Officially closing this blog

Recently a guy commented that this blog has got fairly sucky off late, where I am not really writing stuff much of value and am seemingly just hating on game dudes. I like to think there is a lot of value in even that as I am saying there isn't much to be done and that there are only some 10-15 things which are needed, a lot of which I outline on this blog. Having said that, I recognize the point and have myself been feeling that I have been going on randomly about shit, as I feel there isn't much to write anymore.

With that said, I am officially closing this blog. I can of course keep writing about random stuff to no end, but that also goes fundamentally against what I believe that you don't need much stuff. For 99% percent of the people, if you just went and implemented the advice on this blog, you won't need much beyond this. For any further advice, Sleazy's blog and Sleazy's forum is much more than enough.

There is one point which I want to make to people who still actively read seduction blogs. Please understand, there isn't too much theory or ideas that you need. A few key ideas are all that is needed - beyond that, you just have to go out and do stuff. Constantly reading PUA blogs doesn't help and is actually just hurtful.

There has also been a change in my life situation lately in that I quit my job and am doing a start-up. Going forward, I want to spend most of my time on that and not on any seduction related stuff. I might still post every now and then on Sleazy's forum but that's about it. For anyone who hasn't read through that, I can't recommend it enough. Off late, I have also been divulging too much of personal info online, which looking back I am not entirely comfortable with, so that is another reason to stop.

I am very happy that I started this blog and many people have told me that they have liked it a lot and got a lot of value out of it. I also think that I have already shared a large quantity of whatever I wanted to write about.

There is just one request I would make to people who read this blog - please write about your experiences honestly somewhere, even if you have not achieved all your dating goals yet. There are too many non-legit dudes out there on the internet churning out non-stop garbage and the dating advice world could certainly use more legit people.

With all that said, adios guys. Feel free to email me and/or drop me a comment on this blog and I will respond

Women are just as clueless as guys

Today I want to talk about one implied notion which comes across from a lot of dating advice. It's this thing that women are somehow socially perfect and that if you manage to improve your game enough, at the very least, you should get majority of the women who are interested in you. However, what is much closer to the truth is that a lot of women are just as clueless as guys when it comes to dating and that it takes two to tango.

Let me give you examples from my recent experiences. Yesterday night, I went to a stand up comedy night. There was this girl who was constantly looking at me and smiling very seductively. I also know from an acquaintance who knows her that she is single. I go to her, we chat a bit. A little later in the evening when I am about to leave, I tell her if you would like to go do XYZ activity with me this weekend. Suddenly she gets all nervous, starts giving me some BS. So I am like okay, no issue and move on.

Now, it is of course possible that I was wrong in assuming that she likes me but usually, my intuition is pretty spot on these days. So I don't know what the issue was with her, but in my view, I did my part of initiating the conversation, talking a bit and asking her out. Maybe she wanted to chat more, maybe she did not want to do some other shit - point is, every girl wants different things and you can only do so much. If the girl doesn't do her part, you can't do much.

I'll give other examples. I remember this one time in a bar, I was talking to a girl and then moved in really close. Suddenly the girl starts getting all mixed emotions and tells me in quick succession that I smell so good and about how she is still hurt because a guy of my nationality dated her, told her he is going to marry her and then later dumped her. A few days back, I was in bed with another girl watching a movie. We start getting a little cuddly, then we start making out and as I try to ramp up the physical escalation, she is like I am not sure if I want to do this, I am still hurt from some XYZ relationship, some other crap blah blah blah.

Other times, it could be an issue in much simpler aspects. You are out with some friends at some cool event, you text a girl to come over as it is going to be a lot of fun - and then she starts getting all weird and shy, starts thinking I don't know about the event, will I get along with people yada yada. I remember another time in NY when I was going for a party on a private yatch with a friend in the Hudson. It was going to be an uber fancy party, with some drop dead gorgeous people. Now in my view, it was a no brainer that if I invite someone they come. I called up a female friend who used to live close by and told her to come over. At first, she acted really pricey saying I don't know, I am really tired. In my head, I was like, really?! I asked her once more, once again she acted pricey so I was like fuck it. Suddenly when I told her ok, don't come - she is like okay I will come but I am doing this only for you and you owe me for this! I have had some friends tell me similar shit where they ask some girl out for a movie, and for no particular reason she will act really pricey and expect that the guy will ask her out 2-3 times before she will say yes.

Point is, in these situations, you can be persistent and it's quite possible that the girl will come around later but it's also very acceptable if you went like, fuck it, I don't want to deal with this shit and move on. You played your part and it takes two to tango. Yes, with experience you can sense some of what the girl wants and turn these cases around, but you can only lift so much of the weight which she should be doing. Now, this is no excuse for you to not play your part, but the point is, a lot of the times, it really isn't your fault and there is only so much you can do.

Coming back to the original point, whenever some dude tells you that you have to listen and relate with the girl, not make her appear like a slut, figure out her logistics, try to understand what she likes, text her at the right time when she is free, connect with her emotionally, organize a fun date, keep the conversation fun, don't be clingy, be persistent but not be clingy, be aggressive but don't creep her out, make statements and don't ask questions, create an "us" vibe blah blah blah - dude seriously, if you don't want to, don't bother. There is only so much you can do. If the girl is not playing her part, there is only so much you can do.

So next time, don't bother so much about being smooth. Don't put so much pressure on yourself. Don't bother with if this is an appropriate time to ask her out, or should I chat with more. Should I organize a coffee date or is it okay to straight call her over for a movie at my place. Is it okay to just text "hey.. wassup.. how you doing" or should I come with something super clever. This is all another form of supplicating women. Do your bit - initiate conversations, ask for her phone number, ask her out, make a move on a date, ask her to come home etc. but don't worry about being smooth or creating the perfect moments. It takes two to tango.

Another related point. In my experience, difficult women remain difficult. You might think that okay, let pursue this girl for a while even when I don't want to because maybe, after a while, she will be all normal and easy. That usually doesn't happen.

Last point, please don't think of this post as me being a misogynist or that I "hate" women. I am just saying the truth that you can only do so much. You can't lift all the weight which she is supposed to. Also, please stop reading websites like "nerds get girls" etc. because by saying nerds, or geeks etc. - there is an implied assumption that women really know what they are doing but the truth is they are just as clueless as guys, if not more.

Building positive reference experience

Most of us will have had nights or just other times of the day where you have come back and started this negative thought loop - thinking I am not good, why the fuck am I like this, why the fuck not like this, am I going to be single for life etc. Today I want to talk about this aspect and a bit about your thought processes.

So what general community will advice for this is some random feel-good garbage or other "inner-game" shit. I am not a big believer in any of that. I feel a lot of these come down to building positive reference experiences which you can look back on (consciously or subconsciously) and say, dude that is just not true. Looking into reference experiences are valuable for many reasons but total I want to talk about the emotional side of things. Let me give you an example first.

So as I have mentioned a few times on my blog, I have very well for myself professionally, academically and the like. I graduated near top of the class in what is considered one of the toughest engineering programs in the country, I used to work for a very "prestigious" job where was I consistently one of the best performers, I have received outstandingly favorable reviews in anything work related and the like. Point is, because I have so much positive reference experiences to back myself, I rarely question myself whether I am really good work-related or not. Even if I am having an off night, my mind might say yeah dude, you are probably not very suited for this particular thing or maybe that you are not yet ready to do this particular thing. It never ever asks me if I will be ever able to earn enough money to live a reasonable life, will I ever get a job if someone fires me from my present thing etc.

Similarly with women, while earlier I used to think all these things that maybe I am too ugly, maybe I am too short, maybe I will never get women, no one likes me yada yada yada, but now that I have built up quite a few reference experiences where I look back and say dude, plenty of women like me. Because of that, if my mind ever wants to go into this negative thought cycle, some part of me is just not able to take this seriously because well, simply too many really nice women have liked me. A part of me is willing to accept that I maybe a dud at following signals a woman sends out, or I am not aggressive enough, or I just may not frequently get super hot women, but these days it rarely happens that I tell myself that oh shit, no one likes me.

What you may also realize now is why a lot indiscriminate cold approaching is just horrible for your emotional state. A typical PUA newbie has this very problem that he has too much of negative reference experience built up in his head. If he goes out and randomly approaches women without having some game plan and have some reasonable expectations, he gets rejected a lot and whole thing just further adds to his fucked up mental state.

The solution is twofold. First, know what to look for, what are realistic expectations etc.. This is what is called as living in reality. If you think that after getting enough skillz you might seduce any woman, then you will never be happy. You will be chasing after something unreal and your reference experiences will never back that up leading to too many emotional swings. If you approach taller women and get shot down regularly, then well, you do not know what to look for. I think there are 2-3 things that are important to keep in mind here. Taller women are rarely interested, it is a number's game so statistically speaking most women are not interested in you, looks are very important thus getting women who are "out of league" will generally not happen, venues are important, having something in common with the women you are seeking is important, things may not go smoothly all the time etc.

