How to be Dominant and Challenging

A lot of people like to say women like “assholes.” That’s not exactly correct. Women do not like “assholes.” An asshole is a guy who is mean to a woman for no reason. Women don’t like that. Instead, women like men who are 1) dominant and 2) challenging. Being dominant and challenging are not exactly the same thing (you can theoretically be dominant without being challenging if your dominance is predictable and easy to access), but dominance and challenge are interrelated in many ways, as we shall see.

Dominance simply means that she follows your orders, and you do not follow her orders. Period. Dominance is only a question of who gives the orders – you can have more money than her, be smarter, taller, etc.., but she is still dominant if she successfully gives you orders more than you give her orders.

Being challenging means she should never feel like she has easy access to your “giving” (your attention, time, emotions, favors, etc.). She should always feel like she needs to do more, or overcome some obstacle before she finally “conquers” you, which you should never let happen. Because you are perpetually challenging, she should always feel like your acceptance of her is “maybe.” She should feel like you will not accept her if she does nothing meaningful for you, and you only MIGHT accept her if she does meaningful things for you. But your attention and acceptance are never guaranteed.

For any of this shit to work, you must be attractive. Women are attracted to dominant and challenging men only if inhabit the transcendent frame, which means your life is awesome and your thoughts and emotions are constantly focused on a reality that is fundamentally superior to hers in almost every way (and preferably unattainable by her except through you). Any guy can bark out orders and ignore her, but women only put up with that shit if there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If you are unattractive and your emotional experience and frame sucks, being dominant or challenging will not mean shit to her.

Most guys naturally do this stuff when they do not care about a woman, but these same guys often stop being dominant and challenging when they run into a woman they actually like and see as high value. If you can learn the principles and rules underlying these concepts, you can intentionally act challenging and dominant even when you are madly in love with her.

The Practical Actions

To show yourself as dominant and challenging you must go out of your way to do at least some of the following actions. Women evolved to assume that all men are betas until proven otherwise, so even if you are the most attractive, “alpha” guy in the world, you still must demonstrate that fact to her subconscious emotions. Otherwise, she will assume you are beta.

Therefore, at some point in the interaction you must:

1) Say “no” to her

2) Successfully give her orders that she follows

Giving orders is the most important part of dominance. The more emotionally invested she is, the more she will want to take orders from you. If she really likes you she will go out of her way to do things for you even being asked. But be careful – if you press the gas on giving orders too quickly you may look douchey or overbearing. You should also not get mad if she does not follow your orders: just move on. I recommend starting small (“can you hold my drink”) and then working your way up (“come stand over here so I can hear you better”), and then (“this bar is lame, let’s go to the one across the street”) until eventually you are telling her how to suck your dick.

3) Impose a false time constraint, which is a statement implying you may need to leave soon.

The false time constraint takes pressure off her because, no matter how awesome you are, there is always a fear in her head that you will never leave or stop pushing. The false time constraint also makes her feel like you live in the transcendent frame and your time and attention for her is limited. You should always impose a false time constraint when you first approach women or on first dates. If the woman is having fun, she will completely forget that you said you needed to go.

Example (early on in a date): “Hey let’s grab a drink and sit over here. Just to let you know, I have to wake up early tomorrow so I have to leave at like 11.”

4) Put soft obstacles in her way

A soft obstacle is when you do or say something that very, very lightly implies you may not accept her. The obstacle, however, must be something she feels like she can easily overcome. If she feels like you are actually rejecting her, she will feel scorned and run off to find somebody else. Examples:

You: “You’re a Pisces? I’m an Aries. You know Aries and Pisces are not compatible, right?”

You: “You’re only 23? I’m 34! I am way too old for you!”

No woman is going to run home and cry into their pillow because you said your signs don’t match or you are too old for her. Instead, it will motivate her to overcome this small bump in the road to get you. And if a small obstacle doesn’t excite and motivate her to get you, she was not into you anyway.

The soft obstacle is the easiest way to inject a challenge into any interaction. You can just take anything she says or does and make it a “reason” why things may not work out. If we are talking about foods we like and she says “I hate cheesecake” I might act fake shocked and say “you hate cheesecake! It might not work out with us.” Sometimes I get up and pretend I am leaving the date.

5) Respond with “maybe”

Her: “Do you like me?” You: “So far so good, but we will see what happens.”

Her: “We should hang out sometime.” You: “Sure! I am busy this week but I might be able to do next week. I will let you know.”

Again, you must say “maybe” with emotional intelligence in a way that fits the context. How you say “maybe” with your long term girlfriend will be fundamentally different than the girl whose number you just got in the club.

6) Tease her - Teasing is making fun of her in a joking way that makes her not feel rejected.

