CHAPTER 9: THE TENDER DEFENDER
(THE AGREEABLENESS AND ASSERTIVENESS TRAITS)
Nice Guy: “Everyone told me I was supposed to be nice to women, but it gets me nowhere—they just ignore me or friend-zone me.”
Asshole: “I thought assholes got more women? I get drunk, break things, and curse at people, but women just hate me.”
Almost every young guy, at some point in his life, tries one of two strategies (or both) to attract women. Depending on who raised him and where he learned about dating, he thinks he has to be either a “nice guy” or an “asshole.”
The problem with these strategies is that guys tend to do both completely wrong; they do the “nice guy” thing by being a cowardly doormat that no one respects, or they play the “asshole” by being a raging douche that everyone loathes.
Women don’t want either of these extremes.
You know the saying that guys want “a lady in the streets and a whore in the sheets”? Well, women want something similar from men: a man who is effective and assertive to the world but sweet and kind to her. It seems weirdly contradictory, but when you break it down and understand it from the woman’s perspective, it makes perfect sense.
Around the world, women list “kindness” as one of the most desired traits in a boyfriend, and it’s often number one. But most guys don’t get what kind of kindness is most attractive. Real women are attracted to displays of real altruism—empathy, thoughtfulness, generosity, and self-sacrifice—that deliver concrete benefits to people in need.
For example, women adore male doctors in TV shows, not just for their income, status, and intelligence but for how they save the feverish baby, bandage up the injured kid, reassure the assault victim, and ease the pain of the dying. Women want real kindness when kindness is warranted—especially toward them, their friends and family, kids, and cute animals—because it’s the sign of a good lover, partner, and father.
But women also want men who can be powerful and assertive (even violent when necessary), but only in ways that protect them, not ways that threaten them. Women do not want volatile, mentally unstable psychopaths; they want protective, heroic leaders who won’t take any shit from people and who are comfortable confronting risk and violence when needed.
Ultimately, a woman is most attracted to (and benefits most from) a kind, tender partner who can care for her and who is also a strong protector who can defend her. If she can get both benefits from one man—if he’s a “tender defender”—he becomes the whole package.
If you need proof that women find the tender-defender archetype romantically compelling and sexually irresistible, just look at the media that women choose to consume: all romance novels feature a tender defender as the hero.
All successful romantic comedies include scenes in which the funny, nice guy finally shows his fierce, protective side. Even magazine profiles of famous leading men reflect this tender-defender duality, showing not just how strong and assertive they are but also how kind and socially aware they are.
In none of these books or movies or magazines are the heroes portrayed as cowardly pussies avoiding all conflict or as inconsiderate dicks spoiling for a fight. They care for their women, children, and friends but are tough and assertive to the world. They are stronger and more assertive than the “nice guys” and better, more caring people than the “assholes.”
If you can wrap your head around the attractiveness of this tender-defender combination, you can easily become more attractive than 90 percent of guys out there.
But first we’re going to break down each trait separately (agreeableness first, then assertiveness) before we show you how to bring them together.
WHY WOMEN CARE ABOUT AGREEABLENESS
Across all sexually reproducing species, lots of conflicts arise between males and females. Given that sexual conflict is common and costly, females evolved to favor males who could avoid and resolve conflicts more effectively.
Thus, women instinctively know that kinder men are less likely to inflict costs on them through deception and violence. Kinder men feel less anger and have fewer affairs. They’re less likely to inflict an unwanted pregnancy on a woman. They are involved in fewer arguments, fewer fights, and fewer divorces. They are less likely to become harassers, stalkers, date rapists, wife beaters, or child abusers. Women have evolved to avoid being victimized by these exploiters, and their mate preferences for kindness are one important part of their antivictimization defenses.
Kindness makes it easier to cooperate with others to get mutual rewards in economic games and big-game hunting, so cooperative guys are better able to support a woman and kids. Kindness, empathy, and communication skills also allow couples and groups to work better as information-sharing and decision-making systems, especially in emergencies. Confronted by a cave bear (or its modern equivalent, like an income tax audit), the agreeable couple survives through communicating, cooperating, and dividing their labor; whereas the disagreeable couple succumbs to confusion and bickering and makes a nice snack for the carnivore (or the IRS).
This is the sort of partner any sane woman is looking for in both the medium and long term. If you’re looking for something more than just a hookup, displaying kindness is a reliable way to signal to similarly interested women that you are one of the good ones.
