The High Status Male

Rather than using clever verbal “patterns” designed to hypnotize chicks into robotic submission, I’ve found that the most effective way to deliver an opening comment is to use any sort of playfully casual approach that makes it sound as if a spontaneous thought just popped into my head.  A simple ‘hi’ can do the trick if handled properly.

Of course, real life isn’t always as easy as reading about something in a book.  In a situation where you can’t seem to catch an eye at all for instance, then you’re likely dealing with a deliberate “resistor” and there probably isn’t a play to be had.  Unless of course… you want to do something reasonably aggressive by attempting to force yourself into a chick’s field of view: like changing seats to get closer to her in class or at a cafe, making some kind of noise or distraction to attract her attention your way, etc.  The idea is to do something to get on her visual radar and then watch for any possible sign of interest by seeing if you can pull some kind of fleeting eye contact… and then running with it immediately!

When you DO catch an eye, always expect that she’ll look away from you FAST.  But don’t let this deter you because this is completely normal and to be expected.  The quick “look-away” is a common shyness-reflex that most people have — both men and women.  So never let this stop you, it means nothing! You simply need to ignore this social twitch and seize upon the fleeting possibility of contact very quickly.  Immediately say “hi” to her with no lag-time whatsoever… because you can be sure this instant-of-opportunity will be gone quickly!

Keep your approach friendly and innocent in the sense of not making it seem like you’re going at her with some big deal ‘hit’.  This is too much for most women to process and they will tend to turtle-up on you (but not always — again, they’re as different as snowflakes!).  You’re just looking to get the typical stranger-to-stranger friendly reaction.  Strangers will only lock eyes and stare at each other passionately in romance movies, in real life this rarely ever happens.  So you will never get anywhere waiting around for super eye-lock!

The good news is that you don’t have to wait around for anything – just learn how to seize upon these typical sort of everyday little signals you get here and there, and gently play them up whenever feasible.

Remember that your interest in a woman and any subsequent flirting that you may attempt to create with her is a GIFT that you are presenting to an attractive stranger.  Never look upon your efforts to reach out as some kind of unwanted intrusion into her precious privacy or that you’re bothering her. This can only occur if she has clearly displayed her non-interest and you continue to escalate to the point of annoyance (generally because you’re pissed off or feeling humiliated).  Having said that however, even pressure tactics can work sometimes if you are bold enough to try them.  Remember that this game can be played at ANY level that you choose to, safe or risky.

Here’s a few general guidelines to keep in mind when it comes to opening social comments.  They should be:

Unrehearsed. Something that just popped into your head at that moment is always best because it’s spontaneous.  Appearing a little nervous is okay too.  Preferred actually — since it makes it seem as if you’re attempting to do something that you wouldn’t ordinarily have the stones to try.  This makes her feel special, and makes you look brave. This is good!

Casual. Make it seem like you just bumped into an old friend that you haven’t seen in quite some time without being too deliberately corny about it.  This will keep you calm and your calmness will affect her in a similar way.  Remember that you must model the behaviors that you wish to see reflected back to you.

Sincere. Assuming a challenging posture (the infamous “neg hit”) with a perfect stranger can be risky.  By zapping her with a put-down style, semi-rude remark supposedly done as a “joke” right out of the box you’re just daring a chick to blow you off.  At this point she has absolutely no investment in your feelings, so there’s no motive for her to be nice to you.  This is the setup for those legendary rejections that will haunt you to the grave.

So unless she’s just dripping with a pissy attitude that needs correcting, I would avoid this as an opening tactic (although it might work better later on in the relationship as a way to keep an edge on things…)  Proceed with caution otherwise.

Upbeat. If you mumble out your words out like some nursing home gum-jockey, what’s she supposed to do… offer to change your friggin diaper?  No salesman would dare deliver a muttering, uncertain sales pitch because he’s basically telling you that his product sucks.  Always remember who the product is here… you! So keep your delivery light and bright.

Non-offensive sexually. This is a big one.  Insecure guys like to make sexually bold opening remarks to paint themselves as sexually experienced because they’re afraid their near-virgin status will otherwise show through.  It speaks just the opposite about you though: dudes who are really getting laid never feel like they have to broadcast it to women.  They just carry it around with them as a silent vibe in the gleam of their eyes.  If you insist on being so foolish you may as well just stay home and watch Deep Space 9 re-runs until you disappear into a wormhole.

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If you keep these general rules in mind you should at the very least be able to capture a woman’s interest for a minute or two — and who knows where that can lead?  Ask anyone how their first meeting with their eventual wife or husband went down and they’ll likely tell you that it was nothing special.  So there’s no need to be putting a lot of pressure on yourself to perform some dynamic and amazing trick in order to make a memorable first impression.  Most people just wing their way along socially and somehow get by.  Don’t overthink everything.

Another important thing is to stay on the field of combat and resist withdrawing into yourself.  Seize any and all possible social opportunities that come your way by learning to say “yes” to an invitation for just about anything – any chance to go out with your buddies, to pull a study date with some fat chick that you might have no interest in (because duh, she might have a hot roommate…).  Just say YES to everything and do it even if you think the event will suck… because fate and random chance often work in bizarre ways.

It’s all about mixing and networking, and you can’t accomplish that alone in your room!

