Sorry for spamming your site with virtually the same kind of “I agree with you” comments, but I feel that I should say something about this.

I am 100% convinced that this strategy is right, at least for me (probably it is right for most people, but it sounds nicer to add an in my humble opinion shield). The main reason you have already stated, i.e. that if you try to attract girls (or boys) by being someone else than the person that you are deep down, you will end up with the wrong partner. You would like to meet someone who really likes you, not who likes someone you only pretend to be.

Besides, I think most people are expert at spotting a divide between true personality and a faked facade. I can use myself as some sort of extremely limited empirical evidence, but I have never really tried to meet girls, but over the past seven years, I have only been single about a year (and no, I am not very good looking or anything like that). I believe that sooner or later I will get noticed because of who I am and it seems to work so far.

However, there is a slight catch. You have to expose yourself to girls for this to work. If you on average meet complete strangers once a week under favourable conditions (parties, for instance), I would say that is enough. What I tend to do is meet a lot of people I already know, which sucks if I want a girlfriend (yes, please). So, my solution is a two-step one:

1) Be yourself and like it
2) Expose yourself to people

damn, i hate to just contribute a “me too” comment, but i really have nothing else to add. that was spot on perfect.

Hey guys.

Don’t worry, the “me too” comments are more than welcome. :) It’s good to know that people enjoy what I write, and helps fuel the fire for future articles.

@Snigel:

Yes, you make a great point. There is some “trying” involved in meeting women, and that is the effort, not to try to meet people per se, but to bring your inner and outer worlds into alignment. So, when you’re brain is saying “Man, that girl looks like a dream come true.”, the challenge is not to even care what to do to get her attracted to you, but to ask yourself: Will you be authentic and follow through on your desires by approaching her?

Most guys just starting out at this stuff will fear the rejection, which will give them approach anxiety. But once you get into the mindset that the only effort you need to expend is the effort to be yourself and let social polarity handle the rest, you’re home free.

I’ve been hovering around your site for a few months now. I always started reading but stopped in the middle, because well let’s be honest here I was scared shitless.

But after literally hitting rock bottom 2 weeks ago, I had it with the way my life was/is going and I decided to change.

I made this decision before I might add but I always relied on my friends and or other people. This time I understand, if anything is going to change, ever, it has to come from me.

So I threw myself into your blog reading everything, no matter how much I wanted to stop and I have to say it’s been a real eye opener.

I’m going to do my best to follow your advise and come out the better, keep up the good work

@Jonathan:

Hitting rock bottom is often a blessing in disguise. In my experience, accepting full responsibility for your whole reality is a prerequisite to any serious change. Since you’ve done that, things can only get better from here.

Keep us posted on your adventures. :)

I too had a similar experience. I had almost lost my self-respect while trying to persuade this girl to like me.
But since the last week or so, I’ve decided to go through a complete makeover - just being myself.

@Roark
Lol….i just had a similar situation, i spent so much time trying to impress this girl & she eventually went out with somebody else…that incident robbed me off my energy needless to say i was disappointed, but im now just creating my own happiness, i.e doing what moves me, living life other than letting it just pass me by…and basically just enjoying my life.

Good article, sent it on to a friend of mine. I don’t know how you keep on knowing EXACTLY what me and my friends have been talking about the day before you write a good article, but keep it up. Taoism ftw!

Also, the “latest blog posts” thing on the 30sleeps front page isn’t updated/ing, you might want to look at that.

Hey Brad,

Spot on with the article (even from a girl’s perspective).

Say, I want to tell a guy that I think he’s awesome & special. Coz it’s been dragging & I wanna move on.

Any expert guy perspective? You think he’ll appreciate the honesty or go MIA?

Cheers, Far

Hey Brad, no new articles for quite a while! I miss new inspiring posts, please come back. :)

@Farhana:

It sounds like you have the female version of oneitis. :)

Personally, it takes me a couple years, at least, to know if someone is special. How will they act when the going gets rough? Do they support me on a deep level in what I do or work against me? No matter how attractive they are and how otherwise fascinating they seem, I don’t consider any one girl more special than the other, until I’ve had a chance to see their true colours in defining situations.

The best thing to do to break out of oneitis is to meet dozens, or even hundreds of other people. Walk around, say hi, chat people up anywhere, anytime. Bruise your ego early and often. The more you do so, the more you start to let go of it.

Along the way, feel free to let this other guy know that you’re interested, but be indifferent to the result. If he’s really into you, you’d almost have to make an effort to say the wrong thing. If he’s not, no biggie. There are only millions of others to choose from.

@Artem:

Don’t worry, there are more articles on the way. :)

“It’s not the situation that stops you. It’s your ego that stops you.”

