Bman's Archetype Building Guide (7500+ Words on How to Develop Your Archetype (With Bman as the Example))

How to Develop Your Archetype

The previous time I wrote about developing my Archetype it spurred a trend on the forums of others trying to develop theirs. I thought it would be helpful for you all if I wrote a short guide as I continue to develop mine in real time. 7500 words and two days to write, I sure hope it's useful to you.

This post has a lot to do with theory. I try to balance it with what actions I’m taking to develop my archetype. I don’t want you wasting time by sitting in your room just theorizing about your archetype and never battle testing in the sexual market. You’ll learn at the end of this post the importance of theory then action, getting feedback from girls, then more theory, action, feedback. In fact I was halfway through writing this post on theory, went on a date and got laid, and came back to finish it after walking her back to her car.

So promise me you will take action on what you read here.

What is an Archetype?

Before we get started, let’s define two ephemeral concepts that will be necessary for understanding the rest of the guide. First is Archetype, which is the dynamic relationship between your personalities, behavior, and looks.

Archetype = Inner world (personality, mindset, values) + Your actions in the outer world based on that inner world (speech, behaviors) + Your presentation of that inner world to the outer world (looks).

Second is “vibe”. This is the more ephemeral of the two, so forgive the rough definition of something that is hard to put into words. But roughly, it’s the relationship between your archetype and how the world reacts to that.

Vibe = Archetype x Reaction of the outer world (ie girls) to that archetype.

The reason these concepts are important is because if any one element of your archetype is “off”, meaning incongruent with the other elements, then your “vibe is off”, meaning the reaction you are receiving is incongruent with what the world is expecting.

So when someone tells you that you need to “fix your vibe”, they are signaling that your personality, behavior, or looks are incongruent. Your archetype is incongruent with what the world wants and is expecting.

For further understanding of this, I’ll point you to our wise sages:

• kyil_andy & Ed_ did a podcast showing how Ed changed his archetype and had better success.
• AskTheDom and Crisis_Overcomer did a podcast discussing archetypes and what happens when they are incongruent.
• MILFandCookies did a video explaining the importance of being congruent in your photos, showcasing what you would look like and be doing if you were caught on your best day.

Now let’s dive into a real example, my archetype development, so you can see how this works. As you read, you may think “Brandon, does this one element really matter that much?” By itself, not that much. However, remember that these parts add up to a whole. If you have several elements that are only slightly incongruent, the individual element does not matter, but when added together it makes a larger incongruency. One or two incongruences makes you interesting. Dozens cause cognitive dissonance in her head.

Analyzing Archetype

To analyze your archetype you’re basically looking over the previous lays and breaking down what type of girls you attracted, what attracted them, and how you can develop that to attract the type of girls you want.

In order to do this I think you need at least 20 lays to have enough data to begin working with. I wouldn’t worry too much about it until then. If you’re just getting your first few lays, use the fuckboi lite presented in Andy's Tinder Guide as your archetype and go get laid.

After 20, you can make a prediction about your archetype, try it on for a while, and then keep iterating based on the results you get. If you want to see how this process unfolds over the long term I would assign pancakemouse’s log for reading.

I’ve seen a few the elite profiles on these forums and I always felt slightly discouraged because they look like your typical chad. I’ve always felt like the anti-chad. So it was nice to have a look at what a maxxed out version of that might be for myself.

After I’ve been with 20 women, these were the looks quality of woman I currently got with my SMV threshold:


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And from my observations, this seems to be the archetypes that I’ve interacted with and where they fall:


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First off, this is why I love having a log and data to look back on. I was actually humbled by how good looking these girls were. In the moment I was so worried about my own confidence to get girls. Looking back, not to shabby. Good reminder to put things in perspective.

Based on my natural strengths in looks and the persona/style I like, I storyboarded what the maxxed out version of Bman could look like: a blend of rocker/ bohemian/ smart look, heavily tatted, solid physique, beard and long hair. I also storyboarded a few photo concepts along the way.



