Men Are Better With Money Than Women

It's science! This infographic shows men are better at managing money than credit. But trust me when I say, these stats go out of the window when it comes to men dating women they're attracted to. Do you know why? Ladies, do you disagree? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Women Are From Visa, Men Are From MasterCard infographic by sramzee.

Source

How Do You Get the Ideal Woman?

In my occasional snooping around on Quora, I came across this answer, by Oliver Emberton. It was later picked up by AskMen so I thought it would be good to share here. Enjoy.

Imagine how you'd feel if your dream girl said she might "settle" for you. She had someone better in mind, but he was out of reach, so with reluctance she decided you'd have to do. Belittled? Inadequate? Pathetic? Don't do that to someone else.

OK, so you want this ideal girl? Chances are she probably isn't the one you think she is -- but that doesn't mean the journey is pointless. It could be the wake-up call you need.

One of the wonderful and horrendously unfair things about being a man is you have huge opportunity to increase your own attractiveness. Whilst women tend to be judged more by their looks, men tend to be judged more by who and what they are. That's good news for you, especially with your current attitude -- the scope for improvement is likely massive.

Firstly, forget about chasing women. They don't find desperation attractive, and you need your concentration elsewhere. Notice the most attractive guys rarely if ever chase. Notice the least attractive are whiny, clingy and fawning. Don't be one of them.

Now you need to craft a personal mission to improve yourself. This will be deeply personal to you, but generally you'll want to make the most of your health, wealth, appearance, social awareness and develop a broad range of interests and skills. This is not a 20-minute exercise, and if you need one of those, you probably should go back to feeling miserable.

Some examples:

-Volunteer: give blood, teach, build a shelter
-Take a dance class
-Skydive
-Learn to cook
-Travel somewhere life-altering 
-Take up a sport and get good at it
-Join a book club
-Learn about body language and human psychology
-Seek out the best media -- music, film, books -- and develop a deep understanding of them
-Learn a magic trick
-Start a company
-Try public speaking
-Learn to dress well
-Raise money for a good cause
-Start a creative project -- like a short film, a single or a short story
​-Get a coach to help you
-Learn a musical instrument
-Make a crap-ton of money
-Run a marathon

Do something to inspire others. Do something to inspire yourself. You'll quite literally be a better person, and a damn sight more attractive. Your life should be a testament to greatness, not a self-piteous whine.

Chances are your ideal girl really isn't. It sounds like you're so attached to her as an ideal you can't see her as a person anymore, and clinging on to that thought is only making you depressed. You need to direct those energies elsewhere.

You and you alone hold the power to turn it around and make something more of yourself. Your life is your story to write -- and the hero always gets the girl.

What Are the Best Cities to Meet Women?

I recently came across an article highlighting Boston as the best place for bachelors, by statistical research. 

Here are their top 10 cities for single men,

and single women.

It’s funny how you can take different variables and one shift can make Indianapolis, Indiana the best place for guys. This is why I never buy into these things. Just look at what they qualified as a date: a 12-inch Pizza Hut pizza, movie ticket and 6-pack of Heineken. Pizza Hut? Heineken? I mean, I'm more of a Domino's and Yuengling kind of guy, but seriously? While these are great for content, they’re never accurate.

Do a simple Google search on “best places to meet women,” and look at how many different cities come up. As much as we love crunching the numbers and seeing what comes up, the truth comes down to one thing.

As much as this article says Boston is the best place to meet women, Boston serves as my biggest client base. How can it be so easy to meet women, yet so many guys look for our help?

Social skills. With the right social skills, you could go to Lincoln, Nebraska and meet any woman you’d like to date. So while these articles can serve as a point of reference, it's important to understand that while there may a ton of options available as a guy, it doesn’t mean your odds are better. You create your own odds, no matter where you live.

2013 is the Year of Trust

Now that we’re past the halfway point in January and the motivation and buzz of the new year has passed, it’s up to us to keep the momentum going throughout 2013.

The best way to start is by taking your resolution list, and burning it.

I would love to see someone take a picture / video of this.

Not only do I hate resolutions, some people are just awful at remembering their 30-item list. Just look at the dropoff of gym-goers since January 1st. The truth is, the longer the list, the more overwhelmed you'll get and less likely you'll take ACTION, let alone accomplish anything.

