Thinking further about the subject of fear I had an insight. I began to ask myself why I was afraid. I started looking for the source of the fear, going beyond facing it and rather trying to understand it. What I found was that I am not afraid of girls. If I was I would not be able to go out in public. Really, why would I, a 6'2" guy be afraid of a tiny 5' girl? Nor am I afraid of conversation with a stranger. While I prefer my own company, having a pleasant chat with someone is not that difficult. What, then, makes me nervous when I approach?
I began thinking about what I would do if I stopped trying to follow a script and just go with my gut. What would I say? How would I say it? Would I try to be the charming guy that I was trying to ape? Or would I go straight to the point? A great deal of game that I have read addresses indirect game; how to generate attraction to reduce a girl's resistance to your advances. But what if I was being too indirect? What if I was attracted to indirect game not because it fits me or because I have found great success with it, but because it was indirect? What if I was afraid, not of the girl or the approach, but of making my intentions known? What if I am afraid of my own desires? What if I have been trained to never care about what I want and always be concerned about what others want? In other words if I want a woman WHY THE HELL DO I NOT JUST SAY SO? I want to spend time with her and know her and enjoy her company but no one ever told me to view my wants as more important than hers. Since I cannot DO anything about her wants why should I care? If she does not want me then she is a waste of my time and the sooner I know that the better. If I want something why not just ask for it, and stop pretending that what I want is not important? As far as I know what I want is far more important than what other people want. I can only take care of my needs, and unless she becomes part of my life I cannot take care of her's so why should I try if she is not a part of my life? I cannot read minds so why should I assume that I know what she wants? If it is not me she wants, than it is time to move on to someone else. My stupidity amazes me sometimes. . .
In short, my game is going to become much more direct. I do not intend to give up on indirect game, just use it far less. I expect to crash and burn, but why not? If it is worth all this effort to become a man it is worth falling on my face in the process. It seems the attitude of a selfish asshole is called for. . .
18 comments:
What you are really afraid about are the imagined social consequences of being rejected by a girl and someone you know witnessing it. And then telling everybody that you dared imagine that you had a chance with this girl. Because that's what they did in grade school and now you are conditioned that way.
Projection?
Sure.
It's just fear of failure, for the most part. But the only way to conquer that is go out, fail a few times, and realize that you survived it. Another thing that might help is to think about what bothers you from the past. I find that it is always the opportunities I failed to pursue for one reason or another that bother me far more than the times that I pursued an opportunity and failed.
Forgot to mention, this is the key phrase in the post. "If she does not want me then she is a waste of my time and the sooner I know that the better."
Exactly. There are plenty of girls on the girl tree and you want to absolutely minimize the time you spend on those that have no interest in you. The faster the rejection comes, the better.
RM, you asked yourself the RIGHT question, but you stopped long before you should have.
Let me give you a real example of why we men are cautious. Happened to me this month.
There is a girl behind my house. Slim, beautiful. Walks with an incredibly attractive wiggle in her hips. I say hi when she walks around the neighborhood. The first time I did this, she mentioned she a) got herpes from the father her child b) she got pregnant when she was 14 c) she is 16 now. She was hanging out with some 27 year old pot-head dude at this time.
A couple days later she is waiting for my next door neighbor, so I chat with her again. She talks about not knowing who the father of her child is. She wishes it had been the black guy, so she would know which of the three were the father.
Nothing beyond conversation happened.
Two days later, what happens? Her 32 year old boyfriend walks out of his rented crack-shack across the street, comes to my door and blusters threats that I better not "touch" his girlfriend. The 32 year old is a dope-grower, former crack dealer who does carpentry on the side to disguise his illicit income. A natural at game. Sleeps with lots of chicks. But her slim 16 year old pussy is hard for him to pass up. Maybe he doesn't care about the herpes. She bitches about her mom embarassing her by buying her condoms in the pharmacy. She bitches about the crack dealer refusing to wear the condoms. "But oh, the sex is so good!"
So, why are we men so cautious? Because we don't want threatening visits from drug dealers who are clutching their pit-bulls to their chests. I mean, unless you KNOW the girl, how do you know she isn't one of the crazies that will try to stir up shit?
Your first clue should have been the crazy talk. Your second clue is that she is a minor in most states (assuming that you aren't).
I know this post was about facing fear, but don't forget to qualify your prospects. Some people just ain't worth it.
In my case, I am afraid because I have utterly crappy social skills. If I approached a girl, with the intent of seducing her, I would immediately start blushing and my knees would likely shake as well. This immediately kills any hope of being perceived as a disinterested, "cool" Alpha.
While I've never tried to seduce anyone (I am 16), there have been several situations where I ended up being scoffed at for my social awkwardness. Just thinking about it makes me feel so embarrassed I would rather spend the rest of my life being an anime/manga nerd than ever approach a girl.
