The Choice of Attraction

This has always been an interesting debate. I think it was  David D’Angelo who coined the phrase, “Attraction is not a choice.” This notion is so popular even red pill carpet baggers like Aunt Sue had to give it wings.

Pandora from SoSuave broke it down thusly:

What is the true nature of attraction? I am often ambivalent about this myself. This is ultimately the root the contention between the so called “AFC”s and the so called “cynical” red pill guys.

Camp 1:
Attraction is a deeply psychological phenomenon that is largely unpredictable. This camp implies that there is no deliberate decision that a woman makes to become attracted to a man. Her decision is made largely within the first few seconds of meeting or noticing you. They claim that whether a girl is into you or not is largely out of your control ( D’ Angelo). This philosophy gives credibility to the people who say money and looks really don’t matter too much. They are just icing on the cake. In all honestly I have seen example of this play out many times in real life. I mean we all know the common phenomenon of a hot girl with a loser boyfriend who sits on the couch all day and plays video games. We all had a girl that just was “attracted to us” no for no apparent reason. There are plenty of examples of successful women going after losers (not marrying, but screwing regularly). These guys are pretty average looking to tell you the truth. These guys are not really even that “alpha”. Kinda like Casino, I know its a movie, but when DeNiro’s wife who had everything was still deeply in love with the scumbag loser pimp who had nada. Many of these guys have self destructive tendencies really, aka bad boys types, emo losers, broke artsy dudes to plain ol average joes. If you ask the female why do you like this guy so much when you could get just abut any other guy… 9 outa 10 times they say ” i dont know, i just do, i wish i didnt”. They have no rational explanation for it. Many times the girl will admit that the guy isnt even attractive or her type thus supporting the view attraction is not a choice and deeply psychological.

Camp 2:
Money, looks, power, and overall dominance will get u women more reliably than anything else. This is the red pill crew. There are a TON of examples of this also. Go to any rock concert, football game or club and you will see this in action. There’s a reason why women want to marry the rocker,doctor, lawyer, CEO, athlete. The catch is by agreeing with this viewpoint you have to agree that the nature of attraction in women is largely logical and deliberate. That women turn off or on their attraction based on status and resources. If you are this camp then how do u explain the examples of hot women going out with loser to average boy friends. Are these truly exceptions to the rule? How do you also explain chicks that dig you for no apparent reason at all (rare but it happens) and we have all had these types of girls once or twice.

This is an important question to answer because i think its the cause of many of the conflicts in the manosphere. Its also a fundamental question for any man. I think the truth is in the middle. I think that both camps are making something that is very complex into a cut and dry matter. For every instance of a chick being attracted to a high status male there is an instance of a chick just being attracted to a regular guys. Im starting to believe attraction is just one of those things that is largely unpredictable and mysterious. This is the whole basis of when women say they just felt or didnt feel any “chemistry”. Its largely mysterious. Like Rollo eludes to, attraction is a chemical thing.

There’s a very clichéd truism from the 80’s that states “a woman knows if she’ll fuck you in the first 5 minutes of meeting you.” I disagree somewhat, I would say a woman knows if she wont fuck you within the first 5 minutes of meeting you.

Attraction is instinctual and predictable, but is it a choice? It really depends upon the conditions of the persons involved. Honestly I think it’s kind of a loaded question because the answer tends to validate the beliefs and ego-investments (also prompted by personal conditions) of the one promoting it.

For the unemployed, chubby guy, believing that attraction is some nebulous, random occurrence gives him hope that, with a bit of Game, he can enjoy sex with the HB 9s that his douchebag “natural” friends are. Similarly, the good looking, affluent guy with a bit of Game is rewarded with sex so often that he attributes his success to his own capacity for ‘creating attraction’ that he presumes a woman is making a choice to be attracted to him.

Choosing Attraction

Like pretty much everything else, attraction is conditional. I wont go so far as to say it’s a choice, but I will say there exist many prompts that can spur attraction when they are congruent with the conditions a woman consciously or subconsciously requires at a given time.

For example, in high school, teenage girls tend to focus their attraction (which is prompted by sexual arousal) on the teenage boys who best display an ideal physicality. Cute face, good body, maybe a slight bit of status with regards to exceptional performance (sports or drama for instance), but generally affluence and personal status aren’t an issue since none of them can expect a high school junior to be the CEO of his own company. Remove money & status from the sexual environment and physical arousal will tend to dominate. Personality and game, play in of course, but to a far lesser (adolescent) degree than when a woman is 19 and in a college environment where potential status, affluence, game and personality begin to take on more importance. Physicality still dominates arousal, but compatibility and future emotional and parental investment potential begins to factor into attraction. As a woman approaches 30-35 her preconditions for attraction and the priority she places on them shifts towards long term security. Physicality, while still important, is compromised in favor of long term security potential.

