Caveats
None of my advice should be taken as saying that people absolutely must become conventionally attractive: this would be quite hypocritical of me, as a medically transitioning transgender person, for whom comfort in my body trades off against conventional attractiveness. You have no obligation to be any more conventionally attractive than you please, and being conventionally attractive does not make you a better person. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked female (or human).
In particular, I would very much advise against adopting any habits you would not be willing to have in the long term. You want to date someone who wants to date you. Prioritize things that you’ve always meant to do (maybe this can be the motivation you were looking for to work out), then things that don’t make much difference one way or the other (getting your teeth whitened). If you’re like “but I don’t WANT to do Thing”, don’t do Thing.
I am deliberately phrasing this as ‘conventionally attractive’, because there are plenty of people who get laid like tile and go against my advice. Niche marketing works! But the question of how to maximize one’s attractiveness to the average person is still interesting.
The single two best things you can do to get laid are (1) socialize with new people and (2) actually ask those people out. If you are not doing those two things, I would strongly advise doing those things BEFORE you take my advice.
I suck at online dating and can’t give advice about it.
My advice is based only on my own observations. Take with all relevant grains of salt.
Physical Appearance
Everyone always recommends losing weight, and it’s true that people in the 18.5-25 BMI range tend to be more attractive than those who are heavier (or lighter). However, diets usually fail in the long term, which makes me leery of giving this as advice. I think for most people the lowest-hanging fruit is something else.
Lift weights. Pretty much everyone, male and female and other, would become more conventionally attractive if they lifted weights. Don’t worry about getting “too bulky” or “too muscular”: in order to get sufficiently muscular that it’s a detriment, you’d have to have lifting weights as your primary hobby. (Which is why I’m not giving the opposite advice– bodybuilders generally fall under the “don’t change important aspects of yourself to get laid” exception.) For women, squats are an excellent way to get a round ass. Starting Strength is a good guide to lifting weights. Muscles require lots of protein to maintain; try eating half a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight.
If you have skin issues, go to a dermatologist. If your teeth are crooked or stained, go to a dentist. Hair makes a lot of difference in your facial appearance. In my experience, the best way for a person who doesn’t know anything about hair to get a good haircut is going to an expensive salon, saying one or two adjectives you’re going for (“punky” and “androgynous” were my go-tos), and then agreeing with whatever the hairdresser says.
It is important to get clothes that fit properly. Yes, even if you’re fat. I see so many people in ill-fitting baggy clothing that doesn’t flatter them at all, when they would be perfectly attractive if they had clothing that fits right. Here’s a guide to fit for men; I don’t know of a similar guide for women. If you have the money and want to, buying your clothes off the rack and getting them tailored can improve how much the clothes fit.
I understand that there is something mysterious about colors going with your complexion, but when I tried to learn about it I got really confused about what seasons have to do with anything.
Men, in general, tend to care more about youth in their sexual partners than women do, so people who want to have sex with men might want to look into reducing signs of aging. Applying sunscreen daily is the single best thing you can do to prevent wrinkles.
Personality
Some people do well with canned lines of the pickup-artist sort, but I tend to prefer actually developing the attractive traits that the canned lines are simulating. If you actually have the trait, your body language, tone of voice, and word choice will all line up, but if you don’t you might wind up having confident words and insecure body language and come off as weird or creepy. And having the trait, instead of using lines, allows you to react well in unfamiliar situations. That said, it’s a crutch that’s useful for some people.
I do not support lying, but it is not lying to selectively emphasize things when you’re flirting. If sometimes you are cheerful and happy and sometimes you are whiny as hell, it’s okay to choose to be cheerful while you are flirting.
Physical appearance is relatively more important if you want to have sex with men, while personality is relatively more important if you want to have sex with women. That said, both are important to both groups, and a lot of people who are willing to admit sentence #1 tend to underestimate the importance of personality to men and physical appearance to women.
People always talk about how confidence is attractive. In my opinion, about half of why confident people get laid has nothing to do with confidence being attractive and is instead about being willing to actually hit on people (the single most important thing you can do for your sexual success!) and bouncing back well from rejection. That said, feeling secure in yourself and being able to laugh off criticism are pretty attractive traits. (I was going to have a sentence here about self-deprecating humor as countersignaling confidence vs. self-deprecating humor as apologizing for your existence, but then I realized how hard it was to distinguish these two things. Seriously, I don’t envy the canned-lines people their job.)
Getting groupies is dating on easy mode. If you have a talent that you can show off easily– whether it’s writing, music, art, or spinning poi– you can impress people with it and then many of them will want to date you. While it’s theoretically possible to get groupies for anything, it requires less talent to get groupies for talents that are sexy (think poetry, not programming) and that are easily demonstrated to an unskilled person.
Kindness is attractive. Note that I did not say that pedestalization and codependency are attractive; they are not. Key things to think of: are you being nice to people whom you don’t want to have sex with as well as those you do? Are you setting reasonable boundaries? Are you being nice because you want other people to be happy, or because you’re terrified that they’ll dislike you if you don’t and being disliked is the Worst Possible Thing? Do you expect people to throw a ticker-tape parade because of how nice you are? Being nice to the waiter used to be a big kindness tipoff, and now everyone knows about it so it’s expected, so I would suggest instead giving a dollar to a homeless guy and then if the person you’re flirting with notices shrugging and saying “eh, he looked sad, it was nothing”. (This may not work if the person you’re flirting with is the sort of person who doesn’t like giving money to homeless people because they might spend it on drugs.)
