Comments on: Monday Reprint: dating, self-worth, and challenge

By: Eurosabra

Eurosabra — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:55:12 +0000

If you’re not on the way to being slim and pretty, girls, your chances are pretty slim, but still better than the average man’s. And millions of frustrated, unsatisfied men will make it their mission to keep you down. As they should be. After all, you’re keeping an eye on the gene pool.

Feh. “Gatekeeper” role is how we got the nasty side of pick-up (early Ross Jeffries, early Tyler Durden)and blatantly marketed misogyny in the first place.

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 02:16:35 +0000

Actually, Frank, I think my eighth grade football coach said something like it. Or maybe my first TAC in OCS. Whichever, I remember it.

Innyway, somebody writing on PUA ism noted, source unknown, th percentage of relationships which go anywhere at all, not necessarily for life or years, by beginning in bars or clubs with the generic pickup amount to the mid-single digits. Let’s triple that for other venues in which a guy walks up to a woman and starts a conversation.
That leaves, say, 85% of relationships where the guy goes up to a girl HE ALREADY KNOWS and tries to convert the relationship from friend, classmate, colleague at work, partner in a club or project, into a romantic or personal relationship.
Which means he’s already been seen, and, most likely, watched and even judged.
Which means, you can’t fake it long enough.
You have got to make an effort to be somebody. Somehow.
What that may be doesn’t matter as much as the personal qualities manifested in the quest. Hm. Did I say “quest”?
Freudian slip, there, I expect.
Anyway, if you’re not on your way to being somebody, guys, your chances are pretty slim. As they should be. We have to keep an eye on the gene pool.

By: Frank

Frank — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 21:08:25 +0000

“If you want something you haven’t got, you’re going to have to become someone you haven’t been. And in order to become someone you have never been, you’re going to have to do things you’ve never done.”

This one is worth remembering. Thanks, Hugo.

By: Hugo Schwyzer

Hugo Schwyzer — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:18:34 +0000

Well, it makes sense that there’d be some overlap. The key for me is that you not project a false front, but rather, work to become what it is that you would like to project. The goal isn’t seduction, it’s mutual growth and healthy relationship. But the langauge is similar, in that ambition and confidence and self-worth are often deeply attractive qualities.

By: Arkhilokhus

Arkhilokhus — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:11:23 +0000

“I think it’s essential that, without immodesty or excess pride, you honestly see yourself as being worthy of being loved and become committed to working every day to make yourself still worthier.”

I find it interesting how much this point - in different language, to be sure - is emphasized in the pick-up/seduction community (and in the female counterparts to that community that are starting to appear - Paige Parker, for example).

By: SamSeaborn

SamSeaborn — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:37:56 +0000

Hugo,

I’m thinking that “dating advice” and “relationship advice” are two nearly completely different things.

[Dating advice ] is based on the assumption that women are a challenge to be mastered, rather than human beings to be engaged.

This is constructing a false dichotomy. Of course, women are human beings to be engaged, but that in itself doesn’t say anything at all about how to do that, which can indeed be quite a challenge to be mastered. When you’re learning another language, you’re trying to do so to engange other human beings. Learning it can indeed be quite a challenge.

That said, there is a fascinating - emphatic - study (a BA thesis) about the so-called pickup community by Elana Clift, a gender studies / American studies student from the University of Texas at Austin. It’s called “picking up and acting out - politics of masculinity in the pickup community”.

https://webspace.utexas.edu/ejc329/ElanaCliftThesis.pdf?uniq=-wk7fye