(2) Intermediate

These are questions millions of men scratch their head over every day… should you touch her on the date, and if so, how much?

Will she think you’re creepy if you touch her too much… and how much IS too much?

Will she think you’re a shy wimp if you don’t touch her enough… and how much IS enough?

Let’s have a look at what science has to say on how to touch women… what happens to a woman physiologically when you touch her, what kinds of hormones get released and how does this affect the way she will FEEL about YOU?

Dominance is a touchy topic. It's positively loaded with cultural baggage - in the West, we're averse to both the idea of being dominant over others and of others being dominant over us. It has all kinds of ill-favored connotations that most would rather just avoid. I'm throwing all of that out today though and talking to you about how to be a dominant man, political correctness and sensitivity aside - and I'm going to teach you a lot of things you didn't know about dominance before today.

In the post on how to be an alpha male (without becoming a stereotype), we broke down the difference between what's generally thought of as "alpha" and what alpha actually is, and about the character of the nomad -- the man who's neither alpha, nor beta, nor any other role in a social hierarchy, but instead operates outside it entirely.

I've long noticed a failure to differentiate among "being alpha" and "being dominant" in those who discuss social dynamics. They're treated as one and the same -- if you're being alpha, you're dominant, and if you're being dominant, you're alpha.

But they aren't the same. Being alpha's about heading up your group.

Meanwhile, being dominant... that's about something else altogether. What that is -- that and the winner effect -- is what this article is all about.

It has been said that people are more afraid of public speaking than they are of death… Seinfeld’s little twist on this idea is that at a funeral, people would rather be lying in the coffin than giving the eulogy.

I believe there is something that we fear even more than public speaking: approaching beautiful women. And this fear gets multiplied when we’re going out alone, without our buddies and “wingmen” around.

I remember the first time I went out ALONE to meet girls. Just the thought of it made me nervous, but I had been told that it’s a great exercise to build confidence and social skills.

Right after I left the house I realized I was hungry… and got something to eat. But while I was still waiting for my food, I became aware that this was nothing but creative avoidance – I was giving myself reasons to put off the dreaded exercise until the last possible moment!

And once I had left the restaurant, I started REALLY getting nervous… and psyching myself out. After half an hour of this, I couldn’t even have asked a girl what time it was… leave alone flirt with one!

Thank God I’ve long since overcome this hurdle, but the question is…

Once upon a time, I sat in a college dorm room wondering how to attract women.

I mean, in high school I'd had them chasing after me, at least some of the time, but then I went to university and that all disappeared. Coupled with my lack of social skills, I soon found myself both alone, and un-pursued.

So, I tried anything I could think of. I got into music and performed on-stage. I made myself stand out however I could in my classes. I started peacocking with flashy clothes and accessories. I even tried buying pheromones from the Internet -- the jury's still out if that did me any good.

But despite those efforts, I still didn't have any women in my life. Some of it got me noticed -- a lot of pretty girls were paying a lot of attention to me. But was I attracting them? Here's how Dictionary.com defines the word:

“Attract: to draw by appealing to the emotions or senses, by stimulating interest, or by exciting admiration; allure; invite: to attract attention; to attract admirers by one's charm.”

Well, they may have been interested, but they certainly weren't around me too much. So, at best, maybe I was part of the way there.

Most men, I discovered, find themselves in the same boat. They try a bunch of things, not sure what, exactly, it is that'll work best at getting women attracted... only to keep realizing that the things they're trying aren't working as well as they'd hoped. Anywhere near as well as they'd hoped. Some guys even all but lose hope entirely.

How I learned to be a man who knew how to attract women and inspire them to chase him and pursue him and desire him is the story I want to share with you here.

Furthermore, I want you to avoid the scenario I was in, of having to figure this mostly out from scratch -- so I'm going to give you 7 tips you can start using right now, today, to get yourself becoming more attractive to women.

Without further ado: How to Attract Women: The Guide.

