I sat down this Memorial Day weekend and jotted my new ebook.
INNER GAME PRIMER: Stop being such a fucking pussy
Here it is. Enjoy.
http://itsomusiccompany.com/inner%20game%20primer%20by%20decibel.pdf
Monday, May 31, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
The Four Horsemen of Breakups
I just finished reading Tipping Point by Gladwell which was brilliant, and am on to his follow-up, Blink.
He mentions a researcher who can observe a couple talking for a few minutes and then predict with greater than 90% accuracy if in 15 years they will still be together.
The signs he looks for are called the four horsemen: defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism and contempt.
Defensiveness: a girl accuses you of being stingy, and you argue that you’re not.
Stonewalling: a girl accuses you of being stingy, and you get annoyed and turn away.
Criticism: you accuse a girl of being greedy.
Contempt: a girl accuses you of being stingy, and you roll your eyes and make a disgusted face, or tell her she’s a bitch.
Women tend to be more critical, and men do more stonewalling. The one factor that is most predictive of relationship durability, and which is independent of gender, is contempt. While the other three factors may not promote happy times, contempt actually puts one person on another plane, creating a hierarchy in the relationship. It’s that hierarchy which spells doom.
So be on the look-out for these four signs in your relationships, both coming from you and her. But especially pay attention to evidence of contempt.
He mentions a researcher who can observe a couple talking for a few minutes and then predict with greater than 90% accuracy if in 15 years they will still be together.
The signs he looks for are called the four horsemen: defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism and contempt.
Defensiveness: a girl accuses you of being stingy, and you argue that you’re not.
Stonewalling: a girl accuses you of being stingy, and you get annoyed and turn away.
Criticism: you accuse a girl of being greedy.
Contempt: a girl accuses you of being stingy, and you roll your eyes and make a disgusted face, or tell her she’s a bitch.
Women tend to be more critical, and men do more stonewalling. The one factor that is most predictive of relationship durability, and which is independent of gender, is contempt. While the other three factors may not promote happy times, contempt actually puts one person on another plane, creating a hierarchy in the relationship. It’s that hierarchy which spells doom.
So be on the look-out for these four signs in your relationships, both coming from you and her. But especially pay attention to evidence of contempt.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
5 things the pickup community doesn’t want you to know
Recently there's been a huge wave of anti-PUA posts. Most of this is written by guys trying to sell their own bootcamps and material. As a joke, I responded with the following post, which echoes a lot of the comments made by these other guys. PUAHate.com I guess thought I was serious, and they've been praising my post lolzzzz.
1. Just be yourself. Come on man. It’s not that hard. Go out and be yourself and girls will sleep with you. You don’t need to go to the gym, or learn about calibration or theory. It’s all bullshit. More lies the community feeds you to sell bootcamps. All you need to do is be yourself. That is, as long as you’re an asshole, since those are the only guys who get laid. Everyone else is just plain weird and will never get laid.
2. Be confident. Girls love confident guys. All you need to do is walk up to a girl and be really confident about yourself, and she’s bound to sleep with you. Getting confidence is easy. You tell yourself you’re awesome, and that’s it…you’re good to go. When you touch girls, do it with confidence. I realize you’ve never been told how to actually do it, but touching girls is like the easiest thing a man can do, so stop being a dick and do it.
3. It’ll happen when you least expect it. Sarging is a waste of time. Have you ever tried sitting around not talking to girls, and have you noticed they ALWAYS talk to you? Ever wonder why this is? You gotta stop trying, because that’s when girls will appear in your life.
4. Don’t take pickup seriously. Come on, man. This shit’s hilarious. Sitting in your mommy’s basement every night well into your 30s, playing video games and not getting laid. Yeah, that’s some funny shit. It’s not like you’re gonna get suicidal doing that. You can go out and have fun, and not really put in much effort, and still get laid. As long as you don’t take this shit seriously, you’re bound to get good at picking up chicks. The moment you start thinking about this as a “journey” or create goals that are uncomfortable and involve work, you’re taking it waaaay too seriously. Lighten the fuck up, man.
5. The community stops you from getting laid and is full of frauds. Posting on the forum is the surest sign you’re not getting laid, or if you are it’s with a war pig. Hanging out with other pickup artists is also a good way to know you’re a virgin. There’s no valid exchange of information on forums. It’s all designed to stop you from getting pussy and turn you into a loser. I’m the only exception. Everyone else sucks except me, so always listen to what I have to say. I’m not out to make a ton of money, but everyone else is. Pretty much everyone in the community who teaches is a fraud. (Except me. I’m ok).
1. Just be yourself. Come on man. It’s not that hard. Go out and be yourself and girls will sleep with you. You don’t need to go to the gym, or learn about calibration or theory. It’s all bullshit. More lies the community feeds you to sell bootcamps. All you need to do is be yourself. That is, as long as you’re an asshole, since those are the only guys who get laid. Everyone else is just plain weird and will never get laid.
2. Be confident. Girls love confident guys. All you need to do is walk up to a girl and be really confident about yourself, and she’s bound to sleep with you. Getting confidence is easy. You tell yourself you’re awesome, and that’s it…you’re good to go. When you touch girls, do it with confidence. I realize you’ve never been told how to actually do it, but touching girls is like the easiest thing a man can do, so stop being a dick and do it.
3. It’ll happen when you least expect it. Sarging is a waste of time. Have you ever tried sitting around not talking to girls, and have you noticed they ALWAYS talk to you? Ever wonder why this is? You gotta stop trying, because that’s when girls will appear in your life.
4. Don’t take pickup seriously. Come on, man. This shit’s hilarious. Sitting in your mommy’s basement every night well into your 30s, playing video games and not getting laid. Yeah, that’s some funny shit. It’s not like you’re gonna get suicidal doing that. You can go out and have fun, and not really put in much effort, and still get laid. As long as you don’t take this shit seriously, you’re bound to get good at picking up chicks. The moment you start thinking about this as a “journey” or create goals that are uncomfortable and involve work, you’re taking it waaaay too seriously. Lighten the fuck up, man.
5. The community stops you from getting laid and is full of frauds. Posting on the forum is the surest sign you’re not getting laid, or if you are it’s with a war pig. Hanging out with other pickup artists is also a good way to know you’re a virgin. There’s no valid exchange of information on forums. It’s all designed to stop you from getting pussy and turn you into a loser. I’m the only exception. Everyone else sucks except me, so always listen to what I have to say. I’m not out to make a ton of money, but everyone else is. Pretty much everyone in the community who teaches is a fraud. (Except me. I’m ok).
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Clarity
Women are allowed to be tangential and illogical. Men are not. We are expected to be clear in our actions and intentions. But a lot of fuckers lack clarity. I was a victim of this for most of my life. Once I became clear inside and out, I felt much lighter and could make very direct connections with people very quickly.
There’s a lot involved in what it means to be clear. Let’s pick some of this shit apart.
First, there’s the subconscious. They tell me this is 88% of your mind, so we can safely state the subconscious has a big say in the things we do. Sometimes it’s obvious when our subconscious is creating noise in our heads, but often it’s subtle.
For example, many times when I ask a dude to go approach, he’ll first take a sip of his drink, then hesitate, then give me some reasons why he won’t approach.
