Emotions

Why do guys get needy for girls? Neediness stems from approval seeking and/or expectation… Yet it’s not an emotion you want.

Neediness happens when you feel under threat.

It’s a sign one lacks something... but wants it – desperately.

Yet desperation is a big neon sign to vultures, and a repellant to attractive, good-hearted folks.

The most successful men in the world have a different air about them, and they also tend to do extremely well with women. Some think these men drink a special potion. Or maybe they were born gifted with women. Right?

But what if they just aren’t needy with women and don’t need women around to feel happy with their lives? Think of gay men, for instance, and why girls absolutely adore them. Girls tell them all kinds of stories, touch them in all kinds of ways. Part of this is because gay men are freer with their sexualities around women, and they naturally have strong fundamentals; they also do not desire women at all! They freely express themselves in attractive and honest ways around women, but they have zero desire to acquire anything from them.

Most men, when around women and in the pursuit of women, want something from them. They do not wish to be with women for the sake of being with women (and by this, I am also talking about sex, because sex is something women want, too). However, most men have a goal in their minds whether it be sex with her, to date her, or to add her on as a girlfriend, but they frequently do this without creating the framework for her to desire the same thing.

It is thus our task as men to not want anything from women. Instead, we must present frames and an attitude toward women that gets the women we desire on the same page as us. When a woman wants the same things as a man, then both parties are in alignment and can move forward together.

I read an amazing book recently: Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff. I plan to write a full book review on it. One of the key concepts Oren discusses in his book is the idea of neediness versus non-neediness. Here’s a quick description of what neediness is and why it’s so terrible:

““Classic validation-seeking behavior. Signals of desperation... giving any hint of neediness or any signs of desperation, plainly put, is like saying, ‘I’m holding a bomb that could go off at any minute.’ Everyone will respond by going on the defensive. Their first reaction is – Run!

Self-protection is an unconscious reaction that comes from the crocodile brain.... Neediness triggers fear and uncertainty, causing the target’s croc brain to take over – but not in a good way. It’s goal is to prevent further threat by effectively blocking out the higher-level brain, which likes to debate and consider and analyze. No time for that. Threat requires immediate action.

Neediness is a signal of a threat.... Neediness results in avoidance.”

(p. 161)

Different men approach meeting girls from wildly different paradigms. What does your paradigm say about you – and how’s it impact your success?

The other day, commenting below Alek’s fourth installment on his series about meeting girls in gay bars, a reader named BMontana remarked:

“[A]s a man, I not only want to get laid but I also want a woman to chose me over other straight guys, it’s an ego thing I guess. Now I wouldn’t mind picking up a girl in a gay bar if I was 100% sure I would succeed but still knowing that I am one of the few non gay guys won’t give me the satisfaction that I would have gotten when picking up a woman in a regular bar.”

It’s an interesting girl-getting paradigm: I’m most satisfied with a pickup if the girl chooses me over other men.

At first I mistook BMontana’s paradigm for: I’m most satisfied with a pickup if I vanquish other men. But I realized that is yet another paradigm. BMontana wants to feel picked by the girl over other offers, rather than to defeat other men in a battle of skills, wit, or will.

What I’d like to do today is to explore the different potential paradigms a man may have when it comes to securing new women. Some of these paradigms are more helpful than others; however, I will not present them in order of effectiveness.

Instead, we’ll talk a bit about what makes a paradigm more or less effective, and then we’ll discuss the seven (7) paradigms a man may use. Note that your paradigm will tend to be your default; when you operate from a paradigm, it is how you normally interact with the opposite sex.

The paradigm you inhabit colors your dating world: how you think about women, you interpret the signs and signals they give you, and how successful (or not) you are, in various situations, with various women.

Over time, a once-great relationship may get, well… boring. If you’re in a stale relationship, does that mean it’s over?

Being in a long-term relationship is a pretty big accomplishment.

It’s something most guys strive to eventually find, and there are a lot of benefits that come along with it.

However, if you’ve ever been in a long-term relationship, or you’re currently in one, then you know it requires a lot of work.

Because there are two people involved, there are a lot of moving parts. And as Chase already wrote, most long-term relationships tend to move through 4 different phases:

Beginning (blissful) ? Taming (fraught) ? Boredom (grinding) ? End (painful)

Today I want to write about the “boredom” phase – also known as the “stale” phase – and what you can do about it if you’re in the thick of it.

