If you answer post #225 I promise I’ll answer this one.
I’m just kidding about the promise, though.
Nope. A woman who can’t find a man is a loser. A woman who dates an asshole, has a kid with him and gets mistreated and left with baby daddy drama is someone who has made a poor choice in men. She lied down with a dog and came up with fleas. A woman who complains about how men mistreated her deserves zero sympathy: she shoulda picked better types of men. A woman who has emotional problems and who is emotionally hungry needs to get the fuck away from me and go take care of her own problems. Or go see a shrink. I had little time for women with baggage when I was single and zero time for listening to them now.
In short: I take the same attitudes towards women as women take towards men. That should answer both your questions.
I’m sure plenty of your male friends disagree - I say let them shoulder that burden. There’s plenty of white knights out there. I say life’s hard, ladies, butch up, just like we men have to.
Actually, it does. Thanks.
I’m all kinds of crazy, after all. 
So heinously crazy that I hold women to the same rules men are held to. Why, that puts me on the cutting edge of misogyny. I’m an innovator. 
Because men and women face exactly the same things and are totally treated equally by the world.
They’re treated equally by me. Like I said.. all kinds of crazy!
Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.
Humanism is the radical notion that people are people.
Equally? By you? YOu keep telling yourself that.
I do love it when people can’t deal with complexity and resort to greeting card sentiments and the like.
Oh, so since you don’t believe it, it can’t be true.
Ah, so holding everyone to the same rules and morality, etc. is not dealing with complexity?
What is this “complexity” that you speak of? Is it something concrete or an empty platitude?
And what harm is done to women by holding both genders to the same morals and rules regarding dating? Not that anyone will answer, of course.
No harm at all. So get to the gym, tweeze that 'brow, and stop by Lush on your way home from the stylist, and somebody’ll buy you a drink, beautiful.
Hilarious. You have to metro-up in order to qualify for a drink from a woman?
By what arbitrary reasoning are guys required to be the one who makes the first move or buy the drink? Or are you invoking the “natural order of things” argument here?
Ah, traditional roles. It’s bad for women - except when it’s convenient.
I’m sorry; I really don’t understand anything you said. Of course it’s not a natural order of things argument. How could it be a natural order of things argument?
Ok, I was always ugly. I was fat most of my life. Now I am old too. Old, fat ugly guys don’t get asked out on dates. Young fat ugly guys didn’t get asked out on dates. Young fit ugly guys didn’t get asked out on dates. It is an admittedly narrow data set since I only know about me with any degree of certainty.
Of course there are more things about me than just fat and ugly. I was very painfully shy of girls for most of my life. I probably could have gotten some girls to go out with me if I had been more confident, or more assertive, or more willing to just ask and ask and ask. I will never know that for sure. Hard to be confident when you bat zero over your lifetime.
I got married. I fell head over heels in love in a heartbeat. A woman actually expressed feelings of sexual desire toward me. I was happier, and more . . . more everything than at any other time in my life. It turned out that the expressed feelings were pretended. Mine were not. And it also turned out that every other thing about me needed to change. I actually tried to do that. It didn’t work, and eventually all that changing made me a much different person; a person who cannot make life time promises, since I did once, and meant them all, and failed them all. I would not believe it if I made that type of promise again.
The cruelest part of it all was that I learned something new. Fat ugly married guys do get asked out on dates. Fat ugly married guys who say no to dates get asked out more. Divorced guys, not so much.
Yes, I know that I was supposed to be the one doing the asking. I even did it some. But I did not ask often, and certainly not in some persuasive or assertive way. Politely, for sure, and with respect and humor, most of the time, and uniformly without success. And with distressing frequency was later told I should have asked again.
Silly me, I thought no meant no.
Not sure how this relates to pick-up artists. I find the entire social and emotional flavor of pick-up artistry feels like sales. I cannot think of any aspect of human endeavor that I find less sexy than sales. And that assumes that the sales pitch is utterly honest, and forthright. The pick-up artists I have known in life didn’t leave me with a strong sense that this is highly likely. So, for whatever it is worth, I would not go back and teach a younger me “How to pick up girls” even if I could. I might try to teach a girl how to pick up a younger me. But that is just a foolish fantasy.
Tris
P. S: Way more information than I should have made public, I am sure.
I think this is absolutely accurate on all points.
In my experience these pick-up techniques can work rather well. Not that I am a pick-up monster (I am married and faithful) but a few years ago a friend of mine introduced me to “The Game” and we experimented with the system to see if there was anything to it.
