I have studied pick-up heavily for two years. I see a lot of misinformation on how attraction works. This article will be used to explain some things that I see misrepresented in men’s and women’s dating advice.
 
The main issue I see is that people attempt to sell the idea that there is some ideal archetype that will attract anyone. For men’s dating advice the guru will sell the idea that he can turn you into James Bond. For women’s dating advice they sell the idea to come off as a sweet, conservative, church-going woman. There are other archetypes that people attempt to sell such as “Classy in the Streets/ Freak in the Sheets,” the “bad-boy,” and “high culture aficionado.” Ultimately, there are so many different types of people that one type will never attract more than a few individuals. Once they are attracted, a connection still has to be built. So spending too much time building a persona is pointless.
 
Attraction has three components physical, emotional, spiritual. The physical aspect covers how a person dresses, body type, hairstyle. The emotional aspect includes the personality traits that allows people to feel comfortable with each other. The spiritual aspect covers a person’s ability to hone himself or herself and allow a person intimacy. To become more attractive a person needs to work on all three elements. Most advice on being more attractive focuses on the physical aspect. The physical aspect is the easiest to see and the easiest to fix, and that is why many pick-up guru’s focus on this aspect.
 
The physical aspect is the aspect to define and fix. A series of simple internet searches can be done to find the best workout plans and to see what clothes are in fashion. The biggest traps to get into when fixing this aspect of yourself is focusing too much time and energy into it. Some girls are perfect ten’s that do not have boyfriends and successful men that do not have girlfriends. The outer appearance is important. However, it is only one-third of the puzzle.
 
The emotional aspect is the next hardest thing. In this area, a person learns how to feel comfortable in social situations. I recommend a person journal about how they felt growing up and interacting in social situations. Understand how these issues from childhood still affect you today. When in a social situation pay close attention to your thoughts. Don’t get caught in your mind, just fully notice them. Learn to be social in spite of these negative thoughts.
 
Most pick-up gurus will give you a preset plan for entering into social interactions. The most common are pickup lines and routines. The student then becomes a robot or an actor following a script. In the beginning, the student feels uncomfortable, and other people see this and reject him. He then becomes better at hiding his insecurity and can use the routines and get positive feedback. A social circle will begin to form, but everyone in the social circle will be expecting to hang out with this persona, not the real person. The social circle will be a tax on the individual and drain him or her of energy.
 
I would recommend a person that is going through social anxiety find someone that they find attractive at a bar or out shopping in the daytime, tell them you are extremely attracted to them, then ask for their number. More than likely the person will say no because you are putting too much energy in the interaction too soon. However, you will get over your fear of rejection if you do this enough times. Most people will be very friendly when telling you they are not interested. If they are not nice, you will handle the rejection and move forward. Eventually, you will realize that rejection is not that bad and you will be braver in normal life.
 
The last aspect is the spiritual aspect of attraction. People can sense if a person is uncomfortable with themselves. The more work done to understand one’s self, the easier time they will have attracting people. Think about aspects of yourself that you are not comfortable with, do you find you attract people that point out these flaws and will not let them go. The reason this happens is that your subconscious mind forces you to gravitate to people that make you work on yourself. If you were to understand these flaws change the ones that you can and accept the flaws that you cannot change. Once you know these flaws and how they affect you, can draw boundaries easily and criticism can be readily accepted.
 
Remember, pick-up, and dating advice often plays on a person’s parental complexes. As a child, we feel that we are not living up to our parent’s expectations. Then either we have an infantile parental complex, in which we try to please our parents or and adolescent parental complex in which we rebel against what our parents want. Pick-up guru’s often asserting themselves as new parents offering a new standard to aspire. The guru replacing a parent will allow a person to remove the old rules and declare new ones. These new standards are not anymore congruent with your core essence. The goal in life is to eliminate rules and live your actual truth.