Many people find it attractive to be listened to as if they are the most interesting person in the world. This is also terribly useful for introverts, because you don’t have to think of new things to say. It is possible to counterfeit (any good book on interviewing for journalism or qualitative research will explain the techniques) but probably the best way to achieve this is to flirt with interesting people.
People like it when they have good feelings, and therefore tend to prefer happy people to sad people, unless you can be the sort of sad person who makes a bunch of flippant jokes about it, in which case they like you again because you’re funny. Be enthusiastic about things you like. Try to look on the bright side of bad situations. Smile.
Speaking of good feelings: being funny is a good thing, and unfortunately extremely difficult to teach, so I don’t think it’s low-hanging fruit for non-funny individuals.
For reasons I do not understand, a dark and tragic past is one of the most attractive traits one can have. Combine with several other attractive traits; a dark and tragic past all by itself just looks pathetic. Don’t be whiny; as best as I can tell, the best ways to deploy one’s dark and tragic past is through mysteriousness, flippancy, or forthright honesty and owning your shit. Don’t bitch about everyone who has Done You Wrong, because that is generally considered a red flag. If you heavily rely on dark and troubled pasts as a flirtation strategy, be aware that this attracts people with a saving-people thing who are terrible at setting boundaries, and be prepared to have a long conversation about Putting On Your Own Oxygen Mask First.
I am informed that some men don’t like sluts, but I have never actually met a man of this sort; the men I know tend to find it a selling point when you openly like and enjoy sex. (Yes, it’s a selling point for commitment too.) I recommend women work on overcoming their internalized slut-shaming and sex-negativity, if they have any.
A lot of having an attractive personality is learning how to flirt, because that’s where you show off your shiny awesome new personality. The key to flirting is practice, practice, practice. Like any skill, flirting gets easier the more you do it. And don’t be afraid of creeping people out: while you shouldn’t go about deliberately creeping people out, if you accidentally happen to make someone feel uncomfortable, it’s not the end of the world. It’s okay to make mistakes while you’re learning.
If you are a nerdy woman who wants to have sex with nerdy men: watch Firefly. Look at Kaylee. Try to be Kaylee. In particular, note that she is cheerful, cute, non-threatening, and happily sexual, and that she infodumps about a topic that nerdy men are interested in (spaceship engines). These traits are very attractive to nerdy men.
If you are a developmentally disabled or personality disordered woman who comes off as childish: watch Enchanted. Try to be Giselle. Notice that she is optimistic, idealistic, compassionate, and happy; when she’s sad, she’s adorably sad; she takes joy in little things and has faith in people. I have found this to be an excellent strategy for making your childishness work for you.
Thing of Things 
Some thoughts:
IDK how relevant this is to the post, but you’ve always reminded me of Kuato from Total Recall, but NOT in the sense that you’re physically unattractive. (For those who’ve seen Total Recall, Kuato is a psychic fetus growing out of someone else’s chest. Not trying to compare you to him on that level.) I feel uncomfortable saying that you’ve traded off physical attractiveness for comfort in your gender identity, unless you specify physical attractiveness as a female – you’re still definitely an attractive androgynous human, just not an attractive human woman – but you don’t identify as a woman, so why would you even want to be attractive as one? But anyway, you remind me of Kuato from Total Recall because you’re the leader of this rebellious SJ-Rationalist fusion movement and you’re really unique and strong in your own unexpected way. In short, I think that along with gaining comfort, you also gained individuality, which is also valuable and, in a way, a huge boost to attractiveness. Someone attracted to the woman version of you has a lot more people to choose from than someone attracted to the Ozy version of you does. Not to mention that your individuality is intimidating in a way that creates the impression of personal strength and conviction. Like Quaid meeting Kuato, can’t you imagine someone hearing about the SJ-Rationalist fusion movement from a distance, and hearing that the leader is someone of indeterminate gender named Ozy, and then someone meets you, and it’s just the most amazing and uncanny thing in the world for them, because they’ve never heard of nonbinary people before?
Man here reporting in to say that I “don’t like” sluts. Actually, I’m pretty much entirely fine with them as people. I do consider promiscuity to be a deal-breaker for a relationship, though – in fact, I am a virgin myself and I am fully intent on losing my virginity to another virgin on my wedding night in the indefinite future. I’m aware that I’m probably an outlier, but I don’t think I’m really unique, either – and, in fact, I’m pretty sure there are plenty of communities where I wouldn’t be an outlier in this regard.
I’ve noticed that I tend to alternate between coming on too strong and not coming on at all in a fairly binary fashion. IE, I’m either not flirting with someone at all, or I am flirting and immediately get a “holy shit tone it down inappropriate”. I’m not currently looking for a partner, but my thought on how to fix this in the future when I am is to only flirt in settings where all or most participants are explicitly looking for a partner. Anything else I may be missing?
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Huh, it makes sense that a dark and troubled past would attract people with a “saving people thing”; I’d tended to assume it would attract people with a high-risk-seeking behavior. Is this also true, or is my assumption an outright misinterpretation?
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Adding that I’m with you in your stance on ‘sluts’. Morally I’ve got no qualms at all. I’ve worked in porn for long enough to get to know a whole lot of them, and some are amazing people. That said, when it comes to what I’m actually interested in and attracted to, promiscuity is a moderately heavily weighted strike against. Not the end of the world, but it trades off against other qualities fairly strongly.
