ALL the cocky-funny, ALL the DHV routines, ALL the AMOGing lines are ALL in MY HEAD. I JUST NEED to progressively get out there and push myself.
—-
That 3.5 yr line spitting weirdo did not accept himself. THAT was why he sucked so bad after so long. He probably heard that voice in his head telling him “this is weird” and DISMISSED it as his old Beta self. “this is weird, this question is unrooted” => save it with rooting routine / go cocky funny / be alpha. Go with gut? No. Maybe that’s why I’m doing so well (?) is I’m not afraid to trust my gut, and USE my social intuition (!). We all have it and it’s the only thing that’ll save you sometimes all the time. THIS is why Style fucked up Lisa.

Not accepting yourself is a massive flaw that Pickup will NOT solve.

Update 2

I’ve been in London for the past week or so, so I could go out every night. Cambridge is a bit dead.

i’ve met a lot of guys in this game. some of them decent, some of them i’d be embarrassed to go out and talk to women with. i met a guy last night who has been in the game for 3.5 years. Continuously? Sometimes he’d go out every 2 weeks, some 3 nights a week, but I guess yes. He had little fear approaching women. He has tons of routines and techniques in his head. I would be embarrassed to talk to girls with him. I saw him approach one set of girls, he started with “would you date a guy in a wheelchair”. Eventually they screamed why are you asking us! I don’t think he had any reason to give them.

I only saw him approach two groups of people and I hope he got better once he warmed up, but I wasn’t impressed.

I had a realization on the train today:
That 3.5 year line spitting weirdo did not accept himself. THAT was why he sucked so bad after so long. He probably heard that voice in his head telling him “this is weird” and DISMISSED it as his old Beta self. “this is weird, this question is unrooted” => save it with rooting routine / go cocky funny / be alpha. Go with gut? NO. Maybe that’s why I’m doing so well* is I’m not afraid to trust my gut, and USE my social intuition (!). We all have it and it’s the only thing that’ll save you sometimes all the time.

(If you read the Game: THIS is why Style fucked up Lisa. He learned an act. His act didn’t work on everyone. My guesstimation is that he had the right amount of faith in his social intuition to be able to use routines and tactics and techniques correctly, but not so little that he had be told EVERY LITTLE sticking point. That said, he did have lots of successful mentors who maybe could have told him most of the little sticking points.)

Not accepting yourself is a massive flaw that Pickup will NOT solve.

We ALL can be put in ANY situation and our own SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE will get us out of it. We understand ALL of this stuff. It ALL is in our heads. As my confidence grows, I will Be ABLE to USE it MORE & MORE. THAT is what this is about. ALL the cocky-funny, ALL the DHV routines, ALL the AMOGing lines are ALL in MY HEAD. I JUST NEED to progressively get out there and push myself.

* I can talk to people, and I’m decent at talking to people. Average is pretty low for the guys generally in this stuff. Most are too afraid to go out.

So, you all know I’ve gotten into pickup. I always want to contribute back to the community, but I feel I’m sort of on a plane a bit above the normal viewpoint. It’s also a controversial subject. That’s really why I want to write this. I think it is awesome behavioral therapy when done right, and should not be regulated to “weird things guys do to get women”.

I bet most single males on this list fall into one of these three categories:

a) Never heard of pickup or haven’t realized what’s possible with it.
b) Dismissed it as not for them, too hard, bullshit, etc.
c) Very intrigued.

If you are in A, read The Game by Neil Strauss. I’d say Neil Strauss fell into the one trap I’m going to talk about below (and that’s why I think he messed up with Lisa at the end of the book) but he still was *extremely successful*. If you are in B or C, this email is for you. I was in A until I randomly found some pickup artist’s blog and thought, Wow, this exists?!? He talked about approaching a random woman (at the book store or on the train, etc) every day and I thought that was super scary sounding. I later thought only “cool guys” could do it and it probably wasn’t for me. A few months ago I read The Game and moved to category C and have been hooked ever since.

It’s winter break and I came to London a week ago to be able to go out every night. This summer I’d like to move to New York. I’d be able to go out every night and it’s close to Rutgers so I could start getting established around there. It’s like when Dr R mentioned continuing the behavioral group for a year. That’s how I see it.

Pickup starts with guys who want to get women but it goes way further than that. To say it’s “just about getting women to like you” would be missing the point. It turns out the best way to be successful at that is to take everything social from social anxiety therapy to the mega-extreme.

Once I got into it, it was WAY more exciting than the therapy I was doing for SAD. I think the reason was with SAD our goal is “to become normal, hopefully” because we think that’s what’s possible. But with this the goal is potentially totally fucking high.

Ethics

Ultimately, all pickup is teaching is confidence. We are not doing anything that an ultimately confident male couldn’t do. I define confidence here as *truly* not caring what ANYone thinks of you. This means that if you do something bad to someone, you TRULY don’t care that they hate you now. You’ll have to use your own sense of ethics. Being nice to people only because you are afraid of what they think of you is demeaning to them. Being nice to people because you care FOR YOURSELF about being a good person, even though you don’t give a shit about what anyone else thinks of you: that’s where it’s at. It’s true there’s not much sense of ethics in the pickup community, and it is centered around women even though there are no women in it. You’ll have to bring your own ethics/morals, this is fine. I think we’re only being truly ethical when we are doing it for ourselves, and not because of laws or what people think.

meeting women should be natural.

It is natural, if you are truly confident. If you don’t think you can act certain ways and do certain things, you’re not there. Example, being afraid to make a move and kiss the girl because you are afraid of offending her and losing her. It is natural to kiss the girl, but a lot of guys don’t have the confidence. Everything in pickup puts you in the mindset where you have that confidence. Everything in pickup blows away your old thoughts of “but I could never do that.” Being yourself isn’t enough if you don’t think much of yourself. Five years ago “being myself” would have been cowering in the proverbial corner. In other words, without confidence we can’t be “ourselves”.

When to get into it?

When you accept yourself. Moreover, when you are able to trust your own sense of social intelligence and social intuition.

I’ve met a lot of guys in this. You can broadly put them under two categories (or extremes)
a) “natural” style where guys just sort of “wing it” with some amount of guidance from what they’ve read & experienced.
b) guys with large routine stacks

I don’t recommend B. Here’s my analysis. The difference is that the guys under A were largely normal when they got into it, and trusted their social intuition. The guys in B never believed THEY could do it. They thought they NEEDed the infinite sets of routines, rules, and techniques to get anywhere. They never viewed these situations (talking to random women) as normal, but rather as some weird alter-reality that only pickup artists knew how to handle. They never used their own sense of what felt right. Ultimately this should all feel right. This is all natural and normal for a really confident alpha-male. All the routines, techniques, and tips are ALL in our brains already. We just might not be confident enough to use them.

But really, when to get into it? I don’t know. I thought when you could start to approach random people to ask some question (e.g. directions to somewhere) that would probably be enough to get going. It is, but there’s the danger of feeling you need to follow infinite sets of routines and rules and throw your self out the window. When I was starting out, I felt the pressure to memorize lots of routines but only when I saw guys better than me. I knew there was something bad about it.

Some mixture of A and B is good to keep you “being yourself” but also trying new confident things. It is hard.

Neil Strauss (of The Game) became ludicrously successful following B to some degree, but I’ve never seen a guy be much good who’s in that direction. Usually I’m embarrassed to be around them when they’re talking to women.

Tammy said I was very good at taking the good parts and throwing out the bad. That’s either because I’m special , or because I did a LOT of the SA therapy first. I went through the tapes (CD’s) a couple times, I wrote dozens of pages of my own handouts, I went to the therapy group in Phoenix, but late in the game, after I had a few years of cognitive in me. I was always thinking what would help me the most and not being mechanical. I also did other things, like trips to random countries with then-strangers. I was living in a social environment: college (which could be found other ways with more effort like meetup.com). I got a good mix of the cognitive and behavioral. So, therapy had imprinted in my brain very soundly the importance of being yourself and not trying to impress others.

Pickup contradicts these ideals every chance it gets. Very few guys (gurus) out there (I’ve found just one – Wayne Elise) actually say “be yourself” in any way. But still you can’t dismiss everything they say, it clearly works for someone! You need to filter it through your beliefs. Without the SA therapy this fucks guys up. They go B hardcore, that’s all they CAN do. A lot of guys in pickup should really be in SA therapy. But I think they’ll snap out of it eventually. It’s better than sitting at home for sure.

it’s not that what other people think doesn’t matter or you don’t care. it’s rather that you just don’t consider it. your decisions are your decisions and everyone else will work themselves out regardless. the universe takes care of it’s children, and that takes faith. faith that i can let go of the fears and the logical thoughts about what i “have” to do to get something i want and rather just focus on myself and what i want, let others do the same, and it will all come together. because you don’t want others to be nice to you or to not flaunt something in front of you for fear of what you’d think. you wan them to be real with you. to let it all out. censorship or in any way calculated actions or thoughts is not what you want.

teh most thing i ever got from grant was confidence. the go ahead. and that got me the most success ever. that is the key that is the key!

it’s not about success or failure. it’s about self-created failure by not even trying. all trying is good trying. it’s ABOUT failing. it’s about going out there and getting the other people to fail the interaction so that it doesn’t fail by you not doing it.

that the only thing needed in this to succeed is ourselves. no mentors no advice. they give nothing but placebo-style confidence.

that i am normal, natural, healthy and THAT’S ALL IT TAKES. and i have that.

and i can unplug and de-teather from that source because the SOURCE is MYSELF and that’s ALL i ever had.

nothing holds me back.

because i don’t need anything!

and ANY and ALL of this crap that you slog through – what to say, what to do, any individual girl – THAT’S A MIRAGE. the journey goes on.

this is really the meaning of what grant says when he says “I learn what I do from the women I know.” and similar statements of his.

because no i’m not the most fearful guy out there, but ya, i’m still scared. there are still parts of that guy in me. and i want to know how to approach that part of me.

is this self-improvement or is this having a good time? where’s the division between the two? is there one?

i don’t want to be going to clubs on friday nights and have it be “self-improvement”. I want it to be having a good time, and everything that might go with that (drinking, not *need*ing to approach girls).

but what if my first inclination to having a good time on a friday night were to not talk to anyone? it seems i’d have to inject some conscious push to overcome that, and why? it doesn’t “feel” like i’m doing it as part of my good night, because the amount of fear i’m pushing past is more than the off-chance this approach turns into anything. it feels like self improvement or “for the purpose of approaching girls”.

in some way, i know the answer is with looking past that fear. grant says questions more important than answers, and these are the wrong questions. the answer is to focus on different questions.

that our fears are baseless and irrational, that these questions don’t help us,

Wait, Dr. Richards, focusing handout:

ok, feelings handout, p. 95
“A: The anxious feelings are there so that you can stop asking, ‘Why are they there?’ ‘Why do I have them?’ …. The more you ask, ‘Why are they there?’ the more they will be there. Q: And the less I notice and ask about these feelings, the less tehy will be there? A: That’s right.”

focusing handout, p. 111
“Our feelings lie to us, and if we focus on them, they will only grow and make us more anxious.

Our focus should be on what we DO.

We need to DO something, even if it causes a little anxiety, whether we FEEL like it or not.

In other words, our focus should not be on ourselves and the way we feel.

We can never gauge our progress by checking teh emotion that gives us pain, because if we continually check our anxiety, we will be reinforcing it, allowing it to grow, and fueling the fire.”

FUCKING A.
FUCKING. A.

i swear to god this thing is my fucking bible.

the answer is to not focus on that fear. judge it as irrational and then discard it from your reality. if it is too much to do that with, start lower. but realize YOU, SCOTT, are in the place where you probably can just IGNORE IT IF YOU CHOOSE TO.

Decision is the key. It’s about DECIDING to ignore the feelings you know are irrational. YES you feel it. YES it is irrational. NO i don’t need to heed it. YES i can ignore it.

it’s a matter of coming to resolution that it IS irrational and i just choose to NOT FOCUS ON IT. “the less I notice and ask about these feelings, the less they will be there” FUCKING A, it ALL comes back to the therapy.

I was definitely noticing and asking about those feelings. I wanted to know why they were there. I wanted to have the affirmation from on high that it was OKAY.

i’d still like to hear this from grant because i think really just part of us doesn’t actually believe this all can work in such social settings as these.

i’ll still put this to grant at some point just to SEE what i get.

I was treating it as fear, but it is, anxiety, fear, resistance, whatever, it’s all interchangeable, really, it’s all teh same thing. different sides of the same coin, the same feeling, manifested different ways, different amounts.

there is so much to gain by just DECIDING that it is RIGHT to just IGNORE the fear. YES it is there. YES you can ignore it.

I keep thinking back to ron and how much he was focusing on taht fear, and the KEY is to NOT focus on it.

Do you know how HUGE this is? This means i can approach. I can DECIDE to approach.

what about doing something where I DON’T EVEN KNOW IF I WILL GET ANYTHING FOR IT. where i don’t even know if it will help me as a PERSON. WHAT THEN?

That is the direction that I say I should move in.

Push yourself where you do things where you don’t even know it will help you. Where maybe it will be BAD for your DEVELOPMENT as a PERSON. RISK TRUE SETBACKS.

This ISN’T “well in this way I will push myself and each of these events will actually end up being good for me”.

This is “some of these events could actually be so detrimental that they might hurt me more than anything else has helped.”

This is true recklessness. true risk. a recklessness that i think is a virtue.

But why do it? because i choose to. Because this recklessness is a virtue. a strength. that even if i get into a true jam. truly fuck myself up. 5 years of progress gone. even then, i’m okay. so truly screw it, risk it all, be free of it all.

because i’d rather risk it, than be stuck in surety. than be stuck in figuring it out. i will choose the red wire or the green wire and cut it, and not spend 5 hours figuring out which is best. i will cut it, it could blow up in my face, and then i’ll just deal with having no face anymore. i choose that over crushing, overbearing surety.

Except that I choose not to.

I focus on myself. On what I want now, and

8 weeks left, right? Right

Diff geo? needs a week of problems
Alg top? say 2 weeks
Alg geo? say 2 weeks
Other class? say 2 weeks
that leaves one week for QFT.

So while I could really jump into it and really learn the dense maths behind quantization, it does not fit in the schedule, and will not be on the exam. It’s important so enhance my broad understanding, but for now, I think it will be skipped.

The only reason to work at any of tihs, is just because it might open some doors, or provide some opportunities. That’s it. That’s teh only reason.

Musical chairs at 6. WHO TEH FUCK CARES! I can go if I want. I can go to please myself! I am NOT going to “make an appearance” or to affect ANYone’s opinion of me. Fuck them. It’s about me. I don’t even HAVE to go. I don’t GIVE a fuck. This is ALL about me.