Once you know what to look for, then next step is to actually put yourself in situations and just build that experience. This is where action is important. You won't build reference experiences sitting at home or reading some book. One point is that some people might say, you are too accepting of your situation, don't want to improve, don't encourage self-improvement and that with enough doing XYZ, you might do significantly better. My point is, isn't it better to have realistic expectations so you are content and then happy when you occasionally punch above your weight or is it better to only be content when you sporadically punch above your weight?

Once you have enough reference experience and the right metrics, you will just stop having these random emotional ups and downs. I haven't had those for a while now. You will just not be able to take your mind seriously when it might try to go into one of those self-destructive thought loops because you will be like, dude, that is just not true.

Who defines your self-esteem?

I want to talk about self-esteem today and how PUA community gives totally fucked up ideas on this one. Lets start with the example of Dj Fuji. He frequently in his talks says how at 20 something, he was in the Marines, was earning tons of money, in very good physical condition, was a home-owner blah blah blah but he felt like shit, because he couldn't get chicks. This story may not be as dramatically put by other scam artists, err, pick up artists, but it is similar.

It's basically that everything which I or anyone has done in life is bullshit, if you are not able to bang hot 18-22 year old women. I remember reading Roosh sometime and he had a post where he was making fun of some doctor dude who since he was unable to bang hot pussy on a regular basis, Roosh thought he was stupid. There are other dudes who since they are now able to bang 20 year olds, suddenly feel top of the world.

My point is, defining your self-esteem on what some 18-20 year old women think about you, is so beyond stupid that it is not even funny. Let me share with you some comments which some 18-20 year old women have made. One girl asked me why I went to the best engineering school of my country when it is so boring there and that I should have gone to some other XYZPartySchool instead. Another 21 year old girl was telling me about some "absolutely essential" qualities a guy must have before she would date him - 6" feet tall (she is 5'3"), good looking, fairly rich, well traveled, independent thinker, from a ivy-league type college, should not be possessive etc. You get the drift. I can go on and on and on about these examples. (I happen to have a few female cousins in the age bracket 18-21, so I meet a lot of them and their friends)

Barring like 0.1% of them, most of them are so beyond immature that seriously thinking about what they say or decide to do is completely stupid. Now imagine the typical PUA who bases his self-esteem on how many club chicks or other teenage hotties he is able to fuck. In light of my arguments above, how intelligent does this idea sound to you? If I were to do this, then all the things I have achieved in life (And I do think I have achieved a fair bit in life by any metric) is all nothing compared to some struggling bar tender who has banged a 100 chicks?

Now think about your average PUA. He goes around clubs and bars, getting rejected by random women. He focuses on self-improvement so that he can bang chicks. He learns how to tell stories properly. He learn how to do "role-plays", he learns "NLP" and not sure what other fucked up shit he does. He goes through emotional ups and downs. He glamorizes the "journey" to an unimaginable degree saying it is rewarding beyond belief. Spend tens of hours every week over many months and years, all for what!? So that he can get validated by some teenage or near teenage girls? Is that really what you want to work for - the validation of teenage girls?

There are other super stupid statements which people make - "if you don't fuck chicks then your genes will not be passed on" (something to this effect. I think this was made by Mystery). Point is man, there is a lot more to life than fucking teenage girls. I hope to god that you don't let your mood, life, self-esteem, conversational ability etc. be defined by what they think of you. 

Boyfriends and One-night stands

I want to write about a set of items which seems to be very commonly preached throughout the PUA community but something which I have never quite understood. It's this obsession with one-night stands, not being slotted into a "boyfriend" role, not wanting to spend any money on dates, not wanting to go out on dates, wanting super fast lays and the like.

Lets talk about my own experiences first. So till date, I have had 3 one-night stands. Two of these were when I was on vacation and one was a local thing where the girl had a fiancee in another country and who just wanted to get laid for a night. Other than these, every other girl I have ever got, I have entered into some sort of a "relationship" with. Most of the time it's a casual/open type of a relationship where we meet each other periodically, have fun and have sex. I genuinely enjoy spending time with these women. I don't understand why one would want to have sex with a girl just once, when it is the initial effort which is the largest. I can imagine it maybe fine for a guy who has all the time in the world, or you are on vacation - but otherwise, why wouldn't you want a regular girl who you enjoy?

I similarly don't understand why guys don't want girlfriends. Seriously, what exactly is wrong with having a girl who is fun, whose company you enjoy, who introduces you to a bunch of people and who you can have sex with at least semi-regularly? You know just because you are in a "relationship", doesn't mean you can never flirt with another woman ever in your life, nor does it mean you have to get married to her or have kids with her. Do you rather prefer going out and playing the numbers game constantly?

Then not wanting to spend money on dates. I understand that one shouldn't feel the need to necessarily take girls out on expensive dates but if you do make decent money (which I do), what's the problem with spending some cash? There are plenty of places I really enjoy which are slightly on the expensive side. Of course, I never do a date where end of night I end up resenting the amount of money I spent, but I personally don't mind spending some extra cash if it means having more fun. Given the choice between spending very little and going to a place I don't particularly enjoy and where my entire night is riding on whether I end up fucking her or not, versus spending a bit more and going to a place I know I enjoy irrespective of the girl, then I would certainly pick the latter.

Then not wanting to go out on dates and always wanting super fast lays. I wrote about this in an earlier blog post titled "understanding the local environment", but point is a) Fast lays don't always work and it depends heavily on the girl, b) Once again, sorry for repeating myself, what is the problem if you have to wait a bit longer to have sex with a girl if you enjoyed the whole time on the date as well? I guess a lot of these issues are related to the point where either guys think you need to "practice going out on dates" (very commonly preached), or you end up only getting a one-night stand and not regular sex from these dates, or you don't enjoy the girl or don't enjoy the actual date itself, but if you do - what is the problem with going out on an extra date or two? There are some random girls who do play games which you should definitely get rid of, also, going out on dates and having fun should not be an excuse to not escalate on girls, but barring that, I don't see the issue.

Anyway, to conclude, this was a post where I just put down some random thought which I had on a bunch of random topics. Point is, as I have been repeating myself a bit, do what you enjoy and not what some random internet dude is telling you especially if you don't relate with what he is saying. Of course, don't make these an excuse to not escalate, but other than that, if a certain thing feels right, then just do it. Don't listen to stupid internet dating advice.

PUA for the totally clueless guy

There have been some comments lately on Sleazy's blog from guys who are either totally clueless themselves (or think of themselves in those terms) about how Sleazy and some other guys are just arrogant, not understanding of the like and can't relate to other guys who are totally clueless themselves. I can understand a lot of what they are saying as I was totally utterly clueless once. This is just a guide to share some details about my story, and how I went about it, and how potentially a guy like that could go about it.

So as I have written before in My background that I came from a very conservative family. In college, I barely had any female interaction. At the end of my junior year I went to US to work for the summer. It was here that I took my first ever salsa lessons. You may not believe when I say this, but I almost did not go there. I had paid the money in advance, yes 10 minutes before the start of the lesson, I was so uncomfortable that I almost did not go. It was a huge mental battle where I walked to the class, then went back because of anxiety and then finally did go to the class.

I was so anxious - anxious about my dance abilities (everyone always told me I was a pathetic dancer), anxious about meeting new girls, dancing with them, then I had these fucked up notions about what salsa dancing is supposed to be like etc. When I went there, before the start of the lesson I was so anxious that when the female instructor there (She was so hot - her name was Eva. I still remember her so clearly) said hi, how are you, I couldn't even reply back. Once of the key points was that as soon as the lesson started, I realized everyone was also anxious because no one knew how to dance. Also, the instructor was very sympathetic, the music was good, they made us laugh and I felt a lot more comfortable.

After that I went to my first salsa party. You once again may not believe this, but before this night, I had never been to a club before in my life. A couple of bars, yes, but never a club or a dance party before in my life. I was so fucking tensed that the whole night, I did not dance with a girl. Towards the end of the night, I danced with a girl a bit and this was my first dance night. I can go on and on with my stories but the point I want to make is, I have been there. I understand. And although I don't want to make it into a who-came-from-a-more-fucked-up-background-contest, but trust me when I say this, very few guys will come from a more fucked up place than I did.

Anyway, looking back, had I got into PUA at this stage, dude, honestly, I don't know how badly would I have got fucked up. The problems for me, or for anyone in a similar position, is not chicks related! It is about general anxiety. Guys like this (which includes me) have just not been social enough, outgoing enough, never had enough regular cool outgoing friends, we never learned to dress properly, never learned to just get comfortable around women or even other random guys for that matter, never went out with enough female friends, never talked to enough of them as regular people etc.

Overcoming all of this itself is an achievement and which is what you should be focused on. Just start going out a bit. Talk to a few people. Get enrolled in some hobbies. Start going a bit, even if it is alone. Make a few friends etc. Once you can do this at least to some extent, yes, you will miss lots and lots of opportunities with women along the way, then start worrying about focusing on seriously dating women.

This is exactly what Sleazy calls as foundations. Once you can do this, then slowly you will start noticing that some women are being a little too friendly, or are sitting in a corner and talking to you for half hour at a dance party, or are smiling too much and standing too close while talking to you, or keep giving you suggestive eye contact etc. It will happen. No, I am not special that it happens to me.

