You’re at a social event. You spot an attractive guy across the room. What are the chances he’ll notice you?

If there are only 10 other people there, the chances are pretty high.

But if there are 100 people there, the chances are lower. He may never even make it to your side of the room. You have to do something to bring yourself to his attention.

It’s a dilemma every teenage girl knows. She wants her crush to see her, but she doesn’t want to turn him off by making the first move or coming on too strong. So she dresses her very best, puts on her most alluring smile, and waits.

As you may know, having been a teenage girl yourself once, sometimes that works…

And sometimes it doesn’t.

The “look-amazing-and-hope-he-notices-me” school of attraction is low risk. No one knows that you’re hoping for the attention of that one special person. If he doesn’t notice you, no one is talking about it the next day.

Compare that to the girl who’s from the “take-the-bull-by-the-horns” school of attraction.

She marches up to her crush and starts a conversation. It’s immediately apparent she’s interested in him. If he rebuffs her, everyone knows.

Which is the better option?

The answer is neither.

There’s a better way. It involves something known as the reciprocity principle.

Claim Your Power

In a world where social events are crowded with people…

And your Mr. Right is scrolling through dozens of potential matches every time he checks his online dating account…

You can’t afford to sit back and hope you catch his eye.

Yet so many women still adopt a “look-amazing-and-hope-he-notices-me” approach.

They put up a great profile with eye-catching pictures, and sit back and wait for the messages to pour in…

Hoping that a FEW of those messages will be from quality guys.

Instead, they get deluged by messages from guys they’d never go out with in a million years.

Why leave something so important to chance?

You are the only person who knows which man catches your eye. You know which men you want to learn more about.

The times are gone when women had to wait to be picked out of a crowd. These days, you get to choose which men you’re interested in. So exercise that power!

Don’t Be a Stranger

But there’s a knack to taking a more active role in dating.

How would you react if a man you didn’t know marched straight up to you and ask you out?

You’d probably back away slowly, right?

We’re suspicious of people approaching us out of the blue. We wonder what they want.

We’ve had way too much experience of people coming up to us just because they want something.

They want to pitch something to you, or get your opinion on something, or ask you to support their cause.

That automatically puts us on the defensive.

It takes guts to go up to someone attractive and start a conversation, all the while knowing they’re suspicious of you.

That’s a barrier you’ll have to break if you want to stop waiting to get chosen and start doing your own choosing.

And there’s a psychological principle that can help you do it.

The Reciprocity Principle

The next time you see a man who intrigues you, don’t just smile at him and hope he walks your way. Ask yourself this:

“What could I give him?”

By “giving,” I don’t mean handing him a gift. The gifts I’m referring to are of the heart.

How could you add a little value to his day?

Maybe you’ll walk up to him and tell him that you noticed something about him. You appreciate it, and it intrigues you, and would he tell you more about it?

All of us love to get noticed for what makes us unique. Men don’t often receive compliments. It can bowl them over when an attractive woman makes the effort to say something.

When you give a man something, you’re not expecting something in return. There aren’t strings attached. You say what you had to say, have a chat, then walk away.

Ironically, even though you aren’t asking him for anything, your gift compels him to want to do something nice for you in return.

This is known as the reciprocity principle.

We feel bound to reciprocate when someone does something nice for us.

But there’s a catch:

It only works if the gift was genuine.

If a man compliments you, hoping you’ll be more favorably disposed towards him, his gift actually turns you off.

So consider how much you have to give others. You can offer to share something you enjoy with them. You can invite them to go do something fun with you. You can help them with something they need.

That gets you noticed in the best possible way.

Men appreciate women who have the courage to approach them. They like to feel chosen, too. Choose him, and he might just reciprocate by choosing you back.