Example: “I can’t stop laughing at how you kept pushing the door when it said ‘pull’” or “your Spanish was amazing when you ordered that taco.”

7) Implement the alpha male quid pro quo, which means you should do less for her than she does for you, and you should never do anything for her until she does something for you first. I have written about this at length elsewhere.

8) Act unpredictably – acting unpredictably does not mean to act erratic or strange. It means you are constantly elevating, so your actions and reactions today may will be different than what they previously were because you are now a different person.

9) Maintain and enforce your boundaries – A boundary is a “rule” she must follow, so it is both dominance and a challenge

10) Disagree with her

11) Randomly withdraw your attention

12) Use double meanings, which is a phrase that has meanings, one sexual/intimate and one not

Double meanings are important because they induce the idea of “maybe.” Did he mean to say that he wanted to fuck me or did he not? She will never know. Example (when you are charging her phone for her): “hey I am having trouble plugging in the charger. Can you help me find your hole?”

When you do this shit, it is crucial she not actually feel rejected. Women are extremely sensitive to rejection because, in the caveman days, if a woman was rejected by the tribe she would probably die or get raped because she would be unable to fend for herself. If a woman feels rejected, or like rejection is imminent, she will run away and find another guy, even if that guy is worse than you.

You must use emotional intelligence to ensure the challenge is fun and appropriate to the situation. You should not look like an emotionally distant asshole who is intentionally playing games, but rather a fun, mysterious guy who is not quite sure about her yet. Autistic idiots read lists like this and try to “tease” women by calling them stupid bitches. Don’t be a moron (although there are some women that would probably think it is hilarious to be called a stupid bitch). Your specific jokes, challenges, and orders should vary depending on the context of your relationship. If she is deeply emotionally invested and committed to you, the challenge you create is much different than if you just met a bitchy model at a nightclub. Nevertheless, you cannot use the “uniqueness” of your woman or situation as an excuse to not do this shit. All women want a challenge; you just need to tailor it for your audience.

You should also adjust the level of the challenge depending on the context of the relationship. If you have been acting needy and overly interested, you may need to “correct” it by acting challenging and creating some soft obstacles for her. On the other hand, if you have been acting too challenging and she has been feeling rejected you may need to tone down the challenges. I cannot tell you what to do in every situation; I can just give you the general principles.

As you can probably tell, many of these behaviors have been traditionally called “being an asshole.” Therefore, even though it is deadly serious and non-negotiable that you do these things, you should try to do them in a joking, lighthearted way. For example, when I tell a woman our signs are not compatible, I have a giant grin on my face and my arm around her. When a woman asks to see my paintings, I put my hand on the small of her back and whisper softly in her ear “I’m not ready to show you yet.” Remember: this is all a bullshit game you put on her for her subconscious emotions; you do not want her actually feel rejected or give her conscious mind something to object to.

That said, if she does not allow you to do these things (she does not comply with your orders, she keeps expecting you to follow her orders, etc…), you may need to use the nuclear option, which is to leave. Pressing the nuclear button is very difficult for many guys because they do not want to lose the woman, but it is better to leave and never see her again rather than be the beta in the relationship. The best way to do the nuclear option is to appeal to the transcendent frame, which is that you have a better reality available to you so you do not have to deal with her bullshit. For example, if she is being difficult you can leave while saying something like “hey I’m sorry my friend just texted me I have to go meet up with him.” You should not make her think you are leaving because you are butthurt, but because you just some have something better.

Body Language

In addition to doing the stuff described above, you must have the right tone of voice, demeanor, and body language. The thoughts and emotions of a dominant and challenging man are focused on the transcendent frame, which means he lives in his own world, a world that is fundamentally “higher” than the world of people around him. The transcendent frame is a fictional place where everything is better, such that you would never want to leave and enter her frame. To a man in the transcendent frame, regular people’s desires and problems are boring and meaningless, which is why nothing perturbs him. The transcendent frame means you essentially have access to heaven, and she is invited, but she must do some work to get there first.

To see an example of a man in the transcendent frame, watch an interview with a celebrity where it is clear they do not want to be there. The celebrity is trying their hardest to be nice and give answers, but you can tell they would rather be doing something else, like fuck a ton of bitches at an awesome Hollywood party. The interviewer, on the other hand, is trying their hardest to keep the interview interesting and engaging, and you can occasionally see the celebrity light up when the interviewer asks an interesting or good question. That is how women should feel – your thoughts and emotions are fundamentally somewhere higher but if she meaningfully contributes to your emotional experience she can grab your attention for a little bit. The higher your standards for where you point your attention, the more the woman will be attracted to you because she eventually wants to enter your reality and live your celebrity life.