One piece of guidance I often give to guys looking to improve with women is to start doing active listening in order to better listen to women and build great connections with them fast. It's simple, straightforward advice that's easy to start implementing right away -- or at least, that was what I'd been thinking.

A reader writes in reminding me of a realization I had years ago but since forgot about the right way to do active listening:

“Wow man just had a great convo with my mom of all people about how to handle women. We talked a lot about things I already knew but it gave me a fresh perspective. But the one thing she told me about was "paraphrasing what she said"

She told me that a lot of guys like "reiterate" what a woman says. For example if I was talking to a woman and she told me a story about jogging and how it makes her feel great. Reiterating would be me saying "Hmmm so what you're really saying is you feel great because of this...." Then the woman tells me "NO I'm feeling great because of what I just said! Your not listening to me!"

Now that same situation as a paraphrase would go "so let me see if I understand you, your saying you feel great because of this..." then she says "Yes exactly I was feeling great because growing up my mom..."

Now at that point I've got her opening up because she's feeling understoood. And sorry for the vocab lesson I"m sure you already knew this but it helps me illustrate my idea in my mind lol! But I'm just emailing you about this because I've noticed that A LOT of your game is based off of paraphrasing.

When a woman is challenging you paraphrase. When you want to deep dive you paraphrase. When you try to connect with her emotionally you paraphrase.

Once you can paraphrase her words she feels understood and now you guys can truly connect. And it was something that had been bothering me for YEARS man because I was trying SO HARD to listen to women lol! But I found out that I was just doing it the wrong way which was from a frame of reiteration (male comm) and not paraphrase (female comm).

It's crazy because now I can look back at some of your old post and say OHHHHH that's how he did that! IT's amazing how much power paraphrasing gives you when it comes to communicating with others.

Just wanted to share that with you because it really struck me as gold.”

After reading this email, in a flash, I remembered the years I spent straining and striving to understand women and feed back to them what they'd said, only to have my efforts be tossed right back in my face when girls replied with, "Uh, no, that's not what I meant," or tersely corrected me.

Man, that was frustrating. But it doesn't happen anymore. Why? Well... let me tell you.

You see, our good reader highlights the difference between what a guy who's learning tries to do, and a guy who's got it down does. And I'm going to delve deeper into doing it the right way here, in this post on active listening.

What's the best way to pick up girls? You might be surprised by what can influence a woman's receptiveness... even something like being on birth control or not.

A fascinating study, "Relationship satisfaction and outcome in women who meet their partner while using oral contraception," was several days ago published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Researchers from the UK decided to look at the differences in women who began dating men while on birth control, and those who started dating men when they weren't on birth control.

What they found was this:

“Women who used OC scored lower on measures of sexual satisfaction and partner attraction, experienced increasing sexual dissatisfaction during the relationship, and were more likely to be the one to initiate an eventual separation if it occurred. However, the same women were more satisfied with their partner's paternal provision, and thus had longer relationships and were less likely to separate.”

In other words, using birth control (or oral contraception -- "OC") leads to women ending up with men they're less attracted to, are sexually dissatisfied with, increasingly become more sexually dissatisfied with as the relationship progresses, and the women more often are the ones to call the relationship off eventually. On the plus side, the men women on birth control end up with usually make better husbands and fathers, and their relationships lasted an average of two years longer.

The flip side of this is that women off birth control choose to mate and date with sexy men -- men they find more attractive, who give them better sex, and who they're less likely to initiate a breakup with -- but the breakups still happened, on average two years earlier than the men women met while on contraception. And it's more often the men doing the breaking up -- likely because these are more attractive men with more options with women who don't like staying tied down too long.

The reason for these huge differences in dating preferences -- why women on the pill are ending up with nice guys they're unsatisfied with but who make good dads, and why women off the pill end up with sexy guys they're excited by but who break up with them -- comes down to what the pill does chemically to women's brains -- and that works out to be some interesting stuff. Read on if you dare...