The important thing here is to keep things simple -- and the easiest way to do that is focus on a theme for the year. So for 2013, the theme we’ll use to guide our development and future success is TRUST.

When I asked members of the Wingman Labs (my newsletter) what they’re theme was, I got an amazing response but there was one email that stood out,

“...I think that 2013 should be the year of Trust. Trusting that the systems put in place will guide us toward success. Trusting gut instincts. Trusting friends to set us up.  Trusting that we deserve more. Trusting our [new] partner, no matter how badly we have been hurt before. Trusting that voice in the back of our mind saying it's time to call in support/professionals. Trusting that the world is a beautiful place full of love -- because, after all, we only see what we look for, and we only get what we ask for.”

For some of you, that might be too much “flower power,” but the truth is when you trust yourself, it’s hard to come short of success. In other words, doubt and skepticism for any reason other than to challenge the status quo will hold you back. This is not only important for your dating life, but for other aspects as well.

Here are three points to building trust that we’ll focus on throughout the year.

1. It starts with you 

When you focus on your own personal development and create more consistentcy in your life, you trust yourself more and project that out to people. People want to be around those they can trust. It’s imperative when building comfort with a woman you're attracted to.

2. Do what you say 

Don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk. Follow through is so important in dating, from telling someone you’re going to call them, to other levels of commitment you agree to. Being unreliable is one of the worst characteristics anyone can have.

3. Make your actions bold and assume the best in others

Speak openly, honestly without apology, and explain your reasoning. And unless she proves otherwise, assume she is trustworthy. When you see the good in people and shift focus from what you think might be bad, it makes it easier to have genuine connections with people.

Trust and risk go hand-in-hand

And yes, there is great risk in trusting -- but think about the risk in NOT trusting. When you extend trust, it becomes contagious; people extend it back to you. When you hold trust back, people tend to hold theirs back, leading to distrust.

But in order to extend trust, trust needs to originate from within. This isn’t about going into situations blind or believe everything you see / hear. This is about being smart with your judgment so you can minimize the risks you take and open up new doors filled with possibilities.

This the global theme. On Tuesday, we'll get into specifics. 

The Perfect First Date

After seeing nonsensical posts the past week about how having 3-hour first dates are OK -- I had to set the record straight on what first dates are and what you should be doing on them.

The Psychology of Social Proof

NEWS: We brought on a new writer to our team to produce great content here. His name is Jamie Bardwell and you can get to know him more on our Staff Page.

Take it away, Jamie...

One of the most fascinating psychological principles that have been shown to influence how attractive people find you is the concept of Social Proof. 

This simple, yet highly influential mechanism can help drive women to you and boost your level of attractiveness. 

What is Social Proof?

When you take a woman out, or whenever you meet female in a club or in the bar, she will be unconsciously filtering in information to gauge how other people around are reacting to you. If the people around you respond to you in a positive way, this provides her with social proof that you are worthy of her time, and increases her attraction to you. 

Based on this cognitive bias, it's more likely that women will find the same guy more attractive if he is talking with a group of people and having a great time as opposed to standing there on his own. 

At an unconscious level, she is judging your general impact on your social surroundings. She's gauging whether other people are pleased to be around you, and your level of integration and engagement with other people, and whether they're eager to interact with you in return. 

If other people regard you in a positive light, you are creating what's known as a positive social proof effect! That is, people are responding positively to you in the environment, which leads everybody else to adopt a similar perspective (without ever having to talk to you or meet you), purely based on the opinions of others in the environment.

In attraction terms, creating a positive social proof effect and interacting with others around you substantially increases the likelihood of women finding you attractive, and can dramatically increase your success with women. 

“Generate the "social proof" effect, no matter where you are.” Tweet this.

How to generate a social proof effect … 

You should always be looking for opportunities to engage with other people in the environment, and across different situational contexts. It doesn't matter if they are male or female; the idea is to get a strong social impact by engaging people near you. 

There are no limits to how you can create a social proof effect. If you're in a bar, you might want to create small talk with the bar staff and bouncers. If you're on a nightclub dance floor, and you see a group of people doing the same dance, cheekily copy their dance moves! 

Imagine you’re at a bar and a group in front of you orders a tray of shots…. 

