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the real reason for 3 second rule

espanish

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3 second rule says you should approach a girl as soon as you see her because if you don't you will get in your head and start overanalyzing the situation and end up taking no action.

I believe that to be true, but I just realized there is a deeper reason. The 3 second rule helps you find girls that like the true you. not this fake guy.

if you talk to a girl as soon as you see her, you are more likely to be yourself. you won't have time to polish yourself. you won't tell her what she wants to hear. then she can decide if she likes you based on the real you.

simplified example: let's say you hate swimming. you see a surfer girl who is a lifeguard in her spare time. your first inclination is to be yourself and tell her you hate swimming. but then you start analyzing the situation. You are trying to be liked. to accomplish that, you will tell her you love swimming. and it works! she likes you. guess what? she doesn't like YOU, she likes this fake guy who apparently likes swimming.

but if you are truthful, maybe this girl won't like you because you are not a swimmer. but eventually you will find that one girl whom you are exactly what she is looking for (weird sentence structure I know)....the guy of her dreams, someone who hates swimming. she likes YOU.
 

RickTheToad

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3 second rule says you should approach a girl as soon as you see her because if you don't you will get in your head and start overanalyzing the situation and end up taking no action.

I believe that to be true, but I just realized there is a deeper reason. The 3 second rule helps you find girls that like the true you. not this fake guy.

if you talk to a girl as soon as you see her, you are more likely to be yourself. you won't have time to polish yourself. you won't tell her what she wants to hear. then she can decide if she likes you based on the real you.

simplified example: let's say you hate swimming. you see a surfer girl who is a lifeguard in her spare time. your first inclination is to be yourself and tell her you hate swimming. but then you start analyzing the situation. You are trying to be liked. to accomplish that, you will tell her you love swimming. and it works! she likes you. guess what? she doesn't like YOU, she likes this fake guy who apparently likes swimming.

but if you are truthful, maybe this girl won't like you because you are not a swimmer. but eventually you will find that one girl whom you are exactly what she is looking for (weird sentence structure I know)....the guy of her dreams, someone who hates swimming. she likes YOU.
Never heard of a 3 second rule. It's the most ridiculous thing I've heard of in terms of approaching a female. If you want to talk to her, go over and talk. Some people make things more complicated in their heads than what it is in real life.
 

Stoic

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3 second rule isn't ridiculous at all.

A lot of guys, myself included, when we have time to think and analyze about approaching or saying something to a girl will psyche themselves out and try to think of the perfect thing to say and then misfire on the approach or not approach at all.

Approach within 3 seconds and it eliminates a lot of the nerves and paralysis analysis.
 
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BeExcellent

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Advice from the old lady:

It’s the “Just do it” mantra. And it’s a good way to approach women and many life situations frankly. And one of the benefits of action before you start analysis is twofold:

1. You don’t give yourself the opportunity to strategize and risk becoming a placating fake self...

2. You’ll actually calibrate yourself to better read and respond authentically in social environs; you’ll improve at reading people from the jump.

Both good things in my view.

Cheers
 

Kotaix

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This is absolutely spot on.

The minute you hesitate and stop to make a decision instead of taking action is the minute you lose or fail. And this is true for nearly everything in life: Sports, Music, Relationships, etc.
 

Billtx49

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I always thought a 3 second rule only applied to restaurant kitchen cooks.
i.e., If food is dropped and only on the floor for 3 seconds or less, it didn’t gather any germs and can still be eaten…
Lmao
 

Serenity

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Just as the mind has the ability to come up with a ton of excuses in the matter of seconds, it can also come up with a ton of great stuff to say in the same amount of time. If you're a master at coming up with excuses in a short amount of time you can easily become quick-witted. I speak from experience.
 

Who Dares Win

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Doing something in a hurry with no concern of the environemnt or the time to make a decent plan of action is the best way to fail or even worse get yourself in trouble.

Sure you see a girl you like so you approach her on the spot, too bad in those 3 seconds you didnt notice her guido boyfriend nearby or her group of friends sitting there to whom she is bringing the drinks now asking each other whos the creep approaching her.

If you need to rush something in order to do it, you need to work more on your self control and mental sharpness rather than your YOLO skills.
 

zekko

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1. You don’t give yourself the opportunity to strategize and risk becoming a placating fake self...
Heh, that's a legitimate danger among the PUA set.
Actually though, in the days when they invented the three second rule, they had stacked routines already memorized so they were going to be fake from the get go.
 

