This is article #29 to be published on the Get The Guy blog from my brother Stephen. Steve helped co-write the Get The Guy book and is a wealth of knowledge on dating and relationships.
(Photo: Daniel Lee)
Enter Stephen
The philosopher Alain De Botton says the best diet is to have something more fun lined up than continuing to eat.
I kind of think something similar about dating. The best plan for your love life is to have something better to do than getting a guy.
That might seem to run contrary to everything Get the Guy teaches. We tell women they should be pro-active. We tell women they can make the first move. We say waiting for Prince Charming is such a bogus strategy that even Disney got fed up of championing it after fifty years of their romantic propaganda.
But there’s a crucial distinction here that people miss: Being pro-active in your love life doesn’t mean you only focus on your love life. It doesn’t mean chasing as many dates as possible and pursuing every potential guy as if he’s the only catch in the world.
There are two areas we need to work on to improve our chances of finding someone amazing:
Area No. 1: Creating opportunities
Area No. 2: Making ourselves more choosable
The most frustrated women I meet at Matt’s seminars are usually doing too much of one without the other.
For example: First of all you get the woman who has the job of her dreams. She’s popular, smart, and fashionable, and all her friends think she’s amazing, except for one problem: She never meets any guys. This woman never puts herself on the line, and runs from every potential chance to meet a man. She’s a desirable catch many great guys would choose to date, but she never creates opportunities to get chosen. (i.e. she does lots of Area No. 2, but no Area No. 1).
Another kind of woman is the opposite: She chases guys a lot. Likely too much. She spends lots of her free time idly texting guys for attention instead of doing something that will make her more interesting, more rounded, more passionate about her life. She finds herself always trying to put herself out there and meet men, and maybe she even gets some dates out of it.
But the guys she ends up dating flake on her a lot. They get bored with her quickly and she struggles to keep them intrigued for long. Can you see the problem here? She creates plenty of opportunities to get chosen, but hasn’t spent any time making herself choosable. (i.e. too much Area No. 1, not enough Area No. 2).
How To Balance Pro-activity
Matt always says “Wait or Create”. But you also have to create in the right areas.
It’s like trying to win your dream job. If you bombard your future employer with endless emails and pleas for a position, they will probably be turned off by your seeming desperation and start to see you as lower value than you are.
But it’s also no good being the perfect candidate if you rest on your laurels and never risk getting a few knock-backs and hearing “no” now and again.
So pro-activity isn’t enough. We have to allocate our energies to different areas and manage both equally.
We have to balance out our different missions that lead to the bigger prize.
One woman’s mission might be: Meet more desirable guys.
But there’s another mission that requires just as much consideration: Become a desirable woman.
The first mission creates opportunities. The other makes us more choosable and more likely to seize those opportunities when they arise.
In the beginning this will all feel like a lot of investment. But it only takes a tiny investment every day. It can mean being just 10% more chatty or sexy when you go out. It can mean pursuing that passion that makes you more intriguing, or learning conversational techniques to be more interesting on dates, or adopting a few good habits such as working out and eating well so that you feel incredible and enjoy your own body.
Once you get going, and have these two areas working together, you’ll have built a system for attracting great guys consistently, and you’ll start to feel like you get to do the choosing in your love life. See, anyone can get lucky once. But then when you lose someone amazing, it’s easy to get needy and insecure; it’s easy to cling to one person and become obsessive if you don’t believe you can ever attract a great guy again. But if you have these two areas covered, you can move ahead with confidence: BECAUSE YOU HAVE A SYSTEM THAT WORKS. No, it won’t always deliver the love of your life to your doorstep, but it does mean you will always be desirable to high status, confident guys.
Keep it simple and divide it into the two areas above. This will give you focus on the bigger picture when you learn the techniques Matt talks about in his books and programmes.
Which area do you currently need to work on right now to improve your love life? Let me know in the comments below.
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Hi Stephen:
I realized that over the past few months I had been working on the second one, to improved my career, and have a more fulfilled life. Still a work in progress, but am enjoying every minute of it!! :)
The first one is what I struggle with, although using some of the techniques and tools both Matt and you have suggested has brought me far in a short period of time ( since May). I know that I have to continue to put myself out there and risk rejection, looking silly or feeling foolish, to expand my social interactions. I tend to overanalyze the interactions that do occur, rather than enjoying them and taking them for what they really are.
One without the other will never get one what they are hoping to achieve, but making tiny shifts, are bringing about amazing results! ;)
Really enjoyed this article , and hope to achieve a balance between the two!!
Warmest regards,
Shev x
Thank you so much Shev. It’s great to see you are taking those little risks and making changes. Just remember, there are an infinite amount of guys to practice on, so there’s no excuse to not keep having those interactions (plus they’re fun!)
Take care,
Steve x
I am 100% the first one, dream job, love life have amazing friends and zero men in my life.
my problem with your advice be 10% more sexy… I have zero clue what this means, how to be it or what it should look like. I read your article before on what you think is sexy in a woman an i do the majority of them. I smile at people, i am chatty but am clearly doing something wrong…
i do love your blogs btw
Jen x
Thanks Jen!
