direct as well, but since you may see her again, I would give both of you the opportunity to save face by joking a bit.
Check out this post, Persistence Gets the Girl.
Eric
Eric, thanks for clarifying the situation. Armed with this info I feel like on the right approach again. Whatever I make happen I’m still glad I took the initiative in the first place.
@ was Totally Confused : “I’m still glad I took the initiative in the first place”
That’s absolutely correct. The pain of not knowing is worse than the pain of rejection. :)
God knows how many women I’ve avoided approaching (for lack of balls) and then fretted and pondered over WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. It was torture, lying awake at night regretting not approaching.
Always better to approach and get rejected than not approach at all and regret it for ever.
Awesome post Eric, as always.
One question, along with your awesome posts come great pictures, portraits perhaps, do you draw them yourself?
shitty post lets stick to the topic : Approach Anxiety.
@ Jack: I’ll keep it relatively short and point out the somewhat obvious by saying that taking initiative and dealing with approach anxiety are related. It’s like when I played basketball growing up and the coach made us do wind sprints during practice and I was complaining to myself that wind sprints weren’t helping me with my basketball game the same way that shooting jumpers would. Of course, eventually I realized that wind sprints were helping to keep me in shape so that I could have my legs under me and most effectively perform my basketball-specific skills when it was time for a game.
-Zack
Very Interesting Post Eric…. I Agree that Man take initiative… and is something that I have to work on not only with women but with every aspect in my life…..
I have had many situations where I have the Oppurtunity to take initiative but sadly its like my body my mind is not use to it….
It Would Be great If you Could Give a Few Easy steps to start Building your Initiative….
I know approaching is One… Each time you ignore that little voice that tells you to not approach that tells you not right now… your building initiative…
Great post… and great comments to go along with it.
“If she says no, you can always try again later.”
Thanks!