How to Be More Approachable to Men 🧠
You’re Not Intimidating. You’re Unreachable. (And You Built It on Purpose.)
TL;DR Summary:
There’s a name for the thing standing between you and getting approached, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Your face is doing math before your mouth opens — and most men can read the answer in under two seconds.
The thing you’ve been calling “high standards” might actually be a part of you rejecting people who haven’t even spoken yet.
The cold front you built to keep bad men out is filtering out the good ones instead — and they’re the ones who’ll never push back.
There’s one embarrassingly simple psychological effect that makes you measurably more attractive with zero conversation required.
The real fix isn’t a body language checklist. It’s becoming approachable to someone specific first — and it’s not him.
Becoming Approachable
I have been asked how to be more approachable to men so. many. times.
So many times that I’m pretty sure I could be shaken awake at 3am, mid-dream, and rattle off the entire list without blinking.
Coffee chats. DMs. Discovery calls that were supposed to be about literally anything else. “Cody, how do I get men to actually approach me?”
Okay. OKAY. You asked.
Buckle up. It’s gonna be a wild ride, people.
I’m going to give you every single thing I can think of, rapid-fire, no breaks. And somewhere in here, one of them is going to reach off the screen and slap you clean across the face.
When it does? That’s the one. Sit with that one.
But hear me before we start: the list is not the point.
The list is the symptom.
We’re going to rip through all of it, and then I’m going to show you the thing living underneath all of it.
That’s the part that will actually change your life.
Let’s dive in.
Your Body Is Talking Before Your Mouth Opens
Take the AirPods out. Both of them.
Sunglasses up on your head, not over your eyes.
Phone face-down, or better, in the bag. You cannot be approached through a screen.
And if every silent moment, every line, every two-second lull, you dive into that phone like it owes you money, you just slammed the one window someone had.
Slow everything down by twenty percent. Stop power-walking through every room like you’re being chased.
Unclench your jaw. Drop your shoulders out of your ears. Take your hands out of fists. Uncross your arms — you’re not cold, you’re guarding.
Point your feet at the room, not the exit you already scouted.
Stop folding yourself into the smallest possible shape.
Take up space like you’re allowed to be there. (You are.)
And stop scanning the room like airport security.
Why This Matters
Here’s what’s actually happening in people’s brains around you.
There’s a process, Dr. Stephen Porges named neuroception, the way your nervous system reads safety and danger below conscious thought.
Everyone in that room is running it on you, constantly, without meaning to.
Fast movement, clenched jaw, crossed arms, eyes sweeping for exits, your body is sending the oldest signal in the mammalian playbook: threat is near, stay sharp.
Other people’s nervous systems pick it up and quietly file you under do not approach.
Not rude. Not personal. Just brains doing threat detection.
And evolutionarily, this is ancient. Long before language, primates read each other’s bodies to answer one question: are you safe to come near?
Open posture, slow movement, a soft face, friendly signals, come closer.
Crossed arms, fists, a scanning gaze, defensive signals, back off.
You think you’re standing in a coffee shop, but as far as your body language is concerned, you’re standing at a perimeter.
Your Face Is the Front Door
Smile at something before you need to. The dog. The barista. The absurd oat-milk price. Or nothing in particular.
A warm face is a habit, not a performance you flip on the second a man walks into frame.
Let your face actually react to things. A blank face reads as a wall, and walls don’t get hellos.
Your face isn’t a decoration. It’s a readout.
The vagus nerve is wired straight into the muscles of your face, your eyes, your voice, and drives your “social engagement system”.
When your system feels safe, that safety shows up on your face automatically, and other people co-regulate off it; they feel it and soften toward you.
When you’ve spent years bracing, the face goes still and flat, not because you’re cold, but because a guarded nervous system stops broadcasting.
People don’t read “deep and mysterious.”
They read closed..
Here’s some guy math for you:
A guy clocks a warm, reactive face, and his brain runs the math: open, I probably won’t get torched if I walk over.
He clocks a flat, braced one, and the math flips instantly.
Most of us aren’t deciding you’re unlikable.
We’re reading a door. And a flat face reads as locked.
Stop Guarding the Exits
Stop bringing a friend everywhere as a human shield.
Stand near people, not wedged in the corner with maximum exit access.
Stop angling your body toward the door you’ve already mapped.
You’re not at a party. You’re running a tactical operation.
And your nervous system genuinely believes that’s keeping you safe, which, fair, it kept you safe at some point.
But there’s a part of you on permanent security detail here.
We’ll come back to this PART of you in a moment. (Yes, this is an IFS reference)
Familiarity Is Literally Attraction
Go to the same gym, the same coffee shop, the same class, enough that your face becomes furniture.
This isn’t woo. It’s the mere exposure effect, one of the most replicated findings in all of psychology: your brain trusts what it’s seen before.
Repeated, safe exposure to the same face measurably increases liking, with zero conversation required.
Familiarity doesn’t breed contempt.
In real human interaction, it breeds attraction.
So part of “being more approachable” is embarrassingly simple: be a regular.
Let your face get familiar.
Let people’s nervous systems log you as “safe, I’ve seen them before” long before a single word is exchanged.
Initiation Isn’t Desperate. It’s Regulated.
Say hi first.
When someone talks to you, turn your whole body, not just your head.
Ask one follow-up question.
Laugh out loud. The real one. Not the little exhale through your nose.
Say the nice thing you’re thinking instead of swallowing it.
Compliment a stranger and watch what it does to your state, AND theirs.
Stop the clipped, one-word answers that slam every door on purpose.
And match your words to your face. “I’m so happy to be here,” delivered like a hostage reading a ransom note, helps no one.
