If you have ever wondered why some women attract exactly the kind of man they want without chasing him, without performing, and without trying to earn it, this is for you.
It is not her face. It is not luck. It is a specific set of traits that men respond to at a level most of them could not explain to you if you asked.
I’m Brody Boyd, and together with my wife Antia we have spent over 20 years combined helping thousands of successful women get a loving, long-term and committed relationship with a man they want. Here are the ten feminine traits men find irresistible. Pay close attention to number seven, because it is the one almost every woman gets backwards.
#1 – Leave Him Something To Give
A man cannot pursue a woman who has left him nothing to give.
The reason men are so drawn to vulnerability is that vulnerability creates the space for him to pursue you. If you are busy being the strong independent woman, wearing the armor, providing for yourself and needing nothing from him in small ways or big ones, then there is no room for him to step toward you.
A lot of women are living in masculine energy without realizing it. They are leading their man, telling him what to do, or trying to get there indirectly. Masculine energy is about doing and achieving outcomes. Feminine energy is about openness and detachment from outcomes.
As long as you are trying to steer him, to get him to ask for your number, to ask you out, to commit, it will push him away, because he is not choosing it himself. A man has to be motivated from within. You can never motivate a man externally in a relationship. The harder you push, the more likely he is to shut down, lose his motivation, or pull away entirely. The only real influence you have is internal, and it comes through your feminine core: being vulnerable and sharing your heart.
#2 – He Cannot Fall For A Mask
He cannot fall for a mask, no matter how perfect that mask is.
When you decide to become who you think he wants you to be, when you set out to please him and perform the perfect woman, that is still masculine energy. You are trying to control his perception of you. You have not let go of the steering wheel. He is reaching for the handle saying he can drive, and you are telling him you are not ready to let go yet. Eventually he asks himself what he is even needed for.
There is a second cost. When you are wearing the mask, he does not get to find out who you actually are, and most men can sense that something is being held back.
The cure is to embrace your uniqueness, and to genuinely reframe it inside yourself: your uniqueness is what makes you beautiful. It is the thing that draws a man to you. Some people would call it your weirdness. Let the freak show come out.
#3 – Admire Him Into Conquest
Admire a man and he will go conquer something for you.
A large part of the masculine instinct is to conquer, to expand his territory, to make something happen. That might mean winning your heart and becoming the man you pick. It might mean a touchdown, a career goal, or a new car. In another century it meant expanding a kingdom.
Napoleon said that within every man there is a king. It is in our lineage. When you admire a man, you activate that instinct, and it points at you: he wants to be a better partner, to win your heart, to make you happy, to please you in the ways you want to be pleased.
It does not stop at the relationship either. He wants to be a more successful man, a better provider, healthier and stronger, because he wants to make you happy.
#4 – Appreciation Is His Paycheck
Appreciation activates him. Accommodation drains you both.
A healthy man gets his sense of value from making the woman he loves happy, and the only way he knows it is working is by seeing his effort land on you. So your appreciation is not a nicety, it is his paycheck. The masculine gives, the feminine receives, and your receiving is what completes his giving. A man whose effort disappears into a void stops making the effort.
Write this one down. What gets appreciated gets repeated. What gets criticized gets defended. What gets ignored quietly fades away.
Here is the actual skill, and it is a small one that changes everything: appreciate the intent, not the execution.
If he brings you a coffee and gets the order completely wrong, try "you thought of me on your way to work, thank you." If he tries to fix your problem when you only wanted to be heard, try "thank you for wanting to take care of that for me." If he plans a date and it turns out mediocre, try "I love that you planned this for us."
If you always correct his execution, he will eventually stop trying. If you thank him for the intent, he will try again and get the execution better on his own.
General appreciation works too: "thank you for taking such good care of me," or "you’re my hero." That is not flattery. Flattery praises what is not there. Appreciation catches what is there, even when it is small and imperfect, and shines a light on it. Be the sun, not the wind. Watch what a man does when his effort actually lands on a woman. He usually doubles it.
#5 – Let Him Lead Imperfectly
Sarah sees a man she has been eyeing, walks over, tries her best to be flirty and says "let’s dance." She takes his hand and pulls him onto the floor. Once they are out there she is directing. She places his hands. She picks the rhythm. She choreographs the whole thing.
A man walks up to Grace and asks if she would like to dance. She says "I’d love to." Not "sure." Not "I guess." Not "only if you’re a good dancer." Just warmth and openness. And when they start, she lets him lead. She does not know what is coming next and she is fine with that. She settles into his frame and follows his direction, while staying fully expressed and connected to herself. She is smiling. She is enjoying it. She is present.
Here is the part that matters. He is not a great dancer. He is a little clumsy. He steps on her foot once, and she laughs and keeps going. In that moment he feels ten feet tall, because she just did the most attractive thing a woman can do. She trusted him. She let him lead even though he was not perfect at it. And her enjoyment made him want to become a better dancer for her.
That is polarity in motion. The masculine leads, the feminine follows, and the following is not passive. In ballroom dancing the follow is the one who makes the dance beautiful. The lead provides the frame and the direction. The follow provides the expression and the feeling. Two people trying to lead the same dance does not create romance.
#6 – Ask, Never Tell
Telling is for employees. Asking is for a man you admire.
Respect is to a man’s commitment what oxygen is to fire. Ephesians 5:33 says "husbands, love your wives, and wives, respect your husbands." Notice that it commands each one to give exactly what the other starves without. Women most want to be cherished and adored. Men most want to be trusted and respected.
