Hey there! I’m EmpressNK, a 30 something woman living and working in London. As you can see from my picture, I’m tall (6 feet in flats), and wear a lot of colour.

I’ve been dating (and swirling) on and off for the last 6 years, with several fun interactions with WM, the most entertaining of which was the Eastern European guy in a Latin club who booty-danced in front of me for an hour to get my attention.

I’m a firm believer in the statement “to get different results you have to do things differently”. So I recently reviewed my overall dating history to figure out what had worked well and why, and what hadn’t worked well and why. Then I started on my new approach of learning and practicing how to attract, connect with, and vet men in order to end up with the right guy for me, and have a happy fulfilling life regardless :).

There’s a lot of resources out there on how to attract men, a few on how to connect with men, and very few focused specifically on how to vet men. I’m finding that a lot of the knowledge I’m gaining is applicable to other areas of my life too.

I’ll highlight some of the most interesting / useful lessons I’ve learned so far, I hope they inspire or help you in your dating and general life adventures!

Having authentic self-confidence is crucial – it’s pretty much the foundation for everything else. I suspect that being physically fit is a strong component of this and so will be exercising more. Thank God I can use dancing as my cardio as I loathe treadmills :).

Boundaries are important, and only people who respect my boundaries are allowed into my life. Similarly don’t be co-dependent or let co-dependent people into your life. Invest in real, authentic relationships, not fantasy / fake ones.

Attraction is not logical. Your ability to attract men can be boosted by increasing your visual appeal, charm / charisma, and femininity (external and internal) but it still won’t be 100% logical or guaranteed. So embrace that fact, have fun with it, and don’t feel bad over who is or isn’t attracted to you.

Knowing how to send signals of interest to men, especially the non-verbal ones is like having magical powers if you know how to do it well. It’ll take me a while to get to that level but the successes I’ve had so far have boosted my confidence and determination to get better at this :).

Check out Christelyn’s recent video about UK swirling:

Go where the men you want to meet are, and interact broadly. When you go out, be sure to mingle, have fun, dress nicely (and appropriately for the event) and be sure to talk to some men, even if you have to start the conversation off with small-talk. Don’t spend the entire time talking with women you already know or just met – men will rarely approach you when you’re in a group of other women.

Perhaps I should illustrate my new approach with a recent example?

Last Friday I had a night out with my friends at a Latin restaurant & club, for dinner and dancing. I used the opportunities I had to walk around the place a couple of times so everyone saw me in my red floor-length dress with a slit up one leg. It was classy yet sexy – and quite a few men made sure to tell me so :). The sweetest compliment came late in the night from an elderly man who told me that when I’d first entered the place I brought a touch of class with me.

After my friends and I finished eating, I was on the dance-floor like a shot, with the only married girl in the group. The other single girls stayed at the table for another whole hour before even one of them was ready to hit the dance floor. I only returned to the table to take rest breaks and check up on them, the rest of the time I was dancing, smiling and laughing a lot.

When I got back to the table for another rest break, I’d barely been sitting 5 minutes when a girl (a complete stranger) at a nearby table put her hand out and asked me to dance. So dance we did, we hadn’t even made it through one song when this good-looking British WM came over to us. After some confusion (I thought he had come for her, she thought he had come for me), she pushed me towards him and then it turned out it was there for me. Cue lots of “I like your red dress comments” – I can now confirm after that night and other experiments that red is the strongest colour for attracting men. Even men who usually don’t go for your type will look at you when you wear red (since you’re not their type they’ll quickly look away again lol), this just shows the power of red. If you don’t believe me, try it and see – get a red dress in a flattering shade, shape & fit to your body, wear it out with light make-up and nice hair, and count how many men look at you that day or night compared to a day you didn’t wear red.

Sorry, got distracted there…back to the WM, who I’d actually not noticed so far that night, as I’d been on the lookout for two tall Latino men I’d spotted earlier :). He asked me the usual questions – what’s your name, where are you from, what do you do for work, and volunteered his own information. It quickly became clear Mr Good-looking was not sober – he was quite respectful and fun to talk with, but I couldn’t count on him to initiate the next logical steps of a more detailed conversation or just exchanging contact details. So in the spirit of being proactive (but not desperate), I pointed out that I had to get back to my friends, and if he wanted to see me again perhaps he should ask for my contact details. His response was “I have an even better solution”, and he dug out a business card and handed it to me.

What was so different? The old EmpressNK would have gone to the club and focused more on the men there than having fun and being visible. The new EmpressNK checked the men out, but that was secondary to having fun – she actually danced more with her girl friends than with guys, but was smiling the whole time. She would also have written off the non-sober WM but has now realised that the majority of WM in the UK get drunk on weekend nights but that does not necessarily mean they are like that the rest of the week. The old EmpressNK would have fixated on the men she couldn’t have (Exhibit A – the two tall Latino men) and written off the men who approached her out of the blue (Exhibit B – the British WM), as she was ignorant of how men tend to have clear types and approach the women they find attractive. The old EmpressNK would have spent more time at the table with her non-dancing friends, reducing her visibility and accessibility to potentially interested men.

Like I said, to get different results you have to do things differently 😉