THE THREE PILLARS OF ATTRACTION
I’ve been often asked, “Pat, if there is ONE thing you need to do to succeed in dating, what is it?”
Generally, my go to response is this article. There is no question attraction lives and dies on the strength of a man’s frame. It is the safest and most universal things I can say.
But it is not satisfying to me.
Like all generic responses, it is insufficient. Every man is different. Every man has his own strengths and weaknesses. What will make one man’s dating life amazing will do little to nothing for another man.
Why is this?
Because different men are developed in different areas.
We spoke the other day about the “gamma male” and his ability to create both comfort and desire in women.
(READ: What Do Women Really Want From Men?)
But in truth it’s about a lot more than just creating “comfort” or “desire.” These traits can (and are) expressed in different ways. You can’t just do one or two things on each side of the equation and expect to have your bases covered.
For instance, it is comforting to a girl if you have a good income. This means she can have a comfortable lifestyle and feel financially secure.
But it is also comforting to a girl if you’re a good listener and are kind. It makes her feel comfortable around you.
In other words, both things create comfort, but they do so in completely different ways.
And one can’t fully compensate for the other.
If you’re rich but you ignore a girl and treat her like shit, she’s going to feel a financial comfort but also a lack of comfort with the way you’re acting. This means regardless of your financial provisioning, she’s not going to feel very comfortable in the relationship.
This is because each type of “comfort” belongs to a different one of the Three Pillars of Attraction. And like a building, the foundation of your attraction is only as strong as your weakest pillar.
If you want to truly succeed with women, you must make sure all of them are strong.
The Three Pillars of Attraction, And Why They Matter
The Three Pillars of Attraction are Preselection, Persona, and Personality. The more “top-tier” of a guy you are, the more you will manifest each of these three pillars. Men lacking in one or more of these pillars will have “attraction issues,” and are likely to have problems getting the romantic life they want in either the short or long term.
That is because these pillars create attraction in distinct yet complementary ways. Like in weight lifting, where you need balance among muscle groups to really advance your whole physique, you need balance among the three pillars of attraction in order to become truly desirable. If one “group” is too weak, it is guaranteed to hold the others back.
Consequently, focusing on “maxing out” one of the three pillars of attraction is foolish if the others are not sufficiently strong. Not only do diminishing returns set in as you get higher and higher in one of the pillars, but more unbalanced you are, the more likely you are to stall completely.
The way to achieve the most progress with women is to prioritize the pillar you are weakest in.
You must take assessment of where your current strengths and weaknesses lie and improve your weak points accordingly. Failure to do this will lead to only marginal gains in your attractiveness.
Just understand, what improves one person’s attractiveness will not necessarily improve another’s. So if you are going to follow somebody, make sure they are overcoming (or have overcome) the same problems as you.
Now, with that disclaimer out of the way, let’s go through a brief examination of the three types.
The Three Pillars Of Attraction: Preselection
The first pillar of attraction is Preselection.
Preselection is the attraction that comes from “passive” indicators. These aren’t the things you “do” or that you “are,” rather they’re the things you have working in your favor. This ranges from the stuff you wear and own, to the way you look, to the way people treat you. When you think of a man’s preselection, think of his physique, fame, popularity, and wealth.
As a general rule, if it makes him valuable to other people, it makes him preselected.
Many people disregard preselection because it is “superficial.” Sorry, this is just plain stupid. We don’t live in a fantasy world, we live in the real one, where looks and status matter. As stated above, preselection is just one of the three pillars of attraction and shouldn’t be focused on to the exclusion of others. But preselection unquestionably makes a big difference in your attractiveness to women. It cannot be ignored.
Indeed, this is most observed in the realm of opportunities.
You see, preselection does little for making girls actually “like” you. What it does do, however, is make girls disposed to like you.
This means that the more preselection you have, the more girls are going to be interested in getting to know you.
And suffice to say, that makes approaching a lot more easier.
Preselection is the most important thing to build up if you feel like women aren’t noticing you. It is attention, and there are few more useful currencies in the realm of attraction.
The Three Pillars Of Attraction: Persona
The second pillar of attraction is Persona.
Persona is all the attraction that comes from your outward behavior. In other words, Persona is all about how you act, and how those actions impact other people’s perception of you. This is essentially your ability to read social situations, adapt to those social situations, and manipulate them in your favor. It is your ability to make people like you and elicit favorable emotions in them. It is your ability to seduce and befriend. It is your game.
