This article is part 2 of a 2 part interview with Dr. Robert Glover PhD in marriage and family therapy, an internationally recognized authority on the Nice Guy Syndrome, and the author of No More Mr. Nice Guy.

If you haven’t read part 1 here it is: No More Mr. Nice Guy

In this article:

Let’s begin:

Why women aren’t attracted to nice guys

Michael Frank: Why is it specifically that women aren’t attracted to nice guys?

Dr. Robert Glover: Well I lived the first 40 or so years of my life with this nice guy mentality, and I thought that women just weren’t interested in me and didn’t like me.

I thought I had to go really slow with a woman I liked to let her get to know me, to let her get to see that I’m a nice guy, that I’m not a jerk like the other men that my mother complained about, or that I’ve heard all the other women complain about, and then they’ll like me and want to be my girlfriend.

I used that strategy for the first several years of my life, and although I did get into relationships, I got into relationships that were built around me basically putting up with everything that the woman did, with me trying to fix it and make it better, so that I could have a relationship and get love and sex and my needs met.

I got divorced soon after No More Mr. Nice Guy came out and I got out into the dating world in my mid to late forties. And I thought historically I’m not a very good picker, and I’m not a very good ender, so if I want something different in my life relationship wise, I’ve got to learn how to date.

So I started reading books and watching DVDs on dating and relationships and I just went out and just started interacting with women with no agenda. That’s kind of key. Nice guys have an agenda. I’m going to be really nice to you so that you’ll like me and want to be my girlfriend and hopefully get naked.

But I went out and just started being me. I would act on impulse, I would blurt, I just didn’t hold back. I would just be me.

I was married to this woman for 14 years and we’d go six months without sex. She never wanted to have sex. But after my divorce I got out there and I wondered what planet I’d landed on. Women were getting naked on first and second dates without me initiating anything sexually, and women were propositioning me saying, “I just want to get laid, I just want to have sex with you, I don’t want to necessarily date” etc.

And I’m in my late forties, I’m recently divorced, I’m going through financial struggles, I’ve got a receding hairline, graying hair etc. and I’m thinking what has changed? It’s like I’m living on this different planet where women are coming onto me, wanting to have sex with me, and every woman I dated wanted a lot more sex than I did.

And it wasn’t that I got better looking, richer, or a bigger cock, or anything like that. What happened is that I got out of that nice guy paradigm of trying to please women, trying to get their approval, trying to do nice things for them, trying to get them to like me etc. I was just working on having a good life and I was being uninhibited, not holding back, and women were being attracted to that.

Women need emotional tension

One day I was running up some stairs whilst on vacation in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico where I now live, and I heard this voice in my head that said:

“Women have to have emotional tension to be attracted to a man”

I thought what? I replayed it a few more times in my head, I thought about it a little more, and then I ran back to the bed and breakfast I was staying at and I wrote down 10-12 pages of applications of this on a legal pad, and what I’ve now boiled it down to is what I call Positive Emotional Tension, and it is basically that:

Women have to experience emotional tension, a vibration in their body, something intensely emotional:

To be attracted to a man

To feel sexual desire for him

To stay connected to him over time

And that’s why nice guys have problems in all three of those areas:

Attracting women

Getting women that want to have sex with them

Having a woman that wants to stay with them over time

Because men in general, but especially nice guys, we don’t like emotional tension, and we especially don’t like it in our intimate relationships. We want everything smooth and calm. And so we don’t do anything that will create emotional tension in a women.

And if a woman creates even positive emotional tension like being flirtatious or touching or being overtly sexual, we’ll kill it because it makes us uncomfortable.

And if a woman creates negative emotional tension e.g. a shit test, being critical, complaining, being unavailable etc. we’ll then try to fix that as well. So nice guys basically do everything under the sun to actually kill a woman’s ability to be attracted to us, to feel sexual desire for us, and to stay connected to us over time.

