Of course you can learn something from books. There is a huge difference between “here’s a couple of tips that when practiced will smooth the way” and “this is a kick ass way of life and I think this is the way it should work”.
Everything that is sold is part scam. Even selling people on ideas. But it’s not an all or nothing proposition. Just because the person has vested interest doesn’t mean there’s not a core of truth of some indeterminate size.
TWTTWN trips just about every indicator I have that says “hooked on the koolaid”. When someone claims the only downside happens when you’re not doing it right and that every “customer” goes away happy, they’re defining the results in terms of their expectations.
Yes, it’s a wonderful dream, but an impractical one. At least for me. Mostly because I don’t really want the woman I love blowing some other dude. And because of that, I don’t really feel comfortible cheating on her.
That said, if people want to have the sort of relationships you described, by all means do so. I would say just be upfront and honest about it. Where people get into trouble is when the other person is operating under the very reasonible assumption that they are in a monogamous relationship, only to find out he or she is secretly banging someone else on the side.
haha yes, this. The funny part is it’s more psychological than anything. I used to stock girly coolers in my fridge so that after a movie date or whatever, we could go back to my place and I’d have something they could drink to loosen up. I noticed that they’d be a little reserved until the point where I had an actual DVD playing on the TV and they had literally ONE sip of a cooler, and then bam, they’d jump my bones. It was as if once they have a sip of a drink they can later tell themselves “well we were drinking so it just happened, damn alcohol was the reason, not the fact that I was horny and love sex, only sluts like sex!!”
It actually got annoying because I mean, coolers are expensive! Throwing out a whole cooler that’s missing one sip is such a waste. I started just twisting the cap back on them and putting them back in the fridge to save for my own drinking later or if the girl came over again I’d just give her the same cooler she had before haha
Yes, this. There was one girl who I’d have to chase around a parking lot every time we met up for a booty call. We were regular fuckbuddies (she was a super cutie, always bubbly and happy, I miss her haha) and we’d meet up at last call and she’d pretend to be mad and keep backing up and acting like she wasn’t into me, etc. and I would keep pretending not to care and then suddenly pounce on her and she’d giggle and run. This’d go on for a solid 15 min or so, and then she’d let me catch her and we’d both be turned on and hop in a cab back to her place to fuck.
She loved feeling wanted and irresistable and loved being able to count on the fact that if she ran, I would chase.
There’s a firm “NO.”, and girls aren’t afraid to use it if they’re not into a guy. Part of picking up a lot of women is learning to read the body language, voice tone, etc. cues that emphasis a real “NO.”
Yes, this. Date rape is an especially serious concern to a PUA because we’re completely poking the bear of “she could get “buyer’s remorse” in the morning and decide that she made a mistake, or feel guilty for cheating on her husband or whatever, and say I raped her, and then describe how the date went down and any random normal person listening to the story would go holy shit that DOES sound like a rape!!”
This is why we have to be very very very calibrated. And while we want the girl to feel good about the whole thing just on principle of it’s fun to give someone else a wonderful experience, it’s also partly for our own safety.
The worst is when girls want rough sex and you’ve only just met them. Like they want to be choked, slapped around, etc. CK Lewis has a great comedy bit ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za7jQ1s1BV0 ) about this. As a guy you worry “Shit, if she decides later that she regrets this, I’m fucked.”
Incidentally, when I’m cuddling with a girl after, usually we talk about all sorts of stuff sex-related, and it would blow a lot of guy’s minds to realize how many girls out there have been raped or sexually molested at more than one point in their life. It’s a LOT of them. And some of them you can tell are fucked up from it, but some you would never guess it. It’s really disturbing and I feel bad for them that society takes such a pooh-pooh attitude toward rape (see margin? I’m not a monster, I get what you’re fighting for, I just make offensive jokes about all sorts of serious topics I shouldn’t).
Yes, this. There are a lot of nuances in pick-up because it’s social interaction. If I said “I don’t hit on drunk chicks”, Alien would go “YOU ARE SAYING YOU’VE NEVER TALKED TO A DRUNK WOMAN BEFORE?? AND YOU GO TO BARS?? LIES!! SEE HE’S A LIARR!!!1” and I’d have to explain myself. It’s easier if I just state the nuance up front.
I think you’re projecting a lot of stuff onto me and have some weird views on things, but I don’t mind you criticizing me. Mainly because most of your criticism is pretty baseless…that’s part of why I’m ignoring your posts now. This thread is at a point where I’m able to just quote other people’s explanations to you and say “Yes, this.” If EVERYONE else in the thread is understanding my viewpoint and explaining my position for me, you have to start to consider that you might be being deliberately obtuse.
I think you’ve just described Google’s Page Analytics for web design? Fuckin’ Google…like they haven’t done enough, now they’re giving web designers the power to control people’s minds!! Watch out for the guy with the Apple Macbook the next time you go into a Starbucks!!
Yes, this. I think this is the basic cause of our different viewpoints here. It’s like he views seducing a woman as taking something from her or tricking her into something, whereas I view it as unlocking something society has forced her to lock up. This is why girls cuddle up to me after, relieved, and want to see me again…finally, a guy that knows she needs to get laid and won’t judge her for it.
Fuckbuddies come back to me because they know that they can go flirt with a bunch of nice guys all night long and try to find a guy worth dating, but if they don’t find one that night, or if they find one but he’s too shy to make a move, they can txt me at 2am and go “I’m horny :(” and I’ll swoop in, flip a bunch of attraction switches in a way that makes them not feel slutty, and escalate things to sex. Like, they can count on me to take care of their sexual needs.
The fastest way to lose a fuckbuddy is to not fuck her when she needs to be fucked.
Honestly the reason I’m all gung-ho about it is that there are actual results, and they are immediate and noticable for a guy who starts getting into this stuff. Like it’s not some distant “stick with us, kid, down the road you’ll be better for it” thing. If you go out this weekend, chat up two girls, and tell one of them she’s must be the good one and the other must be the bad one, you will see a very predictable reaction. If you go out this weekend, chat up a group of girls, and tell one of them “You know what? I can tell already that you and I wouldn’t get along. We’re too similar, you wouldn’t take my shit, and I wouldn’t take yours. We’d be fighting all the time.” you will get a very predictable reaction.
I had zero sex until I was 23, then got my first girlfriend through complete fluke (I can explain what happened, now that I look back on it with a pick-up psychology perspective, but basically she did all the work picking ME up haha) and had sex for the first time. So in 23 years I had sex once. Then I got into pickup, and slept with 20 different girls that first summer, fooled around (BJs, fingering them, etc.) with another 10+, kissed god knows how many…Like, my sex-life took a complete 180.
So when people say stuff like “well you’re drinking kool-aid” or “you seem to be kind of overly enthusiastic about it because you invested time in the theory” and stuff it’s like, shit, I was just getting a blowjob from a cute chick I chatted up a few hours ago. The younger version of me is off to the side going “Dude!! wtf! how?? what??”
This is why I stress that I speak from experience, VS just being a guy who’s read a lot of stuff. You can read a zillion books on fishing but hitting a lake and actually catching fish regularly is different.
Yes, this exactly. During the night, only positive confident thoughts are allowed, rah rah, keep the vibe positive and confident yay!! But then afterwards you run through the night’s interactions in your head and figure out why that girl shut you down, why the vibe changed while talking to that one group, why that other girl was totally into you as soon as you said hello, etc. The professional bootcamps follow this structure, and in fact a lot of guys on bootcamp will pass up a possible lay so that they don’t miss the 3am Denny’s “Okay let’s recap the night” debrief which is where all the learning is.
They’re there to learn how to be attractive to women, not to just get laid.
Yes, this. At the start you use the training wheels of pre-scripted stories/routines, because that allows you to do that stuff on auto-pilot while you’re consciously calibrating to the vibe of the group. Down the road, you replace the stories/routines with your OWN stories/routines that follow the same structure, but are based on your own individual life, and by this point the calibrating is the part that’s on auto-pilot.
“Excuse me, I can only stay for a moment, but my friend and I were having a discussion…who do you think lies more, men or women?”
becomes
“Hey, help my buddy and me out a sec…what’d you think of (some movie we just watched a few hours earlier and have been discussing)?”
The structure is the same (quick interrupt, implication you’ll only take a moment of their time, back-story of why we’re stopping her, question that we want an answer to), but the actual content is something relevant to ourselves.
a guy COULD go
“What’d you think of (movie)?”
Without thinking, like a bull in a china shop (ie - the way most guys do it), but now the girl didn’t hear him because he didn’t use an authoritative “HEY.” or “EXCUSE ME.” to stop her, and now she blows him off with “sorry I’m in a hurry” because he didn’t imply that he’d only need her attention for a moment and she thinks he’ll try to chat her up all day long, and she thinks he’s just weird for asking random strangers a question (why don’t you ask your FRIENDS wtf?) because he didn’t provide any reason for asking her (no backstory), etc.
…and that’s why I would be able to stop her, get her opinion, flirt a bit and grab her phone number to meet up with her again later, and that guy would get snubbed and start a thread on SDMB asking why girls are bitches.
At the start you might tell a bunch of bullshit stories (I found the best was to tell stories my friends tell and just imply they happened to me)…but that’s because when you’re a socially akward computer nerd who hasn’t done anything interesting with his life you don’t HAVE stories. I remember running into that problem, and I remember when, after a few months of going out, I started to have my own stories that I could tell people and that’s when you start replacing the fake training wheels ones.
Yes, this like a mofo!! Fucking AWESOME post. Thanks for writing your view up! It’s fascinating to see things from a “natural”'s perspective because a lot of people that judge PUAs are actually shitty with women and anti-social themselves. I’ve found that generally guys who are social themselves, once they get over the initial “?? I don’t get it, why would you have to think so much about this? It’s a girl, you just go over and say hi, dude!” puzzlement (the same puzzlement I’d have if someone told me they consciously broke down the steps involved in breathing in and out), they’re pretty accepting of the fact that we’re just trying to become better social human beings in general…the getting laid is an awesome bonus to it.
The doctor analogy is good too. A lot of PUA terminology is very army-esque…bootcamp, acquire a target, remove the obstacle, etc. but it stems from that same thing where it’s easier to take this stuff in (and explain/discuss it) when you treat it like a game at the start.
I said earlier in the thread, if that girl is “my dream girl, perfect in every way, I love her hair omg, and she has a gorgeous smile!!” it’s a lot more intimidating to go up to say hi when you’ve never approached a girl before, compared to “there’s an HB8 and I’m going to run the who lies more opener on her”.
Down the road (like where I’m at), guys like you and I get along awesomely, because we’ve both come around to the same point of social competance, we just got to it via different paths in life.
Also this. As babies we were all pure Id, if we wanted something, we made everyone know. When we got older we were still mostly our Id, we wanted a cookie and we knew it was in the jar so we just took a cookie from the jar. Then we got scolded for taking that cookie. Over time we were taught more and more social rules, some of them good (a mom telling you it’s wrong to steal from others), some of them misguided (a friend telling you you should send a girl flowers to show her you like her), some of them wrong (an abusive father threatening you don’t you dare tell anyone about this or I’ll kill you).
The end product is someone who has that cookie-craving kid still in him, but who’s been so weighed down with rules all his life that he’s afraid to just go for the cookie. The process of PUA is one of “these are the rules that are important, these are the rules that society fucked you up with, it is perfectly okay to want that cookie and to try to get that cookie, here’s some stuff that will help you try to get that cookie”.
That’s why guys with really bad social hang-ups (like my friend I described earlier who has all the un-wiring to do) have a long process in front of them.
Now I’m just like I was before, I’m a nerd, I make terrible puns, I like girls, etc., but instead of being ashamed of those things, I wear them proudly and am confident about them.
Once you get the skills down sex is no biggie. I go out on the weekends now because I enjoy the socializing aspect of it, since it’s something I didn’t get to do when I was growing up like everyone else did (no house-parties in high school sneaking alcohol and having fun for THIS guy!). But I’m going out to socialize and picking up girls just happens because I’m now an attractive guy.
For a few years, pick-up takes over your life, the way you might get into any hobby. But now the way you might pick up your guitar and strum a few notes on a slow sunday afternoon, pick-up is just something I can do when I want to. Other things in my life are FAR more important than women and getting laid.
The interesting thing is that now that I’ve been with a bunch of women and spent so much time learning about them, I KNOW it’s silly to focus my entire life around one. But if I had grown up as a nice guy and stumbled into a relationship with some girl, I probably would have been one of those guys that changes his career path, gives up his dreams, etc. to follow a girl around and make her the center of his world while he lets his own life go to shit, and then sits at the bar with a pint talking about how “someday” he’ll get around to being a rockstar or whatever (I’m sure we all know a few guys like this).
The irony, of course, is once the guy gives up his life for a girl, she loses attraction for him because he’s no longer the man of action with a purpose and path in life that he was when she first met him, and then she runs into me at the bar and puts her wedding ring in her pocket.
I dunno man, I’m glad you stated exactly what you’re taking issue with here, because that clears your position up a bit, but honestly if you have a problem with people who reject the notion of a committed monogamous relationship, you probably have issues with people who are in polygamous relationships, open relationships, etc. and you’re opening a whole 'nother can of worms with that one.
A lot of guys learn pick-up until they find the right girl and then settle with her and stop going out and are perfectly happy. Me, personally, I found that I like open relationships because I like variety in my sex life, but I’m not saying that’s for everyone.
I DO think it’s important for guys to meet a variety of women in their lifetime so they can narrow down exactly what they want or don’t want in the woman they finally settle with. It would eliminate a lot of the “well I liked them, but now that we’re married I can’t stand them, all those things I thought were annoying at the start didn’t get cuter, they got MORE annoying and now my life is miserable” stuff that leads to cheating, divorces, etc.
You’re free to cast suspicions, but just because you don’t know how to set the frame of an open relationship with someone doesn’t mean it can’t be done. It requires a lot of honestly and the willingness to lose the person and wish them luck in life if they’re not comfortable with it.
But then that’s the same for anyone who’s in any kind of open/poly/etc. relationship which again, if you have a problem with those people as well as PUAs, I think you’ll find a LOT more opposition to your view of what a relationship is supposed to look like.
Again I’m glad you’re explaining your views now instead of just shouting that I’m a sociopath, but you have the wrong view of open relationships.
Open relationships are VERY DIFFICULT TO DO. It takes a LOT of trust and a LOT of open communication, which most people are just not equipped to handle. As soon as you stop communicating, jealousy, lies, etc. start tearing away at things and it all falls apart.
But when you handle it right, it can be absolutely awesome. My girl is free to fuck anyone she wants, but she only wants to fuck me. She doesn’t see a guy with a 6-pack and get horny and want to fuck him, she sees me being confident, alpha, and other girls flirting with me, and she wants to fuck ME. But I’m totally okay with her exploring other stuff, she just doesn’t want to.
I, on the other hand, am attracted to various girls physically. It would be pretty much impossible for another girl to replace my GF, because I love her for her personality and other aspects beyond her looks. If I hook up with a girl on the weekend after a night out at the bar, it’s purely a physical thing. The new girl knows that because I make it clear up front that I’m not available, and my GF knows that I’ll come back to her because she has more weight in my universe than a random fling.
I’ve seen open relationships end before, but I’ve never seen one end with the bitter hatred, vitroil, rage, anger, jealous, vengeance, etc. of a monogamous relationship that ends. Open relationships ending tends to be more “well I wish the best for you, I hope you find what makes you happy”. Monogamous tends to be “Fuck you AND your whore, I’m going to divorce you and take everything you have, good luck seeing your kids ever again asshole!!”
No, it’s fine. I don’t own her pussy. I explain it like if she goes off to another country to visit a girlfriend for a month and while she’s there she meets some charming foreign guy who sweeps her off her feet, paints a mural of her, takes her to the top of the Eiffle Tower, writes her poems and whisks her off to a bed somewhere…who the fuck am I to deny her that? Or to make her feel GUILTY for having an amazing experience like that? What kind of asshole would I be to make her feel BAD for following her feelings and having a wonderful memory?
She’s fine to do what she likes, including gangbang all of my friends, as long as she’s safe about it and showers before we hang out haha and I do the same for her.
I have a friend who wants to play the field but wants his girl to be committed only to him and gets jealous if she flirts with other guys. I think he’s a moron, that’s unfair to me. But he may find a girl that’s cool with that arrangement someday. Whatever works for them. For me, I say if I’m allowed to do something, then I’m not in a position to be judgemental or jealous if my girl does the same…that’s only fair.
But again this takes a LOT of open communication, trust, honesty, and self-knowledge. I understand jealousy and why it happens, and that’s why I can avoid it.
If we go out to a club together, she’ll get hit on all night. That’s fine, I’m not going to get pissy at her or punch some guy out. I know at the end of the night we’re going home together…we have rules about that. If we’re together, the other person is top priority over anyone else.
I often txt her right before I go out, or later in the night to wish her goodnight, just so she knows I’m still thinking about her even if I’m off doing my thing. Open communication and trust.
Interestingly, Tiger Woods got shit from everyone not because he fucked other girls but because he lied about it and cheated and broke a monogamous trust. No one cares when Gene Simmons or Hugh Heffner hook up with random girls, because it’s like “well that’s just how they are, they’re not pretending to be anything else and then breaking that trust and shattering our view of them”.
Essentially Tiger “betrayed” everyone, thus the anger. No one expects Russell Brand to not cheat on Katy Perry. If it happens we’ll all go “well duh, Katy.”
It’s a LOT of pressure to be forced to be the center of someone’s universe. A lot of women are just looking for a relaxing fun time that if it turns into a relationship, awesome. But they know if they accidentally make eye contact with that guy in their class he’s going to have a crush on her all year and make her the center of his universe.
