E.B. sent in a question that I would normally answer on my Q&A email newsletter. However his question covered so many areas I think it’s better if I discuss them here. I know a lot of readers have had questions similar to the points E.B. raises.

One of the things I admire about you:
You admit that things like wealth, status, power and success do matter to women.

That’s half true. I think a certain level of wealth is extremely important for a man, but not to attract women. Only through money can a man achieve a level of ease and freedom that’s impossible if one is constantly having financial problems or living in financial lack.

When I was young and poor, I didn’t want to make a lot of money because I wanted to attract women. That was the last thing on my mind. I wanted to make money because I wanted to live a life where I didn’t have to constantly worry about paying my bills, or broken cars, or debt, or getting my unemployment check, or any of that other crap so many men spend so much time worrying about. I wanted to travel whenever I felt like it and purchase the things and experiences that made me happy.

I never wanted to be desiring something badly but be unable to get it because I “couldn’t afford it”. It had nothing to do with women or sex.

As is always the case, it all comes back to happiness.

After all, you or I could be the greatest guy in the world, but if we were homeless, we wouldn’t get any women.

Not true at all, and I’m confident you’ll see some comments on this post which will educate you.

To quote myself from a recent post: “There are huge swaths of the male population out there who honestly believe that if they pay for fancy dinners and trips and gifts and brag about their incomes, women will get wet and leap all over them. That’s not how most women work.”

I’m not naming names, but I know plenty of very successful PUA guys where were either poor or literally homeless, at least for a while, while they were pulling chicks left and right. Poke around on the archives of any big PUA forum and you’ll find these guys…guys who wear the same outfits several days in a row, sleep on their friend’s couches, but still pull ass in a big way.

I just saw this video where a homeless beach bum who lives off food stamps, with no job and no home, regularly picks up chicks on the beach.

So no, money is not required to “get women”.

However, I’m still going to repeat that being poor is a very, very bad thing for a man. A financially destitute lady’s man is still going to live a life of stagnation, reduced self esteem, unfulfilled dreams, and stress. Not to mention the fact that when he gets old, he’s going to be fucked.

But what I’ve never seen anywhere, including in your writings, is how to properly display that stuff to women, assuming you have it.  (I do, to a degree.)

I’m a motivated, high-energy, hard-working, reasonably successful guy. But I have talked before about how I live in a lower-middle-class neighborhood, drive a seven year-old car, and have a house full of crappy, hand-me-down furniture from family members. You should see the frowns I see on women’s faces when they come over to my house for the first time.

I do dress nicely sometimes because I think that’s important for many business, personal, and logistical reasons, but that’s the only area in which you could “detect” my income.

Why?

1. I don’t want to flaunt my money. It often causes more trouble than it’s worth.

2. I’m a very frugal guy. I don’t need to live in some huge house with $10,000 couches or drive a Ferrari. I really have no desire for those things. (And they’re often a pain in the ass.)

3. It’s very reckless financial management. Nothing depreciates faster than expensive cars, fancy furniture, or similar keep-up-with-the-Joneses garbage. Nor do I want to stress out about making some huge house payment every month. My money belongs in the same place your money belongs: in safe, secure, boring, diversified investments. Read the book The Millionaire Next Door for more information.

4. I don’t want to attract gold diggers. If you’re a lower-income guy you may not relate to this problem, but trust me, it’s a problem. Unmarried guys I know who make good money and flaunt it regularly have challenges with this, and of course married guys end up getting their asses raped in divorces to gold-digging wives, both to “first wives” and second trophy wives. No thank you.

To me, this seems like one of those can’t win catch-22 situations:

Anytime I’m the modest, humble, “low key” guy that my parents raised myself to be, I seem to do myself a disservice by being modest to a fault.  After all, there are a lot of women out there these days that seem to feel entitled to live the “Real Housewives” lifestyle.  I’m convinced that the days when being “all modest all the time” are a thing of the past.

It depends on where you live. If you live in a place like Spokane, Washington or rural Wisconsin, then generally speaking women aren’t going to expect or demand a man give them the Real Housewives lifestyle. If you do start flaunting that stuff, you’ll actually surprise them and intimidate them, and even may lose them.

But if you live somewhere like Monaco or Beverly Hills, then sadly yes, you’re going to have a shitload of women who expect this kind of thing. The prettier they are and the older you are, the more they will expect it.