This also answers the age old question as to why women say they want a nice guy, but then go out and fuck the asshole, the drug dealer, the married man, the unavailable man, the unemployed man, the boyfriend of her best friend etc. because the guy that she shouldn’t be with creates lots of emotional tension for women. It’s probably mostly negative emotional tension because he lies to them, he’s unavailable to them, he doesn’t call back when he says he will, he doesn’t give a fuck about pleasing them etc. but it does create a lot of emotional tension.

And we men, particularly nice guys, we have a hard time figuring out why women like that but they do. They have to have that emotional tension. I heard David Deida say one time that “Drama for women is foreplay”. When they’re wound up about something they’re about to have sex. We nice guys think that when a woman is wound up about something, we’ve got to get her calmed down so that she’ll want to have sex. So nice guys basically do the opposite of what works in this area and trying to please a woman and get her approval does nothing to create emotional tension for her.

Michael Frank: Women love a challenge and nice guys don’t provide one.

Dr. Robert Glover: Nice guys are too easy. We’re doormats. Sure you can buy me another drink, but don’t expect me to go home with you. Sure you can help my sister move, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to fuck you. There’s nothing to create that buzz that the woman has to have to want to get with a guy.

The ancestors of all the women on this planet going back hundreds of thousands of years, grew up in a tribe around men that were hunters and gatherers and warriors. These men were fierce and they got things done, and they protected and provided for the tribe and that’s what was wired into a women’s DNA. So if you’re this is passively pleasing nice guy, there’s no warrior in there, there’s no hunter in there, there’s no fierceness in that.

Creating P.E.T Positive Emotional Tension

Michael Frank: Let’s go a little bit deeper into creating emotional tension. What are some practical steps that the average recovering nice guy can take to create emotional tension with a woman?

Dr. Robert Glover: This is the point that I have to pound home with guys in my classes. I don’t teach emotional tension as a technique. It’s not a pickup technique. It’s not a red pill technique. It’s not this thing you’re going to do to get women to do what you want them to do.

Honestly, I’ve been married three times, I have a PhD in marriage and family therapy, and I still can’t figure out how the fuck to get a woman to do what I want her to do. There is no magic bullet. There is no magic formula. You can practice all the pickup, all the red pill, all the No More Mr. Nice Guy and women are still going to drive you crazy. That’s just reality. So it’s not a technique and it’s not a way to manipulate women, or to get the woman you like to like you back, or to get the woman you’re in a relationship with to want to have sex with you every time you want to. That’s not what it’s about.

You just need to be aware that women need to have emotional tension, and every time we try to kill that emotional tension we’re killing a woman’s ability to have a connection with us and to have sexual desire. She may want to, but we’re killing it. So it all begins with what I call P.E.T (Positive Emotional Tension) and that is how you live your life.

By the time I got divorced, I was going where I wanted to go, I was self-employed, I loved my job, I traveled, I went and listened to jazz, I took salsa lessons, I came to Mexico as often as I could, and someone that is comfortable in his own skin, that is living life on his own terms, is very attractive to women. There is a lot of social proof to that, and women will see that and they will experience a buzz.

So something about living life on your terms, and doing things the way you want to do them, and inviting women into your great life, and not trying to please them, and not trying to figure out how to get them to like you, or want to have sex with you, in fact, the more detached you are from trying to get a woman to do anything, the less you give a fuck, ironically, the more success you will have with women.

The more attached you are to wanting a woman to like you, or to have sex with you, or even to quit treating you badly, the less you create that P.E.T (Positive Emotional Tension) that’s attractive to women. But what I’ve found is that when a man is living consciously, powerfully, boldly in the moment, it creates a powerful polarity that attracts the feminine and the feminine is everything that’s in the world: It’s women, money, adventure, opportunity etc.

I’m not an amazingly attractive man. I’m getting older and I still attract women much younger than me. My wife is 22 years younger than me, and she said the first time she saw me walking down the street, she couldn’t take her eyes off me, and I attract all kinds of people and that’s not me gloating or bragging, it’s an energy state because I live life on my terms, I’m playful, I’m energetic, I’ve gotten over given a fuck what people think and that’s attractive. That’s P.E.T.