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This gave some things I could start to improve over the next several years:

• Tattoos: Over the next decade I can drop $20,000+ on tattoos. Now let’s be clear, this will improve my SMV, but really it’s for me. I really love art and design. I love it even more I get to carry it around with me on my body to look at whenever I want. They also serve as mementos of transformation points in my life. I’ve also always wanted to be a walking contradiction in professional circles where people judge my appearance and then shocked by my competence. So I’ll be happy to do this. I’m already somewhere between $1000-$2000 in. I’ll start with sleeves, move to chest, stomach, back, and then legs. Hands I’ll probably do. Neck I’m still iffy on. Most likely won’t ever touch the face.
• Beard: As long as I take care of it with proper routine and nutrition, it will just keep filling itself out. I could be thicker, but it’s a hell of a lot better than my early 20’s.
• Hair: I’m going to start learning to braid my natural hair and exploring hair extensions and clip in braids for more Viking styles. I enjoy the long hair and its fun having the girls comment how healthy and thick it is compared to theirs. I tell them to stop putting so much shit in it.
• Physique: I’ve been building this over the last decade and recently really sculpting out areas. My chest is rounding out more, my delts and shoulders are larger, and my ab muscles are larger now that I can have a slightly higher BF and still have them visible. However when above 10%, fat stores on my love handles which takes away that V shape. So that will be a delicate balance.
• Clothes: I have pretty much the basic versions of most of the items in the storyboards. So it will just be a matter of swapping out and finding better versions over time.

Incongruency Alert

I was recently alerted that my vibe was off and something was incongruent with my archetype after having been on dates with 4 different girls and not closing any of them. This was abnormal for me because my close rate before the first archetype improvement to my profile, was somewhere around 50-60%, with 20% of the no closes being me saying no to them.

Quick analyzation of the last 4 dates:

• Girl 1: Hot professional. I would have closed this, as she was into me and wanted to go back home with me, but I fucked up the logistics before the date. However on the date she said I was “softer” than she expected, which she clarified as meaning more calm. This was good for her because she was nervous and needed more comfort.
• Girl 2: Hot professional. When I went for the pull, she said something along the lines of really vibing but having a block of wanting to go back with me and needed to finish a project anyways. This girl was hot and confident, so she needed to me to spike her arousal levels by being more sexual as she was expecting I would, but instead got an even keeled experience.
• Girl 3: Spiritual/ Instagram type girl. Pretty much same thing as the previous girl, stating we were vibing well, but wanted to get to know me better and have a second date.
• Girl 4: Spiritual type girl. Super platonic.

The new pictures no doubt increase the quality of girl I was matching, in the type of archetypes that vibe well with mine. However, what I think happened was my profile sold a wild, dominant, sexual threat in looks. However my personality and behavior, while dominant, was more Zen and not the exciting spike of adventure and sexuality they were expecting.

Naturally I am mature, calm, composed, grounded, thoughtful, and calculated. In recent social interactions I’ve been mistaken for being in my late 30’s, being told it’s the way I carry myself.

So in my archetype I have two incongruences to work with:

• Looks – showcasing more the mature, Zen dominant side of my personality so that when I go on dates the girls are not expecting a wild child that is pulling them right into the bathroom there to fuck them, but is still here for sex.
• Behavior – being more sexual on the date, touching them, letting my eye contact that I’m great at holding express more of that “I want to fuck you” energy, and overall being more in touch with my desire in that moment.

Now let’s see how I update my archetype based on the feedback from the market and what I want going forward.

Overall Archetype

When I first started developing my archetype, I had mapped out some buckets that I fall into with “Rockstar”, “Bohemian/Spirtual”, and “Smart/Professional”. I took some pictures & updated some threads mostly in the Rockstar and Bohemian buckets, but had not got around to doing anything in the Professional bucket. I ran forth with what I had and would get to those later.

As a result you got this free spirited, wild looking, rockstar, rebel into BDSM, who’s super direct about sex in text. What are you going to expect when you get on the date?

