Should You Withhold Approval To Get Her To Want You More?

This is a post from the Member’s Forum that I HAD to share with you because so many guys are confused about how to handle giving her approval while not coming off needy. (This is applicable to wives and girlfriends.)

“I recently bought both Revive Her Drive and Calle Zorro’s book.

What struck me is that you both emphasize how important it is to give your woman approval.

At the same time, the pick up community is pretty clear that the wanting approval in itself is what causes attraction, and giving approval sparingly is what will make her want sex with you.

This has made me confused as the pick up community made me afraid of showing deep appreciation, and, sadly, I’m pretty sure this is what has made my girlfriends withdraw from me in the past.

My current girlfriend gives me approval all the time, telling me how she loves me in various deep ways. I haven’t been telling her the same that often or as profound. Still she is resisting sex with me.

This makes perfect sense as your book describes how a woman will do to you what you want done to them. In other words, she’s showing her love to me in the way she’d prefer I show it to her.

Deep in my heart I have always felt that it is right to show your full love and sincerely compliment your girlfriend all day, and I feel week to have given in to my fear and allowed myself to restrain my love.

Still, I think most of our girlfriends have been, at some point, deeply attracted to someone who weren’t that considerate and didn’t love them at all. The classic “bad boy” phenomenon.

I think many men AND women are afraid their partner will love them less or be less attracted unless they show some disinterest at times.

Will you please clarify why the “bad boy” strategy seemingly “works” and how that relates to the mindset in yours and Calle’s products?

I consulted my pick up and seduction expert contacts and here’s what they advise.

What To Do

 

Dan Axelrod replies:

My experience:

To men who are *struggling* with dating, meaning they’re not within a stone’s throw from a decent relationship, they are more likely to give too much approval rather than too little.  They’ll come off very needy, insincere, and even manipulative.

For a woman, a compliment from a lonely guy is about as touching as a compliment from a used car salesman greeting you at the dealership.

For those men, believe it or not, it’s actually better they slam on the breaks for a while and withhold compliments, approval, and affection.

Then when they’re more solid in themselves, they can start being *normal* and give a woman all she needs.

It’s just part of the learning process. The problem happens when either guys take it too far and think they need to insult women, or when guys are taught that affection and approval are inherently bad in any relationship and they never grow out of it.

Just my take, having been through much of the evolution of the pick-up community.

–Dan

Dave Miz of Insider Internet Dating says:

I THINK you guys totally missed something here.

He’s first talking about not giving approval to women as a single guy trying to sleep with them.

Then he’s talking about not giving hisgirlfriend approval.

He’s taking things out of context.

Scot McKay of X+Y Communication of “The Leading Man” and “Deserve What You Want” says:

The problem is that you may have been told somewhere along the line any (or all) of the following:

#1 Make sure you knock her off her pedestal some by “negging” her.
#2 Act indifferent toward her…so she’ll chase YOU instead of vice-versa.
#3 And, of course, perhaps the most infamous strategy (or is that “stragedy”?) of all…

NEVER give a woman a compliment…ever.

Now listen. I fully understand the thought process behind each of those three tactics.  Sadly, most guys who are “newbies” when it comes to interacting with women tend to come off like desperate, starving puppies when confronted with a real, live opportunity to attract a hottie. Such guys might start gushing about how beautiful the woman is to them, sort of like Enos always did to “Miss Daisy” in The Dukes Of Hazzard.

Or what’s arguably worse, they start bragging about anything and everything possible in a feeble attempt to “impress” her. So sure…each of the three strategies above are intended to put an end to these basic destructive tendencies.

But at best, they’re “stop gap” measures.

Since there’s a lot of “grey area” in how best to create attraction, there are potentially troublesome issues with each. If and when any or all of them become habit, you’ll soon find that the proverbial pendulum has swung the opposite way…and that’s not good.

Regarding #1 for example, what if she ISN’T exactly so “full of herself” and in fact doesn’t have the world’s most rock-solid self-esteem? She could take what you say seriously, no matter how playful you are about saying it…and that would be counter-productive.

And yikers…MOST women aren’t exactly paragons of self-esteem, no matter how beautiful or generally sharp they are.

