As an older man, you've probably been seducing women for years, most likely married and divorced once or twice, and gone through many relationships, but you've probably never learned how to flirt.

How you usually gain attention from women was simple in the past. You would pay them a compliment, then lure them to dinners and drinks, and perhaps at a more advanced time, with gifts and trips. Although this is the way you learned to romance and bed women in the past, this has not come to any fruition, as you usually tend to attract women who will most likely exploit this giving and generous side of you. You probably have a list of exes who are always ringing you when they need something, for you to handle a problem for them, and for you to make a decision for them, as they tend to defer all authority to you in exchange for your financial acumen.

This has always made you feel safe - being needed. If they need you, you tell yourself, they won't leave you, but somehow, they always do. Now, you're beginning to think that long-term relationships aren't for you, that marriage is a way for women to entrap you although at the end of a long day, all you want is for a woman just to be happy to see you when you get home. Instead, you have your loving pets instead, your best friend is your dog, after all.

The problem is that you never learned to flirt, nor appreciate intelligence in women because you were taught as a young boy that intelligent women were nasty man-hating feminists. This has been so ingrained into your psyche that when a woman speaks her mind, you immediately become intimidated. What is a woman if she is not blushing and smiling and laughing at your (often unfunny) jokes and batting her eyelashes at you when you pay her a compliment about her figure or her smile or tell her how pretty she is?

The thing is, the modern woman is suspicious of compliments from men whom they do not know well. Certainly if a friend gives a compliment to a woman, she'll appreciate it a lot more than a random man who tells her she's beautiful.

In the modern world, the modern woman has been inundated by catcalls, stalkers, immature jackasses who monitor her social media 24/7, weirdos who follow her around and been hounded by men all her life. If they're not trying to actively touch her, they're following her on the streets of NYC or someone is trying to slip drugs into her drink at bars. Random compliments from strangers ="that guy wants something from me" and immediately puts her on the defensive.

Instead, flirting is the ideal way to engage with the modern woman. Flirting entails witty dialogue, and having a playful nature like two puppies or kittens sparring. They growl, they pretend to bite, but they mean no harm. If a woman playfully says something to knock you off your high horse, she's looking for your reaction, to gauge how diplomatic and playful you are.

If she says something like, "It seems like you're the type of man who always needs to be right...I bet if we engaged in some friendly sparring, I could discern all your weak spots".

And in response, if you become easily insulted and think to yourself: she insulted me, she doesn't respect me, she thinks I'm weak, must seek revenge! well then, you lost the plot and you have no clue how to flirt. You're probably the type of man who makes mountains out of molehills and gets easily perturbed at every little thing that inconveniences you and tend to blame all the people around you for your own failings.

Whereas, if you respond in a teasing and inquisitive manner, "Oh, how would you find my all weak spots. Tell me." that sets up a banter in which the two of you can try to outwit the other, all the while your playful and curious nature will make her think: "He seems like he would make a most excellent sparring partner!"

The modern woman likes to be similarly playful in bed and she may like a bit of wrestling, teasing and biting. How she communicates with you verbally is how she will also communicate through body language.

The primarily reason that you, as an older man, has been mainly unhappy in relationships in the past is because you don't choose playful, inquisitive women as your sparring partners. Instead you settle for damsels-in-distresses who always need you to solve a problem for them. Seducing them entails getting them in bed while they "give in" to you. They don't show you sexual desire or pleasure because like their personalities, they're submissive to you and defer all authority to you.

As an older man, you're used to people doing what you say and never questioning you. You learned this is what respect is about. However, in the modern world, respect is bilateral, not unilateral. The "I rather be feared than loved" is an antiquated way of thinking about authority and also in matters of love.

The modern woman isn't a submissive sort of woman. The modern woman likes to flirt, probably has a lot of admirers and men waiting to date her and she loves playful banter. She learned how to press all your buttons because she has studied you extensively and wants to see what makes you tick, what kind of man you are. She's not the type of woman to lay there and "give in" to sex. She may toss you around a little bit, wrestle with you, leave little marks on parts of your body. She'll tease you and test your masculinity, and how easily you give in to anger. Think of two tigers mating or two puppies playing. The modern woman doesn't want a man who thinks all it takes to get her into bed is to pay her a few compliments, take her out to dinner and drinks and buy her pretty things.

As an older man, you probably have a lot of baggage, and may have given up on love. You may even feel defeated and think that the best you can do is go back to your old toxic relationships and perhaps try not to die alone. All you wanted was someone to understand you and be happy to see you.

But alas, you never learned to flirt, and you think that modern women don't respect you, and certainly they must not be attracted to you because they don't seem impressed by all the compliments you give them. So then you turn to this forum, and try various seduction methods, only to realize that neg-hits have an even worse outcome than paying compliments. You can't find the solution into winning the modern woman, so you give up, doomed to be alone, spend time instead on internet porn girls, and think that maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all, being in a toxic relationship with your previous exes. At least then, someone needed you. The void you feel now is because you hate feeling ignored and cast aside as if you had meant nothing to the modern woman.

And all this because, as an older man, you never learned to flirt, to be playful, to be inquisitive with women. You've only known women as something to be "conquered", where they have to "give in" to sex with you, because why else would they have sex with you?

In summary: You never learned to have any fun.

Your 2022 assignment: Learn how to flirt.