Socializing

We recently had a younger member of our discussion boards throw something of a temper tantrum there because he’d apparently been desperately trying to get my personal attention, but not succeeded, and became bitter and resentful toward me. I simply haven’t been on the boards a huge amount lately, because I’m swamped, and when I have been on them his posts hadn’t caught my eye as needing any specific attention or input from me beyond what was already being provided perfectly well by everyone else to him. He then waded in with a bevy of sour remarks about me – someone he’d never met who’s never (so far as I recall) interacted with him.

Needless to say, a string of personal attacks wasn’t an effective approach by this member – one who’d been spoiling the vibe on the boards for a lot of other people, too. All it managed to do was get my focus on him long enough to rebut his attacks, and then, after radio silence from him for a week or so, lock his account to make sure he wouldn’t come back and cause more drama.

Prior to this outburst, this same member had been trying to find ways to get in contact with me personally, as well as to get me to sell a small product he’d cobbled together based on site material. He’d apparently been frustrated to have interacted solely with Genaro, our customer service pro, via email (we thanked him for the offer, but it wasn’t something we were looking to do), and to not get the attention from me he desired elsewhere, either.

I share this with you because I want to point out that I understand what he was trying to accomplish – he wanted a mentor, and he wanted me, specifically... but that he went about it in all the wrong sorts of ways.

Ways that speak to some of the most common mistakes people – especially people who have yet to really develop their social intuitions – make when pursuing mentors; and when you’ve yet to have achieved any real success in your life, the process of securing a mentor can seem every bit as daunting as securing dates or relationships with beautiful women.

So how do you do it?

Weighing in on "You’re Not That Special (and Neither is She)", 340Breeze made a great and perceptive comment on the emotional inhibition and sexual repression rampant in Western English-speaking countries, particularly in America. His comment was a long one, but it's a good one, and I'll repost it in its entirety here:

“There needs to be a solution to dealing with the culture and its influence on women's mentalities...and a discussion on how those influences make seduction more difficult than it should otherwise be. Here in America we men have to deal with, among other things: the slut-shaming phenomenon, and other inhibitions that emanate from commodity status. I am glad that you guys have pointed out some of these detrimental mindsets. Would be nice to see an article or at least a page that summarizes these inhibition inducing mindsets, and a solution or two that a man can use to empower the women he fancies.

One issue (among many) with commodity status is how the observers/players treat commodities. If a woman thinks a man is a commodity, and thus expendable, why would she spend much time forgiving slights and looking for value in him as a person? The path of least resistance is to get bored and easily replace the commodity with something else. But you can quickly see why a man would (a commodity) be hesitant to treat any particular woman that he meets as special as she thinks she is, especially if he fears that he would open up himself to potential hurt/pain given that she would replace him in an instant. But that's inhibition.

I think this commodity concept stems from capitalism in part. Commercials, movies, etc make things/products appear effortless like there is little hard-work involved in creating a superior product/service, which of course is an illusion. Another issue with capitalism's influence on people's mentalities is the ease of acquiring the goods that you most value. If you have the money/credit then you simply buy it/get a loan for it. Simple. But getting the people you most value to remain incentivized to come back for more isn't always easy or effortless at all (until you become more attractive than most). Some girls I've met who think they're superior just don't understand how they stack up against other 'outlier' women that I've met before. Some are unaware or don't care all that much about what qualities an 'outlier woman' possesses vs an average woman who thinks she is superior but lacks most of the outlier qualities. Yet these average women feel entitled to be treated as special as a woman who possesses (in my view) superior qualities and abilities. Qualities such as feminine charm, grace, ambition, uninhibited (and thus not lukewarm) when it comes to her sexuality, smarts, good body weight, independence, good looks, humility, living a passionate life she truly enjoys, can tease/take jokes adequately, knows how to touch me to excite me, can dress the part well (casual vs sophisticated), high emotional intelligence about people's needs/wants other than her own, and so on.

The problem with dating is how some people respond to the dreaded commodity status. Some become somewhat inhibited (if they feel they may replaced at a moment's notice by inadvertently triggering autorejection in someone they like). Others might overcompensate and become an asshole (who negs other people to pop the bubble of superiority and bring others down to earth). I've met girls who refuse to compliment, who refuse to charm, who refuse to do anything to make a new, unproven man, feel special..at all. And at first I couldn't understand this mentality (like how could you like somebody but refuse to make them feel good??) But I've asked some women why, and they've later told me they fear being charming at all to a new guy because they don't want to inflate any egos of any man who might drop them on a dime...Hmmm.

But the point of seduction is to treat another human being special. Unfortunately, inhibition is a killer to seduction. Much of what you guys teach bears this out...you guys teach how to respond to inhibited women who worry about slut-shaming, which causes inhibition. You guys also teach how to avoid auto-rejection and the inhibited/cold behavior that results from it. Again, inhibition. And plus women are attracted to confidence like moths to a flame and by definition the confident aggressive seducer doesn't present himself in an inhibited way.

So I've been thinking about it recently, trying to put words to my actions, and I conclude that what has resulted is my response to women's behavior that follows from 'commodity status.' I have to spend much of my time in the beginning around certain women having to empower them and subtly encourage them (excite them even??) to become less inhibited around me and to open up and to trust me...on a deeper, non-superficial basis. I have to instill confidence in them first that it is okay to be sexual, or to tell deep secrets that they hold inside. But if I am successful, then the floodgates of emotion flow out from within. Other girls are relatively uninhibited from the start and need little, if any encouraging on my part to spice things up really nicely. Have you ever noticed a similar phenomenon?

Cheers,

340Breeze.”

I agree with Breeze, that this is one worth addressing - so here's my shot at explaining what this is and how to deal with it.

You see a really cute girl in a bar/club, on the bus, or even on the street. There’s some really greasy guy all over her, and you can tell she’s really uncomfortable and wants nothing to do with him. “I’m a good guy. If only I could go over her and have her meet a guy who’s actually quality”, you think to yourself.

But you’re not sure what to do. You don’t want to make the situation worse by introducing another guy into the scenario and potentially have things blow up in your face. Yet, you also know that it could go well... if you got this creepy guy out of the picture and were able to save the girl.

Today I’m going to show you why I see the opportunity to save a girl as one of the greatest and most fun opportunities for seduction. I’m going to show how to be suave, playful and will teach you to never doubt yourself when you have the opportunity to save a girl from a creepy guy.

In "Effort Aversion: Or, Why You Don't Work Hard and Get Laid", Gem asks the following about picking up girls with male friends or orbiters around:

“Chase is there a way to efficiently approach girls who have orbiters with them; the problem here is sort of congruent to approaching a set I would think where it's tough to make a smooth natural approach because it isn't one on one.

Lately I've been seeing a lot of girls with orbiters at the gym (it's quite sad really), and my standard approach here has always been to wait till the orbiter goes to drink water or use a separate machine and meet the girl in that break that she is alone. If the guy comes back he may come back or stay away and if he comes and she thinks they're good "friends" she might introduce him (or otherwise ignore him; it makes no difference once I've met the girl).

A great girl I met yesterday took me a long time to approach because her orbiter was with her forever watching her squat ass to grass and not even working out haha. The girl and I met eyes several times but I couldn't approach till the guy went to get water. Finally I met the girl and moved things forward and the guy didn't come back but I remember kicking myself at how long it took and if there were a better way I could think of to do the whole approach would have went for it right then

-Gem”

Approaching girls with male friends hanging around. It's something that can scare you off of approaching at all, at least early on.

Yet, this one's far from impossible, and you may even find yourself getting a kick out of doing it if you're of a competitive nature.

Sometimes it's just fun watching that other guy's jaw drop in frustration and awe as you sweep in and make the kind of connection with a girl in minutes he's been working months to have... and then ask her out and get a "yes."

Of course, there's some nuance here - and chief among the details you need to mind is whether the girl respects the guy or not... and if so, how much.

Because how she thinks about, feels toward, and treats him is going to have big implications for the kind of approach you need to do to make the kind of headway with her you want to make.

Mess it up, and she may friend zone you fast... or reject you outright.

I was talking to a friend last night who'd been railroaded by a cluster B girlfriend of his - a girl with borderline personality disorder (he hadn't realized until years in), which, if you're not familiar with it, is a real crazy-making personality profile that makes the affected individual completely mistrusting of everyone, causing her to undermine her long-term relationships by focusing on getting concession after concession after concession, wearing down the people around her and inflicting a reverse-winner effect on them that depletes their testosterone, willpower, and energy reserves and causes them to crash emotionally.

The silver lining of being around people like this, though, is it makes you realize exactly where your weaknesses are: it shows you the chinks in your armor that others can use to gain leverage over you, to whittle you down, and to take control of you in ways you didn't realize you could be controlled.

I've gone through it, and it's been among the most educational periods of my life - because what was previously a vague awareness that you were just a little "too nice", a bit too much of a softy, and a little too much of a pushover, suddenly gets thrust into focus as exactly how dangerous small weaknesses like these can be around people determined to get things from you.

And, eventually, it leads you to the ultimate realization that nice people need hard rules.

In the article on finding the woman you most want, a reader named Alex asks a question about having sex with the women you work with:

“The question is about getting together with girls you work with, I am young guy, working jobs at the mall to save up for school. I feel attraction from a lot of the girls I work with, but want an idea of how to transition it into getting one on ones with them. I want it to go smoothly, because I work with them and would see them frequently. So I don't want strain working relationships, but since I'm there a good amount time, translating this environment into my dating life would be awesome.”

Now here's a question just about every guy has - whether he's working at the mall like Alex, or in a cubicle-filled office building, or working in a school with hot young teachers, or running his own business out of a co-working space where he passes sexy secretaries every day in the hallway or anywhere else a man trades 8 or 9 hours a day for a paycheck and ends up face to face with intriguing women and intractable social dilemmas.

Chase already did a piece on flirting at work; so if you want a more enjoyable workplace environment or to enlist your female colleagues in some engaging, sexy banter, definitely check that one out. Flirting at work is also going to be a key to our strategy for getting to more than just flirting, which I'll go into a little later on.

However, we also promised a follow-up piece on having sex with your colleagues... and getting laid at work.

This is that piece, and I'm going to tell you just how to turn your workmates into bedmates.

Ah, empathy. At its most basic level, “empathy” simply means “understanding where another person is coming from.” I worked in the counseling field for a couple years, so I have been pretty well-trained in how to have empathy for others, and even how to make them feel understood even when you can’t fully grasp what’s going on for them.

That’s the good news: you don’t actually have to understand what someone’s experiencing in order to empathize with her. Men will appreciate this, as women so often talk about issues that we simply cannot grasp, to which we simply want to offer easy suggestions.

Let’s begin with a basic distinction, “fixing vs. understanding.” If you have female friends — which I surely hope you do — you will be familiar with a common complaint women have about their men:

“I don’t want him to fix it, I want him to understand.”