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Self confidence with women needs improvement
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08-08-2010 6:18pm#1
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jurgenscarl wrote: »There are lots of books out there but The Mystery Method is the best of the lot IMHO.
This is the basic summary.
Fresh from a PUA handbook I assume?0 -
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Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,104 Mod ✭✭✭✭
Join Date:Posts: 59033
IMHO why the PUA types and the crapola they fall for gets the audience they do is down to a few factors. Changing gender roles, men not quite being sure of theirs anymore etc, but a lot of the time its because the usual advice is about as useful as a comb to a bald man. It's only hitting the sides at best.
The most obvious one is "just be yourself". Meant in genuine kindness but practically and objectively pretty bloody useless. The OP is and has been "himself" and it's not working for him. When he stopped being himself or at least his normal self through the dubious vector of legal highs he had more success. While it is useful to admonish that choice as the chap did himself, its not so useful to ignore the whys of that.
The biggest thing the drugs gave him was confidence. AKA "I forgot I was me and my personal social hangups for a while". Now "be confident" is up there with "be yourself". Well meaning but again useless. Like telling a depressed person to cheer up or more like telling a fat person to eat less, move more. Its way more complex than that and like someone struggling with a belly, its a process and requires work and emulation of those around you who possess it "naturally". So on this score at least I agree with jurgenscarl on this point and its one of the PUA things that has some basis in reality.
So what steps would I take in your position? First sort out your "look". If you're a bit arseways in dress and are still wearing WoW tee shirts beyond the age of 20, then ask someone to go with you on a shopping trip. Preferably a woman mate. Someone with a more forceful personality can get away with it, if not it's a lot harder to. Maybe get your hair styled. If you're losing it to a fair extent, break out the number two blade. While women aren't as obviously visual as men, they still are(may even be more so) and will respond to someone who appears to take care in how they look. Not too much, but enough to know you have made an effort. If you make an effort about yourself, you're more likely to make an effort among those around you.
Social confidence. OK I'm really gonna get slated for this one.... IMHO, except in cases of genuine social phobia, shyness is a very self indulgent mindset for the most part. It's all about how you feel you may come across to others. It's all about your ego. Its feck all to do with others. So try to remember that others have their own crap to deal with, so yours won't really register much. Also remember you're on this earth for a short enough time, so why waste it worrying about how others feel about you? Your gravestone won't and neither will theirs.
And why is that? Because you don't care. It makes no difference to you except as an ego boost. Well try to imagine that feeling when dealing with a woman you do like. Oh it'll be hard at first, but with effort and practice it won't be in time.Wanttobebetter wrote:If I can tell a girl likes me but I'm not interested in her I'm amazingly confident and really funny, charming etc.
Try to strike up conversations with random people, men and women. Just talk. What have you to lose? Nothing at all. Both you and they won't be around in 100 years and weren't around 100 years ago so why worry?
If the rest of your life, career, living space, hobbies health, interests, focus etc arent fulfilling you then work on them. For you. That'll make a big diff. Get yourself right and any women problems will go away. Or at least a new set may arise
:D
My 3 cents anyway.Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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IMHO why the PUA types and the crapola they fall for gets the audience they do is down to a few factors. Changing gender roles, men not quite being sure of theirs anymore etc, but a lot of the time its because the usual advice is about as useful as a comb to a bald man. It's only hitting the sides at best.
The most obvious one is "just be yourself". Meant in genuine kindness but practically and objectively pretty bloody useless. The OP is and has been "himself" and it's not working for him. When he stopped being himself or at least his normal self through the dubious vector of legal highs he had more success. While it is useful to admonish that choice as the chap did himself, its not so useful to ignore the whys of that.
The biggest thing the drugs gave him was confidence. AKA "I forgot I was me and my personal social hangups for a while". Now "be confident" is up there with "be yourself". Well meaning but again useless. Like telling a depressed person to cheer up or more like telling a fat person to eat less, move more. Its way more complex than that and like someone struggling with a belly, its a process and requires work and emulation of those around you who possess it "naturally". So on this score at least I agree with jurgenscarl on this point and its one of the PUA things that has some basis in reality.
