You are too old. Too short. Not handsome enough. Not rich enough. There is always another reason why the thing you want is possible for somebody else and impossible for you.
Some of the facts behind those statements may be true. That does not make the conclusion useful.
The question I want you to ask is what you can do with the hand you have been dealt. You can spend years protesting the cards. You still have the same cards at the end of the speech.
Attraction is not a single measurement
Men often reduce the whole subject to the characteristic they are most unhappy about. Height becomes everything. Or age. Or facial appearance.
Then every other part of the interaction disappears from their thinking.
In this episode, I discuss qualities such as confidence, ambition, kindness, company and lifestyle. Different women value different combinations. You do not need to pretend appearance never matters to recognise that it is not the entire person.
If your model contains only one variable and that variable cannot be changed, you have designed a problem with no possible action. That is a very convenient arrangement if the alternative requires work.
Convenient does not mean accurate.
Change the question
There is a difference between declaring that you cannot afford something and asking how you could afford it. One closes the discussion. The other creates a problem you might be able to solve.
The same distinction applies here. Given your circumstances, what can you improve? Where can you meet people? What part of your presentation or communication deserves attention? What experience are you missing?
You may discover real constraints. That is fine. A useful plan has to include reality. But a constraint should help shape the plan, not automatically replace it with self-pity.
During a period when I could not do some of the things I normally did, I spent time learning to code. I could not change the whole situation. I could decide what to do with some of the time it left me.
Notice the story you repeat
A limiting belief becomes especially damaging when you rehearse it every day. You anticipate failure, avoid the experience and then use the absence of results as further evidence that the belief was right.
At no point did you actually test much.
That is why I keep bringing this back to action. An honest conversation with someone you find attractive gives you information. A two-hour argument in your head mostly gives you a more familiar argument.
You will not make everyone interested. You do not need everyone interested. Stop treating each stranger as the final judge of what is possible for the rest of your life.
Put appearance back in proportion
A question at the end of the episode concerned feeling intimidated by a particularly attractive woman. My answer was to gain experience and stop treating her appearance as the entirety of her value.
She is a person you have not yet got to know. You may enjoy her company or discover that you do not. Your job is not to invent a perfect personality for her before you have spoken.
Meeting more people also reduces the weight you place on one interaction. A single phone number feels enormous when it is your only possibility. It becomes easier to see it realistically when your social life contains other possibilities.
Accept what you cannot change. Work on what you can. Then let experience challenge the verdict you have been delivering against yourself before anything has happened.
