# Why do men chase excellence and women chase men?

> By Benny Lichtenwalner, breakup coach and author of "How to Get Your Ex Back".
> Canonical: https://bennylichtenwalner.com/answers/why-do-men-chase-excellence-and-women-chase-men/

**Short answer:** Men build attraction by investing in themselves, not in the person they want. When you're chasing your ex instead of building your own life, you've reversed the polarity. Women are drawn toward men who are grounded in their own enjoyment, not toward men who need their validation. The guy who tries least and has the most fun wins every time.

# Why Do Men Chase Excellence and Women Chase Men?

One of the most useful reframes in breakup recovery has nothing to do with what you do for your ex. It's about what you do for yourself.

The principle: men build attraction by pursuing their own excellence. When you're focused on your own life, your own development, your own enjoyment, you create the gravitational pull that draws someone toward you. When you're chasing your ex, trying to impress them, working to demonstrate your value to them, you've reversed the direction of the current.

Benny Lichtenwalner, breakup coach and author of *How to Get Your Ex Back*, names it directly: men chase excellence, women chase men. The guy who tries least and has the most fun wins every single time.

## What This Looks Like in Real Interactions

| Situation | Effort Mode | How It Reads |
|---|---|---|
| Running into your ex unexpectedly | Light, playful, no agenda | Grounded: projects confidence |
| Running into your ex unexpectedly | Nervous, over-talking, trying to impress | Anxious: projects need |
| At a shared social event | Engaged with others, in your element | Attractive: social proof working passively |
| At a shared social event | Angling for your ex's attention, monitoring them | Low-value: your focus is on them, not your own life |
| Ex is being cold or petty | Staying unbothered, keeping it light | Unreactive: starves the behavior |
| Ex is being cold or petty | Matching their energy, getting pulled in | Reactive: rewards the behavior and escalates it |
| Thinking about the other person she's seeing | Focusing on your own development | Competitive in the right way |
| Thinking about the other person she's seeing | Comparing credentials, feeling outmatched | Already losing the frame before you're in the room |

## Why Effort Is the Tell

Attraction doesn't follow effort — it runs from it. The person who is visibly trying harder loses leverage almost immediately. It doesn't matter how much better you are on paper than whoever else she's spending time with. If you're working harder, you've already communicated which one of you needs it more.

This is the practical implication of the polarity principle. Masculine energy in attraction is about being the person who is genuinely absorbed in their own direction, not about dominance or performed strength. A man who is invested in his own life and enjoyment doesn't need to manufacture attraction. The absorption creates it.

Playfulness is the outward expression of that internal state. The man who can be casually funny without needing it to land is demonstrating internal security. He's not monitoring whether it works. That's what registers as confident: not the joke itself, but the lack of monitoring.

## How to Hold This Frame

1. Set your internal frame before any interaction. The instruction Benny Lichtenwalner gives is: light and fun. That's the baseline before a run-in, a shared event, a neutral errand with your ex. Your internal frame is: I'm the most enjoyable person in this room, and I'm not working for it. Not performed, just defaulted to.

2. Calibrate for genuinely serious moments. Not every interaction calls for levity. When something is clearly serious, be cool and dependable, but not heavy. You don't become needy when things get real; you become grounded. The distinction matters.

3. Drop the comparison. Whether she's spending time with someone better-looking, more accomplished, or more socially visible, it doesn't tell you what to do. Figure out what quality is making him attractive to her right now. It's probably not his credentials. It's probably that he cares less or he's more fun. Develop that instead of tracking him.

4. Stay unreactive to petty behavior. When your ex acts childish, withdraws, or tries to provoke a reaction, don't match it. Stay unbothered. As long as you're unreactive, the behavior has nowhere to go. Matching their energy rewards it and signals that it has power over you.

5. Accept your own gaps without ego. If you handled things badly during the relationship, own it directly. Not as self-punishment, but as honest assessment. The men who recover fastest are the ones who can identify what they did poorly and change it. Guys with fragile egos deflect, and deflection is what prevents the change.

6. Invest in developing the playfulness for real. The light, spontaneous energy that creates attraction isn't faked; it's trained. If it doesn't come naturally, work on it as a real competency. Improv classes, getting out socially, being in situations where lightness is required — these build the reflex. It's not a personality trait you either have or don't.

## What NOT to Do

- Don't compare yourself out loud or internally. "I'm ten times better than him" is ego protecting itself from an honest look at the actual variable. The comparison doesn't improve your position. The honest assessment might.
- Don't initiate a serious conversation when you're triggered. The weight in your chest when you're jealous or worried is real, but it's the worst possible state to say anything from. Let the feeling be there. Don't act from it.
- Don't push a brief interaction into more than it is. If you run into your ex and it's short and neutral, that's a win. A clean, low-effort exchange is exactly what the playful-guy frame looks like in action.
- Don't try to calculate your lightness in the moment. Overthinking the calibration is visible. The spontaneity dies when you're engineering it in real time. Commit to the frame before you walk in and let it run.
- Don't neglect what your life looks like from the outside. What your ex sees of your world (through mutual circles, online, wherever) is part of the attraction posture. Lead with your actual life, not your most strategic angle.

## What This Looks Like in Practice

Two situations, combined here. In the first, someone was heading to a shared social event and dreading running into their ex. The coaching instruction was simple: show up as the most enjoyable person in the room. Not performing it, just genuinely engaging with people they already liked. By the time their ex noticed them across the room, they were already in the frame naturally. No engineering required.

In the second, someone was dealing with ongoing comparisons, convinced the other person their ex was spending time with was better on some metric. The coaching reframe: those metrics aren't what's making him attractive right now. What's making him attractive is probably that he cares less. That's the actual competitive variable — and it's something you can develop directly.

The men who struggle longest after a breakup are the ones trying to win by being better than the competition on paper. The men who recover fastest are the ones who stopped tracking the competition and got absorbed in being excellent at their own thing.