Ten STANDARDS
that make a
man worth dating
Most men think they’re a good guy and hope that’s enough.
It’s more specific than that, and all of it is learnable. A man who holds himself to standards gets to choose. A man who holds himself to none hopes for the best.
There are ten standards: who you are, how you live, and how you are with women. Any man can do all ten.
Where do you score?
Or read all ten below.
Each one tells you how to know if you’re meeting it, and what to fix if you’re not.
They came from what worked for me, what’s worked for the men I coach, and what women in relationships told me actually made them stay.
1. Like women as people
WHAT IT IS
You see women as people. You enjoy their company when nothing is on offer. There are women in your life you aren't trying to sleep with.
HOW YOU KNOW YOU'RE SHORT
Every woman in your life is either a prospect or a relative. You've said "women always" or "women never" out loud in the last month. You talk about women differently depending on whether one is in the room.
WHY IT'S HARD
There are two versions of this and they need different work.
The first is resentment, and it almost always comes from something real. You got hurt, probably more than once, and blaming women as a group felt like the explanation at the time. There's also a large audience online that will agree with you for free. Giving that up means admitting that the thing which explained your last few years was wrong.
The second has no anger in it at all. You don't resent women. You've just never related to one as anything other than a possibility. Every conversation is an audition, every woman is sorted on sight into worth it or not worth it, and you've never been curious about one you weren't attracted to. So you've never found out that most of what makes women good company has nothing to do with sex.
That second one is harder to spot, because it doesn't feel like a problem. It feels like being a normal man who likes women. The tell is that you can't name a single thing you've learned from a woman you weren't trying to sleep with.
THE GAMEPLAN
Look at who you listen to about women. Count the men you take seriously who only ever talk about women as a group. Unfollow enough of them that the number drops.
Spend time in places where men and women are doing something together and nobody is pairing off. Co-ed sports, a climbing gym, group hikes, a class, volunteering. Pick one and go four times. Once is a visit. Four times is somewhere you go.
Build one real friendship with a woman you aren't interested in. You'll know it's real when you text her about something that has nothing to do with her.
After a rejection, write down what happened in two plain sentences. One person made one decision. Anything else you were about to write is yours, not hers.
Read Mindset by Carol Dweck. It's about believing people can change, including you.
Listen to how you talk about women when no women are there. That's the real answer on this one.
ONE THING THIS WEEK
Have a conversation with a woman you have no interest in sleeping with, and stay in it past the point where you'd usually find something else to do.
HOW LONG IT TAKES
The behavior changes inside a month. If there's resentment underneath it, that fades rather than lifts, and you'll notice it's gone before you notice it going.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE WHEN IT'S WORKING
You stop seeing women as only sexual options. Some are people you're attracted to and plenty are just people, and the difference stops being the first thing you notice about a room.
All of this is 100% in your control. No excuses
2. KNOW YOURSELF
WHAT IT IS
You understand why you are the way you are. You can hear something true about yourself without it knocking you over, and your opinions hold when the room disagrees. What you get out of it is self-acceptance, which is the thing you're really after. If you don't like yourself, she won't like you either.
Being self-aware is also attractive on its own. A man who can say "yeah, I do that, I'm working on it" is disarming, and it's rare enough to stand out.
HOW YOU KNOW YOU'RE SHORT
You can't say what you felt yesterday without using the word fine. You don't know why you keep doing the thing you keep doing. Someone points out a flaw and it costs you three days. You change your opinion depending on who you're sitting with.
WHY IT'S HARD
Nobody taught you how, and the first look is unpleasant. Most men expect to find a list of faults, so it feels like volunteering to be told off. It isn't that, but you don't find that out until you're a few months in.
THE GAMEPLAN
Book a therapy appointment. This is the main lift on this standard. Weekly if you can, monthly at the least. Start on Psychology Today and filter by location, CBT, and what you can pay.
If money is the problem, you still have options. Check your insurance, most plans cover a set number of sessions. Ask about sliding scale rates. Look for associates and interns, who work under supervision for much less. Or use BetterHelp or Talkspace.
Read between sessions. Feeling Good by David Burns for how your own thinking works. No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert Glover if you hide what you want to keep people happy. Attached by Levine and Heller for why you chase or pull away. Beyond Anger by Thomas Harbin if anger has cost you something. Fifteen minutes a day.
