Fifteen years ago, I interviewed a number of men who made their living teaching men how to pick up women.
I listened as they explained the ways they teach men to approach women, to be more compelling, to escalate physically, and how to feel confident as a man.
Even when the advice was cringe-worthy, I felt an unexpected sensation welling up inside me.
I felt SO much compassion for these men.
I had spent my entire life thinking about how hard it was for WOMEN.
We’re the ones who get judged most cruelly for our bodies. We’re the ones waiting to be picked.
But in fact I had it wrong.
Men have it really hard, too.
THEY’RE the ones who have to approach women.
They face far more rejection than we’ll ever have to.
If you’ve ever gone up to a guy you really liked and suggested hanging out, and he said no, he’s not interested, think of that feeling magnified by a hundred.
That’s what a guy’s experience is.
He has to ask out women over and over again, and get rejected over and over again, until he develops a bulletproof exterior that’s impervious to what anyone else thinks of him.
But even that bulletproof exterior can’t insulate him from feelings of disappointment, shame, humiliation, and insecurity.
He buries those feelings deep inside because it’s not “okay” to admit to have them.
Men aren’t “supposed” to have feelings. They’re not “supposed” to feel hurt. What kind of man would feel hurt by a woman just because she said no?
As women, we buy into that, too.
We save our affections for the confident, dashing alpha male who never shows any weakness.
Who would want to date a guy who’s so insecure that he finds it nerve-wracking to go up and talk to a woman?
But here’s the thing:
MOST men find it nerve-wracking to come up and talk to us.
We just don’t realize it.
We have no clue how hard men have to work to present the confident exterior that we admire so much.
That’s why I want to pull back the curtain and share some secrets from the inner world of men.
I have studied pickup artists and men’s dating coaches as well masculinity experts and experts in men’s health.
And what I’ve learned paints a picture of men that’s VERY different to the confident guys smoldering shirtless on Tinder.
Keep reading to discover the 3 reasons he feels incredibly insecure but will never tell you.
Reason #1.
He’s afraid you’ll think he’s a beta male.
About 25 years ago, an online community of men began trading tips and techniques for picking up women.
They saw themselves as scientists, developing techniques based on pseudoscientific theories and then running “experiments” in the real world to see how well they worked.
One of the major concepts to come out of the pickup artist community was the distinction between the alpha male and the beta male.
The alpha male is the leader of the pack. He asserts his dominance and takes on any challenger. He puts women in their place, and they love him for it, because they see him as their ultimate romantic hero: strong, brooding, successful, arrogant, and 100% masculine.
The beta male is weak. He submits to the alpha male, because he knows he can’t take on the alpha male in a challenge. He lacks self-esteem, and he puts women on a pedestal. Women see him as a “nice guy” and put him in the “friend zone.”
Although these concepts were developed in the pickup artist community, they’ve since become part of popular Western culture.
Most guys believe that being a nice guy puts them at risk of being friend-zoned, always seen as the friend rather than a lover.
They believe that women prefer jerks, because jerks don’t even try to be nice. This supposedly makes women respect them because it “demonstrates value.”
So men are faced with a false dichotomy:
They can either be nice and lose out with women…
Or they can cut off that side of themselves and focus on asserting dominance, which supposedly guarantees them female attention.
If you have ever wondered why even good guys act like such arrogant jerks, look no further!
The tragedy, of course, is that good men—the kind of men we’d really prefer dating—feel they have to hide their goodness in order to be attractive.
They don’t realize that women don’t actually divide the world into alpha and beta males. We’re not wolves. We want men who are great partners, and that means men with a complex constellation of traits.
In fact, one study found that women find confident, assertive, easy-going and sensitive men highly attractive.
Qualities that weren’t attractive? Being demanding or aggressive, submissive, or shy.[1]
So confident emotionally intelligent men are in, while jerks and unassertive guys are out. Looks like both the alpha male AND the beta male lose in that equation.
Reason #2.
He’s afraid you’ll think he’s not successful enough.
Part of the alpha male myth is the belief that women are only interested in successful men.
The moment a women meets a man, she’s supposedly sizing up his power, wealth, and access to resources.
This is supposedly why women ask what a man does for a living. If his career isn’t impressive enough, she supposedly drops him like a hot potato.
And that’s not all.
Some men on the far extreme even believe that a woman will drop the man she’s with if a man with more power and status comes along. They claim that women can’t help it, because we’re supposedly programmed by biology to find the allure of power and wealth irresistible.
This insidious belief leads some men to conclude is that no matter how loving and loyal a woman is, she’s always on the lookout for someone better. She can’t be that attracted to someone in a mediocre job driving a secondhand car.
It is so sad that guys don’t realize what we love about them.
We love a man’s heart. We love that little boy inside him that expresses joy and delight. We love the way he treats other people. We love the way he believes in us.
We yearn to find someone that we can make a life with, not someone who provides for us.
And hopefully someday guys will learn that they’ve always been enough just as they are.
Reason #3.
He’s afraid he won’t be able to perform.
Men experience SO much performance anxiety.
Obviously they care enormously about being able to perform in the bedroom, but they also feel the obligation to perform for women in other ways.
He feels that he has to be able to take you out on dates or give you gifts that are at least as good as your previous boyfriends’.
He feels that he has to be able to make you happy.
He feels that he has to be able to theoretically provide for you, even if you don’t need his money.
If a man feels that he can’t perform adequately—because he doesn’t make enough money, or he doesn’t think he has what you need to be happy—then he will withdraw from you, even if you love him and have told him over and over again that he’s exactly what you want and need.
The LAST thing you want to do is call out a man on his insecurities.
He doesn’t want you to know. He’d be incredibly embarrassed if you found out.
Instead, give him the reassurance he doesn’t realize he craves.
Point out the ways in which he’s a leader and heads and tails over other men.
Acknowledge his every win and every achievement, including all the ways in which he wins your heart.
Tell him the ways in which he MORE than satisfies you. His dream is to make you the happiest woman alive.
And if you’d like to know 3 more ways to bond a man to you, pick up your copy of my special report, The 3 A’s of Effortless Attraction.
You’ll learn just how important your pleasure is to a man, and how you can emotionally bond him to you without him even realizing it.
It’s my free gift to you, and you can download it immediately here.
[1] https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/manly-lessons/the-myth-of-the-alpha-male/
Let us know what you think!