Did you read my blog post I linked to called “10% Sexier”? Check it out here: http://www.gettheguy.co.uk/blog/10-sexier/
Let me know if that helps. There’s also loads more on flirting on other articles on the site, Matt’s videos and programmes, and in the GettheGuy book.
Thanks!
Stephen
hello Stephen,
so with a day that started with the most awful cold and flu fatigue and ended with reading your article , all i can say is thank you =3 you just made my mood roller coaster go uuuuup ;)
i appreciate the fact that article simply was just the perfect balance between “you need to grow as a person and achieve something in your life” and “just try to be open to the idea that you need someone and they aren’t gonna pop up as you wish , you are the one who lets that happen” ….. if that makes any sense !!
i believe we need to set ourselves standards and let the guy reach up to it .. cause many girls do get the guys that they dream of , but it just start “rolling in the deeeeeeeeep” *with Adele amazing voice* when they star compromising their standards with the illusion that this is the only way to keep the guy
it’s really weird and a bit funny how i enjoy your articles and i find them really interesting and logical “yet not all the time for me =b” , knowing that i have a different philosophy when it comes to relationships “due to my own religious and personal reasons” …. don’t wanna bore you with that =b
keep them coming =D
and as usual a big fat humongous shout out from SUDAN
Marwa =)
omg !
i was just thinking about this ! and then decieded to check ur website for new posts!
and i found this!
god, realy true ! i do need to work on No.1 !
i mean do stuff , be pretty , be smart , be funny ,…. but i actually meet no one!
and also !
Thanks ! you Rock
Thanks so much Neda!
Stephen x
Hi Stephen
Thanks for yet another wonderful post. I was just thinking about this insecurity that I’ve been having and found it mentioned in this article. I have always felt that if I got lucky once I would always worry about losing that person because I have no way of knowing if I would ever be able to attract another one again if things should fall apart. So thanks for advocating for having a SYSTEM in place. That is the only thing that will give me confidence to be able to find another guy.
I believe I have problem #1–but mostly that I do not meet any *quality* men. Sometimes I wonder if there are any guys out there for me. I don’t have impossible standards and most of them are focused on character and values. I just want a normal guy like me who is compatible and with whom I have great chemistry. But rarely do I meet a quality man who could be my true equal. I do not expect to meet ONLY high quality men but at least a steady stream so I have choices. I have given many chances to men I didn’t think were all that great–but I never developed any feelings/attraction for them. Besides, they eventually stopped pursuing me.
How does one get a steady stream of good quality guys? Educated, financially secure, reasonably fit and attractive, kind, interesting and fun? Is that too much to ask? I can offer all those things and more!
Thanks for your comments Kish, glad the article helped. :)
Quality guys are everywhere. Unfortunately there is no one place they all congregate where you can just have your pick. That’s why Matt always gives out tools in his books and programmes that allow women to meet and attract guys anytime, anywhere. At first, just go for meeting more guys – increase the quantity. When you have a couple of good guys you know and are friendly with, hang out in their social circles and you’ll be likely to meet other quality guys (educated, financially secure, kind guys do tend to run in packs, even if they are rarer than the average). Of course to keep in rapport with those kind of guys, you need to keep working on yourself as much as possible too.
All best kish,
Stephen x
Thanks for the suggestion Stephen. I suppose my guy friends would be the best resource for meeting other quality guys–because they run in packs–why didn’t I think of that before?! THANKS!!!
And Matt is right about increasing quantity. It is a numbers game after all and I have to really work on hitting more targets. But it is hard to work up the motivation in the face of routine failure to meet good prospects.
I’m already on top of things when comes to working on myself–so no worries there:-)
great article, totally related to the part where you say that when you meet a great guy and it ends, their is an insecure feeling of not finding another great guy.
Exactly Rivy, that’s why so many people find it hard to move on. It’s always going to be difficult, but it’s even worse if you see no possible better future without that person.
Thanks for commenting :)
Stephen x
hey stephen, I am actually going through that right now. To be honest the part where the relationship ends is not my major problem but the part where they just stop contacting me or to actually just let me know that they don’t want to continue the relationship. I feel like thats where my insecurity comes and rears its ugly head.
I was recently dating someone for about 2 weeks and all of a sudden they just stopped contacting me, I called and texted but they never contacted me back. I know i shouldnt have jumped into conclusion and assume that it was me, maybe they had something going on in their life, or maybe something happened to their phone. I was getting so paranoid and anxious that we havent spoken in a few days that i contacted his place of work. I know i shouldnt have done that but i was so scarred of loosing a great thing. I guess all i want is closure because i know that I must have already ruined any potential for a long term relationship. what should i do to get over this sooner? what should i do in general?
Alain De Botton must have a fun filled life, as he looks like quite a slim chap. I like the maxim, ‘nothing tastes as good as slim feels’. Helps with healthy eating.
