I just attended a talk by Dr Peter Brennan, a physiologist from Bristol University who has spent a long while researching and studying this. It was interesting stuff but the bad news is, if you’re hoping a spray will be the solution to success with women, there’s little research to back that up.

The summary of the facts that we know are:

• Some animals do rely largely on pheromones to attract the opposite sex (mice for instance)
• In humans, we simply don’t have the same “receptors” for pheromones (in other words, it doesn’t work for us, although there’s evidence that it might have done thousands of years ago
• Human sense of smell has declined over hundreds and thousands of years, to be replaced by visual and verbal clues of attractiveness
• There is no good scientific basis that pheromone sprays work
• The placebo effect may have some influence (in other words, if you spray youself and believe it makes you more attractive, you might act more attractively

Sorry if you were hopeful….

The same evening saw some good talks from other psychologists and biologists about what men and women look for in a partner, which pretty much back up what I’ve written previously. Guys tend to find physical attributes attractive in women, whereas women are more concerned with behavioural and status traits. The good news for you, are these are things you can learn (don’t forget, if you’re in London you an hire me as a dating coach to find out how.)

photo by alex555

One of the easiest ways you can make yourself appear more attractive to women is by improving your body language. A study at UCLA showed that 93 per cent of communication is from “non-verbal” cues. Here’s some tips that you can use right away to improve your own non-verbal communication.

Start from the center

When we feel threatened, embarrassed or nervous, we tend to cover up one or more of:

• Our face, nose & mouth
• Our neck (by lowering out head)
• Our chest (by folding our arms)
• Our groin (by crossing our legs)

If you think about it, you’ll notice that all of these run in a straight line down the centre of your body. To fix this and appear more confident, think about keeping the center of your body open. Your head should be upright, your back straight, legs comfortably apart and your hands by your sides.

Hold your drink by your side

As in the first tip above,we tend to cover our chests when we feel nervous or threatened. Head to any bar or club on a Saturday night and you’ll see hoards of men standing around with their drinks across their chests like a kind of protective shield. If you want to appear more confident, hold yours low and by your side.

Smile

Confident guys who are successful with women tend to smile a lot, so if you want to have the appearance of being one of these guys you should do the same. Smiling’s contagious, so if you’re smiling, it’s likely she will be too.

Use eye contact, but don’t stare

Maintain eye contact with her as you talk and if she’s in a group, move your eyes from one person’s to the next. If you’re not used to doing this, choose one eye and focus on it as you and her are talking. Be careful not to stare though, that can be creepy!

Don’t lean in

Next time you’re out at a bar or club, watch some of the guys that are trying to pick up girls. Most men tend to lean in towards the girl they have their eye on far more than they actually need to. Although I do recommend not being afraid to be a little physical early on, there’s no need to lean towards her unnecessarily.

Remember the quote from the Tao of Steve “We pursue that which retreats from us”. Leaning in communicates that you are chasing her. Not doing it subtly suggests that you are “retreating”.

Keep those hands still!

Another sign that you are lacking confidence is excessively fidgeting and gesturing with your hands. When we’re nervous, we tend to move around a lot more than we normally would, as we’re afraid of losing the other person’s attention. So, if you don’t gesticulate wildly and keep your hands relatively still, it will help to communicate confidence.

A little trick – hook your thumbs in your back pockets. This has the extra benefit of making you lean back slightly, and you remember that leaning in too much is bad right?

Good, confident body language is far more important than the words you use when trying to attract women. Start using the tips above straight away and you should see a big difference in the way girls act around you.