The Tao of Dating: The Smart Woman's Guide to Being Absolutely Irresistible (24 page)

Exercise 19.  Practicing devotion.

Find a full-length mirror and stand in front of it.  Get your digital camera if you have one.  Now, as objectively as possible, rate your radiance on a scale of 1-10.  How irresistible would a man find you right now?  Where you start matters a lot less than where you end up, so just give yourself a number to get the ball rolling.  Take the 'before' picture.

              Now close your eyes and picture what it would look like if you were to convey complete and utter devotion to a man.  How would you look into his eyes?  What would your facial expression look like?  At what angle would you bend your neck?  How would you breathe?  How would you move your body?  How would you move? 

              As you start to do all of these things, open your eyes.  Notice what it all looks like.  Now, what can you do to make it even better?  Make those adjustments.  Take the 'after' picture. 

              Now give yourself a new number.  How is it different from the first number you gave yourself?  How long did it take to make that improvement?  If you liked how this exercise affected you, resolve to do it every day when you're getting ready in the morning.  Notice its effects over time.               

Attract in the right order

              If you were to bake a cake, would the order of how you did things matter?  You'd probably end up with something interesting if you were to take some flour, put it in the oven at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then take it out and splash some water and baking powder on it.  But you'd have a different beast than if you were to follow the recipe step-by-step. 

              Likewise, there is a recipe when attracting a man.  If the ingredients are head, heart and body, there is an order for presenting them that works well and others that work less well.  As a member in good standing of the male species for over three decades and privy to men's personal thoughts on women for that long, I can tell you that there's a fairly set order, namely:

BODY to MIND to HEART

              This will not come as a surprise to most of you.  The man you will date will first find you physically attractive.  Subsequently, if he finds compatibility on the mental plane as well, he will proceed to like you – a lot. 

              Sometimes men skip the middle part entirely and go straight to falling in love.  This is more lust and infatuation than something more lasting, and there's nothing wrong with it – it has its time and place.  Fun, perhaps, but solid three-chakra connection, less likely.  Just be clear on what you're seeking. 

              Let's also discuss what this order is
not
.  Mind almost never comes first, so if you're leading with that, don't necessarily expect a guy to fall for you.  Heart also does not come first.  If you're just kind and compassionate to a guy without sparking that physical attraction initially, you're putting the flour in the oven without making the dough first. 

              If it feels as if I'm mentioning the obvious, it's because I want you to avoid heartbreak and frustration down the line.  If you're super-smart and witty and think, "Well, he should like me for my wit and brilliance – if he's just looking for a pretty face, I don't want him anyway," you're just wishing the world to be different than it is (i.e., creating pain for yourself).  The Good Guy will appreciate your wit and brilliance for sure –
after
he has decided that he finds you pretty.  There really is no way around that. 

              And you don't
want
there to be a way around that.  Yes, there are exceptions, and they are rare, rare.  That's why they're called exceptions.  The solid three-chakra relationship will have as its basis a healthy sexual attraction, and if you don't have that at the outset, you're already starting on shaky ground.  Be patient and wait for the guy who's the right fit instead of trying to shoehorn Mr. Wrong into the spot.  Chances are you've done that at least once before (or know someone who did) and it didn't work, so take advantage of your own wisdom.

The physiology of attraction

              There is a physiological basis for the different kinds of attraction we just touched upon.  This is because fundamentally, feelings are created by neurotransmitters.  In her book
Why We Love
, biological anthropologist Helen Fisher divides love feelings into three categories: lust, romance, and long-term attachment.  Romance can trigger lust; lust can also trigger romance, but to a lesser extent.  Attachment is a byproduct of lust and romance over the long term. 

              The hormone primarily responsible for lust is testosterone; adrenaline is also involved in mediating lust and short-term attraction.  Romance (a.k.a. being in love) is mediated by dopamine and norepinephrine.  Attachment is mediated by oxytocin in women and vasopressin in men. 

The table below summarizes the various hormones and neurotransmitters involved in love feelings and how each one is evoked.  Don’t worry too much about which action evokes which substance; just know that all of the substances in the end increase attraction in some way.

              Phenylethylamine or phenethylamine (PEA) is a particularly interesting chemical stimulated by looking directly into the eyes of another person.  One study showed that looking directly into the eyes of a member of the opposite sex
for just two minutes
engendered passionate feelings in both people (Kellerman et al., 1989). 

Without getting into too much scientific detail (for that I highly recommend Helen Fisher’s books), just by looking at the table above we can reach some useful conclusions.  Dopamine, adrenaline, norepinephrine, oxytocin and PEA mediate attraction-related feelings.  So to evoke those feelings, you want to engage in
novel, exciting, physically- and emotionally-arousing activities
, and pepper those activities with
touch
and
direct eye-gazing
.  You may look a little silly if you try to do those all at the same time; better just to know that these are the things that you should be doing, and sprinkle them in liberally till you do them regularly.

To evoke passionate feelings, gaze directly into his eyes and hold the gaze.

