Women Find Confidence Sexy: The Science
by 
Eric Disco
About five years ago, I took a workshop with a popular dating company. They ended up inviting me back as an assistant coach a few months later based on my written reports about the approaches I was doing. In the three months since I had seen them, I had gone out and done one approach every day. As I’ve talked about before, it was the toughest thing I’d ever done. And at the same time, there is nothing I’ve ever done that’s fundamentally changed my physical confidence more. I was relaxed and self-assured when I came back. There was a certain calmness in the way I moved.
At the workshops, they had women who would come in for a few hours and give feedback to guys. One of the women, a cute young hottie, had been there at my first workshop as a student. She was back again at that workshop. Without her knowing the situation at all, she commented to one of the coaches, “What happened to Eric? He got a lot better looking.” It was my body language, my physical confidence that she was noticing.
In an earlier post, You’re in Luck: Women Find Confidence Sexy, some commenters had question about the exact mechanism of how confidence is sexy for women. It’s easy to see how women are attracted to good looks and perhaps even rich guys, but confidence? How does that work? We can look at ethology (the study of animal behavior) and evolutionary psychology for some answers.
When it comes to sexual selection, women are under different pressures than men. For women, intercourse carries with it a much greater investment?nine months with the child. Due to differences in sexual investment, this not only makes women more choosy than men, but they have evolved to value different signs of “health” when it comes to sexual reproduction. And by value, I mean instinctually choose different things.
Both men and women value physical attractiveness as a sign of health. However, the behavior of monogamy has evolved as a strategy for sexual success of offspring. Again, by strategy we don’t mean conscious decision but an evolved, instinctual behavior. Women are more attracted to men who can “provide” for the child after it’s born. So women have an inclination to choose men who are wealthy.
Okay, so we can see why both men and women are attracted to physical attributes and women are attracted to wealth. But sexual strategies are more complex than this.
The act of sexual intercourse is an extremely fast process in relation to the birth process. A decision to participate in an act that lasts minutes could lead to a nine month pregnancy plus years of child-rearing. It is not always obvious which man has the wealth. You can’t see his bank book. And for the vast majority of evolution, wealth and money did not even exist. What did exist was status. This comes down to who is the leader. The leader is the one who has access to the greatest resources and will have the most opportunities for mating, particularly for men.
For example, an older, physically unattractive world-famous male rock star may have millions of young, nubile women fawning over him from both afar and close-up. These women would be sexually aroused at the thought of meeting him. The same is not necessarily true for a female rock star. An older, physically unattractive female rock star would not have as many young, nubile men fawning over her from afar, sexually aroused at the thought of meeting her. She would still be valued for her music, but her status would not translate into sexual attraction as much as it would for a man. Not that her status wouldn’t translate at all. And if the guy were better looking it would help him. But the effect of status on sexual attractiveness is much greater for men than for women.
But you don’t need to become a world-famous rock star to display status and trigger attraction. This is because the evaluation of status is based on behavior rather than a logical decision-making process.
In less evolved animals like wolves, the highest-status wolf is the leader. The leader is always the one who is physically the toughest. He’s the one who would win in a fight. In social living, these creatures don’t always fight. In fact 99% of the time, animals in the same social group will never fight to the death. They have ways around actual fighting that involve posturing and sizing up your opponent. Things like eye contact will communicate whether you intend to fight or submit. Here we can see that communication of your strength, a.k.a. confidence, can be different than your actual strength. But if you’re a wolf, the two better be pretty similar or you’re going get yourself killed. There is an extremely high cost with faking confidence. If you stare down the wrong individual, you could get killed.
Humans–and chimpanzees as well–operate in a different type of social hierarchy than other primates and all lower life forms. Who is at the top of the hierarchy when it comes to humans? It’s actually not the toughest guy. Just because you can beat people up doesn’t mean that everyone will follow you. Human beings develop hierarchy based on contribution to society. Who is at the top of the human hierarchy? Nobel Prize winners. Rock stars. Artists. Thinkers. Architects. Athletes. Actors. Businessmen. These people contribute positively to society. Some dude that goes around threatening people won’t get very far at all. Humans works on an affiliative basis. You value friends when they contribute positively to your life. You don’t value people because they’re capable of physically harming people. The true alpha is not the football player from your high school who bullied other kids, it’s the guy who got everyone else to like him.
Humans and chimps have evolved past the hierarchy based on threat. But there are still remnants of it. There is still a part of us that responds to dominance and threat.
But for the course of human evolution, for the last few million years, there wasn’t a Nobel Prize committee. There wasn’t money to bestow on people. There wasn’t even government to vote the most beloved people into power. There were only bands of humans in social groups. These social groups could easily change from day to day. If you look at indigenous people and also chimpanzee, groups change a lot.
Let’s take a look at why we have these groups in the first place. Social living is beneficial to animals in many ways. They can acquire food together through hunting and gathering. They can protect each other from predators, both predators of different species and threats from other humans. And mating opportunities are much more abundant if you are living in close proximity. The behavior of social living evolved because it is extremely beneficial to species.
But there are problems with social living. The main problem with social living is the question of who is the leader. If you are going to live in a group, someone needs to be the leader. In humans, the leader of your group is chosen based on his contribution to society and his ability to lead. But the exact skill that was most valued was always changing. Maybe if there was an abundance of game, it would be hunting that was most valued. Maybe if you were near water, fishing would be valued. So it was difficult to tell who was the most valued at any given time. But the one thing that held constant was confidence.
Affiliative hierarchies develop a behavior known as a charismatic-dependent relationship. That is, when you get two or more people together, usually the most confident one becomes the leader and the less confident ones become the followers. This is beneficial for everyone involved. If someone comes to me for coaching, he’ll be the follower and I’ll be the leader. I know more about this stuff so he defers to me. That same guy may be a computer expert. If I go to him for help with my computer, all of a sudden he’s the confident one and I’m follower. What’s interesting about this dynamic is that the leader becomes even more confident and the follower even less confident. In other words, I may know something about computers, but he’s the expert, so I pretend I know very little and just let him take the lead. My tendency would not be to go in confidently trying to tell him everything I know.
His confidence is based on capability and numerous successes in that area. When I interact with him in person, there is also a physical behavioral component to his confidence. His behavior changes when he is “in his own domain” talking about what he knows best. His voice becomes louder. He speaks up more. He takes initiative. He takes charge. He will tell you how to solve your problem and may even tell you what to do. He becomes a bit uppity because everyone needs him. He is king of his own little world. With that comes a change in behavior.
And I respond to that behavior.
If I don’t know who he is, and he comes across as being confident with computers, I’ll respond to that. I’ll listen to him. If he fucks up my computer, I may feel angry. But he got my “attraction” because he acted confident with computers. He got my attention.
This response to confidence is a powerful, instinctual, evolved behavior. It is extremely beneficial for humans to work together in groups. The charismatic-dependent relationship evolved to allow us to work together in groups by providing a leader. If everyone felt equally confident, we wouldn’t feel like we need each other and we would be less likely to stay together. The fact that humans respond to confidence means that we will stay together in social groups. This is critical for our survival.
