I have a particularly self destructive belief. I found its effect on me as a result of forcing myself to approach women. I would begin an approach and find that I was acting as if I had already been rejected. I was assuming that the interaction would end with them rejecting me. It was as though failure was built into my frame. My belief was that no woman would ever want me. In other words game was futile. I could do everything right and still always fail. This was, of course, irrational (and somewhat melodramatic) , but it was a belief I had to deal with. I could not reason my way out of it, I could not ignore it, and I could not turn it off (at least not directly). Not really having anything to lose, I listened to it. This does not mean that I accepted that the belief was true, it means that I became completely aware of it. It was like studying a disease and knowing it intimately so that I could avoid it in the future or create an antidote. I have many self-limiting beliefs like this. To cure myself of them I had to become fully aware of the problem. In a sense I had to know these beliefs as intimately as I know game so that I could learn to avoid them. Since denying a weakness is a waste of time I made a habit of examining these beliefs and I have learned some very important things.
First: Beliefs come from somewhere, they do not just appear fully formed in your mind. They have a reason for being there and finding that reason is very important for correcting them. For example, I recently discovered that I have a problem maintaining boundaries with people. This resulted in allowing people to walk all over me or me walking all over them if the opportunity presented itself. I was able to correct this once I realized that my parents have the same problem. Now that I am aware of this I insist on boundaries with my parents and for that matter, everyone. Without those boundaries I cannot protect myself. Boundaries are necessary to confident and if I let them down with the people closest to me I lose that confidence.
Second: Critics are frequently a source of poor advice. They will tell you their beliefs regardless of whether those beliefs will help you achieve you goals. Ignore them. Instead look for people who have done what you are trying to do and look for their advice. Adopt their frame. If they are successful there is a reason. Game is a perfect example. Every man who is successful with women seems to use at least a portion the ideas in game. Limit who you listen to, and do not let other's self-doubt become your self-doubt.
Third: Find the source of your faulty frame and avoid it. You may have learned your beliefs from parents, friends, the media, or society. Wherever they came from separate yourself from that source, whether mentally or physically. For me I am seriously considering Roissy’s advice: “If [everything else] fails, consider physically moving away from [them] . . . Friends, family, everyone. Gather your savings, quit your job, and move to a new city or even a new country.
Fourth: Write you beliefs about yourself down, both good and bad. As you grow and learn new beliefs, being able to return to the changes you have made will reinforce those changes.
It has taken me awhile to get past the majority of my self limiting beliefs. There are many left to uncover, but I am at a place where game can work for me. While I seriously doubt that this is going to get much easier, if I want to be happy do I have any choice but to keep working at it?
32 comments:
I just wrote a post analyzing Game-amplified approach anxiety.
http://josephsblog.typepad.com/shorts/2011/03/massive-update-to-koanic-turbine-formerly-edenic-soul.html
Again, such problems go back to parental influence. This notion that all mothers are good mothers because of the fact that they are mothers needs to be dealt with by husbands and sons. Men need to have the courage to admit that their mothers did indeed fail them (as all imperfect people do) and that those failures do not have to define them. And often mothers do a great deal of damage in the mistaken belief that motherhood is the source of all things for men.
Good analysis which should be helpful to many men.
My post at IMF was a somewhat similar self-analysis:
Impossible in My Reality
Game help men who formed their self-image when they are shy and awkward teenagers. Men as they mature almost always become stronger, more successful, more attractive, etc. However very often they do not see themselves this way, in their minds they are still the shy and unappealing boys they were at 15.
Sometimes I think the real fruit of game is the simple act of realizing who you are is not who you were which helps to unlock your potential. I know the mantra that believing you are alpha makes you alpha, but I do not think that is entirely true. I think it's more true that most men are simply more alpha than they realized, and when they act it others can see it, and therefore they themselves come to believe it, too.
A woman cannot "think" herself more beautiful than she really is, but a beautiful woman can dress poorly, not lose that last 10 pounds, wear no makeup and a bad haircut, etc if she thinks she is not beautiful and therefore no amount of effort will help. When she starts to think she's beautiful and makes the effort, she may mistakingly think it's only her attitute which has caused her to be beautiful, but the attitude has only allowed her to realize what was already potentially there.
In a similar way, not all men are created equal, but most men are much better than they realize, due to their maturation since their formation of self-image. Once they put forth the effort they go from a 2 beta to a 7 or 8 alpha, and may believe it's only game, or attitude, which caused this. It is not, it is the game and effort which has allowed what is already there to be unlocked and realized. Game is a tool which by itself is worthless, but allows you to exert what you have but did not realize.
