From the Amorati…

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‘Zan has often shared that men are romantics, while women can take some time to figure us out while we’re starting to interact with them.

I tend to be the type of guy that, when I meet a woman, I get excited and think something is going to come out of it just because she showed me a little interest! So, I fall for women quickly while they are still trying to figure me out. 

I know this is a problem because it has resulted in some pretty messed up relationships, or dynamics that weren’t good for me outside of the physical and emotional gratifications that occasionally occurred.

How do I limit this and start building interactions with a stronger foundation, instead of diving headfirst into things before I even know anything about this woman?’

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I used to experience something like you described. Wouldn’t happen often, but every two-to-three years I’d be hit with a BIG version of this pattern. It actually crippled me pretty badly. 

I would spend months (even years) dreaming about some impossible woman, while missing real opportunities that were actually all around me.

Anyway, here are some ideas I found useful:

1) See if you can track, journal, and write down your attraction pattern. I.e., when you meet someone new, what is the first set of thoughts that come up, and get you to start romanticising about her? Then what happens? And what next? My seduction pattern would tend to follow a fixed sequence of patterned thoughts, starting with denial and ending up close to obsession! The more you know the pattern and see it coming, the less you buy into the process when it does arise. It is important to see how this is YOUR pattern that you’re repeating, and might have little to do with the actual interaction with the woman in question. Best practice is to laugh at your folly and try to erase your mental thought-board, etch-a-sketch style. You can work your way out of it, over time.

2) Wine connoisseur. The best way out of your thought-patterns is to practice feeling your body as your attraction, craving, desire grows. Most men don’t actually enjoy the feelings of craving or desire, which is why they skip out of the discomfort of their bodies and go into their heads, ending up in those mental patterns we discussed above. So, the perennial practice is to — each and every time you catch yourself thinking about her — ask, how do I feel about her today? And feel your body instead. The more emotions and sensations occupy your awareness, the less thought-loops dominate you. What I discovered was that my years of romantic daydreams about women were a protection mechanism that saved me from feeling the discomfort of loneliness, horniness, hunger, lust, attraction, as these things arose in my body.

In fact, once a man learns to actually enjoy the erotic and animal feelings that surface in his body in response to women, he’s overcome the main obstacle of this whole ‘seduction’ journey.

3) Work hard to really see her. If you’re falling quite fast because you’re in your own thought-patterns, you can bet your bottom dollar that you don’t see her deeply, and you are likely missing all kinds of red flags (and all kinds of genuine beauty, besides). So just as I’m working to let go of my thought loops and feel my body, I’ll start wondering, pontificating, about her. ‘What will she actually be like in bed? What might she be like in intimacy?’ These are good questions if you approach them with curiosity, rather than super-imposing your existing fantasies onto the girl. But they can also be dangerous questions, fuelling your craving and attraction feelings all the more.

Maybe better to ask yourself, ‘in what way is this girl a pain in the ass? How is she psychologically screwed up, and what difficult conflict is really gonna piss me off in this relationship? Where does she struggle in life, and not feel whole? In what particular way can she become ugly?’ Some might think these are negative questions, but they’re actually real questions that anyone should consider before stepping into a relationship with anyone! They also give you a kind of ‘stoic buffer’, meaning your ogling eyes and horny loins are tempered with a slice of reality. The whole person is better taken in.

One of the best frames to take on a second, third, fourth date is a frame of attracted skepticism. You’re attracted—for sure. But there’s a not-knowing, a skepticism also. No-one needs a bad egg to come into their life and rot the place out. When Zan asks, ‘are you my girl?’ there’s a realism to that. ‘Yeah, you’re hot and sexy and I’d like you in my bed… but can I get on with you? Will we enjoy long, silent days together? Can I trust that you’ll be a good spirit for me (and not a drain)?

‘Are you my girl?’ is a sincere question – testing a woman’s character and spirit. Seeing if she’ll be a good reality-match, rather than just fitting the mould of one’s ‘ideal woman’ projection. I think this is the start of the ‘stronger foundation’ you wish to cultivate.

In the meantime, the more you drop your thought-patterns and the more you feel the (often-uncomfortable) embodied process that seduction is … well, this is what the joy and the mystery of romance, attraction, falling in love, are all about.

Most men miss all this entirely, though. They can’t deal with the anxiety of it. Need to seal the deal quickly as an escape hatch from all that delicious, life-affirming tension.

~ Jordan

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