The Evolved Male

Pleasing a guy is like running a race. Guys have a start, they have a clear and definite finish.

Pleasing a woman kind of never ends. They are like a game of Bop-It with various switches and toggles. What is more, there is no upper limit, there is no “end;” things just keep going and going, faster and faster until you can’t keep up and the game ends. There is no finish line, just a high score you can beat. 

Guys, I cannot emphasize this enough: please don’t be so fast to supplicate. Respect yourself more than to give yourself wholly to someone. Make sure they’ve earned it - you wouldn’t give away your money or belongings for free, would you? So why would you give your emotions/efforts/energy for free?

It’s not only about what you bring to the table, it’s what she brings to the table too. You, being the evolved male, should have a good grasp of what you bring to the table, if you don’t, you can start reading here. At the same time, you should never feel bad about considering what she brings to the table for you. You’ve worked hard to earn your keep, she should to. And if you can find someone who shares the same mentality as you, it’ll surely be a flourishing relationship of ongoing growth and development.

Don’t exacerbate the vicious cycle of:

1. Guy throws himself at girl
2. Girl rejects guy
3. Other guy throws himself at girl
4. Girl rejects other guy
5. Repeat

Intrigue her, question her, teach her, challenge her…just don’t give everything to her. She’ll appreciate you much more for it.

Part 2: Emotional Stability

3. Mutual Attraction
 
People have to be somewhat attracted to you for them to like you. People have to be someone drawn to you to respect your opinions. They don’t always have to agree with you, but they are receptive. Attraction goes beyond just romantic attraction, it’s possible to be platonically attracted to someone.

Being attracted to someone is easy. It could be that good-looking guy/girl who catches your attention on the street; you would be attracted to their appearance. It could be a professor giving a lecture about a certain subject matter you enjoy; you would be attracted to their mind and knowledge. It could be a motivational speaker who inspires; you would be attracted to that person’s demeanour and how they make the audience feels. Being attracted to someone is easy because you know what you’re drawn to. You know what catches your attention; you know what your eyes desire and what your brain admires.

Being attractive, on the other hand, is a bit trickier. Most people would presume that being attractive is only about appearance, it’s not…trust me on this one. I may not be the best looking guy out there, but I’m damn sure I’m attractive.

It isn’t about looking the best or knowing the most, it’s not about having the most money or speaking the loudest. Being attractive is a state of mind, it’s a perception of yourself and then imposing that perception upon the world around you. When you think you are attractive, you become more attractive; it will show in your demeanour, attitude and how you interact with people.

Going beyond visual attraction, you have to look at what you mean to the audience/girl. Why should they/she be attracted to you? What makes you special and stand out from the rest of the mediocre guys? Before you can expect to be adored by the people around you, you first must determine why they should. It is a self analysis of what makes you attractive. It will be a humbling experience because you will surely see your shortfalls, at the same time, you should not be discouraged because you will see your strengths as well.

I often take time to self-reflect on what I bring to the table for the people around me. It would be dangerous for me to only look at my strengths and ignore my weaknesses, so I take careful consideration of both. I am always looking towards others for feedback on what needs to be improved and how to do it. Always be receptive of feedback.

Your acquaintances will tell you what you want to hear, your friends will tell you what you need to hear.

On the other hand, when people are asking of your opinion, show interest in what they ask of you. They wouldn’t be asking you unless they respected your thoughts, so you should give them the mutual respect of your attention.

Mutual respect and interest are the keys to being attractive

That’s right, ladies and gentlemans, respect and interest are important things to being attractive. Having respect for your audience shows that you are receptive of them without judgement and prejudice; they should have no fear of judgement, so they are able to share deeper, intimate thoughts with you. Showing interest in them involves asking questions to find out more about them. Let’s face it, people love talking about themselves - the more you ask about them, the more they’ll feel your interest in them, gaining your trust. The on-going reciprocation of having interest and knowing more about each other…this attraction. Caring and showing interest in others, this is how you build attraction.

Part 1: Evaluation of Qualities - Education and Intelligence

2. Emotional Stability

The simplest explanation for emotional stability: demonstrating you’re not emotionally messed up.

It’s being balanced and controlled in times of emotional ups and down. It’s not losing your shit over the small things in life, like someone cutting in front of you in the grocery line. It’s being aware of yourself enough to feel wonderful joys in the lives of yours and others, like when someone shares a great success with you. It’s not letting your emotions take over your cognitive processes when you’re feeling down, like getting over an ex-lover and falling into a state of depression. It’s being able to express happiness with those around you, like sharing stories without fear of judgement and ridicule.

I’ve always expressed the importance of having control over your emotions, you must be in control of your emotions, your emotions do not control you. And showing that you are in control of your emotions is every bit as important. It’s all about balance. Controlling your emotions doesn’t meant NOT having emotions, it means you’re picking and choosing the right times to express them, and the intensity with which you express them.

