People Skills And Basic Attractiveness - A Foundation To Doing Well With Women

By: Chris

There are a few general areas you need to get handled before you can do okay with women:

1. You need some idea of how to actually get girls (what to do, what works, what doesn't, etc.)
2. You need to have the guts to do certain things (go talk to them, make a 'move', etc.)
3. You need to be at an okay level in the fundamentals such as overall people skills, having appealing personality traits, being free of glaring flaws and hang ups, providing legitimate reasons for women to want to be around you, etc.

Of these, #1 is largely covered elsewhere across dozens and dozens of other sources. Different people will have varying ideas of the best way to get women, but overall you need some sort of guidance. #2 is also very important, maybe more than #1. You can know all you want about getting girls in theory, but if you're too scared to apply it in the real world, then it's all pointless. For many, many guys, this is what's largely holding them back. They probably know enough right now to get a girl, but they're too nervous to go do it. I talk about this elsewhere on the site, and of course other places discuss it too.

#3 is obviously essential as well, but it can be overlooked. If someone is having problems with women, then the logical first step for many people is to look for information specifically about how to do better with the opposite sex (i.e., point #1). And the advice they find is a necessary piece of the puzzle, and will help them out somewhat. But without the solid groundwork that point #3 provides, they may never reach their full potential, or reach it as easily as they could.

An analogy would be a guy who isn't very good at soccer (i.e., football) and wants to do better at it. So he reads a bunch of books full of advanced tactics, strategies, and tricky moves. These teachings help him in little bursts here and there, but overall he's still struggling. He feels frustrated and consults further resources, learning even more high-end techniques. Still, his progress is discouragingly slow. For some reason he isn't aware of it, but his real problem is that he's in horrible shape and generally uncoordinated. The fact that he knows lots of advanced stuff doesn't matter because he can't even run for two minutes without slowing down, and whenever he tries to execute a technique he tends to mess it up.

Some guys who want to do better with women are like this. They think the problem is all about them not knowing enough about how to specifically get women, or how to apply it, but the real issue is that they need to brush up on their basic attractiveness, something they probably never developed as much in their life as they could have. They're like a chubby, klutzy guy running around a soccer FIELD thinking the reason they're not doing better is because they don't know enough flashy dribbling and fake-out techniques.

Not that it's totally their fault for thinking like this. Like I said, if you have a problem with something, it's only natural to look up solutions specifically on that issue. And upon reading that there's a lot you could be doing to improve on that specific problem (e.g., learn more about dating, conversation, and 'game'), it's also only logical to stick with that advice and try to use it.

Another reason is that many guys who are lacking in the fundamentals don't fully realize it. When I was a total nerd, it took several years for this to dawn on me. At times I was actually proud of how smart and 'nice' I was, and thought I was a good catch. Even amongst guys who aren't total losers, they can always stand to be better in this area.

Finally, a lot of advice on how to get girls carries the explicit message that it doesn't matter what you're like in terms of looks, personality, confidence, etc., if you read such and such secret knowledge you'll be able to effortlessly hook up with stunning models. Obviously this is just hype telling lonely, desperate guys what they want to hear, usually to get them to buy something.

So yeah, overall some guys can end up putting too much of their focus on learning strategies and techniques to get with women, when what's mostly holding them back is their overall personality and ability to relate to people in general. Getting back to the soccer/football player, he could go in two rough directions: First, he could continue with his plan of only learning fancy tricks. If he sticks with it, and can tolerate the frustrations along the way, he may eventually build up some skill and endurance just as a side effect of being out on the field so much trying to apply his special techniques. Even then, the foundation he gains may be a little patchy, because it's only formed around whatever tricks he was trying to pull off. His second option is to ease off on the flashy stuff and focus on things like going on long runs, practicing basic skills like passing, and maybe playing some other sports to bring his overall athleticism up to speed. This path will give him a solid foundation on which to build on, and will make the whole game seem more effortless and natural as a result. Following such a path will probably seem more simple and rewarding as well. Note that each way still takes time.

