SexPDX
Master Don Juan
How the concept of mystery relates to attraction is often mentioned on the forum but seldom discussed at any level of detail. Anti-Dump preached that guys should volunteer almost no information about themselves and strive to be vague when asked for the first couple months of a relationship. This may have helped guys who had AFCish habits of totally inappropriate self-disclosure but beyond that, it is my suspicion that this admonishion has screwed up more guys than it has helped.
When you first meet a woman someplace where neither of you have seen each other before you are a complete mystery. Is she attracted to you because of it? No. She may be attracted to you for other reasons, but they have little to do with mystery. When first meeting a woman the first thing you need is rapport. If you are going to target any emotions beyond casual pleasantness that rapport must then develop into a connection. In order to achieve rapport and subsequently connect with somebody you have to let the interaction flow naturally and not disrupt it by either putting yourself completely at the center of attention or by being inappropriately secretive when the other is giving you a glimpse of themself.
I find it is best to choose something to reveal about yourself that encourages the other to do the same and allow the level of self disclosure to gradually increase as rapport develops. If you remain aware of the depth of self disclosure and consciously keep track of where you put the skids on it you may find that the other person is taking the level of self disclosure higher than you expected they would. When this happens I normally try to demonstrate similarities between the two of us. This helps take rapport to a connection. This is pretty basic conversational skills one might think but if you are striving to remain a "mystery" it disrupts this.
Just recently I was in a bar where I approached a woman who had been singing karaoke to complement her on how well she sang. I noticed she had a nice leather jacket hanging around her chair and I asked her how long she had it. She said she had had it for a year and then I mentioned that I just got mine a few weeks ago and that my mom had brought it back from Spain. There is rapport. Later on in the conversation she had asked me what I did for a living and I did my little routine where I joke around that I am a garbage man and then eventually told her I am a software engineer when she demonstrated curiousity about the truth. A few moments later we were talking about her singing again and she mentioned that she didn't think she did her best that time. Fishing for complements so I didn't give her one right away but instead asked why she thought that. She said, "because I sing I recognize differences in the way I perform. I guess it would be kind of like you with software, if you did something you knew was not your best work people who used the product may STILL think it's great because they don't know." By doing that she demonstrated a similarity of a state of mind by tying two completely unrelated things about each of us together, very good rapport building. I decided I was not particularly interested in this woman other than just a person to talk to at the bar but we ended the conversation with very good rapport. The point of all this is that such rapport would not have been possible if I had made an effort to withold information about myself such as my job.
What I just described was a very casual interaction. Now, if you continue to withold information about yourself and don't progress at all in terms of levels of disclosure while an actual intimate relationship is developing you will appear so secretive that the girl is basically going to think something is wrong with you. Inappropriate secrecy among people with whom closeness is developing sets off emotional alarms in a normal woman.
Having said all this I do think there is an interpretation of the concept of mystery that is appropriate. Give her a glimpse of you that fascinates her, then pull away so that she can wonder what you are thinking and doing in that time. It's not who you are that you want to keep a secret, it's what you are going to do next.
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- The performer known as Nick
[This message has been edited by SexPDX (edited 10-18-2002).]
When you first meet a woman someplace where neither of you have seen each other before you are a complete mystery. Is she attracted to you because of it? No. She may be attracted to you for other reasons, but they have little to do with mystery. When first meeting a woman the first thing you need is rapport. If you are going to target any emotions beyond casual pleasantness that rapport must then develop into a connection. In order to achieve rapport and subsequently connect with somebody you have to let the interaction flow naturally and not disrupt it by either putting yourself completely at the center of attention or by being inappropriately secretive when the other is giving you a glimpse of themself.
I find it is best to choose something to reveal about yourself that encourages the other to do the same and allow the level of self disclosure to gradually increase as rapport develops. If you remain aware of the depth of self disclosure and consciously keep track of where you put the skids on it you may find that the other person is taking the level of self disclosure higher than you expected they would. When this happens I normally try to demonstrate similarities between the two of us. This helps take rapport to a connection. This is pretty basic conversational skills one might think but if you are striving to remain a "mystery" it disrupts this.
Just recently I was in a bar where I approached a woman who had been singing karaoke to complement her on how well she sang. I noticed she had a nice leather jacket hanging around her chair and I asked her how long she had it. She said she had had it for a year and then I mentioned that I just got mine a few weeks ago and that my mom had brought it back from Spain. There is rapport. Later on in the conversation she had asked me what I did for a living and I did my little routine where I joke around that I am a garbage man and then eventually told her I am a software engineer when she demonstrated curiousity about the truth. A few moments later we were talking about her singing again and she mentioned that she didn't think she did her best that time. Fishing for complements so I didn't give her one right away but instead asked why she thought that. She said, "because I sing I recognize differences in the way I perform. I guess it would be kind of like you with software, if you did something you knew was not your best work people who used the product may STILL think it's great because they don't know." By doing that she demonstrated a similarity of a state of mind by tying two completely unrelated things about each of us together, very good rapport building. I decided I was not particularly interested in this woman other than just a person to talk to at the bar but we ended the conversation with very good rapport. The point of all this is that such rapport would not have been possible if I had made an effort to withold information about myself such as my job.
What I just described was a very casual interaction. Now, if you continue to withold information about yourself and don't progress at all in terms of levels of disclosure while an actual intimate relationship is developing you will appear so secretive that the girl is basically going to think something is wrong with you. Inappropriate secrecy among people with whom closeness is developing sets off emotional alarms in a normal woman.
Having said all this I do think there is an interpretation of the concept of mystery that is appropriate. Give her a glimpse of you that fascinates her, then pull away so that she can wonder what you are thinking and doing in that time. It's not who you are that you want to keep a secret, it's what you are going to do next.
------------------
- The performer known as Nick
[This message has been edited by SexPDX (edited 10-18-2002).]
