How to be a Hard Target, Pt. I: Dating

In Part I of the series, we look at the hard target dater: the man who can’t be suckered by friend-seekers, flirts, diggers, or climbers.

In the excellent self-defense book Dead or Alive: The Choice is Yours, Geoff Thompson uses the term ‘hard target’ to describe someone who’s a difficult mark for attackers. If you’ve read my article on how to be street smart, you know what I’m talking about (and if you liked that article, you should probably grab Geoff’s book). Essentially, you can turn yourself into someone the bad people just don’t want to mess with.

This article kicks off a three-part series on becoming a hard target not for assault or mugging, but in your romantic and social life. How do you not get suckered by those who seek to sucker?

In each installment of the series, I’ll address a specific social arena where men get duped. The areas we’ll examine are:

1. Dating: when you first meet a girl, get to know her, and take her out on dates (this article)

2. Relationships: once you’re already together with a girl, in a romantic relationship with her (next article)

3. Social Life: non-romantic encounters in the social arena: friends, acquaintances, people with connections (third article)
   

We’ll take a look at why people will try to bilk you, what kinds of people will do this, and why they try things with some people but not others. And finally, we’ll talk about becoming a hard target these people leave alone, and can’t crack if they try.

The Pretexts for Two-Timing

Every two-timer has a pretext for the cons he pulls. Sometimes he tells himself he’s a good guy and he isn’t doing anyone any harm. Sometimes he tells himself this thing he’s doing is bad, but he had no other choice. Sometimes he makes no bones about it and knows he’s doing you a nasty turn, and simply doesn’t care. Often you won’t really know what the case truly is, since the guy who knows what he’s doing, when caught, will typically run for the moral high ground and tell you he’s in the right, or he’ll play your heart strings and say he didn’t know or had no choice.

The primary pretexts for tomfoolery of all sorts include:

• Self-Deceivers: Typical thought: “It won’t do anyone any harm.” This is the individual who knows he’s doing something potentially harmful to someone else, but gives himself the go-ahead because he rationalizes it won’t really harm anybody. The self-deceiver is most likely to be a good person who simply doesn’t fully realize the possible extent of the harm he’s causing. You can get him to stop self-deceiving usually by bringing him face-to-face with the consequences of his actions.

• Justifiers: Typical thought: “I’m only doing it because he put me in this position.” This is the individual who does something he knows is wrong, and to justify it to himself he shifts the blame onto the victim of his actions. If you’ve ever had a girlfriend screw something up, then angrily accuse you of having pushed her to do it, you’ve witnessed justification in action. You can sometimes get people to stop justifying by seizing the moral high ground and playing the blame game right back at them until they knock it off and talk to you rationally. People who really do want to be honest with you will calm down and get rational at this point.
  

• Manipulators: Typical thought: “How do I get this person to do/believe what I’m telling him to?” The manipulator knows he’s manipulating you, and feels zero qualms about it. His level of cognitive dissonance is nil. Unlike self-deceivers, whom you can get to be frank with you once they realize the effects of their actions, or justifiers, who will calm down and compromise if you argue well, you cannot talk a manipulator off of his object. This is different from an honest person (who, assuming he’s strong willed, will stick to his guns as well), because you will notice that unlike the honest person, who sounds like a broken record, simply repeating the same argument again and again because he figures if he can just keep stating the truth it will click for you, the manipulator tests out a variety of approaches when pressed. First he might try cajoling you. Then if that doesn’t work he’ll start blaming you. If you put the blame back on him, he’ll back off and act conciliatory, while still pressing his point: “All right, I was a little hasty, maybe you’re not to blame. But can you see how we still have to do X thing I want you to do?” If you refuse, he will try another persuasion angle.
  

Also worth pointing out is honest people. Honest people will tend to stick to their guns, and will usually avoid using ‘dirty’ methods like blaming other people. They will also tend to avoid anything that is going to be net harmful to others. If you press them on why they want something, you will get the same answer again and again (unlike the manipulator, who rotates through answers seeking one you’ll say yes to).

That doesn’t mean honest people can’t suggest different things; for instance, the girl who really wants you to come out with her this weekend when you keep saying no. She might try different ways to get you excited, but the reason is the same: she wants to hang out with you. It’s only when you see shifting rationales for why someone wants you to do something, coupled with your own suspicion that this thing he wants you to do is not in your best interest, that you should suspect a manipulator.

But do keep in mind: pretexts matter.

If she’s a self-deceiver, you can shake her out of it, with evidence. If she’s a justifier, you can shake her out of it, with arguments. But if she’s a manipulator, you will never change her mind; her entire approach rests on exhausting your ability to fight and finally just giving in to what she wants.