Read the Stoics. Start with Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. It's worth knowing what that book actually is: the most powerful man alive writing privately to himself, at night, about his own faults, with no intention of anyone ever reading it. Not advice for other people. Working on himself, on paper.
So do that. Ten minutes a day, writing for nobody. It isn't a diary and it doesn't have to be well written. Write the question you're stuck on and then argue with yourself about it. Most men find out what they actually think by writing it down, because they've never said it to anyone.
Write down three things about yourself a partner would need to know by month six. Not your best three. The three that have caused problems before. Then read them out loud to yourself. If you can get through all three without flinching, you know them. If you can't, that's the work.
Catch yourself agreeing when you don't agree. Once this week is enough. Afterward, write down what you actually thought. You're not trying to start an argument. You're checking that you still have your own opinion after you've put it away.
Take your last rejection and split it in two. What actually happened, and what you decided about yourself because of it. The first is information. The second you added, and you can take it back off.
Knowing yourself is not a verdict on you. It's information. A flaw you can name is a flaw you can do something about. You can change it, work around it, or accept it and tell people early. Being hard on yourself is not the same thing and it doesn't change anything.
ONE THING THIS WEEK
Book the therapy appointment. Not research it, book it. If you can't afford it this month, buy Feeling Good and read fifteen minutes a day until you can.
HOW LONG IT TAKES
The first month is the hardest, and you'll feel something shift by about month three. This one isn't measured by other people noticing. It's measured by what you're like on your own.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE WHEN IT'S WORKING
Someone tells you something true about yourself and you agree with them, and the day carries on. You also get better at telling the difference between criticism worth taking and criticism that's really about the person giving it. You stop losing days to it.
All of this is 100% in your control. No excuses.
3. DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT
WHAT IT IS
You know what you're looking for, clearly enough to describe it to another person, and what you spend your time on is moving in that direction.
HOW YOU KNOW YOU'RE SHORT
If someone asks what you want, you can describe a woman but not a life. You've never actually decided whether you want a relationship, or marriage, or children. You'd take almost anyone who showed clear interest.
WHY IT'S HARD
Describing a woman is easy. Describing a life means admitting what you want your ordinary days to look like, and most men have never been asked. Deciding also feels like it costs you options, so staying vague feels safer. It isn't. It reads as having no standards.
THE GAMEPLAN
Decide the big things first, and be honest. Do you want a relationship. Do you want to be married. Do you want children. There are no right answers and you are allowed to say no to any of them. But guessing wastes years, and it wastes hers.
If the answer is marriage, think about what being a husband means for forty years, not what a wedding looks like. And if the answer is children, think about raising people who become adults, not about having babies. Both of those are long jobs and the short version is the one that catches men out.
Write the life, not the woman. Five sentences about an ordinary Tuesday with her in it. Where you live, what the evening looks like, what you do on the weekend, what you're building, what you talk about.
Make two lists. What you need in a partner, and what you'd prefer. Needs are things you can't build a life without. Preferences are everything else. Most men have an empty needs list and a preferences list thirty items long, and they get those two the wrong way around.
Keep the needs list short, and be careful with it. A list nobody could pass isn't a standard, it's a way of never having to try. If three real people you've met would all fail it, the list is the problem.
Say it to someone who knows you. A friend, a sibling, your therapist. Saying it to another person is what turns it from a feeling into a decision, and by now you've done enough of standard two to know whether what you're saying is actually yours.
Learn to spot what matters early. Green: she's steady, she's kind, she does what she says, she wants the same kind of life, she's interested in you. Red: she's unreliable, she's cruel to you and other people, she's jealous, she's trying to change you, she can't talk about anything difficult without it becoming a fight.
When you meet someone who fits, tell her. Say you like her and say what you want. Being clear is not a turn-off. Making her guess is.
ONE THING THIS WEEK
Answer the three big questions honestly. Relationship, marriage, children. Write down yes, no, or don't know yet for each, and if it's don't know, write what you'd need to find out.
HOW LONG IT TAKES
An evening to write. A few months to find out whether you meant it.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE WHEN IT'S WORKING
You start choosing rather than hoping to be chosen. You can tell early whether someone fits the life you described, so you stop things sooner and with less damage, and when someone does fit, you notice.
