Hi. Allow me introduce myself and also say goodbye since this will probably be my first and last post. I've actually been a long time lurker here at sosuave. My interest in the whole PUA mess started when I was shopping at Barnes and Nobles one day and ran across some bizarre looking book that could have easily been confused with the Bible. It was "The Game" by Neil Strauss. I was fascinated. A book on how to meet/pick-up women. I mean, what guy wouldn't be a little interested? I had recently gotten out of college, and I was already hearing that that would be the last time I would ever have in my life to meet so many gorgeous, single, attractive women (lie). So I bought it and read it. At first, it excited me, and I'll admit, a lot of the information presented in the book crystalized various observations I'd already made about women over the years. The whole concept of the attention whoring female responding to high value, negging alpha males or whatever you guys call it.
Unfortunately, for the longest time, the book and other "PUA" souces, had the opposite effect of what was intended. It completely messed up my "game." First, by offering an all-encompassing explanation for some of the more negative aspects of the nature of the opposite sex, it made me a little bitter. Sure many of the these explanations may be true to some extent when considering the entire population, but Jesus Christ, automatically applying them to each individual before that individual has even gotten a fair hearing is just idiotic. While we're at it and stereotyping away, why don't we apply the same line of reasoning to African Americans. Oh wait, that's called racism and happened to be the main cause of slavery as well as the racial tension that still exists today. Whoops.
Ok, but I digress. The point, however, is that a slighty bitter guy that makes an approach has already shot himself in the foot. People (not just women) can smell bitterness from a mile away, and it smells like ****. I know from my own experience that if I'm talking with a woman and I get the slightest hint of man-hate, it's a complete turn-off. No one wants to feel stereotyped whether it's based on sex, race, profession, or whatever. And the thing is, my tinge of woman-resenting bitterness wasn't even coming from real-life experience (I like women), it was coming from that stupid ass book.
Secondly, it made me self-conscious during my social interactions with the opposite sex. I consider myself a fairly social person, so when I'm just shooting the **** with someone, I'm doing just that, not running through some mental checklist of things I have say. The whole process of meeting someone you like, hanging out with them and getting to know them, and then possibly having sex with them if things get to that point--isn't that what normal people do? I mean, that's what I thought. Suddenly, the process of getting some girl's damn phone number and calling her to see where it goes, something I had always kind of done but never really thought about, was encompassed in all these rules and steps to the point that I couldn't even do something as simple as that without overthinking it.
I've gradually recovered, but I think the last straw was when I finally saw that pick up artist show on VH1. That guy was the almighty Mystery from the book I'd read. That guy. Oh my God, you've got to be kidding me. Talk about the blind leading the blind.
And then it occurred to me what was really going on here. Since a lot of you guys are amateur psychologists anyway, I'm sure you're familiar with concepts of psychological trauma and arrested development. When I was in high school and early college, like I every other guy, I just wanted some *****. That's all, really. If I was in a relationship, it was more like a sham to get some steady ***** so that could be on the watch for a new source of *****. There was no "I really want to connect with another human being" stuff, although if I did, that was great. The prime motivator was sticking my **** the most attractive girls possible and sitting back with my (male) friends and comparing and contrasting our conquests. In a way, just like in sports, we were competing with each other. If you had to be in a relationship to get it, that was a low score. If you could bang her without all that relationship ****, more points. If you bang her and she was in a relationship with someone else, even more points! Now this was nothing overtly stated among us, but looking back, it was clearly what was going on. And like all guys at that age do (and probably most guys at any age), I'm sure we all exaggerated, and then probably exaggerated even more when one guy's exaggeration bumped into another's insecurity. Sure I'd brag that I made hot girl A *** three times last weekend, but I'd conveniently fail to mention that just last night I'd kind of stuck it in for 10 seconds and then awkwardly blew my load in all my 18-year-old excitement. And looking back on it, the reason I even did that to begin with was because I felt behind. I didn't really start to feel confident with women until I was about 16 (after puberty plus some weightlifting), which seems perfectly normal now that I'm 25, but back then I felt like I was a late bloomer and I needed to make up for those misspent years (at 13-15 I guess, haha) by chasing ass while I was 17-20ish. And even then, I probably didn't really get that much ass, but I definitely bragged about it when it happened. It was fun at the time, but now, I really don't have the time or desire to spend time with a woman if she doesn't offer something more than a hot body and sex, and my male friends don't really give a **** what I do with my **** or who I ****.