Humans are built to be highly responsive to indicators of confidence. It’s there for our survival. If you look at where our behavior evolved over the last ten million years, there was no such thing as money or wealth. Even the idea of possessions is relatively new. Chimpanzees have almost the exact same social structure as humans but none of them have possessions. They do, however, have a very evolved structure of hierarchy based on both behavior and physical capability.
When it comes to sexual reproduction, women are much more sensitive to these signals of confidence than men are because they have a much greater investment when they have sex. This is not a logical, decision-based evaluation she’s making, this is an instinctual, almost instantaneous evaluation of your confidence. It’s an emotional process, a behavior that has evolved to make sure her offspring are as successful as possible.
Everyone of us has the potential to be the follower or the leader. In almost any given situation you may find that you are the leader or the follower. Our brains are much more malleable than our bodies. This means you can become the leader with women. You can build your confidence with women. And she will have no choice but to respond to that.
Posted in Attraction | 
49 Comments »
Love the post.
Have a question on leadership. If women are so into finding guys that are leaders (showing confidence) then why do so many women hookup or go for loser types? Guys that are abusive, guys that are chronically unemployed, drug users, trouble makers – just bottom of the barrel types. I see women going for thugs and really destitute guys quite often (I live in a big urban area). I have professional female friends – some could be neo-playboy material that can pick any guy they want but they chronically are chasing bad boys. Is it that these chicks are mental? What about the Van Sloot guy the murderer? It was said last week that he is receiving over 500 marriage proposals a week? The only leadership this guy gives is leading people to their demise…
So how do you rationalize leadership with the way women flock to loser types so often? I would be interested on your take.
Great question. I think this example actually supports what I’m saying.
These guys are not high status in terms of what society would consider high status. They are actually very low status. But here’s the rub.
The bad boy can act higher status than these women. These guys are used to tension. Maybe they grew up in rough neighborhoods. They had tension in their household all their lives. So they’re fine with conflict when they talk to women. This tension adds to the attraction. They can use the tension to act like a challenge to these women and that turns them on. It’s their behavior that is turning these women on, not their true status.
Eric
Cool. Is this behavior viewed as confidence to these women? Is it some kind of renegade thing – “me against the world” pseudo hollywood stuff?
Very good post. I was having the same thoughts myself. Women are attracted to guys with money, power, status, etc. but they aren’t actually attracted to those things, so much as the behavior of the guy that conveys that he has those things.
The idea that social status is malleable is an interesting concept as well. I read another good blog about a similar topic here:
http://alpha-status.blogspot.com/2010/02/alpha-spark.html
Yes most excellent.
Ok question and here is my problem – this happens to me most frequently. Lets say I am in a bar and I start talking to a very attractive young lady. We start to banter, I tease her and we start flirting and then some big good looking dude comes close by. She starts eyeing him and I keep on talking. She then starts flirting with the guy with her eyes and she makes an excuse to leave. She goes right over to that guy and I have lost her. I showed top confidence in approaching, humor, banter, teasing, maybe some story telling,ect. I use good body language, dress well – do all the right things except I am not the greatest looking guy. It still was not good enough for her. She wanted a better looking male no matter what confidence I showed her so she left for him. I go through this alot and I mean ALOT. I have been coached and the coaches tell me I am fine in my presentation skills. I approach tons of women and I still end up going home alone even with confidence.
So even with confidence women still seem to go for the better looking guy I have found.
What is your take on this?
Eric it looks like I inspired a full entry on your blog! I am honored! Awesome.
It looks like you drilled down the science of confidence but I do need to ask this question…just like stated above, I get AMOGed often and so if I start chatting and showing confidence a beautiful gal in the room thats all great but is that confidence sexy enough to get the girls number vs the hunks or guys that approach her? These women can have the pick of the litter if they wanted. So why would showing confidence via teasing or storytelling or something like that be of more benefit than being the more appealing male in the room? So I ask why would she pick me over him if all this evolutionary stuff precludes a female to pick the “better” mate? Why would she pick me at barely 5’8 vs. the 6’2 dude? Is confidence enough to have her pick me instead of him? Please let me know.
@Ian
You described what happened in your own post. You were worried about the other guy and you can be damn sure she sensed it.
Secondly, apparently you didn’t connect with her enough through banter, humor, teasing, whatever… You say you did, but how do you know? Results show otherwise. You may be interesting to talk to for her, but if she still felt compelled to walk away to a complete stranger, despite his looks, you probably didn’t connect with her enough.
She could have been just waiting for a more attractive guy, who knows. But if this happens consistently, then there may be more to it. It is logical thinking to think: more attractive guy than me enters the area, she will likely go for him instead…. but women aren’t usually logical. There’s a million things that could be happening, but if they’re leaving you for someone else a lot, it’s probably not them.
Interesting topic and post. Thanks for this!
It raised a question for me about those situations in which you are the one with less knowledge and therefore the follower: Couldn’t you still be (the) confident (one)? You may rely on his advice but you still decide on your own what’s happening with your computer.
It’s viewed as physical confidence. When talking to an attractive woman, most guys will put her on a pedestal. But this isn’t a logical thought that this woman is better than him. It’s a physical inhibition that overtakes him. He begins to play it safe, to be as harmless as possible, to say the right thing instead of what he feels. In other words, he kisses her ass.
The bad boy, due to his lack of inhibition, can say what he really thinks and feels. He doesn’t treat her like pretty thing to be handled with kid gloves. If he disagrees with her he says so. He doesn’t hide it. This allows his true personality to come through. And it also makes him a challenge because he isn’t bending under her will.
There is another facet of the bad boy that attracts women, and that’s their desire to “fix” him. He shows his true self, all vulnerable and ragged and she has a tendency to want to help him because of that.
Eric
Ian and Alex,
Before we continue this discussion any further, I would like to hear from you what HAS worked for you with women.
Are you able to interact with women now in a way you weren’t in the past? Have you gotten better and gotten past some of your fear? Are you still inhibited when talking with these women?
Have you ever had a girlfriend or a girl that was really into you?
Are you able to get attraction from any women at all or is it only really attractive women who aren’t attracted to you? If you can get some women but not really attractive women, where is the line drawn?
Do you find there is a difference in receptivity between women you cold approach and women you meet through social circles (through friends, work, etc.)
Eric
Hey Eric,
Hopefully this will help:
I have never been really inhibited in talking to attractive women. My quest was to find out “how to date them.” I was married once before to a beautiful woman but we were not compatible and it ended fortunately on friendly terms. That was 10 years ago. Since then its been a roller coaster ride (mostly down) in trying to date beautiful women so I am basically status quo. I have never really had bad AA. I am in sales and marketing and I have spoken to VP’s, CEO’ before. I am a musician as well and have played infront of hundreds. Approaching women and talking to them is not a real problem. Certain really stunning women do cause me to stumble and it does happen that I will just not talk to them out of fear but its not overly common.
My ex-wife in the beginning of our courtship. Also a few women that I have met thru the years. However, beyond my ex-wife (who I met thru friends and I attribute luck to us getting together) not really with any really attractive women. How could I? They never say yes for dates…lol..
Attraction only seems to come from the 5 to 7 crowd. 8 gets murky. Very rare – very, very very rare from a 9. Never really had positive reactions from a 10. I approached maybe “10 10′s” in my life. I do not see them that often and if I do, they are usually married, have a boyfriend or are dating a friend of mine that is equally attractive or has money or some kind of status (owns a company, plays a major league sport – I have some friends that play football and baseball or runs a bar or something). The two football player friends cant keep the 9′s and 10′s away from them. Same with one of my baseball player friends. I have asked them to try and set me up with their single female friends and its never materialized. They have found me too short or some kind of shallow excuse. So much for confidence and game there.
