Dr. NerdLove discusses the
number one quality women find attractive in a man, and offers tips for
how to increase that factor in your life.
Men spend a
lot of time worrying about being more attractive to women. Men tend to feel as though they’re at a
disadvantage when it comes to dating and consistently look for the
magic bullet that
will maximize their efforts. Because of the pervasive belief that sperm
is cheap and eggs are expensive – the idea that women grant sexual
access only to those who offer the best “value” – they tend to focus on
the most obvious aspects of what supposedly makes men attractive: looks
and material wealth, with “status” following third.
The problem is that they’re working on the wrong areas and a
misunderstanding of just what makes somebody appealing to women. Yeah,
good looks can
help – nobody denies that being gorgeous doesn’t have an impact on one’s life – but not only is it not the
only thing that counts… more often than not it’s not even in the top 5 of
what makes a man attractive.
More than looks, more than money, more than whatever nebulous
definition you want to give to “value” or “status”, the most attractive
aspect of a man, that x-factor that nets him attention, attraction and
dates is…
…fun.
Wait, WHAT?
Over the years as I was trying to make my transition from “dateless
loser” to “ladies man”, I got to know a wide variety of folks who were
good with women. Some were blessed with every advantage – classic good
looks, money and charm – while others had to work for their success. And
yet there were a few people in my social circle who could – to put it
charitably – punch well outside of their apparent weight class. They
were not classically handsome – in fact, many of them were fat and
balding. They weren’t “high-status males” with impressive jobs or flashy
cars and fancy clothes. They didn’t have useful contacts for the social
climbers or the money for those supposedly
hypergamous women looking for the next level. They were strictly average dudes… who still managed to date sexy, intelligent, ambitious women.
Their secret was very simple: they were fun to hang around with. If
you talked to them, then you were going to enjoy yourself. They knew how
to make people
feel good. They were genuine interesting people
with stories to share and a genuine interest in getting to know the
people they talked to. They made friends wherever they went. The
bouncers, the bartenders, the waitstaff… they all loved these guys
within minutes of meeting them. Everybody knew who they were. Everybody
wanted to hang out with them.
Small wonder that they were so
consistently successful.
The fact that they were
fun to be with was all it took to
flip those attraction switches. Being fun, being able to help someone
enjoy themselves transcended looks and status. It gave them a notable,
long-term advantage over the guys who were all surface and flash, the
ones who only had a handful of tricks and routines to rely on and the
ones who got by on social pressure and status games.
It took me a while to appreciate just what they had but once I
understood, it was like a new world opened up to me. I began to see just
how integral being
fun was to a successful dating life… and I started to understand how to integrate it into my approach towards women.
“What Do You See In That Guy?” “He Makes Me Laugh”.
It’s a very simple premise: we instinctively like people who make us
feel good. The better they make us feel, the more we like them.
It’s known as the Reward Theory of Attraction—we are attracted to
people whose presence or behavior makes us feel appreciated and liked.
When the feeling of pleasure at a person’s involvement in our lives
outweighs the costs (someone who’s fun to hang around with but who
causes problems through his behavior, for example) then we tend to be
drawn towards that relationship over others. The brain increases
dopamine and norepinephirine, which regulates the brain’s pleasure and
reward centers. We associate the pleasure with the person and thus want
to spend more time in their presence.
This is part of why a sense of humor ranks so highly in every poll about
what makes men attractive.
Laughter produces endorphins that go straight to the pleasure centers
of your brain and relieves physical tension and stress in the muscles
making you feel more relaxed. Making you feel good triggers the
instincts that tell us that these are people we should like and enforce
that feeling with a shot of dopamine.
Many geeks and outcasts learned in high-school that being funny as a
means of self-defense; making people laugh helped keep you from getting
your ass kicked. Who knew that one day you could turn it around and use
those same skills as a part of a way of getting dates?
However, as much as making people feel good makes them like us, there’s more to it.
Someone who is fun tends to be
more confident in
themselves – after all, it’s hard to be fun when you’re too worried
about looking silly or acting childish. Fun people are also positive;
excessively negative people suck the energy out of the room and kill the
mood while positive people help
generate energy. Fun people make others feel comfortable and have a better grasp on how to
read people’s signs and moods and
can adjust themselves as needed. This makes the difference between
someone who’s fun and someone who’s just a clown: fun people can find
the line and know when things are appropriate or not while a clown tends
to blunder on regardless of mood or intent. Fun people
are interesting – they tend to have diverse interests that they enjoy and have stories to share.
Fun as Dating Strategy
This isn’t to say that it’s just a matter of telling a few jokes until you manage to laugh them into bed.
Being fun is a holistic part of dating and attraction—it influences
everything about what makes someone attractive.
Once I understood the appeal of fun, I began to recognize how it
formed the underpinnings of everything I’d learned up to that point—and
how much I had seen it in action over the years.
My friend Miles—he
who attracts women the way cheese attracts mice—was successful not just
because he looked like the bastard son of Hugh Grant and Rob Lowe but
because he knew how to be fun. He was naturally outgoing and positive
and instinctively understood how to make people feel good, how to feel
special. He was a genuinely
nice guy
who liked to tease and play around with everyone—especially the girls
he was attracted to – and they would respond with great enthusiasm.
