Unleashing our power of seduction

Seduction gets a bad rap, as argued by Chen Lizra in her TED talk "The Power of Seduction in Our Everyday Lives."


The goal of her talk is to get people to see seduction as a valuable life skill. She thinks everyone can learn how to seduce, particularly when they start young. She talks about how the term seduction has been so sexualized that most people do not think that it could be a positive skill set. People think that seduction is a less honest or acceptable form of influence. People who have been seduced feel like they have been manipulated. Men are given more leeway to seduce and when it comes to work and seduction, people immediately think that you are sleeping your way to the corner office. These negative aspects of seduction are not inherent in seduction, but rather is neutral -- seduction can be used for all sorts of reasons, according to Lizra she uses it to be "classy" and "add to it" her sense of loyalty and integrity. At it's most basic, it is power. "Seduction is about charm, connection, vulnerability, pride, self confidence, and appeal."

Seduction formula

1. Desire -- knowing what you want and having the courage to go after it. "Keeping the maybe alive is a skill of presenting potential possibilities and then fueling them with desire. It's about learning where the emotional buttons are and then triggering them." The key is to look for what the other person is missing, then give it to them, and it's almost impossible for someone to say no to that.
2. Confidence -- Our self image is formed at an early age and is deeply affected by environment, e.g. since there is no advertising in Cuba their self image is not distorted. "Cubans grow up feeling intense pride and self confidence no matter what body size or shape they might have." Because, it turns out, that there is no objective beauty and to the extent we enforce particular standards of beauty we have allowed ourselves to be influenced into doing so by external forces? 
3. Body language -- "It makes it really easy to seduce and be seduced because you know what the other person is feeling."
4. Arousal -- You must "wake up in them the desire to give you what you want and lure it out." "You must give it your undivided attention in the moment." Fearlessness is key, because then a "no that was a maybe turns into a yes." 

"Everyone has the power to seduce in them" "Seduction is a skill no matter how you look at it. You can call it wooing, persuading, winning someone over, charming, it doesn't matter." The key is to "build the connection that gets you what you want." 

Interview with a seducee (part 3)

Then I just remember, what really sticks out is then at some point we were getting physical, I'm not sure, maybe it was on my bed or on my couch the first time, the second time it was on your bed. The second time was lot better. The first time you kept laughing it at me, well I interpreted it as laughing at me, which made me think I was bad, which is not something I normally think. That is not the way most people respond to me, otherwise that would have been enough to send me home crying for weeks. In retrospect it seemed like you were laughing at some situational awkwardness, I'm not sure entirely, but there was something that was worthy of a lot of laughter which also broke up an intensity, which made me realize how not gay you seem. With other people, kissing people seems to produce some sort of bodily physical chemistry reaction that makes it more intense over time, not more humorous over time, which led me to believe that we were in a sketch comedy, not a porno scene. The second time, I felt like things had massively improved, or that I was much more satisfied. There was a softer intimacy, this cute laying next to each other in bed holding your calloused hands as you ripped off pieces and chunks of dead skin that had started to peel away at the tips of your fingers.

Well before that there was some discussion about being punched or physical violence and strangulation. I don't know if it had segued from a conversation about different forms of bestiality or the control which partners have in sexual positions or just a conversation about physical violence. somehow we ended up on the topic of punching me, which you seemed to be all the more excited about doing, and I seemed to be all the more excited about having done to me. We were sitting in your car sitting behind another car waiting to exit to go back into your house. I think you slapped me first, and I think I was asking for it. I'm not sure. I mean, I know I asked for it. I'm not sure if you slapped me. And I'm pretty sure that whatever you did, it felt good, or good in a weird way, which made me think that it was quasi sexual in terms of relieving sexual tension, which was a relief to me that all of this build up could be relieved in this painful release, which made it seem appropriate. On the other hand, I didn't know you all that well, and we were in a dark car, and you're physically hurting me.

It was when you turned over and strangled me that I felt both that sensation of feeling out of control and feeling adored at the same time. I think I felt out of control because I knew that you were strong enough to really hurt me if you wanted to and I wondered if, how much, if I really tried I could stop you in that moment, but I also trusted that you wouldn't hurt me, and that made me feel adored. After which I felt physical pain, it had hurt my throat, whatever soft tissue we have around the delicate structure of our neck, and so I, obviously having never felt anything like that before, I felt very very small and I really wanted to be held and coddled in that moment, and that made me feel very distant from you because I felt like you wouldn't be able to give me that, emotionally or physically. Even if you would have been able to give me a hug, I felt like I needed to be held by someone who wanted to hold me and cared because I felt hurt. It was a physical hurt but there was definitely an emotional attachment to it, the same way that as a child you might want to look for your mom after getting hurt. That's when I realized that I was sitting in a dark car with a person who I had gone to a show with once, who I had dinner with twice, and who worked briefly in our office.

Interview with a seductee (part 2)

(cont.)

We hung out at the ballet a few weeks later. We went to that restaurant that looked like it came out of a kitsch catalogue and then we went to the show and you were going to go to a bbq with family and/or get ice cream and I set off for home, but it was otherwise a good conversational day compared to the one before. You noted that I seemed calmer with you, but also noted my incredible inability to understand you. I kept saying, that's your type of thing, and you would say, no no no, you don't get me at all, but much calmer and easy going this time around without that added pressure of being at my house.