Dissecting this, there are two ways this guy is demonstrating lack of clarity. First, he’s taking a sip. This is his subconscious saying, “I miss my mommy and wish her teets were here because I’m scared. But instead of having my mommy, I’ll take a sip from this straw.” It’s a pacifying maneuver intended to alleviate the internal conflict, in this case the desire to approach coupled with the fear of the approach.
His second sign is his creating logical excuses to not approach. The dude’s attracted to her, he’s horny, he knows consciously the approach is the right thing to do and he has never ever regretted any approach he’s ever made. And yet there’s the conscious mind trying to talk himself out of taking action.
Okay, so in both examples, he isn’t acting and speaking clearly. He has conflict, incongruence and fear, and is feeling the need to defend himself and assuage himself. As opposed to a man who is clear with his desires, owns them unabashedly, and does what he feels is the right thing.
Now, if I were inside this dude’s head, there may be a bunch of “noise” or “static.” Things that he may be processing, consciously or subconsciously:
“I’m too old.”
“I don’t have money for dates.”
“Mommy was controlling, and I fear this girl might turn out to be like mommy.”
“My last girlfriend cheated on me, and I’m afraid this girl might do the same.”
“This girl is just gonna reject me like the last five girls, so what’s the point?”
“I’m not wearing any peacocking.”
“My breath smells.”
Again, none of this may rise up to your conscious level. It may all be processing deeper below your level of consciousness, but would certainly be telegraphing out through your subcoms. And most definitely these beliefs will be delaying you from taking action or moving your interactions forward. So while we talk about “being in your head” with negative self-talk, it’s possible to be in your body yet still affected by these limiting beliefs.
This is all clutter that leads to lack of clarity within. It’s all harmful. The end result is you not taking full ownership of your intentions. The hotty doesn’t know exactly why and doesn’t care. Often, she’ll blame herself as undesirable to you. What matters is that your lack of clarity will create in women a similar lack of clarity. She will get confused and lose focus. Girls are mirrors of our own inner state, so if chicks seem confused around you it’s probably because you are confusing them. Your job is to figure out why.
The pickup community is often accused of being misogynistic, treating women like children. But guess what...there are similarities. So when I want to research how to talk to women, I can find advice in sources dealing with child rearing.
Here’s a quote I found today:
Children learn best by being given clear, firm and consistent direction from parents who are clear, firm and consistent in their approach.
Women…kids…same thing. Be clear. Speak with power. Be congruent.
The author of this statement goes on to say, “Firstly, find and maintain clarity within yourself.” Brilliant. “It is about being plain, obvious and understandable in a clear, short sentence that explains exactly what you mean. It isn’t about maybe this or maybe that.” Exactly.
Gather up your potential sources of confusion and get to work:
1. Clearing out the subconscious. You may have repressed negative experiences involving girls or your mom, and you may be tainting all your interactions before they even begin. Sometimes you have a clue what’s going on below the surface, but sometimes those beliefs are so deep that you need to consult a professional to get at them.
2. Uncluttering the conscious. This is where Tolle comes in. The Power of Now teaches people how to recognize that egoic voice and then how to distance themselves from it as the observer. This takes a bit of effort for some, but with practice it becomes easier to recognize what is unproductive bullshit that can be dismissed. Pretty much there are thoughts that get you laid, and then there’s everything else. All that other crap is irrelevant and needs to be quarantined and set aside.
3. Making your words clear. Stop using fillers like “uummmm,” stop punctuating your remarks with nervous laughs. Before you speak, think about what you want to say and then create a sentence. There are organizations like Toast Masters that can help you recognize and break bad habits. Go take those classes.
4. Quit with all the jazz hands and shit. A little gesturing is ok. Excessive sign language is distracting. Simplify your movements. Use your hands expressively but not defensively.
5. Recognize pacifying maneuvers and quiet them. Hands in pockets, touching your face, putting your drink up between your face and hers. These are ways to create an invisible wall of protection around yourself. Why are you protecting yourself from something you desire? Does this make sense? Buzzz…unclear.
6. Project. Give yourself permission to speak loudly. You can turn the dial up on your radio, but you simply aren’t doing it because you’re afraid of being heard. If you wanna say something, fucking say it. If you’re stifling your voice, you must be unsure about the message you’re trying to relate. When you have clarity and you need to say something, you say it so people hear it. If you need to take voice lessons, go off and take them. However many times it’s not so much a problem with vocal technique, but more a psychological issue. Believing your voice matters and that you deserve to be heard, this is the first step needed to speak loudly.
7. Believe in yourself. Be your own salesman. Ain’t nobody else gonna do it for you. If you believe in a product, you’re gonna sell it with conviction and clarity. If you’re unsure about the product’s worth, you’re gonna be wishy-washy in your delivery. Self-affirmations work for some people. There are a bunch of self-help books and videos around that may move you in the right direction. But ultimately you need to love and respect yourself fully for this to click.
There’s a lot involved in what it means to be clear. Let’s pick some of this shit apart.
First, there’s the subconscious. They tell me this is 88% of your mind, so we can safely state the subconscious has a big say in the things we do. Sometimes it’s obvious when our subconscious is creating noise in our heads, but often it’s subtle.
For example, many times when I ask a dude to go approach, he’ll first take a sip of his drink, then hesitate, then give me some reasons why he won’t approach.
Dissecting this, there are two ways this guy is demonstrating lack of clarity. First, he’s taking a sip. This is his subconscious saying, “I miss my mommy and wish her teets were here because I’m scared. But instead of having my mommy, I’ll take a sip from this straw.” It’s a pacifying maneuver intended to alleviate the internal conflict, in this case the desire to approach coupled with the fear of the approach.
His second sign is his creating logical excuses to not approach. The dude’s attracted to her, he’s horny, he knows consciously the approach is the right thing to do and he has never ever regretted any approach he’s ever made. And yet there’s the conscious mind trying to talk himself out of taking action.
Okay, so in both examples, he isn’t acting and speaking clearly. He has conflict, incongruence and fear, and is feeling the need to defend himself and assuage himself. As opposed to a man who is clear with his desires, owns them unabashedly, and does what he feels is the right thing.
Now, if I were inside this dude’s head, there may be a bunch of “noise” or “static.” Things that he may be processing, consciously or subconsciously:
“I’m too old.”
“I don’t have money for dates.”
“Mommy was controlling, and I fear this girl might turn out to be like mommy.”
“My last girlfriend cheated on me, and I’m afraid this girl might do the same.”
“This girl is just gonna reject me like the last five girls, so what’s the point?”
“I’m not wearing any peacocking.”
“My breath smells.”
Again, none of this may rise up to your conscious level. It may all be processing deeper below your level of consciousness, but would certainly be telegraphing out through your subcoms. And most definitely these beliefs will be delaying you from taking action or moving your interactions forward. So while we talk about “being in your head” with negative self-talk, it’s possible to be in your body yet still affected by these limiting beliefs.
This is all clutter that leads to lack of clarity within. It’s all harmful. The end result is you not taking full ownership of your intentions. The hotty doesn’t know exactly why and doesn’t care. Often, she’ll blame herself as undesirable to you. What matters is that your lack of clarity will create in women a similar lack of clarity. She will get confused and lose focus. Girls are mirrors of our own inner state, so if chicks seem confused around you it’s probably because you are confusing them. Your job is to figure out why.