To my absolute surprise, there really is something to it.
My friend is 6’5", in peak physical condition, and very handsome. In his late 30s, he has absolutely no problems attracting women of any age anywhere in the world. I asked him why he thought he needed The Game, but he is just a party animal at heart. So we went out in the field a few times for some of the most surreal experiments I have ever tried.
When following The Game gameplan I have seen my friend get physically attacked by eager females. I mean that literally: very desirable women that he approached at nightclubs actually jumped on top of him or dragged him off to a dark corner after only a short period of interaction. Not something that ordinarily happens, even to him (or at least with that kind of frequency).
I have always been pretty lucky in love, but what parts of The Game I have tried to apply also yielded some unexpectedly positive results. There seem to be a lot of women out there who respond very well to this approach.
There’s many misconceptions, such as that these techniques only work well on dumb chicks or loose chicks or desperate chicks or only American girls or whatever else. I don’t think that’s true at all - as MichaelQReilly pointed out, these pick-up techniques are simply about 1) sending out the signals that have the best chances of triggering interest in a female and 2) being able to read the signals a female sends back. In my experience a highly educated and attractive polyglot Russian woman of uncommon intelligence responded about as well as a couple of young English girls who seemed to be dumb as doorknobs. In general women who turned out to be available expressed interest so powerfully that I frequently had to stop the experiments. As I said, surreal.
I very much doubt these methods work on **all **women, of course, but there is definitely *something *to them. I don’t think it would be a bad thing if more guys learned a few tips on how to approach women. Surely that’s got to be better than coming on too strongly/creepy/pathetic, or whistling/grabbing ass, or making disgusting comments, etc.
Of course you don’t. Have a nice day!
And my point here is that women want guys like you to know your place and not complain.
Then they get mad when the same sentiment is directed at the few women out there who can’t get dates.
I bailed for a few pages because this thread has become a shitshow of negativity haha But I wanted to respond to the last few posts:
One of the top (my personal favorite) instructors and massive industry changers in PUA is a skinny freckled balding-at-22 guy. Before he focused on pick-up his only thought was “if I ask enough girls out, sooner or later one of them will say yes and I can finally have a girlfriend!” He spent something like 2 years totally aimlessly approaching girls every single day hoping for some kind of success and got none. Over time he started noticing patterns and stuff and that’s how he began deconstructing social interactions into a studyable method.
But he was in the same boat as you. Zero positive feedback for most of his life. But his logic was “I’m no worse off than any other guy, so if I do what guys who are successful do, then I will have the same success!”
The point of learning pick-up is just to have choice. If your choice is to find one perfect girl and marry her, you can do that, if your choice is to go makeout with a bunch of randoms, you can do that. But it’s important, as a man, to have options. Because when you have no options, the first girl that comes along and expresses any interest becomes “the one”, regardless of what level of quality as a person she actually is.
Often when people get into relationships out of lack of options and fear of being alone, rather than choice, those relationships go down in flames with one or both sides ending up miserable or alone down the road.
If you had never had a hamburger before, but were dying to try one your whole life, and then one day someone offered you a McDonald’s hamburger you’d be like “this is it! This is my hamburger! It’s amazing!!” Meanwhile other people are like “dude, it’s a McD’s burger, it’s not even real meat eww” but you can’t see that because it’s all you know.
Part of relationships is finding out what you DON’T want in a significant other.
When you were married you had social proof (another girl clearly likes you enough to marry you so you must be attractive whether they can see it at first glance or not). Plus as a faithful husband you weren’t interested in dating these girls while married, so you were a challenge, non-needy, etc. When you’re divorced, it’s the reverse, girls will assume some girl actively chose to leave you so you must not be attractive. These aren’t necessarily fair things, but they’re explainable.
This is the roughest part for a guy, because we’re told by women and media to be polite and no means no, but then (and your situation isn’t uncommon at ALL) we’re told we were supposed to keep asking. For women reading this, this is the kind of confusion nice guys go through, because we really like you, we’re trying to be respectful like we’ve been taught, but we get mixed messages when theory hits reality.
There are plenty of times where girls will go “We’re NOT having sex tonight” AS they’re totally willingly taking off their clothes so we can have sex. They do it instinctively so they don’t seem slutty and so the next day they can say “it just happened! I TOLD him we weren’t having sex but it just happened!” and alleviate any responsibility (since society has drilled into their heads that people will judge them as sluts for wanting sex).
There IS a “NO.” to stop to and responsible PUAs stop at it. But often stuff like “we shouldn’t be doing this…” or “but I have a boyfriend…” or “omg we can’t lol!” are just token resistance, because the next morning the girl admits she’s happy the guy pushed things forward and she wants to go for a second round or keep in touch to hang out again etc. (that last bit is for everyone who was about to jump on the thread saying “SEE PUAS RAPE WOMENZ!!111”)
Sales is what most guys do: “Would you like to go out sometime? No? How come? I’ll take SUCH good care of you! I won’t treat you like those jerks who break your heart! I have a good job, I make lots of money and I go to the gym regularly! I will treat you like a princess, can we please just go out once? I’ll pay for dinner and drinks and everything, I just want a chance to show you I’m the right guy for you!”
What a PUA does these days: “And what’s YOUR name? Sarah? What brings you out tonight, Sarah? Celebrating? I’m not going to find you hammered and dancing up on the bar later am I? Don’t worry, I won’t judge. In fact, I’ll be the guy standing right below you trying to stuff dollar bills in your g-string. 
Where are you from? Hmmm, can’t trust girls from California, you guys are trouble.”
The whole thing is qualifying her, while escalating things sexually. It’s not selling yourself at all, it’s letting her sell herself to you.
Appreciate you sharing your story. It’s a really common one for guys who get into the community when they’re older. They did everything right, according to society, but got their heart broken in the end and are looking for a second chance.
It would surprise a lot of people to learn that often these super good-looking guys are actually super shy with girls. They can actually have a harder time learning game, because they’ve gone their whole life relying on “I’m good-looking, I don’t need to make an effort!” Often these guys end up with average to not-so-great looking girls, with low-quality personalities but an outgoing attitude…basically the girl actually made a move on him and he went along with it.
A guy who’s ugly knows going in “I am gonna’ have to do a TON of work before I see any success!” so he has a more realistic view of how long game is going to take him to get success with.
It sounds like your buddy is a party guy so he’s probably just adding game in for the fun of it, but I’m never ever intimidated by the super tall good looking guys because I know most of the time they don’t have any game.
Glad someone can back me up here with actual experience haha
My friends will often go “Let’s see you do your thing, go get that girl over there!” or worse, a girl saying “use your game on me! Try to pick me up!” And it’s like, that’s not how it works (though that’s how it’s marketed, which again I stress that I don’t approve of the marketing techniques used). I’m not creating opportunities out of nowhere, I’m putting myself in a position where things can happen by sending out signals, and I’m reading the signals I’m getting back in a really efficient manner, and capitalizing on them quickly.
I have to kind of agree with this sentence and that’s only because I’ve read the other dating advice threads on SDMB, and people (usually women) often tell the guys “you’re not having luck? Well maybe you should lower your standards. I mean you don’t deserve some supermodel rocket scientist, you should only be shooting for girls in your league, 2 points above/below you.”
And that’s bullshit to me. Don’t lower your standards. In the end you’ll be unsatisfied and unhappy and we’ll end up seeing you in the “have you cheated on your significant other?” threads. Go for what you want. Take care of yourself and your life as best you can, and then learn to present it in the best light.
- TWTTWN
Incidentally, it’s Friday, soon to be Friday night. Any single guys reading this thread, there are thousands of gorgeous wonderful intelligent women dolling themselves up to go out tonight hoping to meet a nice guy.
Go say “hi!”, you never know where it’ll lead! 
- TWTTWN
I’m probably going to regret wandering into this morass, but this thread makes me so glad I’m not in the dating game cause I just feel so damn tired reading all this game and peacocking stuff.
I realize that not many people have responded to you yet, TheWhoToTheWhatNow since Le Jacquelope provides such tantalizing low-fruit, but I have to say, even though you eschew the more misogynistic aspects of the PUA’s, the examples you give in this thread gives me pause.
These are the examples of you doing a hard sell and essentially feeding on a woman’s insecurities as a means to get her to open up to you. This is pretty much the same way that commercial marketing targets women: “You’re not showing the right social cues with those yellow teeth/stinky breath/split ends, but we have the solution for you!” And in that way, PUA techniques are ingenious since you’re undermining her sense of self and giving her a solution all at the same time. This is why people are accusing you of fishing for insecure women. No, not all the women who fall for this are insecure. If they were, we’d all be guilty of being terribly insecure since we all fall for these commercials. Goodness knows I have enough secure, intelligent, and pretty friends who would fall for it. But it does seem like it is preying on small insecurities as a way to knock down their defenses while simultaneously putting yourself out as the social alpha who has their solution.