"Game is a tool which by itself is worthless, but allows you to exert what you have but did not realize."
I think Game is basically just telling men to do what they would have done anyway, had they not been socially conditioned not to.
For exampe, take negging. Had any of the stuff that women do all the time been done by a man, we would have given him a piece of our mind. Negging is just a gentler version of what we constantly do to other men. What gives us the idea that women should be excempt from all criticism? Social conditioning.
Or peacocking - it is blatantly obvious that if you want to succeed in anything that has something to do with the social scene, you have to make people notice you. Just being noticed is not enough, you have to leave an impression on them too, after you have their attention. But if they don't notice you at all, you won't get the chance.
However, the social pressure is always towards conformism. Even in non-conformist circles, where the members have to conform to the particular brand of non-conformism.
Game just brings us back to what was obvious in the first place.
OT; "Breaking the chains, winning the games, and saving Western Civilization". Love that.
I am with MK on his comment above. Negging keeps women grounded. Negging often offers some correction to behaviors and words that are unsatisfactory.
Game was the way relations between men & women once were and Game is still the way some men and women operate. Which is I why I scratch my head at the modern media, music, tv/movies, books b/c it is all so skewed in the wrong directions. Poor women just lap it up like fussy kittens.
(Critics, calm down, Game is neutral and those men who are anti-G use anti-G as their own Game.
I don't want to drag the conversion down to a base level but inevitably it comes down to a dialog about the birds and the bees, son.
Game is not entirely psychological. There are things going on at a hormone and pheromone level also. An alpha state should come naturally most of the time if you observe a few basic rules.
1. Stop masturbating. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, if your sexuality is tied up in internal mental fantasies you will have a difficult time coupling with your partner in the way you should. Your partner becomes a mere alternate form of masturbating instead of an actual person to bond with. A sex object if you will. An ultimate evolution of that practice is the guy who has to put a bag over their partners head during copulation. The natural bond with your partner at the moment far exceeds and fulfills any fantasy experience. Its the real thing.
2. Stop masturbating. Your hormones need to be at a peak of their cycle for your libido to exude its maleness. It will naturally help your self confidence. You'll see. You'll just naturally start pawing the ground and snorting when a female in estrous is near. If you start knocking this over and finding yourself awkwardly froward you getting there.
3. A lot of this is about chemistry. Game is only the skill of manipulating that within the confines of societal norms.
4. This is absolutely necessary if you are ever going have a normal married life. Especially if you are one of those poor victims of modern urban life with its incessant exposure to pollutants; both psychological and physical.
5. If you have the luxury, spend some time around animals during and after breeding season. You'll see game at its best.
6. Remember this:
Proverbs 30:
18 There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not:
19 The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.
Let the flames begin!
Sometimes being omega is not changeable. The key with some omegas is understanding that, for the most part, no matter what they do, they’re screwed. Game is not going to help them, to be frank, and it’s also going to be much, much harder for them to pick it up than it is for a solid mid-beta. I think the key for some omegas is to accept their position and make the most of it. That is — don’t get depressed and bitter, because that will screw up your enjoyment of your life in every case. The key to that is acceptance of the reality that you are not going to be successful in that area of life, and building a life which is satisfying without including that element of sex/relationships with women. That can be done, I think, with some self-awareness and maturity. And if/when an irrecoverable omega does that, the pathway to a really quite not bad life opens up — certainly a life characterized by more personal freedom than men have enjoyed for millennia. I think that’s a more productive pathway for some omegas.
This blog should take some time and address the irrecoverable failures, the omegas who need to give up. No other blog has EVER done this.
It's not hopeless for anyone. An omega can certainly game his way to a 3 or 4 if he so chooses.
"Just be yourself" is the standard anti-Game position. So, I suspect you don't understand the first thing about Game. One need only read the posts by the resident omega to see how he is steadily improving his attitude and behavior.
RM, seriously doubting that its going to get much easier is a self limiting belief, yes?
G.
An omega usually has some kind of biological or psychological problem that needs to be fixed.
Extreme conditioning can do it, but generally it's gammas who are mostly suffering from bad conditioning.
I was meaning to touch upon the moving away scene.
It can be highly beneficial for a young person to start over someplace new. However, its all about how grounded the person is to remain productive, make good decisions and remain fiscally rational.
Translated; don't make a wreck of your life, live within Christian values and avoid debt. For women: don't get involved with the wrong men. For men: live carefully - you never know when you'll have to return home. And most of all get out there and work a few jobs to remain solvent.
