Wouldn’t the trick be to make them totally congruent?
I typically have one or two real close frineds I hang out with once or twice a week, and then a large network of acquaintances that may or may not be useful when I want to hang out. A lot of times my closest friends are either one or two years younger than me, or between 5-20 years older. I rarely seem to click with my cohorts for some reason. But I’ve gotten along famously with everyone I’ve ever called a “friend”. I never have any arguements with them, never any fights…Up until three months ago I had been living with the same three roommates for two years and none of us ever had a conflict. We had a lot of fun together.
The female friends I don’t have an interest in usually have an interest in me, and once I voice my disinterest they’re no longer interested in hanging out. The two exceptions here being a woman in her mid thirties who I used to chill with all the time until she moved to North Carolina (we still talk on the phone quite frequently), and a creative writing classmate that is about five years older than me.
If that were true, she would have been interested from the beginning.
Well, that’s the trick. But if you were already that awesome, you wouldn’t be worrying about how to become more attractive or improving your game. You would just go around being awesome.
I guess it comes down to the difference between projecting who you are vs creating a facade of how you want the world to see you. Some guys try and play up their wealth so they can get laid a lot while others downplay it because they are sick of golddiggers always coming around.
It sounds to me that you get along fine with people. The fact that you haven’t had any conflicts might mean you are sort of fading into the background and not standing out. That may prevent you from being noticed.
Or the issue may be that you are fine around people, but you just don’t know how to interact with someone romantically.
This sounds like the problem.
Add to this the fact that clashing with people can actually build attraction and romantic/sexual tension. No, I’m not advocating purposely picking fights with people. But how many couples can you think of who say, “For the first six months after we met, we hated each other.” Or how many couples who argue like crazy, but last forever and are generally happy?
The thing, I think, is that we’re all pretty awesome, but we have to develop that awesomeness and bring it out. And know when to bring it out, and how much. And to recognize the awesomeness in others and play with it a bit. To me that’s what game is. Faking being rich or a CIA agent or whatever seems like a bad idea for a number of reasons, most of which involve getting caught in a lie.
If you want to impress a woman with a story about your fantastic life, then you need to live a fantastic life, but one that’s congruent with who you are. For instance, I suppose I could tell fascinating tales of hilarious snowboarding accidents I’ve had, but a) I don’t snowboard, and b) I don’t want to try it. Making up stories about it would just be dumb.
Does that sound about right?
I saw it in action the other night. Autolycus was out with some friends and me, including a lovely young lady. Everyone was pretty much busting on everyone, and a good time was had by all. I wasn’t busting on the young lady, because I wasn’t interested in attracting her, and I knew others at the table were. One guy totally was, though. He was being slightly racist, but in a fun and playful way (“You can’t really be Asian, you suck at math”, or something like that), stealing her cellphone, things like that. If I explained everything he did, it would probably come off as pretty mean. But the way he did it was so playful, it was like he was teasing his bratty kid sister. And she was eating it up.
I don’t know if it created any sexual tension, but it was way better than him being “nice.”
I don’t equate cocky funny with genuine conflict and clashing.
I mean, I love my old roomates, but we would go way out of our way to screw with each other. They once placed my bed on the roof of our apartment. I would unplug the washer and dryer and place them in front of their bedroom doors so they couldn’t get out. We would wait for each other to fall asleep in the living room and then throw flour into each others faces.
And none of this even touches upon the insults we had for each other. We all had absolutely vile senses of humor.
So yeah, we messed with each other, but we never “clashed”. The terrorizing was all done out of a mutual love we shared for one another. We were just as likely to cook dinner for each other as to turn someone’s toilet bowl water into chocolate pudding.
Humm, that would because I was talking about gold-diggers and so I was psuedo copying their style. The joke must not have been obvious enough.
That’s really not that unusual, and I think one or two good friends is pretty normal as well. As msmith537 says, it could be the romantic part.
Sorry to get this personal, and you don’t need to answer, but have you have successful relationships in the past? If so, what’s different now.
If now, are you maybe putting too much expectation on a “relationship?”
Interesting situation last night. N and T live in my building. I run into each of them once every three months or so in my building. In the past, N has seemed just so right for me on so many levels, but our total conversation time has not added up to much. And it’s frustrating that I see her so seldom. I actually had a whole gambit worked out to get her number, and I swore to play it the next time I saw her.
I saw her twice last night, once at the end of the wash cycle and once at the end of the dry cycle. T was there too.
It was just not there with N. On a scale of 1 to 10 with N, the sexual/romantic tension was less than a 1. I could have negged her, but it would have been cocky without funny. It would have just been mean. I could have asked her for her number, but that would have been try hard. There were just no IOIs. She was all kinds of friendly, but there was no interest at all. The girl disappoints. 
T, on the other hand, was all sorts of interested, and asked me a million things about my very interesting life. At one point, she gave me a huge cocky funny. It was great. And it turns out that I have all sorts of things in common…
…with her boyfriend.
Which is OK, she’s really cute and everything, but I have no real interest in her.
But it was interesting to compare and contrast. All sorts of interesting interaction with T, and none with N.
I should mention that N seemed really tired and stressed. So was I, a bit. I should also mention that N is a born and bred New Englander, and T is a born and bred Texan. This might explain their different social styles. Warm Southern vs Cool Northern.
But I’m a little disappointed in my own actions. I’m glad that I could read the situation in real time, but I needed to say something more interesting to N, and snap her out of her daze. My game was definitely off, at the exact time when it needed to be on.
