I love relationships. Getting close, personal, and sexy with another human being truly is what makes the world go ’round - and not just for the euphoria and butterflies that go with them.

If anyone has ever been a part of one, regardless of seriousness, then they’re quite familiar with the facet of them that has been the inspiration for much of that euphoria and the majority of the romantic poetry that has been written over the years: the ‘honeymoon’ phase.

In that beautiful stretch of time, everything is right with the world. The air smells sweeter, birds are chirping a bit more than usual, and everything we do is enhanced in ways we never thought possible. We are in that moment, the very best person we can possibly be. It’s truly a gift, and one of the reasons why so many of us want to find love in the first place.

As with most good things in life, there’s a catch, and that beautiful symphony of emotion must come to an end. For some, the loss of this gift is too much to bear and they simply walk away. I know I spent a good part of my adult life hopping from honeymoon phase to honeymoon phase(s). For others, that thing they caught a glimpse of is so amazing that they’re remiss to let it go without a fight. For those in that category, the result is either a struggle that ends in a messy breakup, or the finding of someone we decide to spend the rest of our life with - with the vast majority of us falling into the former category, whether or not marriage is involved.

So what the hell happened?  Where did the love go?

Some individuals hypothesize that it’s at the twilight of the honeymoon phase that the ’shine’ begins to wear off of the other person and we see them as they really are, flaws and all. This supposedly triggers our doubts, and the palace of ivory begins to crumble.

I’m here to say that while that hypothesis does hold some weight, it’s really not at the heart of what happens.

To put it simply, it’s not the others person’s faults that come starkly into focus in this darkest of hours, it’s our own.

To explain my point, I’d like to begin with a little relationship/attraction meta-theory that’s been gathering steam in my brain over the past year or so.

I firmly believe that we are attracted to what we’re attracted to because that particular thing happens to be what will most directly cause us to go/grow where and how we need to at that particular point in time, and I mean that in the most Taoist of interpretations.

To use a fairly colorful example to explain this point, let’s say that at a given moment in someones life, he or she is drawn to the notion of sleeping with a bunch of people. This may be caused by some deeply rooted insecurities, or by any other number of reasons, but at that moment, that particular course of action is the best means for that individual to begin the journey that will ultimately end in overcoming whatever obstacles stand in his or way to personal realization and fulfillment.

Notice that this theory includes all things that many people could consider unhealthy or negative. While this may be the case in the short term, I believe that these actions are nevertheless the best path for a person to take. Even if it feels like you’re swimming upstream, the current is always carrying you in the right direction.

Attraction to other human being provide us the strongest and most direct path to this personal growth, and therein lies the reason why we are so crazily drawn to other people. I firmly believe that without women, men would end up wallowing in some gutter in the most depressing scenario imaginable, and vice-versa - with the mechanism through which this happens being one of the most brilliantly designed systems in the world.

You can never know who you’re going to be attracted to, and to what degree you’ll be attracted to them, but rest assured, there’s a method to that madness. Whoever that person happens to be, take comfort in the fact that you are placed on each other’s journeys to take you both where you need to go.

When it really happens - when you’re ready for it to happen - it hits you like a ton of bricks, and I’m certainly not the first to describe it in this way. As we’ve already mentioned, that honeymoon phase hits, and you are suddenly faced with a more perfect version of yourself than you ever thought possible. Your work goes extremely well, all of the other relationships in your life flourish, and you’re insanely open to anything and everything - you also may happen to notice that other members of the opposite sex can’t keep their eyes off of you.

As we’ve also mentioned though, this inevitably comes to an end and we’re now sitting face to face with that same person we were before all of this started. We are reminded, after a brief glimpse of heaven, that we’re still the same person with the same flaws that we were before love crossed our paths.

Because these two versions of ourself, the ideal and the reality, are now forced to stare each other down face to face, this point can be especially troubling. We being to feel depression-like withdrawals and other aspects of our life begin to suffer, including work and other relationships. Our openness is replaced by jealousy - and those fears and insecurities that this attraction was put in our place to overcome begin to show their ugly head.

As strange as it sounds, this is a point to celebrate. Up until now, these personal demons remained for the most part under the surface, but through this beautiful process, they are now brought to some level of light where they can actually be fought.

When faced with this situation, a person will always go in one of three directions.

1. They simply cannot bear the situation at this time, and decide to walk away. Maybe they’ll tell themselves that their other half simply wasn’t worth it or too flawed for them - and maybe they are - but they choose to wait until the next time attraction hits them over the head; a time when they’re better prepared to deal with their roadblocks through more experiences such as these.

2. They decide to continue the relationship, and use as much ‘warm fuzzies’ as they can muster to cover up the glaring issues. They’ll turn a blind eye to the unearthed feelings and hold the other person as tightly as possible with hopes that with enough “love” the shadows will eventually be banished.

Well those shadows don’t simply go away on their own, and the result of this course of action is the all too familiar pattern of love/hate that so many of today’s relationships find themselves falling into. The periodic episodes of hot and cold continue to escalate until a final blowup/breakup occurs, leaving both parties devastated in their wake.

The silver lining is that this path will ultimately lead to a good amount of personal growth after said blowup. The negative of course is that it’s often not without the cost of most of one’s mental and emotional health along the way.

3. This final path is the path is the most difficult to walk, yet is the one that leads to the greatest amount of ultimate personal growth and fulfillment.

Although it is the path of greatest resistance, some couple are actually able to use this opportunity to face their own personal demons, the ones that this attraction was meant to uncover in the first place, and constructively work through them together. This is often not accomplished without greater or lesser degrees of hardship, and it is rare that anyone can take on this type of endeavor without making some missteps along the way. It is, however the straightest and most powerful path to ultimate happiness that one can undertake.

