It’s official, I am now a single man again. I am going to post something that I’ve learned from my four month relationship and it’s ensuing mutual breakup. Hopefully you can learn from my mistakes.
My obvious biggest mistake is that I didn’t provide the affirmation or validation that girls needed. I didn’t tell her that she was doing things right, that I appreciated what she did, that I think she looks beautiful. The reason I did not do this is because I have always believed that women get enough of that from unattractive men. I’ve watched unattractive men say things like, “you look so beautiful today” or, “really good job on that presentation” to women that are not even attractive in an effort to score brownie points and earn validation. It happens all the time, just watch for it. A guy will compliment or validate a girl for no reason at all because he thinks he will be validated by her reciprocal attraction. My girlfriend got that type of attention all the time, like most girls these days. I was at the other extreme. I did not validate or affirm her behavior much. When I did it was rare and pre-planned.
Here are my thoughts on this dynamic in hindsight. It is well documented that women will receive comments from attractive men and it will cause a much, much, much larger raucous than the same comment would from an unattractive man. This is just the same as a man receiving rejection from a hottie instead of a troll. The rejection of the hottie matters more to us because she represents a lost, high-value option to pass on our genes. I think males, myself included, should begin to view these affirmations and validations from a different standpoint. We need to view these comments first from the person they’re coming from. So, if an attractive male makes the same comment as an unattractive male we have to know that the attractive male’s words matters more to women; because he represents a viable option to pass on her genes.
A part of this blog is my quest to become a more attractive male. I, like every man, still have a lot of work to do, but right now, I can un-naively say that I am a very attractive male. I should have been able to figure out over the course of four months that my words mean more. As a male words of affirmation from a troll still pads our ego but words of affirmation from a hottie can put us on cloud nine for days. Attractive males have the same power for women. I have the same power and I did not provide that feeling for my girlfriend, nor have I ever for any girl on a consistent enough basis.
My goal for the next relationship is to find a more suitable level of validation and affirmation. To finish I will give a couple quotes from What Women Want and How to Give it to Them by W. Anton:
1. Telling women sincerely that they are beautiful should not be a problem as beautiful females are the only females you really want and the only ones you should be flirting with. It is a mistake to think all women have heard such compliments before and that means you should avoid giving them to set yourself apart from other males. Only males with the wrong mindset, concerned with being unworthy of women, worry about such things. (<– Hey look, that was me in my relationship!)
2. Women will slowly start to doubt that you are still attracted to them when you stop telling them how attractive they are. Just be careful to avoid using the same words and phrases over and over when you compliment a woman.
3. But the truth is, all males already know how to compliment a woman well, but they often keep those compliments to themselves instead of giving them away. Or they give the compliment that the woman deserves to their own male friends instead – vividly describing how stunning she appeared the first moment they saw her, how they lost their breath and could not believe how lovely she looked, without actually telling her so. Make it a habit to open your mouth and let such positive comments be heard by the actual women they concern. Think aloud!
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