I know I used to think at one point that there is no way chicks will ever like me for who I am. Of course, I need to do a lot of random shit because otherwise, clearly, I am very unattractive. I remember being completely honest with myself once that if I had a naked girl on my couch, I still probably wouldn't know what to do.

People like this have other issues. First get your foundations sorted. Then worry about your dating life. After that once you have been a couple dozen dates, advice like do warm approaches to get chicks, and which are warm signals will start being obvious to you as well.

PUA for the average guy

Recently, Sleazy wrote an article on why cold approaching is almost useless. It seems to have generated a huge buzz (check here, here and comments of the original post itself). Most people disagreeing with it seem to have completely missed the point of the post which is that you shouldn't approach strangers indiscriminately. Either approach people who seem open in general or people who seem interested in specifically you. Don't approach randomly.

Since I believe it is a very important topic, I want to write a bit more about it. Now, before someone accuses me of being a Sleazy fanboy (feel free to do so if you want to), I would appreciate if you read this post and just reflect on your own experiences.

This is another point which PUA community seems to miss completely (By now I have said this statement so many times) and that is, who is the target audience. To give a background, by a lot of different statistics, average number of sexual partners is around 7, in a LIFETIME. (Just as a side note, some surveys say average for guys and girls are different. Assuming a large fraction of sex is done between one man and one woman, and that number of men and women around the world are roughly similar, theoretically, this number should be the same). Generally average is influenced heavily by outliers, therefore, the median is probably lower. I will let you draw your own conclusions from these basic stats but it is safe to say that fucking 20 new women a year is far from the thoughts of any average guy.

Now I like to think of myself as an average guy with relatively modest goals. My whole thing with PUA was that I wanted to feel more comfortable and confident about my love life and around women, bang a few women here and there, and then settle down with a high quality girl. I think it's safe to say most guys too have similar ambitions.

All the stuff which I have shared on this blog and spirit of Sleazy's post is in a similar light. It is all meant for the average guy. It is not necessarily for the guy who wants to fuck a new woman a week. I believe even for a guy like that this advice is well suited, but I can't say for sure because I am not that guy.

Now to become a guy who gets a few high quality women a year (As a side note, most women most PUAs get are far from quality but that's a separate point), you really do not need to get to a stage where you have absolutely zero approach anxiety, social anxiety and sexual anxiety, you do not need to be able to get 5 make outs every time you go out, where you are completely immune to rejection, where you are able to approach the hardest sets, where you can convert 90% of your first dates, have sex with every girl within an hour of getting to know her, where you know how give a girl 10 orgasms in 20 minutes etc.

Simply going out a bit, pursuing hobbies, having fun with friends and asking girls who seem interested in you out on dates, you should be more than good to go. This is what most average guys want anyway. It's one thing to say that you are out for some work or something else, see a girl you like and so you try to chat her up, but constantly going out with the sole purpose of meeting women is not something which I would recommend for anyone.

The primarily value of cold approaching as I see it is that it shows you that you can actually approach strangers. This aspect of your personality is also much better cultivated in a warmer scenario because people are much more friendly. It's high time people realize that it takes two to tango.

Also if you are never able to get dates from your social circle or warm approaches, then generally speaking, your problems are not girls related. It is almost certainly something else. So before you do anything else, literally handle your basics first. Once you can do the basic stuff first and are able to get a few girls from there (basically achieve average guy goals), then go do whatever the fuck you want. However, I have a strong feeling that if people actually did this, most of them would actually not bother with PUA after that.

To all those who are skeptical of anti-PUAs

Recently there have been a couple of instances where I have been in part of a debate of pro-PUA vs anti-PUA people. This just made me want to write a post about my own experiences and how I too was pro-PUA at the beginning, how I grew slowly skeptical and how slowly but surely, I converted to completely dropping anything game related.

To those of you who read the first 10 odd posts - you broadly know my story and what set of experiences led me to where I stand today with my view on PUA. I want to talk about a slightly different angle of this. This is primarily aimed at people who are honestly trying to figure this shit out for themselves, maybe see that there is something wrong with PUA but feel people like Aaron Sleazy or the website seductionmyth.com is too extreme with it's views and that there is still some validity in at least some of the stuff which PUAs teach. I assure you there is none but I just want to talk about this for a bit.

So I am someone who never seriously indulged in routines, eliciting of her values or any of the other crap which PUAs teach. However, whenever I would use something, it would never really work. I got lots of numbers right from day 1 of cold approaching but never got anywhere with them. Ironically, times when I went the farthest with chicks was when I completely dropped game altogether and just continued talking normally to a girl who showed a lot of interest right from the beginning, contributed heavily in the interaction herself, was willing to sit with me ignoring her friends for a while etc.

When I first came across Sleazy and 60, the very first time I read them, I too thought they were too extreme. Sleazy says in Debunking that work out, dress well, be a normal social guy with friends and hobbies, pick an environment where you are comfortable and don't fuck it up with girls who like you. 60 says approach lots of girls, look for a girl who doesn't reject you and escalate fast and heavy.  That's all.

PUA community says these guys have "internalized" all the other skills so for them all this is irrelevant, but for a guy who is starting out, all the stuff they teach is important. After having a lot of the experiences I talked about earlier in this blog, I realized that there is quite a bit of merit to what Sleazy was saying but I still thought he was too extreme.

I thought there was value in stuff like doing role plays, creating the us vibe, learning how to tell good stories with emotional high and low points, make statements and never ask questions, focusing on self-improvement, inner-game, being super playful and not getting all serious, not handing out too many compliments, sending playful text messages, being a non-reactive "alpha-male" and the like. I thought maybe all this was obvious to a guy like Sleazy, but clearly I am not that good.

Then I had other experiences. In trying to be clever about what to say, teasing girls, being non-reactive to situations, focusing on self-improvement - I lost a few friends because they just thought I was being weird, there were a few instances where I did everything opposite of conventional wisdom and girls loved me (I wrote a post about this - you need to do too much). Also, I thought back to my high school days where I was this very simple innocent guy who complimented women genuinely like crazy, did a lot of AFC beta stuff, but a lot of gorgeous girls used to love me. Also, a lot of this stuff never felt natural. So I decided to drop a lot of this and started doing whatever the fuck I wanted. I was almost instantly happier and felt a lot more peaceful as a result.

By this time, a lot of this stuff had me think that absolutely nothing from PUA advice is worth it. One final thing - and this one hit me a lot - was when I saw a couple of famous PUAs talking about their current hot girl but when I met them, they were very very average. I must have turned down tens and twenties of girls of that type. This one made me really see the scam that PUA really is. At this point, I was like Sleazy is almost 100% correct that there is literally nothing about game which is useful. Interestingly, when I read Debunking again recently, I found myself agreeing 100% with everything written there when earlier, I was like yeah I agree but that Sleazy was being too extreme.

To conclude, if you think a lot of anti-PUAs are angry, bitter, preach prostitution over tons of cold approaching for rich guys, are probably not successful with girls, or they have "internalized" a lot of skills or anything else - please think again. A lot of us really just see this whole thing for what it really is. You may not agree with everything written by anti-PUAs, but slowly if you reflect on your own experiences, you will too. It's okay if you don't right now. I know I didn't at the beginning. If you are in the stage right now that you are fully immersed into PUA advice, think it is the solution to your love life - at the very least just drop in and read posts and comments at Aaron Sleazy and seductionmyth. Also remember that these guys are not selling anything. (You can argue here that Sleazy too makes money from this as he sells books and coaching, but given the smart guy Sleazy is, if he wanted to make lots of money from it, he is certainly doing a piss poor job of marketing it).

So for your own sake, read Sleazy and seductionmyth once in a while. Read what people have to say there. Maybe even try what they are proposing. Try to be a bit objective about your experiences. Slowly, you too will come to the exact same conclusions.

Measuring progress

Today I want to talk about how I feel you should measure your progress if you do indeed decide to focus on improving this area of your life. I am very surprised no one talks about this because given the amount of time PUAs expect you to be spending on this, you should definitely know if you are indeed making progress, not making progress or maybe even worsening. Only if you know whether you are improving or not, can you make appropriate changes.

So on a typical night out, contrary to what most PUAs would have you believe, most of the girls are not really looking for a guy and really, no amount of game can do anything to change that. Among other girls who anyone has a shot with, there are quite a few girls for whom you are just not their type. Some others may not want to look like a slut in front of their friends or due to a myriad of other reasons, you can't get with them no matter how good your "game" becomes. So basically, there are only a small handful of women you actually have a shot with.

So statistically speaking, most of your approaches are going to end up in rejections no matter what you do. Your only focus should thus be what you do when you come across a woman you have a shot with. When you get rejected right from the off or situations when the girl is being polite with you but is across not interested, there is actually nothing you can learn from those situations. And there is nothing to be improved there. Of course, there is something to be said about who and where you are approaching if you approach 50 women and everyone turns you down instantly, but barring that, only focus on how well you do when you come across a woman who likes you. There is not much worth learning from rejections nor can you improve much other than try to identify these women in the first place and not approach them at all.

This is another of the major problems with PUA, i.e. the focus is fucked up. If you go around approaching indiscriminately as PUAs recommend and then you worry about why you get shot down a lot, then clearly something is amiss. Since you are focused on this, thus when you come across a girl who likes you instantly, you are not focused on making it happen with her.