For one-night stands, inexperienced women might assume that a guy who fancies himself an alpha male will be the best in bed because he’ll be more energetic, adventurous, and dominant. But most women quickly learn that disagreeable guys don’t bother kissing very well, don’t do foreplay or cunnilingus, don’t understand women’s sexual arousal dynamics, and fuck for only a few minutes before they come—not a recipe for multiple orgasms.
Kind men actually make better lovers because they can hear, see, and feel what a woman wants at any given moment and respond empathically, adaptively, and creatively. Agreeable guys are also less likely to be sexually compulsive (excessively masturbating, visiting prostitutes, and having affairs) or sexually narcissistic (being sexually exploitative, entitled, and selfish).
Slow childhood development in humans, which allows mastery of more complex social and technical skills, favors much heavier paternal investment (toward kids from dads) over much longer periods of time. Kindness is crucial in becoming a good dad, and selection for kindness was central to the evolution of male paternal investment and children’s survival, particularly since infanticide (baby killing) occurs in many mammal species. Kinder men are less likely to neglect, abuse, or kill a woman’s existing children (the man’s stepchildren) or his own children. This is not to say that women equate ordinary assholery with being a bloodthirsty baby killer, just that your kindness is reassuring to her maternal protective instincts long before she even has kids.
Even more to the point, agreeable dads tend to have agreeable kids, which makes parenting much happier and easier. If you are kind, warm, and generous, a woman can be reasonably confident that you won’t fill her nursery with selfish little goblins who will make motherhood a misery. Even if women don’t consciously want kids yet or understand the heritability of kindness, their mate choice systems evolved to anticipate that nice kids are easier to raise than nasty kids.
You’re probably wondering, If it’s what women want, why aren’t all men superkind and empathic?
Evolution suggests two reasons. First, ancestral men who weren’t kind could sometimes have kids through deceiving and coercing women or through taking from other men and groups the resources that women needed for reproduction, like land and food. The traits that predict this kind of nasty mating strategy are just as heritable as agreeableness, so they have survived through the generations.
Second, women have developed a preference for formidable guys capable of protecting them, somewhat of a trade-off against their preference for kindness. Under harsh conditions with lots of warfare and violence, it can be better for a woman to mate with a Mike Tyson than a Neil deGrasse Tyson. Thankfully, most of us don’t live under such harsh conditions anymore. Otherwise, ear nibbling might have taken on a whole other dimension.
Agreeableness in all its forms is a trait that women seeking longer-term relationships cannot get enough of, as long as it’s directed effectively at them or the people they care about and it doesn’t devolve into spineless doormat syndrome. Like intelligence and mental health, it is not the easiest trait to cultivate, but it is certainly one of the easiest to display, which makes it an essential component of building your attractiveness.
IMPROVE YOUR AGREEABLENESS
The tendency toward selfishness, violence, and criminality in men peaks in young adulthood. To a large degree, you’ll naturally grow more empathic and kind as you mature, so much of the narcissistic douchebaggery that may be holding you back with women will gradually evaporate without you even realizing it.
Prisons “reform” young felons mostly by just locking them up until their executive self-control and empathy systems mature and they literally grow out of their criminal selfishness. But we hope you can manage your own life better than a felon can. Here are some key ways to build empathy and kindness and display them better to women:
Learn to take care of animals: Women love guys with dogs because a kind dog owner will probably make a kind boyfriend and a good dad. Work or volunteer at an animal shelter, zoo, farm, or pet store. Get a pet, but a nice one: mean guys tend to get aggressive dog breeds such as Rottweilers and pit bulls; weird guys get snakes, lizards, and other creepy animals that women could turn into belts.
Learn to take care of children: If you have younger siblings, nieces, or nephews, reconnect with them and spend more time with them. Learn how to help them with homework, look after them at playgrounds, and change their diapers. Several studies have shown that women are especially attracted to guys holding other people’s babies or who demonstrate child-care skills. Older women are often attracted to guys who have already raised kids with ex-wives, because if he managed to keep his kids alive so far despite years of illnesses, accidents, driving, and disasters, that’s hard-to-fake proof that he’s a competent tender defender, and that proof can outweigh the hassles of becoming a stepmom.
Learn to mentor young people: This can be as grueling as becoming a tenured professor or as simple as being assistant coach of a Little League team. You might be an eighteen-year-old college freshman with the lowest status on campus, but if you spend your Sundays being a Big Brother to a poor thirteen-year-old, you’re an awesome role model to him, and women will see you through his eyes.
