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Archives for May 2016

The Ultimate, No Bullshit Guide to Breakups

by Visko Matich · May 24, 2016

guide_to_breakups

 

Recently, a reader emailed me with a story:

His 4-year relationship had just ended. She’d left him. She’d moved to a new city, and the long distance turned into emotional distance. Unanswered texts, no time for calls – then ‘I don’t have feelings for you.’

It was over.

The night they broke up, he went out with his friends. As the hours went on, insecurity grew and he accessed her Facebook messages.

She was already seeing another guy.

He asked me for my advice. What should he do? How should he feel? He told me he didn’t have any negative feelings towards her, that he wanted closure, and that he didn’t want her making any ‘mistakes’. He told me he was concerned for her well-being.

Reading his story, I remembered my own breakup and the breakups of others that I’ve known. There were ones that went well and ones that sucked. I thought about why they worked and why they didn’t, and I replied saying I’d write a post about what he should do.

This is that post.

If you’ve ever been through a breakup and never gotten over it; if you’re in a breakup and feel like you’re lost; if you’re in a relationship that is spiraling down the porcelain drain; or if you lost someone you loved, and want to get them back – this one’s for you.

THE DOUBLE EDGE OF CONNECTION

Romantic relationships are first and foremost elements of our social lives. As I’ve argued in other posts – our social lives are incredibly important. In his book, Politics, Aristotle wrote that “Man is by nature a social animal; … Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god.” He believed the demands of our social needs were so intrinsic to our lives, that sublimating them or overcoming them was something he equated to being inhuman.

This idea was later echoed in the book Violence, by James Gilligan, who surmised that psychopaths were driven to their acts of cruelty and murder – not only by their violent inclinations but also by their terrible feelings of loneliness. Such was their loneliness that these psychopaths often stated they felt inhuman.

Modern theories of human brain development equate the sheer size of our brains to the size of our social groups as an animal. Because of the complex nature of our interpersonal worlds, our brains were required by nature to develop an equally complex and intricate structure. In fact, recent research shows that, beyond just the size, our brains are so wired for socializing, that when they aren’t undertaking a task, our brains adopt a default state that is identical to that of when we consider the motivations, thoughts and inner world of other people. In other words, evolution rigged us with a social preparation mechanism.

To socialize is to be human. Our need for connection ranks in its importance beside our thirst and hunger – and our process to attaining it operates with the ease of our breath. It’s not something we have a choice over; it simply is. The dark side of this phenomenon is that as with starvation, suffocation or dehydration – when our need for connection goes unmet, we feel pain. Studies show that this pain is so great, that it is felt physically, like a broken leg, and has even been shown to be numbed with Tylenol, as insane as that sounds.

tylenol

Your mother loved you.

When it comes to socializing, the deck is stacked against us. We’re driven to think about it automatically and take blows against our sense of belonging like wounds against our physical person.  We are designed to fear being alone, just as we are designed to fear death, disease, and predation.

Socialising isn’t just something we want, it’s something we are. That is why it hurts when it’s lost, and that is why it is as much a part of our minds as our arm is a part of our body. And it is within this context of obsession and pain… that love sits.

HEARTACHE TO HEARTACHE

Dr. Helen Fisher* is one of the pioneering researchers in the field of romantic love. In her book, Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romance she categorizes love in three ways:

  • Lust
  • Attraction
  • Attachment

Whilst she states that these can arise in any order – in modern dating, these generally arise linearly – starting with the hanky panky of lust.

Lust is, as I’m sure you’re aware, a feeling of pure physical desire for another person. It is a short-term phenomenon. You want them physically – your eyes stare at the boobs and butt, and shared touches send rushes of excitement through your entire body.

Attraction is where you invest in each other’s personality, and you ride the thrill of chemistry, learning, and experience. This is where the spark people talk about exists. This is passion. This lasts for roughly 6-12 months – then, as they say, fizzles out.

