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Dating And Life Advice For Men

Dating Advice For Men

Where to Meet Women As An introverted Man

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Where to Meet Women As An introverted Man

This is a complete guide on where to meet women as an introverted man. If you are shy on any level and find socializing difficult, then this is the guide for you. I recommend you pair it with this guide on how to become successful with women. – Visko

MY FIRST decision in dating wasn’t exactly the smartest.

I was young, terrified, and in my early twenties. I was completely inexperienced and had no idea what I was doing, and to top it all off, I made the bright choice of going about it in a way that directly conflicted with who I actually was.

(Spoiler: this is a terrible way to pursue any goal).

Instead of recognizing that I was, at least at the time, largely introverted, shy, lacking in social experience, and pissing my pants at the thought of rejection – I decided that I was extroverted, outgoing, and a colorful social butterfly. The result of this was that I went about improving my dating life in the most cliche way possible:

 I hit up bars and clubs.

(You go party boy!)

I would often do this with friends, but sometimes on my own. As many as four to five times per week. I got rejected a lot (read: a shit load). I didn’t really enjoy myself. I set myself the arbitrary rule of doing it sober, which only made it harder (albeit cheaper). And what few successes I had came at the expense of spending my time in a way I didn’t really want to.

Now, I’m not about to tell you it stayed this way forever. Eventually, I did warm up to the idea of hanging out in bars and clubs and partying till 6 am drunk on vodka – something I occasionally do to this day. But I also made my life a hell of a lot harder than it needed to be.              

Because I was naturally introverted and shy, the last places I needed to go in order to meet women were places that were loud and prized extroversion. Sure, they eventually got me out of my shell, but it was a slow and painful uphill grind.

Luckily for you, I’m here to help you find a shortcut around that grind.

Meet Women as an Introverted Man

There are a few fundamental choices when it comes to having a good dating life:

  • Accept rejection, or blame yourself?
  • Improve your life or blame everyone else?
  • Men, women, or both at the same time?
  • And lastly, where are you going to meet the women you date?

This guide is all about that last choice. Because it’s one of the most important ones you can make. Aside from actually going up to women and talking to them, the act of choosing the right places to meet them has a huge influence on whether you’ll actually be successful or not.

And those right venues have everything to do with who you are. I.e. if you’re a 35-year-old introverted librarian who collects Eldrazi magic cards and reads Lady Audley’s Secret (spoiler: her secret is complicated, but it involves faking her own death, marrying another guy, and generally being batshit insane) then going to a night club filled with university students probably isn’t going to end up being the wild night you think it will.

This guide is aimed at solving that fundamental problem by helping you find avenues of dating that fit well with your natural introversion as a man.

The Reality of Introversion

Before we dive into the guide on meeting women, there’s something you need to understand:

Introversion is not a fixed state. And it’s important to differentiate it from anxiety.

You might feel shy, overwhelmed by people, and desire to be alone – but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll feel that way forever. This is something to bear in mind when you approach any of these recommended ways of meeting women.

It’s also important to remember that what might feel like “symptoms” for your innate introversion are often just anxiety. It was certainly that way for me.

I would go to anywhere with lots of people and I would feel like I was trapped inside my head, hyper-conscious of everything I said, and feeling (pretty arrogantly and narcissistically) as if everyone cared how much I sucked.

(All this did was make me hyper-aware of any “perceived” evidence that this was true.)

The reality was this had nothing to do with my introversion. I was just anxious. I had spent all week, and most of my life not socializing, and so I found social situations difficult. Not exactly rocket science. I didn’t need to beat myself up. I needed experience, and to stop telling myself “this was how I was.”

Because like my introversion, my anxiety was something that could change.

When it comes to dating, you need to understand that introversion and extroversion is a scale – you can be at either end and be successful with women, and you CAN change where you are on that scale.

This means: your introversion isn’t holding you back. You are.

The only reason extroverts SEEM more successful is that by way of them being more socially inclined they put themselves in the way of more opportunities, and generally, on the surface at least, experience less anxiety.

That’s it.

The Easiest Ways To Meet Women as an Introverted Man

There are two basic ways to meet women as an introverted man that are more effective than anything else in this guide.

These are:

Basic Social Circle Expansion

A few years into my career as a wannabe Casanova, I got out a pen and paper and wrote down every single woman I’d been with and how I met them. I didn’t do this to stroke my ego, I simply wanted to know where I saw the vast majority of my results.

The answer was something that surprised me.

Over 50% of my results came from some form of genuine socializing.

As much as I’d thought my results came from nightclubs and bars, the reality was all the experience I was getting approaching there was paying off much more as I expanded my social circle.

In other words, I’d just become increasingly more confident and capable of capitalizing on the opportunities that were right in front of my eyes.

This has been the case for almost every guy I’ve worked with. The more he’s socialized with his friends, and the more he’s gone to social events and activities, the better his results have been.

Why?

Firstly, it’s because he’s opening himself up to far more opportunities. Not only will he meet more women the more he expands and diversifies his friendship group, but those women will also be far more receptive to him speaking to them.

Second, the more he socializes the easier he finds it to talk to women and ask them out. No techniques or lines needed, just basic, authentic confidence born out of experience.

Remember how I said introversion and anxiety could change?

Utilizing Social Media Connections

My model of an ideal dating life is one that is as fulfilling as possible, whilst also involving the least effort.

It sounds lazy (excuse my Dorito dust) but it’s also helped me cut out all the unnecessary stuff I used to convince myself was all important. Like going out 4-5 times per week. That’s fucking exhausting and would probably give me the flu if I did it now.

By far the most efficient and laziest thing you can do in dating is leverage social media. Which is a technical way of saying: get a good profile, message women you know/have mutual friends with.

If you’ve sorted out the basics of being attractive (by that I mean you have a life you enjoy, you groom yourself well, and you don’t dress like you’ve slept in your uncle’s clothes) then all you need is some good photos.

By good photos, I mean well framed, interesting/funny, and sell your looks and your lifestyle.

Yeah, I know, this probably sounds like a drag, but it’s an investment that once completed, continuously pays off for very little work. Hell, you don’t even need to constantly update it. You just need 5 solid photos.

Then all you’ve got to do is reach out.

Whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram – if you’ve sorted out the basics of being attractive, it’s likely they’ll be receptive. You can do this with old colleagues, girls you met at school, whatever. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t spoken to them in ages. Just send the message.

In the past I’ve usually gone for:

“Hey stranger, you just popped up on my feed. How are you? x”

99% of the time they respond. We chat for a bit, then I ask them out. It’s not always a yes (I’m not Bradley Cooper), but it’s a yes far more often than it would be through any other venue.

This is something I usually do when I’m bored at an airport, on a train, or hungover. Like I said, minimal effort.

And far easier than approaching some randomer on the street.

The 6 Best Places To Meet Women

How to Meet Women As An introverted Man

In my experience as a dating coach, there are two rules you want to follow before you pursue any avenue of meeting women, especially when it comes to introvert dating.

GOLDEN RULE ONE: Be Open To Trying New Things

Not being open to new things is the easiest way to kill your fledgling dating life before it’s even found its legs. It’s also the easiest mistake for introverted guys to make.

I get it, you have things you like to do, and you want to stick to those things. They’re comfy and predictable and safe and habitual. Habits can be a bitch to change. But building a better dating life is all about putting yourself in new situations.

This is one of the most important pieces of dating advice for introverted men. You have to do new things and put yourself out there or you won’t get the results you want.

You can take steps to accommodate your introverted nature, and this article is going to help you do that, but you also have to take steps it’s not going to be inclined to take. This doesn’t mean you have to be extroverted. Far from it. You can succeed with women and still be introverted, just as you can be an introverted “alpha male” in social situations.

It all has to do with how you manage your introversion. That’s really what dating for introverted guys all comes down to: are they managing their introversion and are they putting themselves out there enough?

So if you do nothing else, make sure it’s trying new things.

GOLDEN RULE TWO: Make Sure You Actually Enjoy It

Here’s a little caveat. Although you have to try new things in order to meet women, you also have to make sure the things you’re trying ARE ACTUALLY THINGS YOU WANT TO DO.

Because if they aren’t, and you’re only there to meet women, then what you’re doing is prioritizing women over yourself, which is fundamentally unattractive and needy, and leads to creepy behavior.

Meeting women should always be a by-product of you living the kind of life you want to be living. This is why it’s so important to be open to trying new things; although you’re sticking to things you want to do, you’re motivating yourself to expand the things that you DO, which as a result exposes you to more dating opportunities.

Approaching your dating life from this perspective actively puts you in a position where you’ve prioritized yourself. This MASSIVELY helps with mitigating your neediness and aligns your behavior with your intentions.

It’s also, and I can’t stress this enough, fundamentally attractive.

Think about it, if you went to a yoga class solely to meet women – how much pressure would you be putting yourself under before you even arrived? Whereas if you went to a Yoga class because hell, you fancied throwing yourself into a downward dog then busting out some sun salutations – approaching the hot babe in the yoga pants would be a lot more organic.

——

With those two rules in mind, let’s dive in.

1) Dance Classes

Difficulty: 6/10

Dance classes are one of the single best things you can do for your dating life. Not only is learning how to dance an invaluable (and enjoyable) skill, but it’ll actively have you doing salsa, rumba, swing, ballroom, ballet, hip-hop, or break dancing with women.

This will get you out of your shell far more than anything else. And at the same time build your confidence in interacting with women, especially physically.

It’s also a lot easier to learn how to approach in these venues. Why? The women are literally there for you to dance with them. They’re waiting for you to walk up to them.

Go and do it.

If you’ve been dancing with a woman for the last half hour or so, it’s not a big leap to then ask her out.

The only difficult thing about this is that it can seem daunting at first. Going to a venue filled with women where you have no idea how to dance can seem like jumping in at the deep end. However, the more you go, the more this will cease to be a problem, and the more you’ll reap the advantages.

My recommendation: Unless you have zero interest in learning how to dance, this would be the one I’d prioritize the most. If you want to make it even easier on yourself, get some private 1 on 1 lessons first. This will make the dancing element much easier. You’d also be surprised by how many of the instructors are single.

Find the form of dancing that YOU want to do. The easiest way to do this? Watch movies like The Mask of Zorro that have great dance scenes. Find out what the style of dance is and learn it.

However, if in doubt, learn Salsa.

2) Yoga Classes

Difficulty: 3/10

How does this sound: Little to no competition from other men. Filled with mostly introverted women. All of them relaxed, friendly, and talkative.

Oh yeah, and it’s good for your health.

Yoga is the easiest recommendation I have. You show up somewhere, relax, stretch your body, and there is a ton of cool women.

If you’re anything like me, and you spend most of your time hunched over a desk, ruining your posture and suffering from over-tight muscles, then yoga is a great way to start fixing that.

You’ll see incredible benefits from going, and odds are you’ll be surrounded by women and be the only guy there. Well, except for Fabricio, the spiritual, yet handsy instructor.

My recommendation: Unlike dancing, yoga has little to no inherent sexuality to it. Well, aside from the yoga pants. You want to speak to women before and after the session. If you get on, get their contact details and take it from there.

3) Self-Defense Classes

Difficulty: 5/10

I actually stumbled on this one through a friend of mine. It only really applies to big cities, but it can be a great option.

Accessible self-defense classes are a great place to not just meet women, but also expand your male social circle. Not many guys would guess it, but many women, especially in big cities are actively interested in learning self-defense – for both the exercise and the increased feeling of safety it gives them.

Whilst I’d personally recommend you take up boxing or MMA if you really want to learn how to fight, if you have a casual interest in self-defense and want to learn the basics, then these classes can be a great, all-around approach to improving your dating and social life.

You essentially spend an hour play fighting with each other. Who doesn’t become friends after that?

My recommendation: My go-to hobbies when traveling are dancing and self-defense. Combined they create a great social life and keep me in shape. At the end of any self-defense class, ask the people you’ve got on with if they want to grab a drink. Simple as that.

Also, just as a tip, women are far more likely to attend the self-defense classes that aren’t branded as “hardcore”. Those classes are also pretty lame – again, hit up boxing or MMA if you want actual fighting experience.

4) Social Sports / Clubs / Hobbies

Difficulty: 4/10

Women love team sports as much as men. They also like classes a hell of a lot more than men.

If there’s a sport you want to play or something you want to learn – attending active social events based around these are a great way to easily meet women.

