The trick is to be able to be both the guy into something that nerdy-esoteric … and the guy who can, on occasion, get laid. 
Honestly, that’s a load of nonsense. There is no need to over-analyse or introduce evolutionary psychology.
Many people don’t like ‘pick-up’ because it is often sold as a sort of magic snake-oil, and it is often accompanied by a lot of woman-hating 'tude.
If they understood it was basically about learning to flirt effectively, they would most likely have no problems with it - yet ‘learning to flirt’ “subverts evolution” just as much.
I’m just catching up with the thread due to even sven’s pit thread, so apologies for taking this back a page (especially as a we now have someone in the-know to explain it to us.) 
But…
I cannot say that his matches up with my own experience. 
Most men and women are mature, thoughtful and generally nice people.
But, I have witnessed first hand some men say horrible, horrible things about women who have hit on them as soon as the woman is out of sight.
The women have all been overweight (several in the ‘obese’ category).
They don’t call these ‘fat, drunk sluts’ who proposition them ‘lower females’, they call them much more derogatory things.
I knew someone was going to go there.
When you try to compare nuns to priests the major difference is that priests who live with a vow of celibacy have an obvious problem with pedophiles in their ranks. This has generated a massive scandal in the Catholic Church. Do you know of any such scandal among nuns? Men going without sex/romance and women going without sex/romance are not the same, they do not produce the same consequences. How many extreme outliers on the female side exist, and what do they wind up doing? Compare this to the number of outliers on the male side.
Point taken.
Clarification: Guys have the class NOT to insult a woman like that to her face.
Nun sex scandals? You obviously have not perused Italian fetish porn of the 1970s, or you would not be asking that question. 
Not that it’s classy to insult obese women, but I think that the point was that the treatment meted out to the average guy is something a woman has to be pretty unattractive to earn in her turn.
What are, specifically, “the consequences” of “men going without sex/romance”?
But if you’re not prepared to go into every encounter calculating and strategizing every second while still being relaxed and more or less yourself, it seems as though you really don’t have much choice.
That, I think, is why I don’t like pickup. I have ADD and a few allied conditions, and having to keep track of every element in a complex system of interactions, cues, probabilities, possibilities, etc., etc., every time I meet someone makes it a real pain in the ass. There’s no “me” left over for anyone to appreciate.
I agree no one should feel like The 40yo Virgin, but some of us probably are going to have to. “That’s life,” is the way I feel at this point.
It’s like people who lose limbs in car crashes and stuff. Yeah, they get along, but they shouldn’t expect to hike or bike or swim. At least not without overcoming monumental obstacles, most of which are entirely of their own making. Which means it is possible, but it’s going to hurt like hell, because your only enemy is you and you have to fight yourself.
As with all habits, personality habits are a matter of effort and time until they become the “you” that is left over.
I think the types of habits the PUA community, in my very limited exposure, are trying to encourage seem pretty short-sighted and shallow, but the link Stranger posted above is talking about changing behaviors one step at a time for more rewarding life and relationships. Making friends, establishing a social circle, finding people to connect with, etc.
What the PUA dudes have right is that people can change. You can learn and grow and become more of a people person, and yes, it will take effort. Just as exercise takes effort and struggle and pain. And it’s also true that it’s easier for some people than others, and them’s the breaks. I grew up a very shy child and I was a shy adult until I changed the way I thought about how others were perceiving me. It wasn’t easy, though it was actually pretty simple once I realized it (I learned later that I had stumbled across rudimentary CBT techniques and used them on myself), and I might still have flashes of weird shyness that pop up on occasion but I’m at ease in nearly all social situations.
Lordy, this thread is inspiring long posts. I’ll shut up now.
I don’t agree with this either. Most or many: Yes! All: No. There are some jerks out there.
I just don’t think the world works well with the absolutes you’re giving us.
This point makes more sense to me, though I think, in all honesty, I don’t have enough information at my finger tips to form a firm opinion yet.
So - I’ll be brief here - is it sometimes best to practice not being yourself?
Some of us don’t have any feeling for how far outside our comfort zone we need to go. I’m like that: I either tiptoe around ineffectually or stride in over my boot tops and sink in the bog.