Myself, I’ve always felt that the best place to meet women is anywhere and everywhere that they might least expect it. That’s where all my best chances seem to have occurred over the years.  Bars and nightclubs (and to a lesser extent, gyms) are all a tough sell for a guy like me who is not the typical intimidating male specimen of athletic prowess.  Bitch shields are also up in places like nightclubs — where men routinely take their boldest shots at women.  It’s easier to make a cool first impression when you can catch her a little bit off guard at Starbucks rather than immersed in the loud action at Au Bar.  You also aren’t usually standing next to some Adonis looking like his comical sidekick.  Even having these guys anywhere near you can be enough to screw up your confidence!

Bottom line: just learn to become more aware of what’s going on around you in terms of potential chances to make simple, casual contact with women.  If you’re just starting out and still scared shitless by all this, remember that you don’t have to actually DO anything about these opportunities YET — just jot down what you observed… (time, date, place, girl, situation) on a yellow pad when you get home later and keep track of these events.  Then review your “flirting logs” a week or two later and I’ll bet you’ll be surprised at just how many possible opportunities to work a casual flirt that you might be absent-mindedly waltzing right on by every day.  In a week there could be as many as 8-15 good chances depending on how many people zip past you every day, and how big a city you live in.

This exercise is excellent for building your awareness of the possibilities that routinely exist around you, getting you to see those things that you may’ve been blind to.  Look, even harmlessly flirting with 8 girls a week puts you up around 100 flirts in 3 months! So what were you planning to do in the next 3 months that was destined to change your social life anyway?  This simple exercise will not only sharpen your social antennae, but will begin to desensitize you to all the various fear factors involved.

Meeting women doesn’t have to be a colossal task as long as you take things casually, and learn to regard your gift of flirting as a normal everyday part of life — rather than a life-or-death moon mission!

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This post was partially excerpted from my book She’s Yours For The Taking, which incidentally (hint, hint…) is now available in print for the very first time ever!  See the photo and sales blurb over on the right side of the this page, or go to my Amazon E-store and give it a look.  Much appreciated!

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This is a question and answer exchange that I just had with one of my readers. It began as a question about traveling alone and turned into a screed on the topic of self-hatred, which I have come to believe over the years to be a much bigger issue with guys seeking solutions for things like shyness and social dysfunction than many of us realize. To wit:

Hey Mike,

I’ve had some stuff twirling around in my head lately that I wanted to bounce off of you, having recently just turned 40. I’m single again, having just broke up with my girlfriend (my decision). Not easy to do as she was a great girl, but I just seem to get bored in relationships like you. Also like you, I got a late start in life on bedding women. Anyway. my question is a lifestyle type query.

I’m interested in your take on how a single guy should go about traveling and vacationing on his own.

This is becoming a real dilemma for me, being single at my age. Not a lot of unmarried, single friends left to hang around with anymore. Last year I went by myself to the Dominican Republic — not to a resort but to a town where all the girls are “pros” if you know what I mean. It was amazing what an ego boost it was… you’d of thunk that I was Brad Pitt or something! LOL…

Don’t get me wrong, I realize that I’m only desirable in that type of situation because I’m perceived as having some sort of relative wealth — a form of being an HSM I suppose. However, I seem to have a little bit of an issue with feeling like a loser doing this sort of thing… like a guy who can’t get an ordinary American woman and so ultimately has to pay for it. I know that some guys swear by this lifestyle and insist that some of these foreign women are much more sensuous and feminine than their spoiled American counterparts. I don’t know…

Are these guys on to something, or are we all just acting like misogynistic LSM’s who can’t score American chicks?

I’ve thought about learning Spanish and maybe moving to Buenos Aires. Those Argentine women are hot! Sounds adventurous I know, but I guess when I get to the bottom of it, I wonder if this isn’t me just running away from my problems of low status and my inability to score lots of women here in the good ole U.S. of A?

Do you think I should I stick it out and try to achieve what ever status I can here at home, or is it okay to try and be a bigger fish in a smaller pond? I’d love to hear your take on this idea, I know it’s not your specialty per se but I do value your perspective. Thanks again for your time!

Sincerely,
Mark

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Hey Mark,

Good to hear from you again. About 3 years ago I went to Las Vegas for 5 days by myself and I didn’t find that NOT having a companion with me was any sort of big detriment — except maybe for going to certain sit-down type of restaurants where you might feel odd dining alone. You know how it is, certain activities you can do by yourself and others are “couple” things that will make you feel uncomfortable. That’s your only practical restriction really, and there are plenty of fast food joints where you can dine alone with a newspaper. Other than that I was fine seeing the sights, gambling, etc… all by myself.

Then again… certain activities are better done alone, WITHOUT the ‘ole girlfriend tagging along. Things such as…

Well, I visited one of the nearby legal cathouses just outside Vegas on this trip because I always wanted to see what they were like. The experience was pretty surrealistic in fact… however, a fun (but WAY too expensive…) time was had by all, especially me! And so what? Did I break some kind of sacrosanct “HSM code” by paying for sex? And who cares if I did anyway?

This is the EXACT sort of attitude shift that you too will need to achieve in order to ultimately address your own internal doubts about this issue.

I believe that we accumulate an unwieldy library of these stupid, self-created “internal rules” over the course of a lifetime that eventually bind us up in a kind of mental strait jacket. Soon we can’t even conceive of doing anything the simple way anymore without feeling guilty about it. Why?… because we “broke the rules”! The precious rules… the rules that exist only within our own thick skulls.