On one end of the spectrum, there is the guy who has the ‘flat affect,’ that is he expresses little or no emotions. This is the guy who seems disassociated or uninterested. He doesn’t show any emotions, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel any. This is a very off-putting characteristic because people are not certain of your thought process, in turn, they’re not sure of how you feel, and when they don’t know how you feel, it makes them very uncomfortable because they don’t know how to proceed - let me reiterate, this is a bad characteristic to have in any setting except a poker table. When someone feels uncomfortable around you and they’re unable to understand how you feel, they will have difficulty in trusting you because they’re not sure where you stand on a certain subject. Basically, you will make people feel uncomfortable, and people are less likely to trust you, so they are  less likely to express their thoughts with you…making it a very awkward or superficial social experience.

On the other end of the spectrum are people with hyper-emotional reactivity. These are the people loses their shit over everything. Tell them a sad story, and they’ll cry their eyes out for you. Tell them about your successes and they’ll go over-the-top crazy because of how happy they are for you. This sounds good and all, but be warned, they would expect the same of you. Some people are just straight up too much. That overly bubbly guy/girl who always seem to exaggerate everything, yea, that’s hyper-emotional reactivity; he/she almost seems fake with his/her ‘good mornings’ and ‘how’s it goings,’ right? I know the feeling and I’m sure you know exactly who I’m talking about - everybody knows one; this is an example of someone who doesn’t have enough control over themselves to tone it down when necessary. How about the always bitter guy/girl who always seems to be having a bad day? It’s tiring having to talk to a person like that, isn’t it? This person doesn’t know how to control their emotions and not let negativity ruin their thought process.

It’s important to have emotional stability when interacting with people. When you’re able to express and convey your emotions without losing your shit, people have more respect for what you say because they’re less defensive. Rather than bombarding your audience with overly positive or negative emotions, you should give them just enough to convey that you’re passionate about what you’re speaking about. When the intensity of your emotions is too much for your audience, they feel pressured…like you’re jamming your opinion down their throats, nobody likes that feeling. When you give them just enough to let them feel that you’re passionate about what you’re speaking about, you make yourself a little vulnerable. When you tell your audience of your thoughts, you’re trusting them with your outlook on the subject matter; you’re making yourself vulnerable to their scrutiny. If you do it right, your audience will feel this from you and empathize with you leading them to be more receptive of you.

The first 3 minutes of the following video are a fine, albeit, humourous example of speaking. The rest…well, just good fun:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR5jufwSqm8&feature=related

You can just feel Vinny’s emotions, can’t you?

I’m going to start on a small series revolved around 10 things a man should evaluate about himself. This is not another typical list of things you need to do to land a girl - this is a self-improvement exercise. When you evaluate these 10 qualities, you’re evaluating your existing IQ, EQ, lifestyle and habits, which ultimately translate into your pickups/dating/relationships, and other facets of your life.

By no means should the following be anything new or surprising to you. But there’s a difference between thinking about something and evaluating something. For example, one of the items on the list is being ‘dependable.’ What does that mean exactly? Well, when you think about it, it’s just being there for someone: family, friends, co-workers. It’s easy to think about it and say ‘yea, I’m pretty dependable.’ But why not take it one step further and propose the following questions:

When you’re in need, how fast do you react for someone?
Do you react the same way to everyone?
Why do you treat different people differently?
How you thorough are you with your approach?
Do you only do what’s asked or do you go above and beyond?

For some, it might seem silly to dwell on such small everyday matters; dependable’ is ‘dependable, right? Well, yes, that’s true, but being complacent doesn’t really promote any personal growth, does it? The point here is to see where your shortfalls lie and how to improve on them.

Only when we analyse our own actions and the train of thought that proceed our actions do we begin to understand ourselves a little better.

1. Education and Intelligence

Education is not intelligence, intelligence is not education. They are separate entities that should be given separate consideration. Education falls into the realm of learning, training and research to obtain knowledge, basically, it’s school; education answer the ‘what’ and the ‘why.’ Intelligence falls in to a realm that encompasses many traits that include but are not limited to: abstract thought, comprehension, communication, and self-awareness; intelligence answers the ‘who, when, how, where.’

Having education certainly looks great on paper - it’ll get you in the door at most job opportunities and probably get you into the right circles of people that you want to be in. Obtaining a Masters degree or beyond is certainly very respectable as it is an indication of someone who is committed to and achieve goals. Not dissimilar, it’s possible to be educated outside of a formal academic environment. Let’s say you want to become better at video games. You either play a lot more and practice, or you do some research to expedite your learning curve. The latter is the informal learning as it requires research and study to understand the nuances of video games. So going back to my previous statement, researching the video game answers what you’re doing correctly/incorrectly and provides an explanation of why an adjusted strategy may work.

