Welcome to another empowering and insightful article on the Tao of Dating.
Let’s describe a scenario here (disclaimer: any similarity to what happened to me two nights ago is purely coincidental). Let’s say you’re going to a social event: a gathering of young professionals. When you get there, you see a beautiful young woman out of the corner of your eye. She’s tall, she’s smart, she’s got beautiful hair and a million watt smile. And you think, “That’s the girl. I’m going to get HIS number from her.”
And so you talk to all the other people, maybe you do a two-hit method on her, you keep talking to everyone else, slowly getting closer to her. And finally, you start talking. You notice her her teeth bright and shiny, her great body, and you realize the softness of her. Things are going well: you read the same books of hers, she likes the same cheesy 80s bands, etc. She’s on.
As the event is coming to a close and everyone is leaving, she says to you (and *only* you, you’ve done WELL you dirty little devil): “Hey, you want to go have a drink at this place near of my home?” And you say, “Let’s do it.” What the hell? Everything is going according to plan.
At the watering hole, she buys you a drink (a good sign) and one for herself. And she starts drinking. And drink. And she drinks your drink. Before you know it, she’s totally inconsistent, she falls over and she’s a complete mess. She starts talking about things that set off all kinds of 120 decibel alarms in your head.
You want to get as far away from her as possible as quickly as possible. And you do it… walking her to her house and saying goodbye to her. It doesn’t even occur to you to get her number. Does this sound familiar, gentlemen? You start out longing for something, and then the worst possible thing happens: YOU REALLY GET IT. And then you realize, “Oh shit! WHAT was I thinking?”
The problem, my friends, is this little feature of the human brain that bugs us all…
It’s called DESIRE.
My good man Lao Tzu had something to say about it in his most excellent book, the Tao Te Ching. In fact, he thought it was so important that he mentioned it in the first chapter:
“Freed from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught up in desire, you only see the manifestations.”
There are at least two problems with desire, you see. The first is that according to ancient spiritual law, when you want something, you are affirming its *lack* in your life. And according to the Tao of Dating Belief #1, the Universe is simply a reflection of your dominant thoughts.
So, when you say “Give me!”, the Universe answers you “Give me!”. Congratulations, you just took away from you what you wanted. (Because inherent in your desire is the observation that what you currently want you DON’T HAVE YET; therefore, the focus is on the MISSING of the thing you want, on not actually HAVING the thing… are you with me? If not no worries, more on that later).
The second reason is more tangible, but gives you the same vague result. Here’s the deal: when you want something bad enough, you’ll mess up your judgment. Guaranteed. It has been called “imposed by wanting it”, the Second Noble Truth, babenosis and many other things.
I just call it bad business.
Would you walk into a car dealership saying, “Oh my gosh, I love that car! How much can I pay you for it?” Worse yet, would you walk into that dealership drunk? Or sleep deprived? No way.
The fact is, we engage in very similar behavior *all the time* when it comes to courting women. We get drunk (metaphorically) on desire, and all we have on our minds is “OMG she’s so hot! I have to catch her!”
We immediately try to show how resourceful and suave we are, to impress and entertain her with our male primate display behaviors (and if you’ve ever seen other guys do it, you know how obvious and silly that seems, right? Right.)
I have a question for you, my friend: who is she? Do you even know her? And, most importantly, is she paying you enough for your excellent company?
I’m just saying that (semi) jokingly. Because right now, I want to talk about one of the most important things you MUST do to attract women the right way.
It’s called FRAME ADJUSTMENT. And what you have to remember is this:
“Whoever controls the frame controls the interaction.”
For example, when you walked into that showroom saying you already wanted that because you wanted it so badly, you set the frame as “I’m the dummy, and the dealer is the guy who’s going to hit it on me.”
On the other hand, you could just as easily have walked in and said, “Yeah, I’m looking to buy a new car, with cash, and I’ve been to a few dealerships to see what they have and I was wondering how good a deal you got for me?” offer”. Now she has set the tone for a VERY different interaction.
One in which you are the BUYER. And a demanding one at that. Just like girls when it comes to guys. Because you’ve got money in your pocket, you’ve got great taste, and there’s no reason you should settle for anything but the best your money can buy.
In the social market, it works the same way. You have all sorts of things going for you. You’re smart, rich, funny, funny, dynamite in the sack, or all of the above. That is the money in your pocket.
But sometimes guys forget that. They see a pretty girl and immediately begin to beg at the feet of the Goddess: “Please, please, pay attention to me.” This drives me crazy, because it turns all the logic in the world upside down.
Fact: Most women have relationships with men older than them. Fact: Almost all women have relationships with men of higher status and income than their own. Fact: Overall, men have 30% higher incomes than women worldwide. Fact: You are probably older than most of the women you are attracted to.
And therefore, FACT: YOU ARE WHAT *SHE* WANTS. It has always been like this. It will always be so. She is younger than you, she has less experience than you, and she has less financial power than you. You are in the dominant position.
So what the hell are you doing pretending it’s *you* chasing *her*?
Because you get drunk with desire, that’s why. And when you’re drunk with desire (here comes the car metaphor again), you’re too focused on trying to get what’s in front of you to notice the dents, the unreliable record, the clunky transmission, and all sorts of other things that just you don’t want in it because you *think* you want it so much.
I’ve dated enough women to know that there’s only a slight correlation between how a woman looks and how satisfying your relationship with her is. And, oddly enough, the hottest ones often (but not always) turn out to be the biggest tasks to deal with. So don’t be blinded by the packaging, my friend. Look what’s inside the present.
So be the discerning shopper. Set the frame. Turn the girl around and size up *her*, which is different from judging. (Evaluating what is good for you is good. Judging people, on the other hand, stops the evaluation process and is less good.) Why would you want to date her? Is she making you laugh? Is she warm and loving? Does she give killer back rubs to her? Why is she good enough for you?
Guys can sometimes get so obsessed with getting into a woman’s pants that they don’t even bother to figure out if they really *want* to have that woman around for more than 15 minutes.
Now some of you might have noticed something. There is a crazy twist to this. When you set the framework as the buyer, it’s pretty obvious who controls the interaction. But even when you walked into the dealership saying “I love that car,” *you* still set the stage for the interaction. Just you *thing* to give control to the other guy.
Stop doing that. Especially when it comes to women. Assume the most favorable setting. Take the control. Lead.
Now let’s put this into practice. you see her It’s good. Big. And you keep your composure and walk away from your desire, still interacting with it in a powerful and attractive way, but walking away from the results. You don’t care how things are going to turn out. You don’t care if you get her number. Because, frankly, you still don’t know her well enough. She could be the love of your life or a colossal pain, and you are here to patiently find out.
As it is, you don’t need it. You *do* care if she wins *your* number and your company, and if she’s the kind of person you’d want to spend more time with. But not the other way around. She just remembers: you have everything you need. When you really believe, know and feel that, all good things will come to you in an avalanche. More on that later.
The power is within you,
doctor alex