Guys used to ask me, "What should I work on, my inner game or my outer game?" My answer was always "both." You can’t isolate the two. Developing your inner game or confidence requires testing yourself in social situations. Developing your social skills and overcoming your fears builds confidence.
Friction and Projection
I’d like to finish up the chapter discussing a couple exceptions when it comes to being vulnerable and nonneedy around women. I know at the beginning of the book I made the promise that being less invested in any particular woman is invested in you will make her perceive you to be attractive.
Well, that’s true, but just because she perceives you as an attractive man, doesn’t mean she’ll immediately want to jump into bed with you.
There are two main exceptions that prevent attracted women from wanting to be with you, and they come up often: friction and projection.
Friction is when a woman finds you to be an attractive man but there are external circumstances that prevent her from acting on that attraction or being interested in you.
For instance, let’s say you’re a rock star who spends his nights getting drunk and banging groupies and she’s a born again Christian and has sworn off all sex before marriage. That mismatch in personal values is going to disrupt any attraction there may be and is a genuine piece of friction that is going to prevent anything from happening.
The most common case is the girlfriend/wife. This happens all the time. You meet a woman, you two really click, she’s laughing at all your jokes, smiles when you smile.
But she’s married.
And not only is she married, but she makes a point to cut the flirting off. She’s into you. She likes you. But she values her marriage more than her attraction to you. And there’s nothing you can do about that.