Instead you get a mix of that with this guy who is also really thoughtful, conscientious, building a startup in education, doesn’t drink, so on and so forth…

It’s causing cognitive dissonance in the girl’s heads and they don’t know whether to put me in the fuck him now bucket or long term provider bucket. They are in limbo.

Now while I partially am that rebel rockstar type, I’m more like the rockstar… “professor who doesn’t play by the rules because he knows their bullshit but thoughtful enough he’s going to take action in changing them”. Good example is Jordan Peterson. Still masculine, dominant, dangerous, but in a more mature way. That Daddy Dom energy.

I need to bring in more of Smart/Professional with a modifier of Creative/Professor and Daddy Dom.


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In relationship to that, this is also the type of girls I want to attract more of in order:

• Good girl/Hot professional combo: When they have that “good girl” archetype, I vibe really well with them because they usually need more comfort to lower their arousal levels from being nervous, rather than spiking. But when they have that “Hot professional” combo they are lady in the streets, slutty, kinky, nympho in the sheets. These are hands down my favorite. My ex wife was this. My favorite lays were these. I have never had ED with these girls, ever.
• Alt girls: I do pretty well with these girls as we vibe over being different than society, but I may not always be as wild or extreme about it as them. Visually they are so hot to me and I like the overt displays of sexuality as opposed to the lady in the streets.
• Spiritual girls: They are fun, we vibe well about self-development, meditation, travel, tantra, those sorts of things. But they can also drive me up a wall sometimes with their free spirited nature, going with the flow, or talks about astrology and the like. I need to be careful with these ones though because I occasionally get ones like The Feminist or Psychedelic Girl which can be toxic.
• Instagram Blonde: Basically those damn skinny, big titted, blonde girls sitting over there in my No Girl column. I rarely ever match with one and it’s a tragedy. I love blondes, but I also know I’m probably not going to vibe well with one of those archetypes. So I’m probably better off scooping up a combo one with one of the above categories. On the upside, I get a lot of red heads which I also enjoy. But genetically they are an anomaly, so I really think there is some underlying biology match of our genes or something. But I digress.

Also worth noting, the age range I most vibe with has been 24-35. Younger has just been logistically too flakey for me. Mentally, I match more with women that are older than I, which makes the dates and post sex chats more interesting.

Psychology

Now let’s breakdown the archetype into its parts so we can better understand the role they are playing with the others. We’ll first start with my psychology. While over long periods of time, you can influence shifts in your psychology, it takes a lot of effort in rewiring, and largely it is set in stone.

Traits

We’ll use the OCEAN or Big 5 traits as it’s pretty reliable and easy to see how it applies to game. Plus you can take a survey of yours through Jordan Peterson’s Understand Myself for pretty cheap.

• Openness: Moderately High – this is what makes me open to new ideas, wanting to experiment, and with girls, helps give the rockstar rebel vibes
• Conscientiousness: High – this, however, makes me very aware and deep thinking of what that rebellion will do, how it affects other people, responsible, hardworking, and with girls, gives empathy and comfort
• Extraversion: Moderately Low – this bites me in the ass all the time as I have to cognitively put effort into speaking to others, leading a group, being in big social situations.
• Agreeableness: Moderately Low – this helps with challenging girls, taking direction, and again, being rebellious
• Neuroticism: Moderately Low – this help me have that steady, grounded, calm demeanor that can be comforting, but bites me in the ass if I need to spike emotion in girls

So we can see here that I need to have my looks match and show my high level of conscientiousness as it’s a dominant part of my personality.

Being that members of my family also exhibit dark triad traits, it’s worth me noting them here as well.

• Narcissism: Moderately Low – I handle criticism well, have a lot of empathy, and don’t feel entitled to anything. However I do like being admired and respected but mostly when it has merit.
• Psychopathy: Low - While I may be a rebel to the status quo of society, I have far too much empathy.
• Machiavellianism: Moderate – This is the one I keep the closest tabs on. You’ll see shortly that one of my highest values is honesty, and for good reason. I am hyper aware of the weight of my words and actions in their ability to influence other’s emotions and actions for my gain or theirs. I am always monitoring my intentions, trying to aim them at the good. I’m aware of the degrees of honesty and how much they impact outcomes. If this post is not evidence, I’m very good at high level strategy, and this requires knowing the psychology of the players in the game. I believe this is necessary to be a good leader. No doubt it helps me a lot with girls. But I always error on the side of more honesty than not, with good intentions, as to never become a tyrant.

