15 min read ⌚ 

Attract Women Through Honesty

Want to attract more women?

Then forget all about PUA artists and every single piece of advice you’ve ever read written by them.

At least according to Mark Manson, there’s a much simpler trick – which is not even a trick.

All you need to attract women is honesty, and that’s true regardless of the type of woman.

Hell, you can even date Models this way!

Who Should Read “Models”? And Why?

If you want to “a detailed guide to modern sexual interactions” (The Sydney Morning Herald), but you can’t stand the tone or the misogyny inside those manosphere manuals (such as The Game, The Rational Male, The Art of Seduction or No More Mr. Nice Guy), then Models is the book for you.

This one’s much more women-friendly, and, according to Mark Manson himself, most of it can be used by both female and LGBTQI readers, since its core principles “apply to all human beings, regardless of gender, orientation, genitalia or whatever.”

About Mark Manson

Mark Manson is an American blogger, entrepreneur, and bestselling author.

Two years after graduating from Boston University with a degree in finance in 2007, Manson started his first blog as a marketing channel for his dating service business.

However, that all changed in 2011 after he self-published through Amazon a dating advice book titled Models. Even though with no marketing, no publicity, and no promotion, word of mouth made the book a tremendous hit, and by early 2012, Manson was earning enough to make a living as an author.

So, he quit coaching and focused solely on his writing; after substantially revising Models for three different editions, in 2016, Manson published The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, his second book, and yet another bestseller.

Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope should come out next year; we eagerly await it.

Find out more at https://markmanson.net/.

Book Summary

Just like The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck is Mark Manson’s no-nonsense reaction to the impracticability and deceitfulness of the self-help publishing industry, Models is his scathing attack on the dishonesty and deceptiveness of the pick-up artist community and its core values and ideas.

Self-described as “the most mature and honest guide on how a man can attract women without faking behavior, without lying, and without emulating others,” Models is not a book of tricks or shortcuts.

It is a book that strives to teach you how to become everything that your innate attractiveness potential promises that you can be and, thus, become a catch for the women recognizing it.

And when you think about it, would you like to be treated honestly and not appear needy?

Part I: Reality

Chapter 1: Non-Neediness

One of the first rules of attractiveness according to Mark Manson is this:

A man’s attractiveness is inversely proportional to how needy he is. The less needy he is, the more attractive he will be to women on average. The needier he is, the less attractive he will be to women on average.

And if you need a definition of neediness, it is “when a man places a higher priority on others’ perceptions of him than his perception of himself.”

In practice, this means that you are needy if you alter your feelings, thoughts, and motivations (aka the degree of investment) in relation to the woman you want to get.

It simply implies that you are willing to betray yourself and the things you stand for in exchange for something else.

As a rule of thumb, “You should not be willing to sacrifice your thoughts, feelings, and motivations for someone else more than they sacrifice theirs for you.”

It’s basic evolution, in the end: women were forced by the gritty reality of the past hundred thousand years to choose the men who control their destiny, the men unfazed by the threats posed to them.

If you were a woman, after all, who would you choose: the man described above, or the one who can’t stand up for himself and whose emotions are dictated by those around him?

Yeah, I think we all have an answer right there.

So the next time you feel urged to do something about how you present yourself to the world, think twice if it is worth it to adjust based on other people’s expectations.

Chapter 2: Power in Vulnerability

Most people today associate vulnerability with weakness, despite the fact that Brené Brown has spent years and years demonstrating the very opposite.

And that is especially true in the case of men!

However, Mark Manson subverts this narrative: the more vulnerable you’re willing to be, the more powerful you can become, he says.

Think of it this way:

All the things that matter – whether banal such as saying a joke that may not be funny or serious such as expressing an unpopular opinion you feel to be true – require you to stick your neck out on the line emotionally in some way.

In other words, you’re making yourself vulnerable when you do these things.

Needless to add, you’re making yourself even more vulnerable when you’re telling a woman you like her and want to date her.

Now, you can listen to all those PUAs and act all aloof when you do that; in the short term, it may work, and you may get the girl.

But bear in mind: you didn’t even get off to a good start with her!

That was not you at the very beginning since you chose to suppress your emotions so as not to be hurt; however, in the long run, that means that you will never be able to build a healthy relationship with this girl.

The foundations are all wrong.