I think if men can start being more conscious of being a differentiated, mature self, and living life on their terms, being comfortable in their own skin, releasing shame, releasing anxiety, and put a lot of work into that, it makes you naturally attractive to the feminine, and it creates a polarity that draws the feminine to you like a magnet.

Interpersonal P.E.T

Nice guys also need to pay attention to what I call interpersonal P.E.T, that’s your interactions with a woman who is attracted to you and is sending you signals of availability.

Nice guys often don’t notice when women are sending them signals that they’re available most of the time. Women are not real blatant. Maybe they just walk in front of you two or three different times. Maybe they’ll kind of jet their hips out. Maybe it’s the waitress leaning over to where you get a cleavage shot and you just think, oh, she just doesn’t know that her boobs are hanging out. Yes, she knows her boobs are hanging out in your face.

So this is where I encourage guys to be bold, set the tone, and take the lead, and invite her into your great life.

Say, “I’m picking you up on Friday night at 7:30 and I want you to wear a short black dress and high heels”, and don’t tell her anything else. And then you start creating that kind of energy, the uncertainty, the expectancy, and you’re leading, you’re setting the tone.

You also being honest, is a real powerful creator of P.E.T. I’ve never seen a boring relationship between honest people. Relationships get boring when people aren’t real, when they’re not honest with each other, so the more honest you are it creates P.E.T

Showing up in those ways that make a woman feel safe and connected, like you are the warrior, you are the hunter, the gatherer.

The 3T’s

I teach guys something I call the 3T’s:

Touch

Tease

Tell

And every guy wants to turn it into a technique – but it’s not a technique. It’s just a reminder to not hold back. If you have the impulse to touch her, touch her. If you have the impulse to tease her, tease her. If you have the impulse to tell her to do something, do it.

Don’t do it as a technique. Don’t try to force it on a situation. It’s just a reminder to not hold back. To act on impulse. Blurt. You have a sexual agenda. Women know why you’re talking to them. You’re talking to them because they have boobs and you want to see them. Women know that they’re not stupid. Now it doesn’t mean you have to be blatant with your sexual agenda, but if you try to hide it or repress it from women, or act like you want to help their sister move, that kills P.E.T as well.

I will put the caveat out there that this is not the magic bullet. This is not what makes every woman whom you’re attracted to, attracted to you. It isn’t what makes your partner want to have sex as often you do, but it does create that emotional tension and polarity that increases the odds of interesting things happening.

And again, this works best when there’s no attachment to outcome, and it’s why I’m not a big fan of pickup in general. While it teaches a lot of skills that are probably psychologically sound, the attachment to outcome, when a guy says to me what do I do when I see a woman across the room that I’m physically attracted to?

Okay, first of all, approaching a woman purely because you’re physically attracted to her is probably the worst possible reason to approach a woman. You don’t know anything about her except that she’s attractive, but that’s going to fade, but moody, selfish and entitled can last forever, but because we’re attracted to them, we want to please them and get them to like us, and now we’re already in a bad situation where we’ve made her the alpha and we’re the beta. She’s the dominant and we’re submissive, because we’re trying to get her to like us. We’re pounding on a closed door.

I believe it’s much more effective, and again I’ll quote David Deida, he says “Choose a woman who chooses you”. That means if you’re living your life with this kind of energy I’m talking about, women will send you signals of high interest and availability all the time.

In the last 15 years I’ve had no shortage of good women in my life, and I’ve had no shortage of great sex, and I haven’t tried to get one single woman to like me or to have sex with me. As I said, my wife saw me walking down the street, she worked in a massage clinic and she invited me in and we’re married now.

So it’s about creating an energy that lets you walk through the open doors of women that are sending you signals of high interest, not pounding on a closed door, and trying to use certain lines and negs and routines to get some woman to want to spend a little bit of time with you, or to give you a phone number purely because you think it would be amazing to have a girlfriend with tits that look like her tits.

The male brain thinks life will be perfect if I have a woman that looks like that, or if I have a woman with tits like that, but ask anybody that’s ever been with a beautiful woman and it did not make their life perfect.

