A Basic Men's Guide to Success with Women

Right, so to sum all this up:
Make an effort if you want to attract someone.

No self-respecting woman wants to be with a smelly, un-groomed basement dweller.
As for (clothing) style, be your own man. Don't be a sheep. Wear what you like, within reason- geeky in-joke tshirts are probably not the best idea unless your potential partner is a geeky sort too.

1. Appearance - personal
Get a Haircut - Unless you are an Italian model or a porn star, Long hair is out. On most guys its unattractive, almost always greasy, and usually badly styled. Very few girls prefer long hair on guys (I'm sure many can tolerate it, but why risk it). You might be the exception to this rule, but strongly consider whether you in fact are - Many guys go through a long hair phase around age 17-19, very VERY few people in their mid 20s look back and think it looked good.

2. Appearance - clothing
General - Generally, as a guy you should have some slightly smarter clothes for going on dates etc. An outfit that you know looks good also does masses for your confidence.


Tops - First of all, black t-shirts or 'comedy' t-shirts (and even worse, t-shirts with dragons, fantasy scenes or wolves on them!) are horrible and mark you out as a basement-dweller. AVOID. Next, while hoodies are awesome to keep warm while doing exercise, or when slumming it after a massive night out, they aren't a top you should be wearing out socially (you wouldnt wear tracksuit bottoms out would you? Its the same concept). What you wear on your top half does depend on your personal style, but normal people will wear either a t-shirt with some kind of design on it, a polo shirt or a real shirt (NEVER SHORT SLEEVED SHIRT!). I personally advocate the last but its a matter of personal taste and how smart you need to be. For warmth go with a jumper, jacket or coat. Never wear waterproofs unless you are going hiking - people in North-face all-weather hiking jackets in the city look ridiclous. Use plain t-shirts underneath to layer up if needed for warmth.

Glasses, Hats, watches, jewelry etc - This is a matter of personal style of course, but most people in glasses would look better with contacts. If you think they are too expensive, have a look somewhere like www.daysoft.com (very VERY cheap daily lenses, you'll need to get an eye test at boots first to find out your prescription though). Most guys can't pull off jewellery and just look stupid, especially wearing chains, rings or earings or other face piercings, matter of taste though.

3. Attitude

If you've got sections one and two wrapped up, likely you are feeling a lot more confident about yourself. This is key. The single biggest factor in being attractive is being confident. Even if you aren't yet confident, you will get more confident in time through practice approaching girls and going on dates.

Whenever you hear a guy saying "why dont girls like 'nice guys'" you can be 100% certain his key problem is one of three things - that he isn't, in fact, a nice guy, that he is not being forward enough in his approach to girls or else he is too keen.

Points to remember:

Don't be too Keen - Desperate guys are a massive turn off. Coming on too strong likewise - both imply that finding a girl who likes your attention is rare so you are making a big deal out of it, this is NOT a good impression to give. To combine this with the point above, the attitude you are going for is "I want you, but If you aren't interested I'll go after another girl instead".

Right, so to sum all this up:
Make an effort if you want to attract someone.

No self-respecting woman wants to be with a smelly, un-groomed basement dweller.
As for (clothing) style, be your own man. Don't be a sheep. Wear what you like, within reason- geeky in-joke tshirts are probably not the best idea unless your potential partner is a geeky sort too.

On the other hand, the only thing worse than making too little effort is making too much effort. There's nothing attractive about desperation and metrosexuality.

You're right about the clothing style, although you do still need to tailor your outfit for the situation; something which many men forget to do.

Ok I have a question about the haircut thing. What are you actually supposed to say when you get your haircut? This probably sounds like the stupidest question ever, but I really am totally and utterly clueless when it comes to anything related to fashion.

My hair's getting quite long, but it's not because I particularly want it to be long, I just don't know what "style" to have instead. It's kind of embarrasing going into a hairdressers or a barbers, they ask you what you want done and you just say "Uh, I want it cut." If they suggest something they just say a load of words that don't make sense to me. I can't translate that into an idea of how it would look. Even if I could I wouldn't even know if it looked any good.

I don't know about guys but girls take pictures of celebrities with them or just say something like "You can cut an inch or few, make it layered. My bangs could be cut like this/this short *showing the direction/length with her hand*".

Sometimes they have books there and you can choose what you want from it. If I was you I would look pictures of different celebrities or google something like "male long wavy hair" or anything similar and think about how they would look on me.

Good example. I understand cutting an inch, but after that you lost me


But how am I supposed to know what would look good on me? Part of my problem is I have no sense of what looks good.

Ok I have a question about the haircut thing. What are you actually supposed to say when you get your haircut? This probably sounds like the stupidest question ever, but I really am totally and utterly clueless when it comes to anything related to fashion.

My hair's getting quite long, but it's not because I particularly want it to be long, I just don't know what "style" to have instead. It's kind of embarrasing going into a hairdressers or a barbers, they ask you what you want done and you just say "Uh, I want it cut." If they suggest something they just say a load of words that don't make sense to me. I can't translate that into an idea of how it would look. Even if I could I wouldn't even know if it looked any good.

So basically.. be clean and be confident.

Yes, that all helps but that should be standard.

I think the girls of TSR could make a thread called "The Advanced Dating Guide - beyond the soap and anti-perspirant".

Things that really seal the deal when it comes to dating women...

Alternatively, dismantle the whole stupid bloody concept of men having to be the ones chasing women who act as gatekeepers and just treat every person as an individual. The idea that every 'dating guide' is about how a man should act in order to attract women is stupid, outdated and sexist.