Well I’ve found this network of rules to actually be a form of very subtle and sly self-hatred. Don’t ask me why we do this to ourselves — but the sooner you can recognize and chuck all this crap from your head the sooner you will become free to just let go and follow your heart wherever it may want to take you. And that’s the real goal that you want to always be pursuing relentless in life, the goal of mental freedom.

Case in point about your desire to seek out women who might be vastly more easier to relate to than the typical ball-busting, judgmental American bitch… the delightful product of 50 years of feminism. Certainly not like the girls dear old dad used to marry, that’s for sure… fresh out of high school with all that good home-ec training (cooking, baking, cleaning, housework). That right, they used to TRAIN women in high school how to be good supportive wives who graded their own self-worth by how well they treated their husbands! Even suggesting that this sort of thing might be anything less than total domestic-slavery-brainwashing will get you a swift kick in the balls nowadays, you MFn’ pig!

You now desire to chuck this nasty USA scene and go looking for more “agreeable” women elsewhere, but your self-hating side quickly steps in and says: “hey forget it, that’s cheating…. you have to try and meet women in the toughest environment possible or it doesn’t count.”

See, that’s the central tenet and mode of operation of self-hatred: you must do everything the hardest way possible or it doesn’t count. Note that other (lesser human) people can choose to take the easy way out and that’s okay… but not YOU — you have to take the hardest route because you’re special… you’re superhuman. That’s the Disabled Ego at work…

…Special tough rules define the special “tough” guy.

There’s a great book to read that dives deep into this psychological phenomenon, it’s called Compassion and Self-Hate: An Alternative to Despair by Theodore I. Rubin. What we call “cheating” is in fact what a therapist knowledgeable in the mechanics of self hatred would call compassion.

Compassion?

For a moment, just consider that entire galaxy of nasty internal rules that hold you back — would you ever force them upon someone else? Someone you loved, like a son perhaps? No way! See how with others we feel free to express our compassion? But don’t go looking for any such free passes inside your own head for yourself. Cheater!

Another example: I grew up Catholic, but my own self-hatred forced me to become an atheist for awhile because (I now understand) that faith is a form of compassion for oneself — and of course such a thing is flat-out cheating because it violates The Big Mike Self-Hate Rule: that you can only believe what’s demonstrable scientifically no matter how much it brings you down emotionally.

Logic is king, emotions are irrelevant (only superhuman rules apply to me, remember), and bending logic to assuage emotions is a crime against nature. Only overgrown babies (SUB-human’s) run around expressing their faith you see, because they aren’t strong enough mentally (like super me!) to face the scary facts of random existence and postmortem non-existence without anything to comfort them. It doesn’t matter how you feel (emotions are irrelevant), you are a prisoner of the facts of the Universe as they reveal themselves, and trying to escape them via delusional thinking is weakness and therefore pathetic.

Cheating!

Now, this may be the sort of nonsense that we like to tell ourselves, but would we ever actually burden someone else with this same set of cold, inviolate rules — perhaps even on their death bed? Or would we instead say: “let the guy find comfort in his faith, so what if none of it’s actually proven? Who cares?” Of course this solution is never valid for you, just the other guy. We go easy on him but never on ourselves.

All this madness forms the nuts-and-bolts of self-hatred – and it manifests itself in zillions of complicated and difficult to understand ways. It’s just the way that “we are” (or so we think). But there is a hidden kernel of compassion locked away in everyone’s heart and you need to find yours. Depression, disillusionment… these are all cries from deep within to be free of the self-hating monster that we created. Read that book if you can. The entire human race should read it!

Anyway, this was a long-winded way of recommending that you dig out your own self-hating internal rules from under the mental rock where they hide and spray some compassion on them. Stop being so hard on yourself by worrying about hypothetical HSM-LSM issues etc. I recommend that you seek out your own happiness by whatever route you must take.

No one will ever ask how you got there or judge whether or not you “cheated” by failing to take the hardest road possible. Are you gonna get a medal for remaining true to your self hated? Where do they hand those baby’s out? (I would look like one of those old Soviet generals if they did

Want to know the saddest part? In the end, I discovered that self-hatred is a complete a waste of time… because when you finally DO break the grip of those murderous rules YOU WON’T CARE IN THE LEAST! You’ll see that nobody gives a damn about the exact trajectory of your life, but you. And if you won’t even give yourself a break then there’s no hope at all — because everyone else is too tied-up wrestling with their own demons to worry about “saving you”. You’re sitting in the middle of the desert waiting for that ship to come in.

And man, this is the best wisdom that I can ever pass along to you. Take care buddy.

I got a lot of excellent comments on the Tiger Woods post that I put up a few weeks ago — back when he gave his apology-to-the-world speech.  Since many of them flamed me somewhat, I thought it might be good if I just tried to clear up a couple of points that maybe I didn’t make clearly enough the first time around.  Two main things really:

1) My beef isn’t so much about Tiger’s behavior as it is with society in general.  I feel it’s a shame that HSM “haremers” like Tiger are forced to remain in the closet in order to avoid general scorn.  (Look at that… I have to invent a goofy word to describe him because there isn’t even an accepted term to describe men who wish to live this Hefner-like lifestyle openly… thus demonstrating how socially unaccepted this idea is… EVEN THE LANGUAGE ITSELF REJECTS IT! )

This is especially true if their income or professional advancement is tied in any way to their public image and persona.  For Tiger to have embraced this lifestyle openly would have been economic suicide for him insofar as endorsements were concerned.

