Establishing relationships fast in social and seductive situations

[Will_V]

I’ve always been very interested in the study of body language. As I’m sure most people are aware, the vast majority of communication between two people – and by that I mean communication that counts in terms of influence - is non-verbal. Every move you make – every time you shift your weight in a particular direction, orient your head and shoulders, make a hand gesture, and most importantly of all, what expression is on your face – tells people something about your actual relationship with them. It may also tell them what kind of relationship you would like to have with them, but that information is virtually irrelevant, and we subconsciously discard it almost immediately. What matters, and what we instinctively and without conscious effort move our attention toward, is information that tells us our actual position relative to the world around us, and that includes the person in front of us.

I don’t think this is a terribly new concept to anyone with basic observational skills and who has spent any time reflecting on how to deal with other people in general. Where I think most people hit the wall very hard is knowing what to do with that information.

For men in a competitive social environment, whether it’s at a bar, in a business meeting, or even in a sufficiently large group in private, the lowest level of skill is to simply try to out-compete everyone individually in a straightforward dominance competition. Guys at this level think of social interactions as a zero sum game where you always have to one-up the person in front of you. You are a one-man army fighting on all fronts against potential competitors. The kind of people who remain at this level for any period of time are usually very self-centered, short-term-oriented people, or people who have identified something very weak about themselves and are afraid that others will take advantage of it.

There are several problems with this. The first one is that if you have any sort of varied social life, you will not be the established ‘alpha’ in at least a good portion of the social situations you find yourself in. In this case, you are setting yourself up for trouble – your one-man army is walking straight into a well-defended position where your ‘opponents’ have had all the time in the world to establish and fortify it against an invader. When someone does this in a social situation, either they realize this and surrender quickly so that they can be co-opted into the group (usually at a very low position, given that they did such a poor job of managing their approach), or they simply bounce off and are shut out of any opportunity to have a useful interaction where they might be able to establish some influence.

The second problem is that it’s an extremely tiring thing to do for any length of time. Because other people quickly identify you as a threat to themselves, everyone resists you at some level, and people with even weak alliances will put any competition between themselves on hold to rout you out, since you present an easy target that will strengthen both their individual position and the alliance. It’s like a group of dogs growling and squaring up to eachother, and then a cat runs in between, they instantly forget about the fight and go after the cat. Why fight if you can all chase the cat together? You will constantly be dealing with concerted attempts to resist you and throw you back. I guess a lot of those stupid movies, where some guy is surrounded by ten opponents and then proceeds to insult and provoke them, and then dish out some kung-fu when they come at him one at a time with choreographed wild punches, gives guys this impression that this is the ideal modus operandi for dominance in a competitive environment. In reality, you will simply end up copping some amount of punches, and in all likelihood lose altogether.

The third problem is probably the most important one, and that is that you will never be able to take the opportunity to make someone truly like you and want to follow you and become devoted to you, if the gesture required to make that happen goes against your one-upmanship philosophy. If everything is always competitive, any gesture that requires lifting someone else up seems very risky and makes you vulnerable to appearing ‘weak’. But it also means that in any given interaction, the other person will never feel good, and that means that over time they will certainly not move toward a closer or more submissive relationship with you.

I’ve often studied the body language of world leaders, because their image and presentation is something on which a lot of things rest that are difficult to balance – their appeal to everyday people, their appeal to parties seeking an alliance, their ability to appear as a threat to competitors and foes, their ability to negotiate at the level of state politics and then present it in terms that appeal to people who have no idea of what is really involved.

I don’t think most leaders actually do a very good job of that, at all, but because most people in a country are already completely loyal to a party, it doesn’t change very much. Where I think you can get a good estimation of how well a leader does balance those things, is in the viewpoint that ordinary people in other countries have on them.

I don’t want to get the site in trouble with Google, but I’m sure a lot of people are aware of a particular president in Europe who seems to be generally well-respected by a large number of ordinary people around the world. There are numerous popular videos showing him interacting in all sorts of different situations, with men, women, children, and animals, in all kinds of high pressure and low pressure situations. And if you have any understanding of human psychology, you can see that he is routinely successful at establishing a relationship within a few seconds where he maintains a dominant position while validating the person in front of him in a way that makes them feel great, and he almost never gets into a jostling match or confrontation with even the sort of people who pride themselves at that sort of thing. How does he do this?

The answer, in my opinion, is that he is an expert at reading people and identifying almost instantly how that person sees themselves and validates themselves in relation to the world around them.

Everyone believes they are great people, but everyone also believes they are great people for a reason. And that reason is very much tied to what we consider to be our role in life, against which we evaluate ourselves, and by being successful at which we feel fundamentally successful. You cannot be a flight attendant or a waiter without valuing the role of attending to people’s needs and making them comfortable. You cannot be a police officer without valuing the role of defending and protecting others. You cannot be a teacher without valuing the role of developing people and enhancing their capabilities. You cannot be a father or mother without valuing the respective roles that you will have to play in taking care of, protecting, and developing your children. You cannot be a leader without valuing the role of developing a mission and bringing people together around that mission.

And it goes to a more fundamental level as well - you can't be a good-natured person without valuing diplomacy and conflict-resolution, you can't be a competitive person without valuing strength, aggression, and perseverance, you can't be a principled person without valuing standing up against what you don't like. You can't be a girl without valuing the sincere admiration of a man who understands you and enjoys all the pleasant attributes of female nature, nor can you be a man without valuing the admiration of a woman who understands what a man really is and enjoys all the positive dimensions of his masculinity.

What makes someone very successful in one-on-one interactions, no matter whether they are dealing with a world leader or a random person on the street, whether they are in a highly competitive environment or a relaxed social one, is to quickly identify what values another person associates with their own identity, and reflecting to them a validation of it.

One of the reasons this works so well is that you don’t necessarily have to establish who you are in relation to them, since in that moment, you are merely a reflection of what they value about themselves. This means you don’t have to get them to submit to or accept your dominance of the interaction, which is very very difficult with someone who might have little idea of who you are and what you might do with that position. And it also works because is very difficult to separate validation of your core self from its source, and thus disarms people who are emotionally confrontational.

In seduction, deep diving is essentially this – bringing out the values and concepts that a girl has about herself, and especially her core or potential self as opposed to the self that she has to maintain every day, and validating them.

Deep diving, in my opinion, begins from the moment you meet, even if it starts off not very deep, and gets deeper as time goes on. As soon as the first interaction begins, you want to quickly identify the most unique things about her, preferably about her personality, but also physical or style-related things that would have required work or choice on her part to maintain – since this is of course an indication that it’s something she really values.

As the interaction goes on, you want to go deeper, into her core personality traits and interests, and then even deeper toward the things she privately values that most people around her might not be aware of. Always moving along a path led by the golden question: what kind of girl are you really? And all this time, you want to engage her, with your words but most of all with your body language, showing her that those things appeal to you at a deep level.

To do that well, you have to come across neutral as to your own agenda, or at least driven by something very natural and organic, directed by your curiosity and spontaneous engagement with the things you are validating, like a mirror in which people see the things they enjoy seeing in themselves. And this goes back to all my earlier points: if you are trying to be competitive, and you are trying to one-up every interaction, and you are trying to force a dominant or controlling frame that establishes your authority and point of view, you cannot be that mirror. You must be tranquil, unreactive, warm and personal, as sincere as you can be, and in that moment you must see the other person not as a tool to get what you want, but as someone who is developing along a certain path along which they have already accrued some success, and have the potential to accrue much more success, and who, by developing that way, pleases the world around them, including yourself.

And this also means that, to establish good relationships fast, your body language must be on point - solid but reassuring, showing no anxiety, fear, or aggression, open and welcoming, like the Good King who knows exactly where to put everyone so that they can thrive and be successful.

In doing that, it’s not hard to seduce a woman or at least make her feel very pleased to have met you, to establish good relationships with all sorts of people above you, below you, people who are temperamentally aggressive and people who are temperamentally passive, competitive opponents or teammates, men and women, and every creature on earth which wants to reach success according to its own concept of value.

There are always your foes who will try to take you down no matter what, who should in an ideal world be relatively few in number, and to them you can show a different side of yourself - but always with a view to preserving the relationships you already have, and your readiness and ability to create new ones.

 

[ChrisXKiss]

Hey @Will_V, this is a great post! I was literally looking for posts/ articles regarding this topic yesterday, and couldn't believe the luck of having you write it just a day before.

There is something I would like to ask, because I have been struggling myself forming social connections. In the beginning I also thought that in order to be respected I should try to be the most dominant individual in any situation. It kinda led me to this competitive mindset of me vs everyone that you describe, and since in many situations you will just lose this battle, I ended up feeling defeated, and even not wanting to try and socialise much, since I would be doing so from a low value loser position.

Then I started reading about prosocial behaviour, and understanding that showing you care and validating others is important to form connections as you say. The issue I have with this though is that many times now when I have someone come and be more interested in what I do, praising me for an achievement or validating something I value, I kinda feel weird, because I immediately think it is just another tactic they have learned to eventually manage and appear higher value, set a dominant frame over me etc. Even if they seem to genuinely care, I feel that ok if I do let them validate me or approve of me, I basically give them some sort of judge role, and make them look superior in this social situation.

And this also affects me when it comes to engaging in pro-social behaviours of deep diving people and validating them. I feel that if I try to learn more about someone, whether a girl I like sexually or a guy I like socially, it will feel like I try to dig deeper into them, in order to get the upper hand in the interaction and be able to eventually influence them the way I want. For example, a lot of times when I interact with girls, if I start getting more curious and interested about their motivations and values life, I feel that the moment I validate them, even if I truly like and agree with what they say, they will instantly think that I am doing all this as a tactic to build a connection that will lead to us having sex. And with a guy, I feel he will think that I probably want something out of him if I am trying to connect deeply and approve of what he is doing.

All in all I understand where this approach is coming from. There are so many high value people in the world and they constantly interact with each other, so there is no way they are all the top dogs in every situation, but they still manage to build effective relationships, and I believe what you describe in your post is crucial about it.

My question then is mostly how to exactly deep dive and genuinely connect with people without feeling I am still simply using it as a tactic to gain something. There are situations where I feel objectively lower value than other people, eg in a dance class when I am new and everyone else dances better, and I feel that if I go up and start connecting with others, deep diving them and validating them, they will feel threatened, like having a lower value guy trying to amass appeal and gain power without knowing his place.

I think that because I looked at interactions in a rather competitive way of either getting to the top or staying at the bottom for quite some time, now I have trouble even comprehending how people can respect and value you, if you simply connect with them in a genuine way, but don't seem to have much more to offer in the specific environment they operate. Maybe you are are a sincerely good guy, but if you cannot be of much use to them, why would they care developing a connection? In the dance class example again, even if I constantly improve, since the others also do so from a higher starting point, I always end up at a lower skill level not being the most enjoyable dance partner, so why would they care about a deeper connection if I cannot even provide well enough for them the experience we are all there for ?

Thank you again for your post a lot! I hope I made some sense. I've been really wanting to transform my approach in social relationships lately, because all this competitiveness apart from not effective, is also extremely tiring.

 

[Will_V]

Hey @Will_V, this is a great post! I was literally looking for posts/ articles regarding this topic yesterday, and couldn't believe the luck of having you write it just a day before.

There is something I would like to ask, because I have been struggling myself forming social connections. In the beginning I also thought that in order to be respected I should try to be the most dominant individual in any situation. It kinda led me to this competitive mindset of me vs everyone that you describe, and since in many situations you will just lose this battle, I ended up feeling defeated, and even not wanting to try and socialise much, since I would be doing so from a low value loser position.

Then I started reading about prosocial behaviour, and understanding that showing you care and validating others is important to form connections as you say. The issue I have with this though is that many times now when I have someone come and be more interested in what I do, praising me for an achievement or validating something I value, I kinda feel weird, because I immediately think it is just another tactic they have learned to eventually manage and appear higher value, set a dominant frame over me etc. Even if they seem to genuinely care, I feel that ok if I do let them validate me or approve of me, I basically give them some sort of judge role, and make them look superior in this social situation.

And this also affects me when it comes to engaging in pro-social behaviours of deep diving people and validating them. I feel that if I try to learn more about someone, whether a girl I like sexually or a guy I like socially, it will feel like I try to dig deeper into them, in order to get the upper hand in the interaction and be able to eventually influence them the way I want. For example, a lot of times when I interact with girls, if I start getting more curious and interested about their motivations and values life, I feel that the moment I validate them, even if I truly like and agree with what they say, they will instantly think that I am doing all this as a tactic to build a connection that will lead to us having sex. And with a guy, I feel he will think that I probably want something out of him if I am trying to connect deeply and approve of what he is doing.

All in all I understand where this approach is coming from. There are so many high value people in the world and they constantly interact with each other, so there is no way they are all the top dogs in every situation, but they still manage to build effective relationships, and I believe what you describe in your post is crucial about it.

My question then is mostly how to exactly deep dive and genuinely connect with people without feeling I am still simply using it as a tactic to gain something. There are situations where I feel objectively lower value than other people, eg in a dance class when I am new and everyone else dances better, and I feel that if I go up and start connecting with others, deep diving them and validating them, they will feel threatened, like having a lower value guy trying to amass appeal and gain power without knowing his place.