And then I didn't talk to you. And then I was sitting in an airport in Miami months later with my current fling leaning against my arm in our layover to San Pedro Belize, I opened up my email (thanks to you getting the office interns to show me how), and happened upon a very interesting read from you. The word that stuck out the most from that particular email was the four letter word love and its frequent use. The heartfelt passion with which that email was written seemed to be from a different human. It invoked thoughts for me of an infatuation of an ex lover, not someone who had been a short term co-worker who had come over to dinner once and awkwardly discussed my personality disorders for me and my inability to communicate. So reading through it, there was some shock to be had. Honestly I read it as being very truthful, as being... the picture behind the font of the email in my mind was this delicate soul that had hidden behind everything, a facade of intelligence and background and family and had realized that this was what true love was and had to express it and let it shine through. Not only was this interpretation gratifying as a major ego boost, but it was also shocking from my prior experiences with this person, it was alarming to my current paramour who is leaning on my shoulder catching glimpses of the word love, tidbits of affection and nuances of the email with a sideways glance. I think I briefly typed out a response without responding later. In Belize, a day later, we had our first fight in four months of dating because my companion had silently, passively aggressively brewed for 24 hours, insulted that I hadn't discussed already how it was that i was going to extinguish the small flame you had for me by saying I was already taken. Because I had been asked, "what are you going to do with this" and I had replied honestly and confusedly "I don't know," we had to discuss in detail why i didn't know what I was going to do. Thus began the portrayal of you as someone who was oddly infatuated with me, but my interest in you was an intellectual pursuit and search for a dialogue that was otherwise missing in my current relationship. I still don't really understand fully -- why you wrote what you did, but it was effective at getting my attention because it certainly was shocking and surprising and exciting to read because ... I don't think for me there are many times in my lifetime that i will open up an email and read some of the things that you wrote in it. Whether they were just meant to pull me back into an odd conversation about my personal defects and how you could fix them, it was still a successful endeavor because it worked, I still came running back ready to hear about what was wrong with me.

Interview with a seductee (part 1)

I interviewed a seduction target to get the backstory. (I discussed this admittedly clumsy and mistake riddled seduction first here, then here, and finally here):

You came into the office for your little stint. You kept walking by my door, kept walking by my window. Then you would come sit down in my chair and you definitely sat in it with a very territorial type comfort and I would talk nonstop in a verbal diahrrea that only showed my sense of discomfort with the entire situation and more appropriately you. I really remember my interactions with other people about you. People seemed to notice that you had come around in talking to me. I remember one or more person asking about you, who you are, what your deal was, where you were coming from, whether you liked me, aka what was your sexuality. Because even though it was decidedly confirmed that you were trendy and hip, it was unconfirmed whether you were gay or not, so it became my duty to find out, not just for their sake but equally for mine. Then we went to lunch I think, I remember it being somewhat awkward. I drove. We went to the mexican restaurant. You didn't eat your food. You ordered it. You didn't eat it. I thought that was strange, that you had ordered it, not eaten it, and not taken it with you. But we had an interesting conversation about nothing and then we talked about the only thing that mattered to me, which was trying to find out which gender you were into. It started with something like whether you had been to a particular gay club, which you had been. I had determined that that had meant that you were either gay or bisexual, which meant that the possibility that you and I were pretty much in love was certain. And then you would go on cigarette breaks with me and we would talk about life's mysteries.

I like the way the way that you stand, by the way. When we were standing outside, I really like the way you stand. I don't know if it was a proximate distance thing or a confidence, standing at attention, straight back thing, but there was something.

Then we made plans to have dinner, which essentially was to have dinner at my place without many more specifics, but we set a date within that week. You were only working there for a week, and I was leaving on a trip, so it couldn't have been much longer than a couple days after the lunch that we arranged to have a dinner together. When discussing this with my cohorts, they had decided that we were going on a date, and since you were coming to my house it was more a date plus something else, which put me in the uncomfortable position of deciding whether or not I wanted this something else from you, despite the fact that we had not actually established what you sexuality was. Luckily for me, my house is always tidy, but I don't have any groceries, so when you and I had arranged to have the dinner, I was going to have to go buy it that day, this all felt like a lot of hoopla and I didn't know if I wanted to pursue this. This led to me backing out and you sitting there in my office staring at me. I tried to explain myself, which was met with by your cold stare of unacceptance, to my shock. I was waiting for you to go "of course, can't wait to try it sometime later or soon," or some other agreement for letting me off the hook easily, but you seemed that much more annoyed that I was not only trying to get out of it, but trying to explain why I was trying to get out of it. You said that this was a negative attribute of my personality. Then, feeling much worse about the whole arrangement than before, I reneged on my attempt to get out of dinner and instead went back to having dinner with you and decided that I would just have to leave work early to get dinner supplies. After dinner, you're just laying on my floor, there were a lot of silent pauses. The entire time I felt like you were so brilliantly twisted and of wild thoughts that I was both enamored by you but felt that I had to prove myself to you and not bore you with small talk. You said that normal conversation with normal people was about things like what is your favorite color, and I seemed to ask all of these either very direct or indirect questions. It didn't flow like having a cup of coffee and catching up the way that good siblings or even new acquaintances would laugh at shared experiences. We were two awkward ducks in a mucky murky pond. It was very strange to me the interaction. You flew out the door and I had no idea what had just happened. I saw you at work for the next three days and after that...

Book appendix (part 1)

The book is officially out in North America. To celebrate, I thought I would share some source material that I collected to write the book. This is from an email from the friend who first mentioned the word "sociopath" to me:

I remember when you first walked in the office we shared.  Weren't you wearing flipflops?  I was trying to counsel you on how to behave yourself around the office.    And you gave me my own Book of Mormon with highlighted passages!  We talked religion and ethics a lot at first.  Once I found out you had some attraction for the ladies, we started talking about our personal lives. 

