How To Attract The Man You Want: 6 Surprising Strategies

Wondering how to attract the man you want? In this guide, we share 6 strategies that will help you attract committed men and repel toxic ones.

1. Self-Absorption

If you find that you’re always attracting men into your life who are self-absorbed, narcissistic, who always put themselves first, well girlfriend, often that's because you don't put yourself first. You are so afraid of being considered self-absorbed, or you’re afraid to be focusing on yourself, or maybe you don't necessarily have the capacity to do it at this particular moment. A lot of the time,  you have developed habits, cognitive patterns, or behavior patterns over decades that make it easy for you to step into a  people-pleasing mentality. 

This of course attracts toxic men into your life because they're feeding off your attention. It's also easy for them to guilt-trip you because you're not putting yourself first so they can say, “What about me? You didn't make me dinner today,” right? “You didn't have sex with me tonight,” and so on, it's all about them and you will continue to justify it to yourself.

 I had a personal experience with that when I was dating – I was always put last, I was always the second or the third or fourth option because I wasn't putting myself first. However, committed men love when women put themselves first. When I met my husband, Brody, he was so into it and so attracted to me doing my own thing, focusing on my purpose, focusing on what I desire and putting myself first. That, of course, made him wildly attracted to me and eventually, he proposed. Leave me a comment right below and let me know if it is easy or hard for you to focus on yourself or have you already started this process by yourself. 

2. Unapologetic Self-Expression

Now, narcissists and toxic men hate when you express yourself. What they want instead is being able to express themselves, them getting all the attention, and you, of course dimming your light accordingly. When you choose to express yourself, you exude confidence, you exude charisma, and you will also get all the attention from other people. That is way too much work for the toxic guy so he walks in the opposite direction. 

However, a committed man is madly in love with this idea that you are unapologetically yourself because he's looking for a partner that he can truly trust and he knows that we don't always feel great, we’re not always shy, we can also be outspoken, bodacious, and whatever it may be. He appreciates the wide range that you have to offer as a woman. Of course, because of the trust that you build, the intimacy can deepen as well, which is what this committed man is looking for.

We discuss this and so much more in my free dating and support group at mymfbgroup.com, or simply click that button below to join the party and have conversations of other like-minded single women who are ready to attract the right man for them, or have questions about the men that they are currently dating. 

3. Boundaries

Now, I know you've heard me talk about boundaries over and over and over again, but why is that? Because it's not about how many times you hear it, but it's about you really integrating it. You may have read 10, 20, 100 articles about boundaries, yet you're not really setting them. So let's talk about what gets in the way of you setting those boundaries. Before we do that, we'll just quickly go into why it's important. 

When you set boundaries, again, it’s way too much work for the toxic guy. Like he wants to have a people-pleaser, somebody who doesn't dare to set boundaries, somebody who doesn't dare stand up for her needs, he's like, “Boundaries? Oh my God, I have to deal with that all the time? No, thank you.” However, a committed man will fall deeper and deeper in love with you when you set boundaries because he wants to have a deep, connected, interdependent relationship. In other words, he knows that you're not collapsing into his frame and he's not collapsing into your frame so you can hold your own in the relationship, which of course, also shows him that you want to date him and not just any guy. It also results in a tremendous amount of respect, which is very needed when it comes to continuing the relationship. 

Now, what we need to talk about is what gets in the way of you setting boundaries. So part of it is guilt. So once you set boundaries, once you say, “no,” you feel extremely uncomfortable, you feel this knot in your stomach, and you may make up all kinds of excuses because you feel so guilty. However, the true reason why you feel guilty is that you've been trained by society, and of course, maybe even by your parents. You may have been manipulated, even as little kids we get manipulated, we're being told, “Oh no, you should share this with your little sibling.” “No, no, no, don't do this, don't do that,” right. So guilt develops so quickly.

Even worse, some parents, and if you are a parent please don't do this, don't tell your kids that they owe you because you raised them. They don't owe you anything. So the worst thing that you can do is ingrain that guilt into your children, it has so many long-term effects. Especially when you come from a narcissistic background, guilt is inevitable because it is a tool and a weapon that your parents consistently use. So be aware of that. Just because you feel guilty does not mean you should not set boundaries.

Instead, what you need to learn is to increase your capacity for guilt, discomfort, and tension. And we'll talk a little bit more about that later on. So comment below, what's your relationship with the word no and with boundaries? How was that handled in your household? I would love to know. 

4. Alignment

Alignment is when what you think, say and do are the same, they are in line with each other. You're actually in alignment with your values – you have integrity. Now you will be such a repellent to toxic guys because they look for people who are out of alignment, why? Well, because they are out of alignment themselves so they're looking for a vibrational match as well if that makes sense. They will walk past you if you are in alignment, they will not bother because they will feel ashamed and embarrassed and have their shame shields come up. So it's not going to work, they're not going to put themselves into a position where they know the person is confident, trusting and honoring themselves enough. They will find somebody who's less secure than you are. 