I think that because I looked at interactions in a rather competitive way of either getting to the top or staying at the bottom for quite some time, now I have trouble even comprehending how people can respect and value you, if you simply connect with them in a genuine way, but don't seem to have much more to offer in the specific environment they operate. Maybe you are are a sincerely good guy, but if you cannot be of much use to them, why would they care developing a connection? In the dance class example again, even if I constantly improve, since the others also do so from a higher starting point, I always end up at a lower skill level not being the most enjoyable dance partner, so why would they care about a deeper connection if I cannot even provide well enough for them the experience we are all there for ?

Thank you again for your post a lot! I hope I made some sense. I've been really wanting to transform my approach in social relationships lately, because all this competitiveness apart from not effective, is also extremely tiring.

Hey @ChrisXKiss,

That's a very good question as it gets right to the question of 'mode of being' vs superficial tactics.

I can see that you are right now tactics oriented - you specifically asked: "how to exactly deep dive and genuinely connect with people without feeling I am still simply using it as a tactic" - you would like a technique that takes care of a specific outcome.

First, you have to realize that although you can come off badly to someone else, your anxiety about connecting to others in an intentional way is mainly internal. You are not so much worried that others will be suspicious of you, you are worried that you will feel suspicious of yourself. You don't want to feel manipulative.

There are a few things that I think deal with this problem very nicely.

...

The first thing is to understand exactly what you believe to be of value in social connections at all.

My 1000 yard view of human relations is that we are organisms within a system, each struggling to become more functional and successful according to the tools we have been given genetically and environmentally. To me, the essence of beauty and meaning in life is higher functionality – that is to say, everything working together to produce a strong, successful, unopposable outcome. I often say that my philosophy of life is simply ‘construction’ – designing, building, and improving functional systems, and getting rid of disfunctional systems, in myself, others, and the world around me. Even if I somehow got terribly depressed about myself, the opportunity to continue implementing this philosophy would give me all the motivation I needed to continue.

That is why I loathe and vehemently oppose the modern disfunctional concepts entering modern society and art – the attempt to totally domesticate and subjugate human beings psychologically and physically (society), and the attempt to sell people on all this stuff at the cultural/artistic level through postmodernism (art).

So how does this help me connect with people? It’s very simple. I know what I like to see and I simply validate it when I see it. When I see a girl being girly, it pleases me and I validate her. When I see a guy being successful or working hard to achieve a goal, I appreciate it and do what I can to assist (unless he’s my enemy!). When I see groups of people operating in harmony and without undue conflict, it pleases me and I might express that pleasure or even join in at any level simply to extend my enjoyment of it. I like to see people being extremely functional in all kinds of different scenarios, it is my core life philosophy. So it is certainly not merely manipulative of me to express that.

Now when you spend time around different kinds of people, you will quickly find out they are quite different down to their core, in terms of their personality, temperament, drives and motivations, etc. And they cannot be made the same, so they all have different roles to play. The same way that a man and a woman are fundamentally different on all sorts of levels, and fit together in different roles to constitute a whole, so it is with people in general.

If you have ever been in a situation where there was someone you loved struggling through a very difficult life crisis, perhaps for many years, you will quickly find that your prescriptions and ways of motivating yourself don’t necessarily work well for them, because they are different from you. And to help them rebuild, you must understand and work with them through their own framework – their identity, their motivations, their perceptions – not your own. Because a person interacts with the world around them, and with the people in it, for the primary motivation of validating and reinforcing their internal identity and framework.

And if you have ever been in a situation where there were a group of people struggling through a crisis or toward a goal, and you felt responsible for improving the odds of success, you will quickly find that if you don’t identify and respect the differences between them, and put them in suitable roles, and allow each of them to express their individual nature as best as possible, and work to harmonize how they interact with eachother from their various positions, motivation and happiness quickly fizzles out – or infighting starts.

All this is to say that if you truly appreciate the differences in people and where they fit in, and you validate them by encouraging or admiring them for doing their role well, you will never feel manipulative. Because the truth of it already exists, and you are just verbalising it.

And it also helps if you do the same thing for yourself – identify your own nature, what motivates you, the role you want to play, etc, and use that knowledge to create success for yourself, because then it will be perfectly consistent with doing the same for others.

...

While you can entertain a deep philosophy in your own thoughts, practically speaking you do have to modify your communication for the environment, mainly by being indirect.

The most effective indirect form of validation is to show someone that you understand their role in a way that most people don’t, and showing positivity and pleasure while doing so.

With women, it doesn’t typically work to just go in with a laundry list of things you like and start enunciating them. It’s much better (and way more sexual) to simply show pleasure around her, to admire her, to show a desire to get physically closer to her.

Something I like to do, even with women just passing by that catch my eye, is to look her up and down from the head to the toes and then look back straight in her eye and smile, it almost always makes her arch her back and swerve a little bit. When we’re standing there talking, I like to stand right at the edge of her personal space and rock my body forward gently into it whenever she says something I like. Sometimes when she’s talking I ‘pretend’ to be distracted by her hair or her cute cheeks or her soft neck, and then suddenly I ‘realize’ what I’m doing and smile a bit looking at her in the eye. The message is clear – I’m a man, you’re a woman, and you please me thusly and make me want to be one with you. If you aren’t acting thirsty, this simple nonverbal validation of a woman is very effective.

And even with women I have no intention of banging (such as ugly women or relatives) showing honest appreciation of her femininity, enjoying the way she moves and talks and subsequently communicating a hint of admiration and pleasure whenever she interacts with you, is one of the most validating things for her, and works well to improve the functional relationship.

There are many ways to indirectly show appreciation for different kinds of people. Let’s say you’re on a flight and there’s a male steward helping you get comfortable and you appreciate it. You could come right out and say it but it usually works better to be indirect. Being very polite to them, doing anything you can to make their job easier, telling them how much you enjoy this or that about the environment over which it is their primary responsibility to make sure passengers enjoy themselves in, all works very well. They will quickly pick up on this and appreciate it in turn.

Even with children, the best way to show validation is indirect, to simply enjoy their relentless energy, curiosity, and playful spirit, and to be in general encouraging and positive about their attempts to achieve things. The message is clear – you are a developing creature with lots of energy and potential, and I am pleased to see you grow.

If you are in a group of highly competitive guys, perhaps where you are all competing for the same thing, it will work much better if you express your validation and respect indirectly – by trying to win yourself and fostering the competitive environment, first of all, but also by mentioning either very briefly and succinctly, or with a little bit of busting chops combined, the qualities that you like to see in each of them.

You will see that even in highly competitive male-dominated environments, people of status rarely tear eachother down, and often validate or build eachother up. Football managers like Mourinho or Ferguson will virtually never say anything bad about rival managers and will even typically find opportunities to compliment them. They will almost never say anything bad about players either, but simply talk about what each one is good at and whether or not they fit into the team. And from the point of view of everyone watching, whether it’s their players or the fans, it reflects well on them and improves the relationship, because you are someone from whom validation can be consistently gotten if you behave well.

And when leaders do it well with rival leaders, even when they are in outright competition, you can sometimes see the other leader is affected and influenced by the validation, almost as if they were siblings or otherwise on the same team, and they thus become coopted into the influencer’s frame.

You can see that in each of these instances you identify the role that the person plays in the world, you communicate that you understand that role in a way most people don’t, and you show them that you enjoy seeing them be successful in that role.

Instead of coming across like a smooth-talker with an agenda, who will offload generic compliments like buckets of 20c coins to get into people’s good graces.

And it’s much easier to validate people in an effective way when it’s part of your intrinsic worldview and life philosophy (in fact I believe it’s virtually impossible to do for any substantial length of time if it’s not).

 

[ChrisXKiss]

Thanks a lot @Will_V , I appreciate the answer!

I can see that you are right now tactics oriented - you specifically asked: "how to exactly deep dive and genuinely connect with people without feeling I am still simply using it as a tactic" - you would like a technique that takes care of a specific outcome.

Yes it is true that I am tactics oriented. I suppose the main reason is that I feel that in the end the result is what matters. I would like to think that being is the answer and what I should appreciate and strive for, but in simple terms I feel that if I am being and have no women I desire in my life while someone else uses tactics and has them, he clearly is more successful in the field. And it's not only for women but for every other achievable thing in life.

I guess I have been affected a bit by this idea of the winner effect, and I feel that no matter how my philosophy about the world is, if it doesn't get me what I want, I can't feel satisfied. I love feminine women, I truly believe that the sexual connection is the highest most beautiful form that can be achieved, and I adore having a woman I desire with me and fully consuming her. But I have no such women in my life. So even if my worldview is that of people getting together as one and experiencing this bonding bliss, when I don't have it, it feels like something is lacking. And I don't blame women about it, I simply feel I am not successful at attracting them, so I need to focus on tactics to achieve it.

That said, I will mention here that it is quite probable that I'm not expressing my worldview effectively to the world. For example, enjoying the women the way you described later when with them. I get quite free when privately with a woman and we reach the point of sex, but in public I do feel restrained sometimes. So I feel I have to use tactics regarding how to approach, how to introduce sexuality, how to lead her towards sex without coming off as needy, overwhelming or pushy. In a way, I am focused on tactics in order to communicate this worldview of mine in an effective way.

First, you have to realize that although you can come off badly to someone else, your anxiety about connecting to others in an intentional way is mainly internal. You are not so much worried that others will be suspicious of you, you are worried that you will feel suspicious of yourself. You don't want to feel manipulative.

That is true. I do feel manipulative a lot of times when I am using seduction material. That is why I just love direct game. I saw a woman, I felt something, so I want to go and express it. The rest feels like I am just planning how to go around all this to get her with me in the end. That said I will say that most of the times I do believe that if our connection is completed with sex, it will be a wonderful experience, so going back to the tactics orientation, I do have the worry that they will get suspicious and this connection will never happen.

One big question I have had for myself is what do I really offer to people. I mean after we meet and we interact a bit, why would someone man or woman want to be around me more. In fact with women it's sometimes simpler, I can offer sex, but after that I am struggling to understand what else I provide in a relationship that they don't have already. Same with men and friendships. I never had strong friendships in my life, so I have trouble even comprehending how to express myself in a relationship with a guy. As a result, it feels a bit manipulative, that I am doing things in order to connect with people, when I personally don't find it that important to connect with them.

My 1000 yard view of human relations is that we are organisms within a system, each struggling to become more functional and successful according to the tools we have been given genetically and environmentally. To me, the essence of beauty and meaning in life is higher functionality – that is to say, everything working together to produce a strong, successful, unopposable outcome. I often say that my philosophy of life is simply ‘construction’ – designing, building, and improving functional systems, and getting rid of disfunctional systems, in myself, others, and the world around me. Even if I somehow got terribly depressed about myself, the opportunity to continue implementing this philosophy would give me all the motivation I needed to continue.

I can see your view, it is something to appreciate for sure. Reading it I can also understand some reasons why I am having trouble with this concept of establishing relationships myself. It is probably because I don't find a lot of inherent value in increasing functionality of systems with us as a part of them. I always put importance on expressing your true self freely, finding your own path in life, and getting in tune with your inner world and your true desires, while using the rest of the system to express them. In a way I have found that I care about a system functioning properly, mainly because I am a part of it and it will help me communicate my truth. I don't get really motivated to improve something just for things to work better, but only because I feel I want something better for myself.

That is why I loathe and vehemently oppose the modern disfunctional concepts entering modern society and art – the attempt to totally domesticate and subjugate human beings psychologically and physically (society), and the attempt to sell people on all this stuff at the cultural/artistic level through postmodernism (art).

In a way I share a similar view regarding what you describe. I think for me it would be simply because the individual is pressured not to express themselves freely. I guess I have a view that society is what it is, and what is important is how to navigate through it and get the best out of it while remaining coherent with your internal world.

So how does this help me connect with people? It’s very simple. I know what I like to see and I simply validate it when I see it. When I see a girl being girly, it pleases me and I validate her. When I see a guy being successful or working hard to achieve a goal, I appreciate it and do what I can to assist (unless he’s my enemy!). When I see groups of people operating in harmony and without undue conflict, it pleases me and I might express that pleasure or even join in at any level simply to extend my enjoyment of it. I like to see people being extremely functional in all kinds of different scenarios, it is my core life philosophy. So it is certainly not merely manipulative of me to express that.

Yeah I am starting to see more and more that I should simply find what I appreciate in people and express it. I believe my main issue is that a lot of times I don't feel I am living according to my values, identity, motivations etc, so even if I validate someone on them, I am afraid they will turn it back to me and won't know what to say. That's a part of more aligning my life with what I want internally, and I think the discussion about tactics comes here again. If I truly believe that the rest of the society is there for you to simply make the best use of it, then it makes sense that I feel bad lacking the tactics to achieve that.

Now when you spend time around different kinds of people, you will quickly find out they are quite different down to their core, in terms of their personality, temperament, drives and motivations, etc. And they cannot be made the same, so they all have different roles to play. The same way that a man and a woman are fundamentally different on all sorts of levels, and fit together in different roles to constitute a whole, so it is with people in general.

I do understand that. I suppose I spent a lot of time not caring about these differences, so now it feels like I am trying to care artificially, which is why I struggle with socialisation.

If you have ever been in a situation where there was someone you loved struggling through a very difficult life crisis, perhaps for many years, you will quickly find that your prescriptions and ways of motivating yourself don’t necessarily work well for them, because they are different from you. And to help them rebuild, you must understand and work with them through their own framework – their identity, their motivations, their perceptions – not your own. Because a person interacts with the world around them, and with the people in it, for the primary motivation of validating and reinforcing their internal identity and framework.