This is the vibe I get too, and this is the vibe I’ve encountered a lot over the years. I’ve lurked on the SDMB for years (way before I got into pick-up) and part of why I joined this thread is just to clear up these weird cartoon PUA stereotypes people have, in the interest of fighting ignorance.
Yep, this is exactly what I’ve been typing in this post (just reloaded before posting and saw this new one haha). It’s not for everyone, and if you KNOW you would be jealous if she blew some guy, then you DEFINATELY shouldn’t be in one, it will end badly. It takes being upfront and honest. You don’t have to give the nitty gritty details (though some women get turned on by that), but this takes actual discussion between partners.
I think because I didn’t get into relationships until I had sex, the two go together to me. I never had a crush on a girl for years, then dated her for months before we finally had sex like some teenage soap opera. I went right from no contact with women to sexual relationships. So to me, if my girl is hanging with a guy and they’re out drinking, there is a chance that they will have sex. I know this because it’s how my relationships work, it’s how I know relationships to BE. So if I already accept that going in, I don’t have as much room to get jealous as someone who thinks that they “may” have sex or that their partner is lying/deceiving them, etc. and gets all paranoid and goes through their E-Mail and looks for mysterious strands of hair on their shirt.
I accept that relationships have a sexual component. I can’t turn her pussy off and make her not attracted to another guy. All I can do is be the best, most attractive guy I can be, and if she’s still intent in exploring other things, ask her to be safe and tell her I’ll be happy to see her when she comes home.
I won’t go so far as to claim I’m a natural PUA, but I’ve always had girls in my life, I’ve always been comfortable with them, and I’ve always had them available to meet my physical, emotional, and intellectual needs. I’ve taken this for granted for a very long time, and it makes me feel kinda bad that I have. I’ve never had a PUA “phase” where all I did is pick up chicks and have a new girl every week for months or even years… but I think that’s because I’ve never been starved of love and attention, and then one day woke up and said “HOLY SHIT!”, the way most anti-social men studying this stuff suddently realize. Whenever I wanted a relationship with a girl, whether physical, emotional, or intellectual, it’s always “just worked out”. Sure, there were times when I wanted and got more physical things from girls, but I never really set out with the mindset that some PUA set out with - making it such a strong goal for themselves. But again, this is probably due to the fact that I’ve always had what I wanted and took it for granted.
And I agree, you are becoming a better social human being (when it comes to both men and women). Having a connection with another human being is great… we are social animals after all… and it’s not fair that a huge segment of society is disallowed or barred from this. Men have it EASY, though, since they can actually do something about it. Ugly women… well, they’re pretty screwed and have little ability to manouever on the “1 to 10 scale”.
I don’t mean to further any stereotypes, but it seems that this whole PUA methodology was made by engineers, computer scientists, and IT guys. Flow-charts, cause-effect, pseudo-code, and the formulaic nature of it all kinda give that away!
If someone took a time-machine and went back into my early childhood, as I was learning social norms and rules and communication skills, I’m sure they’d find that I did a lot more terrible and horrible things than most PUAs do in their adult lives.
I’m not sure if you said it above or someone else, but once you become an “adult” (eg 18) society expects you to be fixed in your personality, and isn’t very tolerant of change (especially in regards to this topic). They even go as far as saying that any “change” after your an adult isn’t real! I think that’s a terrible, terrible, thing to say, and it’s a terrible pressure to impose onto people who didn’t get everything sorted out in time for their 18th birthday.
People in adulthood bitch all the time about “baggage” that’s weighing them down… like bad experiences from childhood - eg rape, abuse, etc. Some of that shit is really hard to work through and work out. Learning how to interact with women is simply working through “baggage”, but luckily it’s a lot easier to resolve than some of the other baggage weighing people down.
How can anyone not respect this guy? You can disagree with him, or disagree with his articulation, but c’mon… If I were to meet a guy like this in person, through business or socializing, I may not like his style, or his presentation, but he’d certainly have my respect.
This is fair. Although you do have to accept that the vast majority of people will not be able to do this. (You do understand this.) Honesty and openness is the best policy here, as you say it is. An honest, confident man, who has a lasting connection to a woman, will tell her so, and she will value this and believe it. The only issue is that there is A LOT of room for … umm… sneakiness, and supressed emotions - which is why it usually doesn’t work out. But I do know people for whom it does work out.
I personally believe in serial monogomy (usually): one serious relationship at one time. This is mainly because while I don’t care who a girl sleeps with if I’m in a casual relationship with her, I’d have some issue with a girl I’m emotionally and intellectually involved with fucking around with other people. But since I expect monogomy of the girls I’m seriously involved with… it’s only fair that I live up to the same standard (since it’s usually clear that this standard is also expected of me). There’s been times where I could push the boundries and say “No, I do what I want, but you also do what I want!”… but honestly, I can’t think of being a shittier person than that. I’d lose all self-respect. On top of that, the moment a girl would agree to this pure bullshit, is the moment I’d immediately lose all respect for her.
There was a girl I was with who wanted an open relationship, and I was like “sure okay”. But then I started liking her a bit more at the expense of other girls who I started liking much less, and it suddenly become much less okay. There has to be a balance/equilibrium to make this work. And since most relationship are NOT balanced equally, it usually doesn’t work.
This. It’s fine to go sleeping around with half the country. But if you know that you are that kind of guy, have the moral fortitude and integrity to admit it to yourself and those around you. To lie and betray those you supposedly love the most is the scummiest of the scum on the bottom of my dirty shoes. He was an asshole for lying on his wedding vows. I wouldn’t dare think of commiting to a girl, let a lone marrying a woman and having kids, if I knew I couldn’t live up to the promises expected of me. If you like women so much, don’t get married…
Listen to yourself. YOU have said that calbration is difficult. YOU have said that many (most?) people have difficulty with this. You’ve even suggested that there are a ton of guys that sign up for the system that either misuse the tools or don’t do what it takes to use them well.
So even if this works for you EXACTLY the way you describe, it most likely wouldn’t work well for most people.
You have no idea what my idea of a relationship is. There is a vast spectrum and I’m only criticizing your description of a very narrow range, most of which involves what I would consider very superficial relationships.
BTW, for a guy who is ignoring me, you’re responding to things I’ve said and taking them out of context.
My criticism your PUA approach is no different than criticizing a guy that’s gotten his black belt in one martial art that suddenly declares it’s the best thing in the world when it’s clear he doesn’t have the perspective that would validate that determination.
I think what he’s saying is that if you show up for Karate training, it’s POSSIBLE -though not necessarily EASY - to get a black belt in Karate doing so. Of course he’s gung-ho about it… it’s changed his life for the better. Some people drop out after their green belt, sure, but it doesn’t change the fact that something that was previous thought to be completely IMPOSSIBLE by many, many people, is shown to no longer be the case.
Yes, exactly. If you had a donut every day and someone offered you unlimited donuts, you’d probably have one or two, it’s just donuts. But to some guy who’s had one or no donuts his entire life and watched everyone else around him eating donuts and everyone’s talking about how amazing donuts are and all the movies and TV shows around him convince him he’s a loser for not having ever had a donut and he’s surrounded by donuts all day long but has no idea how to pick one up and start eating…you show that guy that he can have unlimited donuts and he’s gonna’ pig out.
That’s why people who are like “well those aren’t REAL friendships, you don’t REALLY know those people and I pity you for thinking you have any kind of connection with them” don’t get it. You can make a connection with someone REALLY fast, especially when you cut through all the bullshit of making small talk about the weather and actually talk about interesting in-depth stuff. I’ve heard a lot of awesome life stories, I’ve learned a lot about things I’d never research on my own, and I’ve met people with all sorts of different personalities and backgrounds and beliefs in my life…whereas a lot of people will have their 5 high-school buddies they still keep in touch with, and a couple of work friends, a few friends they met through their girlfriend, and that’s about it for their life.
Oh no it’s absolutely that. The majority of guys that get into PUA work in IT, engineering, etc. industries. That’s why they have trouble with social interaction, because it seems so organic from the outside and they’re told vague advice like “Just be yourself”. What if you told a guy writing software “Just start coding, don’t worry, it’ll work itself out eventually. You just have to be patient.” That’s useless info to them. But show them a structure they can follow, with flowcharts and formulas and it’s like “THIS I can understand”, and they can slowly and methodically/robotically catch up to the rest of the world, until they get to the point where the flowcharts fade into the background and they feel and ARE natural with social interaction.
Ya, I get flack for going to the bars a lot. But I’m sorry, everyone else was going to house parties, on dates, sneaking into bars underaged, etc. from ages 15 - 23 when I was sitting in my computer room scared to join the world. If I then spend 2 or 3 years hitting the bars regularly, I’m just trying to catch up to everyone else. My timing isn’t ideal, but I’m doing what I can to get as much social experience as everyone else had.