Mindset

I’ve dedicated a 365 project to working on this for myself. I recommend having a look at least at the first post to see specifically how I’m developing that and the way it affects my interactions with girls. You’ll notice some minor childhood trauma in there, and in my lay reports. You must address your trauma, otherwise it will bite you in the ass over and over again.

Values

I feel values are best observed in the way you act. So I will cover this more as I discuss my behaviors below as values affect the behavior decisions I make. But here’s my values in order of importance:

• Purpose – this means I’m never giving up my mission or ambition for a woman. She will always ride shotgun to this. Part of the decision to get my divorce in fact.
• Honesty & Integrity – by no surprise this is why I run Andy’s screening/direct game
• Health – this shows up in not drinking, not sacrificing too much sleep, which effects date choices
• Mastery – this is a huge driver for me wanting to learn and continue developing in game
• Autonomy – I cherish my freedom and individuality. Probably should have never got married. But this makes casual, non-monogamous relationships work well for me.
• Love & Relationships – Ah here they are. They are important to me. Other people are important to me. But not before those other values.
• Spirituality – Obviously this helps me connect with spiritual type girls on some level.
• Security – This is largely in relation to money, having routines, and some sort of anchor while I declare anarchy and revolution to other areas of my life. It sometimes rubs against things I’ll do with girls. Also it makes me contemplate still having an anchor partner, like Andy does, or lean towards having MTLRs.

Looks & Fashion

Now let’s discuss the second part of your archetype: your looks. I covered this a lot in part 1, so take a look at that.

In developing my archetype further, I have some updates to do with my looks in order to better match my personality. Mainly this means bringing in a more mature, professional look in some of my photos and fashion. Here’s a list of those:


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A couple explanations on my choices.

I’m planning on getting a 3 piece charcoal tweed suit. A 3 piece because I enjoy vests, and not wearing jackets, to roll up my sleeves and show my tattoos. But I can also wear the jacket with less formal clothes, like designers/ architects often do. And I can also wear the full getup. Pretty versatile. I’m choosing tweed as the texture as it is more often associated with an oxford professor than a business mogul. This aligns more with my passion for education and teaching, and my apathy towards money. Additionally it gives more Daddy Dom vibes rather than 50 Shades.

I’ll also be picking up a white/cream 2 piece and red vest. This will be worn out to events, especially BDSM ones. It stands out when everyone else is wearing black and with my long hair, beard, and tattoos, it has some subtle religious, good vs evil undertones to it. Last Shrine I had went dressed as Jesus and got a lot of admiration for it. Since AskTheDom's previous recommendations to me in my log, red has also just become my default for these things.

Ill dive more into the photo choices when discussing hobbies in the next section.

I’ll still continue to be getting a lot of tattoos because I love them and it just further intensifies the rebellious, sexual vibe.

 

[Bman]

Are there any websites or other resources with an overview of archetypes and styles or did you guys just come up with them yourselves (if so, how did you find examples)?

Look for:

• celebrities that look like you
• pinterest boards of girls you like
• instagrams of influencers that look like you
• what the top level people are wearing in the social scene of the girls you like
• anytime you see a guy in public and think he looks good, ask why he looks good
• movies, TV shows, pop culture

Unfortunately there's no website with clear defined archetypes you can just select off the shelf. Just be more observant and study people.

 

[Zug]

There's a couple long-term ways to develop archetype. Quiz your dates on why they swiped right on you, what their favorite pic was and why. Don't let them get away with short vague answers. You WILL get an answer, but you cannot accept it at face value. Keep in mind, virtually no one understands themselves well enough to know the list and rankings of their various motivations. So when I say you can't accept their answers at face value, I mean you have to take EXACTLY what they said and then re-interpret it through multiple lenses and try to rank order which explanations work better.

