Relationship 101

As I've involved myself more and more in the world of start up businesses, I'm finding myself increasingly involved in close relationships with dynamic, intelligent people who are accustomed to calling the shots... just like me. Inevitably, this leads to blow ups, power struggles, and all kinds of messy issues, very similar to the fighting in a relationship you see of the romantic variety.

I've been comparing a lot of what I've experienced here to the fighting I've gone through in my own romantic relationships and that I've witnessed in the relationships of friends, students, and others, and I've started teasing out some really interesting correlations.

What I'm realizing is that fighting in a relationship - everything from when women test men to a lot of the underlying rationale behind women and drama - arises out of a handful of required ingredients.

Have you ever noticed that in almost every relationship… sooner or later, but often right from the start or at least very early… one of the two partners is more emotionally involved than the other? And that it's invariably the other of the two who retains the most relationship control?

That one often seems to be more invested, more in love, more interested… that there always seems to be a certain lack of balance?

This phenomenon is what psychologists call a “Passion Trap”, and it has been explained in great detail in Dean C. Delis’s excellent book about the topic, The Passion Trap: Where is Your Relationship Going?, which I think everybody should read in high school… it is THAT important to understanding relationships.

But in the meantime, let me give you a primer… and some insights we “professional seducers” have come to, that psychologists haven’t even written about yet.

A friend of mine asked me my opinion on how to get a girlfriend the other day, and as I’m giving him my advice, I thought this might interest you as well.

Some guys want to get a girlfriend, for whatever reason…

• Maybe you’re just looking to have steady company, or you’d like regular intimacy with a girl that’s more than just a friend with benefits

• Maybe you want to find a deeper emotional connection, or you want to have somebody to snuggle up with over the winter

• Maybe you want to take a break from “the game”, or maybe you want to get married and have kids?

Whatever the motives, here’s how to get a girlfriend, in 5 steps… and while this may contrast with advice in other articles on how to seduce women quickly, it actually doesn’t differ that much… you’ll see.

Sometimes, it seems like an impossible to world to live in when you're trying to follow the mantra of “don’t hurt a girl.” The people on TV tell you you’re no good if you sleep with a woman only to realize she isn’t the girl of your dreams. But if the woman realizes that herself - that you aren’t Mr. Right - and walks off, that’s A-OK for her to do. And if a man sleeps with a lot of women nowadays, he’s a dangerous playboy. But if a woman does the same thing with men, she’s a tiger - a vixen - a veritable icon of the modern age. What gives?

“I don’t want to use women, and I definitely don’t want to hurt them.”

“I don’t want to get involved with many different women because that would be wrong.”

“I don’t want to lead women on or give them false hopes.”

If these thoughts (or something similar) have ever crossed your mind – this article is for you.

The question of the century (or at least 2012): is it WRONG to sleep with many girls?

I tend to focus primarily on pick up and seduction on the blog here, and only infrequently touch on relationship topics, particularly the long term relationship. I write to what I think most folks are interested in, and I generally find it more fun these days to talk about meeting new women anyway. This might belie the fact though that I got started on all this back in 2005 with a focus primarily on building wonderful and amazing long term relationships.

A reader writes in:

“Hey Chase,

I've read and applied all of your techniques for a good few months along with what i've already known / practiced and it's worked me wonders. Now though, after my last fling, there's this new girl I'm after. She's different though, more popular at my college than most others, the academic, social, sporty type.... Yea, a more difficult target.

Anyways, when you're dealing with a girl that you want a long term relationship with, do you still do the same things you do with shorter term ones?

I want to move fast but I don't think she's the type to follow that quickly, I might be wrong, but I'm just actually really scared I'll screw this up because for the first time in a long time, I care about the results. One important question though. When and how often should I meet her if she already feels comfortable around me. Should i still keep things brief? Play hard?

I think this area is something that can add more dynamic. Girls that you want to chase and be with you longer

cheers”

The main question I see here is this one: "... when you're dealing with a girl that you want a long term relationship with, do you still do the same things you do with shorter ones?"

And the quick answer to that question is: yes, yes you most certainly do.

Reckless of me, you say? I must not know long term relationships, you retort? Or perhaps it's that I only ever date loose, easy women, and that these other girls -- these ones you, the reader (not the fellow who wrote in above; "you" as in "everyone reading this right now"), are interested in -- they're different from those loose, easy women who give in to my rapid seductions. They don't fall for such things; they're better than that.

Well, you know me; I'm here to bust your bubble, free your mind, and get you operating on a higher level. So if you were thinking that moving slowly and carefully was the key to getting a long term relationship with the girl of your dreams, you were sure of it, it was an unbreachable fortress of certainty, even, this post is going to tear down that castle in your head and build back up a gleaming new one that casts aside idealism and actually solidly works.

Tell me if you've ever been here before: you're talking to your girlfriend, or a girl you've started dating, or even (if she's really got gall) a girl you just met... and she starts nagging you, persistently, repeatedly, and annoyingly about something. She just won't let up.

I wrote this today to answer the question of how to deal with a nagging woman.

We've talked on here about angry women, and we've gone in-depth on women and drama, but this is something different. Nagging doesn't come from anger, and it isn't an attempt to stir up drama. Nagging is its own animal altogether.

Women nag all the time -- whether you're the spouse they've been together with for twenty years, or they've just met you that night. Usually men simply get frustrated at this, sigh deeply, and throw their hands up. I'm a strong believer that throwing your hands up is never the path to success though -- and this post is designed to help make sure you never have to (at least not when it comes to nagging!).

So if you're ready to stop nagging and get yourself on a smooth, even keel with the women you meet and the women in your life, read ahead.

"It's odd that men feel they must protect women, since for the most part, they must be protected from men."

- Abigail Duniway

One of the true but uncomfortable facts of life is that men and women treat each other the same way they treat other resources -- food, money, shelter, possessions. "You are mine," goes the thinking, much of the time. Or, alternatively, "You should be mine."

You'll see this in women to some degree, both with guys they want as providers and with guys they want as friends (curiously, women don't seem as fixated on "keeping" men in the lover category), but where you'll really see it a lot is with men -- particularly, the kind of man who doesn't get the kind of success with women he needs to feel that women are an abundant resource.

That kind of man is what you might call a "white knight." And he sees it as his mission in life to "save" women he views as "damsels in distress" -- only to make them his, of course.

If you ask me, this "pretend heroism" is a particularly sleazy way to try and get girls.

I'll share a personal anecdote: while I was out of town a few months back, my girlfriend, in a stressful position then, took to confiding in people about, well, everything that could possibly bother her. And, of course, as often happens in relationships, one of the primary things she confided about was me.

As it were, one of the folks she confided to turned out to be a real white knight. He was a photographer on a shoot she did; while she modeled, she also talked. And she vented about me. And this noble, heroic man, he decided that my girlfriend needed to be "saved" from me.

"I have to be honest, while we were shooting photographs today, I felt something for you," he told her in an email message afterward. "I want to take care of you," he continued. "This guy, your boyfriend, he doesn't realize what he's got. Maybe because he's too young -- he doesn't know how to value a woman as amazing as you are. I would treat you so well," he told her. "I want to take care of you after you break up with your boyfriend."

Sigh... I go away for a few weeks, and this is what I get, huh? Here he comes to save the day.