Intelligence encompasses all the other important stuff in your brain besides formal education. There are a wide number of things that fall under the intelligence umbrella: emotion, abstract thought, creativity, humour, planning and problem solving. Again, this is not a complete list, there are just too many things that fall under intelligence. Instead, I’ll focus on application. Intelligence is the application of education. It is the combination of all of the aforementioned, in addition to education, that one uses to achieve a certain goal. Going back to the video game example, intelligence will help you figure out when is the best time for you to play your videos, how you play your video games and where you play your video games; you’re not going to play video games at 4:30am while taking a shower in your bathtub, are you?….On second thought, some of you might.

Take a look at your goals and aspirations to determine if you’ve achieved enough in either of the previous realms to be successful in obtaining your goals. If you want to move to management level in your organization, do you have enough education that is required of the position? Your co-workers and superiors may like you and respect you, but without the proper credentials, it will be very challenging to be promoted. At the same time, you could be over-qualified for your current position but you’re not promoted because you lack the leadership skills required of a higher position. There is something lacking in either of the aforementioned situations.

When it comes to dating, you might know all there is to know about your field/industry. You might be the very best at what you do. You could be renowned because you’re just so damn popular…but none of that will matter if you’re proudly talking about those things and your date doesn’t give a f*ck; application of your knowledge…wrong place, wrong time, wrong audience. Your intelligence should guide you into discussing things that would capture her attention, things that would get her excited and be attracted to you.

To be attractive, you have to be educated and intelligent. You have knowledge in certain things that intrigue people, things that they are ignorant about. You need to have knowledge in something you that specialize in and enjoy. On top of that, you must have the intelligence to coherently discuss the topics you enjoy. Just remember that what you say and what you mean to say doesn’t automatically translate to what others hear and understand. Part of being intelligent is understanding that your audience understands and is receptive of you - in essence, it’s building rapport with your audience. The ability to build rapport with anyone around and then educating them on what you know - that is the wonderful balance of education and intelligence in everyday situations.

Here are some questions to think about:

Do you need more credentials/formal education to get where you want to be?
What steps have you taken to re-enroll in school? 
Are you educated but lack social skills?
Are you more comfortable in your office than you are in social environments? Why?
Are you able to talk to people about very general things but not as comfortable discussing formal and in-depth topics?
Are you able to lead a discussion about an in-depth topic?
Are you able to have fun during an informal discussion?
What are you lacking and what steps have you taken to improve? 

An important aspect to meeting any new girl is setting up the next meeting. It’s that simple. Forget all the phone games, text messages, email etc for now. You need to make sure she’s going to meet you again. So you must be charming and attractive. You gotta make sure her buying temperature is hot before you sell.

The first encounter with a new girl will give you a big rush. For those who are more sexually active, if you don’t capitalize on these emotions quickly, someone else might just come in and close her first. You have to use your anticipation and excitement to your advantage. Turn your nervous energy into excitement and interest. Instead of being on the defence and staying quiet, be the guy who’s willing to talk to her and make her laugh, . Create that conversation to grab her interest, and when the timing is right, tell her you’re taking her out again. Yes, tell her, if you’ve done it right, you won’t need to ask to take her out again. Don’t wait until the initial meeting over and then ask her via text/phone/email. If she’s available right now and green-lighting you, do your job and close it. She probably won’t be available for long.

The easiest way is to simply find a common interest. There are a number of things you both have in common that would allow you the opportunity to take her out again. Even when you do find a common interest, you have to make sure the signs are there before you sell; just because she says she wants to see a certain movie doesn’t mean she wants to see it with you; just because she wants to see a basketball game doesn’t mean she wants to attend it with you. If she really wants to go with you, she’ll ask you or make a subtle suggestion. But if she doesn’t, you could always just man up and make the suggestion to her. Don’t take it personally if she says no. There are a number of a reasons why she might say no but still have interest in you.

In my experience, I’ve had girls who have said no to trying out certain restaurants but yes to a baseball game. Conversely, some girls just don’t like basketball games and would prefer to grab a drink instead. It’s all about calibrating and figuring out who you’re talking and what works. No single approach will work all the time. No single outing idea will appeal to all girls.

The second point of today’s entry is yourself. What makes you so special that she should want to hang out with you? What justifies you in asking her out? Why should she say yes to you?

I think too many guys fall into the trap of thinking ‘well, if I ask her out, she should just want to say yes.’ This is a very dangerous train of thought as it leads to silly things like unrealistic expectations, anger, frustration and misogyny. Guys, don’t be stupid, k? If you want her to say yes, you have to give her a reason to. If you want to see her again, she has to not forget you. When we were growing up, we were always taught that you get what you work for - girls are no different; you get what you put into it. Knowing weaknesses, improving upon then, and then applying your strengths is real-world social situations - this is the work I am speaking of. Some people have it naturally, most people don’t. For those who don’t - you need to do work.

Let’s face it, relationships and dating are not sugar-coated straight forward things. It’s a game; a game with winners and losers. The winners strive to improve themselves and their partner. The losers stay where they are with their heads down and hands in their pockets, complacent with not getting anywhere. Do you want to be a winner or a loser?