PERSONA: THE SECOND PILLAR OF ATTRACTION
In part two of this series, we discussed preselection — the first pillar of attraction.
Now we’re going to address the second pillar (and one most talked about by dating coaches):
Persona.
Let’s dive in.
The Two Halves Of Persona
Like preselection, persona is composed of “comfort” aspects and “desire” aspects. As always, you are going to want to use both to maximize a woman’s attraction for you.
Some key desire traits of Persona are:
- Unattachment. An unattached man sees an interaction with a girl for what it is: not a big deal. Unattached guys don’t invest in a woman’s company — especially not early on. This doesn’t make them detached from an interaction, but by not fully committing they control the frame and force women to invest more. A man who is unfazed by a woman’s beauty and femininity can be considered unattached, both to her and the outcome. These are the men who create desire.
- Cockiness. A cocky man is a man who acts like he is important. While women may not like this consciously — displays of arrogance are socially distasteful — on a subconscious level cockiness shows women that a man is in his own frame and is not intimidated by them. Women love this — particularly when it is balanced by comfort traits (more on this later).
- Charisma. Charismatic guys are socially dominant and know how to guide social interactions. They are masters at adapting their tone to the situation and making themselves popular. These guys are also great storytellers, and have an attractive energy that is contagious to everyone around them — especially women.
- Playfulness. A flirty, playful guy knows how to put women in a happy and sexual mood. This is one of the key elements of having an desirable persona. Guys who tease girls like they were kids on the playground create desire effortlessly.
- Cleverness. Men who can think on their feet, tease, and banter are desirable to women — particularly intelligent ones. Cleverness shows creativity, mental agility, and most importantly: intellectual / verbal dominance.
Key comfort traits of Persona are different:
- Attentiveness. An attentive guy gives a woman his full and undivided attention when in an interaction with her. He makes her feel like she is being listened to, and that she is not only valued and interesting to him, but is valuable and interesting in general.
- Chivalrousness. Chivalrous men take a girl’s needs into consideration when they take action. They are kind and considerate, managing logistics to make things more comfortable for the girl. Think of the quintessential “Gentlemen.”
- Charm. Charming guys redirect focus from themselves onto the girl, complimenting and flattering her throughout the interaction (with a smirk). They make women feel valuable and interesting and boost their egos, making her invest more in the interaction.
- Empathy. Empathetic guys show women that they can relate to them on an emotional level. They show sincerity, and make women feel safe and understood. It is an especially important trait for building rapport and making relationships become serious.
- Vulnerability. Vulnerable men are open about their lives and their weaknesses with women, and make women feel like they know the real him, not a facade. This trait creates massive amounts of rapport and feelings of intimacy with women.
Of course, the traits above are just a taste of full spectrum of Persona. Truly, any behavior you put on to attract a girl can be considered part of Persona. What’s most important for you is that you recognize the difference between each set listed — how some consistently create comfort feelings in women, and others desire.
Understand: Men with “great game” are able to weave these traits together like masters, reading the subtly of social and emotional cues to know exactly which trait to convey and when. Indeed, it is why such people are called Seduction or Pick Up “Artists.” They get this Pillar of Attraction viscerally, and they paint their interactions with these traits like an artist with his colors.
But different as their styles may be, there’s one rule they all follow at all costs.
How To Use Persona Right (And Wrong)
Preselection requires minimal art or skill to convey. While there is power in knowing to stagger when your preselected traits comes across, the bottom line is if you are wealthy and high status, these things are just there — and not in any particular order.
Persona is different. Persona can be revealed on your own schedule to a woman. Indeed, the timing and pacing of how you reveal it is everything about whether or not it is effective.
For instance, many people discuss the power of vulnerability in attraction. I agree with them — in fact, it’s why listed it as one of the traits above. But like I have written about in relationships, when it comes to vulnerability you need to be careful. Because although when used appropriately it can bind a girl to you like glue, if you express it at the wrong time, from an attraction standpoint you might as well be killing yourself.
Let me explain.
How do you think a girl would feel about a guy who came up to her, introduced himself, and then started sharing some very personal stories with her? And then how do you think she’d feel if a few minutes later he started getting arrogant, a bit playful, and started acting a bit distant?
She’d feel like he was weird, perhaps creepy, and very insecure — definitely not someone she would want to spend any more time with.
But lets say we reversed what the guy did. Instead of going up to the girl and opening her with some vulnerable stories about himself, let’s say instead he went up to her acting blasé and cocky, throwing in some playfulness too. Only after 15 minutes of some banter would he get a little more serious and drop a personal story and start giving her focused attention.