So, as far as my arm-chair sociopath diagnosis goes, I remember the following things:
(1) I would exercise my charm on people around the office, including our boss.  (What was her name? I can't remember anymore.)  You would observe me do this and comment on it. Like, complimentary comments.  I thought about that and the way you watched me, as if you were analyzing the interactions.  It reminded me of the way another sociopath friend would analyze how I interacted with people and try to integrate it into his repertoire.  But you had charms of your own, of course.
(2) Your penchant for law and economics and how we would argue about the lack of humanity in the system.  I remember I told you the story of my first-year law school class and how our teacher asked how we might assign ownership of property besides "first-in-time."  People suggested things like first-in-merit, a lottery, etc.  I raised my hands and suggested "first-in-need."  Everyone stared at me and the prof didn't even write it on the board!  When I told you the story, you gave me a look like you couldn't imagine why an intelligent person like me would say something like that . . .
(3) Your attitude toward law school and your job was so . . . emotionally detached.  I don't know exactly how to explain this.  There are a lot of people who go to law school or take jobs as stepping stones to something else, not because they see inherent value or want to help people, etc.  But you were outside of that, even.  You achieved almost effortlessly and didn't seem the least bit anxious about your performance.  It didn't seem like your self esteem hinged on your success--it was easy for you, because you weren't scared the way most of us were.  I didn't see you in action in law school, of course, but you would talk about it and this struck me as interesting.  I was a little envious of your detachment.
(4) You took me to church with you.  And to some anti-sex education class afterward (at the church).  I could see that you had very little, if any, investment in any of what was really being taught.  You claimed to be a Mormon, but it seemed skin-deep to me.  Like you were playing a role you had been assigned and decided to go along with.  I remember thinking: "She doesn't believe any of this; her world-view comes from a completely different place and it's just easier to try to fit in."
(4) You would flirt with me,  a little, but I didn't get the impression that there was any actual feeling behind it, other than that you liked me, found me somewhat interesting and perhaps useful for bouncing ideas off, etc.  I could see myself being attracted to you, but sensed--at some level--that there was something different about you.  I flirted with you back, but not a lot. Just enough to intuit that I could get hurt if I actually let myself develop feelings for you.  (QUEUE FLASHING WARNING LIGHTS!)  My intuition prevented me somehow, even though you were highly attractive.
(5) It was the end of the summer before I finally said the word "sociopath" to you outloud.  You and I were hanging out together outside of work by this point.  I remember you were driving me around town.  It might have been the same day you took me to visit your family. In any case, we were walking outside somewhere and I remember you telling me a story about someone--someone who had been going through something difficult.  You said something like, "I don't know how to react in those types of situations.  I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say or feel."  Now any empath could say something like, given a strange situation--a situation they had never experienced before.  But given all I knew about you and the situation you described (which I can no longer remember), it sort of hit me in a "lightbulb" moment.  I think I said to you, "M.E., have you ever considered that you might be a sociopath?"  I think I explained a little about what I meant, trying not to offend you.  You didn't seem offended at all, but just thoughtful for a minute or two.  I probably explained a little about my sociopath friend and my experience with him.  Maybe you remember more about this than I do.

The lure of seduction/rape

I discovered why/when i get the urge to seduce. There are two necessary elements for me: (1) the target is susceptible to seduction, and (2) the target has power over me. If those two requirements are met, I will nearly always feel the urge to seduce. If just one of those elements is present, I might think about it once or twice, but the seduction never holds my interest.

Perhaps this is somewhat related: I think I also discovered why someone might rape (I didn't rape anyone, just a dream). The lure of rape is fuzzier to me than the lure of seduction, but there is also an issue of power. The victim is actively rejecting you. The act of rape negates this rejection, denies the victim even that small control over you.

The downside to rape, though, is that the focus is all on the rejection. In fact, rejection is necessary for rape -- if there was no element of rejection, there would be no reason or opportunity to rape. To be a habitual rapist then, you would have to either be rejected all the time (real rejection), or be so insecure and paranoid to think that people would reject you all the time (perceived rejection). Neither way sounds appealing, or even easy to accomplish. Do habitual rapists seek out rejection or provoke it, just to create the opportunity? I'm much too narcissistic to be courting rejection all the time like that. I don't see why anyone else would do it either unless they had a masochistic streak. In any case, I would never do it myself, it's black magic. But now I can sort of see why others do.

Fish in a barrel

How to seduce a sociopath

I've address this topic before, but never to my satisfaction. I've never had a good answer, always thinking that people were incapable of doing it -- that if they had it in them to do it, they would have just done it. But one of my friends wanted to seduce someone they believe is sociopathic. And because I know her a little better and the nature of her strengths and weaknesses, I thought that maybe I had a better chance of coming up with something than I have before. And here's what I told her:


I've been thinking about the best tactic for you to seduce your maybe sociopath boss. I was thinking that sociopaths are intrigued when people they know change, like not just an off day sort of temporary change, but start acting differently pretty consistently. That should renew their interest in you, because they thought they had you pegged but you turn out to be more dynamic than they had considered. And I think they are also intrigued when people share their same traits, because they are, after all, narcissists. So I was thinking that maybe you could work on one particular trait that is similar to a sociopath and really make it a daily focus for the next few weeks and see how that works.

