The PUA community spent a lot of time exploring how to become “popular”. I recall bizarre posts and videos on how to build a social circle or become the guy others seek out and want to hang out with. However, largely this is all based on looks. People want to hang out with you because they want to be associated with you. This is true for both guys and girls. If you are a guy who gets female attention, other men want to hang out with you because they hope they can get your sloppy seconds, or the girlfriend of whatever chick you pull.

I think only very socially unaware people do not attribute popularity to looks. The better-looking a girl is, the more other girls want to be her friend. Maybe you have dated really attractive girls who had a very active social life. You go to a club or bar with such a girl, or a cafe or restaurant, and there will be people there who greet her or are very friendly towards her. Maybe they have seen her for the first time but more likely, they have seen her somewhere else before. You can even ask her how she knows this or that person and she may just laugh coyly and say that she has absolutely no idea.

A tall guy stands out wherever he goes. If you are the tallest guy in the room, everybody notices you. Similarly, everybody notices the most attractive girl in the room. However, the tallest guy does not notice all the other people, just as his female counterpart will be quite oblivious to the presence of most other people in the room. Nonetheless, they reap social benefits from just showing up somewhere. People greet them enthusiastically, no matter if they have met them the first time or not, and many more people know their name than the other way round. This should be a trivial observation, but in the world of pick-up artistry, this is unfortunately not the case.