So basically just focus on how well you are doing with women who like you. This is the aspect in which you should see regular improvements in your results. Of course, there is something to be said about improving odds pre-approach (pre-screening, working out, dressing well, right venue selection) but in terms of actual approaches, this is what should occupy all of your focus.

If I look at my own results, I can clearly see that I have improved a lot and fairly consistently. I still remember very vividly the first time I was close-dancing and grinding with a girl. It felt so awesome. However I was barely able to muster up the courage to have a chat with her later, much less, make a serious move on her. This has improved steadily. Slowly I was able to actually pull girls closer to me while dancing, then I was able to hold steady eye contact, nowadays I am able to run my hand through her hair, hold her close to me and look at her in the eye. I am able to ask these girls out on dates now and flirt a bit. I feel more comfortable taking the conversation in a sexual direction and am able to do it earlier. I am also able to ask these women to come home with me, which I was not able to muster up the courage to do earlier.

Of course, there is a lot more to improve but I now that I feel I am looking at the right metric, I am not in a state of confusion and I know that I am making progress. Because of that, my mood is also better, I am not constantly frustrated. And this is what I now feel game and self-improvement in this area is primarily about. Getting over your own fears and anxieties and just expressing yourself.

What I wish is that someone is the PUA community had told me this earlier. This way I would have known not to approach indiscriminately, would have realized that a large chunk of rejections doesn't mean anything, that what you say etc. hardly matters. What matters is how to get over your fears and escalate on girls who like you. Looking back, there were so many women who liked me but I fucked it up because I was focused on the wrong things. Also looking back at the women who liked me, I am actually very happy with the quality of those women.

It's also very liberating to know that there isn't much you can do when approaching which can take a girl from someone who would not fuck you to suddenly getting horny for you. So I guess what game comes down to is just pinging a lot of women in a short amount of time. When you see a girl who likes you, escalate. Over time, you will get more smooth with your escalations, you will be able to ask more women out on dates, you will learn to identify shy girls who actually like you from the bitchy ones, you will become bolder and overall, you will start going farther with these women and be able to convert a larger fraction of these women.

Purpose of PUA

I have been meaning to write this post for a while now and right before I was going to post it, Sleazy beat me to it with almost the exact content I was writing myself. So instead of repeating everything, I will refer you to this awesome blog post - Why Cold Approaching is pretty much useless

Now that Sleazy has stolen my thunder, I will just add on to that content and offer my own views on related matters. As a side note, some of you might feel that things are already starting to get repetitive on this blog (at least that is what I feel - that I am sort of just repeating the key messages over and over). Thus, after this post, I will most likely be posting very infrequently and possibly only when I get a flash of inspiration or a flash of irritation (after hearing/reading some BS PUA article).

I want to talk about what I feel the purpose of any dating coaching or PUA advice should be. So IMO, the point of PUA is to maximize the quality and quantity of women you can get in your life with the least amount of effort on your part. The effort consists of everything you put in - money, time, loss of mental peace, opportunity cost of doing something else with that time and money.

When you view most of PUA in this light, you will probably come to the same conclusion which Sleazy does in that post - that cold approaching is pretty much useless. The way cold approach is typically advised - going to popular mainstream clubs on popular nights and approaching 10 chicks a night indiscriminately - a lot of activities are better than that in the sense that they offer potential for better returns or involve much less effort for the same potential return.

Take examples like dancing, yoga, playing intramural sports, art lessons like painting etc. - they all offer you the potential to meet very attractive and much higher quality women in a much easier fashion, you pick up an interesting hobby which you will potentially enjoy and maybe excel in, make interesting friends, the environment is not hostile, it might help you improve your health and fitness, it is certainly not damaging to your mental health - so clearly by now you can guess why I prefer this route. 

Lets go one lever deeper and look at individual pieces of advic. Venue selection - going to salsa parties or jazz clubs or things like Alumni events - they are all superior to mainstream clubs as it is much easier to start conversations with people, easier to make friends, easier to pick up chicks. Street game - once again, places like parks, or some daytime concerts are much better than running around on streets. 

Other stuff which people do or come up with advice around dealing with situations like these. "hard sets" - once again, there is just absolutely no point is trying to be all macho and going after hard sets if there is an easier set around. Purpose is to make the whole thing super easy and fun - not the other way around. So far we have not even explicitly talked about how constantly cold approaching is damaging to your psyche, your self-esteem, makes you weird etc. and how just going to places you truly enjoy helps a lot with that. This is exactly why a lot of PUA sites have articles on dealing with emotional ups and downs, how this is a "journey" etc. These guys have taken social life, partying, hitting on chicks, going out etc. from being among the most fun set of things which a guy or girl can indulge in, and made it into this super hard thing. And no, it is and should be fun. 

Now if someone tells me that they have plenty of time and energy, but no money to spend to activities - even then I am going to say "sarging" is useless. Even here, it is much much better to spend time on being something like becoming a club promoter, or just making friends with a few rich guys and spending time getting girls to those parties, or bartending etc. which is a fun way of meeting a lot of girls in a very easy fashion. 

The only reason I feel you should be doing cold approaching is if it can be seamlessly integrated into your lifestyle, like say, you are out grocery shopping and you see a girl you like so you go talk to her. Or you are out with some friends at some club and there are women there who you like, so you go talk to them. Freeing up a few hours on your calendar with the sole purpose that you will go talk to chicks is not something which I feel anyone should do, no matter what your situation, if for no other reason then simply because there are infinitely better options available!

Fake anti-pua PUAs

There is a phenomenon which I am noticing these days that a lot of PUAs are catching on the fake anti-pua train. Let me explain what I mean by that. They will a have few customary posts on how PUA doesn't work, how looks are not nearly as unimportant as "other PUAs" claim, it's really a numbers game in the end but still dude, game works! All of what RSD, LS etc. are teaching about game is crap but dude, here, take my advice, it works!

Before I write further, I would like people to read this particular comment written on some website (I am not saying the website is good or not, but just this comment is really nice) - http://omegavirginrevolt.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/how-many-conspiracy-theories-come-from-feminists/#comment-5175. This comment shows how even guys who claim to be somewhat honest, are still crap.

Lets look at some examples of PUAs who are on the fake anti-pua train - First up, Sinn. He has a few posts con how he hates Style, how he hates the other PUAs giving crappy advice etc. etc. but then he comes up with a post called 5 Types of Cold Reads. Like really dude?! And you are saying "other PUAs are crap".

Then Rob Judge. He claims repeatedly on his website that PUA is dead, PUA advice is crap etc. etc. and then comes up with a product in which he sells a "FERA system" to getting women, which is focus, emotion, rapport and arousal (Sounds suspiciously similar to Mystery Method, does it?). Then gives advice like you should you use "Statement Roulette", "3 step and spin", sells products saying 7 steps to get women, secrets to getting FHM cover hot models bending over backward for you etc.

Another random website which I came across - Why I hate a PUA. Imagine a guy writing an article like this and selling or affiliate marketing a product at the bottom with the tag line - Ask her these 3 questions scientists use to get laid… And you’ll get her, every time! Click here to discover a ‘simple trick’, so you can see inside any woman’s mind and know exactly what she is thinking about you.. Instantly and absolutely free.” (He earlier had this tag there, seems to have removed it now. Some other dude actually commented on this same thing) 

I can give lots of lots of such examples. Take Dj Fuji. He seems like one of the guys probably at the forefront of seemingly-legit-PUA-but-actually-not movement. He says you should work on your fundamentals etc. and then says while coaching, he will give you a customized routine stack to "automate your verbals". He says you should have reasonably standards then says on his website - "How a 5'4" tubby asian pulls models, strippers and blazing sex goddesses from hottest clubs and can teach you how to do the same in three short days". He was also defending himself (unsuccessfully) on PUA in some convo and saying that he will demonstrate the "hardest" set of the night (No words can describe how much is wrong in even spending even a moment of your focus on such a thing), how when he meets 10 clients, 4 of them hate him but 6 like him and he focuses on those.

To conclude, please stay as far away from PUAs as possible. Even if someone seems somewhat legit and claims that "other PUA stuff" doesn't work or he doesn't really think of himself as a PUA (Zan Perrion comes to mind and yes, he is just as bad as others, probably much worse), he is still almost certainly a total scam.

Constantly social women

For most practical purposes, I have completely stopped reading any PUA site/PUA blog. However, if anytime I do read something (http://sinnsofattraction.blogspot.in/2012/04/girls-as-options-traders.html) I get enraged at the bullshit which people write and seriously makes me question if we are indeed living in the same real world.

I want to write about one these notions which exists in PUA about how "attractive women" are supposedly always going out, they are always meeting other guys, if you plan dates - it better be on a Monday or a Tuesday night because her social calendar is so bloody full or every other day, better do something super interesting so that she is compelled to say yes, send out clever date invites like "up for a game of pool with NYC weirdos and soccer moms" (this is from my favorite PUA coach Rob Judge), if you don't make yourself sound really interesting then well she meets all these other guys who she is going to fuck instead etc. etc.

