"This is the question that dogged me from high school into my twenties…
How do I become THAT kind of girl?
I noticed which of my classmates were comfortable with boys.
Everyone knew which girls would ALWAYS have a boyfriend and which girls NEVER would.
I was one of those girls who never would.
And I assumed—because I was young—that it was because of how I looked. Acne, braces, glasses, you know the story!
Now I know that what I was missing was something else ENTIRELY.
And when I tell you what it is, you won’t believe that you didn’t see it before.
What He SAYS He Wants
In life, we make our choices emotionally, then justify them rationally.
You meet someone, you love being with them, and THEN you make up reasons in your head for why you feel so good when you’re with them. You tell yourself that it’s because they’re smart or funny or good-looking. But that’s not really why.
Really, you’re with them because of this FEELING.
It’s not rational, it’s not conscious, and it’s completely involuntary—you can’t control it.
That’s why you won’t get far if you ask men what they want in a woman.
They’ll tell you what they THINK they want, but then they’ll go pick someone based on this feeling.
Have you ever noticed that?
You’re in love with a guy, you know he wants someone smart and funny—like you—and then he goes and ends up with a girlfriend who can’t put two sentences together. You’re what he wants—why can’t he see that?
Well, it’s because his head isn’t picking his partner. His gut is.
So much of attraction occurs on a subconscious level. It’s a response to someone’s energy. It has very little to do with whether they’re a good match on paper.
And yet what do we do?
When we want to attract men, we try to sell ourselves as this smart, funny, attractive, put-together woman who’d be an asset to his life.
We appeal to his brain. We give him lots of reasons why he should be with us.
And it doesn’t work very well.
Because what we’re doing is people-pleasing.
Most Dating Advice is People-Pleasing
As women, we’re great at people pleasing.
We’re REALLY good at being what other people want.
We adapt to their needs. We adjust ourselves to make them feel good.
90% of dating advice is about people-pleasing.
It’s about how to please men by making yourself more pleasing to their tastes.
That’s the kind of advice I devoured as a young woman. That’s what I thought I needed.
My “problem,” I thought, was that I wasn’t what guys wanted. Therefore, I needed to give myself a complete makeover, personality and all, so that I fit this image of the girl who always gets the guy (a girl who always looked, for some reason, like Cameron Diaz!).
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to know how to connect with people, or be your best self, or be more feminine, or feel more comfortable and relaxed in social situations.
But there is something wrong with doing it for men.
Your self-worth gets tied up with what other people think of you. You find yourself hustling for love.
People-pleasing never works.
If you need proof, then consider whether your ability to make a man feel really, really good has ever got you the love you wanted.
You could twist yourself into a pretzel making him happy, and he still might not see you as girlfriend material.
The Secret Sauce
So if you can’t rely on what a man says he wants in a woman…
And you can’t rely on your extraordinary ability to make him happy…
Then what is the secret sauce?
Why do some women have it so easy and others don’t?
Are you ready for this?
It’s because men are drawn to women who know they’re loved.
Being Loved Gives Us Confidence
A lot of women are out there looking for someone to love them. It’s like they have a big gaping hole in their heart just waiting to be filled.
No guy wants to be the one to fill the hole in your heart. It’s almost as if they can sense that need inside you.
But some women know they’re loved already.
They’re secure in the love of their family, or their friends, or their pet, or their higher power.
(Or else they already have a boyfriend who loves them, and they’re not looking for someone else!)
When they go out into the world, their heart is full. They don’t have this need to be loved, because they’re already secure.
And when they sit with a man, they can enjoy his company without needing something from him.
Men can sense that.
Well-loved people act differently.
They know they’re lovable. They know they’re loved, regardless of who they’re with.
Science has shown that we’re naturally attracted to people who appear to be winners in life. And someone with the confidence that comes from being loved is a winner.
Do You Know You’re Loved?
When I look back at those girls in high school who got the great boyfriends, the really good guys, I can tell that they were different from me.
Those girls had a secure foundation. They were loved at home. They had somewhere they belonged. They felt comfortable being themselves.
I never had any of that.
I had a profound sense of not belonging, and not being loved, and feeling awkward in my body.
I thought I needed to make myself over so that some guy would like me, basically disguising who I was, because I believed that my true self was off-putting.
It would take me years and years of getting out in the world, experiencing life, finding out that people actually liked me, before I could feel comfortable in my own skin and feel like I didn’t have to hide anymore.
The more loved you feel, the more you know you’re lovable, and the less important another person’s approval becomes to you.
Success in love is not about pleasing men.
It’s about knowing you are loved.
And that’s inner work. You do it for yourself.
You do it because you know that you are lovable and beloved just as you are.
If you’re ready to take that next step, and stop pleasing men, and start pleasing yourself, then I would love to offer you some tools to get you started!
I’m offering you a free chapter of my book The Pleasure Principle, about the 3 A’s of Effortless Attraction. You’ll learn about the hedonistic theory of attraction and why your pleasure matters SO much more than his."
[1] Amy Waterman, M.A., is an international speaker, author, and love expert. Her work has appeared in over a dozen online courses, including The Pleasure Principle, Save My Marriage Today, Connect & Commit, and How to Be Irresistible to Men. With over 15 years of experience in the love advice industry, she knows that the search for love is at the heart of the human experience.
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