Mark Manson

It’s not easy because you’re going to feel like a loser, a fraud, a dumbass at first. You’re going to be nervous. You’re going to freak out. You may get pissed off at your wife or your friends or your father in the process. These are all side effects of changing your values, of changing the fucks you’re giving. But they are inevitable.

One day, you and everyone you love will die. And beyond a small group of people for an extremely brief period of time, little of what you say or do will ever matter. This is the Uncomfortable Truth of life. And everything you think or do is but an elaborate avoidance of it. We are inconsequential cosmic dust, bumping and milling about on a tiny blue speck. We imagine our own importance. We invent our purpose—we are nothing.

Emerson once wrote, "What you do speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say." Seduction is an interplay of emotions. Your movement or lack of movement reflects and alters emotions, not the words. Words are the side-effect. Sex is the side-effect. The game is emotions, emotions through movement.

I believe that women don’t distinguish social status or being an "alpha male" through material possessions -- otherwise every guy flashing his expensive watch at the bar would be getting laid (and trust me, they’re not) -- but rather women judge it by behavior, as behavior is all they had to go on in the caveman days.

These are the three tenants of being a high status and a highly attractive man: treat others well, be treated well by others, and treat yourself well.

Status attracts women, but by itself, it only attracts them in a way that they want to be your girlfriend, not jump your bones.

On the other hand, being physically assertive and sexually forthright triggers a woman’s sexual arousal and makes her want to have sex.

Women don’t perceive status only by the words you say, they judge your status by all of your behavior -- towards them, towards others and but most importantly, towards yourself. Most of this behavior is non-verbal. And most of this non-verbal behavior happens subconsciously and cannot be faked.

An attractive man is not needy. An unattractive man is needy. And neediness can infiltrate any and all behaviors.

The notion of neediness isn’t new in relationship advice or social dynamics, although I do believe I’m the first one to propose that the opposite of neediness is actually the root cause of female-to-male attraction.

Here’s what I mean by neediness: being more invested in other people’s perceptions of you than your perception of yourself. Neediness plays out by people chronically investing themselves and their identities to receive validation from others around them.

Women are generally only attracted to men who are less invested in them, than they are in themselves.

By investment I mean the degree in which you sacrifice/alter your own thoughts/feelings/motivations for someone else. By less I mean that as a man, you should only be willing to sacrifice your thoughts/ feelings/motivations for a woman less than she is willing to do the same for you.

A rich man doesn’t need to tell people he’s rich. A confident man doesn’t need to tell people he’s confident. And a guy who "doesn’t give a fuck" doesn’t need to go around telling people he "doesn’t give a fuck."

all people eventually return to their baseline levels of investment. And until one is able to permanently alter their baseline level of identityinvestment in themselves, they will continue to attract the same types of women, and end up in the same failed relationships.

Permanent change to the amount of one’s identity one invests in their relationships with women is hard and a process that encompasses all facets of one’s life. But it’s a worthwhile journey. As a man, it may be the most worthwhile journey.

And the key is probably something you wouldn’t expect. In fact, it’s something that most men turn their nose up to when they here it. It’s vulnerability.