Sociability - Dating (for men) - Attractiveness
Be attractive. Don't be unattractive. Taken seriously.
Introduction and Motivation
I have given a number of men, and some women, advice about dating. However, I have only dated as a man, so if you're reading this as a woman take what you can get from it but realize that I cannot address your particular needs (though perhaps a guest post from my wife would help!)
Let me lay my credentials on the table.
I am a short man. I am a guy with nerdy interests, and little to no taste or ability to talk about pop culture. I have never been successful on Tinder.
I have had dozens of first dates, a greater than average number of dalliances, and seven romantic partners. I have been lucky enough to experience some things that many men fixate on. I briefly spent time in a closed triad poly relationship.
I am happily married, and have a child, and that life is behind me. However, I was clearly successful on the field of love, and am not lecturing from a purely hypothetical perspective.
First and foremost, you will probably not get someone with a mirror of your tastes and interests. If you are reading this Substack, I am talking to you. Do you want to see who my biggest overlapping Substacks are?
So, let me show you some numbers from the AstralCodexTen 2022 survey.
You're going to have to date outside of your immediate culture! It doesn't mean you're not going to find someone who shares your interests, or that you can't introduce her into the band of niche internet weirdos that you spend your time talking to, but you -probably- aren't going to find her here (though you may still find her on Twitter).
I'm not going to talk about poly here. You may notice above that I briefly spent some time in a poly relationship! It is in fact precisely that that leads me to not referring to poly as an option here. I don't advocate poly. If it works for you, great.
At the same time, it doesn't mean that you should pursue people that you like who are in our broad social milieu, but that you should make sure you spend some of your effort making yourself -generically- attractive as opposed to -specifically- attractive.
There's a joke about how to avoid sexual harassment accusations, which is useful only because it's soaked into popular culture.
"Be attractive. Don't be unattractive."
We can actually use this, somewhat.
* Reasonably (Pareto - do 20% of the work for 80% of the payoff) optimize your physical appeal
* Work on traits that women seek in male partners
* Work on overcoming traits that women avoid in male partners
This is all statistical! Some women love fluffy dudes! Some women love cranky introverts! You can't work on everything! You can find high leverage things to work on, things that are easier for you than others (no amount of work will ever make me extraverted in terms of my energy source, even if I am socially skilled), and change things about yourself that you find less important.
Your goal is to improve the numbers game to make sure that each shot you shoot has a better chance.
Attractive Traits
Acquiring attractive traits is probably too numerous to list, but there are a few you can definitely explicitly work on.
Honestly, though, this book is all about that. Pursuit of physical, mental, emotional, social health. If you can achieve those, you will definitely be more attractive across the board. It's worth focusing a bit on the immediate impact on dating, though, with high level advice from different sections, since I'm not going to talk about how each different part of the book impacts your ability to find a partner.
Physical attractiveness
Be reasonably in shape
Wear clothes that fit you
Take care of your skin, teeth, hair
We'll go into a lot more detail on physical training in the physical section of the book (which I am, honestly, somewhat dreading writing), but I can tell you ahead of time what some of the advice will be: Go read reddit's bodyweight fitness, or Starting Strength, or Brain over Brawn, whatever. Get in shape.
Your goal with physical attractiveness is to give your partner something to sexually objectify, or to prize, or to simulate the ability to protect them (again, these are all roughly the same thing, with different facets). This is one of the easiest ways to make yourself more attractive - and it has positive feedbacks in non-physical elements as well.
Learning how to dress right is good too, but that is an entire book in itself. Generally, if you wear clothes that fit you, you're a step ahead of the game! Getting in shape will help with this - being overweight makes it much harder to find clothes that make you look good, though not impossible.
Ironically, from the other end, being too in shape makes finding clothes that fit right also difficult, though you tend to look good despite this - just not sharp. It's unlikely that you're going to get a truly radical body shape unless you seriously pursue bodybuilding or powerlifting (like your author), so don't worry too much about that. Just know that you might be restricted in brands if you do (for example I can basically only wear Levi's 541s for non-tailored pants).
