Disagree. That may be true for you, but for many woman there is more than one reason to do something.
I’ve never walked a cute puppy, but I’ve seen the ice-breaker factor at work. The puppy doesn’t just give people something to talk about, but it can have a strong positive emotional effect on some women and make them more receptive.
Meg said:
A guy who’s totally honest and forward and not into any games whatsoever. Instant turn-on. Which takes a certain amount of chutzpah, which isn’t easy to find.
Now there’s a myth – or a simplification at least. The real truth is that a woman wants a man, whom she happens to be attracted to, to be totally honest and forward in a way that happens to attract her, but no more forward than she happens to want at the time, ( which is different to what it happens to be is for the next woman right now, and different to what it happened to be for her yesterday when she was in a different mood) and she wants all this to happen when she happens to be in a receptive mood to be approached in the first place. If any of those isn’t happenin’, and he approaches her in a forward and direct way, he’s a jerk. 
Victor & Ether, I agree that neediness/desperation is totally unattractive (and it works the other way around, too). Desperate women are only attractive when the guy is also desperate (and vice-versa, probably). Meg, I find what you say about what women like to be true, but I’m not sure about the “not being into games” part. Maybe it’s just the women I’ve dated, but they seemed to play games with me… either that or I’m a bonehead when it comes to women (very likely 
).
Here’s an update:
After reading some of your replies, I let go of the whole idea of meeting someone, and just continued doing AYP and living my life. This past week, my AYP progress went up a notch or two. I’m starting to feel that magnetism Near wrote about… I’ve noticed that most women I encounter in daily life now look at me and smile. This was a rare occurrence before.
I even went to a bar/club with a friend of mine, with no intention of meeting women, and… I talked to a nice lady, and danced with another. The one I danced with kissed me. Despite the new attention I’m getting, I feel totally more relaxed about the whole process. I accept whatever the universe gives me (or doesn’t).
So I think I’m gonna just keep doing my practices… Life is getting tasty right now. Thanks for your feedback and advice, everyone. You are a wise and kind group of peeps
David, so basically what you are saying is that a woman will ALWAYS be attracted to a man who know the woman’s state of my mind and her reaction patterns better than she does. Yeah, I can buy that. Easier said than done to become that man, though.
Meg, I am sure you are right, but I cannot help to wonder how so many women can call themselves feminists, given the passive role they want to play and the active role they want men to play. Many women have many bad things to say about male “chutzpah”, as well.
Congratulations, Cosmic.
Meg what you say about women may be true in some cases. But I agree, with a lot of people here. (David you made me laugh ). Women like to play games… more so when they are younger. But after 35 something changes. Then you are looking for a man who will talk to you and share your life with you. You just give up on the games I think. They don’t work… may work for a bit but not worth the effort. This is just my opinion. Also, I think women are attracted more, to men who are “cool”… don’t look like they are desperate. That is a definite turn off -for me too.(That is something else I don’t understand, when men are desperate, they will do anything to please you… so why is this a turn off?) Now if they are hard to get, they are more interesting (I always love a mystery). Of course this is coming from someone who was married at 21 and been married for 16 years. I never really did date (its generally not done in India)…so maybe I am not the person to give advice here… But these are thing I have observed with my friends in the US.
Hi all - I definitely agree that some women can be as gamey as some men. I was out of line speaking for my gender, and I apologize for spreading a myth. Let me rephrase my post, in sum, to state that I personally always prefer and am attracted to honesty and straightforwardness in both men and women. If I was patting a pooch and the guy on the other end stated that he was dragging it round in the hopes of finding a tantric lover, I’d have a good laugh with him. Admittedly, I wouldn’t necessarily grant him his wish. 
>>.(That is something else I don’t understand, when men are desperate, they will do anything to please you… so why is this a turn off?)
This is easy to explain from evolutionary theory, and the explanation is very unromantic, as evolutionary theory generally is.
Finding desperate people a turn-off is a trait.
From a survival point-of-view, a man who is desperate is coming across as having less to offer. After all, if he had a lot to offer, why would he be desperate? Who is he to take care of her and her offspring if he is desperate?
He is to take care of needy puppies, not be one!
