Confidence

I was having a very good discussion with a good friend about another mutual friend of ours. All three of us are men with a reasonably extensive background in seduction, and a history of both taking a number of lovers and teaching a number of students. And what we were talking about was the tendency of men like us to sometimes be a bit… overbearing.

What I came to realize was this: because of our unique situations and lifestyles, we tend to become authoritative in tone and personality. And in some ways – primarily with women, and in business – that’s quite beneficial. In others – such as with good friends – it’s detrimental.

Had a discussion with a friend of mine the other day where he asked me if I ever got the scenario of walking up to a girl, engaging her, and having her blankly stare at me and not respond. He asked because he wondered what it meant – in other words, what he might be doing wrong.

And it touched on something I’d been thinking about recently: on how perceptions of “rejection” change as your understanding of women evolves.

Five years ago, I took any form of non-engagement by a girl I’d started speaking to as a deep, personal rejection. It was as though she had assessed my person and found me unworthy. I felt hurt and insulted.

Nowadays, I recognize that reaction I used to have for what it was: a combination of a lack of understanding of women, and a lack of any kind of abundance mentality. Because the world is not so simple as I assumed it was back then.

If you’ve ever looked at a pretty girl and suddenly felt a surge of nervousness at the idea of going to say hi to her, you’ll get something out of this article. Because what you were doing when you felt that nervousness was you weren’t thinking in numbers.

Most men who are successful with women have a number of similar traits you can distill and learn from. One of those traits is thinking in numbers. That is to say, thinking to themselves not, “I’m going to go meet that girl… I hope she likes me!” but rather, “I’m going to go meet every cute girl I see, until I find one who likes me.”

For use with girls who like you a good deal.

So, anyone who’s been following my writing recently knows I’ve been talking a lot about chase frames lately. Along with speed, persistence, and understatement, chase frames are one of the things I’m quite big on these days.

In fleshing out the right description of how chase frames work though, there was one detail I neglected to mention in that first post on them linked to above; namely, that to get a girl to chase, you usually need to give her a little bit first.

Think about it like this. You walk into a bar and go sit down and order your drink. A pretty girl walks in and sits down two seats away from you. How do you get her to start investing in you and pursuing you?

Getting investment from women is a crucial element of your success with them. Men who fail to get investment fail to move things forward with the women in their lives – it’s as simple as that. Investment is vital.

So what happens when you ask for compliance and get a “no”? What happens when you say, “Come with me,” and she just shakes her head and stays put?

A common response from a lot of guys is they back down; they retreat from their compliance requests or compliance demands, and forget about it. The following scenario is typical in a number of guys’ interactions:

“Abundance Mentality” is something that’s frequently prescribed as an answer to men’s neediness issues: approach anxiety, having a “weird” or “awkward” vibe, escalation hesitation, failure to invite women home. Anything where a guy comes off as hesitant or is nervous about achieving a certain outcome.

Men who know there are women everywhere, and know they can get women whenever they want, goes the thinking, won’t worry about it.

But in fact, a standard abundance mentality will only get you halfway there.

Every guy new to the social arts works on his eye contact. He practices holding eye contact, maintaining it even in the face of social pressure from others who continue to hold eye contact back. He learns the importance of maintaining eye contact while speaking with and listening to others. He learns not to shift his eyes around from eye to eye while looking at someone else.