***DATING QUESTION FROM A READER***
I have a question concerning dating and when/when not to pay for stuff. At what point (if any)should I pay for both of us when dating? I don't want to get the woman into the mindset of"courtship." What should a man pay for when he's dating?
Sincerely,
M.
>>>MY COMMENTS:
This is a common dilemma that most men face...
"To pay or not to pay, that is the question."
Here are some of the problems that "paying"creates:
1. It sets you up as the one who is "pursuing" the woman, which symbolically gives away your power to her.
2. It can be expensive.
3. It usually causes women to play even "harder to get".
4. It triggers all kinds of "courtship" behaviors. Like her making you prove yourself, waiting to have sex, etc.
5. The places you'll be going to "pay" are often not the best places to actually get to know another human being. Movies, fancy dinners, etc., aren't natural environments and they don't lead to people "being themselves".
So, what's the alternative?
Well, the FIRST thing you should do is CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK ABOUT "DATING"... and "paying".
Most guys just naturally assume that if they're"taking a girl out" that they need to take her to a show or movie, a nice dinner, etc.
And by the way, this is actually part of a much BIGGER issue... that most guys feel OBLIGATED to give things to women, buy them things... and basically PAY for their attention and affection.
Of course, these are basically the WORST places to go with a woman in the beginning because, as I mentioned above, they aren't very "natural" places to be.
Instead of asking a woman "out to dinner", try this...
When you're talking on the phone about getting together say, "Let's meet for a cup of tea. This way, if YOU turn out to be a complete freak, I can run away easily."
This will get a laugh, and it will get her thinking to herself, "Wow, this guy is qualifying ME."
Also, suggest a place that's close to your house, in case you want to invite her over afterward.
When you meet for tea, actually drink tea (or iced tea). Because coffee makes your breath nasty and tea is perceived as a more "classy" drink. It's also cheaper than a latte or a mocha.
After you have tea for 30 or 60 minutes, decide how YOU like HER. If you want to continue say either:
"Hey, let's keep talking. I want to shop for abit, come along."
...or...
"Hey, let's keep talking. Where are you parked? You can follow me..." (to your place, of course).
In either case, just assume that she will go along with whatever you're doing, and she almost always will if you're doing a good job of being cocky & funny and keeping her attention.
If you do go out "shopping", go to a funky alternative shopping complex that has tattoo shops, record stores, ethnic food restaurants, etc. Every shopping complex usually has an area like this, so go there.
These places are SO GREAT because they have fun and interesting conversation BUILT RIGHT IN.
If things are going well, and you're enjoying the time with her, you can then have her follow you over to your place. Again, just tell her that you're enjoying the conversation, and that you'd like to continue... and for her to follow you.
Total expense (if you pay for her tea and yours):
A few bucks.
How much better is this than taking her out to an expensive meal and trying to have a normal conversation across a table while being forced to look right at each other all night?
You do the math.
If you actually do a little creative thinking, you can figure out ALL KINDS of great things to do that cost little or no money at all when you go out with women.
Extra bonus:
When you don't do "normal" dating things, women will tend to play "hard to get" less.
They'll expect less in the way of gifts and money spent on them and they'll actually HAVE MORE FUN.
Really.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Afraid of women?
What prevents men from being successful with women?
Well, the list goes on and on... but one of the elements that TOPS the list is FEAR.
There are many different situations that make men feel fear, but I'd like to talk about some of the most common ones... and what to do about them.
First of all, I'd like you to be honest for a moment about this topic.
Do you ever feel FEAR when it comes to women and dating?
Have you ever seen a woman that you'd really like to meet, but you started to feel fear and didn't do anything about it?
Or maybe you were on a date and you wanted to kiss a woman... but you felt too afraid because you didn't want to make a mistake and screw up your chances?
Or maybe you even got a woman's phone number,but you were too afraid to call back because you didn't know how to start off the conversation or ask her out?
Come on, seriously...
Have you ever been sitting there with the phone in your hand, dialing a woman's number, but you had to hang up because you were just too nervous to even talk to her...?
Or out on a date with a woman, and you wanted to kiss her, but you got so nervous at the thought that you just decided it would be better to forget the whole idea and hope for the best...?
Me too. Quite a number of times, in fact.
Coping with fear wasn't exactly something I was born talented at, I had to learn it the hard way.
By the way, it's not exactly FUN to admit that you're afraid of things.
I'm sure you know that most guys would rather admit in public that they were unsure about their sexual orientation than that they were afraid of women.
Of course, this unwillingness to admit that you have a problem IN THE FIRST PLACE only makes matters worse...
If you don't admit that you have the problem, then it's hard to get help and answers to it.
Well, the good news is that you're not alone.
Almost every guy I've known (including myself)has dealt with this issue MANY TIMES with women.
So, STEP 1 is to GET OVER IT. Get over your need to deny that you're afraid. Just admit that you're afraid, and come to grips with the fact that you're human...
STEP 2 is to admit that you'd like to get this particular area of your life handled.
STEP 3 is to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
Once you realize that it's not that big of a deal, then the improvement can start. On the other hand, if you just stay in denial about it, you'll probably just look for new tricks and techniques to use on women... which, of course, won't lead to any REAL improvement.
I personally think that one of the biggest causes of fear when it comes to situations with women is:
PUTTING TOO MUCH IMPORTANCE ON WHAT THE WOMAN THINKS OF YOU AND WHAT HAPPENS IN THAT PARTICULAR SITUATION.
To put it in different words, most guys don't take action because they're afraid that they'll screw up, or that the woman or others around will judge them.
The REAL problem though is that this whole process has become AUTOMATIC, and it happens INSTANTLY the moment most guys see a woman that they'd like to meet. Before they even have a chance to think about the situation rationally, they've become nervous, insecure, and upset.
I'm sure you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about.
As humans, we have these incredible minds and bodies, but sometimes they get wired up in ways that aren't exactly useful for the situations that we find ourselves in. Worse, sometimes our cultures, families, or peer groups teach us ways of thinking that just aren't useful at all for what we'd like to accomplish.
Here's something that I realized a few years ago when I was learning for myself how to be successful with women...
I thought about this idea that I was having this instant, automatic fear in different situations with women, and that what I was really thinking was "I don't want to screw this up" and"I don't want her to think that I'm a moron"...
And all of a sudden something dawned on me:
IT DOESN'T MATTER.
It doesn't matter what happens, and it doesn't matter what she thinks of me.
I realized that the fears I was experiencing were more from PROGRAMMING than from reality.
So, I started to remind myself as often as possible that the fear wasn't happening because there was any kind of danger... and that my objective in a particular situation wasn't to have it turn out perfect, IT WAS TO LEARN.
Think about the difference between doing something because it's important vs. doing something in order to LEARN.
So, for instance, if I saw a woman that I wanted to meet... instead of thinking, "OK, I have to say something charming and original so she'll like me... and if I screw up I'm going to be embarrassed" - I began to think things like, "I'm going to learn how to get a woman's phone number within a few minutes of meeting her... and part of learning this is going to be trying a lot of different things that probably aren't going to work... but in the end, it's all going to even out because I'm going to have the SKILL that I want."
See the difference?
Well, let me tell you, that change in attitude made a HUGE impact on my success. I was willing to do and try things that I never would have tried in the past for fear of screwing up...
All because I had the attitude of "I'm going to learn something from this and improve my skills...and it doesn't matter what happens in THIS PARTICULAR situation", I was able to improve very rapidly.
And the more I began to apply this idea, the more success I had in ALL areas with women... from the first meeting, to getting them to go out with me, to taking things to a physical level.
So do this:
Go out RIGHT NOW and start a conversation with a woman.
I don't care if she's attractive or not.
But instead of having the objective of getting a date, have the objective of LEARNING SOMETHING.
In fact, if you REALLY want to improve fast, go spend a day starting conversations with women, but make the commitment to NOT get any phone numbers or dates all day.
In other words, no matter WHAT happens, you can't date any of the women that you meet that day.
See if you can just learn how to do a few simple things like say, "Hi" to every woman that walks by... how to maintain eye contact with women until THEY look away... and how to end a conversation "too soon" so she feels a natural vacuum and tries to keep it going herself...
That's one good idea for dealing with your fears.
Well, the list goes on and on... but one of the elements that TOPS the list is FEAR.
There are many different situations that make men feel fear, but I'd like to talk about some of the most common ones... and what to do about them.
First of all, I'd like you to be honest for a moment about this topic.
Do you ever feel FEAR when it comes to women and dating?
Have you ever seen a woman that you'd really like to meet, but you started to feel fear and didn't do anything about it?
Or maybe you were on a date and you wanted to kiss a woman... but you felt too afraid because you didn't want to make a mistake and screw up your chances?
Or maybe you even got a woman's phone number,but you were too afraid to call back because you didn't know how to start off the conversation or ask her out?
