Mark Manson - Models: A Comprehensive Guide to Attracting Women

Models

A Comprehensive Guide to Attracting Women

By Mark Manson

Table of Contents

Copyright Mark Manson, 2011.

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Introduction: Movement

In our post-industrial, post-feminist world, a clear model of how to be an attractive man has been lost. Centuries ago, a mans role and duty was power and protection. Decades ago, it was to provide. But now? Were not quite sure. We are either the first or second generation of men to grow up without a clear definition of our social roles, and without models of what it is to be strong and attractive men.

Five years ago, when I first began coaching men on improving their relationships with women, I had no idea the rabbit hole of information and development I was about to go down, both for myself and for others. At the time the primary concerns of my dating life mostly revolved around which drink specials were going on that Tuesday night and which one of the five Jennas in my phone was the one I met last weekend.

It wasnt until I sat down and tried to get other men to the point where they had five Jennas in their phone that I began to get a glimpse of how deep a mans emotional and sexual development actually goes, and how difficult it is to inspire a genuine shift.

I wont lie, in hindsight, getting myself to that point seems easy now by comparison. Growing up, I had always been somewhat of an average guy, although I had little luck with the ladies.

Then in 2005, after being cheated on and left by my first serious girlfriend and first love, I was emotionally distraught and slightly traumatized. I became obsessive. A desperate need for validation and affection from women arose within me and I spent an inordinate amount of time pursuing that validation and affection, far more than most men ever do. I was over-compensating and soon became driven to sleep with every girl who would let me anywhere near her in the Boston area.

This went on for a little more than two years.

My plan wasnt sophisticated. Really, I read a couple books like this one and basically went out to bars 4-5 nights a week -- approaching, flirting and failing, pushing and pulling, fucking and floundering for those 30 glorious months of experimentation.

It was self-indulgent. But it was a time of growth and a time of movement.

But a couple of years and a few dozen women later, two things happened. First, I began to realize that rampant drunken sex was fun, but not very fulfilling. It began to get old. And it wasnt exactly affecting the other areas of my life in a healthy manner. I was required to let up and evaluate myself, to question why I was sacrificing so much time and effort to such superficial pleasures. The second thing that happened was I had grown a reputation locally for my exploits. Soon men whom I had never met were emailing me asking if they could come hang out with me, to see how I interacted with women. It was weird at first. But then I decided, sure, why not, just buy my drinks or pay me a bit on the side. And strangely, I feel like thats where the real journey began. To try and model the internal movement that occurred within myself and then replicate it in other men.

They say if you want to master something, teach it. And this second journey actually ended up being far more educational than the first. When I went out for myself, it was easy. Half the time I was going out to lose myself, to bury my emotions and hopefully wake up in the arms of a stranger. Sometimes it worked. And thats really all I knew.

But this second journey had a purpose, had a meaning, and suddenly needed an intellectual foundation. I couldnt just do it. I had to teach it, explain it, and impart it onto others and then get them to do it. This led me in a winding, twisted path. It began with entries into and exits from the so-called "Pick Up Artist" community and thousands of accumulated hours of talking and carousing and teaching. There were models about models and pages about Paiges. But quickly that path went dead, and I took excursions through social psychological studies, historiographies on human sexuality, strip clubs binges, research on NLP and cognitive therapy, various self-help seminars, hotel rooms with runway models, touch-healing and alternative therapy mishaps, arguments with feminists, and shitty books on popspirituality and pseudo-psychiatry.

Also during this period, I checked myself into psycho-therapy and entered dating a loving and amazing girlfriend for almost two years. The coaching grew. And soon it took me to more than a dozen cities across America, then to countries in Europe, to England and Australia, and I even took field trips as far as Argentina, Brazil, Israel and Thailand, where I discovered that much of what I had assumed about women was merely cultural.

It was a period of immense education and drive, where I made a clear point to not let my thinking be confined by any previous model or paradigm about masculinity or male/female sexuality.

And after all of that over the last five years, this is what Ive come back with:

There are two movements occurring right now. The first one is a greater movement, a social and emotional movement in western culture. Theres a call for a new masculinity thats been lacking for generations now. Theres been a void of what men are, what theyre supposed to be, how theyre supposed to behave, and the mens dating advice industry has largely moved to fill that void, for better or worse.

This book aims merely to be another piece of that -- a healthy, integrated piece -- but a piece nonetheless.

The second movement is happening within you personally. Its an emotional movement. Youre reading this because you want to change. You want to change your interactions and relationships with the women in your life. You want these relationships to improve. You want these relationships to be abundant. You want to feel confident and empowered around women, those you know and those you dont know but want to meet. You want to feel in control of your relationships with them. You want to be sexual with them without shame or hesitation or regret or pain.

This second movement is an internal movement. It took me a long time to come to grips with that. Although this second movement often begins by changing outer behavior and results in a change of outer behavior, the process itself is an internal one, a shift of emotional disposition, which in turn affects ones social life and love life.

This book is designed to guide you through that internal movement.

The larger social movement is merely a backdrop, and is only briefly explained to give context to your current situation. Your failures with women arent happening because you say the wrong thing or because you dont look good enough. Well, thats not true, you are saying the wrong things and probably dont look good enough yet -- but these are symptoms of the problem, not the problem itself.

Your failures happen because you grew up emotionally ill-equipped to deal with women and intimacy. The words you say and looks you have are merely a side-effect of that.