Tired

Since I started keeping track, I've been out 21 out of the last 30 days. Which is basically 50% of weekdays and all the time on weekends.

It gets pretty exhausting and I am re-thinking whether I want to keep going out as much as possible. Right now I am really dragging because I went to an after-hours place and got only a little sleep last night.

Who knows, maybe after a good night's sleep my attitude will be different.

The Red Queen

I just finished reading The Red Queen, and I have to give it a thumbs up. I was pleasantly surprised.

The reason I was surprised is that I generally find very shallow reasoning on the part of evolutionary biologists. For example, I feel a lot of Mystery's "Survival Value" and "Replication Value" stuff is crap. For most evolutionary biology stuff I hear, I am turned off by what I see as general tendency to do backward science, starting with the conclusion (e.g. men are bigger than women on average) and making unprovable conjectures (it must be because they fight more) as to the cause. In logic this is the fallacy of affirming the consequent: B is true, and A implies B, therefore A.

For the most part, The Red Queen avoids these types of questionable explanations. Many examples are taken from the animal kingdom, where strong patterns are irrefutably at work. The connection from that to human behavior is still an area of speculation and conjecture, but the reasoning is well thought-out and holds together pretty well.

There are a couple areas where the reasoning is still rather thin, but in those areas the author describes multiple competing theories for what forces are at work.

Unfortunately, the book does not have very specific relevance to pickup. It is certainly interesting and I got value out of reading it, but its value is not because it is practical.

Been Out

I've gone out 13 of the last 17 nights. Not all of them were for the purpose of cold-approach pickup. But simply getting out of the house and being social counts.

Settling Down Eventually

This is a response to Finch's comment on an earlier post of mine.

First the short answer: as far as me personally, I fully believe I will settle down eventually, and be happy to do so. Gaming is not a permanent solution for me and I'll get to why in a bit. But first let me share a little background.

I was with my first girlfriend (the woman to whom I lost my virginity) for two years. She wanted to marry me. I was faced with a problem, which was that I didn't know what else was out there and knew I would always wonder. I could never know whether I had made the right choice, or if I had just gone with what was convenient. With a sample size of one, I didn't even know whether she was better than average. We were good together but not "perfect" and she kept telling me that being like that was "normal" and that any relationship would have that. She told me our relationship was really amazingly unusual and awesome. I couldn't take her word for it and I had to break up with her.

I see the game as helping me in two long-term ways. First, by building skill, it increases the options I have, and it increases the likelihood that when i find a super awesome woman, that I'll be able to attract her and at least have a fair chance of winning her. The other way the game helps me is that through the experience of being with different women, it helps clarify what it is I really want. I think I have a pretty good idea, but actually seeing it and feeling it makes me more sure. I will be in a better position to confidently make the leap when the time comes.

The game also has short-term positive aspects too. There is a certain "fun" aspect to having a lot of variety, and a bit of an ego boost as well. Perhaps for some it is addictive. In my case I am pretty sure I'm not addicted because I'm having to make a conscious effort to keep at it.

There are advantages to settling down and being serious and even married. These are things that perpetual gaming can never give me. I can get a much deeper understanding of the one I'm with. We can have kids. We can travel all over the world together. It's a lot easier to invest time and energy, knowing she will be around.

For the right woman I would happily give up the game for these things. But I won't be able to win the right woman without more game, and without knowing what's out there I won't be comfortable in the knowledge that I have the right woman.

My expectation is that I'll be at it for another year or perhaps two.

Mini-vacation

Tuesday went out.
Wednesday didn't go out.
Thursday (tonight) not going out.

So that makes 10 out of the last 14 days. I'll be hitting it this weekend for sure though.

Going Out Enough?

Today is Tuesday. Monday I didn't go out, but I went out Sunday, Saturday, Friday, Thursday, Wednesday, and Tuesday of last week.

Tuesday I met a girl with whom I tried to set something up Friday. I saw her but she was with friends and couldn't be extracted.

Wednesday I went out alone and ran into a couple other PUA acquaintances. Had some good rapport with one woman but it didn't get anywhere.

Thursday I didn't intend to sarge. I was just going to chill at a bar with one of my regular girls. She showed up late though, and in the mean time I had started talking to (and gotten the number of) a girl I had met (barely) once before. We later made plans for Saturday.

Friday I went out with a few friends. Talked to plenty of women, including Tuesday girl, and had good vibe and rapport, but no real sexual traction or interest. On the way home I called one girl who I had never closed, but who has wanted me for a while. Closed.

Saturday I took out the girl from Thursday to two birthday parties. One was for one of my friends. The other was for one of her friends. Closed her that night.

Sunday went out with a wing, who opened a mixed 2-set. We bounced them downtown, and her attraction and BT hit the roof. She said she would happily ditch the guy she came with for me, but she drove and she feels she can't abandon him. She was equally or even more attracted to my friend.

Monday took a break. Before class I did have a couple drinks with a girl who is in one of my classes. I had very solid rapport and I figured it was time to start turning it sexual/flirty. Not counting it as "going out" since I didn't do any bar or club cold approach. Monday night regular girl came over.

So I've been out for 9 out of the last 11 days. That's decent.

I'm Going To Hit On You

I have been working on this opener for a few weeks now. By working on, I mean practicing, and coming up with phrases to include. I ran it a few times last Friday, and so far it hasn't failed me.

I like to use it in situations where there is an inherent situational time constraint. For example, "The band is between sets, so while it's possible to talk, I'm going to..." Or, "It looks like you're waiting for friends to show up, so in the five minutes until they arrive, I'm going to..."

The idea is that I will verbalize all the things needy, low value guys do to hit on women, which makes them uncomfortable. By describing the things that make them uncomfortable, and telling them that I am going to make them uncomfortable, I demonstrate that I understand what it's like to be in their position. I know what does and what doesn't make women uncomfortable, which implies that I know how not to make them uncomfortable.

My words, taken at face value, say "Here, check this out, I'm going to make you uncomfortable." But the actual message is "Here, check this out, I'm going to make fun of all the retarded guys who hit on girls and make them uncomfortable." The girls will actually smile and welcome my "hitting on them" attempt.

After I describe what I am going to do, I transition. I get "distracted" by something else, and I don't actually do what I said I was going to do.

So I start a conversation with something they can relate to, and simultaneously put them at ease that I am not going to make them uncomfortable in the usual way. I demonstrate that I understand their world in a somewhat humorous way.

And we're off and running.

So Far So Good

Ok. Since I posted, I went out Friday, then again on Saturday, then again on Sunday. Sunday I didn't game much since venue was dead. I mostly talked to friends instead. Monday took a break, and now it's Tuesday and I'm about to head out...

Complacent

I have a problem. This seems to be pretty good at derailing me. It kills most of my desire to go out. The problem is I have a couple girls who are fairly cool, and I settle in to a routine where I see them regularly.

Intellectually, my goals are not just to get laid as much as I want. I want to develop the skill so that when I encounter the perfect woman, I can attract and keep her, perhaps even marry her. That's my long term goal. But in the short term, when I'm facing the effort of going out and working at it, versus staying home and having sex, the sex is so tempting.

So here is my promise. Especially now that class is out, I will go out at least four times each week, and NOT bring along a girl I've already closed. I will do this at least until weekend classes start again.

AA and Pride

I used to be a master at opening. I could open with anything, from Jealous Girlfriend, to I Like Salad, to I'm Going To Hit On You.

At my bootcamp, I had some awareness and some worry over what the girls might think, but I was much more afraid of looking like a loser in front of Grandmaster. I opened without hesitation. And for months afterward, I had very little trouble. I was a guy with underdeveloped social circuitry, pretending to have a defective circuit that made me talk to everyone. Pride was not a problem. I had no self-image to uphold. Any results were positive results.

Actually my social circuitry was not underdeveloped, it was just differently developed. Ugh, I can't believe I just wrote that. Anyway I have always been likable, and I make friends easily, so my normal "everyday" social wiring is healthy. But the bar/club vibe was completely alien to me, and I had extremely bad intuition when it came to courtship situations.

Now the bar/club setting is making more sense and becoming more familiar. I have better intuition with women. Now that I'm starting to see it as normal and not alien, all my old everyday social circuitry which was already healthy, is starting to come in and tell me what's good and what's fucked up and weird. I can't blame failures on me being not myself and dropped into an alien world. Now my results are actually me.

Here is where it starts to get tough. Here is where we find out what kind of Man I am.

The Transition from Girl to Woman

If the subject of age comes up (and it almost always does), I'll say this:

I've noticed women change a lot between 20 and 30. There is a sort of transition that happens. Sometimes it occurs earlier, sometimes it occurs later, but it usually happens between 20 and 30. Prior to the transition, a girl will be flaky, she won't really know what she wants in life, she'll pay way too much attention to what her friends think. After the transition, she'll have found herself, she knows what she likes and what she doesn't like, and if she sees something she wants she goes for it. She's grown up.

I just met you, so I don't really know if you've gone through the transition yet, but since you're 23, I'd say there's only a 30 percent chance you've gone through the transition...

Requiring Exclusivity

Twice now a girl has demanded exclusivity, and when I told her I couldn't be exclusive, she backed down and decided she was okay with it, even though she "never does that."

One case, she had asked for exclusivity, and I had agreed. And I kept my agreement even though I had other opportunities I had to turn down. Then eventually, I decided I really needed to not be exclusive and I told her. She was really unhappy and wanted to know if there was anything that could make it "like it was before." I told her I'm just not ready for getting serious like that, and while I've made good on my promise, I want to be honest and I just can't.

The other one, the subject of exclusivity had never come up. Now, previously I've taken the attitude that if it doesn't come up then it's no problem. This has gotten me in trouble because I tend to give off boyfriend signals through some of the things I do. This boyfriend vibe has led girls to believe that I'm in a position I'm not, even when no words have been said about it. So in this case I brought up the subject myself, and said that I couldn't be exclusive. She said she needed me to be exclusive and basically implied that I was playing her. I mentioned that I didn't have to say anything but I know I give off vibes like that and I don't want to hurt her. I said I'm telling you because I care about you and I don't want to hurt you.

For a while she didn't want to see me in person (though she was fine with talking online or on the phone). She needed time to think. She said her friends told her she shouldn't speak to me ever again. Then after a while she decided she was okay seeing me in person. Then she decided she was okay sleeping with me after all, even though she had been very emphatic in saying she "doesn't do that."

So much for that.

Inauguration

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, I have a blog now. It seemed like the thing to do.

Those of you who know me know that I'm not much one for FRs or LRs but perhaps that may change. We'll see.

I'm a little apprehensive because I want to keep control over my Google footprint. Preventing Google from connecting things I don't want connected might be tricky, but I think I can handle it.

V