Attachment is where your shared experience and investment in one another is so strong that your brain, in effect, can barely differentiate between your experience and your partners. When told to think about their partner experiencing a car crash; brain scans showed the participants experiencing this as if it was happening to them. This identification with one another is so strong, that it is a long-term, life-long bond – capable of surviving the death of attraction and lust. You won’t be getting laid as much, but you’ll never be alone.

Take it away, Pat.

A hallmark of someone in love is obsessive thinking; where regardless of what you seem to do, this person keeps cropping up, in some form or another. Fisher refers to this as having someone “camping in your head.” This is the bullshit that causes endless procrastination, rolling round in bed at night running imaginary scenarios, and ultimately; love. An offshoot of this is emotional dependence – this is where the highs and lows of your own life and the ensuing emotional rollercoaster become acceptable to lump onto someone else. This is called support. When it works; it’s gold-dust. When it doesn’t; well we’ll get to that. The takeaway from all this is; love is great, but it fucks with your head.

But love isn’t all that rosy. As with social rejection, rejection in love is excruciating – but it doesn’t stop there. When the connection between you and someone you love is severed, the results can be devastating – ranging from suicide to depression, to homicidal crimes of passion.

This is the shadow of love. When you allow someone into your life, when you make yourself vulnerable to connection – you expose yourself to emotional dependency and obsession; a reality that defines not just your world, but your sense of self; your identity.

The death of the connection can be shattering.

But don’t worry, it’s about to get worse.

LOGIC VS EMOTIONS

Our brains are not on our side. The human brain is an organ wired to achieve its needs. It’s wired for cognitive dissonance, and worst of all, it’s emotional and irrational. One of the things that make my eyes roll out of their sockets is when people treat their breakups like a logical process. This couldn’t be further from the truth. When it comes to breakups – our emotions come first.

When we experience a breakup – we’re receiving a combo attack of:

  • Abandonment.
  • Unworthiness.
  • You’re no longer with someone who you think about all the time.
  • You’re no longer with someone who you’re emotionally dependent on.

The feeling of loneliness is amped to 100 and you experience this all like physical pain. All in all, it’s not a good place to be.

And your brain is going to do everything it can to get you out.

This is why breakups are not a logical process. They’re a process of feeling, and managing that feeling. You cannot reason this away, you can only implement systems that best allow for the regulation of emotion and for the context of your own emotional vulnerability, and resulting emotional growth.

This idea sits at the heart of breakups, and at the backbone of your life.

NO CONTACT

The simplest way for you to regain your emotional dependence, satisfy your obsession, satiate your abandonment and relent to your unworthiness is to contact them. This is the route your brain will take – you will feel body and soul like this is the right thing to do. You will even create logical reasons as to why this is appropriate, necessary, and of course – the rational and mature thing to do.

This is bullshit. This is your emotions speaking. You are trying to use this person to heal a hole that is not theirs to heal. The path to healing your own emotions starts not with someone else, but with you; and the easy way, no matter how tempting, is not the right one.

When you invest in someone else, you lose a part of your emotional independence. This process is all about regaining that independence and rebuilding the most important relationship you have; the one with yourself. You don’t do that through dependence on someone else.

But, remember – your brain can’t be trusted. You need to create a fertile soil for you to get to the point where you’ve moved on. You do this by cutting contact. After all, you can’t connect with someone who isn’t there.

Here’s what you do:

Delete their number. Delete their texts, their emails, their WhatsApp, their Facebook, their social media, their Instagram, their Snapchat, throw out their stuff, burn your house down and kill your friends. Do not call them; do not contact them in any way. Do not send them indirect messages. Do not stalk them on the internet. Do not stalk them in real life (I really hope you’re not doing this one). Delete the nude photos you took together. Delete the nude photos she didn’t know you took (because you know you did). Delete all the naughty videos you made together. Do not watch said videos. Delete them.

No, seriously, delete them.

I’ll wait here while you do.