Cooking classes, ultimate frisbee, touch rugby, book clubs, classic film clubs – there are active social events for everything. You can even connect this with your career/business/ economic interests. There are events for entrepreneurship, investing, bitcoin, and dozens of other places.

Again, just remember the two golden rules.

Make sure it’s something you enjoy, and be open to trying it out. If it’s a team sport, get chatting to the women on your team, and spark up a friendly rivalry with one on the opposing side. If it’s a class or club, just start talking about your mutual interest.

My recommendation: In my experience, the rule here is to make sure you’re enjoying yourself. The more this is connected to your genuine interests, the better your results will be. It’s also worth bearing in mind that not all events are made equal when it comes to meeting women. For example, cooking classes will have far more women than touch rugby. You also want to find out what kind of demographics attend your hobby before you show up. You don’t want to end up surrounded by pensioners after all.

(Or maybe… you do.)

Another way you can do this is through volunteering. It’s similar to attending a social event based around a hobby, but the difference is that the emotional motivation that’s motivated you to volunteer is much stronger.

Because let’s face it, volunteering can be hard (even though it’s rewarding) and most people can’t be bothered. If you can be bothered, then the women you meet there will be much more likely to be compatible with you. And you’ll also probably admire each other right off the bat.

Doesn’t sound so bad.

5) Parties

Difficulty: 1/10 to 10/10

Parties are the easiest way to meet women in the world. There is nothing that comes close. That said, your ability to meet women there and either hook-up with them or date them will come down to how well you can manage your introversion and anxiety.

For starters, your introversion is going to make you burn out faster at a big party, so you probably want to focus on the more personal, one on one conversations you can have there (i.e. In the garden) than in the loud, beer pong, speakers on max, wet t-shirt competition area.

You’re also, most likely, going to find socializing provokes your anxiety. You need to take the party as a place to exercise your anxiety and push its boundaries. Remember that everyone at a party is slightly anxious and nervous and that you’re all there to meet other people you don’t know and have a good time with them.

If you can manage both of those, you will make parties incredibly easy places to meet women.

My recommendation: Parties are similar to nightclubs in that fun is the metric of success. The more fun you have, the more people will want to be around you. So focus first and foremost on having a good time, and be open to speaking to everyone, not just women.

If you meet one you like, ask her what she’s doing later, or, if it’s that kind of party go somewhere private and go for the kiss. Otherwise, grab her number and call her the next day.

6) Coffee Shops and Bookstores

Difficulty: 8/10

The last place on my list without a doubt coffee shops and bookstores. Whilst they’re going to require you to overcome some anxiety around sparking up a conversation with strangers, they’re also incredibly chilled, introvert-friendly places. Never too loud, and if you pick the right one, never too busy.

Take your laptop and get some work done on the free wifi, or chill out and read a book. If you’re lucky, you’ll have an attractive woman sitting next to you, but usually, you’re going to have to get up and approach.

These places are never shy of attractive, interesting women and you’d be amazed how little they get approached outside of catcalling. Which isn’t a strategy I’d recommend, least of all in a bookstore.

(If you don’t know how to approach then check out my free e-book here).

The venue itself is going to do a lot of the legwork when it comes to filtering for the kind of introverted women you’d get on with. People with introverted temperaments gravitate towards venues like coffee shops and book stores and have an active interest in the things associated with them. I.e. coffee and books. But you’ll often find them working away at something in private, so between the three, there’s plenty of things to kick a conversation up about.

You just have to make the first move.

My recommendation: This is on the harder end of the scale, as it’s going to require you to speak to a stranger in public. I’d make sure you’ve ticked off the other places in his guide first and got some experience putting yourself outside of your comfort zone as it’ll make this one a lot easier.

What You Have To Do:

In each of these different avenues of meeting women, there is ONE thing you have to do in order to make them dating opportunities.

You have to ask her out.

That’s it. That’s all you need to know about how to pick up women as an introvert. You don’t need to say or do anything or do anything special, just talk to her the same way you would anyone else.

You can go to as many of these venues as possible, as often as possible, and have all manner of incredible and exciting connections with the women there – but if you don’t ask them out, you’ll just be making new BFF’s.

Which probably isn’t your intention.

My advice is to get this out of the way early. If you speak to a woman and like her, then ask her out. You can either do it face to face, and get her contact details and drop her a text later.

Whatever works for you. Just make sure you do it.

Some will be interested and some won’t, but that’s the way dating works. You can’t win them all, so you ask enough out until you do.

More Tips, Techniques, and Resources

If you find that difficult or don’t feel like you’re ready to do that, then I have two free e-books that cover how to go about dating and how to handle your anxiety that will give you an intellectual understanding of what to do, coupled with some handy exercises to help you make real change.

However, if you’re wanting to get a handle on your dating life now, and build a solid foundation of attractiveness and sexual confidence, as well as clear direction in how to find the right women for you, and how to develop confidence dating them – then I have the Complete Dating Course designed to do exactly that, and get you out there making the changes that you need to make in order to get the best results of for you.

Or, you could skip the queue, and have some 1 on 1 coaching with yours truly.

 

 

Photo by Relevante design on Unsplash

Photo by Amy Humphries on Unsplash

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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How To Become Successful With Women

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how to become successful with women

This is a step-by-step guide to becoming successful with women from the inside out.

Instead of focusing on dumb, sleazy tricks and techniques – this guide takes you through the simple actions and ways of thinking that reorientate you into becoming the most attractive man you can be.

Introduction

When my friend asked me how I’d gone about changing my dating life from kissless virgin to this handsome stud whatever it is I am now, I replied saying it was just a matter of wrapping your head around a single technique:

‘The behavior independence matrix.’

‘That sounds like some bullshit term you just made up.’ He said.

‘Well yeah it is – and I did. But look, this thing works. Once you figure it out it really works.’

And then I told him what it was.

Now there isn’t a guy alive who doesn’t want to become more successful with women. Okay, maybe the Dalai Lama, but other than him I think it’s a clean sweep.

Whether it’s better relationships, more sex, or usually (and unfortunately) more validation – this is something guys devote a lot of thought to.

It’s also usually where they go wrong.

But the art of getting better relationships, a more fulfilling sex life, and more consistent dates, lies exactly in where most guys go wrong.

And where they go wrong is that they cannot separate their behavior from its unhealthy motivations. They’re stuck in a toxic loop of ‘emotion/behavior codependence’ that has them acting needy, creepy, jealous, possessive, manipulative, afraid, and all around train wrecks.

The trick then, is what I explained to my friend: jumping out of this toxic loop into what I dubbed the Behaviour Independence Matrix™. There are other details (and unbreakable rules), sure. And I’ll explain those. But at the heart of it is the behavior.

But more on that later. First, I’ve got to address a few things in order for that to make sense.

How Most Guys Think of Success With Women

Most guys think of success with women as having lots of sex. You see this in relationships where the guy is always trying to get laid (“let me give you a massage, baby”) or in your standard single guy who’s trying to hump anything that moves (go get ‘em, player!).

In short: It’s generally accepted that a guy who gets laid a lot is successful with women. I.e. James Bond.

In my experience, this is just a part of being successful with women. And in fact, it’s more of an outcome of that success than it is the success in itself.

And this basic misunderstanding is what prevents most guys from becoming successful with women.

Now before I dig into the nuts and bolts of what does actually make a man successful with women, I want to do a little Scooby Doo style unmasking on the idea that having sex = success.

As I wrote in my article on pursuing emotional validation, much of men (and women’s) motivation when it comes to pursuing the opposite sex comes from the desire to validate whatever emotional issues they have – typically born in childhood, and typically wrapped up with their parents.

This is what the professionals call Mommy and Daddy issues.

In the case of men viewing sex as success, this is deeply tied to a desire for validation. Sure, sex can (sometimes) be a lot of fun, but it’s also the highest (in a superficial sense) form of validation from a woman. She literally strips off, spreads her legs and puts you inside her.

I mean, you must be doing something right… Right?

The problem is that your emotional issues have nothing to do with sex. And sex doesn’t actually validate who you are. It’s just an activity. And as I’ll explain later, it has a lot to do with luck.

When you see a guy having sex with a lot of women, he isn’t necessarily ‘successful.’ I mean, is he happy? Is he in love? Is he emotionally fulfilled? Is he even enjoying the sex?

What you’re actually seeing is a guy who, to your mind, gets validated more than you. Which, to your mind means that he’s better and you’re worse.

And not only is that complete bullshit, but it’s a pretty fucked up way to view the world and sex in general.

What is Real Success With Women?

Here’s the definition of what it means to become successful with women:

You focus on what it is you want, and what it is you want isn’t motivated by toxic emotional bullshit. Because of this, you take massive risks in your dating life. Sometimes these pay off, sometimes these don’t. You’re fine, and generally emotionally well-rounded either way.

Note how that had literally nothing to do with women and everything to do with you?

Now, sure, some of you might be thinking ‘Yeah, I’d rather have sex.’

And, I mean, that’s fine. Who doesn’t? The horizontal hunka-chunka is a great way to spend an afternoon.

But answer me this:

1) If you continually pursued sex as a form of emotional validation – how do you think you’d do?

2) If you focused on what you want, you managed your need for emotional validation, and as a result, was okay being rejected and taking massive risks in your dating life – how do you think you’d you?

Both might end in sex. But which one would end up with you feeling better, being better, and having an all-around better dating life (in both the short and long term)?

That’d be number 2).

(Unfortunate wording…)

Becoming successful with women has far, far more to do with you than it does to do with sex.

In other words, it’s just self-improvement with a fake nose and mustache on.

I’ve never met a guy who was successful with women whose only goal was to have sex with them. Sure, he might’ve gotten laid more than the average guy, but he was always lacking or pursuing something he didn’t realize.

His need for validation controlled him rather than the other way around.

Every guy wants to have sex, but every guy also has needs for attachment, expression, connection, to say nothing of the basic needs for his own individual life.

The guy who is successful with women ticks off the whole pie, he doesn’t just chase one slice.

success with women

How This Guide Works

This guide is going to take you through everything you need to know to become successful with women.

First, I’m going to break down where 80% of your results come from. These are the basic principles that affect everything you do, every interaction you have with women, and the results that you will ultimately get.

I’m going to explain what they are, how they’re developed and practiced on a day to day basis, and how they come together practically.

Second, I’m going to explain how your attitude towards risk greatly affects your results and the number of women that you meet. Whether you’re looking to meet one woman or one thousand, the way you interact with risk and the boldness of your interactions is what counts. This is where 99.99% of guys go wrong. They’re too timid.

Third, I’m going to take you through the unbreakable rules of dating. When it comes to becoming successful with women these are the gold standard. You have to be authentically engaging with these on some level. If you aren’t, the quality and quantity of your results will begin to fall apart.

Last, I’m going to run you through some of the key ideas and realities you need to know moving forward. The rule of abundance, the reality of change your dating life, the easy way to learn how to communicate with women, and the central ‘anchor’ principle you should always return to.

What Engineers 80% of Your Results?

80% of your results with women come from your neediness, your confidence, and the way the two interact. If you’re ever wondering about how to increase your value with women, then before all the usual superficial ways – there’s this.

But while these influence 80% of your results, these are usually the things guys get 100% wrong.

Let me explain…

You Have To Feel Neediness, Not “Beat It”

An excessive desire for validation, approval, attention, recognition, and attraction from women is typically referred to as neediness.

This is a word you’ve no doubt come across before. But here’s the actual reality of neediness:

  1. It’s normal. Everyone feels it.
  2. Seriously, it’s normal. You’re not special (snowflake!).
  3. It’s not about getting rid of it, it’s about feeling and managing it.

You are going to feel over-attached, over-invested, worried about ‘whether she replies’, scared of rejection, and seeking validation.

These are things you’re going to feel every single day. Sometimes you might feel them slightly. Sometimes you’ll feel them so strongly you can’t think of anything else. Other times you’ll forget they’re even there.

Rather than try to stoically ignore these feelings, ‘act like a man’, or pretend they don’t exist – these feelings are natural and normal and something to engage with. Because the more you engage with and manage them, the less they control you, and the less your behaviors will become needy, or worse, creepy.

Because that’s the first point here:

Needy thoughts and feelings do not mean you have to behave in a needy way. It’s your choice whether you act on them.

Real Confidence Doesn’t Start Where You Think

This brings us to confidence.

If your needy thoughts and feelings don’t necessarily control your behavior, then how does this relate to confidence?