Learn to care for the sick, injured, and old: Nothing quickens a woman’s pulse like seeing you help save someone with a weak pulse, and you don’t need to become a pediatric neurosurgeon or an EMT to do that. In most American cities, the Red Cross offers fast, cheap certification courses in first aid/CPR, lifeguarding, emergency medical response, child care, pet first aid, and many other medical-care skills. You can also volunteer in a cancer ward, psychiatric hospital, senior citizens’ home, or hospice. This is grueling, heartbreaking work, but that is precisely what makes it a reliable signal of tenderness that is both charming and inspiring to women.
Learn empathy from your entertainment: Expose yourself to media (TV, movies, documentaries, memoirs, novels) that promote empathy and understanding with a variety of people—especially women and children. Don’t be afraid of sentimental, weepy, tragic, or heart-wrenching content. Sadness can promote empathy. Read good novels that expand your empathy for different kinds of characters and their internal lives.
DISPLAY YOUR AGREEABLENESS
Agreeableness is one of the harder traits to judge from someone’s Facebook profile, so the in-person signals will really make the difference in successful mating.
Short-Term Signals
Project warmth: Remember The Terminator? Yeah, that’s the exact opposite of what women want to see. Mating is not a hunt or a battle; flirting is a fun game where both sides can win. This means smiling, making eye contact, and using humor, playfulness, and nonsexual touch. Also, in your online dating profile, why not include some photos of you laughing with friends, hugging your grandma, or cuddling a puppy?
Show genuine interest in women: Don’t just wait for your turn to talk so you can tell her how awesome you are. The things that you think make you awesome are often things women could not care less about. Be legitimately curious about the women you interact with, through active listening and information gathering (we talk about this a lot later on). Ask about her interests, and engage with her passions; that’s where the awesomeness is for her.
Use self-deprecating humor: Poking fun at yourself can testify that you’re a good, confident guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously. But use self-deprecating humor in moderation—too much says you take your failures too seriously and have no confidence.
Show empathic ability and dedication: Kindness does not begin and end with baby cuddling and puppy snuggling. When you’re out on a date, tipping generously or giving money to panhandlers reveals kindness to your fellow humans. Even as a consumer, you can show kindness: your Seventh Generation dish soap says that you care about important things outside yourself—like the earth and future generations. That doesn’t mean you should put a compost box in your dorm room or carry your baby cousin around in an insulated Whole Foods shopping bag as an empathy prop; it just means that awareness of these larger issues can be very attractive to women who are similarly conscious about those issues.
Be soft when you’re hard: Be especially careful to stay kind, considerate, and safe when you’re sexually aroused with a woman. Since sexual arousal tends to decrease agreeableness, making guys more willing to do all kinds of violent, nasty, disgusting, exploitative, creepy things, a woman can get an accurate sense of your true empathy level from how much restraint you show when your dick is hard.
Longer-Term Signals
Volunteer: Volunteering for almost any cause is an honest, hard-to-fake signal of kindness. No guy is doling out soup to poor people every Sunday morning, rain or shine, football or no football, if he doesn’t actually care. The tricky thing here is not to brag about it too early or too obviously.
Be generous: Cultivate a social reputation for generosity by actually being generous to friends, family, strangers, the earth, society, and so on. When it comes to mating, give thoughtful, useful, and/or beautiful gifts to women (we’ll cover gift ideas in the romantic proof chapter). This is a common courtship tactic across species and highly ritualized in human mating.
WHY WOMEN CARE ABOUT ASSERTIVENESS
Now that we’ve covered how to be tender, let’s talk about the “defender” side of things. In fact, in addition to being kind and empathic, you also need to know how to be an asshole, but in the best possible sense.
In psychology, the term for this personality trait is “assertiveness,” which is shorthand for the combination of protectiveness, decisiveness, and formidability. (It’s also the positive side of low agreeableness.)
Women are definitely attracted to assertive, masculine men; no one disagrees with that. It is baked into the female biology. Women with a stronger fear of crime or violence prefer more aggressive and formidable males who can protect them. At peak fertility, just before ovulation, women are especially attracted to men who act assertive and dominant, who speak in a deep masculine voice, and who have a more masculine body shape.
