Be Patient

Blogs that give dating and relationship advice can be hugely motivational. When you read them, you can feel like you've uncovered some huge secret, and that everything in your life is immediately going to change for the better. The e-mails I get from readers confirm this. I've had the same feeling myself many times in the process of reading about how to improve my workouts or to improve my success with women.

In spite of being a little naive, this feeling isn't a bad one. In fact, it is often a great one in the sense that it usually results in the kind of enthusiasm that propels you a long way towards success. But a few months later, when reality sets in, and you start to realize that what you read didn't completely revolutionize your results with men -  that that you are still single, or that you still haven't been asked out - it can be easy to lose steam.

Putting advice into practice is never as smooth and easy as experiencing the initial "wow" factor when receiving or reading it. That one post you read about personal boundaries might have completely changed the way you think about behaving towards the men you date, but following through under the sway of a man's attractiveness proved far more difficult than you expected. Another post affirmed your emotional intelligence and gave you all kinds of confidence in yourself, but the practical applications were difficult to find. And although you agree with that post that claimed you can control your looks to a very large extent, there just isn't enough time in the day to worry about everything you'd need to in order to look your best. Ideas are perfect; reality is anything but.

However, after you go through a few (maybe even several) of those initial "wow" moments, only to find yourself disappointed by your progress, you start to realize something: you really have changed. You really have improved. The progress is much rougher and more halting than you expected, and certainly far slower than you hoped. But when you look in the mirror a couple years after you started, you really do see a different person - one who has changed for the better.

Ideas work on the mind in subtle but powerful ways, such that their effects are often unrecognizable for a long time after their seeds are planted, or even after those seeds have taken root. The efforts you make might seem to have next to no impact at first, but they do slowly and inevitably accumulate. Eventually, if you work hard and thoughtfully, you will see real changes. They might not be what you dreamed of at first, but you wouldn't appreciate them if they'd come easily. And what you find is that, although the improvements are far smaller than you expected, they are also much more satisfying than you expected - you don't need to improve as much as you think you do to be happy.

Eventually you learn to temper your expectations so that they don't get out of control each time you digest a new idea or learn a new lesson. This also serves to rein in your disappointment when you find yourself feeling like you've made no progress since a few months ago, when you were sure that you finally figured out what was wrong. Experience teaches us that each new effort made and new truth learned is not some panacea that will change our world overnight, but rather a small (yet important) piece of a very large puzzle – one that we will continue to work on for a long time, perhaps for the rest of our lives. This recognition is a sign of maturity, and the first step toward real, concrete progress.


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How to Set Up Your Friends

Most women I've met like the idea of setting up the single men in their lives with the single girls in their lives. In other words, they like match-making. Mothers seem to love this more than most, presumably because it puts them back in touch with the romantic spark that is often dead in their own relationships. Perpetually single girls love this too, probably because having influence over someone else’s love life is the next best thing to having control over your own. But normal girls like it too, and this is understandable because it is only human to want to have an influence on other people's lives (it is human to want to have influence in general). In the same way that it is empowering to know that you were the one who got your friend the job that was the springboard for her career, it is empowering to know that you introduced her to the guy that finally gave her confidence in her dating life, or even the guy that she eventually married.

Now, let me preface what I am about to say by pointing out that setups are usually a bad idea. In the vast majority of cases, the very fact that your friend needs help finding love is a good indication that your attempt to help is going to fail. This is because the problem is never one of "just not having met the right person yet." It always runs deeper. Maybe she is insecure, or too introverted, or overweight. Maybe she is trying to be masculine, or makes herself unapproachable. Whatever the case, her inability to take charge of her own romantic life isn't merely a matter of bad luck; it is a symptom of a deeper problem, which your attempt to introduce her to someone new isn't doing anything to solve. It's like giving another book to a child with a learning disability, and thinking "this time he'll get it." Exactly. It isn't going to happen.

So with that background, let's take a look at what most people do when they try to set up their friends (because this blog is for women I am going to use the example of a girl, but guys make the same mistake). Once a girl sees a potential match in her social circle, she goes to the girl and guy separately, and tells each of them that she knows "someone that they have to meet." She might tell each person a few things about the other, maybe show them some photos, and she gets them to agree to the setup. Then she arranges some kind of event at which the two people have the opportunity to meet each other. She's "really good at this" because she never lets either person know that the other one knows it's a set up. That way it won't feel forced or awkward. Perfect, right? Wrong.

