The girls are out on a Wednesday because it’s Quinn’s birthday. We’re out on a Wednesday because we’re dirtbags with sheets of modafinil waiting for us in the office tomorrow morning. Our two groups are the highest energy in the bar, and we inevitably merge.

I’m vibing with Lindsay. We’re standing slightly off to the side, I’m positioned so that she has to turn her back to her friends. Three minutes into the interaction and she is laughing, qualifying, holding eye contact. Life is good.

Mark approaches us. Mark is one of the friends I came with. He’s 5’10 and thirty pounds overweight, with a Burt Reynolds mustache over a five-day neckbeard. I am much taller, much fitter, and much better groomed than Mark. I am wearing designer jeans and a nice polo. Oh, and my shoes. Great shoes. Mark is wearing a baggy grey t-shirt and dad-jeans. His hair isn’t cool and spiky like mine.

Mark is not trying to be a dick or take the girl. But he does take the girl. In just a few minutes of conversation, she is making eye contact with him, angling her body to face his, laughing at his jokes, and looking to his eyes for approval whenever she speaks.

This scenario has played out in my life dozens of times, if not hundreds. Guys who are ‘objectively’ worse, take girls off me and successfully resist my attempts to take girls off them. The opposite happens often as well. I have taken girls off better looking guys, better dressed guys, with more money.

At the end of the day: Game Uber Alles

Dressing sharp and getting in shape will open doors for you. As a fairly good-looking guy, I get many more indirect openers from girls than average guys, and even the occasional direct open. I have a few extremely good-looking friends who will basically get sex dumped in their lap on a regular basis. There are also major practical advantages to having the right social circle, career, physique, and facial symmetry.

But the seduction industry canard of “looks/money/etc don’t matter” is a much closer approximation of the truth than the crippling insecurity of the average man. For example, the man who won’t approach because he’s at 12% body fat, but dude, just wait until he hits 10% body fat! Or the man who’s focusing on his career and will start hitting on girls just as soon as he gets that next promotion and the confidence he imagines will come with it.

All men are encumbered by what we in the seduction community call self-limiting beliefs. We take a shortcoming, real or perceived, and use it as an excuse to avoid approaching, escalating, and closing. We bring a subconscious inferiority complex into our interactions. But no material disadvantage is as harmful as a negative frame, and no material advantage – not even the dashing good looks of your humble author – will elevate you above a lesser man with a superior frame and seduction skill set.

By all means, hit the gym and make some money. But if success with women is your objective, the prime determinant of your success will be your willingness to approach, and your willingness to learn from those experiences.

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