So what steps would I take in your position? First sort out your "look". If you're a bit arseways in dress and are still wearing WoW tee shirts beyond the age of 20, then ask someone to go with you on a shopping trip. Preferably a woman mate. Someone with a more forceful personality can get away with it, if not it's a lot harder to. Maybe get your hair styled. If you're losing it to a fair extent, break out the number two blade. While women aren't as obviously visual as men, they still are(may even be more so) and will respond to someone who appears to take care in how they look. Not too much, but enough to know you have made an effort. If you make an effort about yourself, you're more likely to make an effort among those around you.
Social confidence. OK I'm really gonna get slated for this one.... IMHO, except in cases of genuine social phobia, shyness is a very self indulgent mindset for the most part. It's all about how you feel you may come across to others. It's all about your ego. Its feck all to do with others. So try to remember that others have their own crap to deal with, so yours won't really register much. Also remember you're on this earth for a short enough time, so why waste it worrying about how others feel about you? Your gravestone won't and neither will theirs.
And why is that? Because you don't care. It makes no difference to you except as an ego boost. Well try to imagine that feeling when dealing with a woman you do like. Oh it'll be hard at first, but with effort and practice it won't be in time.
Try to strike up conversations with random people, men and women. Just talk. What have you to lose? Nothing at all. Both you and they won't be around in 100 years and weren't around 100 years ago so why worry?
If the rest of your life, career, living space, hobbies health, interests, focus etc arent fulfilling you then work on them. For you. That'll make a big diff. Get yourself right and any women problems will go away. Or at least a new set may arise:D
My 3 cents anyway.
Not to labour a point but literally everything said in this post is 100% correct.
OP, 12 months ago, I was juuuuuuuuust the same as you in almost every way you've described yourself. I came to a lot of self-realisations in some weird moment of clarity type buzz (while sitting on the toilet, of all places) and everything Wibbs has just said filled my head out of nowhere. I bought new clothes, new aftershave, fixed up my hair, sorted out my complexion and started to view the negative aspects of my life by their opposing positives (eg, instead of thinking "my job doesn't really pay the best", I instead thought "Well.... I really love my job!"). All of these changes made me feel an awful lot more confident and now, I'm a different man. Happier. That's what's important, more than anything else.0 -
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If you can feel like you are fulfilled...happy on the inside then it radiates to the outside and somehow you end up forgetting about any nerves and just start having a good time:) I was painfully shy myself, as in I would rather have not been near a girl because if there was a chance I'd have needed to speak with her, I'd freak out internally and just leave the room/area!
Personally, it took me many years to gain anything resembling the confidence I now have but as I look back at my life before who I am now, I really don't know how I'd have survived
Once you take baby steps it's all good from there, it gets better and better and before long you will have little problem chatting with women. The easiest way to start this is just friendly conversation with women, not for any romantic interest, but purely out of chatting to women and being comfortable around them and not afraid to converse with them.
Getting practice with that is essential, from there you can step it up a tiny notch each time you feel ok to move ahead:) Like Nervous Wreck said in his post about changing his style, this was his particular way of upping his confidence...or BumbleB feeling totally chilled through meditation and talking about guitar, you will have your own way and it will feel right.0 -
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This song and video puts it very well and its got a great vibe on happiness.
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Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,104 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 59033
just be yourself and act confident
This advice while well meaning is utterly useless in practical terms. It would be the equivalent of telling a depressed person "be happy" or an unfit person, "get fit".arsenallegend wrote: »just be yourself OP
Be yourself. Right so, what does that mean? The OP and others are already "being themselves" and its not working for them. So maybe themselves need a tune up? Unless your name is Mr Christ or Mr Buddha, we all can do with improving. We all have issues or problems or downright unattractive personality quirks that need work.
Be or act confident? OK. How? Easy to say if you are already or know what confidence actually means, but no use if you don't.
