Laura: Okay, Sophia, I'm going to say a book title, and I want your gut reaction. How to Be a 3% Man. Sophia: Sounds like a book written by someone who got rejected 97% of the time and decided to make it a brand. Laura: You are not far off! That’s the exact energy we’re diving into today with Corey Wayne’s How to Be a 3% Man: Winning the Heart of the Woman of Your Dreams. And what’s fascinating is that the author’s background isn’t in psychology or sociology. Sophia: Let me guess. Finance bro? Tech startup guy? Laura: Close! Construction management. He graduated from Florida International University and worked on major projects, including for Walt Disney World. He was also a student of Tony Robbins' coaching methods. Sophia: Okay, that explains everything. The title sounds like a blueprint, and it was written by a man who literally uses blueprints. He’s trying to build a relationship the way you’d build a skyscraper. Laura: Exactly. It’s prescriptive, it’s formulaic, and it has become this underground bible for a certain type of man trying to navigate the dating world. The book is actually highly-rated by its target audience, but it’s also deeply polarizing for reasons that will become very, very clear. Sophia: I’m already bracing myself. Can human connection really be engineered like a building? I have my doubts.

Laura: Well, that’s the central promise. The core idea of the ‘3% Man’ is that you become irresistibly attractive by mastering three things: having a life purpose that is completely independent of women, projecting unshakeable confidence, and maintaining an air of mystery. Sophia: Ah, the classic trifecta of the emotionally unavailable man. I’m kidding... mostly. But what does that actually look like in practice? Don't just be a mysterious, confident guy with a hobby? Laura: It’s more intense than that. The book is built on the foundation of the author’s own painful romantic failures. He basically reverse-engineered a system from his own heartbreak. There’s one story in particular, his ‘Perfect 10’ experience, that is the perfect case study for what he says not to do. Sophia: Oh, I am ready for this. Give me the cringe. Laura: So, when he was 24, he meets this woman he considers a ‘perfect 10.’ She is incredibly forward, gets his number, and calls him the very next day to set up a date. She shows up in a tight outfit, she’s aggressive, she’s pursuing him hard. Sophia: Okay, so far this sounds like a dream scenario for most people. What went wrong? Laura: He did what many of us do. He got swept up. He started fantasizing about their future—the wedding, the kids, the whole nine yards. He became completely infatuated and, in his words, lost his center. He was too available, too eager. And what do you think happened next? Sophia: Oh, I know this story. She ghosted him. Vanished into thin air. Laura: Precisely. Her interest, which was blazing hot, suddenly went ice cold. She stopped returning his calls, leaving him devastated and confused. For Wayne, this was a formative trauma. The lesson he took was that his neediness, his over-eagerness, killed the attraction. Sophia: Wow, that’s rough. And honestly, it’s relatable. We’ve all been there, writing the wedding invitations in our head after one good date and then getting our hearts stomped on. But is the answer really to become this cold, mysterious robot who never shows his feelings? Isn't vulnerability supposed to be attractive too? Laura: That is the million-dollar question. Wayne’s philosophy argues that vulnerability is only attractive after you’ve established strength. He claims that women are constantly ‘testing’ men to see if they are strong, to see if they’ll crack under pressure. Sophia: Testing? That sounds exhausting and a little manipulative. Like we’re all out here setting up little emotional obstacle courses for men to run through. Laura: He sees it as a subconscious, biological drive. A woman wants to know if her partner is a rock, someone who won’t be pushed off his purpose by her emotions or by external events. So, if you get too emotional too quickly, or you seem to need her validation, you fail the test. The attraction evaporates. Sophia: So in the ‘Perfect 10’ story, he failed the test by showing he was super into her. He revealed his cards, and she decided she didn't want to play anymore. Laura: Exactly. He argues the 3% man would have remained a challenge. He would have been pleased by her interest but not defined by it. He would have let her wonder if she was winning him over, not the other way around. Sophia: This is so counterintuitive to modern dating advice, which is all about clear communication and being open about your intentions. This feels like a throwback to a much older, more rigid set of rules. Laura: It is. And that’s why it’s so polarizing. For men who feel lost or constantly rejected, this book offers a clear, if severe, set of rules to regain a sense of control. It’s a power fantasy, in a way. If you just follow the blueprint, you can’t get hurt again. Sophia: But you might also build a very lonely, albeit well-constructed, skyscraper. A relationship where no one is allowed to be truly seen. That feels like a high price to pay for avoiding rejection.