The problem isn't that the person thinks that the other knows about the setup. The problem is that the person themselves knows they are being set up. And they knew this the very moment the girl told them there was "someone that they had to meet." This does two things: first, it generates expectations and makes both parties feel like they have to perform, which of course results in an encounter more awkward than a new graduate's first job interview. More importantly, however, and what I want to point out here, is that it destroys the single most important thing for someone who struggles with their dating life: autonomy.

Let's look at this from a the guy's perspective...

One of the hallmarks of masculinity is self-control: men want to be in control of their lives, and by extension, they want to be in control of their dating lives. A man will never feel good about himself if he can't initiate and perpetuate his own relationships. (Remember that his inability to do so is the reason his friends want to set him up in the first place.) By setting a guy up, you are essentially stepping in and putting training wheels on his bike - reminding him that he cannot handle himself. Yes, it might be true that he rides poorly (or not at all) without those training wheels; but by taking control of his dating life you are making him feel like a child, and he won't respect himself for any girl he "gets" with your help. He also won't respect any girl that he needs help to meet, because men know instinctively that women are attracted to men who don't need help: men who are in control and confident with their own capabilities. In other words, he knows he can get a better girl if he gets his shit together and deals with his lack of options himself.

You might argue that without some initial help, a guy (or girl) will never date anyone at all. To use the bike analogy, you might argue that, yes, a guy might not respect himself for using training wheels, but without training wheels he will never learn how to ride. But this argument assumes that his problem is balance. In real terms, your insistence on setting him up assumes that his problem is meeting girls. But as I pointed out at the beginning, this is never the case. His problem isn't one of balance, it is the fear of crashing. His problem isn't one of meeting girls, it is the fear of rejection; and setups do nothing to help him overcome that fear.

There is a feminine perspective on this too. When it comes to match-making, the feminine problem is that a girl will not respect a man who needed the help of a friend (i.e. you) to meet and attract her. This isn't only a matter of judging the man's courage, or the social abilities needed to make a connection with her. Women know that if a man is motivated enough, he will dig down and find that courage, and make something happen - or at least he will try. You want a man who desires you enough to push through a crowd to meet you, or takes some kind of initiative. At very least, you want a guy who does more than accept dates that are handed to him because his friends think he has no other options. A girl who finds herself in a relationship that started that way won't respect him, won't respect the relationship, and won't respect herself. So deep down, girls doesn't like being set up any more than guys do. They might like being single even less, but they'll be even less enthusiastic still about being dumped once their boyfriends wake up, and realize that they are only with those girls because they never had the balls to go for what they really wanted.

I am sure many readers know people who have had successful relationships after being set up, some of which might have even lead to marriage. My parents were set up, and they've been married more than 30 years. Maybe you were set up and are still with your boyfriend. And that's fine. But it doesn't mean that those cases are ideal or likely, or that they do anything to strengthen the inner core of the relationship.

So what do you do? How do you help facilitate a match that you think has potential? Well, you let both the guy and the girl ride without training wheels. You encourage them to take control of their own dating lives, and then you let them do so. This doesn't mean that you can't set them up, but it does mean that you can't tell either of them you are setting them up. Here is what you do: you invite them both to whatever event you've organized, then you sit back and see if they connect. Nothing more, nothing less. If he doesn't take the initiative on his own, nothing happens, and that's OK - or at least, it isn't something you can correct by stepping in and facilitating the connection any more than you already have.

Of course, it isn't always the case that the person you are trying to set up has any problems dating or attracting the opposite sex. Maybe they have plenty of options, and you just happen to know someone who would be a great match for them. But in these cases, you won't need to do anything other than introduce the two people anyway; they will be perfectly fine on their own if there is an attraction, so the strategy is the same: introduce, step back, and let it happen. Nothing more.


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Stop Having Sex to Prove He Likes You

I've dated several women who knew that I'd lost interest in a relationship with them long before we stopped having sex. In fact, a couple of times they knew it even before I realized it myself. In retrospect, I see that these girls continued having sex with me for one reason and one reason only: to continue feeling my sexual desire.

Some girls might have done this because they mistakenly believed that male sexual desire is something important or hard to come by; but the girls I am referring to were mostly old enough or smart enough to know better. They wanted to experience my sexual desire because they needed the minimal affirmation it offered in order to feel good about themselves - or at least, in order to avoid feeling bad about themselves after realizing that the end was in sight.

I would call this situation pitiable, but ultimately pity is a wasted emotion, because it doesn't give enough credit to the agency of its object. So if you are still sleeping with a man who isn't as serious about you as you want him to be, I am not going to pity you, and I am not going to blame him. You and only you have the ability to change the situation.

You will only change the situation by demanding more in your relationships, and you will only demand more in your relationships if you believe that you deserve more in your relationships. And by a convenient loophole in human psychology, you will actually start believing that you deserve more in your relationships if you start acting like you deserve more in your relationships. So suck up the rejection and walk away.