Definately agree. We like to hide behind labels (“I’m a slacker”, “That’s just not me”, “I’m too shy”) because it’s comfortable, but change is absolutely possible. I think part of the problem is that if you’re unhappy with your life, and then you acknowledge that someone else can change, you have to accept the fact that you CAN change too, but have chosen not to. That opens up a big ol’ can of introspection that most people don’t want to look at.
haha thanks! Like I say, guys and girls who were always pretty decent with socializing totally understand. Often the people that react the most negatively are guys who find socializing difficult too and it’s like I said above, to acknowledge that this is something that can be learned/studied/changed instead of luck of the draw “some have it some don’t” is to acknowledge that they aren’t working on this part of themselves and that a lot of their loneliness/misery is their own responsibility.
If I had left my computer room more as a kid, I would have been totally normal and awesome like anyone else. But pick-up wasn’t around then to let me know it was that simple. Like I say, I don’t want my future kid to have to learn pick-up, I’ll lead by example by being social myself and encourage him to leave the computer room and learn the lessons I missed out on.
Oh it’s super hard to maintain, and for guys who don’t study pick-up it’s extremely hard to even guess how to instigate it let alone manage it. I’ve done it enough that I’ve got the process down for setting an open relationship frame. There are discussions I make sure to have at certain points and there are specific questions I ask or things I let the girl know to set it up. So for me, it’s easy now. I wrote a (very well received by PUAs) big document on managing open relationships back in the day just because I have a lot of experience with it haha
A lot of it comes down to qualifying the girl ahead of time. Dropping in stuff like:
“ya my ex was super jealous, she wouldn’t even let me hang out with my chick-friends.”
If she responds with something like “lol well I’m totally the jealous type” then I know she’s not down for an open relationship.
If she responds with “omg mine too, I HATE that!! It’s so insecure” then I know she’s a girl who’s be up for an open relationship.
“my ex would call me all day every day, like hey honey how’s your day, I had a salad for lunch”
If she goes “what’s wrong with that? When you’re dating you’re supposed to WANT to talk to the other person lol” she wants a serious relationship.
If she goes “lol I would never do that, I’m too busy” then I know she’d be down for a casual fuckbuddy.
It’s a lot easier to set an open relationship frame when you’re working with the right type of girl. Notice, interestingly, that the responses from the two down for the open/fuckbuddy relationships actually sound MORE confident than the monogamous response girls. “I get jealous and you have to talk to me so I know you still want me” VS “I like secure confident guys and I have my own life so I’m not looking for a man to fill some void”.
This is all stuff I’ve learned from first-hand experience. I’ve had a lot of girls on the go at once, with all of them knowing there were other girls.
I have no problems with this, and in-fact, I gave a monogamous relationship a try for 2 years. I had plenty of opportunity to cheat, but because I made the promise that I wouldn’t, I never cheated. But I found that I, personally, felt stifled and restricted in a monogamous relationship so for me, it didn’t work. I ended up breaking things off because I didn’t want to be that guy that cheats on a girl he agreed to be in a monogamous relationship with.
I have one friend who goes through women like nothing. I’ve seen him pick-up and fuck 10 different girls 10 days in a row. He’s a natural and loves sex but hates relationships. The girls know straight-up that he’s just fucking around and he’s booty-call only, and he picks up girls who are down for that. He’ll fuck them a couple times and then never call again, or they’ll never call him again. He’ll txt the next girl telling her to come over later, while cuddling with the one he just finished with, and doesn’t care if she sees the txt.
I have another friend who’s in a commited monogamous 6 year relationship with a sweet girl. There’s a chick in his office that wants to fuck him and hits on him relentlessly. His GF can tell the girl is trouble but he laughs it off. When the office has parties and gets drunk together, I’ve seen her make moves on him and him “not resisting” (but pretending nothing is going on). Caught him fingering her on a couch in a back room once.
I have a thousand times more respect for the first friend I described, because he’s 100% honest about his intentions and what he’s doing. The second friend I lost a fuck-ton of respect for. If you don’t want to be committed, don’t commit, because now you’re just another one of “those guys” who’s breaking his word and will blindside your GF one day and that ain’t cool, she deserves better.
Agreed. I could be a HORRIBLE person with chicks. I absolutely have the skills to lure them in and have them buy me things and chase me and dedicate years of their life to me (the same way a martial artist could kick someone in the throat and kill him), but I choose not to do that because I wouldn’t be able to respect myself as a person if I did (the same way a martial artist chooses NOT to kick someone in the throat and kill him).
Absolutely agree. That’s why I don’t commit and don’t pretend to.