The pickup community is often accused of being misogynistic, treating women like children. But guess what...there are similarities. So when I want to research how to talk to women, I can find advice in sources dealing with child rearing.
Here’s a quote I found today:
Children learn best by being given clear, firm and consistent direction from parents who are clear, firm and consistent in their approach.
Women…kids…same thing. Be clear. Speak with power. Be congruent.
The author of this statement goes on to say, “Firstly, find and maintain clarity within yourself.” Brilliant. “It is about being plain, obvious and understandable in a clear, short sentence that explains exactly what you mean. It isn’t about maybe this or maybe that.” Exactly.
Gather up your potential sources of confusion and get to work:
1. Clearing out the subconscious. You may have repressed negative experiences involving girls or your mom, and you may be tainting all your interactions before they even begin. Sometimes you have a clue what’s going on below the surface, but sometimes those beliefs are so deep that you need to consult a professional to get at them.
2. Uncluttering the conscious. This is where Tolle comes in. The Power of Now teaches people how to recognize that egoic voice and then how to distance themselves from it as the observer. This takes a bit of effort for some, but with practice it becomes easier to recognize what is unproductive bullshit that can be dismissed. Pretty much there are thoughts that get you laid, and then there’s everything else. All that other crap is irrelevant and needs to be quarantined and set aside.
3. Making your words clear. Stop using fillers like “uummmm,” stop punctuating your remarks with nervous laughs. Before you speak, think about what you want to say and then create a sentence. There are organizations like Toast Masters that can help you recognize and break bad habits. Go take those classes.
4. Quit with all the jazz hands and shit. A little gesturing is ok. Excessive sign language is distracting. Simplify your movements. Use your hands expressively but not defensively.
5. Recognize pacifying maneuvers and quiet them. Hands in pockets, touching your face, putting your drink up between your face and hers. These are ways to create an invisible wall of protection around yourself. Why are you protecting yourself from something you desire? Does this make sense? Buzzz…unclear.
6. Project. Give yourself permission to speak loudly. You can turn the dial up on your radio, but you simply aren’t doing it because you’re afraid of being heard. If you wanna say something, fucking say it. If you’re stifling your voice, you must be unsure about the message you’re trying to relate. When you have clarity and you need to say something, you say it so people hear it. If you need to take voice lessons, go off and take them. However many times it’s not so much a problem with vocal technique, but more a psychological issue. Believing your voice matters and that you deserve to be heard, this is the first step needed to speak loudly.
7. Believe in yourself. Be your own salesman. Ain’t nobody else gonna do it for you. If you believe in a product, you’re gonna sell it with conviction and clarity. If you’re unsure about the product’s worth, you’re gonna be wishy-washy in your delivery. Self-affirmations work for some people. There are a bunch of self-help books and videos around that may move you in the right direction. But ultimately you need to love and respect yourself fully for this to click.
Friday, May 14, 2010
2 reasons to game
I was sitting at the crew meeting last night with Erika Awakening and I heard guys express reservation about speaking honestly with a girl because it could ruin their chances. And so if the guy was feeling anxious, or was projecting past relationships into the current one, rather than express his concerns he pushed his negative feelings deeper. Though this approach wasn’t working long term, it made for a pretty good band-aid.
Yes, there is sound logic strategically to not being fully honest with people about your emotions. You won’t get the girl if you look like a pussy. On the other hand, being able to speak your mind freely is therapeutic, and while it may sink the current interaction, it’ll help with future girls.
It boils down to having two goals when you game:
The first: it’s about you.
The second: it’s about her.
Things that aren’t challenging to you and which advance the interaction forward, are about her. Getting the girl. Things that challenge you emotionally and are not intended to move things along are about you. You can have one without the other, or they can be compatible.
Examples of saying/doing things that are about you:
“Wow, I’m trying to think of something to say right now but you’re making me super nervous.”
“I was gonna approach you 10 minutes ago but you’re really hot so I’m actually intimidated.”
Blowing yourself out on purpose with absurd comments to toughen your skin.
Escalating too hard to get past the anxiety you feel, even though it creeps her out.
Ok, so here’s another one of my famous metaphors…
You are the general commanding an army. Your army is malnourished, tired and getting sick from dysentery. Should you be focusing your attention on: a) strategies to win the war, or b) improving the health of your troops?
Seems like a no-brainer. If you let your troops die, you ain’t winning the battle. If you spend all your energy on tactics, at the expense of providing basic assistance to the soldiers, then all that energy is mental masturbation.
This is exactly the same with game, though instead of going into combat, you’re trying to seduce a broad. Here, your inner game is the battalion, sick and on the verge of collapse.
Say you are feeling a negative emotion in set. Your soldiers are sick. Do you decide to stifle those emotions because it’s a better tactical decision, or instead do you bring those emotions to the surface and express them, because doing so will help heal your inner game?
If your troops are sick, fucking take care of the troops.
Worrying about her – that is, wondering if a certain strategy is the best outer game - in this case, is a luxury. When your inner game sucks, it should all be about you. As your inner health improves, you can then shift focus onto her. Once you’ve conquered whatever is internally stopping you from success, then you can reconsider the best strategies to win the war.
Always be cognizant of this in field. If a set doesn’t go well, remind yourself, “well it’s about me anyways.” If you’re afraid to say or do something, still do it because “it’s about me.”
In a final example, yesterday I called a chick I met last week. I had a bunch of reasons to delete the number and move on (one reason being I didn’t even remember her fucking name lolzzz). I envisioned the awkwardness of calling up a girl who might not remember me, whose name I didn’t even know. And that’s when I made the decision to call. Even though the call could’ve ended up weird and humiliating, or a waste of time, or her getting pissed (it didn’t by the way), I did it anyway…for me.
Yes, there is sound logic strategically to not being fully honest with people about your emotions. You won’t get the girl if you look like a pussy. On the other hand, being able to speak your mind freely is therapeutic, and while it may sink the current interaction, it’ll help with future girls.
It boils down to having two goals when you game:
The first: it’s about you.
The second: it’s about her.
Things that aren’t challenging to you and which advance the interaction forward, are about her. Getting the girl. Things that challenge you emotionally and are not intended to move things along are about you. You can have one without the other, or they can be compatible.
Examples of saying/doing things that are about you:
“Wow, I’m trying to think of something to say right now but you’re making me super nervous.”
“I was gonna approach you 10 minutes ago but you’re really hot so I’m actually intimidated.”
Blowing yourself out on purpose with absurd comments to toughen your skin.
Escalating too hard to get past the anxiety you feel, even though it creeps her out.
Ok, so here’s another one of my famous metaphors…
You are the general commanding an army. Your army is malnourished, tired and getting sick from dysentery. Should you be focusing your attention on: a) strategies to win the war, or b) improving the health of your troops?
Seems like a no-brainer. If you let your troops die, you ain’t winning the battle. If you spend all your energy on tactics, at the expense of providing basic assistance to the soldiers, then all that energy is mental masturbation.
This is exactly the same with game, though instead of going into combat, you’re trying to seduce a broad. Here, your inner game is the battalion, sick and on the verge of collapse.
Say you are feeling a negative emotion in set. Your soldiers are sick. Do you decide to stifle those emotions because it’s a better tactical decision, or instead do you bring those emotions to the surface and express them, because doing so will help heal your inner game?