You're also going to need some level of social psychology and intelligence. Girls commonly say they love seeing me in a suit. Ok, but why is that? Is this just a uniform thing? Almost, but not quite. Maybe they'd like me in a military uniform, or fireman uniform, but they sure as fuck wouldn't get turned on by me wearing an Arby's uniform. So what's the commonality there? IMO, they're looking for signs of competence as proxies for dominance, or vice versa. You can also prove this in the reverse. Why do all kids look fucking stupid in suits? Because there are no competent children (by definition), so when they wear suits they don't appear as respectful and formal, they appear as clowns and absurd.

You will notice reasons for swiping right on you and pics they like will tend to cluster into certain groups. Those groups are basically constellations of ideas that will then signify to me the blueprint/archetype the GIRL is coming from. For example, I can start reversing the connection from the girls who said they like my suit pics to all girls who like suit pics and what they have in common. These are girls who like authority in general and get turned on by it, girls who tend to like more formal structures in relationships and sex, etc. Eventually you can start collecting enough of these to identify "markets" or clusters of girls who gravitate towards you. In my case - younger girls with daddy issues who have been disappointed after dating several men their age with childlike qualities and found them disappointing in the bedroom and out. They're looking for markers of sexual experience and competence, because the problem they are trying to solve is having sexual relationships where they can't look up to the guy.

You can then take all this information and start "weaponizing" this knowledge. I could rework my profile to push the experience, competence, and dominance vibe. Emphasize pictures where it shows me in dominant positions vs pics of "1 guy chilling with his equal peers". One of my bigger breakthroughs after this was to deep dive the psychology of some of these specific traits and then start directly pushing these buttons with cold reads that are virtually impossible to make otherwise. I discovered that most girls who like dominance (and aren't completely insane) like it because they use it as a proxy for how much the guy desires them, and they want to feel desired. This is also the same reason they have praise kinks. So now I know most girls who have praise kinks like being dominated and vice versa. So anytime a girl reveals a couple of her sexual preferences, I can almost automatically guess her others, and when I "cold read" those to her it works doubly because it comes off as a sign of experience they were looking for as well as me "just getting it", which is what all their past partners failed to do.

All this stuff take sometime though, and this is the "organic" method to archetypes. This method led to me become a more and more concentrated and extreme version of myself. This is mostly good, but you can take it too far. Sex is great and all, but there's tons of other things I care about more. You have to have at least two major and 1 minor trait in your profile, and hopefully traits that do work together, but aren't in the same 'constellation' of ideas. Think Henry Cavill being a big time nerd in addition to a movie start and jacked. When you can combine these into a single profile, it comes off as super authentic. Actual authenticity as well as the appearance of it is important, because a big reason girls pass on guys is ANY feeling of incongruence. Girls tolerance for incongruence is super low. So, whenever you're trying to develop your archetype, don't push things past the point it makes you slightly uncomfortable. Slightly uncomfortable leads to interesting situations and growth, more than that leads to epic failures and feelings of betrayal.

 

[Perseus]

Thanks so much guys, I'll start working on my first archetype iteration. Time to delve deep into the trenches of art hoe Instagram.

 

[mikkel]

Tattoo. Tattoos. That god damn ink which makes girls wet (or not).

I've been huge believer for my whole life that guys with tattoos are one way or another little bit dumb (which is not the case) or dirty broke ass ppl (which is not the case neither).

I've been huge believer that I want to build and showcase my pure clean body with good aesthetics.

But lately I've been really thinking that am I missing more opportunities cuz I dont have tattoos. I dont look edgy that much. I've been playing around getting tattoos in my mind but feel like I let myself down if I do it. That I become one of those "look at my tattoos how cool I am!" guys.

What are your thoughts on this? I hate looking boring and simple but tattoos are not that rare anymore

 

[pancakemouse]

But lately I've been really thinking that am I missing more opportunities cuz I dont have tattoos.

This is typical cope from guys that find it too hard to improve other parts of their sexual market value.

