Three seconds. That's how long it took. Your shoes. Your posture. The way you held your drink. Whether you looked at the floor or looked at her.
She already filed you away. Interesting. Boring. Safe. Bold. Before you even opened your mouth.
Everything you say after that is just her confirming what she already decided.
So stop rehearsing lines. Fix the first three seconds. Stand tall. Look up. Smile like you mean it. Walk like you belong wherever you're standing.
The words come later. The impression comes first.
Your buddy Dave has been single for three years and thinks "hey u up" is a valid strategy. Your other buddy Mike just got dumped and told you to "just be yourself."
You showed them her text. You asked them to decode the emoji. You drafted four responses and sent the screenshot to the group chat for a vote.
She's been waiting forty minutes.
Put the phone down. Stop crowdsourcing your love life. Type something that sounds like you. Hit send. Then go do literally anything else with your evening.
^Originally posted by Bible_Belt
"this report is available in the members-only area"
She calls you when her car breaks down. When she needs help moving. When some guy she's actually dating treats her badly.
You're the listener. The reliable one. The guy who would treat her so much better, if she'd just open her eyes.
She won't. You trained her to see you as the low-effort option — the friend who requires zero risk and zero investment. Every favor dug the hole deeper.
The "22 Rules" break the pattern. You'll stop auditioning for a role she already cast and become the man she chases instead. It starts with Rule 1.
From http://theomnivore.com/The Soy Page.htmlThe anti-nutrients in soy include:
* Phytates, well known for their ability to impair the body's absorption of important minerals like zinc, magnesium and iron;
* Protease inhibitors and trypsin inhibitors, which impair digestive function. These have been shown to cause growth depression, pancreatic hypertrophy and pancreatic cancer in animal studies;
* Lectins, which have been shown to compromise gastrointestinal health and impair immune function;
* Oxalates, calcium-binding compounds that are especially high in spinach, rubarb--and soy. These must be avoided by those with a propensity for developing kidney stones, and may even increase the risk of osteoporosis in otherwise healthy folks.
* Goitrogens, which interfere with thyroid function. As Daniel elaborates, soy's anti-thyroid tendencies have been well-documented in the medical literature, both in animal and human studies. Daniel cites official data showing frightening rises in the incidence of thyroid cancer--a 42 percent increase between 1975 and 1996--a rise that correlates with the accelerating use of soy infant formula. While quick to highlight the low rates of certain cancers in Asia, soy's promoters seem extremely reluctant to mention the abnormally high levels of thyroid disease in this same region. Cretinism is common in impoverished rural areas of China where poverty forces people to consume larger-than-normal amounts of soy, while thyroid disease is common in Japan, where soy consumption is the highest in the world.
That sentence contains at least five follow-up questions she WANTS you to ask. Where in Florida? What brought you here? How long have you been in the area? What do you miss? How does it compare to here?
She handed them to you on a silver platter. And you said, "Oh cool. I come here every week. I love this band. Ummm... pretty crowded tonight."
She smiled politely. Nodded. And never texted you back.
I was that guy for years. Talking too much. Listening too little. Panicking about my next sentence while she was literally feeding me the answers.
Then I found 22 rules that fixed the whole thing. Rule number one: shut up and listen. She'll tell you exactly what to say.
Would you care to elaborate on this evoke? I'd be really interested to hear more of this rollercoaster ride you mention.Originally posted by evoke
I'll just say that after the rollercoaster ride that has been the last few months of my life, I am firmly back into eating meat, and taking whey.