Find Love

A guide to finding love

Some aspects of our complex twisting existence can really ruin your day to day well-being. Things that can make you never want to get up in the morning again. Never want to have to work again, never have to face the world again. Never have to do anything but lie there, in our own silence and self pity. The worst offenders which I will be specifically talking about, are those parts of our lives which relate to and are driven by our most basic instinctual needs, such as sex, food and social prowess.

Since we are here to give advice, I have no doubt some of you are expecting the standard motivational bullshit speel; something along the lines of this --> Life doesn't have to ever be complicated or painful and if you follow the information enclosed within, you can avoid all the pitfalls of being human. If that was what you were thinking then we can forgive you, but this isn't one of those bullshit you-can-do-anything self help manuals. Life sucks sometimes!

The very nature of your existence as a complex human being means things are going to get difficult from time to time. In fact there are probably going to be moments in your life that are going to make you want to take a five story face plant onto concrete, or when inserting your head into a fast moving piece of metal machinery is going to look appealing (not recommended). No one can change that for you.  As a good friend of mine once said to me, as my mother was dying of cancer, 'sometimes life likes to hide around the corner, wait until your innocently walking by, then jump out and punch you in the face, just for the fun of it. All you can do is pick yourself up and keep on walking.'  He always was a heartless bastard, but at the end of the day he was right.

Not completely though. What you can do, is use your brain to prevent more than a few of those painfull hits and perhaps even score some points yourself. I'm talking about using using the information below to make aspects of your life which don't have to be difficult, so much easier. There are many parts of life which really don't have to be as hard as everyone would have you believe, if you know your stuff!

The stuff I'm talking about is something most people don't know a whole lot of detail about (beyond GCSE level anyway). Yeah, don't close the page, steel yourself and take a deep breath... Because I'm talking about science. Not just that, but I'm saying knowing about certain parts of it, will change your life in a pretty huge way.

Just a quick rundown- science is behind every part of you life. On a base level, it influences every aspect of your personality, it will play a role in the decision as to wether you get that job you just went for, and wether the attractive girl you see across the room in the club is going to tell you to get lost if you go and say hello. I'm not even remotley kidding.
 If this news dismays you, because you think you dislike science, stop. Stop being dismayed. Honestly, what I'm going to show you is not complicated, and the level of success you experience in so many aspects of your future existence depend on your understanding of these simple aspects of biology, psychology, chemistry and sociology.
Don't panic. I'm not going to bombard you with degree level jargon, or fill your mind with useless facts you don't need to know. What I am going to do is demonstrate that, if you keep science in mind, even the most challenging parts of life really can be made so much easier. Love, sex, your body, your job, your mind....

Welcome to the life schematic.

Finding Love: Stage one - Ground Work.

I'm starting with sex because at the end of the day, that is what your 'biological existance' boils down to. Your primary function according to the science which rules you, is to reproduce. To spread your genes (or receive genes) as often and from as many individuals as physically possible, to not only achieve the highest number of offspring, but to produce the highest quality descendants.

Luckily (or unluckily for some) due to the formation of a morally defined society we don't just go around bashing each other like monkeys anymore...but this can lead to a problem. Sex has, for some, become illusive - especially those who are under confident, and even more so if they are male.

In this section, I will cover how to find sex, without the use of ladies of the night...or numbers scrawled on the walls of public toilets. I will divide the section up into two main segments, and within each there will be one general and one specific category.

Segment one: the girl you've had your eye on (a relationship).

Segment two: the girl you are yet to meet (one night stands).

The general part is going to be called 'groundwork' and will be the same for both segments so I will cover that first. The specific part is going to be called implementation and will, as I'm sure you've realised be the part that changes between scenarios.

Basically groundwork is the stuff you need to do to prepare yourself generally, and implementation is the work you will have to so for the specific situation/girl. 

Groundwork          And        Implementation 

Both being very important.

Groundwork

First of all, before I enter into the ins and outs of getting (or not as the case may be) that girl of your dreams, I will make an apology for the slight sexist air this article may convey, as it will primarily cater for the 18+ average male. I have no doubt that women need as much help as men in our multi-faceted and highly complex society, but as a psychologist/neuroscientist who predominantly studied cases with men as the primary unit of action (the one who's doing all the chasing basically) I will mainly focus on these kinds of situations.

Ok, so with that out of the way lets get on with your groundwork. These are small changes to your personality which will make you vastly more successful in most aspects of attracting women. Therefore, to start off with, let’s consider your biggest asset, which is something in most males that needs a little T.L.C before its ready to go. No, stop looking down, I don’t mean your little brain. I’m talking about your confidence.

True confidence can and will make up for almost any physical imperfections you may have ß That is quite possibly the most important sentence in this whole article. Read it at least three times to make sure it goes in.

It is without a doubt the most critical features of who you are, and attracts women on both conscious and sub conscious levels. If your clean and well groomed, being confident with who you are and how you look can often be enough to win over women into giving you a shot, even if they don’t think you are that physically attractive. How do you think ‘ugly’ average men attract very appealing women (apart from money and power), its confidence.

