A few years ago I struck up a short friendship with a great straight guy. He was extremely handsome, affable, and drew the attention of everyone who laid eyes on him. It was a surprising friendship, as while most straight men are great people it’s not common for them to be so open and willing friends with gay guys. Not that it really should be—it’s sort of the same dynamic as having a friendship with a woman, where any potential sexual attraction changes the dynamic of the relationship, so it’s understandable that they may be hesitant to do so. I don’t like being friends with women or other gay men who are overly aggressive in expressing their attraction to me. It’s not fun nor pleasant to be objectified and harassed, especially when you have been clear about your own intentions. But of course I was attracted to this guy, except that I much prefer friendship to romance and after getting to know him a little, every bit of sexual attraction vanished as it became clear he was not my type anyway, and so I enjoyed his attention for the short while that our association lasted.

One major theme, though, that I observed in his life was the effort and pains he went through just to find any romantic encounters with women. Being gay is pretty easy to get laid if you want to these days. In most Western societies we no longer need to hide our interests in other gay men for fear of being killed or persecuted, and all men with their raging hormones typically make their seduction a fairly simple matter. I felt really bad for my friend, as I was able to have romantic encounters regularly yet even though he was amazingly gorgeous probably only got with a woman once a month or less.

But because of his own conceptions of his self worth he felt a need to use subterfuge, dishonesty, and tricks to try and get girls to show him attention. It is a common misconception among men that you must lie and trick women to have sex with you. This is a totally delusional and incorrect view of women and life, and behaving this way has severe consequences for your own self esteem and ability to find romantic partners at all. Women are just as horny as men, and the hesitation to have sex comes because of predatory behavior, like lying, which you perpetuate by lying and being deceitful. Being honest and having compassion for your own experience can make you more successful in pursuit of sexual attention.

EXPECTATIONS

The first and biggest problem that most people encounter when they are pursuing romantic relationships are incorrect or unrealistic expectations. The idea is that if you flirt with someone or show them attention, or do or say the right thing or give them gifts then that will equal getting to have sex with them (or more dates, time, attention, etc.). With the worst of offenders this might lead to obscene behaviors such as a man demanding sex just because he paid for dinner. Such a man, in his mind, has an equation that goes like this: attention + dinner = sex. Having failed to meet his own expectations for himself and feeling embarrassed, he then reacts in an emotionally entitled or violent manner, which itself will absolutely destroy any chances of a romantic encounter.

When you are engaging in a romantic conquest it is not your job nor your responsibility to make people like you, nor to make them demonstrate their affections for you. In my young life I also greatly misunderstood this, having a dearth of self-esteem as a result of an abusive and neglected childhood I yearned greatly for anyone to show me affection, but having never been taught how to actually win that affection when those opportunities presented themselves in the form of a boyfriend I was quick to anticipate and extinguish any actual or perceived threats to the demonstrative affection I so desired, this in turn made my romantic partners feel pressured which in turn made them stressed out in our relationship which resulted in tension and arguments and paired with other dynamics the eventual destruction of those relationships, which I wasn’t really enjoying anyway since I was also so preoccupied with whether or not they actually loved me. It’s not your job to make people love you, to go to bed with you. All you have to do is show up for opportunity, so if someone gives you an interested glance, sparks up a conversation, or you approach someone in anticipation remember first and foremost that your expectations should be only on your own behavior and not the outcome of the encounter.

Many relationships fail, and many only last a short while, and that is okay, and there will always be new opportunities in the future so long as you conduct yourself in a manner which respects other people and does not offend common decency. For instance, if you freak out at a girl or guy because they don’t pay you attention, her friend that might have secretly been interested in you will suddenly be afraid of you, because of the way you acted, and you will have missed an opportunity you didn’t even know was there. Worst case scenario you go to jail for doing something heinous, and even if you don’t get caught you then have to live with the guilt of it for the rest of your life which thus impairs your ability to draw closer to other people or enjoy your relationship with them, even though they had nothing to do with your past mistakes.