One of the most talented manipulators I know once tried to convince me that “intentions don’t matter”, deep into an argument about whether an action one of our associates had taken was damning or not. His argument was if someone does something right for the wrong reasons, that person is good. If someone does something wrong for the right reasons, he is bad. My argument was if someone does something right for the wrong reasons, all that tells you is he did something good that time, but you have no idea how the stars will align the next time he does something.

Intentions matter because they tell you what to expect from someone in the future – and how on-guard you need to be with this person.

Dating Swindlers: The Common Culprits

The four most common romantic swindlers.

Pretexts out of the way, let’s talk culprits. Who are you most likely to get swindled by in the dating arena?

There are four (4) common operators in the world of dating deception:

1. The Friend: she’s really nice and sweet, but all she wants is to just be friends. Whether she tells you this directly or not is a different story. And even if she does tell you, she’s liable to send you mixed signals anyway – because hey, flirting is fun... And guys often don’t stick around if she doesn’t flirt at least a little bit, after all.

2. The Flirt: you think you’re getting somewhere with her, but in fact all you are to her is a source of narcissistic supply. The flirty girl loves men – she loves seducing men, in particular. Unfortunately for the men she seduces, her seductions rarely end in sex. What she craves is validation, and the men she draws in provide it in droves.

3. The Gold Digger: she’s happy to laugh at your bad jokes and boring stories so long as you take her somewhere nice. She’ll even send you a few signs of interest, just to let you feel like you’re getting somewhere with her. But in fact, the only thing the gold digger cares about is what you pay for for her, whether that be nice dinners, exotic vacations, or name-brand accessories she can show off to her gal pals.

4. The Ladder Climber: if she thinks you have status, she’s on you like bees on a soda straw, trying to be seen with you, get invited to the places you go, and be welcomed into your circle. But what you’ll often find out is that as soon as you’ve given her the social elevation she sought, she trades you in, and shifts her attention to someone else in the circle you’ve welcomed her into – someone higher status than you. You’re left feeling like a Sunday morning condom; “I’ve been used,” you tell yourself. The ladder climber suffers you no vengeance, either – by the time you realize you want revenge (perhaps by excluding her from the group), she’s already attached herself to someone higher up the ladder than you are, and may well get you booted from the group for the trouble, if you try anything.
   

You will note, of course, that each of these women is only a swindler if your object is to date them (with no other pretenses between you).

There are conditions in which your and their desires align perfectly. For example:

• If you only want her as a friend, you’ll have zero problem with her wanting to be your friend

• If you’re happy to flirt and leave it at that, flirty girls can be a lot of harmless fun. Heck, they can even be great warm-ups or wingwomen

• If you don’t mind paying for a woman’s company (and some men of means simply do not mind), then an exchange of food, travel, and gifts for companionship and sex may seem a perfectly fair trade to you. In fact, it might even be desirable – it’s possibly a more straightforward relationship than the alternative; everybody knows what he’s getting. You buy her some knickknacks, and she takes off her knickers

• If you just want a few hot girls to use to make you look good in a group, bringing a couple of ladder climbers along can benefit both of you: they get access to the group, and everyone sees you as the guy who brings the hot girls

Thus, the deception only occurs when your and her desired outcomes are hopelessly misaligned. If she thinks she wants a friend but is open to dating you, deception will be moderate, low, or nonexistent. Or if she is thinking about ladder climbing but decides to stick with you after you welcome her into the group because she likes you, there will be little deceiving.

It’s only when she simply isn’t interested in you at all – and you are in her – that her need to rook you comes out.

How to be a Hard Target as a Dater

Before I give you the ‘how’, let me tell you why it’s good to make yourself a hard target in dating.

The benefits are several:

1. You flip girls you’d otherwise have lost. If she 80% wants to be your friend and 20% is interested in you as a mate, by being a hard target you get the most possible out of that 20% and give yourself the greatest chance at converting her into a lover or girlfriend. Same deal with all the other categories. If she 90% wants to gold-dig you, but 10% thinks she might shack up with you without you giving her a bunch of stuff, you’re in the best position to turn that 10% into 50%, then 100% – and get a far more emotion-based, passionate relationship with her, to boot (which is more fun, in my opinion).

2. You stave off girls you’d never get. Some girls are simply 100% never going to sleep with or date you. These girls are time-wasters through and through (assuming your only object with them is to get to sex / a relationship). You don’t want those girls hanging around sucking up your attention... Attention that you’d otherwise spend pursuing women you might actually get somewhere with. By turning yourself into a hard target, you repel time-wasters, even as you draw in the women who legitimately like you.

3. You save your ego. It does not feel good when that girl who friend zoned you months ago yet whom you continued to hold out hope you could get announces to you that she has a boyfriend now (and it isn’t you). And it feels pretty awful when you reach the end of the date, only to realize the only thing she cares about at this point is who’s paying, or when you bring her to that party and she’s ditched you for some more-gregarious guy within the first half hour. By becoming a hard target, you get to avoid the testicle-shrinking realization that you were the guy who offered himself as a stepping-stone for a girl on her way to sex with someone who isn’t you.
   