Take
bantering and antagonistic flirting,
for example. I enjoy bantering as a means of flirting because it meshes
with my personality and it’s a method of screening for the type of
women I am most attracted to. I get a charge from sharp women who enjoy
that sort of witty duel-by-wordplay. When done properly, it’s a game of
verbal sparring back and forth, matching wits and humor with gentle
ribbing and sexually charged teasing… and it’s
insanely fun for everyone involved.
…yeah, kind of like that.
Being fun and helping others have fun is a way of keeping dates and
potential relationship partners engaged and invested in the
relationship. It’s a
vital part of the chemistry that
helps ensure that not only will she enjoy the first date but that
she’ll be interested in coming back for a second… and even a third date.
The worst dates
aren’t the ones that go badly but the ones that are utterly unremarkable. A bad date can be salvaged after all; a
boring date just drains the life out of everyone involved.
Even
building sexual tension involves
understanding fun. Proper, deliberate sexual tension is like a
roller-coaster ride: the deliberate slow build-up of anticipation at the
very beginning cresting at the absolute height of almost unbearable
frustration and the sudden thrill of the release at
juuuuust the right moment. Even little tricks like the “almost-kiss” are built on the idea of fun; it’s unselfconsciously,
deliberately cheesy… and yet when delivered properly, it’s silliness is a significant part of it’s appeal
. You’re
playing a naughty game like a pair of horny teenagers, seeing just how
far you can push things before one or both of you simply can’t stand it
any longer.
The more that you can bring a sense of fun into your dating life, the more success you will have.
Fun As Social Proof
Much is made about the concept of social proof: the idea that the
behavior of others is a model for how one should act. In a social
context, a person with social proof—say, a crowd of people around him
has been vetted by others; people are responding positively to him,
therefore he is someone others should want to get to know and pay
attention to. It generates something known as the halo effect—where
positive aspects of a person influence others into assuming more
positive aspects about them. People like this person, therefor he must
be cool.
Pick-up artists often try to manipulate social proof as a way of
establishing to others that they’re cool or desirable. This is often
managed by trying to be surrounded by attractive women; the effect is to
say “These beautiful people find me compelling; clearly they know
something you don’t, so
you should find me compelling.”
And yet being fun is a simpler and more organic way of generating
social proof—without having to rely on status games or trickery. To be
fun is to bring legitimate value to an interaction rather than trying to
leverage social contracts and often coercive tactics.
Think of it in terms of a
party.
There’s always those people who are seen as being the life of the
party, who tend to have many people hanging around them. These are often
(but not always) the most fun people. When people see others hanging
around and wanting your attention, others – like that cute brunette
you’ve had your eyes on—will naturally gravitate towards you. The fact
that others view you as someone to spend time with will help invoke that
halo effect that will make you shine even more in other’s eyes.
Even if you’re
on the introverted side of
the personality spectrum, you can make fun-as-social-proof work for
you; it’s a matter of establishing a reputation as much as it is about
being seen in the “proper” light. Introverts often work best in
one-on-one situations and so can take advantage of the situation by
having interesting, intense conversations. Being fun isn’t just about
being the entertainer, it’s about how you make others feel.
How To Be Fun
The most obvious way of being fun is
to be funny; after all, the
appeal of a man with a sense of humor is nearly universal. However, not everybody is going to be a laugh riot, nor is it the only way to be fun.
So what are some other ways of bringing more fun into your dating life?
Pick Offbeat Dates
Everybody’s done dinner and a movie; you want to stand out by taking your date somewhere
different. If you can’t be funny yourself, you can always borrow somebody
else’s sense of humor for the night and
take her to a comedy club or improv performance. If you’re dating a foodie, try signing up for a
couple’s cooking class or a wine tasting. You want something
different than what she’s used to—novelty helps produce dopamine in the brain, after all.
Explore Your Passions
It can’t be said enough: a person who explores and pursues their
passions in life and can communicate them to others are people who are
interesting. So
many people live day-to-day humdrum lives of boring routines; having
passion makes you stand out. It’s an attractive trait, one that women
adore because people who are passionate have
drive and intensity. They have taken charge of their lives and their enthusiasm carries others along… and that is incredibly fun.
Embrace Your Competitive Side
There’s nothing quite like a little rivalry to liven things up. The
playful smack-talk, the tension when scores are tied, the thrill of
victory… these get your hearts pumping, the juices flowing and the
senses come alive. Few things are quite as fun – or arousing – as a
friendly competition. Bowling, laser tag, mini-golf, go-kart racing,
pool… as long as there’s a contest for winner and loser, you’re likely
to have fun.
Master The Art of Conversation
The old adage is true: interest
ed is interest
ing. We love nothing more than a chance to talk about ourselves to an audience that really
gets us
and wants to know more. All too often we don’t encounter people who
actually want to converse so much as people who are waiting for their
turn to talk. Being a
master conversationalist and
utilizing active listening can lead to long, deep and in-depth
discussions about life, the universe and everything… and make you both
feel as though you’ve known each other for
years instead of hours.
Collect Stories
Just as few people have passion in their lives, few people are
interested in finding new experiences. Sometimes it’s worth going out
and doing things
just because you know there will be a story
involved at the end. Take some chances and try things you’ve never done
before… and build that bond between the two of you by experiencing them
together. Whether it’s exploring your city without a map or a plan and
just letting whim guide you, signing up for a beginner’s line-dancing
session, going geocaching or even an impromptu picnic out under a
blanket of shooting stars, you should make a point of finding exciting
new opportunities for escapades and exploits. Sharing these new and
awesome adventures will be more fun than you could ever imagine… and
bring you closer together than you ever dreamed.
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