A reader asks:
What’s your advice to guys who keep getting in relationships that go nowhere? I keep dating the wrong chicks or women who aren’t ready for a relationship.
From what I gathered from further questions, this guy is successful but still in the young man partying phase, so he attracts a specific type. It seems like one of two things happens with the women he dates:
- He gets hot but immature women and then ends it with them when he doesn’t feel the fit.
- It’s “not the right time” for the woman and she’s not ready to settle down.
I’ve got a good idea of what’s going on here and have seen this before.
My response:
—
You have an issue with vulnerability. You know game but you don’t let women see more than an attractive front. You’re getting tired of how simple and superficial the women you pull are in the end, but you can’t see how you are contributing to this.
What you don’t understand is the girls you are attracting mirror what you put out there.
You know what it takes to get a girl interested in you. But if this dance is more or less controlled and predictable, you’re going to get bored of the women. And you’re not going to value them, because you know they fell for something a dozen or more other women fell for too. Everything is too superficial and repetitive to actually make you invest.
This is partly intrinsic to the girls you attract when you operate like this. But it’s also affected by the fact you aren’t being real. You’re not showing yourself to women. And while this light, “keeping at arms length” has its benefits in sparking desire, at a certain point it also prevents you from connecting with them. You’re simply not risking or expressing enough of yourself.
This happens to two types of guys typically. The first type is the natural. He was always this way, and it didn’t bother him for a while. He had the boldness to go after attractive women – and he got them. Eventually, however, it all felt different. He started caring about more than just chasing the next high. He started feeling more. The way he was living didn’t simply get old, it felt empty.
You don’t hear about this type of guy a lot, because he doesn’t have the typical manosphere problem of failing to be attractive. But these men exist – I’ve worked with them, and helped them get more meaningful relationships.
The second type of guy is typically someone who struggled with women and later became immersed in game. He’s come to depend on a routine-like way of operating to get women. Often these guys try to mimic the behavior of attractive men – you’ve probably noticed with all the Patrick Bateman, Tyler Durden, James Bond cosplaying online – but this acting eventually leads to the suppression of their own personality. They associate that part of them as something weak, and refuse to reopen the box. They can’t give up control. Unsurprisingly, they ultimately start getting bored with the women they date – and even can come to resent them.
These guys are pretty common in the manosphere. I’ve worked with many of them too, although most of them will never admit there’s a problem with themselves, because having been powerless and then gained power, they’re unwilling to risk losing it again – even if that precludes a deeper connection with a woman.
Anyway, the point of all of this is that in order to jump to this next level of connection with a woman, you need to be more open and authentic. This doesn’t mean become a bitch. It means allowing yourself to be seen and rejected – a bigger part of yourself – not just some veneer. It actually requires more confidence, because you’re risking more.
This is an optional step on your journey with women. It’s a step to a rarer, higher type of dynamic, and it is absolutely not necessary to get laid. But you have to understand: if you don’t do this, the choice is spinning through new girls the rest of your life, or settling for a dissatisfying relationship where you feel bored and misunderstood. That is, if the relationship makes it. Because sooner or later, a woman will discover the real you. It’s better for you to show them than for them to find out on their own and feel like you’re lying to them.
So how do I help you solve this?
Most men have habits they do on autopilot without even noticing. Men commonly use these as a crutch and before they know it, they forget which parts reflect their desires, fears, identity, and interests. By pointing these out, I can help them come to terms with the fake parts of themselves.
It’s tough asking yourself which parts of you are actually you and which parts are fabricated copies of what you think a man should be like, but it’s a heck of a lot easier than ending up alone at 40 because you wouldn’t exercise a bit of self-awareness.
So many of my clients never felt comfortable talking about the things they care about most with women before they met me. They’d project an image of invulnerability and then wonder why women never wanted to stay with them.
No woman will be real with you until she senses you’re being real.
—
So going back to our friend from the beginning of the email, I bet many of these women would be the “right woman” if you were bringing your authentic self to the relationship. And for the women who truly are in a different time of life, you’d filter them out sooner by talking about what you want out of life, what your plans are, what you like, and what you dislike. You’d draw the keepers to you, and repel the rest.
The clues of how to navigate this shift are sprinkled throughout this email, but truthfully, you’re going to make a lot of mistakes doing it.
Lots of men will share too much or get too logical about “how to be honest.” The reality is, it’s a gradual process that takes fine-tuning as you figure out when it’s appropriate to open up about what. You don’t want to kill your game as you integrate this authenticity. You want to build on what you’ve already learned.
So try it on your own if you’d like. But if you want to save yourself a few years of pain and unnecessary setbacks, you should probably apply for coaching instead: www.patstedman.com/application
A lot of “gurus” will teach you how to get girls. But I promise you that very few will teach you this.
