(1) Beginner

You know that feeling. There's this girl you've been chasing forever. You positively, absolutely, can't stop thinking about her. She's the most amazing woman in the world -- you're certain of it. There's never been another one like her.

Her laughter sounds like the delicate tinkling of the finest crystal.

Her voice sounds like the music of the heavens.

The sight of her sets your heart pounding a thousand beats per minute.

You know that if you could just get her, you'd be happy forever and you would never want anything else ever again. Maybe you're not even certain if you believe in marriage or soul mates or "The One" -- but maybe you'd make an exception to all of that for her.

You'd do anything for her.

Well, as you well know by now, I'm not the type to hold punches, sugarcoat things, or sell you fairytales wrapped in gumdrops. So, this isn't per se a post on how to finally get that girl you can't stop thinking about.

Instead, this is a post about how you can wrest back control of your heart, mind, and dating life -- and how you can get yourself to a place where you're truly happy bringing actual women of quality into your life, instead of sitting there pining away for a vision (built more from your ideas of an idealized version of a flawless her than on her her actual self) of That One Special Girl.

A reader writes in asking about attainability:

“Hey Chase, Great blog man, top notch stuff. Never been part of the PUA community, but been doing self improvement (corresponding with my values) for 4 years or so, and your blog and TSM are pretty much the only two I read consistently. I've also read your book, and have a question on attainability. So here's the issue:

Not to sound pretentious or arrogant, but I'm a pretty good looking guy, fantastic shape, fashionable, carry myself well, great job blah blah blah, and I have a lot of symptoms of having much too low of attainability. Only super confident women seem to have the guts to put themselves out there (which can be a good thing, they are my type), make eye contact passing by each other, or even manage a smile after eye contact is made.

Now I am a very pleasant, outgoing person, and I always walk around with at least a pleased look on my face, so it's not like I'm walking around frowning or anything. I guess my question is, how can I raise my attainability through body language or the way I carry myself before words are spoken or even eye contact is made, so that more women are open to me? This isn't in my head, I live in a smaller town (50,000) people, half are college kids (I'm in my late 20's) and countless times friends tell me women ask about me all interested, and I'll end up knowing who they're talking about but have never had these girls so much as make eye contact or smile?! I don't want to walk around smiling like a goofball to make myself seem friendlier, help me man!”

This goes deeper, to the issue of how to make yourself more relatable to people. In this reader's case, he's running into the same problem I used to have a lot -- that only the most confident women feel comfortable around him, and everybody else can't relate. I struggled with that for quite a while myself.

These days though, I'm a pretty darn relatable guy.

And you might be surprised by that, considering my lifestyle should make me all but unrelatable -- frequent international travel (often to places like Cambodia or Monaco instead of the "usual" places like Australia or England), starting up not just one business, but a whole host of them, meeting girls in bars, clubs, airports, and train stations, and a hard-line approach toward friendships and relationships that most people would probably politely describe as "extreme."

Me, relatable? I don't even find the same things enjoyable that most other people do.

Yet, should you ever meet me, chances are we'll get along just fine. We'll laugh; we'll trade stories; and, like so many people I meet, you'll quite possibly end up telling me you feel like we've been friends forever, despite the fact that we'll have met minutes before.

That's because I sat down and put the time into figuring out how to be relatable, both in conversation and even on first appearance. And the great news is, anybody can pull it off -- all it takes is a little effort, and a bit of a push in the right direction to get you started.

Something that can be a great deal of fun to deploy when talking with some new girl is playful banter. You can quickly find yourself in a riveting, electrifying back and forth that leaves both you and her smiling and excited with this fresh new person you've each just met.

However, if you haven't spent as much developing your technique, playful banter can, instead of being a lot of fun, end up being downright headache-inducing. Pop the aspirin and break out the Alka-Seltzer -- you'll need it (or maybe she will).

And even if you have put time into building good wit, there's a good chance -- particularly if you're newer or even intermediate -- that you haven't learned the timing of using that wit and banter in a conversation with a new woman yet -- and that you may very well go over the top, or go for too long, straying into the land of the socially awkward or even calling up out-and-out auto-rejection via over-gaming, thereby costing yourself a girl who otherwise might've been yours.

For that reason, figuring out the rules of bantering properly ends up being quite important for your early game -- you're not always going to deploy your wit in full force with every young woman you meet, but you will with enough of them that having it honed more or less to a razor's edge can end up making the difference between making it to the mid-game with that new pretty girl you like, or having to bow out early.

Thus, this quick and dirty guide on getting down some of the basics of bantering playfully with women.

I tend to keep my focus on this site primarily to things that are as broadly applicable as possible -- things you can do no matter who you are or where you are in life to do better with women.

But the other day I had a reader write in asking about dating in college, and I thought the topic might be on worth getting a post up on. He writes:

“Dear Chase,

First off, terrific website. I haven't found anything on the web like the quality of articles you write and the depth you explore.

I'm 21 and I've finally finished university and I'm back at home. I recently got out of a 3 year relationship which lasted all the way through my time at college. A lot of the growing pains of being a young single and meeting girls has passed me by in this time. I've been on 2 dates in my whole life - both when I was 17 years old.

For a 21 year old guy, what is the best way of throwing myself into single life? Much of the dating advice out there seems aimed for an older audience than myself. It's unlikely I'm going to find girls my age doing the weekly grocery shop for example!

Thanks for any help!”

I shot him back a reply highlighting some of the things I'm going to touch on in this post, but I think there some advice here I can offer guys in college that'll help them meet more girls and succeed with more girls.

And if you're not in college, well, you might just want to give this one a read anyway -- a lot of the things I'm going to recommend you don't necessarily need an alma mater to pull off.

Why is it that most men can't seem to get what they want with women? How come so many men can't get a girl?

A few months back, a friend of mine asked me to author a post on leading women. I put it off for a while, because it's not as sexy a topic as, say, opening or locking in or overcoming objections or dating. Leading's just... a little vague, as far as topics go.

Yes, it's good to be an alpha male, and it's good to have a set process you follow, and to move on fast if a girl isn't following along. But how's that all come into play in a cohesive strategy for getting success with women?

If you'd like to achieve anything resembling consistent, reliable success with women, you're quickly going to realize that leaving things purely up to chance isn't going to cut it. "God helps those who help themselves," goes the saying -- which, boiled down, quite basically means that good things come to the people who go out and actively bring good things into their lives.

In other words, success comes to those who engineer that success.

But still, most folks don't bother engineering anything approximating success. Most average folks sit around waiting for success to find them. And it never does.

For success with women to start occuring for a guy, that has to change for him. So what's it take to advance an average man who can't get a girl into a man who consistently can?

Well, among other things, it takes this: he's got to be leading women.

About a day ago, we had a commentator on the post on how to become romantic who weighed in to let me know that it's silly to try and get better with people, and that most people have better things to do, and that in fact you really should just be yourself, and anyone who doesn't realize how awesome you are is simply intellectually stunted.

Where do people come up with this malarkey?

I know he represents a vanishingly small minority on this site -- and likely was just a passerby -- but this mentality represents the majority of the thought on the subject in mainstream society.

"Just be yourself. If people don't like you for who you are, who needs 'em?"

Quite likely one of the most counterproductive mindsets a man could possibly have. Anyway, I addressed that commentator's individual points pretty thoroughly in the comments section of that article itself, so I won't revisit it here, but I do want to talk about this mentality of "just be yourself" -- and why it's such terrible, terrible advice.