When your question is used in a broader sense, it’s often a way to argue that those guys who are less able to start romantic relationships don’t have any moral right to complain about their situation, and the current setup is not doing them an injustice. I want to address that; this is not meant to be a response to your question in the context of LJ’s post.
First point: No one has a right to have sex with someone else simply by the virtue of the fact they exist. And every individual has the right to reject a sexual encounter for any reason whatsoever, even if it’s “he can only afford jeans from Old Navy.” No arguments there.
That said, it’s deeply unsympathetic to those guys, and really lets society off the hook for a dramatic systemic failing. Not having the opportunity to experience romantic love is pretty serious, and that can and does fall disproportionately on different groups. If that group is correlated with some trait that works against romance (e.g. being an asshole), then that discrimination is just; but if it falls on a group that’s discriminated against through no fault of their own (e.g. men and women who are wheelchair-bound), that deserves our scrutiny. I would argue that the target demographic for the PUA market is a group of people who face the kind of discrimination that should be scrutinized.
Many men are sympathetic with the motives that drive people to PUA-land (I know I am). Most of them are decent-enough guys who just don’t “get” how to act like how society demands men act. The issue with PUA isn’t the problem it seeks to address but the solution it offers: trying to rework the system through a combination of tricks and misogyny that’s driven by the moral indignation these guys feel about their place in life.
The actual solution would be a dramatic upending of gender roles that takes questions of status-seeking and power out of the equation. PUA, unfortunately, does nothing to further that goal, and nearly always seems to actively work against it. And even more unfortunately, the people who should be among the most receptive to critiques of the gender status-quo aren’t even being exposed to it, leaving them as easy pickings for the most malignant strains of PUA.
Ok, off soapbox.
Most guys who are having trouble finding romantic encounters are simply shy and lack experience with flirting. The fact that some people are shy and lack experience isn’t “discrimination” or some sort of cosmic injustice, or something that requires a massive overhaul of human society to correct.
Nor is there anything wrong with being shy or lacking experience. Pretty well everyone has been there, at one point or another.
Another mind-fuck that you learn down the road is all that nerdy-esoteric stuff is actually COOL to girls, if YOU think it’s cool. There’s a great scene in How I Met Your Mother where Barney is telling Ted girls think architects are hot but he introduces himself as “…Ted Mosby (shrug ) architect…” as if he’s apologizing for it. Then Barney says how he’d introduce himself is “Ted Mosby. (points a finger gun) Architect.”
I used to hide that I was into nerdy stuff, but now I embrace it. If I think it’s cool, the girl will. Women like a guy with pride and convictions…that’s way better than being a guy who’s wishy-washy and embarrassed about his hobbies and opinions.
From what I’ve seen around me (I’ve met a LOT of guys with various levels of “game” over the years) it can be pretty damaging to the psyche to feel like no one will ever love you. There are a few guys that I’m pretty sure will shoot up their office in frustration someday, or (god forbid) take it out on some woman who happened to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Fortunately I’d imagine most guys come to a sort of low-key acceptance that this is their life and just kind of trot through their days in a daze until they die without breeding in their old age or off themselves earlier…which isn’t really a good thing but compared to taking it out on other people I guess it’s better.
No one said it’d be easy, in fact it’s the complete opposite…it’s VERY hard. But the more you do it the more that stuff fades into the background. Now I’m calculating all those things, but my brain does it all in the background and I just feel a “vibe” in the interaction and know how to redirect it.
I’m not being dismissive, but you haven’t hit rock-bottom yet.
There are PUAs with bad acne, weight issues, baldness, aspergers, height issues, missing limbs…hell, there’s even a deaf PUA. Imagine that guy looking at something that involves talking to girls.
That guy hit rock-bottom and said to himself “Okay, this seems impossible, but I am so dissatisfied with my love-life that I am going to claw my way through it even though it’s going to hurt like hell to do.”
You may never hit rock-bottom, you may stick with how things are now, and if you’re satisfied enough with your life then by all means, don’t worry about any of this. The day you hit rock-bottom is the day you go “I have ADD and this will be hard but I’ll do anything to get out of this hole.”
This is totally true. I used to be a pretty negative person, my outlook was always pessimistic and that the universe was “out to get me” and stuff. As I went through this whole journey I learned how useless that stuff is in the long run and I slowly worked on changing my mind-set (the thought-loops in my head, looking for the silver lining in bad situations, etc.). Like the positivity challenge where you force yourself to not dwell on any negative thoughts for more than a minute for two weeks and if you mess up you have to start over. These things really do help.