This preference is so complete that often male dominance is more important than male physical attractiveness. Jason Statham and Johnny Depp walk into a party together where nobody knows them. Guess who’s more likely to go home with the hottest woman in the place? It’s probably going to be the Transporter, not Willy Wonka.
This impulse toward the protective is also why heroic risk taking is so attractive to women, especially for short-term mating. Risk taking implies you will put yourself out there for a woman, both literally and figuratively. Of course, since most imminent physical threats have disappeared in our modern society and most guys are complete idiots, risk taking more often takes the form of acting like a total jackass. When an attractive female is watching, for instance, male skateboarders take more risks (because of a temporary boost in testosterone), doing more impressive tricks but also suffering more crashes. Your job is to recognize the line where risk taking leaves the realm of the protective and functional and enters the land of the foolish and immature.
The genetic, partnership, and fatherhood implications of assertiveness make this line one worth understanding. Aggressive behavior, risk taking, and leadership are all heritable. Testosterone levels in males are also highly heritable, which influence aggressiveness, dominance, and not taking shit from other people (e.g., rejecting low, unfair offers in the Ultimatum Game). This is a positive attribute right up until the point when you are super agro and she has to start worrying about whether or not your kids are going to be bullies or predators.
That said, part of protectiveness and formidability is a guy’s willingness to punish, ostracize, or stigmatize bad guys. This brings big benefits to the tribe and to a woman and her offspring, friends, and relatives. She has an intuitive understanding that she is safer with an assertive male—a male who understands violence.
Violence has deep evolutionary roots. To be effective hunters who can provide meat to women and children, men needed to be able to use lethal violence against animals. To be good defenders, they had to be able to protect ancestral women and children from many prehistoric threats: natural disasters, dangerous animals, predators, and out-group (rival tribes) and in-group (psychopaths, despots) social threats. The prehistoric weapons for killing animals also overlapped with those for killing people (e.g., clubs, daggers, spears, slings, bows and arrows), so good hunters tend to make good warriors who can defend women.
Feminist psychology portrays male protectiveness toward women, particularly when taken to the extreme, as a social pathology called “benevolent sexism.” The protectiveness can start to look possessive and infantilizing. You put her on a pedestal like a fragile little china doll who can’t take care of herself. You swoop in like a white knight to save the day, when the day never needed saving to begin with. A lot of women, especially older, more successful women, find this to be a huge turnoff if there’s no real threat.
Yet, paradoxically, women rate “benevolently sexist” (i.e., protective) men as most attractive, especially in romantic rather than work contexts. Also, women who value benevolent sexism more are happier with their lives.
In other words, this is hard. Assertiveness is really a delicate balance. What is protective and decisive to one can easily be overbearing and possessive to another. Understanding the distinction is as much about the ability to assess threats as the ability to read the reaction of the women on the other side of your efforts.
Yes, this means you have to learn to understand women and think for yourself. And no, there is no precise checklist of behavior that always works all the time. Welcome to Life.
IMPROVE YOUR ASSERTIVENESS
To those for whom strength and confidence don’t come naturally, assertiveness can be an intimidating subject. It’s one thing to say, “Be kind” or “Be generous.” It’s another thing altogether to say, “Man up and show some fucking balls for once, why don’t you?!” But there are ways to improve your assertiveness.
Get your hands dirty: If you know how to run, climb, swim, drive, sail, fly, use power tools, repair engines, pick locks, navigate, hunt, and use survival skills, fire skills, tracking, and evasion—all that awesome Jason Bourne shit—it’s hard not to feel like you own the world around you. If you want to cultivate a stronger sense of protectiveness, hardiness, and formidability, we can’t think of a better way than bending traditional sources of adversity to your will. Just like we told you in the willpower chapter—skills matter.
Learn self-defense: Language is often your most effective form of self-defense, but it’s hard to show verbal self-confidence in threatening situations if you don’t have any physical self-defense skills to back it up.
This is crucial: the main point of learning how to fight in modern society is not that you’ll need to win lots of actual fights. Rather, it’s to cultivate the self-confidence that comes with knowing that you could win a fight.
It’s very difficult to be an effective tender defender without this belief in your own formidability, because women can sense whether you have that capacity for defense, even if they never see you use it. How? Because you know it.
Remember the discussion about sociometers in chapter 1? This is another place it matters. If you don’t actually know how to fight, unless you are an amazing actor, you will betray this lack of confidence, and other people will see it.