To further emphasise this, look at people who are under confident. Under confidence is not attractive and can often, through a nervous biological response, lead to awkward situations which are ultimately off-putting. Even the unconscious body posture of someone who is under confident can be picked up subconsciously by a woman, and act as a deterrent for progression. Further more, lack of direct eye contact, which is a very common symptom of the under confident, can subconsciously suggest untrustworthiness to the female in question, reducing chances of success even more.

There is a biological reason behind this too, programmed into us back at the start of our existence as a social species. Very loosely it can be described in terms of under confidence relating to fear. Fearful (under confident) individuals were less successful hunting and so females were programmed that more confident (less fearful) individuals were more successful providers, and therefore better mates.

Although this is just one possible reason why women still prefer a confident man today, all theories agree that confidence is hugely important in attracting mates.

The above also highlights a cautionary point though, back in deep time totally fearless individuals never reproduced, as they were too busy getting killed by the first tiger they stood up to (while everyone else was running in the opposite direction). You too should not aim to become overconfident.  Everyone knows arrogance is not pretty, and can often lead to  (but inversely, can be useful on the right woman).

A truly confident but mediocre looking man will be more successful with women than a handsome but shy male.

There are two kinds of confidence for the prupose of attractive females. True confidence, the most vaulable, and pseudo confidence, less vaulable but hugley important in the long run. You cannot become more confident over night, almost no one

Now we know confidence is key, it is time to consider how to build confidence effectively. It probably won't surprise you to hear that true confidence cannot be grown over night, and the older you are the more difficult to develop it can be. This is where acknowledging how the two forms of confidence differ is important.

Most individuals who don't display true confidence though can utilise a form of pseudo confidence in order to compete tasks which require leadership or convincing of others. This form of confidence can be detected by raised levels of anxiety when approaching social situations (but still going through with them), some unexpected verbal stammering or mind emptiness in social situations and second guessing of ideas especially those involving others.

True confidence, which is totally natural to the individual is usually rare within the average suburban population. It is most commonly displayed by those who are successful in life and who often achieve their own personal idea of happiness. It is associated with few or no anxieties when dealing with aspects of life like new social situations and making high dependancy decisions the outcome of which may also affect others.

Simplistically though, it is most likely you as the reader will have no trouble identifying which category you fall into, true or pseudo confidence wise. The above methods of detecting your own category are extremely general and can be replaced accurately with a simple question for most people. Would you feel completely comfortable walking up to a stranger of the opposite sex and striking up a conversation? If so, congratulations you have true confidence. If not, you have pseudo confidence. Don't worry though, follow this guide and you will still have a good chance of getting that girl of your dreams.

Changing your confidence - Step One

There has been some debate for the past decade or so whether true confidence is genetically determined before the individual is even born, or whether it is a learned behaviour due to the environment the person develops in. I believe it is likely to be a result of the two factors combined, and studies have shown even those with a very low baseline confidence can be taught to develop high levels of self assurance even in social situations.

There are two steps to becoming more confident and even changing your confidence type. First, you have to identify what is stopping you being truly confident. This is key, most people have one or two reasons which hold them back and prevent then from being truly confident. The second, once the reasons behind your current under confidence have been identified and dealt with, you have to begin practising in situations which require you to push your current confidence to the limit. I'm going to call this action.

Identification - What is holding you back?

For the vast majority of people reading this it will be one of two things. The first is a poor body image. The second is the fear of embarrassment (or rejection).

Negative body image is something which causes problems for many people. Today's media based society teaches you from an early age exactly what is beautiful and therefore how you should aspire to be. Anyone who does not meet the defined criteria is not 'hot', and so must therefore be ugly.

You need to ignore the vast majority of this. While listening to some of the deeper undertones is still important (being obese is not attractive, while being fit and healthy is), aspiring to become a bodybuilding man-mountain to look like an underwear model may be an unrealistic way of completing your goals (getting that girl you want),

Luckily though biology is here to save the day. Even the most attractive men won't be visually pleasing to every woman on the planet. Each woman's taste in men is individual, governed not just by the environment in which she grows up, but by her genes too. So while one girl may find you totally unattractive, another my think you are quite literally perfect. No matter how you look there is a girl out there for you, if you know what you’re doing.

First things first, you need to look in the mirror, and accept how you look. If anyone else is going to accept how you look, you have to first. A little love for yourself will not go amiss! The old saying has it spot on, if you want someone to love you, you have to love yourself first. I know me sat here writing that so flippantly seems unfair, especially if you have a list of things you hate about yourself, but listen to this…

            In a study a colleague of mine ran, which investigating perception of self and physical flaws (how you perceive yourself in a more negative light than others do), it was clearly demonstrated that the physical imperfections you believe you have – wont be noticed by others in eighty percent of occasions. Yes, eighty percent. To further reinforce this, when asked to grade how serve the imperfection was, the twenty percent who did noticed it, always rated it far less sever than those who had the imperfection did. Basically, you are your harshest critic. That imperfection which is holding you back – stopping you being confident – a) isn’t going to be noticed by eighty percent of people who you meet and b) even if they do notice, they are going to be far, far less bothered than you are. So why are you letting it ruin your chances?