You     -  "Hey guys what shots are they, I don’t think I’ve tried them before" 

Group - "They're a mixture of different ones, sambuca, apple sours & jager" 

You     -  "What's that green one? I've never tried that before but it looks tasty as hell"

Group -  "You gotta try it, it's the nicest one"

You     -  "Thanks for your advice, I’m gonna order myself one of those! If it's disgusting, you guys owe me a drink!" *smiles

Creating a positive social proof effect can take many forms, and requires that you adapt to the demands of the situation. Be on the lookout for ways you can communicate with people in the context. Particularly, if people know who you are and you have a reputation in certain places (it doesn’t have to be bars or nightclubs), providing it's a positive reputation, this can create the desired social proof effect. 

Overall, social proof is an important factor that can significantly enhance your success with women at a subconscious level, and provide women with a certain degree of confidence about your social nature, which cognitively biases their judgment of you beyond their conscious awareness. If others find you a blast to be around, and there is enough evidence stemming from our people’s perceptions of you that you’re a great guy, your chances of success will skyrocket! 

5 Keys to a First Date

There are a lot of rules and guidelines for successful first dates.

Instead of reading through all the nonsense, I will just tell you the 5 things that are most important to remember.

Never do dinner as a first date

It baffles me to this day why guys continue to believe dinner dates are great first dates.

Dinner dates set up two things: 

1. An obligation of her time. Knowing that she HAS to stay a specific amount of time, she’ll feel pressured to stay longer than she may want to and immediately puts her in a different mindset. 

2. An obligation of your money, where dinner dates cost an average of $140. If you’re lucky enough to have 2-3 first dates a week, that adds up VERY quickly.

The first date is really about getting to know each other and building on physical chemistry. 

It is not about how much money you have to throw around. This also begs the question of why would you invest so much in a woman you don’t even know.

First dates generally should be just two people having drinks in a fun environment. This allows the two of you to focus on each other and not worrying if you’re practicing good dining etiquette.

And yes, guys, the same rule applies here: pick up the tab on the drinks.

PRO TIP: If you had a good time, let her know you’ll pick up this round and she’ll get the next one.” Her reaction will be a great way to gauge her interest for a second date.

“It baffles me to this day why guys continue to believe dinner dates are great first dates.” Tweet this.

First date expectations are set by how you ask her out

The word “date” sounds very formal, and although there are some women who like to hear the word, it creates expectations that build unnecessary pressure for you.

Instead, say, “I’d love to take you out for a drink (notice the singular in “drink.”) [add date and other specifics],” or if you want to be even more casual, “let’s get together for a drink...”

In context of a good conversation with a woman that’s attracted to you, it works well and comes out perfectly natural.

Do not meet up with friends, whether hers or yours

Never agree to this kind of date, nor set your date as such. All this says is, “I don’t value you enough to give you time alone with me.”

If she really likes you, she’ll make time to be alone with you. It’s as simple as that.

Friday and Saturday night first dates are not recommended

Most people go out on Friday and Saturday nights so any place you’d like to take her will likely be crowded and noisy, making it hard to connect with her.

Also, these are what I consider “high-value” nights, where most will have plans to go out, hang with friends, and even hope to meet someone. These dates are very important to those people and will typically not want to sacrifice them for someone they don’t know, no matter how exciting they may be about the date.

Your best bet is to set up a date any other day. Personally, my favorite nights are Thursdays and Tuesdays. Expectations will be more realistic and you won’t need to be full of “party-style” energy in order to match the environment you would on a weekend night.

Take her to a place that is comfortable and on the quieter side

On first dates, the environment should hint at some intimacy. This will better allow you two to find out if there’s a “spark.”

Good places to take your date are venues that are on the smaller side, have some charm (artwork, a rustic ambiance, etc.), and doesn’t play terribly loud music.

Guys always ask me what’s the ideal seating arrangement for first dates. The answer is simple. You want to be sitting next to her, not across. This is one of a million reasons why dinner dates are so awful.

Ideally, it would be great to sit on a couch but if that’s not an option, sitting together at the bar is fine.

You want to focus on being interesting and interested on the date and you don’t want the environment to distract you from those two things.

Remember, if she’s going out on a date with you, she’s already attracted to you -- that’s one battle won. There’s no need to go out of your way to impress her. This date is ONLY about you two getting to know each other and deciding if a future is promising.