Female Game for Girls in Their 20s

[This is the second of a three-part series that describes how to focus your dating efforts in your teens, twenties and thirties. There are links below the post to the other two parts.]

Female game consists of three parts or stages:

1. Making yourself as attractive as possible
2. Making yourself approachable
3. Filtering out the men that just want to have sex with you from the men that want to date you

While these general stages apply to all women, a woman's age, experience and eligibility should factor heavily into her approach to dating if she wants to eventually find a man to settle down with. Therefore, various aspects of these three stages - or the components of each one - are more or less important at different times in a woman's life.

As a girl in your twenties, you are moving into and living through your most eligible years, and should tailor your game accordingly. Your goal should be to meet and date as many eligible men as you can, in an effort to increase the statistical probability of meeting one guy that you can really love. In order to do this effectively you need to be honest with yourself, and filter out the men who will waste your time - even when you are tempted by your emotions, pride or biology to do otherwise. This requires that you spread your attention across all three stages listed above, in the following ways:

• Establish the right foundations. There are a number of things a girl should do in her teens to prepare for her twenties. If you haven't done all of these things, or still need to work more on some of them, do so first. Because you have an age advantage over the girls doing these things in their teens, you will be able to learn some of these lessons faster and perhaps more effectively. But these steps are critical - they should not be skipped.
• Adjust and improve your look as you become a woman. Continue to learn about your complexion, make up, fit and style, and continue to improve your appearance. Your efforts in this realms should be informed by three concepts: (a) your appearance matters, (b) your appearance is controllable, and (c) you can always look better than you do now.
• Embrace your sexuality. As you become sexually eligible and your confidence grows, you will begin to feel comfortable in your own skin - in a sense, literally. Your look should migrate from cute towards sexy. There is no longer any reason to hide your body, any more than there is a reason to suppress your smile or intentionally give yourself a bad hairstyle. Show off your figure with class of course, but also recognize that living in denial of your sexuality is a recipe for unhappiness.
• Realize that your male peers are growing up. As you move through your twenties, men will start to gain the upper hand in relationships, due to their high sex drives and promiscuous nature. You should have prepared yourself for this during your teens, but now it means that your defensive game (filtering, #3 above) will become increasingly important. Adjust your disposition towards men accordingly: don't initiate contact, cut off guys who dump you, and - most importantly - wait for commitment before you sleep with anyone.
• Put yourself out there. Now that you are looking for a husband, you should - ideally - meet new men almost on a daily basis. The only way you will do this is by going to places and doing things to facilitate it. Creating this kind of exposure is a huge part of "making yourself approachable." If this means forcing yourself into awkward social situations, so be it. If it means you have to hang out with people that you don't particularly like, deal with it. But living in the suburbs with your parents, skipping happy hours with coworkers, or staying in on weekends will not accomplish this. You are the only one responsible for your own social life, so put yourself in living and working situations conducive to interacting with men, and learn to be social.
• Don't waste your time. If you are interested in getting married, your mid to late late twenties is the best time to find your husband, and your early twenties is a close second. Wasting time in obviously dead-end relationships because you "just don't want to put pressure on him" is bullshit - and is either a symptom of your insecurity, or just stupid. Make sure that your boyfriend knows what you eventually want, then be honest with yourself and cut your losses when you need to.
• Avoid men your own age. For most of your twenties, men your age will be either actively fucking around, or otherwise disinclined to settle down. Most (not all, but most) do not want to get married until their late twenties at the earliest, and they will do whatever women allow them to do in the meantime. You will be fighting a constant uphill battle if you try to date guys your own age. Instead, focus on men who are 3 to 6 years older than you. For example, if you start dating a guy who is 27 or 28 when you are 23, you could conceivably get married a year later. Avoid younger men like the plague and treat men more than eight years your senior with caution - there is probably a reason that they haven't settled down yet.
• Recognize and seize opportunities. While 22 might seem a little young to be settling down, you would be stupid to throw away a lifetime of happiness with a solid man for three or four more years of partying, travel or "independence." In your twenties, the upcoming five years always seem like they'll be the most important ones of your life, but they won't be. By the time you are 30 they will seem almost as frivolous and naive as your early teens seem to you now, so forget your concerns about "missing out." A little foresight at this age will go a long way.
• Know why you are dating. It is easy to get caught up in the emotions surrounding relationships, to the point that you forget why you got into them in the first place. If your goal is to find a husband someday, remind yourself of this when you are tempted to sleep with a guy who clearly just wants sex, or when you realize that you don't want to end up with the guy that you want to win back so badly.
• Decide what constitutes good enough. Forget the notion of "the one" - it is beyond absurd. Only those with an imagination suffocated by Hollywood will lament a loss of "Romance" in acknowledging this. Trying to attract and select "the one" (or even just "the best" one) out of numerous options will inevitably drive you crazy. Think carefully, decide what attributes Mr. Right has, then fight the urge to wait for something better once you find a man that has them. Write down what you are looking for if you find it helpful to do so.
• Resist becoming jaded. As you wade through the sea of men who are below your league, don't like you enough, only want sex, or aren't ready to settle down, make conscious efforts to stay positive about your prospects. This means pausing in the midst of your sorrows after being dumped, and recognizing that you wouldn't value a man that was easy to come by, or that being rejected is part of life. Remember that it isn't your failures (i.e. in relationships) that define you, but how you respond to them: so stop feeling sorry for yourself, get back up, and get back out there.
• Challenge yourself daily. Whether you do this by reading a book about raising children, forcing yourself to confront a difficult social situation, or learning a second language when you'd rather be watching TV, you should be constantly pushing yourself a little bit - improving your abilities, knowledge, and expanding your comfort zone. This is how you will stand out from the crowd.

The overarching themes during your twenties should be increasing opportunities and filtering, but both of these should be done with a solid understanding of the dating landscape - which you can get in part from this blog.

Related Posts

1. Female Game for Girls in Their Teens

2. Female Game for Women in Their 30s

3. How to Adapt Your Game According to Your Results