All of this is 100% in your control. No excuses.
4. LOOK AFTER YOURSELF
WHAT IT IS
Your body, your health, your appearance, your home, your money and anything that depends on you are handled. This is what self-respect looks like from the outside. You don't let your own life fall apart and wait for someone to come and sort it out.
HOW YOU KNOW YOU'RE SHORT
You don't own an outfit you feel great in. You can't remember your last dentist appointment. You don't know your income and your expenses. There's a room in your house you'd be embarrassed to show anyone.
WHY IT'S HARD
It isn't hard. It's boring, and it takes a Saturday. That's why men skip it and go straight to wanting to know what to say to her.
THE GAMEPLAN
APPEARANCE
Clear out your closet and keep only what fits. Too big and too tight both ruin the look.
Build two outfits you feel good in, from clean plain colors that go together. Black, gray, navy, olive, white. You don't need a lot of clothes, you need a few things that work.
Get one thing tailored. A jacket that fits your shoulders or pants taken in costs twenty dollars and does more than a hundred dollars of new clothes.
Own one pair of shoes that aren't sneakers, and keep them clean.
Ask someone with good taste what works on you, and actually listen. A sister, a friend, a woman you trust.
Get a haircut from someone good and ask them what suits you and what products to use. If you're losing your hair, a clean buzz or a shaved head beats holding on to it.
Face: a gentle cleanser like CeraVe or Cetaphil instead of bar soap, then moisturizer. Once or twice a day. See a dermatologist if you're dealing with acne or scarring.
Groom the beard or shave it off. Trim your nails and your nose hair. Keep ChapStick in the car.
HEALTH
Shower properly, wear deodorant, floss, carry mints. More than one woman has told me she liked a man until she got close to him.
Book the dentist and book a physical. If it's been over a year, those two calls are the most valuable thing on this page.
Train properly. Thirty to sixty minutes, five days a week, and it should be hard. Lifting is the recommendation. A walk is better than nothing but it isn't training, and you know the difference. Get out of breath. Get stronger than you were. The point isn't the mirror, it's proving to yourself that you do difficult things when you don't want to.
MONEY
Find your three numbers. What comes in, what goes out, what you owe. Exact, not roughly.
Make a simple plan. Three buckets: what you have to pay, what you choose to spend, and what's left. The number that matters is what's left and whether it goes anywhere.
Start paying attention to investing rather than waiting until you feel rich enough to care. If your job matches a retirement contribution, that's first, because it's free money you're currently turning down.
Read The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. It won't tell you what to do with your three numbers and it isn't a budgeting book. It's about why you behave the way you do with money, which is usually the actual problem. Men who know exactly what they should be doing and aren't doing it should start here rather than with a spreadsheet.
Then read I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi, which is the other half. Housel explains why you do what you do with money. Sethi tells you what to actually do: which accounts to open, what order to fund them, and how to automate it so the whole thing runs without you thinking about it. It's a six-week setup and it's written for men who already know they should have handled this years ago.
HOME, HABITS, AND ANYTHING THAT DEPENDS ON YOU.
Fix the one thing in your home you'd be embarrassed for someone to see. Then keep the place to a standard where somebody turning up unannounced costs you nothing.
If you have a pet, look after it properly. Fed, walked, clean, vet when it needs one. A woman will read how you treat an animal that depends on you as a straight answer about what you're like, and she's right to.
Look at your habits honestly. Drinking, weed, scrolling, whatever it is. If you'd get defensive about being asked, take two weeks off it and see what changes. Read Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke if you want to understand why it has the grip it has.
ONE THING THIS WEEK
Book the dentist and the doctor, and if you've already done both this year, go and get one thing tailored instead. Both jobs take under an hour and you'll see the difference immediately.
HOW LONG IT TAKES
Appearance in a weekend. The body in three months if you train properly. The money takes one evening to know and a few months to fix.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE WHEN IT'S WORKING
Nothing in your life is being held up by somebody else. You can be seen at your place with no notice. And you stop lying awake thinking about money, because you know the numbers.
All of this is 100% in your control. No excuses.
5. have a full life
WHAT IT IS
You have real friends, things you do that aren't work or the gym, and things you can do. You're interesting because you're interested.