Okay, let’s continue.

This is admittedly, extraordinarily difficult. Whether it takes willpower, writing a list of all the bad things they did to you, or simply destroying your phone (please don’t go that far) – you just have to do it. It’s the foundation from which everything else builds. You cannot skip it.

Just do it.

LET YOURSELF FEEL LIKE SHIT

One of the most toxic aspects of masculinity is the idea that men shouldn’t express or feel emotions. This is patently untrue. Research between gender differences in emotion demonstrates that many of the gulfs between us and our female counterparts are subject to context, and increasingly, more writing is being done in regards to boys having rich and complex emotional lives.

In short, when you feel like shit, you can’t ‘man’ your way out of it. Sorry tough guy, but that isn’t going to work. Like anyone else, in these situations, we need to accept that we’re going to feel like shit.

As I said before, this process is all about regaining your independence. You need to be able to support yourself emotionally. There is nobody to emotionally support you like your partner used to right now, it’s just you – and a whole boatload of shitty feelings.

Want to cry? Do it. Want to mope around for a whole day? Do it. Want to be alone? Do it. You need to let the shitty feelings have their day – and you need to help them find their way out. Don’t try to conquer your feelings, don’t try to fix them, don’t try to ignore them, distract yourself from them, drown them out of reality with video games and corn chips – No, let the feelings have their day. This is called emotional regulation; and it is hugely important, not just for breakups but for life in general.

A friend of mine has Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. It’s a disease of the mind and the immune system that leaves her unable to think properly, remember accurately, do anything; and for the most part, enjoy her life. In short, she’s an expert on feeling like dogshit. One of her tips; when it happens it happens, you’ve just got to accept when you’re down and treat it the same way you would if you were happy – i.e. you invite it in.

In my own life, this was a huge piece of advice. Instead of trying to smash my feelings into submission, I let them have their way with me – and in turn was rewarded with insight into my problems. As a result, I often find emotions like happiness seemed to, paradoxically, generate from the sensation of allowing myself to be sad. Eastern thinkers have been harping on about this for centuries. For now, here’s Louis CK:

You want to encourage your emotions to regulate. Allow yourself to do nothing but think. Write down how you feel. Explore the ideas that are coming up – do whatever you’ve got to do, just express it; this is part of building a relationship with yourself. You let yourself feel like shit, and you explore that feeling of shittiness in whatever way is right for you. The only way out is through – Express it, write about it –

bop_it

Bop it, twist it, shake it.

Whatever works for you.

NEGATIVE MOTIVATION

The cliché of breakups is the desire to make your Ex regret their loss. To make them want you. Regardless of which side of the breakup you’re on – this is something that is universally felt. In looking at the other dating advice out there, in one way or another, this was the most common piece of advice I came across; let your desire to make them want to regret their decision motivate you to become the best version of you.

arnold

Yay, empowering.

Not only is this a fire for self-improvement, but it’s also incredibly mature. “I feel like shit, so I’m gonna make sure they do too!” A sure-fire recipe for a great human being.

Except, y’know, it isn’t.

But, despite my reservations – I would say the same thing.

Let the bad feelings motivate you.

In my own life, after my break up I threw myself into personal development. I, in an act of stomach-churning cliché, looked myself in the mirror and swore the pain I felt now I’d never feel again. I cut off my ex, stopped speaking to our mutual friends and built my social and dating life like a madman.

I also, like most guys, threw myself into the gym.

For six months I hammered myself into the best shape I’d ever been in. I was lean, broad-shouldered, my arms were bigger and my face was defined. For the first time, I had a six-pack. My anger at being rejected had forged me into the most attractive version of myself. Women made advances at me. Would squeeze my arms and give me compliments regularly throughout the day. I felt incredible.

Then one day – I crushed a vein between my scapula, collarbone, and first rib. A blood clot developed in my thoracic outlet, cutting off the blood flow to my right arm. I was rushed to hospital, pumped full of blood thinner (read: rat poison), and forced to confront the fact that it was highly likely that I was going to die.