The feeling is definitely amplified or negated a lot by my assessment of their other partners, and much of it is me judging their decision making abilities that they’ve demonstrated in their choices. Again, this isn’t judging in the sense that I feel any right to tell them how to live their life, but in choosing who to add into mine I’ll absolutely take all the info I have into account, including a history of (What I think are) good or bad choices in partners. This goes double for relationships where anything poly is on the table.
I’d be interested to find out how rare or common positions like this are.
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You don’t need to have moral qualms to care about slut-levels. You can even like it in a vacuum and still trade off against it. You just need to want that quality less than your competition in the mating market does. There’s a filter effect where people with both more non-slut and slut desiderata tend to end up being able to date with people they prefer over you. (Unless you’re at the very top end of the dating pool, and thats the roughly ~1000 Americans that are in the same league as Madonna and Tom Brady.)
Similar logic drives police departments discriminating against applicants with high IQ scores and start-ups hiring programmers without college degrees.
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Agreed 100%
Honestly I’m just glad that ‘slut-nonseeking’ doesn’t get rounded down to slut-shaming here as it does in other places. It’s refreshing.
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Are you religious? If so, I’ve heard churches tend to be popular places for matchmaking.
If not, are you looking for someone who is against premarital sex, or just someone who happens to be a virgin?
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Yes, this:
Yes. This. Hear these words.
Look, if you read a lot of feminist blogs (such as mine!), you see us complain a lot about creepy dudes on the subway or whatever.
Here’s the thing: you’re not that guy. You’re not. I seriously doubt anyone reading Ozy’s blog is that guy.
There are, however, some “nerd dude” failure modes worth knowing about, such as “onesitis” or the “too many creepy hugs” thing — that stuff. Avoid that stuff. How do you avoid that stuff? By saying, “hey I like you, you wanna grab lunch?” (or whatever).
I know it’s hard-as-fuck. It’s hard for me.
(One of the nice things about being a sapphic woman is we can share the load. One of the not-nice things about being a sapphic woman is it’s often not obvious who should move first. We often spend a lot of time in a near-flirting orbit.)
(I’m getting a lot better at this. It’s working. I also lost forty pounds. So… who knows, right.)
Oh, and the “nice guy” stuff — try to set aside all the awful bad terrible social failures surrounding this conversation. Let those exist elsewhere on the internet, not here.
Know this: if you like a woman who you spend time with, but you do not tell her, then that can lead to some creep-vibes. So flirt a bit, and then move to the “hey I like you, you wanna grab lunch” (or whatever) thing early on.
Which is hard-as-fuck. So yeah.
(This all assume you kinda know the girl and her social circle. I am not talking about the “hit on random pretty girl at the comics convention” thing, never mind the “hit on pretty girl who works at Hot Topic.” Those things are a different batch of terrible.)
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Man, I didn’t know what “oneitis” was so I decided to look it up, and wow, I’m charitably pretty sure it describes an actual problem, but a lot of the descriptions for it that I found are overly broad to the point that they could describe a monogamous worldview of any kind. Getting hung up on someone who doesn’t return your feelings is bad and it’s good to move on, but the solution one site prescribed, “go fuck ten other women”, is only really appropriate for someone who’s already on the bonobo train.
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@john — The subject of romance, and its pursuit, is — well — it is not something the internet has traditionally handled well. You will find very few discussion made in good faith.
Even when they are made in good faith, so often those speaking don’t really “see” the experiences of those spoken to, like a studly jock type explaining to a nerd how to pick up women — as if he has any perspective on what the nerd deals with.
Never mind the conversations across the gender divide.
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But yeah, oneitis is a trap. The movies teach us to just stand outside her window blasting music, and she’ll fall for you. But that doesn’t work. Instead she goes onto Tumblr and tells her friends what an annoying sadsack you are.
So blah.
Unless of course it does work! Cuz sometimes crazy shit like that does. I recall once, many years ago, I was literally crying on the phone with a girl, cuz she went for this other guy. (This was back in my “boy” days. I’m transgender.) Anyway, it worked. She dumped him and went out with me.
So yeah, that happened. I dunno. I guess I had mad cry-cry emofag game or something.
We broke up about a month later, cuz we were both immature teens with less-than-zero relationship skills. Whatevs.
(I wonder what happened to her? I tried to find her on Facebook, but no luck.)
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Anyway, the PUA stuff on oneitis is terrible. Often the feminist advice is, while maybe correct, pretty condescending. So, I can say this: be careful with whom you fall in love. That advice I will give freely.
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The problem with unrequited love / infatuation / limerence (“one-itis”) is that it warps your thinking. It’s literally an altered state of mind, like being high on drugs or having a manic episode.
So, your brain might try to apply all normal, general-purpose advice to The One Goal — “ah, I can use this to make my crush fall in love with me”, “if this pick-up strategy works, I will definitely get my ex back”.
But this viscerally appealing approach is unlikely to have good results. First off, there’s no magic strategy guaranteed to make a random person react in a certain way. And second off, as Ozy said, building skills takes practice.
The standard PUA advice tries to redirect the infatuated to a sufficiently different goal, distracting them for long enough for the obsession to subside and their social skills to develop. See also: “delete facebook, hit the gym” — in other words, pull away from things that make you think about the person, and focus on measurable self-development.
Obviously, these specific goals/distractions are not the best for everyone, but the people who go to “pick-up artists” for advice usually do want to have casual sex and have an impressive body.
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>The key to flirting is practice, practice, practice.
