Triangles of Desire
Make yourself or your product visibly desired by others to trigger mimetic demand
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 79%
Greene argues that much of human desire is mimetic — we want what other people appear to want. A restaurant packed with laughing diners pulls you in while an empty one repels you, on the same logic that 'there must be a reason.' The framework is to deliberately construct triangles of desire: arrange for the person or product you want desired to be visibly desired by many others, creating a viral effect that draws attention. The tactic works in marketing, personal brand and seduction alike. Greene is explicit that it requires real substance underneath — image with nothing to back it up eventually collapses, as with Elizabeth Holmes or the Fire Festival, where the only missing piece was a product that actually worked.
Origin
Robert Greene builds on the theory of mimetic desire, applying it across seduction, marketing and reputation in his work on human nature and seduction.
Core principles
- 01Human desire is imitative — we want what others want
- 02Visible demand signals hidden value
- 03Social proof creates a viral, self-reinforcing effect
- 04Perceived scarcity plus perceived demand compounds attraction
How to run it
- 1
Pick the target of desire
Decide who you want to be drawn toward you, or which product you want the market to crave.
- 2
Manufacture visible demand
Create situations where the target sees that many others already desire you or the product — models wearing the outfit, a crowded room, admirers around you.
Pro tip Coco Chanel hired models to be seen everywhere in her designs so other women felt they had to want them.
- 3
Let imitation persuade
Allow the observed demand to do the convincing. People conclude there must be a reason so many others are interested, and adopt the desire themselves.
- 4
Back it with substance
Ensure there is real value beneath the perceived demand, because pure image with nothing behind it eventually exposes itself.
Watch out Image without substance is the con-artist trap — it fails the moment reality is tested.
In the wild
Before writing The Art of Seduction, Greene wasn't sure a woman he'd dated twice was interested. For his birthday party he invited her knowing eight beautiful women who were merely friends would be seated around the table. Seeing them, she assumed these women must find Robert enticing — a triangle of desire. It was arguably fake, since they were only friends, but it worked, and she admits it to this day.
→ A relationship that has lasted for years, sparked by manufactured social proof.
Edward Bernays, Freud's cousin and a pioneer of public relations, wanted to normalise women smoking in 1920s America. Rather than one woman in a dark corner, he staged a 'liberty march' with hundreds of women walking down Fifth Avenue smoking in mass, reframing cigarettes as a liberating act. The visible crowd of others doing it made it desirable and acceptable.
→ One of the most effective advertising campaigns of the modern era.
Common mistakes
Building image with no substance
Manufacturing desire around a product or persona that can't deliver ends like Theranos or Fire Festival — the missing piece is always something real to back it up.
Arguing instead of demonstrating demand
Trying to persuade someone directly to want you ignores that desire is imitative — showing that others want it is far more powerful than telling them to.
Is it for you?
Best for
Marketers, founders and anyone building desirability for a person or product.
Not ideal for
Situations with no genuine substance to back the perceived demand, where the effect collapses on contact.
From the transcript
“a lot of our human desires are based on what other people are desiring... you want to continually create triangles of desire”
“the only thing they got wrong was not having a product that backed it up”
From the episode
12 Laws Of Power & Human Nature - Robert Greene - #383
Robert Greene