There’s irony in the fact that women are more desirable and alluring when they are in love. So pursuing an active, fulfilling life is important but having something you are passionate about raises you to another level.
Dating is often used to gauge seriousness and levels of commitment when it should be used for fun interactions and assess a compatibility or otherwise on both sides. It’s not a place for raising the stakes too high, on a mission to prove your worth means you’ve placed the man on a pedestal he might not deserve to be on. If you’ve got serious chemistry it’s almost impossible not to act like a complete sap anyway, you have to be resigned to some failures. Successful businessmen when negotiating a deal will always be willing to walk away without feeling like a failure, often returning on better terms or onto a better deal.
Nice to have an article this week, thank you Stephen : )
Kathryn x
Hey Kathryn,
LOVE this line: “Dating is often used to gauge seriousness and levels of commitment when it should be used for fun interactions and assess a compatibility or otherwise on both sides”
If more people dated this way they would actually enjoy the process. I’d also add: Only go on dates to places you would want to go to anyway.
Thanks, hope you’re well,
Stephen x
I’m working on both. At the same time. You know me, it’s hard to have my life be passionate and interesting to me *and* still even think about meeting guys at the same time.
I can only try.
–A
Just do both little and often. Or switch between one and the other at different times. Often they both can go hand in hand i.e. when you’re being more sociable and living a passionate life, you tend to attract/meet more people as you go along (you just have to make the extra 10% of effort to ensure you introduce yourself and give people the chance to notice you).
All best A,
Steve x
Stephen great article like always and at first I thought I need both. But then a. Revatlation came while driving. (Yes I get the guys article are constantly on my mind). And I need more of no.1 creating opportunities. I always have events I’d like Togo to but don’t have anyone to go with. So my major problem is not knowing enough people it’s finising people that are actually available and open to do things
Thanks Stephen
Just go alone! A wonderful woman as yourself doesn’t need to wait for anyone else, go and check out the things you’re interested in!
I think I’m lacking in both areas. I’m not very confident or approachable. I keep getting the guys that see me as an object and not a person. There are several guys that continue to contact me even after it didn’t work out. One I was interested in but he live 2 1/2 hrs. I’m starting to feel discouraged.
What a great post Stephen,
Just the tonic I needed to read today.
I would class myself as successful, attractive, hard working, passionate but have never really focused those qualities in other parts off my life other than work and friends and made excuses like I’m too busy to do other things.
Ive started to look to create other things to do that Ive always wanted too and have started climbing and archery, and already I see a difference in myself that has actually stopped me looking as such for a man, as Im immersing myself in other things and really happy for it.
Your post just confirmed I’m doing the right thing and I know someone will come along from this better me. :-)
Have a great day X
Hi Stephen ,guys don’t accept coz of my look “beauty i mean ” I can’t change my face :) ,some want me just for my money …what can i do ???
Great post! You had me at Alain de Botton, my nerd crush. :) I fall firmly into Area #2 and I know I need more balance in my life.
For a moment there I thought you were directly speaking too me.
I’m the second person with too much #1, not enough #2 !! Thanks for this, as I’m actually trying to stop this behavior, reading these words … has given me the extra push over the edge that I needed !! Wish me luck !!
I’m too much of no 1… and run away from the opportunity, definitely something I need to improve on.
this is SO spot on! I’m clearly #2 – and i probably come across as too readily available to the guys who do ask me out etc therefore lowering my value.
thanks for another great post guys!
Thanks for the article, really enjoyed it and I do find it very helpful! I think I’m too much on area 2, but less on the first one. I’m working on it, but guess I wouldn’t mind if you had more ( general ) tips on how to do this! Thanks! :)
I just discovered this blog and I am hooked! Great article. I’m currently single/ dating, and I think I have a lot of room to grow in the ‘become more choosable’ department. This may sound odd but I’m actually motivated to one-up myself after every relationship that ends (assuming they will all end until the one that doesn’t). So I agree that it’s important to have passions and hobbies.
Could the choice of a woman’s hobbies and passions, however, unintentionally make her un-relatable, less attractive, and less desirable to men? How important is it that the “well-roundedness” and “passions” that make a woman “choosable” are things a man can actually relate to or connect with on some level? Is there a difference between ‘multi-faceted’ or ‘interesting’, and ‘choosable’?
I can fully see why guys would choose my girl friends who play sports, run marathons, and brew beer over me in regards to “desirable”, because that stuff is hot in a man’s eyes, let’s be honest. But that’s not who I am. I’m the ‘blog for fun, exercise consistently but alone, knitter, dance classes’ kind of chick. Does my preferred choice of hobbies make me lower on the scale of “choosability”?
Hello Stephen, I think I need to work on both, but my problem is “although I do want romance but I always feel like I’m not ready for it, cuz my life is constantly in a mess, it’s been a mess since I was born, guys would say they don’t want to commit because they haven’t got the financial level they want to achieve yet, but for girls there are the same problem of not being ready”, do you think romance is sth that you should be get ready for before you allow it enter into your life. or we should just have fun for the sake of it.