(3) Journeyman

A man is only as stuck as he allows himself to be. It can take some time to climb out, but you can cultivate options and knowhow, and build a life of freedom for yourself – if you choose.

On our forum, one of our long-time members writes:

My personal fears of the future, has me losing hope, I see no way to live the life I desire (that may be untrue and that what I want is possible) and that has me running to my addictions, instead of having enough hope and groundedness to overcome my problems. I don’t want to let this feeling of hopelessness drive me down my own rabbit hole anymore.

When I was a teen and early twenty-something, I was depressed to the point of despair.

Sometimes I got to dwelling on hitting 'eject', but the only kind of eject I could think of was ejecting from life.

I got over that eventually, and began to branch out into trying all these different things, meeting all these different people, traveling to and living in all these different places.

And I discovered a way of living that was the opposite of how I'd lived when depressed:

Rather than get stuck somewhere, trapped in a situation, with no way out, I could simply step out of any situation and enter a completely new one, any time I liked.

From any situation, at any time, I could hit 'eject', and be free.

Owen, an average guy living an average life, faces continued frustrations getting girls. It seems like every girl he wants isn’t interested, or is too hard to get!

Owen, frustrated with his difficulty finding success with women, begins his day.

After his commute, he arrives at work. Owen has a typical gray cubicle on a typical office floor in a typical business tower. Each day is a drag of spreadsheets, reports, and pointless meetings.

The sole bright spot is Camila, the effusive late 30s bottle blonde bombshell office flirt who's caught the eye of every man in the building. Camila is the secretary for one of the big bosses, but it seems like half her time is spent roving the office floor in skimpy dresses, teasing the men. Camila's a flirt, Owen knows, but he will be the one to get her.

Today, like each day, he tries to suck Camila into a clever conversation, some fun repartee. However, Camila skillfully dodges, as always, flashing her bright, flirtatious smile, making some flirtatious quip, then rapidly sauntering off, escaping again, vanishing into the maze of fabric-covered cubicle walls.

Owen never notices Grace, the quiet dirty blonde 20-something in glasses who always steals glances at him from her cube. When there's a meeting, Grace is always too shy to look at Owen. Grace has better facial features and is objectively more attractive than Camila, but she dresses conservatively, isn't a flirt, and doesn't stand out. Her presence in the office gets constantly overshone by Camila's, and so she ends up being mostly invisible there, just doing her work then heading home.

After another workday of no success with Camila, Owen (like many of the men in that office) leaves in annoyance, complaining to himself about how picky women are, how impossible their standards are, and why dating has to be so imbalanced against men.

Give a girl a way to recall her attraction to you with an “attraction anchor.” Attraction anchors are things you do or get a woman to do that she’s likely to remember later.

Have you ever approached a girl, who was clearly attracted to you, done everything right with her, left her smiling, had her contact info in-hand as you did so, and then... never heard from her again?

Sure you have. It's the pox of every even halfway active dater.

It can send you into a tailspin trying to figure out what went wrong. Everything seemed perfect. You executed the approach perfect. The girl responded to you perfectly in every way.

So why did she vanish once you left, and never respond to your texts, voice/video messages, or calls again?

The answer is because attraction has an expiration date, and if you fail to make a strong enough impression, that expiration date may often be "as soon as you leave her side."

What can you do to prevent attraction expiring while you're away from her?

Anchor her attraction to things likely to stick in her mind.

As an experienced dater, how do you juggle strict standards for girlfriends vs. the qualifying girls’ rarity? What must you compromise on to get the women you want?

Writing on my article "Must the Girl You’re with Be a Perfect Fit?", a reader asks:

So Chase how often do you compromise on your stated standards for women you would want as girlfriends? Because when you have described it over the years it's so strict and stringent to me it seems impossible to find a woman like that consistently. If your expectations are for her to be beautiful,curvy and busty,but slim without needing to workout at the gym,have a master's,be raised by two parents,only have a few sexual partners and never a casual one,never goes out at night,not a vocal feminist and have compatability plus mutual attraction with you it sounds like finding a needle in a haystack. I know your standards have increased over the years,but it sounds impractical to only date women who meet ALL of these criteria so surely there are instances where a woman doesn't have all of these?

I think that's a reasonable question.