The thing that I think will be most helpful for you, and in a Karate Kid paint the fence sort of way improve your manipulation skills, is to focus on exploring every aspect of yourself. You know how sometimes they tell golfers to focus on what their pinky toe feels like in the moment that they start their swing? Always be thinking of yourself. When you talk to people, think of what your upper right prefrontal cortex must feel like. When you are eating, be aware of the size and shape of your tongue. Think about things you have not thought about yourself in years, if ever. Feel the bottom of your lungs, the roots in your teeth. Become aware of your eyes in their socket. When you shower, truly regard yourself in a frank fashion. You are a marvel, a wonder of engineering. You are a god. Your body is amazing and your brain is unfathomable.  Explore the spectrum of your feelings. Can you think yourself to tears? To bliss? Explore every single inch of your physical, emotional, and mental self with the sort of curiosity that a walking miracle such as yourself deserves. And you control this thing. Let yourself become heady with the thought of your power over this awesome thing that is you. 

This is the sort of self regard that sociopaths have about themselves. If you do this you will act differently, and he will notice. He will also recognize, and admire, that you two now share this trait.

I think this will at least renew his interest in you. Once that happens, maybe we think about you trying some more advanced things to get him to understand the nature of your desire.

Sociopaths = communication skills

I was joking with friends the other night about seduction. We each took turns describing how we would seduce the other, if we wanted. I was impressed with some of the good ideas. For instance (caveat -- not too soon into a relationship or it will ruin the effect), take the person to an event or location, or participate in an activity in which the target is no longer in his/her comfort zone -- culturally, socially, or even related to their sense of physical safety and well-being. With the proper preparation, your target will be forced to rely on you, and will have to trust you to help them navigate the situation successfully. After instilling this sense of unease and reliance in your target and after successful completion of the task, let things take a turn for the very physical. Their adrenaline and fight or flight senses should still be up from the challenge, so things will seem very exciting and intense to them.

As we continued talking, though, it was clear that I differed from most people in thinking that a broken heart is its own reward, whereas other people use seduction more as a means to an end -- a happy, successful, intimate relationship. One person wondered at what would be the point of keeping up a charade indefinitely. What point, indeed. Although I derive a good deal of pleasure from playing games, I know that there are certain things, certain life experiences or levels of trust, that games cannot provide. That doesn't mean that my hard-won skills are useless, though. I like to use the analogy of hitting a golf ball with a strong lateral wind. Your first inclination, before you notice the wind, is to hit the golf ball essentially straight. When you take the wind into consideration, though, you realize that to hit the target you seek, you have to skew the trajectory from the start. The same can be true of good communication. If you know that your listener/audience has certain prejudices or sensitivities, it is foolish to not take these into account. If you are trying to communicate to someone in that situation, you must imagine what your listener is hearing, rather than what you are actually saying. Keep tweaking your intended speech until you have accomplished your true goal in communication -- communicating a particular idea to a particular person, rather than just saying what you mean to say. Yes that is manipulation, but it is also just good communication.

Seducing too well

Everyone wants to be seduced. There are risks to seduction, but the person being seduced is almost always willing to take them—the allure of seduction is too strong. What people don't usually think about are the risks to the person doing the seduction. There are hazards to seducing too well. It's like building a fire: there are a lot of types of fires you can build, from slow-burning, red-hot coals, to flashes in the pan that burn quickly up and quickly out. The type of fire you never want is one that gets so big you burn down your house.

Seductees are subject to the whims of seducers, but seducers are subject to the emotional outbursts and vagaries of seductees, which can often be much worse. If the seducer maintains control over the seductee, these outbursts can often be reigned in. Logic can and will prevail. Seduce too well, however, and terrible things can happen to both sides. Who do you think gets murdered more frequently? Seducers or seductees?

Even if you are not getting killed, there's the risk of major emotional fallout when you seduce too well. People can get so into you that it cripples them. They lose touch with reality. They become a walking ball of emotions ready to spew at anyone who gets near them—your family and friends, your landlord, your neighbors. If they get jealous, you're toast. How will you ever get rid of them? They are unstable, and any attempt to separate from them will likely include you on the collateral damage list.

I recently over-seduced. Part of the problem was that we met once, then didn't meet again for a month or more. Letting that much time elapse is tricky. It's like throwing a match on a wood pile and walking away. When you come back your fire could be thriving, or it could be dead. I planned the activity to be "strong" enough that even if the fire had died out, I could still revive it, thinking I could later temper it if it seemed too much.

The second complication was that during that particular night I was tired and sick and could only bring myself to ask probing questions. I came across as mysterious, intense, and interested. After the night, I was almost immediately assaulted by phone calls and SMS messages. The fire I built had gotten out of control—this person was obsessed with me. I thought about just writing off the seduction attempt as a loss, but I'm a scrapper so I hung in there. I replied, but not frequently. I made and canceled plans. I used my illness and the holidays as an excuse. When we met again, I spoke straightforwardly about the seduction, in a way to keep the person both flattered and interested, but not seriously interested in me.

It was worth it, I suppose. I mean, it's like watching a movie where you already know the ending—the movie may still be good (hopefully it's a good movie), but the thrill is gone. And I'm constantly worried about over-seduction relapses because people are into people who can seduce so well, then talk intelligently about it afterward. So overall, not a complete success...

Seducing a sociopath

An unusual question from a reader:

I've read some of your articles on your website. I have checked most of the titles but I didn't find one thing I was looking for. I might have just overlooked it. So what interests me is: if my sociopath boyfriend broke up with me, is there any way to seduce him back? How?

My response:

This is a really good question and you are right that no one has ever asked me it before. I didn't even know that people might want to do something like this until you asked. I have a feeling that it will end up being somewhat contextual. In other words, it will depend on your particular circumstances. Could you give me a little bit more background about your relationship with your boyfriend?