"Take out the trash" and "could I have some help with the trash tonight?" get the same bag to the same curb, but one shrinks him and the other turns him into your hero.
Here is a second one almost nobody does, and it may be the most powerful thing in the whole video: brag about him in front of other people. At dinner with friends, say "you should have seen how he handled the whole mess with my car last week." Then watch his shoulders. A man will run through a wall for a woman who makes him look good in public. Do it behind his back too, because it always finds its way home to him.
Respect’s evil twin is the fix-him project. Every fix-him project he detects says one thing to him: she does not respect who I am. He is not a teddy bear and this is not build-a-boyfriend. No man has ever committed to a woman who treats him like an Easy-Bake Oven.
Goethe put it this way: "treat a man as he is and he stays as he is, treat a man as he can be and he becomes it." That is the whole plot of Beauty and the Beast. One woman refused to see a monster, and the beast became a prince. Your respect does not just describe your man, it helps build him.
#7 – Staying Steady Is Not Staying Silent
This is the one almost every woman gets backwards. Staying steady does not mean staying quiet.
Instead of getting mad at him, the two most powerful words you have are "I feel."
Whenever you say "I feel," you are opening your heart. You are expressing feminine energy, and it draws him toward you, because what a man ultimately wants is to feel your heart: open, available, vulnerable. It is like feeling the sun on his face. It makes him want to protect you rather than brace against you. It changes the whole energy in the room.
It works because it is about you, not about him. There is nothing to defend.
And he wants the whole spectrum. Even the difficult ones. Anger, sadness, anxiety, alongside the joy and the gratitude. So use "I feel" rather than "I think." "I’m feeling some sadness right now." "I’m feeling anxious and I don’t know what to do." "I’m feeling really grateful that we can talk about this so openly." "I feel tired, I need to take a break, and then we can talk later. Does that sound okay to you?"
Those phrases also buy you space. Where you might once have been up in your head getting triggered and planning what to say next, you can drop into your body instead. Feel your breath in your lungs. Feel your feet on the ground. Notice what is actually happening in your gut and your heart, and then share it with that one simple statement. Most of the time you do not need to add anything else.
#8 – He Stays Because You Are A Light To Be Around
He is not staying because you are impressive. He is staying because you are a light to be around.
Back to the party. The night is winding down and Sarah is exhausted, not from dancing but from performing. She was on for four hours straight, leading conversations, proving her worth, trying to be interesting, managing impressions. She feels depleted because she gave all night: energy, information, effort. And nobody gave back, because when you are doing all the giving there is no space left for a man to step into his role.
She checks her phone. No new texts. Nobody asked to see her again. She is genuinely confused, because by any objective measure she is a catch. Smart, successful, beautiful.
Here is the hard truth. You can be a ten on paper and a two in feminine energy. Hotness is not a checklist, it is a frequency, and Sarah was broadcasting on the wrong station all night. She was trying to hunt when she was designed to attract. That is a flower strapping on hiking boots, picking up a bow and arrow, and charging through the forest looking for bees. The bee was designed to come to you. Your only job is to bloom.
Meanwhile Grace is putting on her coat, and two different men come over to say goodnight. One asks to take her for coffee next week. She did not perform for that. She did not strategize. She spent the night being present, being warm, having fun, and staying in her feminine, and the masculine responded the way it was designed to. It pursued.
#9 – Follow Only While You Actually Enjoy It
Following his lead is beautiful. Following it when you hate it is not.
It crosses the line the moment you are submitting to his leadership even though you do not enjoy it. As long as you are enjoying the process and the relationship feels good to you, keep following his lead, because that is a healthy polarized relationship.
But when it stops feeling good, step back. Set the boundary with yourself and take the space, exactly like leaving the dance floor: "I’m good, I think I’m done dancing for now."
Otherwise you are not following, you are complying. You are doing what he wants while going against your own judgment, and calling it being nice. That is people pleasing, and it is a problem, because you are devaluing yourself and a man will feel it.
A man can sense when a woman is not holding her own worth, when she is lowering her standards because she is afraid of losing him. Unconsciously, he starts to value her less. He stops seeing her as the woman he wants to claim, and starts seeing her as the nice girl he talks to, or a friend, but not his partner.
#10 – Choose The Man Who Chose You First
Women often get caught in a horrible cycle of running after men who do not want them: men who are emotionally unavailable, who do not give them the attention they want, who do not commit and do not invest.
It creates a cat and mouse chase, and your brain will actually misinterpret anxiety, fear and emotional withdrawal as attraction. Those butterflies are very easy to read as "I really like this person" when what is happening is "I am anxious and my needs are not being met."
It usually traces back to attachment wounds: love you did not get from a parent, or an early romantic experience. We call it attraction anxiety, and the way you start to heal it is to reverse the pattern and only choose men who choose you first. Men who have shown interest, who have pursued you, who have invested, and who have committed.
Your life gets easier from there. You stop wondering and you stop chasing. You become the chooser. You become the one qualifying. You are in the position of being the prize.
We are all learning and growing, so give yourself grace in this process. But give yourself standards too. You are not being needy because you want someone consistent, kind, respectful and emotionally available. Those are completely valid needs.
If you want personalized guidance on exactly what to do with the specific man you have in mind right now, take our free love quiz. In just a few minutes you will get your personalized top recommendation for getting the relationship you desire. Click the link HERE to get that now. Hope you enjoyed the content, much love, and I’ll see you in the next article.