The male brain always wants to gravitate towards the easy answer.

Tattoos won't move the needle.

 

[mikkel]

This is typical cope from guys that find it too hard to improve other parts of their sexual market value.

The male brain always wants to gravitate towards the easy answer.

Tattoos won't move the needle.

Yeaah, makes sense.

 

[Bman]

What are your thoughts on this? I hate looking boring and simple but tattoos are not that rare anymore

I don't agree with Pancake that tattoos won't move the needle. They just won't move it in the way you think they will. Let me explain.

I got my very first tattoo when I was 16 and I got it because of the preconceptions (and many more) you listed. When people see me with that tattoos and then learn that I'm highly competent, respectful, responsible, kind, and many other traits that go against their original preconceptions of people with tattoos have, a small piece of their reality and mental models break. It's at that point when they're open minded enough to be influenced. It's at that point I can show them there is more to this world than they currently think they know. Btw, my first tattoo says "only God can judge me" in Spanish, which only further iterates that their judgement has no hold on me.

The tattoo does not make me edgy. Its the mentality of the tattoo wearer that makes me edgy. A tattoo is just a symbol of a mentality. Just as a nice watch is sign of competence.

Furthermore, tattoos are an extension of my personality. I'm a highly creative person. Half my tattoos I designed myself. All of them full of color, some of them breaking the molds of traditional tattoo styles. This is a reflection of how I create in any medium. Creativity is an attractive trait.

All my tattoos, except for one tattoo that was done on Friday the 13th, have meaning to them. I use tattoos as mementos, often for lessons, values, or things worth contemplating everyday. For example, I have siren on my arm that has lettering wrapped around her saying "Captains Temptations", reminding myself to not let the allure of a woman to capture me from my mission in life and make her the sole focus. It's reminder that there are women who's beauty will capture my attention like that. A reminder of the boy I was when I first fell in love and friend zoned when I was younger. If my log is any testament, that memento has served me well. This is also attractive because now I always have stories to tell and I often do on dates or pillowtalk. I'm a man of life and experience which is attractive.

I get tattoos for me, not for women and not for others. So unless they are going to be for you first and foremost, I'd advise not getting them. I do agree with Pancake on this point, they are not shortcut for not doing the hard work of improving your SMV in the areas most important for you.

 

[bigV]

Question. Aren't tattos partially a way of "peacocking"? Having tattoos makes you stand out from the boring crowd. It's like you're saying "look at me, I can succeed with all this extra attention on me". Plus, frankly, it makes you look more like cool guys on Instagram. They seem like jewelry in this regard to me, I view them as "decoration". There's more to them of course, but these are things I've been thinking recently when considering a tattoo. I would've gotten one already if not for potential career problems.

 

[Holden]

A guy with tattoos will do better than his identical twin with no tattoos in 99% of cases.

But he won't fuck twice the amount of girls. He's at an advantage, but not a huge one.

If you're unsuccessful with women, getting a few tattoos won't magically solve all of your problems.

A tattoo will be like a tiny little bonus, a 5% pay raise on a 100K salary. But you need the salary first for the increase to mean anything.

Biggest needle movers are the same as they have alway been: developing charisma, muscles + low bf, edgy style (and tattoos are just a small (optional) part of that)

 

[mikkel]

Hmm okay okay. I have couple stories (more like mindsets) I could put into a tattoo but havent pulled the trigger since Im still clean skin believer

Was at the beach couple weeks ago with my friend, basic physique with some extra fat and balding hair. His left arm is almost fully tattood.

I noticed girls taking a sneak peek to him instead of me. I probably looked like another basic white guy with good looks but thats it.

I also think with clothes and a cap he looks quite badass. Pretty much playboy look. Yes, he fucks a lot. Without arm tattooed? Hell no, he would not look that good. Interesting I think.

This guy popped to my IG front page and I took closer look. Yes he is good looking from face but his tattoos make him really attractive. I will probably try to mimic this photo for my profile pic. But god damn, that neck tattoo is sick, really gives him more unique look.