The Manual: What Women Want and How to Give It to Them (29 page)

Chapter Twelve

THE APPROACH

You never need to tailor your approach to accommodate a woman’s age, style, religion, nationality, energy level, marital status, zodiac sign, blood type, or hair color, because the vast majority of women are instinctively attracted to the same things in men. You also do not need to change your approach depending on what kind of relationship you might be looking for. Your approach should be the same regardless, and then the type of relationship will be up to you to decide
after
you have had sex with a woman.

As soon as you have spotted a woman you are interested in, you might wonder
when
you should make your move. The best time to do it is usually right away. You do not need to find an excuse first; all you need is a good reason, and the fact that you want her is reason enough. Do not wait for women to look at, smile at, or wink at you first, and do not wait for them to drop a handkerchief or a glass shoe in front of the king’s palace for you to pick up either.

Waiting is rarely a good idea, not because you have to approach
a woman the first moment you see her to be successful or to appear confident, but because the longer you wait the more trouble you are asking for, both internally and externally. You may admire a woman’s beauty and behavior for a while to make sure she is good enough for you, but do not use that as an excuse to delay the approach, and make sure she does not see you looking at her like you are trying to build courage to walk up to her. That she notices you checking her out with a sly smile on your face and fearless eye contact is okay however.

The smartest thing you can do is to act
fast
to avoid losing the moment. She could disappear into the crowd, leave the venue, be picked up by someone else, change jobs, move out of town, or be run over by a bus. You never know. And if your confidence is low, the more time you give yourself to think things over, the more excuses will pop into your head for why an approach is not such a good idea after all — until the moment is lost, when you will regain your senses and wonder why you did not do anything when you had the chance.

The longer you wait, the stronger any feelings of anxiety will build inside you. Most males feel approach anxiety at the mere thought of walking up to a woman they do not know, which is why it is so rare to see, and you will
feel
it as long as you are unfamiliar with doing so, as anxiety appears whenever you are about to face uncertainty. However, such feelings will diminish the higher your tolerance of uncertainty becomes and eventually disappear once your courage is at its maximum. But it will only disappear through firsthand experiences of pushing through that mental resistance — by expanding your comfort zone. Nothing else will permanently reduce your anxiety, although swift action will always hinder it from becoming so strong that it overpowers you.

However, keep in mind that approach anxiety is not natural.
You did not have it as a kid, but you learned to feel it as you were socialized to avoid talking to strangers and to believe women are a mystery. You probably had no role models to demonstrate how easy it is, as it is rare to see adult males approach women compared to how often they otherwise speak of them or want to meet them.

Men do not feel
anxiety
before meeting a new woman; they might feel excited, but that is a different, more positive and helpful feeling. Before you get to that point, and you do experience anxiety as you consider
if
you should approach a woman, I want you to think of three things. First, the feeling in your body means that you are about to do something that requires confidence, and that is what women want. Two, if you are already feeling this uncomfortable feeling, you might as well approach her; otherwise, you felt bad for no reason. Three, even if you do not get the girl because she notices your nervousness, your comfort zone will expand if you defy your anxiety, and thus you will be a slightly more attractive male afterward.

You basically win, no matter what happens, as long as you
do
approach her. The only way to lose is if you do not.

That you do not need an excuse to meet women includes that you do not need to have a drink before you approach them. Even so, this is the most common excuse used by males who do approach women in social gatherings, like public bars or private parties. They drink to dare meeting new women.

As alcohol does lower social inhibitions (the blocks that are caused by social conditioning), when the mental barriers are removed, it feels easier to do bold things. Your confidence temporarily increases as your ability to tolerate uncertainty is increased by the effects of alcohol. However, it does not give you lasting courage or make you brave, as people who have courage or are
brave do things even if they feel hard to do, and while alcohol may inarguably increase your confidence, its positive effect is only temporary, and it comes with undesirable side effects.

It is a lot better to lower your inhibitions by yourself by making the effort to expand your comfort zone so you still have your high standards of women and good judgment intact as well as the motor skills to control yourself, your body, and your ability to drive women home the very same night you meet them. Even if it were not for the fact that alcohol is yet another excuse, walking up to women while being
noticeably
intoxicated is far less charming than doing so sober. You risk making a worse first impression than if you approach without being under the influence.

First Impression

The way in which you approach a woman has additional importance, as your appearance and behavior during that time will often be the first impression of you she has, and first impressions have a special and powerful impact because the human brain is designed to quickly make general assumptions and judge other people the first time we meet them.

The first impression becomes an idea of how someone is, like a mental mold built of beliefs, and people then nonconsciously look for confirmation of those initial beliefs while discarding details that might contradict them. Supposedly, we form an opinion of someone during the first three seconds of meeting them. Then, during the following 30 seconds, we shape up that initial impression and try to fit whatever new information that comes up into reinforcing that first impression. This window is open for such a short time, which means that it is even more foolish to hold back your confidence and charm in the beginning by using an excuse or acting disinterested, even if it is only done for a couple of seconds.
If you do so, it means that you will have to spend a lot more time fighting an unnecessary uphill battle that you easily could have avoided.

It is not impossible to get girls by approaching them indirectly, but any success you would have with such a method you would have gotten much faster by being direct, and by being direct you would have gotten plenty more women as well.

