Just Go After Whoever You’re Interested in
Like most recovering betas, through focused introspection I have discerned some patterns from my old days that consistently sabotaged my social life and kept me from pursuing women I was interested in. Among them were:
- Thinking “she’s so hot/cool/high-value, why would she be interested in me? What do I have to offer her?”
- Thinking “I should just punch within my league, because they’ll be easier to attract and keep.”
These imaginary barriers prevented and demotivated me from opening and pursuing probably dozens of potential mates. I seriously doubt I am alone in this. I have found both these assumptions to be seriously flawed, at least partly due to the following factors:
1. Entitlement and pouty attitude are more or less uniformly distributed across the SMV spectrum.
Sure we expect hot women to act like princesses (why again do we tolerate it from anybody?), but you’ll find them anywhere on the ladder. In particular, I’ve found that women who were not hot or “popular” in high school often carry that chip on their shoulder for a long time, even though they grow in attractiveness in their 20′s or had a style that didn’t fit into the rigid high school social paradigm. This goes double for “smart” girls who are averse to flirting because they think it makes them bimbos, in the same way that confirmed betas don’t want to act dominant because they think it makes them douchebags. There is a (controversial) line of thought in manosphere circles that plainer women have built up their psychological health without the crutch of male attention, and thus can be tougher to attract despite being objectively lower in “league.” And most women today have been raised to think they are awesome, full stop.
https://www.loveawake.com/free-online-dating/United-States/state-of-Georgia.html?gender=female
https://www.loveawake.com/free-online-dating/United-States/state-of-Virginia.html?gender=female
https://www.loveawake.com/free-online-dating/United-States/state-of-Maryland.html?gender=female
https://www.loveawake.com/free-online-dating/United-States/state-of-Massachusetts.html?gender=female
Let me be clear: my point is not that all women are pouty and entitled; it’s that no matter her SMV, a woman is not automatically going to be pleasant and grateful for your interest, even though sexual marketing game theory dictates that she should work her personality to compensate for looks. Cutting yourself off from a certain segment of the field is not going to make the protection shields, fitness tests and curled noses go away. And on the other hand, plenty of high-value women think they are low-value and thus respond to your value better than you might expect.
2. The concept of one’s “league” is a non-sequitur when it comes to attraction.
People are attracted to what they are attracted to. There’s no programming inside our brains that makes us most attracted to people in our sphere of attractiveness. Obviously our genes want us to get the best deal possible, and also allow for some variety for genetic diversity’s sake. Hypergamy is a good working rule to first order, but there are plenty of educated women who have a thing for rough blue-collar guys, women who are comfortable dating outside their race, and other crossups of assortive mating. In other words, you should never believe you don’t have a chance with someone because of her age, class or social environs. Even if they are exceptions to the rule, the sample size of a young man living in or near a large first-world city is so large that you will run into these exceptions on a fairly regular basis.
Now when it comes to a relationship, an equally-yoked pairing is likely to be the most stable and mutually satisfying arrangement (Roissy recommends a twist on this, where the man is higher in social status and the woman is higher in looks status, so that neither can realistically count on getting a better deal from a third party.)
3. Lots of hot women don’t get approached as much as you’d think.
If you talk to attractive women, they’ll tell you they get a lot more ogling than true approaching – where I define an approach as looking her in eye and talking to her without drooling or stuttering. A lot of really good-looking women will feign the princess act as a fitness test, but really can’t stand being pedestalized and supplicated. They want a dude to approach them who won’t do those things. Be that guy! You don’t have to be a super-alpha to do this with an attractive woman.
https://www.loveawake.com/free-online-dating/United-States/state-of-Mississippi.html?gender=female
https://www.loveawake.com/free-online-dating/United-States/state-of-Delaware.html?gender=female
https://www.loveawake.com/free-online-dating/United-States/state-of-North-Dakota.html?gender=female
https://www.loveawake.com/free-online-dating/United-States/state-of-Connecticut.html?gender=female
4. Everybody needs to be gamed.
I don’t mean you should aim to seduce every woman you meet. It’s a sure sign of lame game if a guy only runs it on the women he’s interested in, and doubly lame if a guy has no discrimination in his pursuits. What I mean is if you approach a pair or a group of women, you’re going to have to be socially dynamic with all of them, and with male friends too if they have them (in a nonsexual way of course). And many times, the “target” begs off but another woman responds to your game in a happy twist of events. Or a third party outside the set sees your skills in action and it trips her preselection sensor.
5. Sometimes you just get lucky.
You really don’t know what a woman wants and whether you’re it until you approach. For whatever hindbrain reasons nobody understands, you might be just what she’s looking for.
There is a key male-female difference here female readers need to be especially aware of.
When a girl goes after a guy out of her league, he might pump her and dump her, with the concomitant emotional and social (and possibly medical) damage that results. I don’t have a detailed solution to this problem except to say that sexual and relationship escalation need to proceed in lockstep counterpoint, you can’t give one entirely and then expect the other to be provided.
When a guy goes after a woman who is out of his league, the worst he’ll get is no, or she might string him along as beta provider if he doesn’t have enough game to discern what’s going on. And a man of good game knows not to activate a woman’s isolation anxiety* by asking her out for a formal date where she’s stuck with him for hours, giving her things, or frequent communication. These steps avoid social consequences like getting tagged as a creep or “hitting on” her**.
So get out there and start approaching, and don’t worry about picking optimal targets; just approach whoever strikes your fancy and go from there.
*Credit to Athol Kay for this term, which he analogized to male approach anxiety. [edited from original to reflect proper nomenclature.]
**Aside: it’s interesting how the verb “to hit on” has a connotation of unwanted intrusion; in reality it means “an unattractive or low-game man approached me.” If the guy is attractive and she wanted to talk to him, she won’t say she’s been hit on. It’s all part of the female subtextual language men need to understand.
