Reply To: Randomness? Or bad statistics?

[The_Hurricane]

If you have as many women in your life as you’re telling us, I bet you are doing many of these things I’m talking about. You’re not projecting a need. Women who talk to you know you have other options. So, no, our disagreements are smaller than it would appear from this long debate.

Nevertheless, think about the definition of natural and honest. Is telling girls their name is so cool and asking them about music venues honest? Let’s go even deeper. Is it natural to tell a girl she’s cute? You may actually think they’re cute, but telling it to them is like walking up to Michael Phelps and telling him you think he’s a pretty good swimmer. If you were truly being yourself, you’d never actually do that. He knows he’s the greatest swimmer in the world and he knows you know it too.

So why do men tell girls they’re cute and compliment their clothes and their names and the city they come from? It’s a lame attempt to ingratiate themselves with these women, to get these women to like them.

Now, let’s look at the other side of the spectrum entirely. Let’s look at what I do. Take that 17 year old in that video. Way too young for me, but let’s say I’m doing that set as a demo and we’re already in conversation. She tells me she’s 17. This is something I might say: “You know, when I was 17, the only novels I read were the ones assigned to me in school. Is that you?”

First, it’s absolutely true. Second, it partially reverses the power dynamic by letting her know what I find important and putting her on notice that she’s not going to slide by on her looks alone. But MOST IMPORTANTLY, what I want to know is this: do you really believe that my question is less honest and natural than showering her with compliments or, like Janka, asking her where he should go that night when, in fact he went to Harvard and knows the Boston nightlife like the back of his hand?

I’m a big reader. It’s a real concern to me that she won’t be able to hang. Is it something I’ve rehearsed? Yes, but why shouldn’t I rehearse it. It, and many other things that are important to me, are going to come up again and again – in fact, with almost every woman I meet. Why should I lie to her about things that don’t matter to me just to avoid repeating the conversations that do matter to me?

Ryano, you have it all backwards. It’s the guys who are trying to be “natural” who all sound like clones of each other – nice name, nice piercing, nice outfit, where can I find a blah blah blah, do you know how to cook spaghetti, etc. When you have conversations about everyday things, that’s what happens. It’s boring, you don’t find out much about the other person, and you don’t get across the idea that you have high standards, standards that she hasn’t yet shown you she’s met.

My conversations with women are unique to what matters to me. My students’ conversations with women are unique to what matters to them. Do we spend time time thinking about those things and talking about the best ways to bring them into the conversation? Absolutely. But if you want to talk about honesty, what I do is much, much more honest than the guys in these videos who are having the same trivial conversations with women and either outright lying or kissing ass.

–Lee