At this point I must stress that there is no one path that is any better or worse than another. There is only what is best for a particular person at a particular time. If you know in your heart that someone is not the person to take you to the next level in a particular situation, then trying to tell yourself otherwise will only slow your pace.

So why is it again that we should even bother with all of this in the first place? Why is this natural inborn order so wonderful to begin with? The answer to these questions lies in the honeymoon phase that began our journey. The truth is that the person that you caught a fleeting glimpse of in that phase wasn’t merely a figment of your imagination. Although the vast majority of us are weighed down by not so positive experiences throughout our lives, primarily in our younger and most vulnerable years, we all have the potential inside of us to permanently become our best self, the version of our self that we were able to catch a glimpse of during the initial honeymoon phase.

That version of yourself is who you truly are, that is the you who can accomplish anything you desire - unbridled of your fears - and that is the you who can limitlessly impact the lives of everyone you encounter and the world in an exceedingly positive way.

No matter where you are and where you’ve been, take comfort in the fact that it has all happened for a very good reason. And with that, I can only hope that this article has given you a little extra nudge along the way.

I hear this one from guys all the time. Whether it be from guys I’m working with directly, or scattered in 1000’s of posts from men in every forum dedicated to figuring out how to talk to girls: “I didn’t know what to say”.

First and foremost, there are occasions when someone will say something and you’ll literally be held speechless, unable to think of a response. That’s not what I’m talking about today.

I’m talking about the two most common places I hear this, and why it’s actually another excuse guys are using to hold themselves back.

The reason why I sit down to write today, the first time in awhile, is because I’ve heard this enough to want to put down something definitive on this all too common question, to explain why this is actually another case of us defeating ourselves and not just the case where we need another line, and more importantly, how to make this problem disappear from your reality.

Let’s start with the first of the most common situations in which a guy will voice this concern:

When he’s looking to start a conversation with an unknown woman.

“Well, I would have said something to her, but I didn’t know what to say.”

Let’s reflect for a moment on why one may have this thought. First of all I’ll make an assumption. I’ll assume that a man wouldn’t worry about what to say if he didn’t worry about the consequences of saying the “wrong” thing.

There are a number of social errors that one could commit that would warrant a negative response. Generally, speaking about any sort of disease or illness upon starting a conversation will be frowned upon, and there are other examples that one could think of that would be deemed “inappropriate”.

As a side note, as I talked about in this post: http://sparksofattraction.com/?p=26 - when alcohol is involved, the reality of what is considered an “acceptable” means of starting a conversation is greatly affected.

Anyway, when you’re worried about potential negative outcomes from approaching, the possibility of saying something grossly offensive and deserving of a negative response probably isn’t even crossing your mind. This means that there’s another reason that one is fearful of the approach.

There’s a popular notion out there that a woman, because she “decides among men who she selects”, is more valuable in relation to a man. It’s easy to see why, under this perception of things, that a man would be fearful of an approach.

If a woman is looked at as this cold being of absolute judgement from which a man will derive his place in relation to other men, then, under this interpretation, I’d be pretty afraid of saying the “wrong” thing to a strange woman myself.

The thing is though this interpretation of women, while doing a great job of relating to men’s insecurities, is ignoring some very real facts about the way our world works.

As is usually the best policy, let’s start with women.

Take a walk through a bookstore, and start with the ‘Dating’ section, usually located near ‘Psychology’. What you’ll see is about 4 or 5 books written for men on how to meet more women. Immediately next to that, you have about 100 books, written for women, on how to find a freaking man. From following arcane ‘Rules’ to trying to become ‘Bitches’ for us, there’s a multi-billion dollar book industry because women are desperate for advice on meeting a guy. The field trip doesn’t even end there. Take a stroll over to the periodical section, and you’ll see another billion dollar magazine industry dedicated to the exact same thing.

Just about every night I’ve ever gone out I’ve seen droves of women, dressed to the T’s after spending hours to look that way, just trying to meet men. I’ve watched men attempt to have conversations with these women, half the time not even listening to them, many times just running through a set list of things to see, and still getting these girls to light up and be happy talking to them. And I’ve seen guys stand around and not talking to these same girls because they can’t think of anything to say.

The fact is that the barriers between the sexes are self created. Of course, sometimes, she’s the one creating those barriers; I’d highly recommend her this book: http://www.amazon.com/Turn-Your-Cablight-Dream-Months/dp/1592401783

Sometimes those barriers are situationally created. If it’s a cockfest, the high levels of testosterone stemming from frustrated male competition will probably make most of the women in there uncomfortable.

Most of the time though, especially when you hear a “I don’t know what to say”, those barriers are self inflicted.

As mentioned, we’re discounting all grossly offensive things from what you may say. You now, being a human being of some level of life experience, have a million things you can possibly say that fall in the “acceptable” category. (Especially when alcohol’s involved)

At the end of the day, we’re all just human beings. There’s probably not a thought you have had that she hasn’t thought or a feeling you’ve had - including nervousness, loneliness, awkwardness, attraction toward another human being - that she hasn’t had. All you have to do is relate on any one of those things, including, “hi, I wanted to come say hi and get to know you”. It’s probably why she came out in the first place, you just had to be the guy and say hi.

The other most common place you see this same problem popping up is when a guy does get into a great conversation with a woman, she’ll start to turn toward him with a smile and her eyes bright, he’ll find himself attracted to her, and then he’ll “just run out of things to say”.

This one has some different circumstances tied to it which make it appear different than the approach, however upon closer inspection we’ll see that it’s actually the exact same issue.

