
Most single women who are strong and successful believe than men don´t approach them because they are intimidating.
Up until I was twenty-four, I was single all the time; a boyfriend was never on the scene. I was an achiever, a member of the cream of the crop scholars in our university, and after I graduated, I was a Maths teacher and professional debate trainer who wouldn´t back off from any challenging or competitive debate.
I trained university and high school debaters abroad and brought them to national debate tournaments while also teaching British IGCSE and SATS in an international school. I was never scared of competition; I always held my head high. Professionally, I saw myself successful.
But when it came to my love life, I was far from successful. I didn´t have the confidence it took to deal with men romantically.
I used to blame it to my strong personality. Like many strong women, I thought that men are intimidated by my strength.
(Although deep down, I knew that despite being a high achiever in my career, I wasn´t confident in my dating and love life. It´s just that it´s easier to blame it to my being an independent woman.)
But wrong.
Men are not intimidated by strong women.
Looking back, I understood that the real reason why no men approached me was not my strength, but my attitude. I didn´t smile. I didn´t look friendly. I didn´t look interested (even if I was.) I also knew that my default frown could make me look arrogant.
So yes, men can be intimidated by unapproachable women. Men can be intimidated by the possibility of rejection. (For tips on how to send signals that you´re interested and to encourage him to approach you, read 8 Steps to Become a Natural, Elegant Flirt That´s Irresistible to Men.)
I wasn´t really arrogant in nature, but due to my lack of self-confidence coupled with my shyness towards the opposite sex, I used arrogance as a cover.
I was what Steve Harvey described in his book, Straight Talk, No Chaser: How to Find, Keep, and Understand a Man, as “women who are professionally successful but have no idea how to deal with men.
If only I smiled to that smart guy in the university who was always quietly looking at me with admiration and whom I was also attracted to, or if only I was friendly to that guy in graduate school, in Political Science class, who found ways to debate with me and only me, or if only I had more confidence to be comfortable around young men during my late teens and early twenties, for sure my love life wouldn’t be zero.
But I woke up.
Before I hit twenty-five, I admitted to myself that men are not intimidated by my strength. It was my unapproachable personality that stopped them from approaching me. I had to change.
Steve Harvey pointed it right, “men watch you as you talk to the lady in the cafeteria at work, and how you sit with only a certain type of person, but avoid anyone who doesn´t fit into your mold of “success”. Men sense it when you´re throwing a “you´re really beneath me, why are you over here” vibe, men determine certain things about you before they walk that long stretch to get to you.”
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Make him commit and surrender his heart to you, learn how to be “the woman men adore and never want to leave”.
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Men are not afraid of your success, but they are afraid of rejection. If they sense just by looking at you that they will get rejected, they won´t approach you.
So if you´re single and successful, and if you think it´s your strength or success that intimidates men, think again. Do you look approachable? Do you smile? Or do you exude an ambiance of “I´m above you, you´re below me!”?
Or maybe, all you have to do is look that gorgeous guy in the eye and smile.