Howie Reith - The Hot Guyde : How to Become an Attractive Man

For two years Id had a crush on her. She was beautiful, smart, a talented dancer, and living down the street from me to boot. All of my friendshell, most of the schoolknew about my feelings. Theyd been trying to get me to ask her out, and Id decided the moment had come. It was the night of our eighth-grade end-of-the-year social, and I resolved to ask her to dance. After two hours of talking myself into it, I walked up to her andfroze. I couldnt do it. The anxiety was too extreme. My buddy, whod been watching, wasnt going to let me get away with that. He snuck up, tapped her on the shoulder, and ran away, spurring her to turn and face me. I was surprised, but blurted out, You want to dance? Her reply was instant. Nooooooooooooooooooooo!

It was my first rejectionthe first of hundreds. I sulked for the next couple of days, but on the third day, as I sat in art class, I made myself a promise. This isnt how my storys going to end. I know, melodramatic, huh? From this day on, I will do everything I can to become the most attractive man I can be until Im thirty years old. Why thirty? I dont know. It seemed far off at the time, and I figured Id get married by then. (Funny to think about, now that Im twenty-nine.)

Fortunately for me, I followed through. Every year since, Ive done my best to learn about dating, relationships, and becoming more attractive. I asked my female friends what they liked in guys, I tried out new fashions and hobbies, and I started working out. Later on, I began studying psychology, self-help, and anything else remotely relevant I could get my hands on. Most of my early efforts were misguided, but every year, without fail, I had more success than the year before. I went from the creepy guy in high school to a guy who intrigued pretty much every woman he met. In recent years, Ive never lacked sexual companions, and today, Im in a relationship that makes me happier than Ive ever been.

Around the age of twenty-three, I made a discovery. Trying to be attractive is actually a pretty damn unattractive thing to do. Attraction is something other people feel toward you, not something you do, so when youre trying to be attractive, youre looking to warp other peoples perceptions. Its manipulative, and when women realize youre doing it, they find it creepy. I learned that you cant control how anyone sees you, or whether anyone likes you, and you shouldnt try. All you can control is how you see yourselfand whether or not you ask out the women you like. Attractiveness isnt something you can work to have; its something you develop as a side effect of living an interesting life. Once I understood that, the way forward became clear. I needed to learn to be direct, authentic, and comfortable with dating, and doing that was just a matter of removing the obstacles on that path. My biggest barriers were a lack of confidence in myself and a lack of social skills. If I could address those problems, I figured Id be golden, and I was right. Of course, those werent exactly small problems to solve.

Youve picked up this book looking for dating advice, and if youre anything like I was, youve pored over endless volumes on this subject and found most of them to be bullshit. Perhaps youve delved into the seduction community, or the work of alpha male evangelists, or the books on achieving dating success through various spiritual movements. Maybe youve just had friends offering you platitudes such as Be yourself. Youre frustrated, and youre probably wondering if The Hot Guyde will be more of the same.

I never expected to give dating advice. Its something I more or less stumbled into when I started answering questions about dating on the Q&A website Quora. I began answering those questions out of boredom, but after several months, hundreds of people were telling me how my advice had changed their lives. My writing got published in the Huffington Post, Time, Lifehacker, Thought Catalog, and elsewhere. People kept asking me where to learn everything I had to say, and all I could do was give them a long reading list, each item of which was only partially applicable to their needs. I was encouraged to write a book that focused on the most important lessons, so I have. Ive designed this book to be the resource I wish I had had when I was younger, and Ive tried to keep it free of all the shit that annoys me most about the dating-advice industry and the self-help genre. This book is structured around problems, solutions, explanations, and exercises that put those solutions into practice. Everything I recommend is based on scientific research, mostly in the fields of cognitive therapy, social psychology, and couples therapy. You will find no misguided appeals to the Law of Attraction, pop evolutionary psychology, neurolinguistic programming, or any such pseudoscience. I also offer references for everything I suggest, so if you care to look into why I recommend what I do, you can read any of my sources for yourself.

I wrote this book for heterosexual guys whod like to have more success in dating, though come to think of it, most of the insights Im sharing can help anyone in any sort of relationship. Do you freak out about how women judge you? Are you depressed because you think youll be alone forever, and that depression keeps you from meeting women? Do you have bitter, misogynistic views? Are you stinky? This book will help with all of that and more. I also hope that when you finish this book, dating success will be the least of the benefits you enjoy. Its not a guide to getting laid; its a guide to becoming an attractive man, and that entails a lot of personal changes that are incredibly beneficial in their own right. Yes, women will love you, but more important than that, youll love yourself.

There are no pickup lines or routines in The Hot Guyde . Since the root of most mens dating struggles lies in our own self-limiting ways of thinking, the most important component of this book is a collection of clinically effective techniques to address self-defeating thoughts. You will learn how to deal with shame, low self-esteem, fear, laziness, and bad habits.

The next big issue most men face is a lack of social skills. We will discuss at length the mechanisms underlying social interactions as understood by psychologists. The Hot Guyde will teach you to be socially aware and adept. You will be capable of mustering confidence, sensitivity, humor, and sexuality as needed.