Who are the good guys?

After years in the dark, I finally learned the don'ts and, more importantly, the do's of attracting women. I have a core belief that these skills can be improved, taught and learned. I further believe that when these skills are applied, they overcome a man's baldness, less-than-stellar job or unflattering physique. Finally, I believe that these skills are mere tools and not above being twisted by bad guys towards perverted aims.

I hope that good guys everywhere learn these skills for two reasons. First, in an age of emasculation, there are a lot of great women who can't find a man. Men have largely had their natural ability to build chemistry with women stifled since childhood. Second, I fear that years of sexual frustration wreak havoc on the souls of good men, driving them to despair and evil. The man already lost to evil is not my concern in this realm. I can teach him to meet girls or I can teach him to be good. I can't do both, and being good is more important.

Which is more responsible: teaching a bad guy to attract women, or giving a troubled teen a flamethrower?

Who are the bad guys?


Bad guys are concerned only for themselves. ("If I am not for myself, who will be? But if I am only for myself, what am I?)


Bad guys routinely neglect their responsibilities as men.


Bad guys expect the world to deliver everything to them.


Bad guys think they deserve the world and throw tantrums when they don't get it.


Bad guys routinely lie.


Bad guys routinely cheat.


Bad guys routinely steal.


Bad guys will stalk.


Bad guys delight in corruption.


Bad guys routinely see other people as a means to an end and their conscience as an obstacle.


If there is even one of these points which you cannot overcome, you are a bad guy, and I do not wish to help you.


Bad guys make it harder for good guys to meet women by giving women examples of why they should fear and distrust men.


Fix these first.

Who are the good guys?


Good guys care for others, and will happily leave a woman better than he found her.


Good guys meet their responsibilities.


Good guys are willing to work for what they want in the world.


Good guys take setbacks in stride, then work to surmount them.


Good guys are trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient*, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. Good guys are not fools.


Good guys will have historically worried about whether they were coming off as stalkers.


Good guys delight in goodness and high standards.


If you're a good guy, you might be confident in several areas of your life, just not with women. You're the sort of guy I am most eager to help.

But make no mistake:


Good and bad guys both want sex. Long-term, they both need it (mysteries of being ordained to the priesthood aside).


Good and bad guys can both learn to make women crazy for them.


Good and bad guys can both seem very exciting in the heat of the moment.


Good guys don't finish last, but bad guys will start sooner because they have fewer qualms about breaking the taboos of society. You can be a good guy and still be incredibly successful with women (honestly, it helps), but the pragmatic, selfish and experimental tendencies of the bad guys will lead them to success sooner when no instruction is available.


Even being a good guy does not entitle you to a woman. You have to work as hard to get her as the bad guy does. Your goodness is appreciated in the long term, but in the short term there are equal challenges for good guys and for bad guys to keep the attraction alive. Giving in to a woman's every demand will not make you a good guy and will only cause her to lose respect for you.

Ok, that's enough preaching for one night. Even I'm getting sick of it. Be good!

Drinking Kool-Aid from the Firehose

I loathe a mixed metaphor as much as the next man (e.g. "If you could find a way to bottle the Notre Dame spirit, you could light up the universe"), but I've been chuckling for weeks at the idea of "drinking kool-aid from the firehose."

That is all.

The Power of Questions

Ben Franklin, a Founding Father and a personal hero, won quite a bit of influence by keeping his language around controlversial matters tentative and by posing his arguments as questions. I call phrases like "it seems to me" and "it would appear that" and "why is it that" Ben Franklin phases in his honor. This style of communication is the key to influence without authority.

When someone approaches you with a new idea, is your shield more likely to go up if he asserts that his idea is the the Absolute Right Thing To Do or if he admits that he may be missing something, but if we do X, would that help us overcome problem Y?

Think of one of your prized, well thought-out positions. Maybe it's just me, but did you arrive at that viewpoint by mentally making statements and accepting them as true, or by asking questions that led you to that conclusion? Which questions did you ask yourself?

You see what I did there? The questions that led you to your own well-reasoned conclusion are highly portable, non-confrontational, and eloquent. They will get you further with your audience than merely asserting your case, however correct your final position may be.

Most questions are loaded in one way or another. We call puzzles where the correct answer is not obvious from the question itself "trick questions." Captain Kirk is revered for responding to "either-or" questions from his enemies with a "yes." When you control the questions, people will often follow you to your answers. Is this what Socrates was doing with the Socratic Method? Did he establish himself as a philosopher not on the basis of his thoughts themselves but because he always posed questions which led himself to his own conclusion? A large enough part of me suspects this is the case for me to have considered the Socratic Method just a little bit underhanded as a child.

You can use questions for good, for evil, or to find the truth. Ben Franklin's tentative style of public discourse made him a hard man to contradict. Let us say you are about to propose a boneheaded solution to a problem. Which will make you look the wiser man after the fact: a tentative approach or an assertive approach?

In sum, questions do more than seek feedback, ideas and solutions. Questions themselves can define priorities, values and goals while subtly limiting the universe of possible or acceptable solutions. They are elegant weapons for a civilized age.