| Some more of Mark Manson I found. basically a summary of his work
What Attracts Women
? Women don’t distinguish social status or being an “alpha male” through material possessions – otherwise every guy flashing his expensive watch at the bar would be getting laid - but rather women judge it by behavior, as behavior. Women don’t perceive status only by the words you say, they judge your status by all of your behavior -- towards them, towards others and but most importantly, towards yourself. Most of this behavior is non-verbal. And most of this non-verbal behavior happens subconsciously and cannot be faked.
? I put forth that women judge social status by behavior. Social status is determined by how you behave around other people, how other people behave around you, and how you treat yourself.
? These are the three tenants of being a high status and a highly attractive man: treat others well, be treated well by others, and treat yourself well.
? Women are turned on by being wanted, by being desired. Suddenly, seemingly disconnected events that arouse women – a romantic marriage proposal in one instance, and a rape fantasy in another – make sense. Both indicate an extreme display of desire in her by a man. A man who’s willing to sacrifice everything to be with her. They want to be desired to the point that a man loses complete self-control. ? The more physical assertiveness you pursue a woman with, the more aroused she becomes -- sometimes even if she wasn’t interested in you to begin with. Your bold and aggressive pursuit of her often turns her on to the point where she comes around and wants to get to know you. Being physically assertive and sexually forthright triggers a woman’s sexual arousal and makes her want to have sex. Ultimately, if you want to become intimate and sexual with women, you’re going to have to learn to convey your desire for her.
? Sitting at home conjuring up theories about how to attract a girl in the club is just as needy as buying her a dozen roses and begging her to go out with you. It’s just you’re being needy in a way that lies and says you’re not needy. That’s all.
Emotional Neediness
? How attractive a man is inversely proportional to how needy he is. The needier he is in his life, the less attractive and vice-versa. Women don’t judge a man’s status by the car he drives or how many VIP tables he buys. They judge it by his behavior, and the behavioral trait they pick up on is neediness. The opposite of neediness is actually the root cause of female-to-male attraction.
? Women are generally only attracted to men who are less invested in them, than they are in themselves. By investment I mean the degree in which you sacrifice/alter your own thoughts/feelings/motivations for someone else. By less I mean that as a man, you should only be willing to sacrifice your thoughts/feelings/motivations for a woman less than she is willing to do the same for you.
? Neediness is felt. It’s intuited by women by watching a man’s behavior carefully. It’s why women can often become turned off at the most innocuous moment or by the most unimportant statement. Consciously, the action or statement may seem harmless, but unconsciously, it conveyed a large amount of neediness.
? A rich man doesn’t need to tell people he’s rich. A confident man doesn’t need to tell people he’s confident. And a guy who “doesn’t give a fuck” doesn’t need to go around telling people he “doesn’t give a fuck.”
? Think about it, a guy who doesn’t derive his happiness and confidence in himself from how often he gets laid, isn’t going to be willing to put up with a highly neurotic, dramatic and emotionally unstable woman. It simply won’t be worth it. The little validation he receives from being with her will not be worth the headache she gives him.
? There’s a lack of long-term relationships among pick up coaches in epic proportions. Most of them are incapable of maintaining a lower level of investment than the woman in the long run. This is because all of the tactics that they’ve learned and taught are short-term remedies, not deep, life-long change. They’ve never actually lowered their identity-investment and become permanently attractive men, they’ve merely thought up more and more ways to conjure higher investment from whichever women they’re speaking to.
Vulnerability
? When most men hear the word “vulnerability,” their immediate reaction is to associate it with weakness. In general, men are raised to withhold their emotions, to not show weakness, and to ignore any hint of introspection. I want you to think of vulnerability in a more broad way. Not just emotional vulnerability, but physical vulnerability, social vulnerability.
? For instance, making yourself vulnerable doesn’t just mean being willing to share your fears or insecurities. It can mean putting yourself in a position where you can be rejected, saying a joke that may not be funny, asserting an opinion that may offend others, joining a table of people you don’t know, telling a woman that you like her and want to date her. All of these things require you to stick your neck out on the line emotionally in some way. You’re making yourself vulnerable when you do them.
? In this way, vulnerability represents a form of power, a deep and subtle form of power. A man who’s able to make himself vulnerable is saying to the world, “I don’t care what you think of me; this is who I am, and I refuse to be anyone else.” He’s saying he’s not needy and that he’s high status.
? The way to combat neediness is by opening up to vulnerability.
? If you’re basing all of your behavior on the approval of the other men and are constantly covering for your weaknesses, it says that you’re low status, not trustworthy, needy, and probably not going to be a dependable father.