Absolutely there is a difference. Social circles are always more receptive but at my age (early 40′s) most of my female friends are married, have boyfriends or are bitter divorcees with 3 or 4 kids. There are younger women in groups (age 25 to say early 30′s) but they have real problem with me being over 40. I look mid 30′s but they will not date older guys and I never see them with older guys so they are not hypocrites about it.
To me its about attracting attractive that I am attracted too. Not just women in general.
Let me know.
Thanks for your help
Eric, excellent article. One of the best I’ve seen here yet.
I have a little anecdote that might be of interest to some guys here. I am a healthy, good-looking (if I do say so myself) guy in my 20s. I know a guy who is in his late 50s, balding has started, pot belly, not the prettiest face, and is maybe a paltry 5′ 4″–5′ 5″ on a good day. Oh, and did I mention he lives in an English-speaking country but English is not his first language, and so he speaks with a very noticeable accent.
Who do you think is more successful with women? You guessed it–the old man.
I have significantly improved my game with women in the last few years thanks to reading guys like Eric. But this guy has been successful for decades, and was successful before i was even born. What’s his magic secret? Sorry, folks, life really is this simple–CONFIDENCE!
In his weakest moments, this guy notices his signs of aging. But when he gets out into society, man, this guy is living life! He’s chatting with strangers, teasing waitresses young enough to be his daughter, cracking jokes, the whole nine. There is not an ounce of embarrassment, hesitation or shyness in his personality when he is out and about.
He has structured his life in a way that is perfect for him–independent entrepreneur, his own boss, works with models, travels around the world, pursues his creativity, hosts parties–all under the guise of “work”! In short, he has created the life he wants, from scratch.
But guess what? He isn’t rich. He isn’t famous (except in some small circles), he once declared bankruptcy, and I already mentioned his other “imperfections.” And yet, at those parties, with plenty of handsome, tall young men with good careers around, you think he’s missing out on the female attention? Nope! Funny thing is, when you’re as high on life and as confident and naturally happy as this guy, you *don’t even notice the hunks and jocks walking around.* You’re too busy enjoying yourself, and therefore the women don’t notice them as much either. They’re just background noise.
While the “hunks” are busy flexing and posing and waiting for the chicks to come flocking, this guy is pounding the proverbial pavement–chatting, flirting, teasing, joking, telling stories, and just plain living. He’s so NOT caught up in status games that he winds up having a pretty damn high status. And not just with women–he’s fearless and unintimidated by men who are taller or richer than him, and some of them even work under him!
True, this man does what he needs to do to look as good as he can–comb hair, shower, nice suit, cologne, you know the basics. But that is not to create some artificial confidence; it’s to show off the social confidence and comfort and happiness he already has.
Anyway, I hope this little story helps. Good luck, guys. No, scratch that–make your own luck!
For me its just that really attractive women are really elusive. I get AMOG’ed alot. I start talking to some really attractive gal and then presto she excuses herself and I am out of luck. I just get AMOGed alot. Its like whenever I go out guys are just ready to step into my talking.
I have never been married and have had some girlfriends but they were just women that I met that were available so I dated for company. I feel I have no control over my dating life. None. I live in a city that is just teeming with hot women but I feel I just cannot connect with any of them. I honestly think its all about hot guys to them.
Attraction I get basically from shy plain women. If there is a walllflower she will be attracted to me, guaranteed. If she is hot, no way. She will go right by me for some bad boy or something. I really hate this dating thing. Its not fun.
Alex (and much of this applies to Ian as well),
I appreciate you opening up and sharing about yourself. I don’t want to try to convince you that, yes, it is possible to get past your looks. I truly believe that confidence is louder than looks. But anecdotes from me or other people won’t convince you of anything if it appears to be completely contrary to your personal experience. Nor will I try to explain why you haven’t gotten the results you wanted based on trying to improve yourself through confidence. Instead, let’s look at a few things you’ve presented here.
Based on what you said here, I think we could agree with the fact that it is possible for beautiful women to be attracted to a guy who, by his own words, is lacking in the looks department. It doesn’t happen as readily, easily, or consistently as it happens with your higher status football and baseball player friends but it does happen.
I’m not trying to pick apart your story so I can say, “Aha, I was right!”, but rather I think you’ve come here for a different perspective and I think you do really believe that there is some way to get past your looks, even if you haven’t witnessed it yet.
My experience in relationships with women has been this. The most difficult part of attraction is in the initial stage. Here’s this angel, she’s so hot and attractive, but is she attracted to me? Let’s see. 9 out of 10 times, even for me, it seems she’s not. But when she is attracted to me, her attraction fluctuates not based on my looks, but how I act with her.
So if I meet a girl and start dating her, I might lose that girl if I get too needy. I may not have gotten enough attraction from her based on the fact that I’m not good-looking enough. But if she does like me, my looks aren’t really an issue anymore. Now it’s a matter of my behavior.
Now, you might say that I attracted this girl based on my looks. Of course I did. The worse shape I am in physically, the harder it is for me to attract this same girl. Perhaps I have severe facial burns from a fire, or am missing all my limbs or have spinal meningitis. My same level of confidence is not going to blow her doors off. The worse off I am in the looks department, the more I will have to compensate for that if I want to get the same level of hotness in women.
Studies have shown that people are attracted to the hottest people no matter what. If we rank people in terms of looks on a scale of 1-10, 8′s aren’t more attracted to 8′s than they are to 10′s. Everyone is most attracted to 10′s. You could even say this is the definition of this scale.
It’s going to be harder for a 10 to be attracted to you based on your confidence. But it’s not impossible. You have seen that once in a while, a 9 will be attracted to you. In order to get more 9′s attracted to you, you’ll need to take more initiative, try more things out and be willing to change and learn (not that you haven’t done a lot already).
Some things I can recommend. Firstly, if you feel outcompeted by other guys, bars and nightclubs are not the best place for you. In general, older guys are at a disadvantage in those places. It’s been shown in studies, when people have a lot of choices, they tend to focus on more superficial aspects when choosing. I can try to find that study if you want, but basically what they found is that for both men and women, if they are trying to choose between 20 people instead of 3, then the chooser starts to weigh more superficial aspects more, like looks and status symbols. Where as if the chooser sees only 3 choices, the chooser will dig a little deeper past the superficial and find out more in depth about each choice. In other words, you may be better off doing daygame where you aren’t competing with all these other guys. You’ll find you are competing with less.
In many ways, you can look at attraction as attention. Bars and nightclubs are very distracting places. These distractions include other physically attractive guys, loud music, drinking, lights, dancing. Another aspect is her friends. They could influence her to be choosier based on physical appearance as she tries to impress them. She may be more hesitant to give a less good-looking guy a chance in front of her friends.
