generosity
abundance
vulnerability
listen
pay attention
stop thinking of yourself
focus on them, not on you
The most important trait all seducers share is that they constantly surprise us.
Humans are pattern-seeking machines. Analyzing everything is one of our biggest strengths, which is also why it’s the skill we most love to exercise. However, that also means as soon as we figure something out, it’s boring.
As a corollary, the single most seductive thing you can do is to stay interesting by being unpredictable. There’s an aura of mystery, paradox, and intrigue around someone who’s hard to understand. That doesn’t mean you should create artificial complexity, but break patterns.
If you’re usually shy, play around with flirty looks or seek the occasional environment where you’re in your element and full of confidence. Girls can crack guy jokes and men can stay on top of fashion trends. Just when things are about to get boring, be ambiguous and take a step in the opposite direction.
Above all, don’t be an easy target. Play hard to get not because it works, but because you should be. You’re worth it.
Successful seduction starts with who you are and the type of seductive energy you express. It requires creating yourself, or refining yourself, in one of the seducer categories.
While always being good for a surprise is a necessary condition for all successful seductions, people tend to still choose certain strategies over others. We don’t just like finding patterns, we embody them. Greene says there are nine types of seducers:
The Siren. As a woman, you can portray the ultimate fantasy for a man: an uninhibited, promiscuous, pure symbol of pleasure. Sirens have an abundance of sexual energy and they know how to use it. They lure in their targets, like the sirens of Odysseus, through their image and teases. Crafting the perfect seductive pose.
The Rake. As a man, you can speak to the universal female need for desire, attention, and appreciation by showing her you’d do anything for her. Rakes insatiably adore the opposite sex, and their desire is infectious. Unlike the normal, cautious male, the Rake is delightfully unrestrained, a slave to his love of women. There is the added lure of his reputation: so many women have succumbed to him, there has to be a reason. Remember: it is the form that matters, not the content. The less your targets focus on what you say, and the more on how it makes them feel, the more seductive your effect. Give your words a lofty, spiritual, literary flavour the better to insinuate desire in your unwitting victims. To play the Rake, the most obvious requirement is the ability to let yourself go, to draw a woman into the kind of purely sensual moment in which past and future lose meaning. You must be able to abandon yourself to the moment. If no obstacles face you, you must create them. Seduction requires obstacles.
The Ideal Lover. We all have broken dreams. The ideal lover represents the fantasy of those dreams without the disappointment we’re used to from reality, life, and other people.
Casanova was perhaps the most successful seducer in history; few women could resist him. His method was simple: on meeting a woman, he would study her, go along with her moods, find out what was missing in her life, and provide it.
He made himself the Ideal Lover. Talleyrand simply held up a mirror to Napoleon and let him glimpse that possibility. People are always vulnerable to insinuations like this, which stroke that their vanity is almost everyone’s weak spot. Hint at something for them to aspire to, reveal your faith in some untapped potential you see in them, and you will soon have them eating out of your hand. Ideal Lovers have an aesthetic sensibility that they apply to romance. Ideal Lovers appeal to their better selves, to a higher standard of beauty, and they will hardly notice that they have been seduced. Make them feel elevated, lofty, and spiritual, and your power over them will be limitless.
The Dandy. Most of us are trapped in societal roles. The dandy refuses to play them. By defying all expectations and curating his or her own self-image, the dandy shows us what it means to be free. We are instantly attracted to those who are more fluid, more ambiguous than we are— those who create their own persona. Dandies excite us because they cannot be categorised, and hint at a freedom we want for ourselves. Dandies like to play with their image, creating a striking and androgynous allure. Dandies seduce socially as well as sexually; groups form around them, their style is wildly imitated, and an entire court or crowd will fall in love with them. In adapting the Dandy character for your own purposes, remember that the Dandy is by nature a rare and beautiful flower. Be different in ways that are both striking and aesthetic, never vulgar; poke fun at current trends and styles, go in a novel direction, and be supremely uninterested in what anyone else is doing. Most people are insecure; they will wonder what you are up to, and slowly they will come to admire and imitate you because you express yourself with total confidence.