These days I’m a 100% positive person, probably the most happy-go-lucky of anyone I know, and people can tell this when they meet me…and it’s actually me. I AM a positive happy optimistic person. I wasn’t always, I had to work at it, but I’ve done it for long enough that it’s who I am and I can’t even relate to the old negative person I used to be.
Just wanted to say props for working on yourself like that. It really makes a difference in your quality of life!
I’d love to say guys aren’t dickheads at times, but no there are totally a lot of guys that talk shit. Generally it’s after the girl is out of earshot, but that doesn’t make it a good thing.
Girls can say VERY cruel things directly to a guy’s face. Some of the stuff I’ve been told flat out has been pretty rough. Usually though, these are the girls you wouldn’t really expect a lot of class from…the generic “bitchy” club chick types or the older women who’ve become bitter about men and are still at the bar. Generally it’s a low self-esteem thing, it feels good to reject someone because then you’re “better” than them and they soooo wanted you and you turned them down, you’ve “still got it!”.
Plus, honestly, part of it can be the fault of men in general. This girl does herself up because it makes her feel pretty and goes out to get groceries and guys on the street whistle and cat-call her, the cabby leers at her and makes some innuendo, the store clerk guy follows her around, some guy akwardly tries to hit on her in the cereal aisle…she’s just trying to go about her day! God forbid she walk around with her head up making eye contact and SMILING!! Imagine the shit she’d have to deal with then! And if she ignores ANY of these guys, they think “what a bitch” or “she must be a lesbian” just because she wouldn’t give them the time of day because she’s got shit to do.
This is why you see hot girls during the day who look down at the ground when they walk around or look bitchy/unapproachable. They have to be, just to get through the day.
So then she goes out for a night on the town with her girlfriends because she’s single and wants to find a guy to date. She gets all dolled up and then she gets to the bar and all these low-value guys surround her and lurk around her all night and she’s looking over at the guy across the bar she really wants but she’s stuck with all these lame guys around her.
I’ve found the best way to explain this concept to guys is: Imagine you and your buddy are getting ready to hit the bar and hopefully find some girls. You’ve been working out all month to keep in shape, you got your suit drycleaned, you read a bunch of game and talk about how you’re gonna’ find some hotties tonight, you get all psyched up to hit the bar, you’ve got your brand new $60 haircut, you’re feeling great and social and pumped up to find some girls you’re into, maybe you even took a course to learn some game–
And then you get to the bar and a group of ugly annoying fat girls sticks to you guys like glue all night. You don’t want to be a dink and tell them to fuck off, but, if that happened to you every time you went out to the bar, you might get to a point where you start doing that out of reflex and frustration.
I absolutely don’t think girls have it any easier than guys. It’s just a different set of problems.
If yourself isn’t working for you and you aren’t totally happy with the results yourself is getting, then ya, practice being someone else until you become that. You don’t have to change yourself completely, but if you don’t know how to dress well, emulate people who do dress well. If you aren’t a good public speaker, practice speaking in public. If you want to be a marathon runner but you don’t have any cardio, practice running. Eventually those things will be what “yourself” is.
The biggest limitation is people telling themselves “that’s just not ME.” and not trying new things because of it. I was NEVER a guy who could even feel comfortable around strangers, but now it’s a part of me. If I had said “well that’s just not me…” and let that hold me back, I wouldn’t be where I am.
But again, it takes hitting rock-bottom and being willing to try anything, to actually change. I’ve seen countless guys fail at it because they went in with one foot in one foot out. The first thing I did when I found this stuff was run around to all my guy-friends saying “omg check this out!!” because I wanted to share the awesomeness with them. But I learned the hard way over and over that unless someone is ready to change, this is all just mental masturbation.
- TWTTWN
I could not agree more that the key is to get out there and go for it.
Well, for one, you’re putting words into my mouth–I don’t believe I used the word cosmic. There are many worse discriminations in the world than that against being temperamentally shy, obviously.
For two, you’re universalizing your own particular experience of shyness. Have you considered the idea that the way you overcame shyness might not be applicable to every man in the world?
