Does doing things to appear cool to a girl never quite seem to come off like you had planned? We've all seen it and we've all done it. Trying to impress a girl, trying to get her interest, you end up saying stupid stuff, getting less interest, getting nervous, saying something even stupider in a downward cycle ending in a terminal, "Nice to meet you, Bye :) [Got to get away from this weird guy]".

Despair and recklessness alternating back and forth, you don't think you have a chance with this chick to start with, then you charge in, get bad feedback, a little more despair, rally with recklessness. That is why the process feels painful.

Would you typically get on your hands and knees and crawl to get something out of someone you've never met? Just because you're not physically prostrate doesn't mean you're not emotionally prostrate. You're doing the emotional equivalent of getting on your hands and knees and begging her to like you. Does this seem likely to work? Does it seem likely to make you feel good about yourself?

The fact of the matter is that her opinion shouldn't mean that much to you until you know her well enough to know that it matters. This, of course, doesn't mean complete indifference (If anybody has to say "I don't care what people think of me", clearly they do).

This is all well and good to say, of course, everybody "knows" that you can't come off as desperate, but most men's solution is to be desperate and try really hard not to seem so. That's why there's a stiff strained quality to a man caught in the despair/recklessness cycle, nervous laughter, etc.

However not being desperate is easier than you might think. Aquinas has a great section in the Summa on the qualities of the "magnanimous" man. What he means by "magnanimous", isn't purely generosity, the sense by which we mean it, but more a sense of "greatness", someone who is really proficient at something, even if that activity is being a man. One of the byproducts of this kind of magnanimity is security. The magnanimous man is secure, feels safe and has a slower, more natural presentation of himself.

According to Aquinas the key to this seems to be that he is only concerning himself with a very few things. When you're in the despair/recklessness cycle, you're kind of in a mental fog, trying to do too much at once, your mind is racing to find all sorts of ways to make her like you.

The key is to decide beforehand, perhaps even in your room long beforehand, what things you'll deliberately focus on when talking to a girl, and the things that you will not focus on. A good list might be:

Focus on:

Getting to know her, revealing a little bit of my own personality so she can get to know me.

Do not focus on:

Wondering whether or not she likes me, wondering what will seem cool to her, anything that seems like "begging" behavior or might be.

The key part of this focus, or non focus, is deliberate intent. You can't stop ideas from presenting themselves to your mind, or some old holdover feelings of insecurity. But, if you notice you start trending another way, shift your focus back to where you want it to go. "What should I be focusing on?" Remember your list. And put the begging bowl down.