Well I don't know which world do these PUA coaches live in but in my world, going out a lot and being social needs time, energy and most importantly, MONEY! If a girl has money to go out a lot, that would usually mean she has a decent job, which by default means she won't have all the time in world. The only activity I imagine may not need money is if a girl goes clubbing where she can mooch off of some club promoter. That's it.

Theory apart, my own experience says that most women keep complaining a lot about how they never meet any decent guy, have not gone on a serious date for a while, haven't got laid in a while (I am sure a lot of guys would have experienced this that when they start having sex with a new girl, a lot of times it seems like she just can't get enough of it). It's a huge reason why girls when they get into a relationship just don't want to let go because to find another decent guy is a lot of work. The percentage of girls who are constantly out, constantly socializing, always going out on dates etc. is very very small (I am going to estimate this number is in single digits).

Now lets talk about my own "social calendar". I work a stressful job on the weekdays and so I am usually a bit tired after work and don't exactly possess lots and lots of energy. I have hobbies which I pursue which needs time, I have normal friends which I like to meet as well. So well, I don't exactly have a lot of time on weekdays. Plus, I am not going to schedule everything in my life around meeting women.

Now lets talk about scheduling dates. Schedule them whenever the fuck you are free. If you are only free during the weekends, ask her out on the weekends. If she is not free and assuming she likes you, you guys will be able to figure out a time which works for both of you. If she lives far from you, well of course you won't schedule it next to your place. This is not so that you make it easy for her to say yes (This sounds too much like oh please lord, I hope she says yes), but simply because you want something which works for both of you! (At least that is what normal human beings do)

This is a concept which somehow PUAs never seem to understand. Dating only works if BOTH OF YOU WANT IT. If she likes you, she wants to meet you to, she wants to go out on a date with you and thus she will work with you not against. You are not working against the girl nor are you trying to sneakily get her to say yes, nor are you sneakily going to put your dick inside her pussy without her realizing it. So just fucking stop trying to be so clever and put so much pressure on yourself.

All of the dates I have been on, the girls are extremely happy to work with you to arrange a mutually convenient time and place. This is normal person behavior. If you read PUA articles it would start seeming like if you find a normal girl who does these things, then you have found someone special. I assure you that's not the case. Normal people are the norm and not crazy weirdos.

One other thing I want to mention. Look at the article I referenced. It's a very typical example of how they sweep 99% percent of what matters under the rug and focus on the 1%. In this article, he says ignore cases where you emotionally connected with the girl or she is new to town or she doesn't know many people or you met her through friends or she is single or actively looking to date. So basically, he is giving advice on what to do about women who you did not emotionally connect with, she is not new to town, she knows a lot of people, you did not meet her through friends, she is not single and not actively looking to date. I leave you to decide how much is wrong with that.

You need to do too much

I want to write about another point today which I have a major issue with - this notion of what is right while talking to a girl, what is wrong, what you should do and what you shouldn't, and how all of this is just too much and hurts guys a lot!

Guys say that you should never use self-deprecating jokes and then say that you should show some vulnerability so that she sees you as a real person. That you should only text girls after meeting them and never call them, how you should only ask girls out casually for dates and never seriously, never send longer text messages that what she sends you,some dude says you should include smiles in your text and another says never use them, how you should only tell stories where it seems that girls chase you and that you never do, only give her light-hearted compliments and not in a beta guy style way telling her how awesome she is.

Then how you should be non-reactive when a girl shit-tests you like you never get affected by anything, never react emotionally in front of women, how all women only like "alpha" males..

Then there are other set of guys who actually try to reconcile the differences in theory about how and when to behave like a beta and when an alpha, when you can call a girl and when you can only text, when you can compliment her and when you can't, when you can vulnerable in front of her and when you should act all "alpha", when you should act like a player and when like a genuine person etc. etc.

Don't even get me started on push-pull, being caveman, being in state, NLP, cocky funny, doing role plays, creating the "us" vibe and what not ( I honestly don't even know properly what half these things really mean).

My point is, all of this is too much. Most of this shit doesn't matter at all and in an attempt to employ this, guys just become socially awkward and out of touch with their own personalities. Just do whatever the fuck you want. Some girl "shit-tests" you, and you didn't like it - tell her she is bitch. Feel free to use self-deprecating jokes if you want to. Feel free to call a girl if you feel like speaking to her. Feel free to overtly compliment her to the point of embarrassment if you think she looks gorgeous. Feel free to tell a story in which you did something totally stupid and embarrassing. Feel free to indulge in boring beta like conversation by asking her what she does for a living and how her weekend was. Just do whatever the fuck you want man.

This notion that there are so many things you should do and ones which you shouldn't is possibly the exact things which you shouldn't be telling a guy who is already too nervous to talk to women and too much in his head.

As I am distancing myself more and more from the community, I find myself doing a lot of things which are strongly advised against by the community but things which I feel like doing, and in the process I actually feel much happier and I tend to connect better with women.

I will give you a few examples from my own life. I am someone who likes to complement women a lot. I also tend to use some self-deprecating jokes every now and then. I used to do this earlier in high school, but completely stopped after college because this was a very beta and AFC thing to do. What happened was that a lot of such advice put together, I lost a lot genuineness and spontaneity which I had.

There was this beautiful girl who used to come to my dance classes and who was an absolutely fantastic dancer. I was also intimidated because of this aspect and never asked her to dance. I always felt like complementing her because she was so good but never did because I thought this was a very AFC/beta thing to do. One day she was sitting next to me, I thought fuck it, told her she was such an amazing dancer because of that I was always intimidated and never asked her to dance with me. She blushed so hard, we danced that night and chatted a lot. Another night I came to the party really drunk and then danced with her, kept holding her really hard and was generally very awkward. Then told her that I am really drunk and am not going to torture you with another song (Another super beta thing PUAs will say). Somehow after that night, she just never let go of me. When I would come to the party, she would just drop whatever the fuck she was doing and give me a huge hug, kiss me on my cheeks, danced a lot with me, introduced me to her friends etc. You get the point.

There was another instance when I was at a salsa party while on I was on vacation, there was this super hot Spanish salsa instructor who was dancing awesomely and in a very seductive way. She was one those intimidatingly hot women (easily one of the hottest I have seen in real life and I have been to a lot of upscale clubs in quite a few big cities of the world) which I would typically not dare talk to unless I had some liquid courage (I was somewhat drunk when I said this). I told her that I had come there wanting to dance and that I will show off my skills but after her intimidating performance I feel so stupid and wouldn't dare step on the floor. A very very far cry from a non-reactive, super alpha dude but something which I genuinely felt at that moment. Something amazing happened after I said that. She suddenly started acting like a little girl, grabbed my hand and we started talking. We danced a bit, I was clearly no match for her (She's done salsa seriously for 15 years, I have probably done salsa seriously for 15 weeks), but she bared with me. We made out later that night. Because I was on vacation and was leaving for another city next afternoon I couldn't get the logistics in place. 

Point is, just do whatever the fuck you want man. From these instances, I am not trying to say that overtly complimenting women gets you more of them, or doing XYZ is better - but that just do whatever the fuck you really want.

Just keep things basic in your head - dress well, talk to women you like, see if she seems to like you, and if yes, move things forward either physically there and then, or maybe isolate her or ask her out on a date.Other than this, literally just do whatever the fuck you want. Over a period of time, you will learn from your experience and refine your style. The main problem is that guys censor themselves too much and trying to follow a bunch of rules just further puts them in their head.

Rejection doesn't matter - Part 2

This article is about how this attitude keeps even the somewhat legit coaches from seeing the light, and keeps worsening the state of this industry.

Say the average dude from previous part keeps going. Eventually he either becomes too fucked up mentally and quits, or maybe, just maybe, after having done enough approaches, in spite of all the cognitive dissonance, he becomes decent with women (even if only in his head) and thus, decides to help other average dudes to improve their love lives. He believes in this epic journey, how this journey transforms lives etc. (Of course, his journey has certainly been epic). At this stage, his intentions are somewhat legit even if he is fairly fucked up in his head.

Good examples of this are Rob Judge and Dj Fuji. (Actually, these days given the kind of stuff Rob promotes and tries to sell, I seriously doubt if he even bothers believing that he is trying to help others. A part of me is seriously ashamed and embarrassed that I believed in that guy once and that I seriously considered inviting him out with my regular normal friends. Anyway). There is actually a good chance that these dudes have read Tim Ferriss' 4 hour work week by now, and think PUA coaching and products is the perfect way to live the 4 hour work week life.

(Now I know there are coaches who are just total scams right from the off, but I feel a lot of coaches fall into this category. By now, they are too brainwashed to see any objectivity and are on different levels of crazy. As an example, there was some dude on RSD and another on Zan Perrion's who was saying how after 1000 approaches, he didn't get anything from it, but still genuinely believed that others should feel inspired from his journey).

So now this dude does about helping others. There is a huge problem right from the off. The guys who come for help are totally clueless and very likely, already too far away from reality. They have no clue what success means and how to really get there. How phone numbers don't mean shit. How maybe all you need to do is go out, talk to a few women, and if a woman likes you, just escalate. Maybe be a little realistic about who you can and can't get. These guys are easily wowed. For most of them, just being able to approach a few good looking girls and getting a number means "you changed my life man" (I know this is what I felt after my first 2-3 cold approach numbers. That I had somehow stumbled upon this hidden treasure which no one knew about).