This was followed by another email from the reader with details, to which I responded:

I have been thinking a lot about your email. I think from what I read, you smothered him. ("So why we broke up: because he never showed his love, and I realized he didn’t care about me. I knew that but I hoped that with time he could get to like me. I was very kind to him, showed him my love in many ways. And the more I showed it the colder he turned.") Sociopaths can't handle excessive emotional output from anyone. If the sociopath really likes you, then the worst thing you can do is get all upset about something the sociopath has done. ("He hurt me every day, I was crying a lot.") I can get really angry when people cry because I have hurt them. It's sort of like a slap in the face -- "You monster, look what you have done to me." You probably were just unable to really accept him for how he was, or be able to put up with it, or maybe you were, but he saw what an effort it was causing you and how hurt you were becoming because of it. ("So I told him that if he could not live a day without telling me bad things, then we should consider parting." He agreed, saying it was better “so you don’t have to have these arguments again.” And never replied to me again. That was 8 weeks ago.") So he broke up with you so that you both wouldn't have to be in a dead-end relationship anymore.

In terms of seducing him back again, I sort of doubt you would be able to. Your best hope would be to wait for him to try to reconnect with you. If he doesn't, you are out of luck. If he does, then play cold/rational/normal/hard-to-get. Act like nothing bothers you. Pretend that you don't have any emotional needs. After a while of that, suggest that you hook up, but just for sex. Since you say he is sensitive about his body, tell him something about his body that you particularly crave. Appeal to his vanity. Sociopaths can be flattered just as easily as anyone else, you just have to find their weakest spot or their greatest insecurity and exploit it. I don't know, maybe I'll ask my readers for other ideas.

Readers?

Manipulation 102: retail sales

I was reading this NY Times article on the clothing brand Zara and was impressed by how they managed to create and sustain demand for their products. First of all, they are faceless, their founder never having given an interview and their designers nameless:

Ortega has never given an interview, according to his communications department, nor does he attend award ceremonies or parties. He rarely allows his picture to be taken. Pablo Isla, who took over the company when the 76-year-old Ortega stepped down as chairman last year, rarely gives interviews or waves to the camera, either. In fact, the public face of Inditex is its soft-spoken communications director, Jesus Echevarría, who, as I discovered during a recent visit to the Inditex complex, is perhaps the only communications director on the planet who all but apologizes whenever he must answer questions about Inditex’s runaway success.
***
Inditex owes none of its success to advertising. That’s because Inditex doesn’t advertise. It hardly even has a marketing department, and it doesn’t engage in flashy campaigns, as its competitors do, teaming up with fashion designers like Stella McCartney, Karl Lagerfeld, Martin Margiela and Marni. Zara’s designers are completely anonymous; some would say this is because they are copiers rather than designers.

I actually think this is one of the bigger benefits of having an anonymous blog -- being nameless and faceless just makes it easier for people to project what they want to see onto you.

Zara doesn't self-promote, instead they let their satisfied customers talk them up:

“In New York, they did one page saying they were opening — in The New York Times,” Echevarría said. “But it’s not a campaign; it’s an announcement; it’s information. The company does not talk about itself. The idea was that the client was to talk about the company. It was not to say how good it could be. The customer would say that if it was deserved.”

This is one of my favorite ways to seduce, partly because I'm actually very lazy about it. I would much rather just become known as somewhat of a desired commodity and have people come to me rather than the other way around. Although I do sometimes go out with the goal of meeting people and can be very aggressive when I want to be, I find that I get better longterm results this way. People think it's their choice and that gives them a false sense of control and they have an incentive to keep justifying the choice to themselves (who wants to admit they were wrong?) by continuing to idealize me.

Zara is not a one-model fits all operation, it (sneakily) tries to closely follow the idiosyncrasies of its clientele:

But a brand at Inditex will make a fall collection, for example, and then ship only three or four dresses or shirts or jackets in each style to a store. There’s very little leftover stock, few extra-smalls or mediums hiding in the back. But store managers can request more if there’s demand. They also monitor customers’ reactions, on the basis of what they buy and don’t buy, and what they say to a sales clerk: “I like this scooped collar” or “I hate zippers at the ankles.” Inditex says its sales staff is trained to draw out these sorts of comments from their customers. Every day, store managers report this information to headquarters, where it is then transmitted to a vast team of in-house designers, who quickly develop new designs and send them to factories to be turned into clothes.
***
That means that if Inditex stores in London, Tokyo and São Paulo all have customers responding enthusiastically to, let’s say, sequined cranberry-colored hot pants, Inditex can deliver more of these, or a variation on hot pants, sequins or that cranberry color, to stores within three weeks. The company tries to keep the stock fresh; one promise its stores make is that you will always be buying something nearly unique. Merchandise moves incredibly quickly, even by fast-fashion standards. All those thousands of Inditex stores receive deliveries of new clothes twice a week.

This reminded me of the way I will constantly datamine little tidbits of information on people to add to my  mental dossiers of them that help me cater to their unique desires.

Finally, they promote a feeling of scarcity, causing people to want to buy when they feel the urge because the opportunity may never present itself again:

In this way, says Masoud Golsorkhi, the editor of Tank, a London magazine about culture and fashion, Inditex has completely changed consumer behavior. “When you went to Gucci or Chanel in October, you knew the chances were good that clothes would still be there in February,” he says. “With Zara, you know that if you don’t buy it, right then and there, within 11 days the entire stock will change. You buy it now or never. And because the prices are so low, you buy it now.”

This one is probably the hardest for me to pull off if I am honestly interested in the person, but I have seen it be very effective when I truly am only feeling a fleeting interest in a person. Ah well, there is always room for improvement.