As a practical matter, your demeanor must have three “modes”: 1) disinterested, 2) neutral, and 3) interested. Your neutral state is cool, calm, and collected, like nothing can anger you or perturb your emotional state. In your neutral state you are almost in a state of “nothingness” like spiritual gurus encourage you to achieve. When interested, however, you are enthusiastic, excited, and joyful because somebody (hopefully her) has done something worth paying attention to and getting excited about. In your disinterested state, you withdraw your thoughts and emotions because she is being shitty, boring, or not interested in you.

The Psychology

Dominance

The psychology behind dominance is simple: humans evolved to subconsciously view social relationships as a dominance hierarchy, and women are most attracted to men above them in that hierarchy. Status in the hierarchy is associated with dominance: people with status give orders to people below them and take orders from people above them. If she feels like she can you give you orders and you will comply, her subconscious mind will classify you as beneath her and lose attraction.

To determine if you are dominant, women have a strong subconscious urge to “test” your dominance by giving you orders to see if you follow them. These tests, often called shit tests, can be in the form of a direct demand for action (“buy me a drink”), a hypothetical demand for action (“I only sleep with men who take me to fancy restaurants”), a demand you change your opinion (“I can’t believe you don’t think we should believe all rape accusers”), or generally acting dramatic or upset and hoping you respond by kowtowing to her, either verbally or otherwise (“I have PTSD so you have to accept that I get triggered and freak out when you do or say certain things”). The counterintuitive thing about these tests, however, is that women subconsciously WANT you to refuse to comply with their demand. You just have to disregard her demand in a way that is warm, loving, nice, and not butthurt. Because these demands are the irrational vomit of her subconscious mind, she will totally forget about them when she is gripped by a stronger emotion, which is the dominance of the alpha male. All of the demands in this paragraph were actually made on me by different women and I still fucked them all without complying.

Womens’ dominance tests are often very subtle, and you must be very careful to notice and pass them. Womens’ desire to test your dominance will grab onto any real-world fact it can use to justify itself, which means sometimes womens’ dominance tests are stupid and can be easily ignored but sometimes they may make rational sense. If you are sitting closer to the remote, it makes sense that you would grab the remote instead of her. In these situations, you should appeal to the transcendent frame. She should feel like you are inherently “above” doing petty things, even if it would be easier for you to do them than her.

Of course, sometimes you need to do things for women. A healthy relationship requires reciprocity, and if you never do anything for her she will think you are a selfish asshole, and she will be right. To stay dominant over a long term you must generally cultivate an attitude that you give the orders, and you will only do things for her only after and in response to her doing something for you. And to make sure there is no confusion, you should always do less for her than she does for her.

Most men fail dominance tests because they have no idea there is a power struggle going on. They just think that if they comply with the woman they will make her happy, not realizing that the very act of compliance makes the woman lose attraction to them.

Challenge

You must be a challenge for three reasons: 1) humans evolved to feel most emotionally engaged and excited when they are overcoming a challenge on the way to an attractive prize, 2) you subconsciously create the frame that she is chasing you instead of vice-versa, and 3) it takes pressure off her.

The neurochemical associated with pleasurable things like food, drugs, and sex is dopamine. But contrary to what most people think, your brain releases most of the dopamine ON THE WAY to the pleasurable thing, not after you get it. As Artie Lange, the famous comedian and coke addict once said, “the best part of doing cocaine is the drive to your dealer’s house to get it.” This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective – your brain uses dopamine to motivate you to go get the pleasurable thing; it doesn’t care as much whether you enjoy the pleasurable thing once you have received it.

Humans are most excited and meaningfully engaged when 1) the goal is attractive, 2) they venture into the unknown to get it, 3) they defeat challenges on the way (especially other people), and 4) they share the prize with others. Therefore, to get women most excited, you must 1) be attractive, 2) be mysterious so that she is not quite sure how awesome the prize is, 3) be a little challenging, and 4) allow her to show you off to her friends. The moment the challenge is over and she has “gotten” you, the part of her brain that wants a challenge will switch off and she will subconsciously start looking for another challenge, even if you are the most amazing guy in the world. Ideally, she should always feel like she needs to do a little more work to “get” you. Furthermore, when the prize lies in the unknown and is not completely clear and attainable, it often looks a lot bigger and more attractive than it really is.

For a challenge to be most engaging, it must have the right level of difficulty, like a good video game. If the challenge is too easy, she will get bored and look for a harder challenge. If the challenge is too difficult, she will give up and find a guy who is easier to get. It is your responsibility as the man and the leader of the interaction to constantly ensure that the challenge is just the right difficulty, which means you may need to make it easier or harder, depending on the context and her reaction.