So the coach gets a few clients, and a lot of them say, wow dude, you changed my life. This is so awesome. Thank you so much. Of course, anyone would get a kick and a high from that. Now, if some dude comes to them and says, I can get numbers now, thanks a lot, you changed my life - of course the coach is not going to slap him and say that it doesn't mean shit, tell me when you get laid regularly and with hot girls and your success ratio is reasonable. Till then, don't thank me. Post bootcamp highs, sporadic testimonials where a guy randomly picks up a hot girl etc. just keep heightening the problem and the coach thinks he really does have special powers. He just feels great that he is helping so many people and is making a living out it. What can possibly be better?

Then many months later, one of his clients ends up finding Aaron Sleazy, reads through it, reflects on his own experiences and realizes how he has been deluding himself for all this time and sends a stinking negative review to his coach. He tries to help him a bit, talk to him but the client tells the coach to get the hell away from him. Coach thinks - "rejection doesn't matter", you can't please everyone, I am getting all these positive replies from clients who tell me I have changed their lives, so well one person telling me I am a scam doesn't mean shit. He focuses on clients whose lives he had impacted. The problem gets severely severely compounded because some guys never wake up, others even when they wake up are too embarrassed to name drop and sometimes never write about their negative experiences, others move on and just think yeah, lets forget this, I was stupid, lets move on. The other side of this coin is that stupid people who get numbers etc. are way too excited and write a lot about their positive experiences. Thus, combination of rejection doesn't matter, few negative reviews and lots of fake positive reviews never let the coach see the light.

The same problem gets extended to justify scammy marketing and scammy products. A coach starts realizing that it is not easy to sell products and that the only potential way to do it is to get slightly scammy and exaggerate things a bit. But hey, at least my product is really good. Once again, few negative reviews, lots of positive reviews and since negative reviews don't matter, he thinks this is great. Now he freely uses scammy marketing to sell products. Soon this whole thing just degenerates. Also, this idea that he focuses only on "people who he can help", "I can't please everyone" etc. just keeps worsening the situation.

So you see how these attitudes affect even somewhat legit people? Take into account how some people naturally don't care much or care very little when it comes to making money and that some folks are just outright scammy, and you see why this industry is what it is.

So to conclude, please be careful when you use take this attitude of "rejection doesn't matter" too far. Lots of rejection exists to tell you that something is wrong. For an average guy, it is okay to a large degree because one tends to see the rejection fast, a lot of times getting rejected is for a reason that is not related to him - so it's relatively fine. For a coach though, assuming you really do care about helping people (big if), please pay lots of special attention to every negative review, because most clients don't know what the fuck they are talking about when they send you a positive review and you won't get to see a lot of cases where it did not help the person because they don't write about it.

Rejection doesn't matter - Part 1

I want to talk about this attitude today - rejection doesn't matter. Isn't this the very fucking basis of this PUA community? I want to talk a bit more about this attitude and how this potentially leads to extremely anti-social behavior, is literally the core reason why PUA is like a such a big cult, why this industry is such a big scam and why it will continue to be until this is thought over in a bit more detail.

So say an average guy gets into this industry. He hasn't been very successful with women in his life. One huge reason is that he likely cares way too much about what others think. So he is told, rejection doesn't matter. So far so good. He goes out, tries some stupid lines, techniques and what not, and gets rejected a bunch of times. He thinks something is not right. His coach tells him, dude rejection does not matter, you are improving, baby steps at a time. You couldn't approach earlier, now you can. Keep going. Freshly inspired, keeps going, same story. Rejected a bunch of times.

Here is where it starts to get a bit shady. The point is, consistently being rejected is a sign that something is not working. Something needs to change. Here, the PUA gurus say, dude rejection doesn't matter. You are improving. Others don't understand what we are doing here. Cold approach is fucking hard. He keeps going. Not realizing how anti-social and mentally fucked up he is getting, he keeps going. The other fucked up dudes who can relate to his position, only help to amplify this problem. Statements like these then slowly isolate him from normal society, attach him to other similarly fucked up people and just keep amplifying this cult like problem. Since he thinks others in normal society are totally stupid, can't understand what he is doing, he only listens to others who are doing this.

Problem is, they are too fucked up themselves so of course, they can't talk straight. When these fucked up dudes talk amongst each other, no one really admits how no one is really getting laid. No one talks about how they too have been doubting if this PUA journey is really worth it. Someone might even be very bullish on PUA till that point. All these people, think this is supposed to be really hard, you have keep another brother going, so they spur him on instead of admitting the truth to themselves and others. So the problem just keeps on worsening.


You see the point? How these small statements and attitudes when overused amplify the cult like feeling so much and prevents objectivity from showing you the light? In the follow up article I actually want to talk about the other side of the problem (it is much much worse) and how when coaches use a similar attitude, the industry as a whole goes downhill and becomes such a scam.

Glamorization of the "PUA Journey"

One massive massive massive issue that I have with the PUA community is this notion that they create in your head of this being an "epic journey", this journey where you transform yourself, you beat all odds, after which you are not lonely anymore blah blah blah. Lets look at one of the speeches given by a PUA dude, who is fairly popular - Dj Fuji. Many people say he is one of most legit coaches out there. Don't bother watching the whole speech (I didn't). The first 5-10 minutes is enough.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MdRMUikKE4E" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

He is using all this self-help pep talk stuff - this talk will transform your "journey", mindsets, game, motivation, giving excuses, how I had it all - I was in marines, rich, working in a nice job yada yada yada, but deep down, I felt inadequate because I didn't have chicks, how there was a massive "pain period", I constantly went out, there was light at the end of the tunnel etc.

If you actually did not know the context of the speech and just heard a part of it, you would be forgiven to think something like he seems to have taken part in a war like the movie 300, where a few hundred dudes kill a massive army. Then you would get a rude awakening that oh, he is actually talking about hitting on chicks! And no, you should not be forgiven if you try to equate the two.

What happens when you create this image of this being so epic, you start thinking this is a really hard task which I will once be able to one day, that if it feels super easy then you are doing something wrong, that hitting on chicks is not a normal thing to do, that it requires some elite level skills which only some elite coach can teach you, that if you don't have a girl friend then you should be unhappy, it undermines everything else which you have achieved in your life if you aren't getting regular sex, makes you feel that there is something fundamentally wrong with you or the way you see the world which you will have to change through an "epic journey" etc. I can probably 20 articles on what is wrong when you think of this process as an "epic journey".

When I was going out, this is one the aspects which probably hurt me the most. I heard all these people that oh it is so hard, there is a "pain period", this journey is so rewarding, that you shouldn't use crutches etc. that of course if all I did was go to a bar, get a little drunk, talked bullshit with a girl who seemed into me for whatever reason and we had sex, then of course there is nothing epic about it. How could I just focus on my dance lessons, explore random new places in the city, focus on having fun, making some friends and in the process, bang some babes?

Seriously, if anyone still think in terms of this, please stop! In my experience, I don't think I have changed much through this entire "journey". I probably dress a little better now, feel a little more comfortable expressing myself and not censoring myself too much and feel a little more comfortable physically escalating. Rejection hurts a little less now and I am a little better at identifying girls who are interested in me.

I am far from awesome. I am still fairly awkward socially, still very bad at flirting, still end up saying stupid shit in conversations and chicken out from escalating. If you went out with me, you might even think that I am this AFC. But I know that it's fine. I am who I am, and there are chicks who like me. And also, it's not like chicks are perfect! Despite all the "PUA skills" which I lack, I still do pick up babes every now and then. Also, I have plenty of fun in the process and going out is not this one big epic event where I listen to tapes which pump me up before going out, carrying protein bars in case my "energy levels" drop through the night, do war cries in the venue to "pump my state", avoid drinking because that would mean using a crutch etc.

So go out there, and have fun man! Don't put so much pressure on yourself, not with chicks at least. Accept that we are all products of our genetics and environment. Focus on things which are almost guaranteed to get you results - working out, dressing well, making friends, going out, having fun, hitting on random chicks and identifying who likes you.

And please, if you are a guy who is in shape, was in the marines, earns six figures at 23, a self made person, own a house which you paid for (or even ballpark close to this) - please, please, please take more pride in your achievements than Dj Fuji does! 

Realistic Goals

I had not planned to write more posts, but since I got very positive feedback about this blog, I am probably going to write a few more.

In this post I want to talk about having realistic goals. This is also a total departure from what PUAs teach that no matter who you are, you can bang lots of hot chicks. I feel the few legit virgin-to-pussy heaven kind of stories that do exist in the PUA community actually hurt you more than help you as (a) the story itself is an outcome of a very strong selection bias and (b) they don't talk about the related circumstances like they had all the time in the world, they went out something like 5 hours a day for 7 days a week, they were probably willing to bang anything that moved, they somehow managed to get into a social circle like a club promoter or the like. When one reads this story, this ends up giving you false hopes, distorted perception of reality and sets you up for a fantasy which will probably not get fulfilled. This ends up hurting you a lot.

