The Alpha Male Myth: Somebody Sold You the Wrong Wolf

Somewhere along the way, somebody decided men needed to behave more like wolves.

Be dominant. Take charge. Never show weakness. Be the alpha.

And wouldn't you know it, somebody else figured out how to sell a course teaching men how to do exactly that.

There's just one problem.

They got the wolf wrong.

And if you've spent good money learning how to act like one, you might want to sit down for this.

Turns Out, the Alpha Wolf Is Just Dad

Back in 1947, a researcher named Rudolph Schenkel studied wolves living in captivity. These weren't happy little wolf families roaming the wilderness. They were unrelated animals thrown together in an enclosure, sorting out who got to run things.

Naturally, there was some jockeying for position.

The researcher observed a dominance hierarchy, with an alpha at the top, betas underneath, and omegas at the bottom.

That idea caught on like wildfire. Eventually, it escaped the zoo and found its way into everything from corporate leadership seminars to dating advice.

But here's where things get interesting.

Biologist L. David Mech spent 13 summers studying wolves in the wild. In his 1999 paper, he explained that natural wolf packs generally aren't organized around a bunch of unrelated males fighting to become king of the mountain.

They're families.

Mom, Dad, and the kids.

The so-called alpha male? He's usually just the father.

He's not spending his days proving he's the biggest badass in the forest. He's helping raise the pups, securing food, and keeping the family together.

So the wolf you've been told to imitate is a stressed-out stranger living in a zoo.

The wild one is somebody's daddy.

And I don't know about you, but I find the second fellow considerably more impressive.

There's Good Money in Making Men Feel Inadequate

Once somebody convinces you that you're not enough of a man, there's apparently no limit to what they can sell you.

A Shortlist investigation followed a three-day Love Systems dating bootcamp that cost $2,997 per man.

Three thousand dollars.

For a weekend of learning how to talk to women.

Now, I don't have anything against a man investing in himself. Quite the opposite. But look at who was attending.

An engineer working abroad. A fellow who admitted he didn't have much of a social life. Men who weren't necessarily lacking confidence in their professional lives but struggled to connect romantically.

These weren't villains plotting to dominate women.

They were men who wanted girlfriends, companionship, sex, affection, and maybe somebody to spend Saturday night with.

Perfectly ordinary human desires.

Researcher Rachel O'Neill, who studied the seduction industry, found that many participants wanted more control over their romantic lives and a sense of brotherhood. Some said they had nobody to talk to about their relationship struggles.

What they were sold included prewritten scripts.

Think about that for a minute.

A man who wants to be liked for who he is pays somebody three thousand dollars to teach him how to pretend he's somebody else.

That's a pretty expensive way to avoid being yourself.

Women Aren't Nearly as Impressed by Dominance as You've Been Told

Now, I'm not going to tell you that women don't like confident men.

We do.

Competence is attractive. Confidence is attractive. A man who knows what he's doing and doesn't need an audience to appreciate it? Mercy.

But there's a mighty big difference between confidence and domination.

In three studies involving college women, researchers Snyder, Kirkpatrick, and Barrett found that women evaluating hypothetical men generally preferred prestige over dominance when considering long-term partners.

Dominance looked more attractive in an athletic competition than in a personal relationship.

Which makes a certain amount of sense.

A man taking charge on a football field is one thing. A man trying to take charge of everything you say, wear, think, and do is quite another.

Of course, these studies involved college students responding to written descriptions. They're not a universal rule about women, and individual preferences vary enormously.

But they do raise a useful question.

If your goal is a happy relationship, why are you taking dating advice from people teaching you how to win a power struggle?

You're looking for a partner, not negotiating a hostage release.

The Sexiest Man in the Room Usually Isn't Announcing It

Here's something I've noticed.

The men who are most comfortable with themselves generally don't spend much time telling everybody how masculine they are.

They don't need to.

They can make a decision without making a production of it. They can disagree without throwing a tantrum. They can admit they don't know something without acting like the world is coming to an end.

And they can listen to a woman without treating every conversation like a contest they need to win.

That's not weakness.

That's having enough confidence to leave your ego out of the conversation.

And there's something else these alpha-male salesmen tend to overlook.

Women aren't interchangeable.

Some women like a man who takes the lead. Others prefer a more collaborative approach. Some like rugged outdoorsmen. Others are weak in the knees for an intellectual who can explain something fascinating over dinner.

And plenty of women like a combination that makes absolutely no sense on paper.

Human attraction is gloriously inconvenient that way.

You cannot possibly be every woman's dream man.

Nor should you try.

You Don't Need a Script. You Need to Pay Attention.

Let's say you've got a date Friday night.

You've picked a decent restaurant, put on a clean shirt, and remembered to make reservations. You're already doing better than a surprising number of people.

Now what?

Talk to her.

Not at her. Not through a memorized sequence of questions designed to manufacture attraction.

Have a conversation.

Ask her what she enjoys. Find out what makes her laugh. Notice whether she asks questions about you, too.

And while you're paying attention to whether she likes you, don't forget to ask yourself whether you actually like her.

That's the part dating gurus tend to skip.

A date isn't an audition where a woman sits in judgment and a man performs tricks until she approves.

It's two people figuring out whether they enjoy each other's company.

Maybe there's chemistry. Maybe there's a shared sense of humor. Maybe you discover she's passionate about something you've never even heard of.

Or maybe she's perfectly lovely, but you'd rather spend the evening cleaning your gutters.

That's useful information, too.

You haven't failed. You've learned something.

And you've saved yourself the trouble of spending six months pretending to be somebody you're not.

A Better Kind of Alpha

If we're determined to borrow relationship advice from wolves, maybe we ought to borrow it from the ones living successfully in the wild.

Build relationships. Take care of the people you love. Learn how to cooperate. Know when to stand your ground and when to settle down.

And for heaven's sake, stop paying strangers to teach you how to intimidate women into liking you.

A woman who genuinely likes you doesn't need to be tricked into it.

She needs a chance to get to know you.

The real you.

And if the two of you aren't a match, there's no special pickup line, masculine posture, or three-thousand-dollar weekend that can turn incompatibility into a good relationship.

You don't need to be the alpha male. You need to be a man worth knowing.

And that's something you can't buy in a hotel conference room.

Where to Go Next

Want something better than a memorized pickup line?

Try our free Tell Me Something conversation game. It starts with easy icebreakers and gives you something more interesting to discuss than the weather.

Want to flirt without a script? Bringing Flirting Back covers what real flirting looks like, and our guide to using a flirt generator for good shows how to borrow an opener without becoming a super villain.

Looking for an actual evening together? Our date night guide has ideas for couples at every stage of a relationship.

And if you'd like to get better at communicating what you want, understanding your partner, and building intimacy without playing games, explore The Art of Asking, our self-paced course featuring six modules and 32 lessons on communication, trust, and connection.