Well, confidence is nothing more than the ability to return to what it is you want to do. This means that you:

  1. Feel needy thoughts and feelings.
  2. Recognize your needy thoughts and feelings and the actions they’re trying to get you to take. I.e. Harass your ex, check your phone endlessly to see if she’s responded, find the ‘right time to kiss her/call her/ask her out, or avoid rejection at all costs.
  3. Return to what it is you want to do. I.e. Get on with your work, kiss her/call her/ask her out, embrace rejection.

Confidence begins at feeling neediness, understanding it, and acting counter to its intentions.

It is a calm sense of rationality and desire that sits behind the more turbulent feelings of neediness and it’s desire for validation.

(This idea is deeply tied to Defense Mechanisms which you can read about here. And you really should because they can shit all over you worse than a botched enema.)

The Behaviour Independence Matrix™

The way this all comes together is that your behavior becomes independent of your bullshit feelings and motivations.

Let me draw you an expertly crafted diagram to explain:

become successful with women

2000 hours in Microsoft Paint.

Your neediness, like anyone else’s, exists in a self-perpetuating cycle.

You feel worthless or unloveable so you pursue validation, attempting to control the woman so she validates you, then you become neurotic about your ability to get this validation met, and this only reinforces that you’re worthless and/or unloveable.

And it just keeps on going and going and going.

Woooosh.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re running away from her, avoiding rejection, supplicating to her, or trying to manipulate her.

It’s all the same shit. It’s all part of the same fucked up loop.

The way to break this loop is two-fold. And it all involves what I unnecessarily named ‘The Behaviour Independence Matrix™’. Here’s how it works:

Your behaviors and emotions carry clues to their motivations. In other words, if you’re acting like a freak, chances are, the motivation behind your behavior isn’t all that rosy.

Therefore, the art lies in paying attention to your behaviors and emotions, recognizing that they aren’t as legit as they’re pretending to be, and taking steps to feel and manage them.

This will get you to a place where, although scary and counter to your motivations, you will be able to connect with what it is you actually want to do. Sure, it’ll feel hard, but it’ll no longer seem ‘impossible’ or like the worst thing ever.

This is how you make your behavior independent from your untrustworthy motivations. For example:

Instead of obsessing over the ‘right’ amount of attention to give her, so that you ‘game her properly’, ‘keep her interested’, and make sure she doesn’t ‘see other guys’ – you speak to her when you genuinely want to and don’t have anything more important to be doing.

Instead of trying to figure out if she likes you, find the right moment, or control whether she rejects you – you ask her out because you want to, and you realize you’ll survive if she says no.

Instead of trying to get your ex back, or the attention of any woman who isn’t into you – you shrug your shoulders, move on, and go and find the ones who are.

Make sense?

become successful with women

Don’t Be Like Timid Rick™ – Start Taking Massive Risks

You can do all of the above, but if you’re a Timid Rick™ then you’re going to be shit out of luck.

A Timid Rick™, aside from being a dumb phrase I pulled out of my ass, is a guy who has everything going for him, makes a few proactive moves (an approach here, a date there) but does so without any real sense of desire, aggression, or passion.

As a result, his proactiveness is rare, his moves are restrained, and passion is non-existent.

And all of that adds up to one guy who doesn’t get any extreme responses from his dating life. He just hits the middle of the road.

He never meets women who hate him, sure. But he also never meets women who really, really love him. He never gets shot down when he goes in for a kiss too early. But he also never has nights of intense kissing all the way from the bar to the bedroom. His dating life is okay. It’s normal. By all accounts, it’s working. But it never has any passion.

And here’s the thing:

Rick wants all of these things he doesn’t get. What guy, or hell, person doesn’t? But like most people, he’s too timid to get them.

One of the easiest ways to self-diagnose and improve your dating life is to take a look at the level of risk you’re engaging with, and then push things a little bit further. Because in doing so, you open yourself up to far, far more polarisation, and far, far more rewarding results.

Instead of approaching women who you think are safe, or ‘in your league’, you approach the ones you’re genuinely attracted to, especially if you have no idea whether you could get them. (Spoiler: you can).

Instead of waiting 3000 hours for her to look at you in the right way, and say the right thing so that you’ll know 100% it’s the right time to kiss her – you tap into your feelings, connect to your desire to kiss her, and do it. Regardless if it’s 30 minutes, 15 minutes, or 5 minutes into the date.

Instead of hiding your desire for her because it’s ‘weird’, ‘socially inappropriate’, she might ‘reject you’, or it’s ‘not cool’ – You rock your passion like Antonio Banderas in Zorro. You can keep it under control (and in your pants) sure. But you’re not afraid to show her it’s there.

These are all risks you’re willing to take. And do.

And your success with women is all the better for it.

The 3 Unbreakable Rules of Dating

There are three unbreakable rules when it comes to becoming successful with women. These are:

Be The One Who ‘Fails’ The Most

You cannot become successful with women without being rejected. In fact, the most successful guys are the ones who are rejected the most.

And before you stop yourself and think ‘I could never get rejected, it would be too painful’, stop right there and return to the section on the Behavior Independence Matrix, and the one before that on Mommy issues.

Because embracing rejection is the easiest way to tap into what it is you genuinely want to do and to challenge your limiting beliefs and emotional issues.

You absolutely have to, must, most certainly, without any doubt, get rejected as much and as often as possible. This is another way of looking at playing ‘the numbers game’ which basically refers to the idea that the more women you meet, the more women you’ll get. But the correct way to look at it is to get rejected more than anyone else.

Not only is that how to have lots of women in your life, but it’s how you’ll have the great ones.

That’s rule number one.

You Have To Rigorously Apply Batman’s Superpower

The dating game is fickle and ruled by complete chance. Sometimes it’ll go your way. Sometimes it won’t.

So you gotta be like Batman. And by that I mean, no matter how shitty your life gets, you can’t ever give up.

Nevah!

You’re going to have a lot of ups and downs. But you cannot let the downs get to you or cause you to quit. In fact, you have to do the opposite. You have to consciously and deliberately persist.

I remember getting shot down by a woman at a party, only to meet her a year later and hook up with her. There was another time I kissed a woman who proceeded to tell me she just wanted to be friends, only to hook up with her a month later. And once, a woman in a nightclub shot me down 5 times before she ended up taking me home and dating me for a few months.

In each of these scenarios, the initial rejection sucked. But it had nothing to do with me. They just didn’t feel it at the time, for whatever reason. Eventually, that changed.

Sure, sometimes it won’t. But if you don’t persist you’ll never know.

The One Thing To Always Get Better At

You are as attractive as you allow yourself to be.

I don’t care whether you’re a 5/10, a 6/10, or a 4/10… You can become the 10/10 version of whoever you are.

This is something you should always be doing. No matter what. Whether it’s working out, becoming more disciplined, reading more, or just practicing self-acceptance. It is the most rewarding way to increase dating success because all you’re doing is making your life better.

The Most Common Trap Guys Fall Into

Taking risks and making the choices that you actually want to take makes sense, and will result in the kind of success with women that you want.

However…

There is a problem that seems to occur anywhere and everywhere during this process. And it comes back to those good old emotional issues.

The problem is this: When you don’t have many options in your dating life, you will almost inevitably over-invest in the few options or sole option that you have.

This stems from a number of places. The first, and most obvious, is that you’re simply not interacting with enough women to meet enough that like you. The second is that you don’t believe you have what it takes to attract a lot of women, so you cling on to whatever one you happen to attract. The third is that your emotional need for validation has you over-invest in whatever source of validation it is currently getting.

The result of this overinvestment is that your behaviors are far less likely to be what you genuinely want to do. In other words, that feedback loop from earlier – that’ll be working on overdrive.

This is where you’ll think you’re “in love.”

Now sometimes you will be. I’m not here to shit all over love or anything like that. I’m just here to point out that if you want to become successful with women you need to understand that the number of women you interact with and your ability to internal validate yourself has a HUGE impact on your behavior.

Just as managing The Behaviour Independence Matrix™ helps you resolve those behaviors – the amount of experience and interaction with women that you have helps you resolve them also.

The Short Cut To Better Communication With Women

A lot of guys screw up conversations with women for the same reason they screw up their entire idea of attraction in the first place.

They don’t understand what really counts.

A while back, an older guy asked me if he could still get involved with the dating game. I said sure he could. He then asked me if he ‘had what it took’ to date younger women. Instead of saying sure, I asked him what he meant.

He explained to me that having what it takes meant being good looking, being ambitious, having youthful energy, basically a load of things he wasn’t that great at.

I said to him ‘Yeah, all those things count, but they all come second to how you make her feel.’

That is ultimately what makes you attractive. And when it comes to communicating with women, it’s everything. If any guy talks about how to spit game to a woman and doesn’t discuss this – he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

The feelings are everything. This is how to have game with women.

The more you communicate from an emotional place (I.e. feelings rather than facts), and the more you’re comfortable expressing your emotions (I.e. desire), the more likely you will be to have great interactions with women.

The flirting will come more naturally, you will make yourself more vulnerable and thus share your opinions more, and you’ll be behaving in a far more honest way.

Not only is this inherently attractive, but it actively screens for women on the same wavelength as you. Y’know, the ones that actually like you.

So if you want to take a short-cut to having better conversations with women, it’s learning to get in touch with your emotions. Sprinkle little listening skills on top of that and you’re in the big league’s kiddo.

How Long Does It Take To Become Successful With Women?

The short answer is: How long is a piece of string?

The long answer is: It takes exactly as long as it takes you to genuinely engage with self-improvement, take more risks in your dating life, and most importantly learn to manage your need for emotional validation.

For some guys, this can take as little as a year. For others, it takes 10 years and multiple trips to a therapist.

That’s just the reality. These things don’t change overnight.

This might seem disheartening if you’re at the latter end of that spectrum, but ask yourself this:

Would 10 years of effort be worth it in order to have put real effort into self-improvement, gained genuine boldness, and learned to act from a place independent of your emotional bullshit?

The Most Important Thing To Focus On

Earlier in this guide, I defined becoming successful with women as something that has next to nothing to do with them, but almost everything to do with you. And when you think about it, it makes sense:

The more you improve your life, the more attractive you become.

The more you become okay with vulnerability and expressing your emotions, the more attractive you become.

The more you handle your emotional issues, the better your results will be and the more attractive you will be.

The more you embrace rejection and take huge risks in your dating life, the better your results will be, and the more you’ll enjoy your dating life.

Everything that you’d usually define as “success with women” – dates, sex, a hot girlfriend – all of this is just outcomes of you taking responsibility for your life and sorting your shit out.

So if you’re going to focus on anything, focus on that.

How to Become Successful With Women

At the start of this guide, I explained how separating your behavior from your emotions is one of the most important skills you can learn. It allows you to act from the place you genuinely want to act from, rather than getting stuck in a self-reinforcing loop of toxic thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

When you do that and take a little responsibility for your life, everything (and I mean everything) in dating starts to fall into place.

Your results get better, but also, you care WAY less about the failures. You realize they just aren’t a big deal, and they don’t “confirm” anything about “how much you suck.”

That was just in your head after all.

But improving your dating life can be hard to figure out on your own. It’s not easy to figure out how to get successful with girls – if it was, every young man from the age of 16 onwards would do it.

Here some additional resources to help you:

Even though I’ve tried to make it as simple as possible in this guide, actually doing it, and knowing which actions to take in real life can be a lot more complicated.

For starters, fear and anxiety will get provoked. You’ll make mistakes (a lot of them). And you’ll build lots of bad habits at the same time as building the good. That’s how trial and error works.

I know because that’s exactly what I and countless other guys I’ve known did.

With this in mind, I developed a video course to help you take the right steps first, avoid the age-old mistakes guys make (spoiler: overcompensating is a big one), and guide you through the four key areas that structure and accelerate your results.

—

Photo credit: Alexandra Gorn on Unsplash. Photo credit: Azrul Aziz on Unsplash. Photo credit: adamkontor on Pixabay

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!

How To Stop Your Pursuit of Emotional Validation And Approval

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how to stop chasing emotional validation

AS FAR AS shitty life choices go, I think relentlessly pursuing emotional validation is in competition for the top spot with cowardice and immorality. Sure, the other two make the bold claim of making you incapable and inhuman, but pursuing emotional validation is pretty much the life choice equivalent of opting for a life of torture.

And I don’t mean bamboo fingernails off to the execution block torture. I mean slow, mind-destroying, water drop torture. It just drips, and drips, and drips, until you’re a shell of the person you once were.

This is really what the pursuit of emotional validation is like. Why? Because, as a result of your unhealthy motivations, your resultant behaviors have the unfortunate side effect of turning everyone off, and rarely, if ever consistently giving you the validation you want and feel you need.

But sometimes you do get it.

So like a gambler down on his losses, you say to yourself “it’s gotta happen this time!”.

And you keep on playing.

Now, I’m gonna dive right into this and make a bold claim:

When you have problems with pursuing emotional validation from others this really stems from a desire to get it from your parents. In other words, I’m saying you have a big old dose of mommy and daddy issues.

And sure, I know what you thinking. You’re thinking fuck you, what do I know, that’s gross, I have no problem with my parents I only keep pursuing toxic relationships by accident. Sure, that could all be true, but if you’re honest with yourself… we both know it’s not.

Let me explain.

PROBLEMS WITH MOMMY AND DADDY 

Here’s how this whole thing works:

When you have validation issues with one or both parents, you operate from a place of “why doesn’t he/she love me?” And when you’re operating from this place, you are constantly trying to validate that it isn’t correct, that they do in fact love you, but you go about this in a fucked up way.

What you do is that you seek out relationships that actively make you feel the same “why doesn’t he/she love me?” feeling so that you can “solve it” when they give you attention.

Aloof partners, chasing women who aren’t into you, staying in relationships where you’re treated like crap. That sort of thing. These relationships are all proxies for your mommy and daddy validation issues.

(Feel sick yet?)

To make this clearer, let me use an example. And as this site is geared at helping men, I’m going to stick to mommy issues. Sorry ladies, but feel free to swap it out for daddy – you know you want to. 😉

So go ahead and wrap your head around this:

  1. Mommy acts aloof.  Child you thinks “why doesn’t she love me?” And as a result feels worthless and chases validation to stop feeling that nasty worthless feeling.
  2. Mommy then gives you attention. Child you thinks “she does love me!” And as a result no longer feels worthless.
  3. Mommy is aloof again. Rinse and repeat.

Now this, with age, becomes:

  1. Woman is indifferent = “Why doesn’t she like me?” = I feel worthless = Chase validation.
  2. Woman gave me attention = “She does like me!” = I’m no longer worthless.
  3. Rinse and repeat.

See how it’s the same thing?

THE WAYS YOU PURSUE EMOTIONAL VALIDATION 

You’re probably thinking that this is one fucked up way to live. And you’d be right. Not only is it a fucked up thing to have boiling away in the back of your head, but it has a lot of nasty consequences in terms of your behavior.

Here are some examples:

  • You will pursue women who aren’t that into you because you’re addicted to chasing their (or rather, mommy’s) validation. You will often pursue these women at the expense of women who genuinely like you because they don’t give you that same feeling of worthless that you want to validate yourself against.
  • In order to get this validation, you will likely adopt a number of toxic strategies. You’ll either try to out aloof their aloofness (“Mr. Cool Guy”). Degrade their self-esteem (“Mr. Asshole Guy”). Be incredibly nice to them so that they’ll owe you something(“Mr. Nice Guy”), and so on. In other words, you’ll be a manipulative piece of shit who’s just chasing an emotional bandaid.
  • If you get rejected by a woman you’re seeking validation from you will take it extremely personally (“I knew it! I AM worthless! Woe is me”) regardless of whether that rejection had anything to do with you personally. (Spoiler: it almost always doesn’t).
  • You will then pursue women who have rejected you (i.e. exes) in order to heal that negative validation you’ve perceived yourself as receiving. This won’t end well.
  • You will generally attract into your life women with similar issues, who have, as a result, developed problems with attachment. This makes it more likely that your relationship will 1) suck 2) end in disaster, and 3) validate your emotional issues.

How about that for a bad cocktail?

HOW TO STOP CHASING EMOTIONAL VALIDATION

By now you should be thinking one of two things. Or maybe both.

  1. This sounds just like me!
  2. How the fuck do I avoid this shitshow?

But don’t go gouging your eyes out just yet Oedipus. There are a number of simple things you can do.

The first thing you need to understand is that having a screwed up relationship with emotional validation is pretty normal. The vast majority of people are like this, so you’re not some abnormal weirdo, and you don’t need to start beating yourself up and telling yourself how much you suck.

(That is what’s motivating all of this after all).

On the flip side, however, having a screwed up relationship with emotional validation is not an emotionally healthy way to live and won’t benefit you (in any way) in the long run. So it pays to sort it out.

The second thing you need to do is bring awareness to your behaviors. If you accept that your process of pursuing emotional validation isn’t that healthy, then you need to figure out what exactly it is that you are doing.

For example, I was the kind of guy who consistently chased women who were hot/cold on me. I would then act like I didn’t care, and get in some kind of game with them. Either way, I was pursuing, trying to force, or run away from validation. This is something have to bring awareness to and manage even now.

You might be someone who constantly supplicates and acts like a friend, or you might be a complete jerk. The key thing is that you look at your behaviors and ask yourself “what motivation does this behavior really serve?”. “What need am I trying to get met?”.

It won’t take long for you to unmask the ones that are after validation.

YOU ARE YOUR NARRATIVES

On the surface, calling something “mommy and daddy” issues probably makes you think you need to go lie on someone’s couch and cry for 200 dollars an hour. But this isn’t quite the case.

Sure, if you hate your parents, I’d probably sort that out. Carrying around that baggage is going to do you a world of hurt. But if you have issues with emotional validation that you connect with your parents, yet at the same time, your parents are actually kinda okay – the problem lies less with them and more with the narratives that you live by.

When you’re a kid, running around in your diaper, building legos, and getting your penis out for no reason it’s easy to misinterpret things. Whilst your parents are all around good people, they make mistakes (parenting is hard after all), and these mistakes are part of the way you come to understand the world.

Mom can’t come to your birthday because she’s overseas on work? Oh, that must mean I’m worthless, unloveable, and the rest of my life will follow this belief. Cue years of bad relationships.

The issue here isn’t some massive issue stemming from your dark, terrible past. It’s just some dumb, misinformed, childish narrative that you adopted mistakenly, and held on to for far, far too long. So long that your behaviors and identity began to form around it.

This is what the stories you tell yourself do. They sit there in your brain repeating over and over, branching out into thoughts, beliefs, and even actions themselves, which validate and continue the narrative ad infinitum.

“I’m unlovable.”

“I’m not as good as other people.”

You get the idea. I believe this doesn’t just stop with issues of lovableness, but also relates to people’s conception of life, morality, and their role in the world. But that’s another issue.

The answer, then, to your pursuit of emotional validation isn’t to cry to Dr. Phil. It’s to pay attention to how you’re forming your narratives about yourself in the small day to day moments. Specifically how those narratives relate to your pursuit of emotional validation.

So to bring it back to your mommy and daddy issues. The key thing here isn’t that the issues are about mommy and daddy, the key thing here is that they’re yours.

SORT YOUR BEHAVIOUR OUT AND THE REST WILL FOLLOW

You are what you choose to do. But you are also what you choose not to do.

Every time you take an action motivated by your desire for emotional validation, you reinforce that desire. Every time you do not take an action because of your fear of being negatively emotionally validated, you reinforce that desire.

I.e. every time you play games with someone over text because you want them to validate you, you reinforce your need to be validated. Or alternatively, every time you avoid approaching because you fear being rejected (and the “confirmation” of being unlikable/unlovable) you reinforce that desire.

Your actions, in a sense, are a discussion you’re having with yourself. When your actions are based around validation, you are telling yourself that you NEED to be validated. You’re telling yourself that there is something wrong with you and that you need to confirm that it isn’t true.

And it’s a conversation you keep having to have over and over again. Because it never stops needing confirmation.

(This is something like the self-hatred version of James P. Carse’s infinite game idea).

On the flip side, when your actions are based less on the desire for validation (which will always be there), but rather on what you genuinely want to do, you are telling yourself that you don’t need to be validated. You are telling yourself that you are OKAY regardless of the outcome.

Sure, a negative outcome isn’t enjoyable. But you’ll live. And you’re not going to base your actions around avoiding it.

THE MOMENT BY MOMENT PRACTICE OF SELF-ACCEPTANCE 

This conversation you’re having with yourself is what I like to think of as the 1% improvements of self-acceptance. There’s an idea, popularised by James Clear, that says you either improve by 1% or regress by 1% every day. That these percentages compound over time to produce massive changes. For good or bad.

Now I think when it comes to self-improvement this is an easy way to get really insecure. However, I do think that it is this way with emotional issues and self-acceptance. Sure, you can stare in a mirror and explain what you accept about yourself, but your actions demonstrate this as well. And they’re happening moment by moment.

Each action pushes your 1% in one direction or another. Playing games? Oops, you’ve fucked it up. Approaching because you want to? That’s my boy.

At first, you’re going to struggle with this. There’s another idea popularised in self-improvement that says “happy people don’t need to try to be happy”, “confident people don’t need to try to be confident”. But this idea is predicated on the fact that “happy” or “confident” people are universally the same. Which is comically untrue. You’re different from me (thank God) and everyone else. Your level of acceptance, your beliefs about yourself, and the techniques you’re going to have to use to improve your relationship are going to be unique. So if you struggle at first, that’s normal.

Why wouldn’t you?

1% changes in the right direction are often imperceptible. You have to keep making them. Keep acting from a place of indifference to validation. Challenging your behaviours and questioning their motivations. So that in a year, you’re 365% better. And you accept yourself and interact with your need for emotional validation in a way you never really believed you could.

Because at the end of the day, it’s like L’oreal says.

how to stop chasing emotional validation

THE OPPOSITE OF CHASING EMOTIONAL VALIDATION

To wrap up, as frankly, this article is getting too long, I want to put a final note on vulnerability. The opposite of chasing emotional validation is allowing yourself to be vulnerable in a way that you would normally avoid.

To bring it back to mommy issues (thought you’d escaped didn’t you!?), this would be allowing yourself to take actions that would risk “confirming” that you’re “unloveable.”

This means getting rejected for authentically expressing your interests, values, boundaries, opinions, and so on. What would otherwise be called your identity. All things that you’d typically hide or alter to avoid being rejected and the “confirmation” that comes alongside it.

At first, this is painful, and your behaviours will be based around avoiding this at all cost. By either desperately pursuing a “confirmation” of the opposite, or trying to manipulate the other person into pursuing it from you.

But the opposite of chasing emotional validation is to accept it and take the hit. And sure, it’ll suck now. But over time, if you keep moving in the right direction, you’ll just be better at being you. And the only person you’ll be looking for validation from is yourself.

 

Photo by Mark Daynes on Unsplash

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!

How To Not Suck At Dating – The Easy Mistake Everyone Makes

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How To Not Suck At Dating

A FEW WEEKS AGO, I was talking to a friend when something about dating became very clear for me. Not long before she had been walking down the street when a guy came up to her, hit on her, and asked for her number. She thought he was nice and gave it to him. They soon got talking and agreed to meet up later.

She was nervous about the date and was asking me what she should do. For context, she’s good-looking, confident, and fun to speak to. So my advice was pretty much along the lines of ‘why the fuck are you asking me for advice? Just show up.’

Ignoring this, she started describing how she was aware that she was good-looking, but that she thought her confidence in herself, and her conversational skills helped her to be attractive – and stated all of this as if she wanted me to confirm it.

I asked her what she liked about the guy, and she said she enjoyed speaking to him, found him attractive, and said he was calming (the last one being something I think only a woman would single out as an attractive trait).

I then asked her what he talked to her about, and she said they’d chatted about a bunch of things in their lives, then he spoke about his career, and how well it was going.

As she was saying this, that ‘something’ about dating started to become apparent.

She liked him for reasons that were entirely irrational. Her enjoyment, her attraction, her feeling of calmness. Yet at the same time, judged his own view towards her as a set of logical traits. She was confident, fun, good looking.

Likewise he, despite having a woman that obviously was already into him, found the need to introduce the fact that his career was going well. Something she barely mentioned, as it meant so little to her. To him, that was his ‘thing.’

Each one liked the other for irrational reasons, but each one rated themselves as attractive for logical, rational ones.

This problem sits at the heart of all dating. We’re measuring ourselves constantly. We’re seeing how good we are, and figuring out what we think works.

We’re thinking of dating as a logical problem to solve.

But in reality, dating doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s not something you can wrap your head around, it’s only something you can feel.

