At the risk of theorizing too much (for some this will seem too obvious), but this is a term that comes from philosophy. The phenomenon is the appearance of an object, including all our interpretations and evaluations of that object. The idea is that our observation of a thing isn't completely passive, but that we are intimately involved in constructing it's appearance to us.

I guess I just had a realization about this a little bit ago, but this helps me understand what "attraction" really means. To me, I thought attraction just means whatever contributes to sexual arousal, so I didn't understand how things like DHV and preselection are said to increase attraction.

Before and after you tell a woman your DHV story, you're the same person standing there, but your phenomenon has changed in her eyes; she sees you differently. Your phenomenon has become higher-statused, more worthy of respect. The clothes you wear affect this phenomenon the same way.

Similarly, this explains the friendzone. You're in the friendzone if the woman isn't attracted to you anymore, and this corresponds with the state of your phenomenon to her. Maybe you DLVed too many times, she sees you as an equal, or worse. And this is also why it is very hard, if impossible, to break out of the friendzone, because continued contact maintains the phenomenon.

So what's the practical application of this? Several fold:

  • For guys saying that they're too ugly, just know that your phenomenon isn't completely out of your control. It isn't actually your objective features that attract, or repel, women (this is true for men too, but the phenomenon of a woman is very close to her physicality).

  • I see a lot of claptrap that says that women somehow see your true self, or if you doubt yourself, women can somehow sense it. In many cases, a woman's phenomenon of you is a sort of an accident of circumstances: Maybe she heard you before she saw you, and what she heard stirred her imagination and her emotions, which caused her first impression of you to be better than could have been expected. In any case, it isn't the woman peering into your soul, it's the phenomenon of you that her subconscious has constructed.

But what is attractive or unattractive about you is your phenomenon, and it will differ from woman to woman. You also have a chance to influence her perception of you, the phenomenon she creates of you. Strong body language, strong voice, dominant conversational frame, and of course every clue to your status, your dress, your hygiene/grooming, will make your phenomenon more attractive.

But most of your phenomenon really isn't under your influence, and it could be something totally incidental, in the environment, in her emotional state, etc. This also explains why some women will be attracted to you, and other women won't be. Some say that different women are attracted to different things. But it seems more likely, in my opinion, that women are largely attracted to the same things, but that your phenomenon to different women are different.