Gaming in bars and clubs does have its advantages. You can practice being more sexual quicker because it’s darker, people are drinking, and people are less likely to notice if shit goes bad. And if it does go bad, you can always just turn and talk to someone else nearby. And you can also use the social aspect to get attention from women. If you can get consistently good with cute but not super attractive girls, the super attractive girls will see you as more attractive because you’re surrounded with women. You can also practice the take-away: start talking to a girl and then walk away in the middle of it. Almost every same night hook-up I’ve had has involved some kind of take-away.
If you feel you aren’t getting enough attraction, you can also start to use harsher tactics, “higher octane” openers, things like that. In other words, you can take more risk in these situations. There are so many aspects of this game that you can play around with: qualification, changing your style, working different venues, taking up different activities that aren’t centered around bars and clubs.
There was a very important reason why I asked you what has worked for you with women. If you cannot appreciate your successes then it is very difficult for you to progress. If you blanket yourself with the idea that attractive women aren’t attracted to me, despite small indicators to the contrary, then it will be difficult to make progress. I don’t doubt that you’ve put in a full effort to progress in this area or that you’ve made progress, but for any guy, unsuccessful interactions are a huge part of this game. There are no absolutes. I’ve said before that having good game is more like having a good batting average. Nobody bats a thousand. And if they are batting a thousand it’s because they’re playing in a league that’s not challenging them.
Eric
Alex, I am going to be 46 in September. I am not a particularly good looking guy. Most women would rate me a 7. But I have good style, my confidence is strong, and I’ve been actively studying the game for a while. Though I understand why, I am still shocked that every year it becomes easier and easier for me to meet hot women in their mid-twenties. It’s not something I particularly want to do anymore, except perhaps to show others it’s possible. I think Eric might be in the same boat :-) I no longer have that much in common with hotties just out of college, but not only can I approach them and get them to go out with me, I can get them to make the first move. I haven’t asked a woman for a phone number or email in several years. They ask me out by emailing me. There’s an interview in the podcasts section of this site in which I explain how I do it. As I get older, my age may be becoming more of a problem, but my growing skills are more than compensating for my age. As the old testament says, thank you, god, for not making me a woman :-)
Lee,
I have to disagree with you on this point:
Men actually get more attractive as they get older. Even just in terms of looks, older men are more attractive. Check out this study on Women’s Mating Strategies (pdf):
There are definitely modern day societal factors where women get pressure from family and social circles to date closer to her age. This is why in more social situations, like a bar, older guys might be at a disadvantage. But in terms of evolutionary behavior, older men actually do pretty well. Most women will admit to wanting to date older men.
Eric
Fuck You, Eric! You may be completely right on this subject – and as a scientist, I cannot ignore good science – but I hate it when something I previously attributed to my skill is shown to be a consequence of factors beyond my control. I want to be desired by women despite my looks!
Eric and Lee,
Here we go – great example of why looks seem to triumph over “game.”
Went out tonight to a large festival with two friends of mine – both are over 6ft and pretty good looking (one looks like Josh Duhmel and the other kind of like Bradley Cooper). We start talking to various women in various groups – both of these guys cannot open to save their lives so I open get the girls laughing about some things I was observing and the two hottest chicks in both groups go right for my two buddies. They hardly say anything but just smile. They each get 2 numbers I get nothing. So looks 2 confidence 0.
The three of us go to a local bar and there is this cougar chick (about 50 blonde huge rack, thin, great body but a little nutty) and I have teased her, told her stories (I really wonder if this story thing really works), kino’ed when I could, tried to escalate and have never been able to get even a phone number from her. I have really tried (again showing that great confidence factor again). Well my one buddy – Bradley Cooper comes over and she is like having an orgasm over this guy. She is wearing these high heels so she is taller than me (typical – chicks today are always wearing 4 to 5 inch heals) and he is like 6’2 so she goes right to him and she starts blabbing away about this and that – he just stands there, nods say confident things like “ok”, “thats great” then he jokes and says to her “want to fuck”. She first tells him that he is out of line and the two separate. One half hour later she ends up giving him a BJ in the bathroom. As I am writing this now he took her home to his place.
So in one night these two guys hardly say any words, they both get phone numbers from some very attractive women, one gets laid, I start the conversations and do all I am supposed to do and I am typing this to you without any numbers or with a woman.
Please tell me what I am doing wrong….or are guys like me forever in limbo…I really am suspect of this confidence thing…I think its just luck of the draw, looks and some other kind of extra value….
How much harder does a guy have to work?
What are your thoughts?
Guys,
I forgot to mention with clarity that the cougar chick – Liz is someone that I have been trying to date or seduce at a local bar of mine for awhile now…
Also, the example above is classic me. This has been going on ALL my life…
My question is this – if this game thing is so great, women LOVE confidence, women love all this personality stuff, then why is it that women gravitate to friends of my type without these guys doing anything at all beyond standing there and mumbling.
I really question this whole “attraction is not a choice thing” I think its a bit of the opposite – it is a choice to a greater degree. Women do know who they want – maybe not all women but alot of women do say to themselves – I like the look of this guy I want to get to know him. Men do it so why not women – we are really not that different right?
Alex
Just because you can’t see all that’s happening doesn’t mean that their (the women’s) decisions are being based on looks. Yes attractive people win more often than less attractive people. No that probably isn’t why you’re not getting those women. How someone looks is a small piece of the puzzle. It’s very difficult to point out what you should be doing differently from a post in the comments section — maybe you should post in the forums and in more detail.
I would guess it’s because you’re not coming off as enough of a challenge. You’ve been trying to get that cougar for awhile and she knows you want her. Perhaps in the beginning you gave a bad first impression (first impressions are key) or any number of things.
Just remember, looks, money, status, etc HELP you, but they are rarely dealbreakers if you don’t have them.
Alex,
Your friends are not only good looking, but they’re alpha. For a guy to say ‘wanna fuck?’ in the middle of a conversation, that means he’s got some serious natural game, even if he can’t open. The fact that they hardly talk at all is high status. Good looking guys, if they have some game, will get laid a lot. And if these guys are baseball players–that’s really high status on top of this. I’m surprised he settled for a cougar.
What should you do? Firstly, go out alone. You’re going to end up getting outshined by these guys every time you go out with them. And that will effect your confidence. Even me, if I go out with guys who are amazing, really confident, I find myself acting less confident.
Secondly, stop comparing yourself to other guys. It will only make you feel inadequate. I hang out with guys who are better than me, the best in the world. Sometimes I feel inadequate. I rarely feel inadequate about my looks anymore, even around good looking guys. Rather, if I feel inadequate, I feel socially inadequate. These guys are super confident and great with women. Will I ever be that good? Am I witty enough? Am I smart enough to learn thus? Will I ever get past my inhibition around women? But I try to avoid feeling like this and instead use it as an opportunity to see what I can learn from these guys.
And as much as I learn from other guys, the majority of my improvement still happens on my own. I learn the most and I’m at my best when I’m on my own.
Go out alone. Preferably daygame where there are less distractions. And if you do feel like hanging out with these guys, teach them some wing rules so they stop poaching your girls.
Eric
I am more confused now then when I first posted…I just do not understand how being silent and just standing there is so Alpha. This completely contrary to everything the community teaches – such as be interesting, show leadership (and I question that – I know so many guys that have no leadership skills or aura and have more chicks than then can count – yes most are tall and above average to good looking). I am afraid looks and height make up for much more than we are told and that is the “alpha” here. If both of my friends were say 5’5 and acted the same way (silent types) they would not come off as Alpha. They would be dismissed.
