The in-her game(tm): Rapport synthesis

What the hell is rapport and how do we achieve rapport rapidly with someone we just met? Rapport is cultivated by mutually exploring ea other’s emotional landscape. As one PU101 instructor, Manish, describes finding wide rapport is like pouring water over a slab of concrete. It will spread and seek out crevices. The widespread of water itself is wide rapport and to delve deeper into crevices is to dive into deep rapport.

The difference between a PUA vs. an ordinary Joe, in my opinion, is the ability of the PUA shorten the meet-to-sex period. This can be accomplished in two ways (both are necessary): (1) Physically bouncing through multiple venue changes, and (2) Roller-coastering through mutual emotional landscape.

The first way is simply taking the lead and go to multiple places within a short period of time with the girl. The second is more difficult. This requires a great deal of soul searching, finding out who you are, what you want, and what is important to you. Once you are comfortable in your own skin and have accepted who you are then we are ready to talk about more wide and deep rapport.

First and foremost, always relate to girls on an emotional level. The way to share that emotional roller coaster ride/journey with a girl is to talk about our past experiences or future projections. The factual details do not matter, but the emotional descriptors are crucial. How you kissed a girl the first time doesn’t matter… However, how you felt when you first kissed a girl is what you should talk about.

Vibing, multithreading, and wide rapport are similar concepts. They involve a brief emotional connection through multiple topics. The goal of wide rapport is bouncing around on that emotional landscape so that we can take notes where to go deeper emotionally.

Deep rapport is when we share deeper feelings through the use of stories or future plans. Instead of going thru many emotions and/or topics, we focus on diving deeper into our mutual emotion(s) and sharing that with ea other. The goal of this emotional journey using wide and deep rapport is to communicate who we are, how we became this way, and where we want to go from now on.

This leads to a critical piece of the puzzle… Identity. As men, we like to focus on what we do that fulfills us. Write down what you would do if you have all the time, money, and success in the world. Within this long list of things you want to do, how would you summarize all those todo’s into a concise statement that describes you. The next step is to work on projecting this identity…

Fret not...

Little girls, Daddy is still here. I’m moving back to Seattle, so I’m preparing for some serious gaming in late spring and summer.

Another thing is that my weekend will be quite busy. I can’t wait to see one of you cry (sorry, an inside joke)! Don’t worry, if you feel authentic and cry, you have my permission, just don’t tell me about it. Go out there and smack some asses… only followup with a squeeze on the ones you like!

More than meets the eye

Complexity in life lies in the juxtaposition of simple blocks. Back when DNA was discovered, and finally identified to be contain only 4 bases, i.e. alphabet, we struggled to figure out how that could encode for the magic of life. Then we discovered that every 3 bases code for 1 amino acid, one word, and there are only 20 different atomic units of proteins. A string of many amino acids together make up a functional protein, as in a sentence, the basis of many biological machines. By the simple mapping of arrangement of DNA, we can translate to sequences of amino acids, and finally identifying proteins, thus, the sentences that describe life.

Through the hardwork of many, we discovered that there are domains within proteins, as in phrases of our sentences. Of course, there were also multiple level of controls of how DNA is organized, transcription of DNA into RNA, processing, storage, and translation of RNA into proteins. Proteins themselves are further post-translationally modified, delivered, assembled with other proteins to form complexes, as in paragraphs. (I’m trying to see how far I can carry the analogy of life and linguistic before that breaks down).

Within the past decade, a whole new world of genetics developed, based on the discovery of “non-coding” RNA. What we thought was junk DNA, that was not coding for meaning for RNA and consequently, proteins, turns out to encode for meaningful control sequences to determine whether coding RNAs become proteins. I will go more in-depth in the future.

The in-her game(tm): Tall tales

I can still remember the first time I made my very first approach. Okay, I got the opener from the self-proclaimed “top 10 PUA of Seattle”, as I did my best to sneak up on a 2-set, my body shivering, legs feeling a bit weak, and I could barely blurt out my opener, they downed their drinks and left the venue. So, thank you guru-wannabe, for teaching me how to creep out girls. Sadly, I’m a rebellious student and much has changed since then.