As for the second one, remember a woman is a human being just like you. (Really…I promise.) Knowing that, how do YOU usually read someone who acts utterly disinterested in you?

And the third one? Ask yourself if that’s what you REALLY want out of the interaction.

Are you the kind of man who honesty prefers to NEVER say something positive to a woman that might actually LIFT her less-than-perfect (read: normal and human) self-esteem?

Again, as a human being how excited would YOU be to hang out with a woman who NEVER, EVER acknowledged you looked good, were talented, or basically ever did anything right?

You and I both know that we as guys tend to show TONS of disdain for women who are like that.

And it’s equally safe to say that no woman is ever going to confuse a guy who offers ZERO approval of her for anyone who has her best interests at heart. You really can’t instill a sense of safety and security in her that way, can you?

So simply put, as you get better with women—as I trust you will—you’re going to want more effective ways to proceed.

Slapping a Band-Aid on the problem won’t cut it.

Now, as you’ve observed guys who appear to be doing well with women, I’m sure you’ve noticed something that might strike you as somewhat odd.

They actually give women compliments. There’s no denying it.

But here’s the amazing part. Contrary to what all the “newbie” guides you’ve read suggest, they actually GET SOMEWHERE with women by doing so.

In fact, some guys can give women all sorts of complimentary indicators of “approval” and still charm her to no end.

But wait, isn’t that sort of “nice” stuff supposed to fail miserably?

Not so fast.

“Mr. Nice Guy’s” problem is that he’s on his best behavior because he’s either TRYING to “impress” her or he’s worried about offending her and LOSING her.

Meanwhile, those guys you’ve seen out there who know what they’re doing are speaking to a woman what they TRULY think about her for COMPLETELY different reasons.

Usually, one such reason is that they are CONFIDENT that any woman in her right mind should find them inherently attractive.

Therefore, there’s no need to “impress” a woman. Compliments and other clear demonstrations of interest are honest and sort of matter-of-fact, actually.

But there’s another reason why giving women compliments works FOR these guys instead of AGAINST them.

Usually, guys who are effective with women give approval to them when they’ve expressly EARNED it.

In other words, there’s no “halo effect” when they interact with ANY woman. There’s no “pre-approval” of her as some sort of goddess or something.

Guys who are good at this stuff wait until they hear about how she donates her time to the homeless before telling her they’re “proud of her”.

Similarly, they wait until she has done her hair up in a special way just to go out on a date with him…and THEN they tell her how beautiful her hair looks.

Can you detect the very clear difference between what’s going on there and the “Staving Chihuahua Syndrome”?

To spell it out, the difference between NEEDY, DESPERATE compliments (or any needy, desperate attention, really) and the kind of attention women LIKE is very clear-cut.

Needy, desperate guys give women approval based on FEAR OF LOSS.

What they are actually seeking is HER APPROVAL of them. They are GIVING in order to GET.

This comes off as extraordinarily weak…not exactly becoming of a masculine man who is both a provider and a protector.

Meanwhile, where there is NO fear of loss, compliments come off as more heartfelt and genuine.

Alpha Wolfe explains the history of this concept:

The concept of the neg was developed by Mystery in field going to nightclubs where the hottest girls often stand out in a crowd of other girls and dudes. It is really hard to understand this as a woman – what it feels like to be a guy at a club – an artificial place that values superficial looks and money and be standing next to really, really hot girls that everyone (men and women) is eyeing. Susan you probably know what its like to have everyone paying attention to you in a room as a tall blonde -but its hard to imagine what goes through a guy’s head who’s in the same room.

The correct response or feeling that is supposed to result from a neg is laughter – it is a way of teasing someone with endearment, much like a brother or friend so their ego doesn’t block their consciousness from connecting with you in genuine, real way.

If someone is “negging” you and you’re feeling bad, its not a proper neg.

Negs also should only be used in initial interactions to break the ice.

There’s no need to neg someone in a long term relationship other than playful teasing.

Try to put all of the seduction stuff into context – most of Mystery’s original influence is related to high end night club game and cold approaching girls so they sleep with you within a 7 hour time frame.

By:
Susan Bratton