Social Life

In "Guy Talk: Here's How to Kick Butt at Talking to Other Men," JFav (a commenter singlehandedly responsible for perhaps 20% of the "a reader writes in" type articles I've written here) writes in asking about how to make female friends:

“Hey Chase,

Was reading through this article again and it's great stuff! Can't believe I haven't been using it all this time. Though as I was reading though a thought popped into my head, could there be a companion article to this concerning women?

I'm not sure if what I'm asking isn't already covered on here but I thought I'd ask anyways. I've always been fascinated with those guys that just get women and can instantly turn them into a friend or ally. Much like the way you said you can turn any man into an ally I'm sure you can do that with a woman too.

So, I was wondering if you could a write up on this kind of thing. You talked about this subject briefly in Girls Chase ebook where you compared the female and male conversational style.

I'm asking about this because I'm in a spot in my life where being active in pick up difficult for me so having some female companionship in terms of having invites to parties or clubs is my best bet right now.”

And just the other day, Ryan had a similar question in the latest Carnival of Dating Advice:

“Hey Chase,
I was wondering if you could write an article about what to do if you want to be good friends with a girl. All your articles have been really helpful but i'm not sure how to apply the techniques to a girl whom seducing would be inappropriate, but you still want her to admire and respect you as a good friend. Could you write something about this please? Thank you :)”

JFav and Ryan are right - there isn't an article on Girls Chase yet about turning women into friends - so let's correct that situation.

In the article on operant conditioning the other day, I'd made some terminology mix-ups that a commenter with the handle Slightly Confused noticed and pointed out to me in a very polite and socially gracious way, and I checked on the errors he pointed out, realized he was right, owned the mistake, and corrected it. I commented back letting him know of the correction, and he had this to say after:

“Thanks for handling my earlier comment so well. I'll have to remember how you responded for when I run into that situation in the future. If you want another article idea, you could write one on corrections. It could talk about how to handling being corrected in different situations as well as when and how to correct others. The article could differentiate between corrections based on opinions and based on facts and could talk different situations such as pickup, a long term relationship, being out with friends, meeting someone new, and in a business situation, like one were a boss says something incorrect (or the boss corrects you), when you are with peers, or when you are talking to a customer. It also could cover the situations when you should and should not correct yourself when you realize you are wrong and the long term effects handling the situation a certain way may have. I realize that may be too big of a topic to cover but hopefully it gives you some ideas or something you can use.”

Some interesting ideas for a post there from SC - when and how to correct yourself, and when to perform a course correct, effectively.

And this is more nuanced than you might at first think.

There's a surprisingly great deal at risk in correcting oneself - you chance losing the confidence of those who were depending on you to know your stuff, you chance undermining and reversing whatever momentum you had, and you even chance transferring momentum over to an opponent who's hard at work endeavoring to snatch at the moral high ground away from you.

So should you ever do a course correct? With so much to lose, does it make sense to ever correct yourself... or might it be better just to soldier on, never admit mistakes, and keep your own personal reality distortion field tuned to maximum at all times to take others' eyes away from the inconsistencies?

In The Law of Success, a very, very good book by Napoleon Hill - perhaps one of my favorites all time, in fact - Hill discusses, as one of the 16 tenets of success, the necessity of having a pleasing personality. Part of his recommendation is for listeners to be agreeable.

If you look at most people in Western society, I don't think this aspect of a pleasing personality - being agreeable - is much of a problem for them. In fact, I think one of the overriding problems for Westerners is in being too agreeable - so much so that anyone willing to be a bit less agreeable is able to easily steamroll them into uncomfortable submission.

But, that's a topic for another time. What I want to discuss in this article is why it's a good thing to be a little hard to please... at least some of the time.

Because if you've long made a habit of being overly agreeable - and there really can be too much of a good thing - a little dose of pickiness may just be in order.

We’ve all faced judgments and judgmental people in the world, and it is something that people very rarely have a complete grasp of. When a man truly holds no prejudice, women will open up to him in a way that they could not imagine themselves opening up to any other guy. All of the sudden, women feel comfortable with you and communicate with you in a very warm and friendly way.

When you want to start a relationship right, you cannot judge women, of course; but, what happens when you are consciously aware of this, and despite that, the women are judging YOU?

Most people have judgments without even knowing it. Ask someone if they are judgmental, and you’ll get a “No, of course not!” Judgmental people are seen as bad, horrible humans who don’t have a soul and don’t deserve our time.

If a woman acts judgmental, you should righteously stop the seduction on the spot; or so you would think.

We all remember a time when we were judgmental of others, but would we say we were morally unjust humans because of it? No. Just because a woman is judgmental does not mean she isn’t worth your time.

Most people aren’t aware that they are doing it, and it is very simple to cut out of conversation. It’s just another barrier we need to overcome.

One of our younger readers, by the name of Jaden, asked over in the comments section of my article "Are You Smart? It Doesn't Much Matter Either Way" about high school popularity, asking:

“What would the process for becoming popular look like? I would say im on the edge of popularity, as the "cool" kids all talk to me and invite me to their lunch tables and stuff (hardcore, right?), yet they do not invite me to their houses and parties, which are actually quite fun. How can I develop an air of superiority, and is there anything in specific I can do to raise my status?”

If I had to redefine that question to really get to its gist, I'd say it's more, "How do I make friends with the other students I want to be friends with?" than it is, "How do I make everyone like me more?" What Jaden wants here is to see these classmates of his outside of school - he wants to make friends.

But he isn't the only one who wants to know how to do this better. There are plenty of people who struggle with making friends in high school and college - and even more once they're out of those places.

If you thought it was hard making friends in an environment where everyone is your own age and you all do the same things, just wait until you're out of that environment, and you're working in the professional world where people range from 22 to 62. High school and college end up looking like friendship bonanzas compared to the working world that follows them.

Making friends isn't actually that hard a process though - take it from me, a guy who spent his the entirety of his teenage years friendless, then reinvented himself and emerged as someone who made friends with jet-setters, entrepreneurs, seducers, celebrities, and millionaires. How'd I go from zero friends to friends with some of the most in-demand people you'll meet, whom everyone wants to be friends with?

The secret, I found, lies in just one master key - from which all the other paths to friendship flow out.

This is the first official installment in my new series on social interactions. In case you're just tuning in, the series kicked off last week with "Social Skills 101: Pushing Past Your Comfort Zone." Now it’s time for us to really get into some solid, practical tips and tidbits you can start using as soon as you finish this article... this time on body language.

Chase just had a great post on putting together a sexy walk that went into detail on a very specific area of your body language (how you move through the world); and now I’m following it up with a broader-stroke post on general body language.

On this site, we often reference reading body language and using body language, and while it may not seem all that important, it in fact can make or break a pick up or general social interaction.

It can also get pretty complicated, so I wanted to get you an article on reading and using body language, and why it matters.

Here it is.

A lot of you have commented on the fact that you want to see more posts about social interactions. Well, I want you to know, we hear you. This technically should’ve come before my last post, but either way, I’m officially starting a series of posts dedicated to every aspect of social interactions – our very own social skills training series.

A little more about my background, since we haven’t discussed it to much great detail before: I’ve worked in law firms, sales, have been a part of countless organizations, have studied psychology, and have spent time all over this beautiful planet of ours.

Along the way, I’ve spent countless days, weeks, and hours meeting and interacting with women from sun up to sundown (and often later) to get closer to reaching the same level of understanding and efficacy with women that Chase and Ricardus share with you every day.

As those of you who have been around this site have seen, the three of us work toward many of the same goals, but come from very different points of view.

The feeling of just starting out and getting a lot of your basic social skills down is still vivid for me, and I know how intimidating or confusing it can be to be put in a new or overwhelming social situation and still want to pick up a girl on top of that.

So get ready for the series, and let’s start off with a proper introduction.