Advice to Young Men: Stop Worrying About Whether She Likes You

If you want a girlfriend, there is nothing worse for you than fretting about getting a girlfriend. When you meet a woman you like, nothing will undermine your game as much as worrying about whether she likes you. The best thing is not to wonder at all.

Most guys, however, make this mistake. I certainly made it. More than once. The regular pattern goes something like this: You meet a girl. She’s pretty. You have reasonable assurance that she is not a sociopath. In fact, maybe she even seems sweet. The next step is that you try to chat her up. You make a couple of jokes. She laughs. Things seem to be gong well. You get her number.

Then, when you are alone, the second-guessing starts. You analyze every word that came out of your mouth. You wonder how many other guys are after her. You remember when she glanced away from you for a moment. Was she bored? Was she looking for someone else?

Your anxiety mounts. Before you know it, you’re a nervous wreck and trying to convince yourself she wasn’t all that hot, anyway. If you see her again, you’re a changed man. No longer confident, no longer engaging, you present yourself to her as a lump of insecurity and need.

And guess what?

She is not into lumps of insecurity and need.

If you’ve been through something like this (and I’m pretty sure you have been), you have to figure out what you’re going to do to avoid such mistakes in the future.

Here’s what I recommend:

 Stop worrying about whether she likes you.

Instead of wasting time worrying about her, you ought instead to look inward at the assumptions behind the worry. Let me help you with that.

First, it doesn’t take long to realize that if you are worried about whether or not she likes you, you’ve got the whole thing framed wrong. If you want peace and success with girls, you’re going to have to flip the frame around.

When you meet an attractive girl, you’ve been taught to think of yourself as a performer trying to pass her test. At the heart of your worry is the assumption that she somehow stands over you in judgment. You’ve been convinced the power is hers, that your worth comes from her, that if she fails to recognize your value, you have none.

A better approach is to see the two of you as making decisions about one another. This means that, like it or not, she is free to reject you. She is free to look for someone she likes more. There is nothing you can do about it, so accept that reality and don’t struggle against it.

At the same time, if you are busy worrying about the decisions she is making, you probably aren’t putting enough thought into your own. Flipping your frame begins when you decide that you must evaluate her as much as she is evaluating you. This is hard for two reasons. First, it’s easy to be fooled by good looks. It’s easy to assume that if she pleases your eyes, she must be a good person all the way around. Definitely not true. Second, you’ve been taught that your role as a man is never to make judgments about women. Again, Definitely not true.

Instead of worrying about whether she likes you, think about whether she is worthy of you. Not every woman deserves your time, attention and resources. Learning to discriminate between those who do and those who don’t will put you in a position of strength when you interact with her.

Most guys never make the mental changes necessary to reframe their interactions with women. Don’t be one of them even if you have to struggle. See, you may have a deeply seated sense that something is inherently wrong with you, that your very being is flawed. You might feel that just being you is something to be ashamed of. It’s not. Even if you are convinced you suck in every possible way, the reality is that worrying about what she thinks of you will not make her like you more; it will just make you like you less.

If you are the kind of guy who feels like you aren’t good enough for her, you have to face a hard truth: you may not be. But, it isn’t because of some mysterious negative aspect of your being you can’t control. The reasons are more objective than that. Likely, it’s because you aren’t working hard enough.

Just us she should have to show she is worth the effort; you have to demonstrate enough value to make it clear you are worth her time. Sitting around all day playing video games and eating pizza is not the way to do this. You need to make some effort. You need to capitalize on your strengths and shore up your weaknesses.

Whatever your inner state, the solution is the same: don’t worry about her opinion of you. Instead, focus on objective achievements and personal goals. Become better. As you do this, you’ll find your self-respect grows and the opinions of others matter less because you are more at peace with yourself. Remember, there’s no point worrying about whether she likes you because you can’t control her responses. Spend your time instead on what you can control: becoming the kind of man everyone, men and women alike, can’t help but admire.

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