Dating and Attracting Women

Carol from Canberra turned up on the weekend with four of her girlfriends, in town to check out fashion week. So on Saturday night I met up with them in the city for dinner and some dancing afterwards. One of Carol’s friends had had to go home early, and another guy named Terry tagged along who was a mutual friend of Andrea, one of the others.

We headed for dinner at Blackbird, a classy bar/cafe at Darling Harbour, the place to be in Sydney on a Saturday night. I sat opposite Carol, and next to her friend Jenni, who seemed like quite a live wire. Jenni was quite attractive, but seemed a little stand-offish and obtuse, so I started joking around with her and teasing her a bit, while also chatting with Carol. At one stage Jenni started complaining about running out of cigarettes, and asked “Do you know where to get cigarettes around here?”

“No, I don’t. Are you a smoker?”

“Yeah, and I’m out of cigarettes. I want to get some cigarettes!!!”, she protested

“Oh. I hate smokers.”, I countered.

Jenni was a bit taken aback at this. But the truth is that I do hate smokers. Or more specifically, I hate it when people are smoking. Carol and Jenni both looked at me awkwardly.

“What do you mean you hate smokers???”

“Well, I only hate them when they’re smoking. When you’re not smoking, you’re not a smoker”.

We joked about how none of us could be friends then, as I continued to tease them about smoking. It turned out that Carol had the occasional cigarette too; so occasional in fact, that it took her over a month to get through a pack. So I teased her about that too. One of the interesting things I’ve learned about people is that they respect you more when you have a strong point of view, than when you have a weak one. Even if that point is very different to their own, or even somewhat negative towards them! Saying I hated smokers risked alienating the girls, but when I didn’t back down just because they didn’t like that, it actually laid the foundation for greater respect.

“Gee… you obviously don’t care about what other people think of you!”, Carol remarked with obvious admiration. I took this as a huge compliment. Getting over the fear of what other people think has been a huge thing for me, and one of the most liberating things I’ve done. It’s also been a key ingredient in getting along better with women. I remarked that I’d been working hard on that, and thanked her for the compliment.

Jenni wandered off after a while with one of the other girls in search of a cigarette vending machine. While things were quiet, I chatted with Terry, the other mutual friend guy who was down the other end of the table. Terry seemed quite shy and reserved around the girls; a typical Nice Guy. It turned out that Terry was studying Civil Engineering at university. He seemed like a really lovely guy, but like a lot of engineers I know, didn’t come across as all that interesting or engaging if you weren’t into technical stuff. After we’d had a bit of a chat Carol, who knows I used to be an engineer, leaned over on the quiet and asked “Did you used to be like that once?”

“Yeah… I did”, I remarked, as I thought about how far I’ve come with my social skills and general self-confidence.

Eventually Jenni came back, empty-handed and irritable. I teased her about having nicotine withdrawal symptoms… getting the shakes and everything. Later in the evening, she launched into a tirade about how you had to wait for everything in Sydney: we had to wait for a table, they had to wait for a cab, she had to wait for her cigarettes. Jenni was starting to sound decidedly high-maintenance, and in my mind her good looks didn’t qualify as an excuse for that kind of thing… so she was in for some more teasing. Ironically, by the end of the evening, we were all waiting for Jenni to finish her drink before we could go dancing. More teasing ensued. At one point, it seemed as though Jenni was just too much like hard work even to engage in conversation. I was starting to get the vibe that either she didn’t like me, or she was just plain difficult to get on with, when she said something quite funny.

“You’re fun!”, I remarked intuitively, just like I’ve been learning to do in my acting practise exercises.

“Huh? What do you mean by that?”, she said guardedly, clearly thinking I was being sarcastic.

“I mean that you’re fun. I’m not being sarcastic.”

“Oh…”, she follows with a thinking pause.

“He’s a cool guy.”, Jenni says to Carol. Evidently I’d passed the test… without even trying. In fact, I’m learning that this is the best way to pass a woman’s test: don’t try! Jenni, on the other hand, was still looking decidedly high-maintenance, so although I thought she’d be fun to hang out with, she hadn’t passed my test. With her drink finally finished, we headed off to a nightclub.