To become more vulnerable, you need to become more attuned to your emotions and more accepting of the fact that you might get hurt quite a few times.

However, with time, you’ll not only develop the right attitude but also grow into a healthy individual in touch with his own feelings and emotions.

Win-win.

Chapter 3: The Gift of Truth

Now, the whole idea behind the very existence of PUAs presupposes that dating is nothing short of a game that can be rigged – if you know how.

Mark Manson thinks otherwise: as you know full well from experience, you’re never the only one who knows how to bend the rules.

In other words, if you’re cheating during a game and winning, then you’re either probably playing with someone who’s (for better or worse) not in your league (no, that’s not a compliment if you follow!) or, quite probably, you’re about to be cheated yourself out of success in a more profound manner.

Neil Strauss’ second book – coincidentally titled The Truth and published four years after Models – proved Manson right.

The point?

If you’re in it for the sex and you’re comfortable with turning your love life into an endless series of meaningless one-night stands, then you need nothing but the PUA community to guide you.

However, if you’re planning on finding a woman, you’ll be able to talk to and sleep next to, then how on earth is a lie going to get you there?

In time, vulnerable men mature enough to be able to accept one of the most uncomfortable truths of life: namely, that “with most of the women you meet, things are simply not going to work no matter what you do or say.”

But that’s fine, notes Manson:

Incompatibility is a fact of life. No matter how you behave or what you’re into, the majority of women out there at any given time are simply not going to be interested or emotionally available to you. Our job is not to attract every woman, but to screen for women with a high potential of being attracted to who we really are.

Part II: Strategy

Chapter 4: Polarization

Full honesty, writes Mark Manson, is polarizing.

But to understand that sentence you need first to know that there are three categories of women: Unreceptive, Neutral, and Receptive.

Women who are Unreceptive are “unavailable and/or uninterested in having a sexual/romantic relationship with you.”

Neutral women are those who don’t offer or reciprocate themselves, while not necessarily turning down your offers.

Finally, Receptive women who are sexually/romantically attracted to you.

Now back to the first sentence of this chapter summary.

True honesty, according to Mark Manson, transforms Neutral women and makes them either Unreceptive or Receptive.

Regardless of what anyone would tell you – especially PUAs – both are good. “Rejection exists for a reason,” writes Manson, “it’s a means to keep people apart who are not good for each other.”

In other words, if you lie your way through the receptiveness of a neutral woman, you’ll just be wasting your time, because, well, it’s not you that she’s attracted to.

If you’re honest, it’s a win-win: even if you’re rejected, you’ll know that it’s because the real you is incompatible with the real her:

The percentage of women who are Receptive to you will increase proportionally to the quality of your lifestyle, your social status, and your looks. The percentage of women that you’re able to move from Neutral to Receptive will be proportional to how good your ‘game’ is, or how well you’re able to communicate and express yourself with women. And your ability to sort through each type of women and meet as many as possible will be determined by how fearless and bold you are when it comes to meeting women.

Chapter 5: Rejection and Success

“I see every rejection simply as some form of incompatibility,” writes Manson in the fifth chapter of Models, once again highlighting one of the main ideas of the book:

Whether she thinks I’m a total creep, or she’s crazy about me, but we live on different continents, or she’s in a horrible mood when I ask her out, or she thinks I’m cute but has different values and interests than me — whatever the reason, if a woman ever rejects me, it’s because she’s not compatible with me. It may be a permanent incompatibility. It may be a temporary incompatibility. But the point is that if she liked me enough, she’d be willing to work at making it happen with me. And if she doesn’t, then that just means it’s wrong person — or right person, wrong time. And that’s fine.

Indeed, it is when you think about that: that life is too short to spend it with the wrong people.

In more ways than one, you should be more than happy that there exist such things as rejections!

Chapter 6: The Three Fundamentals

The Three Fundamentals of Attraction – i.e., “the three ways in which a man can become more vulnerable and become less needy” – are the following:

• Honest Living: Creating an attractive and enriching lifestyle.
• Honest Action: Overcoming your fears and anxiety around socializing, intimacy, and sexuality.
• Honest Communication: Mastering the expression of your emotions and communicating fluidly.

Manson spends the rest of the book to explore each of these in detail.