If your troops are sick, fucking take care of the troops.
Worrying about her – that is, wondering if a certain strategy is the best outer game - in this case, is a luxury. When your inner game sucks, it should all be about you. As your inner health improves, you can then shift focus onto her. Once you’ve conquered whatever is internally stopping you from success, then you can reconsider the best strategies to win the war.
Always be cognizant of this in field. If a set doesn’t go well, remind yourself, “well it’s about me anyways.” If you’re afraid to say or do something, still do it because “it’s about me.”
In a final example, yesterday I called a chick I met last week. I had a bunch of reasons to delete the number and move on (one reason being I didn’t even remember her fucking name lolzzz). I envisioned the awkwardness of calling up a girl who might not remember me, whose name I didn’t even know. And that’s when I made the decision to call. Even though the call could’ve ended up weird and humiliating, or a waste of time, or her getting pissed (it didn’t by the way), I did it anyway…for me.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Being Real
We hear people say “just be yourself.” Obviously, when you’re socially miscalibrated and weird, being yourself doesn’t attract women. So this is crappy advice, mostly given by women who simply have to show and up look pretty to get rewarded.
Because of this, we must learn how to DHV and not DLV. We get our subcoms handled and project confidence. Then with practice we can relax and “just be ourselves.” That is, be our better selves.
Being yourself, once you’ve learned how to do it right, is a great goal. But the next step is being real.
Here’s an example from last night, where I was chatting up a feisty cutie:
Me: Girls tell me guys will lie about anything to sleep with them. That’s why girls don’t trust dudes in LA.
Her: So, you’re saying I shouldn’t trust you?
Me: No, of course you shouldn’t.
Her: (dumbfounded look) Uhhh…why not?
Me: Because that’s something I should earn. You oughta keep your guards up til you get to know me better. I respect that.
Clearly not what she expected to hear, which was probably more along the lines of “yeah, sure you can trust me!” In that moment, I wasn’t interested in bullshit, and neither was she. Saying “just trust me” is a ploy; saying “don’t trust me…you don’t even know me” is being real. One smells like a hard sell, the other is genuine and disarming.
Girls get hit on A LOT. Even the ones who aren’t that attractive, yeah they get gamed as much as the hot chicks. So with all this exposure to game, they can recognize BS a mile away, and can easily tell when you’re out there trying to peddle snake oil.
Where being a PUA turns into a liability is when you’re not being genuine, when you’re running routines that seem contrived, when you’re giving answers that are too textbook. Guys think they should have “solid game” to win over chicks. Many times though, that’s exactly what sinks the interaction. Admitting you fucked up your game is one of the best ways to get attraction. Case in point:
Me: Wow, you have really sexy elbows!
Her: What? I’m wearing sleeves. You can’t even see my elbows!
Me: Yeeeahh…you got me. You’re cute and I just wanted an excuse to say hi.
The more skittish a girl is, the less you should “game” her. Chilling back, vibing, but still showing intent, will get you in without setting off her “PUA” alarms. These are the girls who have their arms crossed, or are stabbing their straws into their drinks, or are calling you out on your pick-up line. Disarming these girls involves push-pull, but here again let me emphasize you still need to appear genuine with it.
Going back to last night:
Me: Hmm you smell good.
Her: It’s Yves Saint Laurent.
Me: What’s that? Shampoo?
Her: You’ve never heard of Yves Saint Laurent??!!
Me: Oh, I see, you’re one of those high maintenance chicks.
Her: No, I’m not high maintenance.
Me: Hmmm…let me see again…(pull her hair, bite her neck and earlobe, etc).
This feels in-the-moment and real now, because I’ve internalized the concept of push-pull. That’s how I’m wired to talk to chicks, but it took tons of trial and error. When I started out, I needed scripts and lines to get the job done. It worked, but felt a bit fake.
As a caveat I should say that many people don't want a guy who is keeping it real. Especially in bars/clubs, and especially around LA, what many girls are doing is comparing facades and then aligning with the most impressive facade. You may find that when you stay real, guys and girls want nothing to do with you. As a result, you may get fewer dates and fewer friends. But the people you have in your life should be of better quality than what you had before.
Some steps you can take to become real…
1. Fake it til you make it. Banter lines and routines are fine for starters. They’ll put you in the right state of mind. Eventually though, relying on them excessively will put you in a rut. Get a few lines memorized and make it a mission to try them out for several nights. Once you rewire your brain, be in the moment and move forward from your core.
2. Find your core. The number one killer of your inner game, in my opinion, is outer game. That is, running all sortsa pyrotechnics intended to wow dames, when in reality what you’re doing is playing hide-and-go-seek with your identity. This is largely because your ego is running the show. So if this is you, drop all the clutter. But some guys still can’t speak from their core because there’s too much damn static in the attic, so recognizing the true inner voice becomes impossible. In addition to decluttering your outer game, you need to do the same inside your head. There’s no way to be genuine if you have a buncha crap mucking things up.
3. Obtain an abundance mentality. I push girls away because I honestly don’t give a fuck. If she’s being too sassy, I’ll call her out on it. But when you’re coming from a place of scarcity, this isn’t so easy. You walk on eggshells and end up seeming needy because all you do is pull. How do you get abundance mentality? It’s not necessarily from having abundance, but from spending enough time in the field to finally recognize just how many hot girls there are in the world. As you raise your bar of what behaviors you’re willing to accept, you go from a place of supplicating to a place of screening. You simply don’t have the time, energy or resources to deal with weirdos...and believe me there’s a shitload of weird girls out there. Hence, out of necessity, you acquire abundance mentality.
4. Don’t care too much about the outcome. If you wanna run textbook game, you may have great success with this. If you instead wanna be real, you’re gonna screw up some of your interactions. When you care that much about the outcome, you’ll find it hard to put your nuts on the line and be genuine. This is high-risk, high-reward stuff. It can either totally bomb your set, or else win her over. Have one eye on the outcome, just enough to move in that direction, but stop caring so much about getting there.
5. Own it. I’m short. I recognize that being tall is more attractive, so I wear lifts that add four inches. And when I do, it’s a lot easier for me to gain attraction. This doesn’t mean I won’t go out in flat shoes, or that I care at all if a girl is taller. I accept my height and this isn’t a self-esteem issue. The same would hold for my race or any other aspect of my being that isn’t changeable. What you got, own it. If you can overcome flaws, then do it. If not, then accept things as they are. It’s ok to hide and exaggerate various aspects (god knows girls do this all the time…push-up bras, anyone?). What’s not ok is to let these perceived flaws affect your sense of worth, because once a chick shatters the illusion and sees you crumble, it’s game over. So if a girl calls me out on my shoe lifts, I say, “if I didn’t wear them my eyes would be at your chest level, and then I’d be staring at your tits all night, which is just rude.”
6. Be uncomfortable. Put yourself into awkward situations. Say provocative things that will likely blow you out. Manhandle girls. It’s all ok. You’ll survive. And with these blow-outs you’ll move farther outside your comfort zone. Soon enough, you’ll find yourself comfortable in any situation, which will permit you to be free to say and do what you feel.
Because of this, we must learn how to DHV and not DLV. We get our subcoms handled and project confidence. Then with practice we can relax and “just be ourselves.” That is, be our better selves.