So like many men in similar positions (politicians, celebrities, acedemics who wish to be taken seriously, even astronauts) they have to remain in the closet and put on the facade of husband and family man, etc. even though they chaff in this role. If Bill Clinton for instance would have lived like the haremer that he obviously desired to be, could he have been elected President?  Not a chance. (Of course, there’s a bit of chicken-and-egg thing there with the Presidency inflating his HSM status after the fact, but whatever.  You know where his head was at!).

Guys like this are like gay men who get married in order to hide it — forced to wear the patina of respectablity so they can function in society the way they need to.  Being gay is in fact far more acceptable in society today than being a haremer.  It’s the HSM who is discriminated against by society!… It is he who must be boxed in and controlled at all costs.

Make that S.O.B. have only one nagging wife and be miserable… just like the rest of us!

So Tiger had to be a “scumbag” because there is no acceptable avenue for him to just live his romantic life the way he wished to without bringing on an endless tide of bad publicity and criticism.  Better to just get married and then have to juggle a secret harem on the side.  This is the choice he was forced to make because no other option exists for a man like this, a man of exceptional status.

So I say that society forced him to be a hypocrite because no acceptable place exists for men like this to live the way they wish and still be able to exploit their talents profitably.  We are all still way too unevolved on this issue.  No one (except I guess me) champions the OPEN haremer lifestyle as the final reward for the HSM who chooses to embrace it.

You can compete — but if you win you cannot have the ultimate prize that every Man desires.

Grow up society!… What does it matter if rich, famous, athletic, loudmouth, obnoxious HSM’s openly have harems as well?  Can we hate them any more than we already do? I think that after the multi-million-dollar executive TARP bonuses we’re maxed out by now, aren’t we?

2) My sanity was questioned on this idea that men are driven to create the world because of some deep desire to score women.  Not only do I believe this to be absolutely true, my contention is that men have so completely subducted this idea within their own minds that they DON’T EVEN REALIZE THIS IS THE ULTIMATE MOTIVATING FORCE IN THEIR LIVES ANY MORE!

All male behavior ultimately boils down to latent sex drive.  Period.  I developed this point extensively in my books so I’m not going to re-write it all here.  Reject it if you must.  One thing to understand though is that the modern male drive is ultra-subliminal now and buried beneath all manner of high-minded sub-motivators — we don’t even realize that it’s the reason why we do ANYTHING that we do any more!  We think we have these other motivations — but strip them away one-by-one and there it is… seething and throbbing hotly down in the lizard-brain: the need to impress the female!

Most all of our other activities, sophisticated as they may be, completely mask this underlying animalistic drive nowadays.

That’s evolution of the Mind in action: this idea that we’ve transcended our animal drives and supplanted them with higher-minded goals — when in fact the desire to get laid is all there really is.  If we last long enough as humans I believe that we will eventually evolve away all our emotional baggage and become Vulcan-like.  But that could be 1000’s of years in the distant future.  For now, men pretend to have other motives when in fact we do not.  Sorry.

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Of course, all these crazy ideas of mine — especially this notion of the socially-acceptable “haremer” — is not merely hundreds of years, but perhaps dozens of generations ahead of it’s time.  I guess the real problem is that your present is my past! Just another misunderstood intellectual titan who (while scorned in his own time) future generations will surely build statues in honor of.

I just hope they make me look taller.

Valentine’s Day sucks. If you don’t have any romantic partner to ply with silly gifts, it sucks… and if you DO have a girlfriend it still sucks having to buy her a lot of silly, expensive gifts (or else!).

If you’re experiencing the first kind of suckiness, no girlfriend, then let’s resolve to begin making some basic and simple changes to your presentation as a man that will help you solve this problem once and for all.  Here at the High Status Male Blog we like to kick around ideas that we hope can make us more attractive to women.  Women are of course the great and universal Mystery…  Their frivolous behaviors have vexed men throughout the Ages — driving them to commit acts of war, suicide and even murder.

And that was when they weren’t otherwise making us insanely horny, or just plain insane!

A recurring idea in both my books is that men shouldn’t have to obsess too much about their looks as much as their behavior around women, since THIS is what the girls grade us on in the same way that guys scope out their physical charms to decide who’s hot or not.  Yeah, we all know that we’re supposed to act confident around women to project the vibe that we’ve made it far enough up the pecking order that women should take note.  But what does this actually MEAN in terms of the types of behaviors and attitudes that we need to adopt for ourselves?

Here are 7 important signaling behaviors that you should learn how to manage.  See if any of them need to be adjusted in your own personal male display:

1.  Stop Pre-editing Away Your Every Possible Opening Words to a Woman. Or maybe I should say stop totally pre-REJECTING them because, man, that’s what I used to do to myself big time!  In normal everyday conversations I was fine and friendly and even funny — but get me near some hot chick and it was clam-up time.  I remember standing around helplessly in a club right next to a great looking girl wondering what I should “open” with (and this was before I understood what that even meant!…)

I would stand there locked in mental concrete, my mind racing through various different sentences thinking: “that’s sucks… are you kidding me?!   …if I say THAT it will make me sound like a complete loser!…” And then of course there was my personal favorite excuse: “…and so THEN what will you say to her?”

