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Choosing your partner wisely

I touch upon this briefly in Dating and Sex, but it deserves a dedicated section:

In terms of dating, it's pretty obvious to see the benefits of attracting a woman who is wonderful for you, rings all your bells and whom you can enjoy as long as you like without undue drama, rather than just settling for the first person of the opposite gender who would let you touch her privates. What might be less obvious however, is that finding women who meet your standards is one of the most crucial steps of good sex. At its most basic: If you enjoy giving women great pleasure and watching them writhe in intense screaming orgasms, it's horrible a waste of your time and sanity to try going for those experiences with women who don't feel worthy of good things, who are incapable of trusting men, or who simply don't engage, attract and inspire you to be fully masculine and present with her.

Reading her self-esteem

The most important aspect of this is her self-esteem. Not to be mistaken with confidence (which is situational and mostly based on experience), self-esteem is her innate belief that she deserves to feel good. This is mostly shaped in a person's earliest years and the relationship with one's parents (particularly their father, in the case of women) is one of the strongest predictors of healthy self-esteem. If you find a person with low self-esteem (LSE), she will subconsciously manage to make her reality consistent with how she believes she should feel, even to the point of sabotaging her own pleasure or relationships. By contrast however, a high self-esteem (HSE) person will be devoid of most such undue drama, and most things will work easily and powerfully, without you even realizing that obstacles to her pleasure could exist.

For these reasons, it's pretty important that you learn how to easily read a person's level of self-esteem. One of the most obvious cues is whether a woman is comfortable exposing her genuine self to her environment: Does she wear dark sunglasses that prevent eye-contact? Is she shielding her eyes behind her hair? Are her eyes fully present and sparkling with life or glazed over and withdrawn from the world?

At its core, anything that indicates she's comfortable being seen and appreciated for who she truly is, is a plus and anything in the opposite direction is a red flag. That's not to say the signals can't be ambiguous: Tattoos or piercings might indicate a woman who is not at ease with her own body and looking for outside validation through changes (Michael Jackson being the extreme example of such LSE-behavior) - or it might be the playful and creative expression of a woman who is comfortable with herself and feeling unthreatened by any longer-term impact. Such cases tend to quickly become apparent from the context though. Even if an individual detail (e.g. hair in front of her eyes) is only accurate in 90% of the cases, that translates to amazing cold reads when you become able to notice a dozen such factors within seconds of meeting her and either confirm that the red flags are stacking up or that she displays almost no such indications of poor self-esteem. I've had the rare incident of mixed signals when a woman clearly triggered a red flag but displayed good self-esteem in all other areas (e.g. had hair in her eyes but was present, positive and enjoying eye contact during conversations). While it's possible she's simply on the middle of the spectrum, in my experience, the women who send me the most mixed signals are often the ones in very active development, who are becoming a new person of their own accord and initiative but still show signs of who they were.

Think of self-esteem as equivalent to health: Everyone is truly somewhere on a spectrum rather than fitting into neat fixed boxes, the easiest indicator of good health it is the absence of any negative symptoms, and you cannot have too much of it. More importantly: You cannot change another person's self-esteem and you may on rare occasions encounter a woman who's showing remnant symptoms of who she used to be, even as she's actively growing into a new person without those limitations. You want to become conscious of this factor and establish high standards for it. More importantly, you need to accept that this is a deeply ingrained part of her that only she herself can change - your natural response should always be to run away screaming, rather than settle for a woman who strives for a natural habitat of negativity, drama and misfortune.

For more information on self-esteem and an arsenal of reliable indicators that can be easily utilized on the fly, I recommend checking out David Shade's Select Women Wisely (or Select Men Wisely). David was the one who brought my awareness to this in the first place, and even after it became one of my specialties, he has continued to impress me with useful techniques and observations.

Your personal goals and desires

Beyond this most basic aspect of a woman's quality, the most important thing is really to let yourself become aware of what you want in a woman. As you develop these goals and criteria, you will notice that you become ever more adept at scanning for the exceptional women who meet them and stand out to you. When you deliberately let yourself become the man who deserves and appreciates such women, you will also find that you naturally become more attractive to them (remember that HSE-women revel in being noticed and appreciated on for who their true, deep selves), and that it lends a power to your interactions with them: The mere fact that a woman is exciting to you and that you'd like to know her better becomes a powerful compliment when infused with this level of awareness and congruency. Even if a woman isn't a complete match or isn't single, the ability to spot the kind of women you appreciate most and bring them into your social circle will itself expand your options. As quality attracts quality, you may well find that one of the best ways to discover the best woman in the world for you involves filling your entire social circle with amazing women of the kind you most appreciate and enjoy. =)

While your exact preferences aren't that important, be sure to be honest with yourself, think big and continually develop your goals. For inspiration, here's a post I made on David Shade's VIP boards a few years back, describing my own goals:

Selecting women wisely is one of David's favorite topics, and he has a lot of information on selecting for high self-esteem (HSE), as well as screening for any red flags, all gathered in that program.