Once when I was younger out at a club dancing this pretty girl joined me and made obvious overtures toward me. A moment later I told her I was gay, to save her the trouble of wasting her time and to spare her feelings, though I showed no disinterest in dancing or talking or even being friends, but she immediately scowled at me and left with a huff. Whether she thought I might be lying as a way to turn her down (obviously I wasn’t) or she was bigoted, it was her expectations which caused her the problem and not the fact that she hit on me, nor that I wasn’t interested, nor that she wasn’t successful. If she hadn’t, we could have probably become great friends and she might have gotten introduced to my extremely handsome, straight brother. Sometimes people will even turn you down because they are attracted to you and intimidated by their own feelings, but if you are highly sensitive to rejection you view the encounter as a negative judgment against your self worth, because you are insecure and misunderstand where your self worth comes from, and then become resentful and unpleasant even though the reasons for your experience are one which would gratify your ego if only you could actually read the minds of others. I have many times rejected men because they were too attractive, both physically and personally, because I was so traumatized by my own childhood that I didn’t feel deserving of men like that and was frightened by the control my attraction to them would have had over me.

Unreasonable expectations ruin so many potentially great connections and experiences. Setting your expectations simply on your own behavior and not the outcome of any encounter, because you can never really know the real reasons for rejection, can save you much frustration and disappointment, and when you do encounter disappointment (notice I said when, not if) instead of resentment for the other person and failure find compassion for yourself and the difficultly that is life, both for you and for others.

SELF-ESTEEM

The motivation for many people’s pursuance of romantic encounters can often be a lack of self-esteem. Contrary to most internet and self-help advice I see absolutely no problem with this motivation. Nobody really has 100% confidence in themselves—that’s part of what makes us mortal, and fallible, and having vulnerabilities, which is what dents in your self-esteem really are, makes you a more interesting and lovable person, and needing other people and needing to express love and affection is part of what it means to be a human. Those who project an excess of confidence are just pretending to compensate for intense insecurities (which in reality we all have).

You do not need to have confidence going into an encounter. You do not need to believe in yourself nor project an image of what you believe other people want, and those who demand confidence do not in reality possess it themselves, which is why they desire it in others. Pretending to have confidence not only exhausts your own precious and valuable energy, it cheapens who you are as a person and the value of your own personal life experience and characteristics. It also sets up a situation where you must continue pretending, should you meet any success, thus causing you stress and anxiety in a situation where you should in truth be enjoying yourself. It ALSO will attract you persons who will not like you for who you really are, since in essence you have deceived them to the nature of your true qualities.

If you are entirely self-honest, you probably do not like who you are, and fantasize that romantic conquests will refute the insecurity you feel about who you are. I know this because I used to feel the same way, and used romantic relationships or the dream of sex and status as an antidote to the insecurity I felt about who I was. The problem is not that we don’t like ourselves, that is a consequence of negative experiences growing up, but that we are trying to use external experiences as a way to deal with this insecurity. Many people can perceive these insecurities, especially when you try to overcompensate by being aggressive or self-defacing. The answer to poor self esteem is not to adopt confidence, which instead results in arrogance and cockiness, but to accept your shortcomings. When we stop trying to impress other people and instead let them come to us for who we are we attract people who will actually like us for who we are, which in the long run (or short) will produce a much more beautiful experience for both them and yourself, which will be more satisfying and thus more satiating for your needs and wants.

Oppositely some people instinctually feel that talking about what miserable failures they are will engender pity and thus attention from others, but this too is a deception meant to control and manipulate the other person which in turn cheapens their response to you and will make the encounter feel shallow and empty. Resist the temptation to engineer the situation and instead just be yourself, whatever the outcome. When you are rejected and it hurts it is a sign that you have probably been using encounters as a way to prop up ideas of your own self-worth, rather than understanding it apart from other people. Thinking things like, ‘man, she is so hot. If I could just get with her it would mean I am a stud.’ You are probably already a stud, and maybe she doesn’t actually like studs, but because you are so focused on supporting your self-esteem through the actions of other people you get a warped sense of who you are and your value as a person and thus hurt and disappointed by rejection, but which then becomes an opportunity to learn this truth about yourself and, if you are not too conceited or defensive, learn true self-worth which is not reliant on other people.