In both circumstances, you’ll receive varying degrees of signals from a woman that she’d want this type of action from you. Sometimes girls will look at you and smile, and thus strongly invite you to approach. Other times the signals won’t be as strong. Sometimes a woman will strongly indicate that she wants your interaction to be taken somewhere, other times the signal won’t be as strong.

The one characteristic of both situations is the feeling that accompanies them - it’s that same nervousness, that same anxiety. We have that feeling before we approach, and that same anxiety when we have a woman that we’re interested in looking at us and saying she wants the interaction to go somewhere. It’s in both of those situations that men reach for the same excuse : “Well, if I knew what to say, I would have done something”.

I recently gave a presentation that details how to “take the interaction somewhere” when she wants you to, and also how to recognize this so instead of spelling all out again you can watch that here: http://www.thesocialman.com/what-is-up-yo

The very important point I want to make through all of this is that the fact that these fears and barriers are a product of our mind does not make them any less real. Quite the contrary in fact, as all of our fears are a product of the mind, with some being more helpful given our current reality than others.

That nervousness, that anxiety is quite real, and it is because of it’s legitimacy it provides the ideal signal that we must take action - or reasonably decide not to.

There are good reasons to listen to fears sometimes. If I’m standing on a ledge, I’ll be afraid of the outcome of jumping off of it, and I’ll reflect on how much I like my life, and make the wise decision not to do so.

Other times, such as when we’re thinking of talking to a stranger or taking the interaction with a woman who is interested in us somewhere, or in any other part of our life, that anxiety is the signal that we now have the opportunity to break through some of those more irrational fears that are holding us back.

In fact, if a guy on a bootcamp tells me on the first night that he doesn’t have any nervousness before we hit our first bar, I’m sometimes more nervous about the progress we’ll make that night because of that.

In both of those oh so common situations where guys find themselves blaming a lack of words for why something didn’t happen, you don’t need some new knowledge to face that nervousness, you just need to face it, head on.

Whether it be approaching, escalating, or anything else in life, it’s all dealt with in the exact same way: through identifying your fears, and then looking them right in the eye and tackling them head on. The longer you wait and the more excuses you make to not do it, the harder it will be, and it still won’t ever be easy. It’s through this process, however, that we find our ultimate source of strength, our ultimate source of fulfillment.

It’s through the process of discovering that we can do anything - not a line, not a script, but just us - that will snowball into every aspect of our lives, and give us what we were really looking for in the first place.

I could have just told you never to do anything that’s motivated by fear, but sometimes it’s helpful to explain why.

Could it really be that simple?

Could the answer to all of our consistency issues be right under our noses?

Why is it that sometime’s we can light up a room, while other times members of the opposite sex turn away in disinterest?

I’ll tell you the answer right now but I’ll have to explain myself for it to sink in. The difference between really connecting with people and not - the thing that every ‘natural’ is always doing in spades but can never quite put into words - is simply speaking the universal language.

Cliché tells us that love is the universal language, however this is only partially true and and isn’t helpful for people looking for the translation - the Rosetta Stone - so to speak.

I actually have to thank an old smoking habit for helping me stumble upon it. Quite a few times in college I had the pesky habit of bumming cigarettes. In fact, I did it so much that I got really good at it. I even developed my own little method.

Despite having the best method in the world, it became clear that whether or not I got a cigarette really depended on one thing:

You can try it yourself and get front row seats to the effects. First, go up to 10 people, ask them for a cigarette, and avoid eye contact and look indifferent. Next, go up to another 10 people, ask them for a cigarette - only this time look them directly in the eye and act although you are in intense pain and that they hold the key to your freedom.

Everyone reading this who’s ever been a smoker is with me on this.

When I look into the eyes of a smoker with a look on my face that he or she can fully relate to - that I really need a cigarette - they feel that same pain as they are reminded of their own times of distress. When they feel that pain and can’t help but want to relieve it in another.

Ages before complex systems of naming and describing objects came into human existence, humans beings were still communicating. Although the vast majority of us have an incredibly firm grasp over at least one of these systems, all of the communication that matters the most happens in the same way as it has for our entire existence of our humanity.

A quick look at an on-line thesaurus gives us over 30 words for ‘angry’, however if a 300lb man has the look on his face that says he’s pissed, everyone who gets even the quickest look at him is getting out of his way.

We need language to hammer out the fine details of a business contract, however how many people would actually do business with someone they didn’t trust, who didn’t give them the feeling that they had ulterior motives?

With that in mind, here’s how you always “get your openers to stick”:

The phrase, “you can tell a lot about a man by his handshake” has been around for awhile. More recently though, the phrase has been taken to advise that one should attempt to squeeze another person’s hand as firmly as possible to show how “confident” they are.

When you greet someone, you can tell a lot about them by their handshake, or more specifically, whenever they greet you in general. The ‘firmness’ of the greeting, however, isn’t how you can tell; even though a firm handshake will often happen as a byproduct.

You can tell this by looking right at the person to see if his eyes are meeting yours and if he has a look of warmth on his face. If you approach a woman, and they look at you and your eyes aren’t meeting hers (theirs) and you don’t have a look of warmth on your face, she will get the same feeling you get when you’re working with a person that you just don’t feel right about, you just don’t trust, and you decide not to work with him.

Let me make two things clear:

If you are thinking about your ‘opener’ when you approach a woman, or maybe just feeling shy, you will not be looking into her eyes, you will not have a warm expression on your face, and she’ll get that feeling that no human likes to feel.

If you start thinking about what to say during a conversation, or question whether or not she likes you, your eyes will drift, your face will become expressionless, and she will definitely get that feeling.

