Why approaching women is so damn difficult

Approach a woman in a club, and you're met with a cold stare and a diva vibe.

Meet a similarly attractive woman through friends or at a house party, however, and you're much more likely to get an interested, even flirty attitude.

I used to run into this constantly. I had a good career, decent looks, and could be engaging in conversation. But approaching women in clubs was like talking to cold-hearted robots. About 70% of responses ranged from polite indifference to stone-faced rejections.

Meanwhile, I was getting dates from apps almost every week, where it was much easier for me to engage and connect with these women. And when I met women through friends, flirting often happened naturally, without me initiating it.

So this got me pretty intrigued. After thinking deeply about it for a few months, here are the reasons I found to explain it:

A woman's attractiveness is closely tied to her looks, which you can assess in seconds. A man's attractiveness, however, heavily depends on his lifestyle, charisma, and career success, among other traits. These qualities generally take time to reveal. And it wouldn't be particularly elegant to proactively disclose them within the first 30 seconds of meeting someone.

You could be a billionaire playboy who's cured cancer and spends his free time volunteering at the local homeless shelter, and to the naked eye you're just a random dude.

If you are a conventionally attractive man (successful, charismatic, competent), your attractiveness will initially appear much lower than it actually is.

Female desire builds slowly. This becomes obvious if we look at what kind of erotic content each gender consumes. Men can be aroused by a 10-minute porn video, while women often prefer a 300-page romance novel.

For most women, connection is a precondition to desire. And connection takes time to develop, even for people who are good at creating it.

Combine the two previous points and you get an easy conclusion: at the moment of approach, a woman desires the man much less than vice versa.

Many women sense this imbalance immediately. They see you going out of your way and breaking social rules in order to talk to her, showing that you are somewhat invested in her, while she probably isn't invested at all in you.

That difference in investment generally turns them off. Most women need to feel that they are into you more than you are into them. And since their initial desire for you wasn't high to start with, stacking a turnoff on top of it means putting the nail in the coffin.

To some extent, these three reasons are inevitable. Cold-approaching women will never be easy. But we can use strategies to be slightly less disadvantaged.

Let's explore yet one more reason why cold-approaching is difficult. We just discussed why women can be turned off when cold-approached. Unfortunately, it goes even further.

The truth is that approaching a stranger and starting a conversation without having a proper reason means choosing not to follow social rules. If you've done cold-approaches in real life, you'll know what I mean. Many times, women react with a non-verbal expression of "you aren't allowed to do that."

Here's the truth: If Brad Pitt in his 30s approached your dream girl at her grandad's funeral, she probably wouldn't complain much. Initial desire goes a long way to interpret ambiguous behavior in a positive manner.

But if you're an average-looking guy who's not famous, the three reasons discussed in the first half of the post put initial desire against you. And if you combine that with transgressing social rules, that's when you get very harsh rejections.

So what, are you saying I should never approach women? How the fuck am I gonna meet them then?

I'm glad you asked. That's indeed not what I'm proposing.

The key to approaching is making it look organic.

Think of the times when you've met a woman, and after a few minutes, it was on. Probably, you were introduced to her by friends, or there was an anecdotal situation that allowed you two to meet in a way that seemed casual.

For example: a few weeks ago, I was with my best friend at the club. We were approaching women directly, and most weren't reacting very well to it. It's kind of a posh club, and for some reason there are actual flames on the border of a corridor. Terrible idea, if you ask me.

Anyhow, there was a hot girl with long hair that was unknowingly getting closer and closer to the flame, to the point that her hair was centimeters away from it. My best friend saw that and immediately ran to warn her.

Guess what: two minutes later, they were flirting like crazy. Before that, we had approached about 10 women, none of whom gave us such an open and flirty attitude.

So how can you approach women in a way that looks organic?

Simply put:

- Talk with everyone and anyone.

- Wait for the opportunity and take it without hesitation.

This is particularly true in social gatherings such as bars or clubs, where a lot of opportunities come along.

You start by talking more to people around you. I do this by making the first anecdotal comments that cross my mind to random, friendly-looking dudes. That helps me lower my inhibitions and remove my social filters. After doing it a couple of times, I naturally start to become attuned to opportunities to talk to strangers.

What are those opportunities? They could be literally anything. A few months ago I saw three blonde girls walking by the club, put myself in front of them, and without hesitation screamed: "Oh my god, you guys are SO Scandinavian." Turned out they were Swedish, and we spent the rest of the night together.

When you're having fun, your inhibitions are down, and you have little to no social filters, opportunities for talking to strangers will magically appear. If you're feeling down or shy, even a smiley lingerie model with a neon arrow pointing at her saying "TALK TO ME!" won't seem like a good enough opportunity.

There is a habit that will help you tremendously in this: start making conversation with more random people every day.

You can start with the cashier, barista, Uber driver, whatever. First, say one more sentence than you normally would. Then, try to start a small conversation with them. You'll start to become much more attuned to the opportunities for interactions.

Start doing that every day and you'll see how your social muscle strengthens. When you put in your reps during the week, you'll find it much easier to chat with random people at nightclubs.

Feel free to tell me how it goes, I read every email at [email protected]. I hope you liked this post, talk to you soon.

—Javi