Another horrible point is usually that these guys then end up crediting their newly acquired "mad-skills" for their results, and not the fact that maybe earlier they were just not going out enough, not recognizing girls who liked them and not escalating on them.

When I moved to NY, at the time I was an almost virgin who had moved from a completely different country, lacked social skills, did not know many people etc. At this time, my focus should have been on making new friends, getting a few dates and just generally going out and talking to people. Cold approaching should have been more of a supplement than the main thing which I should have focused on. So when I did all these approaches, I lacked a cultural understanding, I lacked reference experience of having been sexually comfortable with women etc. and the only experience which I was getting with women was in fast crazy environments.

Later on, after I did detach a bit from PUA, this is the area I focused on, and this is what ended up making me happy and getting me results.

I definitely feel this a problem which a lot of people in the PUA community share. They chase after the wrong goals. Some of it arises due to the fact PUA is made out to be this super epic journey, where you battle against all odds, win by seducing lots of hot women and in the end, are declared a hero by your fellow PUA tribe members. Honestly, if people just focused on basics like making new friends, starting a couple of social hobbies and just asking girls out on dates, most of their problems would be resolved. What instead ends up happening is that a bunch of guys who are all extremely incapable socially, haven't had a girl friend or good looking female friends for a while, they team up together to go talk to hot women in relatively hostile environments.

Instead I think people should first focus on making some decently cool friends (both male and female), getting a social hobby or two, going out with them, getting a few dates from these friends or friends of friends and maybe cold approaching a bit where you focus on just having reasonable conversations. If one can't even do this much, then sleeping with hot women on a regular basis or pulling 90% of your first dates should be the last thing on your mind. Once you can do this, then focus on being more aggressive, more sexual, flirting more, making out regularly with girls in bars/clubs etc. Then sleeping with a few girls and getting some basic sexual experience. Once you can do this, then and only then, attempt to focus on becoming this mad player who can get an instant makeout from a girl surrounded by 5 AMOGs and pull her 10 minutes later into the bathroom stall.

My current situation

I intend to make this the last post of my blog, unless someone wants me to write about something specific. This is basically where things stand for me right now.

Now from reading the previous blogs, in case you thought I have become this awesome player dude, then you were wrong. I am far from one. I am a very average guy in most respects. If you had to ask me numbers, I am going to say around seven for the year, including some I might get while on vacation, which is definitely easier. This number is based on the past few months where combined average is a little more than a girl a month. However some of those were extremely lucky and random, so I have downgraded that and extrapolated to arrive at this number.

I have a high pressure job which I love, I have friends and hobbies and also like to focus on my career. Thus I don't go out crazy amounts. I am also presently living in a conservative city where cold approaching is not taken well.

The main thing now is that I don't beat myself over the fact that I may not get girls all the time. I know now its really random and severely restricted by my environment and genetics. So I don't beat myself over it. I now go about my life, and when I see women who seem to be giving me the signals, I go talk to them. You might call it a very low risk approach, but I am actually very happy with the numbers I manage with this approach. Plus, this eliminates getting tons of rejection which I definitely feel is damaging for anyone's psyche over an extended period of time.

I am focusing more on my career these days, working out, my hobbies and building a reasonable social life. When going out, my primary focus is looking good. This has had a tremendously positive effect on my love life. Also, now that I am not so focused on doing the right thing (I still tend to make this mistake a lot), social life is actually a lot more fun than it has ever been.

Admittedly, I might get more women if I consciously went out and was aggressive about my love life, but this keeps me happy. I now believe that if I just keep myself in shape, wear nice clothes, I will always have girls for me.

Honestly, that was all I ever wanted out of this whole PUA thing to begin with. I know some guys have targets like I want to bang 100 chicks, or get lots of threesomes etc. but my primary goal to begin with was just that I should not feel that getting girls is a tough job, or if the current girl goes away, I will have a very hard time getting a new girl etc. I have more than achieved that. Thus, I am happy with it.

The primary goal now is to get rid of the remaining PUA weirdness from my head and of course, banging new chicks and having fun is never boring :)

Understanding the local environment

This is another very important point which PUAs fail to mention and how PUA fills your head up with crap and makes you a social robot. This is a complete departure from the point which PUAs make that you can seduce any woman, you can get any girl on the first date etc.

Meeting women is heavily dependent on your local environment. I have realized this very explicitly because I have traveled a lot in life and have lived in many different countries. In some environments, you can approach a girl on the street, text her to meet you for a drink, she will come with you, and you can fuck her the same night. In more conservative environments, you have to approach her through a friend or very casually, text her a bit, talk on the phone for a bit, then go for a low key date, maybe then for drinks and maybe then have sex. This whole thing might play out over many weeks.

PUA made me believe that any girl can be seduced on the first date and that if she refuses, she is probably playing games with you. Not that she is super conscious herself and just not so confident. It made me believe that if i don't act super "alpha" or player-ish, she will meet another player dude who she will fuck immediately. That all girls are sluts and constantly fuck "alpha dudes".

The reality is more like so many women are constantly complaining that they never meet any decent guy forget a super well calibrated player, many girls just won't have sex outside relationships, some have gone many months and maybe more without sex, that they are much more conscious and unsure than you are, that many girls are so sensitive that if you tease them too much you will make them think of you as huge asshole (cocky funny anyone?) etc.

So even if you read some well intentioned advice from some PUA dude who says that you should move faster, its fucking you up mentally because some girls are just not comfortable with high speed. If a girl meets you regularly for dates, talks to you on phone, does not play games, and you have clearly shown sexual intentions, then it is a matter of time more than anything else.

Point is local environment is very important. So I believe the best one can do is find out a guy who is similar to you in core personality traits and who is very good with women, and hang out with him. I know this is maybe not easy to find for most guys, but this is probably the best you can do.

Having clear standards aligned with your goals

This is actually a very very important point and I want to make a detailed post about this. Its about standards.

Now I used to hear from a lot of guys that the girl they are with are very boring, or how they have to kick out a crazy girl next morning, or how most girls are super crazy, or they can't hold a conversation, or that very rarely do you get girls who were girlfriend material etc. None of this ever matched with my experiences. The few girls I had got in my life were all awesome in many ways. Good looks, good family backgrounds, good personalities etc. So I could not relate with this point.

Then I started noticing the girls which a lot of guys who were very good with women did get. A common pattern I noticed was they did not care much about their personalities, conversational ability, whether they had a nice face or not etc. The most important thing seemed to be that they had nice bodies. I was unconsciously only taking any interest in girls who were very good in every way. That of course if MUCH MUCH harder and you will have much lower success ratio.

I used to implicitly assume that girls which a lot of these guys fucked were all awesome in every way, just like my few girls were. Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with fucking girls who can't talk much, but the point is, have clear standards which are aligned with your goals.

If you are just looking for random sex, don't bother so much with whether she has a cute face or not, or whether she can hold a good conversation for 20 minutes etc. Not saying you fuck just anything which does not say no, but i have noticed a lot of inexperienced guys like me tend to confuse random sex with high quality girls. They think that they should lots of random sex with lots of very high quality girls. It does not work that way.

So if you just care about having lots of sex, just look for girls who turn you on. That's it. Since I started employing this, I noticed I have been able to pull off some really crazy shit. Because you inherently don't care about these girls, (which you tend to do a lot when the girl is serious girl friend material), you go very shamelessly after your desires, which makes them even more attracted to you. Even if you lose some girls in the process, you don't really care.

Three weeks ago, I almost pulled off a threesome. In the end though, the girls said this was too much for them and instead I had sex with them individually. I think was able to go after it so shamelessly because I did not care much for these girls beyond sex.

This is a point which i feel most PUAs are not able to accept because to accept that all they are doing is just having a lower bar when fucking girls means that all the time they spent trying to learn about "game" was a complete waste.

Also, the flip side of this is that don't care when some PUA dude mentions some crazy numbers to you. Almost certainly, those girls are not super high quality. Getting super high quality women from cold approach on a regular basis, I am going to say, is impossible. Some white dudes I have seen fucking a lot of Asian girls in NY - when I told them that most Asian girls would accept a much lower quality white dude over an Asian dude for casual sex - they understandably get very defensive about it because it means that it was not much about them or their "awesome game".

If you look at some guys like Jeffy, he has pulled off some crazy shit and he is well known for fucking fatties. I have no problems with guys fucking whoever, but for anyone reading any such thing, just take everything with a grain of salt. And I am sure if someone went around telling average guys that they fuck reasonably average girls who would not say no - nobody will really praise you. They will all say, yeah dude, no biggie there, I know. But really, that's what it really is.

So yeah, have clear goals and standards aligned with those goals. And sex with some average girls is a LOT of fun as you go shamelessly after your desires and they put in a lot of effort to please you! :)

More evidence of PUA crapola

As I started distancing myself from PUA, I became increasingly frustrated at how much of a scam these guys were. By this time, this point has been beaten to death on plenty of forums and websites (Check out Aaron Sleazy for the best resource on this), but I still want to write about 4-5 which I think are very important and affect your results in a huge way.