Uhm, how? Like, yeah, practicing flirting will help you get better at flirting, but what sorts of things is “practicing flirting”? Is it just trying to flirt with people? Or are there sub-skills to practice and key portions of your behavior to pay attention to? If you wanted to practice flirting more, what would you do?
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Converse with people you are sexually or romantically attracted to with the intent of showing them that you are an attractive person they would like to date or have sex with. The act of doing this IME improves the skill of doing so by magic, even without practicing specific subskills. (IME, trying to practice subskills gets you the Centipede’s Dilemma.)
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Oh wow, holy shit, I’ve been doing flirting all wrong. Instead of trying to convey that I’m *attractive*, I was always just trying to convey that I was *interested in them*. That’s backwards, isn’t it?
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I see it as simultaneously going
(1) are you the sort of cool person I want to date?
(2) here are my good qualities, so you can see whether I am the sort of cool person you want to date
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Can you practice flirting on people that you aren’t (or don’t know whether you are) attracted to? (subquestions: does it work? Is it ethical?)
The process seems like it ought to work well in general — thanks!
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Yes. I think it is a great idea to flirt with people if you’re unsure whether you’re attracted to them; it can help you figure out whether or not you are. And if you’re not attracted to people, it is certainly ethical to flirt with them as long as you’re not otherwise being a jerk (like, it’s definitely a dick move to flirt with people because you think they’re ugly and it’s hilarious, but just flirting with someone for practice or fun is not wrong at all; otherwise all of the South would be in trouble). And I can definitely see where it might help especially if you are very anxious around people you’re attracted to.
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Ozy, do you have any advice on *how* to show off your good qualities in this context?
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Uh, I mean, people have a lot of different good qualities, so not really? I imagine the correct way to show off “I’m really smart, sex-positive, and a happy person who takes joy in the little things” is different from the correct way to show off “I’m compassionate, easygoing, and a very talented musician.”
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Hmm, okay, so
1) figure out what your good qualities are
2) act in a way that is conspicuously consistent with your good qualities
Ok!
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I flirt with my gay friends all the time. They know I’m sapphic. It’s just good fun.
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Mark Manson has an interesting bit of advice. He suggests that, when you meet a person, they probably right away sort you into one of three categories. (In his book he genders this, in terms of what women feel about men. But anyway.) There are three categories:
1. No way not ever
2. Hmmmm, maybe
3. Yes please kiss me now OMG!
Okay, so let’s suppose 3’s are rare. The thing is, usually 3’s will themselves make an effort. After all, they want you bad. So your job with a 3 is to realize it is happening.
(Let us note that Mark Manson doesn’t seem to understand much about brain-weird nerds. But anyway.)
Anyway, with a 3, just play the game and get to the kissing. Yay!
Okay, so the 1’s — you’ll get nowhere with the 1’s. In fact, if you make too much of a play for a 1, they’ll probably get annoyed and creeped out or whatever. The trick is, back off fast when someone signals “ewww get away.”
(Let us again note that Mark Manson doesn’t seem to understand much about brain-weird nerds.)
Okay yeah, we’re (many of us) brain weird. That said, most of us aren’t completely socially hopeless. It’s like, we (many of us here) have a deficit, but that’s not the same as a complete lack. I’m starting to figure out the 3’s (they exist!), and usually the 1’s give me a nice big eyeroll, which even my freak-brain can recognize.
So anyway. Let us talk of the 2’s.
Your job with the 2’s is, quite simply, move them as fast as possible into either 1 or 3. Either is fine. You don’t care which — I mean of course you care. We ain’t fucking robots [1]. But you gotta get past that.
Anyway flirting — it’s talking in a playful way, doing “status play” and “frame shifts” and all of that. Whatever. Your social skills are your social skills.
I like to say, your job is to reveal yourself. No really, what is the “real you” (whatever the fuck that means). Be honest. Be vulnerable. Be strong enough to take their response.
Blah blah blah. Easy to write, hard to do.
But not impossible to do.
You can reveal the “real you.”
Of course, if you don’t like the “real you,” well then you got work to do. If you assume they won’t like the “real you” — well why the fuck not?
I dunno. These are the big internal nightmare fights. For me, this stuff was the heavy lifting, to even imagine someone could like me. I missed out on so much, cuz I assumed they would not.
They did.
So much of Mark Manson’s stuff is about getting yourself to a place where you like you and thus assume they might like you.
So you engage, reveal, connect. Then they respond, from their true self, and land in 1 or 3. If it’s 1, accept, move on. They weren’t right for you. If it’s 3, then get to the kissing.
As a feminist, I disagree with some specific things that Mark Manson has said, but on the whole I think he’s a mensch.
[1] Well I self-identify as “maybe a robot.” Beep fucking boop, bitches! I got feelings.
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“We ain’t fucking robots.”
Only until someone builds better robot sex toys ^.^
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Ha! I’m not sure I could handle the competition.
(That said, I do like to imagine the tech press arguing over which is better, the iSexBot or the gSexBot.)
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Yesss I so want to see that particular tech press discourse.
(gSexBot all the way)
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As long as you manage it correctly, the gSexBot is more versatile and will perform better for the user. Don’t get me wrong, the iSexBot is a fine machine capable of giving most people plenty of pleasure but its options and customizability is rather limited.
The gSexBot (especially with its open source software) can hold as many modules as memory will allow (all the bots come in a variety of frames and, of course, the larger the frame the more room there is for customization including more memory if that suits your tastes better). This is good for people who want widely different arousals and activities from day to day but it is not uncommon for a gSexBot to become corrupted by having too many eroticism modules running at once. Different modules can easily interfere with each other and cause unwanted behavior. There are of course ways of dealing with these (keep conflicting kinks on different partitions and only load one partition at a time while being careful with management and file structure) but not everyone wants to put this much work into their sexbot.
