Overview
Book Title: Models: Attract Women Through Honesty
Author: Mark Manson
Year: 2011
Cameron’s Rating: 9.5/10
My Thoughts
There was so much phenomenal content in this book — especially the first half.
If you’re able to be introspective and honest with yourself, the value you’ll obtain from reading this book is immense.
What’s the difference between narcissism and non-neediness? Why is rejection a blessing rather than a curse? How can some degree of anxiety with women actually improve your performance?
Paradigm shifting answers to all of these questions and more are shared throughout the book (as well as in my quotes/notes below).
Note from Cameron: This book tackles attraction from the perspective of a man wanting to attract women. I am also a heterosexual man. While many of the same principles may apply to those of another gender or sexual orientation, I just thought I’d leave a quick disclaimer here about the perspective these notes and quotes were taken from so that you can be aware of any potential biases Mr. Manson or I may have.
Best Quotes
“Overcoming neediness is not about learning or new things to do. Overcoming your neediness comes from a change in your mindset, your self-perception, and your self-respect. It’s as simple as changing your mind about women.”
“If all of the women you date are needy and emotionally helpless, what does that say about you?”
“… If you ever find yourself thinking, “That didn’t work,” or “This doesn’t work,” you are being needy. Point. Blank. Period.”
“You cannot fake non-neediness for more than a moment.”
“Paradoxically, seeking no investment from her will inspire her to invest that much more in you.”
“A non-needy man does not seek to impose himself on the boundaries of others. He’s merely interested in maintaining his own boundaries while respecting the boundaries of others.”
“Non-neediness means you respect yourself and others. Narcissism means you only respect yourself. Neediness means you only respect others.”
“The important thing about therapy is to remember that it’s a tool, not a solution.”
“The first step to being more attractive is to see rejection as a means to eliminate women who won’t make you happy from your life. It [rejection] is a blessing, not a curse.”
“The only thing all of the women you date have in common is you.”
“…When you’re focused so much on performing rather than actually being, then you’re out of touch with your identity, who you are, and what want. And when you’re out of touch with yourself you will fall into the abyss of vague and empty demographics. You will aimlessly claw for whatever women comes near you. You will be left bewildered at how you seem unable to polarize anyone.”
“…Chances are the more anxiety and fear you have surrounding women and your sexuality, the more of your own stories and bullshit you’ve bought into.”
“… A lot of people assume non-neediness means being fearless, but non-neediness simply means to feel the fear and not let it define you. Non-neediness is feeling the fear and deciding something else is more important.”
“Greater boldness leads to greater polarization.”
“Creepiness is behaving in a way that makes a woman feel insecure sexually.”
“Flirting is expressing your sexuality to a woman in a way that makes her feel secure expressing her sexuality back towards you.”
“Your ability to connect with a woman emotionally is proportional to how self-aware you are of your own processes and motivations.”
“Conversations only end when one person says something to which the other person has no jump-off points.”
“…No one is going to live my life for me and every second I spend sitting around feeling distant from my true desires, avoiding the world and being afraid to engage it is a second I’m forfeiting the biggest gift of all — my time here in this life.”
My Notes
If you stop investing in yourself, your partner is likely to feel like your relationship is getting stale.
Women are attracted to a man who tries to be the person he wants to be, not the person he thinks others will want him to be.
The ability to be vulnerable is a sign of strength and high social status. The image of vulnerability that has a bad rep amongst man isn’t actually vulnerability — it’s the surrendering of a weak or desperate man.
Your values and what you think is best for the relationship should determine your behaviors — not what you think the other person wants.
Rejection isn’t something to feel ashamed about. It simply exists to keep incompatible people apart.
If you are interested in a woman but she feels neutral about you, your goal should be to be polarizing enough such that she is forced to make a decision about whether she likes you or not.
There are three fundamentals that influence your results with women. Your lifestyle, your ability to overcome or transcend fear, and your communication skills. To improve your dating life quickly, you should first focus on improving the pillar or pillars that are the weakest.
Your lifestyle influences the number of high quality women you come across. Your ability to overcome or transcend fear enables you to actually start interactions with the women you’re surrounded by. Your communication skills influence how often you’re able to convert your interactions into some form of a successful relationship (however you may define that).
If you find yourself only encountering a certain type of women, it’s likely because you hold a belief that all women are of that type. There’s often a self-selection bias at play where the only women that feel comfortable around you are women that fall under the umbrella of the beliefs you have about all women.
You don’t have to like everything you come across that has a significant following. You should, however, strive to be able to appreciate the value others see in it.
Just as you feel awkward when you have to say, “No”, or reject people’s requests, most women also dislike having to reject men. Because of this, most women are subconsciously rooting for you to succeed and will often overlook minor mistakes you make.
Experiencing some degree of anxiety is normal and doesn’t necessarily need to lead to poor performance. In fact, acknowledging your anxiety and seeing the stressful event as a challenge can even lead to performance better than those who don’t experience anxiety.
Self-discipline is built through triumphs over laziness. Courage is built through triumphs over fear.
An excellent way to make your conversations more interesting is to replace routine questions with mild predictions. Instead of asking a question, you simply make a prediction about the answer to that question and then state it.
Worrying about flaky women is a poor usage of time. If the woman you were interacting with was genuinely excited to meet you she’d be unlikely to flake. By investing a significant amount of time you will be able to convert some percentage of flaky leads into dates. Usually this is still inferior to simply generating more leads, however, because the women you end up meeting on your dates aren’t highly compatible with you.
Texting should be used mainly to handle logistics. With few exceptions, the legwork of generating attraction should be done in person.