Contrast Is King: Identity Inversion

This post is a follow-up to my original Contrast is King post, and serves as an adjunct to my fashion post.

Women love surprises. They love a man they can’t easily peg. They chase men who intrigue them. There are methods men can use to trigger this attraction reflex in women. One potent technique is identity inversion — where you present yourself one way while confirming an entirely unexpected impression.

Let’s say you show up at an indie bar dressed like someone who belongs there — newsie cap, skinny jeans, t-shirt, indoors scarf, chucks. You approach a hipchick knowing that she thinks she has you all figured out before you’ve even said a word. A conversation follows, and she asks what you do for a living, and what you like to do for fun. You talk about your job in corporate law, and you mention how you like to help entrepreneurs set up new businesses.

BOOM! She wasn’t expecting that at all. She squirms a little on her bar stool. Suddenly, you have become a lot more interesting to her. She may not care one iota about corporate law, but she sure cares about a hipster doofus who challenges her expectations.

Now let’s say you’re at a networking event and you’re wearing a sharp business suit. You approach a seriousskirtchick and she’s sized you up in the three seconds it took for you to walk over to her. A conversation follows and she asks the usual questions (hot girls aren’t very conversationally nimble because they’re never given a reason to be — a true player knows to give girls reasons to step up their conversation game and make them work for the cock). Instead of shop talk about the market or clients, you regale her with your interest in public policy to alleviate wealth inequality, or your downtime playing bass for a local band. You actively defy her expectations.

This is the challenge inherent in contrast that is so effective at turning women on. Dress one way, speak another way. And it works on both sexes, though tempered with the usual caveats concerning the outsized importance of female physical attractiveness. Have you ever met an artsy chick in heavy black eyeliner who surprised you when she began discussing economic theory? I have, and it intensified her cuteness; I wanted her more when she unraveled twists in her personality concealed behind my snap judgment of her.

Identity inversion will work on most girls, but there is a subset of girls for whom mismatches between a man’s presentation of himself and his interests and opinions will hurt his chances. There are some girls who have very strong “types”, and will actively seek out those types for copulatory auditions. If a girl swoons for bike messenger dudes and everything they represent, and you are dressed like a bike messenger when you meet her, you may wind up hurting your game if you talk like a lobbyist. She wants the whole bike messenger package, not just the funky cap. Luckily, girls with powerfully influential but narrow mental mate templates are rarer than girls with expansive templates for intriguing, hard to pin down men.