Risk versus reward: how men should pitch the approach to women

“Courage is not the absence of fear,

but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”

James Neil Hollingworth (1933-1996)

                 

The memory is still fresh from when I ventured into the daunting and once unforeseeable land of chemotherapy.  In great hope that I was wrong, I recall sitting there in my garden at the pinnacle of my attractiveness and confidence life span, with only one perceived way to go from that day on.  I prayed to God that I was wrong, but either way it felt like an appropriate time to write down some of my thoughts, mistakes and experiences over the years in approaching women and how to ultimately assess moving forward.

I don’t care who you are, whether you are a man 20 or 50 years of age, attractive or unattractive, outgoing or not, there isn’t one male person out there who enjoys the thought or experience of being rejected by a woman.  Some take the knock backs better than others, and some use the fine art to learn from it, but I don’t believe anyone who can turn round and say the words of “that didn’t bother me one bit”.  Now I don’t doubt that many of us have found a way to deal with this rejection, and the sooner you do, the easier it becomes to cope with the next situation.  However, only a liar could wake up in the morning and say “I hope I do get rejected today”.

Of course there is a theory from some ‘pick-up artists’ that the only way a man will overcome his fear of approaching women is to force himself to approach them on a constant basis.  I don’t totally disagree with this concept, and there is certainly some truth in the realization that the more you approach, the easier it becomes the next time.  However, if a guy constantly keeps approaching women, and although he feels more relaxed for every passing move, if he is continuously being rejected then he has achieved two negatives as a consequence:

• He eventually will start to doubt his methods are of benefit.  He will, as a result, return to his former self or expect women to start approaching him, and finally he will lose his enthusiasm and fun element that he took so long to build up in interacting with women.  Basically, he returns to the person he was before he paid for a five day course in attracting women.
• If he carries out this ad lib process of approaching all women he finds attractive, especially if it is in the same small location, women will eventually be alerted to this, they will become even less attracted to him, and they will form him into their laughing stock.

The whole numbers game strategy - whilst not totally a guaranteed failure - only holds so much weight.  Remember that a woman likes a man who other women are attracted to, and not to be mistaken with a man who is always around women where he does all the chasing.  The latter makes him look desperate and cheap in their eyes.  Women will be aware of their female peers being attracted to a man without him having to even lift a finger.  They spot another woman’s attraction to him far quicker than the man does himself.  It could be call the female sixth sense.

There is another way to analyze how to pitch your number of approaches in a more strategic manner.  It can be labeled the – ‘Risk v Reward’ process.  Before examples are given, here are a couple of general analogies:

I’m asked to be the getaway driver for a group of armed robbers raiding a bank in the centre of London.  We know there are security guards and cameras everywhere, in addition to the instant messaging service to alert the police.  They are offering me a six figure sum if the operation is successful and we are not caught.  This is a ‘High Risk / High Reward’ attempt.

Now after a successful operation, the same gang have targeted a small village bank in the knowledge security levels are minimal.  They are not expecting a high amount of money in the premises, and they offer me just one percent of the figure from the previous task.  This is a ‘Low Risk / Low Reward’ consideration.

When assessing approaching women, the rules follow a similar pattern.  A lot will depend on the type of person you are, how attractive you believe she would find you, how attainable she appears, and the kind of mood you are in at that particular time.

Low Risk / High Reward

This scenario is every man’s dream vision.  He sees a beautiful woman across the room, and he can’t help but notice she is smiling at him and acting in a way a woman does in her attraction moments - like looking away quickly and stroking her hair.  Naturally, even in situations such as these there are no guarantees, but she has pretty much given the man all the messages that spell out an invitation to approach her.  This is known as a no-brainer, so he should always go in for the kill with a casual, confident and genuine demeanour.

Low Risk / Low Reward

A man is on a dry spell with women, and whilst not completely happy to do so, he is pleased to drop his standards for the short term at least.  So after a few drinks in a bar, he catches the eye of a girl who isn’t exactly his type, but she will arouse him to a level required.  In truth, he will not only be dropping his standards with this one, but in turn he will be boxing below his weight too.  The likelihood is she will be excited you approach her and that she will engage your approach.  In a strange way, men in this predicament usually carry out their best actions in these cases because of the relaxed mood a woman like this places him in.  In simple terms, he isn’t too bothered to mess up such is his lack of interest in her.  On the positive, she will give him a degree of leeway, as whilst he approached her, it appears to turn on its head where she is the hunter and he is the hunted.

