Being attractive to women requires the willingness to tolerate ambiguity.
Because you can never control every factor in a situation and you can’t read anyone’s mind, social situations in general are ambiguous. Nowhere is this more true than with dating.
At a bar, a girl could make eye contact with you because she’s interested, or because something in your direction caught her eye. She could be laughing because she genuinely thinks you’re funny, or because she feels bad for you. She could have ignored your attempt to set up a date because she is busy with work, or because she wants you to fall off a ladder and die.
With so many factors up in the air, there are a lot of ways you could be wrong, and misread the situation. So what should you do to deal with this?
Nothing. It doesn’t matter.
If a girl makes eye contact, it doesn’t really matter why, because you can capitalize off that moment of connection. If she’s laughing, on some level her brain is telling her that she’s interested in your company, even if it’s a pity laugh.
If she ignores your texts or stops responding to you, again, it doesn’t really matter why. For whatever reason in her life, she moved on. It doesn’t matter if the reason was valid; attempting to identify the reason is a waste of your time because you’ll never find that certainty and you’ll never know for sure.
There will ALWAYS be a ton of uncertainty in the dating process. That’s what makes it such an emotional rollercoaster for women, and yes, for men too.
It helps to know where we stand in the eyes of someone we’re attracted to, but here’s the thing: most actions you can take to reduce that uncertainty just make the situation worse. There are countless examples, but here are some common ones:
- Asking a girl to “not play games” and let you know whether she does or doesn’t like you is a move designed to reduce uncertainty. It may feel direct, ballsy, or confident, but unfortunately it has the opposite effect: it puts her on the spot and makes her uncomfortable.
- Asking a girl if she thinks you’re funny. Sure this may give you more certainty and insight into the situation, but it kills your chances of looking attractive.
- Asking a girl if she thinks you’re good looking may give you an honest response, but it makes you look unconfident.
- Asking a girl if she had a good time on a date is a bad move because confident guys just assume that she did.
- Asking a girl if you can kiss her may tell you if her conscious mind thinks she wants to be kissed, but this is something confident guys NEVER do. They just go for it and are prepared for whatever happens because they’ve dealt with it before.
See the theme here? Asking a girl for permission to be yourself is something you must avoid.
So what can you do instead? Allow that uncertainty and ambiguity to be there. Accept that not knowing is part of success. Instead of fighting to reduce it, recognize that it’s part of the process.
Yes, leaning into ambiguity and uncertainty is uncomfortable. It sucks. But there is no real alternative, because in the dating world, complete certainty is just an illusion.
Being confident means that you expect things to go well in situations that are ambiguous. Being willing to feel vulnerable in the face of ambiguity and rejection is what separates the guys who improve with women from the ones who stay stuck forever.