Plus there’s one more important factor to consider:

Women are much better at feeling this stuff than guys, and herein lies the apparent solution, and also the new problem.

On one hand - success in communication, in being charismatic or a ‘natural’, lies in your ability to express emotion vividly on your face and in turn make others feel that emotion. Without that, we’re merely self aware computers exchanging information; and the last thing a woman wants when she goes out is to exchange information - she wants to feel.

On the other hand, it’s never that simple.

Human beings, especially women, have a keen intuition for when someone has their own self interests in mind rather than hers. It’s the same as when you can just feel that a bad salesmen has his commission in mind as he’s talking to you.

It just feels off.

It’s not just selfish thinking that can give another person that feeling, it’s thinking about anything other than the person that you’re communicating with.

And you can’t just act like you’re feeling something for this to work. Try to look happy while you’re thinking negative thoughts, it’s just weird. You actually have to feel these things yourself for them not to trip her bullshit meter.

Of course again this isn’t always the easiest thing to do. Often, when we’ve been hurt in the past, we don’t put ourselves ‘out there’ as much in order to reduce the risk of additional pain. One of the ways people do this is to become more soft spoken, and to withdraw emotion from their face when they speak and “act cool”.

Most of us found out at an early age that it doesn’t really sting when someone shoots down our words, but if we put our heart into something and get rejected, then there’s a pain that can make a child cry. As an adult, we are strong enough to take this pain, but many of us fear that it will be as bad as when we were still developing psychologically.

In order to relieve this anxiety, our society has made it increasingly easier to retreat from putting yourself out there.

Email and social networking sites are amazing advancements in communications and quite incredibly make our world much smaller. The problem arises however, when we use these technologies as a form of mental crutch to avoid actual human communication.

That’s why I wasn’t surprised in the least to hear about studies that show that the people who are the most active on Facebook often report feeling the loneliest.

As easy as it would be, we can’t simply blame Facebook. How many people that you work with on a day to day basis do you try to connect with, and how many do you shoot a couple passing words to without strong eye contact and a warm expression on your face?

If you don’t do it as a natural habit with everyone you meet, it’ll be even more awkward to try and do it with women.

Pay attention the next time you’re out at a bar and here’s what you’ll see:

There will be some people having a good time. They’re laughing, moving around, speaking at a higher decibel than everyone else, and looking each other in the eyes with genuine emotions that they’re definitely feeling on their faces.

On the flip side of the coin, you’ll have people, usually around the outskirts of the ‘fun people’, who have that look on their face that they’re not quite ‘there’, that something’s on their mind, and that it’s probably not the most positive of things.

It’s easy to identify these people, their faces are are lacking all but forced acts of emotion, they’re not moving, even if they are talking to a friend they look as though they’re not really enjoying the conversation, they’re eyes are looking down more than at their friend, maybe they’re looking at their phone - not really to communicate with an absent friend, but simply to take their mind off of the anxiety they’re feeling.

The thing is that they came to the bar for the same reason as everyone else.

They want to be the ‘fun people’. Just about every person has been there before and it’s amazing. You’re having the best time, lighting up emotionally, talking more loudly, and of course attracting more of the opposite sex than ever before - you’re “in the zone”.

The next morning though, we’re usually a bit hungover, we know we just had the most amazing time the night before; the only problem is we can’t remember how to get that back. We search high and low, trekking out to the bar night after night - both men and women - and start drinking with our fingers crossed that it’s going to happen again, maybe with some lines that we believe will do the work of getting it back for us.

The thing is, we know how to get that feeling back, we’ve simply forgotten.

When we see a baby crying or smiling, only the most emotionally checked out people cant help but feel upset or happy, respectively. When we see genuine emotion in another person, we can’t help but feel the reflection of that emotion in ourselves, and we subconsciously drawn to those who make us feel positive emotions, and repelled by people who make us feel negative emotions.

Love-hate relationships are especially dangerous because they literally tear us apart.

Now here’s the fun effect of all of this:

By looking straight into another person’s eyes with genuine emotion while focusing strongly on her emotions - unless she’s feeling an equally strong negative emotion - you will cause her to feel that emotion and  subconsciously become more drawn to you. If you don’t, she won’t. This should clear up any questions routine guys have as to why they’re having inconsistency issues. Sometime’s she’s feeling you, literally, sometimes she’s not.

Upon first developing this ancient skill, one will often feel awkward or clumsy with it, as with any other skill they would develop. With practice though, things slow down.

People will say that you give off this energy, and it’s as if you can read their mind, probably better than they can read their own.

It’s what every natural is doing without knowing it - and through this development than one can become a natural.

Because it is a skill that, like any other, takes practice; one should practice as much as possible. Start with family, friends, co-workers, people at the corner store, everyone. Soon people that have known you forever will be saying those words that we all love to hear:

“There’s something different about you”.

When you go to the bar, instead of scanning the bar for an ‘HB9′ that you can approach in 3 seconds or less, get in a circle with your friends and do what we at The Social Man affectionally call the ‘bro circle’. Whether there’s 2 or 10 of you start emoting. Remember, you’re only as strong as your weakest link, so make sure that everyone is pulling the line. Talk at a higher decibel, move around, talk with your hands, have looks of genuine expression on your faces and look each other in the eye.

The great thing about this is half the time, you forget about the bro circle and actually have fun with your friends when one of you remembers this story you forgot to tell - by acting as though you have emotion you’ll actually feel the emotion. Try smiling for a minute and not feel happy.

Then you’ll start to notice the looks.

All of the girls that are around the periphery will start emoting, themselves.

