Do You Have to Fix Yourself to Be Attractive

In the 20th Century:
Make yourself lovable.

In the 21st Century:
Remove all barriers to love.

I would like to apologize.

On behalf of my entire profession, I apologize if dating advice EVER made you feel like you had to “fix yourself” to attract a man.

We really messed up.

We thought we were giving women evidence-based advice on attraction.

I remember telling women about the findings of evolutionary psychologists. Apparently men had “evolved” to find indicators of fertility attractive. They couldn’t help but desire youthful skin, long hair, and curves.

A broad, sweeping generalization that said nothing about the desires of the actual real men we were meeting!

Early in my career, I made another big mistake.

I thought dating advice would help women get into lasting love relationships.

I didn’t realize that the skills that won women lasting love relationships bore little if ANY resemblance to the skills that made them “attractive.”

The people who are best at dating are often the worst at making love last. They’re better at first impressions than slugging through the swamp of relationship reality.

(In fact, the more attractive you are, the worse your love life. See the original study here.)

The problem was, we had TONS of information on what made people attractive.

We had hardly any information that could predict whether you’d be happy together.

And the information we were giving people—look for someone who shares your values, likes what you like, and is similar to you demographically—was proving to be useless.

A powerful study looked at all the factors we thought predicted a good match—attractive, good job, same religion, similar tastes—and found they had NO bearing on whether a couple ended up happy.

Was there anything that did suggest a couple would be happy together?

Yes—but it’s not what you think.

It turns out that a person who was happy with their life BEFORE they met their partner was significantly more likely to be happy with their life WITH their partner.

In short, happy people tend to end up happy together.

So that’s the only scientifically accurate advice I can give you (for now):

Focus on enjoying your life, and search for someone who also likes his life.

People like each other for mysterious reasons. The right guy for you will love how you look, because he also sees your heart and mind and soul.

P.S. Want to learn more about the alluring power of happy? Then check out this special report.