Mothers Do Not Know How to Attract Women
You don’t learn how to fish by asking the fish.
A boy should not learn how to attract women from his mother.
A mother will want to soften the edges of her son and try to make him what she thinks women *should* be attracted to. She wants him to be a good boy. She does not want him to be dangerous. And even if she mentally assents to the truth that boys need to be dangerous, she will often unconsciously sabotage the effort without a strong male figure to counteract it.
My own mother fell into this trap despite being clear-eyed.
She gave the generic advice you would expect. Act like a gentleman, in the sense of always being gentle. Open the door. Pay for dinner. Just be nice and listen.
None of these things are bad ideas, but they are woefully inadequate if they are the sum total of dating advice. It’s like asking for a recipe and getting all the measurements without ingredient names. Meaningless.
She used my father as a negative example of how not to treat a woman when dating. Every time she spoke of their first dates, it was negative. The exasperation still colored her voice even after twenty years.
At one point, my father had invited her to a football game, where his mother (and my eventual grandmother) would also be. She got there, and he had brought another woman.
He had double-booked the date!
She had to introduce herself to his mother. My dad, meanwhile, remained focused on the football game, not paying attention to the social disaster he had orchestrated.
Again, this was a negative example. I should *not* be like my dad when it comes to dating. I should not emulate him in how I treat women.
In the back of my mind, though, I was thinking: “But you ended up marrying him.”
I wouldn’t recommend being callous or following my dad’s playbook (though I still chuckle at the story). However, it does highlight that many mothers have a blind spot when it comes to their sons. As someone once said, you don’t learn how to fish by asking the fish.
They cannot have the final word when teaching how to attract women. It will give them a warped perspective and will only leave your sons frustrated.
The father should be intentional about teaching his sons how to attract women. Teaching young men how to talk to young women is also top-notch pastoral care for any church to engage in.
If you’ve been married for a while, you might have forgotten how to do it yourself. Or you don’t know how to articulate it.
Find out. It is your job to teach.
Some basics:
Work on yourself first. Get good at something masculine. Be interesting. Get strong.
Be bold and state your intentions clearly. No “so do you have a boyfriend” or “maybe…uh…you would like…”. Use the confidence you have built from the previous item.
Don’t agree just to agree. Tell the truth without shame.
Keep eye contact.
Keep eye contact. This is not a typo.
You will know if a woman wants you to talk to her. She will scream it with her body language. Learn this language.
Don’t go to bars. You’ll rarely find the type of woman you want at a bar.
Don’t try to be their friend. You know what you want. She knows what you want. Get it down to a “yes” or a “no” as soon as possible.
Women can sense desperation. Make sure you have other important things to stay busy with. Go back to the first item.
Do not give your strength to women. Find a mission and tackle it. Women will be attracted to your drive.
Most importantly, have fun.
I don't think I actually realised how much of my father had rubbed off on me until I read this article. I've always treated women the way he taught me - I would have said "instinctively", but I recognize it was nurture, not just nature.
My father was apparently dangerously handsome. So says my wife. And the fact that my sister plainly had an immense Oedipus complex, as evidenced by her two husbands who were both years older than our father, lends credence to the assertion.
Hansome is as handsome does. He was always chivalrous, attentive, kind, steadfast, loyal and helpful to everyone, but especially to women. And completely unavailable to any woman except the one whom he told, at 19, "You're not damned well going to marry anyone else" That was his way of proposing to my mother!* I didn't hear this story from him until I announced I was getting married. He asked me how I had proposed, and I said I hadn't actually done so, just taken her to the registrar's office and had her fill out some papers with me. In sales, I later discovered, this is called the presumptive close. My Dad approved. It's how men get things done.
Being gentlemanly and trustworthy, yet unavailable, gets you the pick of the worthwhile women. When you find the one that you are prepared to commit to, you don't have to ask. She will be as ready to commit as you are.
* My mother passed away exactly 1 week before their 67th anniversary. My father died 120 days later. My wife and I are coming up on our 50th.