Inspired by a conversation with a male friend yesterday, here's all the dating advice I've given men IRL and online in 2023. It's grouped roughly by shared themes and punctuated by some anecdotal experience.

  1. Life is probabilistic. Nothing guarantees anything, but certain decisions may increase odds of success enough to be good ideas.Things like getting in shape, grooming smartly, dressing well, reading widely, and working on yourself are all good ideas. They won’t guarantee results, but they won’t make your life any worse either.
  2. Remember that young adults are immature. It’s not their fault: they were teenagers just a few years ago, and that shit takes time to wear off. Don’t extrapolate from the behaviors of some 22 year-old any big conclusions about how the adult dating world operates.
  3. Your 20s are a time of personal growth and evolving social dynamics. There’s no guarantee, of course, that things will ever get any better for you in dating. But you should still put yourself in the best position for success. One of the saddest things I see is fairly average young men (18-22) giving up. You have plenty of time.

\I struggled with women when I was the ages of most(?) of the guys here. I stopped struggling in my mid-20s and started to really thrive in my late-20s. I have a couple of things going for me genetically, but I had those things all along, so it doesn't explain the dramatic improvement over time. Yes, looks matter first; then everything else matters too.*

4) Not all women are like that. Not all social groups are like that. Sometimes, the difference between success and failure is just spending too much time on the wrong women or in the wrong crowd.

5) Nichemaxing is a powerful art. Know your audience. Trying to be attractive to most women most of the time is a waste of effort and potential. You only need to be attractive to one woman at a time (or two or three, if you’ve got it like that) as long as you can find her.

6) Don’t play the numbers game. You don’t want to shoot every shot. Not only will you have to deal with the morale-killing effect of constantly missing, you’re going to be seen as a desperately bad shooter and anyone who realizes it will want you even less. Instead, fix your mentality around taking a few, higher-percentage shots. This requires skill, but it’s a skill that can be developed over time.

7) Figure out what kind of girl you like--actually like, not just to fantasize about sexually, but to actually want to hang out with too--and what kind of guy she likes. On a purely strategic level, the next step is to become that guy. But the reality isn't so black and white. You have to play to your own strengths in the end, but it also pays to be a little flexible.

8) Don’t listen to the statistics. If you roll a 20-sided die a million times, the average roll will be about 10. But on any given roll, your chances of hitting 10 are no more likely than hitting any other number. That’s because the smaller the sample size, the less likely the results are to mimic large-sample averages. You are a sample size of 1, as small as it gets. That girl you’re looking at is a sample size of 1.

\ I once met a girl randomly outside of a show while still dressed business-casual from work. She was dressed more "alt." I explained why I was dressed like I was and told her that if she came to a certain event the next night, I'd probably just look like "hipster trash." She was going to that event anyway, and I dressed like I promised. So instead of two strangers who look like they're from different worlds, we were two acquaintances who looked like they belonged together.*

9) Have high personality standards: only sleep with women you legitimately like as people. It doesn’t matter so much if you like them romantically—just that you think they’re cool. Keeping this standard might limit your options, but it will also drastically cut down on the amount of drama you have to deal with later, and spending time with them will feel like play, not work.

10) The best of your lovers and friends will be whoever you most enjoy seeing happy. Again, this is about how making them happy should feel like play, not work.

11) Treat your hookups like medium-friends after. They aren’t your best friend, but they aren’t a random stranger anymore either. If you totally discard people after sleeping with them, not only are you giving them negative feedback that will hurt their future interactions with men, but you’re slowly ruining your own reputation.

12) Don’t hookup with “no hookups” girls. I know, a lot of women say “no hookups” when they are in fact amenable to hooking up. It’s best to just ignore that fact and take them at their word. Respecting people’s boundaries, even when they’re cap, is just a good way to avoid unnecessary drama later on.

\First off, this is all part of being a good guy and is its own reward. On the other hand, it is also strategically useful for long-term success. The thing is: a lot of women want casual sex, in an ideal universe in which they won't have to feel embarrassed, used, threatened, or degraded for it. Most guys can't promise that and women know it. With the right mindset, and eventually a reputation to match, you can be seen as a rare exception--an "easy" choice she won't have to worry about regretting. This has gotten me laid more than I can estimate, with examples like friends of friends from out of town, multiple bartenders from my favorite bar, sets of roommates, et cetera.*

13) Don’t dismiss success stories as exceptions. Instead, ask why they are exceptions. If you see a 5’7”, not-particularly-handsome, not-rich brown guy picking up hot girl at the function, understand that there is something about him or her or both that’s making that possible. Now that you know it's possible, the question is only How?

I think that’s it, but I’ll add more if it comes to me.