Sociopaths in fiction: Phantastes

But tell me how it is that she could be so beautiful without any heart at all — without any place even for a heart to live in." "I cannot quite tell. . . But the chief thing that makes her beautiful is this: that, although she loves no man, she loves the love of any man; and when she finds one in her power, her desire to bewitch him and gain his love (not for the sake of his love either, but that she may be conscious anew of her own beauty, through the admiration he manifests), makes her very lovely — with a self-destructive beauty, though; for it is that which is constantly wearing her away within, till, at least, the decay will reach her face, and her whole front, when all the lovely mask of nothing will fall to pieces, and she be vanished forever"

--George MacDonald

Possessions and exploits

I see relationships with people in terms of possessions or exploits.  Like the Greeks and their many words for “love,” I have my own brand of feelings and behaviors for both groups. The former is typically reserved for my family or people that I call friends.  For the possessions, I have a sensation of ownership.  Also gratitude.

The latter is for my seduction or other romantic interests. Seduction has traditionally been an all of nothing endeavor, at least I can't really control it. Seductions are like wildfires, I only get to choose the beginnings and then they take on a life of their own or flame out. So I don't typically do them with people I hope to keep around for longer than a few months. For the exploits, the pleasure is in gaining and exercising influence over them. I am never infatuated with my possessions, but I am for my exploits. And I can feel possessive over my exploits. I pursue them because they give me a thrill. Will I win them over, what might that look like? Success is valuable only to the extent that it is evidence of my power. As one blog reader said, “There really is nothing more amusing or exciting or fun than turning a smart, beautiful, resourceful person into a personal plaything.” It is a game, but I am not necessarily interested in the spoils so much as the maneuvering.

The distinction is well illustrated by the literary character Estella, from Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. Miss Havisham raises Estella to break men’s hearts in a form of vengeance for being jilted at the altar, and Estella willingly does so with everyone but the protagonist Pip, who is in love with Estella. Pip notices that Estella does not actively attempt to seduce him like she does with other men. He complains, and she reprimands him:

"Do you want me then", said Estella, turning suddenly with a fixed and serious, if not angry, look, "to deceive and entrap you?"

"Do you deceive and entrap him, Estella?"

"Yes, and many others—all of them but you."

Like Estella, I do not seduce my possessions because I don’t want to lose respect for them and because they’re unsustainable long-term. As one blog reader wrote:

You find it hard to not objectify people, however it’s important so you just try with a few people that understand who you are. All the rest of the people who don't understand you are fools to you.

I have had a few relationships that have begun as seductions and morphed into something more serious but they almost always end because they never feel like they knew the “real” me.

Fun seduction idea?

One of my work acquaintances has apparently been ostracized by a mutual friend of ours because the fiancée thought that she dressed like a whore at a Halloween party and was worried that her man would stray because of it?  (My impressionable self has picked up inappropriately placed question marks from reading Twitter feeds).

I want to mess with her, but mainly just because she has revealed a weakness (relationship insecurity) that seems too delicious to pass up.

My plan is to "confess" to her in a simulated drunken overshare.  I'll tell her that I have often wondered if I could "also" seduce her fiancé.  Depending on how much she has had to drink and her current level of paranoia, I may have to wait just a bit to let that thought have its full effect on her (which given his varied and prodigious sexual history should be a pretty easy sell).   After she has let that marinate for a while, I will then try to seduce her myself while she is (hopefully) vulnerable from the thought that her fiancé is cheating on her with all of his smarter-than-she-is-work-friends.

Thoughts?

I think chances of it succeeding are pretty low, but chances of it increasing her insecurity are pretty good if she's so thrown off by a Halloween party "sexy third world slave" outfit, that's she's basically prohibited him from ever seeing this woman again.  (I wasn't there and there apparently isn't any photographic proof of whether or not a third world slave costume could be considered "sexy" without seeming really grossly imperialistic and in poor taste -- this is just what I've been told).

Famous sociopaths: Julie D'Aubigny

Via this Badass of the Week, I present the historical figure Julie D'Aubigny.  Some selections, but the entire article is pretty entertaining:


Julie D'Aubigny was a 17th-century bisexual French opera singer and fencing master who killed or wounded at least ten men in life-or-death duels, performed nightly shows on the biggest and most highly-respected opera stage in the world, and once took the Holy Orders just so that she could sneak into a convent and bang a nun. If nothing in that sentence at least marginally interests you, I have no idea why you're visiting this website.


One of the most badass human beings ever produced by France was born in 1670 into a life of wealth, privilege, and one-percenter opulence that meant she could have just spent her entire life chilling out Real Housewives style without ever so much as having to shank a single human being in the eye in a hellacious fit of rage, but, as we shall soon see, that sort of malaise really wasn't this chick's bag. 
***

Julie D'Aubigny moved to Marseille and started hooking up with a badass fencing master who just so happened to be on the run for murder after he stabbed some dude to death in an alley outside Paris. The homicidal fugitive swordsman trained D'Aubigny in the finer arts of fencing for a while, but as soon as she realized the student was now the master she ditched his broke ass and started giving sword exhibitions across Marseille to hone her skills and make a little extra dough. Basically it worked like this – she'd pull out her sword, sing a song or two, and challenge anyone in the audience to battle her in a duel. If someone stepped up, she'd sing a humiliating song about them, then make them look like assholes who couldn't tell the difference between a sword and a limp piece of linguine. Her skills were so lights-out gonzo that one time some jerkwad in the crowd called out that she wasn't really a woman, but was some badass cross-dressing cavalier musketeer motherfucker who was ripping everyone off. She responded by ripping open her blouse and telling the audience to "judge for themselves".