CONVERSATION

What to say to someone you are interested in is probably the hardest thing to do when seeking out affection. At least, that’s how I feel from my experience. I often said stupid things and so I tended instead to just not say a lot at all, for fear of messing up. This is actually an okay strategy, to say less rather than more, especially if you are inclined to offend others or project or overcompensate for your perceived insecurities. You will notice that I have already used the word perceived many times in this article, because the reality is you are a lot more lovable and enjoyable than you probably realize or understand, which in turn motivates you to act in ways which actually antagonize others or destruct opportunities which would have otherwise worked out for you.

The act of acceptance isn’t a mindset. It is refraining from acting on insecurities. For example, accepting that your last relationship failed takes on the form of not immediately rushing out to find a new one. Or if you feel insecure, accepting that insecurity means not talking a million miles an hour and word vomiting all over a conversation, or oppositely not shutting down entirely and refusing to let someone into your personal world. Acting on our insecurities is the opposite of acceptance, because we feel the need and then act to change them.

The worst of these is sexual assault, which originates from a person’s misguided idea that they are not worth much, and then seek to quiet that self-doubt by forcing an encounter with another person against their will. It is also a cheap way to do this, and does not actually work since the other person was never given a chance to willfully give what you have instead taken, which is why sexual offenders tend to repeat this behavior, because it doesn’t ever actually give what they are seeking, which would instead be found through meek acceptance of our powerlessness over life and waiting for others to offer such things in their own time.

When you are speaking with someone to whom you are attracted do not rush around in your mind searching for things you think they want to hear. That is manipulation. It will get in the way of your connection, come across as cheap, and extinguish any fire that may be between you. Instead you should talk about things you really enjoy or find interesting. If the other person is actually interested in you they will find the revelation of your passions and interest to be the aphrodisiac you were searching for and find you irresistible. This effect will be compounded many times over if you also allow them the chance to share their interests and passions with you without listening only for the chance to respond or to talk over them. If you share this side of yourself with someone and they are not interested, they were never going to be interested in you anyway, and you can just chalk that up to incompatibility and wait for the next opportunity.

HONESTY

I used to have a fuck buddy who would slip on over to my apartment once or twice a week and we would have really amazing sex for an hour or so and then go our separate ways. We met on a hook-up app, and didn’t even know each other’s names until we had been sucking each other off for six months. To this day we still talk and have great affection for each other, because there was never at any point dishonesty in our intentions (marry someone you were hooking up with and you will never break up). But when I was in a committed relationship for many years my partner had been dishonest with me from the very beginning, not just about his activities but also his intentions, acting on the kinds of insecurities I’ve been discussing and projecting and presenting himself as versions which he thought I wanted to hear or that he should be but which were not in line with his own desires and needs. Deep into our turbulent relationship it finally became clear that he was not the person he had been pretending to be, could no longer endure the stress of it, and our relationship imploded spectacularly.

Strife in any relationship is most strongly caused by dishonesty, and it’s not even always intentional dishonesty—motivated by desires to please and impress the other person the impetus for presenting an inaccurate version of yourself and your desires is altruistic. But it is still dishonest and will in the end cause you problems as well as prevent you from ever really drawing close to the object of your affections, because how can you get close to someone from whom you are keeping a secret? They may find out. So you keep yourself at arms length, the other person feels the disconnect thought they can’t understand why. When they address the tension it causes an argument because again you are afraid they might find out. No relationship, even short ones, can be good or survive when dishonesty infects it.

The best thing you can do then to ensure your own success and most importantly your own satisfaction is to always be honest—about your intentions, your desires, your interests, goals, tastes, moods, dreams—everything. Being honest also means being direct (notice I didn’t say aggressive). Asking for someone’s number doesn’t inform them of your intentions and is thus less likely to lead to reciprocated interest—Do you want to hook up? Lead her on? Take her on a date? Have children? Harass and obsess over her? Break her heart? This really hot straight guy I follow on instagram, named Alec Nysten, gave some great advice to other straight guys about hooking up—to just be honest about your intentions. Don’t go up to a girl you just want to sleep with and make her think you are available for romance and marriage. Politely tell her how hot you think she is and that you’d like to go home with her.

