I know a trick to attract any woman. If you want to attract a man it works too. I use it regularly when I flirt and it always works.
I know it works because when I tell the woman I’m flirting with what I’m doing she always says it’s working. Just to be sure I predispose her to be skeptical by telling her what I just wrote — that I know and am using a trick that attracts any woman.
She’ll look at me incredulously and say, “oh yeah, what?”
“You want to know my trick?”
“Yes! What is it?!?”
Usually I take longer to answer because I know she’s curious, but since I’m not writing to flirt with you I’ll answer here faster. I want to share how to do it yourself. Or at least how I improved it in myself.
I tell her, “Genuineness and authenticity.”
She always responds with something like “Oh, well yeah. That works,” like she’s acquiescing, but also like it’s refreshing.
Being genuine and authentic isn’t easy. But it works — for any kind of attraction, personal, professional, etc. If you’re genuine and authentic, at worst a person will respect you. At best — well that’s where your best friendships and relationships come from.
Woman tell men to “just be yourself” all the time. The advice is similar. Men know “be yourself” is easy to say and hard to do. Why? Because prominent messages in society tell men “Get a good job, a good car, and a good house and you’ll be happy,” implying a partner will just appear (women get complementary, equally counterproductive advice). Following that advice seems like being yourself.
But saying “I have a great job, a great car, and a great house” rarely attracts anyone, yet communicating you’ve succeeded by common standards seems genuine and authentic. The same goes for following whatever misguided messages suggest how to attract a man. These messages will make you sound weird — despite following society’s message.

What’s going on?

Why is what seems great advice so hard to follow? What does being yourself mean — how can you not “be yourself?” Why are genuineness and authenticity so rare that practicing them is so unexpected and attractive? Why does saying you succeeded by society’s standards sound inauthentic?
I’ll answer these questions from the perspective of the Model.

How we become inauthentic

As children we didn’t know how to be anything but authentic and genuine. Kids may lie and steal, but they don’t put on airs well. What you see is what you get with them.
As we mature we learn to behave differently in some situations than others. With parents you behave one way, with teachers another, with friends another, and so on. Didn’t you feel good when you learned tricks like dressing one way or using particular language helped in different situations?
Who wouldn’t think making your life better wasn’t being yourself? Yet as much as learning all these tricks helped in each situation, over the long term, they put barriers between part of yourself and the world.
I think of each of these roles as shells you put around yourself. Babies have no such shells. Kids start to put them on. By the time you finish school you have many shells.
Tomorrow: what to do about it: how to regain genuineness and authenticity