The iSexBot can’t perform a wide variety of activities. It is customizable enough to easily be sufficient for people who’s tastes don’t run that far from vinellia and if that is you then there is no need to try and set up a gSexBot (whereas the iSexBot is ready to use right out of the box). Also, if you don’t want to put the work into your sexbot then stick with the iSexBot. If, on the other hand, you want to truly make your sexbot your own and are willing to put the work into it to make it happen then the gSexBot is the clear choice.
Oh, and stay away from the Zexymatics. They got in late and have tried to be everything to everybody and easy to use at the same time. Not only can it be difficult to get to do what you want it to do but, given their instability, there is little that is more frustrating then needing to restart your sexbot mid act.
One last thing, for the first time in years there will be a new model Autopleasurer. The company that made the first forays into sexbots is looking to get back into the market. There is little known about the new Hyperpleasurer yet but it is something to keep an eye on. I would not delay in purchasing a new sexbot but it might be an option for your next one.
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You can customize your gSexBot, or you can give it access to your search history and it will customize itself to your tastes.
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Yeah, flirting is a mystery, despite several people’s attempts to explain it to me.
Sometimes I successfully replace flirting with just trying to make it abundantly clear that I enjoy spending time with someone. (Other times even that is too scary!)
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So much of flirting happens in the “system 1” brain, as your immediate visceral “social sense” — which sucks if you don’t really have a good social sense.
I think some people will just never be able to flirt, just as some folks will never “get” how Clifford Algebras work or how to juggle. You can “explain” these things, but there is a final something in the brain step that can only happen privately within the subject.
(This is why you have to do the math problems in the book. This is why, to learn juggling, you have to juggle stuff.)
In other words, we can discursively explain to the “system 2,” but the “system 1” learns by repetition and pattern recognition.
Flirting is harder for some people than it is for others. For some people, it is much harder.
If you are such a person, is it worth the effort?
I don’t know. There are other ways to seek intimacy, but flirting is the main, socially-approved one that most people will expect. So honestly, if you can get better at flirting, and if you want intimacy, you probably should work at it.
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Veronica, out of curiosity, do you agree with Ozy’s explanation of flirting above? If not, what do you think it’s missing or where do you think it fails? I ask because that explanation actually made a lot of sense to me, even though most of my life I’ve felt very much like flirting is a thing I’ll never understand, consistent with your comment.
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I guess. I dunno. Sure.
For me, much comes down to the status chapters from Impro, but mostly his assertion that “friendship happens when people agree to engage with status playfully.”
We talk a lot about “countersignaling,” which is a fine way for a game-theorist to sit on the outside and talk about what is happening. But what it feels like is playfulness combined with vulnerability-meets-strength.
So it’s not about the specific mechanics, which you’ll never remember quickly enough during a conversation. Instead, it is getting into the right “headspace.”
So I dunno. If Ozy’s words get you into that headspace, then yay! If mine do, then yay!
Either way, you’re engaging with a person. If you’re nervous, then you’re engaging nervously. If you’re happy, then you do so happily. If you’re despondent — well that probably won’t work. I dunno. You’re playing a little psychological dance, with your feelings and their feelings, with your desires and theirs, with your boundaries — and indeed theirs.
They’re probably as nervous as you are.
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I doubt any of us have formally studied the didactics of dating advice. Choose your poison.
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With respect to physical appearance, I’d say Strong Curves is more often recommended as a beginner’s lifting guide/program than Starting Strength (or stronglifts, greyskull, ice cream fitness, etc.). If you don’t care too much about strength or aesthetic outcomes, a bodyweight program would work just as well, as would stuff like sports or rock climbing. I also think diets tend to “fail” most often because people tend to return to the diet and activity level that they had before their “diet”, which would obviously return them over time to approximately the same body composition they had before their “diet”. But whatever.
Posture and (speaking) voice are also important for attractiveness, and both can be trained easily enough.
In terms of personality, I agree that practice is incredibly important. My sense of flirting is “friendly banter with a sexual element subject to feedback loops”, so working on your friendly banter and conversational abilities is really helpful. Once you have that down you can work on introducing the sexual bits. I think travel is a great way to become a better conversationalist, since it forces you to meet and converse with a lot of new people in quick succession. Budget travel is even better, since people in hostels are super social (try sharing a bedroom with 3-15 other people without talking to them, ha!) and hitchhiking essentially partners you up with a (generally quite interesting) conversation buddy for 2-10 hours at a time, typically multiple times a day. It also inures you to rejection. The budget bit is also important because people always think travel is expensive, but you can typically get by on $20-$50 a day (less if you camp more often than not, much less if you’re in a cheaper country, more if you’re in Norway or somewhere).
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+1 on Strong Curves. I just d/l’ed the Kindle version last night, and while I’m only about 30% in, I like it very much. In fact, it matches to a fair degree what my strength coach has been having me do.
This is not to disparage Starting Strength, which I used years ago. But then, at the time I was young and also training in BJJ. Thus I was getting a pretty complete workout, like every possible muscle gets worked to the point of freakish madness in grappling. The point is, the core exercises in SS were a great enhancement to my other athletic training. They were not the entirety of what I was doing.