Interestingly enough, the study also found that people who considered themselves to make multiple imperfections, had no increased chance of any imperfection being noticed. It was still just twenty percent.

Take this story as an example. About a year ago, I was out in a club with my friends the heartless bastard and the nameless man. After a particularly brutal rejection from a tall, very sexy blonde beauty, heartless bastard wandered over and clapped his hand on my shoulder while saying, ''ahh dont worry matey, she probably had an ugly pussy anyway!'' before wandering off. I wasn't really listening to him at the time, but I knew he didnt mean her cat. I spent the next half hour still reeling from the harsh emotional shoot down I'd just experienced.
Funnily enough though, a few hours, drinks and some seriously ridiculous dancing later I found myself  climbing out of a taxi, in front of my house, with that very tall blonde hottie on my arm. I still to this day don't remember quite how it happens. What I do remember though, is that heartless bastard was right, kind of, in that certainly she didn't have a porn star pussy, and when it came to getting it out she was obviously a little embarrassed. Now I've seen it all before, so it didn't bother me in the slightest - - her vagina that is, but the awkwardness she started to exude quickly both made me notice her vagina more, and became a major buzz kill for the mood! If she hadn't have been so self concious, and gave less of a crap about what I was thinking, the whole night together would have gotten off to a much better start.
The point I'm making is that everyone has imperfections, but if you are really confident in yourself people will be less inclined to look for them, and may even ignore them completely.

Don’t let your own paranoia hold you back.

Second of all, you have to accept this: Some women are going to like how you look, some aren't. it's a simple fact of life. You just have to trust me when I say; no matter how ugly you think you are, if you are confident (even on the outside) there is a girl who will disagree totally with all of your body issues and will want to do anything to make you happy.

Trust me and you will succeed.

That said...to give yourself the best chance, there is something I would recommend that anyone change about themselves before trying to find the woman of their dreams. The same thing I hinted at above, and that is your weight. If you are very underweight, or are very overweight you should try and bring yourself back into the normal range. At the end of the day, many more women agree that a defined shapely body is more attractive than a fat/very skinny body. If you need advice on loosing/gaining weight, we will be lecturing on the subject in the few weeks to come. Watch this space.

Fear/fear of embarrassment, is the second most common problem which stops a person from being truly confident. As human beings we are programmed to live socially in groups, and therefore, some degree of consideration concerning what other people may be thinking of you is important. Unfortunately in modern day society, this has gone beyond a useful hint- if everyone is looking at you like your a looney, your probably doing something you shouldn’t be- and it has been taken to the extreme, with people highly concerned how others are perceiving their actions/appearance even within every-day totally inconspicuous acts, such as a trip to the shops.

What the random stranger stood behind you in the que thinks, has become very important in the past decade, to the point now women (and men) cannot leave the house without applying make up (or other personal grooming products) even for the most simple of tasks. 

Placing less emphasis on what others think is a key part of becoming more confident. Remember, even if you make an idiot of yourself in front of every person you now at this current moment in time, moving to another town and making a whole new circle of friends is extremely possible. Fear of saying something wrong, or that is considered stupid holds many people back, making them shier and more reclusive than they actually are. Why should you care what people think of you? There are VERY few situations in life in which you cant literally just turn around and walk away. This premise will be important later, because when going to talk to a girl – if everything goes down the pan, just admit your rubbish at chatting people up and bail! You will probably get at least smile.

Let go of being afraid. More than enough studies have shown that even the most under confident amongst you can become more forward and let go of the fear of social embarrassment.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not condoning you becoming a fat slob. I’m defiantly not saying that you should ignore all parts of what others think all the time and having a clean appearance helps make a solid first impression which your confidence can build on. Part of loving yourself, which I said is so important above, is maintaining a personal grooming regime that pays respect to your body, and allows you to look your best when it matters! If your hair is out if place one day, or your looking a little rough today who cares. That girl that just walked past isn't going to, the likelihood of you seeing her again, no matter how attractive she was is oh so slim.

Even if you find yourself in a situation where you think your appearance matters, and you might look a little rough, forget about it, acting like it doesn’t matter to you, will make it matter less to others.

Remember, even if the worst conceivable situation happens, making a fool out of yourself is only very temporary, going for it and actually asking a girl out/chatting a girl up is always worth the gamble (if you've put in the right ground work). The moral of the story is simple, stop worrying about what others think. You will live longer and be happier in general!

To round up:

-         Your confidence is everything; work out what is holding you back!

§         Learn to love yourself – forget the imperfections you think you have. No one else notices them!

§         Place less emphasis on what others thing – why should you care?

-         Next time (In a few days) I will cover how to improve your confidence, and then move onto the implementation stages of segment one and two.