Once in the nightclub, we all grabbed a seat in the corner and started chatting. It was the only available seat, and was awkwardly positioned in a corner right next to the dance floor. At first I felt uncomfortable being isolated from everyone else in the club; but that’s not how things ended up. While the other girls were up dancing, Carol and I chatted. It turned out that she was an ex-motorcycle-rider, having had 3 bikes. She gave it up after writing off her third one. Interesting story. I’d also had a motorbike, so we had a common interest to chat about. She’d made a remark over dinner indicating that she wouldn’t mind me making a move on her. So when the others were up dancing, I put my arm around her and went in for a kiss. I’m not the kind to kiss and tell, but that wasn’t the end of our evening together. Suffice to say that we both had a very enjoyable time together, and I consider this another successful feel-good evening all round.

The reason that we don’t have the success with women that we would like all comes down to the way we behave, and this behavior is ultimately driven by our conscious and unconscious beliefs. Emotions play a big role too, and these are linked to our unconscious beliefs.

Beliefs that inhibit us from having what we want are termed limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs get learned through our experiences of life, and become built deep into our subconscious. They shape our default response to the world. Once any belief is acquired, our subconscious makes an automatic connection between what we observe in the world and the beliefs that we have, which makes these beliefs self-reinforcing.

We selectively gather evidence that supports our existing beliefs, strengthening them in the process; even if they aren’t in our best interests. In some cases a limiting belief was in our best interests in the past, but is no longer working for us; in others, someone else has taught us a limiting belief in the past because it suited their agenda, and we took it on because we didn’t know any better. Once internalized, we started collecting evidence to prove it true for ourselves.

Before we can address our limiting behavior, we need to change or at least reduce the emotional impact of our limiting beliefs. Otherwise we keep doing what we’ve always done, and keep getting the same results we’ve always got.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) has a collection of tools and techniques for changing the way we think by shifting our underlying beliefs and thought habits to be more constructive and less constraining. Changing limiting beliefs so that they no longer have such a strong hold over us is referred to as reframing. But before we change or challenge our limiting beliefs via reframing, we need to identify what those beliefs are.

For example, here are some lists of my own present and past limiting beliefs, which have stopped me experiencing the success with women and dating that I would like:

Limiting beliefs about Myself

• I can’t be happy unless other people understand and accept me.
• I need other people’s approval to feel OK about myself.
• I just don’t get over emotional hurts.
• It’s wrong for me to want an attractive partner; I should just take what I can get.
• If I got a woman pregnant by accident, I wouldn’t cope.
• Other guys are more attractive and interesting to women than me.
• Beautiful women aren’t interested in me.

Limiting beliefs about Other People and Our Interactions

• If I’m honest with people, I will offend them.
• If I offend someone, they won’t like me.
• It’s always terribly bad to hurt another person’s feelings.

Limiting beliefs about Women

• All women are as judgmental and critical as my mother.
• You can have either brains or beauty, but not both.
• Women are offended easily.
• Teasing hurts adult women’s feelings.

Limiting beliefs about Dating, Flirting and Seduction

• Flirting is bad. It’s leading someone on unfairly.
• Seduction is evil and wrong.
• Sex outside marriage is wrong, even when it’s consensual.
• Women don’t want to be seduced.

Limiting beliefs about Approaching Women

• If I approach a woman without her initiating it, I’m bothering her.
• Women don’t want me to bother them.
• If I annoy a woman by approaching her, she won’t like me and I’ll feel terrible.
• When a woman rejects my approach, it means there’s something wrong with me.
• If one woman rejects me, all will reject me.

Imagine walking around with that lot in your subconscious! Little wonder it took me a long time to start being successful with women. Many of these beliefs turn out to be the exact opposite of reality. But we learn them early on, and then just keep acting as though they’re true. Because we never act otherwise, we never get to experience their invalidation.