What I see in this whole PUA movement is a situation similar to my own but on a much grander scale. While I might have been slightly chubby and insecure in my prepubescent middle school years, a lot of guys that are attracted to this stuff seem to have gone through the same thing but for the majority of the their whole damn lives. And once I finally grew out of it and felt like I'd missed out (even though I really hadn't, what else are you supposed to be doing at 14?), I had to go out and make up for what I perceived as lost time. The problem is that here, there are ****ing adult men with jobs and responsibility going out and acting like my friends and I did when we were ****ing teenagers. Not only that, but a lot of them seem to be permanently stuck in this stage. Hence, my reference to psychological trauma and arrested development.
Now before you guys start all your "matrix sympathizer" bull****, let me explain. If you want to get married, cohabitate, or if you want multiple relationships with different women, that's fine. But in normal pyschological development, the depth of your individual relationships should increase, whether they be friendships or romantic ones. Normal emotional development consists of an increasing ability to connect, empathize, and understand others. Children are naturally egotistical and self-centered. Children seek to manipulate others to get their own way. And most of you guys have taken one big developmental step backward as you seek to control and manipulate women around you while simultaneously keeping your distance. That's what horny teenagers are supposed to do. Not only that, but since you don't have a group of real world male friends to validate your accomplishments (banged HB7 off Myspace!!), you turn to the internet to find other developmentally arrested people.
Now I don't think everything on this site is completely bad. The emphasis and self-improvement, not taking ****, and being proud of your accomplishments is definitely good stuff, but c'mon, didn't you have a father/big brother/cool friend to teach you this stuff growing up? But anyway, this whole "movement" really goes to show how desperate some guys really are. 40-year-old men suddenly "peacocking" and going out to clubs to use canned "openers" and "neg" cute college chicks. If you missed that bus, you missed it. Accept it.
Not only that, but contrary to your Darwinian theories, there are plently of truly quality women out there, if that's what you want. And yes, you can get close to her. There are also plently of self-centered and manipulative people out here, but hopefully you have the social abilities (and sorry, this stuff isn't in the DJ Bible) to recognize and weed out these people. And if you really let her in and show her your true self and she ends up crushing your heart, man up and get the **** over it. That's life. People come and go. We all die in the end. Experience your emotions, learn from it, write some damn poetry or something, and go on living your life just like before. But don't let it turn you into some ridiculous, bitter moron dressed like a clown yelling "Hey girls, so I have this friend whose girl cheated on him..." even though you know you're probably going home alone again to post on sosuave.
Unfortunately, for the longest time, the book and other "PUA" souces, had the opposite effect of what was intended. It completely messed up my "game." First, by offering an all-encompassing explanation for some of the more negative aspects of the nature of the opposite sex, it made me a little bitter. Sure many of the these explanations may be true to some extent when considering the entire population, but Jesus Christ, automatically applying them to each individual before that individual has even gotten a fair hearing is just idiotic. While we're at it and stereotyping away, why don't we apply the same line of reasoning to African Americans. Oh wait, that's called racism and happened to be the main cause of slavery as well as the racial tension that still exists today. Whoops.
Ok, but I digress. The point, however, is that a slighty bitter guy that makes an approach has already shot himself in the foot. People (not just women) can smell bitterness from a mile away, and it smells like ****. I know from my own experience that if I'm talking with a woman and I get the slightest hint of man-hate, it's a complete turn-off. No one wants to feel stereotyped whether it's based on sex, race, profession, or whatever. And the thing is, my tinge of woman-resenting bitterness wasn't even coming from real-life experience (I like women), it was coming from that stupid ass book.
Secondly, it made me self-conscious during my social interactions with the opposite sex. I consider myself a fairly social person, so when I'm just shooting the **** with someone, I'm doing just that, not running through some mental checklist of things I have say. The whole process of meeting someone you like, hanging out with them and getting to know them, and then possibly having sex with them if things get to that point--isn't that what normal people do? I mean, that's what I thought. Suddenly, the process of getting some girl's damn phone number and calling her to see where it goes, something I had always kind of done but never really thought about, was encompassed in all these rules and steps to the point that I couldn't even do something as simple as that without overthinking it.
I've gradually recovered, but I think the last straw was when I finally saw that pick up artist show on VH1. That guy was the almighty Mystery from the book I'd read. That guy. Oh my God, you've got to be kidding me. Talk about the blind leading the blind.