Girls have guys read too much into things sometimes. Or even chase them around. The result? Women can become oversensitive to “creepy” behavior.

In my first post regarding the lessons I have learned from gaming in the gay environment, a user named Agent asked the following question:

“Hey Alek,

Could you elaborate more on the creepy approaches vs. the good ones? It’s actually very interesting you were in a situation where you could examine the scene from a woman’s point of view. By the way, thank you for your reply in your previous post about approaching in day game! You mentioned very subtle approach signals from girls. I don’t seem to notice any except the very obvious ones. Could you expand here, on the subtle signs? ... Generally, I feel confident to approach when the girl is giving me strong eye contact and/or smiling. This does not happen that much often though.”

To give you some context, this question was posted in a thread in which I covered some dating and seduction lessons I learned from spending time picking up women in LGBT venues. In that post, I briefly mentioned how being approached by gay men in those venues gave me some perspective on how to better calibrate my own approaches to women.

I will start this post by sharing a story of mine, then I’ll discuss a number of things that make an approach good or bad. At the end of this post, I will sum up what makes a good approach.

Your gut usually knows what the right thing to do on a date is. The challenge for many guys is learning to be in tune with that gut sense.

A few weeks ago, I found myself grabbing drinks with a girl I met on a dating app. She was pretty cute, a career girl through and through. While texting beforehand, she mentioned she had been working weekends and late nights, but she still made time to meet me on a Sunday evening after another 8-hour day in an 80-hour work week.

I arranged for her to meet me in my area at a lounge just a five-minute walk from my place.

I ran a great game over drinks. We were laughing and vibing at a high energy level the whole time; we talked about Fifty Shades of Grey and sex for a bit, I shared some adventurous stories, and we developed a passionate energy. Forty minutes into it, we got a second round of drinks and I started holding her hand. She was gripping back firmly, and we held hands periodically for twenty minutes. Effectively, she was complying and submitting, and I was firmly in control.

After an hour or so, I suggested we bounce and go grab a snack nearby. She agreed but also said she had to be at a friend’s house in an hour and a half; apparently there was some drama she wanted to clear up. We soon left the lounge holding hands and walking really close.

A woman’s rules are never absolute. Often they aren’t even guidelines. Once a man understands this, his entire way of interacting with women changes.

Ever have a girl tell you about some rule of hers?

Maybe she says she never has sex on the first date. Or perhaps a man needs to pay for meals with her to have any chance with her. Or she might tell you she never ever cheats on a boyfriend and will under no circumstances date one man until she’s broken up with the other.

If you’re new to dating, there’s a high chance you hear things like this from women and just accept it. “Okay, that’s her rule. I guess I can’t date this girl. Or I need to work within her rules.” You might give up on girls who offer you incompatible rules. Or you may slow way down on them because of this (“Guess I’d better take her on 20 dates first”).

But I’ll tell you a secret: once you’ve been around girls for a bit, you cease to pay much attention to women’s rules.

Then once you’ve been women for a while, you often start to get excited when women tell you their rules. A woman’s rules are an excellent chance to make her do the opposite of whatever it is she said she won’t do, and love every second of it.

Is this immoral though? Won’t it cause a crisis of self in the girl, if you make her bend or break her own rules? Shouldn’t you respect women’s rules?

No, and for one reason: women aren’t men. And what constitutes a ‘rule’ for her is very different from what constitutes a ‘rule’ for you.

Jadedness and cynicism can go hand-in-hand with the playboy lifestyle. But they don’t need to; it’s more effective to bring light.

Sometimes I encounter a funny problem with guys.

Their fundamentals are in good shape. They have reams of passive value and are all around attractive men, if you go by appearances.

And they’re great on the technical / social aspect of meeting women. Their game is tight, they move confidently through the seduction process, and they have great technique.

Yet they have this nagging issue where they consistently fail to get results they want.

Maybe they get laid, but not with the girls they want. Or they get the girls they want, but they won’t hang around. Or maybe they do everything right, they think, but women reject them far too much.

It’s bizarre, because everything looks good on paper with the guy. But he just isn’t doing all that great.

Then you get to know the guy a bit better and you figure it out: oh. He’s negative.

It’s just a little mindset difference. Negative vs. positive. Wouldn’t think it’d have much impact on your dating success, right? But it does – it has a large influence.

Today we’re going to examine why.