Today I want to look at one of the most essential yet overlooked parts of seduction and intimate relationships: the power of emotional content in communication.
This is essential because it is emotional content that gives communication its information and resonance; and I say it is overlooked because, for the most part, the seduction community casts a negative light on emotions, viewing them as valueless and changeable, something that women should experience and men should manipulate.
My view is different. Emotions are essential and natural for both men and women; rarely felt more strongly than in intimate relationships; and all the more powerful and important for all that. Consider this post your ground work in the art of communicating in an emotionally powerful way.
What are Emotions….Really?
At root, emotion is nothing more than information — information generated internally by the correspondence or differences between our internal map of reality, and the external reality itself.
Deciphering or “reading” other people’s emotions therefore allows us to discover more about their internal maps of reality, and how closely they match the external world; and this, in turn, allows us to respond and react more appropriately with this person.
Feelings aren’t facts. But they are valuable feedback that we do well to heed. Strong emotions bring attention squarely into areas we need to focus on. If I’m feeling intensely fearful before walking into a meeting, that is telling me something very important about my expectations of myself and the meeting. Likewise, if I’m feeling intense emotion about a girl, or feeling nothing in particular about her, I need to figure out why I’m getting that emotional message (or lack of it).
There is no escaping emotions. The term “emotionless” was made up by novelists to describe a particularly flat affect. All acts of communication, from a raised eyebrow to an hour-long monologue of personal revelation, are loaded with emotional content — whether we want them to be or not. Even the act of trying to deliver a message devoid of emotion presents information that people react to emotionally.
Why Do Emotions Matter?
So enough background; let’s get down to the details. How does all this hit pay dirt in seduction?
Women are emotional creatures (men are too, but this blog isn’t about seducing men). The biggest mistake men can make, in seduction or in intimate relationships, is to ignore the emotional lives of women (or be ignorant of them).
Your results with women will improve 1,000% when you realize that A) women are giving you emotional information all the time that will help you seduce and please them and B) you have to address this information yourself, in an emotionally resonant way, if you are going to get your goodies.
I talk a lot about attraction this and attraction that, and if a woman is attracted enough to you she will do literally anything you want, but the reality is, attraction is only one dimension of seduction and intimacy. Yes, it is a very big dimension, but attraction without emotional resonance will fizzle out in time, guaranteed.
So learn this stuff. It will up your game, big time; and not just the I’m-gonna-get-laid game, but the I’m-gonna-be-really-happy game. Which is the biggest game in town, as far as I’m concerned.
Harnessing the Power of Emotional Communication
So, how do you actually use emotions in the context of seduction or intimate relationships?
1. Know Thyself
Someone who is disconnected from their own emotions is going to have a difficult time dealing with emotional messages coming from someone else. Oh, it can be done; it’s done all day every day by many troubled couples who can’t figure out why they fight all the time, or why they don’t really “connect”. They may have great physical chemistry, or really complimentary interests otherwise; but they will be frustrated again and again at this fundamental “disconnect”.
So you need to start with a deep awareness of what you’re feeling. Considering that our emotions are connected to our physiology, building good body awareness is probably also essential to this. I try to practice this in my daily life; I call it “bring your body to work day”. Your body will give you enormous amounts of information on how you’re feeling. Are you tight in the stomach? Strained lower back? Tense neck? Interesting; what does that mean? Some types of emotional information (such as trauma) are frequently encoded somatically (in the body), so pay attention.
Keep studying yourself and building self-awareness until you are really aware of your general emotional tone, and also the variance it goes through during the ebb and flow of your day. Only once you have this general awareness can you hope to address someone else’s emotions.
2. Respond to the Emotional Content of the Message
For most of us (and for women in particular) the emotional content of a message is both more important, and less visible than the implicit or surface content of a message.
For example, let’s say I had told one of my friends I will probably meet her for a drink. I end up missing her because I get very busy. Next time we talk, she says “You’re a douchebag.”
Now, the face value of the message is “you’re a douchebag”. Not a very pleasant message to receive, is it? Why would anyone want to try to respond to that message?
And in fact, if we tried — either by saying “Am not” or “Well, you’re a bitch” or even “WHY am I a douchebag” — we would be missing the point entirely, and confirming to the woman just how clueless we were as to the actual emotional content of her message.
(Not to suggest that women just sit there consciously tallying up our faults or strengths. Most women aren’t really consciously aware of what emotional message they are trying to send.)
In this case, the emotional content of her message isn’t that I am actually a douchebag, it is rather that she likes me very much, and was very disappointed not to be able to hang out with me.
So, I need to address the emotional content of her message, by saying something like:
“Aww, I missed you too. I really did. I got caught up in this other stuff, but it wasn’t nearly as fun or vivacious as you are.”
With this reply I am demonstrating awareness of, and responsiveness to, the emotional message she actually handed me, and making it more real and believable with the inclusion of specific characteristics she has that I value.
Now, she may still continue giving me shit — in the surface content of her messages — but the emotional communication should change to one of forgiveness, or conciliatory approval, or rapport, or something else more positive.
I can’t emphasize this enough: this is the core of powerful emotional communication. You need to meet people where they’re at, and address the emotions they are feeling, not what they will confess to feeling, and certainly not just the surface content of their words.
When a girl is looking at you with tears in her eyes, and talking in a very strident voice, and saying things that seem absolutely designed to put you on the defensive or make you angry, you had better be damn sure that when she is done talking and you open your mouth, that you are responding to what she is actually feeling, not just what she is saying.
Doing so will be many times for effective than getting defensive, or angry. Oh, you can respond to the actual content of what she said; but you should do so in a way that acknowledges and addresses the emotional content, primarily.
2. Know Her (Better than she knows Herself)
This takes some real skill and, moreover, practice; but ultimately, you want to get to the place where you are so attuned to the emotional messages of others that you are may often be more aware of what someone else is feeling than they are themselves.
That is where real magic can happen. Show her you know what she’s feeling, and she’ll like you; help her discover what she didn’t know she was feeling, and she’ll be devoted to you.
Why Arguments Happen
Chris Rock put it right when he said “You will never win an argument with a woman.”
That’s because, for a woman in relation to a man in an intimate relationship, an argument is not about winning or losing; it is about exchanging emotional information. Men who are looking for a logical, position-based resolution, with clear takeaways and action steps, have lost before they’ve even opened their mouth to enter the argument. Men who don’t “get” the power of emotional communication will simply never “get” arguments with their significant other.
A lot of the relationship advice books out there say things like “recognize and affirm what she is saying”, like when the wife seems upset, the guy is supposed to say “What I hear you saying is you are angry”. Or you are supposed to own and name your feelings, as in “I am feeling very angry right now.” This is all well and good, as far as it goes, but most people don’t talk like that; and a true practitioner of the human relationship arts doesn’t need his partner’s emotions signposted; he is already aware of them and responding to them, without having to be prompted.
When two people are self-aware (insight), and other-aware (empathy), and willing to respond to the emotional messages their partner is sending out in a genuine way, “arguments” as such don’t really happen.
The Big Fat Disclaimer
The emotional intelligence necessary to be a powerful emotional communicator comes with time, experience, a lot of introspection, and a very keen awareness.
DO spend the time necessary to get there; your life will be better.
DON’T go off after reading this post and start trying to randomly guess the emotional content of women’s messages. Without training your emotional intelligence, your random attempts will mostly fall flat…to bad effect.