Now that I am older (and far less wise), my only real exercise is walking and what I do at the gym. So — I really need the full body effect, all the muscle groups, the flexibility, the movement exercises, etc., that systems similar to SC provide.
Anyway, I’ll prolly post something to my Tubmlr when I finish the book, but I agree that if you’re doing strength training mainly for health and appearance, and you’re not otherwise pursuing serious athletics, a book like SC is probably a better choice.
(Or hire a trainer. Those of us who are employed techies can afford it. Heck, my trainer is actually provided as part of my employer’s fitness program.)
Lift weights — if you can.
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This is good. Most dating advice is either prosocial “just be yourself, you shouldn’t need to actively do anything or actually try, love will find you” bullshit or PUA bullshit. Non-bullshit is good.
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Have you actually done any of the “PUA Bullshit” or do you just dislike it? Like approaching women and taking notes what works and what not. Forget pickup-lines. Simply approaching women and seeing what works. You wouldn’t have to be a man either, gay female will do.
Simply because something comes from shady community full of awful people doesn’t mean its wrong.
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I just dislike it. It exploits disillusionment about the idealistic, pro-social bullshit advice by being as cynical and anti-social as possible.
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The most important things I think that you’re missing here are a) compliment-giving, and b) secret-sharing
Giving compliments is a really valuable romantic strategy because most people like spending time (and having sex with) with people who make them feel good about themselves. The best compliments are specific (“I like your blue hair” or “I really love those glasses” are better than “you’re pretty”) and related to something the person cares a lot about (artists like compliments on their art). Appearance-based compliments are more effective than you might think, since the hot club girls that PUAs design their theories around are only a small portion of the population, and most men and women are at least somewhat insecure about how they look, and would appreciate hearing something nice.
Secret-sharing is a way of creating intimacy quickly. I’ve found it helpful to tell people I’m flirting with something personal or emotional about myself (not always an actual secret, but something that people wouldn’t usually reveal so early in conversation) a little ways into the conversation. The other person will often respond by sharing something of their own. If you’re kind and compassionate when they share their secret, they’ll usually feel more comfortable around you and trust you more. (Your “secret” also helps build their trust, I think.)
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I think these are “102” level flirting. For those who haven’t tried before, I’d say: less is more.
For compliments, too much will feel insincere, plus compliments can make some people feel awkward since they don’t know how to respond. One brief one for a shorter date and maybe two for a longer date. I think there is a tendency to make sure they really got the message, but as you said, people are a little insecure and like to hear nice things, so they will definitely remember that you said “I think you’re pretty” even if it was 45 minutes ago.
For secret-sharing, same goes – one little thing per date (unless the other person escalates the intimacy/secret-sharing). Otherwise it can be mistaken for oversharing/emotional neediness.
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I’d agree that compliments are best used strategically– best to deploy a few after you start finding out what the other person finds really important.
I think that the proper rule for secret-sharing is tit-for-tat, basically. Wait to share again until after the other person has shared something.
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Oh, also, a Theory of Flirting that I’ve found helpful as an autistic-ish weirdo is viewing it as showing your attraction for a person while giving them enough plausible deniability to bow out of the situation if they decide that they’re not interested. (Alternatively, it give you plausible deniability to bow out comfortably.) This gives them some social space to get comfortable with you before anything happens. This is why double-entendres, euphemisms, and nonverbal communication (on the “smiling” or “touching your arm” or “lingering after a high-five” level, not the “grab your ass” level) are important to all kinds of flirting.
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This is actually just extra weird for me because if I want to bow out of a situation, I would rather the person make it explicit and give me the opportunity to actually say no rather than keep things ambiguous in a way where I can’t say no without being presumptuous.
(Even if I don’t necessarily want to say no, I still find myself thinking oh come on, make this explicit already if I suspect that’s what’s happening.)
Are other people just less willing to say no?
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Yes. This is true. And some people also react very badly to being told “no”. It’s rare but happens enough to make saying “no” to people you don’t know well scary.
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Also, it’s often about wanting to be able to say “yes” now while keeping the option of changing your mind later open.
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@Henry Gorman
But you can just do that with words?
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Not without creating more social awkwardness than most people really want to deal with. “Right now I want to have sex with you but I might realize that I don’t when we get to the bedroom” tends not to go over very well, and most people would feel really uncomfortable and vulnerable saying it straight out. Flirting with somebody and then just claiming that everything was a misunderstanding if you decide to back out seems to be a lot more comfortable for neurotypicals.
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Meh, people are weird. I like it when people are awkwardly honest about their preferences.
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I’ll just plug my fashion for EA/rationalists posts here:
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Ok, super curious: how do you bring up a dark and tragic past in a way that doesn’t sound like you’re begging for attention?
I have a semi-dark-and-tragic past (my mother died when I was young and it shaped who I am a lot; and I’ve had a fair bit of heartache in my life), but I basically never bring it up because I’m not quite sure how to do it and because I’m worried people will think its just for attention/sympathy.
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To the particular crowd that frequents blogs like this, I will say the words American College of Sports Medicine’s Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription.
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You’re spot on about Kaylee. You know your nerdy men.
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I’d be curious whom nerdy men should emulate. Or are we just shit out of luck?
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I’ve never been a man and I am somewhat worried that my advice on this point would instead be advice on how to seduce Ozy, which while interesting is not what this post is about.
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I nominate Bill Clinton as exemplifying the qualities that a nerdy guy should excel in, at least if you’re not going to go in for negging or game or whatever.
