Graham Stoney

I struggled for years with low self-esteem, anxiety and a lack of self-confidence before finding a solution that really worked. I created The Confident Man Program to help other men live the life of their dreams. I also offer 1-on-1 coaching via Skype so if you related to this article contact me about coaching.

Recovering From Nice Guy Syndrome

When I start hearing the same message coming at me from multiple independent sources, that usually gets my attention. Last year I kept hearing that women want men with backbone who they can “push up against”. They get tired and ultimately resentful of Nice Guys who always yield powerlessly to them, and everyone else.

Nice guy syndrome is caused by too much anxiety and not enough confidence.

I listened to an interview recently where Robert Glover described what is wrong with Nice Guys most succinctly by quoting a comment from his ex-wife, who said “How would I know that you could ever stand up for me, if you can’t even stand up to me?”. Robert calls it Nice Guy Syndrome in his book titled No More Mr. Nice Guy! He points out that while Nice Guys think that what they are doing will please other people, ultimately it just leads to resentment. In short, it really pisses women off.

At Passionately Alive, Nicholas talked about the importance of having relationships with people who meet us where we are at, with a similar level of passion. Women want guys who don’t just collapse or run away in the face of strong emotions, whether they be the pleasant or unpleasant variety.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

The Difference between Seduction and Attraction

Just watching David DeAngelo’s Advanced Dating Techniques program, I really like his distinction between Seduction and Attraction:

“Seduction implies tricking, being dishonest, and hiding your motives. Seduction also implies a scarcity mentality. It implies you lack the confidence that women will be attracted to you, and therefore you must resort to covert manoeuvres.

Attraction on the other hand is working on yourself, improving yourself to the point where women are magnetically attracted to you. That attraction mechanism gets pushed inside [the man] very quickly.”

It’s important to understand how seduction works and when it’s appropriate and inappropriate. But when a man invests significant energy into his own personal growth, he becomes a man who attracts women naturally. This is more authentic, has a more powerful impact on his whole life, and a more positive influence on the lives of those around him, than simply learning a bunch of education techniques ever will.

I think she’s using both seduction AND attraction

… Continue reading…
By Graham Stoney, ago

Successful Speed Dating

I recently decided to get more pro-active about getting out there and meeting women, so I thought I’d give Speed Dating a try.

Success at Speed Dating is all about Having Fun

This is where you front up to an organized gathering of other singles, and have a few minutes with each woman to assess whether you’d like to get to know them better. At the end of the evening, you fill in a card saying whether you’d like to exchange contact details with each person you’ve spoken to. If both of you tick the “yes” box to each other, the host sends you each others contact details. Speed Dating turns out to be really fun! There were some really great people at the event I went to, and I spent the evening joking around, chatting away, and having a great time.

I’m haven’t always been the world’s most out-going guy, so I was wondering whether I’d enjoy it or not. But it turned out to be was way more fun and less stressful than I expected. I’d really recommend Speed Dating to anyone interested in meeting some new people in a relaxed, casual atmosphere. So here are my tips when it comes to being successful at speed dating:

  • Don’t take it too seriously!
… Continue reading…
By Graham Stoney, ago

Insights from Frank, the “Natural” with Women

I have a friend whose flatmate Frank is a “natural” when it comes to women. Frank often has multiple women an the go at the one time, and his record is having sex with five different keen women in one day. The guy is simply a magnet for women. So I got together with Frank and my friend to see what insights I could gain into the mind of the natural with women.