They’ll talk more loudly, move more, have more expression on their faces, and yes, start to glance in your direction. They now want you to approach them.

They probably don’t rationalize what just happened. But they felt a little hint of that feeling they all came to the bar in the first place to feel, and they’re drawn to it.

Don’t get me wrong, social skills in approaching strangers and escalating interactions are very important skills to develop, and that’s why we’ve developed ‘Say Hello’ and ‘Irresistible’, however if you’re not developing this universal skill that will allow you to powerfully communicate with anyone, anytime, anywhere, then you’ll always face inconsistencies in your interactions.

Also, don’t be surprised that when, through tapping into this, you re-realize your infinite power to strongly connect with anyone, and things start going much better in every other aspect of your life.

As you begin to pay attention to everyone again, you’ll notice that the majority of us are a bit withdrawn and often appear anxious or lost. There is no better time to remind people of what we are all looking for.

Before we’re all on “2nd Life”, remind people that the answer we’re all looking for is right in front of us, and yes, don’t be surprised when you’ve loved a woman or two along the way and your friends in the community say you look like a natural.

A woman walks past you with a figure that sets off every evolutionary attraction trigger in your body. Maybe you love long legs. Maybe you love curves like Keeley Hazell. Perhaps you love petite women. Whatever is the case, this woman walks directly in your path, wearing something that perfectly compliments that particular feature that makes you heart beat faster.

Of course, you’re a guy so it’s hard not to look a little bit longer than you know you should. Every second you look, your blood rushes farther away from your brain and you find that verbal competency isn’t exactly what it was a moment ago. If you find the strength to go and talk to her you’ll be lucky to get out a “that dress looks great on you” without stuttering.

Now, if you’re fairly good looking and have a ton of confidence and she’s in the right frame of mind then this could actually work, however it’s not really giving yourself the best odds.

Instead of letting your eyes fall where they naturally want to, make a concerted effort to focus her eyes elsewhere, namely: her face. Not only does this keep more blood in your brain and make you more charming, it also gives you a number of other advantages.

For starters, as long as your body language is good there’s a good chance that she’s going to meet your eye contact. If this lasts longer than two seconds, then you know she wants you to talk to her. On the flip side, if she notices you staring at her body, she may not want you to come talk to her as much. This is because it takes a man to look her right in the eye. Avoiding eye contact while looking at her body is an easy way to tell he that you don’t deserve her, but you still think she’s hot.

Don’t get me wrong, of course you have to check out the body, but even this you can use to your advantage. When you and a woman hold eye contact keep the eye contact going as you approach. When you’re a couple steps away from her let your glance drift from her eyes to give a quick up-and-down of her body before meeting her gaze again with a smile. This takes you from some guy staring at her ass to a man who’s caught her interest and charmingly compliments her with approval after a quick glance.

Even if she doesn’t make eye contact with you, you can still gain a lot from looking at her face. You’ll be able to tell if she’s bored, happy, nervous, pre-occupied, looking for guys, or having fun; all of  which will affect how you talk to her when you approach.* Suddenly this woman isn’t some hot girl who you can’t figure out how to approach, but becomes a person with the same thoughts and insecurities that you have. This alone makes it ten times easier to empathize and connect with them.

Once again, I know it’s not the easiest thing to do, but the more you switch your focus from her body to her face, the more opportunities you’ll give yourself with some of the girls that you may have previously thought were just out of your league. Focus on this the next time you go out and you’ll find yourself talking to more of the women that you may have thought were beyond your reach the night before.

*More on this in my upcoming product

Miss Model Behavior has been a friend of Christian and I for awhile now and if you’ve been following thesocialman.com you’ve seen more than one bit of advice from her. In case you’re not familiar, MMB is a great writer and I highly recommend checking out all of her stuff at her blog. 

Before Christian and I ever started working together, she wrote a post that I just had the pleasure of reading this evening. In it, MMB gives us a look at what women want in a man from a female perspective.

You can check out the original article and read more from her here.

MMB

I’m not what you’d call a warm and fuzzy person. I’m not so into animals and only really cute babies make me smile. Yet I’m always inevitably touched when readers email me comments about this site that aren’t derogatory, abusive or spiteful. I even glow an extra mega-watt when it’s clear the reader has a sense of humor, gets my sense of humor, and knows damn well how to write. So naturally I was thrilled when I received this email:

Dear mb,

Being an avid reader of your blog, I was hoping you could shed some light on a question that I have had for quite some time. Though it may sound douchbager-esque, and surely superficial; since I was in college I had two goals in mind, one being to work on Wall St. and the other to marry, or atleast date, a model. No, I am not trying to ask you out. I have read what you look for in a guy and I am not European, I am blonde, and not too tall….So

I accomplished the Wall St. thing, though still w/o the means to spend 10k at The Box on a Thursday evening. And I know, you having been around models and one yourself, that you have an idea of what generally your friends look for in a guy. Tell me if you think I am getting close…money, lots of it, and ummmm….charisma? I’m working on the money thing but the likelihood of me getting anywhere close to Giuseppe, by the time I am 40, is a somewhat far reach. I obviously can’t make myself European, only coming close by attending the London School of Business. And I can’t go out every night and still have a career…impossible w/o a trust fund. So, let me know your enlightening thoughts, if you would be so kind…

First off, making yourself more European by attending London School of Business is a fabulous idea! The sexiest option after Oxford or Cambridge is LES – London School of Economics. That place pops out moneymaking, briefcase-carrying, gold cufflink-wearing, heartless-men machines. And you don’t need a trust fund to go out every night and have a career, you just needs lots of cocaine! Scratch that, you need generous trust fund wielding friends who do cocaine and are willing to share. And as for models wanting “money, lots of it, and ummmm….charisma” you’re way off the mark. X out the charisma part, multiply the money factor by three, and you’ve much more successfully outlined what your average accent possessing, chain smoking, heartless model wants out of a relationship.