Michael Frank: Or necessarily happy!

Dr. Robert Glover: Or necessarily happy!

Changing the self-image of the nice guy

Michael Frank: A guy could do all the things you’ve suggested but internally, his self-image could still be that of a nice guy. How can a recovering nice guy psychologically make that switch away from being a nice guy?

Dr. Robert Glover: Well, I think there’s three core pieces to address.

Work on your shame

When I wrote No More Mr. Nice Guy I focused primarily on the shame aspects of believing:

“I’m bad”

“I’m not good enough”

“I have to become different”

“I have to hide things”

And I talked about finding safe people, getting a therapist, finding a men’s group, going to a 12-step group, revealing yourself, and getting honest loving feedback.

I’m not trying to be something different, but I’m trying to release any sense of shame that I’m a bad person.

A good friend of mine who is a psychoanalyst told me one time: “Robert you can be a real asshole, but you’re not an asshole, and when you can integrate those two things together, things are going to click in your life” and they do. Once you can accept that you’ve got a dark side, and believe it or not, having a dark side is actually attractive to most women. And when the nice guy represses it because of the shame of having sexual impulses or thoughts, it’s less attractive to a woman.

So start working on your anxiety and shame, and work on living a great life. Find safe people. Don’t try to go it alone. Don’t just read a few blogs, or listen to a few podcasts, or try to get it from reading an online forum. Get a coach, get a therapist, join a men’s group, join a 12-step group, go find a tribe, that’ll connect you with other guys and that’s crucial.

Most of our shame gets reinforced in our relationships with women when they criticize or complain and when we think we’re not good enough. But with guys that’s where I go find out how good I am. Yeah my guy friends challenge me, but they also give me feedback that I nailed it, I’m good, I did well.

And the thing is you probably won’t be even conscious of what the shame is until you actually start working on it. But over time you’ll start getting a sense of the things you hide, the areas where you get stuck, the repeated messages that maybe keep you from getting women.

So number one work on the shame because if you’re hiding who you are because of shame, you’re not going to be attractive to most women, only fucked up women. But the more congruent you are, the more attractive you’ll be, and congruency is not only attractive to women it’s essential.

Women feel bad when a man is incongruent, when he’s kinda hiding himself and hiding his anxiety, trying to pretend he’s something he’s not, when it’s not what you see is what you get. And you don’t want to make a woman feel that bad stuff inside, you want them to feel a buzz that they want to keep getting more of. So releasing that shame, becoming congruent and authentic is really, really important.

Work on your anxiety

The other thing nice guys need to work on is their anxiety.

Nice Guy Syndrome is a shame based disorder, and it’s also an anxiety based disorder. Pretty much everything nice guys do, or don’t do, is an attempt to manage their anxiety. I mentioned earlier the fight/flight/freeze mentality of nice guys. That’s anxiety management. We try to get people in situations to be different so we don’t feel anxiety. That’s where our codependence, caretaking, pleasing, problem solving, fixing etc. comes in. We’re trying to manage people and situations.

Can you imagine how attractive you’d be to women if you lovingly didn’t give a fuck? If you weren’t trying to manage anything? If you weren’t attached to any outcome? If you didn’t have any anxiety talking to this person because you practice talking to people everywhere you go? If your self-esteem didn’t depend on this woman talking to you and giving you her number?

So working on the anxiety and shame I’ve found are really the keys to just making you this kind of attractive masculine life force that the feminine will be drawn to.

Make your needs a priority

The one other piece I’ll throw out there is to consciously practice making your needs a priority.

As I said, one of the covert contracts of nice guys is to give to everyone else hoping they’ll give back, and then we end up settling for table scraps and whatever is left over, and we’re also terrible receivers as I said, we feel guilty or anxious if people offer to give to us.

So practice receiving and start making your needs a priority. Start doing good things for you. Go to the gym and workout. Go to the doctor and get a checkup. Eat healthy, drink lots of water, quit drinking so much, quit smoking so much pot, get enough sleep, do good things for you.