I agree that some help and instruction can't be a bad thing. Like trying to get fit. Taking a class with an instructor will get you there quicker and get you out of bad habits at the very start. All good. The problem is the PUA instruction itself. Yes it makes some good, if obvious points, but it clothes them in a lot of waffle. It also tends to engender a mindset that culd be damaging. Particularly to the type of personality that seeks this stuff out. The quiet guy who is uncomfortable socially and who likes to work in systems. He's much more likely to get sucked into the system and relyon and get addicted to that. Bad plan for him, great for the PUA sellers.err I dont remember my password wrote: »You can learn from something, even if it is an extreme. A lot of guys, I feel, in modern Irish society especially, have been confused about their roles (as Wibbs points out) and have pretty much neglected their 'technique' for interacting with women, and have been occupying themselves doing other things (study/work/male friends/games/etc etc.. actually just games I reckon..) So I don't think a 'crash course' in how to act in these situations is such a bad thing, the intelligent person will take the valuable information from them and use it to improve themselves. I don't think it HAS to be smarmy.
I've looked into the whole area. Some of the notions expressed interested me. It also interested me because there was a pretty large social/gender experiement going on and it interested me to see if there was more going on that meets the eye or what we as men(and women) think actually happens in social/sexual interactions. Ive also met one of these PUA master guys. A British guy who was running seminars here. A near two hour convo with him opened my eyes to the commercial aspect and how its tailored to its audience and gets them coming back for more. Its almost cultish in it's MO.
I agree with the first part, I dont agree so much with the second. IMHO why so many men have trouble nowadays is precisely because they see women as friends first. Not so long ago few men would have had women friends. They would have women family members and romantic partners. This made it easier for men in the sense that they had more practice dealing with women on that score. It also made it easier for the ladies as they had an idea what was going on with a guy too. Now I like that we now can have mates of either gender, but I think this has confused many men(and women) when it comes to the sexual/romantic part.In terms of advice to the OP, I think, you should just try and start thinking of yourself as a fun person to be around, and start thinking of girls as friends rather than, well.. you know...
I would say if you meet women, be friendly, but do not try to be their friend. Not at first. I've said it before, but the word girlfriend has the clue to this in the name. Go for the girl/woman first and the friendship will come if it's to come. Turning a sexual/romantic partner into a friend is a lot easier than the other way around. Women themselves do this.
Exactly. No matter how hot she is she isnt the hottest around. Hot is common. A compatible personality is far less so. No matter how hot she is, that wont make a relationship and like I say there's enough hot to go around anyway.Try not to get too hung up on the 'oh wow this girl is really hot, I wanna take her home' when you first meet a girl.
I agree on the having a laugh part. Dont get into heavy convo. Avoid deep emotional stuff, especially about yourself like the very plague. Indeed copy the ladies. Generally they make the most of themselves much more than men. They have an idea what looks suit them more than men and they make an effort. They also hold more back. Few women in the first 10 mins of a convo will tell you they're a bit loopy at times/can't get or keep a man/dunno where their lives are going/etc. I've heard men say all of the above from the get go. And then wonder why the woman has no interest?Start thinking 'oh, lets see if I cant have a bit of a laugh with this person' !
And, you WILL have to correct your thinking to do that, I reckon, as the normal thought process is the first option, but it only takes a small conscious decision to switch.. and decide that you wanna have a laugh with someone, rather than.. errr try to start a relationship with them! You will be surprised at what happens!
Dont look for a relationship either. Again copy the ladies. They're not telling you on the first night they want to look in jewelers windows. Well twice in my life they did, but loopers dont count.
Whats attractive to men and women in a man is also attractive to women full stop. A man who is socially aware. Doesnt have to be the life and soul, but not a wallflower. A man who is emotionally aware, but not overly emotional. I'll get flamed for this one but... women may claim that they want a man to be free to be in touch with his emotions, but if you go too far she wont be touching you. A man who has boundaries and knows his worth. A man who has options as far as women go. Read an interesting one there recently where some study or other has found that a woman's sexual attraction for her partner drops in concert with her feeling he would never leave her. It seems that a woman may believe 99% that her guy wont leave, but its in the 1% where the attraction lies. A man who other men like and get on with. A man who knows where he's going and who he is. A man who doesnt need a particular woman in his life but chooses as much on his terms as hers to be with her.
Now thats a long oul list and it comes with time. very very few 18 year olds are going to approach that list. It needs time and effort from the guy. Improve your life and yourself for your life and yourself and you will have zero shortage of women who will want to share in that.Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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