Social Life

Men more and more find themselves enmeshed with women in every aspect of their lives. But this isn’t healthy for men – or men’s relationships with women.

In a recent comment, on the first article in my series on ghosting, a reader asked about feeling jealous over young women's seeming comparative ease in the dating market:

Chase when I read your analysis on how men ages 18 to 25 always struggle the most when it comes to relationships with women I just can't help,but feel cynical and jaded with how unbalanced the marketplace is. I'm headed towards the latter end of that age range and haven't had much of a dating life. I'm sympathethic towards women and know that they endure struggles of their own in life and in dating and I genuinely love women and recognize that most women are sweet and nice,but thinking about how much less women struggle compared to men and how they don't have to work as hard to improve their dating lives or even HAVE a dating life which a lot of men don't have I sometimes lack empathy for them and some bitterness will creep in if something reminds me of this imbalance.

I know in a old article you said we shouldn't compare ourselves with women because we're not competing with them,but it almost feels like men are engaged with women in a tug a war and men are at a disadvantage at least in the West. A moderately attractive woman will have significantly more options than a moderately attractive man and don't have to go through the lengths and struggles a man has to do to even be a viable dating option. Even a older less fertile women will still have suitors,but a older man may not.

I'm working on myself so i'm not just ranting about how difficult dating as a unestablished man is while not doing anything to change or improve. I've taken coaching,a bootcamp, and have a online group where I can discuss game with other people,set approach goals and hold each other accountable. Early on when you were learning pickup what helped you accept the uneven dynamics of dating in the West? Does it just take some success for you to be at ease with how the dynamics are?Do you really have to be in the 1% like some coaches suggest for dating to finally work in your favor and to be at an advantage over women?

Of course, the answer for me is that when I was clueless with women, a guy whom women unequivocally rejected, who could never get dates, and was always alone, I never felt jealous of women or felt like I was in a tug-of-war with them.

Instead, my competitors were men. Women were the objects of my pursuit; men were the competitors I was going up against (and losing against).

We don't envy the fox eluding us in a chase. We envy the other hunter who catches her.

However, this phenomenon of more and more men envying women, and on the other side more and more women envying men, is one I think worth a closer look.

Because it is affecting more and more people.

It is leading more and more people into some very weird and unproductive places.

Girls in your close social circle can be difficult to get with. You become a “fixture” to them and they won’t hook up (even if they like you!). How can you undo this? With a “showoff” date…

Most guys run social circles of some sort.

Often there are a few girls in your social circle who are good-looking but not super into you. Or they might be interested in you but they're not compliant enough you're able to get them out onto dates.

If you're also meeting women from places outside your social circle, there's a tactic you can leverage to use the power of preselection to get women in that circle chasing after you.

We'll just call this 'social circle date showoffs'.

It's both simple to do, and deviously effective.

John B. Calhoun’s rat and mouse utopia studies show what happens in abundant-yet-overcrowded conditions. Ominously, his findings echo what we see around us in people today.

How much of our modern social ails can be understood by population pressures due to overcrowding?

Certainly we don't want for food, water, or things to do. Our economies are massive; massive enough to comfortably support everyone within them (and far more).

Yet, is this sufficient to produce a utopia... or have we run up on a physical limit that plunges us increasingly into dystopia?

In the 1960s, researcher John B. Calhoun coined the term 'behavioral sink' to describe the situation where behavior collapses due to overcrowding. Based on multiple studies performed by him and replicated by others, Calhoun discovered that mice in overcrowded situations tended to develop a series of pathologies that made them become increasingly dysfunctional socially.

Ultimately, the mice in the experiments became so dysfunctional that, despite plenty of food, water, and nesting areas, and despite being in perfect physical health, they became psychologically unable to reproduce, and completely died out.

What happened, and what can we learn?

What if you want a girl, but another guy’s been ‘working on her’? Should you go for her anyway... or make a tactical retreat? Well, it depends on the situation.

Let's say you're at a gathering of some sort and there's this girl there you start talking to.

Things are going well between you, then at some point she gets up to go use the bathroom. While she's gone, a guy from the group leans in and tells you, "Hey man, no offense, but I'm working on that girl."

What's the correct thing to do here?

Should you back off and stop picking up on this girl... go look for another?

Should you ignore this guy totally and continue as if nothing'd been said?

Maybe challenge him to a duel?

How do you deal with these 'working on that girl you're picking up' guys?

Social circle dating is comfortable and familiar for most men. However, it's also the long road… and more often than not, the road to dissatisfaction and mediocrity.

Depending on socializing (read: building or joining social circles) to enjoy a sex life of abundance is like trying to kill a bird by throwing stones at it.

While it may work to get you SOME sex, it is an unnecessarily longwinded, circuitous route which is filled with annoying obstacles. And ultimately it will rarely, if ever, get you the quality you desire.

Today’s article will focus on this topic.

Can you learn to be social, alone in a room, on your computer or phone? Not really – you must get out into the world and socialize.

A man is not defined by his job, car(s), trophy wife (or wives), luck in the genetic lottery (good looks), muscles, house(s), other expensive toys (airplane(s), yacht(s)) or cashflow. He can have all those things, and still be considered a ruffian. Rough around the edges. People may still generally avoid him outside of what he can provide for them in terms of access to the various resources he commands.

What’s the missing ingredient? What is the feature which one finds to be ubiquitous among people who belong to the old landed aristocracy – the nobility – in Europe, and its American counterpart – “older” money (descendants of the industrial barons of the Gilded Age) and those belonging to the first families to set foot in today’s United States?

This will be the subject of today’s article. I will endeavor to guide you through what I consider to be the single most important tool you can possess to achieve personal satisfaction in life.

Bad vibes can poison your interaction without you being aware of it. So how do you know if you have a bad vibe problem? And if so… how do you FIX it?

Why do some people simply not like you?

In this article we’re going to look at a common affliction guys have, which is to misinterpret or be unable to understand why others react in a certain – negative – way to their behaviour.

This then leads guys to assume that others are “out to get them” but that this isn’t their fault.

We’ll also go over how you can improve yourself so that others begin to enjoy your presence more, and some potential reasons why they may not be enjoying it presently.

The ego is adept at tricking you into protecting it and overvaluing it when you should be looking outside and not within. When you get too lost inside yourself it is akin to the side effects of clinical depression or chronic injury: you become less aware of your surroundings, to your detriment.

This can make sense from a purely technical point of view. If you have a chronic injury you need to attempt to placate the physical pain to whatever levels you can or, if possible, to heal it using all the tools at your disposal. So you get an added focus boost on this unsolved problem in order to be better poised to overcome it as best you can.

The problem here is that anything outside this problem (which is inside) is relegated to a secondary plane. When a person is suffering from chronic pain it is difficult for them not to transmit this vibe, because you can see it in their eyes, their pain.

And so others feel it by association.