Finally, make sure that fairly simple maintenance is being taken care of. Have hair/facial hair that suits your face. If you've got acne issues, work on them. See a doctor. Keep your teeth brushed - you don't have to go all the way to intense whitening, but do what you can for a nice smile.
Your presentation is under your control. Don't fixate on any of it too much - it is better to save the effort that you might put into 'looksmaxxing' into instead working on another weak area, like your ability to relate to your date.
Social attractiveness
It's somewhat funny to talk about a social attractiveness subsection in the section of the book on sociability. There are elements of social attractiveness that come from working on your sociability - especially ones that relate to friendship, as well as your relationship to yourself.
There are also just pure social skills.
If I had to break it down, I would say that sociability (the ability to interact), competence signals (the ability to provide), and signs of consistent stability in both categories are the three major categories of social attractiveness you can work on.
I summarize a lot of stuff I've learned, but frankly I can't do much better to summarize social skills than the O.G., Dale Carnegie. So, absolutely, go read "How to Win Friends and Influence People". Seriously.
If you have trouble in terms of actual fluidity in interaction, consider taking improv or acting classes. If you're not comfortable with the opposite sex, physically, try taking partner dancing (Swing, Ballroom, etc.)
Conversational/social skills
You ever been with a girl you thought was hot but then found out the conversation sucked? Don't be that in reverse.
Learn how to be a decent conversationalist. You don't necessarily need to be incredibly talkative, but when you do talk you should try to minimize how much you hold yourself back.
Really, this has two parts - you need to be able to properly represent yourself, broadcast, whatever you want to call it; and you need to be able to indicate that you're genuinely and actively listening, receiving not just what they're saying but what they're meaning. More than that, you need to have interesting things (to that person) to say.
Obviously, the best way to train both of these is to talk to a lot of people, and see if you can become friendly with them! That is, perhaps, not the focused advice that you want, so here are some thoughts.
One of the best things you can do to be interesting is learn how to tell a story. It can be a story about you, about a family member, something you read. Heck, I liberally tell stories about friends! "You know, I knew a guy who" is a great lead in-- you can fill it in with things like "accidentally set his ceiling on fire mining crypto!". Where would that relate? Well, perhaps when talking about damage to rentals; or get rich quick schemes, or arson, or crypto. Think about how it relates to the topic at hand.
Again, none of this is -necessary-. Double introvert pairings aren't uncommon. But wouldn't it be great to be less afraid to ask out that cute girl at the party reading a book in the corner, so you can get to the point where you're quietly reading books...together?
Don't be afraid of talking to people. For a lot of the people reading this, they should try to amp up their conversational aggressiveness...though not everybody.
I was lucky enough to be enrolled in all sorts of speech, leadership, whatever clubs since I was a kid (and things like Civil Air Patrol as a teen), and I'm conversationally aggressive as all hell. This isn't much of an issue for me.
On the other hand, I do have a problem with active listening. This can come from a few different places - I like to be charitable to myself, and say that it mostly comes from an irrepresible desire to share the thoughts a conversation with someone inspires, rather than not considering their ideas worthwhile.
Sorry if I've ever done this to you, by the way, it's incredibly rude of me.
But really, listening is about a number of different elements, and thinking about these can become second nature.
What are they saying? Pay attention to their words, without your attention wandering.
What do they mean to communicate? Sometimes that's a step beyond their words - a very simple example would be sarcasm, where we use the opposite of the words we mean to use, but there are lots of other cases of reading between the lines as well.
What's their goal and why are they saying this thing? Sometimes people are struggling to get the words out that accomplish their goal, because they have some reason to avoid it, or simply because they can't find the words.
What aren't they saying? What information is missing, intentionally or otherwise? Do you need to know more to fill in the communication?
How do they want you to respond? Are they leaving key indicators, pauses, phrasing that it seems like you should echo back at them?
Finally, what do you think about what they're saying? What responses do you have? Try to remember these - and perhaps prune the most important ones, tabling the others for a later conversation - for your response. Heck, in a really involved conversation it might even be worthwhile to take notes!