Oddly enough, kicking peoples' asses for money eventually led to a completely unrelated job prospect – a career as the star attraction of the Paris Opera. Apparently, while this chick was singing songs to humiliate her enemies in the dueling circle, some powerful record execs were in the audience, and they were so impressed by her melodious contralto voice that they decided she should be doing better shit than stabbing people in the balls for spare change. In the span of a few months, the woman known in Marseilles only as "La Maupin" (meaning "The Mapuin") went from a completely untrained street performer to the lead actress in the world's most respected Opera, playing roles of badass Classical chicks like Pallas Athena, Medea, and Dido. In addition to her flair for the dramatic and innate musical talent, it also helped that La Maupin had a near-photographic memory and rarely needed to read her lines more than once before committing them to memory.


Of course, her fiery temperament in love and combat meant that she slept with or swordfought with most of the men and women in the opera at various points during her career. Like, one time some jackass doucheface pretty-boy actor was being overly-aggressive while talking to one of Julie's actress friends, so La Maupin told that asshole to take a chill pill and show the lady some respect. He told her to fuck off and mind her own bitch business. Later that night, as he was walking home, he found La Maupin standing in the street, weapon drawn, challenging him to a duel for honor. When the guy refused to pull his sword, she fucking beat his ass with a wooden cane, stole his pocketwatch, and left his dumb ass in an alley. The next day, the dude came to work with a couple black eyes, and when people were like, "WTF is up with your face," he told them he got jumped by three big black dudes armed with hammers and baseball bats. As soon as he said this, La Maupin pulled out the dude's pocketwatch and called him out a lying liar from Douchebagville. Then, to make matters more humiliating, she then forced the dude to kneel and beg forgiveness in front of all his co-workers before he could get his shit back.

La Maupin was also kind of a hardcore bisexual, and some of her tales of badass awesomeness dueling over female lovers and seducing chambermaids read like they were perpetrated by musketeers or pirates or some other ultra-daring swashbuckling male heroes of eighteenth-century literature. Of course, being a woman, Julie D'Aubigny could pull off some feats of romantic badassitude that most men could only dream of. The most notable example of this was the time that she became a nun just so she could hook up with one of the sisters in the convent. The story goes like this: One time the Mademoiselle D'Aubigny got some super-hot lusty blonde to fall in love with her. When the blonde's parents found out their daughter was a lesbo, they had their "ravished" daughter put into a convent, totally unaware that this wasn't going to be nearly enough to deter La Maupin – D'Aubigny took the holy orders, entered the convent as an initiate, created a diversion by setting the fucking convent on fire, and then kidnapped the blonde nun, snuck her out of there, and shacked up with her for like a month. Are you kidding me with this?

I don't know, maybe she had borderline personality disorder?  If the contemporary portraits are any indication of what she looked like, her many conquests might have something more to do with her skill at seduction and confidence than her beauty.

Seduction 102: Eye contact

When I am trying to seduce someone, there are myriad different adjustments I make in my demeanor and manner of speech, but I actually think the effect of all of those combined pale in comparison to one single behavior--sustained eye contact.  I noticed this a couple years ago.  I was sitting across the table from my target but we were talking about the most banal things--hypoglycemic indexes or something far from love/seduction.  To change it around, I decided to just stop talking so much and instead sustain eye contact.  It worked like a charm.  It felt like I was staring into the target's soul, at least that is what I was told after a steamy midafternoon hook-up.

I was reading this seduction coach's blog: "Your Amygdala Doesn't Want You to Find Love." She references the book Linchpin: Are you Indispensable?" by Seth Godin, writing:

Halfway through the book is a chapter entitled The Resistance. The Resistance is Godin's name for your amygdala, also known as the lizard brain. It's not just a concept, it's a real organ -- it's a couple of squishy things sitting atop your spine. Millions of years ago, your lizard brain was responsible for your survival -- it told you to be afraid of predators, to keep a low profile, to eat when you needed sustenance, to ensure your safety at all costs. Back then, it was useful. Today, it still does those things, but it's utterly antiquated, because our social evolution happens far faster than our physical and neurological evolution. Biologically, we are still programmed to operate as though we are living in a 100-person tribe with lots of sabertooth tigers hiding in the bushes, even though that's not even remotely what our world looks like today.

In the working world, the contributions of our lizard brain manifest themselves in a desire to play it safe, to hide at our desks, to do whatever it takes not to attract the attention of our superiors (the amygdala hates attention, as attention is a threat to safety).

And specifically about eye contact:

[L]et's remember that the amygdala is even afraid of eye contact that gets too intense. Godin describes a zoo in Rotterdam that gives out special glasses to visitors so that the gorillas won't think they're being looked in the eye and freak out. Considering that intense eye contact is one of the defining characteristics of a romantic relationship (in fact, psychologist Arthur Arun describes it as perhaps one of only a few prerequisites for love -- full article here), it's easy to see why we get the impulse to run away. "The amygdala resists looking people in the eye, because doing so is threatening and exposes it to risk," Godin writes. "Eye contact, all by itself, is enough to throw your lizard brain into a tizzy. Imagine how scary it must be to set out to do something that will get you noticed, or perhaps even criticized."

It's scary, but there is something about fear that is so compelling!  BBC Science discusses interesting research on the effect of eye contact on people's perception of intimacy:

New York psychologist, Professor Arthur Arun, has been studying the dynamics of what happens when people fall in love. He has shown that the simple act of staring into each other's eyes has a powerful impact.

He asked two complete strangers to reveal to each other intimate details about their lives. This carried on for an hour and a half. The two strangers were then made to stare into each others eyes without talking for four minutes. Afterwards many of his couples confessed to feeling deeply attracted to their opposite number and two of his subjects even married afterwards.