HOW WE JUDGE OUR ATTRACTIVENESS

When we look at dating and relationships as a set of logical problems, it becomes something that we equate to trading, bartering, gambling, and simple mathematics.

Good looks + charm = winning combo. Right?

We take the metrics that make the most sense, and we add them together in the hope of equaling the result we want. In this sense, we turn dating and relationships into a house of probability and odds – we turn it into a casino. And because we turn it into a casino, we behave like we’re in one, and we treat ourselves like we’re part of one.

Here’s we do this:

We have we think matters about us – I.e. ours looks, money, and humor. Then we use these things as ways of getting what they want.

If we were playing poker, these would be our chips. So we slide these chips forward, and we either win the gamble (the person likes us) or we don’t.

Now, I’m not going to get into whether this is the correct way to look at dating (well not yet – but *spoilers* it’s not), but this is, if you’re honest, how you look at it on some level.

You’re gambling the chips you think you have.

But here’s what this does:

HOW TO BUILD A TOXIC SELF-IMAGE

Let’s say you have fuck all self-esteem. It’s rock bottom, sit around all day watching TV, cereal for every meal level. You decide that no woman will ever like you, let alone love you.

And you believe this, for a while. And for a while your life sucks. For now, you believe you have nothing. Or at least, the small amount of humor and intelligence you have aren’t enough to impress anyone.

You’re that guy at the table bleeding chips.

(Not to be confused with bleeding from the face, like that guy in James Bond).

But one day this all just gets too much, feels too shitty, and you decide that enough is enough. You’re sorting your life out.

So you do what most guys do when they decide this. You start smashing weights at the gym. After a while, your muscles begin to grow. Your confidence in yourself begins to grow. And you start getting more attention from women.

Suddenly, you look down at your pile of chips, and next to your small piles of humor and intelligence, you suddenly have another pile. A big pile. Muscles.

And when you gamble this pile, it seems to work. Women like that bet.

So what do you do?

You go all in on that it. You lift like you’re competing for Mr. Olympia. You gain more muscle, and you learn to associate any time you ‘win’ a woman as an indication that all you need is the muscles. So you start introducing them as early as possible.

You wear tight, open clothing, so that you’re, for all intents and purposes, naked at all times.

This is now the model of gambling that you’ve built for yourself. And when it doesn’t work? Guess you need more muscles. Hit the gym and try again.

This same logic applies to anyone who thinks they succeed because of their looks, humor, money, intelligence, status, fame, whatever. You can see it everywhere – hell, just look at 99.9999% of Instagram celebrities. Money, status, muscles.

They have what they perceive as there thing, and the offer it first. If it doesn’t work, they invest more heavily into it. Get richer, look cooler, be funnier. Keep going all in on that one ‘thing.’

They find the way of gambling that they ‘feel’ (not ‘know’) works and they run with it. And do you know what that makes them?

Shit gamblers.

DATING DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE

How To Not Suck At Dating

Thinking of dating and relationships in terms of gambling is an easy thing to do. It appeals to our desire to rationalize everything. To make everything neat and fit in its box.

We want it to make sense.

But in reality – dating and relationships don’t make sense. They’re messy. They don’t fit into boxes.

What woman ever ends up with the guy who’s historically been ‘her type’? What guy ever ends up being liked by a woman for the reasons he thinks make him great? What relationship isn’t awkward, unpredictable, and fumbled?

None of them.

Why can something that seems, on the outside to work on a logical level, all come crashing down when applied to reality?

Here’s why: Attraction is entirely emotional, and thus entirely irrational. Attraction doesn’t make any sense. It’s an irrational, nonsensical feeling, that comes out of nowhere, and does crazy drug addict shit to the human brain.

In no way is it experienced in a way that can be logically broken down by anything beyond simple, superficial tips. It just doesn’t work that way, no matter how hard you try, and no matter how clearly it seems it does.

Let’s go back to the gambling analogy.

In Poker, you don’t just win by having the right hand and a lot of chips, you win by how you play and how that makes the other person feel.

If you play with a bunch of people who suck – having the right hand and a lot of chips might work for you. As long as your luck doesn’t run out.

But if you play with people who don’t suck, then playing in a way that overly invests in your hand (and thus luck) is going to quickly get you sniffed out by the other players. It won’t take long for them to wipe the floor with you.

How you play and how this makes the other person feel is massive. You can only influence the latter, but you have complete control over the former.

HOW TO NOT SUCK AT DATING

Coming back to dating, this means that you understand that your ‘chips’ aren’t everything. Your looks, money, status, and so on, they aren’t nearly as important as the interaction you’re having with the other person, where you’re coming from, and how you both feel.

This is called not being a creep. And it doesn’t just apply to dating, but to all human interactions.

If your self-esteem is clearly wrapped up in some shallow detail about yourself (‘she’ll like me if she knows I’m famous’) then that’s going to drive a whole bunch of women away who sniff you out as the pathetic chump that you are. It’s a choice that poorly reflects the reality of the dating, and of people in general.

But if your self-esteem is wrapped up more in your feelings and hers (‘do I genuinely like her?’ and ‘is she genuinely into me?’), then it’s going to come across that you know exactly what you’re doing, that you have self-respect and integrity, and you treat yourself well.

Your investment is entirely in the irrational experience of dating, rather than stuck looking at it as some rational puzzle.

This is the dating and relationships equivalent of being that guy at the Poker table who understands emotions enough to send Matt Damon packing on a full house.

Measuring yourself and over investing in certain areas is actually self-limiting, and reflects a warped perspective of yourself and dating. You are never attractive because of X, Y, and Z. You’re attractive because of how the other person feels about you.

Which is always, always connected to how you feel about them.

Make sense?

I hope so… because I don’t even like Poker so I have no idea why I choose this analogy.

 

Liked this article? Help me make an impact, and SHARE it on social media.

If you want to go into more depth with any of the topics I write about and build a structured plan for applying them to your day to day life – then check out my Dating and Personal Development Coaching service for a free 15-minute consultation.

And be sure to check out my free ebooks on dating and anxiety.

If you want an easy way to stay up to date on the latest content, like me on Facebook, and you’ll always be the first to know.

If there’s anything in this article you want to go in more depth on, or you just want to get in touch – drop me a message here! It’s completely free.

 

Photo by Gianni Zanato on Unsplash

Photo by Quentin REY on Unsplash

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!

How Does Sexual Arousal Work? – Stop Getting in Your Own Way

by ·

We’re usually told it takes two to tango. But in real life, human arousal doesn’t get much further than self-centered, self-sabotaging, and masturbatory.

Yeah, kind of a downer to start on, but I have a point:

We think of being aroused as a random phenomenon that happens when we see someone who’s good looking, but this idea of arousal doesn’t capture the reality. In fact, viewing arousal as something this simple confines your sexuality to blind luck.

But more importantly, it strips you of your responsibility. A responsibility to yourself, and to whoever you’re in a relationship with. Because arousal, like any experience, has huge elements that you are responsible for. 

And if you aren’t consciously making that experience better, odds are you’re unconsciously making it worse.

AROUSAL IN MEN

This will come as no surprise, but when it comes to men, arousal is pretty straightforward. Where male arousal is unique, however, is the role men play in screwing it up for themselves.

Men are almost entirely turned on visually. We see a pair of boobs or a nice ass and it’s as if we’ve been given the most compelling argument in the world that this woman is of prime importance to us. It’s like we start seeing in Predator vision and she’s the only thing that shows up.

Mac, check out this girl…

In this sense, male arousal is a very solitary experience. It’s almost entirely based on things that the man is seeing. This is extended further by the fact that men have been shown to be further turned on by women enjoying sex, especially if they’re confident it’s a result of their own prowess.

It’s a solitary, narcissistic, masturbatory experience. Which explains the popularity of pornography. Especially amateur porn, where we can all pretend it’s us behind the wheel.

Male arousal is simple but focused. It knows what it wants and knows when it’s found it. It is born out of the simple mechanism of looking. Nothing else needs to apply. So long as we can see what we want, we’re good to go.

Research shows that unlike women (as I’ll find go into later), emotion plays an almost non-existent role. As long as the visual cue is there, our arousal apparatus can make a compelling bid for control regardless of what we’re feeling.

Hence the old joke that men don’t need a reason to have sex, they just need a place.

But, whilst emotion doesn’t really play a role in our arousal, the relationship with that arousal, and our perception of ourselves certainly does.

PROBLEMS OF PERCEPTION

It’s all well and good for everyone to laugh at how straightforward male arousal is, but how do we account for all the men who have arousal problems? If it’s so simple, why is it so complicated for them?

One of the main reasons is their habits of perception.

Researchers have noted that men who have problems with their arousal usually don’t pay very good attention to how aroused they are. For whatever reason (shame, insecurity, or a generally poor connection to their feelings), they don’t really notice and tap into when they’re genuinely aroused.

The ‘I want to fuck detector’ hasn’t been properly installed.

The reverse of this is that men who are more self-aware tend to spot quite quickly when they’re aroused and turned on. They’re aware of this feeling within themselves and haven’t built, or have undone, habits of masking it behind defense mechanisms such as repression or avoidance.

Another instance of perception in action is the difference between men who do and do not have persistent arousal issues. Studies have shown that men with persistent arousal or performance issues attribute those issues to deeper problems within themselves. They’re worthless, they’re not good enough, they just can’t do what other men can do – and so on.

On the flip side, men that don’t struggle with persistent arousal or performance issues tend to attribute any instances of those said issues to benign external factors. Instead of getting hung up on being worthless, they just (rightly or wrongly) think ‘it was probably something I ate’ when they finish in a few seconds, or they think ‘I haven’t had enough sleep’ when they can’t get it up.

Where the former blames, the latter shrugs it’s shoulders and tries again.

It’s no surprise that falsely telling yourself there is something wrong with you will perpetuate arousal issues.

Arousal in men can be summed up as an act of perception. We’re aroused by what we see outside of ourselves, and our arousal can be destroyed by what we falsely see inside of ourselves.

Whilst male arousal is simple and straightforward, it’s also important to remember that it entails a healthy habit of perception that needs to be practiced.

AROUSAL IN WOMEN

Female arousal isn’t the unknowable Rubix cube popular culture would have you think it is. Instead, it’s as if someone took the simplicity of male sexuality, and just made it larger and more complex.

Emily Nagoski, in her book Come As You Are, divides female sexuality into two separate types. She calls these spontaneous sexual desire and responsive sexual desire. For ease of explanation, we’re going to rename these:

  1. She wants to have sex right now
  2. She could have sex right now but there are boxes to tick first

In the first type, something has kicked off her desire all of its own. Maybe she’s feeling sexy today. Maybe it’s hormones. Maybe you’re just incredibly good looking. Whatever it is, she wants to jump your bones and probably won’t be very subtle about it.

This type is so straightforward it needs no explanation. Take your pants off and have a good time.

In the second type, sex is like a secret level found in video games. It’s always there, can be accessed, and anyone can do it. But in order for someone to do it, they have to do specific things that are seemingly hard to do, uncover, or understand.

It is this second type -the secret level- where everyone fucks up.

Women are far more mentally aroused than physically. In their efforts to understand what the extent of this mental arousal was, researchers Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam trawled through studies and data on the internet and came to some unsurprising, but also enlightening observations.

If you take a look at the women consume en masse, you get telling insights into their preferences of thought. Rather than being drawn to simple pornographic images, women gravitate towards romance stories. In particular, romance stories about a woman pursued by a man of status who is capable of bravery, and danger, specifically in the way he pursues her.

Anna Karenina’s Count Vronsky. Far From The Madding Crowd’s Sergeant Troy. Wuthering Height’s Heathcliff.

But that’s just the top shelf stuff. There are thousand other paperbacks littered with covers featuring bare-chested, long-haired men, clutching swooning women about the waist.

Just as guys like stories of competent men (i.e. Schwarzenegger, superheroes), women love stories of being pursued by that man.

And the reason they prefer a story, as opposed to say, something simple like porn?

The emotions.

Porn is visual. A story is emotional.

The stories that women consume leave clues as to what it is that switches their arousal on. And unfortunately, they’re two of the things men focus on (but fuck up) the most.

Status and bravery.

TAKING RISKS

We’ll start with the latter because it’s the simplest. Whilst yes, diving into a burning building to save a bunch of orphans would probably arouse even the most frigid woman – this isn’t the kind of bravery you need to be doing (or pretending to have done) in order to be the kind of guy who turns women on.