He’s successful, he projects as confident and passionate in the areas of his life that he excels in, and by all reports, his greatest gift is that when he’s talking to someone, they get the impression that he’s 100% listening to and interested in what they have to say, without being creepily intense.
As for fictional characters, I guess John Cuzak. Be very pretty, and vulnerable, and have long dark eyelashes that you blink incessantly to show your vulnerability. 🙂
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It’s actually a really hard question.
The thing is, as a woman, if you too closely “emulate” Kaylee (or whatever), you’ll probably get pretty crushed. It’s hard to explain. But sexism is a real thing, and being a woman kinda sucks, and the way the male-oriented media presents the male-fantasy version of womanhood is not a space where our hearts can thrive. (#notallwomen)
Laurie Penny wrote about this. (I talked about this same stuff over on Ozy’s FB page.) Years ago, she discovered she could play the MPDG routine and men loved it, but she didn’t like the person she became, nor did she find the relationships satisfying. Actually, she used terms like “soul crushing.” (Okay, I’m paraphrasing. I don’t feel like searching through her book. But anyway, the language was similarly strong.)
So for men — look, I liked Spike more than Angel.
Spike was also a fucking rapist.
So — well Jos Whedon has certain issues (although I’m still betting the poor boy is an egg).
Blah.
I’m not sure if Ozy is correct here. I’m not sure if any version of “fake it till you make it” is really going to work. Too many male role models are actually douchebags. No for realz. And look, even if you can get laid doing that shit — I mean, what kind of person do you want to be?
The feminist advice is always “be yourself.”
I promise you, it is well intended. In some sense it is true. On the other hand, it seems as if most people find it pretty useless in practice.
I say “Be your best self, and work to figure out what that is, and let that shine through, and do the hard work [1], and if you like someone — not a random stranger [2] — then let them know.”
Anyway, it’s all really fucking hard.
[1] Do the hard work. When things are hard, work harder.
[2] Picking up random strangers is possible, but consider it advanced mode. If you’re the sort of person reading this blog and struggling with this topic, you should probably stick to people in your extended circles.
On the other hand, maybe tomorrow you meet some girl at the library, who gives you “the look.” Maybe you pick up on the look (cuz even we weirdos can have brief moments of social clarity). You say hi. You chat. She’s a Haskell nerd. You two fall smashingly in love.
Go you! Go her!
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v – did you like Spike or Oz better?
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Oh Oz was was obviously better. Like, in real life I’d ultimately end up dating someone more Oz-like than Spike-like.
Well, except I might go through a Spike-like phase, cuz Oz had to work to get Willow to even see that maybe this guy kinda likes her (cuz nerds), whereas Spike, once he likes you, he blows through all your reservations full-throttle.
My last long-term g/f was like that. She wanted me. She pushed through my shyness. She got me. The relationship was not good.
So — being shy with poor social calibration sucks on both sides of the equation.
Anyway, since we were discussing good male role models — actually Oz is pretty tip-top. He was confident. He knew who he was. He knew what he liked (and who he liked). He went for it. He was patient, decent, and cool.
So yeah, Oz all the way. Be like Oz.
(I’d avoid the lycanthropy, however, if you can avoid it.)
(And if your g/f turns out gay, well, roll with it. Life has its ups and downs.)
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Well, Spike was classic “Guy you really fancy but know you shouldn’t date as he’s bad news”. I think a lot of us have hearts that don’t quite line up with our heads.
Similarly, if stats from dating sites are anything to go by, a lot of middle-aged men seem to want 20-year-old girlfriends despite that this would lower the odds of the relationship working out (not in any way to criticize all such relationships, as I assume they do work out sometimes).
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I didn’t think about it until Veronica D brought up Buffy, but Oz is pretty good. He’s his own person, he signals that he’s attracted to Willow without any pressure at all, he’s super supportive but his life isn’t centered on her as its only purpose, and it’s totally believable that nerdy Willow falls for him. (In fact, my main problem with Oz as a character is that he’s too perfect to be believed.)
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Yesss +1000 for Oz. Be Oz and not Xander.
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Indeed, avoid any hints of Xander-ism. OMG.
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Interested in people’s thoughts on Wesley (from Angel, seasons 3–5.)
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Straight guy opinions, so take with a grain of salt.
Also spoilers for a 20 year old show:
IMHO, Wesley’s a total mess. He hates himself and thinks that getting Fred’s approval can somehow save him. Near the end of the relationship, once he stops being quite so hateful, he and Lilah might be the hottest couple in fiction, but most of it is because they’re both so attractive and all the hate-sex. He’s fascinating, and if I were into guys, I might try him out for the hate-sex, but a relationship with Wesley is going to end badly. Dating Wesley is like picking up a serious ether habit.
On the other hand, Ethan Chandler on Penny Dreadful hates himself at least as much as Wesley, and with much more cause, but he’s IMHO totally dreamy. Part of that is Josh Hartnett’s big brown eyes, but part of it is that instead of being judgmental and petty like Wesley, Ethan is always supportive of everyone around him.
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Angel isn’t as fresh in my mind as Buffy, but I think I agree. Wesley is a mess.
Honestly, I think Whedon is a trainwreck on this topic, and I suspect that Wesley and Xander are his way of expressing a certain kind of self-hatred — plus obviously Jonathan.
There is a basic problem, tho, simply: good relationships are boring. I mean, they are not boring to experience in real life. They are great to experience in real life. But they (by virtue of being good relationships) lack drama. But we watch TV (and other media) to experience drama. So … good relationships are just kinda there. Like, oh look, that couple gets along and has good communication! Yay!