Serenity

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Doing something in a hurry with no concern of the environemnt or the time to make a decent plan of action is the best way to fail or even worse get yourself in trouble.
It's the best way to learn how to improvise and adapt rapidly to an evolving situation. Most guys will indeed probably fail at first, I sure did, but there's a lot to learn from that. No plan is perfect, you can't plan for everything and when something you didn't plan happens you fail anyways. Awareness for the environment will get better with real world experience.

For some guys it sure beats the alternative, which is inaction and over-analyzing everything until long after the opportunity has passed.
 

Mike32ct

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Doing something in a hurry with no concern of the environemnt or the time to make a decent plan of action is the best way to fail or even worse get yourself in trouble.

Sure you see a girl you like so you approach her on the spot, too bad in those 3 seconds you didnt notice her guido boyfriend nearby or her group of friends sitting there to whom she is bringing the drinks now asking each other whos the creep approaching her.

If you need to rush something in order to do it, you need to work more on your self control and mental sharpness rather than your YOLO skills.
Agree completely.

The 3-sec rule is credited to a certain famous PUA who is 6'5" lol.
 
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Deep State

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Three second rule works well for random, 1-off impersonal situations, busy street, crowded subway. Great for building up some game from nothing. "Hi, I just wanted to meet you." "Nice shoes. Let's get together sometime, what's your number?"

A bias for action. Works better than wondering if she looked/smiled at you or not. Or wondering if she might have a boyfriend, etc.
 

CAPSLOCK BANDIT

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The 3 second rule and like... Super peacocking, not regular but like just stupid with it, it's the same thing, it's about her attention, with the approach or with the look, you capture her attention. Most guys put off the immediate approach because keeping her attention in 2020 is not easy.
 

Mike32ct

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To be fair, my understanding is that the 3-sec rule was intended (in part) to prevent the guy from STARING* at the girl excessively and creeping her out before approaching. It's easy for a lonely, drunk guy to fall in that trap when he sees a hot chick.

But I would still advocate assessing the situation/environment first. You can still use your peripheral vision and not stare at her.

*Also some PUAs were on the spectrum, so they needed a trick or "hack" to prevent inadvertently staring too much.
 
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BackInTheGame78

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Never heard of a 3 second rule. It's the most ridiculous thing I've heard of in terms of approaching a female. If you want to talk to her, go over and talk. Some people make things more complicated in their heads than what it is in real life.
Psychologically it makes complete sense. There is no time for your brain to talk you out of it, no time to try and come up with "the perfect line" and no time to analyze stuff.

Only time to walk over and blurt out the first thing that comes to mind...but whatever you say will be so much better than whatever rehearsed line you would have come up with if you sat and thought about it for however long because it will be congruent with you and not some other person who came up with it.

It also avoids situations where a woman sees you staring at her for 10 or 15 minutes before you decide to approach which looks pretty weak as if you were trying to psych yourself up to go talk to her. Regardless if this is the case or not, her perception is what actually matters.
 

RickTheToad

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Psychologically it makes complete sense. There is no time for your brain to talk you out of it, no time to try and come up with "the perfect line" and no time to analyze stuff.

Only time to walk over and blurt out the first thing that comes to mind...but whatever you say will be so much better than whatever rehearsed line you would have come up with if you sat and thought about it for however long because it will be congruent with you and not some other person who came up with it.

It also avoids situations where a woman sees you staring at her for 10 or 15 minutes before you decide to approach which looks pretty weak as if you were trying to psych yourself up to go talk to her. Regardless if this is the case or not, her perception is what actually matters.
I'm just a toad, so take it for what it's worth. When I see an attractive female, I do not think or wait, I go over and talk. 3 second rule, 3 minute rule, 3 day to call rule. These are nonsense. Dudes need to stiffen that upper lip and just talk the the female; if he's attracted to her. If not, then hop away.
 

Serenity

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I'm just a toad, so take it for what it's worth. When I see an attractive female, I do not think or wait, I go over and talk. 3 second rule, 3 minute rule, 3 day to call rule. These are nonsense. Dudes need to stiffen that upper lip and just talk the the female; if he's attracted to her. If not, then hop away.
This is the point of a 3 second rule. You can call it whatever you like or nothing at all. The point is to do exactly what you say, not think or wait, just go over and talk.

The first impulse of some guys is to think. Now if they've read about "the 3 second rule" recently it might be the first thing to come to mind, it may be the trigger they need to halt furher thought and get moving. I've been that guy, I had to use a few mental tricks as a crutch in the beginning to get going. You could say that if 3 seconds passed I had already lost, the internal resistance became too great to recover from.

Now of course if you don't have anxiety to begin with then I see how this rule seems ridiculous. You have no need for a concept about what you're already automatically doing.
 
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