If boldness is the most essential element of seduction, then “distant intimacy” is the most powerful. Yes, I made that term up. To date, I have just been using the term intimacy, but now I realize that it is critical to differentiate between the intimacy that you have with friends and loved ones and the intimacy you should be building with beautiful strangers.

But first, I will relay a story. I was 13 when I witnessed my first seduction, and it was a masterful one. I practically learned all I needed to know that day, even though it took years to duplicate the principals being used. In class there was a guy who sat to one side of me – not particularly good looking or charismatic – and a girl who sat on another side of me – very beautiful, very popular, very coveted. They were part of the same social circle. Over the year, through a series of inside jokes, polite yet intimate questions, and active listening wrapped in a tone of comfort, confidence and what I can only describe as “lovey-dovey-ness”, this young man broke down this young woman’s barriers slowly and effectively until she was obsessed with him and only him. A helpless feeling of envy came over me as I watched this young man take control of his relationship life at such a young age. It was so long ago, that I can’t remember the specifics, but the specifics are not important. The vibe, the feeling was the secret to his success. Since then, I would say that building “distant intimacy” is the core component of my game. What does that mean? It’s easier to describe from the woman’s point-of-view than it is to describe how to accomplish it. Essentially, she should associate your presence with a set of strong positive emotional memories and also with feelings of mystery and intrigue. That is a bit of a mouthful, huh? Okay then, one more time in plainer language: when she sees you, and she recalls good lovey-dovey happy feelings and emotions, and she also feels like she doesn’t have a full understanding of who you are or what you are about, that will create fertile ground for seduction. To quote the words of a 1970’s soul classic:

Why do I keep my mind on you all the time? And I don’t even know you. Why do I feel this way – thinking about you every day? And I don’t even know you.

That is the feeling you want her to have when she sees you. As a man, you understand this feeling. It’s natural to have feelings for a woman before we know anything about her because we are usually falling in love with the sensory experience of her presence (looks, mannerisms, voice, etc). For women, the sensory experience is most often contingent upon their mental and emotional experience of a man. When women loosely translate this to us, they will say, “I really need to get to know a guy before I can fall in love with him.” But then that would make the feeling referenced above impossible! How can she fall in love with you without really knowing you if she says that she can’t fall in love with a guy she doesn’t know? This is where you throw your hands up and say “women are too complicated” and then go jerk off to porn, but I implore you not to do that. A lot of things that seem like contradictions or paradoxes are just more like puzzles that need to be solved. It would be like if you walked up to an exclusive club that has a sign on the door: “No entry”. But you can see and hear people inside of the club, so there is clearly a way to get into it. You just need to figure out how.

So how does a guy accomplish this? There is no one way to do so, and no, that isn’t a copout. I’m not just going to send you off and let you figure it out for yourselves. If you have acute awareness of where you are right now, a vague idea of where you should be, and the motivation to make the change, then results will follow. Awareness and motivation are your responsibility, but to help with the vague idea, I am going to tell you the way that I do it, recognizing that other guys probably have a way of accomplishing the same thing with a different set of principles. Here are a few rules and habits that I have developed to help build “distant intimacy” as quickly as possible. This is not a complete list, just a rough guide.

  1. Maintain social awareness – This is not part of the seduction technique, but rather creates boundaries within which you will work. These boundaries are a function of you, your target and the situation. You will behave differently with a woman at church than you would in the club. All of the recommendations below should be interpreted within the context of the situation.
  2. Maximize isolation (intimacy) – This doesn’t just refer to physical isolation. Body language and verbal cues can be just as effective. Think about the scene in West Side Story when the spotlights hone in on Tony and Maria, the area around them goes dark and the sounds around them fade to nothing. They only see and hear each other. Physical isolation is good, but cannot always be achieved. Always work towards some type of isolation.
  3. Minimize expectations (distance) – This is an important aspect of achieving distance. Until she mentally commits to you, she needs complete freedom to eject, move about the room, talk to her friends, and basically do whatever she wants to do without you reacting to it.
  4. Minimize formality (intimacy) – Avoid or spend as little time as possible talking about school, work, family and other subjects that make up her external life. As quickly as is socially acceptable for the situation, dig into who she is and what makes her the way that she is. If you are at a party, don’t talk to her as if you are at work. If you are at work, push the envelope as much as is socially acceptable. As much as possible, behave as if you two already know each other.
  5. Minimize commitment pressure (distance) – While building closeness with your target, you need to stay as far away from expectations of commitment. I strongly recommend avoiding pet names (honey, sweetie, etc). Don’t push long-term plans on her (e.g. “I have a wedding in October, and I don’t have a date yet.”) Women sometimes refer to this as “desperation” or “moving too fast”, but those terms are not completely accurate. It’s really all about the pressure versus freedom dichotomy. Remove expectations. Being a little desperate is okay and moving fast is good practice as long as she maintains a feeling of absolute freedom to come and go and live her life as she pleases.
  6. Maximize closeness and commonality (intimacy) – There are so many ways to do this. My preferred method is inside jokes, taboo talk, agree and amplify, and active listening. I have seen guys who employ more extreme techniques like “baby talk”, and weirdly it works. It always depends on the target, but women dig this type of intimacy (the fun no pressure kind) – even with strangers.
  7. Minimize neediness (distance) – This goes hand-in-hand with minimizing commitment pressure, but it has more to do with what happens in the moment than what happens in the future. I could write a book on the subject of neediness, but I shouldn’t need to. It is discussed at length here and elsewhere. Your neediness should be as absolutely low as possible if you want to seduce.

As the above recommendations indicate, there is a balance to be struck, and that balance does not need to be struck in the same way that anyone else does it. It just needs to be struck somehow. You might tilt in one direction for one aspect and tilt in the other direction for another. That is still a balanced approach. If you have a naturally distant personality, then lean towards intimacy. If you have a naturally intimate personality, lean towards distance. As long as there is an awareness of this concept and effort to achieve overall balance between intimacy and distance, then you are on the right path.

From what I have witnessed and what I have experienced, when this concept is perfected, its power knows few bounds. I have seen a 40+ year old balding married man successfully seduce a hot 22-year old bartender with a boyfriend using this. I have seen a PhD candidate with below average looks and barely a penny to his name get very attractive strippers to come home with him after they got off work because he effectively used this technique. I am not one to boast, but in my own life, I have fulfilled all of my personal sexual goals using this as a core concept – and with plenty of time to spare.

That’s it really. The concept is pretty simple, and once you gain awareness, it should come rather effortlessly. I believe that almost everyone has an innate ability to achieve this. That ability just needs to be activated and honed.

As a caveat, I should mention that this advice is targeted towards seduction. In long-term monogamous relationships, it is preferable to loosen some of these rules and err on the side of intimacy rather than distance. However, it is possible to lean too far in that direction, even in a relationship.