Insights from the Mind of a Seducer

"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.

Here's one for all the intermediate guys and up -- the ones who've already figured out the fundamentals enough that it's all started slowing down for them and they're better able to see the forest for the trees.

A reader (one who's had mail featured in a couple of articles on here already, in fact), wrote in a thoughtful, insightful break down of what he'd picked up about how I read what women need and give it to them. I'd been meaning to write something up on this, but he put it quite well:

“Basically what I've finally picked up on is how well you read minds. The thing that keeps you in control is knowing exactly what that girl needs to hear. And its funny because this is exactly how most women communicate.

They don't walk around imposing themselves on others they notice what the other person is going through and then converse from there. I've been noticing that I have a great grasp on a lot of things you post but where I have been falling short is in the area of understanding what she NEEDS in that moment you know?

I'll be thinking in my head okay now let's move onto this, gotta move her now... Basically what I've been doing is focusing on what I needed to get done not what she needed.

Now I understand when you say "I can tell she wanted to be moved." Because your actually paying attention and your always asking yourself what does she need right now. It's like when you think in terms of "what does she need?" Everything becomes so clear and you see her as almost like a game to be won.”

And that's pretty accurate. I do notice that most guys blindly and bluntly stumble their ways through interactions with women, and I do keep my own interactions more or less wholly contingent upon what the girl is telling me she needs in any given moment.

But that, of course, is more easily said than done for most men, because most men don't know how to tell what women need.

Instead, they stumble blindly in the dark, hoping to get that one shot in a thousand that they "get lucky" and happen to get all the pieces to line up just right (or have a girl who likes them enough that she doesn't mind if not all of the pieces match up... but how often does that happen?).

Well, I don't think you ought to have to stumble -- and believe me, women would prefer you didn't, too. And that's why I wrote this handbook -- everything you need to start reading the women around you.