The Natural. Our ideals are our childhood selves. Naturals remind us of who we once were – honest, spontaneous, open, playful human beings – and that’s why they’re attractive.
The Coquette. Coquettes are masters of the bait-and-switch. They raise our hopes, then shoot us down, again and again. Sadly, that only makes them more desirable. Coquettes are self-sufficient, with a fascinating cool at their core. Coquettes seem totally self-sufficient: they do not need you, they seem to say, and their narcissism proves devilishly attractive. People are inherently perverse. An easy conquest has a lower value than a difficult one; we are only really excited by what is denied us, by what we cannot possess in full. Your greatest power in seduction is your ability to turn away, to make others come after you, delaying their satisfaction. To understand the peculiar power of the Coquette, you must first understand a critical property of love and desire: the more obviously you pursue a person, the more likely you are to chase them away. Self-esteem is critical in seduction. (Your attitude toward yourself is read by the other person in subtle and unconscious ways.) Low self-esteem repels, confidence and self-sufficiency attract. The less you seem to need other people, the more likely others will be drawn to you.
The Charmer. We all like to feel comfortable. In a charmer’s presence, we always are. They lift us up by highlighting our best traits, rather than focusing on presenting themselves. Charmers want and know how to please— they are social creatures. Charmers do not argue or fight, complain, or pester— what could be more seductive? First, they don’t talk much about themselves, which heightens their mystery and disguises their limitations. Second, they seem to be interested in us, and their interest is so delightfully focused that we relax and open up to them. Finally, Charmers are pleasant to be around. They have none of most people’s ugly qualities— nagging, complaining, self-assertion.
The Charismatic. Some traits radiate from the inside out. Confidence, purpose, contentment, sexuality, when someone has an intense aura on the outside but stays rather detached, we can’t help but be smitten. Charismatics have unusual confidence in themselves. Learn to create the charismatic illusion by radiating intensity while remaining detached.
Purpose. If people believe you have a plan, that you know where you are going, they will follow you instinctively The direction does not matter: pick a cause, an idea, a vision and show that you will not sway from your goal.
Mystery. The mystery lies at charisma’s heart, but it is a particular kind of mystery— a mystery expressed by contradiction, by having conflicting traits. People do not want to hear that your power comes from years of effort or discipline. They prefer to think that it comes from your personality, your character, something you were born with.
Saintliness. Most of us must compromise constantly to survive; saints do not. They must live out their ideals without caring about the consequences. The saintly effect bestows charisma.
Eloquence. A Charismatic relies on the power of words.
Theatricality. A Charismatic is larger than life and has an extra presence.
Uninhibitedness. Most people are repressed and have little access to their unconscious— a problem that creates opportunities for the Charismatic, who can become a kind of screen on which others project their secret fantasies and longings.
Fervency. You need to believe in something, and to believe in it strongly enough for it to animate all your gestures and make your eyes light up.
Vulnerability. Charismatics display a need for love and affection.
Adventurousness. Charismatics are unconventional.
Magnetism. If any physical attribute is crucial in seduction, it is the eyes. They reveal excitement, tension, and detachment, without a word being spoken.
Wordless communication (through clothes, gestures, actions) is the most pleasurable, exciting, and seductive form of language.
The Star. Most of us want to escape our lives, most of the time. A star allows us to do just that by following them in their crazy, glamorous life that indulges our fantasies. Stars are ethereal and envelop themselves in mystery. People are hopelessly susceptible to myth, so make yourself the hero of a great drama. And keep your distance— let people identify with you without being able to touch you. They can only watch and dream. First, you must have such a large presence that you can fill your target’s mind the way a close-up fills the screen. Second, cultivate a blank, mysterious face, the centre that radiates Starness.
Which one of these are you? Which one could you be? And who have you fallen for in the past? More analysis, more patterns, more fun!
Anti-Seducers come in many shapes and kinds, but almost all of them share a single attribute, the source of their repellence: insecurity.
First impressions aren’t always accurate, but that doesn’t mean people will give you a second chance to rectify them. And some behaviours are just wholly unattractive. Here are nine of them: