Mr. Mystery and Now What bring up an interesting point which I would like to discuss and that is this notion of Anti-Dump's ideas as "training wheels" as Mr. Mystery put it. I think that to think about it that way appears at first to be a useful way of looking at it but on closer examination it falls apart for a couple reasons.
The first reason is that I think it is important when evaluating approaches to meeting women and dating it is important to interpret the ideas in the manner that they were originally intended to be interpreted. To put it more simply, it's not WHAT you do so much as how you do it. It is not as important what exactly you say and do with women as is the motivation, spirit, feeling, intent and overall frame of mind from which those actions come. With Anti-Dump not here to participate in this discussion, we must judge for ourselves what his intent was in presenting to this forum the ideas that he did in regards to how they were to be interpreted.
I have not read every word that Anti-Dump has ever written but I believe I have read most of which defines the essence of his ideas. And from those articles I would have to contend that there is little evidence if any that Anti-Dump intended his methods to be something to introduce beginners to the game by providing them with a mindset that they would later discard in favor of their own self-formed ideas. I think there is much more evidence that he was presenting his own plan of action and thought that he intended to follow until he met a woman that he held to meet all of his creteria and that would be the woman he would marry, and he encouraged others to follow the same course of action.
As an example of one of his posts that I hold to be fundamental to Anti-Dump's overall mentality, I cite Protect Your Heart (he needed to protect his BALLS or else he wouldn't have ended up writing posts like that, LOL). Another one is Treat All Women the Same. I remember a while back Pook and I had a discussion where Pook pointed out to me that that post was written at a time when there were many instances on the forum of guys treating a woman who was really hot much differently than they would a more "normal" woman. That may be an important point to consider when interpreting the post, but at face value the post ignored some things I hold to be almost truisms. Such as the idea that a man needs to know his audience and know what the kind of women he desires respond most favorably to. And also the FACT that a woman of extraordinary attractiveness requires a MUCH different approach than a girl who ain't all that hot.
Moving beyond the original intent issue, The second reason I find this "training wheels" notion lacking in legitimacy is it's overall usefulness to beginners as a way of getting their sea legs, so to speak.
Those of you who have been around a while, think back to when you first found this site and whatever other material on the topics you may have been exposed to. I think you will remember feeling somewhat overwhelmed. After all, it is quite a lot to be hit with all at once to suddenly get the memo that you are an AFC and everything you thought you knew about women and everything you have been doing with women has been fundamentally wrong so far. Under these circumstances, it is hard to avoid a certain amount of overcompensation for having been a nice guy, casually "nexting" women, pseudo-badboyism, etc.. That is a natural process that occurs in pretty much ALL beginners and it certainly does not require an entire method and approach in order to further facilitate it.
I was still very new to the game when DeepBlue wrote his post Being Realistic About Nexting and probably was not ready to hear it at the time but now I think it's something that the forum needed to hear (it's in this archive for anyone interested).
In conclusion, I will say that it has been quite some time since I have motivated to write a post of this length. However, I have long thought that it is time sosuave as a community took a look at the wisdom of Anti-Dump's ideas and evaluate their wisdom BEYOND their simplicity and beyond the ease with which they can be followed (which seems to be their appeal) and look at the underlying mentality and motivations from which they come. Because, in my opinion, they aren't coming from anywhere that is healthy for any of us.
-PDX