How do you think she’d feel feel then?
Pretty obvious:
Attracted.
Because the first traits you show a girl are the traits that determine her impression of you.
In the former case, the guy led with traits that create comfort, switching to those that create desire. In the latter case, this order was reversed.
And the impact was all the difference in the world.
Persona, Preselection, and Frame
In dating, Frame is everything. If you control the frame, you control the perception of yourself to a woman. Truly, what you want a girl to feel and see, she will feel and see.
Which is why Preselection — which is if anything a “frame-setter” — and the opening moments of you interaction with a girl are so crucial.
If you set the frame in a way that shows yourself to be sensitive and eager to please her, she is going to come away thinking that you are weak-minded and have no personal power. You will establish yourself as “beta” at best, undesirable at worst.
But if you come into it setting a frame of confidence with a devil-may-care attitude, you are going to send the opposite message: that you are independent and uninvested in her opinion. She might think you are an asshole or are “full of yourself” because of it (maybe you are), but that doesn’t matter. What matters is she believes you have self-respect and are not intimidated by her.
That leaves a powerful impression. And you have that, you can start to have fun.
This is why it matters so much — whatever you do later — that you begin your interactions with girls you’d like to “romance” with actions that create desire rather than comfort.
Once you’ve established desire, you can begin to play around with comfort. Indeed, you should begin to play around with it. Contrast creates attraction — you just have to make sure you’re creating the contrast from the right direction. If you come across as supplicating and then shift to acting macho, your desirable behavior will seem like an “act.” Conversely, if you’ve established yourself already as desirable, anything you do later that shows her your “sensitive side” is going to be considered intriguing.
Because now you’re making her think she misjudged the asshole who’s really sweet. And she wants to know why.
Nice Guys, Good Guys, Bad Boys, And Scary Dudes
These terms get thrown around a lot in the dating sphere, yet talk to someone in the mainstream and many still don’t fully understand what they mean. In truth it’s simple.
Nice guys lead their romantic interactions with comfort and stick with comfort. They never create desire, and so the attraction process is stymied. This is why telling guys to be nice is a terrible idea. Niceness just won’t get them girls.
Bad boys on the other hand lead their romantic interactions with desire and stick with desire. They care little for comfort, and girls who get upset about that as far as they are concerned can leave. Women often hate bad boys on a conscious level because they *may* be assholes (or at the very least are unwilling to commit or submit to women), but subconsciously they love them. Though this creates cognitive dissonance, as few girls have “come to terms” with the fact that they like men who don’t put them on pedestal, many girls will still choose such men, at least for flings. How long a woman will tolerate a bad boy — a night, a month, a year, or a decade — depends on the woman and her stage of life. But longterm, all women are unsatisfied with bad boys. Comfort may not get them excited, but it makes them happy — unlike being treated like they’re unimportant.
Good guys meanwhile are the “unicorn” for women. They lead with desire but then once desire has been established, they shift to a blend of desire and comfort. Note that they do not shift to fully comfort, because if they shifted fully to comfort they would change the frame and become a nice guy. But so long as their frame with a woman is based firmly on desire, they are able to do chivalrous things and bond with women emotionally. If anything, this makes them all the more appealing.
Finally, scary dudes — often known as creeps — are the ones who start with comfort and then shift to a blend of comfort and desire (a blend because their own frame is oriented towards comfort, which leaks into their interactions in the form of neediness). Why are such guys creepy or at the very least unappealing? Because these guys are being sexual towards women who do not think of them in that way. Scary dudes frame themselves asexually or uncomfortable with their sexuality from the outset, and this is how women observe them to be. So when these guys start acting sexual with women they feel weird; they does not think of them in a sexual (or at least sexually confident) way.
Understand: In order to get sexual, you need to have established a frame where it is ok to get sexual. If you didn’t do this with a girl from the outset, you’re in trouble. Shifting a girl’s frame towards you from comfort to desire can take a long time, and it is a very delicate process.
This is why it is so hard to escape from the “friend zone” once you’ve been put in it. The only times you can “get out” without a long, conscious process is when the girl herself is going through a crisis of opportunity in the dating market. When she is desperate for a guy to be with so she won’t be alone, she might just overlook the lack of arousal you created in her.
No wonder a sad expression has become a timeless one:
Nice guys finish last.
To Be Continued…
Now that you understand Persona and why it defines so many of our “archetypes” of men, we’ll go more into the role it has in attraction and why you need to develop it, both when single and when in a relationship.
Till next time,
Pat
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