This is one of the many reasons I don’t live in an area like this. Even when I had the opportunity to move to places like this I turned it down. Hey, I love the weather of Southern California, specifically San Diego. But I know that if I lived down there, both women and prospective customers/clients would judge me based on my zip code and my car. Stupid. Do I have the ability to look the part? Yes. Do I have the desire? Nope. (Not to mention the insane regulations and taxes those Californians endure from their corrupt and bankrupt government, but that’s another story.)

But anytime I attempt to display status and power, even in a subtle way (and you’ll just have to trust that I’m not a bull in a china shop about this) it seems to backfire and set off their “douche meter” even when I know damn well that they are attracted to that stuff.

For example in my match “main narrative,” I steer clear of that stuff altogether.  In my “hot spots” I mention the Hamptons, a city in Europe, and a chic city in South America.  Obviously, visiting those places costs some money.  But what I leave unsaid is that my family in fact owns homes in prime locations in all 3 areas.  Seems like a reasonable compromise to me, given what I’m holding back, but I still get the feeling I’m doing something wrong.  Thoughts?

I’m not as wealthy as your family, but I do make a higher income than most guys. When I first started online dating many years ago and had no idea what I was doing, I did flaunt my income as best I could on my online dating profile and in my online communication with women. I thought this would help my odds.

Well, it did help, if you define “help” as attracting all kinds of slobbering gold diggers looking for a “rich” guy (and I’m not even “rich”; I’m nowhere near the 1%) to buy them expensive dinners, $150 perfume, and Coach bags. All before sex of course.

After battling this for a long time, I finally started deleting references to my income in my profile text, and even started leaving my income field blank. The results were that my response rates went down, but my lay ratios went up. Quantity went down, but quality skyrocketed. Which is fantastic.

Today when I do a profile, I do mention that I travel a lot, because that’s a key part of my life I can’t “hide”, but I avoid/downplay talking about my income, my business, and I usually leave my income and job title blank. I still exude a very strong sense of confidence and Outcome Independence on my profile, in my photos, and in real life, but the income stuff largely stays out of it.

The result is I get laid a lot, very fast, from attractive but non-gold digging women.

This is how you need to start thinking and acting. It involves two changes.

First is to downplay your wealth/income/whatever. Normally, my advice is to “cast the widest net”, and to do things that attract the highest number of women in the shortest periods of time. I stand by that advice and consider it critical.

However, once you have the “numbers” thing more or less handled (and it sounds like you do), you then want to start deleting things from your technique that reduce the number of problematic women. This is what clarifying your target market is all about…attracting women to you that have the highest odds of having sex with you quickly but with the minimal amount of delays, problems, rules, obstacles, or excuses.

As you probably have already figured out, most gold-diggerish women, especially those over the age of about 23, will not have sex with you quickly. Ohhhhhh no…they’re there to dangle that carrot in front of you for as long as they can, to cash in from you as long as you can, and if they’re over 33, to get the best commitments/promises from you they can before anything like sex occurs.

And if, god forbid, you actually have sex with them and a relationship ensues, you’re in for all kinds of drama and financial expense, both of which could be avoided with a woman who is just as good looking without the gold digger attitude.

(I’m not saying it’s impossible to date gold diggers. If you’re a rock-solid guy with strong game you can indeed date them as FBs without spending any money, but that’s a topic for another time. My point here is that you need to start attracting women with less gold digger tendencies. If you live in a place like the Hamptons, yeah, this can be difficult, but it must be done.)

The second change to remember is to maintain that strong level of confidence that comes with career success, whether or not you’ve actually experienced the success yet. Fake it ’till you make it does work.

There’s an old saying: “A rich man doesn’t need to tell you he’s rich.” Why? Because it comes across in his confidence, voice, eye contact, smile, and bearing.

I was once walking with a woman on a first date and as I walked, she glanced at me and said, “What’s with the swagger?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You’ve got a swagger,” she said, “That’s how wealthy men walk.”

NOW HERE’S THE THING: Her and I had never discussed anything about what I did for a living or my income, and we met via daygame so she had never even seen my online dating profile.

That’s what I’m talking about. Confidence gets you laid, not money. This is why confident poor guys can get laid left and right. This is also why many high income guys I know struggle to get laid. So dial up the confidence, dial down the money, and you’ll find the sweet spot.

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