And most of all, don't visit home. Let the family come to you. They will want to visit, have boundaries.
"That is — don’t get depressed and bitter, because that will screw up your enjoyment of your life in every case. The key to that is acceptance of the reality that you are not going to be successful in that area of life, and building a life which is satisfying without including that element of sex/relationships with women. That can be done, I think, with some self-awareness and maturity. And if/when an irrecoverable omega does that, the pathway to a really quite not bad life opens up — certainly a life characterized by more personal freedom than men have enjoyed for millennia. I think that’s a more productive pathway for some omegas. "
This is pretty much what I've done.
My formative years were seriously fucked. I put on a back brace when I was 13, and was wearing some sort of hideous contraption from that point forward until I dropped out of high school at 16. The braces made me withdraw, and I just never developed socially.
The surprising thing is I'm not even an obvious omega. People I interact with just assume I'm a normal dude. I even have an office mate who is a beta, and he jokes with me about how bizarre and bad with women some of our coworkers are, completely oblivious to who he's talking to. (Yes, engineering company)
Fact is, I know I could get a woman. I make nearly 100k. I am slightly above average looking, and I actually don't come across as creepy or dangerous at all. I even get flirted with by random women about twice a year. (I'm guessing it would be more, but I don't go to any social events whatsoever.)
But since the age of 28 or so (32 now), I just chose to give up. I have no close friends, and never have. I feel more comfortable alone. I'm not an alpha/sigma, so I know I'm not going to get a woman to bend to my lifestyle. And that is really the ONLY option, because the loner lifestyle is something I need to keep.
And other than the lack of sex, I absolutely love it. I have NO desire whatsoever to become a social person. I admit, a wife would be nice, but only if she was cool with this lifestyle. I observe some of the gammas at work, and how they are ruled by their wives. I'd rather dip my dick in hydrochloric acid. The alphas on the other hand, just seem to end up always getting divorced.
If it weren't for the strong Christian morality I was raised with (and which I still agree with), I think I would start with prostitutes and just work my way up to casual arms-length relationships with women. But with sex off the table, I just can't control myself. I'll fall for almost any women just because I'm so desperate to eventually have sex with her. For this reason, I've decided to just stay away from them altogether. It's just too dangerous. There are a handful of women in my past that I was tempted to pursue for marriage, but I'm sure I would have wanted to divorce them almost immediately after consummation. I realize now that all I really wanted was to have sex with them. The first of these women I knew I was in love with, the 2nd I thought I was in love with, and the third I only tried to convince myself I was in love with. Truth is, I was just captivated by her gigantic breasts. They were magnificent.
I was like that until recently. For the last 5 years, I absolutely gave up all effort to be a social person... and I wasn't even a social rejectee before I did, I just lost desire.
But recently I started fearing I might die a virgin if I keep this up. I also dropped so low on the social hierarchy that even the most blithering idiots are capable of treating me disrespectfully and remain unpunished (it didn't use to be like this at all). While I love being a loner, being a complete loser is a bit too much even for me. So I'm hoping that studying Game might help, at least a little bit...
I'm not an alpha/sigma, so I know I'm not going to get a woman to bend to my lifestyle.
Forget the label. Just decide that a woman comes to you on your terms or not at all. If you need to shore up your resolve, get mad--get f***ing pissed at everything if you have to. Better to let anger overcome desperation and contempt replace bitterness. Just be ready to let her walk.
It really works. Not necessarily for *that one girl* but forget her.
Stealth omega... that's the term we are looking for here. I lived that for quite awhile. In fact, the aloofness can even get you mistaken for a sigma, but then when the girl meets the 'real you', she rebounds in disgust. It's not the real you, anyway. It is the repressed you, that feels like it has to play everyone else's game.
Smesko, do I detect that you are a Christian, as well as Battlefrog?
It's tough, really it is. Too many young Christian men (especially of fundamentalist/evangelical background) are hit by the double whammy of an enervated Church and a completely hypocritical secular culture that makes them feel there is no place for them. We need to *make* the place.
No, I am not a Christian.
"An omega can certainly game his way to a 3 or 4 if he so chooses."
Well, that's depressing. . . the omega can't game himself to even an average girl? Even if he has above-average appearance?
"An omega can certainly game his way to a 3 or 4 if he so chooses."
Well, that's depressing. . . the omega can't game himself to even an average girl? Even if he has above-average appearance?
On VD's scale, I'm sure you'd be perfectly happy with a 4, and consider her above average in looks.