Yeah I feel this is my main issue. As I said I never had strong friendships, or long term relationships, so I never felt i really cared about someone that much. I do feel that in such a scenario I would probably care more doing my best to understand the other person, since I have invested a lot in them.

And if you have ever been in a situation where there were a group of people struggling through a crisis or toward a goal, and you felt responsible for improving the odds of success, you will quickly find that if you don’t identify and respect the differences between them, and put them in suitable roles, and allow each of them to express their individual nature as best as possible, and work to harmonize how they interact with eachother from their various positions, motivation and happiness quickly fizzles out – or infighting starts.

Same thing here, never been responsible for people like that, and can't say I ever felt I wanted to. Maybe if I were to build something for myself, and then gathered a team around me, I would care a lot about the success of my dream, so I would want things to function well, and would do everything to take the best out of my people. That is something I would quite like in fact, but I have not yet found my thing to build or pursue.

All this is to say that if you truly appreciate the differences in people and where they fit in, and you validate them by encouraging or admiring them for doing their role well, you will never feel manipulative. Because the truth of it already exists, and you are just verbalising it.

This is a great summary. Basically appreciating the differences in others and validating their uniqueness. This is something I can probably do without feeling manipulative, not so much because I believe in the importance on how their uniqueness helps the world run, but more because their uniqueness is the true expression of themselves which I value. And there is no need to form extremely close bonds with someone if they are an atheist let's say and you believe in God getting validation from Him, but simply accepting their nature and appreciating it for what it is can help you build a well functioning mutually beneficial relationship.

And it also helps if you do the same thing for yourself – identify your own nature, what motivates you, the role you want to play, etc, and use that knowledge to create success for yourself, because then it will be perfectly consistent with doing the same for others.

Yes this is true, I am in a period of my life like this right now in fact, discovering how I really want to live it, after a long time staying outside of social functions. It's a work in progress, feeling a bit like a kid going out to interact with society now, and I believe it's important to not put much pressure on myself to have everything figured out in a very short time.

While you can entertain a deep philosophy in your own thoughts, practically speaking you do have to modify your communication for the environment, mainly by being indirect.

This is something I have been struggling a lot. As I mentioned, I feel that going direct is the truest form of communication. I feel that if I am indirect, some of my signals or the things I want to express will be lost. For example, even if I look at a woman they way you describe, I will have this lingering thought of: "Does she really know how I feel about her though? Won't it be too sudden to make a move now? Shouldn't I verbalise it to make sure we are on the same page?". I feel when I go direct I am open, I say what I want in the moment and the other party can accept or reject it, while indirectly there is a lot of ambiguity about what's happening. And this ambiguity generally has me getting into my head, wondering what exactly is happening, where we are at and what should I do next. And then I feel that I get manipulative by anything I do, since I'm not expressing myself clearly, but I am trying to progress things in a covert manner. Or if I am not interested in a woman but still show my appreciation I feel I may be confusing her or giving her false hopes.

It is possible that I am simply underestimating the ability of others to decipher indirect communication. Maybe because I have troubles recognising it myself. Sometimes I have felt that certain girls may be interested in me, so I may give them something back, but there is nothing clear, so things rarely progress. And even when I have tried to move things forward in such scenarios, a lot of times the girl does not comply. Which makes me think it is matter of how calibrated my moves are. Again this brings us back to tactics. I mean if the desire is there, and you need certain ways to progress the interaction effectively, then you have to learn these ways, so that the situation neither stagnates nor gets rushed.

I suppose there needs to be a balance of desire and outcome independence, that I am lacking as well. Not only with women but also with the other types of people you describe. Appreciating truly the flight attendant and the kid and the competitive guys for what they are, without feeling like you need anything from them. And this probably comes from being already fine in your life. So in the end it's really about finding your place first.

And when leaders do it well with rival leaders, even when they are in outright competition, you can sometimes see the other leader is affected and influenced by the validation, almost as if they were siblings or otherwise on the same team, and they thus become coopted into the influencer’s frame.

I personally never felt I wanted to influence people. I didn't believe I was responsible about them, and I respected the freedom of their choice. If I asked for something and received a no, I would go and ask someone else. I've always had this mindset of you do what you want, I do what I want and we are perfectly ok with it. The problems started when I realised that I wasn't getting what I wanted. Because for many things I wanted, other people were not giving them, so I started reading about tactics on how to influence them.

But the more I progress the more I feel this is because I didn't care about most people, or the society or however it can be described. I truly cared more about my own gain and wanted the most effective way to achieve it. And I realise that influence is much deeper than that. I believe now it should come from how I exude my internal state. Meaning I have to find and follow my values and simply express my truth.

You can see that in each of these instances you identify the role that the person plays in the world, you communicate that you understand that role in a way most people don’t, and you show them that you enjoy seeing them be successful in that role.

And I also suspect that this is more possible to do when you have identified your own role, and you can freely give this validation, simply because you appreciate other people finding theirs, even if they are different. Truly comes back to how you live your own life.

And it’s much easier to validate people in an effective way when it’s part of your intrinsic worldview and life philosophy (in fact I believe it’s virtually impossible to do for any substantial length of time if it’s not).

I do agree with that, which has been my issue until now. I believe I can reframe it though, without really changing my worldview. Because no matter what you value or appreciate regarding the world and yourself, it will have some part of a human element inside it since you are a human anyway. And then it is about directing this part towards other people. For me it is probably the individual human experience. How someone feels and approaches the world to fulfil their internal drives. And in order to express that through my own life and efficiently influence people for the better, I do care about how they live their lives and pursue their drives.

 

[Will_V]

@ChrisXKiss,

From what I understand from what you've written, you've spent a lot of time isolated from society, living life in a very independent and self sufficient way, and reinforcing that identity within yourself. But at some point you realized that it doesn't give you everything you want, most notably in regards to women. And sooner or later you may realize other things that it has made difficult: building a social life, fulfilling objectives that require the cooperation of others, raising a family, etc.

This is roughly the experience that I had growing up, and I don't think we are alone. I was a virgin until 19, mainly because I didn't want to know about social life - in my mind I could be or do anything I wanted and I didn't need anyone to help me, and most of the time everyone was boring and just wasted my time. But at some point I realized that I had no idea how to attract girls, and I could see guys around me hooking up and getting laid, and I wondered wtf I was going to do about it.

I believe there are distinct stages of male development: When you are very young, you're just a kid doing kid things. But when you become an adolescent, you start to focus on and build your identity. It is normal to be self-centered at this point, though if things go well, you factor in the perceptions and reactions of others and end up fairly well socialized. But sometimes, especially if this period is marked by a particularly bad event, and especially one that damages your trust of others, you withdraw from the social development aspect and focus entirely on independent development.

A little later in life, a man is supposed to return from his independent strivings and begin to look for his place and position in the world relative to others. I would say this really comes into play around the age of 30, it varies. This is the age where he is thinking of building a family, of what his legacy will be and how he wishes to use his particular strengths and ambitions for a common greater goal. With some guys it's more of an obvious and conscious transition, while others remain somewhat self-centered, though I have seen that it usually works unconsciously in them as well.

This is the normal arc of a man - when he's young he goes out and sows his wild oats and lives the life of a privateer, but later he wants something more long lasting and significant.

What happens when you have isolated yourself when younger? The problem here is that you find that your social skills and ability to influence others is lacking. Especially if your isolationism was the result of an event or experience that created self-repression, which in turn creates social anxiety and problems of managing identity, you will struggle at first to socialize.

In my case, I had pretty bad social anxiety while I was a teenager, and it did somewhat involve self-repression - for a short time I was a quite devout Christian, and though I don't think religion is necessarily repressive, the way I lived it was. What freed me from the anxiety was accepting the world as it is, and not trying to judge everything including myself all the time, but instead looking at reality around me as a teacher, to whom I was a willing student. And the way I determined what was useful to learn, and not useful to learn, was by its functionality.

I notice you clearly distinguish between self-expression and functionality of things, prioritizing the former. Here's my view on that: first, it depends what you mean by self expression. A lot of times what someone believes is self-expression is actually escapism, coping behavior, and egoistic, impulse driven fantasy. Look at some of the most famous postmodern art for example: it is supposed to be all about self-expression outside of any objective reality, but in practice it projects a patchwork of completely unharmonized concepts and ideas that are either outright disfunctional or at best insubstantial. The result is that it reveals itself for what it really is: the fantasies of an utterly confused, repressed, and disfunctional mind, often with streaks of pathology involved.

This is the worst of 'self expression'. But what I consider to be authentic and useful self-expression (and I have said many times in my posts how much I value it, and how for me seduction is all about self-expression) is expressing your true nature - as a man and as a person. A man is full of powerful drives, what I like to call singularly the libido, which represent the foundation of his capability to shape the world around him, and which are responsible for his most constructive and destructive tendencies, including sexual. To accept and value this part of himself while learning self-control, and learning to direct it in a way that creates success for himself and does not create destruction, is a key part of male self-development. And it's not easy - society tries hard to destroy his libido (because it is capable of revolution), and tries in turn to make him deny it or at least feel guilty about it so that he will self-repress. But he must resist this to the extent that his libido, like a well-trained beast, retains its full capabilities but is at his disposal, and is is able to fight a war for him, but is not able to seize control of him and make him do things he knows are no good for him or anyone else.

...

Back to tactics. The thing is, there is nothing that works better in practice for social relations of all kinds than to have a mode of being that expresses validation for things that other people really want validation on. Some people are capable of pulling off tactics that aren't part of their mode of being very effectively, but for most people it's difficult. The reason is that, for most people, acting out of character is difficult and tiresome, and creates a lot of internal dissonance. And establishing one's own character and identity is necessary for long-term motivation, self-development, and being able to operate socially. This is why certain people who are typically labelled psycopaths or sociopaths can get what they want in the short term, but not in the long term - they have very little identity of their own, so it's easy for them to switch things at the drop of a hat according to what impulsively drives them, but they are seldom able to create anything substantial of themselves because they are at a loss for anything that could override those impulses, i.e. a higher order identity.

That's why I always emphasize 'mode of being', because although tactics work, if it creates internally dissonance and conflict, it will be difficult to make it work. Most of the reason why women reject men is because she sees in his eyes and body language, and hears in his tone doubt, guilt, shame, fear, confusion, or indecision, and not because his tactics were at fault. And that is why a man can be tactically unpolished, but because he is harmonized and comfortable and at ease with himself, she entertains him long enough for him stumble his way to the bedroom with her.

This is very confusing to guys because they see a hot girl with a silver tongue scoundrel on one hand, and another hot girl with a nice guy who wouldn't hurt a fly on the other, and they cannot reconcile the two. But it's very simple when you understand the mind of a submissive: she is taking a risk opening up and submitting to a man's will, and what she needs is a sense of certainty and security while being led through the courtship. So therefore man who is suffering his own experience of life, who is divided within himself and weak, makes her button up her blouse and cross her legs and make sure nothing gets in. Because she knows that if she makes herself vulnerable to him, he will take her down to that level of life experience with him, where she doesn't want to be. But a guy can be a scoundrel or a choir boy and still be completely at ease with himself.

When I used to have bad social anxiety, girls would simply close off to me. In high school a few game girls tried giving me opportunities, but I was such a divided soul that I didn't even trust myself as a good choice, and threw them away. These days, I know exactly who I am, and seduction and appreciating women is just another part of my authentic self expression. In fact, one of the main reasons I prefer daygame over night game is because during the day girls can more clearly see and respond to the subtleties of my self expression, whereas in the club everything is a bit more flashy and chaotic, and it's a little bit more about about standout appearances.

...

I think you actually answered your own question quite well: the problem you are having is not about tactics, it's that you feel that you are expressing yourself inauthentically. It sounds like you are not quite happy with where you are in your own life, and fixing that will certainly help with everything social, because you will feel like a winner and know you are a winner, and coming across like a winner will not be difficult. It's very difficult to come across as a winner when you are extremely disappointed with yourself.

But even so, you can't avoid being uncomfortable while learning something new. To be a master, you have to be a student first. And to be a student requires the humility of accepting that you are lacking the capabilities you want to have, and that while things might be unpleasant and difficult for a while, the process of learning will, over time, add those capabilities to your being so that they are a natural part of you. The same way you learn anything - riding a bike, playing piano, etc, it always at first feels clumsy and unnatural. But you can remain authentic simply by accepting that you will make mistakes and that it's all part of the process of becoming, and trying to enjoy yourself along the way.

A student always needs to follow rote processes at some level (i.e. use tactics). They are an inescapable part of the learning process for anything. The reason is that a student, for lack of experience, cannot really understand or embody the principles behind a skill. Take seduction for example, here are some tactics you might use:

- Use a compliment opener
- Ask her these questions (X, Y and Z)
- Touch her within X minutes
- Get her number within X minutes.
- Move her within X minutes
- Seed the date early
- Message her an icebreaker within an hour
- Escalate all the time on the date
- Always go for the close

And so on and so forth.

A student might not know why he's supposed to do that, at first. But as he does the tactics over time, his perception soon reveals the principles he was hitherto unaware of - women like guys who show interest, women like guys who lead, women like guys who get sexual/physical. And he may not be aware of how his former behavior contradicted those principles.

The tactics are supposed to make him do what he doesn't know he needs to do in satisfy those principles. Later, those principles become a part of the way he naturally expresses himself around women, and he no longer needs to follow tactics per se.