The more you rewire your nervous system to accept good things because you’re doing good things for yourself, the more you will attract people that want to give to you, and then you let them.

Now I still have to work on this myself. I have had to learn how to let women give me blow jobs because I was married to a woman that never wanted to put anything in her mouth. I thought all women felt that way. And then when I started dating a women who wanted to go down on me, I thought you don’t have to, so I started to change the situation so that I was doing something for them, and then I thought, wait a minute, there’s women out there that get great pleasure and take great pride in giving great blow jobs and who am I to rob them of their pleasure? And so I actually had to consciously practice receiving oral sex.

So it’s a practice of consciously meeting your own needs in a very healthy way, and then surrounding yourself with friends, professionals, organizations that will help you to get your needs met, and then inviting people into your life that want to give to you, and then letting them give to you. And there’s something about making your needs a priority that makes you happier and more content, and it gets rid of that frustration and resentment to where you can just go out and enjoy yourself and have a good life, which then makes you more attractive.

How to recover the frame if you’ve lost it

Michael Frank: Do you have any advice for recovering nice guys currently within a relationship, who’ve lost the frame, whose woman is walking all over them, where there is no respect?

Dr. Robert Glover: I call this setting the tone and taking the lead, and this comes out of my experience in salsa. The number one thing I learned in salsa was you hold the frame and you lead. A woman can’t follow if you don’t lead. You’re the lead, she’s the follow. That’s the name for it. We could call it dominant and submissive, but we call it lead and follow. And one thing that I’ve found in dance is that some women like to be in control, which means they don’t enjoy it and you don’t either. Some women try to help you out through back leading, by trying to help you make the move, but they don’t get to actually enjoy following and being led and you don’t either.

As I got better at dancing and consciously knowing how to hold the frame, stay on the beat, and lead the woman, whenever the woman would either start back leading, or trying to get on her own beat, I would often pull her in a little bit tighter, give her a little bit more frame, and then just whisper in her ear “Let me lead”.

And what would often happen is that the woman would stop, shake out her arms and shoulders and head a little bit, and go “I know, I know, I have a hard time letting go of control”.

I heard that so many friggin times dancing with women that I thought, okay, this is just how it is, and I understand it. Women by nature are security seeking creatures, and they don’t feel safe walking the planet. They didn’t a million years ago. They don’t today.

So if you’re a security seeking creature and you don’t feel safe walking the planet, what do you have to do to try and have some sense of safety and security? You’ve got to become controlling. You’ve got to start managing the situations around you, even if it doesn’t necessarily feel good, even if it gets in the way of you enjoying a dance and being moved and spun around the dance floor, because you don’t want to take that risk of having things happen that surprise you.

And if you’ve learned as a woman that you can’t trust men to show up and lead with consciousness, without an agenda, to keep their word, to follow through on what they say they’re going to do, if you’ve never experienced that with a man, why wouldn’t you take control?

However I find that if the man sets the tone and consciously leads from the beginning, you’re going to have a reciprocal relationship where he can lead and the woman can follow and vise versa.

I’m a marriage and family therapist by trade, and I’ve spent decades working with couples and recovering nice guys in relationships, and almost without fail when a couple would come into my office I’d listen to their complaints, and then I’d always start with the guy and I’d talk to him about a woman’s need for trust, about setting the tone and leading, about being conscious, about following through, about being honest and transparent, and almost without fail the woman would look at their partner and say, “I like this guy, he gets women”.

And even when I teach men to set boundaries with their partner, I’d have women applauding and the guy would say to his woman “You mean you want me to stand up to you?” and she’d say “Of course I do! I don’t want to be married to a wimp!”

And I say, “She’s telling you the truth, but I promise you the first time you set a boundary, she’s going to challenge it because she wants to know can she trust it?”

When a man starts consciously showing up and leading, and I mean consciously leading, not just being dominant and running the show and telling the woman what to do to get your way, but consciously leading in a way that blesses both of you in the relationship, she may challenge and test it at first just to see if she can trust it. But I tell men if you can lead consciously, lovingly, consistently overtime without an agenda, without an attachment to outcome, then most women like on the dance floor, will finally let go of control and trust you to lead.

