The PUA community has contributed to a lot of my paralysis by analysis

[bigdave17]

When I was in high school, I was pretty good socializing with people but my confidence with women was so horrible that I never got anywhere in dating. I started reading PUA books and it just went into such detail about how to talk to women. In reality, all the PUA stuff is just basic common sense social skills that I was very good at a young age

So now what has happened is I've developed this intense mental block in my head because I feel like I have to come up with some brilliant strategy and opening lines to talk to women because they have such impossible standards and are so difficult to impress. It's all absolute nonsense. If I talked to women with the same normal social skills that I have, I would already have a beautiful and awesome girlfriend/wife by now. I talked to 4 random strangers today and they all liked me immediately. I can make people feel very comfortable around me

So how do I remove my analysis by paralysis and convince myself that I can just be me and very hot women will fall in love with me? Should I talk to a shrink? I feel like trusting myself when it comes to dating has been my most difficult obstacle to overcome. People say practice practice practice - but just initiating a conversation with a hot girl is very difficult for me because of my intense anxiety. I feel like I can't convince myself that I deserve to have an awesome girlfriend.

I really need to stop putting the ***** on the pedestal and somehow convince myself that women are just normal people and there is nothing difficult about dating.

 

[bigdave17]

It's always someone's fault, innit?

Truth is that you lack basic normalcy. Just the basic process of getting a girlfriend that Jona points out:

bro, the problem is reading PUA **** made me try to act a certain way socially instead of just being myself. "myself" = good looking man with very strong social instincts that almost everybody who gets to know likes quite a bit

That's the one thing I hate about PUA books - they make it seem like getting girls is rocket science. It is mostly common sense social skills

 

[bigdave17]

You over-thought it before the PUA stuff. You've been overthinking it twice as much since.

before reading the PUA stuff, I was a fat nerd in high school. I lost all the weight and was good looking by college

I developed such a horrible defeatist attitude towards dating by college and I felt that women were an impossible alien race who I had to talk to in a perfect way in order to get them to like me. The PUA stuff just made the over analysis worse and worse and worse

 

[RichardTheFrog]

Women do not have impossible standards. You've just convinced yourself that they do.

A book did not ruin your love life. You did by having the belief that everyone will like you but having no real faith in that when it matters most.

SS is not confusing you. Most people tell you to "just do it", but you won't until you receive a golden nugget of wisdom that brings about that eureka moment that injects motivation and bravery against your will.

So what's my problem @Amante Silvestre ?

 

[bigdave17]

Women do not have impossible standards. You've just convinced yourself that they do.

A book did not ruin your love life. You did by having the belief that everyone will like you but having no real faith in that when it matters most.

SS is not confusing you. Most people tell you to "just do it", but you won't until you receive a golden nugget of wisdom that brings about that eureka moment that injects motivation and bravery against your will.

I don't think you understand what I'm saying

PUA made me have this extreme analysis by paralysis. I was already good enough to be very successful in dating, I already had all the social skills I needed. Reading PUA books made me start to overanalyze everything I did - instead of just trusting myself and talking to women with 100% faith that it will work out. I didn't need to start analyzing every move I made

IMO, the NUMBER ONE key to being successful in dating as a man is trusting yourself that if you just behave like your natural self, women will gravitate towards you. Here's the weird thing - how you feel about yourself in this regard dictates reality. If you think they will gravitate towards you, they will...if you don't, they won't

 

[The Diver]

So how do I remove my analysis by paralysis and convince myself that I can just be me and very hot women will fall in love with me? Should I talk to a shrink?

If it's beyond you just to turn a switch in your brain and drop all the sh*it that blocking you progress toward your goal , then you need to get a professional help, like I advised you few posts back. No shame in getting help when needed.

 

[zekko]

I can see how reading PUA material might backfire, making you overthink and over analyze things. That's the definition of paralysis by analysis.
Reading too much into everything and trying to come up with the appropriate "alpha" answer to every situation, I could see how that might suck all naturalness out of your interactions.

There are days when I am thinking about seduction theory, and really the last thing I feel like doing is talking to women when I'm in that frame of mind, because I am way in my head. It's like I'm trying to solve a math problem, and I can't be bothered to deal with people.

The key is to get a sense of the principles, then go out and talk to people naturally. In other words, practice. Don't just be a keyboard jockey.

 

[Grit-Persist]

It's always someone's fault, innit?

Truth is that you lack basic normalcy. Just the basic process of getting a girlfriend that Jona points out:

Just basic bloody normal behaviour. Start there. Should have done this when you were 17 or whatever.

Bullsh*t. You would never have picked up those PUA books to begin with if you truly believed that.

I know you both swear by that PUA and "Game" shyt, but the reality is that when you take a look at the massive sales of those books, bootcamps, webinars, and seminars that they were having back in the day......you wouldn't have the situation of many guys still having issues getting basic A.SS

Literally, if all it took were opening up a book, memorizing lines, and regurgitating them to a chick, there would be NO GUY in America that would have issues with dates and a.ss.

But because getting a stream of dates and a.ss actually requires real VALUE (looks, finances, and social skills) and seeing as though most dudes lack real VALUE....you have the situation where they struggle with basic shyt like getting a date, regardless of how many PUA blogs they read.