In 2008 or so, I first became involved with pickup. The thought of buying a book or video, studying it, and afterwards being able to date beautiful women was quite appealing to an 18-year old boy who had never kissed a girl before.

However, what seemed like a promising undertaking at first – “Once I know all the tricks and techniques I can have any girl” – turned out not to be the solution I was hoping for.

Frustrated after years of unsuccessfully working on my pickup skills and back at “women want money, fame, and looks” I started to ask myself, “Almost every gorgeous woman is dating some guy. Who are these men, the sexiest women are seeing, and how can I learn their secret?”

What do these men have that I don’t?

I was earning some extra cash working as a photographer at the time and therefore met a lot of models – and their boyfriends. It was the perfect job to find out more about who these seemingly normal guys were who only dated women other guys drooled over. So I started to hang out with them trying to decipher their secret.

First, I wanted to find out if they had money. Negative. Most of them had a solid job and could afford a car and a nice apartment. But it wasn’t like they were millionaires or anything.

My second theory was that they must have been naturally great with women their entire lives. Some were, but then again, many of the men I met told me they had not been successful with the ladies when they were younger. Upon hearing this, my interest was officially awakened.

I also tested a few other hypotheses like pickup skills, artistic genius, and yeah, even penis size. But none of them led anywhere.

Of course, asking them straight up what had caused their miraculous change was a dead end as well. Either they had no clue or they gave me useless answers like, “I guess, when I got older I just became more confident.” Thanks for the info! I’ll just lock myself in my room and wait until I become confident…

Honestly, at that point, I was tempted to think that all women are crazy and there is no point in trying to appeal to them, anyway. But I wasn’t ready to give up, yet. All of these guys I hung out with had something in common and I knew it, but what?

Then something dawned on me: I wasn’t ready to give up, yet. But what if giving up was the solution? What if all of these guys had given up chasing women and sex?

As it turned out, that’s exactly what had happened.

Truly confident by accident

Mark Manson writes in his book Models – Attract Women Through Honesty, “True confidence is being less invested in other people’s perceptions of you than in your perception of yourself.”

Who is a man, trying to get women to sleep with him, more invested in: in his perception of himself or in the perception of the women he approaches?

The men I befriended, who had given up their endless search for sexual partners, unknowingly had changed an important thing: they had become less invested in women and more invested in themselves. Thus, they had built true confidence.

Instead of the needy guy who would say and do anything to get laid, they became the picky men who stood out because they didn’t stare at beautiful women or pretend to be cool just to be liked.

What else did they change?

They didn’t pay for women’s drinks with the intention to seduce them, anymore. The only time they would buy a round was when they genuinely wanted to.

They didn’t stop what they were doing just because a cute girl texted them.

They didn’t go out with women just because they were beautiful. If they didn’t have an appealing personality or a great energy they weren’t interested.

They became the guys who talked to attractive women the same way they talked to men or women they had no interest in.

They didn’t turn around when a hot girl walked by.

They didn’t chat about how sexy various ‘chicks’ were.

They didn’t go out with the intention to pick up women, anymore.

You might ask yourself now, “But if they stopped actively looking for women, how the hell did they meet them, then?” Simple. By investing in themselves.

How to meet women passively

It turns out that when you don’t obsess over women anymore you suddenly have a shit ton of time available. Time to do sports. Time to attend classes. Time to become great at your job. Time to build stuff with your own two hands.

All of these investments in things that make you a better and more interesting man will only intensify your attractiveness. It certainly had that effect for the guys I hung out with.

Not only did their lifestyle changes make them more and more attractive, but they also connected them automatically with new people. And some of these people happened to be attractive women.

Picture the situation: Let’s say you are at a volleyball class. You love the sport and so do all the other people there, some of which are cute girls. Whereas the other guys in the class constantly check them out and try to make them laugh, you don’t participate in any of it. You are just there for the sport and to have a good time with all the other like-minded people.



Now comes the interesting part. Because you behave so differently than almost all other guys there, the cute girls, that the other guys are competing over, want to get to know you. At this point, it’s just a matter of saying “yes”.

I remember this anecdote one of the model boyfriends told me. After a great conversation at the beach (without any intentions) with this really sexy girl, he was surprised when she approached him later that day and said with a dirty smile on her face, “My girlfriend and I would like to party with you at our hotel room tonight. Just come over at 11 P.M. It’s room number 427.” Accidental threesome right there.

As you might imagine, over time and fueled by events like that, the guys who stopped chasing women developed the belief, “It’s easy to meet and attract beautiful women.” Of course, this only made them even more successful. What a virtuous circle!

Relationships also profit from not chasing women anymore

Another fascinating effect I observed was that the relationships of these men were also way better than your average guy’s.

From the moment they first met their girlfriends forward, they always behaved pretty much the same. There was no “getting too comfortable in the relationship” problem because they never tried to impress their partners.

They weren’t the perfect gentlemen at the beginning of the relationship. But they also didn’t turn into beer drinking, chips eating, couch potatoes a few years later.

They stayed the open, fun, social, active men they had become through their lifestyle changes. It was easy for them because that’s the life they enjoyed living – with or without a woman by their side. There was no acting involved.

Effects on me

Seeing all of this made me turn my own dating approach in a different direction. I started to unlearn everything I had adopted from the pickup scene. At the same time, I invested heavily in becoming the man I wanted to become.

Those years were among the most productive, and wildest of my life. But best of all, they allowed me to meet my girlfriend Kristina, the gorgeous woman I have been with ever since.

The lesson from all of this – that became one of the cornerstones of what we write about at Lovelifesolved.com: Give up chasing women and you’ll have more women in your life than you can handle (which brings a whole new set of problems with it).