Now it takes time and not every woman’s gonna let go of control. I tell guys that I believe in the 80/20 rule, about 80% of women like being led in a loving way, it’s just that they’ve never had it, and about 20% of women are going to fight for control every minute, and I tell the guys the only way to find out if you’re with an 80 or a 20 is you have to lead consistently over time because a woman can’t follow where a man doesn’t lead, so lead and see if she follows.

If over time she resists and is hostile to everything you do, you’re probably not with the right person. Again, I go with the open door theory. I’d rather walk through open doors, rather than keep pounding on closed doors.

The 5 ingredients of the great cake of life

Michael Frank: What advice do you have for the average guy to improve his dating and social life?

Dr. Robert Glover: I tell guys to work on creating your great cake of a life. What does that mean to you as a guy? For me, I break it down to five things:

Pursuing my passions Spending time with guys doing guy things Leaning into challenge Regular, strenuous exercise Some sort of spiritual practice

I say go out and focus on that, and at best a good woman is going to be the icing on top of your great cake. She’s never going to be the cake. At best she’s the icing. And if you don’t have icing you can still have a great cake, and I think if you have that attitude and you’re out living a great life, you’re going to be authentically attractive to the feminine and women are going to send you signals. You’re not going to have to work at it all that hard. I don’t work at it. I never have worked at it.

I don’t chase women, I haven’t had to approach a woman in years, and I’ve had no shortage of good women wanting to fuck me day and night, and the majority of women that send me signals of availability and interest are significantly younger than me, even younger than my wife, who as I said, is 22 years younger than me.

I’m not bragging or bloating, it’s just that I’ve come to see myself as the prize and the cake and they get to go enjoy my great cake and I get to have them as the icing.

So work on your life, work on your great cake. It makes you authentically attractive to women. Don’t go to noisy clubs and run pickup lines and negs and routines. Even the pros don’t get a lot of positive response from doing that.

I tell guys to get out of the house, expand your route, linger in public, talk to the people you meet, test for interest, and walk through the open doors. It’s not complicated. Go live a social life that energizes and blesses you and women are going to see you and wonder who is this guy? What’s he about? And they’re going to be drawn to that positive emotional tension.

The 5 and 5 list

Michael Frank: What advice do you have for guys about selecting the right woman?

Dr. Robert Glover: I suggest guys get out a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. I call this your five and five list. On the left side you’re going to have the traits that a woman needs to have to be what you’d consider to be a great woman, a woman that you would consider becoming exclusive with in a long term monogamous relationship, or perhaps marrying.

On the other side of the paper, list the five behaviors or traits you will not tolerate in a relationship that will make you walk away and have nothing to do with her.

I tell guys it takes about three years to really get to know somebody, and the way most people date it would probably take a lifetime, because we don’t actually want to get to know them.

I tell guys the purpose of dating is not to get a woman to like you, to have sex with you, or to stay with you.

The purpose of dating is to find out what her nature is and if she fits into your great life. And if a guy will do that and set the tone and lead, and keep putting the woman in different contexts and different situations and keep checking how she fits in with his five and five, that’s the best way I know.

Dealing with rejection

Michael Frank: I think one of the main things that holds a lot of guys back is the fear of rejection. Any advice in regards to overcoming the fear of rejection?

Dr. Robert Glover: I tell guys that rejection doesn’t hurt, although at one time I would have argued that it does, and a lot of guys will say of course it hurts, I feel like a piece of shit if a woman rejects me!

So what I do is if I have a group of guys in a seminar I’ll pair everybody off and I’ll do a little exercise with them, where I’ll give them an assignment for three minutes where one person in the pair starts by asking for what they want:

“I want to be happy”

“I want more money”

“I want a big dick”

Whatever. And the other guy has to say no to everything they asked for. We do that for three minutes and then trade sides. And at the end when I finally call stop, the guys don’t stop. They keep going. They’re laughing and having a great time. And then I ask how did it feel to be getting rejected nonstop for three minutes? Did it hurt? And they’ll say no it was fun! And I’ll say that’s proof that rejection doesn’t hurt.

