Definition
A fantasy, in Greene's account of seduction, is an idealized mental scenario a person already carries — a private picture of the love, escape, recognition, or adventure they feel their ordinary life denies them. It is not a wish the seducer creates; it is a pre-existing template.
The strategic insight is that seduction does not manufacture desire from nothing. It locates a desire that is already present and supplies a figure who appears to fit it. The seducer studies the target until the shape of that latent scenario becomes visible.
Why it matters
How it works
The seducer observes — past relationships, complaints, the way the person talks about their unlived life — and infers the fantasy. They then position themselves as its plausible occupant: the rescuer, the equal, the escape route. Because the target is meeting their own projection, the pull feels internally generated and uniquely true. That self-authored quality is exactly what makes a fantasy persuasive and hard to question.