Demonstrating Stability
While you shouldn't be boring, it's important to show that you're not erratic in a bad way, either. Consider that, regardless of your intentions, that there are certain types of actions that can set off a girl's warning bells.
If you're an unstable dude and you're not already getting laid, you're not the type of unstable dude that comes across as 'crazy in bed', sorry.
More than not being erratic, though, demonstrating stability is about demonstrating that your lifestyle is stable. Financially, this can range from 'successfully making it paycheck to paycheck', though I hardly recommend that, to 'dealing with existing debt successfully, with indications of continued prosperity after' to 'successful yuppie'.
Financial is the obvious measurable one, but emotional stability and career stability matter as well. You can work on many of these.
Get your shit together - physical, mental, emotional/spiritual, professional/financial. Incidentally maps somewhat to what I write about in this book.
Get out of debt. That might be considered a sub-piece of financial, but I really want to nail how it important it is.
I do want to say that as a corollary to this, since sometimes it takes time to get all this shit together, it is not particularly abhorrent for a man to date a girl who doesn't have her shit together yet. Especially in a 'heteronormative' partnership, men and women often find asymmetric things attractive - if we go back to my writing on families, the family forms either to pass down lineage or in an emulation of this, and what men bring and what women bring to that has historically been very different.
Besides this, if you want kids, you can have them older as a man. Women have a cutoff younger than you do, so the timing is a bit different.
You're trying to give her a way to build a 'likely model' of a future with you, and you want it to be positive. Give her a foundation to imagine on.
Demonstrating Competence
In some ways, the practical advice in this book is about 'being functional', but it's not a professional guide for all careers, and it's also not a book on how to manage your finances. However, it's useful to talk about how these things relate back to romance and being attractive.
Once again, it is not necessary to nail all of these things before you get any attention from women. There's a scale. If you meet a girl in highschool, you don't really need to have a career and a house! If you're 35, things are a little bit different.
Think about what you'd expect from a competent man in your social class, at your age. Now, try to pursue that. There's so many different pieces that it's impossible to label all of them - and many different subcultures. There are some general things that I think are cross-cultural, though.
Know how to interact with people - as discussed above, conversational skills - but going beyond and doing things like hosting, organizing events, etc., can go a long way. Not the least of which because organizing events means the ability to meet new people rests in your hands rather than the hands of others. Host a dinner party, or lunch, or picnic.
Generally speaking...get shit done. Do what needs to be done to resist the entropy of the world. Maintain your house, your car, your clothes, your relationships. Advance yourself towards your goals.
Show her what you will be able to bring into her life if she joins it.
Avoiding Unattractive Traits
Anxious and Avoidant Attachment
A lot of the social component of 'don't be unattractive' comes down to trying to moderate anxious or avoidant attachment, which I think is best addressed either just through brute force, or through theory of mind. Note that I am considering 'be attractive' and 'don't be unattractive' to be two different things - a man otherwise attractive can be unattractive in this way.
Anxious attachment (my problem) - 'She hasn't texted back oh god oh god oh god let me explain this subclause of a subclause she might take wrong'
Stop. While she may not be as annoyed as you're worried, there IS a creeper heuristic/threshold. I will admit to having crossed it before.
Especially when you're first getting to know someone, try to avoid sending more than a couple messages sequentially, except in the middle of a conversation. For example, a series of clauses broken up naturally is not the same as three followups to a date. If you ask her how she's doing and if she's interested in going out again, and you don't get a response, maybe try again a few days later...then drop it.
Your clinginess levels should (generally) match. As your relationship grows, try to not be too put out if they want to go do things by themselves! They're probably not abandoning you.
Again, this can go too far. Communicate the sorts of things you want to be involved in, what your minimum is. Sometimes this will have arguments, but it shouldn't be too intense. You're exploring each others preferences and boundaries.
I'll make a small note about avoidant attachment, which is the opposite. You get stressed, so you simply don't communicate at all. I can't explain the internal state here. I think it's just a brain block of thinking of communicating, or anxiety about it.
