What women really want: the Alpha male

Guest Column

By: John Kernan

Posted: 5/1/08

There is a lot of advice out there about what guys should do or say when trying to attract a girl.

Compliment her - but not too much, or you'll seem desperate. Call after three days, or four - or don't play those games at all.

Be cocky and tell jokes - or do everything to avoid looking like a clown.

It's far too much for anyone to remember in any practical application.

What's more, it's generally useless advice. At worst, it's counterproductive.

Fortunately, we don't have to give up. As in any other conundrum, science is the answer to all our problems.

To get their genes passed on, girls have two goals, ingrained in their psyches by evolution.

First, they want a guy who will produce pretty, healthy babies. Second, they seek a man who will make sure that their babies survive the trials of the wild to pass on those genes again.

In contrast, men only want the pretty, healthy babies; they will then be responsible themselves for fighting off the saber-toothed tigers.

What men truly cannot understand is this attraction to power, even though they hear about it all the time. The powerful man, the leader of others, has throughout the eons had his children survive while others' didn't.

The trick is to translate this hard-wire attraction into everyday action.

Instead of having a thousand little rules, all you have to remember is that in every situation you want to be the Alpha male.

For example, let's say you're out with a group of friends. Some drunken jackass starts getting belligerent, and you think it might come to blows.

In general, violence is not attractive to girls. So if you lose your temper and hit the guy first, you lose major points.

If, however, you step between your best friend and the guy who has already started swinging and place a quick jab in his jaw, you are as cool as Ryan from The OC.

Where's the difference? When you swing first, you are putting yourself and your friends in unnecessary danger, lowering your value to the social circle.

When you end a fight that's already inevitable, you have protected your friends - thus making yourself immeasurably more attractive.

If you get into the right mindset, the Alpha attitude can be applied to anything. And it is not just a list of things to remember - you have to believe it yourself.

Girls are extremely intuitive, so you can't just fake it. You have to believe you're a leader, a protector, someone who can defend in times of need - the go-to guy.

There is a subtler other side that comes with this attitude: not caring about girls. Yes, it is completely counter-intuitive. But a real leader knows that he will eventually find a suitable mate. If any particular girl rejects him, he gets over it. He knows another one will come his way.

That is not to say that he is mean to girls, he is not the "jerk," not insulting. He's nice and courteous, but he is so self-actualized that what anyone else says to him, male or female, doesn't affect him all that much.

If, say, someone were to say to you that the events of Sept. 11 were orchestrated by the U.S. government, a gut reaction might be to call him absurd, attack his ideas, his reasoning, perhaps eventually question his upbringing or insult his mother.

All of this is perfectly understandable, but a person who has real control will just dismiss it. He will say, "Oh? Is that right?" and change the topic of conversation. The lesser person simply does not matter to him.

Once the Alpha male gets the girl, the job isn't done. To keep her interested, he has to keep up the Alpha mind-set, or she'll move on.

And, yes, friends, this applies to the bedroom as well.

Girls who are attracted to the dominant types - that is to say, just about all of them - like to feel some of that dominance from her man in that most carnal of times.

Don't overdo it, though - the definition of dominant is different for every girl.

Some girls just want to be shown, maybe told, what to do. Some girls will crave a full-out backhand to the jaw.

It is essential to your relationships and your criminal record that you not confuse the two.