Every one of these is a bid, a small offer of connection (Dr. Gottman’s word for the tiny moves that build or break a bond).
Turning your body, asking the question, the genuine laugh: these are the micro-signals that tell another nervous system I’m in this, I’m not bracing to bolt.
And warmth is contagious; a real laugh or a real compliment pulls the other person up toward your state.
Saying hi first isn’t thirsty. It’s the sign of a nervous system settled enough to reach.
So, let warmth leak out BEFORE you’ve decided he’s worth it.
Read that again. :)
Stop Calling Your Wall “Standards”
If your nervous system decided, years ago, that being open ends in getting blindsided, it will leak that fear into every single item on that list.
You’ll take the AirPods out and still feel like a fortress.
You’ll “smile more,” and it’ll come out as a flinch.
Because the problem was never the AirPods.
Stop calling your wall “standards.”
Stop calling your fear “being selective.”
Stop testing people you haven’t even met.
Stop pre-rejecting yourself so nobody can beat you to it.
You consciously want to be approached, but your body is advertising the exact opposite.
I call it a signal mismatch; what you want and what you broadcast are at war, and your body wins every time.
It’s faster than your intentions, and it’s running the whole time you’re standing there deciding whether to seem nice.
And in IFS terms, this mismatch isn’t random; it’s being run by a part of you.
Let’s call this Part of you, The Bouncer.
Now that it’s gotta name, you can stop confusing it with your personality.
The Bouncer stands at the door of you and decides who gets in.
Sounds protective. flattering, even. “I have high standards.”
But here’s what The Bouncer actually does: to guarantee that no one who could hurt you ever gets through, it rejects everyone.
Pre-emptively.
From across the room. Before they’ve said a word.
It would rather you be lonely and safe than open and blindsided again.
Because it remembers, in vivid detail, the last time you were reachable.
That’s not a character flaw. That’s a survival strategy.
A survival strategy that’s now costing you the exact thing you want.
The Cruel Joke
The cruelest part about this whole thing is that the cold front doesn’t even filter out the bad ones.
The bad men love a challenge; a bounder at the door is a game to them.
What this Part of you is actually filtering out is the good ones.
The regulated men. The ones who don’t chase. The ones who see a closed door and respectfully assume it means no.
The exact men you say you want are the ones most likely to honor a “no” you never meant to send.
Unfortunate, I know.
Become Approachable to Yourself First
If you don’t like you, and wouldn’t walk up and talk to you, why on earth would anyone else?
Half the men you swear “never approach you” looked twice, read your face, and got an answer.
You keep saying men are intimidated by you.
Some are, sure. The rest just got the no you were broadcasting across the room and took it at face value.
This is why warmth-on-command never works. You can’t perform your way out of a nervous system that doesn’t feel safe.
The real work isn’t getting better at faking approachable when a man appears.
It’s becoming someone your own system trusts to be open, so warmth stops being a switch and becomes a default.
In IFS, that’s Self-leadership.
When The Bouncer finally trusts that the grown, present, you can handle a rupture now.
That you won’t be annihilated if it goes sideways, that’s when it starts to believe it can step back from the door.
And when it steps back, every single thing on this list stops being a performance and starts being… just you.
Available.
Where to Actually Start
If you try to fix everything on this list at once, your nervous system will read it as one more high-stakes performance and clamp down harder.
So we go small.
Run ONE signal as a rep.
Pick a single thing, AirPods out and face up, or say hi to one barista, or one genuine laugh.
Just one.
Do it daily until it’s boring.
These are small reps, and there’s no montage music, sadly enough.
But they’re exactly how a nervous system relearns that open doesn’t equal danger.
You’re not trying to become bubbly.
You’re collecting evidence that being a little more open didn’t kill you.
The Wall Made Sense
You didn’t build it because you’re broken, or cold, or “too much.”
You built it because being reachable, one time, cost you something enormous, and a very loyal part of you swore never again.
That’s not a flaw. That’s love for yourself, expressed clumsily, in armor.
You’re not unreachable because you’re unlovable.
You’re unreachable because you’re well-defended.
And defenses can come down, slowly, on your terms, when the thing underneath them finally believes you’re safe enough to hold whatever walks through the door.
So, try a couple of these.
Tell me how they go, I’d love to hear!
And remember, you are worthy of being walked across a room for.
As-you-are worthy.
Not once-you-fix-yourself worthy.
You’ve got this.
And as always, until next time… Live Heroically 🧠
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Supporting Research
Porges, S. W. (2007). The polyvagal perspective. Biological Psychology, 74(2), 116–143.
Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. W. W. Norton.
Zajonc, R. B. (1968). Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9(2, Pt.2), 1–27.
Montoya, R. M., Horton, R. S., Vevea, J. L., Citkowicz, M., & Lauber, E. A. (2017). A re-examination of the mere exposure effect: The influence of repeated exposure on recognition, familiarity, and liking. Psychological Bulletin, 143(5), 459–498.
Reis, H. T., Maniaci, M. R., Caprariello, P. A., Eastwick, P. W., & Finkel, E. J. (2011). Familiarity does indeed promote attraction in live interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(3), 557–570.
Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (1999). The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. Crown.
Schwartz, R. C., & Sweezy, M. (2020). Internal Family Systems Therapy (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
This article is educational in nature and not a substitute for therapy. If attachment wounds or relational trauma are impacting your well-being, working with a trauma therapist can help your nervous system relearn safety in connection.
Hey Cody, just read your post about the neuroscience behind IFS. Super fascinating stuff! Is it true that part of the brain doesn’t understand language, so simply telling yourself “you’re safe/not alone/I see you etc” isn’t as effective as picturing a memory that contradicts this feelings, or providing visual evidence to the contrary?