So if a woman has a trait of being turned off by desparateness, she is rewarded for it evolutionarily, by favoring men who will take care of her and her needy puppies.
So that is an explanation of why that trait is there.
How do we explain from an evolutionary viewpoint why men aren’t attracted to desperate women? It would seem that this is exactly what they’d want, to ensure that there will always be someone in the cave who will make their lives a bit easier. That wasn’t intended as a sexist comment, BTW! A genuine curiosity on my part.
Desperation is extreme neediness, and it does indeed have an odor. But I don’t mind neediness from time to time. I’m needy sometimes. It comes and goes. Why is that considered a turn-off? I find it charming. As long as it doesn’t dominate the relationship.
First I want to say that evolutionary theory only explains why certain traits tend to be common. Generally, survival-boosting traits (in the context of our evolutionary history) will be common.
In evolutionary theory, the goal is survival. Speaking figuratively, survival of your genes, is what your genes ‘want’. That’s a figurative want, not a literal one.
It is we who do the literal ‘wanting’, not our genes. What we literally want is not the very same thing as what our genes ‘want’, though they are closely related.
A man might personally want or like a woman to be totally slavish; she would stay in the cave and attend to his every whim. But his genes would not ‘want’ or ‘like’ that, because a slavish woman is likely to produce slavish sons who will get no cave-babes. 
The trait of being attracted to a very slavish woman will carry a negative survival premium, not a positive one.
Even though the man personally likes the total slavishness, his genes ‘dislike’ it and express that by not allowing him to be attracted to the totally slavish woman, at least as a mate. He can’t afford to devote his cave-protection skills to a slave-man breeder!
This doesn’t mean that he won’t take the chance to copulate with her if he gets the chance!
Also neediness is a little more complicated than it sounds. Being needy carries with it other traits that are not the best for survival, and often make that person harder to get along with.
A person who is needy not only doesn’t have a mate, but also has the perception that something is missing in life. This perception often carries over into other areas besides mating. Your habitual thought patterns create your reality to a large extent, and people who are always thinking something is wrong live lives where things are lacking.
This is where faith helps. If you have enough faith in God or the equivalent, you wouldn’t be thinking things are lacking.
So that faith changes your habitual thoughts and consequently things change for the better.
The hard part is getting it started. I speak from experience.
The best way to get it started is accept things as they are. If you decide you may never find that person, and prepare to live your life that way,
it gets rid of the neediness.
David, you make a lot of sense. Neediness does make you look like you have nothing to offer. I think it also makes you look like you will be a “taker” in the relationship, rather than being generous and giving to your lover.
Meg, I agree a little bit of neediness is attractive. After all, who doesn’t want to feel needed? As long as it’s not a constant, energy-draining ordeal… that’s just bad yoga.
Thanks!
Yup, and evolutionary theory can explain why the trait of finding a little neediness attractive is common. If a person doesn’t need you at all, will they really bond with you at all?
Same is true of jealousy, which is I suppose just a variant on neediness. Many people find a little jealousy attractive. Like leave-in conditioner for the hair though, just a little goes a long way! Too much and you look Italian. <– best shades in the world are made in Italy.
Ah, jealousy. It’s similar to neediness, but has its distinctions. A person can be needy and have a healthy self-esteem. But jealousy stems from a deep-seated sense of inadequacy, which is never an attractive trait. Why is jealousy used by so many couples to keep their (unhealthy) relationship alive? Because it targets the esteem of their beloved, evoking in them the fear that they’re inadequate as a lover and partner. More reason to stick with meditation and yoga practices; they ground you and bring you into your center, where jealousy has no place. AYP: the jealousy-buster extraordinaire!
david wrote:
“best shades in the world are made in Italy.”
what kind do you recommend? OK that’s off topic as hell
The trick when you are trying to meet the opposite sex is act perfectly confident and not needy or jealous.
Then you throw in a little hint that you have those qualities but it doesn’t sway your confidence.
“Wouldn’t this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive?”
—Albert Brooks in “Broadcast News”:
I am reviving this amusing thread.
What do you think about the Ayurvedic principles for matchmaking?
As I read them it is taking the same Prakriti as a first choice. Second choice is more complex, but I remember that a PK should choose a VP over a VK, since it is better to share Pitta than Kapha.