I am fully listening but this is more frustrating then ever….sorry but I just do not get and am more confused then ever
This is exactly where people in the community get confused about what confidence really is. The root of confidence is initiative. But this doesn’t mean that you are steamrolling her with stories, lines and routines.
I’m on the street with a student. He walks over and starts talking to a very attractive woman. Due to where they are, I can’t stand near them and so I can’t hear their conversation. But I can still tell if he’s doing well. The biggest indicator of how the interaction is going is looking at her. Is she talking more than he is? If so, the interaction is going well.
It is alpha to go slow and pause a lot. Nervous people or people with anxiety tend to speak quickly. They speak too much. They rush through things.
A guy walks up to girl on sidewalk. He either speaks quickly and rushes through, or talks slowly and really listens to what the girl is say. His pauses make her want to fill the silences.
Take a look at these two interactions. He says almost the same thing in both interactions. In the first goes fast and steamrolls her. In the second he goes slow and is deliberate. He really listens to her answers.
Interaction one, too fast and too much
——————————————–
GUY: Hey, I love your shoes! Are they comfortable? One of my friends was looking for a pair exactly like that.
GIRL: Um… yeah, they’re comfortable.
GUY: Where did you get them? Oh my god, if you got them from Europe or somewhere, that would suck because that’s way too far for me to travel!
GIRL: Um… I got them from Italy.
Interaction two, slow and deliberate
—————————————–
GUY: Hey! (He waits for her response)
GIRL: Uh… hey…
GUY: I love your shoes! (He waits for her response)
GIRL: Oh, thanks!
GUY: Are they comfortable? One of my friends was looking for a pair exactly like that.
GIRL: Yeah, they’re pretty comfortable.
GUY: Where did you get them?
GIRL: I actually got them in Italy.
GUY: Oh man, you’re gonna make me go all the way to Italy to get them?
GIRL: *giggle*
—————————————–
Like I said before, good looking people have more sex than ugly people. It’s a fact. Research has shown that both better looking guys and better looking girls have more sex. And when I train a good-looking guy who’s shy, it’s easier for him to start getting attraction from women by doing the same thing an ugly guy does. Fact of life. For every measure of confidence a good looking guy needs to attract a woman, an ugly guy needs two. I’m not going to lie to you.
If you’re looking for an up side to this ugly fact of life, you can come away with this: By learning this stuff, you are also learning valuable relationship skills. You are learning how to be the alpha in your relationships with women. Good looking people may have more sex, but they don’t necessarily have better relationships. Better relationships come from learning how to navigate situations once you already have attraction from them. Once you’re with someone, there is a generally established relative equality in status. Someone does usually like the other a bit more, but it’s fairly equal. It’s not as much about physical attraction at that point. Having a good relationship is about knowing what behaviors maintain and retrigger attraction. It’s about how to read the other person, communicate power and confidence, and maintain your own status relative to hers. I feel like guys who have learned the mechanics of attraction and confidence are far more empowered in relationships than people who haven’t. I don’t have research to prove this yet. That’s just my feeling.
Eric
Eric
Thanks for the note. I do conversations like you outlined all the time but mostly the girl just looks at me and sometimes smiles and walks way….
If and when I do get a girl interested, I feel like you have to keep things going or they will fizz out real quick – keep her interest or she will leave you. I did this tonight. Really hot blonde I have remotely known (at a 4th party) I have always wanted to date and started a good conversation but when there were lulls I could tell her mind was going elsewhere so I continued to chat to keep things going. I figure she does not owe me anything by talking to me so I need to keep it going. Needless to say it did not work out and she declined giving me her number – it was “oh I am sure I will see you sometime again soon.”
At this point I do not care about relationships – I just want to get numbers and date. This weekend I am 0 for 14 (last month 0 for over 100).
Thanks
Alex, I’d say an alpha doesn’t have any need to speak when he has little to say, nor does he need to take initiative when it doesn’t suit him. He is perfectly fine just standing there, calm and serene like a cow in India.
A man who in a social situation can stand calmly and with a little smile without needing to mingle with all the people scurrying around, will be seen as having higher status.
That’s not to say that being able to work the room or whatever isn’t important to show confidence, but an alpha only does that when it suits him. Do you see?
That’s my understanding anyhow.
I am more confused then ever. I am not idiot. I am a pretty smart guy (at least I have that) and I am so confused. So you do not need to say anything but you do but you dont? What the hell? Yes he might be perceived as having higher status but is he going to get the girl? If it was that simple than why learn all this push pull, disqualification and all this stuff? Why spend the money? Why have this website? This makes no sense at all. We are not animals where the female lion just comes up to the male and starts mating. We are social creatures right?
Ok so if an Alpha wants to work a room, he does because its social. And then what the definition of Alpha? Bill Gates could be considered Alpha so could Martin Scorcesse but neither are anything to look at…
This is really confusing…sorry….
I will try to clear it up a little for you, if I can.
You either feel a need to speak or you do not. Depending on which it is, you either speak or you don’t. And you don’t care what any one might think of you if you choose to stand there. You’re perfectly comfortable because you know that you rule.
The girl, as evident from your anecdote, will sense the confidence and the sense of comfort coming from you (AS WELL as noticing your good looks, should you have any) and will become interested in talking to this person who seem so in control. And you’re off!
Does that happen every time? No! That is why just learning to stand still and blossom isn’t that big a part of all this stuff. Because an alpha will mingle if he see’s people he wants to migle with, and when he does so it’s effortlessly and without much stress, which is what we aspire to, because people in general and women specifically respond positively to that.
Bill Gates and Martin Scorcesse would both be considered alphas because of their success and all that. I’m sure they’ve had their share of women.
I hope this cleared it up a bit for you! :)
Alex,
Pickup is not just something where you can go through the motions and always get amazing results. When you are just reciting a script or doing the motions because someone told you it works, you have a very shallow feeling about you. Women, who are naturally social, will be able to pickup fairly easily when you are just talking AT them, rather than to them.
You need to look at this from a different angle. Your intelligence will help you find the resources you need to get good at this stuff, but other than having a quick wit, it will hold you back since women are not logical. If you try to think of something logical to talk with them about they will likely get bored (even if they don’t say anything) and certainly not be attracted to you.
Also, you should not keep talking. It’s a sad truth, but most people (especially in the beginning) when meeting someone new want to talk about themselves. You need to get her talking about herself or something interesting and actually have her engaged in what she’s say — feeling the emotions of the conversation.
Example: I was chatting up a friends wife for rapport last night.. I started off with a simple what do you do… and she works as a waitress, and has been for a number of years. Not exciting. She could have talked about it, but it would have been boring. So I asked her something else which led to her talking about loving Hawaii. I mean this woman really fucking loves Hawaii, and she told me all about it and her face lit up, she became more animated, and she dominated the conversation with me leading her.
Another thing is, I inferred that you treat women with kid gloves, not wanting to chance offending them. I still do this too with women I like and it’s NOT ATTRACTIVE. Women can take it, probably even better than your guy friends. This other guys girlfriend was talking to me last night about how she had trouble making female friends and told me why etc. I called her out on it saying that she was being lazy and approaching them like a guy would approach them etc. Did she get mad? No. She kept talking to me for the rest of the long walk back to the car… and then thanked me for my advice (which i didn’t really give much of).