However, a man of “king-tegrity” I call it, the man who looks for commitment, he very much appreciates alignment, is very much inspired by that, and actually, you'll hold each other accountable in the relationship to stay in alignment because he likes and respects you, he honors you, he trusts you. So that causes a tremendous amount of opening in his own heart and willingness to share things that he normally wouldn't share, emotions he may have never shared with another woman before. So how you can start practicing this is just asking yourself, “When I promised myself I’d go to the gym this morning, did I do that?,” or “What have I said that I haven’t followed through on just because there’s no one to keep me accountable?” 

So it's about keeping promises to yourself. Are you keeping promises to yourself even if nobody else knows about it, even if you don't have an accountability buddy? That's what it truly means to create alignment inside of yourself. Asking yourself, “Am I in the right profession? Am I on purpose? Am I in alignment with my body? Do I actually want to cry but I'm laughing instead? Do I send congruent signals so I'm actually in alignment with how I really feel? Do I have the right friends?” Those are questions that you can ask yourself to check in and go deeper with the alignment conversation.

If you don't know exactly where you stand on all of that, especially when it comes to attracting the right man for you, then I invite you to take my free “Magnetize Your Man” quiz at mymquiz.com. Again, the button is right below this article where you can get a more personalized dating strategy, and I'll also have some bonus gifts in there. 

5. Shame Mastery

In other words, you can't get gas lit. When you master your shame, or should I say, your shame shields, meaning your reactive patterns that occur when you experience shame, you are golden. Let me give you an example; so let's say you have shame around being, let's say arrogant. So if someone uses the word arrogant, you immediately become apologetic, you're collapsing into their frame, or you're like, “Oh no, no, just joking. No, it's all good.” Like you're going into denial or you're going on the attack like, “Who do you think you are?” That means you have not mastered your shame at all, and you're secretly deeply afraid that somebody will call you arrogant. That means that person owns you. That's exactly what toxic guys know. They know exactly where they can poke and then know exactly how to manipulate you. 

I'll give you a personal example. A few years ago, I was at a business conference and I must've been speaking in front of about 100 women or so. There was a business coach there, and she was doing some hot seats and I said, sure, why not? So I did the hot seat and long story short, she told me on stage that I am borderline arrogant. Of course, it comes as no surprise that this occurred because my dad always told me, “Who do you think you are?” So rest assured when you are on a healing path, you will encounter people who will call you out on the things that you are most afraid about. However, instead of attacking her, I did a sexy dance, and I said,” I'm so arrogant, that's me!” I owned it. It wasn't about “Oh my gosh, now I'm going to be the most arrogant bitch on this planet,” I just didn't react to it, I embraced it and found pleasure in it. 

Another example is when I was afraid to be called selfish. Now my mom loves to call me selfish, okay. That was, by the way, her way to manipulate me. So really think about it, when you think back at your parents, what's that core statement, that core quality that you would do anything for nobody else to call you that, that's usually where you want to look the deepest, you know. So, sure enough, when somebody called me selfish, I said, “Yeah, absolutely, I'm putting myself first, thank you so much for noticing.” I appreciate that because, I'd rather be called selfish any day of the week, than a doormat. 

So you always want to see what is in opposition? So why is that important? Well, first of all, it repels toxic men of course, because they can't stand when they can't manipulate you. However, committed men are going to be so amazed. Like when my husband saw how I was dealing with certain triggers and people trying to shame me on YouTube and on this very blog and I didn't react to it and I didn't delete it or hide it or anything. Instead, I was like, “Yeah, oh my gosh, totally.”. I ended up sharing it on Facebook too and wrote a post about it. He was so amazing, he actually started to share more about what he's afraid of and what he's shameful of because we all want intimacy and trust, but what that takes is actually authenticity and transparency, and that usually also includes some shame. 

So now we'd love to hear from you. Right below this article let me know which of those qualities you're already embodying, which ones are easy for you, and which ones are like, “Wow, I need some support here Antia!”

BONUS SECRET

For those of you who stayed, here is my bonus secret – you are comfortable with space. Now, toxic guys actually use space to manipulate you or even punish you. You see when I was dating this guy, this must have been, oh my gosh, at least 15 years ago, and he used space, he would not get back to me for days to punish me. So guess what? When you are okay with space and you’re like, “Okay, you need some time. He needs to breathe. Let him do his thing,” and you're not impacted by it, it has zero effect.

So either the toxic guy will stop his behavior or he will flat out just disappear because his tactics don't work. He’ll often say that you just simply don't love him, but no, girlfriend, please don't fall for that oldest trick in the book. Committed men love space. They love space because they love interdependence. So they take their own space, they may go into the woods with their friends, or on a trip, or this or that, and he appreciates you doing the same for yourself. And then you come back with full buckets filled with adventures and joy to share in your relationship. 

How To Attract The Man You Want Conclusion

Don’t forget to comment and subscribe for more juicy articles on how to attract the man you want and keep him. Also, if you haven't seen it already, check out our article on the “Five Real Reasons Why Men Respond to Distance in Love” by clicking here.