Luckily, I survived, but I’ve never been able to exercise since.

It’s one of the best things that ever happened to me. In losing the ability to feed that wound, I was forced to confront it. And I learned the one thing we all need to learn:

It was never about them.

Improving for someone else’s sake spits right in the face of what self-improvement is. When you engage in being motivated by someone else, you’re exposing yourself to three, very toxic things:

  1. You’re driven to improve because you feel hurt.
  2. You’re attempting to transcend your feelings of hurt (read: the experience of being human), through self-improvement.
  3. In giving them so much precedence in your motivation, you’re actively preventing yourself from moving on. (check the footnotes)

Self-improvement is, first and foremost, an act of affection for yourself. Just like building a healthy emotional relationship with yourself is crucial – self-improvement is about building a healthy life. It’s about wanting something, and going and getting it. Self-improvement born out of anger, hatred, and revenge is a house built on sand – and if I hadn’t, albeit dramatically, been smashed in front of this reality; I would have stagnated.

So then why recommend it?

Because in giving into your negative emotions, they inadvertently give you a roadmap on how to heal yourself. When you pay attention to what it is you’re trying to do, at the hole you’re trying to feed – you give yourself the ability to figure out exactly what it is that’s causing you all this hurt in the first place.

It’s a gift.

The art of letting yourself be motivated by negativity lies in the interpretation of the emotional motivation itself. It begins with you. If your emotion, like mine, tells you that you that you are not good enough, and you need to become ‘perfect’ so that next time she sees you she’ll be blown away – take a second to examine that. Sure, it would be nice for your ego, but once again you’re making this about her and not about you. It’s not about what she will think of the new you, it’s about WHY you feel the need to change. In looking at the WHY, you uncover the root of your pain – your insecurities, your self-doubts, your negative beliefs, and your shame. It is from here that you can begin to heal.

If you believed you were good enough, that you were fine just as you are, would the breakup hurt as much?

If I believed I was fine, would I have nearly killed myself through obsession?

Being motivated by pain is a gift so long as it is done as a way to get a sense of where it is you actually need to focus your efforts – in this case, on your pain. The longer you relent to the pain itself, the more you’ll push yourself to excess, or abandon your efforts as impossibilities.

You can’t put a plaster on your pain forever. Eventually, you have to listen to what’s motivating you – you have to confront the pain itself.

You have to listen to yourself. You have to confront yourself.

I wish I had learned this when I was younger, instead of the hard way.

IT WAS ALWAYS ABOUT YOU

It was never about them. Breakups are trauma, and trauma magnifies what’s already there. Someone rejected you. Someone weighed you up and tossed you aside. Your relationship failed. What does this say about you?

In most of our cases; it’s that we aren’t enough. That something about us is wrong. That we need to be fixed. That’s why we engage in self-improvement. It is (despite appearances) not to make them regret it, it’s because we feel wrong. It’s because we feel broken.

When you’re in a relationship, it can feel like you can’t be hurt. Like the negative feeling you have towards yourself will go away – but this is a trap. The feelings never go away – and when you suffer trauma like a breakup – whatever was waiting down there comes surging back up worse than ever.­

The pain of breakups and the resulting motivation and anger are gifts that allow you to really examine who it is you are, and what it is you’re dealing with, and most importantly; how it is you’re relating to yourself.

This paradox lies at the heart of ‘developing yourself to get revenge.’ If you’re developing yourself from a negative place, all you’re doing is reinforcing the foundation that caused you all this pain in the first place. All you’re doing is living out your painful narrative – that you are broken and wrong, and that you need to be fixed.

This is the gift of breakups. The realization that it was never about them, but it was always about you. That instead of trying to make them feel something (like regret), it’s time to let yourself feel something; like acceptance. That instead of trying to regain your relationship with them, it’s time to regain your relationship with yourself.