When you're a whiz on the guitar, you can riff something super off the cuff that is unique and sounds good, because all the principles of music are well established and instinctive within you, even when you aren't consciously aware of them. But the first time you pick up a guitar, you don't even know how to pluck a string. So it is with social relations and seduction.

So my suggestion if you want to be better at socializing or seduction is to use the tactics that work, and treat them with the respect you would show a good teacher, and don't let anyone make you feel ashamed about them. Keep your eyes open for the principles, which are soon revealed through the use of those tactics, and over time it will all be a part of your mode of being, so that it feels inauthentic not to do it.

 

[ChrisXKiss]

From what I understand from what you've written, you've spent a lot of time isolated from society, living life in a very independent and self sufficient way, and reinforcing that identity within yourself. But at some point you realized that it doesn't give you everything you want, most notably in regards to women. And sooner or later you may realize other things that it has made difficult: building a social life, fulfilling objectives that require the cooperation of others, raising a family, etc.

Yes it is pretty much like that. I basically grew up in a family where the sole focus was studying and doing great in school, while everything else was considered unimportant. We were not extremely religious but there was the idea of no need for relationships with women until you finish school, because they will distract you from your studies. And I was following that, since my family was providing a good life, simply expecting to experience everything else after I become an adult. The thing is though that I ended up going to Uni in my city, and for financial reasons kept staying with my family, so for the 4-5 years I was there nothing changed pretty much. There was still this idea of now you focus on studying to get your degree, and we support you financially.

I am pretty lucky about much of this in fact, my family always loved me, and they would still give everything to see me happy. That said throughout these years of growing up I kept feeling that the only thing I am great at is the academic environment, and I felt absolutely unable to navigate social situations effectively. And the funny thing is I didn't care about it. I was the top student, I didn't even try to associate with the people that socialised a lot but got worse grades, because they didn't fit in my way of living. All of this of course is my responsibility after a while, because it was indeed comfortable to only care about a single thing, studying, and having the rest taken care of by others.

The problems started when as I was getting older, after 20, I started realising that there are women I desire, that I don't have, and I could not comprehend why it is that I am unable to be with them. It's not that some were out of my league and others not, I had no romantic interactions period. Until then I had a very entitled vibe of: "I am an excellent student, pretty cute as well, if they want me they should come and express it themselves". Of course it doesn't work like that, even if any girls liked me back then, I would do nothing, and honestly my whole life was studying, I couldn't even see how to fit them in there.

That's when I started reading about seduction, game and romantic interactions and it felt like a totally different world. It took me some time to even internalise basic stuff, like not communicating purely logically and maybe being a bit playful, but slowly I got there. At 23 I left my home to go for a master abroad living alone and felt that this is the time to really enhance my social and seduction skills. Until then I had never had a single romantic interaction, I am talking about never even having teased a girl or touched her in non friendly ways. Things started rolling a bit, then covid hit, went back to my place with my family, and honestly felt like I wanted to change the whole trajectory of my life.

I ended up finishing my master when I was 25, having given my first kiss, and some months later I had sex for the first time. Around then I started realising that it's not only women I cannot get, but I don't even have a social life. So I started getting into hobbies I always wanted to try, travelling a bit, and I spent some time exploring without a particular goal, but also without really making targeted improvements in my sexual and social endeavours. It was a bit all over the place.

About 9 months ago I started approaching much more religiously, and also looking for a job in a different field from my studies for a new beginning. I can't say I know where I want to go but I decided I wanted a change from the academic environment, and I really feel like I am at the start of a second life now. The fact that I have not been effective in that job search surely affects me lately, because all this uncertainty about what I will manage to do from now on, when all I knew was studying, is not the best for my self-esteem. I am still pushing for the seductive and social growth as much as I can though, throughout all this.

I'm sorry if it was a whole bunch of life story, I mostly wanted to make a brief summary so that the way I developed and where I am makes more sense. I am 27 now, and by the way I see the world, I feel like in my late teens/early twenties somehow, not so much regarding how I behave, in fact people usually tell me I look and feel older, but in the sense that I am starting a new journey that I know it will probably take some time to get me to the point that my working life, socialisation and sexual connections will be in place the way I want them to be. But I do know all that, and I don't even remotely think of building a family right now, probably not until 35 at the earliest. If I am still able to attract beautiful youngish women at 40, I wouldn't even mind doing it then.

I believe there are distinct stages of male development: When you are very young, you're just a kid doing kid things. But when you become an adolescent, you start to focus on and build your identity. It is normal to be self-centered at this point, though if things go well, you factor in the perceptions and reactions of others and end up fairly well socialized. But sometimes, especially if this period is marked by a particularly bad event, and especially one that damages your trust of others, you withdraw from the social development aspect and focus entirely on independent development.

Judging by how you describe it, I am in some form of my adolescent period right now. Which I don't personally mind, I am ready to discover my true identity, I guess sometimes I feel though that by my age people expect you to have figured stuff out. I suppose I have to accept my state right now, that I may be left behind in certain areas, and keep moving towards the life I want unapologetically.

In my case, I had pretty bad social anxiety while I was a teenager, and it did somewhat involve self-repression - for a short time I was a quite devout Christian, and though I don't think religion is necessarily repressive, the way I lived it was. What freed me from the anxiety was accepting the world as it is, and not trying to judge everything including myself all the time, but instead looking at reality around me as a teacher, to whom I was a willing student. And the way I determined what was useful to learn, and not useful to learn, was by its functionality.

I have been putting quite some effort into becoming less judgemental myself, and I think I am doing good progress regarding that. When it comes to social anxiety, I would say my main issue is not so much going to talk to people, it's more the overthinking of how to talk to them in order to have successful interactions. I have passed periods of going to parties by myself, approaching women with their boyfriends, dancing like crazy in the middle of clubs with no care in the world, but the problems begin when I know I want a result from an interaction, maybe a new romantic interest or a friend. I feel I cannot be absolutely free and do whatever I want, but I have to think a bit how to approach the connection.

I notice you clearly distinguish between self-expression and functionality of things, prioritizing the former. Here's my view on that: first, it depends what you mean by self expression. A lot of times what someone believes is self-expression is actually escapism, coping behavior, and egoistic, impulse driven fantasy. Look at some of the most famous postmodern art for example: it is supposed to be all about self-expression outside of any objective reality, but in practice it projects a patchwork of completely unharmonized concepts and ideas that are either outright disfunctional or at best insubstantial. The result is that it reveals itself for what it really is: the fantasies of an utterly confused, repressed, and disfunctional mind, often with streaks of pathology involved.

Which in fact ties massively to this. In the sense that my self expression in some of these moments is purely chaotic and uncontrolled, simply a reaction to the fact I feel I have no place and no voice of myself, so I am trying to make an impact somehow. Now although I am not really fan of postmodern art either, I don't mind it really, meaning that it is not my taste, but if someone is crazy and wants to express it for me it's fine. I would even respect it that he manages somehow to make a living out of selling urinals as sculptures, and would be interested in finding out how he did it, and what made him go towards that path. I would not buy the sculpture though, or take hard drugs because that's how he gets in the creative state, since that's not the mode I would like to be living in.

This is the worst of 'self expression'. But what I consider to be authentic and useful self-expression (and I have said many times in my posts how much I value it, and how for me seduction is all about self-expression) is expressing your true nature - as a man and as a person. A man is full of powerful drives, what I like to call singularly the libido, which represent the foundation of his capability to shape the world around him, and which are responsible for his most constructive and destructive tendencies, including sexual. To accept and value this part of himself while learning self-control, and learning to direct it in a way that creates success for himself and does not create destruction, is a key part of male self-development. And it's not easy - society tries hard to destroy his libido (because it is capable of revolution), and tries in turn to make him deny it or at least feel guilty about it so that he will self-repress. But he must resist this to the extent that his libido, like a well-trained beast, retains its full capabilities but is at his disposal, and is is able to fight a war for him, but is not able to seize control of him and make him do things he knows are no good for him or anyone else.

I do agree with the way you describe it here, too. I personally feel that the biggest thing is not really to deny the type of self expression discussed in the previous paragraph, but to channel it in healthy constructive ways. So when I say I value it I basically mean I value someone's truth in principle, and the ability to express it effectively to the world. That's what I kinda meant with the tactics term as well as you describe later, that you have to learn some of them to get a direction of how to express yourself until it becomes your nature to do it authentically.

And I do feel this restraining of libido everywhere really, which is why I believe I can appreciate the people with disfunctional self-expression, as I feel it is the first stage of the reaction towards these restraints, and having passed from it myself, I find a distorted beauty of the world in it. It can be destructive, but we probably can't get completely rid of the destruction anyway, so seeing it from afar it's an interesting reminder of the intricacies of the human condition that has its part to play. However, for myself, I would want to become able to be in control of my life and express myself in ways that impact people towards their development.

Back to tactics. The thing is, there is nothing that works better in practice for social relations of all kinds than to have a mode of being that expresses validation for things that other people really want validation on. Some people are capable of pulling off tactics that aren't part of their mode of being very effectively, but for most people it's difficult. The reason is that, for most people, acting out of character is difficult and tiresome, and creates a lot of internal dissonance. And establishing one's own character and identity is necessary for long-term motivation, self-development, and being able to operate socially. This is why certain people who are typically labelled psycopaths or sociopaths can get what they want in the short term, but not in the long term - they have very little identity of their own, so it's easy for them to switch things at the drop of a hat according to what impulsively drives them, but they are seldom able to create anything substantial of themselves because they are at a loss for anything that could override those impulses, i.e. a higher order identity.

This is all true, I don't believe I am in the psychopath or sociopath spectrum, and the thing about tactics is probably one the biggest misconceptions I had about game and seduction until I got really into approaching. I felt that all that matters is how to be the wittiest party, and one up the girl socially, so that you get her. Then I even had few of these great pick-ups on paper, meeting a hot girl in the street and launching the teases, the push pulls and fake rejections and after getting the phone number it would be silent. That's when I started rethinking everything I believed, because my interactions really looked and felt like some infields famous pickup coaches have online. After that I have been trying to have more minimal and normal approaches, adding some needed playfulness, but mainly focusing on the vibe I give off and being interested in the other person. Of course until I am able to authentically express that, it's still tactics that I use, but at least I feel they are now directed towards a more personal development aspect of socialisation.

This is very confusing to guys because they see a hot girl with a silver tongue scoundrel on one hand, and another hot girl with a nice guy who wouldn't hurt a fly on the other, and they cannot reconcile the two. But it's very simple when you understand the mind of a submissive: she is taking a risk opening up and submitting to a man's will, and what she needs is a sense of certainty and security while being led through the courtship. So therefore man who is suffering his own experience of life, who is divided within himself and weak, makes her button up her blouse and cross her legs and make sure nothing gets in. Because she knows that if she makes herself vulnerable to him, he will take her down to that level of life experience with him, where she doesn't want to be. But a guy can be a scoundrel or a choir boy and still be completely at ease with himself.

Oh yeah this can get you crazy. I was looking who beautiful women were with: Once it was an old white haired guy, then a model looking guy, then a skinny guy, then a tattooed guy, then another type of guy. And I was just thinking, who do I even need to become in order to get women? In fact this thing strengthened my interest into seduction. I felt that: wait a minute, all types of men can have very attractive women, so I could too!

I am also into the d/s dynamic quite a lot, not particular experience in real life in a kink setting, but it really appeals to me in a deep level sexually. One of my biggest frustrations in life is probably the fact that I really feel like I am dominant sexually, I love the creative freedom of having a woman and controlling her pleasure, making her feel all these blissful emotions and totally erupt from ecstasy, providing a wide range of experiences and sensations, but at the same time I struggle to have women submit to me. It's really maddening, knowing that you want to be dominant, but sometimes feeling like you are treated more like a submissive. And managing to be at ease with yourself is the only real solution I see as well. For me it would probably mean to accept where I am in life now, and keep moving forward towards where I feel like going.

I think you actually answered your own question quite well: the problem you are having is not about tactics, it's that you feel that you are expressing yourself inauthentically. It sounds like you are not quite happy with where you are in your own life, and fixing that will certainly help with everything social, because you will feel like a winner and know you are a winner, and coming across like a winner will not be difficult. It's very difficult to come across as a winner when you are extremely disappointed with yourself.

Yeah, for a long time my idea about game was basically that you learn ways to come across as a winner when you are clearly not. I can see beyond that now, but it also means I have to accept I am not there yet and have a long way to go.

But even so, you can't avoid being uncomfortable while learning something new. To be a master, you have to be a student first. And to be a student requires the humility of accepting that you are lacking the capabilities you want to have, and that while things might be unpleasant and difficult for a while, the process of learning will, over time, add those capabilities to your being so that they are a natural part of you. The same way you learn anything - riding a bike, playing piano, etc, it always at first feels clumsy and unnatural. But you can remain authentic simply by accepting that you will make mistakes and that it's all part of the process of becoming, and trying to enjoy yourself along the way.

I can accept that. I sometimes feel that I have maybe wasted part of my youth, but I know that I had 0 romantic interactions with women for over 20 years so I fully understand I have to put in the work to be able to authentically connect with them on that level. The only thing during these initial frustrations of the uncomfortable first period is how to remain feeling as a winner. My idea is that you get this feeling simply by being in this path of development, and knowing that you are improving yourself and eventually will reach the point you want.