I’m really not too sure how to foster attraction, but I do know how to subscribe to a long thread I’ve missed for a couple days.
Page two is far better than page one.
Don’t feel bad, it’s damn near impossible to cheer up someone who is down when you are down or tired or whatever. Better luck next time.
Never been in a relationship.
And I don’t think so. I’m not looking for my soul mate or anything, just someone I can share an intimate connection and have fun with. Someone to stare at across a table while sharing some coffee, go on a road trip with, climb trees with at Winter Park Ave., cook for, crawl into bed next to, share lengthy conversations with…that kinda stuff.
If that isn’t a soul mate, then I’m not sure of the proper definition. That’s the fun part of relationships.
What happens when you find someone you’re interested in? Can you read if they’re interested back? You say that there are women who throw themselves at you, so you can’t be obivious of the attention.
Thanks. I’ll see her again, but perhaps at a less stressful time. In the meantime, there are other people to meet.
Since I’m continually been trying to better myself, there’s no one thing that I do when I detect interest. Used to be, I would ask a girl out on a specific day, then I’d ask if she wanted to do something sometime, then I’d ask if she wanted to go to a specific event/activity on a specific day, and then I’d ask what days she has off. Now, after much trial and error, I tell a girl I’m going to a specific event sometime, that she should come with me, and then I tell her what days I have available. That seems to work.
But then as far as further shows of interests goes…well I’m just now getting into the trail and error process there. I’m trying to mirror body language, initiate physical contant, tell her things about her that I like that are NOT related to her looks (albeit I compliment on style), and am generally playful and cocky/funny.
The thing about recognizing other people’s interest, is that once you acquire that set of social skills you start to look back at your life and say “Holy shit! All of these women were interested in me!”, but by then it’s far far too late. I used to be totally, TOTALLY oblivious.
There are really three different things we are talking about here:
- Building your innate attractiveness
- Developing your “game” or skills in meeting and women
- Developing and maintaining a romantic relationship
To summarize my thoughts on all three:
-
Building attractiveness
This is basically who you are and what you are about. It is the sum of all your inherent traits and accomplishments - health and physical appearance, dress and mannarisms, personal relationships, career success, wealth, hobbies and interests, personal experiences and so on. You can increase your attractiveness through actual improvements to your life. Dress fashionably. Get a decent haircut. Educate yourself. Strive for success in a career that interests you. Develop positive relationships with friends and family. It’s much easier to attract people if you are an attractive person, both inside and outside. By all accounts I am an attractive guy. I’m a young looking 35, 5’10", medium to athletic build (for a guys who sits on his ass all day), with a full head of hair. I like skiiing, rollarblading and running. I’m funny (if somewhat sarcastic) and reasonably outgoing. I am highly educated and successful in a career where I make over a six figure salary. I live in a trendy neighborhood just outside of Manhattan. I have a good circle of friends and close relationships with my family. (sorry ladies, I also live with my girlfriend). These are things about me that make me attractive, at least on paper. -
Developing your “game”
Continuing using myself as an example, there are probably half a million guys in Manhattan who either have the same profile I do or are trying to portray that they do. There are many guys who have a far superior profile. They may make more money or be taller or better looking. Either way, attractive qualities are not enough. You need to market them to the world.
The way I look at it, “game” is presenting yourself in a positive light to people in order to establish interest. It is also understanding the mechanics and logistics of the courtship ritual so that you both recognize when that attraction exists and how to act on it. It involves things like how to approach a girl on the street without freaking her out or what to do with a girl in the club when you are there with six of your friends.
This is where, at least when I was younger, I felt my skills were lacking. Either I would not be aggressive enough or would miss cues or delay too long and miss my window of opportunity or not have thought out my action plan well enough. This is something can be overcome with a little knowledge, some planning and practice.
Now what about so called “players” or “pick up artists”? I can certainly respect the desire to want to get it on with a lot of hot chicks. Who doesn’t? But a lot of these guys often strike me as having something to prove. Quite frankly, a lot of them seem like tools who are actually quite unattractive or have low inherent social value and then try to compensate with an elaborate facade they call “game”. Often, these guys have few friends because they always put chasing pussy ahead of everything else. If all you have going on in your life is the pursuit of getting laid, that’s just as bad and potentially self destructive as any substance addiction.
- Developing and maintaining lasting relationships
Which leads me into the final topic. It’s great to get mad play, but I personally don’t find a string of one-night stands or superficial overlapping relationships all that fullfilling. At least not long term. Plus I don’t care what any of the “players” say, it’s pretty fucking weird to be the 45 year old guy hitting on girls half your age.
If you are interested in a long term relationships, your “game” better closely match who you actually are. Otherwise, you will find that you can only keep a girl so long as you can maintain your facade.
Hey, don’t worry. I was completely clueless as well. I was a geek in high school, and couldn’t have bought a date, so when I started getting my act together later in life, I still didn’t believe that someone would find me attractive. Once you start to accept that, then it makes it a lot easier.
I lot of times guys tend to be too timid about asking women out. It sounds like you were that way before, and I used to be as well. If you can accept that women (some of course, even rock or movie starts can’t attract everyone. . .) are going to be interested in you, or at least interesting in getting to know you, then you can see why you current approach works much better. If it’s something you want to do, and the woman is interested in getting to know you, then she’ll be willing to go along with you to whatever you’ve selected.