JUST KIDDING!

If only the answer to this email were that simple.

I think the first thing men need to understand about what women want, is that the majority of us vagina-possessing creatures have absolutely no idea what we want. Or we’re in denial about what we want. Or we have what we want, we’re just incapable of fully recognizing it or giving it credit.

We’re generally really confused. Does that make sense?

We’re an extremely capable gender so hell, if we knew what we wanted we’d go out, tackle, and mount it with success – there’d be no time for gossiping or shopping or beautifying or reality TV or any of the other ten thousand ways we find to distract ourselves from the fact that we ultimately have no idea if we want a man like or father, a best friend, an authority figure, a masochist, a sex object or a teddy bear. We just don’t freakin’ know. At least I don’t freakin’ know, and I think women who disagree are either in denial or have succeeded in establishing what they want in the short run (like, for the next three weeks while I’m up to my ears in tax returns I need a fun-loving playboy.) But in the long run? Geez. Next question, please.

So to get back on track and actually give some advice to the lovely chap that emailed in, I’d say if the goal is to date a model (or model poser) that’s an extremely easy feat in Manhattan. Just go to Beatrice Inn, dress well, pretend to be a big shot, mention that you summer in Como, sniffle in an I’m-on-drugs-way and surely some inexperienced female model victim will bite. If the goal is to have a successful relationship with a smart and beautiful woman, I’d say be extremely polite at all times (most mothers have engrained their female offspring to prize chivalry) and then take a serious interest in her. Really work to get to know this woman – what makes her tick, and if you genuinely like her, this shouldn’t be ‘work’ at all.

My theory is that women respond well to men who

1. Make them feel at ease (don’t be creepy, desperate, or sniffling)
2. They can identify with (from the same geographical area, common schools, common friends – no don’t lie) and
3. Want to get to know them (in a non-stalkerish way)

Ask her why she decided to wear pink instead of yellow, chose lasagna over sword fish, the story behind why she called her cat Oreo instead of Freckles, why she likes Giuliani over McCain, why she has an Alanis Morissette poster in her room, why her apartment smells like corndogs. Delve into her quirks. No, you shouldn’t sound like an annoying five-year-old or like a freak writing a book. Be genuine. The fact is that most women love to talk – it’s been medically diagnosed as therapeutic (why do you think we spend hours on the phone with our girlfriends every other night?) Remember that most women are just humans immersed in the continuing battle of figuring out who they are. Life is somewhat of a continuing identity crisis, or challenge, or game (choose your own noun). So anyone who takes a genuine interest in a loving, non-judgmental way allows us as women to show off the parts of our personality we like and gives us a trusting space to figure out the parts we’re still trying to piece together.

Maybe I got a bit too philosophical here, and emailer, please feel free to write in again with a more specific question. Like if you’re just looking for a top ten list of surefire seduction tricks, I could provide you with that as well (with the obligatory price of $199.99). I guess my point was that if men want to know what women want, they should know that women are just as confused the next guy. As for what I specifically want in men, that’s another delightful (and frightening) laundry list for another day.

In case you missed it, CNN Money just did a piece on The Social Man and there’s a fair amount of screen-time of myself in it.

You can check out the piece at: http://www.thesocialman.com/the-social-man-on-cnn

I’d love to hear your comments and stay tuned for more stuff like this in the future.

Imagine being attracted to a woman and going up to her and saying, “hey I find you attractive and I’d like for us to get to know each other better”. The very next second she either says she feels the same way or not. If not, then you don’t feel embarrassed or ashamed, you simply find the next woman that you are attracted to and after two or three more tries you find a woman who feel the same way. After she says she feels the same, the two of you start to get to know each other without worry about anything else and find out if you are compatible to date or not.

Now let’s look at the world. You see a woman you’re attracted to, you worry whether or not she’ll accept or reject you and you try to come up with something to say in order to avoid the latter. Meanwhile, she’s got a million things running through her head. Before a guy says hi she’s thinking about how she looks relative to every other girl there. Once a guy does approach her she has to worry about whether this guy is an asshole who could break her heart or worse. If she does like him she has to think about how she can act in order to get the guy attracted to her while the guy nervously does the same. The result - millions of men and women who are not fully satisfied with their single lives.

Why is the world one way and not the other? Why does meeting people have to be so hard? If you look closely at these two scenarios the difference is apparent: fear has won.

Instead of our interactions being molded by a foundation of trust and security, humans have had to over-compensate in their interactions because of their fear and insecurity. People’s actions and a whole crop of dating “advice” have been dictated by how one can avoid rejection, how one can avoid getting their heart broken, and how one can avoid their fears without confronting them.

Is the fear there for a good reason? Of course. We’ve all been hurt enough times in our lives to know that it’s not a feeling we ever want to feel again. Keep in mind however that your actions say more about you then those around you. Studies have shown that if one partner cheats on their spouse, they are much more likely to worry about the other partner cheating. Similarly, if the way you act toward women is motivated in any way by fear, it makes it much more likely that the other person will feel wary of you.

While we don’t live in a dating utopia, you can still create one for yourself. Take a good look at your own behaviors toward women. Which are motivated by your own genuine desire for them and which are motivated by your fear of rejection or fear of being hurt? Maybe you just want to talk to a girl again but you’re afraid she’ll say “no” when you ask for her number. Maybe you just want to kiss her but instead you wait around for an obvious signal that never comes instead of just telling her. Maybe you apologize for your natural thoughts and behaviors because you’re afraid of how people will react to them. Make a little list for yourself and do whatever you can to destroy those behaviors which are holding you back. As you let your unbridled fearlessness show, you will influence the men and women around you to drop their guards a bit and be more open to go after what they want.