A student might not know why he's supposed to do that, at first. But as he does the tactics over time, his perception soon reveals the principles he was hitherto unaware of - women like guys who show interest, women like guys who lead, women like guys who get sexual/physical. And he may not be aware of how his former behavior contradicted those principles.

And it's also important I feel to reach the point that you are satisfied with the rest of your life, so that you can truly believe that you are a man women would love to be lead by. Because even if the tactics end up being internalised, at some point things will crumble if the foundation of the strong identity is not there. You can probably end up just having the strong identity of the guy that can seduce women, with the rest of your life being in chaos.

When you're a whiz on the guitar, you can riff something super off the cuff that is unique and sounds good, because all the principles of music are well established and instinctive within you, even when you aren't consciously aware of them. But the first time you pick up a guitar, you don't even know how to pluck a string. So it is with social relations and seduction.

Yeah, not quite there in guitar yet either, but at least a lot better than in seduction, haha

So my suggestion if you want to be better at socializing or seduction is to use the tactics that work, and treat them with the respect you would show a good teacher, and don't let anyone make you feel ashamed about them. Keep your eyes open for the principles, which are soon revealed through the use of those tactics, and over time it will all be a part of your mode of being, so that it feels inauthentic not to do it.

I like the way you put it a lot. I mean I cultivated the identity of an excellent student after many years and hard work, so one thing I believe is that at least I can learn. I may seek some real life teachers down the road as well, but until then focusing on the known tactics and treating all experiences as teachers would be for the best. And eventually I will become authentic, and have some choice when I eventually decide who to make a family with.

Thank you again for the answers. Apart from being very insightful, I don't think I have ever discussed these things in my life or online with anyone, so I value it deeply.

 

[Will_V]

Yes it is pretty much like that. I basically grew up in a family where the sole focus was studying and doing great in school, while everything else was considered unimportant. We were not extremely religious but there was the idea of no need for relationships with women until you finish school, because they will distract you from your studies. And I was following that, since my family was providing a good life, simply expecting to experience everything else after I become an adult. The thing is though that I ended up going to Uni in my city, and for financial reasons kept staying with my family, so for the 4-5 years I was there nothing changed pretty much. There was still this idea of now you focus on studying to get your degree, and we support you financially.

I am pretty lucky about much of this in fact, my family always loved me, and they would still give everything to see me happy. That said throughout these years of growing up I kept feeling that the only thing I am great at is the academic environment, and I felt absolutely unable to navigate social situations effectively. And the funny thing is I didn't care about it. I was the top student, I didn't even try to associate with the people that socialised a lot but got worse grades, because they didn't fit in my way of living. All of this of course is my responsibility after a while, because it was indeed comfortable to only care about a single thing, studying, and having the rest taken care of by others.

It's a small world, huh?

My parents were also very academically focused, and I was homeschooled most of my early life, with a pretty limited social life. The plan was to fast track progress, and I ended up doing long-distance first year university mathematics when I was 13.

Through a series of events I ended up then going to high school, where I quickly realized I was a fish out of water socially and especially with girls. It was quite a struggle, and I ended up cultivating a pretty extreme independence and even a sort of disdain for socializing (in fact I was very unhappy). It was only at university (around 18-19) that I really reflected on and accepted my situation, and began seriously working on myself to improve.

My parents wanted all the best for us but (bless their hearts) they got that one a tad wrong.

The problems started when as I was getting older, after 20, I started realising that there are women I desire, that I don't have, and I could not comprehend why it is that I am unable to be with them. It's not that some were out of my league and others not, I had no romantic interactions period. Until then I had a very entitled vibe of: "I am an excellent student, pretty cute as well, if they want me they should come and express it themselves". Of course it doesn't work like that, even if any girls liked me back then, I would do nothing, and honestly my whole life was studying, I couldn't even see how to fit them in there.

That's when I started reading about seduction, game and romantic interactions and it felt like a totally different world. It took me some time to even internalise basic stuff, like not communicating purely logically and maybe being a bit playful, but slowly I got there. At 23 I left my home to go for a master abroad living alone and felt that this is the time to really enhance my social and seduction skills. Until then I had never had a single romantic interaction, I am talking about never even having teased a girl or touched her in non friendly ways. Things started rolling a bit, then covid hit, went back to my place with my family, and honestly felt like I wanted to change the whole trajectory of my life.

Yeah, at some point it hits you doesn't it?

For me, it was when I went on exchange to Brazil, and ended up at a week-long house party during Carnaval. In case you don't know, this basically means a huge week long fuckfest where everybody is banging everybody else. Except I didn't get laid, lol. The guy whose house we were in tried to set me up with this ugly girl with a lip ring and dyed red hair, and she was nice enough but I just couldn't bring myself to go along.

Another friend of mine, a guy training to be a police officer, took me to a brothel and tried to hook me up, but again I couldn't bring myself to do anything - the whole place just felt decrepit and horrible and I felt sorry for the girls there. That's when I realized I had to really get to work or else I'd be doing desperate shit I really wanted to avoid.

It took about 3 months of partying and approaching and failing and making all sorts of embarrassing mistakes before a girl (a pretty fit one too, she was into bike marathons or something) took a liking to my vibe and drove me back to her apartment, where she made things very straightforward for me. I'll never forget the way she got down on all fours, butt naked, and looked over her shoulder at me expectantly .. girls can be such wonderful creatures! We were together for several months.

I ended up finishing my master when I was 25, having given my first kiss, and some months later I had sex for the first time. Around then I started realising that it's not only women I cannot get, but I don't even have a social life. So I started getting into hobbies I always wanted to try, travelling a bit, and I spent some time exploring without a particular goal, but also without really making targeted improvements in my sexual and social endeavours. It was a bit all over the place.

Yep, every man needs to go off on his own adventures to find his soul. It can be pretty chaotic but it's absolutely essential in the long run.

About 9 months ago I started approaching much more religiously, and also looking for a job in a different field from my studies for a new beginning. I can't say I know where I want to go but I decided I wanted a change from the academic environment, and I really feel like I am at the start of a second life now. The fact that I have not been effective in that job search surely affects me lately, because all this uncertainty about what I will manage to do from now on, when all I knew was studying, is not the best for my self-esteem. I am still pushing for the seductive and social growth as much as I can though, throughout all this.

I don't think it's possible to really avoid this if you want to properly develop.

In olden times a man used to go through initiation, which basically marked the death of one of his lives (that of a boy) and the start of another (as a man). Perhaps this rebirth is something that modern man must fabricate somehow from his own life.

I'm sorry if it was a whole bunch of life story, I mostly wanted to make a brief summary so that the way I developed and where I am makes more sense. I am 27 now, and by the way I see the world, I feel like in my late teens/early twenties somehow, not so much regarding how I behave, in fact people usually tell me I look and feel older, but in the sense that I am starting a new journey that I know it will probably take some time to get me to the point that my working life, socialisation and sexual connections will be in place the way I want them to be. But I do know all that, and I don't even remotely think of building a family right now, probably not until 35 at the earliest. If I am still able to attract beautiful youngish women at 40, I wouldn't even mind doing it then.

At the end of the day the most we can expect of ourselves is to do the very best we can with what time we have left. There's no sense regretting the past - for one thing it cannot be changed, but also, perhaps it was unavoidable to begin with, and is simply the life we were meant to live.

I don't literally believe it, but I often look at life in the way of the Buddhist concept of reincarnation, where an organism which dies rebirths at a higher or lower level based on how well they lived their life. In a way we are all birthed in environments which are created by others, whose choices were shaped by those before them, and so on all the way back down the line. It's very difficult (perhaps impossible) to escape completely from consequences of the past, but we can at least look forward to the future so that instead of making things worse, we do something to improve our lot and the lots of those who come after.

Judging by how you describe it, I am in some form of my adolescent period right now. Which I don't personally mind, I am ready to discover my true identity, I guess sometimes I feel though that by my age people expect you to have figured stuff out. I suppose I have to accept my state right now, that I may be left behind in certain areas, and keep moving towards the life I want unapologetically.

That is absolutely right. What else can you do? You still have a mission to complete and a life to live, and no time to waste.

I have been putting quite some effort into becoming less judgemental myself, and I think I am doing good progress regarding that. When it comes to social anxiety, I would say my main issue is not so much going to talk to people, it's more the overthinking of how to talk to them in order to have successful interactions. I have passed periods of going to parties by myself, approaching women with their boyfriends, dancing like crazy in the middle of clubs with no care in the world, but the problems begin when I know I want a result from an interaction, maybe a new romantic interest or a friend. I feel I cannot be absolutely free and do whatever I want, but I have to think a bit how to approach the connection.

Which in fact ties massively to this. In the sense that my self expression in some of these moments is purely chaotic and uncontrolled, simply a reaction to the fact I feel I have no place and no voice of myself, so I am trying to make an impact somehow.

This is an important point. The point where you have clear intent and a goal, you experience a sudden loss of identity.

For me, the best technique for dealing with uncontrolled emotion - and losing one's identity momentarily is often the result of a flood of uncontrolled emotion that operates below the level of your consciousness - has been meditation, focusing on being fully present and bringing my attention away from my thoughts and emotions and into my body and the physical sensations I experience. Because thoughts/emotions can be inconsistent and unstable, but the physical is real, consistent, and dependable.

As soon as you bring your attention to your body, you feel the thoughts/emotions tugging your attention and trying to take it away from your body, and that's when you realize that those thoughts/emotions are not really you, they circulate around of their own accord trying to find ways to capture your attention and your body to make you feel like they are you.

And the longer you remain calm, and simply move your attention away from them and onto the reality of your body, the more they lose power to seize your attention, and the more unified, calm, and collected you feel. And with this, your drive and libido are able to return with clarity and power.

Meditation isn't a quick fix, and it might take some time and a series of small, incremental improvements. But it is no coincidence that many top seduction teachers out there practice and espouse the benefits of meditation.

Now although I am not really fan of postmodern art either, I don't mind it really, meaning that it is not my taste, but if someone is crazy and wants to express it for me it's fine. I would even respect it that he manages somehow to make a living out of selling urinals as sculptures, and would be interested in finding out how he did it, and what made him go towards that path. I would not buy the sculpture though, or take hard drugs because that's how he gets in the creative state, since that's not the mode I would like to be living in.

Fair enough, postmodernism is not hugely relevant to this topic, it's just one of the things I have identified as a very destructive force. It's probably best for a different discussion.

I do agree with the way you describe it here, too. I personally feel that the biggest thing is not really to deny the type of self expression discussed in the previous paragraph, but to channel it in healthy constructive ways. So when I say I value it I basically mean I value someone's truth in principle, and the ability to express it effectively to the world. That's what I kinda meant with the tactics term as well as you describe later, that you have to learn some of them to get a direction of how to express yourself until it becomes your nature to do it authentically.

Absolutely!

And I do feel this restraining of libido everywhere really, which is why I believe I can appreciate the people with disfunctional self-expression, as I feel it is the first stage of the reaction towards these restraints, and having passed from it myself, I find a distorted beauty of the world in it. It can be destructive, but we probably can't get completely rid of the destruction anyway, so seeing it from afar it's an interesting reminder of the intricacies of the human condition that has its part to play. However, for myself, I would want to become able to be in control of my life and express myself in ways that impact people towards their development.

Yeah, man's nature is forever a beast that must be tamed. And it will either be tamed by him and used for his own ends, or someone else will tame it, and use it for theirs.

This is all true, I don't believe I am in the psychopath or sociopath spectrum,

Yeah I certainly wasn't suggesting you were! The point I was making (which I didn't make very clearly) was simply that although certain people are able to use very manipulative tactics in the short term, it costs them in the long run. So for us who want to live authentic lives of self expression, we must find a philosophy of seduction and influence that we can be content to live by in the long term. While also being aware that in the process of learning, there are times when we will not feel quite as authentic as we wish - but this is the essential experience of the developing student.

and the thing about tactics is probably one the biggest misconceptions I had about game and seduction until I got really into approaching. I felt that all that matters is how to be the wittiest party, and one up the girl socially, so that you get her. Then I even had few of these great pick-ups on paper, meeting a hot girl in the street and launching the teases, the push pulls and fake rejections and after getting the phone number it would be silent. That's when I started rethinking everything I believed, because my interactions really looked and felt like some infields famous pickup coaches have online. After that I have been trying to have more minimal and normal approaches, adding some needed playfulness, but mainly focusing on the vibe I give off and being interested in the other person. Of course until I am able to authentically express that, it's still tactics that I use, but at least I feel they are now directed towards a more personal development aspect of socialisation.

That's a good way of putting it. You use tactics to improve your results, but keeping your self expression intact and involved as much as possible. That's exactly how I conceptualize things as well.

Oh yeah this can get you crazy. I was looking who beautiful women were with: Once it was an old white haired guy, then a model looking guy, then a skinny guy, then a tattooed guy, then another type of guy. And I was just thinking, who do I even need to become in order to get women? In fact this thing strengthened my interest into seduction. I felt that: wait a minute, all types of men can have very attractive women, so I could too!

Yeah! When I was in Brazil, at the Carnaval party, there was this dude that was getting laid left and right with all sorts of smoking hot girls, the other dudes there were jealous and would tease him about it. By all accounts he shouldn't have been succeeding that well - he was skinny and pretty soft looking, with a crewcut, tattoos and several piercings, sort of gay vibes and just didn't look like any sort of 'Gigachad' whatsoever. But he just had this relentless teasing and playful attitude with girls, and the most mischievous smile like the cat that just caught the canary, and no inhibitions whatsoever, and these girls would eat it up. I'd spot him leading these smart, successful, well-to-do (and hot!) girls up the stairs while he looked like he wouldn't be able to pass a job interview at macdonalds. That's the first time I really understood there was a whole side of this stuff I did not understand very well at all.

I am also into the d/s dynamic quite a lot, not particular experience in real life in a kink setting, but it really appeals to me in a deep level sexually. One of my biggest frustrations in life is probably the fact that I really feel like I am dominant sexually, I love the creative freedom of having a woman and controlling her pleasure, making her feel all these blissful emotions and totally erupt from ecstasy, providing a wide range of experiences and sensations, but at the same time I struggle to have women submit to me. It's really maddening, knowing that you want to be dominant, but sometimes feeling like you are treated more like a submissive. And managing to be at ease with yourself is the only real solution I see as well. For me it would probably mean to accept where I am in life now, and keep moving forward towards where I feel like going.

Yeah I'm pretty dominant myself, not so much into any elaborate kink but I do like to be in control of things and enable her to explore her fantasies.

The number one trait I think a dominant guy must have is to be completely at ease with himself, because a submissive woman most of all needs to feel safe in his hands, and secure that he won't lose control of himself when she is in a very vulnerable position. Being reactive or showing any emotional instability is a sure way of making her put her fantasies back in the closet.

And dominant stuff is really for when you've already had sex a bunch of times. The times I've tried being dominant the first time we've had sex, I could see she wasn't too comfortable and so I stopped right away and focused on just giving her a good time.

Yeah, for a long time my idea about game was basically that you learn ways to come across as a winner when you are clearly not. I can see beyond that now, but it also means I have to accept I am not there yet and have a long way to go.

It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem - you have to be a winner to get the opportunity to be a winner. And in creating the winning opportunity even when you're not a winner, you actually are a winner!

I can accept that. I sometimes feel that I have maybe wasted part of my youth, but I know that I had 0 romantic interactions with women for over 20 years so I fully understand I have to put in the work to be able to authentically connect with them on that level. The only thing during these initial frustrations of the uncomfortable first period is how to remain feeling as a winner. My idea is that you get this feeling simply by being in this path of development, and knowing that you are improving yourself and eventually will reach the point you want.

One of the best ways to feel like a winner is to achieve success in other areas of your life - they represent examples of you being able to change your reality for the better, and it's very easy to predictively transfer that feeling of success onto something you are learning.

Fitness is by far the easiest and most effective, since it is straightforward and relies entirely on your own discipline, but any hobby or enterprise works well.

And it's also important I feel to reach the point that you are satisfied with the rest of your life, so that you can truly believe that you are a man women would love to be lead by. Because even if the tactics end up being internalised, at some point things will crumble if the foundation of the strong identity is not there. You can probably end up just having the strong identity of the guy that can seduce women, with the rest of your life being in chaos.

That's very true! It's very easy, especially once you achieve success with women, to turn to it like a drug when you need self-validation. I've seen enough examples of guys in pickup spiralling out of control to know it's a thing, and sometimes I've felt driven to lean on it myself. It's like escaping into a movie where you are the hero that gets the girl, and it's very tempting to go out whenever you feel discontented with your life.

The way I've avoided it for myself is to simply not allow seduction to rule my life. At some point I decided to only daygame and to try to live out seduction as a part of my ideal lifestyle, a lifestyle that included other things such as starting a business, building up my fitness, going on adventures (e.g. sailing and flying). I'm not interested in racking up notches or going out all the time to get laid (though it's somewhat necessary in the beginning, and I was lucky enough to start off in Brazil where parties and nightlife are going on all the time).

I don't judge people who want to make it their core life goal, but I do think you risk having to deal with the fallout of that choice later on down the line when everything else is not up to par.

Yeah, not quite there in guitar yet either, but at least a lot better than in seduction, haha

I like the way you put it a lot. I mean I cultivated the identity of an excellent student after many years and hard work, so one thing I believe is that at least I can learn. I may seek some real life teachers down the road as well, but until then focusing on the known tactics and treating all experiences as teachers would be for the best. And eventually I will become authentic, and have some choice when I eventually decide who to make a family with.

Thank you again for the answers. Apart from being very insightful, I don't think I have ever discussed these things in my life or online with anyone, so I value it deeply.

Yeah, we are all students, and the student mind is the best for any kind of self development. And since self development never ends, there is no reason not to always remain a student.

I've really enjoyed the conversation so far!

 

[ChrisXKiss]

It's a small world, huh?

My parents were also very academically focused, and I was homeschooled most of my early life, with a pretty limited social life. The plan was to fast track progress, and ended up with me and my brothers doing long-distance first year university mathematics when I was 13.

Through a series of events I ended up then going to high school, where I quickly realized I was a fish out of water socially and especially with girls. It was quite a struggle, and I ended up cultivating a pretty extreme independence and even a sort of disdain for socializing (in fact I was very unhappy). It was only at university (around 18-19) that I really reflected on and accepted my situation, and began seriously working on myself to improve.

My parents wanted all the best for us but (bless their hearts) they got that one a tad wrong.

Yes it is indeed...

For me I would say there was never such a realisation in school. Throughout my whole school life, I just embraced the identity of the guy who basically studies, and also does some other activities simply to become a well rounded person. I remember when some friends started caring about girls in junior high school that I literally had the vibe of: " Yeah I like a bunch of them as well, but I know it's not the time for that now ". No wonder these friendships slowly weakened, I was in a totally different wavelength.

The bad thing is that all this led me to build the identity of the guy that doesn't have women in his life. It was even abnormal for me to have relationships with them, like this part was cut off from my human experience. I managed to live like that for quite some time mainly due to the hope for the future. That when I finish school, or when I live alone, things will change, and then I will go and get women. I kinda had this naive belief that since there are so many attractive women out there, I will simply start going after them at some point and get some of those I want.

It was when I started reading seduction material of some local company that I realised I have to treat women differently than men. In the beginning I was even hesitant to believe it, I mean we are all humans, and all equal, why should I treat the woman differently, they even say themselves they don't want that! I eventually managed to internalise some of these aspects and accepted that I have to work on it as a skill.

Yeah, at some point it hits you doesn't it?

For me, it was when I went on exchange to Brazil, and ended up at a week-long house party during Carnaval. In case you don't know, this basically means a huge week long fuckfest where everybody is banging everybody else. Except I didn't get laid, lol. The guy whose house we were in tried to set me up with this ugly girl with a lip ring and dyed red hair, and she was nice enough but I just couldn't bring myself to go along.

Another friend of mine, a guy training to be a police officer, took me to a brothel and tried to hook me up, but again I couldn't bring myself to do anything - the whole place just felt decrepit and horrible and I felt sorry for the girls there. That's when I realized I had to really get to work or else I'd be doing desperate shit I really wanted to avoid.

It took about 3 months of partying and approaching and failing and making all sorts of embarrassing mistakes before a girl (a pretty fit one too, she was into bike marathons or something) took a liking to my vibe and drove me back to her apartment, where she made things very straightforward for me. I'll never forget the way she got down on all fours, butt naked, and looked over her shoulder at me expectantly .. girls can be such wonderful creatures! We were together for several months.

I think one of my biggest problems throughout this whole journey is that I never had friends that were good with women. I wasn't actively seeking women anyway so it made sense, we didn't have much in common with these guys. I would even say that since school, these were the bad boys that were not studying a lot, and my parents didn't want me to hang out with them, so in a way I also started disliking this behaviour of going after women, considering it immature, and even dangerous for me as something that can derail me from my goals.

And sadly I feel I still haven't been able to fully overcome this feeling. Apart from the videos and stories of seducers online, I don't remember ever hanging out with someone who legitimately had an abundance of women in his life, and I am sure one reason is this subconscious disapproval I have developed towards high value sexy guys since my early years. It is kinda what Chase discusses about thinking a woman is a bitch and autorejecting yourself, but with well socialised sexually successful guys for me.

The fact that I cannot compete with them socially or sexually also makes me afraid of being seen as a failure around them as well. Meaning that if there is a high value seducer and I go out with him, all the girls will eventually like the other guy, and I would feel even worse for myself, like the low value friend that is there as a punching bag socially. Maybe it has to do with some early experiences of light bullying, nothing extreme, but I guess more socially attuned guys would usually one up me or establish a dominant frame around me, which didn't matter to me a lot back then, but clearly created this pattern of me feeling unable to navigate social situations effectively.

I believe I have to be more open creating bonds with men in general, especially with more masculine and sexy ones. One issue here is that I never really trained my body, I am totally skinny, so this is a field that I cannot really connect with other guys. Over women I guess I could, but I am not that successful either in that field. Which brings me back to the beginning of the discussion, regarding how to establish relationships. And you analysed that very well, I suppose the one thing I can show apart from validation of their nature, values and views, is that I am pushing myself, working with a desire to reach a higher level in certain fields. Sometimes I feel that if I talk to men about going out and approaching women again and again I may get treated as someone who puts too much effort into it, and maybe even criticised about it, but I suppose the men I would want to have in my life would appreciate it and approve of this dedication.

And I should probably start strengthening my body as well. Not so much for seduction purposes, I mean maybe women will like a more muscular body more, but it is one part of my looks I never felt bad about, and even the shit tests I get regarding it don't affect me. However I do feel weaker than most other guys. In the sense that I know they can probably beat me down, and even rape me if they want. And although I know the fear of things like these happening is small in modern society, I do feel that when other men see a weakly looking skinny guy going after attractive women, they feel like they can easily go and intimidate him, or dominate him physically, since he cannot really stand up for himself if a fight were to happen. In a way this probably also affects women subconsciously, since they know you could not protect them if things went bad. And in some ways, knowing these, I may be sabotaging myself by unconsciously acting more meekly around other guys, so as not to risk any confrontation. I was always more into the psychological part of domination, but I suppose the physical part is something I should consider integrating in my personality.

...

My first penis-in-vagina sexual experience was with a Brazilian girl by the way, so I am quite fond of them, very passionate! And I also cannot make it work in brothels or similar situations when money is involved, so I fully understand what you mean. Never had the girl being so straightfoward though. It is a bit of a fantasy of mine, not gonna lie, having her craving for sex with you so much that she cannot control herself.

At the end of the day the most we can expect of ourselves is to do the very best we can with what time we have left. There's no sense regretting the past - for one thing it cannot be changed, but also, perhaps it was unavoidable to begin with, and is simply the life we were meant to live.

I don't literally believe it, but I often look at life in the way of the Buddhist concept of reincarnation, where an organism which dies rebirths at a higher or lower level based on how well they lived their life. In a way we are all birthed in environments which are created by others, whose choices were shaped by those before them, and so on all the way back down the line. It's very difficult (perhaps impossible) to escape completely from consequences of the past, but we can at least look forward to the future so that instead of making things worse, we do something to improve our lot and the lots of those who come after.

True, looking towards the future is all we can do anyway. The past is over and the time we spend ruminating over it we could use to learn from it, and aim towards the future. Not forgetting to enjoy the present through that process as well. I guess you could say if you are missing the present, there is not much of a future to go to. So learning from your past, to take action you are proud of in the present that also leads to a desired future seems like a good model to me.

It is also an interesting discussion whether there is free will at all or everything was predetermined, looking at it religiously, philosophically or even physically. There are surely things we couldn't control as you mention, and also things we still have no control of. The way I see it, I appreciate my life till now, I wouldn't change it, it made me who I am, and I value all the experiences I had. I also believe that everything can be a constructive lesson. You simply have to appreciate how it truly added some uniqueness in who you are.

This is an important point. The point where you have clear intent and a goal, you experience a sudden loss of identity.

For me, the best technique for dealing with uncontrolled emotion - and losing one's identity momentarily is often the result of a flood of uncontrolled emotion that operates below the level of your consciousness - has been meditation, focusing on being fully present and bringing my attention away from my thoughts and emotions and into my body and the physical sensations I experience. Because thoughts/emotions can be inconsistent and unstable, but the physical is real, consistent, and dependable.

As soon as you bring your attention to your body, you feel the thoughts/emotions tugging your attention and trying to take it away from your body, and that's when you realize that those thoughts/emotions are not really you, they circulate around of their own accord trying to find ways to capture your attention and your body to make you feel like they are you.

And the longer you remain calm, and simply move your attention away from them and onto the reality of your body, the more they lose power to seize your attention, and the more unified, calm, and collected you feel. And with this, your drive and libido are able to return with clarity and power.

Meditation isn't a quick fix, and it might take some time and a series of small, incremental improvements. But it is no coincidence that many top seduction teachers out there practice and espouse the benefits of meditation.

Yeah, as I have been a very logical hard science guy I was doubting meditation for years, but I have given it some tries and it does seem to be effective, which is what matters. I should probably integrate it in my life more, maybe doing a small one once per day. I guess an issue I've had with it is not finding a clear strategy on how to approach it. I mean do you make it a habit of doing it every day for a certain amount of minutes and that's it? I find it hard to believe sometimes that it will have an effect throughout the whole day in this way, unless you do it multiple times, or you also learn some fast meditations for when there is an emergency and you need them. It's also probable that with time you simply get more in tune with your body generally, in the same way that after fixing your posture for a while you end up doing it unconsciously.

Yeah I certainly wasn't suggesting you were! The point I was making (which I didn't make very clearly) was simply that although certain people are able to use very manipulative tactics in the short term, it costs them in the long run. So for us who want to live authentic lives of self expression, we must find a philosophy of seduction and influence that we can be content to live by in the long term. While also being aware that in the process of learning, there are times when we will not feel quite as authentic as we wish - but this is the essential experience of the developing student.

Oh yeah, I didn't mean you suggested that, it was more thinking to myself that I don't believe I am,

Yeah! When I was in Brazil, at the Carnaval party, there was this dude that was getting laid left and right with all sorts of smoking hot girls, the other dudes there were jealous and would tease him about it. By all accounts he shouldn't have been succeeding that well - he was skinny and pretty soft looking, with a crewcut, tattoos and several piercings, sort of gay vibes and just didn't look like any sort of 'Gigachad' whatsoever. But he just had this relentless teasing and playful attitude with girls, and the most mischievous smile like the cat that just caught the canary, and no inhibitions whatsoever, and these girls would eat it up. I'd spot him leading these smart, successful, well-to-do (and hot!) girls up the stairs while he looked like he wouldn't be able to pass a job interview at macdonalds. That's the first time I really understood there was a whole side of this stuff I did not understand very well at all.

Yeah experiences like that can really be eye opening. Especially when you see people with similar characteristics to you having success, and you realise that there is something totally different here, unrelated to how you look. I personally like tall women quite a lot, and although I am not really short myself, if they are around my height, I tend to feel sometimes that they would probably prefer someone even bigger to feel properly dominated by. Then I see them together with not that big guys and realise that's not it. The sneaky part though, is when they reject you telling you exactly that. That you are too short, too old, too ugly, too whatever. And of course these are rarely the real reasons for the rejection, but I believe you need some experience being with the women you desire no matter your characteristics, to truly internalise the fact that you are perfectly fine externally. Until then, building a stronger identity would help to carry you through the land of rejections without being deeply affected by them.

Yeah I'm pretty dominant myself, not so much into any elaborate kink but I do like to be in control of things and enable her to explore her fantasies.

The number one trait I think a dominant guy must have is to be completely at ease with himself, because a submissive woman most of all needs to feel safe in his hands, and secure that he won't lose control of himself when she is in a very vulnerable position. Being reactive or showing any emotional instability is a sure way of making her put her fantasies back in the closet.

And dominant stuff is really for when you've already had sex a bunch of times. The times I've tried being dominant the first time we've had sex, I could see she wasn't too comfortable and so I stopped right away and focused on just giving her a good time.

Agree with how you put it regarding being totally at ease with yourself. That is what I am also aiming towards. In my very first sexual experiences in fact, because of how overeager I was I think I went in a bit too dominant. It is another part of calibration.

One of the best ways to feel like a winner is to achieve success in other areas of your life - they represent examples of you being able to change your reality for the better, and it's very easy to predictively transfer that feeling of success onto something you are learning.

Fitness is by far the easiest and most effective, since it is straightforward and relies entirely on your own discipline, but any hobby or enterprise works well.

Yes I totally agree with that. For a long time I was thinking I should be confident and feeling great no matter what was happening in my life. In a way, I was feeling bad for feeling bad due to lacking women in my life. Now I understand this makes no sense. If there are things you desire and you are doing nothing to go after them of course you will feel bad in general. I believe the answer is again to accept where you are at, and do what you can to go where you want to. In all fields. And the successes you will be getting in one field, will be feeding into the others.

That's very true! It's very easy, especially once you achieve success with women, to turn to it like a drug when you need self-validation. I've seen enough examples of guys in pickup spiralling out of control to know it's a thing, and sometimes I've felt driven to lean on it myself. It's like escaping into a movie where you are the hero that gets the girl, and it's very tempting to go out whenever you feel discontented with your life.

The way I've avoided it for myself is to simply not allow seduction to rule my life. At some point I decided to only daygame and to try to live out seduction as a part of my ideal lifestyle, a lifestyle that included other things such as starting a business, building up my fitness, going on adventures (e.g. sailing and flying). I'm not interested in racking up notches or going out all the time to get laid (though it's somewhat necessary in the beginning, and I was lucky enough to start off in Brazil where parties and nightlife are going on all the time).

I don't judge people who want to make it their core life goal, but I do think you risk having to deal with the fallout of that choice later on down the line when everything else is not up to par.

Yeah it is something I have been thinking, because from time to time I feel it consumes me. I make an approach, something feels off in the end and I rush to read what I can on how to close after getting a phone number. I go out at night in a new venue, my interactions don't seem to hook, so I go and start reading what I can about being successful in this kind of venue. In general I feel I end up spending more time on seduction during the day than I initially plan to. I have to learn how to balance things, so that I can also focus on other very important aspects of my life, and following a hard schedule more religiously is probably a good solution. Knowing that I have one hour to dedicate to women in any form and then I get back to other endeavours. Of course while keeping some sort of flexibility, so that I don't overwhelm myself with too rigid schedules I end up unable to follow, because of any unexpected situation.

Yeah, we are all students, and the student mind is the best for any kind of self development. And since self development never ends, there is no reason not to always remain a student.

I've really enjoyed the conversation so far!

Yeah the student mindset is always helpful. One thing I have been afraid of is that by always being a student I may never be able to come off as an authority in any situation. I suppose though, that after being a student for a long time and reaching higher levels of skill and success, you become some sort of authority in the field by default.

And yeah, I've also enjoyed it a lot!

 

[Will_V]

Yes it is indeed...

For me I would say there was never such a realisation in school. Throughout my whole school life, I just embraced the identity of the guy who basically studies, and also does some other activities simply to become a well rounded person. I remember when some friends started caring about girls in junior high school that I literally had the vibe of: " Yeah I like a bunch of them as well, but I know it's not the time for that now ". No wonder these friendships slowly weakened, I was in a totally different wavelength.

The bad thing is that all this led me to build the identity of the guy that doesn't have women in his life. It was even abnormal for me to have relationships with them, like this part was cut off from my human experience. I managed to live like that for quite some time mainly due to the hope for the future. That when I finish school, or when I live alone, things will change, and then I will go and get women. I kinda had this naive belief that since there are so many attractive women out there, I will simply start going after them at some point and get some of those I want.

Yeah this is a common fallacy in the way we humans think, we believe that certain things will come naturally and without effort in some ideal future that lies further along our current path, when in reality, most of the time, everything you want you have turn toward it and to go directly after it and fight for it. I've been guilty of this too, and it's one of the reasons why I consciously cultivated a worldview where everything is a sort of existential war that has to be aggressively fought or lost.

It was when I started reading seduction material of some local company that I realised I have to treat women differently than men. In the beginning I was even hesitant to believe it, I mean we are all humans, and all equal, why should I treat the woman differently, they even say themselves they don't want that! I eventually managed to internalise some of these aspects and accepted that I have to work on it as a skill.

Society is full of mechanisms designed to inhibit what are considered to be the excesses of the male inclination to dominate his environment. Some of these mechanisms are good and useful, but many are outright lies that ultimately destroy the functional fabric of society. And the idea that men and women are functionally the same, and fit into the same roles, is one of those.

I think one of my biggest problems throughout this whole journey is that I never had friends that were good with women. I wasn't actively seeking women anyway so it made sense, we didn't have much in common with these guys. I would even say that since school, these were the bad boys that were not studying a lot, and my parents didn't want me to hang out with them, so in a way I also started disliking this behaviour of going after women, considering it immature, and even dangerous for me as something that can derail me from my goals.

And sadly I feel I still haven't been able to fully overcome this feeling. Apart from the videos and stories of seducers online, I don't remember ever hanging out with someone who legitimately had an abundance of women in his life, and I am sure one reason is this subconscious disapproval I have developed towards high value sexy guys since my early years. It is kinda what Chase discusses about thinking a woman is a bitch and autorejecting yourself, but with well socialised sexually successful guys for me.

I had a little of the same in high school, I was very judgemental at that time. This tendency to judge rather than to learn and understand was a big obstacle that, once changed, altered my life completely.

The fact that I cannot compete with them socially or sexually also makes me afraid of being seen as a failure around them as well. Meaning that if there is a high value seducer and I go out with him, all the girls will eventually like the other guy, and I would feel even worse for myself, like the low value friend that is there as a punching bag socially. Maybe it has to do with some early experiences of light bullying, nothing extreme, but I guess more socially attuned guys would usually one up me or establish a dominant frame around me, which didn't matter to me a lot back then, but clearly created this pattern of me feeling unable to navigate social situations effectively.

Being able to enter a new environment in which you have no established identity, and build rapport with people, is a very important skill. You have to be open and flexible enough to be able to learn the rules and follow them, but at the same time able to resist the attempts of others to mess around or dominate you.

The way I look at it is that you have to have a very strong internal identity, but a flexible outer identity. That is to say, you know who you are as a person and you know exactly what lines you won't allow others to cross without standing up for yourself (with violence if need be) but at the same time you are willing to respect the hierarchy of the environment, and learn how to fit into it and follow its rules.

That way, people respect you as a person, and because you also respected them by deferring to the rules they live by, they may be even more willing to go out of their way to help you find your place.

In any social environment where there is a newcomer, they are tested, and they can fail both by being weak and soft, and also by being too reactive and unwilling to adapt. Because any hierarchy needs members which conform to it, but who also add to its strength.

I believe I have to be more open creating bonds with men in general, especially with more masculine and sexy ones. One issue here is that I never really trained my body, I am totally skinny, so this is a field that I cannot really connect with other guys. Over women I guess I could, but I am not that successful either in that field. Which brings me back to the beginning of the discussion, regarding how to establish relationships. And you analysed that very well, I suppose the one thing I can show apart from validation of their nature, values and views, is that I am pushing myself, working with a desire to reach a higher level in certain fields. Sometimes I feel that if I talk to men about going out and approaching women again and again I may get treated as someone who puts too much effort into it, and maybe even criticised about it, but I suppose the men I would want to have in my life would appreciate it and approve of this dedication.

Personally I don't suggest talking about seduction with male friends unless they are very much on the same path. A lot of guys, even masculine guys who have quite a bit of natural success with women, are deep inside the social matrix, and have a very feminized view of courtship - i.e. that it is something that happens by serendipity, or at most it may be acceptable for a guy to have a few beers, wander up to a girl, and declare his undying love for her. The idea of learning psychological influence over a woman is (and likely always will be) unacceptable to the social order.

There are many reasons for this, but ultimately, a society cannot control its men if it does not impose strict rules and limits on his sexual expression, since his sexual expression is connected to his libido, which, as we have discussed, is responsible for all his most constructive and destructive tendencies, including opposing or attempting to change the social order itself.

And I should probably start strengthening my body as well. Not so much for seduction purposes, I mean maybe women will like a more muscular body more, but it is one part of my looks I never felt bad about, and even the shit tests I get regarding it don't affect me. However I do feel weaker than most other guys. In the sense that I know they can probably beat me down, and even rape me if they want. And although I know the fear of things like these happening is small in modern society, I do feel that when other men see a weakly looking skinny guy going after attractive women, they feel like they can easily go and intimidate him, or dominate him physically, since he cannot really stand up for himself if a fight were to happen. In a way this probably also affects women subconsciously, since they know you could not protect them if things went bad. And in some ways, knowing these, I may be sabotaging myself by unconsciously acting more meekly around other guys, so as not to risk any confrontation. I was always more into the psychological part of domination, but I suppose the physical part is something I should consider integrating in my personality.

This is something you cannot neglect. Perhaps you don't realize fully how detrimental it is for any man to go around feeling like he must be meek, or that he could be taken advantage of at will. It destroys his testosterone, his inner resolve, makes him duck or fail social tests, and ultimately forces him into a corner where he is cut off from the opportunities the world has to offer, until he either loses control and does something destructive, or psychologically castrates himself with addiction or escapism.

When I was in Brazil, I joined a Muay Thai gym and learned properly how to fight. This was necessary, not just because Brazil is a place where shit can go down very suddenly, but because I knew that I was pushing my boundaries with the sorts of social environments I was entering and exploring. I'd already had a couple of advances from gay brazilian dudes, and at the time, though I was ready to fight, I wasn't sure if I'd win, and that really bothered me.

When I was kickboxing, I started walking around and taking the bus late at night, going to clubs and bars to get laid. I encountered a lot of drunks, drug addicts, gangs, was followed a bunch of times, but no one ever attacked me. And that was because I intentionally walked with an aggressive, alert posture. And I did that because I had a confidence (perhaps overblown, but nevertheless effective) in my ability to fight. Some of my friends got mugged multiple times during that time, and they weren't pushing their luck half as much as I did.

When I got laid the first time, part of the reason was because I had a certain aggression, a fighting spirit, behind my smile and my banter. And I showed it to her, and she accepted it, as women do.

I believe it is the mark of any man who is capable of great things to be aggressive by nature, to have a restrained violence in his words and actions. This is what enables him to keep his fears at bay even when the odds are stacked against him. And it is what gives women the security of knowing that if she tames him, he will fight for her and himself and to move his own position relentlessly up in the world against any opposition. But it is a subtle thing - it cannot be a bitter, cynical, reactive, or confused aggression. It must be clean and clear and sure, like a steady flame.

My first penis-in-vagina sexual experience was with a Brazilian girl by the way, so I am quite fond of them, very passionate! And I also cannot make it work in brothels or similar situations when money is involved, so I fully understand what you mean. Never had the girl being so straightfoward though. It is a bit of a fantasy of mine, not gonna lie, having her craving for sex with you so much that she cannot control herself.

I don't believe in this case she was so desperate for me that she couldn't control herself. There are women (perhaps many women) who find great fulfillment in taking in stray dogs which have some fighting spirit left, and nursing them back to health. I think that is more like what happened here. She was 7 years older than me, and it was pretty clear to her that I didn't have much sexual experience, but she believed that there was something satisfying for her to do in cultivating with her pussy what she saw in me. And I did reward her greatly for it.

Yeah, as I have been a very logical hard science guy I was doubting meditation for years, but I have given it some tries and it does seem to be effective, which is what matters. I should probably integrate it in my life more, maybe doing a small one once per day. I guess an issue I've had with it is not finding a clear strategy on how to approach it. I mean do you make it a habit of doing it every day for a certain amount of minutes and that's it? I find it hard to believe sometimes that it will have an effect throughout the whole day in this way, unless you do it multiple times, or you also learn some fast meditations for when there is an emergency and you need them. It's also probable that with time you simply get more in tune with your body generally, in the same way that after fixing your posture for a while you end up doing it unconsciously.

A lot of people completely misunderstand meditation, in my opinion. They believe it has something to do with entering some esoteric zone of consciousness where all sorts of weird and wonderful things happen. It is no such thing.

Meditation simply involves focusing your attention on something external like your breath, or the sensations in a particular part of your body, while keeping your body absolutely still. When you do this, the chaotic (and often negative) emotions and thoughts flying around in your head attempt to seize back control of your attention, and you are forced to keep moving your attention back consciously, over and over again, to your breath. And the thoughts and emotions also attempt to seize control of your body, by making you want to fidget or twitch or squirm or tense up or otherwise move in concert with their impulses, and you are forced to refuse them over and over again.

The lesson here is that these thoughts and impulses are not really who you are, or there wouldn't be a 'you' that is opposing them. But in your day to day life, you cede control of your mental state and your body to them as if they really were you. And they contaminate your posture, your body language, and all your communication.

And you find that, over time as you remain still and keep bringing your attention back to your breath, the thoughts and emotional impulses fade slowly until you simply feel calm and tranquil. And you realize that they had been using your body and your attention to sustain themselves and rebirth themselves and multiply themselves, like viruses. But now you have got back control.

Meditation is most useful very soon after an event that is disturbing and creates internal conflict, because at this point your body and mind are activated and full of swirling, impulsive reactions.

Yes I totally agree with that. For a long time I was thinking I should be confident and feeling great no matter what was happening in my life. In a way, I was feeling bad for feeling bad due to lacking women in my life. Now I understand this makes no sense. If there are things you desire and you are doing nothing to go after them of course you will feel bad in general. I believe the answer is again to accept where you are at, and do what you can to go where you want to. In all fields. And the successes you will be getting in one field, will be feeding into the others.

Absolutely.

Yeah it is something I have been thinking, because from time to time I feel it consumes me. I make an approach, something feels off in the end and I rush to read what I can on how to close after getting a phone number. I go out at night in a new venue, my interactions don't seem to hook, so I go and start reading what I can about being successful in this kind of venue. In general I feel I end up spending more time on seduction during the day than I initially plan to. I have to learn how to balance things, so that I can also focus on other very important aspects of my life, and following a hard schedule more religiously is probably a good solution. Knowing that I have one hour to dedicate to women in any form and then I get back to other endeavours. Of course while keeping some sort of flexibility, so that I don't overwhelm myself with too rigid schedules I end up unable to follow, because of any unexpected situation.

Don't worry about that to begin with. I believe you should prioritize getting laid until you have some experience, even if it costs a lot of time and effort. Chase has a good article here.

You'll know when the time arrives where it has outgrown everything else in your life and you need to balance it out. But that's not until it represents a significantly easier way to obtain success and fulfillment than everything else, and it sounds like you're not there yet.

Yeah the student mindset is always helpful. One thing I have been afraid of is that by always being a student I may never be able to come off as an authority in any situation. I suppose though, that after being a student for a long time and reaching higher levels of skill and success, you become some sort of authority in the field by default.

That's not really how it works. Your confidence and sense of ease, which are the main things that position you as someone experienced and capable of leading an interaction, come from concrete success and results. You can still look at things with a student mind, as if there is an infinite trajectory of learning still to undertake, and also be extremely confident in your abilities. In fact, one of the things that makes someone less able to succeed is believing that they know everything, because sooner or later they will encounter something they aren't prepared for, and won't be able to accept it.

I still consider myself a student of seduction, there are things that I'm not very good at (such as dealing with groups for example) and new stuff I learn every time I go out, even when I do get laid. But when I am standing in front of a woman, I am one of a kind, and she will not be able to get anywhere else what she can get with me.

And yeah, I've also enjoyed it a lot!

OK, I think it's pretty clear what the next steps are for you:

- Keep going out, approaching, getting better at seduction (and write some field reports), and get laid a bunch
- Go to the gym and get fit and muscular (gives you success outside seduction and helps with the 'winner effect')
- Consider learning martial arts, it's good for you in ways you don't even know yet
- Explore new social situations at every opportunity

With effort and consistency, it won't be long before you transform your life completely, and all the difficulties you have now are just a distant memory.

 

[ChrisXKiss]

Yeah this is a common fallacy in the way we humans think, we believe that certain things will come naturally and without effort in some ideal future that lies further along our current path, when in reality, most of the time, everything you want you have turn toward it and to go directly after it and fight for it. I've been guilty of this too, and it's one of the reasons why I consciously cultivated a worldview where everything is a sort of existential war that has to be aggressively fought or lost.

True, I've come to understand how important it is to be in taking continuous action towards your goals.

I had a little of the same in high school, I was very judgemental at that time. This tendency to judge rather than to learn and understand was a big obstacle that, once changed, altered my life completely.

I've been striving for that as well, it's a work in progress.

The way I look at it is that you have to have a very strong internal identity, but a flexible outer identity. That is to say, you know who you are as a person and you know exactly what lines you won't allow others to cross without standing up for yourself (with violence if need be) but at the same time you are willing to respect the hierarchy of the environment, and learn how to fit into it and follow its rules.

Yes this makes total sense. Sometimes I just don't know if responding to something is standing up for myself or overreacting. I mean let's say another guy in the group slaps my back, when I am generally not touchy feely with anyone. Should I just let it go as something he does generally, or does it make sense to think he is subtly trying to establish a dominant frame over me in the group. Is it even functional to have a line of: "Noone slaps my back without permission, and if they do I confront them"? I suppose the most important thing is how I feel, but I have realised that I get too easily suspicious about the motives of others around me regarding social dynamics. Maybe by strengthening your identity, you simply reach the point that people treat you with more respect by default, and you don't even have to think about every single action they take, you just brush it off naturally.

In any social environment where there is a newcomer, they are tested, and they can fail both by being weak and soft, and also by being too reactive and unwilling to adapt. Because any hierarchy needs members which conform to it, but who also add to its strength.

Yeah, have probably done both, going to one end trying to escape from the other. It's always great when you get it right though, it truly leads to establishing relationships fast.

Personally I don't suggest talking about seduction with male friends unless they are very much on the same path. A lot of guys, even masculine guys who have quite a bit of natural success with women, are deep inside the social matrix, and have a very feminized view of courtship - i.e. that it is something that happens by serendipity, or at most it may be acceptable for a guy to have a few beers, wander up to a girl, and declare his undying love for her. The idea of learning psychological influence over a woman is (and likely always will be) unacceptable to the social order.

There are many reasons for this, but ultimately, a society cannot control its men if it does not impose strict rules and limits on his sexual expression, since his sexual expression is connected to his libido, which, as we have discussed, is responsible for all his most constructive and destructive tendencies, including opposing or attempting to change the social order itself.

This is interesting, I've also felt that even if men like to talk to each other about girls, specifically discussing about actively learning seduction does seem to be a bit of a taboo topic. It makes sense the way you explain it, and shows how valuable it is to have environments like this forum.

This is something you cannot neglect. Perhaps you don't realize fully how detrimental it is for any man to go around feeling like he must be meek, or that he could be taken advantage of at will. It destroys his testosterone, his inner resolve, makes him duck or fail social tests, and ultimately forces him into a corner where he is cut off from the opportunities the world has to offer, until he either loses control and does something destructive, or psychologically castrates himself with addiction or escapism.

Yeah, I have felt all that. Not always, or with the same intensity, but every single word of this part speaks to me in some way.

When I was kickboxing, I started walking around and taking the bus late at night, going to clubs and bars to get laid. I encountered a lot of drunks, drug addicts, gangs, was followed a bunch of times, but no one ever attacked me. And that was because I intentionally walked with an aggressive, alert posture. And I did that because I had a confidence (perhaps overblown, but nevertheless effective) in my ability to fight. Some of my friends got mugged multiple times during that time, and they weren't pushing their luck half as much as I did.

Yeah I understand that, I can't say I have ever felt clearly in danger, but I did get punched in the face by a girl's boyfriend about a month ago. I think I probably got for years very into this idea that what you say is everything, both in seduction and social interactions, and I even took pride in succeeding while looking weak. Like I was doing it with pure game, and wanted to show I could have the strongest frame even with the weakest body. Just a weird thought process, since the way your body functions affects your psychology and way you approach life.

When I got laid the first time, part of the reason was because I had a certain aggression, a fighting spirit, behind my smile and my banter. And I showed it to her, and she accepted it, as women do.

Yeah, this is something I am lacking, I've had situations when I was probably higher in testosterone that I did come off more aggressive in all the right ways, but it is very difficult to emulate that if your body is not the proper condition.

I believe it is the mark of any man who is capable of great things to be aggressive by nature, to have a restrained violence in his words and actions. This is what enables him to keep his fears at bay even when the odds are stacked against him. And it is what gives women the security of knowing that if she tames him, he will fight for her and himself and to move his own position relentlessly up in the world against any opposition. But it is a subtle thing - it cannot be a bitter, cynical, reactive, or confused aggression. It must be clean and clear and sure, like a steady flame.

This is a great way to put it. It's probably holding me back in other aspects of my life as well. I always thought that going to the gym and becoming stronger is kinda like any other skill, in the sense that you can decide to learn to play a sport or learn a language but it is just one feature of yours. It feels though that strengthening your body is vital for every function of your life and not just about being able to lift some more kilograms.

And it's also true that I haven't really had this energy that I would fight for a woman, is it because I am physically weak, or because I never found a woman I felt like fighting for I don't know. But they can probably feel that there is a guy in front of them that doesn't seem willing to take responsibility for them.

Now that I think about it, it's probably hardwired in me by this notion that women should be strong by themselves, and by my experience of my mother never feeling like she needed protection from my father. I guess that's why I like independent women as well, but they also need some dominance in order to submit, maybe even more in fact.

And you find that, over time as you remain still and keep bringing your attention back to your breath, the thoughts and emotional impulses fade slowly until you simply feel calm and tranquil. And you realize that they had been using your body and your attention to sustain themselves and rebirth themselves and multiply themselves, like viruses. But now you have got back control.

Yes your whole approach of meditation coincides to the ways I have been practically thinking about it lately. It truly is effective in that sense.

Don't worry about that to begin with. I believe you should prioritize getting laid until you have some experience, even if it costs a lot of time and effort. Chase has a good article here.

You'll know when the time arrives where it has outgrown everything else in your life and you need to balance it out. But that's not until it represents a significantly easier way to obtain success and fulfillment than everything else, and it sounds like you're not there yet.

Yes I agree with that, I don't mind having it as a huge focus for some years at least. Right now I simply feel that working towards some way to make money/ a job is maybe even more important, not so much for the financial part, but for my self-esteem and feeling able to take care of myself in the world. That said, seduction is for sure my main focus apart from that, and I am totally fine with it.

That's not really how it works. Your confidence and sense of ease, which are the main things that position you as someone experienced and capable of leading an interaction, come from concrete success and results. You can still look at things with a student mind, as if there is an infinite trajectory of learning still to undertake, and also be extremely confident in your abilities. In fact, one of the things that makes someone less able to succeed is believing that they know everything, because sooner or later they will encounter something they aren't prepared for, and won't be able to accept it.

Yes I can understand that.

I still consider myself a student of seduction, there are things that I'm not very good at (such as dealing with groups for example) and new stuff I learn every time I go out, even when I do get laid. But when I am standing in front of a woman, I am one of a kind, and she will not be able to get anywhere else what she can get with me.

That is a great way to see it. I have been a perfectionist in general, so knowing that I can always get better, I have caught myself feeling that I may not be good enough at this moment for a woman, or a job, or any other opportunity. But the only thing that makes sense is going after it with what you have while you keep growing, because there will never be a moment that you feel you maxed out your stats and you are at last ready.

OK, I think it's pretty clear what the next steps are for you:

- Keep going out, approaching, getting better at seduction (and write some field reports), and get laid a bunch
- Go to the gym and get fit and muscular (gives you success outside seduction and helps with the 'winner effect')
- Consider learning martial arts, it's good for you in ways you don't even know yet
- Explore new social situations at every opportunity

With effort and consistency, it won't be long before you transform your life completely, and all the difficulties you have now are just a distant memory.

This is a great summary!

I had taken some martial arts classes in fact and I felt weirdly masculine and aggressive after the end of them. I mean in a good way, although it needed some getting used to the feeling to be able to control it. I got a nose surgery then and stopped for some time, but I've had it in my mind.

And yes, that is the only future.