So, let’s talk about how you become a hard target in the dating arena.

The steps are trifold:

1. Stop offering so much platonic value
2. Seek to escalate compliance
   
3. Always be closing
   

One of these is defensive, while the other two are offensive. And by ‘offensive’, I mean that in both definitions of the word – that you will be on offense, and that you may well offend... assuming her desired outcome is the polar opposite of yours, of course.

This risk of offending her is why many men won’t do these things, and exactly why you should.

I’ll detail them each below.

A. Stop Offering So Much Platonic Value

“If I feed her enough, maybe I’ll get the bang!”

Platonic value includes things like:

• Listening to her problems (friend girl)
• Being lots of fun for her (friend girl, flirty girl)
• Paying for things for her (gold digger)
• Inviting her places / introducing her to people (ladder climber girl)
  

... not to mention paying tons of undue attention to her (any of these girls).

The less platonic value you have to offer, the more she is forced to either chase after you, choose you as a lover, or abandon ship. All of those are good outcomes for you.

If she chases, you get to decide what she has to do to get the thing she wants. She hands you the bargaining power. It’s often more fun for her, too – she gets the uncertainty of not knowing, which she cannot enjoy when you are chasing and she is deciding.

If she chooses you as a lover, that’s good for obvious reasons.

And if she decides to bail, well... Now you’re free to go find a girl whose interests align with your own.

Note for beginners: I do NOT recommend you nix your platonic value if you’re still a beginner and need more reference points with girls. When you’re starting out, it’s most important for you to pick up good experiences with girls and get comfortable with them. If you abandon your platonic value, you will get far more polarized reactions from women, at least until you are talented enough with them. Before you’re all that talented with them though, you’ll find some women are into you, but many don’t have time for you – because if you don’t offer much sexual value yet (or boyfriend value), and you kill your platonic value, then what value do you have to offer?

Usually the best option for newer guys is to slowly dim the platonic value you have to offer as you improve with women. The less you offer, while still offering value and being attainable, the more women will chase you to get value out of you that they can tell you have, yet aren’t necessarily just giving out freely to anyone who wants it. And the more they will pursue you as a lover or boyfriend, instead of just someone to use for friendship, flirtation, freebies, or self-promotion.

B. Seek to Escalate Compliance

“Oh no, he did not just ask me if he could see my necklace.”

The one thing that is absolute kryptonite to women who aren’t interested in you is compliance.

Compliance asks a woman to get off the fence and toss her lot in with yours. Her response shows you how willing she is, how ready she is, and gives you a glimpse of her true emotion for you.

You’ll see different reactions when you go for compliance:

• She complies willingly: either she’s into you, or she’s polite (or wants something from you) and you haven’t asked her for too much so she decides to give it
  

• She complies, with discomfort: you’ve asked her for more than she’s comfortable with. It may be she likes you but you’ve escalated compliance too fast. Or it may be she doesn’t like you ‘like that’, but doesn’t want to lose you, either, so complies

• She deflects: deflection (e.g., you ask her for a sip of her drink and she says, “Uhhh... Hey! Is your scarf a Burberry?”) is a sign of unwillingness to comply + some degree of neediness. The neediness could be that she likes you but you’ve asked for more than she’s comfortable with yet, or it could be that she wants you for one of those other roles we talked about early and doesn’t want to lose you to the realization she won’t sleep with you

• She shuts you down: the crafty little smile followed by a sultry “No”, or just her shaking her head. It can be that she’s a girl with hard rules who isn’t ready for what you proposed yet, or it could be she’s a veteran of the game and a hardcore female player who loves the game. If she seems disgusted or resentful that you asked, though, rather than her enjoying it, blushing, or flirting, odds are she doesn’t have an interest in you that extends beyond the platonic
  

So, just because she complies she isn’t necessarily into you, and just because she resists doesn’t necessarily mean she isn’t. Instead, you must look for the underlying emotions and reactions and read them in concert with her actions.

How can you tell whether she is responding the way she’s responding because she’s into you or not into you? The best way is to pay attention to how enthusiastically she responds, if her resistance masks excitement (“Ooh, he really likes me!”) or disgust (“Ew, what is this guy thinking?”), or whether she comes across as if she sees herself as ‘in charge’ of the interaction or not (pro tip: all four of our common culprits above will tend to view themselves as the leader of the interaction, in control of the frame; the reason they dislike you asking for investment is because the follower is not supposed to ask the leader for investment).