I don't know how helpful it will be to the average reader -- maybe more of a curiosity? -- but perhaps my thinking/process on girlfriend selection may be of use to some.

When it comes to choosing girls, especially for long-term relationships, how perfect a fit must a girl be? Can you be too picky, waiting for too clear a sign?

I know a guy who has these baffling (to me) relationships.

His stated objective is to find a wife.

He will find women who enter into relationships with him, whom he considers marriageable. These women talk to him about wanting something serious, tell him he's the best and most exciting guy they've been with; some of them even talk about marriage with him, or about him impregnating them.

He never moves things forward and always keeps his relationships at a kind of "casual+" level.

The women get frustrated and begin asking him what he wants with them, causing drama, telling him they cannot get a read on him and don't know what his intentions are.

He takes this as a sign their interests are not aligned, and begins having doubts / pulling back.

Eventually women break up with him in frustration, which he concludes meant they were never right for each other to begin with. Or sometimes he breaks up with them in annoyance at the drama, concluding they weren't looking for what he is.

He then begins picking up again, still looking for a wife. He's been repeating this process, over and over, for 20 years. He often says he thinks when he finds the right woman, it will just click.

With his most recent girlfriend, after she laid all her cards out on the table, told him he's the best guy she's been with in a long, long time, told him she wants a baby with him, then said she can't get a read on what he wants, his response to her was, "Well since you're not clear on what you want, we can take it day by day."

When I saw this confounding display, it got me thinking about the psychology there.

Because I have seen other men do things like this too.

And to me it's always looked inexplicable! What is a guy like this thinking, in doing things this way?

Well, it was inexplicable, until I really dug into it.

Today I'm going to talk about how people evaluate other people's wants and aims.

I'm going to talk about deciding what things someone says or wants matter vs. which don't.

Then we're going to talk about how people decide who's a fit for them -- and how they decide who isn't.

The reality of dating, romance, and female nature doesn’t always match up with the ideas you held before. But if you can accept it, you can begin to craft the life you want.

The other day I wrote an article on female bad behavior generally being rooted in skittishness, rather than outright sociopathy. I didn't pass judgment on this behavior... I did not say whether it was good or bad, justifiable or not. I simply explained it.

The response from some of the readers was resentment. It is unconscionable that women could fear these things from them, and clearly a sign a woman is a bad person if she reacts in any kind of way toward the man that the man objects to.

Here's one such response from a reader named Xander:

Article says that women is rude, disrespectful, i.e. generally bad, it is because she is afraid, insecure etc. and not because she is bad person. BUT that is exactly what makes someone bad person. I am pretty sure that good persons including women would be more understanding and empathic in order to overcome these problems. You see, there is always that claim that women shouldn’t be objectified but that is how they behave, and this article supports them. They are completely passive, do nothing besides signaling with bad behavior when they don’t like something. You see how selfish this is. And these persons surpassingly shouldn’t be considered as bad. Unless she is seriously threatened by some guy, nothing gives her right to treat him bad especially because it is not his fault why she doesn’t like him not is his fault because she is insecure, afraid etc.. That is her personality and how she deals with it shows what kind of person is she.

You can see what Xander is doing here; he isn't arguing about the reality of the article's perspective. He's simply passing moral judgment on the majority of womankind. Women, Xander says, because they sometimes reject men, are for the most part bad people.

This "me good; others bad" thinking is a normal human way to consider things. However, it stands in the way of success in your endeavors -- if, that is, success is what you're after.

When a woman gets on a high horse, here’s an easy way to interrupt the pattern she’s in: point out to her that she’s missing something.

Pattern interrupts are useful tools.

They break people out of autopilot, snap them to attention, and force them to actually consider what you're saying. Without this, people may remain tuned out, reacting rather than considering, and it can be very hard to get them to do anything other than follow along with their preprogrammed behavior.

Lately I find myself using a "missing pieces" pattern interrupt increasingly often.

It's useful when dealing with opinionated people, people with their minds made up, or people attempting to lecture you about something.

In fact, the more certain someone is in his frame, the more the "missing pieces" argument interrupts his pattern.

It's therefore an almost unique tool in that the stronger the frame control of the individual you use it on, the better it is at disrupting his frame.

How's it work? Let me show you...