But let’s look at them for a second…

YOUR EX

I’ve spent this article talking about your Ex.

But that term, despite being freely used, is dehumanizing, and you do that to distance yourself from them a person – i.e. the person you fell in love with, and then hurt you. In real life your ex is just a human being just like you – who’s scared, insecure, confident, shy, bold, stupid, smart and ultimately, just as lost figuring out life as you are – they’re not some malicious monster, they’re someone making a decision for what they feel is right for their life. And unfortunately for how you feel, that life doesn’t include you.

I write this to give you some perspective on the closure you may feel you need. Ultimately, your relationship is over. But demonizing the other person does you no favors. That’s you trying to protect yourself.

But, like most people, you probably feel on some level you still want them. Even if you try not to admit it to yourself, I’d wager you do. And that’s normal. You were connected to this person intimately, and shared experiences with them – you’d miss them like you missed anyone else. But is that really the full story?

I’m not so sure.

A lot of the motivation behind missing an ex, I believe stems from the inability to heal the emotional issues that caused you the hurt in the first place. You miss them because you think they can make these feelings go away. The longer you spend letting those emotional issues linger inside you, without confronting them, the longer it is going to take for you to truly move on.* Remember, it was never about them – it was always about you.

Lemon

Life’s given you a lemon. It’s time you grabbed the Tequila.

THE GUIDE TO BREAKUPS

Once you’ve set out on the path to healing what caused all this hurt, then you’ve started to build a relationship with your emotions; and with yourself. From this standpoint, you can begin to ask yourself, with a clear mind, the questions that in the first place you were in no state to answer. This is where; finally, the logic comes in:

  • Do I want to be with this person?
  • Are we compatible, or have our lives gone in separate directions?
  • Do I want to even see this person?
  • Do I still need closure?
  • If this is somebody who doesn’t want to be with me, then is that someone I really want to invest my time in winning back?
  • Am I shutting myself off to other options?
  • Beyond physical attraction, do I really have much interest?
  • Can I see myself having a future with this person?
  • Am I still operating from a place of weakness?

It’s in finding the answer to these questions; from building that relationship with ourselves, so that we can answer them without the influence of neediness or shame – that we can move on, to what it is we really want, instead of going back to someone who doesn’t want us. Because that is, at the root of it, what you’ll be motivated to do.

And that’s normal. It’s how this works, and it’s a big reason why it hurts. Relationships and breakups can leave us obsessed with them – when the focus should have always been directed inwards, at ourselves.

And right now, that’s all you need to do. Right now, it’s time you had a look at you.

 

*More on Fisher’s work can be found here, here, and here.

*This is why, beyond basic life gains, and more importantly pointing out your emotional issues, engaging in personal development to spite your ex is an incredible redundant activity. You’re actively not allowing yourself to move on. Remember that. You’re actively not allowing yourself to move on.

WANT A BETTER DATING LIFE?

Yeah, I know. You’ve read enough. But this is important. I made a dating course. Like, a really big dating course.

It’s over 8 hours of video content, 30 lessons, and over 80 exercises. It covers everything you need to know from making yourself more attractive, building sexual confidence, having great dates, and finding the right women for you.

It’s based on years of experience, a library’s worth of scientific research, and just the right amount of common sense. So stop listening to me and check it out for yourself.

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Filed Under: Dating Advice For Men Tagged With: Breakups, Dating, Depression, Emotions, Psychology, Relationships, Self Help, Self Improvement, Sex

What Makes A Man Attractive To Women? – The Only Trait That Matters

by Visko Matich · May 15, 2016

what makes a man attractive

 

RECENTLY, a reader asked me to define what makes a man attractive. After mulling over the question, I came to a singular conclusion. The answer, to me, seemed obvious.

But yet the question was asked and is constantly asked – in literature, advertising, movies, and politics. We’re constantly sold it, told what it is, given new measuring sticks and quotas to meet.

