Withdrawing is withholding attention/ energy from a person. Its usually done when presented with bad/less than desirable behavior. Eg someone pinches your nipples in the middle of some good fun, you then turn your back to them promptly.

From a niceguys perspective, withdrawing is wrong. Its taking attention aaway and being petty by not giving them what they most desire. That's attention.

From a recovering niceguy, I can say that Withdrawing attention is simply a defensive/offensive tool to use in keeping emotional control over the situation.

In other words, withdrawing attention is a reaction to someone/something crossing your boundaries and its your chance to regain some power/perspective.

If you withdraw attention you gain two benefits, off the top of my head: time to think and see the big picture, the opportunity to let others chase you into your playing field.

But the hardest part for me in developing this skill wasn't coming to terms with morality of this skill, it was learning when to pull back and what behaviors required a higher magnitude of action.

I had to set boundaries for myself. No, I already had boundaries, I needed to DEFINE them and that was tough.

How I did it? I found a TED talk a while ago about a girl making BIG talk instead of small talk and I noticed a lot of her subjects had no idea how to answer these questions. I also noticed that there was always a sense of satisfaction on the faces of those that answered these "deep" questions. So I gave it a shot.

Shortly after it progressed from answering questions I found online verbally with partners and solo to doing so In a book (aka my journal).

Now, Ive seen a lot of talk on theredpill about journals and recordings. I read about the fear of partners reading them (Ive got opinions on this that I wont share because of lack of relevance) and the wonders of clearing your mind onto a piece of paper. I personally lean towards the positives.

Answering "deep questions" in my alone time helped me define my boundaries for nearly everything in my life and gave my the self respect to leave people the undermined it alone without all the hooplah of insecurity.

Tl;dr: So to sum it up, withdrawing attention is an exercise of boundaries and self respect. Writing in a journal and answering "deep questions" is the fastest way to developing boundaries for yourself and becoming a more wholesome person.