Like, stories are about goals that are hard to achieve, they are about overcoming obstacles. A person who likes another person and asks them directly and they say “yes, let’s meet for drinks,” they meet for drinks and like each other — that’s not a story. It’s a happening. It might happen within a story, but it’s not going to get a lot of screen time.
You can solve this. Oz hooking up with Willow is such a case, but in this case the “resistance” is not unwillingness, or a need to be “won over,” but just internal shyness.
But so many other stories are about active resistance of one partner, usually the woman (since most TV writers are men).
(I actually don’t read romance novels, so I don’t include them in this analysis. That said, I bet they have their own messy dynamics.)
Anyway, so it goes. Actually real life hookups don’t work like hookups on TV. At least, you certainly don’t want them to.
Like, for the same reason I don’t want my train ride home to involve a ticking timebomb and a near plummet from a tall bridge.
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And this is why Gunn and Fred got together, were super cute, but most any storyline that focused on them was out of character, and eventually they had to be broken up by external plot: they’re the kind of couple that make for a low-drama relationship. Although Joss would do better by Zoe and Wash, that was only within one season. I don’t think they would have held up if the show had gone on longer.
I’ll read idealized Fresley fanfiction (if it’s poly with another lady character like Faith, Illyria, Lilah, or even Wesley/Fred/Gunn), and Joss even thinks Benedick/Beatrice was kind of idealized Fresley, but Fresley as it actually was in canon was pretty awful. (So awful that Jonathan Nolan outright “fixed” some scenes in Person of Interest.)
But as per paragraph 1, one of the reasons Wesley was such a hot mess was that Joss just wanted to give Alexis Denisof the opportunity to show off his acting chops. A lot of the bewildering behavior on Angel is because Joss wanted to show off the acting chops of the cast. So a lot of the times I don’t even really believe in the characters as their own people. (but it does make for enjoyable viewing if you’re watching as a smark)
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Wow, thanks a lot for all those ideas. Looks like I need to start watching Buffy 🙂
For Bill Clinton, I’d have never pegged him as “nerdy”, but on second thought, I guess you’re right. He’s also pretty extraverted, though, which I find exhausting to copy (same with using Feynman as a model). I’ll see how much I can learn from him besides that.
My “best self” would probably be a mix of Gale Boetticher (from Breaking Bad) and Max Post (from Freefall). Can I work with that, or am I waaaay off?
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Yeah, Clinton is an extreme extrovert. True story: A friend of mine was on a plane several years back and passed by Bill in first class. After the seat belt light went off, Clinton got out of his seat and worked the entire plane, going up and down the aisle, shaking hands and talking to every person who would talk to him. He wasn’t running for anything, Hillary wasn’t running at the time – he just couldn’t resist.
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The ‘Sad that it works as well as it does’ example is Tyler Durden.
The good news is that the working parts play to the strengths of nerdlife better than one would expect, and the crazy parts aren’t as necessary.
The key points are that he was always working on something. Every scene he’s either spouting off weird chemistry facts about soapmaking or diy napalm, or science fair acid/base reactions, or fucking around with nunchucks and practicing his golf swing. For a dude who runs on the platform that ‘self improvement is masturbation’, the guy was continually upgrading his skillset.
Most nerds have obscure knowledge and talents to spare, but can’t get anyone to listen. The Durden delivery is an amazing blueprint for how to turn obscure bullshit into *interesting* bullshit that the listener never knew they were missing. A lot of that relies on being extremely fashionable, well groomed, and in great shape to set the frame, but you’re going to find that with most of the examples here (Except Bill Clinton. That’s an excellent counterexample), and those are difficult but straightforward problems to solve.
Edge helps, and the whole ‘destroy the establishment’ vibe works really well with a certain stripe of women. It would be sad to phrase it as ‘a lot of women are really quick to forgive, and often seek out, unforgivable behaviour if you’re attractive enough in other ways’, but, I mean, we have the Spike example from upthread.
So in short:
Get in shape, get some good clothes and hair, be friendly, be competent, be forceful with your ideas, be willing to tell people when they’re wrong (Without it being a big deal if they disagree, and without breaking friendliness), Give the right kind of intense eye contact, have an overarching goal or purpose.
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Pick of of tumblr’s boyfriends whose behavior you can actually pull off (ie: not Sherlock, because you’re not actually smart or funny enough to make his thing appealing.) Being sweet is generally an easier way to go; look for anybody who gets labeled a “cinnamon roll.”
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Maybe Josiah Bartlett?
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You are spot on Kaylee.
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“Many people find it attractive to be listened to as if they are the most interesting person in the world.”
I normally talk a lot (probably too much), but I remember once going for a drink with a woman I’d recently started seeing and letting her do nearly all of the talking, not as some kind of strategy but because I was stressed and tired and felt incapable of being interesting. As a result, I was nervous when I asked if she’d enjoyed the evening. She replied VERY emphatically that she had.
And from the other side, I’ve had dates where the woman has seemed to hang on my every word and it’s a very nice feeling indeed – partly because it’s just flattering, and partly because it just screams “I fancy you”.
By the way, is the “dark and troubled” thing universal? I’ve gotten the impression it’s mainly a female preference. I get that from the “women love bad boys” stereotype, the way male characters tend to be portrayed on TV, and the anecdote that the idea of a troubled past doesn’t really adjust my attraction to a woman. I mean, if she’s overcome terrible adversity then I’m probably very impressed, but I doubt it would be a deciding factor in attractiveness.
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