That said, there are many types of omegas. Not all of them look like this guy.
Also, omega status comes about very situationally. There are some natural omegas, to be sure. But many are there due to unfortunate circumstances, usually occurring during adolescence. The result might be comparable to PTSD. So I don't think their future behavior patterns are as predictable as the alpha or gamma, which are both more naturally occurring personality types.
Back to the OP...I'm reminded of the work done by guys like Lanny Bassham on mental training. At the top levels of any sport (Bassham was an Olympic gold medalist in shooting), the mental factors outweigh the physical. And convincing yourself that you ARE a winner is a key.
I'll add that I think Game needs to be separated into Strategic Game and Tactical Game. Strategic Game is about basic self-confidence and self-respect. Tactical Game is about the opposite sex. The Strategic level affects the Tactical level, but they are not the same thing.
Thinking in broader terms, it is easy to develop self-defeating habits by learning the wrong lessons from life. Correlation is not causation. But to part of our brain, it is.
About 10 years ago, a member of my close family became very ill. I was the only one able to respond, and so I did a lot of things that I thought would help. I did extensive searches on medical issues, talked with doctors, and so forth. Then he died. This had a profound effect upon me, and for some time afterwards I felt a complete failure, because I had set myself to a problem and failed.
The fact that this family member had a cancer, that he'd lived with it for years, that his oncologist told me quietly "He's the poster boy for surviving with this particular tumor", i.e. he should have died years before, didn't affect the part of me that said "Fail. Fail. Fail."
It has taken some years to talk myself out of that, and it affected me profoundly for a time; it was difficult to force myself to start a new project, because part of me felt that no matter what I did, I would fail. Why? Because of previous failure.
Success breeds success, in any realm, and failure breeds failure. Chuck Yeager, as a young fighter pilot over Europe, deliberately avoided any talk about any fellow pilot who'd been shot down. He would walk out of the room at the first mention of one of those guys. When I first read this, it seemed really cold -- and it is, it's stone cold. It's the kind of stone-cold thinking that Yeager clearly needed, to avoid any thinking about failure - and that's what it took to keep going back over Europe in a P-51 to shoot down Nazi fighters.
I've learned, in the last 10 years, more details of the particular cancer that killed my relative. Enough to be able to tell myself that my efforts were right, even noble, but that it is not my fault they were not enough. I've come to terms with the death, and have convinced myself that I did not fail the test.
I do not care for the kind of little affirmations on paper that women like to read to themselves, but the idea is sound because when we "talk to ourselves" we are talking to several different parts of ourselves. So it's ok to talk to yourself, once in a while. It's ok to write a little list of things that you did right, so long as it's to remind yourself "how to do right", whether it's in family relations, approaching women, dealing with co-workers, or whatever.
How a man deals with what he feels is a failure is important. Letting it get the best of you is not good. Accepting errors and moving on in a rational fashion, while not dwelling on defeat, is much, much better.
It's part of accepting both how a man is, and how he wants to make himself a better man.
Battlefrog, East Asia contains many women who are even more introverted than you, and some of them even have nice breasts.
For example, my girlfriend spent basically her entire life studying in a library to go from a rural area to the top of the Chinese academic ladder.
If you want sex that bad, go get one.
Mike M, that's Inner and Outer Game.
And by the way, I scored my girlfriend while I was an omega by Western standards.
So yeah, it can be done, and you'll get FAR better than a 3-4, if you hunt overseas.
She was an 8 to me when I met her, and even my other PUA friend who prefers the opposite type to me (tall skinny club girls) rates her at a 6 or 7.
A Western Omega isn't cut out to handle any western woman. She'll give him too much shit. But he can easily handle an East Asian docile family-oriented conscientious virgin.
Well... there are levels of omega.
Anyway, I didn't know there was so much omega here. I feel for you guys.
Smesko, I believe VD meant 'at least' rather than 'at most'. There are those who spend some time as omegas simply due to mindset, extreme mental abstraction, etc... and those who are seriously unattractive or have serious physical issues as well as emotional problems. The latter group have much more to overcome. Believe me, my wife is no 3 or 4, nor anywhere even close, but then, my issues were purely mental and I overcame them.
I admit I am an odd case, but possibly instructive: honestly, it is amazing how important the mindset thing is. Objectively speaking, I had all the natural attributes of an alpha or at least high beta, did plenty of interesting things with my life, and never had a problem finding girls who were attracted (when I actually bothered to notice them at all), but each time something would kick in and the relationship would self-destruct appallingly, until at least my late 20s, when I finally began to re-think the whole deal from the ground up.
"It's not hopeless for anyone."
Broadly speaking, I agree. But hope encompasses more than women.
Then why did you define omegas as hopeless on
"An omega can certainly game his way to a 3 or 4 if he so chooses."
First off, some guys are simply too far down the rabbit hole, for whatever reason, to do that. They can't or won't do it, with "can't" and "won't" being effectively the same thing.
Second off, assuming for a moment that you are correct, your hypothesis is that a rock-bottom omega can jump through all these hoops and get... a 3?
A 3?
What if a 3 doesn't cut it? Seriously, there's an army of guys out there who would rather wank to porn than mess with a 3.
A portion of the omega male community are beyond the point of learning game. It’s like taking a cripple that can’t even walk and throwing him into a pool so he can learn how to swim. As a woman, imagine some unkempt, poorly-dressed guy with a pear-shaped body and a nervous twitch, coming up to you and working Roissy/ Mystery style lines on you at a bar. He could follow the motions of the textbook perfectly, but he won’t score. And some omegas will not or cannot change. It's not their fault they can't change, but it's certainly their responsibility to wring the best out of life they can.
"Just be yourself" is the standard anti-Game position. So, I suspect you don't understand the first thing about Game."
I think I know the first couple of things about game. I also think you don't know the first thing about omegas. This is a classic mistake that proponents of game make. “Follow these instructions and it’ll work for you too!” Teaching these guys game is nothing but a let-down for them.
"One need only read the posts by the resident omega to see how he is steadily improving his attitude and behavior."
I think he's gamma, but whatever. Good for him. Seriously. And good for the other omegas/gammas that have the tools and motivation to get it done. This site is great and I think you and he are providing a great service. I mean no disrespect with my quibbling. However, the fact remains that some omegas will never be able to attract someone that they, in turn, find attractive. No. Matter. What.
What should they do?
@Vox"Just be yourself" is the standard anti-Game position. - The reason this position is so used and powerful it it's a half truth, rather than being a total lie. You shuldn't be yourself, but rather you should be the you God intends you to be, which isn't quite the same thing.
If I may throw this thought into the ring in regards to "just be yourself", there is a Game writer by the pseudonym of Narciso Babaero who wrote a three part series called "To Whatever Self Be True" wherein he asserts that women are not looking so much for men to "be themselves" as to be *congruent*. He goes on to develop a multi-part measure of congruency and lays a framework for how to develop and maintain congruency at whatever level you feel comfortable. It's really quite insightful stuff and I haven't seen anything like it elsewhere:
Part I
Part 2
Part 3
The rest of his stuff is exceptional too.
Dan in Philly, great post at the beginning of the thread. That is what I've been realizing too. Game is one of many tools to see yourself as you really are, and break out of the illusion that you've acquired.
Being in touch with reality is the same as "congruence". And Desert Cat, thanks for those posts on congruence. When you truly know who you are, the game is half won. (to quote Sun Tzu). This applies in warfare and poker too.
Seeing yourself as you REALLY are is the most important. Game teaches "irrational self-confidence". However, this is truly dangerous. Most PUA's only take that to within sane limits because they don't have the mental strength to really follow that maxim.
When you take someone literal-minded like me, that is a recipe for jail and/or death by unfortunate circumstances.
Under-estimating yourself, means you miss out on lifes juicy goodies. OVER-estimating yourself... leads to self-harm. Really. Honestly.
Tim W, indeed, the only reason the "irrationally self-confident" game works so well is that modern civilization is very pussified and safe. I watched that cat who calls himself "Meatloaf" ranting hysterically about "NO one messes with me!!!!" and thought to myself that 150 years ago, he would have been at the very least severly beaten for such actions. Nowadays the state has more of a monopoly on the use of force, and he gets away with it.
The main reason relatively harmless men can be so confident is there's few consequenses of them being so. Rarely will other men give them the kind of beat-down called for when a so-called alpha tries to poach one's woman, for that would result in jail.
Note to all would-be alpha's out there - if western civilization falls, adapt your game accordingly!
Actually, in high school, we DID get the beat downs! Men formed alliances and mini-gangs and cliques. Some men could beat up others with impunity. Others couldn't raise a finger in self-defense without getting suspension. I never did figure out how that worked. I mean, I know the popular guys got away with stuff, they could make alliances, and their friends wouldn't say bad things about them. No witnesses, no crime. How did they make those friends? It boils down to friendship building skills. How do you build your personal team?
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