Your belief system

[zhelyazko]

Hi guys,

I’m trying to get a glimpse into what you believe in relation to approaching.

I seem to have a belief that it is not “normal” to just approach girls during the day (for example in the library, or in a shop). Especially, when I am not directly telling the girl I like her. What I am trying to do is change that belief. Any advice would be appreciated.

I cannot identify exactly what/how my belief systems are holding me back so I would appreciate a look into yours so I can use it as a role model.

Thanks a lot. Hope you can find time to reply.

Kind Regards,
Zhelyazko

[The_Hurricane]

Hey, guess what, I don’t think it’s normal either! I do not think we – as physical creatures – evolved to do this. For most of human history, a man approaching a woman in public was dangerous. That’s why we experience cortisol spikes when we do it.

There are a small number of us who do not fear this experience, just as there are a small number of us who do not fear jumping from a plane. Nature wants this distribution of risk aversion and risk taking. Nature wants a small number of risk takers. For the rest of us, this is not natural. We have to train ourselves to do it.

We do not fear heights because of social conditioning. We fear heights because, for most of human history, jumping from heights was deadly. Now, we have airplanes and helicopters and parachutes and wing suits and jet suits. The fear is still there, but we can overcome it with training. The more jumps we make, the easier it will be to make another jump.

Fear is a physical process. You cannot make your fear go away by willing yourself not to fear. That’s not how you get rid of your fear of heights. You do it by gradually exposing yourself to greater and greater heights.

–Lee

[ryano]

I’ll make a few guest posts here since I’m on vacation.. until sunday anyway.

As far as your belief that you think it’s “weird” or “wrong” or whatever you think. I used to think that too as a beginner, a few years back. Now my belief has completely changed to the point where I think it’s weird not to approach during the day. If I’m in the mall, and in a store and I see a hot chick. I’ll feel ridiculous if I don’t approach her.

Your options are truly limited. You could do social circle (provided you have one that is conducive to meeting women — I don’t). You could do online-dating (if you’re looking for fat women or other broken toys cause that’s all you ever find there or you find the occasional hottie that never responds because she has hundreds of other swinging dicks messaging her). Or you can do bars/clubs (and again compete with hundreds of other guys and women that are completely jaded). Daygame is probably the hardest. but it’s logically the best.

It’s a battle of fitness really. only the strong will survive in this game. and since your earliest memory you’ve been approaching. ie when you were competing with millions of other sperm to reach the egg. only the fastest, strongest, smartest sperm reached the egg. so it is here in reality. you’re merely competing with other men to fuck a woman. and you’ll do it at all costs. as they will. you think anybody gives a fuck about you? they’re just like sperm trying to reach an egg. they’ll trample over you in a second. I don’t trust men OR women, everyone is always looking out for their own benefit and genetic survival. I especially don’t trust what women say.. they lie through their teeth. they’ll tell you they think it’s “creepy” if a man approaches them yet fuck the first guy that does. i’ve seen it happen numerous times.

so what’s my belief? use any way you can. hell, if you could club them over the head and/or shoot them with a dart (provided it was legal) then do that. there’s no holds barred here. all’s fair in love and war. because the reality of it is, while you’re hesitating, some other swinging dick will get her before you do using any method you can imagine.

so you want to approach daygame direct? go right ahead. noone’s stopping you. personally, I think it’s honorable.

and you want to approach daygame indirect? go right ahead too. you want to trick a woman to think you’re talking about some nonsense just to get into a conversation? all the better. there ain’t no rules here. whatever gets your dick inside of her at the end of the day is what you should do.

but the belief that you’re doing something “wrong”. well that’s exactly what’s gonna hold you back. shame is THE biggest thing stopping men from approaching women. it’s also the hardest to conquer, and can take hundreds if not thousands of approaches really. especially when it comes to daygame.

I would encourage you to bury those beliefs as soon as you can though. because time is ticking… and time goes by really fast.

[ryano]

btw just today some stupid chick told me it was “crazy” that I approached her during the day. yet during my insta-date with her she probably started a conversation with about 6 different dudes at different times. with stupid little comments to them as they were walking past or sitting next to us or whatever. eventually i realized she was a big tease and parted ways. but it just goes to show you the duality at play here. and the bullshit that men need to go through.

NEVER listen to what women say, EVER. they’re a bunch of liars. the majority of them are liars I’d say. and by liars I don’t mean that they do it consciously, they’re unconscious liars. they’re fickle and conniving. and most of them are like that. it’s part of the way they are. (yet i love them anyway)

[MrAntiquity]

Hey, RyanO’s back. Welcome back, R.O.

Anyway @Zhel: My take on it is this: biologically, it’s a normal and expected thing to do. Animals do it, and when you were a kid you probably didn’t hesitate to go and demand what you wanted from people before you learned that it was socially unacceptable.

