6 Tiny Ways To Be More Attractive When Dating
How to be your best self while finding love.
Quality Stock Arts / Shutterstock "Am I attractive?" It's a question that many women tend to ask when they're dating or looking for love. If you're worried about how to be attractive or how to get someone to like you without losing and devaluing yourself, don't panic, yet. Perhaps you have a certain someone in mind or perhaps you are just worried, in general, that someday you might meet someone and you won’t know what to do to attract them.
Attractive women seem like they have it all. What do they have that you don't? What are they doing right? Getting someone to like you and fall for you, without losing yourself, is easier than you think. Learning how to be attractive is something you can manage once you know the keys to attraction. What are they?
Here are 6 little ways to be more attractive when dating:
1. Like yourself
How can you expect someone to like you if you don’t like yourself? The key to being attractive and getting someone to fall for you is to make sure that you are happy with who you are in the world. You need to have done your work and be comfortable with yourself. People who are damaged and unhappy tend to attract people who are also damaged and unhappy. Likewise, happy and confident people tend to attract happy and confident people. So, have you done your work? Are you happy with your career, your relationship with friends and family, and your mental and physical health?
If there's something that can use some improvement, get on it right away. Working on yourself is an excellent way to become happy and confident. Fortunately, you don’t need to be all fixed before working to get someone to like you. If you have awareness about your issues and are actively working on them, it will show and you will attract someone who is also self-aware and evolving.
2. Be yourself always
One of the biggest challenges in new relationships is that, because we want someone to like us, we aren’t always our true selves. Instead, we put forward the best version of ourselves or even act like someone different. Our person falls for that person, not who we are.
People who aren’t themselves in relationships are doomed to failure. Eventually, our true selves come out and, when they do, they can scare your person away. I can’t tell you how many of my clients who are going through a break-up say I wish things could go back to the way they were at the beginning. They can’t. And part of that is because at least one person wasn’t being themselves but instead being who they wanted to be. And that, once gone, can never come back.
3. Be the best you
We all have parts of ourselves that we like and are proud of. For me, I know that I am a good question-asker. So, when I am getting to know someone, I ask a lot of questions. People like it when other people ask them questions so it often works well to get them to like me. What is the best part of you? The part you like most. Have that part of you on display when you are working on getting someone to like you.
4. Don’t be a follower
When you are wondering how to get someone to like you, one of the most important things to know is that it’s essential that you not be a follower. What does that mean? It's key that you don’t let your person call all of the shots in the relationship. Relationships are meant to be even. Sometimes you make the decision, and sometimes he does.
You are aware of each other’s wishes and desires and sometimes accommodate them but never do you let them walk all over you to get what they want. People who are doormats for other people are not attractive. Perhaps you are worried that, if you speak up for what you want, your person might be mad at you or leave you but don't.
If your person isn’t willing to at least discuss your thoughts then they aren’t the person for you. Imagine spending the rest of your life doing what your partner wanted to do and never having your wishes accommodated. How much would that suck? So, speak up. Be flexible but speak up!
5. Use your words, but not too many
A key part of any relationship's success is communication. The most important part and oftentimes the hardest! One of the best ways to get someone to like you is to practice effective communication skills. Communicating about who you are authentically, and what you want in a relationship. What is important in your life? Share with your prospective partner and have them share with you. Understand each other so that you can decide if you want to move forward together.
It’s also important that you not share too much. Of course, you want your guy to know you but oversharing can be off-putting, especially for men. Let your guy get to know you slowly. Keep the mystery going and you will pull him in in a way that he won’t ever want to leave. The next thing you know, he's falling for you.
6. Don’t make it something it isn’t
When you are wondering how to get someone to like you there is one piece of advice that should stand above the rest — don’t try to fit a square peg into a round hole. For many of us, when we first meet someone and are attracted to them, we become fixated on them like us. We will do whatever we can to attract and keep their attention.
What many of us ignore, however, is when a red flag gets raised that this person is not the one for us. Or that, no matter how hard we try, we can’t succeed in our efforts and they keep turning away. If someone you like is turning away from you or is not a good fit, stop your efforts immediately. You don’t want to waste any more time on someone who isn’t the person for you.
And, the more time that you spend trying to get someone to like you, the harder it will be for you to let go! So, as you go about your efforts to get someone to like you, make sure you are doing it for the right reasons and that your efforts haven’t already failed. In life and love, knowing how to get someone to like you without devaluing yourself is very, very important.
The only person you truly have in the world is you and you don’t want to let yourself down by becoming less of yourself in the pursuit of love. So, make an effort to like yourself first, be you and only you, present your best self, communicate openly, take the lead sometimes, and don’t make something out of nothing. If you follow these guidelines, love is yours for the taking. Go for it!
Mitzi Bockmann is an NYC-based Certified Life Coach and mental health advocate who works exclusively with women to help them be all they want to be. Mitzi's bylines have appeared in The Good Men Project, MSN, PopSugar, Prevention, Huffington Post, and Psych Central, among many others.