High Risk / Low Reward

Not many men will perform this task unless they are the extreme in male confidence or they are men acting like a dog hanging onto meat.  So when would this occur?  Imagine there is this notorious high maintenance woman who attends the same night class as you.  No doubt about it, she is highly attractive in the physical way but negatives come in the way of a lack of persona, her high desire for a man with money, and her cynicism towards men.  Whilst he acknowledges she is hot, he can think of at least half a dozen other women in his social environments who he finds equally as attractive.  The high risk consideration is if she rejects him there is a chance she will humiliate him to the other class students.  The low reward thought is, even if she is amiable to his advances, he lives in the knowledge she will be mighty hard work to please.

High Risk / High Reward

This is probably the most common event of all four.  Young women in today’s world have the

constant need to demonstrate higher value with men they know, men they do not know, or sometimes even men they are in a relationship with.  In the latter case, this is rarer, as women prefer to be with a man higher status in as many areas as possible – except physical attractiveness.  They have to form a belief in their mind that they hold more value than him, or to show less interest in him than he does in her.  It’s a front to overcome her vulnerability, insecurity and nervousness of her growing attraction towards him.  The more physically attractive she is, the more prone she is to do this.  With this in mind, she will refrain from showing as much attraction or giving hints to him when he is in her vicinity.  This doesn’t mean she is not attracted to him - it’s just that he has nothing to go on in terms of indicators of interest to advance towards her.

Scenario for ‘High Risk / High Reward’: a woman is at the other side of the gym, and a man is highly attracted to her.  She is the vision of dreams to what he finds stunning and appealing.  Confident men are in their element in these situations, as they rely on the knowledge of other women finding them desirable, and even though this woman has given off no signs, he knows there is a good chance she will be pleased if her approaches her.  The risk is high in so far he is cold approaching her, but in his mind the risk is low due to not placing too much pressure on the outcome.  He has fundamentally produced a psychological mindset that women should validate themselves to be worthy of his company, and not the inverse.  The majority of men get it the wrong way round – they place too much emphasis on a woman’s beauty and her possible abruptness, and they assume, as because they made the approach, that the woman is of higher importance.  In the case of the confident man, he accepts she may be his type, but he rationalizes that there are thousands of other women out there too.  This man focuses more on the reward and less on the apparent risk and possible rejection.  Unfortunately, men low in confidence stakes focus on it in the opposite way, and in turn they usually do nothing, they hold onto vain hope of on her approaching him, or they approach her with an air of supplication and sycophancy.  A woman has to find the balance in her mind of a man being challenging but not unattainable.  This is a generic reason observers will see many highly physical attractive women with average looking to above average looking (but not good looking) men.

As someone who has experienced a life threatening disease such as cancer, it is somewhat easier for me to find the necessary perspective when assessing whether to approach a woman you are attracted to.  Because that is what this all is really - perspective.  It’s never easy, but it just gets easier.  If I could sum it up, it would be learning that nothing is worse than wondering what might have happened.  The biggest regrets are not what we do in life, but they are the things we do not do.

A woman can assist a man in these difficult moments.  If she genuinely doesn’t want to be approached then I’m one hundred percent behind a woman in alienating herself from any man on the planet.  What I don’t agree with is those who act distant but would like to be engaged by men.  Surely it is deprivation of an inclination due to nothing more than pride.  My advice to women in this case would be to act friendlier, more approachable, and offer signs to a man that you would like him to approach you.  Let’s be fair, women have a huge advantage in this respect.  Very few men on the planet, no matter how unattainable, physically attractive or high value they are, will ever blatantly refrain from interacting with women.  So throw away the whole value thing with the leftovers from your last meal, loosen up, take yourself less seriously, and give him the hint to interact with you.  Pie in the sky?  I guess it is…