? Other men, when challenged, stand up for themselves, but when wrong they also admit their fault, as they see no reason to hide their weakness. They have a sense of honor. They don’t react to any of the other men around them; rather, the other men react to him. This behavior implies high status, a man who is dependable, comfortable in his strengths and weaknesses, a man who can be counted on and who is likely to rise through the ranks and provide for his family.
? We all have weaknesses, embarrassments and vulnerabilities. A needy man is terrified to show them because they care more about what others feel about him than what they feel about themselves. A non-needy man is comfortable showing his flaws because he’s comfortable with how he feels about himself more than how others feel about him.
? Sharing yourself openly with others forces that transition between the two: from needy and afraid of what others think to non-needy and comfortable in how one feels about himself. The reason is because sharing these truths about yourself forces you to own them and accept them, and also demonstrates that feeling embarrassed or ashamed is just that, just another feeling, another part of your humanity, not the end of the world.
? Expose yourself and share yourself without inhibition. Take the rejections and lumps and move on because you’re a bigger and stronger man. And when you find a woman who loves who you are (and you will), revel in her affection. But opening oneself up to vulnerability, training oneself to become comfortable with your emotions, with your faults, and without expressing oneself without inhibitions doesn’t happen overnight.
? Slowly, you will chisel away at yourself. You’ll humble yourself, expose yourself, and then learn that it’s OK. It’s OK to be rejected. It’s OK to make mistakes. It’s OK to say something stupid. Women will not dislike you for your rejections and mistakes or saying something stupid.
? They’ll like you for your ability to be OK with being rejected, to make mistakes, and to say something stupid. The man who always has the perfect line to say to her is a man she will not trust. Because he shows no vulnerability and his words are inauthentic and therefore needy.
? The true power of vulnerability is that it resolves the investment paradox. The investment paradox is the conflict between the two aspects of female attraction. Women are attracted to men who are of higher status than themselves (or in our terms, less needy). They are also aroused by men who desire them. The paradox is that typically, if a man shows desire towards a woman, then he’s also showing some degree of neediness or that he’s lower status. The common term for this is “putting her on a pedestal.”
? Vulnerability short-circuits the paradox. A man comfortable being vulnerable will not behave in a needy way. And when desire is shown without neediness, it is attractive. When desire is shown with neediness, it is unattractive
? Women want a strong, independent, high status male -- a “doesn’t take shit from anybody” bad boy -- but they want this bad boy to have a depth and a sensitivity that they only open up and show when they’re around her.
? The point is, despite what every fiber of your being may be telling you, opening you thoughts, actions and feelings up to being vulnerable actually defines attractive behavior by men. Being an independent and confident person depends on it. Acting on your desires and making moves on women depends on it. And once she gets to know you, displaying it to her will make her go weak in the knees. Plain and simple.
? When women connect with you emotionally and your desire for them, it’s not what you’re saying or the words you’re choosing, it’s the emotion behind those words. If the emotion behind your words is needy and self-serving, then she will become turned off no matter what you say. If the emotion behind your words is genuine and vulnerable, then it will turn her on.
? Your statements must be authentic. Your statements toward women must be unconditional; otherwise it’s not really being vulnerable. If you tell a woman that she’s beautiful only because you think it’ll give you a better chance of sleeping with her, then amazingly, she will not be very flattered. If you don’t believe me, try it out some time. Give women false compliments and see how they respond. They won’t respond very well.
? So the catch is that everything you say must be as authentic as possible. There’s no shortcut. There are no tricks. You say it because you mean it and mean it because you say it. The more nervous it makes you, the better, because it means you’re being authentic and making yourself vulnerable.
? How attractive you are is based your non-needy behavior. Your non-needy behavior is based on how vulnerable you’re able to make yourself. And how vulnerable you’re able to make yourself is based on how honest you are to yourself and others
The Gift of Truth
? The debate of whether to show interest to a woman or to not show interest to a woman has been raging in pick up circles and men’s dating advice for well over a decade now. And as time goes on, the show interest camp is slowly pulling ahead. It’s leading to more success, less effort and more honest interactions.
? The debate of whether to show interest to a woman or to not show interest to a woman has been raging in pick up circles and men’s dating advice for well over a decade now. And as time goes on, the show interest camp is slowly pulling ahead. It’s leading to more success, less effort and more honest interactions. And here’s why.
? The biggest criticism of showing interest to a woman that you want to be with is that it immediately shows you as highly invested in her responses. When you say, “You’re cute and I wanted to meet you,” that translates roughly to, “Hi, I want to be with you and am officially invested in the prospect of it happening.”
? What they miss though is the sub-communication going on underneath what’s actually being said.
? The sub-communication is, “I’m totally OK with the idea of you rejecting me, otherwise I would not be approaching you like this.”
? Think about it, if a guy wasn’t comfortable with the prospect of a woman rejecting him, he wouldn’t have been honest in the first place. In fact, he would have pretended that he wasn’t actually interested in her!
? The fact that he honestly approached her with his intentions, that he puts his nuts on the chopping block and makes himself vulnerable to her immediately, actually sub-communicates a non-neediness and an attractiveness in itself. And it shows desire for her, which is going to trigger her arousal.
? What you actually say doesn’t matter – WHY you say it matters
? Always. No exceptions. You can have the best line in the world, but if you’re saying it because you’re needy and are desperate in her response to you, then she is immediately going to sense that you’re highly invested, and therefore low status, not confident and not an attractive man. It won’t work.
? This is why selling pick-up lines is ultimately a futile process. I could sell you the best 100 things I’ve ever said to women, but I can’t ever sell you my intentions or my lack of neediness. Only you can develop those yourself.
? You can say the lamest and grossest thing to women, and if the sub-communication is, “I really don’t care if you laugh or run away horrified, but here’s who I am, take it or leave it,” this sub-communicates a rock-bottom low level of neediness, and an incredibly high level of vulnerability.
? Once again, I was highly invested and needy in how women responded to me. I simply did not get it at the time: it didn’t matter what I said or didn’t say; if I said it in a way that demonstrated I cared too much about how they responded to me, it would never work.
? You cannot fake not being needy for more than a moment. The only women you will manage to fake are women who are drunk or high or who are extremely needy themselves.
? Confident and truly high quality women who are less invested in the attention they receive from men are not going to have much patience for your lines and games. They will either see through them or see you for who you really are: scared to expose your vulnerability; or they will simply assume you’re not worth investing in because you’d rather just talk about spells or games or whatever.
? If you are a fake alpha or an over-compensating player, then your obsessive nature around sex will seep through your actions and your lack of actual interest in her as a person will repel any women of true dignity and grace. It will attract needy women full of meaningless trifles and drama, who will only serve to fuel your anger and antipathy towards women further. You cannot fake vulnerability. You cannot fake truth. Truth has to be a gift, given with no conditions or expectations.
? Most men are not being honest about their intentions. They may compliment a woman and buy her things, beg for her attention, but their intentions are conditional. They’re not genuine.
? They’re only giving praise and affection under the assumption that they’ll receive it in return.
? When you lavish gifts and praise onto a woman who has not done anything to earn it, you are sub-communicating a desperate need for her attention and validation -- a willingness to sacrifice your self-respect and wealth to win over her affection
? Once again, it comes down to what’s being sub-communicated, rather than what’s being communicated.
? Think about it: the average guy at the bar who goes around buying cute girls drinks... why is he buying them? So the girls will sit there and talk to him. When he comments on how beautiful they are and how he’s so infatuated with them, why is he complimenting them? So that they’ll like him. When he pays for fancy dinners and offers to buy them jewelry, why is he doing it? So they won’t leave him.
? These are not gifts or compliments at all. These are deals he’s brokering. Everything he gives to her, he is giving it to her expecting to receive something in return. The drinks are not unconditional. They’re bought with the provision that she stays and talks to him. The compliments are spoken with the provision that she show him affection in return.
? True honesty is only possible when it is unconditional. The truth is only the truth when it is given as a gift -- when nothing is expected in return.
? A needy man will give a girl a compliment without knowing her and wait expectantly for her to repay him in either her company or with thanks. I will give compliments only when I am
? honestly inspired to give them, and usually after already meeting a woman and displaying to her that I’m willing to disagree with her, willing to be rejected by her and willing to walk away from her because I’m not needy and therefore high status.
? The biggest aphrodisiac in the world is someone who likes you. A woman’s desire is to be desired. But it has to be genuine desire. It can’t be an “I’ll desire you as long as you boost my ego and impress my friends” kind of desire.
? When you’re willing to cut a woman off and tell her when she’s out of line, when you’re willing to tell a woman what you will and will not tolerate in your life, this subcommunicates the most powerful elements of attraction. This is why it’s quite possible to piss a woman off and turn her on at the same time. Any man experienced with women has had this happen to him before.
? If a beautiful woman says something that a needy man finds offensive, he’ll ignore it, change the topic, or withhold his true feelings. A non-needy man will tell her what she just said was offensive. A man who is vulnerable is unafraid to draw boundaries about what he’s willing to accept and not willing to accept from the people around him.
? Your ability and willingness to establish boundaries is inversely proportional to how needy you are. Men who are needy and lack vulnerability will keep their boundaries loose and open, inviting manipulation and other people to walk over them. This is because they are more than willing to alter themselves in order to receive validation from the women they meet. Men who are not needy establish strict boundaries because they value their own time and happiness more than receiving the attention from a woman.
? When it comes to making yourself more vulnerable and making yourself less needy, the first step is to often begin establishing your own boundaries. Learn how to say “no” to people, particularly women. Start having opinions on what you like and don’t like, what you’ll tolerate and won’t tolerate.
Polarization
? We can divide up all of the women you’re attracted to into three categories: Receptive, Neutral and Unreceptive.
? Let’s start with Unreceptive. Women who are Unreceptive are just that: they’re unavailable and/ or uninterested in having a sexual/romantic relationship with you.
? The goal with Unreceptive women is to identify them and move on as quickly as possible. They’re time-sinks. Typically, if women are unreceptive, they’re unreceptive for a good reason, and there’s little you’re going to do to change that. And in fact, in almost every case, if you do stick around and try to change her mind about her availability, you’re simply going to demonstrate much more neediness and investment in her, and therefore become less attractive and she’ll become even LESS available to you.
? The most common reasons that put women in this category are the following:
? You’re far needier than she is, and she’s therefore not attracted.
? She has a boyfriend/husband and is happy in her relationship.
? There’s too much friction preventing her from being willing to date you.
? She’s simply not interested or looking for any guy at the moment.
? The way to tell if a woman is Unreceptive is if she does not reciprocate your signs of interest and shows signs of disinterest
? The next category is Neutral. Women in this category are usually women who you’ve just met or have only spent time with a couple times. The important thing to know is that women do not ever STAY in this category. They eventually polarize one way or the other. And if you never make an advance or show interest in them, then they will ALWAYS polarize towards being Unreceptive. This is the Friend Zone.
? The goal with Neutral women is to polarize them through your behavior. This may mean being more aggressive. It may mean flirting with them or teasing them. It may mean asking her to dance or asking her on a date. Whatever it is, the goal with Neutral women is to take an action that forces her to move toward one side of the spectrum or the other. Which side she goes to is less important than actually taking action and forcing her to no longer be neutral. And remember, showing your desire arouses women. Showing neediness turns them off.
? And the final category, Receptive. Women who are Receptive are obviously already sexually attracted to you. You can recognize women who are Receptive in two ways: they initiate with you and/or they reciprocate willingly. Most women, especially hot women, even if they’re attracted to you, won’t initiate with you. Remember, women tend to be less invested in sex, and they expect men to initiate in the beginning. A woman who is reciprocating will do something to respond positively to your advance. Think of it as her signaling to you that she accepts your advances on her and likes it. If you touched a woman on the back and she wanted to reciprocate, she would either lean back into you, lean in closer to you, or touch you in return.
? The Friend Zone typically occurs when a man meets a Receptive or Neutral woman but never makes a move. As mentioned earlier, women never stay Neutral and will eventually be polarized into the Receptive or Unreceptive categories. If you don’t act, they will slowly drift into the Unreceptive category
? You must to indicate some sort of sexual interest early on. Otherwise, the longer you wait, the harder it gets and the more likely she will be Unreceptive to you. Again, ask yourself what waiting four years to state your interest in a girl sub-communicates to her. It sub-communicates, “I am so highly invested in you that I spent four years working up the nerve to show you my interest.” It’s extremely unattractive. And chances are, she’s known you’ve been interested the whole time but too afraid to show it, which in turn, makes you even further unattractive.
? Polarization is what occurs when you express your truth and make yourself vulnerable. When you tell a woman she is beautiful, you are polarizing her. When you tease her about her earrings and put your arm around her, you’re polarizing her. When you wear a custom made suit out to a night club you are polarizing women. When you tell a woman who’s late to a date to never be late again, you are polarizing her. A man who is highly invested and needy is going to alter his behaviors based on the woman he’s talking to. He’s going to be afraid to tell her that he doesn’t accept her being late. He’s going to be afraid to wear that suit out. He’s going to be timid when he wants to put his arm around her. He’s going to be unable to make himself vulnerable, express his truth, and will therefore not polarize her.
? You’d be surprised how many women will respond with attraction to nothing other than a man who is bold and willing to make a move. A lot of women will react very warmly to these advances. Remember women are turned on by men who desire them. They are also turned on by the behavior of high status. When you’re expressing your truth and showing shameless desire for her, you are demonstrating both of these qualities that turn her on.
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CHAT