The irony of Persona is in many ways it’s more superficial than Preselection. Persona can be fake to the point of deception or it can be relatively authentic – there are ethical and unethical Personas. At the end of the day though, your Persona is still a mask.
Unlike Preselection, Persona does not provide opportunities. Instead, it allows you to capitalize on them.
A good persona allows you to make the most of any dynamic presented to you with a girl. Though it might not convince girls who don’t like you to go for you, it can be extremely effective at turning neutral or indifferent girls into interested parties.
Persona is what most Pick Up Artists focus on, usually to an excess. It’s important, but in the modern age frequently overdone.
The Three Pillars Of Attraction: Personality
The third and final pillar is Personality.
Personality is the crux of who you are. It is your values, it is your confidence (or lack thereof), it is your personality quirks and disposition. It is your “authentic self,” your essence: the true blue you.
While you can learn to put on a Persona that is attractive to nearly everybody, you can’t do the same for Personality. Your Personality is unique to you, and it will only resonate on the comfort/desire spectrum with certain people (this is otherwise known as compatibility and chemistry).
Who you are will evolve over time. Fortunately, you have the agency to influence this change in a positive direction. But your goal, however, should be less about trying to become a “different” person, and more about bringing out your “best self.”
Understand: we each have healthy and unhealthy sides to our personality. And depending on how much we’ve developed ourselves and how good we feel about ourselves, we will either default to our healthy or unhealthy state.
Here’s an example.
These days, I am pretty optimistic… but it wasn’t always this way. I used to be depressed frequently, and only occasionally felt any enthusiasm for life. This impacted dramatically how I “resonated” with others. Since I’ve “shifted,” this has inverted. But that doesn’t mean I never get depressed anymore, and that that part of me is gone for good. No, it’s still lurking there – it’s part of me, it’s just the unhealthy side. And if I let my mindset lapse, it could easily return as my “default” state.
It takes effort to keep your personality positive and healthy. You have to show up in life in a way that makes it possible. You must emphasize and encourage the healthiest states and mindsets as much as possible, both through thought patterns and actions. The more you do this, the more dependable these states will become, and the more healthy your “overall” personality will be.
Having a healthy personality has a lot of benefits. For one, girls with healthy personalities want to be around guys with healthy personalities. Two, it polarizes away unhealthy personalities, who usually come with a victim mindset and a boatload of negativity. But perhaps most importantly, it allows relationships to thrive. It helps you to keep the opportunities with women you get. Personality isn’t the easiest way to get your foot in the door with a girl, but without it all your relationships will either be unhealthy or frivolous. It makes things last.
So, don’t neglect developing a healthy personality. It’s not only required for happiness; it’s essential for lasting love.
Why The Three Pillars of Attraction “Compound” On Each Other
If you look at the three pillars of attraction, you can start to get a glimpse of how they work well together.
Preselection creates opportunities. Persona capitalizes on them. Personality maintains them.
You can start to understand why if you want full-spectrum success with women, each of these pillars has to be holding its own. Yet bizarrely, most guys dispute this. Depending on where they’ve been indoctrinated, it’s either “all about game” or “all about money” or “all about who you are.”
Wrong. It’s all about all of those things.
It does not make any sense to work excessively on your game (aka Persona) when girls aren’t giving you the time of day. A guy with average game and strong preselection will have an enormous number of women at his disposal, and will do far better than a guy with excellent game and no preselection. Similarly, a guy with strong Persona but an unhealthy Personality might get laid, but he’s never going to keep the girls around – they’re going to find out he’s a mental wreck. If he wants more than one night stands (and if he wants to be happy), his goal should be on inner work.
Yet do many guys do this? No. They prefer running up hill due to complacency, ideology, or ego. It’s stupid.
But I digress.
There’s actually another, equally powerful reason these different pillars work so well together and magnify attraction:
Mystery.
You see, the more there is to you, the more appealing you are. Depth, contradiction, and dynamism are some of the most attractive things about a person – and they are all components of mystery.
Think about it.
If a woman meets you and sees you’re rich, powerful, and good-looking (Preselected), she’s going to start to get really turned on when she finds out you’re also charming and can flirt like hell (Persona). That means you’ve got a lot to offer. When she comes to learn you’re also confident, optimistic, and self-directed (Personality), all that’ll be on her mind is: “who is this guy.”
She will swoon.
And this is doubly true if you’re not only managing the three pillars of attraction, but the comfort and desire aspects of each of them.
So. Make sure you do it.
And if you need help figuring out where to start?
Till next time,
Pat
PS This is Part 1 of a 5 part series. Stay tuned for Part 2 soon!
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