Being yourself, once you’ve learned how to do it right, is a great goal. But the next step is being real.
Here’s an example from last night, where I was chatting up a feisty cutie:
Me: Girls tell me guys will lie about anything to sleep with them. That’s why girls don’t trust dudes in LA.
Her: So, you’re saying I shouldn’t trust you?
Me: No, of course you shouldn’t.
Her: (dumbfounded look) Uhhh…why not?
Me: Because that’s something I should earn. You oughta keep your guards up til you get to know me better. I respect that.
Clearly not what she expected to hear, which was probably more along the lines of “yeah, sure you can trust me!” In that moment, I wasn’t interested in bullshit, and neither was she. Saying “just trust me” is a ploy; saying “don’t trust me…you don’t even know me” is being real. One smells like a hard sell, the other is genuine and disarming.
Girls get hit on A LOT. Even the ones who aren’t that attractive, yeah they get gamed as much as the hot chicks. So with all this exposure to game, they can recognize BS a mile away, and can easily tell when you’re out there trying to peddle snake oil.
Where being a PUA turns into a liability is when you’re not being genuine, when you’re running routines that seem contrived, when you’re giving answers that are too textbook. Guys think they should have “solid game” to win over chicks. Many times though, that’s exactly what sinks the interaction. Admitting you fucked up your game is one of the best ways to get attraction. Case in point:
Me: Wow, you have really sexy elbows!
Her: What? I’m wearing sleeves. You can’t even see my elbows!
Me: Yeeeahh…you got me. You’re cute and I just wanted an excuse to say hi.
The more skittish a girl is, the less you should “game” her. Chilling back, vibing, but still showing intent, will get you in without setting off her “PUA” alarms. These are the girls who have their arms crossed, or are stabbing their straws into their drinks, or are calling you out on your pick-up line. Disarming these girls involves push-pull, but here again let me emphasize you still need to appear genuine with it.
Going back to last night:
Me: Hmm you smell good.
Her: It’s Yves Saint Laurent.
Me: What’s that? Shampoo?
Her: You’ve never heard of Yves Saint Laurent??!!
Me: Oh, I see, you’re one of those high maintenance chicks.
Her: No, I’m not high maintenance.
Me: Hmmm…let me see again…(pull her hair, bite her neck and earlobe, etc).
This feels in-the-moment and real now, because I’ve internalized the concept of push-pull. That’s how I’m wired to talk to chicks, but it took tons of trial and error. When I started out, I needed scripts and lines to get the job done. It worked, but felt a bit fake.
As a caveat I should say that many people don't want a guy who is keeping it real. Especially in bars/clubs, and especially around LA, what many girls are doing is comparing facades and then aligning with the most impressive facade. You may find that when you stay real, guys and girls want nothing to do with you. As a result, you may get fewer dates and fewer friends. But the people you have in your life should be of better quality than what you had before.
Some steps you can take to become real…
1. Fake it til you make it. Banter lines and routines are fine for starters. They’ll put you in the right state of mind. Eventually though, relying on them excessively will put you in a rut. Get a few lines memorized and make it a mission to try them out for several nights. Once you rewire your brain, be in the moment and move forward from your core.
2. Find your core. The number one killer of your inner game, in my opinion, is outer game. That is, running all sortsa pyrotechnics intended to wow dames, when in reality what you’re doing is playing hide-and-go-seek with your identity. This is largely because your ego is running the show. So if this is you, drop all the clutter. But some guys still can’t speak from their core because there’s too much damn static in the attic, so recognizing the true inner voice becomes impossible. In addition to decluttering your outer game, you need to do the same inside your head. There’s no way to be genuine if you have a buncha crap mucking things up.
3. Obtain an abundance mentality. I push girls away because I honestly don’t give a fuck. If she’s being too sassy, I’ll call her out on it. But when you’re coming from a place of scarcity, this isn’t so easy. You walk on eggshells and end up seeming needy because all you do is pull. How do you get abundance mentality? It’s not necessarily from having abundance, but from spending enough time in the field to finally recognize just how many hot girls there are in the world. As you raise your bar of what behaviors you’re willing to accept, you go from a place of supplicating to a place of screening. You simply don’t have the time, energy or resources to deal with weirdos...and believe me there’s a shitload of weird girls out there. Hence, out of necessity, you acquire abundance mentality.
4. Don’t care too much about the outcome. If you wanna run textbook game, you may have great success with this. If you instead wanna be real, you’re gonna screw up some of your interactions. When you care that much about the outcome, you’ll find it hard to put your nuts on the line and be genuine. This is high-risk, high-reward stuff. It can either totally bomb your set, or else win her over. Have one eye on the outcome, just enough to move in that direction, but stop caring so much about getting there.
5. Own it. I’m short. I recognize that being tall is more attractive, so I wear lifts that add four inches. And when I do, it’s a lot easier for me to gain attraction. This doesn’t mean I won’t go out in flat shoes, or that I care at all if a girl is taller. I accept my height and this isn’t a self-esteem issue. The same would hold for my race or any other aspect of my being that isn’t changeable. What you got, own it. If you can overcome flaws, then do it. If not, then accept things as they are. It’s ok to hide and exaggerate various aspects (god knows girls do this all the time…push-up bras, anyone?). What’s not ok is to let these perceived flaws affect your sense of worth, because once a chick shatters the illusion and sees you crumble, it’s game over. So if a girl calls me out on my shoe lifts, I say, “if I didn’t wear them my eyes would be at your chest level, and then I’d be staring at your tits all night, which is just rude.”
6. Be uncomfortable. Put yourself into awkward situations. Say provocative things that will likely blow you out. Manhandle girls. It’s all ok. You’ll survive. And with these blow-outs you’ll move farther outside your comfort zone. Soon enough, you’ll find yourself comfortable in any situation, which will permit you to be free to say and do what you feel.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Assertiveness, Intent, Drive
Here’s some more pop psychology for ya. I never read self-help books or go to seminars. I just watch people and then meditate for hours on what I think’s happening. But I feel it’s pretty accurate. Strap yourself in, this one’s long.
To get shit done, you need these three ingredients: you must possess drive (aka libido), you gotta focus your drive in the form of intent, and then you have to manifest your intent through assertiveness. Let’s start at the end and work backwards.
Assertiveness
You see something you want and you go after it, whether that’s a job position, a girl or a bartender’s attention. Have intent with no assertiveness, and you wind up with zip. So assertiveness takes your intent and puts it into action. Of course, if you lack intent, you won’t be assertive, so intent is a prerequisite.
Too much and you’re aggressive, too little and you’re passive. The aggressor is the bully, the passivist is the doormat, and the assertive guy is in between.
Aggressive people tend to step over the boundaries of passive people, resulting in abuse and manipulation. Assertive people say what they mean and go after what they want, but not in a way that is harmful to others or disrespectful of others’ boundaries. If an assertive person meets an aggressive person, he will defend his boundaries from aggression.
So in the case of the bartender, a passive guy will stand meekly by waiting for the bartender to notice him while everyone else steps around him and gets waited on. The aggressive guy will push and shove everyone out of the way and yell at the bartender for help. The assertive guy will step up to the bar without pushing anyone aside, will focus on the bartender until they lock eyes, and then will make his voice heard in a way that is commanding.
There is no issue of clarity with the aggressive or the assertive guy. The passive guy, however, seems unclear about his intent (this is the perception of others, even if he is clear in his head). And so he is often ignored and passed by. Men don’t respect him and women aren’t captivated by him. Even if he is full of intent, he doesn’t show it, so he is seen as a pussy, someone who doesn’t feel good about himself, wishy washy, lets people take advantage of him, doesn’t feel free to express himself.
Aggressive people don’t have an issue with expressing their desires, but often the trouble is in controlling their emotions. So they explode unexpectedly, seem impulsive and brash. A little bit of this is exciting, but eventually the assertive guy appears more solid since he is in command of his emotions. Other people feel good interacting with assertive men, but they often wind up feeling used and disrespected by aggressive men.
Let’s take this to your interaction with girlies. Shall we?
Let’s say you have full-on intent. Meaning you see a hot girl and you want to fuck her. Now, rather than be assertive, you sit there and don’t approach. Or in another situation, you want to make out with a girl you’re hitting on, but that voice in your head stops you. Or perhaps she’s being a bitch and you don’t put your foot down, instead buckling and letting her be dominant.
Digging deeper, the cause of not approaching is anxiety. So it is with not pulling the trigger. Perhaps fear of loss stops you from letting girls know when they’ve overstepped your boundaries. Maybe you’re scared that your communication skills are subpar and will inadvertently get you into trouble.
Notice in all these cases the underlying theme is anxiety and fear. If you are truly confident and without fear, you will put your intent into action. Yes there may be repercussions. You may be made a fool of, your ego may get bruised, you may get rejected. But you get back on your feet and reassert yourself, or else realize the goal isn’t worth the effort and then redirect your energies.
Sometimes that fear is masquerading as something else. That’s where excuses come from. Guys who don’t approach often have a list of a dozen reasons to support their behavior. Recognizing this internal dialogue and then disidentifying yourself from it is the first step, and then setting this dialogue aside and doing what you want anyway are the next steps.
So what is neediness? If you like a girl, and you assert your intent, but then she tells you she's busy or sick, and then you STILL push to meet up with her, then you've passed assertiveness and have become aggressive. You are now trying to do what YOU want to do in spite of her feelings.
Intent when pushed aggressively is no longer intent, but agenda. You can come across as callous or needy depending on your frame. But either way, it's clear you have an agenda to do what YOU want to do in spite of her.
To help become more assertive, put your intent into clear and decisive action. Take charge. Lead. Take responsibility and risk. Own your intent.
Intent
Intent is your aim or purpose. In legal terms, it’s the state of your mind when you carry out an action.
If you lack intent, even with strong drive, then you probably aren’t trusting of your decision-making process. Or perhaps you feel yourself unworthy of the goal. You have drive, but you aren’t channeling it for a variety of reasons.
Intent is like light. In terms of meeting broads, the newb starts off with a wide beam of intent similar to a floodlight, and then as he progresses that beam turns into a narrowly focused laser.
If you shine a big floodlight on a girl, she'll get annoyed and give you her number to make you go away. It didn't really penetrate. Examples: never going direct, no flirting, nothing dominant, no qualifying. It’s a wide-open aperture, without focus to the beam, really diffuse. This is the newbie. His intent is usually simply to open 10 sets regardless of his attraction to her, not push to the close, whatever happens happens. Not surprisingly, lotsa flakes result.
At the other extreme is the tightest beam of intent, the laser. This guy demands he not only interact with a girl’s better self, but that he FUCKS her better self. He avoids the frames that don't suit his purposes, he never supplicates, he always self-amuses. He is always internally validated. He is clear about his intent to bang her, even if it's just through his subcoms, though remember that it is his assertiveness which is giving his intent clarity.
In the end, what stops most guys from converting drive into intent is lack of trust in one’s faculties. You may not trust yourself, or you may not be giving yourself permission to act with intent. This could be from social conditioning, your religious up-bringing, over-bearing parents, low self-esteem, et cetera. Something is stopping you from fully embracing your drive, and so you flounder in the intent department, conflicted and unsure.
Naturally there is no quick fix here. You need to do all the soul-searching necessary to own your drive fully and believe you’re the shit, before you can ever hope to assert it with chicks.
Drive/Libido
Too much and you’re a horndog. Too little and your interactions lack sexual charge. Horndogs do get laid, but most high-value women will eventually realize they’re being used for their pussies. Some girls don’t mind this, but most need to feel somewhere along the line that you aren’t PURE libido, that you do care about what’s inside, that you respect her as a human being.
Libido has an organic component. If you’re old like me, you may find your drive diminishing. I have to do little tricks like feeling up a girl while I talk to her, or stare at her tits, to get that surge which once controlled all my thoughts.
Libido also has a psychological basis. If you’re depressed, stressed about finances, over-worked, then your drive suffers. Sometimes you can shut those worries out while you interact with girls, but sometimes they’re too over-whelming.
Let’s face it. Libido is all about procreation. Of course, when we fuck girls, we are hoping NOT to procreate, but on a deep evolutionary level sex is sex because the designer of the system wanted us to do it a whole bunch of times in order to continue our species. You can tell yourself you don’t want kids, and take meticulous and irreversible measures to prevent it from happening, but that is the biological reason behind all this.
So to a degree, we are at the mercy of hormones. Even without intent and assertiveness, you can be raging with drive. The result is a guy who sits at his computer whacking off to porn every night, because he is too confused about his intent or too afraid to go out and bring women into his life.
In the end it’s better to have more than less drive, but drive left unchecked will scare away most girls.
The end goal is to channel your libido with clear intent, and then pursue what you desire assertively, but to also balance this drive with things like charisma, romance and giving value.
To get shit done, you need these three ingredients: you must possess drive (aka libido), you gotta focus your drive in the form of intent, and then you have to manifest your intent through assertiveness. Let’s start at the end and work backwards.
Assertiveness
You see something you want and you go after it, whether that’s a job position, a girl or a bartender’s attention. Have intent with no assertiveness, and you wind up with zip. So assertiveness takes your intent and puts it into action. Of course, if you lack intent, you won’t be assertive, so intent is a prerequisite.
Too much and you’re aggressive, too little and you’re passive. The aggressor is the bully, the passivist is the doormat, and the assertive guy is in between.
Aggressive people tend to step over the boundaries of passive people, resulting in abuse and manipulation. Assertive people say what they mean and go after what they want, but not in a way that is harmful to others or disrespectful of others’ boundaries. If an assertive person meets an aggressive person, he will defend his boundaries from aggression.
So in the case of the bartender, a passive guy will stand meekly by waiting for the bartender to notice him while everyone else steps around him and gets waited on. The aggressive guy will push and shove everyone out of the way and yell at the bartender for help. The assertive guy will step up to the bar without pushing anyone aside, will focus on the bartender until they lock eyes, and then will make his voice heard in a way that is commanding.
There is no issue of clarity with the aggressive or the assertive guy. The passive guy, however, seems unclear about his intent (this is the perception of others, even if he is clear in his head). And so he is often ignored and passed by. Men don’t respect him and women aren’t captivated by him. Even if he is full of intent, he doesn’t show it, so he is seen as a pussy, someone who doesn’t feel good about himself, wishy washy, lets people take advantage of him, doesn’t feel free to express himself.
Aggressive people don’t have an issue with expressing their desires, but often the trouble is in controlling their emotions. So they explode unexpectedly, seem impulsive and brash. A little bit of this is exciting, but eventually the assertive guy appears more solid since he is in command of his emotions. Other people feel good interacting with assertive men, but they often wind up feeling used and disrespected by aggressive men.
Let’s take this to your interaction with girlies. Shall we?
Let’s say you have full-on intent. Meaning you see a hot girl and you want to fuck her. Now, rather than be assertive, you sit there and don’t approach. Or in another situation, you want to make out with a girl you’re hitting on, but that voice in your head stops you. Or perhaps she’s being a bitch and you don’t put your foot down, instead buckling and letting her be dominant.
Digging deeper, the cause of not approaching is anxiety. So it is with not pulling the trigger. Perhaps fear of loss stops you from letting girls know when they’ve overstepped your boundaries. Maybe you’re scared that your communication skills are subpar and will inadvertently get you into trouble.
Notice in all these cases the underlying theme is anxiety and fear. If you are truly confident and without fear, you will put your intent into action. Yes there may be repercussions. You may be made a fool of, your ego may get bruised, you may get rejected. But you get back on your feet and reassert yourself, or else realize the goal isn’t worth the effort and then redirect your energies.
Sometimes that fear is masquerading as something else. That’s where excuses come from. Guys who don’t approach often have a list of a dozen reasons to support their behavior. Recognizing this internal dialogue and then disidentifying yourself from it is the first step, and then setting this dialogue aside and doing what you want anyway are the next steps.
So what is neediness? If you like a girl, and you assert your intent, but then she tells you she's busy or sick, and then you STILL push to meet up with her, then you've passed assertiveness and have become aggressive. You are now trying to do what YOU want to do in spite of her feelings.
Intent when pushed aggressively is no longer intent, but agenda. You can come across as callous or needy depending on your frame. But either way, it's clear you have an agenda to do what YOU want to do in spite of her.
To help become more assertive, put your intent into clear and decisive action. Take charge. Lead. Take responsibility and risk. Own your intent.
Intent
Intent is your aim or purpose. In legal terms, it’s the state of your mind when you carry out an action.
If you lack intent, even with strong drive, then you probably aren’t trusting of your decision-making process. Or perhaps you feel yourself unworthy of the goal. You have drive, but you aren’t channeling it for a variety of reasons.
Intent is like light. In terms of meeting broads, the newb starts off with a wide beam of intent similar to a floodlight, and then as he progresses that beam turns into a narrowly focused laser.
If you shine a big floodlight on a girl, she'll get annoyed and give you her number to make you go away. It didn't really penetrate. Examples: never going direct, no flirting, nothing dominant, no qualifying. It’s a wide-open aperture, without focus to the beam, really diffuse. This is the newbie. His intent is usually simply to open 10 sets regardless of his attraction to her, not push to the close, whatever happens happens. Not surprisingly, lotsa flakes result.
At the other extreme is the tightest beam of intent, the laser. This guy demands he not only interact with a girl’s better self, but that he FUCKS her better self. He avoids the frames that don't suit his purposes, he never supplicates, he always self-amuses. He is always internally validated. He is clear about his intent to bang her, even if it's just through his subcoms, though remember that it is his assertiveness which is giving his intent clarity.
In the end, what stops most guys from converting drive into intent is lack of trust in one’s faculties. You may not trust yourself, or you may not be giving yourself permission to act with intent. This could be from social conditioning, your religious up-bringing, over-bearing parents, low self-esteem, et cetera. Something is stopping you from fully embracing your drive, and so you flounder in the intent department, conflicted and unsure.
Naturally there is no quick fix here. You need to do all the soul-searching necessary to own your drive fully and believe you’re the shit, before you can ever hope to assert it with chicks.
Drive/Libido
Too much and you’re a horndog. Too little and your interactions lack sexual charge. Horndogs do get laid, but most high-value women will eventually realize they’re being used for their pussies. Some girls don’t mind this, but most need to feel somewhere along the line that you aren’t PURE libido, that you do care about what’s inside, that you respect her as a human being.
Libido has an organic component. If you’re old like me, you may find your drive diminishing. I have to do little tricks like feeling up a girl while I talk to her, or stare at her tits, to get that surge which once controlled all my thoughts.
Libido also has a psychological basis. If you’re depressed, stressed about finances, over-worked, then your drive suffers. Sometimes you can shut those worries out while you interact with girls, but sometimes they’re too over-whelming.
Let’s face it. Libido is all about procreation. Of course, when we fuck girls, we are hoping NOT to procreate, but on a deep evolutionary level sex is sex because the designer of the system wanted us to do it a whole bunch of times in order to continue our species. You can tell yourself you don’t want kids, and take meticulous and irreversible measures to prevent it from happening, but that is the biological reason behind all this.
So to a degree, we are at the mercy of hormones. Even without intent and assertiveness, you can be raging with drive. The result is a guy who sits at his computer whacking off to porn every night, because he is too confused about his intent or too afraid to go out and bring women into his life.
In the end it’s better to have more than less drive, but drive left unchecked will scare away most girls.
The end goal is to channel your libido with clear intent, and then pursue what you desire assertively, but to also balance this drive with things like charisma, romance and giving value.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Have respect for the process, fucker
I saw this quote online today by jazz legend Charlie Parker:
Master the instrument, master the music, then forget all that shit and play.
Any journey to a level of mastery requires the understanding that there will be often lengthy plateaus where growth is not apparent, followed by unexpected rises in progress. It’s this appreciation of the process – both during times of growth and times of apparent stagnation – that keeps guys moving towards their goal. If you haven’t read it by now, go get Mastery by George Leonard. It’s a quick read and he’ll help explain this crap.
But most of us probably don’t have that kind of stamina and patience. By nature, we want shit to materialize quickly and with the smallest amount of energy expenditure and risk.
Hence the very high turn-over in the community. Few of my wings from a year ago still go out, and almost all my wings now are newbs. And let me clarify that by “go out” I mean push themselves to get better interacting with people, and girls in particular. It’s just too much fucking work for most. The blow-outs, the rejections, the flakes, your inner dialogue constantly talking trash. What looked like a promise for easy pussy turns into an epic search for the elusive Holy Grail.
Where many of the dudes who give up falter is in lacking respect for the process. They see a goal and they pursue it. When that goal doesn’t materialize after a month, half a year, two years, they surrender in frustration. But as Leonard points out, striving towards a goal at the expense of enjoyment of the process is bound to fail.
It isn’t easy to always enjoy a process that is so often harsh and brutal. Look I’ve been there. Long dry spells. Times when NO set hooks (if you even have the balls to approach). Feeling like you aren’t learning anything. It’s tempting to stay home, and many times I have done just that.
A lot of guys go astray when they get invested in their interactions. This seems healthy, since nobody wants to be an unemotional robot. But really in terms of mastery, it’s detrimental. Cold detachment from your sets and keeping a critical analytical mindset, these are the best ways to learn this skill. Literally being a social scientist in his lab running experiments.
What if you were training to box, and every time a fighter hit you, you went crying to mommy because some dude was mean to you. Come on, the dude you’re boxing is trained to hit you hard in the face, just like that bitch in the club has been trained to disrespect you. It’s the nature of the beast. Don’t take it personal.