This has hovered in the back of my brain since I read it. It’s now become an integral part of how I live. Especially in social situations. It’s now clear to me that I was spending so much energy on worrying about the situations around me and how they might play out. Now I just live.

Since discovering 30sleeps, I’ve just gone with the flow, and done my best to let go of my ego - it’s much easier to think about than to do! But it is worth every moment of fear and sweat and just sucking it up and diving in.

Not long after Brad posted this, a friend invited me to see his band play, I knew no one, and he was going to be up on stage most of the night… I tried to get some girlfriends to go with me, but no one was available that night. I decided not to let the situation stop me. Instead, I took a deep breath, and dove right in with the intention of talking to anyone who would talk back, but also to move on once the conversational thread grew thin. It was the best social event I’d been to in years!

It wasn’t all positive, turns out the guy who did ask for my mobile number sent me 4 text messages before I’d even woken up the next morning/afternoon… When he finally sent a text that asked if he should stop calling - I essentially replied, yes, I met you less than 48 hours ago and you’ve already put yourself in the too needy category. He texted back - in under 2 minutes - that he’d never been called needy before, but was glad I was honest about it, because it was clear it would not have worked out with us after all.

Luckily, I did meet some really fun guys who I met up with the next night at another party and look forward to seeing again when my friend has another gig in a few weeks.

So the next time will be less scary because I’ll know these guys, but I’m actually looking forward to pushing past my fear and meeting even more people. Actually, that isn’t entirely accurate, I’m still terrified about it, but going to do it anyway.

Are you the same person, or is the guy here: [removed link to plagiarism] ripping you off?

@voldo:

Nope, that’s definitely not me. It’s unfortunate that someone would copy and paste large chunks of my content on their site without crediting me, and then put Adsense around it. It also doesn’t look like I’m the only author he’s done this to.

Hi,

I just came across this site, and it seems very positive and interesting. However,
My thoughts on a couple things:

“It’s your ego that stops you. But here’s a little secret: If you’re constantly getting rejected, you’re constantly getting laid….You can’t do anything to change what a girl thinks of you…If you have the balls to talk to girls anywhere, anytime, you’ve nailed down a crucial 20% of the secret to attracting women that belong in your life. The other 80%, of course, is to be doing something so interesting with your life that women become an enjoyable diversion, rather than the foundation of your happiness

You’re missing a logical huge part: your presentation of yourself. It is absolutely true that “having balls” to talk to strangers and not worry about what they think is necessary for meeting people…and it is true that happiness with your life is attractive. But you can be fundamentally happy and full of balls and still waste a lot of energy and miss a lot of chances because you don’t seem interesting when you talk to people. When you get down to it, it’s how you look, what you say, and how you say it that’s important. A girl/group of people can’t judge or really know you based on an introduction and few follow-up exchanges, but they can decide whether they want to continue talking to you or not.

“The girls I meet are interested in me right away. If they aren’t, I’m not going to try and change their minds.” I’m not sure what you mean by “right away,” but it sounds like you’re just trying to get by on your looks and apparent status to whomever you’re talking to. For average and below-average-looking guys, it takes a little time and work to make an attractive impression. Many highly-desired women are not friendly at first because they don’t have time to talk to the multitudes of guys who talk to them. You don’t need to THINK or KNOW you are special, you need to show her you are interesting and worth knowing through what you say and do and how you say it. Unless you’re a stunning physical specimen or a celebrity, going up and saying “hi, I’m —” isn’t going to cut itThis is certainly not trying to change her opinion of you, but presenting yourself so she can form a good opinion of you. A lot of the women who “weren’t interested right away” probably could have been interested in the real you with better tactics.

The fact that you are worth knowing and that you talk to strangers doesn’t mean the content of what you say/do is attractive. You have to be confident, happy, and friendly, people say. These things are true, but they are dancing around the point. You certainly can fake inner confidence and happiness, but you can’t have a lousy or too-direct presentation and attract someone.

I think the FIRST obstacle is the fear of talking to strangers, certainly. And obviously, everyone should try to build a life that makes himself happy. But the other problem most guys have is that they aren’t that interesting to talk to—this doesn’t mean they aren’t interesting. If you get rejected, it’s your presentation that was rejected—different things you could have said could have led to different outcomes
Women need to think your worth knowing BEFORE you show them that you’re interested in them. Guy need to talk to women, of course, but they need to know how to talk them.

If you’re constantly getting rejected, you may be constantly getting laid, but not by the girls you really want. What you’re doing is playing the numbers and still waiting for someone to like. If you can develop good game, you will still get rejected a little, but you will have much more control of more situations. That’s the real skill that sets guys apart when it comes to meeting strangers.

Thanks.

My semi-problem is noticing a girl, and then realizing about a minute later I really liked something about her and not being able to find her again since it’s some public place.