HOW YOU KNOW YOU'RE SHORT
Every plan you have came from someone else. You can't name three things you'd talk about that aren't your job or the news. If a relationship started tomorrow, your week would have nothing else in it. And if you went quiet for two weeks, you're not sure anyone would call.
WHY IT'S HARD
Staying home is easier than it has ever been. Video games, streaming, Discord, a phone that never runs out. None of it asks anything of you, which is exactly the problem. An evening in front of a screen never feels like a decision, so it takes years to notice you've made it a thousand times.
And it compounds. The less you go out, the more effort it takes, and the fewer people there are to go out with.
THE GAMEPLAN
Count your real friends. Not contacts, not the group chat. People who'd call you if you went quiet. If it's under three, that's the project.
Be the one who organizes. Send the first message, pick the place, name the day. Do it twice a month until it stops feeling like an imposition.
Put the thing you do on the couch on a timer, and give the hour you get back to something on this list. You're not quitting games or your phone. You're deciding when they get you rather than the other way around.
Become a regular somewhere. The same coffee place every week, a class, a gym, a trivia night. Turning up repeatedly does what effort can't.
Take up something with other people in it. The thing you do alone at home doesn't fix this.
Learn an actual skill, thirty minutes a day. Guitar, a language, cooking. Cooking and an instrument are worth singling out because both take months and both are obvious to other people. Learn to cook three meals properly.
Go somewhere you haven't been. This isn't about money or a passport. A town two hours away, a national park, a city you've only driven through. A Saturday and a tank of gas counts. The point is having been somewhere and having something to say about it.
Say yes more. The house party, the trivia night, the thing you'd normally turn down.
Think about learning to fight. Boxing, jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, or a self-defense class. Not to be a tough guy, which is what insecure men do it for. For the discipline, and because a man who knows he can handle himself never has to prove it
ONE THING THIS WEEK
Make one plan with someone who isn't a romantic prospect, and be the one who sends the first message.
HOW LONG IT TAKES
A new regular spot starts paying off in about six weeks. A friendship that didn't exist in January is real by summer. A skill you practice most weeks is visible to other people in three months.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE WHEN IT'S WORKING
There are things in your week you'd be annoyed to cancel. You stop needing a relationship to give your life a shape, which means you can want one without being desperate for it.
All of this is 100% in your control. No excuses.
6. GO AFTER WHAT YOU WANT
WHAT IT IS
You ask for things instead of hinting at them, and you say no when you mean no. You're working toward something you care about.
It's the same trait at two sizes. The man who can ask a question in a room is the same man who can go after something in his life over five years. If you can't do the small version, the big one doesn't happen either.
HOW YOU KNOW YOU'RE SHORT
You hint, and then you're annoyed when nobody picks it up. You wait to be chosen. You say yes to things to avoid the small discomfort of saying no. You've wanted the same thing for two years and done nothing about it.
WHY IT'S HARD
Asking means hearing no, from someone looking at you. Hinting lets you want something and pretend you didn't if it doesn't land.
THE GAMEPLAN
ASKING, STARTING SMALL
Ask for things you actually want. Not practice for its own sake. Don't send food back you're happy with. Use the real ones you usually swallow: the seat you'd prefer, the day that suits you better, the thing you'd rather eat, the help you need at work.
Say no when you mean no, and leave the reason off. "I can't do that" is a whole sentence.
Ask one person for something slightly uncomfortable this week. A favor, a raise, a straight answer. Whatever happens, you'll notice it cost you less than you expected
ASKING A WOMAN OUT
Start where it's easiest. Talk to women in ordinary situations with no outcome attached. The line at the coffee shop, the gym, the store, the person next to you at an event. You're not working up to anything, you're getting used to talking to women as people, which is the first standard doing its job here.
When you want to ask someone out, keep it plain. Say you've enjoyed talking to her, that you'd like to take her out, and introduce yourself properly if you haven't.
Give her an exit in the same breath. "And if not, no worries at all." You're not apologizing and you're not defending yourself. You're making it cost her nothing to say no, which is what makes a direct ask comfortable to receive. I asked out the woman I married by telling her I was interested and that if she wasn't, I'd keep it professional.
If it's going well, ask for her number with a reason attached. "I'd like to take you out this week, can I get your number?" Then pick the place yourself when you follow up. Taking the planning off her is the signal.