I also don't know what to think about my level of attractiveness. To get an objective answer, I once posted my picture on Yahoo answers and told them to rate me. The results ranged from 2 to 7. So what kind of girl should I approach? I have no idea. I'm afraid I might get laughed at if I try to hit on someone out of my league.
Orville, I wasn't talking about being cautious when you plan to seduce a girl. I wasn't trying to seduce this one. I knew within half a minute of talking to her that I wasn't going to touch her with a ten foot pole.
The point is that even just regular neighborly conversation can be dangerous. A man should be physically fit (work in construction), own a dog, and participate in martial arts practice at least once a week. Learn to AMOG.
Not enough game material focuses on AMOGing.
I read this in my RSS feeder and clicked over to comment on what is clearly your issue, but I see that the first two posts addressed the real issue, fear of failure.
Smesko, your looks don't have as much do to with it as you think.
Anonymous, you need to make sure said neighbors ventilation isn't leaking into yours...
Underwater, I'm not some paranoid pot-head. I live in a neighborhood where the buildings are labeled by whether the people living in them do pot, crack, or meth. Rent is cheap. I am the spear-tip of gentrification.
Fear of failure is actually just the other face of excessive pride. "Why should I be forced to go through the indignity of rejection?". It's sort of like the phrase "Why does [x] have to happen to me?". Why not you? The sooner you develop at least a little existentialism the better. The world is not out to get you. You're that important.
Just think of it this way: what if you received a piece of mail every week for 3 months telling you which direction a certain stock price was going to go--and it was always correct. By the end of that time you would probably be thinking this person is a veritable financial prophet. But you don't realize that the sender has simply started by dividing in half a list of 1000 people, and offering each half opposing predictions, and each time the stock goes one way, he cuts the list in half and continues with the rest.
So keep meeting girls, and trying different approaches (not too calculatingly, mind you, but you get the idea), and one of these times you will punch all the right buttons, and some girl will look up at you wondering how this prince just stepped into her life. She won't see all the failures, will she?
Anon....
Move out of the hood. Rent is cheap in lots of places.
RM, crashing and burning isn't bad, its part of learning. I just had a buddy destroy my opening last night. Never saw how much of a BETA he had become. He comes of my possible wingman list.
@Smesko I wish I had these resources when I was your age. Would have changed a lot. Don't worry about the abuse from classmates, accept it that you are not a natural alpha and learn how to interact with people. When you go to your 10 yr HS reunion the roles will be reversed. People who peaked in HS will be fat and funny looking. You, if you learn to be a MAN, will be a leader of men with arm candy.
Regarding why a man might feel nervous about approaching a woman, I believe that it is a subconscious realization that this girl is not right for you. Something is telling you that there is a basic incompatibility, so why force the issue by spending time, effort and money trying to do something that is wrong for you. If she is the right girl, then it just flows easily.
Alphas (Bill Clinton, Julius Caesar) don't care about this, so their objective is simply to get any available woman into bed. People with an active conscience and a sense of spiritual and moral responsibility rightly feel nervous about courting a woman they suspect is incompatible with them.
"I expect to crash and burn, but why not?"
Aw yeah. Now that's what I'm talking about. Crashing can be lots of fun once you have the proper perspective.
When on business travel (weekly), I listen to books on tape while driving. Latest book is Dune Messiah.
I suggest you read that book again, looking at the character of Hayt (Duncan Idaho's ghola). His interactions with Alia Atriedes are an excellent example of Alpha.
She's the goddess sister of the Emperor of the known universe. Since before birth, she's had the knowledge of the lifetimes of thousands of wise women. She has all the knowledge of the Bene Gesserit adept.
Yet in her interactions with him, she is reduced to a typical teenage girl by his complete Alpha behavior. Something seen throughout the Dune series by Duncan Idaho. He is the most Alpha of all the characters in the novel, perhaps more so than Paul and Leto (who have to balance their alpha with their knowledge of the future consequences of each of their actions).
Read and learn.
The most liberating thing I ever did in regards to asking someone out was: To ask her out, just before I went on vacation.
She rejected my advance, in a nice way. But as I walked away, slightly embarrassed, I also realized that I was still exactly the same person, and her rejection hadn't changed the universe in any way.
That is the moment of empowerment. Even though this was a coworker whom I would see almost daily, and she could have (but didn't) spread the story, it was still a liberating experience.
Walking away later from women who were offering themselves to me (literally) because of some little thing about them that I didn't like, was even more empowering.
I was literally laughing as one of them was throwing something I left behind in her place out of her door, just from the exhilaration that I had finally reached the self-confident level that allowed me to walk away from some woman. She thought having Double D's would be enough to let her get away with moderately bitchy behavior.
As you grow in confidence, you can become pickier.
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