When your approach is direct, when you are honest and straightforward with your true intentions rather than using an excuse, a woman will know that you are masculine, confident, charming, and responsible right from the start. She will have no doubt about it, and when you keep that behavior up after those first seconds, you will only reinforce the initial image that she has formed. This is what you want to achieve as it makes your life a great deal easier and the seduction process significantly shorter.

Most males do not dare to approach women at all, often because they are afraid to
look
like an idiot. Their confidence is too low to handle the uncertainty of not being convinced that they know everything they ought to do and say, and they have such low regard for themselves. However, it is much better to take action and risk looking like an idiot with a chance of getting the girl than not to take action and clearly demonstrate that you
are
an idiot with no chance of getting the girl.

It does not matter when or where you see a stunning beauty you want, your approach should be the same. It should be the same if you are outside in the middle of the day, in a club late at night, at a corporate event, or in an elevator. It should be the same if she is alone, with her mother, in a circle of friends, on the phone, hanging upside down, looking at a pair of jeans in a shopping mall, or even a combination of all of the above. It should be the same because it is based on confidence, not on coincidence.

Walk directly toward the woman no matter where she is or what she is doing. Imagine a straight line between the two of you, and walk on that line. But you preferably want to approach her head on so that she can
see
you coming instead of coming up to her from the side, unlike a beggar, hawker, drug dealer, environmental activist, or someone handing out fliers no one wants. If you jump a woman at the last moment by approaching her from the side or even from behind or pretend to be looking at something else until you get close, you will startle her, and that creates a very bad first impression.

Thus, if she is walking toward your direction, you should get right in front of her so that you meet head on. It is best to intercept the path that she is walking on before she can see you coming, so that the first time she notices you, you are already in front of her and on your way straight to her, making it obvious that you have seen her face, want her, and are approaching her. But in case she has already seen you or she is standing still and looking to the side when you notice her face, circling her just to get in front of her and then walking straight to her will seem odd. In this case, you will just have to walk straight to her anyway and approach her from the side or even behind. It is not ideal, yet it is still much better than not approaching at all.

Maintain eye contact with her and smile all the way as you move closer to her, even if she turns her eyes away or does not appear to notice you until the last moment. If she is as attractive as you are about to tell her she is and looks interesting enough to approach, you should be looking at her constantly as you walk toward her: Nothing else in the vicinity is more important than she and the fact that you want her. You should be smiling slyly and looking her right in the eyes so that your intentions are obvious. You should not hide the fact that you are interested in her and are
about to come over to talk to her; if you do, it will not be very confident or charming, and she preferably needs to see that you are approaching so she can prepare herself for it and therefore not be startled. If you catch her completely off guard by starting to talk to her out of nowhere, she will just be frightened, which makes you look far from charming. To interrupt a woman is good, but it is never good to startle her.

Those who claim to have fallen in love at first sight might actually not have broken that first eye contact for quite some time. Regardless if that is true or not, that is
how
you should look at women when you do approach them to make the best impression. Ideally, you should look a woman straight into her eyes as soon as you see her, then hold your gaze all the way as you walk up to approach her, and maintain that eye contact without looking away, especially not when you flirt with her or as you say something particularly bold.

You should do this whenever you meet a woman, not just the first time you meet her, but also when you get together for dates and as you part ways and she walks away. If she turns around while she is walking away, you will be most charming if she sees you
still
checking her out.

Although you will occasionally run into women who stare you down all the way as you approach them without ever breaking eye contact, you should not expect most women to be so confident or that interested in you
before
you have started talking to them. Also, you should definitely not change your mind and abandon your approach just because you have not received her nonverbal approval first. When a woman breaks eye contact, avoids it, or fails to give you a second glance, she is not sending signs of rejection, but this is often enough to stop most cowardly and unattractive males.

Once you are close enough to start talking to her, you have to make sure that you have her full attention before you start a conversation.

Full Attention

You need a woman’s full attention when you approach her, but this does not mean that you need a lot of attention
in general
from women. If you are a male and crave a lot of attention, you are wasting your time and acting like a woman.

Attention matters greatly to women because having a lot of it significantly increases their chances of finding a mate by being highly visible, since being more visible increases the chances of a
man
finding and approaching them. This is why women hate to feel invisible, why they want to be noticed so badly, and why, all over the world, women wish they were
taller
. Not necessary tall, but taller than the other females in their area, which is why they like high-heeled shoes so much. This is also the reason the world is full of drama queens — females who try to turn even trivial matters into huge issues — because they like to be the center of attention, and it is why they love being photographed and have tons of pictures of themselves in their cell phone.

However, a male wishing to get the girls he wants should not focus on attracting
a lot
of attention and then hope for women to approach him. That is what women do, that is how women think, and it is a poor strategy to get a particular woman. Selecting and approaching the woman you want is not only the best strategy to end up with what you want, it is also what women expect and prefer from a man, which makes being passive or indirect even less effective.

Attention is
not
attraction; hence, you do not need to break dance, make balloon animals, take your shirt off, wear big headphones,
play loud music from your car, dress like a cowboy, spray champagne, throw money around, do magic, wear large jewelry, gather a posse, greet everyone, cover your body with tattoos, show off all your shiny gadgets, or do anything else that males commonly do to bring attention to themselves.