Success and your integrity

These and other techniques may seem calculated, and to a certain extent they are. And you know what?  There's nothing wrong with that.  Evolution has offloaded a lot of the calculations in the mating game to your unconscious faculties, so calculations are happening all the time anyway.  And all parties involved are doing what they can to improve their chances of success: makeup and clothing to enhance the appearance; fancy restaurants to create the ambience; cool cars to impress; sultry glances to entice.

So as much as we may dislike playing games, we have little choice in the matter.  We're all doing it anyway.  That's the Tao of it.  So instead of struggling against the game, why not play to win!  Most people do not play to win.  Rather, they play to remain in their comfort zone while maintaining moral superiority.  Play to win.  As long as you do it with integrity and you’re not intentionally hurting anyone (including yourself) in the process, it’s the right thing to do.

To have these techniques work optimally, you have to find your own comfort level with them.  If you know your intentions are good and there is a win for both parties, then by all means forge ahead.  Also, ask yourself this: if being slightly more deliberate and disciplined than usual in dating means that both you and your date get to have a fabulous connection, a great time and a memorable experience, who loses here? 

The idea is not to resort exclusively to manipulative tactics to get what you want, but rather to recognize the structure of human interactions and the effective steps required to achieve a certain outcome.  This is merely the opposite of being sloppy and haphazard. 

The Tao merely shows you the way the world works, without strict judgment about right or wrong.  However, when you are aligned with your own inner feeling and integrity, you tend to become much more effective, and that is what I recommend.  Enlightened self-interest is the way of the Tao. 

The principle of
wu-wei

              We have gotten into several techniques in this chapter, so I want to emphasize something before we proceed any further.  As a woman, you naturally possess all the techniques necessary to attract a good man.  In other words,
you don't need any techniques
.  This book merely serves to uncover your innate abilities, dust them off and bring them to the fore.  When a technique harmonizes with your essential nature, it simply becomes a part of you.  And kindness, open-heartedness, listening and devotion are not techniques – they are aspects of the divine you.  Over time, they will not be something that you
do
, but rather
who you are
. 

              You will find that as you internalize the principles of the preceding chapters more and more and become the archetype of the divine goddess, you will worry less and less about what to do and find that things flow their own way.  This is the way of the Tao:

In pursuit of knowledge,
Every day something is added.
In the pursuit of Tao,
Every day something is dropped.
You force things less and less,
Until finally you arrive at not-doing.
When nothing is done,
Nothing is left undone.
You master the world
When you let things go their own way.
You can’t master it by interfering. 

–
Lao Tzu,
Tao Te Ching,
Ch. 48

              The Taoists call this
wu-wei
– not-doing.  Or more accurately,
wu wu-wei
– doing not-doing.  And when you stop the doing, you will
be
someone
– a woman who is the incarnation of the divine feminine.

Chapter 11. Romance, or what to do on a date

Stoking the fires

             
So you found a Good Guy.  Congratulations.  And you've managed to set up some time to spend together.  This chapter is about specific things you can do to make those dates go exceptionally well, so you are in control of your destiny and in the best position to have a fulfilling interaction, however you define that for yourself.  The prior chapter had the essential principles behind creating powerful, lasting attraction between you and the man – which, properly utilized, are more than enough.  To ensure that you are as empowered as possible, I'd also like to share with you some specific techniques to empower you even further.  This is beyond hair-flipping or lip-licking – that stuff you already know and don't need a guy to teach you.  This is subtler business.

Rapport

              One of my hypnosis teachers once said about personal interactions, “Inside of rapport, anything is possible; outside of rapport, nothing is possible.”  In sales, persuasion, relationships, or any kind of human transaction, rapport is
the
key to effective communication.  If you learn nothing from this book except for how to establish and maintain rapport, you will be miles ahead of the rest of the pack. 

              As a woman, if you're practicing the preceding exercises – especially the one about listening – you will naturally be in deep rapport with a man and won't need to practice getting rapport.  However, for the sake of completeness, I want you to have this powerful skill at your disposal.

I think of rapport as that familiar feeling of standing next to someone looking out at the rest of the world together, versus sitting facing one another, each with your own point of view.  When you are in rapport, you become like the other person, and people tend to like people who are like themselves.  Entire books have been written on this subject alone, but the essence of these can be conveyed in a small space.  In this section, I will give you a triple treat: the traditional tools for rapport (which you should use regularly), the three secret techniques for rapport, and one counterintuitive method. 

The key technique of nonverbal rapport is
mirroring
.  If you watch two people in deep conversation, you may notice something eerie: their body postures tend to mirror one another.  The image to keep in mind is that of the tête-à-tête: two people hunched over at a table at the same angle, talking in conspiratorial tones. Basically, you are mimicking the body language of your interlocutor.  You want to do this as closely as possible: he moves his hand, you move yours.  He nods, you nod.  Hardly anyone ever notices when he is being mirrored, because almost all body language is
unconscious
, which by definition is what we are not aware of at the conscious level.