This last one was a real iron curtain for me — I was essentially putting enormous pressure on myself to have some sort of well thought-out conversational script all memorized to a tee and ready to go in my head.  In fact I never actually sat down and wrote out such a script for myself (a mistake), so in addition to having the perfect opening thing to say I was also required to create this script ON THE FLY!

You know how we like to talk about the idea of self-hatred?  Well gentlemen, I present to you Exhibit A!

Notice how best to punish the “hated one”?… by setting the bar for an acceptable performance so high that it becomes impossible to achieve?  This did the trick by seeding a big lump of fear in my mind that would cause me to lock up and never even make an attempt to speak up.

Remember, the High Status Male is King, Boss and Conqueror… he NEVER believes that his words are unimportant or boring (even if they are), and so he speaks freely!  And YOU will listen.  To be self-conscious about your words is a loud LSM (low status male) signal that the women will pick up on right away, so talk.

See how these deadly self-defeating cycles can come to control you?

2.  Start Making Eye Contact With Women. And I mean the GOOD kind where you look away about 20% of the time so as not to slip into a ‘psycho leer’.  I talk about this extensively throughout my books and audios so I won’t get into the whole thing here, but suffice to say that a shifty-eyed presentation of yourself is always a bad deal.  People are made uncomfortable in the presence of someone who won’t look them in the eye.  They begin to wonder why you seem to be acting ashamed or guilty.  What are you hiding?  To varying degrees women will especially get creeped out by this A+ connection killer.

Poor eye contact creates a vibe that’s just the opposite of charismatic – which is the ability to make people feel good about themselves.  Shifty eye contact is anti-charismatic because it forces people to identify with your discomfort instead, and they don’t like that!  They don’t want to hang around with people who give them ‘bad vibes’ — for whatever reason — and would just as soon avoid you altogether.

So if you’ve ever scratched your head wondering why you’re not getting many callbacks or why she won’t answer your post-first-date-callback, this could be a big reason why.  In your nervousness you revert to a turtled-up body language that included an evening-long inability to make eye contact with her, and she was totally put off by this loud signal of male subservience (or disinterest).

As a mechanical quick-fix, you can always practice the tried-and-true “salesman’s trick” whereby you stare at the bridge of someone’s nose if you can’t stand to meet their eye.  Most people cannot tell the difference.  Ultimately though you should seek to raise your confidence around people, and your eye contact will then become more natural and genuine.

It’s okay to use tricks such as these to kick-start your recovery, but you should always be working towards the day when you will no longer have to rely on such trickery to get you through a conversation.

3.  Initiate a Handshake. We all know that a high status male is attractive to women, but what you may not realize is that your status is determined by your day-to-day interactions with other MEN.

Men constantly push, prod, connive, outwork or seek to outsmart their fellow man in the workplace, culture, battlefield, household or any of a thousand other venues in which they interact.  There is always a competition going on to see who’s just a bit more powerful than who.  This game never ends, and much of it goes on subconsciously and almost invisibly.  In many situations basic relationships are already clearly pre-established: Joe is the boss and Ron the employee, Jim the dad and mark the son, or Bill is the Sergeant and Ed the Private.  Whatever… but it’s clear cut.

However, many daily encounters between men who pretty much seem as if they could be on a same level are not as clearly defined, and so a signal is required to establish who is who.  Who is the alpha and who agrees to be the subjugated?

This phenomenon can be played to your advantage if you are aware enough to make a point of establishing yourself as a man to be respected in any casual encounter.  One of the simple ways that you can do this is to be the guy to offer to shake hands first (whenever appropriate of course, such as in a business situation or at a party).  Why is this important?  Because the higher status male conveys a sense of safety to a lower status male by touching him first — but doing it the other way around can be viewed as a challenge.

Think again about the clearly pre-established relationship: the boss can reach out and put his arm around the employee to convey a message of “good job” or “you’re in my favor”.  But reverse this and see what happens: an employee touching the boss unprompted would be seen as disrespectful and perhaps even a challenge to his authority.  It says, “what are you going to do about it?”

So by expressing a desire to shake hands first it can seem as is you are seeking to touch the other guy from a position of strength.  This can be very subtle and probably makes little more than a subliminal impact, but those are usually the best kind!

When you get into the habit of being ‘touch aggressive’ on a regular basis you will begin to establish a bit more respect for yourself.  There will be some push-back from time to time as men continue to jockey against each other for just that shade more status than the other guy (I’m stronger, more intelligent, more courageous, wealthier, etc.).  But at least now you’re playing the game instead of being quickly dispatched off the board by guys who size-up your reluctance to “go first” as an automatic win for themselves.

4.  Speak up. In the same vein as the previous point about handshakes your verbal thrust (or lack thereof) makes a statement about you as well.  The loudest mouth in a group of men is often the alpha.  In one-on-one conversations, alpha usually carries the conversation in some way — from being the more informed or interesting party, to actually giving direct commands in some cases, while the “beta” shuts up and listens!

Another thing the beta male often does to cement his lower status is attempt to sanitize or otherwise try to frame what he’s saying so as not to provoke alpha.  For instance, in that employee-boss situation, the employee may try to break some bad news to the boss softly or in a hedged fashion so as to minimize his displeasure (and possible wrath!).

Whereas the boss simply states his mind with no regard as to how his words may make his subordinate “feel”.  (i.e., “You’re fired Johnson!”)

