Self-individuate
January 23, 2012 | Filed Under Relationships | Leave a Comment
One of the great things about a relationship is the opportunity to share life together with another person that you value. But many people mistakenly allow their relationships to become too wound-up. Too co-dependent. Too stifling. Too possessive.
Obviously, when you are in a relationship, you want to enjoy all the pleasures that a relationship affords that you can’t have as a single guy (i.e a history of adventures, shared goals, nightly massages and hopefully lots of wild sex;). So don’t live *as if* you are single. It’s a bad sign if the two of you have completely separate existences.
There’s a middle road. You can share life together without sharing all of life together.
Basic rule: you don’t want to be joined at the hip. You MUST allow each other the freedom to have separate interests and separate time and separate friends, in addition to the life you share together.
Here are some tips for self-individuation (for guys it mostly comes down to not letting your partner become your mom):
1. Learn how to cook
2. Shop for yourself.
3. Take pride in how you look.
4. Keep your space clean
5. Have a guys night out
6. Play recreational sports
7. Work out, keep your body fit
8. Maintain your ability to interact/flirt with other women (50% of the guys who get married find themselves needing that skill down the road)
Fatally Unattractive
January 22, 2012 | Filed Under Relationships | Leave a Comment
- Guys who say “I don’t know, what do you want to do?”
- Guys who always walk behind their partner
- Guys who let other people order for them
- Guys who say “What are you getting?” and then order the same thing
- Guys who are constantly initiating PDA (needy)
- Guys who put things off until later
Fix: Self-individuate. Take command. Do your own thing. Let her come along for the ride.
It’s All About Attraction
January 22, 2012 | Filed Under Relationships | Leave a Comment
You may be an idealist about love and have all these expectations about what it should be like. And you may see love failing all over the place and think you can beat the odds… because, well, you are special. You’re wrong. There are good reasons for the cycles of love and relationships. And most of them have to do with natural cycles of attraction.
Let’s keep it simple. The kind of love that everyone is after is the kind that provides two things: 1) excitement/pleasure and 2) reliability/safety/comfort.
When people lock-in to a relationship (for the reliability), they also want the excitement to continue but they make the fatal mistake of assuming that their relationship is somehow specially endowed with a self-sustaining, invincible force field… it was meant to last … so they go into cruise control. But cruise control always, always, always, ends up with the car crashed into some tree or electric pole or some other obstacle (maybe the random, big, fat cow that slipped through the fence looking for greener grass). Sometimes it’s a fatal crash.
There is only one thing that you need to do once you’re in a relationship: work on staying attractive. Think of it like a hobby. Keep yourself in shape. Be passionate about something. Dress well. Groom well. Make decisions (i.e. “Hey, let’s go out tonight” maybe on a random Tuesday).
By working to stay attractive, you’re not only investing in the current relationship, but you’re insuring yourself against things that are outside of your control (i.e. finding yourself single at the age of 40, like my favorite comedian Louis CK).
Some Random Relationship Tips
January 22, 2012 | Filed Under Relationships | Leave a Comment
- Your girlfriend should not be the person you go to when you need to vent.
- Don’t expect your girlfriend to be your mom
- Sickness is not attractive. Even less if you’re whining about it.
- Don’t broadcast your weaknesses.
- Restrained vulnerability is ok (show that you have a heart). But frequent vulnerability diminishes you.
- Don’t seek sympathy from your girlfriend.
- Don’t play the victim (displays weakness)
- Don’t complain incessantly around her
- Don’t appear out of control
- Don’t suffocate with attention or expectations
- Pace things out.
- Feel out the natural, healthy rhythm of the relationship, and let it ebb and flow
- Maintain individual interests
- Aim for an “80% my life”, “20% her” division of thought and time and effort
- Sometimes it’s better to just not say anything
- Wait for her to initiate contact at least 50% of the time, preferably more
Most of these tips boil down to these principles:
1. Don’t try to meet all of your needs in one person.
2. Let other people in your life who love you unconditionally (and less based on attraction) provide you comfort
3. You’re number one task in a romantic relationship is to remain attractive, so it’s important to learn what’s not attractive or appropriate within such a relationship.
Don’t divert your eyes
January 16, 2012 | Filed Under Relationships | Leave a Comment
I’ll always insist that the number one issue that most guys face with women is that they have the wrong phase frame. You want to be the one phasing her and not the other way around.
Being phased happens in a number of ways, both consciously and sub-consciously. Rather than focus on the conscious aspects today I’ll focus on the sub-conscious.
Next time you’re walking down the street, pay attention to your natural biological reactions to various people. Old people. Business people. Fat people. Skinny people. Ultra-attractive people. Just take note. Be aware of the different ways your body reacts.
Now, it is very common for guys to experience the following when they see a woman they are attracted to:
- quickening heart beat
- increased walking speed (and irregular steps)
- heightened awareness
- diversion of eyes
- possibly a second look
These are all physiological reactions. Even the second look is normally a very primitive behavior. However, all of these physiological reactions are disadvantageous in the current social environment.
