Understanding Attraction

Donalgraeme quantified what women find attractive in the 5 vectors of female attraction and going APE with a categorization of appearance/personality/externalities.

As Chad says, God is not a system. But the things He created as systems, and I like systems. I know that Free Northerner does too. I don’t like black boxes. I like to understand why I’m putting what into the system and why the result comes out as it does.

I want to know what is the difference in the “power” of nice guys as opposed to bad boys.

Well, it turns out that my discussions with deti and JoJ in The Red Pill and Game and Donalgraeme’s ongoing discussion concerning men, masculinity, women and femininity as well as knowledge of what I have from the PUAs and JoJ’s explanations have helped me closer to quantifying what exactly attracts women to men. My posts on Anchored emotions and anchored souls also played a role as you will see.

Even with Donal’s posts I think that many men see attraction as something that is mythical and mysterious. That is exactly what this post seeks to address.

A man’s handshake.

It’s often said that you can measure a man character by the quality of his handshake. The reason why a man’s handshake is so important is because it’s an expression of his will. It’s his power put into one single moment.

But let’s briefly take a step back and examine why that is the case. To understand attraction we must first go back to what the PUAs know to reverse engineer it. They posit that when you first interact with a woman typically you draw her in by building “comfort” — sharing commonalities about yourselves. Once you’re one the same wavelength in building comfort, you have built “rapport” with her because you start to mirror each other. The PUAs have known for a long time that while comfort is needed to draw a woman in to get her invested, that by itself doesn’t build attraction. Rather, breaking the rapport is the key to building attraction. Here’s some examples.

Let’s explore why this is. There’s two ways that breaking rapport happens:

1. You break rapport — teasing her, disagreeing with her, mystifying her (riddles/jokes/making her guess), humor, etc.
2. She breaks rapport — shit/fitness testing you, she disagrees with you, she is rude

Let’s go back the handshake analogy and expound upon it.

When you build “comfort” by exploring the commonalities between you, that’s showing her the superficial side of you. She feels the warmth of your hand and the physical contact and it’s nice, but it’s still very superficial to her.

However, when you break rapport, that is you showing her your manhood. You’re breaking past the superficiality and showing her what is underneath. You’re showing her what is behind the veneer of what you present to the world.

When you break rapport — when you tease her, or disagree with her, mystify her, or make her laugh — that is you showing her the firmness, strength, and resolve behind your handshake. You’re showing her that you’re a man. You’re laying down and setting boundaries. The firmness, strength, and resolve is something that she can anchor herself to. Humor is a bit of an odd ball, but it’s usually something said that was unexpected about a situation. You can see how this defies her expectations and breaks rapport in that sense.

When she breaks rapport — when she shit / fitness tests you, when she disagrees with you, when she is rude — that is her showing you the firmness of her handshake. She wants you to show your resolve and squeeze back. She wants you to call her on her rudeness. She is in effect “rubbing against your manhood” as some in the manosphere might say.

If you’re a man and you’re given a firm handshake you typically rise the challenge and squeeze back. But many of us know that many nice guys with the limp handshake will fail to rise to the challenge and allow their hand to become amorphous. Their hand conforms to any shape depending on how hard you squeeze.

The reason why nice guys are boring and uninteresting is because they (1) never break past the superficial and show their resolve as a man underneath, and/or (2) when tested to show their resolve they fail and instead become amorphous and conform to what everyone else is doing. They fail to show anything but superficial warmth and do nothing to show their resolve as a man to women. Or when they are shit/fitness tested or a woman is rude to them, they fail to squeeze back and call her on her actions and instead allow themselves to conform to what the woman wants.

Respect to a woman is a man to whom she is able to anchor herself. When he shakes with a firm handshake, she can be assured that as she squeezes back he will maintain his grip on her. If she starts getting pulled one way or another by her emotions or other people, her boyfriend or husband will be able to tighten his grip to hold her safe. She knows that when he squeezes and she squeezes back he will not conform to her, but rather will set boundaries himself and she will anchor herself to him.

When she tests your boundaries through fitness test, you need to show her the strength behind your handshake. This is why you do not want to conform to what she says, nor allow yourself to get sucked into her frame.

The Bible is clear as to why this is the case:

Genesis 2 (NASB)
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper[or helpmeet] [o]suitable for him.”

The helpmeet — woman — will anchor herself to the man to help him in his mission. Likewise,

1 Corinthians 11 (NASB) — on Christian order
3 But I want you to understand that [a]Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of [b]Christ. 4 Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head. 5 But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head, for she is one and the same as the woman [c]whose head is shaved. 6 For if a woman does not cover [d]her head, let her also [e]have her hair cut off; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to [f]have her hair cut off or [g]her head shaved, let her cover [h]her head. 7 For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. 8 For man [i]does not originate from woman, but woman from man; 9 for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake. 10 Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. 11 However, in the Lord, neither is woman [j]independent of man, nor is man [k]independent of woman. 12 For as the woman [l]originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things [m]originate from God.

In the same way, we as Christians anchor our souls and anchor our emotions to Jesus Christ, and Jesus is our intercessor to God as a high priest in the order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 6). Likewise, husbands are to anchor themselves to Jesus, and wives are to anchor themselves to both Jesus and their husbands. Man was not created for woman but woman for man.

The vectors of attraction — power, status, athleticism, looks, money — are all tangible or intangible things that men possess that women can anchor themselves to which may bring security or provision in some measure. This is why women are attracted to them. Some attraction vectors may matter more than others depending on the woman and the environment in which she was raised, though power/personality is always #1.

This is why money is a waning attraction factor (aside from millionaires or billionaires) because money can now be provided by the government as a security blanket in the event of a child out of wedlock, loss of a job, and a woman can provide for herself.

Going back to some of my previous posts let’s see how they fit within the framework. Some of my practical posts such as Be Decisive focus on showing her your conviction — the firmness, strength, and resolve behind your handshake — is attractive because you show her that there is something behind your superficiality that she can anchor herself to.

This is why I’ve been hammering it home on many of the Foundational Posts on Christian Masculinity that you need to know what you believe and have the resolve to speak up and act on it. If you don’t show a woman anything past the superficial niceties and commonalities between yourselves in conversation then you’re forgetable, boring, and uninteresting. If you don’t squeeze back when she squeezes, then you’re forgetable, boring, and uninteresting.

Most nice guys never want to disagree with a woman for fear of upsetting her. In this way they are amorphous and there is no resolve behind their will. They are unattractive. If someone says something that you disagree with then speak up, especially in regard to spiritual matters. This shows both men and women the firmness behind your handshake, and they will almost always respect you even if they disagree.

This is also why bad boys are attractive. They don’t care what anyone thinks of them and are able to speak their mind with impunity. They only care about themselves, but this shows a woman a resolve that she is able to anchor herself to… for at least a time. They aren’t afraid of taking risks, break rules or do things the way they want consequences be damned.

Now, not all of these are things that Christian men should emulate. However, being about to speak your convictions as a Christian, be firm in resolve for your boundaries, being able to take risks, and do things differently from others but still serve God are all things that are part of being a Christian masculine man. Each of us has our own mission in life and a different way to carry it out.

Don’t be afraid to speak your mind about what you like and especially what you don’t like to set boundaries. Then back them up with actions as a Christian masculine man. Aim to please God rather than men.

Christian men —  remember your handshake and everything that is behind it the next time you are afraid to speak up, act, or disagree.

Ed note: special thanks to JoJ for all that he has done in the Christian manosphere.