Being challenging also makes her subconscious mind think that she is chasing you rather than you chasing her. It may sound stupid to say that you can trick a woman who wasn’t chasing you into thinking she was chasing you by acting like a challenge, but that is how human psychology works. Our subconscious mind constantly looks at all available data to understand the social dynamic, and if she sees you lightly push her away it (might) think to itself “I guess I WAS chasing him and he was too good for me. Well, now I HAVE to get him.” Human psychology is weird.

Sometimes women say things to be a challenge: “I don’t know if I should date you, you live too far away” or “our signs are incompatible,” etc… Women normally do this because, even though they feel attraction, they are feeling a little smothered by you and want to create emotional distance. You should respond by agreeing and amplifying, saying things like “yeah, I do live too far away. In fact, my real house is on Mars, and it’s quite a commute” or “yeah our signs are totally incompatible; we would kill each other if we were dating.” By agreeing and amplifying, not only are you winning the dominance aspect of the shit test, but you are subtly turning the challenge around on her and making her look like the needy one and you as the challenge.

Being challenging also takes pressure off her. Women evolved to assume all men are needy, beta, and desperate, so by creating some distance between you and her, you give her breathing room. If she feels like you are totally emotionally invested and will stop at nothing to get her, she will feel a ton of pressure, which will make her want to flee. Instead, women should feel like interacting with you is a “choose your own adventure” game and she can get off at any time by simply not pursuing you. Again, this distance need not be huge – “our signs are not compatible” is fine – you just want her to feel like you are not on top of her. When she thinks of you, instead of thinking “that guy is obsessed with me” she should think “I think that guy might like me, but I am not sure.”

Men, by the way, like a challenge too. When you see a hot blonde with a beautiful face and amazing body at the bar, part of what excites you is the fact she is a challenge. If you knew you could fuck her whenever you wanted, you would feel less excited. I have seen tons of high value guys who had a line of 10 women they could fuck whenever they want, but their thoughts and emotions were fixated on the one woman who did not give a fuck about them, even if that woman was less attractive/cool/fun/etc… than the 10 they already had. This shit is wired into us.

This is Stupid

If you are reading this and thinking “this shit is fucking stupid,” you are correct.

All this dominance and challenge stuff is an irrational residue of our caveman biology. It makes almost no rational sense, it only exists in peoples’ subconscious emotions, and it leads to a ton of unhappiness because it causes both men and women to pass on people that are great for them and instead chase shitheads who are dominant and challenging.

Womens’ desire for dominance is irrational. Hierarchies can and should exist in the real world, and they are often based on real merit, but her emotions are easily tricked. Tons of losers, drug dealers, and pimps successfully trick women into thinking they are “dominant” even though they cannot get a job at a Target. A man can be rich, famous, good looking, and awesome at everything, but if a homeless woman regularly orders him around, she will subconsciously feel “above” him in the social hierarchy even though in reality she is not above him in any way whatsoever. Plenty of high value men become bitched out by low value women because they fail dominance tests. The social hierarchy in her mind is simply guided by who gives orders and who takes orders. That’s it.

Similarly, desiring a person who is a “challenge” is completely irrational. In the real world, people either like you or they do not, and somebody who is a “challenge” probably does not give a fuck about you and you should move on. Also, we are all alone in this cruel universe so the idea that you have “gotten” somebody is stupid. Plenty of women have thought they “got” me only to be shocked when I moved onto somebody else.

Once you realize womens’ desires are irrational and not rooted in reality it is easier to be dominant and challenging. All you need to do is go down the list I gave earlier, do each item at least once or twice, and then you can go back to being yourself. Your attempts at being dominant and challenging do not need to make rational sense; they just need to speak to her subconscious emotions. I often say “no” to stupid shit that does not matter or make fun of her for shit that does not even make sense. You do not have to actually be dominant or challenging; you just need to FEEL like it.

On the flipside, because these desires are completely irrational, you can never let a woman know you are doing this shit on purpose. As I said earlier, women only let men be dominant and challenging because they live in a transcendent frame. If she figures out you are doing this shit to manipulate her, you will be dead in the water because her subconscious mind will realize you are faking it and there is no transcendent frame. And her conscious mind probably is not going to appreciate you telling her you were trying to manipulate her.

Many people would say something like “I am too old to play games like this.” I agree this shit is corny, stupid, and petty. That said, you cannot deny the reality about human nature. If humans were completely rational and transparent creatures, we would not see 50% of marriages end in divorce and so many relationships end in heartbreak and confusion. And furthermore, human nature does not suddenly change once you hit a certain age or phase in life. I can assure you I have seen this shit work on lots of women in their 30s who were supposedly looking for a husband.

My website: http://www.woujo.com