Went off on a tangent.. but the long story short is: You know the motions, but you’re not yet skilled, so don’t sweat it. Following the scripts/openers/etc is a place to start, but if you never leave it, you won’t get the results you want. Don’t be so logical, it’s not exciting, and don’t dominate the conversation.
Alpha is only top dog in certain situations. Aspire to be more than Alpha, aspire to be Meta.
“This is exactly where people in the community get confused about what confidence really is. The root of confidence is initiative.”
Well, but Alex IS taking initiative. He is going out, He is talking to the women. Maybe he is not confident and suffers from a bad belief system but how on Earth is one supposed to overcome that? The brain does not come with switches to press in such cases. As far as I have read here the solution basically boil down to going out, get at least some positive feedback/success and build up on that. Except that it isn’t happening for him. Then what?
@Marcello
NLP / Hypnosis are excellent tools to fix “bad” beliefs. Affirmations as well afaik. No joke; I can personally attest to the NLP/Hypnosis. The mind does indeed have switches, but they aren’t easily accessed by thinking about them.
He is having success, he’s just not acknowledging it because it’s not the success he wants. He’s opening attractive women, and getting them to at least give him the time of day or not blow him off right away… but because he sees his friends do less than what he is doing and get better results, he’s refusing to acknowledge that he’s making progress.
In baseball, it’s really simple. You hit the ball, you run the bases. But as you get better at baseball… you can now aim where to hit the ball, or bunt, or go for an intentional walk… and when you run the bases you can now slide in, charge home plate, lead off etc. It’s still baseball, but until you practice the basics, you won’t be able to recognize the advanced tactics or hone your skills to know when to lead off etc..
This is a great discussion. Firstly, nonstop gives a very good assessment of the situation.
It’s fairly common for me to start talking to a girl and she doesn’t give you very much interest or attention and keeps talking to you. It happens to all of us. This is an attraction problem and it’s surmountable through attraction methods. We’ve talked about some of those methods.
But if you are so sure that everything we could possible tell you to try won’t work, what exactly are you asking here? Are you looking for proof that you can get past your looks and attract women? If so, what kind of proof? Do you want more anecdotes? Do you want more scientific studies? Or are you looking for confirmation that you can’t get past your looks?
The ability to take initiative is the most important aspect of an alpha male and of a leader. In some ways, it defines what a leader is. He can take charge. He can express is will and his opinion. He can speak up. He is empowered to take action. That initiative can take several forms. It can mean walking up to a girl and starting a conversation. It can mean saying “wanna fuck?” in the middle of that conversation. It can mean sexually escalating with that girl.
People who cannot take initiative are experienced as unrewarding. You must be able to take initiative even just to form friendships. In Depression: the Evolution of Powerlessness, Paul Gilbert talks about the importance of confidence and initiative-taking.
The ability to take initiative is the primary behavioral trait of a leader and it is one of the most powerful triggers for a woman. But there are certain times when being the leader means not taking initiative. The leader doesn’t take initiative all the time. He knows when to take initiative. And he can take initiative when he wants to and when he needs to.
You must be able to take initiative with people if you want friends. If you never call your friend up to hang out with him, after a while, your friend will think you don’t like him. That initiative is necessary. But you can’t take initiative all the time. If you call your friend up six times a day to hang out with him, he’ll be turned off. You need to know when to take initiative.
Here is a more obvious example. You meet a girl. She likes you. You ask for her phone number. She gives it to you. You call her up and ask her out on a date. You start dating. But let’s say you start getting insecure as you start dating her. Your tendency is to want to call her more and to contact her more often. Your inclination, based on your insecurity, is to call her too much. She reads this as a sign of neediness and weakness and is turned off by your behavior and consequently turned off by you. In the beginning when you took initiative to get her phone number and ask her out on a date, it was a sign of power. Your later initiatives of calling her all the time are now a sign of weakness.
Being able to take initiative is primary. It wouldn’t matter if you had the ability to wait for a girl or to walk away from a girl if you can’t take initiative in the first place. But constant unabated taking initiative is not what defines the leader. It’s being able to take initiative at the right time.
In my example above with the guy asking about the girl’s shoes, in both cases the guy did a good thing and took initiative with the girl. But in the second case, less speaking, more pauses, the timing of his further initiatives were better because it gave the girl a chance to open up and talk. It gave her a chance to show interest in him.
So how do you know when to take initiative and when to not take initiative? This is what game is all about. This is what you’re learning. You’re firstly and primarily gaining the confidence to take initiative. Then secondly you’re learning when to an when not to take that initiative and the best way to take that initiative.
Eric
Eric and Guys,
Thanks for the posts. I guess its a matter of calibration.
I understand the nuances you are referring too….its just that I feel if I do not drive the conversation I have no chance in hell. I just to be more silent before I found the community and I did not do well either back then…I still think it boils down to resources. The more looks and resources the more slack you have I guess….but answer me this, why would a woman give you more slack then?
Lets say you meet a really smokin hot woman in a bar on friday night and you are surrounded by taller great looking guys. You approach the young lady and get some banter going. Since you have less in the look area and resource area why would she give you the extra minutes of slack? That is what sticks in my head. I know I cannot compete with my friends or other guys so I do what I can to compensate. If I just stand there and not do much -I am going to lose….
Why would a hot chick who could have (or has) anyone she wants – want me because I tell stories or make her laugh? Other guys can do that just as well and they may be taller, better looking, have an apt in the Hamptons – I know it sounds a bit absurd but in bars in NYC, Chicago, LA – its not fair off the course…
So in your mind – Eric’s mind – how do you evaluate that in a bar or club or even say a social gathering? I do not know what you look like, you height but you are a very successful guy and well regarded instructor.
What in your mind (or even Lee’s) makes you think they will pick you over the other Alphas running around?
This might help. I have these negative thoughts thinking “if I do not try and do this and that and push pull and tease and ect” I will lose…
Do you understand?
Please let me know…
Alex
You have work with what you got.
I bet you could do a lot of improvement:
-Start to work out, get the six-pack and v-shape.
- Hire a fashion consultant
-Work harder, maximize all the areas that you can like clothes, body…
The truth is that women are very physical-oriented (how you dress, body), at least the women you seem to go after.
I really don`t seem to see how you can`t get the apt. in the Hamptons?
Of course it would take a lot of work, but that seems to be the problem with most guys in the community, they are not willing to do go the extra mile.
Nothing. There are a lot of alpha guys in New York, but not as many as you think. Most guys are not that alpha. They are good looking or, at best, dress cool.
I used to feel like everyone else was cooler than me and was much more socially adept. Now it’s rare for me to walk into a bar and not be the coolest guy there. I can just tell.
Do I see other guys who are cooler than me? Absolutely. But it doesn’t bother me. It happens so rarely that I enjoy it. I consider it an opportunity. I check the guy out. I watch his body language. I watch how he interacts with women. I analyze what he’s doing. In fact, I’m even happier when I see a truly alpha guy than when I see a hot girl. Hot girls are everywhere.
Alex, you are very preoccupied with competition. You see these other guys as threats. Feeling threatened by other people is one facet of social anxiety and low confidence. True alphas don’t feel threatened by other guys, no matter how good those guys are. They see other people as opportunities.
