Arguably, social awareness is one of the most attractive traits to women.

Fortunately, it’s more of a skill than a trait. So forget the idea that you’re either born with or your aren’t. But why is social awareness one of the most important traits you can develop? And why is it also one of the most attractive traits women are subconsciously wired to respond to?

First, let’s talk about what it is.

Social awareness is your ability to make the people around you feel understood and make them feel comfortable with you.

It’s being smart about human relationships and interactions. This includes sensing what another person is feeling, understanding their point of view, and importantly, having smooth and effective interactions. Essentially, it’s knowing what a person is feeling and acting based on that.

• The first part of social awareness is knowing what people are feeling.

• The second is expressing that you know what they're feeling.

• The third is acting on that in some way, usually to make them more comfortable.

This can be as simple as calling out what someone is probably thinking, but also includes important steps like touching or kissing at the right moment, and following generally accepted social protocol.

Your social awareness is not always something others can identify outright, but it’s something they feel on a visceral level. When a girl tries to explain to her friends why she likes a guy but can’t put it into words, she’ll say things like “there’s just something about him.” This “something” is usually a combination of social awareness, confidence, and not caring, which shows that he has other options.

We notice and process these things on a subconscious level.

As humans evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, women grew to be attracted to men with resources, which is represented in human psychology by social skills. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors who were able to collect resources were the ones who could best navigate their social environments and lead other men.

It’s hard for guys to comprehend this, but for these evolutionary reasons, women respond to social awareness in EXACTLY the same way that guys respond to a smokin’ body. It’s hardwired in the brain, which means that learning social awareness is as close as a shortcut to attraction as you’ll ever find.

Jump forward to modern times.

From a young age, attractive girls are given more attention by adults and their peers, and therefore more opportunities to socialize. Any skill we practice over and over, we improve at. So attractive girls have been given literally a lifetime of practice at being social. The more they socialize, the better they get at picking up on social cues, recognizing how others are feeling, and communicating with empathy. (Keep this idea in mind, too, when you’re developing your social skills. It doesn’t happen overnight.)

When we practice something and get good at it, our brains actually rewire their neural connections to make those pathways more efficient (nerd alert: Google “myelin production” if you want to learn more). This is why any hot woman can notice social cues that others miss, and why she can tell when you’re nervous. Her brain has been wired to read these subtle cues that you probably aren’t even aware of.

Social reality is ambiguous.

Nothing is ever black and white. Guys who are naturally good with women and who make effective leaders intuitively understand this because they’ve had years of experience navigating this social reality. They use their finely tuned pattern recognition skills to recognize what others around them are feeling, and they know how to respond to those around them.

'Fortunately for you, social awareness isn’t just something you either are or aren’t born with. Just as hot girls and naturally confident guys have learned it passively over the course of their lives, it’s also something that you can learn.

But you have one major advantage: a structured curriculum.

People who develop social awareness on their own do it in the slowest way possible: by stumbling on the right things from time to time, and repeating what works.You, on the other hand, have access to social beasts who have broken social awareness and confidence down to a science. Inner Confidence takes the guesswork out of learning social awareness, and it means that you can strengthen your social muscles to the point where you’re better than 99% of the guys that the average hot girl meets.

People who have meaningful social lives and healthy relationships are rarely unhappy. Learning social awareness is one of the most valuable skills you could ever hope to develop.

Next time, I’ll talk about some specific things to bring up in a conversation to demonstrate your social awareness. In the meantime, go out and strengthen your social muscles by turning your awareness to what the people around you are thinking and feeling.

You’ll see the quality of your interactions skyrocket the more practice you give it.