Spirit Fingers
Don Juan
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2005
- Messages
- 159
- Reaction score
- 4
Donovan of The Attraction Chronicles recently did an email interview with me for his blog. I'm reposting it here, but you should also check out his site if you haven't already, it's got some good content on it.
Here it is:
Start with a brief biography. Age/Place/occuption/how long in the
game/profession, website... (photo if you're comfortable with that...)
I’m in my twenties, and a business student at a large university in Boston. I also work as a personal trainer.
I attended my first Lair meeting in October 2004, so I’ve been in the game for about a year and a half. I met Woodhaven at a Lair meeting, and ended up interning for him when he and Dimitri started theApproach. Currently, I also work for them as an apprentice instructor. I’ve had the pleasure of doing a few programs with them, and I’ve gotta say, it’s been incredible. You get to travel around the world doing something you love, and it’s a great experience being able to change a guy’s life for the better.
My website is The Natural Game Journals. It concentrates on Natural Game, which is my style of game. If you want to learn more about it, I recently compiled all my favorite natural game articles together in The Natural Game Compendium, which is available on my blog.
I’ll also be coming out with an e-book soon on sexual technique, called The Sex Revolution Handbook. Look for it to be released early this summer.
1. Describe the moment, when you suddenly realized, "I need to work
out this part of my life." (And how you found the community)
This was actually a long time in the making. About four years back, I was a virgin and a nerd. My life consisted of going to classes, doing the bare minimum of work to get by, and then heading home to play video games for six hours a day. Not such a rewarding lifestyle.
I came down with this hardcore one-itis for this girl who had LJBF’ed me. Of course, it didn’t work out, and I was pretty broken up about it. This other girl saw this and felt bad for me, so she offered to set me up with her friend on a blind date for this private party that was coming up. I met her friend and I really liked her. I thought it was going great, until half an hour into the party she straight up told me she wasn’t interested in me. She ended up going home with the DJ, who was about fifteen years older than her. And, driving home by myself, I blew out one of my tires and had to wait about four hours for a tow.
I had a lot of time to think in those four hours. I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t be a nerd anymore, and that I would get this part of my life handled.
I started lifting, cleared up my acne, and got a better haircut and better clothes. Physically, I went from a 2 to about a 7. I found the sosuave.net, and I thought I had found the Holy Grail of getting laid. It was actually just simplistic common-sense stuff like “be social” and “don’t be afraid of rejection,” but it did help my confidence a lot. I started becoming more social, and within a year I had actually had a decent social circle. I had sex for the first time the following summer, and it was so bad the girl never wanted to see me again. But, I had lost my virginity and I was making solid progress.
About a year and a half back, I went to my first Boston Lair meeting. I “sarged” with guys for the first time, and I loved the experience. I started going out every week with a guys from the Lair.
2. Have you had any mentors (perhaps well-known pickup artists) within
the community/life that have helped you improve your game, and what
did they teach you?
YES. Mentors have been instrumental in helping me succeed, and I would not be where I am now if it was not for three crucial pick-up mentors who helped me out tremendously.
My first mentor was a Boston PUA named Coldmirage. He was this fairly good looking Russian dude, and at the time he was the best PUA I’d seen in action. He had very good game, but he was somewhat of a “community natural” – he had a limited ability to articulate what made him successful. Actually, his game was very sloppy technically, and I picked up some bad habits from him. However, he was dominant as **** and just a cool dude, so he could pick up girls anyways. By emulating him I became much more dominant and made a lot of progress in my game. In about six months, he’d brought me to the point of being able to get phone numbers and the occasional Day2. This might not sound like a lot, but keep in mind I came from a base level of very little social skills.
In March of 2005, I meet Woodhaven at a Lair Meeting. He made a presentation, and I was blown away. When he decided to start theApproach with Dimitri a few months later, I wanted to take the workshop but there was no way I could afford it. I offered to become their intern, and work for them for free in return for training. That summer, I put up flyers, did computer work, made copies, lots of menial little tasks which I didn’t get paid for. But, it was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. Throughout the summer, they gave me 1-on-1 and sometimes 2-on-1 training. They sped up my progress a ton, and by the end of the summer I was actually pulling girls out of clubs, and getting laid off cold approaches.
3. Can you describe the first time you used a counter-intuitive
technique that yielded its promised results, and how you felt?
I used a lot of counter-intuitive standard community material in my early days, but the first time I used something counter-intuitive that actually worked for me was doing a direct approach. I’d read about guys having success with it, but I thought maybe it was just because they were good looking. I decided to test it out though – I thought that I’d have to creep girls out like 10-15 times before I finally got it to work.
To my surprise, the very first time I direct approached a girl in a bookstore, it worked great. I felt awesome, needless to say. This was the point where I started to break away from the standard community stuff, and lean more towards the Natural Game stuff.
4. Could you describe (If you haven't previously) what you're life was
like before you were aware of this, and/or what options you have with
women now (specifics, eg. i date a brunette hb8, etc)?