I didn’t do another approach for nearly one month. Yes, it was that traumatizing to me, probably not so much to those girls, as they were probably used to getting hit on by many inept “top 10 PUA of Seattle.” Back to the drawing board, I read up on PU101 materials and watching many videos of Sensei. After a much needed upgrade of my party wardrobe, I was able to open 70% of sets. Now that I have been doing the Mystery newbie mission for several months (due to lack of sets here), and I’ve learned to let go of the outcome, almost 100% sets open for me.

Soon after, I was introduced to many PUAs and almost everyone universally told me to approach and open sets. I went out many nights and I saw no improvement in my interaction with others. If only someone would tell me how to be social, talk to everyone, making small talks about absolutely nothing of consequence, and not worrying bout the outcome of my interaction. I would slowly but surely see how I can push myself further and make incremental improvement.

My advice to those who are starting and you are not a spontaneously social guy: write down a few interesting stories about your life & recent experience, exaggerate them, include hook questions, intervening questions to get your audience to pay attention, and a funny/insightful punchline. Then rehearse those stories, and be ready to tell them next time you doing small talks. The charismatic guy is someone who can tell compelling stories that capture the attention of the group.

The opener, as I realize now, is a simple way of interrupting someone or a group without creating a socially awkward silence. Draw them into your world with your stories, get them to invest into the interaction by asking your audience questions at critical junctures, and finally, learn to release their attention with something humorous or thought provoking.

A few final tidbits on stories:

1. Short and succinct
2. Start with a hook question
3. An emotional journey with embedded attraction spikes (DHV)
4. Intervening questions at turning points to maintain audience participation and to build up anticipation
5. Release with a funny/insightful punchline

Story telling is the bread and butter of plowing, unless you are very socially savy, creative, and have experience telling stories, you are better off writing out your stories first, practice delivering them, before trying it out on live audience. For beginners, you have to learn to be good performers. There are other ways of plowing:

1. Cold reads
2. Role playing
3. Banter/teasing
4. Physical play (as someone calls it, kino plowing)

No hair, no lair

Here’s the story, there’s a baldy, who found a lady, not thru cold approaches. Then he lets the forum, he created, to crumble and decay. When fellow members rose up and pleaded for leadership, he was no where to be found. Instead, he was busy being authentic, and introducing his lady + her friends to the game, somehow, in some mysterious ways, that they could profit from all of this. Now, is he still beyond reproach?

I’m all for guys coming in this with a goal and if that goal is finding happiness & sharing it with a lovely lady, that’s even better. So I would encourage ppl to be in a happy LTR. In fact, when my good friend, who is in an LTR, told me he wanted to break up with her so that he can sarge with me, I came up with a few ideas (that I learned thru having relationships) to help him mend fences with her and to continue his relationship. I honestly don’t know whether he is truly happy with his girl, but who I am to judge? All that matters to me is that he learns to have a good relationship, which I highly recommend.

There are also “friends” I know, who are using “LTR” to escape from the game. This shit is tough and ego-bruising, I respect those who have the determination, dedication, and preseverance to be good at this. Unfortunately, for those who joined this community willingly and not man enough to handle the rejection, who decided to be in an LTR just not to sarge, please do not expect that I have the same respect for you as I have for guys who go out and struggle to learn to be good.

Then back to the fable story of this one guy, who was a bit power-hungry, as we all are. He is pissed that a band of us left his camp and started our forum. We all have differing agendas, I just find it refreshing that guys are pulling together, collectively make changes when the emperor got no clothes is not being responsive nor responsible.

All I say in that matter is, I don’t dislike the person, I am sorry that this same person is undoing what he worked so hard to build up before. As Jefferson once said, “Every generation needs a revolution.” Every dozen months, we need a new forum.

Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan. — JFK

We probably heard/read different variations of that same quote by JFK. I submit my own: The winner has a thousand proud parents, and all losers are just lonely orphans. When I read reports (for both work & fun), I’m rather skeptical because everyone is craving to be that winner, who wants to be a lonely orphan? Almost everyone is guilty of only publishing their best results (at best), however, many are also guilty of falsifying their works in general.