And as a result, we’re constantly asking ourselves, in one way or another if we measure up – if we’re good enough.

Usually, we’re not.

When I set out to start talking about life advice and dating, this was the kind of article I wanted to avoid. I’m sure you’ve seen them before: ‘5 ways to become more attractive’, ‘the 5 traits every woman loves’ – an article where some shithead on the internet tells you how to behave as a man is nothing new – and often, offers advice that does more harm than good.

Self-help and personal development are not ubiquitous road maps, but instead journeys – and trying to force someone down your path often just reinforces the fact that they weren’t good enough to find their own way.

That’s not a narrative I want to contribute to.

But yet, I was asked the question. So I was going to have to try and answer it. And because I’m the enterprising shithead that I am, who desperately wants to avoid any sense of guruhood* – I decided to do something new.

Whilst I was certain of my opinion, I’m at least humble enough to realize it comes from just one perspective, specifically a male opinion – one that I wanted to test. So I did something different – I asked every woman I knew for her opinion on that one question:

‘What makes a man attractive?’

And well, the response was overwhelming.

The responses came in all shapes and sizes – superficial responses, reasoned responses, emotional responses, responses directed at my own failings (thanks), responses that read like manifestos against exes; there was talk of height, penis size, income, beards, tattoos, and style. Personality traits cropped up, patterns began to show – and slowly, I had the answer.

And it wasn’t a good one.

WHAT MAKES A MAN ATTRACTIVE?

These are the fundamentals as they occurred in all the responses I collected. I’ve listed them in order of the frequency with which they were mentioned, as well as the emphasis placed on their importance.

Every response contained, in some way, at least one of these but often contained most, if not all.

CONFIDENCE / STRENGTH / ASSERTIVENESS

The most common and immediate response. Typically defined as someone who has the certainty of character to follow his conception of himself (morals, values) and pursue his goals. Well defined boundaries and a strong sense of respect, especially self-respect.

Eye rolling in its predictability and in my opinion the least understood of all traits. But more on this later.

RELIABILITY / TRUSTWORTHY / ACCOUNTABILITY / EMOTIONAL MATURITY / EMPATHY

This one was almost tied with confidence. The idea can be distilled down to someone who has a decent emotional understanding of himself, his motivations, his strengths, and weaknesses; and as a result, interacts with the woman from a position of acceptance, equality and chiefly predictability – she knows he’s got her back, and can invest in that trust.

Essentially the trait that runs counter to almost the entire body of pick up theory.

AMBITION / DRIVE

Enormously important. A man who is going places, internally driven towards some kind of goal that he is taking real and practical steps to achieve.

That last bit was crucial – he’s actually going after what he wants. Whether or not he’d achieved it was never specified as being necessary, and the word successful was never used.

I would distill this down to a lifestyle design or goal that is actively pursued and prioritized.  

SENSE OF HUMOR / FUNNY / FUN 

Definition: you can make her laugh. Can come in any form. Goofy, sarcastic, being a dick, being a dork, self-deprecating, one-liners – whatever. It’s about the effect, not the delivery system.

INDEPENDENCE

This was never specifically mentioned by name but alluded to (almost in every case) in stories of failed relationships. The over-invested boyfriend, the guy who texts too much, who needs to see her every day – in essence, the guy who needs her, rather than the one who wants her. Some women interestingly cited independent men as ones who prioritized their own needs first.

The women, in every case, wanted a man who didn’t need her in his life. He wasn’t dependent on her. This is, in effect, neediness. A useful barometer for this is the degree to which you’d be willing to walk away from the relationship.

Symbolic examples of this trait in its failed state included men who had very few friends, lived at home and weren’t financially independent (employed).

ATTENTIVENESS

Paying attention to the details of her personality, and bringing that attention to life in the form of tailored experiences. Examples such as: “never buy me lingerie” to taking her to a Frozen singalong. Investing in her personality rather than applying a one size fits all approach to women.