Emotional investment is ultimately healthy, but where guys fuck up is in rewarding a girl with this investment before she deserves it. Certainly not day 1 or day 2. Maybe a few weeks into a relationship. But even then, it is reasonable to step back as objectively as possible and take notes on what’s working and what isn’t. You still need to be a scientist while in a relationship, so that you can strengthen your relationship skills. In the end, the process NEVER ends, even when you have apparently met your goal.
I know guys who meticulously analyze every site at the end of the night. And I know guys who refuse to do this analysis. The latter group tends to flounder around never progressing, ultimately pussyless and angry at the game. You wanna be the first guy, not the second. Here are some ways to get there:
1. Pick apart your sets. All of em. Word by word, if you can remember them. Think back to how a girl or set responded to something you said or did. Her body language, her words, the way the friends reacted.
2. When something worked, keep that in your toolbox and try it again to see if it was just luck or was something meaningful. Fuck community dogma. I found a while back that failing to escalate on day 1 works better for me when it comes to closing; for me, the surest way to fuck a girl on a date is to not put my hands on her on day 1. So be observant of what is working for you, and nevermind what everyone else says works for them.
3. Where things didn’t work, come up with a reason why. Maybe you weren’t standing right (hands in pockets or gesturing too much), maybe you were standing too far away to escalate, maybe your wing came in too soon with the wrong energy level. Realize that for every girl you meet, there’s probably a player out there who could seduce her. So don’t assume it’s the girl, assume it’s you.
4. Come up with solutions to your sticking points. If it’s an issue of having a SP, work around this by creating a plan for the next time you sense that SP is popping up. And blast away at that SP til it resolves. To do this, you need to be totally egoless and honest with yourself. “My sticking point is I didn’t pull the trigger and so the set fizzled out.” Good, now how are you gonna resolve to fix this the next time it happens?
5. If you said something that blew yourself out, come up with a few alternatives that would probably have worked better. Ask your wings or come here to the forum if you have no idea what could’ve worked. Because someone out there may have experienced your issue and has resolved it. I got great advice last week from Action on handling bitchiness, and sure enough that very night I put it to good use.
6. If you didn’t say something you should’ve, get that handled too. Last night a couple stunners kept their backs to me after the open. I ejected, but a better tactic would’ve been calling them out. “Wow, I’m not used to talking to the backs of girls heads! Am I getting you two in trouble with your boyfriends? Is that it?” Then apply this solution in future sets and see if it floats or sinks.
Always be respectful that there is a process and that you need to put in the work to get the results. Disrespecting the process – that is, having the audacity to think you can go out night after night and make the same errors without introspection or correcting your course – is like stamping a big red FAIL on your forehead. Don’t be a boner.
Master the instrument, master the music, then forget all that shit and play.
Any journey to a level of mastery requires the understanding that there will be often lengthy plateaus where growth is not apparent, followed by unexpected rises in progress. It’s this appreciation of the process – both during times of growth and times of apparent stagnation – that keeps guys moving towards their goal. If you haven’t read it by now, go get Mastery by George Leonard. It’s a quick read and he’ll help explain this crap.
But most of us probably don’t have that kind of stamina and patience. By nature, we want shit to materialize quickly and with the smallest amount of energy expenditure and risk.
Hence the very high turn-over in the community. Few of my wings from a year ago still go out, and almost all my wings now are newbs. And let me clarify that by “go out” I mean push themselves to get better interacting with people, and girls in particular. It’s just too much fucking work for most. The blow-outs, the rejections, the flakes, your inner dialogue constantly talking trash. What looked like a promise for easy pussy turns into an epic search for the elusive Holy Grail.
Where many of the dudes who give up falter is in lacking respect for the process. They see a goal and they pursue it. When that goal doesn’t materialize after a month, half a year, two years, they surrender in frustration. But as Leonard points out, striving towards a goal at the expense of enjoyment of the process is bound to fail.
It isn’t easy to always enjoy a process that is so often harsh and brutal. Look I’ve been there. Long dry spells. Times when NO set hooks (if you even have the balls to approach). Feeling like you aren’t learning anything. It’s tempting to stay home, and many times I have done just that.
A lot of guys go astray when they get invested in their interactions. This seems healthy, since nobody wants to be an unemotional robot. But really in terms of mastery, it’s detrimental. Cold detachment from your sets and keeping a critical analytical mindset, these are the best ways to learn this skill. Literally being a social scientist in his lab running experiments.
What if you were training to box, and every time a fighter hit you, you went crying to mommy because some dude was mean to you. Come on, the dude you’re boxing is trained to hit you hard in the face, just like that bitch in the club has been trained to disrespect you. It’s the nature of the beast. Don’t take it personal.
Emotional investment is ultimately healthy, but where guys fuck up is in rewarding a girl with this investment before she deserves it. Certainly not day 1 or day 2. Maybe a few weeks into a relationship. But even then, it is reasonable to step back as objectively as possible and take notes on what’s working and what isn’t. You still need to be a scientist while in a relationship, so that you can strengthen your relationship skills. In the end, the process NEVER ends, even when you have apparently met your goal.
I know guys who meticulously analyze every site at the end of the night. And I know guys who refuse to do this analysis. The latter group tends to flounder around never progressing, ultimately pussyless and angry at the game. You wanna be the first guy, not the second. Here are some ways to get there:
1. Pick apart your sets. All of em. Word by word, if you can remember them. Think back to how a girl or set responded to something you said or did. Her body language, her words, the way the friends reacted.
2. When something worked, keep that in your toolbox and try it again to see if it was just luck or was something meaningful. Fuck community dogma. I found a while back that failing to escalate on day 1 works better for me when it comes to closing; for me, the surest way to fuck a girl on a date is to not put my hands on her on day 1. So be observant of what is working for you, and nevermind what everyone else says works for them.
3. Where things didn’t work, come up with a reason why. Maybe you weren’t standing right (hands in pockets or gesturing too much), maybe you were standing too far away to escalate, maybe your wing came in too soon with the wrong energy level. Realize that for every girl you meet, there’s probably a player out there who could seduce her. So don’t assume it’s the girl, assume it’s you.
4. Come up with solutions to your sticking points. If it’s an issue of having a SP, work around this by creating a plan for the next time you sense that SP is popping up. And blast away at that SP til it resolves. To do this, you need to be totally egoless and honest with yourself. “My sticking point is I didn’t pull the trigger and so the set fizzled out.” Good, now how are you gonna resolve to fix this the next time it happens?
5. If you said something that blew yourself out, come up with a few alternatives that would probably have worked better. Ask your wings or come here to the forum if you have no idea what could’ve worked. Because someone out there may have experienced your issue and has resolved it. I got great advice last week from Action on handling bitchiness, and sure enough that very night I put it to good use.
6. If you didn’t say something you should’ve, get that handled too. Last night a couple stunners kept their backs to me after the open. I ejected, but a better tactic would’ve been calling them out. “Wow, I’m not used to talking to the backs of girls heads! Am I getting you two in trouble with your boyfriends? Is that it?” Then apply this solution in future sets and see if it floats or sinks.
Always be respectful that there is a process and that you need to put in the work to get the results. Disrespecting the process – that is, having the audacity to think you can go out night after night and make the same errors without introspection or correcting your course – is like stamping a big red FAIL on your forehead. Don’t be a boner.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