Here I am, working, doing my usual readings and in my mailbox is a confidential email about our colleague whose dissertation work has been discovered (by journalists and experts will verify) to be false, and not only that, she also published the same “result” for multiple works by simple manipulations of images. I’m sure there are many people out there falsifying their works, but at least be smart enough to make multiple falsifications instead of repeating the same fake data! Are they that stupid and/or lazy?!This brings me to a recent discussion with a dear friend. We have been re-reading some FR’s by a self-proclaimed “Jedi knight” of PUA. The conversation flow in his FR is simply poetic. We all have talked with our share of women; yes, we are a bit awkward, and I’m sure we are not that smooth, even then, we have never encountered girls so compliant or eager. Of course, these same FR/LR’s are posted in multiple seduction boards (no, they were not peer-reviewed), and they also serve as advertisements.

If they are fake, how can we tell? Other than by our intuition, and thus, what about the false hopes they give to their readers? When these “reports” are just fantasies of someone trying to seduce these needy, socially inept, awkward dudes into giving up their hard-earned cash. A few of us have started our new seduction forum, we still haven’t formulate and agree on policies for dealing with people posting ads, and even more importantly, how do we review reports? Do we allow only reports of failures? Should we focus our attention on dissecting only reports of successes? At the very least, how do we flag reports to warn ea other? You are welcome to post your suggestions here in comments or in General Discussion.

Cracking open the blackbox

This past St. Patties’ day was probably the best one I’ve had as someone who is becoming more social. Although I have much to learn, I wonder if I am making progress at the right direction and at the right pace. Throughout the night at only one venue, I opened around 20-some sets. I would say almost every set opened and had I plowed, I would have progressed in my game.

There was a long drawn out discussion on naturals vs. us. The debate got quite personal at times. Hopefully someone will recount here in Seattle lair and describe what he saw. I agree that naturals don’t really run our version of the game. I would even contend that the game we run isn’t natural; not because the game isn’t natural, as it was built from the ground up based on what many deconstructed of their observations of naturals, published peer-reviewed works in evolutionary psycho-biology, and their in-field experience. Our “game” isn’t natural is the result of our incongruence; rather than blaming the game or the community as I have described before about other “gurus”, I should bear the responsibility of practicing and improving my game.

The next part was more difficult so I will start with an analogy. Medicine, as it was practiced in the Roman empire, was horrendous. Their physicians harmed more than they helped their patients. Then Galen came along and used his opportunity of treating wounded gladiators to understand human anatomy. So I do see a value in observing naturals in field; however, until we use the scientific process of deconstructing their behaviors and interactions, how do we model someone without even being able to describe his/her looks, presentation, behaviors,…?! Or in the case of Galen, he can’t start treating his men until he can describe the basic anatomy.

Perhaps my professional training automatically kicks in when I encounter a difficult problem, like the blackbox of how naturals doing PU. The first step is to collect data, that means making observations, of not just one interaction, but many of multiple naturals. Second, we deconstruct their interactions to similarities and differences, and formulate a hypothesis that consists of a series of simple yes-no questions that we go out in-field and test. Finally, we reconstruct a model that we can use to apply in future to see if we get the same result. Yes, the process is tedious and unless we are meticulous in this process, we would never “get” naturals.

We spent nearly 2 hours arguing about the merit of the community and trying to find ways to reject commonly held beliefs within the community. Sure, I can always find a few anecdotes that go against the community teachings. This tantamounts to finding a zebra among a herd of horses. Sure, there are always exception to the rules; which is the point, those few exceptions prove that the rules are correct most of the time. Most guys coming into this are from the computer industry, so they see almost everything in terms of black and white, and the second they see something gray or a zebra, they become nihilists and decide to reject everything wholesale. They do the proverbial throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Perhaps it’s my personal philosophy, I find that it’s easier to build on the works of others than to tear everything down and claim that I’m the second-coming of Christ, so my teaching is correct. This PU skillset is frustratingly difficult to learn & master without any guidance as we are all blind leading the blind here. But to take this frustration out and blame on others are not the best way of solving this blackbox. Yes, there are limitations to any PU method, that doesn’t mean we should reject it outright, many ppl have succeeded in using it. The lack of progress and/or success lies with the practitioner, whether that is due his lack of mastery, intelligence, whatever,…

Rather than throwing our hands up and admit defeat, or to say this-or-that is wrong, we need to solve this puzzle. Until we have faith in our ability and we dedicate our energy to solving it, we can sit around a bicker all day and trash any other method. The more productive way of spending our time and energy is to systematically finding solutions.