COMPLACENCY

The only trait that consistently came up in every form as a negative (even when the question wasn’t asking for negatives) was complacency. It was such a negative, in fact, that its effect can only be described as complete revulsion. This is where the man in some form or another begins to stagnate in life, or perhaps worsen. It is the opposite of ambition.

Think of it as instead of drawing things into your life, the flow has halted, or worse – is now flowing the other way. The word ‘provider’ was often used in conjunction here. A complacent man makes for a bad provider – and a bad provider is extremely unattractive.

attractive

You’ll probably need this too. And ice cream.

SOUNDS SIMPLE RIGHT?

So by now, I imagine you’ve read through those traits – seen many you expected, perhaps some others you didn’t or gained a fresh perspective on – and now you’re thinking about where you measure up, and where you don’t.

But here’s the thing – the traits are not that helpful.

I asked the women a simple question ‘what are the fundamental characteristics of the attractive man?’. All of them without exception assumed this referred to a long-term partner. Not a single one assumed I was referring to a short-term hookup. In fact, that was scarcely mentioned, and when it was, the only correlated trait was height (the importance of which was greatly outweighed by the aforementioned traits).

Ironically, the majority of these women have at least had one experience of being picked up in a bar or club, by someone they’d never met before. In fact, some of them were picked up by me – and they had no idea as to where I fell on the spectrum of desirable traits, all they could see was some asshole necking vodka.

The lesson here being that these traits, whilst attractive – are also contextual, and subject to contradiction; you can still be attractive when none of them are present.

That’s the statistical equivalent of dogshit.

But where the answers became really interesting was where a woman disagreed with the trend or had a specific niche taste. This didn’t just happen often, it happened a lot.

Where three of them would cite confidence as the most desirable trait, another would state she was perfectly confident in herself and liked shy men as a result. Where every woman stated traits that fell into the aforementioned patterns, they would also state traits unique to them, which were equally fundamental but fell into no pattern – for example; creativity, competitiveness, persuasiveness, intellectually challenging, philosophical or, enjoys video games and/or comic books.

Confused?

The point to take away from this is that not every girl is going to be interested in you – even if you develop all the traits.

Despite all your efforts at self-improvement, the numbers game rules the roost, and all your efforts simply lead you to a girl who probably would have liked you anyway.

THE ONLY TRAIT THAT MATTERS

When the reader first asked me ‘what are the fundamental characteristics of the attractive man?’ I initially thought of a few – but slowly, as I ran them through my mind, many of them began to fall away as they were slowly disproved by my own experience until I was left with only one:

He can make a move.

There are times when I’ve been shy and still got the girl. There are times when I’ve been incredibly confident and gone home empty-handed. There are times when I’ve been empathetic, a complete dick, had something going for me, had nothing going me – each getting the opposite result I’d expect and the listed traits would imply.

But when I got the girl, when she was ‘attracted to me’, and I capitalized on this, I made a move. And this is all that mattered.

That is my fundamental. This is what makes a man attractive.

A lot of guys believe you have to be confident to make a move. That they have to achieve X, Y, Z or do A, B, C personal-development-meditation-hack-morning-routine to be able to make a move.

This is only reinforced by the fact that women will tell you in the blink of an eye that confidence is the most attractive trait in a man, so surely you have to be confident to make a move right?

No.

No, you really don’t.

The thing about confidence is that you get it after you make a move. Not before. That’s how it works. Making a move is leaning into vulnerability, not being too confident to feel it.

Another reason I really harp on about making a move is that in my experience, female attraction is amplified by a man expressing his desire.

Provided it exists in them to begin with – their desire will be amplified by you expressing your own. They’re aroused by you finding them arousing. The less you fuck around with your own intentions, the faster you’ll end up fucking around with each other later.

THE ATTRACTION PARADOX

One of the best pieces of advice I ever read was ‘if you have to ask, it’s not going to happen.’ It made me reflect on how I’d been engaging with personal development up until that moment.