I believe that sustained eye contact is one of those seduction tricks that is so effective that almost every sociopath seems to use it.   I believe that it is so common, in fact, that it is what people are referencing when they make comments about a sociopath's "lizard stare" or ant other observations or judgments related to a sociopath's eyes.

Disarming

I often tell my friends that I believe my smile to be preternaturally disarming.  It's distractingly perfect, but there is also a perfectly logical explanation for why it's there -- I am happy or pleased or charming or all three. It's effectiveness lies in its innocence, getting people to put their guard down and allowing me to have relatively free reign with them.  That is the point of any disarming.

I primarily practice psychological disarming, but I was sent this video by a reader.  Although it is directed at the physical disarming realm, I believe it is a good allegory for psychological disarming (distraction, plausible alternative explanation, timing, etc).



Reading the original comments on the YouTube page is also entertaining.  For instance:

"This is awful advice. Someone pointing a gun at you is either going to shoot you, or they are using it to rob you. If they are going to shoot you, they wont wait and stand around, they will shoot you as soon as they can. If they just want your stuff, hand over everything and be thankful that's all they wanted. This stuff could get someone killed."  

Just be thankful that's all they wanted?  This is sort of the advice I frequently give "victims" of sociopaths -- leave them alone.  I don't think I ever tell them to be "thankful that's all they wanted," though.  I find that sentiment to be rather depressing, or I should say indicative of a rather depressing existence.

How to be more charming

Under the headline "Top 10 Charming Gestures," this Ask Men article suggests:


We’ve all met them, haven’t we? People who just get along effortlessly with everyone -- those incredible individuals who seem to glide through life on a permanent high. These are the people we are all slightly jealous of because they are always doing something interesting or they always seem to have another amazing adventure to share. We can’t stay jealous, though, because they are just too damn likable. When other people discuss them, they always use that word: charming.

If you asked anyone what makes someone charming, the vast majority of people would have no idea. It would be some vague, intangible quality that doesn’t help us in developing that desirable characteristic. But help is at hand; part of our raison d’etre is to break these things down, so that you too can develop these life-enhancing social skills. Being charming is not as difficult as it may seem, and can be hugely rewarding: You get invited to more parties, you make more friends, you get more business opportunities, and important people are more likely to remember you. Above all, you have more fun. Sound good? Then get ready for these top 10 charming gestures.  

The article goes along to suggest some obvious and not so obvious tips, including the effective use of touch, believable flattery, accepting others' flattery graciously, including less social individuals into the conversation, using people's names, and always finding a way to turn conversations back to the other person.

Of course I credit a lot of my charm to a perfectly disarming smile.  I happen to have dimples (seen in some cultures "as a sign of attractiveness and veracity," according to wikipedia), which make me seem much more harmless than I really am.  The smile combined with a too-intense gaze is like coffee with cigarettes -- very complementary.  I do use people's names a lot, as the article suggests, but once it's clear that I can (or should) know their name, I refer to them by their title instead.  You can also do this if you have forgotten someone's name.  The Ryan Gosling character in the film Crazy, Stupid, Love did this to good effect ("fancy face," among others).  Other than that, I think the formula for charm is essentially  an utter confidence that makes you seem superior to others, but an accessibility and approving attitude that makes people feel comfortable in your presence.  Like all formulas, the devil is in finding the right ratio of one thing to the other.

Relationships

I am currently in the longest serious relationship that I have been in for approximately the past decade.  I used to not be good at any long term relationship.  Even family relationships would have blow ups and times of estrangement.  I got sick of the drama so I started learning little ways to keep the ship righted.  Now I resolve small issues before they become big issues and I ensure that I am always a net positive in their life.  I basically just channeled my efficiency obsessed self into it, and I am quite good at it now.

The things I have been thinking about recently is what is the proper role of manipulation in a relationship?  I have always said that everyone wants to be seduced (trademark pending?  I feel like that should be the sequel to "Everyone Poops").  With this current relationship, I performed the seduction perfectly.  To use a baseball analogy, it's been my no-hitter.  It was not easy and it was not always clear that it would turn out so well.  (I almost think that it was because I felt no expectations about the relationship being anything but a fun distraction.  I felt no performance pressure, so I performed nearly perfectly.)  I'd tell you about it, but like a baseball no-hitter, the story of a perfect seduction is actually sort of boring.

My question is, now that I have a relationship that seems like it could last and I am interested in exploring that option, do I keep seducing?  Or actually get real?  Well, that's sort of not the question anymore because I have already gotten at least a more real as the relationship has progressed.  I guess it's more like, stay real?  Or step back in and "fix," seduce, or manipulate when the situation warrants it?  Or I guess that's not really the question either, because framed that way the answer would of course be step back in.  I think the question is more like, when would the situation warrant it?  Should it be a most of the time thing?  Or only part of the time?

Things I think:

• If people could be manipulated/seduced into being happy without knowing that is the source fo their happiness, they would typically choose that (ignorance is bliss, blue pill over the red pill, or everyone wants to be seduced).
• Some people would feel betrayed if they ever did find out that they were being "managed."
• People find things out eventually, or things have a way of being found out.
• Small fixes sometimes just mask bigger problems that don't have such easy "fixes".  
• I tend to respect people less in proportion to the amount that I manipulate them.  
• Manipulation is turning down an opportunity to try to find a real mutual understanding on an issue.
• Mutual understanding usually means the other person is getting better at pleasing me, i.e. reciprocating the seduction/maintenance.  

Other than that, I really don't know what to think.  And yes I realize how funny it is for me to be asking you for relationship advice for a change.