The kind of bravery you need is this:

You aren’t afraid of her.

In all the stories I listed above, the character pursues the woman in question aggressively, despite her feigning disinterest or her shooing him away. They aren’t creeps, but they are persistent. They’re deeply in touch with and motivated by, their desire. So they pursue her at the risk of rejection or social humiliation for themselves.

They are willing the put it on the line for her because they desire her that much.

And this turns women on.

They are aroused by being found arousing.

This is why every guy who hides his desire and treats them as a friend, ends up as exactly that.

SOMETHING ADMIRABLE

The other ubiquitous feature in all the characters is that they possess status. But not in the sense that you or society commonly think.

Any idiot will tell you that having a fast car and lots of money will get you the adoration of thousands of women. But you only need meet some of the guys with these things to realize this couldn’t be farther from the truth.

When it comes to arousal in women, status does not mean something he possesses, or even how other people view him. Status comes down to him having something within his character traits that ranks him highly, in particular, higher than her.

To illustrate, let’s take everyone’s favorite sinking ship story: Titanic.

In Titanic, rich girl Rose slowly becomes smitten with poor guy Jack, despite already being engaged to rich man Calvin.

Calvin is powerful, socially connected, traditionally handsome, ambitious, traditionally masculine, and possesses a general sense of self-mastery.

Jack, on the other hand, is poor, hangs out with the even poorer, is boyish-looking, unconcerned with success, reckless, and is completely unfamiliar with tradition.

He has nothing that Calvin or Rose don’t already possess in greater quantity. Yet despite this, Rose becomes smitten with him.

Why?

Jack, despite his flaws, is better than everyone else at being true to himself and living a good life. He outranks everyone on the boat when it comes to this.

So she, and every woman who watches the film falls in love with him. It single-handedly secured Leonardo DiCaprio’s sex life for all eternity.

Having status isn’t about superficial, obvious things. It’s about subtle nuances of character that reflect some kind of unique value that exists within you. Status is about recognizing that value within yourself and acknowledging it’s worth regardless of what anyone else thinks.

This is why these men in romance novels without any ‘status’ actually have so much. Their value is internal, that’s why they’re so unafraid to pursue her.

DANGER AND EMOTIONS

Any amount of status and bravery only works provided it makes her feel something. If they don’t spike her emotions, then she isn’t going to be aroused. Simple as that.

Interestingly, this goes further than you might think.

In primal tribes in the Philippines and Amazon, researchers have found that, during courtship, women are quite happy to put up with all kinds of violent displays -such as the presentation of severed heads- provided that the man in question has an emotional side that she can access.

This, whilst an extreme example, highlights a truth (and pitfall) of female arousal:

Women have a tendency to forgive more unsavory traits if she feels something / has an emotional connection with him.

Speak to any woman and they can provide an example of experiencing this. The cliched bad boy relationship where the passion is just too seductive to ignore his glaring faults.

But this tendency, whilst making her prone to falling for the wrong guy, also works in reverse:

It helps her avoid the really wrong guys.

Remember that joke about how men don’t need a reason to have sex they just need a place?

Well, women don’t just need a reason, they need a pretty foolproof one as they’re actively looking for reasons not to.

Where male sexuality is like a homing missile, female sexuality is like a suspicious observer, looking for clues that might suggest the guy she’s attracted to really isn’t the good guy he appears to be.

Maybe he’s using her for sex, maybe he’s a liar, maybe he’s a complete creep.

Whatever it is, women always seem to have a sense about guys they should avoid. And if that sense is triggered, then the arousal soon turns into disgust.*

SELF-CENTERED AROUSAL

As Mark Manson points out in Models, female arousal in many ways is very self-centered – Their arousal is all about them being desirable. The more power that desirableness has over a man, the more arousing he becomes. The more he has emotional sides to his personality that only she can access, the more arousing she finds him.

It’s one big narcissistic circle jerk.

And it’s the exact same thing for men.

Men are aroused as much by the tits and ass they see as they are by their own ‘incredible’ sexual prowess. Like women, male arousal has a huge element to it that’s incredibly narcissistic.

It’s not so much being aroused by someone else, but being aroused by the idea of how arousing you are.

It’s kinda embarrassing when you look at it like that.

We’re aroused by feeling special. We’re aroused by feeling better than others. We’re aroused by feeling desired. 

This, in itself, seems shallow and empty. And in many cases, it is.

But on the flip side, it also explains why genuinely liking someone from an authentic, un-needy place is so arousing for them. It tickles the narcissistic side of them that wants to be truly valued.

But it does so in a healthy way.

The idea of being aroused by the self isn’t exactly new. A similar, but different spin on it comes from the work of Carl Jung.

Jung believed that every man had a feminine element to his psyche and that every woman had a male element to hers. And it was these elements that we projected onto the opposite sex.

A projection that was dependent on the maturity of our relationship with ourselves.

If a man’s relationship with his feminine traits were unconscious, repressed, and feared, he would project that onto women. Instead of getting to know them, he would instead submit himself to his projected image of them.

His entire view of the opposite sex was wrapped up in his own emotional baggage.

Likewise, if a woman’s relationship with her masculine traits were immature, and revolved around her animalistic social and physical prowess, she would naturally project this onto men, and look for men who fit these shallow criteria.

In other words, her shallow self-knowledge would leave her chasing men with big muscles but little substance.

What happened with both sexes is that when they began to understand their opposite traits -men became more emotionally and spiritually mature, and women became more independent, creative, and spiritually mature- they would begin to view the opposite sex as individuals rather than generic projections. 

The more they worked on themselves, the more they were aroused by what’s right for them.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

This might seem like a lot of information, but arousal comes together in both sexes quite nicely. And, conveniently, it has a lot to do with self-improvement.

Before any actions are taken with anyone else, you have to sort out your relationship with yourself. If you don’t, you’ll struggle with impotence, have no idea you’re aroused, or end up chasing the wrong people, ignoring the warning signs, and constantly wondering why there’s ‘something wrong with you.’

But once you’ve cleared that up, arousal begins to interact in beneficial ways.

For guys, it comes down to action. Not only are you very easily motivated to take action, but you’re also aroused further by your own prowess at doing it. Walking towards her is like stepping your foot on the accelerator.

This is reciprocated in women by them being aroused by you taking the risk of hitting on them. Sure, they’re not going to be into you 100% of the time. Sometimes you’re not their type, sometimes they’re just not going to be in the mood. But the rule stands. The more in touch with your own arousal you are, the more likely she is to be with hers.

This is why when I speak to guys whose relationships have become sexless, I always ask them:

‘Are you still putting the moves on her? Are you still taking her out and hitting on her like when you first went out?’

9 times out of 10 they’ve stopped doing this. They’ve stopped triggering her responsive sexual desire.

And it’s no surprise that when you’re stumbling around in sweatpants, looking like the same guy she sees every day, she’s not going to get a whole lot of spontaneous sexual desire.

People are into people being into them. It’s arousing.

But as long as you’re not into yourself, you’re going to have a hard time being into others.

This means if your sex life isn’t where you want it to be, the first person you have to look at is yourself.

What is your relationship with your own arousal? Are you relying on blind luck? Ignoring it? Or are you not making it clear what your needs are?

Because human sexuality is a need. A fun one. And developing a healthy understanding of your own arousal is the fastest way to get it met.

 

 

*In plain English this means don’t fucking lie – she’s wired to sniff you out so it’s a dumb strategy, as well as gross. All you’re going to screen for are women that are ignoring their gut feeling about you because they’re too emotionally needy to be alone. They’d rather be with a creep. Is that who you really want to attract?

 

Liked this article? Help me make an impact, and SHARE it on social media.

If you want to go into more depth with any of the topics I write about and build a structured plan for applying them to your day to day life – then check out my Dating and Personal Development Coaching service for a free 15-minute consultation.

And be sure to check out my free ebooks on dating and anxiety.

If you want an easy way to stay up to date on the latest content, like me on Facebook, and you’ll always be the first to know.

If there’s anything in this article you want to go in more depth on, or you just want to get in touch – drop me a message here! It’s completely free.

 

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

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!

Defense Mechanisms – How to Stop Being a Victim of Fear

by ·

WHAT IF I told you that half of what you think is ‘you’ isn’t actually you? What if I told you that you that almost your entire idea of ‘you’ was just a series of inventive lies that have tricked you into becoming someone that you never, ever wanted to be?

And what if I told you all of this was done in an affectionate effort to keep you safe?

You’d probably be thinking – if that’s true then just who the hell am I?

Your brain isn’t always on your side. As you attempt to do anything that provokes anxiety, your brain almost automatically comes up with patterns of thought and behavior to stop you. These patterns are so convincing that you don’t even spot them for what they are, and often, they come to form your beliefs and eventually your very identity.

Just as you can be full of shit, it turns out you can also be full of poor patterns of thought and behavior.

Psychiatrists call these patterns defense mechanisms.

I call them ‘your bullshit.’ And if there’s a magic pill in any kind of personal development it’s this: ‘learning to spot your own bullshit.’

Because it’s that exact bullshit that keeps you from growing, stifles your happiness, and turns you into a version of yourself you never actually wanted to be.

———

I first came across defense mechanisms when I was a plucky young man learning about improving my dating life. I was reading as many books and forums as I could (not advised), and trying to combine them as best as I could with some kind of grounding in psychology (also not advised).

A lot of what I came across was toxic, unnecessary, or just flat out wrong.

But in the case of defense mechanisms, it was slightly different. There was something about them that always rung true. That I saw reflected in myself, and everyone I met. And as they seemed to be directly related to anxiety, approaching, and expressing sexuality – they were simply too good for this young man to miss.

Defense mechanisms it seemed, were what stopped me and everyone else from taking the actions with women that we wanted to take.

Whenever we wanted to approach one, kiss one, or even ask one out – there they were. And in this new, fancy psychology, I figured I’d found myself a cure.

So like any good nerd, I was hooked.

A SHORT, UNNECESSARY HISTORY OF DEFENSE MECHANISMS

Even though my focus was on dating, defense mechanisms have been something that have found their way into every aspect of my life.

Whether I was trying to pluck up the courage to talk to a cute girl, or procrastinating my way through video game after video game instead of writing – defense mechanisms were always lurking behind the scenes.

Just as they will be for you.

Defense mechanisms aren’t exactly a new discovery. Whether it’s Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina or John Milton’s fallen angels – observers of human behavior have long been pointing their fingers at the bizarre ways people go about avoiding uncomfortable feelings and unraveling their lives.

The idea of defense mechanisms was popularised by Anna Freud. She took what was her father’s rather doom-and-gloom view of the human psyche and created what could be called a roadmap of human self-deception. One that, through understanding it, offered a way of undoing our flaws.

To her, our defense mechanisms were the ways in which we defended our ego from harm, and in order to live properly, we had to understand and manage the ways in which we did this. In other words, these seemed to be the elephant in the psychological room.

Years later, her work was expanded upon again by Harvard psychiatrist George Vaillant. And his expanded research was so on point, it paved the way for many of the psychiatric classifications we have today.

He also gave this incredibly good Tedtalk. Unique for teaching what is maybe life’s most important lesson, and is also a good substitute for Nytol.

Vaillant was the first to organize defense mechanisms into hierarchies that corresponded to what was essentially our emotional development. To him, a person’s ability to manage their defense mechanisms healthily was intrinsic to their maturity and well-being as an individual.

And he was right.

What Freud and Vaillant managed to do was lift the lid on everyone’s mind, and reveal the hedge maze of behavioral patterns underneath. Far from being unique snowflakes, we all engaged with highly similar methods of bullshitting ourselves and hiding from our emotions.

Y’know, like children.

Luckily for us, Vaillant also showed that through understanding their patterns of bullshit, people can and would change for the better.

Which is where the next part of this outrageously long article comes in.

THE MANY, MANY DEFENSES FROM ANXIETY

defence mechanisms

Despite what Darth Vader says, it is wise to lower your defenses. Defense mechanisms don’t actually protect you. They imprison you.

Now, I totally get that’s dramatic. But bear with me:

The more you give into your patterns of bullshit, the more you avoid taking actions which are going to:

  1. Actually, represent your desires.
  2. Confront anxiety and make you grow.

I think I speak for all of us when I say nobody wants to live life with the training wheels strapped on. Eventually, we’ve gotta kick those fuckers loose and start nosediving down staircases.