First, looks don't matter. Again beaten to death by now, but the effects of this were very clear. I decided to get a fashion consulting session. Got a new wardrobe, started maintaining my facial hair, better grooming, new haircut. Results were blatantly obvious. I could now notice girls blatantly check me out sometimes.

Second, venue selection. Again, extremely important. To a normal guy, this may sound like no shit, sherlock - but somehow this is not obvious within PUA. I would never get anything at a frat bar kind of a place, full of loud obnoxious dudes but when I went to laid back places, with international crowds, I would do well even if my mood was very bad that day.

Third, individual goals, style and preferences. There is no one size fits all methodology. Your style, venues, type of girls etc. will vary drastically from person to person. A style of game which works for someone who has all the time in the world, loves going to loud nightclubs, has no money, looking for plenty of one-night stands, prefers crazy girls will be very different than for someone who works a hectic job, wants some peace and quiet in life, doesn't want to put lots of effort into this, just wants a reasonable girl who has a good personality. Similarly, if one person has never even held a girl's hands in life versus someone who has got 5 chicks every year for the past 7-8 years and is just looking for higher quality - these are two completely different people.

Then, success ratio. Somehow this never gets mentioned on any PUA website. It is a very important factor. For a guy like me who works a hectic job and has some hobbies as well, I can't possible go out 3 nights a week and approach every girl crazily just to get a one-night stand. There has to be a higher return on investment for me.

There is one other point which I want to emphasize about which is standards, that is extremely important. I will make a separate post about it.

Slowly detaching myself from PUA

For some reason, in spite of not getting any success, I kept at it. Part of the reason was that I kept reading random forums where people said that they too had no success for a period of time, but then everything suddenly became easier one day. So I kept at it. But no success.

One of the reasons I kept at it was that I was getting some success randomly when I did not do anything. Like when on a flight, a chick blatantly offered to take me home, when I really did not do anything. On another occasion, I felt up an older girl's pussy in a lounge. But none of these were product of any game. With the older lady, I started the conversation with "What are you drinking", talked about some other random boring shit etc. but the key point was that she was a tourist who was there to get laid.

I want to emphasize here that - a) I did not get laid from these because I somehow fucked both of these and countless others up even when girls liked me a lot due to some random stupidities on my part. b) These were not any product of game. I am not sure what to call it other than the fact that they just liked me right off. I started the conversation, after that they just kept re-engaging me showing plenty of interest.

Anyway, at some point after so many rejections from cold approaching and which is what I was focusing on, I started getting so depressed that I thought maybe girls are not for me, maybe I am secretly gay but I just don't know it (I am serious, I really did think this one night) etc. So I thought this is not worth it. Let me just go do something else.

Overall, I did not get laid even once from all this time in PUA. This was around August of 2011.

This time period detoxing is what changed it for me. I focused purely on doing things that I like. I went about exploring NY on my own. Focused on my dance lessons. Took random lessons here and there. Went out to try new bars and restaurants. Invited friends over from nearby cities. My mood starting lifting up. During this time I also met some awesome cool guys. My dance instructor used to like me a lot - she took me over the weekends to nearby cities where she taught workshops to travel with her and her friends. Everywhere I went, because this time I was just focused on enjoying and not on what I was doing, I actually started noticing for the first time all the girls who liked me.

There was also severe cognitive dissonance that my mind faced during this time. It did not make sense that so many awesome guys and girls love hanging out with me, invite me to go out with them and I kept bombing so badly at cold approach. Maybe it was "game" that was making me weird?

During this time, one night I went out to a bar with friends, there were this cute girl who was looking at me and smiling, I went up to her, chatted with her about random stuff, she was an intern in the city for the summer and and it all went so smoothly. We exchanged numbers, her friend kept telling us that we should go out together. We hooked up about a week later.This was my first hookup in NY. I then came back home.

Slowly I started distancing myself from mainstream game. I also started doing searches on google like "PUA scam", "problems with PUA" etc. and came across Aaron Sleazy once day. When I read his book debunking, and other stuff on his blog and forum, a lot of things fell into place and I gradually started detaching myself from it.

Came back from NY in late August 2011. One night my friend invited me to a party. He had two female friends with him. We drank, danced, both girls showed mad interest in me, I offered to drop both of them home, both came, dropped one first, second one told me that I should stay at her place tonight because I was too drunk to go back home, went to her place and had sex. She became my second girlfriend. Once again, I was amazed at the simplicity. We broke up a few months later as she moved to another city.

PUA coaching experience - Part 3

The next night we started in similar fashion. Two of us. Went over the previous night with the two of them. More of you're so money bro. The two of us went out and task was that before we went back to the lounge, we had to collect numbers from chicks and invite girls back to the lounge. We roamed around, approached a few girls and somehow ended up in this laid back bar. I felt awesome and alive the moment I stepped in there. The crowd was very international, I was probably younger and better dressed than a lot of guys there, people were less snobbish and it generally felt awesome. I did amazingly well there. The other guy bombed there. He did well the other night in the upscale lounge. But this was a completely different environment. (as a side note, I almost always do well there. Every night I have gone there, I have almost always done well).

I went back to the coach dudes. Told them about it. They could not believe I did so well. A couple of girls even showed up later to the lounge. Asked about this venue phenomenon. They said, yeah this lounge place is "tougher" and that I needed to step my game up for that. This was a really stupid thing to say. (I have realized that as guys, we usually don't like hearing that xyz thing is harder or beyond our reach. So whenever someone says a statement like that, you implicitly tell yourself that I am going to crack this). Plus, I sort of respected these guys so I started assuming that game is this linear thing where you keep improving ad-infinitum.

Went again to this lounge place. I bombed again. When I asked for advice, they said you need to be more "playful". No other concrete advice. I forgot to add one thing to the previous night. One of the two coaches got drunk and took a girl home. Definitely not what I paid him to do. This night I managed to isolate a girl but wanted to kiss her to I sort of lunged across. It was not smooth, and the girl left. Something similar happened with the other 2 girls from earlier in the night who showed up at the lounge.

When I asked these guys about how could I make it more smooth, they said, don't worry, keep doing it. It will automatically become more smooth over a period of time! There were lots of other red flags as well which I should have noticed. When I told these guys earlier that I feel white guys going to places like Thailand and Philippines get laid easily, they said no its not true. Its about personality and game. Then I asked if my accent, race, nationality etc. could be a potential problem. They said just own it. It's all in your head. if you don't care, the girls don't care.

There were lots of other red flags as well. No specific advice, one-size-fits-all methodology. Then they mentioned that they went out every night for almost 3 years. I now have no clue what kind of guys do such a thing. Anyway.

Next day we did some street game. I think this is what hurt me the most. Not realizing how fundamentally flawed blindly approaching girls on the street really is, we went to do it. I was seduced by the idea that not every girl goes to bars but they have to go about their daily chores. They kept harping about how awesome street game really is.

After the bootcamp, I went out and probably did 70-80 street approaches. I got probably more than 25 numbers. All flakes. Every single one of them. Asked them about it. They said - keep doing the same and one day it will all be easier! This was the final nail in the coffin.

PUA coaching experience - Part 2

I decided to hire a better coach. These guys were probably better, or so I thought. They were more expensive, dressed better, had a blog and a full fledged PUA company. Of course they were better.

I had two phone coaching sessions and one live weekend consisting of 2 nights and 1 day. Once again, I should have spotted the red flags. They never asked many details about my background on the phone, about my appearance and or what they thought my sticking points were. They just tried to impose their "FERA system" on me. Like that is the magic cure all for everything.

I sent them some FRs consisting of my night out after their phone coaching session. I was using some conversational starters which went completely against the philosophy they were teaching, but that was working brilliantly for me after I started coaching for me. Looking back, it was a placebo effect. In reality, I was doing the exact same things as before.

I told them about it, they said no this is not right. You should do the other thing which i am teaching you. Because I was not comfortable with those lines, they did not work for me. I thought I am clearly doing something wrong. So I ended up taking a live weekend with them.

Two of them. Two of us. Started the night with some drinks and we once again went into their "FERA system". No individual advice or individual attention. We ended up going to some fancy upscale lounge - I was not comfortable in that environment and thus I did not do well there. Our task for the night was to use a couple of lines they had given and try to isolate a girl. I did not do well, they said you're so money bro, no more advice, they said we'll take it tomorrow, you guys are awesome.

There were more red flags that I should have noticed. The guy with me opened the friend of a girl I was with a really awkward hey baby, how are you, do you want a drink etc. It was said very awkwardly, in PUA language he sounded very AFCish, very needy and the like. Surprisingly, the girl found him very cute, they later exchanged numbers and hooked up.

Also, before the start of the night, I had got a date fixed for next week from my dance class. Once again, I had not done anything. Chatted with the girl about the dance, about work, asked her number. Texted her that would you like to go for a drink with me - she was super excited and replied yes with plenty of exclamation marks in the text. I told these guys about it - they were like see dude, this works. This is awesome. You're so money bro. I thought at the point that hey, I did not do anything. I have no clue why she likes me and clearly I did not do anything which you guys taught. So I was not really sure why they were claiming the credit for it.

But once again, the stupid brainwashed me, did not connect the dots and still continued with this PUA shit.