Guys have a natural tendency to puff up a bit when attempting to pick up girls. The smart folks who study human body language have known this for years: guys trying to impress tend to stick their chins up and their chests out, while keeping their arms by their sides. Ape-like, yes, but true, and you probably do this yourself without even being aware of it. Size does impress.
Most guys take this a step further, and try to impress women verbally too. Listen to one of your buddies trying to pick up a girl sometime. After the introductions and some light chit-chat, he’s likely to start bragging. His job, his new car, his GPA–whatever a guy can use to talk himself up will probably come out pretty early in a dating scenario. This is also a well-known social phenomenon that occurs frequently in dating; it’s a subconscious method used to establish one’s social value. That said, knock it off!
Trying to impress women is totally counter-productive
A lot of guys don’t realize this at all; in fact, most guys think it works. But the truth is, making an effort to impress is a huge turn-off. It makes you look like you’re trying too hard, which is definitely not the impression you want to convey.
Think about it from the woman’s perspective. If a guy is bragging, she’s going to think that he’s trying to impress her. If he’s trying to impress her, it’s probably because he’s insecure about himself, and feels like he has to prove his worth to her. If he’s insecure, he must not really have a lot to offer, despite what he says. If he doesn’t have a lot to offer, he’s not going home with her.
Bragging and talking yourself up put the woman in a position of power–which you want to avoid. You need to be the one in charge, directing the conversation, leading her along in order to create interest. When you try to prove yourself to a woman, she ends up calling the shots. The situation changes from a controlled pick up exercise, handled by a confident PUA, to something more like a job interview. Which means that her response to all your efforts is likely to be something along the lines of, “Unfortunately, there is a large pool of highly qualified applicants.”
Everybody loves a good mystery, right?
An old adage has it that it’s always good to keep a little mystery in a relationship. That goes double for dating. Keeping an air of mystery about yourself will attract women a lot better that bragging.
The mystery approach works for two reasons. One, it’s a conscious attempt not to brag–which, remember, is at least partially a subconscious activity. If you put effort into keeping women from finding out too much about you too soon, you’re less likely to let the even the occasional, unintentional boast slip.
Two, it forces the woman to make the effort to get to know you. Now she’s the one who’s trying. Your tact about yourself excites her curiosity, and curiosity is really just a type of attraction. She’s going to want to stick around to find out more about you; this not only gives you added opportunity to work your charms on her, it subtly reinforces your role as the commander of the situation.
There are plenty of ways to display social status without looking like you’re trying: in the way you dress, your tone of voice, how you carry yourself, and so on–all of which are the focus of many of our other videos. Use these tools to subtly convey to women your worth, while keeping the mystery up. When done correctly, they’ll realize that you’re a catch on some level, but won’t know exactly why–and they’ll be dying to find out.
So don’t be the nervous guy trying to land a job that 50 other people have applied for. Be the Mystery Man. The Mystery Man is confident, he’s cool, he knows he’s great and he knows why. And women will trip all over themselves to discover why, too.
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About John Lione
