Female Mind

I'm a reasonably well-traveled fellow. I've lived on two continents and ventured around on four, with time spent in between on islands in the Pacific and the Atlantic. When you travel a lot, one of the first quandaries you come across is this: how do you get foreign girls who don't speak English?

Well, if you listen to most of your fellow travelers, you learn the local language. If you're in Russia, you learn Russian. Brazil, Portuguese. Columbia, Spanish. Japan, Japanese. After all, you can't very well talk to girls if you neither of you speaks the other's language... right?

And if you can't talk to them, you certainly can't get anywhere with them... isn't that also right?

I'm here to tell you it isn't. It isn't right at all.

And in fact, what you'll generally find is, the most successful guys typically don't speak the girl's language, period. The guys who know the language struggle with moderate success, while men who can't even say "hello" are taking foreign girls to bed by the bushel.

How's it work, and what's going on? That's the subject of today's post. So step right up and listen while I tell you a few tales -- some of my own, and some the tales of a handful of the men I've met along the way...

Wouldn't it be great to have the girl you want green-eyed with envy and madly competing for you?

It'd be awesome... right?

Well, as you know, there are two sides to every coin. On the one side you have the oftentimes huge spike in attraction and investment you gain from a girl when she realizes she's jealous over you.

And on the other side... you risk becoming too aloof, too hard to get, and losing her altogether.

But, no risk, no reward, as they say. Learning how to make a girl jealous can be another mighty weapon in your seducer's arsenal. If you're not careful though, it can be a weapon you end up using with devastating effect... on yourself.

My intention here is to walk you through the mechanics of jealousy, using jealously plotlines to drive attraction and investment, and walking the tightrope between making girls chase you and sending them off ablaze in search of vengeance and validation.

As with any powerful technique, I must of course warn you... caveat emptor. Proceed here at your own discretion -- and at your own risk.

An emotional connection is one of those fleeting, powerful things that can seem all too rare and all too outside one's control. It can seem like it's just chance when you happen upon one -- as if but by the grace of God it came into being.

But it doesn't have to be. Just like succeeding with women in general -- just like figuring out how to launch businesses and succeed financially -- just like anything in life -- the ability to build an emotional connection is something that can be learned.

Most people don't like to hear that. Most people want to think that all in life is pure happenstance and nothing other than fate determines the outcome of their lives. But those of us actively in pursuit of bettering ourselves and of mastering the skills to control our own destinies know better -- that a lot less in life is chance than most folks think.

A lot of it is skill.

And learning to connect with people on an emotional level is one of the most powerful, practical, wide-reaching skills you can possibly learn. If you haven't given much thought to this one before, it's high time you started.

"I'm sorry!"

To me, these are the two words that define the '90s era boyfriend / husband on television situational comedies. I haven't watched television since 2002 (with the exception of the entire series of Lost, which I watched online over the space of a month after getting laid off from work last year -- ah, it was great!), so I don't know if it's still been the same the past decade, but I'd imagine it hasn't changed all that much.

Woman gets upset. Man begs forgiveness. Audience laughs.

You might go so far as to say, "That's just the way it is." I've heard it said that for men being in a relationship means saying you're sorry, even when it wasn't your fault.

Listening to grown men talk that way, in all honesty, makes me cringe.

It does raise an interesting question, though: whether right or wrong, should you apologize? Is it the right course of action -- does it fix things between you and a girl? And what kind of impact does it have on attraction?

I made a terrible mistake once, a long time ago.

I told a girl I loved her before we'd ever kissed, been on a date, or slept together.

I was young, passionate, full of powerful, swirling emotions, and hormones that raged like a fiery dervish. I felt it was a smart move; she'd flirted with me for a long time, had even asked me out long before (I'd been too scared to say "yes"). She had to know, I decided. So, I told her. I told her I loved her.

And I never heard from her again.

Ha, whoops, I thought the next day. That was a mistake.

But, you live and learn. It ended up playing a part in finally motivating me to get my act together and start fixing things in my life with women.

I share this because I had a reader write in to share his story and ask for my take: he's young, like I was; he'd been calling and texting back and forth with a girl like crazy, and they'd shared a few dances. He'd asked her on a date, she'd been coy.

Finally, emotions welling up inside of him, he could no longer keep them pent up inside; and, like the me of yesteryear, he simply had to tell her how he felt.

"You don't see it, do you?" he texted her. "I'm in love with you."

The other day, my girlfriend was upset with me again and creating drama. This is to be expected, as she's a high energy, energetic girl with a lot going on right now; I understand and commiserate. This is how it is with women and drama. But there's one thing she was trying to do that irked me somewhat.

She was trying to change me.

To any man out there who's ever had a girlfriend before, you probably know what I'm talking about. Women universally want men to change. It's only in those rare moments during the honeymoon phase of the relationship -- usually the first 90 days or so -- that this doesn't go on.

You also get a brief reprieve following a major capitulation, but this doesn't last and only breeds more struggles in the long term.

In any event, there's a famous quote about marriage by the eminent physicist (and philanderer, as it turns out) Albert Einstein, which we can pretty easily extrapolate to relationships of all sorts. What Einstein said was this:

"Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not. So each is inevitably disappointed."

Hmm. Guess they should've given him a Noble prize in humanities, too.

A reader recently wrote in to ask me why I thought his text conversations weren't going anywhere. He's been working really hard to get his game tightened down, and thought he was doing well... but here, again, he could feel this girl slipping away. The texting transcript he sent picks up mid-conversation:

Him: You suck with directions. Lol. Are you from the city?

Girl: haha I dont know what the streets are called1 Just know theres one down a side haha. Its by the big bungy thing, down a little street:-)

Him: haha. You suck. Need to get a gps then. Can you cook?

Girl: haha sorry:-) uhmm like simple things. and if I had instructions then yeah lol

Him: Imple things like biting your nails or fun things? I like dangerous stuff:)

Girl: haha as in easy stuff

Girl again:haha as in easy

Him: Im just finished with my engineering project. I think youll find it interesting. Are you a metal head or a classical music type like me?lol

Girl: Haha uhmm, not really... More party side.lol

Him: Im running seminars in the city next week,. We should go grab a coffee and you can come by...

Girl: I have exams and school next week.

Him: Im running it in the weekend. But your missing out! IM hungry. Make me some soup.

Girl: Um, Whats it about?

Then he replied with some brief info about his seminar, and... nothing. She never replied. It was lost. And he didn't know why. Was she just not interested? he wondered.

Actually, she sounds pretty interested early on. How'd he lose her? Well, it's a little more complicated than you might think. And, as the subject of today's post, one of the main problems it turns out is that he wasn't quite teasing this girl the right way. Because this isn't just a texting issue -- it goes deep into how you hold conversations with women in general. And if you aren't teasing women right, you may very well be costing yourself a lot of success with girls you like.