Okay, I think I've made my point. Here are some more reasons this is all important:

Women are people too. The factors that determine how you do with people as a whole apply to women as well

When you're only reading advice on how to get more dates or pick up girls, it can be easy to forget that women are just regular people more than they're unique, mysterious beings that only respond well to esoteric techniques that are engineered specifically to be effective on them. Any social skills or traits that will make you do better with all kinds of people, will make you do well with women. That's all getting girls is really, socializing up to certain standard. Meeting women is a variation of more typical social situations and calls upon the same skills. Going and talking to a woman isn't on a totally different wavelength from other scenarios, like talking to a male acquaintance at a party, for example.

Things like being friendly, fun, funny, or interesting will aid you with women just as well as they'll help with anyone. So will things like having an interesting hobby, knowing good places to go, having nice style, being adept at conversation, or having lots of life experience. When you've got a lot going for you, meeting a woman can become more about you just being your cool self and her naturally becoming interested, rather than doing a bunch of complicated stuff to make her like you.

Women judge you on more than your 'game' when they decide if they're interested in you

Again, it can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that your 'game' is the only thing that will determine whether a girl will end up with you. Some marketing hype feeds into this notion. But of course they consider other factors to try and figure out what kind of person you seem to be. Who's the actual guy who's spitting all this game at her? Is he attractive to her on the whole or isn't he? What does he have going for him besides the words that are coming out of his mouth right this instant? Does he seem cool at a glance or like a weird loser?

Say you have two guys: Guy #1 has bare bones game (which is free of deal breaking flaws though), but is truly attractive. Guy #2 is socially awkward, and really doesn't have much going for him, but has half-decent game. The first guy is probably going to do way better. He has things that really draw women to him. All he has to do is be himself and he'll come off in an appealing way. If the second guy does okay, it's in spite of his subpar personality.

If you're struggling with women, working on your basic social skills, coolness, personality, lifestyle, etc. can be an easy and effective way to make improvements

I think I've covered why working on the fundamentals is important, but another selling point is that it's a relatively easy, painless way to indirectly become better with women. For many guys, directly working on being better with women is hard. It takes willpower. It's unpleasant. It's work. It's full of discomfort, anxiety, and rejection. They may try to tell themselves they feel differently, but deep down it's not fun for them.

Improving yourself overall isn't as bad. It's a 'wax on, wax off' kind of thing. You can do nothing to directly get better with women for months on end, but devote your time to things like hanging out with your friends, hanging out with really cool people and becoming more like them, acquiring new knowledge about the world, being more fun, learning to dance, playing the guitar, traveling, working through your hang ups and insecurities, practicing conversation, and a million other possibilities. This will hardly be nerve racking and emotionally draining. At the end of this period you'll be better with people as a whole. When you go back to interacting with women you may be shocked at how much more effortless and natural it now is compared to before. The right things to say will tend to flow out of the new, improved person you've truly become.

This is what I did to make my skills women grow in a fairly slow, easy manner. I'm very big on the whole idea of being a better person overall and letting the details fall into place as a result. Still, I also had to work on the other two areas (#1. Some idea of how to get girls, #2. The guts to do what I needed to do). As much as I seem down on learning specifically about hooking up in this article, you still need to know it as part of the overall picture.

My other site

Other people give 'be cooler' or 'have better social skills' type of advice as well. I hardly invented the concept. However I always just saw that kind of advice being given with little explanation of exactly what it meant to 'be cooler' or 'have better social skills'. That's one reason I started writing my other site, www.succeedsocially.com. It has about forty five free articles on it devoted to the topic of, "Basic social skills, getting along with people, and getting your act together - all written by a former shy, awkward guy". They're long, dense articles as well. If you're already fairly competent in that area, a lot of it will seem basic and too obvious, but if you're a dork of the variety I used to be, then you may find a lot of the advice really useful. Also, a lot of what it has to say could be applied to doing better with women, you just have to mentally replace 'make friends' with 'get girls'.