There is a lot of discussion in the dating scene these days about what makes for attraction. I took a stab at this subject recently myself.

The general summary is that baseline attraction for guys is largely driven by visual stimulation. How a girl looks.

Baseline attraction for girls is driven more by a guy’s personality and character. Whether he is confident, charming, and able to take the lead.

So the advice if you want to attract a guy is to make sure you work on your physical appearance and maintain as slim, youthful, and beautiful look as you can. The advice if you want to attract a girl is to work on your character to be the kind of confident, charming guy she’s looking for.

I’m not here to tell you this is all bad advice. Nature is what it is whether we like it or not.

A lot of you girls will never like the fact guys are primarily attracted to your looks at a baseline level. A lot of you guys will never like the fact girls are primarily attracted to your confidence and charm at a baseline level.

But there are a couple extreme potential gotchas I need to fill you girls in on.

What are those?

The first is the fact that you can get duped big time because of what your baseline attraction is calling for.

It’s not as bad for us guys. It’s pretty easy for us to see if you are actually physically attractive or not. We can usually ID this at a distance.

Sure when we get up close the wrinkles may become evident, and the makeup you’re using to mask that. If you wear clothes that hide your weight we know it, because you wouldn’t be hiding your weight if you were slim.

I know. It’s so aweful for me to be saying all this.

But nature is what it is.

What I’m trying to emphasize though is how easy it is for us guys to know whether or not you are truly attractive to us. Because our attraction at a baseline level is all about how you look, and that is 100% out there for all to see.

You girls face a much more difficult challenge finding a guy who is truly attractive, because what you find attractive in guys is not as easy to identify and verify.

You can’t just walk up to a guy and confirm he’s really confident. Because character comes from within. Yes it gets expressed in outward actions, but the actions aren’t the character.

Actions can be simulated without the corresponding character.

I know this because that’s a big part of what the male dating advice out there teaches guys to do. To act all confident and Alpha.

Yes it is hard to act that way when you’re not used to it. But such behaviors can indeed be learned.

When a guy is motivated enough to get women in his life, he’ll do what he has to do to get there.

And if he’s a player, all he has to do is do it good enough to be convincing until you give up the goods.

So the first challenge you face in your desire for a confident Alpha male is how to verify this guy you’re finding attactive really is confident and not just faking it. He may actually be that whimpy weak nice guy you’re trying to filter out.

But there’s a second challenge you face with all this that’s even worse than the first. It might make you think again about filtering out that nice guy.

This one is really going to bother you but here goes.

Guys who are truly confident can still be the biggest jerks on the planet.

A lot of Alpha males are up on themselves and look down on everybody else. They don’t care about the people in their lives and do not know how to connect with you when you’re in a relationship with them.

At their most extreme they are narcissists. At their least extreme they are love avoidants.

So the problem is your baseline attraction for this type of guy makes you an easy victim of players, narcissists, and otherwise emotionally unavailable guys.

I know all this because while I was never a pure narcissist, I definitely was a love avoidant.

Love avoidants are people who can’t connect emotionally because they have a deep fear of intimacy.

I spent years in a relationship unable to feel and unable to do anything about it.

Unlike most avoidants I was aware something was wrong with me. I just didn’t have a clue what to do about it.

It is important to understand how love avoidants are created.

Usually we have a parent who leaches off us emotionally and looks to us for nurture instead of providing it. In my case my mom didn’t feel loved in her relationship with my dad so she “had a baby” to give herself love in her life.

And I did that.

I spent most of my life being the one she looked to for strength, advice, and nourishment.

I genuinely loved my mom. But it was only when I finally came to grips with being a love avoidant and began changing, that I finally recognized the dynamic of our relationship.

While that dynamic taught me to be strong for a “weak woman,” it also showed me that connection meant being drained and having the energy sucked out of me.

So I learned to withdraw and hold myself back from true intimacy.

I became avoidant.

Maybe you can identify with what I’m saying here, either because you’re a person who has trouble connecting and being emotionally open with your partner, or you’re with someone who is like this.

It’s hard to recognize this in yourself and it’s even harder to change when you’ve recognized it.

But it’s doable. I did it.

I can help you or your partner do it too. If you would like to talk about this some time let’s connect!

But girls here’s the big thing you need to know about this in your dating life as you’re looking for “Mr Right.”

Being an avoidant made me appear very strong and confident. I looked exactly like the kind of guy you girls always say you want. The guy your baseline attraction calls for. The Alpha male.

But as my partner found out, I was exactly the wrong guy to enter a relationship with. And with what I’ve come to understand about myself, I believe she should have left me very early on.

Because all that apparent strength and confidence had come at a price.

My inability to connect.

You see girls because nature has wired you to want a strong, confident guy to come along and sweep you off your feet and make you feel safe and secure, you’ve been set up for a lot of potential pain and misery.

Because usually the guy who is strong and confident is like that precisely because he isn’t emotionally available. The reason he can “handle the world” is he can’t feel for you like you’ll want him to feel.

I’m not going to give you any answer to this problem today.

I just want you to be aware that despite how you feel about this kind of guy, you might not really want a confident Alpha male after all.

You may be getting much more than you bargained for (or much less depending on how you look at it)!

What do you think girls? Can you share any experiences that confirm what I’m saying here?