Well, it’s pretty simple. Back then, I had the option of whether to jerk off with my left hand or my right hand. Now, I have relationships with three awesome girls. My primary is a Bajan (from Barbados) black girl who’s a bartender/stripper at a few clubs around the city. I’d give her an 8. I’m really into this girl, and she sleeps over about five nights a week. My other girls are a blond HB7, and a brunette HB8. I don’t see these girls nearly as much as my primary, but I’ll hook up with them once every week or two.
5. What was your hardest/biggest sticking point?
For me, my biggest sticking point was preventing flakes. This past summer, I went nuts with the sarging. I’d have three dates lined up in a row, and frequently all three would flake on me.
The way that I got past this was not through any technique, but by a better understanding of what solid game is. Instead of doing a lot of flash game type stuff to make girls giggle and touch me, I’d concentrate on something which contributed to real attraction (value, attainability, or compliance) in the initial pickup. Also, I improved my phone game tremendously.
6. Do you have a favorite routine/step in your model, can you describe
it, and what it accomplishes?
My model of pickup is the Natural Game Attraction Model (VAC). If you’re not familiar with it, it’s described in this post by Dimitri:
A New Model of Attraction
It’s been refined a lot since the post was written, but that’s the basics.
Basically, it states that attraction can be broken down into three elements. Your value comes down to your social skills, social proof, style, body language, looks, etc. Attainability is how much the girl thinks she deserves you. And Compliance is how hard the girl has worked for you.
The idea of the model is to escalate Value, Attainability, and Compliance in roughly equal terms. The attraction the girl has to you will be equal to the weakest link in your VAC chain. For example, if you have lots of value and attainability, but no compliance, you’re just a dancing monkey – the girl won’t be attracted.
My favorite element in this model is definitely Compliance. Value and Attainability are roughly analogous to the mainstream community concepts of attraction and comfort, but compliance is something which hardly anyone talks about. Yet, it’s vital to create attraction. The biggest problem with community guys is that they work too hard for a girl’s approval, and don’t get enough compliance out of their girls. If you look at how most naturals operate, they aren’t entertaining storytellers like a lot of successful community guys. They’re just chill guys who don’t make social errors, give the bare minimum of compliance, and demand compliance out of those around them.
Knowledge of compliance has saved tons of sets for me. There comes a certain point in every pickup where you have the group laughing, touching you, etc., but you can sense their interest starting to wane. Before I knew about compliance, I probably would have just kept plowing them with my stories, trying to establish more value when I already had it. Now I know that in this situation, compliance is the problem. If at this point you go into screening, or cue put social pressure on her to contribute to the interaction, you’ll generate much more attraction.
Here it is:
Start with a brief biography. Age/Place/occuption/how long in the
game/profession, website... (photo if you're comfortable with that...)
I’m in my twenties, and a business student at a large university in Boston. I also work as a personal trainer.
I attended my first Lair meeting in October 2004, so I’ve been in the game for about a year and a half. I met Woodhaven at a Lair meeting, and ended up interning for him when he and Dimitri started theApproach. Currently, I also work for them as an apprentice instructor. I’ve had the pleasure of doing a few programs with them, and I’ve gotta say, it’s been incredible. You get to travel around the world doing something you love, and it’s a great experience being able to change a guy’s life for the better.
My website is The Natural Game Journals. It concentrates on Natural Game, which is my style of game. If you want to learn more about it, I recently compiled all my favorite natural game articles together in The Natural Game Compendium, which is available on my blog.
I’ll also be coming out with an e-book soon on sexual technique, called The Sex Revolution Handbook. Look for it to be released early this summer.
1. Describe the moment, when you suddenly realized, "I need to work
out this part of my life." (And how you found the community)
This was actually a long time in the making. About four years back, I was a virgin and a nerd. My life consisted of going to classes, doing the bare minimum of work to get by, and then heading home to play video games for six hours a day. Not such a rewarding lifestyle.
I came down with this hardcore one-itis for this girl who had LJBF’ed me. Of course, it didn’t work out, and I was pretty broken up about it. This other girl saw this and felt bad for me, so she offered to set me up with her friend on a blind date for this private party that was coming up. I met her friend and I really liked her. I thought it was going great, until half an hour into the party she straight up told me she wasn’t interested in me. She ended up going home with the DJ, who was about fifteen years older than her. And, driving home by myself, I blew out one of my tires and had to wait about four hours for a tow.
I had a lot of time to think in those four hours. I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t be a nerd anymore, and that I would get this part of my life handled.
I started lifting, cleared up my acne, and got a better haircut and better clothes. Physically, I went from a 2 to about a 7. I found the sosuave.net, and I thought I had found the Holy Grail of getting laid. It was actually just simplistic common-sense stuff like “be social” and “don’t be afraid of rejection,” but it did help my confidence a lot. I started becoming more social, and within a year I had actually had a decent social circle. I had sex for the first time the following summer, and it was so bad the girl never wanted to see me again. But, I had lost my virginity and I was making solid progress.
