How To ACTUALLY Attract by Rick Lewis | Part 1

The most attractive people don't try to be attractive. They don't meticulously craft the perfect opening line, optimize their profile, or rehearse witty stories. Instead, they operate with an effortless magnetism that seems to pull people toward them, while everyone else is left pushing boulders uphill, wondering why all their effort results in so little. We've been taught that attraction is an equation to be solved: say the right things, wear the right clothes, and project the right image. But this turns connection into a performance, a stressful audition where you're constantly afraid of saying the wrong line and getting booed off stage. The real secret is in stripping away layers of performance. True attraction is a signal you broadcast when you stop trying to jam everyone else's frequency.

This frustrating paradox—that the effort to attract actively repels—is what drove Rick Lewis on a years-long personal and professional quest. As a dating coach, he saw countless clients armed with scripts, tactics, and checklists who were more anxious and less successful than ever. He realized the conventional wisdom wasn't just wrong; it was backward. The problem was a fundamental misunderstanding of human connection. He wrote this book to dismantle the entire performance-based approach, showing how to tap into the authentic, magnetic core that already exists when the trying stops.

Module 1: The Alien as a Mirror for Human Relationships

Many of the stories in this collection use the idea of the alien to hold up a mirror to our own relationships. They explore the profound sense of foreignness we can feel with those closest to us.

One powerful story examines the relationship between a teacher, Douglas, and an intelligent orangutan named Annie. They share a deep bond and communicate through sign language. Douglas feels a connection with Annie that he lacks with his own wife. But this connection is built on a dangerous assumption. He projects human romantic desires onto an animal, leading to a catastrophic misunderstanding. He sees her affection as reciprocation of his attraction. When he makes a sexual advance, Annie's rejection is instant and absolute: "Not you." This moment reveals the tragic gap between his perception and her reality. It's a stark reminder of how easily we can superimpose our own narratives onto others, blinding ourselves to their true nature.

This brings us to a crucial insight. Our inability to love authentically often transcends species. Douglas's failure with Annie mirrors the failure of his marriage. He finds his wife difficult and complex, preferring what he perceives as Annie's simplicity. In the end, he reflects that Annie didn't understand him "any better than a human." But he misses the point. The failure was his own projection, his inability to see either the ape or the woman for who they truly were.

Another story flips this dynamic. It imagines a future where humanity is a client state of a powerful alien empire, the Pashi. The protagonist, James, becomes the lover of a Pashi diplomat. Assimilation into a dominant culture can lead to the complete erosion of personal identity. James abandons his human habits. He stops drinking beer and instead consumes the Pashi's "salty, thick ooze." His self-worth becomes entirely dependent on his status as a "pet" to his alien lover. He is cut off from his own people, yet never truly a part of the colonizing power. This creates a profound and inescapable loneliness.

So what's the takeaway here? These stories suggest that the "alien" isn't always out there. Often, it's right here. It's the person across the dinner table. It's the cultural force we can't escape. It's even the part of ourselves we refuse to see. The alien serves as a metaphor for the gaps in understanding, the projections, and the power dynamics that define our most intimate connections.