If you’re wondering how to attract women, always keep this fact in mind: when a new woman sizes you up, she’s looking at just how “needy” you seem to be. It’s the dating equivalent to checking your references. If others before her were apparently not impressed with you, she’ll see no reason to disagree with them.
Sociologists refer to this concept as “social proof.” Few people have heard of it, but we all practice it subconsciously. Here’s a good example:
My late grandfather had a sure-fire way for selecting a restaurant when he was driving across the country: He’d look for a place which had lots of trucks parked in front. His logic was that truck drivers who drove that particular highway for a living had passed that same stretch of road dozens or hundreds of times. Over time, they’d know through trial and error which restaurants had the best food at a good price.
That shortcut enabled my grandfather to avoid dozens or even hundreds of lousy or overpriced restaurant meals during his travels, even if it was the very first time he’d ever been on that particular area.
Lacking first-hand information, he looked to others (truck drivers who’d presumably know more on the topic) for guidance. The more trucks parked outside a restaurant, the greater his confidence that this was a good place to stop.
He was an extremely bright man, but we’ve all been designed to take cues from other (presumably more knowledgeable) people on matters where we’re unsure.
Most of the time, looking to social proof will give us at least a reasonably good answer. It works well enough and often enough that we’ll use it frequently without conscious effort. You do the same, of course.
If you went to try out a new restaurant and it was mostly empty at what should be a peak hour, would that be a good thing or a bad thing? Most likely, the sight of all those empty chairs would give you pause. Rather than think to yourself, “Great, we won’t have to wait for a table,” you’d wonder what’s wrong with the place.
Here’s another quick test you can use to “prove” that social proof really is widespread phenomenon:
Q: If you wanted to know what the hottest club in your town is, what would be the easiest way to figure this out?
A: That’s easy… you’d look for the place with the longest line of people waiting to get inside.
That would be the hottest, trendiest place. In fact, the word “trend” is just another word for “popular.” Lots of people seem to agree that a place is “hot” and therefore, by definition, it is. And that’s the way that human minds operate.
Not surprisingly, you’ll find that understanding women requires a good grasp of how they use social proof to evaluate you. In fact, once you understand how to manipulate the psychology of social proof, you’ll have discovered one of the key insights into how to attract women.