But, most importantly, you fundamentally miss the point. It’s easy to say, these guys should just act more like men should be, full of swagger and confidence in approaching women. But why should it be like that? Why can’t each person achieve happiness simply by being themselves? Some guys are just inherently shy, and we’ve had women complain in this very thread about how difficult it is to always be on the passive side of the dating game. Why is “buck up and get over your shyness” a superior solution to trying to rethink how we interact with each other as human beings, especially since those two groups of people are sort of being screwed in your plan?
Thanks, I’ll step on for a bit…
IMHO, the reason men who might benefit from interrogating gender roles don’t do it is simply put - that they’re men. Fail to buy in to some extent and bang goes the trapdoor, leaving you in the Black Hole of Emotional Calcutta with the “fags,” omegas, girlymen, pantywaists and yet other, nameless scum. Even if that doesn’t deter you, there’s always the semi-truth that women helped make masculinity what it is, and that if any number of them really wanted a different kind of man, you’d think there would have been some sign of it by now. Questioning things as they are goes against two of the prime directives of mature manhood: live in the real world and get results.
Unpack the issue further, though, and rays of light begin to reach in. Can you, just one individual dude, even imagine a world where courtship wasn’t all tangled up with male status and power, female covetousness and insecurity? Is it even conceivable? I maintain that it is - that relationships that are healthy and real are based on things more genuine and positive, though perhaps not easily expressed or even understoood. And from what I’ve read, there are as many women looking for that elusive state of things as there are men.
The next step: Before we decide what we can realistically achieve or not, we ought to ask if it’s worth achieving. Yes, we can become PUAs and (possibly) buy into a “real world” of misogyny, misanthropy, and instrumental using of others and (very possibly) “get results.” That gets our rocks off and earns extra man points too. But if we say, “Fuck all that - I am not playing by the rules of Game any more than I am the rules of society because I don’t want to live in that kind of a world,” we open a bunch of doors. The mystery is…will we be stuck with the courage of our convictions and not the real blood-and-guts kind? or will we find, in those convictions, what we need to grow and connect and (dare I say it!) love in the real world?
Is one tooth in that key being able to be happy with less understanding rather than more? Embracing the simple truths and conforming the very best you can?
It’s actually pretty easy to accept yourself, I find. The nasty part is accepting the rest of the world - and you can’t do it half way. It’s no questions asked, as is, all the damn time.
There’s a serenity in that acceptance. But you earn it only when you lower your shields and resolve to hurt fully and deeply and do nothing in return.
Roofie? Date rape drugs? Really?
I’ve been hit on by pick up guys. They don’t get rejected because of the excuses you came up with----which blamed most of it on the woman—but because they’re rude. “Negging” is an instant turn off.
Society can be on the hook for whatever you like, including wanting women to be size six or less and all in love with babies and somehow having sex with every man who wants her while still somehow staying pure.
But the question is, what’s going to happen to change this? Because it’s not that someone can say, “I will make all nerds sexually appealing!” (Hey, I’ve done my part. I married a nerdy, shy guy and I’m engaged to… okay I can’t even call Asimovian shy, but he is awfully dorky! (Baby, you know it’s true! You don’t want me to lie to these people, do you?)
I’ve never followed strict gender roles in my own life and I think I’m much happier for it, but I recognize that it’s there. Sexism is rampant, but people ignore it when it is benefiting their sex at the expense of the other.
But basically if there’s something about you, and this is a general you, not a specific you, that prevents you from having the types of relationships you want, you have two choices for getting what you want: You can change the world or you can change you.
I know which one I’d bet on.
If we’re fat, we can’t control how many calories a Big Mac has, but we can control how many Big Macs we eat. If we’re ugly, we can’t control what we look like (well, we can to some degree, but some ugly is just ugly), but we can control how we hold ourselves and how we treat people. If we’re shy, we can’t make people somehow recognize our awesomeness without us saying anything, but we can work to be more open and other-oriented. If we’re clumsy, we can’t make everything in the world unbreakable (including ourselves), but we can learn to laugh about it and buy plastic dishes.
I’m not at all unsympathetic to the plight of the socially awkward, but my sympathy isn’t going to do anyone any good. All of the sympathy and empathy I can muster will still not make someone fall in love with someone else and/or want to have sex with them. That requires effort, sometimes a ton of it, and some luck, too.