About a year and a half back, I went to my first Boston Lair meeting. I “sarged” with guys for the first time, and I loved the experience. I started going out every week with a guys from the Lair.
2. Have you had any mentors (perhaps well-known pickup artists) within
the community/life that have helped you improve your game, and what
did they teach you?
YES. Mentors have been instrumental in helping me succeed, and I would not be where I am now if it was not for three crucial pick-up mentors who helped me out tremendously.
My first mentor was a Boston PUA named Coldmirage. He was this fairly good looking Russian dude, and at the time he was the best PUA I’d seen in action. He had very good game, but he was somewhat of a “community natural” – he had a limited ability to articulate what made him successful. Actually, his game was very sloppy technically, and I picked up some bad habits from him. However, he was dominant as **** and just a cool dude, so he could pick up girls anyways. By emulating him I became much more dominant and made a lot of progress in my game. In about six months, he’d brought me to the point of being able to get phone numbers and the occasional Day2. This might not sound like a lot, but keep in mind I came from a base level of very little social skills.
In March of 2005, I meet Woodhaven at a Lair Meeting. He made a presentation, and I was blown away. When he decided to start theApproach with Dimitri a few months later, I wanted to take the workshop but there was no way I could afford it. I offered to become their intern, and work for them for free in return for training. That summer, I put up flyers, did computer work, made copies, lots of menial little tasks which I didn’t get paid for. But, it was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. Throughout the summer, they gave me 1-on-1 and sometimes 2-on-1 training. They sped up my progress a ton, and by the end of the summer I was actually pulling girls out of clubs, and getting laid off cold approaches.
3. Can you describe the first time you used a counter-intuitive
technique that yielded its promised results, and how you felt?
I used a lot of counter-intuitive standard community material in my early days, but the first time I used something counter-intuitive that actually worked for me was doing a direct approach. I’d read about guys having success with it, but I thought maybe it was just because they were good looking. I decided to test it out though – I thought that I’d have to creep girls out like 10-15 times before I finally got it to work.
To my surprise, the very first time I direct approached a girl in a bookstore, it worked great. I felt awesome, needless to say. This was the point where I started to break away from the standard community stuff, and lean more towards the Natural Game stuff.
4. Could you describe (If you haven't previously) what you're life was
like before you were aware of this, and/or what options you have with
women now (specifics, eg. i date a brunette hb8, etc)?
Well, it’s pretty simple. Back then, I had the option of whether to jerk off with my left hand or my right hand. Now, I have relationships with three awesome girls. My primary is a Bajan (from Barbados) black girl who’s a bartender/stripper at a few clubs around the city. I’d give her an 8. I’m really into this girl, and she sleeps over about five nights a week. My other girls are a blond HB7, and a brunette HB8. I don’t see these girls nearly as much as my primary, but I’ll hook up with them once every week or two.
5. What was your hardest/biggest sticking point?
For me, my biggest sticking point was preventing flakes. This past summer, I went nuts with the sarging. I’d have three dates lined up in a row, and frequently all three would flake on me.
The way that I got past this was not through any technique, but by a better understanding of what solid game is. Instead of doing a lot of flash game type stuff to make girls giggle and touch me, I’d concentrate on something which contributed to real attraction (value, attainability, or compliance) in the initial pickup. Also, I improved my phone game tremendously.
6. Do you have a favorite routine/step in your model, can you describe
it, and what it accomplishes?
My model of pickup is the Natural Game Attraction Model (VAC). If you’re not familiar with it, it’s described in this post by Dimitri:
A New Model of Attraction
It’s been refined a lot since the post was written, but that’s the basics.
Basically, it states that attraction can be broken down into three elements. Your value comes down to your social skills, social proof, style, body language, looks, etc. Attainability is how much the girl thinks she deserves you. And Compliance is how hard the girl has worked for you.
The idea of the model is to escalate Value, Attainability, and Compliance in roughly equal terms. The attraction the girl has to you will be equal to the weakest link in your VAC chain. For example, if you have lots of value and attainability, but no compliance, you’re just a dancing monkey – the girl won’t be attracted.
My favorite element in this model is definitely Compliance. Value and Attainability are roughly analogous to the mainstream community concepts of attraction and comfort, but compliance is something which hardly anyone talks about. Yet, it’s vital to create attraction. The biggest problem with community guys is that they work too hard for a girl’s approval, and don’t get enough compliance out of their girls. If you look at how most naturals operate, they aren’t entertaining storytellers like a lot of successful community guys. They’re just chill guys who don’t make social errors, give the bare minimum of compliance, and demand compliance out of those around them.
Knowledge of compliance has saved tons of sets for me. There comes a certain point in every pickup where you have the group laughing, touching you, etc., but you can sense their interest starting to wane. Before I knew about compliance, I probably would have just kept plowing them with my stories, trying to establish more value when I already had it. Now I know that in this situation, compliance is the problem. If at this point you go into screening, or cue put social pressure on her to contribute to the interaction, you’ll generate much more attraction.
