“Honesty is the best policy”.
Now this is a statement I stand behind. It’s a core principle I hold; one that permeates pretty much every aspect of my life. But not for the usual childish reasons people spout like, “because being honest means you’re a good & virtuous and noble person!” or “because lies make Jesus sad!”
The main reason I’m always honest is because I just can’t be bothered lying. It’s too much effort, it results in too much drama. It means I have to keep track of the lie(s) I’ve told and continue to keep telling them. I have to feel guilty for being a lying shitbag. I’ll never really know if girls like me for me, or just for the lies I’ve used to manipulated them into sleeping with me…
Bah.
No thankyou.
If you just aim for honesty – especially in your dealings with women – life becomes a whole lot simpler. There’s no thinking about what the “right thing” to say is, there’s no getting stuck in your head, trying to figure out how to handle a certain situation. For most guys, being allowed to drop the notion of “I must say the right thing at all times” is a godsend – it removes a huge burden from their shoulders & frees them up to just be in the moment.
Most of the guys I coach will inevitably ask me a question along the lines of, “If a girl asks me [a particular question], what’s the best way for me to answer it? What should I say to get her to do what I want?” I always defer to honesty – “You can’t make someone do what you want – all you can do is tell them what you want, and see if they’re down for it. Just be totally honest about what you’re after. Say whatever the hell is on your mind. Stop overthinking it and just be autistically honest – blurt out whatever is bouncing around your head, as if you have no filter.“
I always see a light go off in their head when they hear that – “You mean I’m allowed to just drop the bullshit and be open with her? I don’t have to think about what to say any more, or how to phrase it?”
That’s exactly what I advocate being honest – to the point of autism where you just blurt out whatever is in your head. It takes away all the pressure to perform. You just say what you’re thinking, without worrying about how it might sound. You’re free to just be real with people and not overanalyse every word that’s about to come out of your mouth.
This applies to things you’re insecure about too. If you’re inexperienced when it comes to sex and you’re worried the girl will think you’re shit in the bedroom, just tell her that. “I know this sounds dumb but I’m nervous to invite you back at my place, because I haven’t had a lot of sex. I’m telling you because I’d rather be real with you.” 99.99% of the time girls will respect the shit out of you for being so open with them, not to mention you’ve just eliminated 90% of your performance anxiety by removing the pressure to perform. Suddenly you’re on the same team as her – it’s you and her, not you vs her.
Or another example: someone recently asked, “Is there a way to tell her I don’t want a relationship but I would rather just see her her again from time to time?”
I said yes, you tell her, “I don’t want a relationship but I would rather just see you again from time to time”.
Simple.
So many guys will, instead of asking a girl what she’s feeling, instead jump on the internet and ask random strangers to theorise about what she might be feeing. Strangers who have no idea what the girl is thinking, because they’re not in her head.
Don’t be a weirdo; if you want to know what’s in someone’s head, just fucking ask them.
If you find it hard to be honest, that’s ok. I certainly did at the start. As I’ve talked about in other articles, honesty is something to aim towards; it won’t be something you just wake up one day and start doing. It takes time – and practice – to become a really open and honest person.
Deferring to honesty cuts out all the thinking and stressing about the right way to say things. You just say what you want in an honest way, and see if the person is open to the same thing you want. If they are, awesome. If they’re not, no hard feelings. It makes even the most stressful conversations – like “where is this going?” – super easy to handle.
You’ll also get better at “keeping it real with girls” and keeping them on your team. As in, cutting through the bullshit and saying, “Look, I want you to be completely real with me. Let’s be honest with each other, because I’ve had enough of dating people who played games”.
I say it to every girl I date, and it’s the reason the vast majority of them are so damn honest with me in return. Most girls say something along the lines of “Andy you’re the first guy to ever tell me he wanted honesty. Everybody else just plays games.”
Set yourself apart by telling them you expect truthfulness, and they’ll give it to you. But it’s up to you to lead, and set the foundation of honesty.
Best of all, being honest with girls means you’ll end up with girls who are honest with you. Being a good person means you’ll end up with good people in your life. Who would have thought? 😉
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-Andy
Man, this post really changed my perspective on things. Though I “knew” about this concept, seeing it in the way you explained it really made it click for me.
I think sometimes we dismiss basic stuff like this because we consider it “cliché” – we tell ourselves “I already know that”. When we hear certain phrases like “Be honest” a million times, we start ignoring them because they seem to simplistic. But when you look at it from a fresh new perspective like in this post, the profundity of the truth behind those phrases hits you and you find a renewed appreciation for it.
So many times in my life, whenever a girl tells/texts me something, I try to figure out what the “perfect thing” to say is. This isn’t just a huge burden, but I think it slows down my progress as well because I’m not expressing my thoughts honestly, but instead saying whatever an “authority” on the internet told me to say. It also undermines my self-image and confidence because I’m not developing my own personal style, but building this shaky foundation consisting of haphazard bits of advice from various sources.
Reading through this post, it hit me so hard why I do this: to minimize the pain of rejection – because if I’m being myself with her and she rejects me, it feels like she is rejecting me personally, whereas if I use the “techniques”, I have a scapegoat (“If I had just said the right thing, it would have worked out.”)
So to hear that I can just drop the whole game is incredibly liberating and kind of a mindfuck. “Just tell them what you want and see if they’re down for it.” So simple, yet so powerful.
Mate, I can only encourage you to keep writing these articles. You have such an interesting spin on and insightful view of all these topics related to dating/sex/relationships. Keep it up!
P.S. I subscribed to your email list a few weeks ago, but wasn’t notified when your newest article came out (the “How to Breakup”). Do you not use it to send out an email when a new post is released, or was there some technical issue here?
You’re very eloquent and self-aware. Appreciate you commenting on my site.
Yeah, I used to struggle a lot with trying to be perfect when talking to girls. At some point I just had to drop my ego and accept, “I’m not great at this, because I haven’t had a lot of practice. I’ll be bad for a while. It’s ok for me to suck.”
There’s a huge freedom that comes with dropping the expectations; also a raw “realness” that girls will constantly comment on. “No guy has ever been this honest with me.” “I trust you implicitly because you’ve always told me everything, even the bad stuff.” “How come you never try to play games? You’re the first guy who isn’t trying to get something out of me.”
You’re right that you only start to be yourself and find your own voice when you start being real and figuring out what YOU like, not what other people tell you is the right thing to say. I’ve said from the start you should be better than the people you’re trying to mimic; you’ve gotta figure out what works for you.
Rejection: You hit the nail on the head. I used to do the same thing; “If I just copy-paste what other people tell me, I’m not really getting rejected”. That’s exactly what you need at the start (when you’re vulnerable and haven’t built up much resilience). At some point you’ve gotta get rid of the safety net and spread your wings and try to fly on your own.
That’s why me first starting to look for bdsm on Tinder was fucking TERRIFYING. I had to figure out how to do it, what to say, do a bunch of trial and error. I thought to myself, “Nobody’s ever done this before. I could get rejected incredibly hard, or worse.” It took a lot of deep breaths and a lot of soul-searching to be able to do it.
Newsletter: I normally manually send them out once a week. I’ve had no time (I work a 10hr a day fulltime job + coaching + write for this site + gym, girls, etc). I’ll be switching over to an automatic system when I get a bit of time to change it over.