I Raise Your Stocks Worth

For those of you who understand stocks this analogy will make perfect sense to you. “A stocks worth can be raised by the association they have with other companies”.

There is a theory that I share with a good friend of mine that allows this analogy to also apply to people. Now it’s not as simple as the saying that goes “You are a reflection of those you keep around you”, as that would be too easy and quite honestly not worth sharing my thoughts on. We’ve taken this a stage (or possibly two) above that. The original sentiment comes from the arrogant friendship that we share with each other. Our friendship is built on the fact that we both think we are too good for the other and is something we constantly joke about. The joke has gone to the point where we both believe we are so much better than the other that our presence as a friend to the other encourages attraction from the opposite sex.

As you’ve probably guessed my friend is a woman, who as much as I shouldn’t really let her know this, is a very good looking woman. She has said to me on more than one occasion that her being seen with me raises my profile as women will see her and see that she is a good looking woman of good quality. These on looking women will assume that we are together and will then wonder to themselves what is it that a man like myself has to offer that I’ve managed to snare a woman like her. I laugh at this thinking as I do pretty damned well on my own.

Now I have a reverse but similar theory for her, here it is. Being that I am a social butterfly (some would say social whore, but I’ve been emancipated and don’t like such terms) and I am quite well known within several social circles. Her being associated with me leads men to want to get with her as some kind of Alpha male competition. I’ve explained it to her that these men see me and see that I am confident and always surrounded by women, and as she has stated these are women of “good stock”. So what happens is these men become confused and some what competitive (read jealous) because they feel that they are better than me (for whatever reason of their own insecurity) and from this they approach her with the intention of bettering me. Now this may sound far fetched but when conversations along the lines of “Why are you friends with that Jimmy Swagger guy? F**k that guy he ain’t shit” come up unprompted in conversations it really says a lot about the mans thinking and intentions.

Now like I said a lot of this is based on our arrogant (yet loving) friendship, however there is definitely something to both theories. I read a lot of books on marketing and both of these theories are constantly acknowledged as ways of identifying marketing trends and product popularity. For example if George Gervin (he played the same position as Michael Jordan in the 1985 line up for the Chicago Bulls when the Nike Air Jordan was originally released) had been aligned with Nike to create the Nike Air Nobodies, do you think they would still be such a popular shoe over 20 years later? No of course they wouldn’t because George wasn’t then, and isn’t now being talked about. Brand alignment is something that many subconsciously practice, but I’m not sure everyone understands. So what my friend says may have some subconscious truth to it when she is talking about the phycology of women’s mating patterns. Because if I’m honest whenever I’m out with groups of my females friends I more times than not get approached by women and this is even more prevelant if I attend events with just a singular female friend and even though we’re out together we don’t necessarily look like we are together. But when I’m out with male friends or on my own I don’t tend to get approached, which leads me to believe that this may have something to do with the company I keep. Now we know men are hunters driven by our egos so for a man to be able to “take” from another man to them they have some how won some form of unspoken battle. To some men this is like getting the Turbo S and showing it off to the man who just has the standard model.

So to all you singles out there struggling to meet people. Maybe you should look at the brands you align yourself with.