So I think the reason most of us don’t do it is that it’s been stamped out of us by parents, friends, teachers, society etc. You can debate the reasons why, but I don’t think that’s particularly important. I think if you can some how go back to your childhood ideology–taht it’s ok to explore and you’ll be fine, that’a s good mindset to have. I also find that I’m open to these sorts of things in dreams. In dreams, I approach people and people approach me. This is the kind of thing that CAN easily happen in my real life if I let it. But taking some risks, and social de-programming, can be really hard.

(and by the way Ryan–there are some great–and hot–women on personal ads. I’ve gone out with a couple of them–although I don’t use personal ads/internet dating anymore because I want to develop these skills). Yeah, you have to weed through a bunch you don’t want, but a good profile will get you some quality girls–online too. And I’m not a tall or a particularly good looking guy–I’m 5’3 and I rate myself about a 5 🙂

[The_Hurricane]

@MrAntiquity,

In fact, most animals don’t do it. In a lion pride, a male stepping into another male’s territory is asking for a fight to the death. Same with a gorilla. Chimpanzees are more promiscuous, but it is still common for two male chimps to fight with intent to kill over a female. Rather than approaching females in their own social order – females that are under the protection of other males – chimpanzees form war parties and raid the communities of other chimpanzees to mate with their females.

In human society, we never approached females. We first conquered or made peace with their male protectors. The idea of talking to a female about her fate is about 100 years old, which is why talking to an attractive female produces as much stress as jumping out of a plane. Check out this article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1270271/Beautiful-women-bad-health-raise-stress-hormones.html

In terms of stress, the closest correlate to approaching a female is public speaking, which also spikes cortisol levels to nearly the same degree. Both are, in fact, a man asserting dominance and taking the leadership role, which is why it makes sense that the three most stressful activities are:

Falling from heights / skydiving
Public speaking
Talking to beautiful women

Nothing that is that hard for most of us is “natural”.

–Lee

[zhelyazko]

@all of you cool dudes,

I am beginning to see that, being “average”, it’s perfectly ok for me to be afraid. I have got less afraid than in the beginning, sometimes I am not afraid at all. Other times- o, boy. But I will keep working on that social comfort. It should get easier still with time, right? Because it seems I have hit a plateau. I wonder if there is a border you reach and that’s it- it doesn’t get any easier from there on (kind of like jumping in a pool- it will always be cold at first)?

@ryano- yes, the right mindset I think is not to take what other people think of you too seriously.

@The_Hurricane – Dude, you are full of fun and interesting facts!

@MrAntiquity – I would be interested to know what a good profile is. I mean the more avenues to meet women and get experience the better, right?

[MrAntiquity]

@Lee–sure, I agree with you if you’re talking about invading another guy’s space and, so to speak, stealing his woman or his prospect. Grounds for a fight in ancient as well as modern times. But “approaching” in some context isn’t new–the whole medieval concept of courtly love, for example, ranges from a sly glance to an illicit approach–these often in the context of seeking legitimate love/romance/adventure outside of the realm of the more functional or economic marriages–certainly true at the high levels of society in many, many regions–but likely among common people as well. There have long been ways of meeting women outside of the sanctioned boundaries–that’s what we’re doing here. Even in ancient Egypt you have reams of documents talking about illicit affairs, etc (the tomb-builders’ city, Deir el Medina, was rife with these stories–often sordid as hell–there’s a great one where a scribe writes a letter complaining to the vizier because the foreman was screwing around with his wife–this in 1300 BC 🙂 So people DID chat people up throughout antiquity.. BUT it was often (as today) couched as an impropriety–against your group, against the Church, against the will of your kin, whatever. But it certainly happened. It’s just not accurate to say that men never approached women until they broke the confines of the Victorian era. Were they nervous? Sure–to varying degrees. Rejection can be emasculating, of course–I think THAT’s a much more legitimate reason why a lot of guys are loath to put themselves out there.

And I’m sure in all societies, as today, most of the males didn’t do it for various reasons–but I don’t buy that it’s from the socio-evolutionary threat of being attacked by males of another tribe. I see that all the time in the “PUA community” and it doens’t make any sense.

If your social group encouraged meeting women at your (and their) pleasure, you would be much more inclined to do so. I do think that rejection would still hurt, of course.

[MrAntiquity]

@Zhel–sometimes I used to put funny ones, sometimes nonsensical ones–any profile that shows that you’re awesome (without boasting), and that you don’t particularly care how the world sees you. And don’t be afraid to say exactly what you want–even if it rules people out. That’s the “qualification/challenge” that people talk about.

A good picture helps too 🙂

[The_Hurricane]

@MrAntiquity,

There were always affairs between those who were not afraid of retribution and women under the protection of weaker men. The point is that approaching a stranger, a woman whose protector wasn’t known to the approacher was very, very dangerous.

For most of history, killing a man for sleeping with a daughter or wife was written into law.

Women were locked in their homes when night fell. Women who were seen at night alone in public were immediately assumed to be prostitutes.

According to the Wikipedia entry on marriage, all marriage prior to the 17th century was arranged.