There are two basic ways to develop effective self-defense skills. Tucker prefers one, Geoff prefers the other, but both are valid (and you can do both):
Practical self-defense (Geoff’s pick): Practical self-defense focuses on threat assessment, verbal challenges and commands, recruiting bystander witnesses, force escalation, evading multiple attackers, improvised weapons, dealing with knife and handgun threats, and legal implications of force (e.g., assault charges, civil lawsuits). It’s about messy, gritty, real-life situations with no clear roles or rules and no happy outcomes.
Practical self-defense classes teach doing everything you can to avoid violence, but then escalating to no-holds-barred, very dirty street fighting if necessary. It’s typically based around the Israeli discipline of krav maga (or some mixed martial arts methods), supplemented by weapons training with batons, knives, guns, and improvised weapons. These classes usually require you to attack heavily padded assailants who instill real fear and adrenalin. You focus on learning a small number of really useful moves, practiced to the point that you can use them automatically under conditions of high stress.
Mixed martial arts (MMA, Tucker’s pick): Mixed martial arts is what you see on TV: UFC cage-fighting. You can learn MMA or learn the two basic component arts separately, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai, and you will learn how to handle yourself very well in any sort of physical altercation. This is real fighting done in a safe, controlled environment where you can learn skills, forge friendships, and explore yourself. And of course, MMA fighting methods are all real and tested.
The vast majority of “martial arts” are nothing more than stylized bullshit moves that are totally useless in a fight. For example, Taekwondo is as effective as basketball moves in a real fight. MMA is about real fighting. You get hit in the face and learn to take a punch. You get put in a choke hold and learn to apply one yourself in high-stress situations with someone trying to stop you.
What is so good about MMA (in addition to the effective skills you learn) is that it forces you to confront all of your issues with confidence, submission, and self-discipline and, in the process, teaches you who and what you are. After six months of MMA (or Brazilian jiu-jitsu or Muay Thai), it’s hard not to be more confident, both with yourself and in situations.
Being a tender defender isn’t simply about the willingness to defend and protect; it’s about the ability to do it effectively and decisively. This is what proper self-defense training provides. And no amount of tenderness can substitute for it when it really counts.
DISPLAY YOUR ASSERTIVENESS
In any relationship with a woman, whether for a couple of hours or a marriage, you’ll probably be in tender mode 95 percent of the time and defender mode only 5 percent of the time.
How you act in those 5 percent of defender cases will determine a larger percentage of her attraction to you than the quieter 95 percent of tender moments. That’s why how you display assertiveness is as important as whether you display it at all.
Use nonverbal behavior: Project competence, vigilance, assertiveness, and formidability. “Postural openness” (taking up more space, arms out, legs apart) increases your apparent size and strength, which increases your apparent social status.
Dance, monkey, dance: Believe it or not, the energy you display while dancing is a window into your formidability. Women rate males as better dancers if they display larger, more variable, and faster arm movements. These movement patterns are correlated with objective measurements of male grip strength, upper-body strength, and cardiovascular fitness. Women can also judge male risk seeking and formidability fairly accurately from watching men dance.
Obviously, if you hate dancing, don’t go out there and throw your body around like someone on crack just to impress the ladies. But if you enjoy dancing, understand that bolder is better.
Make decisions, and get shit done: Good defenders think and act fast because threats attack fast; indecisiveness can get a woman and her kids killed. Your decisiveness in ordering drinks effectively at a noisy bar gives a woman clues about your likely decisiveness in facing down a pack of wolves (or bros, which is the bigger threat to her in modern society).
Be sexually dominant: This is a powerful cue of aggressive ability and confidence and very hot to many women—especially those who are often embarrassed to ask for it. (See our list of sex resources in Chapter 20 for more on this.)
Play sports: Male athletes have higher mating success than nonathletes, and women prefer athletes who play competitive, aggressive sports, not just for their physical health but for their proven dominance in ritualized one-on-one violence (combat sports) and warfare (team sports). Women perceive male athletes as more energetic, ambitious, competitive, and promiscuous.
HOW TO COMBINE AND DISPLAY TENDER-DEFENDER TRAITS
As we’ve said, about 95 percent of the time in a relationship everything will be cool, and there will be no conflicts or threats. Then it’s great to display your tender side. Look for opportunities to show that you’re kind and considerate: acting like a gentleman, talking empathically, cooing at babies, petting dogs, and so on.