There are many, many ways in which you’ll try and keep your own training wheels on. My bullshit won’t always be your bullshit, but in almost everyone I’ve met, they’ve collected not one, but a cluster of defense mechanisms that hold them back.

Some are lost in denial, fantasizing, and blaming the world. Other’s are always acting out and regressing into a childlike, dependent state.

For me, I was either avoiding reality completely, intellectualizing it, overcompensating, or worst of all, forming my reactions to events in completely disingenuous ways. As you’ll see in a moment, all of these suck.

Now for the sake of brevity, I’m going to try and limit this to anxiety and dating. I do write a blog that covers that topic after all, and to be honest…

Nowhere are people’s defense mechanisms more on show than in dating.

That said, I will add some other, personal development related examples where appropriate.

These all apply whether you’re feeling anxiety, sadness, anger or any emotion you find uncomfortable. And whether you’re dating, trying to start a business, or doing public speaking – it doesn’t matter.

Within every behavior that provokes an uncomfortable emotion, there is a defense mechanism that can and will rise up to ‘protect you.’

Here are the main ways you’re doing this:

DENIAL

Reality can be scary and upsetting. So you deny the reality of situation exists, as to accept it would make you anxious or in emotional pain. This is called denial, and it’s pretty much every teenager ever.

There are thousands of ways this can crop up in your life. In dating, this is most commonly seen as:

“I don’t really want to speak to her.’ When you’re attracted to her. Or “I don’t have anxiety around women.” When you quite clearly feel anxiety around women. Or ‘I don’t care about winning.’ When in reality winning is extremely important to you.

PROJECTION

If you’re racist, sexist, or bigoted, this one almost definitely applies to you. Projection is where you start seeing in other people what you refuse to acknowledge in yourself. Whether this is a feeling you don’t want to feel or some unconscious motivation – projection is your easy way out.

Instead of dealing with it yourself, you protect it onto someone else – and you see it everywhere.

These are projections are usually persecutory in nature (i.e racist/sexist).

This is deeply tied to blame and anger, and in my experience sits at the origin of many generalizations about the opposite sex. “Women are sluts” is actually “I’m scared of women”, “All women are over-emotional” becomes “I’m emotional and just not conscious of it.”

Instead of pointing the finger at everyone else, maybe it’s a better idea to look in the mirror.

FANTASY

There isn’t a single person reading this who isn’t guilty of this. In fact, this is less a defense mechanism than just a part of being human.

The idea behind fantasy is simple: what you want provokes anxiety, so you seek out some kind of unthreatening fantasy to ‘achieve it.’

For example, this could be:

“Expressing my sexuality makes me anxious, so I’m gonna feel good about myself by fantasizing about being some sexuality confident guy all the time.”

I have a friend who does this with violent movies and he doesn’t even realize it. That’s his defense mechanism for being afraid of confrontation. I have another friend who does the same thing with video games.

What’s your method?

REGRESSION

Regression is where you adopt a childlike, dependent state in order to feel safe from whatever anxiety you re currently experiencing. This can be anything, but I always tend to notice regression in social situations.

For example, you’ve come to a party to socialize and meet new people, but doing so makes you anxious, so instead, you cling to the people you know, often following them around like a lost puppy.

Regression is a relinquishment of your own personal power. You’re saying ‘I can’t confront my anxiety, but I hope you can do it for me.’

This might seem like a downer, but almost everyone engages with this on some level. If I haven’t been on a night out in weeks, and am feeling nervous, this can be something I spot in myself.

The trick is to spot it, then break the dependency.

PASSIVE AGGRESSION

If you live in the western world, please stop and read this section. It applies to pretty much every element of your day to day life. If you’re British, read it twice.

Passive aggression is where the confrontation that comes from direct aggression makes you anxious, so you attempt to mask it or sidestep in socially acceptable, but unpleasant behavior.

An easy example of this would be someone has annoyed you, and instead of confronting that directly, you say something shitty in the guise of being socially acceptable. All because the idea of direct confrontation makes you anxious.

But in terms of dating… I find this directly relates to sexuality. For example, you’re sexually attracted to a woman and want to express that. But expressing sexuality makes you anxious. So instead you throw some bullshit lines at her, or you tease her, or you try to be her friend.

These are all passive forms of expressing your sexual aggression, which makes you anxious. Instead of saying ‘you’re cute’ or something direct, you dodge it, smother it, and stifle it.

In any instance, whether its sexual, or just confrontation – the rule is almost always the same:

There is no good substitute for being direct.

defence mechanisms

ACTING OUT

Acting out is an action that you take almost impulsively, without awareness of the motivation that drives it.

This one is more complex, and often hard to spot. But in my own life, this came in the form of being highly impulsive with alcohol and eventually, with sex.

I had unconscious needs to avoid anxiety and to get validation, and I ended up taking those actions as ways to get those needs met. For a long time I just thought I was a big drinker and so on, but in reality, I was just acting out.

A while later, when that was less on an issue, I found myself avoiding anxiety about my future by procrastinating and impulsively watching garbage on youtube. It was the same shit, but with a new outlet.

I see this all the time in people who cheat on their partners, need excessive attention from the opposite sex, and guys who objectify their sex lives. They just don’t know what’s really motivating them, and they’re acting out on autopilot.

They have something they don’t want to feel, so the immediately start to smother it.

INTELLECTUALIZATION

A woman is more likely to acknowledge her own duality. A man is continually blinded by his intellect and does not learn through insight. ~Carl Jung

This is probably the reason you arrived at this blog. And if you’re male, almost definitely the reason for 99.9999% of your issues in personal development.

Intellectualization is where you try to learn/understand as much as you can about whatever causes your anxiety in the hopes that it will make it go away. I.e. You feel anxious about expressing sexuality, so you learn as much as you can in the hopes the fear will go away.

But here’s the thing…

This never works. It cannot work. It is impossible.

If your problem is emotional, then dealing with it is an emotional process. Thinking has nothing to do with it.

Whether your problem is anxiety in dating, fear of failure in your work life, or underlying issues with procrastination and motivation – the issue is always emotional.

Some probably think this sounds like the least masculine thing in the world to do. All I have to say to that is this:

You don’t become a well-rounded man without getting in touch with your feminine side. It’s not possible.

Moving away from the feelings is what made you end up here. Maybe instead you should start moving towards them.

COMPENSATION

Compensation is where you attempt to cover up your perceived weaknesses or anxiety by taking actions that ‘mask’ them.

This is usually where people overcompensate. You feel inferior to women and that makes you anxious, so you pretend you’re superior to them. You act cool. You act indifferent. You try to demean them by insulting them.

In reality, you’re just scared.

When it comes to dating, one of, if not the main reasons for this is feelings of inferiority. An inferiority that we desperately try to compensate for.

Alfred Adler, a psychologist back in Sigmund Freud / Carl Jung era has a quote that explains this perfectly:

‘If people feel inferior and weak in one area, they try to compensate for it somewhere else.’

In regards to dating, or even socially, what he’s saying is:

If you feel ‘less’ than other people you will act in a way to compensate for this feeling.

Nearly ALL your bullshit behavior comes from this one principle of Adler’s. All the faking, trying to impress people, and delusions of superiority – they all come from this. Jokes about the guy with the sports car who has the small dick? This too.

In my experience, compensators always know what they’re doing deep down. They’re the small kid on the playground shouting about his dad being bigger than everyone else’s.

RATIONALIZATION

Rationalization is where you use faulty logic to explain a poor behavior or feeling.

You get rejected by a woman and it makes you feel ashamed and embarrassed. Which is normal. But instead of going ‘oh well’ you go ‘she’s a fucking bitch’. In reality, she’s allowed to reject you, and it doesn’t make her anything.

You procrastinate on your work, telling yourself that you don’t need to do it yet, even though putting it off longer noticeable causes you more stress.

You cheat on your partner, telling yourself you shouldn’t tell them because it would just hurt them if they found out.

Rationalization is where you try to turn whatever is obviously an unacceptable act into an acceptable one. But you don’t do this for others. You do it for yourself. To rationalize away the feeling that comes from your shame, guilt, or anxiety.

REACTION FORMATION

Have you ever had someone you completely disliked, thought they were an asshole, but instead of making this obvious, you were in fact really nice to them?

Reaction formation is where you start acting in completely the opposite way to how you want to act due to feelings of anxiety.

I.e. In the example above, it causes you social anxiety to be upfront about your feelings with that person, so you ‘form’ a new, non-threatening reaction.

Or, you want to have sex with women, but this provokes anxiety in you, so you outwardly express zero sexuality and may even claim to not care about it all. In truth, you do, you’re just scared. (This was pretty much my entire teenage life).

DISSOCIATION

Have you ever noticed that when people are fresh out of a breakup they suddenly start hitting the gym and setting themselves wildly ambitious life goals?

This is dissociation. Drastically changing who you are to avoid emotional pain.

In the case of a breakup, you feel shame about yourself for having been part of a failed relationship, and you don’t want to keep seeing the person in the mirror. This was me 100%. In reality, I was just sad and needed to confront it and accept it.

It’s also anyone who felt like a loser back home, moves to a new country and suddenly drastically overhauls their identity. The geek at school who becomes a try-hard later in life. Pretty much any stereotypical “zero-to-hero” cliche.

But as with my own post-breakup life change – it doesn’t fix the feeling. At best it just puts down a band-aid.

Funnily enough, dissociation is also nearly always the plot of superhero origin stories. Which I think lies in their appeal.

DISPLACEMENT

Displacement is when you shift your sexual or aggressive desires to a safer, less emotionally threatening outlet.

I.e. the guy who wants to shout at his boss, but can’t so comes home and screams at his wife.

This is one of the more complex defense mechanisms, as it tends to burst out of you unaware. Something happened to you earlier that you repressed, and later it erupts out of your when it feels safe.

This can be obvious, like the example above, or it can extremely subtle. Like pornography.

You feel sexual desire, but you’re afraid of women. Approaching women and asking them out threatens your anxiety, so instead, you seek out somewhere ‘safe’ to outlet that sexual desire. In reality, all you’re doing is avoiding anxiety.

Displacement can also be seen in the micro-moments of your life, where stresses at your own failures are repressed (see below) and then you lash out at people with anger you’d actually been directing at yourself. This is something I do all the time, and have to work hard to get a handle on.

REPRESSION

What you want causes you anxiety, so you attempt to force it out of your mind and pretend it doesn’t exist.

I.e. You avoid anxiety by repressing any sexuality whatsoever.

I.e. You tell yourself you’re happy without a social life.

I.e. You say you don’t care about achieving anything.

And the sad thing is that you can do this so much that it eventually does become unconscious, and begins affecting you in subtle, almost imperceptible ways. Not only is this a bad idea, for reasons Carl Jung expresses nicely in this quote:

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

But it’s also a bad idea because you’re taking who it is you really want to be and driving it deep down into the back of your mind. Which, if you’re honest, isn’t something you truly want to do.

Instead of repression, you just need to develop a better method of confronting your fear.

THE DANGER OF YOUR DEFENSES

defence mechanisms

Remember when I said that if our defense mechanisms get repeated enough they become our identity? Well if you acted in all these ways enough you’d probably end up hating and avoiding women, socially needy, addicted to pornography and shallow escapism, and at the same time decrying sex and behaving sexless.

A bizarre, living contradiction. All because of simple mental patterns.

You can probably imagine why it’s so important to bring awareness to these. If we want to direct our lives, we have to know what’s already pushing us, or in this case, protecting us.

Even though I’ve kept much of the focus of this article on dating and sexuality – defense mechanisms affect every part of our lives. Procrastination, fear of failure, and all the ways in which we avoid bringing to life the person we wish to be – these all sit hand in hand with our defense mechanisms.

When you bring these kinds of tools to the story that you tell yourself about your own life, it’ll soon become apparent that not everything you consider ‘you’ is actually you. In most cases, it’s just armor that you’ve accumulated to make yourself feel only what you want to feel.

But you can’t live life picking and choosing your feelings.

You have to feel it all. Especially anxiety. Especially the feelings which suck.

As long as you succumb to your defense mechanisms and allow them to protect you from uncomfortable feelings, you will always hinder your growth as an individual – keeping yourself immature, infantile, and incapable.

In all the ways you never had to be.

—

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Why Is Modern Dating So Hard?

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modern dating hard

THE OTHER DAY, I was procrastinating on Reddit (sue me) when I came across a post complaining about the sorry state of modern dating, and how boring and hard it was. Curious, I googled this to see if it was something commonly felt and there were dozens of articles repeating the exact same things over and over again.