Bootcamp/workshop… a necessary evil?

The 80’s was famous for the junk bonds and the stock market bubble. Back in the early 90’s, there was the biotech bubble; then late-90’s to early-00’s, dot-com bubble, followed by the housing bubble; and now, we are in the middle of the pickup workshop bubble. People have been getting together and getting it on forever. Have we, as a species, lost the ability of being able to connect with each other? Do we need coaches to teach us how to get laid? What drove up the barrier between the sexes?

First, I am one of the older guys who actually had many gf’s pre-community days and I would be the first to admit that I didn’t have game, but I certainly knew what to do without reading books and taking workshops. Second, I have learned evolutionary biology prior to getting into the community. I contend that guys who haven’t gotten laid before, too wussy to get girls, may be nature’s way of eliminating them from the gene pool. Third, I have seen friends who have done the holy grail that many community guys dreamed of doing, taking the girl home the first night, or even having a few friends with benefits, f-buddies,… on the side while they are in a supposedly monogamous relationship, unbeknownst to their gf.
With that background, I was not too impressed with what the community promised to deliver. From the effect it has on certain socially inept guys, I think those guys are better off staying as recluses than to pursue something they simply were incapable of attaining. My opinion on that aside, should people take workshops/bootcamp to get into the community?

My answer is to tell guys first do the following,

1. Find out who you are, what do you want out of life? Every day, what are you doing to get you closer toward your goals? (Do you have the job you want? Are you making enough money?…)
2. In your mind, what kind of girls do you want in your life?
3. What stories/vignettes do you have that allow you to present who you are, what you do, how you live your life to those girls?

If you are to spend that $1.5 to $2k on a workshop, what have you set aside to change your looks, your wardrobe, and possibly, your lifestyle? In geeky terms, think of yourself as your own avatar, do girls see that attractive guy that they want to be with? If not or you have doubts, ask someone who cares about you to help you out first.

After you have made those changes, find a group of guys who are better than you to get you started. Ask for and willing to accept honest feedbacks, yes, there are some guys who get off on the ego trip of bashing you; guys who dare to be honest with you are your friends. Most of all, don’t adopt the dumbass community mindset to be alpha (YEEEAH!) and damn what everyone else thinks. Instead, keep an open mind, try to change and explore outside of your comfort zone; afterall, if you are so good with girls already, why take this leap of faith and expect the community techniques to make a difference in your life?!

If all that fails and you are truly gripped by your inability to talk to strangers, then I would consider taking a workshop. I have seen how it can changed lives, then again, only 10% of people who become good at this, so many fail. The workshop itself may rock how your view the world, but in order for you to be good, you have to work hard afterward to hone your craft. Just as medical school doesn’t make a doctor, neither will a workshop turn you into a bona fide pickup artist. A true doctor takes years to hone his/her craft and through daily practice, that physician will get better, same in pickup. As for what workshop to take… I will tackle this issue another time.

Change...

There is a growing chorus of people who were total social retards, started with the community, supposedly became ladies men, then turned around to bash those who helped them. The common complaint seemed to be that they were just social robots, not genuine, somehow community shared techniques interefere with their ability to connect with people, and they only got that one girl, made that final breakthrough, and became self-proclaimed gurus, once they have gotten rid of their acquired community techniques.

I am what I am

I’m a 30something professional embarking on a journey to become that social butterfly. I joined the community back in 2006 hoping to learn to be social, then I discovered that the problem is that environment is filled with wussy guys trying to be alpha. As I record my journey here, what is a better title than summing up this as a journey to Be A Man, to be comfortable in my own skin, to be able to chill with friends, and to surround myself with positive people in this journey, we called life. Sit back, relax, buckle your seat belt, because I don’t want you to fall laughing your ass off. Enjoy!