Now, is she choosing to be attracted to specific characteristics or types of individuals at different phases of her maturity? No, not consciously, but on some level of consciousness we are all aware of our own conditions and what (we believe) is necessary to meet satisfaction of particular deficits we lack. For the 32 year old AFC who’s never done anything different and has waited the better part of his 20’s for the, now 30, HB 8, he thinks his ship’s finally come in and that attraction is indeed some random act of divine kindness – rather than the fact that he now makes the kind of money his dream girl subconsciously realizes is necessary for her (and her offspring’s) long term provisioning.

Predicting Attraction

Human nature being what it is, it’s important for Game aspirants (and those applying Game for other reasons) to understand that Game, inter-gender dynamism and the physical elements of arousal / attraction are Probablistic not Deterministic.

I don’t believe attraction is a conscious choice – no girl says to herself “hmmm,..I think I’ll be attracted to him” – but there are definite, predictable determinants, based upon the personal conditions of the woman, that influence a subconscious state of arousal and attraction. I know those are big $10 words, but try to think of it in terms that a woman doesn’t make a rational choice to be attracted to a guy, but rather is influenced by motivators she’s not fully aware of and makes an emotional association with them and the guy she is attracted to. Accurately determining what those motivators are and manipulating them (within any one Man’s capacity) is the heart of Game. Attraction may not be a choice, but what you do to stimulate the motivators of attraction is a choice – your choice.

I rarely engage in the “american chicks suck / foreign chicks rule” debates, but one of my best friends is Filipino who’s recently been making frequent trips back to the Philippines to visit family and (still) help out with the recovery effort after the last hurricane. He comes back with stories about how eager all the hottest Filipinas are to do anything sexual with him. He’s not an ugly guy, but by American standards he’s not all that desirable – short, stocky, about 15lbs overweight, well off but not wealthy. But because he’s American and Filipino he’s got status that few guys in P.I. can match. He has what we joke is the ‘Golden Ticket’ (ala Willy Wonka) to Amercia since he’s single. He’s got decent game and he does hook up in the U.S., but he says he doesn’t even have to make an effort in P.I. Women catch wind that he’s American and their legs spread involuntarily.

This is an excellent illustration of how status can influence attraction based upon personal conditions / deficits that prompt it. However, sustaining that attraction after that personal deficit has been satisfied is another post altogether.

The Choice

So in layman’s terms you are saying Attraction is not a conscious choice made by women but one that can be unconsciously evoked by a guy with good game?

Yes, if that particular guy’s Game is what she’s subconsciously lacking. However, it’s all in the ‘read‘ of any given woman. If you read the Art of Seduction by Robert Greene, the first foundation of seduction is to have as full an understanding of your target as possible – this is called ‘reading’ your mark. To the best of your abilities, it’s important to evaluate where she is in her stage of life and pick out areas where she’s in a deficit. You may think this is impossible to do in the short space of sarging a girl at a bar for instance, but once you have a general understanding of the cues to look for it actually becomes second nature. I’ll give you an example.

There’s a woman I know named Julie who I bump into on occasion at promos I do. On first sight I see: she’s attractive, mature (late 30’s early 40’s perhaps), dresses to get attention, she’s thin, bleach blonde, and married (I know from the big diamond ring). After speaking with her for less than 10 minutes I know she’s attracted to me; there are ‘tells’ in her conversation with me, verbal cues that she’s hoping I will pick up on and deliver back covert confirmation of. 10 minutes in and I know she’s in a marriage of convenience with an affluent man, who can take care of her financially, but who’s incapable of meeting her physical deficit, her excitement deficit, her covert communications deficit, etc. If I wanted to seduce her, these would be the areas I would adjust my sarge to emphasize. She’s attracted to me because she sees my potential for satisfying her deficits, and then probes me for confirmation of her suspicions. I tell her I’m married in code-speak, and she chooses not to be attracted to me any longer, or at least not to such a degree that she wants to pursue any more.

Some people would call this being a good judge of character, but essentially the ability to ‘read’ a person (of either gender) is the beginning of good ‘natural game’.