One of the most important pieces of entry-level advice I give to men looking to improve their love lives is to cultivate female friendships. I wholly attribute to my doing so as a struggling young man the vast majority of my romantic success throughout the rest of my 20s and 30s. Moreover, every single guy I know who is very successful with women romantically seems to be doing it to. The benefits are obvious:

It's a green flag. Women see that other women like you. Even if they don't like you in that way, it at least implies that you're not a creep or unfun for women to be around.

You learn the "language." Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you wanted to get good at German, you wouldn't just read a German textbook. You'd go to Germany. Immersion is the best teacher. If the only time you meaningfully interact with women is when you're hitting on them, you're probably not going to be very good at it.

You learn that not-AWALT. Studies have consistently shown that you're less likely to hold to negative stereotypes of other groups of people the more you actually know some. This is overly simplistic, I admit. There's definitely a luck factor involved with who you end getting to know. But in general, this is more or less true.

You are what you eat. If your diet consists primarily of male-centric values, points of view, communication styles, etc., how well are you and a woman going to relate to one another when the time comes?

You take them off the pedestal. I've seen some of the smartest, funniest, most interesting guys I've ever known turn into nigh-mute NPCs or totally uncomfortable weirdos when a pretty girl comes around. Often, they don't even seem to realize the change in themselves. As sketchy of advice "be yourself" is, most men I've met aren't even capable of it anyway.

They're just like guy friends, but nicer to look at.

But this isn't an advice thread because I don't think many of you want advice, believe it can help, or want to be friends with women. So, by all means, tell me why I'm wrong and let's argue about it while my gf gets dressed.