Take rejection like it's nothing and wish her well. "No worries, have a good night." Don't argue, don't linger, don't make her reassure you. Men who handle that well stand out, because most men don't.
DRIVE
Pick the thing you're working toward and be able to say it in one sentence. This isn't about your income and it isn't about your job title. Ambition is free. It's about working hard for something you care about, and being able to talk about it like you mean it.
Put it in your week at a fixed time, not in the gaps. Something that isn't work, isn't the gym, and has an end point.
Do something that scares you once a month. Small talk with a stranger. An event where you know nobody. Speaking up in a group. An improv class, which is the best one on this list. An open mic. A trip on your own.
ONE THING THIS WEEK
Ask directly for one thing you've been hinting at. Take whatever answer you get and don't explain yourself afterward.
HOW LONG IT TAKES
The first ask is the worst one. Ten in, the nerves are still there but they stop making the decision. Six weeks of doing it deliberately changes how you carry yourself.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE WHEN IT'S WORKING
You find out where you stand in days instead of months. The waiting stops, and so does the frustration that was coming from the waiting.
All of this is 100% in your control. No excuses.
7. KEEP YOUR PROMISES
WHAT IT IS
It starts with you. If you said you'd be up at six, you're up at six. Self-trust gets built by keeping promises nobody is watching you make. Then it runs outward. If you said Thursday, it's Thursday, and nobody has to ask you twice.
It also covers the big ones. Commitment and fidelity are promises like any other, just larger.
HOW YOU KNOW YOU'RE SHORT
There's a list of things you told yourself you'd do and didn't. You agree to things in the moment and work out later what they'll cost you. People follow up with you twice. The promises you made when you were keen don't survive the week you aren't.
WHY IT'S HARD
Every single instance is small enough to excuse. The damage adds up and you can't feel it adding up. You just end up as a man who doesn't expect much of himself.
THE GAMEPLAN
Keep one promise to yourself every day. Something small and non-negotiable. Up at a set time, the gym, fifteen pages. Every time you do it you prove one thing to yourself: I can rely on me. That sentence is the whole standard.
Build momentum with wins that look too small to matter. Make the bed. Finish the book. Three gym sessions this week.
Clear the backlog. Write down everything you've told anyone you'd do in the last month. Do the oldest one today, or tell that person it isn't happening. Both of those close it. Leaving it open doesn't.
Promise less. A man who commits to two things and does both is worth more than one who commits to six. Start saying "let me check and come back to you."
When you can't deliver, say so before anyone has to ask. That one habit does more for how people see you than delivering on time.
When you commit to someone, mean it. If you've agreed to be exclusive then that holds on the night it's inconvenient, and it holds when nobody would find out. Cheating isn't a separate kind of failure with its own rules. It's this one at the largest size available to you, and a man who breaks small promises all week has been practicing
ONE THING THIS WEEK
Pick one promise to yourself and keep it seven days running. Write down each day whether you did it.
HOW LONG IT TAKES
Thirty days of keeping one daily promise changes how you talk about yourself. Three months and the people around you have noticed.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE WHEN IT'S WORKING
Nobody checks whether you meant it. You stop carrying the weight of everything you owe people, which is heavier than men realize until it's gone.
All of this is 100% in your control. No excuses.
8. BE SAFE TO BE AROUND
WHAT IT IS
When something gets to you, you handle it yourself. You don't blow up. You don't go quiet and make everyone wait it out. You don't get mean when you're hurt.
With a girlfriend, that means she can be angry with you, or upset, or right about something you got wrong, and she doesn't pay for it. She can tell you something hard without working up to it first.
Single, it's what you do in the hour after a no. She isn't interested, she stopped replying, she met someone else. Same skill. A man who takes a no badly doesn't become safe to be around the day he gets a girlfriend. He just gets a bigger audience.
HOW YOU KNOW YOU'RE SHORT
Anger is the only feeling that reliably comes out of you. A no still has a grip on you the next day, and somebody who had nothing to do with it has noticed. When you're hurt you go quiet or sharp, and you call it staying calm. You start defending yourself before she's finished the sentence. Hearing "no" changes the mood of the evening. People pick their words carefully around you.
WHY IT'S HARD
Anger is the one feeling men are allowed to show without being called weak, so everything else gets routed through it. Sadness comes out as anger. Fear comes out as anger. Undoing that takes time.