And what it comes down to is context. If it’s just a guy in a workshop telling me no it doesn’t hurt. But if the context is that woman’s attractive and I want her to like me, because then I’ll feel like I’ve got something going on and other men will envy me, then we create an attachment, and Buddha said that attachment is the cause of all suffering, and it’s also the cause of all anxiety, and the pain of rejection.

Rejection is all about the attachment we have to a specific outcome. We think she’s attractive and will complete us if she happens to like us. And when she doesn’t seem to show that high interest, we beat the hell out of ourselves. Women don’t beat the hell out of us. We do it to ourselves.

We get attached to a woman desiring us in the way we desire her, and when she doesn’t, or doesn’t seem to, we feel like we must be worthless, or there must be something wrong with us and that’s what hurts. It’s not her having low interest. It’s the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves in that context.

Rejection exercise

One of the things I do with guys that really want to conquer their fear of rejection is to go out with a buddy or two or three, and just have a social night and try to get rejected three to five times. Try to.

Just walk up to women say “Hi my name is (your name) gimme your phone number. I want to take you out later this week”. Just be that bold. Don’t be offensive to get rejected, just be bold, walk up and start a conversation and as quickly as possible go for the rejection. Take your phone out and say “Give me your number, I want to give you a call, let’s go out later this week”. Go do that.

And it’s still scary, but it’s also kinda funny the first time you do it, even if the woman says no, it kinda feels good. And after you do it three to four times, it actually gets boring, it’s not really that big a deal.

Now here’s the paradox: because you’re trying to get rejected, you’re coming across more boldly, you’re more congruent, you’re not reserved or holding back or trying to do it right or trying to make an impression, you’re just going for it, it actually makes you more attractive and interesting to the woman.

I’ve gone out before trying to get five rejections in a night and have not been able to do it. I’d walk home with a phone full of numbers even when approaching women in their twenties. And so there’s something about that that just kills that fear of rejection.

Michael Frank: I think it’s exactly what you said, the less you’re attached to the outcome, and the more you desensitize yourself to rejection, the less of a big deal it becomes.

The 3 rules for great sex

Michael Frank: What advice do you have for the average guy to improve his sex life?

Dr. Robert Glover: Stay in shape, don’t get old, and don’t hold back.

I teach guys something I call the three rules for great sex, and it’s really simple and nice guys have a hard time remembering them because they’re so contrary to the nice guy approach.

By the way: I always would tell a woman the three rules before I ever got naked with her.

Rule number one: I tell guys it’s your job to approach her as if she’s the most open-minded, adventurous woman on the planet. Now, it doesn’t matter if it’s a woman you just met or if it’s a woman you’re in a relationship with. It’s your job to approach her as if she’s the most open-minded, adventurous woman on the planet.

Rule number two: It’s the woman’s job to tell me no if there’s anything she doesn’t want to do.

Rule number three: Guys it’s your job to not take anything personally. Go back to rule number one.

Now, can you imagine just meeting a woman, or being in a long term relationship, and showing up like that 24/7 approaching her as if she’s the most open-minded, adventurous woman on the planet?

Can you imagine approaching her without holding back, without pre-censoring, without being tentative or testing, without having to do a back rub to see if she’s okay with you?

Just approach her as if she’s going to fucking love whatever you bring, and don’t worry about her thinking that you’re a perv, or that you’re violating her, or anything like that, and if she’s not into it, or if she has low interest, don’t take it personally. Just go back to rule number one and live your life that way. Treat the world that way. Approach the world as if it’s an abundant and giving place that is going to tell you no every now and then, and don’t take it personally.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Dr. Robert Glover is an internationally recognized authority on the Nice Guy Syndrome, and the author of the bestselling book, No More Mr. Nice Guy. He is a frequent guest on radio talk shows and has been featured in numerous local and national publications. His website drglover.com features numerous online self-help courses, workshops, podcasts, groups, and trained coaches and therapists.