Thomas Phillips, 1813 · Newstead Abbey · public domain
1812 · London
Lord Byron
Why being unavailable is not a strategy
Childe Harold made him famous overnight. Lady Caroline Lamb read it and wanted to see him. When they met, she turned away, and he pursued her. She is said to have written in her journal that he was "mad, bad, and dangerous to know". The affair lasted from March to August 1812. He ended it because it had become too public and too intense. Her collapse afterwards included self-harm, a novel written in revenge, and a ruined reputation, and it is as well recorded as the glamour.
Source · British Library; Lady Morgan, Memoirs (1862)
Principle 08 · our reading
A reputation is not a method
Not taught. Included as a control case.
Why we teach it
Attention that comes and goes unpredictably makes people attached, not happy. It is how people end up in relationships that they cannot leave and do not enjoy. That is why we teach the opposite.
The exercise
There is no exercise. Read this before you decide that being unavailable is a strategy.
The warning
Byron is here because every seduction manual copies his image and leaves out the people he hurt. Mystery attracts people. Mystery without care damages them, and in this case the damage was real and the person has a name. You may limit your time. Never limit your honesty.
Who Byron was, and why we chose him
1788 – 1824
He was a British Romantic poet who became famous overnight in 1812, when the first part of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage was published. His fame was of a modern kind: crowds followed him, people gossiped about him, and his image was sold. Within four years it collapsed under scandal and debt, and he left England for good. He died at thirty-six at Missolonghi, where he had gone to fight in the Greek war of independence.
Why we chose them · our reading
He is our warning example, and this course needs one. Every seduction manual copies his image, the unavailable, dangerous, brooding man, and quietly leaves out the damage around him. He is not here to be copied. He is here so that you can see that image together with its results.
The other masters
- Ovid — The first book anyone wrote about this
- Cleopatra VII — She made him come to her
- Ninon de l’Enclos — She ended things warmly, on purpose
- Giacomo Casanova — What his memoirs really show
- Madame de Pompadour — She brought a world with her
- Gabriele d’Annunzio — Proof that attention matters more than looks
- Grigori Rasputin — His enemies invented most of his legend
- Marilyn Monroe — She could switch it on
- Joséphine Baker — Being playful worked better than being polished