In neutral encounters where there is no pre-established pecking order, the one who ISN’T afraid to speak up first is usually given a higher status grade by most women who would casually observe such an encounter.

So even if it means stating the obvious, just do it.  Because the actual content of what you’re saying conveys less critical information than the silent signal delivered by just who is talking to whom.  Get it?

Again, subliminal.  But that’s why they call it making an impression.  And these impressions will stack-up in your favor with repeated expression.

5.  Drop Dead and Smile. Now we’re back to your interactions with women.  Nervousness and fidgety jumpiness conveys a signal of having little personal confidence.  Also when we’re nervous we rarely smile but instead wear a mask of concern that can look angry.  This generally doesn’t make a great first impression on women, unless you know how to pull off the strong, brooding, silent type of vibe (although if you could I doubt you would be reading this now!)

A better way to go is to smile and make great eye contact and generally just MODEL the sort of reaction that you want reflected back at you.  Again, imagine the man of considerable status and power: master of his universe, he is calm and collected as he moves through life.  No nervous fidgeting that might reveal an underlying insecurity about… what?  His social skills, his bank account, his fading virility?  Ha!… not a chance!

And yet that’s what YOUR nervousness can convey about you if you’re not careful.

Still nervous anyway?  It’s okay so long as it doesn’t show itself too much visibly.  Again, you can use this little mechanical trick to help yourself out: just hold a thumb pinched between your two fingers on the same hand and squeeze as tightly as you have to.  This gives your nervous system a focal point in the body to quietly discharge itself — allowing the rest of your muscles to relax and stop quivering.  To “drop dead”.

This allows you to project a vibe of calmness that makes that awesome subliminal High Status impression on women which can go very far towards getting you some return interest from them!

6.  Become Comfortable With Silence. This is just the opposite of Point #1… i.e., overthinking everything that you want to say, rejecting it all and then saying nothing at all!

Some guys can’t tolerate any lull in a conversation with a girl and will seek to keep up a constant stream of nervous chatter because, well, they’re nervous.  But just consider for a moment a romantic scene from a typical movie: isn’t it during those moments of silence when the words run out that all the truly important communication begins… spoken with long, penetrating looks and perhaps the first stages of physical contact?

These pivotal moments of emotional / romantic connection will never occur however if you continue to prattle over every potential close moment like Woody Allen on speed!  This blab serves no purpose other than to keep your own anxieties at bay, so stop it!

Remember, one of the principle skills of the seducer is to seize upon moments of conversational lull and use them to move beyond words… to begin guiding a woman towards an eventual physical connection.  This is a skill you want to work on for yourself beginning today.  So the next time you find yourself blabbing away to cover up an uncomfortable silence, try sending her a silent signal of appreciation with your eyes instead.

Remember, YOU may be uncomfortable with silence, but women are drawn into it. Learn to exploit this phenomenon for yourself.

7.  Change Something About Yourself to Improve Your Edge and Get Noticed. LSM’s tend to become socially invisible after a while and will silently fade away into the background.  You need to do something different to start lighting-up on her radar screen!

No need to undergo any sort of colossal surgical makeover either — improving just ONE small but significant thing about yourself can be enough to break everyone’s old, cemented image of you and force them to begin reconsidering who you are.  Grow your hair long, or shave it off.  Get a tat (or a new one that’s cooler).  Try showing up in nice khaki’s instead of the usual dirty jeans — or if you’re a button-down suit-and-tie guy then try loosening up your look a little.  This kind of thing acts as a shock to the system (both to the people around you AND to yourself) and might finally start getting you noticed, maybe for the first time ever! Simple but effective.

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Well there’s 7 ideas to get you started down the path to some potentially exciting personal change.  Notice what I didn’t tell you to do though… I didn’t tell you to go out and get an expensive new wardrobe or to get rich somehow and buy yourself a flashy new car and some kickin’ bling.  The typical things you might think would be necessary to raise a guys’ status so that women begin noticing him.  These can be your long range goals to change and improve your life, but you must crawl before you can walk and it’s easy to become overwhelmed and discouraged if you try to tackle the task of massive personal change head-on from several directions at once.  Most of us probably wouldn’t even know where to begin!

So your first step will be to assume some of the behaviors of the HSM (even is simulation) and use the improved reactions from women as a basis to build your confidence up, and then just continue moving forward from there.  Remember, the goal is to raise the appearance of your male status for the purpose of getting your foot in the door romantically… getting a momentary flash of interest from a chick that you can then seize upon and begin to build off of.  One step at a time, right?

ALSO VERY IMPORTANT: This non-verbal signal of male attractiveness sets the table in such a way to make it possible for you to avoid being rejected as much as possible.  Otherwise you are constantly trying to fly in the face of a hurricane of female disinterest, and it won’t be long before your fledgling confidence is shattered completely.  You must avoid this.

None of these seven things require any huge investment of money either.  What they mostly require is an awareness of yourself — how you act around others and the effect that it has on them.  By adopting this sort of “fake it before you make it” idea of self-improvement you can begin to bootstrap yourself up out of your current behavioral rut and start to create little social breakthroughs for yourself here and there.  These successes are crucial though because they provide bits of inspiration to keep you motivated and moving forward, always improving… getting smarter with each failure and more confident with each success!