Of course, Alec is one of the hottest men I’ve ever seen so he probably has a lot better chances of this working out in his favor (he just got married). If you respect that the other person is a person with their own feelings, wants, and desires this will probably work out better for you than if you are only thinking of them as an object for your own satisfaction. But you also don’t need rippling pectorals and a washboard stomach to be successful. These are often actually intimidating, which is why a lot of women actually prefer men who have normal, average bodies. I don’t like big muscles either—they make it difficult to be intimate with someone and typically come with an ego which is insufferable, and to me a person who is interesting and fun is far more sexually arousing than someone who is physically attractive (and I’m a guy saying that). You don’t need to be good looking to receive love and attention, and you don’t need to pretend that you are. When I was the fattest I had ever been, with lots of hair loss and a saggy appearance I still had guys throw themselves at me, even one who was himself ripped with washboard abs and a great smile.

Most people are interested in the connection they will get with you, and not the way you actually look, a connection which is best communicated with smiles, eye contact, and the excitement of flirtation, kindness, and compassion. You will get a lot farther if you can focus on yourself and your own behavior instead of what you think others might want, which you can never really know anyway, so it’s better to put yourself out, honestly, as the lure you are for the fish it will catch rather than ones you cannot or will not want to hold onto anyway.

LONG TERM

Similarly to the aforementioned issues, problems in relationships occur when we become overly concerned or focused on what others are doing instead of ourselves. In my last relationship I was overwhelmed by the fact that my partner was financially irresponsible and disinterested in me as a person, and so all of my effort was poured into trying to help him be fiscally prudent and show commitment to our relationship, instead of letting him be with his finances and focusing instead on my own or just leaving his ass for someone who actually liked me for who I was. His problems also resulted from the fact that he was far too concerned with how I failed to meet his expectations and not on his own behavior.

I see many wives and husbands who become enraged, vindictive, pessimistic, and contemptuous over their partner’s behavior while failing to see this behavior of theirs as unacceptable, inappropriate, and often hypocritical or lacking self-awareness (again, back to unrealistic expectations). Every bit as much in the long term and short term alike we fail at relationships when we are far too concerned with what other people are doing. Too preoccupied with finding someone to be in a relationship with I didn’t even consider dating any of the numerous boys with whom I was regularly having sex, because I was too concerned with what other people were doing rather than myself I didn’t even see that I already had lots of relationships and could have chosen any one of them (who were emotionally available) to go deeper (yes pun intended). But even after getting into a long-term relationship I became so focused on what he was doing that I didn’t see how I had settled and compromised my own happiness because I wasn’t even focusing on my own behavior. If I had, I wouldn’t have even gotten into a relationship with someone like that in the first place, let alone stayed with him.

We erroneously think that by focusing and scrutinizing others behaviors that we can avoid heartache and missteps, but it is precisely because we do that which brings us the problems we are seeking to avoid, which instead are avoided by focusing on our own behavior and not that of others. Though it may not be apparent, the most important reason to approach dating in ways which are honest, transparent, and focused on personal responsibility is to also protect yourself from those who are not. If you use subterfuge to get what you want you will also only be attracted to and successful with those who are dishonest themselves and vulnerable to manipulation, and you will never actually win a quality mate, eventually finding yourself lost and frustrated wondering why you can never find success.

Like most moral behavior it is not based on altruism but a real understanding that amoral behavior hurts you as much or more as it does those whom are your targets. When it comes to seduction, sex, hook-ups, or even long term relationships you should first and foremost be honest, accept your own insecurities, and don’t try to engineer situations to work out the way you think they should. Instead, focus on your own behavior and choices. It is a lot more satisfying and successful to let encounters happen as they will rather than trying to make them what you think they should be, to be yourself and don’t try so hard. You will actually find far more of what you want if you let life happen the way it will rather than the way you want it to.

Of course, the point of love is often to have physical intimacy, but many people suffer from libido problems and you can learn more about that in my article about recovering from erectile dysfunction. If you are in an existing relationship and it’s a bit rocky or in danger of breaking up, you might like to read my article on salvaging relationships. If you are someone who also suffers from low self esteem and self worth you’ll be glad to know that it’s entirely okay to be half a person. The kinds of issues at the heart of our insecurities and fears can be addressed through the simple and highly effective trauma therapies which are in my book.