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Get Used to Rejection

If a man isn't getting rejected by women regularly, he will probably never find one that satisfies him. Because all women have different taste, men need to approach a large number of women that they find attractive in order to find one that reciprocates that attraction. This requires serious balls, thick skin, and persistence. I think most women appreciate this fact.

In general, a man has to get rejected many more times than a woman in order to succeed at dating. When a girl complains about a guy who stops returning her calls, my first instinct is to tell her "You think that's bad? I was rejected more times in the last month than you've been rejected in your entire life. Try being a dude for a week, then come back and complain to me." However, I don't, because I realize that the rejections a man endures - although no less damaging to his pride - are easier to bear in light of the knowledge that he can approach more women in order to find a new girl. A woman has less direct control over new dating opportunities. Although she can improve her chances by making herself more attractive, she can't just approach men at will without being seen as crazy or desperate. She has to wait until another man (that she likes) approaches her. Though she faces fewer rejections, she also faces fewer opportunities, so the rejections she does endure have more impact.

While women typically get rejected when a man walks away after an initial encounter or date, men typically get rejected when they approach. A woman has to have the courage to let the man walk away, while a man has to have the balls to approach in the first place. While men have to become confident enough to approach without knowing how a woman will respond, women have to become confident enough to let a man act according to his true feelings for her, without knowing whether he will stay with her or leave.

So although the nature of rejection is different for the two sexes, it is equally necessary for both. A man gains nothing from staying on his side of the street when a beautiful woman passes on the other; a woman gains nothing from perpetuating a relationship in which she constantly initiates. A man needs to initiate with the possibility of being rejected, and a woman has to let the man initiate, with the possibility of being rejected (i.e. the possibility that he will not initiate). Both sexes have to take risk and face rejection if they ultimately want success.

All of this is to make the point that rejection, while difficult for both sexes, is a necessary part of the dating landscape. You can't avoid it, so get used to it. As I've said before, if you aren't getting rejected, it probably means you aren't dating up to your potential. You are the only one responsible for your dating success. And like in all other aspects of life, you can increase that success by taking risks, enduring rejections, picking yourself back up and trying again.


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You Are Responsible for Your Own Romantic Happiness

I tend to stick to "how to" or observational posts rather than motivational ones, but everyone needs a kick in the ass once in a while. Here is a link to an important post, which men and women alike should read:

http://www.rooshv.com/before-sex-after-sex

The author, Roosh, makes the general point that men and women both need to make an effort if they want to keep a relationship interesting or attract someone in the first place. This quote captures the main idea:

Instead of working towards real change to increase their value, most twenty-somethings instead whine about how life isn’t fair and how bad their luck is, as if there is a concerted effort by the overlords of our universe to keep them single and unhappy. You are responsible for your romantic happiness, and no one else. If there is a problem then get off your ass and do something about it, no matter how many years it takes to solve.

If you are dissatisfied with your love-life, and are reading this blog, you no longer have the excuse of ignorance to mask your laziness. Contained in the growing number of posts are dozens if not hundreds of concrete steps you can take towards attracting a man. You may disagree with some, but if you are a regular reader, you can't pretend that you disagree with them all. Make a list of the few that you think will be most effective and start today.

If you can't do that, or can't take some other concrete step towards self-improvement, then you deserve your own fate. Enjoy being single.


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We Have a Shared Responsibility

I was reminded recently of a comment that I once heard a radio DJ make after he played the Destiny's Child song Independent Woman. The song is a kind of self-purported anthem for female independence, and one verse goes like this:

Question, tell me, how do you feel about this?
Try to control me boy you get dismissed
Pay my own fun, oh and I pay my own bills
Always 50-50 in relationships

As the song faded out, the DJ scoffed and said something along the lines of "Always 50-50 in relationships? Clearly these girls have never been married, because if it isn't 100-100 in a relationship, sorry, but it isn't going to work." That comment has always stuck with me.

Because most of the posts I write are about the things women should do to please and attract men, readers might get the impression that I think relationships should consist entirely of a woman constantly working to attract and please her boyfriend or husband. While I do think that a woman needs to constantly work to do so, I also believe that a man has the equally onerous obligation of constantly attracting, protecting and providing for his woman. A man should pour as much energy into his efforts as his woman pours into hers. As the radio DJ pointed out, both parties need to be giving 100 % if they want it to work.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), this blog is not the correct forum for giving men advice about how to make their efforts, which is why it might give some readers an impression of one-sidedness; but I definitely do not believe relationships are a one-way street.