Never Tell Men These Things.

Never Tell Him Exactly What You're Looking For

I know this sounds strange, but if you tell a man exactly what you're looking for, he has the answers to the test. And if you give a man the answers to the test, he's smart enough to ace it. Everyone's playing a little bit of their own game. Men understand that to get access to you, whether that's girlfriend treatment or the opportunity to sleep with you, they have to act and speak a particular way to get the green light.

So when you tell him, it would be so amazing if a guy showed up at my door at 7:30 with a beautiful red dress and a surprise dinner at Nobu, what do you think he hears? He goes, perfect. Now I know exactly what I must do to make her believe I'm her perfect man. He aces the test in exactly the way that convinces you he's the one you've been looking for. Then, once he's gotten what he actually came for, he reveals his true self, and you realize he was only ever acting the part you handed him.

Never Tell Him Nobody Loves You or Nobody Wants You

This one is going to sting. Never tell a man that nobody loves you. I know some of you have been through heartaches and toxic relationships, and it genuinely feels like there's no love in your life. But men are bandwagoners. They want to see how other people treat you, and they want to meet you exactly where you already are. Not a step below, not a step above. So he asks himself, if nobody loves her, why am I the first person to bestow love on her? What does that say about her? And he meets you right there.

The same logic is why you never tell a man that guys don't notice you or approach you. When men see other men desire you, they decide you're desirable, even if they didn't start out believing it. You being wanted is a reflection of his ego: a desirable woman on his arm tells the world he's a desirable man. Tell him no one wants you, and his mind flips it. If I'm with the woman none of the guys want, that must mean I'm the man none of the women want.

And never tell him how lonely and sad your life is. People are attracted to people with je ne sais quoi, what I call magical fairy dust. Women with magical fairy dust make their entire life an event, and an event can be small: a spa day, a bubble bath, a book. But when you keep saying, I'm just in the house bored staring at the wall, he concludes you have nothing going on, and he doesn't want a piece of it. Make your life an event. It keeps you full, confident, and detached, and it keeps him wanting in.

Never Tell Him He's the Exception to the Rule

So many of you make this mistake that it makes me laugh and cry at the same time. If I ever catch you telling a man he's the exception to the rule, I'm going to come to your house, take my belt off, and give you a whooping. The classic version is when he does something disrespectful, gives you a little apology, and you go, oh, you know I can't stay mad at you, babe. Stop.

Here's what happens. Once he understands he truly is the exception, he sits back and says, interesting. I can take a couple of steps up to the line and she won't say anything, because I'm special. Then one day he takes a step over the line and observes. I DM'd that girl, I liked those photos. What did she do? She can't stay mad at me? Perfect. Then one more step. Then one more.

You don't wake up overnight with the most disrespectful man alive. You get there slowly, small step, apology, small step, apology, until he's 30 steps over the boundary. And a year later you look back and ask yourself, how did I get here? How am I being disrespected so much I don't even recognize my own relationship?

Never Say I Don't Deserve You

This one sounds counterintuitive, because in your head it feels like a compliment. You're so good to me, I don't deserve you. But rewind and think about what you're actually saying: the way you treat me, your loyalty, everything you do for me, that belongs with a woman of equal or higher value than I am. You are telling him to his face that he should be with a better woman than you.

And this is the crazy part. Say it consistently enough and you can brainwash your own man into believing it. He starts looking at his coworkers, his friend group, women he meets, and thinking, maybe some of these women are more deserving of the treatment I'm prepared to give. You take a man who worshipped you and put you on a pedestal, and you talk him down off of it.

Even if he stays, he starts pulling back the princess treatment, the compliments, the going above and beyond. Because now he's thinking, why am I doing all this for a woman who, by her own admission, doesn't deserve it?

Never Detail How Badly Other Men Treated You, or How Forgiving You Are

You're going to hate me for this one. Never tell a man how poorly other men have treated you. There's no crime in wanting to share what you've been through, but you must put a halt to the detailed download of how your ex cheated 83 times and went behind your back 55 times, and yet you stayed for two years. Because here's the male math running in his head: no man ever believes he's less than your previous guys. His ego needs to believe he's better than every man you dated before, which is why he's here and they're not. So if worse men than him got away with treating you like garbage, then he, the better man, can certainly get away with at least that much. He meets you at the standard your history announces.

The partner mistake is telling him what a forgiving woman you are. I know you have a kind heart, and I know you see the best in people. But even when you're only talking about forgiving family, girlfriends, coworkers, he's building a narrative. If they got forgiven 83 times, and I'm more special to her than they are, I'm getting forgiven at least 155 times. It sounds silly, but that's genuinely how men think. It encourages bad behavior, because he believes he's guaranteed to get away with it.

Never Hand Him the Manual on How to Hurt You

Please, please never tell men how to hurt you. It's such an easy trap, because it happens while you're bonding, spilling your guts about your deepest insecurities. Your nose, the shape of your face, your hair. We all have them. But when you share them with a man you just met, you're handing a stranger very sensitive information, and you don't know what he'll do with it.

If he's a man who wants to use you, and let's be real, you will meet plenty of those, you've just given him a dial. He knows exactly how to take you up through the roof, because you told him what you're looking for. And he knows exactly how to drop you in the dumps, because you told him where it hurts. So when you finally decide you're done and you try to walk away, he turns the dial on your insecurities to trigger you back, then turns the dial up on the dream-guy act to reward you for coming. Highs and lows, on demand, until you're emotionally addicted to a man you already know is bad for you. Never give a man that level of control.

Never Announce the Red Flags You Notice

This one's a little weird, but follow me. When you're on a date extracting information, and if you've listened to me at all you know information is queen, do not make faces, reactions, or comments about what he's telling you. Because while he's spewing information, he's also observing you. If he admits he cheated in his last relationship and your face scrunches up, or you announce, once a cheater always a cheater, he now knows exactly what you consider a red flag.

And men have their own motives. So he says, thank you for letting me know. From now on he cuts those stories short, lies about how bad they were, or omits the ugly parts entirely. Worse, he gets strategic about every future disclosure: let me stay away from anything that makes me look bad in her eyes. Now you're still gathering information, but only the information that makes him look good, and you've lost access to the exact facts that would have told you to walk away. Keep your poker face. Collect everything. Decide privately.