Part of this is because you hang out with successful guys. Instead of feeling competition, try and learn from them or go out alone.
The fact that you hang out with successful guys is in itself one indicator to me that you’re already doing a lot of things right with other people. You just have some kind of hang up when it comes to women that all the cool things about yourself somehow don’t work with women. And women sense that. They don’t invest in you because you’re signalling to them in some way that you’re not worth investing in.
All this stuff is well and good. Push pull is great. It’s exactly what I’m talking about when I say taking initiative at the right time. You go in, you pull away, you go back in. And teasing is important. But there are a lot of minutiae here that you might be missing. It’s not simply a check list of things to do that will make her attracted. Doing this stuff well is an art. I myself am still perfecting this stuff. The fact that you still have a lot of negative thoughts indicates to me that you haven’t really worked out a lot of this even though you may logically understand the concepts. If you banter well, she’ll react. It doesn’t matter if you’re 6’3 or have an apartment in the Hamptons.
Eric
Sure I view it as a competition. It is absolutely. Wining the woman’s hand as it used to be called. We are competing for these women are we not? Is this not a creative thought process?
I have been reading your notes and I am learning. I am posing these questions for they are burning inside or me and I am sure many of your readers/guys out there…
As males, we are competitive oriented. We love sports right? We love to do well in business and excel right? We have competitive spirits and I would think that women would like that – its a part of leadership in way…if we were not competitive we would not learn new things, develop new thoughts/ideas…I would think…
There is really nothing to learn from my friends that I can tell. Women just like tall good looking guys. They get picked up not me. If my buddies were all 5’5 I highly doubt they would be as successful. They are jovial and so am I. They tell jokes, so do I. They dress well, so do I. If that is confidence then I have the same confidence. The only real differences are that they are taller and have a bit more money. I cant grow any taller and my business is status quo and I am doing all I can to save it and not lay any one off. How can I learn from that?
“If you banter well, she’ll react. It doesn’t matter if you’re 6′3 or have an apartment in the Hamptons.”
Is that true? She might react well but will she sleep with me? Reacting well can be on many levels.
All I want to know is what goes thru a guy’s mind to help insure that he feels that he can pick up the hot women rather than the other alpha guy running around? What does he think will make him think he will win her over as opposed to the competition. Can this be explained?
Thats all.
Thanks
You seem to be confused about what it is you want. Above you say something about winning the woman’s hand and competing for her and then later you explicitly mention sex and using possessions to entice her in the short term. Moreover, you seem to want what your friends are getting or wanting.
If you tell a girl you are rich, or have an apt. in wherever or something explicitly stating ” you should choose me because I have X material possession meaning I’m Y trait” she will IMMEDIATELY wonder what you’re compensating for and you will have less value because of it. If you entice a woman without mentioning these things, and later end up at your awesome place, then it’s icing on the cake.
Now. Stop competing with your friends, or ask them to be good wings for once if they really are your friends. They could give you excellent social proof as they work the room, mentioning you. “Competition” exists, but it doesn’t exist until you think worry it. If you’re too absorbed in your interaction with the girl to care about anyone else in the room, the technically no one else exists (assuming you have her equally engaged with you).
Also, start seeing yourself as the prize, and if you can’t, work on that. Imagine if you were an excellent lover and knew that once a woman slept with you, your problem would be getting rid of her. You knew that she’d lie, cheat, make excuses to see you if you even hinted at wanting to see her. If you had this mindset, then you would make women try for your attention because you wouldn’t want all these crappy women in your life following you around. Guys who are good with women make the woman want him and chase him, not him chasing her.
It’s hard to be thorough while typing on my phone, but maybe you can start to realize that you’re coming to a new understanding of how to interact with women.
I used to think having a nice car and being overly reliable/predictable would make women attracted to me but it didn’t. Money/material things come and go, but personality, charisma, and social skills will last much longer.
To know and recognize that there are men out there, your friends included attracting women without trying so hard, and making the women chase them means that you have the potential to do it too. If you didn’t have the potential, you wouldn’t be able to recognize it. Once you stop making excuses like attributing your less successful approaches to looks, and get the fuck out of your head (especially when talking with women), things will start to change. A lot of social stuff is about feeling and knowing, not thinking and analyzing.
You are absolutely right. Men are competitive. That’s one of the side effects of testosterone. We love to compete. We love to compete in business, in sports, and even getting women into bed.
Competition in and of itself isn’t a bad thing. It can do a lot of good things. It can make you work harder. It can bring out the best in you. It can make you strive to improve yourself.
But it can also be a curse. It can make you feel inadequate. It can make you depressed. It can cause problems in friendships.
It’s how you deal with competition that will determine whether it makes you try harder or whether it makes you feel depressed and inadequate. Part of that is being able to see where you can improve and change and also understanding yourself, what works for you and where you are in your development/progress.
I hang out with guys who do way way better than me with women. These guys can pull women every night of the week. And I can only pull one out of seven. Do I feel inadequate? No. I’m improving. There are other guys who can’t even walk up to a woman and talk to her.
Maybe you’ve never kissed a girl before and now you’ve finally kissed her. Enjoy that. Enjoy her. Stop comparing yourself to your friends.
You will never ever ever have enough. You will never be good enough with women. You will never be satiated. Trust me on that. Your friends? They’re not satiated either. They’re looking for something more.
When will it be good enough for you. You say you want to have one night stands and have sex with women. How many women? I guarantee it, once you start having sex with women, you will want to have sex with more women. Or you will be dissatisfied with how many women you’re getting, or whether they’re hot enough. It’s never enough.
Learn to appreciate your victories. Learn to appreciate your successes. That is the very best most important thing you can do.
No. It cannot be explained. I cannot explain this to you. I’ve told you about the transition I’ve gone through, how I used to feel versus how I feel now. But nothing I explain to you will allow you to feel how I feel. Nothing I say to you will change how you feel. Nothing you logically understand will be able to change how you feel. Only action will change how you feel. You have a belief that you are limited by your looks. You cannot simply change this belief by reading anything.
Take some of the suggestions we’ve made her and go out and practice them, the most important one being that you go out alone. Try some daygame. Do something different than you’ve been doing before. What you’ve been doing hasn’t been working. Pick a direction and go with it. I would love to keep writing about this stuff. I could write all day. But more information will not help you. Only action will change how you feel.
Eric
How much should a man talk? The community often has very contradictory answers to this question. Some say less is better but Mystery says that all leaders are good storytellers. From Churchill to Obama, it’s hard to argue with this fact. Little girls start talking one to two months before little boys, but studies also show that little girls will listen longer to the human voice than little boys. In other words, women are better equipped for communication. They’re not just better talkers. I think it goes something like this. If a man’s value is clearly visible to a woman, he doesn’t have to talk as much. This explains spectacular eye contact pickups as well as two sentence number opener-closers. If a man’s value is more subtle, he has to get women to understand what it is, and he does that with stories. Good stories have a dual purpose. They don’t just demonstrate value. They invite a woman to tell her own story. That’s the lead-then-ask-her-to-follow model. If you just told a good story about your parents and childhood, you might say something like “How about you? How close are you with your folks?” I reject the idea that getting a woman to talk while you quietly and confidently listen is in and of itself an objective. That may get you a pickup, but it tells you nothing about that woman’s interest in you beyond, of course, sexual interest. To me, the objective is to lead a two way conversation in which you give a woman the chance to also express an interest in you. By the way, this all sounds very tame, but it doesn’t have to be. For example, after she responds to “How about you? How close are you with your folks?”, I can turn up the heat with “Funny, I just read this study that says that women who are not close to their parents are much less likely to orgasm from normal penetrative sex.” I’ve had women actually wink at me and say “Oh, I’m close with my pareents! Really close!” :-)
Lee – this makes perfect sense. You take the lead in the conversation but it does not have to be “overboard” and it creates “openings” for two-way emotional expression. Makes good sense…
Also, I heard your interview with Eric – good “thermonuclear stuff”…
Thank you both (yourself and Eric) for your help and guidance here…
I will keep quiet for awhile, work on all of this you have helped me with and report back – lets look for better days!
hey Eric pretty new to this blog and i have to say loving your advice man!
i do have a question though, your philosophy of one approach a day. would that involve going up to a girl and outright telling her you like her and wanna get a coffee or just chatting to girls atleast once a day?
i have quite a lot of approach ancxiety when i’m on my own. in a pair i’m like a born leader but back away from uni when i’m at home, s**t scared of approaching women. any advice you could provide would be great thanks mate
Alex,
Thanks for the kind words, bro. I am sure things will work out for you over time. You sound like a smart guy. This type of introspection and analysis always makes people stronger. Be patient with yourself.
Sanjay,
When I was starting out, I used to try to do one approach a day. And for me, that meant trying to introduce myself to at least one person. Usually that was a direct approach, something like “I just wanted to come say hi. My name’s Eric.”
There’s something to be said for doing a full-out approach. If it’s possible, it’s a great thing to do. If you have approach anxiety, doing that for 30 days will change you like nothing else in the world.
However, through self-experimentation and coaching students, I’ve found that a more gradual step-up approach facilitates a greater reduction in both anxiety and inhibition.
In other words, instead of doing a full-on approach, first start with much simpler things, like positioning yourself next to women and asking very simple questions and walking away. It makes this whole process a lot easier.
Eric
Alex and Ian,
Neither of you have true confidence, period. If you do, who the hell cares? Even if there are only 1% 10′s in the world, that’s still a staggering number of 10′s around. You focus way too much on losses and not on possible wins. And if they’re all so superficial and you focus on meeting SOMEONE ELSE’s superficial qualification, you’re definitely not alpha. So stop trying to say you are or be. Start learning how.
End of convo.
Funny how Lee and Eric try to “disregard” looks. I suspect Lee to be an good looking tall older gentleman ( investment banker, top MBA) and Eric a good looking tall guy (ref. Pickup 101 Youtube clips).
Do you think Paul Janka would be sucsessfull without his “model” looks? NO!
Research:
http://www.livescience.com/health/060213_attraction_rules.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16547251/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/love/index.shtml
etc, etc………
” Looks” influence heavily how much a girl will put up with on an approach.
I really like what they write and thought I have never seen Eric on Youtube clips (and I have checked out alot of the Pickup101 clips on Youtube) I do not know what Eric or even Lee looks like. I do have to say I think both are probably above average looking and on the taller side, especially Lee. I have noticed that any “guru” such as Entropy, Adam Lyons, Mystery, Lance Mason, Sean Messenger that is taller or better looking than average always seems to fail to talk about looks or height. However, in their defense its something they do not have to personally battle so its not on their radar as much.
I cannot take taller PUA’s seriously. I mean, lets face it they are going to get better reception from women. Who cares if we have our personal demons that bottom line to all this is not self preservation or self help, you can go to a therapist for that. Its for picking up women. Plain and simple.
Approach Anxiety might be deep rooted in the psyche but if you are a better looking male you will get get better reception at a quicker pace than a less better looking or shorter guy. There is just no way around it.
Chris,
I looked at the links you posted. I’ve seen these and similar studies before. As someone who teaches science at the graduate level, I have to tell you that these statistics are not saying exactly what you think they are saying.
Both Eric and I fully acknowledge the role of looks, as well as other factors. Search for some of my posts here: http://approachanxiety.com/?p=1602. Janka’s two line pickups are my favorite examples of the importance of looks. It is hard to imagine how a man who is not as good looking can do the same thing, even with a relatively high degree of confidence. As I’ve previously said, if a man’s value is less visible to women, he has to do more to demonstrate that value. Among other things, he has to be more confident and more visible, and he has to tell better stories.
However, look more closely at the facial symmetry studies mentioned in all of these articles. The first and third of your links are articles that explain that facial symmetry is more of an explanatory factor for what makes women desirable than for what makes men desirable. In other words, women look at other factors – status, or rather its most visible characteristic, confidence. This is specifically mentioned in the second of these two articles. Dude, that is exactly what we are saying, nothing more.
I can tell you exactly how these studies are performed. If a large male population is studied to determine whether looks are important, the answer will be a statistically significant yes. Statistical significance simply means that the effect of the variable in the regression equation is unlikely to be the result of pure chance. However, this says nothing about the magnitude of the effect. A variable may be very statistically significant, but the magnitude of the effect may be small. It is hard to isolate – and therefore study – game. It’s very easy to study looks. Assuming that both variables are statistically significant, what you’d want to see are the relative weightings of the two in the same regression equation.
Even from these studies of physical characteristics, we have some clues that the weighting of game is not zero. As mentioned above, the first clue is that the explanatory power of physical features – the fraction of variance explained by the physical feature being studied – is lower for women than for men. There are other clues in the importance of body language and voice tonality – both of which can be controlled and are also mentioned in some of these studies. Until we have a proper study that includes game as an explanatory factor, we can only guess which plays a more important role.
As for me, I am not average looking. I am indeed tall, but I am skinny, my posture is not great, I have a bit of a schnoz and a weak jaw. I am a solid 7, but I am not an 8, a 9, or a 10. I have good style and solid confidence, and my overall game is pretty good. My numbers are about 1 in 7. Meaning, when I approach 7 attractive women, my expectation is that one of them will contact me. I think this is a little harder to do than getting a number, but that’s the game I’m comfortable with.
These numbers are not crazy. There are guys who are much better than I am and guys who are much worse. Armed with these stats, if I go out twice every week and do ten approaches each time – which takes me about an hour – I have to stop after the fifth or sixth week because the number of first, second, third, and fourth dates will fill up my entire week and leave me no time to myself.
I was suggested this web site by my cousin. I’m not sure whether this post is written by him as nobody else know such detailed about my trouble. You are wonderful! Thanks!
[...] [Women Find Confidence Sexy: The Science] [...]
[...] … an older, physically unattractive world-famous male rock star may have millions of young, nubile women fawning over him from both afar and close-up. These women would be sexually aroused at the thought of meeting him. The same is not necessarily true for a female rock star. An older, physically unattractive female rock star would not have as many young, nubile men fawning over her from afar, sexually aroused at the thought of meeting her. She would still be valued for her music, but her status would not translate into sexual attraction as much as it would for a man. Not that her status wouldn’t translate at all. And if the guy were better looking it would help him. But the effect of status on sexual attractiveness is much greater for men than for women. [källa] [...]