THE GAMEPLAN
HANDLING YOURSELF
Work out what you do when you're hurt. Some men go silent, some get sarcastic, some get mean, some leave the room. If you don't know which one you are, ask someone close to you. Their answer will be more useful than your guess.
Work out what you do with a no, and look at the hour afterward rather than the polite version in the moment. Do you go cold. Do you get short with whoever's nearest. Do you go and read something that agrees with you. Do you decide something about women. The rejection costs you nothing by itself. What you do next is the part that costs.
Let a no stay the size it is. One person made one decision about one evening. The pull is to make it mean something larger, because something larger is easier to live with than no particular reason.
When you get challenged, don't answer for three seconds. Most of what goes wrong in an argument happens in the first second, when you're defending yourself against something she hasn't finished saying.
Find what's underneath the anger each time it comes up. Usually it's one of four things: you're hurt, you're scared, you're ashamed, or you feel small. Anger is the delivery mechanism, not the feeling.
Read Beyond Anger by Thomas Harbin if anger has already cost you something.
The Stoics are useful here and this is where they earn their place. The whole idea is separating what you control from what you don't. You don't control what she says or how she feels. You control what you do in the next ten seconds. Most arguments are lost in those ten seconds.
Apologize when you're wrong. Mean it, and make no excuses. "I'm sorry I did that" and then stop. The moment you add "but" or start explaining why, you've taken it back and she heard you take it back.
BEING SOMEONE SHE CAN TALK TO
When she brings you something heavy, don't fix it. Ask one more question instead. Most men hear a problem and reach for a solution, and the solution tells her the conversation is finished.
Watch your face and your body, not just your words. The sigh, the phone still in your hand, the look at the clock. A man who never raises his voice but sighs when she starts talking isn't safe to talk to. He's just quiet about it.
Don't charge her for it later. No bringing it up in an argument, no treating it as a favor you did her, no going cold the next day.
Jealousy comes out as surveillance. Checking her phone, wanting to know who she was with, going quiet when she makes plans with friends. That isn't love and she knows exactly what it is.
The real test is whether telling you the truth costs her anything. If it does, she'll stop telling you things, and you'll experience that as things getting easier
ONE THING THIS WEEK
Ask one person close to you what you're like to be around when you're angry. Don't explain, don't correct them, don't defend yourself. Write down what they said.
HOW LONG IT TAKES
What you do in the hour after a no can change this week. Six months and the people close to you have noticed.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE WHEN IT'S WORKING
People bring you bad news early instead of late. Arguments get shorter, because nobody spends the first ten minutes working out how you're going to take it. A no lands and the evening carries on. And you can have a hard conversation without it turning into a fight.
All of this is 100% in your control. No excuses.
9. BE KIND, NOT NICE
WHAT IT IS
Kindness is something you do because of who you are. Nice is something you perform expecting something back. The kind man helps and moves on. The nice man helps and keeps score.
Being kind also means having limits. If you never say no to anything, you're not being generous, you're just always available, and people can tell the difference.
HOW YOU KNOW YOU'RE SHORT
"I don't mind" comes out of your mouth when you do mind. You've done a run of things for someone and felt owed afterward. You can't say no without a paragraph of explanation. You're kind in front of people and different when nobody's watching.
WHY IT'S HARD
Being nice works at first. People like it and it avoids every difficult moment. The cost arrives later, usually as resentment, and by then you've got a story about being taken advantage of instead of a habit you could have changed.
THE GAMEPLAN
Read No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert Glover. If one book on this whole framework is aimed at you, it's that one.
Say what you'd actually prefer once a week, in a situation where you'd normally say you don't mind. "I don't mind" is usually not true, and over a year it makes you harder to love rather than easier.
Do one generous thing nobody will find out about. That's how you tell whether it was kindness or a transaction.
Say no without guilt and without a reason.
Tell someone when they've crossed a line, at the time, in plain words. Not later and not to somebody else.
Watch how you treat waiting staff, because she is. Kindness shows up in small moments: how you are with servers, with kids, with animals, with your own family, and whether you help without being asked.
Check whether you're keeping score. If you can list what you've done for someone, you were trading, not giving. Notice it and stop the trade rather than cashing it in.