‘Modern dating is shallow.’

‘Apps like Tinder and Bumble only work for good-looking people.’

‘People only care about sex, they don’t care about connection.’

‘Women only want the top 20%!’

‘Men no longer want relationships!’

In response, I wrote a short post of my own that outlined my views on dating. Namely, that it wasn’t boring, it didn’t suck, and it’s the same as it had always been. Some people loved it, some hated it, and one even accused me of preying on chronically depressed people. Like Therapist Dracula or something.

Eat your heart out Bram Stoker.

But despite all of this, I didn’t really feel like I’d said everything I’d wanted to say. Why do people find dating so hard? This doesn’t seem to be just a 2018 thing. Everyone from there’s 20’s to their 40s seems to be having a hard time.

So I adopted the tree pose, did some navel-gazing, and settled on something approaching an opinion.

And that opinion is this:

You make dating hard for yourself, and the time you’re in has nothing to do with it.

Whether you lived now, in 16th century China, or the Garden of Eden – It’d be just as hard if you made the same fundamentally wrong choices you make now.

IS MODERN DATING ACTUALLY THAT HARD?

You can go about dating in any way you want. You can hit up nightclubs relentlessly, you can chase people down on the street, you can do it entirely online, or you can meet everyone at your silent meditation retreats.

There is no way you HAVE to go about dating.

However, there are things you CAN’T get wrong.

I believe it’s these things that account for 99.999999999999% (read: all) of the complaints about modern dating. Because when you really think about it, modern dating is better than it’s ever been.

Let me explain (and tackle some myths):

‘Online dating has made it worse’

A huge part of dating, and finding a person you have chemistry and compatibility with is determined by odds.

The more people you meet, the better your odds.

Not only this, but your results are also determined by the diversity of the pool in which you look. For example, if you spend all your time in high-end night-clubs, you’ll meet a lot of girls who frequent that spot – all the time missing out on the fact you’re better suited to someone who earns a lot less and volunteers at a soup kitchen.

Online dating helps tackle both of these head-on. Not only do you have access to way-way-way more people, but the diversity you have access to quite literally boggles the mind.

In other words, online dating has made it far, far easier, and far, far more likely for you to meet someone who’s great.

It’s up to you how you use it.

‘People are shallower than ever’

Are they?

Rich can date poor, black can date white, nerd can date cheerleader – that sounds a lot less shallow than it used to be. Hell, in the past shallowness didn’t even come into it – some of these things just weren’t allowed.

People now have more freedom of expression than ever before. This means you’re meeting the person that most accurately reflects them, instead of someone clothed in tradition or custom.

Sure, online dating might accentuate the importance of looks and lifestyle – but these are both fundamental things you should be taking care of anyway.

You’re always going to have people who are more inclined to value shallow traits, but that’s just how some humans are. If you really think about how society HAS BEEN as opposed to HOW IT IS, you’ll probably realize that people have far, far more ways in which to express their own attractiveness and personality, and people are connecting on those things.

Instead of it being courts and ballrooms, peasants and barn dances – it’s now hipsters, gym-rats, travelers, partiers, entrepreneurs, sports enthusiasts, bookworms, film buffs, and on and on until infinity.

These aren’t just interests, these are social interests that people can now connect over. The very fact society is like this suggests the opposite of shallowness. If anything, it shows people have more of an understanding of what’s important to them and what they’re looking for in others.

‘People aren’t interested in relationships’

People’s needs are the same as they’ve ever been. Sure, we all want sex. But we all also want connection and intimacy. I’ve met far, far more people who are interested in the latter. Our brains are literally wired for it after all.

When people say ‘people aren’t interested in relationships’ what I normally hear is: ‘I’m not very good at screening my partners.’ When we know our values and boundaries and prioritize those over feelings of chemistry, we tend to get pretty good at finding people who mirror what we’re looking for.

When we don’t, we get constantly swept up in relationships that are never what we truly wanted. And as a result, we blame everyone else for a mistake that was always ours.

modern dating

Neediness is the cause of almost all your woes.

WHY IS MODERN DATING SO HARD?

There are certain things in dating you just can’t get wrong. If you do, you’re going to make your dating life a shitload harder, and you’ll be days away from writing a Tumblr post about how everyone these days sucks, and you’re just an ‘old soul’. If only you’d be born in the Renaissance.

But your post would be a big old bowl of bullshit.

Because when we make wrong choices in dating we make it harder for ourselves no matter what our circumstances are.

YOU AREN’T RESPECTING PROBABILITY

Life isn’t a Hollywood movie. You’re not going to be doing a cute little shimmy at the bar and bedazzle the love of your life intro storming across the room towards you.

That doesn’t happen.

What does happen is that you meet a bunch of people who suck and few people that don’t. And the more you sift through the people that suck, the more you meet the people that don’t.

This is why when people claim that modern dating sucks, the first thing I hear is ‘I don’t meet enough people.’

As hard, and as cheesy as it is to believe. There is someone for everyone. If you’re into Magic Cards, Rock climbing, and playing video games into your late 20s, there’s a whole bunch of people out there who find that cool and endearing (I.e. me). But despite this being true, that ‘someone for you’ takes a lot of effort to find.

You have to get off your ass and do something. You have to talk to a lot of people. And you have to ask out a lot of people. Or it’s not going to happen.

Not doing this means dating is always going to SEEM much worse than it is. You’ll be meeting very few people, and the ones who do will most likely suck.

Not a great combo.

YOU EXPECT THINGS FROM OTHERS YOU DON’T EXPECT FROM YOURSELF

If you want to have deep, intimate, engaging conversations with someone, where you disappear into each other’s eyes and wonder how you’ve been so blessed to meet someone like this – then first you have to develop that kind of relationship with yourself.

If you don’t know what your values, boundaries, strengths, weaknesses, mistakes, and ambitions are, and if you’re not comfortable with the vulnerability of expressing those honestly – then ALL of your relationships, whether it’s day 1 or day 1000 are going to suffer as a result.

The hard work starts with you.

Now I’m not saying you need to become a raging narcissist. I have a friend like that and he’s just unbearable. What I am saying is what those white-robed Ancient Greeks used to scrawl on the walls in Delphi:

‘Know thyself.’

When you know yourself, your relationships with others increases. This is for multiple reasons:

  • Because you know what your values are and you enforce your boundaries, you naturally get rid of people who aren’t right for you.
  • Because you’re open and honest about your emotions and vulnerabilities, people are more likely to be open and honest about theirs. As a result, your connections deepen.
  • Because you’ve done all this hard work with yourself, you’re probably pretty happy. So you’re not coming at any relationship looking for anything but the icing on an already well-baked cake.

All of these revolve around one central devil:

Neediness.

When you value the opinions and emotional validation of others over your own integrity, then you’ll never have the relationship you truly want.

Your connection with others is only as good as your connection with yourself. If that connection is validation seeking and needy, then they’ll all be.

You can either take responsibility for this or walk around wondering why everyone else isn’t up to scratch.

YOU’RE ALREADY BORED

Dating is just the icing on the cake. And if your cake bores the shit out of you, then no amount of dating is going to help – and actually, it’ll make it worse.

Before you can be happy with your dating life, you’ve got to be happy with your own.

There is no trick, technique, or radical social change that will eliminate this fact. I harp on about this a lot, but I think this is fundamental to dating, and arguably the biggest determinant of your results.

If your life doesn’t take care of your basic needs and promote good feelings within you, then it’s unlikely you’re going to meet anyone who will. At best you’ll meet people as down on their life as you.

You don’t get sparks from two wet sticks.

Now I’m not saying your life has to be frolicking-in-the-fields happy. Everyone feels down now and again. Hell, a lot of people who have happy lives also struggle with depression.

All I’m saying is that you have to find a life that works for you and that genuinely meets your needs.

Genuinely.

This takes an enormous amount of courage and honesty. You have to really look at your life and ask yourself whether the elements within it are really helping you, or if in actual fact they’re harmful.

Because if you’re anything like me, you’ll have convinced yourself that a lot of the things that are bad for your happiness, are actually things that make you happy. But despite what you might convince yourself, you can never make a ‘heaven of hell’.

YOU AREN’T AROUSING

If you aren’t comfortable sexually expressing yourself, it’s going to be a lot less likely that anyone will be turned on by you.

In which case, your dating life will always be a bit sexually flat.

Sexuality is reciprocal. When it is accepted, people are aroused by expressions of desire and sexual interest, and it, in turn, promotes expressions of sexual desire back.

When it isn’t, you quickly find out whether or not that person is into you. Aka, you’ll get rejected.

Dating is a sexual process. It’s not your standard social occasion. You’re spending time with someone you want to get to know and want to sleep with. The more you allow yourself to be honest about this, the more your dating life will come to reflect this unique experience.

The less you do, the more mundane it will seem, and you’ll be left wondering ‘why didn’t I just hang out with someone I know?’ Or ‘I’d rather spend time with my friends.’

Your sexual confidence is your responsibility. Everyone feels nervous about expressing sexual interest. Everyone worries about being rejected, and they feel compelled to hide their intentions to prevent that rejection.

But this is the opposite of what you have to do if you want a better dating life. You have to slowly learn to take risks. To make yourself vulnerable with your sexual desire.

Because if you don’t, you’re right – you may as well be hanging out with your friends.

YOU PURSUE TOXIC VALUES

Your dating life is as toxic as you design it to be.

If you pursue the wrong values in yourself and others, then you make a bigger mistake than not knowing your values at all.

A toxic value is any value which provides you with a false sense of fulfillment, almost always at the expense of what you truly value.

For example, if you think you value sex and looks over honesty and respect, you will continually chase sexual validation from good looking people, at the expense of your own happiness and integrity.

When this doesn’t work, you’ll often double down on that toxic value, and try and chase a bigger hit.

Likewise, if you value the turbulence of romance over compatibility and trust, you will constantly end up with people who are exciting in short bursts but then treat you like shit in the long run. And as soon as they’re done you’ll jump onto the next one.

You get toxic results from your own design. If you don’t do the groundwork of understanding your values and boundaries, and even more so, having an understanding of what motivates your toxic values (i.e. neediness, narcissism) – then you are going to have a dating life that is much more likely to be riddled with toxicity.

That’s how it works. Toxic people attract toxic people. So do the right thing and pick better values to chase.

YOU AREN’T TAKING CARE OF YOUR LOOKS

People care about looks. Sure, other things matter, but looks do always matter too. There’s no ifs or buts.

And before you go shouting about modern society, Instagram, porn, and marketing being to blame – beauty has been worshipped in our society since we early homo sapiens saw their first pair of tits, washboard abs, and chiseled jawline.

We like to look at hot people. It’s part of who we are.

For some of us, that might seem like a bummer. But here’s the caveat:

Whilst not everyone is Brad Pitt, everyone can take better care of themselves.

Everyone can make the decision to take better care of their appearance, and, to steal a line from Socrates: ’see the strength and beauty of which their body is capable.’ 

This isn’t just a good idea for your health and general self-confidence, but it’s also just a no-brainer.

Sure – I don’t like the fact that people value this as much as anyone. If I could roll out of bed and look a million dollars I would. But the reality is, I don’t.

I have to take care of my grooming, dress well, get a good haircut, and not eat like shit. And, to be honest, it isn’t a lot of work. It’s just basic self-respect.

It’s taking care of yourself.

And if you aren’t doing that – why the hell not?

YOU AREN’T REALLY TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

Every single point involves taking responsibility for the kind of life you actually want, and like most people, actually need. Everyone wants to have a good dating life – that’s how we meet people and get our all too human needs for love and connection met.

But you don’t get a good dating life for free. You have to take responsibility for your own life, and develop it into something you’re happy with.

And in doing so, all your complaints about dating will cease to exist.

Because when you’re saying dating sucks and it’s hopeless, what you’re really doing is absolving yourself of any responsibility. If something is hopeless and out of your control, what can you possibly do to change it? You may as well be a prisoner.

At least, that’s how it seems.

But not only is this untrue, it’s also not the worst part. The worst part is not that you’re telling yourself it can’t be done.

You’re actually telling yourself that you can’t do it.

That you can’t create positive change in your own life.

The reality though is a little different:

Making your life easier is always a choice you get to make.

 

 

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this article and want some more in-depth stuff, then check out my free E-books.

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Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Photo by Raj Eiamworakul on Unsplash

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!