Before you know it, you’ll be looking back 1, 2 or ten years later only to realize that the entire trajectory of your life has changed enormously for the better as a result of these simple beginning efforts.

Just don’t write me NEXT Valentine’s Day bitching that you have this hot little girlfriend now who’s demanding silly gifts and expensive bling.  I warned you!

The following Q&A is from today’s “Tell Me About It” syndicated column by Carolyn Hax (dated Feb. 3, 2010).  She writes mostly general relationship advice for the newspaper, but this particular one caught my eye — so I clipped it out, scanned it and I’ve added in my 2 cents at the end:

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Dear Carolyn,

I am 29 and single.  I have a very strong mother who raised me to treat women with respect.  I was taught that women are strong, intelligent and independent.  And that women don’t need any special treatment.

When I go on dates I treat women that way.  I respect them, but I don’t offer to hold their door open, or always take my car.  I ask if they want to drive.  And I always split the check rather than pay for them.  I think it’s insulting to assume that women are fragile.

As you can imagine, I don’t get very many second dates.  And most of my female friends say I act like a jerk.  Am I a jerk? Should I change my way of thinking, or stay strong to my beliefs … and remain single?

~ B from Maine

Your mother instilled in you some valuable beliefs, but either she or you fashioned them into a needlessly blunt instrument.

Dates have nothing to do with scoring political points.  If you ask someone to dinner, you pay.  Not because your dinner companion is financially dependent upon you, but because you are the host and the pleasure of someone’s company is more than worth paying the tab.

If you get to a door first, you hold it for the next person.  Not because that person is too frail to handle the door, but because it’s the courteous thing to do.

If you are amenable to giving your companion a ride, then you offer a ride.

Note that none of these actions are gender specific.  Each is simply one person showing kindness to another… and people of all varieties appreciate kindness.   Even the strong, intelligent and independent ones.

You have female friends, so presumably you enjoy their company.  Dating women needn’t be any more complicated than your friendships.  Try being kind, not right.  See if that helps.

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My Comments:

Well it looks like good ol’ “B from Maine’s” flinty cool New England sensibilities aren’t serving him very well in his dating life!

I actually get a lot of mail from guys like this who claim they do absolutely nothing wrong when they take women out, are perfect gentlemen to them, etc. etc. — and yet they can’t seem to get second dates most of the time.  I’m not there watching what they’re doing (but boy would I love to!) so it puzzles me as to what these men could be doing so deadly wrong.  It’s tough to guess when you’re only hearing one side of the story.

So it occurred to me while reading this piece in the paper today that some of these guys might have screwed-up internal “rules of personal conduct” which handcuff them to the point where they are genuinely unable to get a sense of how their behaviors are viewed by others.  Let’s remember that the act of Dating itself is mainly about determining what sort of personality you’re dealing with, to see if that person’s initial attractiveness will hold up after a few hours of hanging out with them.  Yes, it’s all just a big test (and BTW, it’s a test for her too!)

I’m sure it’s probably obvious to many of you how and why this guy comes off like ‘a jerk’.  But here’s his One Big Mistake in a nutshell: he’s refusing to play the game of courtship — and consequently the women red flag him as a stiff, uptight, BORING and possibly difficult personality as a result… and who the hell wants to get involved with someone like that?

Carolyn’s opening remark is profound in her observation that he’s taken a (possibly) well-meaning respect for women, taught to him by his mom, and turned it into a “blunt instrument”.  (As an aside: I often wonder what twisted motivations serve as a base for the things that our parents teach us.  Why was his “very strong mother” so intent on teaching her son to respect women at all costs anyway?  Maybe because good old dad (or the previous men in her life) routinely treated her with little or none at all? Just wondering…)  Therein lies the roots of shame transfer, but that’s more grist for a future post.

What I’m thinking in this case is that there’s an aspect of underlying anger or rage present here that’s expressing itself in this very passive-aggressive way.  Some of this could actually be anger at the controlling Mom herself, which the women that ‘B’ dates are only acting as stand-ins for… but that’s getting into speculative psychology.  I’m just trying to point out that everything in human nature is Cause-and-Effect.  None of us grows up in a vacuum.  That’s why it’s important to become self-aware and dig into your underlying motives for acting in the ways that you do.  By pulling these things out into the sunlight they will sometimes just burn up in the heat of logic and reason and go away — and then you’ve taken a significant first step in changing in your life.

Anyway, I’m sure you can see how adherence to such particular guidelines of strict personal behavior are throwing up an emotionless, distant wall between ‘B’ and his dates — when instead he should be trying to create some sort of emotional connection with them.  But that would mean having to play the courtship game of deference and charm and to act in a much different way than he describes.

Note that I said ACT… as in “being on your best behavior” — which simply means that you present yourself in a way that’s better than ordinary for the purpose of making a good impression on someone.  You would no more act your usual nasty old self on a date than you would on a job interview, right?  Unless of course you secretly wanted to sabotage the interview and NOT get the job (or the second date for that matter) so you could stay home on unemployment and keep torturing mother?  I’m just saying…

‘B’s refusal to act in ways that would endear him to his date have motivations that could be variously described as stubborn, self-hating, “logical” or any number of other ‘good reasons’.  But mainly, highly structured behavior also screams out another word to me: FEAR.  People who have a need to control and micro-manage every little thing about themselves and their environment have a huge fear of the unknown or of having things slip out of their control.  Part of ‘B’s motivation for acting as he does on these dates could have something to do with ‘control-freak anxieties’.  Again, without being able to sit down with this guy and pick his brain all we can do is speculate, but it’s certainly another possibility.