Come on, seriously...
Have you ever been sitting there with the phone in your hand, dialing a woman's number, but you had to hang up because you were just too nervous to even talk to her...?
Or out on a date with a woman, and you wanted to kiss her, but you got so nervous at the thought that you just decided it would be better to forget the whole idea and hope for the best...?
Me too. Quite a number of times, in fact.
Coping with fear wasn't exactly something I was born talented at, I had to learn it the hard way.
By the way, it's not exactly FUN to admit that you're afraid of things.
I'm sure you know that most guys would rather admit in public that they were unsure about their sexual orientation than that they were afraid of women.
Of course, this unwillingness to admit that you have a problem IN THE FIRST PLACE only makes matters worse...
If you don't admit that you have the problem, then it's hard to get help and answers to it.
Well, the good news is that you're not alone.
Almost every guy I've known (including myself)has dealt with this issue MANY TIMES with women.
So, STEP 1 is to GET OVER IT. Get over your need to deny that you're afraid. Just admit that you're afraid, and come to grips with the fact that you're human...
STEP 2 is to admit that you'd like to get this particular area of your life handled.
STEP 3 is to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
Once you realize that it's not that big of a deal, then the improvement can start. On the other hand, if you just stay in denial about it, you'll probably just look for new tricks and techniques to use on women... which, of course, won't lead to any REAL improvement.
I personally think that one of the biggest causes of fear when it comes to situations with women is:
PUTTING TOO MUCH IMPORTANCE ON WHAT THE WOMAN THINKS OF YOU AND WHAT HAPPENS IN THAT PARTICULAR SITUATION.
To put it in different words, most guys don't take action because they're afraid that they'll screw up, or that the woman or others around will judge them.
The REAL problem though is that this whole process has become AUTOMATIC, and it happens INSTANTLY the moment most guys see a woman that they'd like to meet. Before they even have a chance to think about the situation rationally, they've become nervous, insecure, and upset.
I'm sure you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about.
As humans, we have these incredible minds and bodies, but sometimes they get wired up in ways that aren't exactly useful for the situations that we find ourselves in. Worse, sometimes our cultures, families, or peer groups teach us ways of thinking that just aren't useful at all for what we'd like to accomplish.
Here's something that I realized a few years ago when I was learning for myself how to be successful with women...
I thought about this idea that I was having this instant, automatic fear in different situations with women, and that what I was really thinking was "I don't want to screw this up" and"I don't want her to think that I'm a moron"...
And all of a sudden something dawned on me:
IT DOESN'T MATTER.
It doesn't matter what happens, and it doesn't matter what she thinks of me.
I realized that the fears I was experiencing were more from PROGRAMMING than from reality.
So, I started to remind myself as often as possible that the fear wasn't happening because there was any kind of danger... and that my objective in a particular situation wasn't to have it turn out perfect, IT WAS TO LEARN.
Think about the difference between doing something because it's important vs. doing something in order to LEARN.
So, for instance, if I saw a woman that I wanted to meet... instead of thinking, "OK, I have to say something charming and original so she'll like me... and if I screw up I'm going to be embarrassed" - I began to think things like, "I'm going to learn how to get a woman's phone number within a few minutes of meeting her... and part of learning this is going to be trying a lot of different things that probably aren't going to work... but in the end, it's all going to even out because I'm going to have the SKILL that I want."
See the difference?
Well, let me tell you, that change in attitude made a HUGE impact on my success. I was willing to do and try things that I never would have tried in the past for fear of screwing up...
All because I had the attitude of "I'm going to learn something from this and improve my skills...and it doesn't matter what happens in THIS PARTICULAR situation", I was able to improve very rapidly.
And the more I began to apply this idea, the more success I had in ALL areas with women... from the first meeting, to getting them to go out with me, to taking things to a physical level.
So do this:
Go out RIGHT NOW and start a conversation with a woman.
I don't care if she's attractive or not.
But instead of having the objective of getting a date, have the objective of LEARNING SOMETHING.
In fact, if you REALLY want to improve fast, go spend a day starting conversations with women, but make the commitment to NOT get any phone numbers or dates all day.
In other words, no matter WHAT happens, you can't date any of the women that you meet that day.
See if you can just learn how to do a few simple things like say, "Hi" to every woman that walks by... how to maintain eye contact with women until THEY look away... and how to end a conversation "too soon" so she feels a natural vacuum and tries to keep it going herself...
That's one good idea for dealing with your fears.
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