As you grow better at smoothly escalating investment, women’s responses to your compliance requests become more and more congruent with their emotions toward you. That is, a girl who likes you becomes a lot more likely to comply when you ask her for things; girls who were on the fence become more likely to decide they like you and comply; and girls who are not into you will make themselves more quickly known.

Note for beginners: again, be wary with this one. When you’re a beginner, you’ll tend to be uncalibrated, which means you may well overshoot with your compliance requests. If you ask for too much compliance, too soon, you’ll get “no”s from all but the most interested women – including many you otherwise could’ve flipped with better game and smooth compliance escalation. Unfortunately, there’s no easy solution to both be a hard target and improve your results as a beginner; you’re going to have to operate in that hazy gray zone in the middle for a while where you wonder if you’re being too soft on girls and giving women who resist compliance with you too many chances, because the alternative (immediately ejecting from girls who resist any compliance you ask them for) is going to mean you never develop your ability to gauge and get investment from girls all that well.

C. Always be Closing

You know the mantra: ABC – “Always Be Closing.” We talked about it in my article on sales and dating, and I’ll stress it again here. The biggest difference between men who get suckered into massive time and effort dumps with girls who won’t put out versus men who walk right by these gals is that the former don’t close, while the latter always do.

What’s closing in your dating life? It is:

• Asking for her phone number
• Asking her on an instant date
• Asking her on a proper date
  
• Asking her to kiss you
• Asking her to come home with you
• Asking her to sleep with you
  

While they’re not generally considered ‘closing’, for our purposes here I’d also include asking her to move with you or asking her to change venues with you, too.

Closing has a very particular function: it forces her to assess whether she has enough of whatever it is she wants from you to proceed to the thing you’re asking. Since you will seek to progress her along the path of a seduction, she’s going to ask herself if she has whatever she’s looking for from you to continue on down that road. That may be connection, it may be humor, it may be good times, it may be sexual tension... But whatever it is, if she feels like she’s getting it, or will get it by complying, she’ll go along with the close. If she doesn’t feel like she’s getting it, or won’t get it by complying (or if the price is too high – e.g., the girl who wants to be friends is convinced she will get your friendship if she sleeps with you, but she just doesn’t want to sleep with you and your friendship to her isn’t worth enough to have sex with someone she doesn’t want to have sex with), she won’t.

Girls who like you will tend to be excited you’re closing, assuming you close in an attractive way and don’t wait too long or, on the other hand, jump the gun. Girls who don’t like you like that will seek to deflect, or give you that same, “Erm... No,” expression girls who dislike you do when you request investment. Again, deflections and declines aren’t necessarily a sign a girl doesn’t like you (you might’ve asked too soon, or maybe your offer wasn’t especially appealing and you should try a different offer); you must read the subtext.

If she’s considering it, you’re in good shape.

Note for beginners: like with compliance requests and removing platonic value, this is another one where you want to be real careful. If you decide that “Chase Amante said I should always close” and start walking around asking every woman home after you’ve talked to her for two or three minutes, you’re going to get a lot of hard declines, including from women who might otherwise had gone home with you had you spent a few hours with them instead of a few minutes. I would encourage you, if your radar isn’t too built up yet, to spend a little time in the trenches, take the lumps that come with hanging in there even when she resists your close attempts, and testing different options with the girl to see if she declines your closes because you asked too soon or too late, or offered something she wasn’t keen on (e.g., you invited her to go home and listen to your David Bowie collection, but she secretly loathes David Bowie).

Once your radar is solid you can begin to be firmer and firmer with women on your response when they resist a close, because you’ll be better able to tell whether a girl resists because she isn’t ready yet, or because she simply isn’t interested.

Joys of the Hard-Target Dater

When you’re a hard target as a dater, you get to spend a lot more time with girls who legitimately like you and are attracted to you, and clear out the riff-raff who want to use you for ends you have no interest in. You’re better able to flip girls who were on the fence into ones who are now sold on you. And, perhaps best of all, you save your ego, build momentum (by locating and interacting with women who are actually into you), and sleep with more girls.

You’ll even discover the women you like start to chase you, because as you become a harder target, you also give less while asking for more. The secret, of course, is giving her enough for her to chase in the first place – if you give her too little, she won’t chase. The experienced hard target dater gives girls just enough; he inhabits the Goldilocks zone of dating.

Lastly, the hard-target dater is the man who reserves all his best value for the women who give him their best value. Thus, hard-target dating is the most cooperative, enjoyable, pleasurable way to interact with women who actually like you... Because it tells every other girl around that she’d better either play ball, or give up any illusions of getting whatever it is she desires of you that isn’t physical intimacy.

Make sure you keep your eyes out for the next part in this series, on making yourself a hard target against relationship manipulators – those girls who will use you, abuse you, and leave you ditched, drained, and broken at the end of a relationship where you don’t even know what happened.

Ciao for now,
Chase Amante