The good news is that you can practice gaining control over these things. Here are some tips for doing that:
1. Slow your breathing down (and your walking … you’re not in a rush)
Calmness is very attractive. A slower breath leads to less anxiety and less outwardly expressed nervousness. And by removing any awkward, jittery movement that comes from the heightened awareness, you’ll stand out as being unphaseable.
2. Smile confidently
You’re in control of the situation and everything’s cool.
3. Look at her knowingly
Assume that she’s attracted to you and look at her as if you know she is.
4. Don’t divert your eyes down
Let her do that. But don’t flinch. Beware: it could get awkward. Just maintain that calm, knowing smile (as if you are king), keep looking at her for 2-3 seconds, and then if you need to, slowly, calmly, divert your eyes to the right or left (not down) while maintaining the smile or even magnifying it a bit. But preferably you just walk through keeping your eyes looking forward.
[I have another tip on this topic but I'd rather not make it public so feel free to contact me using the contact form on my site if you'd like to know more].
At the end of the day, gaining control over your own state of being is one of the keys to attraction. Practice being calm and in control. Minimize the negative physiological effects of an attractive woman, and she will likely become intrigued.
Don’t try to impress
January 15, 2012 | Filed Under Relationships | Leave a Comment
The world’s complicated. And our words often overstate the case.
You’ll hear women say they hate when guys try to impress them. But really, they do want to be impressed. Women are longing to be impressed. Just not the way most guys *try* to impress.
What they really mean is that they are not attracted to a “try hard” or a “chameleon”. A “try hard” isn’t taking the right phase frame. He feels that he needs to prove himself to the girl and comes across as a weak, empty fraud. A “chameleon” shapes his interests, hobbies, etc. around the girl he is attracted to in an attempt to appear more compatible than he really is. Girls can sniff this stuff out from a mile away.
Yet girls want to be impressed. They want a man whose value as a potential mate overflows from his very presence. They want a guy who just feels right.
So what do you do as a guy?
You be your best self. It’s that simple. And if being your best self isn’t good enough right now, then you work your ass off improving yourself… really improving yourself (not faking it). Months and years, not hours. And if you do the work to make yourself better, your confidence will improve, you’ll feel a sense of peace and calm with the world. You won’t be easily phased.
And it’s the guys who radiate a natural, life-worn confidence who actually *do* impress women. Without trying.
A Simple Exercise in Matter of Factness
December 14, 2011 | Filed Under Relationships | Leave a Comment
There was a certain transition I went through in my life that was pivotal. I don’t know exactly how or why it happened, but it was very important and I’m glad to have gone through it.
For much of my life I felt compelled to prove myself to other people. To all people. In other words, I felt the burden to make all people like me.
But as I’ve gotten older, things have changed. I now, in a certain way, expect people to prove themselves to me. And I don’t care one bit if people don’t like me. I am who I am, and quite frankly, I really like who I’ve become.
So I expect people to prove themselves to me (if they want to be part of my life). Not in a judgmental or condescending kind of way. Just very matter of factly. I don’t like being around all types of people. There are only certain types of people that I enjoy being with. And since I don’t have the time or energy to entertain every person in my vicinity, I might as well pick and choose and be selective.
Here’s an exercise for the guys out there:
Take the girl you have your eyes on. Now make a long list of all the stuff you don’t like about her. (i.e. take her off the pedestal your mind has put her on)
*************
To be successful with girls you have to burn through the fog of their mystique, become selective, recognize their shortcomings, be able to tease them and recognize them for what they really are: normal human beings with normal flaws and normal weaknesses.
The Myth of Pure Love and Transparency
December 14, 2011 | Filed Under Relationships | Leave a Comment
I don’t know if it’s a desire to experience God in another human being, or what. But there is this deep seated desire to experience pure, unadulterated, fully transparent love with another human being.
I recommend against it.
My dad gave me some very wise advice that I failed to take heed of for a long time: some things are not meant to be shared.
Some basic rules:
1. Drop your perfect expectations regarding love when it involves another human being. They won’t live up to it.
2. Understand that human beings aren’t built to operate under conditions of transparency. Maintaining some mystery/enigma does a whole lot more for maintaining attraction/connection.
3. Don’t make your love conditional on the other person fitting your ideals. Be willing to let them be themselves. And be willing to NOT like them and to walk away.
At the end of the day: let people be themselves, and either love them as they are, or be prepared to know that you don’t like them as they are and that you don’t want them to be part of your life any longer.
I wanted you to just go for it
December 10, 2011 | Filed Under Relationships | Leave a Comment
It’s that tightrope you’ve got to walk as a guy.
100% of Animal Sex is Rape – Louis C.K.
December 9, 2011 | Filed Under Fun, Laughter, Relationships | Leave a Comment
This is something that human males in civilized societies have to man up to. I’m not casting judgment… and there’s no reason to feel shame. I’m just observing: each human male has inherited this desire to pretty much screw every female in his proximity who’s moderately fit for having babies. Just like 100% of the male mammals out there.
It’s one of the only good reasons to get married for men outside of a desire to have a stable family. But now things are complicated because not even marriage guarantees you an outlet for your maleness (nor a stable family). So hey, if you do get married, make sure it’s NOT to a woman who’s got a thing or twelve against frequent sex.
The 2nd half of this video is priceless (but EXPLICIT):