And then it occurred to me what was really going on here. Since a lot of you guys are amateur psychologists anyway, I'm sure you're familiar with concepts of psychological trauma and arrested development. When I was in high school and early college, like I every other guy, I just wanted some *****. That's all, really. If I was in a relationship, it was more like a sham to get some steady ***** so that could be on the watch for a new source of *****. There was no "I really want to connect with another human being" stuff, although if I did, that was great. The prime motivator was sticking my **** the most attractive girls possible and sitting back with my (male) friends and comparing and contrasting our conquests. In a way, just like in sports, we were competing with each other. If you had to be in a relationship to get it, that was a low score. If you could bang her without all that relationship ****, more points. If you bang her and she was in a relationship with someone else, even more points! Now this was nothing overtly stated among us, but looking back, it was clearly what was going on. And like all guys at that age do (and probably most guys at any age), I'm sure we all exaggerated, and then probably exaggerated even more when one guy's exaggeration bumped into another's insecurity. Sure I'd brag that I made hot girl A *** three times last weekend, but I'd conveniently fail to mention that just last night I'd kind of stuck it in for 10 seconds and then awkwardly blew my load in all my 18-year-old excitement. And looking back on it, the reason I even did that to begin with was because I felt behind. I didn't really start to feel confident with women until I was about 16 (after puberty plus some weightlifting), which seems perfectly normal now that I'm 25, but back then I felt like I was a late bloomer and I needed to make up for those misspent years (at 13-15 I guess, haha) by chasing ass while I was 17-20ish. And even then, I probably didn't really get that much ass, but I definitely bragged about it when it happened. It was fun at the time, but now, I really don't have the time or desire to spend time with a woman if she doesn't offer something more than a hot body and sex, and my male friends don't really give a **** what I do with my **** or who I ****.
What I see in this whole PUA movement is a situation similar to my own but on a much grander scale. While I might have been slightly chubby and insecure in my prepubescent middle school years, a lot of guys that are attracted to this stuff seem to have gone through the same thing but for the majority of the their whole damn lives. And once I finally grew out of it and felt like I'd missed out (even though I really hadn't, what else are you supposed to be doing at 14?), I had to go out and make up for what I perceived as lost time. The problem is that here, there are ****ing adult men with jobs and responsibility going out and acting like my friends and I did when we were ****ing teenagers. Not only that, but a lot of them seem to be permanently stuck in this stage. Hence, my reference to psychological trauma and arrested development.
Now before you guys start all your "matrix sympathizer" bull****, let me explain. If you want to get married, cohabitate, or if you want multiple relationships with different women, that's fine. But in normal pyschological development, the depth of your individual relationships should increase, whether they be friendships or romantic ones. Normal emotional development consists of an increasing ability to connect, empathize, and understand others. Children are naturally egotistical and self-centered. Children seek to manipulate others to get their own way. And most of you guys have taken one big developmental step backward as you seek to control and manipulate women around you while simultaneously keeping your distance. That's what horny teenagers are supposed to do. Not only that, but since you don't have a group of real world male friends to validate your accomplishments (banged HB7 off Myspace!!), you turn to the internet to find other developmentally arrested people.
Now I don't think everything on this site is completely bad. The emphasis and self-improvement, not taking ****, and being proud of your accomplishments is definitely good stuff, but c'mon, didn't you have a father/big brother/cool friend to teach you this stuff growing up? But anyway, this whole "movement" really goes to show how desperate some guys really are. 40-year-old men suddenly "peacocking" and going out to clubs to use canned "openers" and "neg" cute college chicks. If you missed that bus, you missed it. Accept it.
Not only that, but contrary to your Darwinian theories, there are plently of truly quality women out there, if that's what you want. And yes, you can get close to her. There are also plently of self-centered and manipulative people out here, but hopefully you have the social abilities (and sorry, this stuff isn't in the DJ Bible) to recognize and weed out these people. And if you really let her in and show her your true self and she ends up crushing your heart, man up and get the **** over it. That's life. People come and go. We all die in the end. Experience your emotions, learn from it, write some damn poetry or something, and go on living your life just like before. But don't let it turn you into some ridiculous, bitter moron dressed like a clown yelling "Hey girls, so I have this friend whose girl cheated on him..." even though you know you're probably going home alone again to post on sosuave.