Beyond that, you will want to become more aware of which traits personally inspire you in women. Here are some of the traits I screen for:

(Apart from #1, they are in no particular order. Numbering mostly added in case people want to refer to specific points.)

  1. Radiant with pure joy of life
  2. Intelligent and capable of engaging conversation
  3. Feels deserving of all the best things life has to offer her.
  4. Authentic and seems to enjoys it, rather than shying away intimidated, when I appreciate her more intensely, and at a deeper level, than she is used to.
  5. In development: I keep developing at a ridiculous rate, and I want a woman who can keep pace with my lifestyle. Part of this also means that she is capable of being led through new and exciting experiences without prejudice.
  6. Has passionate hobbies and an overlap of geeky interests with me: I am very passionate about my hobbies and I live to create great experiences for myself and others - anyone I cannot share at least part of those experiences with will not progress beyond friend with benefits.
  7. Enjoys feeling sexy and desired: This is particularly fun in geeky girls, who are often completely oblivious to how sexy they are, before I start getting them in touch with it. =)
  8. Tomboy, to an extent, with a practical approach and little inclination for drama.
  9. Ability to trust and be led: This can be in hypnosis, conversation, on the dance floor, in trying new things or in trusting me to teach her a few cheerleading moves where I physically lift her through various acrobatics.
  10. Compatibility of morals, general outlook on life and long term goals. Again mainly for long-term candidates.
  11. Physically active and in good shape is a plus. Worse than average shape is considered a red flag. Smoking is always initially assumed to be a red flag, though I am open to the theoretic possibility that it could be for reasons unrelated to self-worth.

Notice how a great amount of these relate to high self-esteem, in the various ways it typically manifests for the kind of women I find most interesting. If you have any specific preferences regarding looks, that can also be a criteria, but I find that a passionate, intelligent woman who is radiant with joy and in good physical shape tends to be wildly attractive to me by default. I do expect my women to have hot bodies in long term relationships, but going from average to good physical condition is a trivial amount of effort (and typically a fun experience) - going from medium to high self-esteem isn't.

If you line up all the traits you most desire in a woman and find that it seems a bit out of your league for the moment, consider what kind of man would deserve such a woman - it can be excellent inspiration for developing your identity in new and exciting ways.

- Ejnar

While my standards may have risen a bit since, as my options expanded, I must say that this list still does a good job expressing the type of woman I look for, many of the indicators I find valuable and some of the useful factors for the longer term. Like me, you may also notice that some of your goals vary for long term relationships and the deliberately casual ones. I hope the list provides good inspiration. =)

Additional resources:

Though David Shade's program and his VIP forums are by far the most essential resources here, there are a few other options which may also prove useful.

I've found Myers-Briggs type testing useful for further expanding my social awareness. TypeTalk (.uk / .ca) goes in-depth on the topic, while The Art of Speedreading People (.uk / .ca) people is a fast and more entertaining read that at times provides alternate perspectives and also offers good advice for visually spotting the types. In either case, I wouldn't take the types too literally, nor buy into the claim that everyone is born with one particular type that sticks with them for life. Rather I simply found it to be a great tool for becoming aware of how people are different and which perspectives and behaviors tend to be related. In my experience the 4 categories are not binary but rather gradual spectrums with people having traits from either side yet often mainly tending towards one of them. Also, I find that particularly the more developed individuals are often able to draw on either end of every spectrum, even if they do to some extent have preferred states.

Lastly, learning hypnosis has been a huge boon in expanding my awareness and social instincts in reading people further, as well as interpreting the underlying drives and motivations behind the patterns I observe. This isn't exactly a minor step, yet it certainly does pay dividends in this area along with many others.


Pick your own journeys!

  1. Identity:
  2. Health:
  3. General:
  4. My own journey: The full chronological journey and how these teachers have helped me in shaping my own life.

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