Does it seem slightly sleazy to me? Sure, just like Avon ladies and street side donation hustlers who use social shaming are a little sleazy. But I don’t begrudge the guys who use these techniques, just like I don’t begrudge the telemarketers who call for my business since they’re all just doing what they need to do to survive. Everyone who gets sucked in are allowing themselves to get sucked in. I can, however, see how people would be really put-off by it.
So when your mom told you “Don’t be rude, say hello!” when you were a kid meeting other kids on the playground for the first time, she was preying on your insecurities as a way to knock down your defenses, while simultaneously putting herself out as the social alpha who has the solution?
No, she was encouraging you to be a social being, because from her life experience she knows that you’ll have fun if you socialize and interact with the people around you. That’s all the above is doing. 
When your wife told you “It’s a job interview, you can’t wear that t-shirt, you should wear your nice dress shirt and iron it!” when you were younger, she was preying on your insecurities as a way to knock down your defenses, while simultaneously putting herself out as the social alpha who has the solution?
No, she was reminding you of how general social interactions (in the professional world) work because she wants you to succeed at making a good impression and having a great interview!
If I hold out my hand and introduce myself in a friendly non-threatening value-offering way, and she doesn’t shake it, she’s being silly and anti-social. It’s not like she’s committing to sex by being friendly, especially if she’s out in a social environment like a nightclub, and it’s not like I’m a homeless guy approaching her for spare change. I’m just reminding her how to be social and helping bring her out of her shell. She’s probably a super nice chick, but maybe she zoned out thinking about something and I caught her off guard. That’s okay, here’s a reminder on what you’re supposed to do when someone is friendly to you!
You can put a negative spin on it, but it comes from a place of “I know that you and I are about to have a fun interaction together, and you haven’t realized it yet, but you’re probably a cool person in general so here’s a reminder of how to play along so that we both have fun! :)”
It’s not like the girl stands there feeling terrified and insecure, she giggles at herself for being silly and brightens right up and you guys have a good time…and that was kind of the point of both of you heading out to a social environment that night, to have fun. (some people don’t go out to have fun, they get dragged out or are generally negative people, but you can tell this from their body langauge and personally I don’t approach those people)
- TWTTWN
I think the difference in the mindset of a PUA VS a normal nice guy is the normal nice guy looks at approaching a girl and using PUA “tricks” as a way of weaseling into her world. It’s like sneaking under the radar to force her to have to pretend to enjoy interacting with the guy because he’s preying on her insecurities and hard-selling her or bullying her into it but if she had the chance to objectively step back and look at the interaction she’d choose not to interact with him at all.
My mindset is that I come offering awesome value and contributing a good thing to her life (whether it’s a fun interaction, a night of passion, or a long term relationship), so to me it’s silly for her to NOT want to interact and anything I’m doing is just to open her eyes to that. The normal nice guy is trying to find a way to get her to part with her money, so if she’s not receptive right away he thinks anyone who uses PUA stuff is tricking the girl into parting with her money because that’s his perspective. The PUA is trying to offer her a bunch of free money so if she’s not receptive right away he thinks “haha well that doesn’t make sense, look, it’s free money, taking it will improve your life, pay attention here will ya? :D”
You call it a hard-sell and people relate it to sleazy telemarketers and used-car salesmen, but that’s because the products the telemarketers or used-car salesmen are selling are clearly crappy products or lemons. I know that I’m an awesome guy, so I’m not trying to trick a girl into “buying a lemon”, but if you don’t have self-confidence or naturally feel that women are higher-value than men in terms of sexual dynamics, then I can see how you would think that way…but changing that mind-set is a big part of learning pick-up.
Society plays a big role in fostering the “women are higher value than men” concept, especially in the nightlife scene. You could be a world-class doctor who’s saved thousands of lives, but if you’re lining up at a nightclub who do you think is getting in first, you or the chick with the giant tits falling out of her mini-dress who works at Taco Bell?
The reality is that women are not higher value than men, and men are not higher value than women. So when I approach or “hard-sell” a girl, I’m saying “Hey, I know a lot of guys put you up on a pedestal because they don’t feel worthy and you may have to snub a lot of lame guys throughout your life being an attractive woman and that’s why you’re rude or don’t shake my hand or try to drag your friend away from my friend, but I know I’m a high value guy so to me we’re on an even ground here, now let’s see if we click. :D”
- TWTTWN