A lot of guys give me shit for my lifestyle, and then they’re at their office party flirting with the secretary or come out for beers and get really drunk and try to hit on the waitress or go travel out of town and hit a hotel lounge “just for a beer” secretly hoping something will “happen”.
At least I’m being HONEST. A girl may not like how I am, but I won’t tell her “I love you” just to get her into bed.
Learning martial arts is difficult. Most people have difficulty with it. There are a ton of people that sign up for the system that either misuse the tools or don’t do what it takes to use them well. Even if it works EXACTLY the way Bruce Lee describes, it most likely wouldn’t work well for most people.
So why don’t you have this much rage over martial arts classes? Or driving schools? Or business classes?
This. We’re just saying the equivalent of “if you study these patterns/forms, do your stretching, work out and train your muscles, brain, and reflexes, and dedicate a regular amount of time to your training, you will be much better at self-defense than the fat guy who eats Doritos all day and has never thrown a punch.”
Very few people will become Bruce Lee, but if someone follows his training regimine they can see similar results…it’s just most people don’t have the tenacity for that.
I’ve been doing this for like 6 years, really really hardcore for the first 3 years. Of course I’m better at it than the average creepy-PUA most girls run into and everyone bases the cartoon stereotype off.
And with that, I’m off for the night! It’s St. Patty’s and I have green beer to drink! I will be peacocking tonight in the form of not wearing green. It’s no fuzzy hat or goggles, but it gives girls an easy way to chat me up. Pinch my tush as they walk by, ask me “Why aren’t you wearing GREEN??”, make fun of me for not being cool and celebrating St. Patty’s like everyone else, etc. Happy St. Patty’s all!
“We learn martial arts so we don’t have to fight.”
How do you know I don’t “rage” against those other things? BTW, this isn’t even close to rage. But of course you’ve conditioned yourself to respond to directed dislike so you don’t get your ass kicked (remember, you said this earlier.)
In fact, Bruce Lee’s art works well for a variety of people specifically because he intended it to be tuned to each person’s ability. He specific avoided SOPs like kata because they were relatively inflexible and predictable.
I object to the advocacy of PUA because it encourages the automation of interacting with people. You respond to people as target types with a technique that is just a refined “Eliza” program.
Your “art” is specifically designed to game people. THAT is the difference. There is some of that in every other discipline that involves interacting with other people, but yours is MOSTLY about that. And if you had said this was something you limited to the meat market, no problem. But you made it clear you use this anywhere.
What PUAs are reading is no different than the countles articles, books I’ve seen in the past couple decades for women on subjects such as “how to attract men” etc.
It’s not jedi mind tricks or roofies so I don’t see what all the hullabaloo is about.
So what? Any time you engage in conversation with someone with the intent to produce some specific result, you are “gaming” them. And you can only sell to someone who wants to be sold to. I don’t care how much pickup artistry you have. You can’t “make” a girl be into you. All it does is help someone polish their communication skills. It’s not any worse IMHO than going to Toastmasters or some similar program.
Yeah. Pretty much the way I learned “game” was simply going out every weekend with my buddies. Bars, clubs, people’s house parties, movies, frat parties, just hanging out in the mall, whatever kids from age 16 to 25 do. Basically like the movie Swingers. Eventually I just got to a point where it was very easy for me to read and approach women in social situations.
I’m really more of a relationship guy though. Sure it’s fun to pick up strange women when you’re single, and admitedly, I’ve been guilty of douchebaggery in my time. But now I’m content in my monogamus relationship.
And really it’s sort of awkward sometimes talking to girls because I can sense when they are interest and have to shut it down.
This is correct. It has long been accepted that “hypnosis” only works if the subject actually wants to be hypnotized; that a hypnotist can’t magically lull people into altered states using just his own power. Yet some people are acting like these PUAs are using some kind of actual magic that can’t be defended against. I guess pickup artistry has taken on elements of “magic” in a lot of peoples’ minds, possibly because some of the main figures in The Game are actual stage magicians. But, remember: the audience comes to the magic show willingly.
It’s not magic, but techniques work. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?
And no, the audience for the PUA artist’s game by his own admission includes people at church and other non meat market events. They’re not “in the game willingly”.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
From what I’ve seen/read of the “Pick Up Artist” thing, it seems so obviously transparent (ie purely an excercise in getting laid) that I’m surprised it’s not regularly the subject of “How to know when he’s just trying to get into your pants” articles in women’s magazines (although for all I know it may well be, I guess).
The men who made the system might be ingenious but the guys using it are being somewhat formulaic. They have to be because they used up all their ingenuity on their Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
