When you’re struggling with women, there are few words in the English language more vexing than the following:

Just. Be. Yourself.

Women say this platitude all the time. In fact, it only took a few seconds of Googling to see this exact message being spread online:

Men, logical beings that we are, take this advice at face level. And on face level, it sounds meaningless. “Of course I’m myself. Who else would I be? I’ve been myself for 20-odd years and I’m still not any closer to getting a girlfriend!”

But I don’t think women are being deceptive or sneaky. They can only benefit if there are more attractive men in the dating pool, so they’re happy to give out advice that they think – however superficially – will actually help you.

The problem: women can’t quite express what they want, and men can’t see the real message underneath the platitude.

So let’s cut right through it. Here’s what “be yourself” really means:

1: It means don’t take her too seriously.

Most men – even those unsuccessful with women – have this story: you spend some time with a woman in whom you have no interest (thanks to work, or college classes, etc.) and you find that, despite your better efforts, she starts showing obvious signs of attraction.

“Oh, great,” you probably said at the time. “Just my luck; only unattractive women are interested in me.”

It’s not a paradox. Her attraction was a natural result of you being your real, core, confident self.

There’s actually a lesson there. Try to remember how you behaved when you didn’t feel any social pressure whatsoever. This is a good measurement of who you really are.

After all, you’re “being yourself” around a woman you have no interest in, you…

● Don’t tolerate any nonsense or rude behavior

● Speak loudly and often curtly

● Make rock-solid eye contact, and often make her look away first

● Speak effortlessly, without the filter of “what will she think of me if I say this?” After all, you couldn’t care less

● Are convinced that in this situation, you’re the prize and she is not

Sound like someone you know? Apply those same five principles around women you’re really attracted to, and often you’ll find the same result: she’ll start flirting with you.

If you can’t attract hot women, the problem isn’t that you’re already “being yourself,” it’s that you’re anything but this natural, confident self around her. When the stakes are high with a hot woman, be the same guy you are when the stakes are low around someone you have no attraction to.

2: It means having your own life and your own identity.

I know lots of confident, socially successful dudes who do “nerdy” things like astronomy or hosting Dungeons and Dragons games at their apartments.

If you felt yourself gasp when reading that previous sentence, we have a problem.

Women are highly adaptable to strong men. Think of Ann Perkins from “Parks and Rec,” who had a separate box for each of her boyfriends: a box full of exercise equipment when she was dating the health nut, grunge clothes when she dated the band leader, etc. Most of the time, they don’t really care what you do so long as you have a strong sense of self and identity and couldn’t care less what she thinks.

Women are not highly adaptable to weak men; with weak men, they can actually be incredibly rigid. Trying to hide a certain side of yourself won’t help. She’ll sense the insecurity and she’ll be turned off. You think it’s the “Dungeons and Dragons” she hates, when it’s really your need for her approval turning her off.

Ask yourself this: if an unattractive woman made fun of you for playing Dungeons and Dragons, would you laugh her off and proceed with the night as planned? Hell yes, you would. So why change your behavior just for women born with a better set of genes?

If you really are “yourself,” and have a strong sense of identity, you won’t.

This applies to everything in your life, not just your hobbies. It applies to your work, your ambitions, the way you choose to spend your time, even your core values. If you adjust them to sound more palatable to her, you stop being yourself and you start being a strange, nebulous phony version of yourself.

Why? Why would you even want to be with a woman who doesn’t want you for you?

Simple. Because you’re afraid that if you don’t change, you won’t have another chance with another woman like her. Drop that fear, and you’ll be more authentically “yourself.” If she doesn’t like it, laugh her off and proceed with your night.

3: It’s Not an Excuse for Wussiness

Some guys hear this advice and say “but I’m not confident around hot women. I feel like I’m ‘faking it.’ That’s not being myself!”

But that’s not how self-improvement works. You go to the gym because you’re not strong; you want to be stronger. You start a new company because you’re not rich; you want to be wealthier.

“Be yourself” isn’t an excuse to be lazy. Really what it means is “be your best self.”

It means having abundance mentality when you’re around women so that you’re not faking confidence, but actually living it. It means “faking it until you make it” sometimes, because you know that your goal isn’t to be fake, but to practice being more of who you really are: relaxed, confident, charming.

If you really take Alpha X’s advice to heart, you try to adopt the mentality that “I am the prize” or “I am the alpha.”

If you have that mentality, and a woman says “be yourself,” you won’t be frustrated anymore.

Instead, you’ll think, “that truly is all I have to do.”

Tips:

● The next time you’re around a beautiful women, try and remember how you felt the last time you were really confident and charming when the pressure was off. “Fake it ‘til you make it.”

● Live your life the same whether or not she’s in it. Indulge your favorite hobbies. Tell her your core values. Disagree with her when you disagree with her. Don’t hide who you are; in fact, do your best to have a “this is me; take it or leave it attitude.” If you are truly the prize, this won’t be a problem.

● Focus on being the prize. When you’re the prize to be won over, you’ll never have to worry about saying the wrong thing, or sitting a certain way, or who pays for dinner. All of those worries will vanish because you’ll know that the onus is on her to try to impress you. And once she senses that from you, she will try to impress you.

– ChampagneHouse @ Get Suave