I did ask some of my Twitter followers to explain what avoidant attachment is like from the inside, which I'll share. It seems that predominantly it comes from stress or shame from not having communicated making it harder to communicate, which makes more stress or shame, and so on.
In either case, you can simply try to 'brute force' yourself to act appropriately (not contacting, or contacting, as the case may be), or you can try to do theory of mind. If you were them...what would make you happy in that situation, or resolve it? Keep yourself in that mindset. If you're anxious, remember how busy your own days are, and how you sometimes delayed responding to someone. If you're avoidant, remember how good it feels when someone you're waiting to get back to you does. Things like that.
Avoiding setting off false alarms
Aside from anxious and avoidant attachment, there are other related tendencies that can set off alarm bells. Whether those alarm bells are valid or not -- in other words, it's possible they are concerned about a genuine trait you have that you should get over -- you need to deal with them.
Many of these are simply about avoiding pattern matching, or maintaining the illusion of privacy.
There's no real rule here! A girl might appreciate you recognizing she's uncomfortable, or unhappy, and giving her a way to talk about it. Or perhaps she doesn't want someone who pries, because she has had bad experiences with that. Try to not push people before you understand them!
On the other hand, going full Sherlock Holmes is going to weird someone out. Is it worth investigating someone before a date sometimes? Yes. But if all you have is a pseudonym and a profile pic, and you find their Linkedin, it might be a real bad look regardless of intention.
Broadly speaking, I think the line between being insightful ("You get me so well!") and being a creeper is trying to understand why they would appreciate certain types of insight and not others.
This line is variable, somewhat, based on how attractive you are, but if you try to keep in mind their own perspective, and you respect walls they clearly put up (e.g. don't dox them or try to connect their pseudonyms), you'll have a lot more leeway.
Ideology
This book is clearly me trying to pour out my experiences and perspective - but at the same time not really going into specific things like policy beliefs, where I stand on many ethical dilemmas, etc.
So it's a little bit funny when I say that while you should have philosophical compatibility with your partner (and more is needed the more of a friend rather than simply a family creating partner), trying to make your relationship fit your ideology from an outside view is a waste of time.
Are you relating to your partner in the way that you want to, and that they find positive? Are you advancing towards shared goals? Please don't bother considering whether you're acting in a feminist or redpilled or trad whatever manner. Ask if it accomplishes your goal. I happen to have kinda retro-trad goals (big villa, many descendants, legacy, garden/vineyard, etc.), but many of those evolved hand in hand with my wife.
When I was born, my dad utterly reshuffled household responsibilities with my mom. He had been in charge of inside maintenance, cleaning, cooking, etc. (having been a bachelor and landlord for many years, not even counting his time in the Navy), while my mom had been responsible for the outdoors, landscaping, and plants - which she adored. However, because he felt it was a woman's job to do the cooking and cleaning, and a man's job to see to larger tasks in the outdoors, he changed everything around to try to set an 'example' for me...even though it made them both more unhappy with their responsibilities. It didn't work, anyway.
This is not to say that you should tacitly accept whatever just to be with your partner, but that you should relate to it as a pair of individuals, coindependently trying to carve your will into the world, and not relate to it as how well you can carve an ideological brand into the world.
Sometimes there are philosophical beliefs we hold that are not truly convenient for us. That is not to say they are a brand or broad ideology we find we must hew to simply because, but that we truly believe in the truth of a thing as it pertains to us personally, but struggle with it. Religion is common here. In these cases, if you believe that it truly does impact your spiritual health, it is more acceptable to hold yourself to an external marker...but try to make it relate to who you are as much as possible. Your spiritual leader or mentor is not you, does not live inside your head, and cannot trivially judge your spiritual orientation from your actions, as long as they are within acceptable bounds.
Where's the line? I really can't say. I have not had to live up to this myself - I have always viewed my obligations to be to my own philosophies, and not an external marker, but I know that is rare.
Upcoming
Finding and building a relationship:
Meeting women
Masculinity
Asymmetric Interest and Friendship
Communicating Interest
Dates