Here’s a great example:

• People won’t like me unless I try hard to act polite and nice all the time

In fact, if I act polite and nice all the time, most people will become bored with me very quickly, and many will end up resentful that I’m not straight with them and don’t speak my mind when required. Women are actually more likely to end up liking me if I’m straight with them than if I’m polite and nice all the time; even though there’s a risk that I may offend them sometimes.

The way to deal with limiting beliefs is to reframe them by looking at them from a different perspective, and then to act based on the new belief. After a while, we start getting validation to reinforce the new, more constructive belief instead of the old limiting one… and our default behavior changes as we start getting more positive results.

I remember when I first started learning to flirt with women by playful teasing, I was amazed at the way they responded. I had no idea that women love being teased, because I had limiting beliefs from my childhood that teasing always hurt people’s feelings, and that flirting was bad and wrong. So I never had experiences with women that would show me any differently. Once I started flirting with women, I had new experiences which reinforced my new belief that flirting is fun, and that women are playful and fun to get to know; instead of terrifying.

Breaking Chains Of Belief

Sometimes there is a chain of beliefs that run together, any of which could be reframed to break the negative cycle:

• If I approach an attractive woman, I’ll get really nervous.
• When I get really nervous I won’t know what to say
• If I don’t know what to say I’ll feel awkward and bad
• Feeling bad is intolerable

Or

• If I don’t know what to say, she’ll think I’m stupid

• If someone else thinks I’m stupid, then I must be stupid
• The worst thing in the world a man can be is stupid

Or

• I need to be right all the time, or people will think I’m stupid
• If people think I’m stupid, they won’t love me
• If people don’t love me, I’ll either die, or live miserably

We only need to reframe or break one of these connections for the chain to lose it’s grip on us. We are all driven by a deep desire to be loved. Deep down we don’t really care if people think we’re stupid or not; we just care about whether they love us. So if I reframed “If people think I’m stupid, they won’t love me”, then it no longer matters whether someone else thinks I’m stupid, or indeed whether I am in fact stupid. People will love me anyway. It becomes irrelevant because the thought of being stupid no longer makes me feel unlovable and bad.

Or another example:

• If I get something wrong, I’ll feel really embarrassed
• If I feel really embarrassed about something, I will get a terribly bad feeling
• Terribly bad feelings last indefinitely

Here, you could challenge the belief that getting something wrong is embarrassing, or that being embarrassed gives you terribly bad feelings, or that bad feelings last indefinitely. What if getting something wrong wasn’t embarrassing? Or what if being embarrassed just felt mildly unpleasant? Or what if terrible feelings passed so quickly that they were of no concern? Any of these alternatives diminishes the power of the chain of limiting beliefs.

Reframing Techniques

Here are some more suggestions on how to reframe other limiting beliefs:

• Look for counter-examples and evidence that contradicts the belief
• Consider other possible explanations
• Make it about them, not you
• Put yourself in the other person’s shoes; get their perspective
• Break it down into a chain of beliefs, and find the flawed link(s)

It takes some effort to reframe limiting beliefs so that we can begin acting differently, getting different results, and coming to more positive conclusions about ourselves and the world around us. But it’s worth it. Then we begin to gather real-world evidence to continue undermining the limiting belief. Once past a certain tipping point, the new belief becomes self-reinforcing instead of the old, and the success we’ve always hoped for starts flowing our way.

Just watching David DeAngelo’s Advanced Dating Techniques program, I really like his distinction between Seduction and Attraction:

“Seduction implies tricking, being dishonest, and hiding your motives. Seduction also implies a scarcity mentality. It implies you lack the confidence that women will be attracted to you, and therefore you must resort to cover maneuvers.

Attraction on the other hand is working on yourself, improving yourself to the point where women are magnetically attracted to you. That attraction mechanism gets pushed inside [the man] very quickly.”

When a man invests significant energy into his own personal growth, he ultimately becomes the sort of man that will attract women naturally. This is more authentic, has a more powerful impact on his whole life, and a more positive influence on the lives of those around him, than simply learning a bunch of nefarious seduction techniques ever will.