I’d been searching for the way that worked for others, rather than the way that worked for me. My desire for self-improvement had stemmed from a lack of self-worth, rather than a desire to see myself achieve my goals – and as a result, I couldn’t trust myself to find my own way.

And that’s where the question of  ‘what are the fundamental characteristics of the attractive man?’ goes wrong.

As the answers from the women flooded in, I began to see the flaw at the heart of the reader’s question. The patterns and anomalies in the answers didn’t just fall under the parameters of female attraction, but instead something grander.

The traits all described a man who was simply invested in his own development, for the developments sake – for his sake.

And that’s the flaw. So much dating advice is concerned with telling you how to be attractive, how to react to the rules and conditions that are required in order to be attractive.

It’s a mindset, which in asking the question ‘what are the fundamental characteristics of the attractive man’, already puts you in a position where you’re fundamentally unattractive. You’re pursuing a path of development that’s for her, rather than for you.

This is something I’ve come to call the Attraction Paradox™.

The more you try to be attractive to her, the less attractive you actually are.

This paradox is fundamental to what makes a man attractive. You want to know what’s going through my mind when I’ve done well with women?

I want her, so I’m gonna get her.

You want to know what’s going through my mind when I’ve completely wiped out over and over again?

How do I get her? What would get her?

One mindset is all about me, one is all about her. Imagine how you’d behave from each mindset.

The more you invest in your own needs, your own character, and your own desires – the more inherently attractive you actually are. You’re not a man who’s trying to be attractive, you’re a man who already is.

This truth is why I think all the answers fell under the spectrum of a man who was engaged in his own healthy personal development. They weren’t attracted to the man who was engaged in becoming better with women, but instead the man who was engaged in becoming a better him.

Why do you think complacency rated so highly as a repulsive trait? It’s an abandonment of development. And you know what’s a recipe for complacency? Giving your development an end goal, in this instance, women.

As soon as you get it, the need for improvement stops. And that can’t happen. Development is an endless project. Slowly developing yourself over years and years of effort – isolating your weak points over time as your self-awareness grows, then working on them.

MOVING FORWARD

what makes a man attractive

As a culture, we’ve become fixated on the idea of what is attractive and desirable to the opposite sex*. We’re beaten down by a narrative that tells us we don’t measure up, and we aren’t good enough. Objectively, this exists to influence us as consumers. Subjectively, it makes us feel like crap.

But worse than that – it’s just a shitty way to go about being attractive.

In writing this article, I was asked to compile a list of the traits that women found attractive. The fundamental traits, the ones that couldn’t be missed. This list, if true, presumably offers a roadmap to the heart of every woman on the planet. But in fact, it does quite the reverse.

Adhering to a list like this is in itself, not what makes a man attractive. In fact, it’s fundamentally unattractive. The secret of attraction doesn’t lie in a checklist. You’re not ticking the boxes of what she wants. It’s not about that. No, The secret of attraction is simple. It’s not about what she wants, it’s about what you want.

It’s about a desire to live well and improve. For no one but yourself.

 

 

*I am no guru. I’m just a guy. In reality, I’m someone who spends most of his time imploding as a result of his flaws. Just like everyone else.

*Imagine a million bearded, tattooed men, with undercuts, falling off a conveyor belt into a fresh plaid shirt. Forever until infinity.

WANT A BETTER DATING LIFE?

Yeah, I know. You’ve read enough. But this is important. I made a dating course. Like, a really big dating course.

It’s over 8 hours of video content, 30 lessons, and over 80 exercises. It covers everything you need to know from making yourself more attractive, building sexual confidence, having great dates, and finding the right women for you.

It’s based on years of experience, a library’s worth of scientific research, and just the right amount of common sense. So stop listening to me and check it out for yourself.

CLICK ME!

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Filed Under: Dating Advice For Men, Life Advice & Personal Development Tagged With: Attraction, Dating, Personal Development, Sex, Women

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