Dr. Ali Binazir, Happiness Engineer

Gentlemen.  It’s been a while since I wrote a proper article just for you.  As my original supporters, I would like to thank you for getting me in this fine mess — I think.  And, to be fair, this information applies to women as well, so all the ladies have my blessing to read this, too.  It’s just that they have these skills innately, whereas men have to learn them.  Now let’s get down to business.

If you took any biology classes in high school or college, you came across the central dogma of molecular biology.  In its simplest form, it says that in a cell, information flows from DNA to RNA to protein.

This article’s not going to be about molecular biology.  It’s about courtship, your love life, your intimate relations with women.  For lack of a better word, I use dating as an umbrella term for the set of interactions in this realm.

Like the central dogma of molecular biology, the central dogma of dating is the one principle from which everything else radiates.

That said, here’s the central dogma of dating as I see it today.  As TS Eliot said in Prufrock, “In a minute there is time/ For decisions and revisions that a minute will reverse,” so I reserve the right to change my mind tomorrow:

In a dyad, the physiology of one person, the regulator, predominantly affects the physiology of the other, the regulated.   The regulator achieves his or her outcome in the  interaction more often than the regulated.

Put more succinctly: if you want to win, be the regulator.

Now let’s make sense of this.  Dyad is merely a fancy term for a couple, just two people.  People are influencing each other’s physiology all the time, subtly and overtly.  In fact, our mirror neurons tune into the physiology of other people and synchronize with them.  Experiments show that people in rapport tend to match each other’s heart rate, breathing rate and blood pressure.  Wild stuff.

Of course, if this is happening, you have to ask yourself, “Who’s following whom?”  Who’s the leader, the regulator, and who’s being regulated?

Ah.  Entire books have been written about this, my friend.  Turns out that if you go talk to your boss, or any male higher-ranking than yourself, you will unconsciously raise or lower your vocal register to match his.  Like other primates, humans have dominance hierarchies, and we physiologically respond to them.

So if you’re with a woman, you have a choice of being either the regulator or the regulated.  When you’re the regulator, you have power.  The interaction is much more likely to go your way. When you’re the regulated, you’re toast.  She owns you.

For example, let’s say you meet a woman whom you find dazzlingly attractive.  When her image hits your retina, your body starts to respond to her presence within seconds: increased heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate and cutaneous sweating; dilated pupils; increased blood flow to your nether regions.  And she hasn’t even opened her mouth.

Game, set, match.  You’ve already lost.  As Sun Tzu said in The Art of War: “The battle is won or lost before the first blow is struck.”

But let’s say you’re a standup comic.  And you’re good — Dane Cook good, Chris Rock good.  There’s a roomful of people, but you’re so concentrated on the task at hand you don’t get distracted by the numerous hotties in the audience.  And as you start delivering your routine, the room starts to respond to you.  They laugh, they gasp, they double over with laughter.  You are the regulator.  You are playing the room like it’s some kind of instrument.

Do you think Dane Cook gets laid?  I’m guessing he does okay.  Other performers also do well with the ladies: actors, musicians, dancers, athletes.  They’re basically mass regulators, making the women feel stuff.

So think back to all the relationships you’ve had.  Do you remember how they started?  Did you succeed when you were the regulator or the regulated?  When you had power in the relationship, were you the regulator or the regulated?

Or, think about your friends and family.  Your parents even.  Who’s regulating?  Who’s regulated?  Who’s got power?  A pattern should be emerging by now.

Good partners in a relationship regulate one another towards homeostatic states.  That’s what’s known as love.  Bad partners regulate each other towards having greater power for themselves.

So what do we do with this?  How can this principle help you have greater success in your love life?  How do you get to be the regulator?  This is all new for me, too, so here are some ideas I’ve come up with:

1) Be a powerful man. If you’re a billionaire, senator, certified hunk, silly tall, star professional athlete or big-shot CEO, you will have regulator (aka dominant) physiology.  Almost everyone will accede power to you before you even ask for it, so you don’t have to do much.

Unfortunately, ‘go be a 7ft tall billionaire senator’ is not really useful advice.  So…

2) Learn to regulate your own physiology. You know who’s not afraid of powerful men?  Buddhist monks who meditate a lot.  They have achieved supreme control over their own physiology, so outside events don’t affect them all that much, even it’s a meeting with the President of the US.

You don’t have to retreat to a monastery to achieve that kind of control over your own physiology — that would pretty much shut down your love life, which is not you were signing up for.  However, you can engage in meditation, yoga, self-hypnosis and other practices that give you greater control over your mind and body.

3) Be compelling. In The Tao of Dating: The Thinking Man’s Enlightened Guide to Success with Women, my #1 bit of advice for creating attraction with women was to be compelling.  That means people are compelled to respond to you in your presence.  You are not a potted plant — you make stuff happen.

Turns it this was just a way of expressing the concept of being the regulator.  When you’re compelling, you’re regulating the physiology of those around you.  Some of the methods for being compelling that I mention in the ebook: excellence, mystery, outlandishness, attention, and fun.

If you can’t be a rock star, you can do a magic trick, recite a poem, cook a mouthwatering meal or tell a good joke.  There are many ways to be compelling that are fully within reach.

4) Have a strong outcome. I know plenty of powerful men who flail miserably with women.  Partially, this is because they don’t recognize their own power — they were wimpy for so long they never learned how to snap out of it.

But part of it is that they don’t have a strong outcome.  Now that you’ve learned how to be a regulator, how are you going to change her physiology?

If you capture her attention but just talk about intellectual stuff or engage in small talk, chances are there will be no smoochy-smoochy, buddy.  You need to steer her physiology towards your outcome.  If you don’t have an outcome, that’s what you’ll get 100% of the time — nothing.  Having an outcome doesn’t guarantee achieving it — to paraphrase the Bhagavad Gita, you’re entitled to your actions, not the results of your actions.  And being too attached to the outcome is counterproductive.  But without an outcome, you’re pretty much lost.  Have an outcome.

So there it is, my friends.  If you’d like to be successful with women, the first step is to manage your state around them.  The second step is to learn how to manage her state and move it closer to your outcome.  The ladies, especially the good-looking ones, have a built-in advantage in this realm, so do your homework, gentlemen.