This second there is a wonderful woman worried that she’ll never find a decent guy. Will you approach her with fear and cause her to raise her defenses higher? Or will you be the man to show her that it’s okay to lower those defenses and just enjoy the moment. Facing your fear and pushing past it certainly isn’t an easy thing, but then again, being a man never is. The world may have lost it’s chance at a dating utopia, but that will just make you stand out that much more when you’re a man who defies it.

I’ve been working as a social and dating coach for a little over a year now (time flies) and have been lucky to work with a large number of really great guys. There is one thing that I have to coach guys on again and again that always has a dramatic effect on their interactions with women. It’s not an opening line, nor their conversation skill. It’s simply their fundamentals: eye contact, body language, and vocal tonality.

I see these issues time and time again. If a guy has them down, then the rest of my job is easy. If he doesn’t, then there is nothing he can do to get a girl interested in him. 

Eye Contact: You know how important it is, but if your in the vast majority of the population you’re not doing it enough. Try staring at yourself in the mirror for a couple  minutes every morning. Not only will it enforce good habits, dedicating that time to it in the morning will also help you to keep it mind throughout the day.

Body Language: I’ll just hit the basics here because I could write 20 pages on the subject. Lean back. I promise you you’re probably leaning toward a girl far more than you realize. Don’t be afraid to make physical contact with another person and stay loose. Standing with your feet firmly positioned on the floor is a great way to loose her interest.

Vocal Tonality: You know you have to speak louder and more slowly. But also you have to speak with confidence. How many of your statements sound like questions? When you speak you should sound like a senior member of a company giving directions to a new staff member. Speak with authority.

Also, before you look for the next great line, remember that you can say “Hi, what’s your name” to a girl and it can mean 1000 different things. It can mean, “I don’t really care about your name. I’m just thinking about what to say next”, or, “I’m genuinely interested in finding out everything about you”, or, “I’m thinking about you naked right now”. Turning the conversation into a sexual one can be as simple as saying, “we should get another drink”.

Think about the effect the inflection you put on your words has. A simple thing said the right way can have a far more powerful impact than “the perfect response” said the wrong way. Plus, if your foundations are off the most witty response in the world won’t get the reaction you want.

I know that you’ve probably heard all of this before, however if you’re reading this right now there’s a very good chance you needed to hear it again. Get this stuff handled and watch women laugh at the dumbest jokes and become attracted to you after a conversation about paint drying.

Women are attracted to men who have a good sense of humor. I know you’ll be tempted but try not to give me too much credit for that groundbreaking discovery.

The problem with this breakthrough is that men will often hold themselves up to the highest standards of comedy when interacting with a woman. I’ve seen guys get in their head, searching for that perfect one-liner that will have all the ladies rolling around on the floor and clutching their sides in laughter. What often happens though, is that the women think he’s disconnected from the conversation while he’s wracking his brain, and when one of these golden zingers does pop up, the group’s not that into him, and instead of getting signed to a HBO special, he instead feels dejected because his very best efforts have just crashed and burned.

Guys, cut yourself some slack. Have you ever listened to a group of girls talking? It’s not exactly a slew of gut-busters being exchanged. In fact when a girl really genuinely makes me crack up, I’m surprised as much as I’m impressed.

And I’m not ripping in girls here. The point is that when two strangers begin talking, there’s already a bit of tension in the situation. Any little joke you make will then be amplified because of it. If you haven’t been in a coma for the past 20 years, you have a sense of humor. Instead of shooting for that perfect one-liner, all you have to do is inject a little bit of humor to break the tension.

Anyone trying too hard for anything will never be attractive. Realize that a lame joke said without much effort and with a smile is all you need to get her thinking, “this guy is funny”. Then, instead of searching the far reaches of your brain for the line that will bring you comedic fame, you can use your mind for far more important things, like actually listening to what she’s saying.

If I could make a list of thought leaders in this industry that have had the most influence on my development, Wayne “Juggler” Elise is definitely in the top 5. After beginning my education with The Game, Jugglers style and vibe were a breath of fresh air that added a entirely new dimension to my game. Anyone who knows my style knows that a more developed “Juggler barrier” plays a huge part in it. Also, the vacuum and statement-of-interest (SOI) were very innovative when they hit the industry. 

If you’ve ever exposed yourself to any of Wayne’s writing, you know that he relies heavily on typed out conversations to demonstrate his method. One of the major drawbacks of this that has been cited is that while the conversations provide an excellent example of what to say, the reasons why some of his lines work isn’t always made perfectly clear.

With that in mind, I decided to take a conversation that Juggler recently posted for free on his website and break down everything that’s happening step by step so that you can better implement his style into your own game. You can find the original post here so you can read it in its entirety. 

(I’ve bolded my comments for easier reading)

You: Excuse me, I can’t help but notice that you are unsatisfied with your fruitcake-pattern hoodie. I have to say that I’m surprised but happy for you.

What he does here is notices something interesting in the environment and makes a humorous comment on it. Of course you won’t always be in a situation where a beautiful woman is returning a quirky Christmas gift, but if you pay more attention to your surroundings, you’ll find a number of things to comment on. A simple exercise you can do to develop this  capacity is to stop several times a day, look around, and take note of 5 interesting things in your surroundings. You should try to look at life through the lens of a comedian and find humorous interpretations of these interesting things, or at the very least simply be able to comment on them in an interesting way. Most guys have this capacity already even if they don’t realize it. For example, if you see a girl carrying a suitcase. You can either say: “So, I see you have a suitcase”… not so interesting. Or, you can say, “I have to say, I’m ridiculously jealous of the fact that you’re going on vacation right now”. More interesting.

