For the longest time since I took up coaching with my two mentors, I have wondered what makes a man attractive.

And over the years, I have been lucky enough to be in the presence of men who have women chasing them, fighting with other women over them, and being smitten for years to the point where these men still get the occasional random messages asking for booty calls.

This is not some Hollywood fantasy. This is life playing itself out in front of me, like that time an actress girlfriend went batshit crazy because my buddy didn’t give her his time.

But beyond the stories, I was able to watch and learn. I saw how attractive men behaved. Plenty of them are not typically handsome, but they had a whole lot of manliness and charisma.

They also possess other common attributes.

Attributes that are very learnable for anyone who wishes to become more attractive, without needing to change himself into someone he is not.

Here is that list:

Respect and value your time.

• Fix your own time first before you focus on anyone.
• Focus on the people who want to be in your company.
• Have limits on the time you give someone.

Respect yourself.

• Have boundaries. Don’t bend over backwards if it makes you unhappy.
• Don’t let anyone tell you what you can and cannot do.
• Walk away from energy vampires, and people who wish to only take from you without giving back.

Be comfortable with who you are.

• You are imperfect and flawed. And that’s okay.
• It’s more important to be respected than to be liked. Not everyone will like you anyway.
• Be able to laugh at yourself.

Stay calm, and don’t let her faze you in any way.

• Laugh off her tests.
• Don’t be affected by her games. Recognise that’s just how people are. It’s like politics.
• She will push your limits, but if she does, that means she’s interested… so stay calm.

Take charge of interactions.

• Don’t react to her responses. Have your own response instead. She can be talking about a topic you’re not interested in, or whatever she’s saying can be incredibly boring… but you can always divert the topic back to what you want to talk about.
• Initiate conversations. Don’t wait around for something to happen.
• Don’t play to a girl’s whims.

Have inner strength

• Don’t let life take you down.
• If you get rejected by multiple women, take a break but don’t give up. Keep improving on yourself, and they will come to you.
• Be resilient and don’t give up on your goals; have steely determination.

Be willing to take risks (and fail), be it in interactions or life.

• If you don’t ask, you’ll never get it; if you don’t try, you’ll never know.
• Learn not to predict the future; approach the girl instead of not trying because you think she’ll reject you.
• Be willing to lose her. If she disrespects you, don’t sit around and hope for things to get better. Tell her she’s disrespecting you. If she doesn’t change, leave.

Have a more devil-may-care attitude.

• This will allow you to have more fun.
• You will care less what others think of you.
• You will be less outcome-dependent.
• It will also allow you to go out and live the life you want, instead of worrying about being judged and criticized. People can hate on you, but you are not fazed by that. Because you know you don’t need someone to tell you who you are. Your self-assurance is there.

Always be progressing in life.

• Don’t get comfortable and be stagnant. The rest of the world is moving forward. If you’re staying still, you’re actually moving backwards.
• Always be improving on something in your life.
• Seek to do better. Achieve more.

Have standards for yourself, and the people in your life.

• Don’t go for just about any woman, even if you think you just want to practise your dating skillsets.
• Go for only the ones you want.
• Filter the people you want in your life. Ruthlessly. They will determine who you are and become. This includes your love interests.

Always be having fun.

• Don’t let bad things happening to you suck the joy out of you.
• Make time for yourself to seek fun and laughter.
• Do the things you love.

Final Words:

As the title of this blog post suggested, this list is a starting guide to becoming an attractive man.

Do not mistake it for a conclusive list.

That means, there is always more to improve upon. But if you are just diving into dating advice and wish to develop yourself as a person, this is a good start.