Don't pick the first woman who shows interest. Self-respect means choosing someone you actually want, not accepting whoever chose you, and it means not letting people walk over you
ONE THING THIS WEEK
Say one no with no reason attached, and say one preference out loud where you'd usually defer.
HOW LONG IT TAKES
Saying no gets easier within a month. Catching yourself keeping score takes a few more, and once you can catch it you can stop it.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE WHEN IT'S WORKING
You give less often and you don't resent any of it. People stop being able to get things out of you by making you feel bad.
All of this is 100% in your control. No excuses.
10. BE GOOD COMPANY
WHAT IT IS
People enjoy being around you. You listen properly, you're easy to talk to, you can make someone laugh, and you can let a small thing go without it becoming a conversation. This is a skill. Most men assume it's a personality.
HOW YOU KNOW YOU'RE SHORT
Talking to you is either an interview or a monologue. You're working out your next line while she's still talking. You can't name three things you'd talk about that aren't work, the news, or her. Small annoyances turn into discussions.
WHY IT'S HARD
Nobody will tell you. You get told you're a great guy and then you don't hear from them again, and you're left guessing at the reason.
THE GAMEPLAN
LISTENING, WHICH IS MOST OF IT
Listen to understand her, not to wait your turn. The test is whether you're writing your reply while she's still talking. If you are, you're waiting in line, not listening.
Ask one more question about her thing before you say anything about yours. Every time. This single habit does more than any story you could tell.
Let her finish, then leave a beat. Most men fill the silence, and the thing she was about to say next was the good part.
Remember it and bring it back next week. Nothing proves you were listening like asking how the thing went.
Don't fix it unless she asked you to. "That sounds exhausting" lands better than a plan, nine times out of ten.
EVERYTHING ELSE
Treat being funny as a skill, because it is. Right after confidence it's the thing women bring up most. Take an improv class. Work out what funny people are actually doing. Tell stories from your own life and tell them more than once until they land. Be willing to laugh at yourself.
Have three things you can talk about that aren't work, the news, or her. Have interests, be interesting, and be interested. The third one is the one men skip.
Let one small thing go a week without mentioning it, and notice that nothing happened.
Plan something start to finish, including booking it. Somewhere easy and mid-priced. A walk, a market, a museum. What matters is that you planned it.
Offer to pay. Not to show off. Because it says you wanted to do something nice. If she insists on splitting, let her, but always be the one who offers.
Learn to dance and let loose. This is the one most men refuse and it's worth more than they think, because being willing to look stupid in public is attractive by itself. Line dancing is the easiest way in. Nobody's watching and most places teach it at the start of the night.
Say it if you want to see her again. "This was fun, I'd like to do it again next week." Don't leave her guessing.
ONE THING THIS WEEK
Have one conversation where you ask a second question about everything she raises and tell no stories of your own. It'll feel one-sided. Check afterward whether she seemed to enjoy it.
HOW LONG IT TAKES
An improv course is eight weeks and it's the fastest change on this list. Listening properly takes about three months of catching yourself, and people notice that one before you do.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE WHEN IT'S WORKING
People invite you to things for no particular reason. Conversations run longer than they were meant to. And women tell you more than they meant to, which is what listening actually buys you.
All of this is 100% in your control. No excuses.
WHO YOU ARE IF YOU MEET THE TEN
You’re a man who likes women and has them in his life. You know yourself well enough that criticism is information rather than injury. You know what you want and you can say it. Your body, your money and your home are handled. You have friends and a week worth protecting. You ask instead of hinting. You do what you said you’d do. People can be honest with you. You’re kind without keeping score, and people enjoy your company.
None of them were given to you. Every one is something you decided to do and then did, which is the only reason any of it means anything.
The side effect is being a man worth dating.
THE TEN STANDARDS CERTIFICATION
Every man says he's a good guy. Not one of them can prove he's done the work.
You can.
You take one standard a week for twelve weeks, and you send me proof as you go. If it holds up at the end, you're certified. If it doesn't, it doesn't.
At the end you have twelve weeks of work with my cosign on it. It's the difference between saying you've worked on yourself and showing it.
The matchmakers I talk to are short of one thing: men worth introducing. Certified men are who I'll be putting forward, with your permission, one introduction at a time.
And you'll know. Most men spend years wondering whether they're the problem. You won't have to guess.