After noticing these interesting things share one or two of your observations with whoever is around you.

The second thing he does is share his personal feelings on the observation. This subtle move shows that he is high-status enough that his feelings carry enough value to be shared and expresses confidence.

Also, notice his opening the convo with a statement rather than a question. Classic Juggler.

Her: “Ha, hah ha.”

She found this observation extremely funny.

You: “I’ll trade you my Lance Armstrong tire repair kit. Or better yet, I got some Grandma cookies here somewhere.”

Juggler continues the initial joke with more humor and references to himself. This move not only showcases his wit but also frames both of them as having in common or something that they can both relate to.

Her: “Oh, I had too many of those lately.”

She responds favorably.

You: “Yeah, I can relate. I like that about you. You and I are the same. Who would have known. So I’m thinking of a New Year’s resolution. What’s yours going to be?”

Wayne strengthens the shared frame with his first line and then follows up with a classic Juggler SOI. The only thing is that the SOI here seems a bit un-calibrated. A woman should be complimented after she’s done something to deserve that compliment. Maybe her body language is screaming “I want you now” and that SOI would have been justified, but you really don’t get a sense of that from the script.

You can actually make something like this work though only with the correct vocal tonality. I’d probably leave out the “I like that about you” line but something along the lines of, “I can totally relate, I feel like you and I are like, the same person” when said in a very over-the-top, facetious tone of voice can work, although this really isn’t explained in the script.

He then breaks the thread and starts a new one with a somewhat related holiday question.

Her: “To finish law school.”

You: “Oh that’s a good one. I can hire you to sue grandma for the bad cookies. Seriously though, that’s cool. I think I would like being a lawyer. I’d feel kinda powerful. Like yeah, give me a speeding ticket, see what happens.”

He does a good job here. He first uses a bit of callback humor to a previous point in the conversation and then paints a vivid and entertaining picture of what he feels it would be like to be a lawyer.

The latter half is a great technique that you can work on if it’s not a part of you repertoire just yet. A simple exercise is what we call the best/worst exercise. Simply think of any occupation or other information that a woman can give you and come up with the best and worst case scenario of what that would look like and then paint as vivid of a picture of that as possible.

For example, she says she’s an artist.

Best scenario: Oh, so you must be incredibly creative. You’ll have to let me know when your next exhibit will be and I’ll be there to marvel at your genius.

Worst scenario: Oh, so you must spend most of your time cooped up in a poorly-lit apartment with a bottle of Jack then. I can see that as being fun.

The more of these you think though and have something for the more often you’ll have a creative and witty line to drop on the spot.

Her: “Haha, yeah it is good to know law for practical reasons. For instance, my professor says…”

You: “Hey, I like you. What are you doing after this?”

In the comment section he clears up the fact that he is not actually cutting the girl off here, but rather lets her finish saying whatever she’s saying before responding.

The SOI here is much better calibrated. In her response she is sharing something more personal about her life and is contributing a good deal to the conversation. Because she’s done that he takes advantage of a great time to reward her for it and escalate the interaction.

Her: “I’m meeting a friend for lunch.”

Burn

You: “Oh too bad, I thought it might be fun to sit down at the Starbucks over there and chat a bit more for five minutes. I like talking with you.”

Meh. After the recent SOI and her not reciprocating anything of the sort I wouldn’t have followed up with “I like talking to you”. The Starbucks thing is fine in that it’s confidently stating your intention, although I would probably go with something like, “That’s too bad, this is the best return-line conversation I’ve ever had, we have to continue it sometime”, and expressed nearly the same thing and added a bit of humor back into it rather than just the overkill, borderline-desperate SOI.

Her: “Are you hitting on me?”

You: “Maybe I am and maybe I’m not. It all depends on if you like it or not. And judging by your smile now I would say, yes I AM hitting on you. Sure that’s the ticket.”

“Sure, that’s the ticket”: If you have Juggler’s personality, you can use this all day. If you don’t, I’d probably stay from this one. Otherwise, the rest of it is a cute line that I would use anytime.

The line that I actually prefer here though is credited to Zan Parrion and that response is “Of course I’m hitting on you”. It’s just a whole other level of Juggler’s stuff.

Her: “Well, just to warn you I have a black belt in flirting defense. But yeah, let’s sit down for five minutes.”

Has anyone actually heard a girl say this?

You: “Excellent. What’s your name by the way?”

Her: “My name is Persimonia”

You: “Nice name. I’m impressed. My name is your name here. In the language of the old country it means, he who drinks hot chocolate through a straw.”

Great name exchange and another cute line to finish. You can steal this one or go for something along the lines of, “I’m Nick, it’s nice to meet you. Well, we’ve only got 5 minutes together so we had better take full advantage of it.

At a high level, Juggler’s only fault in this interaction is the fact that he is almost “trapped” in his Juggler method framework and forced to rely too heavily on the SOI and use it in situations where it wouldn’t be warranted. Will this work on some girls? Absolutely. Will it creep other girls out? Absolutely.

Finally, one other point that was never mentioned: In order to make this or any conversation a successful one, you must carry great eye contact, body language, and vocal tonality. If you’re lacking those elements, those ‘ha ha’s from her will turn into weird looks and polite nodding.

Thank you again to Juggler for the great conversation and good luck to everyone else using some of this stuff in the future.

Cheers