The Art of Cool
Taking a stab in the dark with this one. Be ready for some possible inconsistencies.
Whether there may be chaos, madness, sickness, death, destruction, agony, pain, lonesomeness, loss, or fear; whether there may be peace, serenity, fruitition, liveliness, joy, friendship, or love; throughout the shifts and changes of time and space, there is always that one constant: Your coolness. Being cool is more than just a way of acting I believe. I find that it's more of an art. I seem to find that true signs of maturity have a lot to do with how you "react" to certain situations. And it's true. A lot of the trouble we get ourselves into is dependant upon how we react when **** hits the fan. Most of the time, trouble happens when we overreact.
A prime example is how we become so defensive when another guy hits on our girlfriends in front of us at the club or bar. There are many different angles to this situation (in fact there's a good thread about this specifically in the Archives section), but the bottomline is that by reacting emotionally and letting something like this affect you, you are subconsciously communicating your worthlessness to others. You make it seem like you're trying so hard either to keep her, or to let everyone know that you own her. We can all argue the gray points between her respecting you and you being an insecure controlling jerk, but the fact that you put so much effort into it shows how "un-cool" you are. I once read something by David De Angelo saying something along the lines of "don't try to ask why or how." Just leave already. Walk away. Take Doc Love's advice and be firm yet unaffected, no questions asked. But of course, in this specific situation, that's only if she doesn't exercise extreme loyalty to you by telling those "PUA's" how desperate they are by trying to hit on a girl who's already sucking face with a guy, and even if she wasn't, she has completely zero percent interest anyways because no matter how good looking he thinks he is or how much game he has, the guy she's currenly with is better looking, dresses better, and is currently the Master-Don-Juan-Cool-Alph-Boss-Man.
So point being, and it's been said over and over again (atleast in the Mature Man's section - my favorite area of the sosuave website), one of your most important tools in your arsenal is the ability to just walk away. If a pair of shoes is stained, has holes in them, and doesn't fit, go buy some new ones. Rarely is it better to just patch it up and make some adjustments if it's that bad, so just let it go already. There are so many pairs of shoes out there, and unless they're really expensive, it's not worth stressing over it. Me personally however, I wouldn't be buying overly expensive shoes that look just as nice as ones that are thousands of dollars cheaper unless it was in my budget in the first place.
Being able to drop what has nothing to do with you or won't benefit you at all is cool. Being able to not let your present emotions cloud your reasoning is cool. I'm going to discuss how non-chalance looks like from the outside, and then perhaps try to tackle the inner-workings of the mind concerning it. For the most part, pretty much everyone you know and talk to is a nervous wreck who cares about trivial things and is lead on by ego, desires, and temptation. I'll be using lots of Zen language and analogies since I've been a practicioner of it for the past ten years of my life and I feel that it's necessary to understand the many paradoxes it addresses. Getting right to the point, what I believe the core of cool is, is the ability to be completely effortless, while being completely and exceedingly competent.
To be effortless yet competent, that is the essence of cool. If you have trouble picturing that, think of Sean Connery as James Bond or Clint Eastwood as The Man with No Name. Let me also refer to some taoist knowledge. From the Book of Balance and Harmony: "Strong action is training the body without being burdened by the body, exercising the mind without being used by the mind, working in th world without being affected by the world, carrying out tasks without being obstructed by tasks." Indifference is the key to women, but trying too hard can breed contempt. So, if you're in an LTR, learn how to give of yourself, yet be willing to drop her cold if she ever gets out of line. I believe that's what most posters mean by "setting rules and shaping her behavior" in the early stages of an LTR. No woman wants a pushover anyways. And even if the woman does happen to leave, so what? Part of being cool is being unafraid to deal with the motions (and emotions) of a NEXT. Doc Love says anyways, to be tough and be critical of all the women you deal with because if you're going to be spending a lot of time with her, you're bound to run into the same problems you've ignored over and over again. And just to be clear, being tough doesn't mean crying to her when she does not act properly. It means walking away with no hint of ever coming back if she does. This does not mean becoming a cold-hearted killing machine that has no feelings or emotions, but rather a sincere kind of guy who doesn't have the time of day for a woman who won't give him the respect he deserves. I mean, if you're listening at all to anything I'm saying, you'll be investing your time and effort into the LTR and if she decides not to respect that, then it's time to count your losses and leave. It had nothing to do with any sort of malfunction on your part, it was all up to her.