But about 5 percent of the time, your threat radar will detect some possible social conflict or physical danger, and you need to go into defender mode. Think of this as like switching from spooning in bed to jumping up to investigate a weird noise from your kitchen at night. You’re no longer focused on the woman but on identifying and neutralizing the threat for the sake of the woman and yourself. This holds true even on dates, where threats are usually minor but your reactions to them are major cues to your character.
Suppose you meet a woman—maybe on Match.com or Tinder or maybe you have a class together. To keep it casual and low stress, you agree to meet up for coffee over the weekend. Coffee goes well, and it turns into brunch. You pick a place with a great vibe and a great menu. When you get there, you make sure she has the seat with the better view (demonstrating empathy in the form of literal perspective taking). She orders first—and you order decisively yourself—but then the server brings your date the wrong entrée and spills some of it on her dress.
How do you respond?
The nice-guy wimp cowers in spoon mode. He doesn’t say anything to the server because he “doesn’t want to make a scene,” which she interprets as “doesn’t have the balls to protect her” or “doesn’t care about her at all.” The woman might say she is happy to just eat the wrong entrée (which she isn’t) and to deal with the stained dress (although she just spent two hundred dollars on it). But she’ll silently seethe with resentment.
The asshole would turn way too aggressive way too early—as if it wasn’t just soup spilled on his date’s dress but raw sewage deliberately sprayed from a fire hose onto her wedding dress. He skips over normal knife mode (investigating possible threats and evaluating the best tactical solutions) and goes straight to katana mode, slashing wildly like a boy-samurai wielding his first two-handed sword. He’ll cuss at the server, push him around, demand to see the manager, and escalate the confrontation. The woman might initially admire his decisiveness, but she will quickly realize that he’s paying more attention to his own outrage than to her interests. He’s not tending her or defending her; he’s just picking a fight and indulging his out-of-control ego.
The tender defender politely but assertively gets the problem fixed in ways that respect the woman. He makes sure the server acknowledges the errors, without having to lose face, and suggests useful ways to correct the errors, without sounding patronizing. Does she want her original order, given how long it may take to prepare, or is she truly OK with this entrée? Does she want the restaurant to cover her dry-cleaning costs? Will the manager offer free mimosas and desserts for their trouble? He realizes the woman may feel embarrassed by the stains all over her dress and reassures her that she still looks gorgeous. He deftly resolves the situation with a combination of spoon mode and knife mode.
It’s worth thinking about these sorts of issues before they come up and thinking about how to firmly, politely, and assertively deal with problems. Run some mental scenarios about how you’d deal with common date crises. For each, think about the overly agreeable spoon-mode response, the overly aggressive knife-mode response, and the perfectly balanced tender-defender response. In fact, view them not as problems but as opportunities to show off your tender-defender traits.
TENDER DEFENDER DOS AND DON’TS
DO BE: Empathic
DON’T BE: Narcissistic
DO BE: Assertive
DON’T BE: Wimpy
DO BE: Protective
DON’T BE: Psychopathic
DO BE: Generous leader
DON’T BE: Machiavellian
DO BE: Altruistic
DON’T BE: Selfish
DO BE: Confident and decisive
DON’T BE: Submissive or passive
DO BE: Ready for anything
DON’T BE: Completely oblivious or totally anxious
Takeaways
• A woman benefits from a kind, tender partner who cares for her and a strong, decisive protector who can defend her. If you can do both—if you are a “tender defender”—you become the whole package. The tender defender respects the reality of violence and death and takes the responsibility for dealing with them so women feel free to enjoy safety and life. He offers unique benefits as a good partner and good father, and his empathic heroism can also be passed along to his kids.
• Be stronger and more assertive than the “nice guys” and a better, more caring person than the “assholes,” and you will be more attractive than 90 percent of guys. Learn to switch quickly and effectively from tender to tough, from spoon mode to knife mode, from caring for the vulnerable to confronting the threatening.
• The negative sides of agreeableness and assertiveness are both sexually repulsive. Cowardice, submissiveness, indecisiveness, and passivity are hugely unattractive to women. But so are Dark Triad traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy), which signal real threats to women’s well-being. To become the man that women want, you’ll need to cultivate the positive sides of agreeableness and assertiveness.
• Women want to feel safe and protected from danger; if you can provide this safety and protection, you immediately become more attractive. Threats while on a date are usually minor, but women perceive your reactions to them as major cues to your character.