Laura: And that idea of control leads directly to the book's most... let's say traditional... and controversial section: the dynamics of the chase. Wayne is a huge proponent of polarity. He believes that for passion to exist, the man must be firmly in his masculine energy, and the woman must be in her feminine energy. Sophia: I feel like I need a glossary for these terms. What does ‘masculine energy’ even mean in this context? Taking out the trash and refusing to ask for directions? Laura: In the world of Corey Wayne, it means being decisive, having a direction, and always, always taking the lead. The man plans the dates. The man initiates. The man controls the frame of the interaction. This, he argues, allows the woman to relax, to feel safe, and to embrace her ‘feminine energy,’ which is about receiving, being emotional, and being open. Sophia: So the man is the ship, and the woman is the ocean. He’s the rock, she’s the storm. I’ve heard these metaphors before. They’re very... binary. Laura: They get even more so. He has this infamous analogy that he repeats throughout the book: "Women are like cats, and men are like dogs." Sophia: Hold on. Stop right there. Women are like cats? Please, I am begging you to explain this. So we're supposed to be aloof, knock things off tables just to watch them fall, and only show affection on our own terms? Laura: You’re not far off! He says a dog is eager to please, always happy to see you, and gives affection freely. A cat, on the other hand, is independent. It comes to you when it wants to. If you chase a cat, it runs away. If you ignore it, it becomes curious and comes to sit on your lap. Sophia: So his advice to men is to treat women like aloof cats you’re trying to coax out from under the bed? Laura: Essentially, yes. Don't chase. Create an enticing environment and let her come to you. He has this wild story he calls the "Toasting Technique at a Bar" to illustrate this. He and his friends would go to a crowded bar, walk around and simply raise their glasses to different groups of women, say "Hope you're having a good night," and then walk away without another word. Sophia: That is bizarre. What’s the point? Laura: After making a few laps, they would sit at a visible table and just wait. The idea is that they’ve created mystery. They’re not like the other guys aggressively hitting on women. They’re different, they’re a challenge. And, according to him, the women, their curiosity piqued, would eventually approach them. Sophia: I can’t decide if that’s genius or just deeply weird. It feels so calculated. Like you’re running a social experiment instead of just trying to have a genuine conversation with someone. Laura: It’s the epitome of his philosophy. Never appear needy. Always be the one who is slightly less invested. And this extends to who you take advice from. He has a whole chapter titled "Why Not to Get Advice from Women about Women." Sophia: You have got to be kidding me. A man is writing a book telling other men how women think, but he’s also telling them not to listen to actual women? The irony is staggering. Laura: His logic is that women will tell you what they think they want—a nice, sensitive guy—but what they emotionally respond to is strength and challenge. He believes women will often give advice that is designed to spare a man's feelings rather than give him the cold, hard truth. Sophia: Okay, I can see a tiny kernel of truth in that people aren’t always the best narrators of their own desires. But to dismiss the perspectives of an entire gender feels... arrogant. It reinforces this idea that women are these mystical, unknowable creatures that only a '3% Man' can decode. Laura: And that’s where the book gets its most heated criticism. It sets up this adversarial dynamic. It’s not a partnership; it’s a game of chess where the man has to be three moves ahead at all times. He even tells a story about a friend dating a married woman, coaching him on how to "stand his ground" and essentially win her from her husband, which raises all sorts of ethical questions. Sophia: Right, it’s less about building a healthy, respectful connection and more about winning a prize. It’s no wonder the book is so polarizing. It validates a feeling of powerlessness that some men feel, but the solution it offers is to replace genuine connection with a rigid, and frankly, lonely-sounding strategy.

Laura: Exactly. When you strip it all down, the book is a masterclass in control. It’s a system designed to protect the ego from the chaos and pain of rejection. After reading about his own heartbreaks, you can see that every rule is a wall he’s building to prevent that from happening again. Sophia: It’s a fortress of solitude disguised as a dating guide. The advice to have a life purpose and build self-confidence is genuinely good. Everyone should do that. But it’s the application that gets twisted. The purpose becomes a tool for attraction, and the confidence becomes a performance of indifference. Laura: That’s the perfect way to put it. The confidence isn't rooted in genuine self-worth; it's rooted in following the rules correctly. The tragedy is that by trying so hard to be the "challenge," you might become so challenging that you’re impossible to connect with. You become the cat that never comes out from under the bed. Sophia: And you end up attracting someone who is also playing a game, instead of someone who wants a real partner. The real lesson here might not be to become a '3% Man,' but to figure out what makes you feel centered and confident in the first place, without needing a rulebook written by someone else. Laura: It’s about writing your own blueprint, not borrowing one from a construction manager. It’s about being authentic, even if it means being part of the 97% who are sometimes awkward, sometimes needy, but always real. Sophia: I think that’s a much more compelling way to live. Which makes me wonder, and I want to ask our listeners this too: What's one dating 'rule' you were taught that you've had to completely unlearn to find a genuine connection? We see so many of these rules on social media and in books like this one. We’d love to hear your stories and what you’ve discovered for yourselves. Join the conversation and let us know. Laura: That’s a beautiful question. Because ultimately, the most attractive thing is someone who is comfortable in their own skin, not someone who is perfectly executing a strategy. Sophia: Amen to that. Laura: This is Aibrary, signing off.