Commenter having a bad day writes,
one of the better things that i did to get confidence was to recognize the MANY IOIs that women are putting out all the time. women, especially young fertile (hot) women, ping their environment ALL the time. learn to recognize and encourage these, and it will build your confidence…you can also learn to spot these when they are thrown at other males in the environment…
note – it will also make you sort of depressed if you still hold any illusions regarding the nature of women. most of the ‘ping backs’ you will get are from women in ‘relationships’ (married or otherwise) with betas…sometimes (a lot actually) right in front of the guy’s nose…
This is true. The most obvious flirtations are often from women who are taken, and sometimes with their man present and accounted for! It’s less common to get aggressive flirts from single women.
My understanding of this aspect of female nature is:
1. Sublimated hypergamy. Women are always looking to trade up (whether they know it or not) and flirting while with someone comes more naturally to them.
2. Fishing for reassurance that she’s still attractive. Women in LTRs tend to discount the assurances they get from their partners as less valuable than the arousal they can inspire in strange men. The man she already snagged and who has invested in her is less trustworthy as a biased judge of her attractiveness.
Note that both reasons #1 and #2 are rendered null and void if the woman is in a relationship with an alpha male. (1: she won’t feel the urge to scope as much and 2. an alpha lover’s opinion of her remaining attractiveness is weighted more than a beta lover’s opinion.)