The idea of a public square where single women could talk to strangers is a fantasy. Even courtly love was more the equivalent of modern online dating – initiated by communication in writing – than modern pickup.

It is no coincidence that public speaking is almost as stressful to us as approaching women. It is a form of asserting power, an act that, for most of human history, was considered very dangerous. This has nothing to do with social conditioning. We are not told that we should fear speaking in public because the Church thinks it’s bad. And yet our reaction is nearly identical to the other form of asserting power, approaching a random stranger of the opposite sex.

The average single man in the United States today approaches several women per year. This is in a fairly open minded, egalitarian society. Under the conditions that I just described – fewer single women in public, danger, arranged marriages, etc. – it must have been harder still in our past. Given how little practice most of us have doing this thing, by what logic can you possibly assume that it is natural for us? What other activity – one that is not related to mating – that we engage in so infrequently and has such consequences for our lives do you also consider natural?

Here is what I think. Men who trivialize this fear are prolonging it. To say that approaching is natural and easy is to say that you have a problem that other people do not have. In fact, most men share this problem. Offering a specific explanation for it – one that is related to your childhood and past – is a form of exceptionalism that prevents you from moving forward. Accept that this is tough. Accept that this is unusual. Accept that you need to work on it a lot to overcome your NATURAL fear. It’ll make things a lot easier.

–Lee

[MrAntiquity]

@Lee–I don’t think you’re reading me right. Of course it’s tough but it’s also individual. The whole concept of “approach anxiety” is a construct by a relatively new group of individuals trying to sort themselves out. It’s not a “thing”–we treat it as one to try to help people. But at its core are lots of individual issues–not everyone’s fear of talking to girls has the same causes–just as even clinically recognized things (depresison, anxiety, social anxiety) aren’t actually “things” either but sets of similar symptoms with vastly different underlying causes. It helps me to realize that. It may not help you, or some other people, but it helps me.

Anyway, by “natural” i mean sexual expression. It IS natural–most people just experience puberty and go with it. Flirting is natural–it’s nothign more than free expression. Those of us who can’t or don’t flirt don’t not do so because of some evolutionary psychology–we avoid it because of things that happened in our past, things we’ve been told–even prenatal reflexes in some situations. Why is it that tons and tons of guys DON’T have this problem?

No–honestly I don’t buy the evolutionary psychology aspect. Maybe in the perpetuaion of group dynamics, but that’s about it. We’re told when we’re 2 or 3 years old to not approach strangers, to treat women in X, Y or Z, that we’re supposed to suppress certain things. Those things we learn are powerful.

I do think that things like nervousness are more ingrained–fear of the dark or as you say, heights, sometimes develops out of nowhere. Like when your’e going to call a girl up on the phone, or ask her out. You may feel nervous. But to the point of completely stopping yourself from acting? I don’t see that as akin to a fear of heights or the dark–it strikes me as a different animal.

I think without those social “learnings” we’d be a hell of a lot freer to act on impulse.

[The_Hurricane]

@MrAntiquity,

Have you seen the stats? Where are the tons of guys who flirt? In fact, a vanishinhly small fraction of us do. And what about public speaking, a close relative of pickup with no cultural taboos against it? We admire good public speakers, yet our natural reactions are the same.

–Lee

[ryano]

approach anxiety is a term that nerds invented to appeal to other nerds that were horrible with women.

guys that are good with women worked on themselves from an early age never to experience that.

I can recall as early as highschool so many guys that had no problem chatting up girls at house parties and sleeping with them. Similarly meeting and talking to girls in classes, etc.

I remember once I went out with a friend of mine to a bar that never once heard of pua but he was “opening” and talking to more girls than I was.

Don’t kid yourselves forums like these appeal to guys that suck with women. Men out there that have no problems meeting women are busy spending time with their girlfriends wives and children. they’re way beyond this trivial shit.

[MrAntiquity]

@All

I saw a good quote on facebook awhile ago–it’s cheesy but I like the mentality. It said “a flower doesn’t think of competing with the other flower next to it: it just blooms”

That is I think the healthiest way to look at dating, ‘game’, all this stuff. I have known people like that. Some are good looking, some not, some rich, some not, some with “high status”, some not at all. But they’re all great–and they all have zero trouble dating. Sure, they get rejected like everyone else, but that’s part of life. People like that are usually married by now, and happy about it. What draws women to these people is that they’re solid, mature, and can convey that to others.

There’s a line we use around here about “not giving a fuck”–I don’t like that phrasing because it strikes me as combative. I like “comfortable”. You can tell when a person is comfortable with themselves. It’s pretty impressive to watch.

[zhelyazko]

@MrAntiquity,

This is exactly what I was referring. Beliefs I should have, that I might not- e.g. I am comfortable with myself, regardless of whether women like me.

There must be others as well:
-Women want to be escalated on.
-I am attractive to women as I am
etc. etc.

Is there a really powerful belief you have adopted that noticeable changed your behaviour?

Kind Regards,
Zhelyazko

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