Vanity plays a large role in seduction. If you seem impatient, eager for sex, then you signal that your interest is purely libidinal and has nothing to do with the target’s charms. A lengthier courtship will feed your target’s vanity and make the bold move more powerful. But if you wait too long, you will instill a different kind of insecurity. This will hurt their vanity and hurt your chances of seduction.
Once you read in your targets’ gestures that they are ready and open—a look in the eye, mirroring behavior, a strange nervousness in your presence—you must go on the offensive, make them feel that their charms have unhinged you and pushed you into the bold move. They will then have the ultimate pleasure: physical surrender and a psychological boost to their vanity.
Robert Greene, The Art of Seduction
Seduction, unlike the real world, calls for imbalance. No one is born timid; it is something we are socialized into. If we are kind and unobtrusive, we won’t offend anyone, we will seem saintly. But timid people are often self-absorbed, they care too much about what others think of them. Humility has social issues but is deadly in seduction. Sometimes, playing the humble saint is a good mask to wear but you must take it off when it comes to seduction. Boldness is the right strategy in the final stage of seduction, you must take over and sweep the other along.
Boldness is good, but it can be dangerous if not controlled.
As a young man, the actor Errol Flynn was uncontrollably bold. This often got him into trouble; he became too aggressive around desirable women. Then, while traveling through the Far East, he became interested in the Asian practice of tantric sex, in which the male must train himself not to ejaculate, preserving his potency and heightening both partners’ pleasure in the process. Flynn later applied this principle to his seductions as well, teaching himself to restrain his natural boldness and delay the end of the seduction as long as possible.
Robert Greene, The Art of Seduction
The old move should come as a surprise, but not too much of a surprise. You should learn the signs that the target is falling for you. Their manner would have changed, it will be more pliant, they will mirror you more, and there will be a touch of nervousness and hesitancy to them.
You want a degree of tension and ambivalence, so that the move represents a great release. Their surrender will relieve tension like a long-awaited summer storm. Don’t plan your bold move in advance; it cannot seem calculated.
Robert Greene, The Art of Seduction
If you’re interested in exploring the darker parts of human psychology that most people ignore, consider reading this short book The Dichotomy of the Self.