Taking a stab in the dark with this one. Be ready for some possible inconsistencies.
Whether there may be chaos, madness, sickness, death, destruction, agony, pain, lonesomeness, loss, or fear; whether there may be peace, serenity, fruitition, liveliness, joy, friendship, or love; throughout the shifts and changes of time and space, there is always that one constant: Your coolness. Being cool is more than just a way of acting I believe. I find that it's more of an art. I seem to find that true signs of maturity have a lot to do with how you "react" to certain situations. And it's true. A lot of the trouble we get ourselves into is dependant upon how we react when **** hits the fan. Most of the time, trouble happens when we overreact.
A prime example is how we become so defensive when another guy hits on our girlfriends in front of us at the club or bar. There are many different angles to this situation (in fact there's a good thread about this specifically in the Archives section), but the bottomline is that by reacting emotionally and letting something like this affect you, you are subconsciously communicating your worthlessness to others. You make it seem like you're trying so hard either to keep her, or to let everyone know that you own her. We can all argue the gray points between her respecting you and you being an insecure controlling jerk, but the fact that you put so much effort into it shows how "un-cool" you are. I once read something by David De Angelo saying something along the lines of "don't try to ask why or how." Just leave already. Walk away. Take Doc Love's advice and be firm yet unaffected, no questions asked. But of course, in this specific situation, that's only if she doesn't exercise extreme loyalty to you by telling those "PUA's" how desperate they are by trying to hit on a girl who's already sucking face with a guy, and even if she wasn't, she has completely zero percent interest anyways because no matter how good looking he thinks he is or how much game he has, the guy she's currenly with is better looking, dresses better, and is currently the Master-Don-Juan-Cool-Alph-Boss-Man.
So point being, and it's been said over and over again (atleast in the Mature Man's section - my favorite area of the sosuave website), one of your most important tools in your arsenal is the ability to just walk away. If a pair of shoes is stained, has holes in them, and doesn't fit, go buy some new ones. Rarely is it better to just patch it up and make some adjustments if it's that bad, so just let it go already. There are so many pairs of shoes out there, and unless they're really expensive, it's not worth stressing over it. Me personally however, I wouldn't be buying overly expensive shoes that look just as nice as ones that are thousands of dollars cheaper unless it was in my budget in the first place.
Being able to drop what has nothing to do with you or won't benefit you at all is cool. Being able to not let your present emotions cloud your reasoning is cool. I'm going to discuss how non-chalance looks like from the outside, and then perhaps try to tackle the inner-workings of the mind concerning it. For the most part, pretty much everyone you know and talk to is a nervous wreck who cares about trivial things and is lead on by ego, desires, and temptation. I'll be using lots of Zen language and analogies since I've been a practicioner of it for the past ten years of my life and I feel that it's necessary to understand the many paradoxes it addresses. Getting right to the point, what I believe the core of cool is, is the ability to be completely effortless, while being completely and exceedingly competent.
To be effortless yet competent, that is the essence of cool. If you have trouble picturing that, think of Sean Connery as James Bond or Clint Eastwood as The Man with No Name. Let me also refer to some taoist knowledge. From the Book of Balance and Harmony: "Strong action is training the body without being burdened by the body, exercising the mind without being used by the mind, working in th world without being affected by the world, carrying out tasks without being obstructed by tasks." Indifference is the key to women, but trying too hard can breed contempt. So, if you're in an LTR, learn how to give of yourself, yet be willing to drop her cold if she ever gets out of line. I believe that's what most posters mean by "setting rules and shaping her behavior" in the early stages of an LTR. No woman wants a pushover anyways. And even if the woman does happen to leave, so what? Part of being cool is being unafraid to deal with the motions (and emotions) of a NEXT. Doc Love says anyways, to be tough and be critical of all the women you deal with because if you're going to be spending a lot of time with her, you're bound to run into the same problems you've ignored over and over again. And just to be clear, being tough doesn't mean crying to her when she does not act properly. It means walking away with no hint of ever coming back if she does. This does not mean becoming a cold-hearted killing machine that has no feelings or emotions, but rather a sincere kind of guy who doesn't have the time of day for a woman who won't give him the respect he deserves. I mean, if you're listening at all to anything I'm saying, you'll be investing your time and effort into the LTR and if she decides not to respect that, then it's time to count your losses and leave. It had nothing to do with any sort of malfunction on your part, it was all up to her.