When I turned up to my friend’s house, Frank and rather cute girl were hanging out in the kitchen. “Do you want a sandwich?” he asked her. “I don’t know”, she said. “Well, I don’t care whether you want a fucking sandwich or not; I’m having one anyway.”, he joked around. Frank had a really bad sunburn from being outside working on his motorbike without a shirt on, so once again he had no shirt. She seemed rather besotted as Frank joked and teased her. “Are you in a hurry?”, he asked me. “No”, I sort of lied. It was true that I didn’t have to be anywhere, but I did want to get onto the purpose of my visit: to talk about women and dating. Frank led the girl upstairs for a quickie.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

Give Yourself Credit

I just got back from a totally fascinating conversation over lunch with my friend Jenny, and her brother Derrick. Jenny lined it up because her brother used to suffer from Chronic Fatigue, something that I’ve been experiencing for the last 18 months. We talked for quite a while about what causes this most frustrating of mystery illnesses, and whether it could have an emotional basis in some of the unresolved family background and upbringing stuff that I’ve been working through over the last few years. Jenny had to leave early to get back to work, but Derrick and I continued on as the topic of the conversation turned increasingly towards every man’s favorite subject: women.

It turned out that Derrick and I had even more in common than just the family background of dominant mother and ineffective father: a lethal combination when it comes to setting a man up for future interactions with women. We talked about what makes a man attractive to a woman; and what repels them. We talked about the importance of being authentic, and how us sensitive guys often learn implicitly to be insincerely inoffensive nice guys in our interactions with women; and then wonder why we seem to end up powerless- like our fathers were.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

Secrets to Attracting Women Naturally

If you haven’t had a lot of success with women in your life so far, now is the time to take charge of the situation and make some changes. Meeting women, interacting with them and dating them successfully all comes down to a combination of your mindset and the skills that you have, to make yourself attractive and interesting to women.

Attraction between men and women is a completely natural thing. The problem for guys who struggle with women is that we get in our own way by repeating ineffective behaviors in our interactions with women that kill this natural attraction. After a while, we conclude that there’s something wrong with us, or that the women we’re interested in just aren’t attracted to us; when in fact, success is simply a matter of replacing the ineffective behaviors with those that are more likely to get us positive results. Often the reason we haven’t done this yet is that we didn’t have a good role-model to teach us what works, and what doesn’t; and we end up doing what doesn’t work over and over again.

While confidence is the most attractive trait a man can have, by far the biggest killer of attraction for a woman is neediness.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

Handling Rejection When Approaching Women

Rejection is generally the number one fear most guys have when it comes to women. For many years, I was too terrified of rejection to approach the women I was attracted to, which is why I decided I needed to get them to approach me instead. It’s normal to fear rejection; it’s an instinctual response going back to the days when rejection from the tribe meant certain death. But that’s not the end of the story; rejection is no longer terminal and this fear can be overcome. I’m still working on overcoming my fear of rejection, and here are some simple strategies that I find helpful for handling it:

Remember It’s About Them, Not About You

Approach with a fun, playful, curious attitude.

Rejection stings because we turn it into a story about us: We get rejected and conclude that we’re not good enough, not worthy enough, not deserving enough, not interesting enough, not attractive enough. Any insecurity about ourselves is immediately linked to the women who we think has rejected us. Then we generalize and assume that if one woman rejects us, every woman will reject us because there is something wrong with us. It’s all about us.

The antidote to this is to remind us that rejection says more about them than it does about us.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Flirt with a Woman

If you’re like me, you weren’t born a “natural” when it comes to flirting with women, and it’s a skill you need to develop. For the longest time, my aim in conversations was to try and get women to like me. And guess what? It doesn’t work. The more we try to get people to like us, the less likely they are to end up doing so. Especially when we’re relating to women. Somehow no matter how much I tried, I was always a hopeless flirt, and could never seem to get the women I was interested in, interested in me.

And then I discovered the secret to flirting. I can’t believe I didn’t notice it before. Once I realised what it was, I noticed that all the “naturals” I knew who got on so well with the women I was interested in were doing it with these women; I just hadn’t realised. It’s so simple, I can sum it up in one word: teasing.

This revelation was like an epiphany for me when it came to relating to women.

Flirting is all about playful teasing

If you want to learn to flirt, you need to learn to tease.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago