Socializing

An emotional connection is one of those fleeting, powerful things that can seem all too rare and all too outside one's control. It can seem like it's just chance when you happen upon one -- as if but by the grace of God it came into being.

But it doesn't have to be. Just like succeeding with women in general -- just like figuring out how to launch businesses and succeed financially -- just like anything in life -- the ability to build an emotional connection is something that can be learned.

Most people don't like to hear that. Most people want to think that all in life is pure happenstance and nothing other than fate determines the outcome of their lives. But those of us actively in pursuit of bettering ourselves and of mastering the skills to control our own destinies know better -- that a lot less in life is chance than most folks think.

A lot of it is skill.

And learning to connect with people on an emotional level is one of the most powerful, practical, wide-reaching skills you can possibly learn. If you haven't given much thought to this one before, it's high time you started.

A guy meets a girl he thinks he might really like. She's cute, she has a great energy about her, and there's something about her – the way she looks at him, the way she smiles and laughs when he says something funny, the way he feels just being in her presence – that makes him get a little excited about her.

What comes next though is that one thing that's troubled so many men throughout history: once you've found one that you like, how do you get to know a girl?

In this post, I'm going to take a look with you at the old concept of "screening and qualifying," at how men usually get to know girls – and the mistakes they make – and at deep diving once again.

Best of all, I'm going to introduce you to a very different way of thinking about getting to know women from the traditional screening and qualifying mindset that's so pervasive out there right now, that's guaranteed to help you fit the pieces together in a much more streamlined way.

Let's dive in.

I'm being driven nuts right now about a discussion I'm having with my girlfriend about something we've already discussed and I thought was settled. It has to do with a difference in belief systems; I show her solid evidence and research from the West proving my position, she returns to hearsay, word-of-mouth, and ingrained beliefs she's getting from friends in the East who aren't actually informed on the matters at hand but have firm beliefs on them nonetheless.

She's normally a very logical, rational girl, but this specific matter is driving her uncharacteristically batty, and she's falling back to fears refuted by science but given weight by popular opinion. Understanding why this happens to otherwise sane, rational individuals is key to understanding how people's views of the world are built and maintained.

It's similar to the autism-vaccine "debate" that's going on in the States right now, or the electricity-cancer "debate." No matter how much research is done to show that there is absolutely, positively, no link whatsoever between vaccines and autism, or power stations and cancer, people continue to believe there are causal links anyway, because they've seen and heard sources that support their position.

The worst part is, it doesn't matter where those sources got their information from. It doesn't even matter if the sources outright say, "I just know it." The only thing that matters is that there are, indeed, sources that support the position.

Enter reference points: something I've mentioned at times on this blog but haven't devoted an actual post on (see "How to Get Real Girls" and "Social Status: Building It and Using It" for the latest posts that mentioned these). Reference points and reference experiences are what we use to define our belief systems, worldviews, and ideas about reality, and they're absolutely crucial to the way we see life on Planet Earth.

I've been getting called "gentle" and "a gentleman" quite a bit recently. Me, of all people! The man who prides himself on taking women as lovers within a few hours of meeting them, and who hardly ever goes on second dates because he either sleeps with a girl on the first date, or burns the house down trying.

Yet I am, according to more and more women I meet these days, a gentleman.

I've had an interesting and at times soap opera-y progression of events over the past week in which my girlfriend has contacted an ex-girlfriend of mine, whom she'd never met or spoken to, in order to, at first, vent about me and seek her guidance, and now to be friends with her. My ex-girlfriend and I have since reconciled, and my current girlfriend and my ex-girlfriend have been comparing notes on me: the good and the bad.

I have a big belly (I'm skinny by American standards, but... I'm not in America anymore).

My face gets red very easily.

I'm troublesome and not simple. Just when they think they have me figured out... they realize they were wrong.

And, I'm a gentleman. I have gentle eyes. I'm a gentle person.

That last one is no accident, mind you. Being a gentleman is something I've long aspired to be. I'm a big believer that a man can be fast, powerful, and incredibly seductive – and yet, still manage to be dashing, enchanting, and considerate.

James Bond is a rogue and a knave, and he shoots bad guys and beds women – a LOT of women – with speed and expertise.

But he's still a gentleman. And if you aren't – well, I think you should aim to be, too.

Social status: it's more than just something you get or don't get, have or don't have. Lots of people don't see it that way, though; they tend to think of social status as simply a dividing line between the people who are "in" and the people who are "out."

The line, though, is not so clear. And even within the "in" and "out" groups, you can point out distinctions: the guy in the "in" group who's really only in it because he has some connection people need, otherwise they wouldn't include him at all; the girl who's "in" more than her girlfriends, who are kind of just along for the ride with her. The guy who's "out" but still has connections in the "in" group and only seems to be "out" by choice. The girl who's "out" and so far "out" it seems impossible she could be anything else, because that's how she chooses to define herself.

Then there are the people who seem to step around conventional social status entirely; the ones who exude intrinsic status and can flow seamlessly among groups and be included quickly and easily wherever they see fit. These are the people we're talking about when we talk about ultimate social calibration; these are the folks who've stepped off the ladder and come up with a different way for moving socially.

Because as it turns out, there's more than one way you can build and maintain and use social status, and climbing up the social ladder of the closest "scene" is only one of those.

Let's start by talking about what status is good for.

You know the feeling: you find yourself in a conversation that's stuck on the superficial. You're talking about the weather; about how you both hate getting up early in the morning; about what the local sports team did last week; about how sushi is okay but katsu sauce... man, that's where it's at.

Basically, small talk. But, small talk that's beginning to seem like it's not even getting you to big talk.

You start feeling like this conversation is taking you nowhere.

You've just realized you're in a polite conversation. And this post is about helping you get out of that.

Last weekend in the post on talking to lots of girls, a reader, Lau'Ren'Tay, made the following request:

Could you please write a comprehensive about socializing with a woman. If your not wasting your time in conversation or are? I don't know if you have something covering that, or related to that.

Sure thing, Lau'Ren'Tay; I don't believe I do have on up here like that, so I'm happy to oblige. Here then is the post on recognizing whether what you're in or not is polite conversation – and on how to get out of it when you are.

If you're in college, or you ever went to college, you're familiar with a phenomenon that's known widely today as "hook up culture:" the Western tradition of getting together for quick flings and casual intimacy with your friends. The way it's supposed to work is, you go out and get drunk, and you wake up the next day with some girl you're friends with. The two of you smile and laugh about it and then go about your lives as if nothing had happened. Or, perhaps, you hold a late night study session, and then the night goes a little later than either of you expected, and you end up in one another's arms. And then, the next day, maybe it's a little awkward, but again, you smile and laugh about it and shrug it off and it's on to the next one. But there's a problem with this idea of hook up culture, and it's a problem that drives lots of men crazy pulling their hair out and throwing monkey wrenches into their own efforts to bring women into their lives. The problem is, hooking up with friends is that it doesn't quite work as advertised. In fact, more often than not, it doesn't work at all. But why?