Part III: Honest Living

Chapter 7: Demographics

First of all, says Mark Manson, let’s get one thing straight: “Age, money, and looks matter — in some cases a lot, in other cases, not a lot, but they still matter. And anyone who tells you that they don’t matter is lying.”

But secondly, neither of them matters nearly as much as most men think.

First of all, age.

Studies have shown that while women’s attractiveness peaks at 21, men’s physical attractiveness peaks a decade later, at 31; moreover, the average 45-year-old is still considered as physically attractive as the average 18-year-old!

In other words: men, consider yourself more than happy! Fortunately for you, women usually judge a man’s status on style, grooming and how he presents himself; so, thanks to the fact that women are less shallow than men, you have much more time than the gentler sex.

Moving on to money.

Once again, it’s important because it reveals one’s status; so, its importance gradually increases with age; also, money is an important factor in the mind of many women who have spent their childhoods in poverty.

As for looks: interestingly enough, it tends to be valued most by women who only have good looks.

And this is the general truth: “Women who only care about things such as looks and money,” writes Manson, “are usually going to be women who you’re not going to be interested in or who are not going to make you happy.”

Why?

Because they have no other interests.

So, you’re not missing out on much.

Chapter 8: Lifestyle and Presentation

As we implied above, women and men judge attractiveness differently.

Men judge female beauty by physical traits first, personality and presentation second; most women, on the other hand, prefer personality and presentation to physical attractiveness.

That’s why Mark Manson dedicates the entirety of Chapter 8 to sharing a few important pieces of advice on how to present yourself.

The topics this chapter covers are quite a few and the suggestions for each are just too many and too straightforward for us to be able to summarize them in brief.

We’ll give you a list of the former so that you know where to look if you need a specific type of advice:

• Fashion and fitness
• Body language
• Vocal tonality
• Developing character
• Bringing it all together

Part IV: Honest Action

Chapter 9: What Are Your Stories?

As Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung discovered about a century ago, in a way, we are the stories we tell ourselves.

And as numerous psychologists have demonstrated in the meantime, these stories usually share one defining characteristic: they exist to protect the status quo, to safeguard our emotional inertia.

Put more simply: they are our defense mechanisms, the way our adaptive unconscious helps us to cope with disappointments and rejections.

This, naturally, comes with a price: we constantly change, and we don’t know it.

The good part?

We have the power to change these stories and open ourselves to being more vulnerable and, thus, more attractive.

Chapter 10: How to Overcome Anxiety

The stories we tell ourselves – “I’m too good for this girl,” “I’ve been with prettier ones” – should essentially help us overcome our anxiety.

However, the needier we are, the less this succeeds: anxiety, according to Manson, stems from our unwillingness to open up to the world and be vulnerable.

Manson’s main suggestion on how to overcome your anxiety is not really that different from the suggestion you’ll hear from every single psychotherapist with at least some basic education.

Namely, do not run away from your fear: embrace it.

Because, no matter what anyone tells you, you can’t escape from it; you can only integrate it within your existence.

Part V: Honest Communication

Chapter 11: Your Intentions

Any honest communication begins with honest intentions.

“Your ability to connect with a woman emotionally,” writes Manson, “is proportional to how self-aware you are of your own emotional processes and motivations.”

Ultimately, self-awareness and vulnerability are the things women want most in men – especially if the men are a bit rugged at the beginning

That’s the archetype according to none other than Jordan Peterson: the Beauty and the Beast, “the taming of the wild man by the desirable and virginal woman.”

Peterson mentions 50 Shades of Grey as an example, but Manson goes a step further: all romance novels, he says, share the exact same pattern.

“This is more or less the blueprint of seduction,” he goes on, “strong, high status, attractive exterior (lifestyle and looks), fearless, and able to open up and share your vulnerable side with her.”

Apparently, “women get weak in the knees” for this.

And you can achieve it in three steps:

• Become aware of your emotions and motivations;
• Take the lead and be the first one who’ll share them;
• May your stories become more and more personal over time.

She’ll share her stories with you in no time.

And that’s an emotional connection at its best.

The best part?

It’s honest!

Chapter 12: How to Improve Your Flirting

By his own admission, this chapter grants a whole book in itself, so Manson merely glosses over the most important aspects of flirting here.

He points out – yet again – that first impressions matter and that startling or scaring someone upon approach is “the only death knell for approaching women.”