This sort of thing is more like a bad habit than a personality disorder, but it can screw you up in countless little ways regardless, as you see here.  Self-Awareness friends, self-awareness!

More Topic-Relevant Information:

Hey Mike,

At 40 years of age I think I may have finally found the missing piece of my own personal puzzle thanks to you: toxic shame.   Damn… who would have thought!   I need to tell you my story in order to have my question answered so bear with me.

I am an above average looking man and have a higher than average IQ.  This made my shitty track record with women even more frustrating to me.   I finally decided when I was thirty that I would overcome my fear of rejection and start getting laid.   I studied speed seduction….NOT FOR ME!   Eventually I just starting approaching and flirting with women and knocked a huge dent in my problem, but still couldn’t get past the flirting stage of seduction.   It wasn’t until after I came across your material that I figured it out.

Growing up, my father was a good provider but many times he was a regular Asshole.  Note the capital A!   Yes, I made mistakes as we all do, but he would totally blow things out of proportion with a slap upside the head or a belt across the ass.  I could handle this, but the yelling, screaming, and cursing are what really hurt the most… YOU ACT SO FUCKIN STUPID, or WHY YOU GOTTA FUCK UP SO GODDAMNED MUCH!!!!   He never spoke to my sister or mother in this way, only to me.

My mother was a sweet woman and I will always cherish her memory, but she did have a shaming trick or two herself.   Her thing was to start crying and say things like “one day I’ll be dead and then maybe you’ll be happy” or “just go ahead and hurt your mother” or “I’m so embarrassed by you.”   Naturally this ain’t too good for the old self esteem!

My mother was diagnosed with cancer in 1999 and the old man changed on a dime.  She fought the disease for 4 years with a courage uncommon… never complaining and always optimistic.   I felt badly for anything I had ever done wrong to her.   She passed away with my father and myself at her bedside crying like babies.

The night after her funeral, my father and I buried the hatchet.   He told me that he couldn’t believe the stupid bullshit that he got so bent out of shape about.   He apologized for all he had done to me, and I did as well.   We are on great terms now — he re-married and I am happy for him.

These are my questions:

Do I have to confront my father about my toxic shame in order to heal it?   Mike, if we were still at odds with each other I wouldn’t mind, but I hate to re-open those old wounds now.   John Bradshaw recommends twelve step groups like AA, but I don’t want to get into anything like that.   How did you handle it?   I am dead certain that this is the source of all my issues with women, not making enough money, etc.  Thanks for your time.

Ken

Hi Ken,

Thanks for writing, that was a very touching and heartfelt story, my belated condolences to you and your dad for the loss of your mom.   I lost my own dad back in ‘78 from bone cancer and I still wish I could talk to him every now and then.   Part of the progression of life is the collection of these sufferings along the way.

For me, it was my mom who did most of the shaming of my affection needs, which I now realize did me great damage but was clueless about while it was happening.  To this day however, I have never confronted her directly with these “charges”.   At this point I don’t believe it would do any good, and so I try to love her as best I can regardless.   I believe that just KNOWING about these hidden shame issues in your own mind robs them of most of their power without having to make a big show of it for everyone else. The important thing is that YOU can finally understand what’s been shaping your behaviors for so long, and so you can change course whenever you see the same patterns beginning to happen again.   It’s this AWARENESS that’s the key to destroying your shame by dragging it out into the light to burn up like some old vampire.   If you’ve made peace with your dad, then I would just drop it and move on.

You have to remember that our parents were from a different era where children weren’t coddled psychologically as they are today.   My parents were born in the 1920’s, which was the depression era in the USA.   Back then if you fed and put a roof over your kids’ heads you were being a fantastic parent!   Words were just bullshit — and their power to hurt and do lasting damage was mostly unrecognized.  People were just parenting the way that they themselves had been parented.   No one had access to very much training in the world outside of their own direct experience which was gleaned from the people in their families and the local community where they grew up, and that “training” could vary wildly from one person to the next.   Remember there was no TV or internet or all the other 1000-and-1 different avenues of alternative information and psycho-babble that exist today and which many of us now take completely for granted.   If you were messed up in the head, you simply suffered in silence — and you often passed all that crap on to your kids without a second thought.

Hell, my uncle was turned into a dysfunctional alcoholic from the effects of WW II.   Nowadays he would be diagnosed with “delayed stress syndrome” from his combat experiences and treated somehow.   Back then he was just shoved aside as a drunken bum and rejected and isolated and mocked.   This is how he lived out his sad and lonely life.

But now you and I know differently.   Now you can recognize where your problems have taken root and simply refuse to honor them whenever they try to mess you up again in the future.   And you can resolve NOT to pass their effects along to the next generation, to your own sons and daughters. In some ways ours is a transitional generation born of a responsibility that is presented to us by having access to this sea of information that we swim in — and it’s our job to break the chain of family misery by NOT passing on our own shame-based issues and illnesses.   That’s why I say that clubbing your dad over the head with all this shit won’t do you any good now – just go forward as best you can and resolve yourself never to BE him.

You don’t need 12 steps, just one step… self-awareness. Refuse to let your shame speak for you anymore — keep cutting it off at the knees and eventually it will lose it’s hold on you.