He then advises men to use effective language and statements instead of questions, in addition to revealing how to spin out endless conversation topics out of anything a woman might say.

Finally, he moves on to storytelling, the basics of emotional connection, and caps his discussion on flirting with – what else? – a few pieces of advice on good vs. bad humor.

Chapter 13: The Dating Process

“Like it or not,” writes Manson in the first paragraph of this chapter, the dating process follows a somewhat rigid line.”

In particular: “boy meets girl, asks girl on date, corresponds with girl, sets up date with girl, corresponds with girl, sets up second date with girl, repeat until eventually you bring girl home with you, and at some point you decide if you’re exclusive, non-exclusive, a casual couple, fuck buddies, soul-mates, or never want to see each other ever again.”

Manson covers all of the stages here, but mostly focuses on the process of exchanging phone numbers and the strategies for a perfect date.

As far as the latter is concerned, he advises a lot of interactive activities and changing venues. So, basically, not unlike Ted’s super date on How I Met Your Mother.

That you should be the one organizing it all and making all the moves is a given.

Chapter 14: Physicality and Sex

This book was always going to end with a discussion about sex, wasn’t it?

We won’t go too deep into this one topic – pun unintended – but suffice to say that Manson remains consistent throughout his whole book with regards to his core principles, and this chapter is no exception.

So, don’t be afraid to go for it: if you’re wrong in your analysis of her signals, you’ll be rejected which is (once again!) much better than thinking “what could have been.”

Also: be confident and generous, but, above all, be dominant:

When it comes to sex, more important than any physical technique — some cool angle or position or whatever — is being dominant. Sexual gratification for women is far more psychological than it is physical, whereas for men it’s mostly physical. A large component of this psychological satisfaction comes from being dominated and surrendering control. Women like to feel like you have the power and the control in the bedroom. They want you to be assertive and strong with what you want.

Here are Manson’s four suggestions on how to become dominant in bed:

• Be loud. Make noise. Grunt. Breathe hard.
• Talk dirty, even if it is outside your comfort zone.
• Get physical, picking her up and moving her yourself.
• Don’t ever ask “Is this OK? Do you want to do X?” That’s a big turn off.

Key Lessons from “Models”

1.      Be Vulnerable, But Never Needy
2.      Truth Polarizes – So Be Honest
3.      The Three Fundamentals of Attractiveness

Be Vulnerable, But Never Needy

“A man’s attractiveness is inversely proportional to how needy he is” – that’s the first rule in Mark Manson’s dating advice book.

In other words, if you want to be attractive, don’t act needy.

Be vulnerable instead.

This doesn’t mean acting weak; it merely means putting your neck out there, exposing yourself and your true emotions, and risking being hurt.

Because that’s how you grow and develop into an attractive mature man.

Truth Polarizes – So Be Honest

There are three types of women: unreceptive, neutral, and receptive.

The former are the ones who won’t return your advances, while the latter the ones who do; the middle ones are those who neither accept them nor turn you down.

When you’re honest about your feelings, you are polarizing the woman you share them with.

In other words, you’re either making her unreceptive or receptive.

Either way, it is great, since rejection exists for a reason. It’s nature’s way of telling you that you’re incompatible with someone.

And life is too short to spend it on people you’re incompatible with.

The Three Fundamentals of Attractiveness

The Three Fundamentals of Attraction are “the three ways in which a man can become more vulnerable and become less needy.”

These are:

• Honest Living: Creating an attractive and enriching lifestyle.
• Honest Action: Overcoming your fears and anxiety around socializing, intimacy, and sexuality.
• Honest Communication: Mastering the expression of your emotions and communicating fluidly.

Like this summary? We’d like to invite you to download our free 12 min app for more amazing summaries and audiobooks.

“Models Quotes”

Our Critical Review

As we said in the Introduction, Manson’s Models is far more honest and far less misogynistic than most of the dating advice books targeted at men and written during the past two decades.

However, it still resorts to quite a few dubious evolutionary explanations, and it still pictures women as subconsciously submissive beings who can’t rise above their innate desire to mate with a civilized beast. And that’s neither fair nor true.Even so, Manson’s Models, with its insistence on vulnerability and truthfulness, should certainly help many men become more attractive, and many women – less disappointed in men.

Emir Zecovic

Emir is the Head of Marketing at 12min. In his spare time, he loves to meditate and play soccer.