Back in the US yet again, in advance of some gigantic snow storm, yet again…
A couple of posts ago, I wrote about how the secret of the natural was his uncanny abilities to control his state. That got me thinking about a related and very important subject.
(Btw, if you are or were ever in college, you should do yourself a favor and get this fantastic report.)
One of the factors that sky-rocketed my game was meeting and hanging out with certain people, including naturals, and NOT going out at night with people who were holding me back.
I’m going to be frank here. I have no doubt that some of you have friends or wings who are actively, but unknowingly, preventing you from getting to the next level. I would never advise you to ditch your friends, especially ones who’ve stood by you and whom you’ve known for a long time, no matter how geeky or socially awkward they are. However, it is very likely that some of these friends or wings, and this includes most community guys, are actually hampering your efforts.
Keep them as friends. Just don’t go out with them while you’re looking to meet women or cool guys. If they are chess buddies, or X-box buddies, or basketball buddies, or whatever, continue to do those things with them. But really, either start going out alone and build a new social circle, or hang out with your cool friends who “get it” when you’re looking to meet women. This might sound harsh, I know. But you’ll cut years off your learning curve this way.
Maybe once you’ve got this part of your life handled, you can take them out at and show them a thing or two. But for now, follow this advice or pay the price.
Or, you could move to a new country and start from a clean slate there 
Haha. Btw, I’m only half-joking about that one.
Okay then, go meet some guys or gals who WILL help you in developing your skills in the social arts. What traits are we looking for?
Apart from the obvious “cool” factor, that is, they should be well-dressed, well-groomed, socially savvy, confident, etc., there is also one all-important characteristic they should bring to the table that relates directly to improving your social life.
When you guys go out together, you must be having UNSELFCONSCIOUS FUN!
“Oh, duh. That’s obvious,” you’re probably thinking. Well, the “having fun” part is obvious, but what about the “unselfconscious” part?
Here are some signs that you are NOT having unselfconscious fun:
The usual, such as:
-Freezing up and just standing against the wall. Being wall-flowers.
-Standing or sitting at the bar not facing or talking to each other and instead trying to “look cool.”
-Talking about game tactics in the venue and the whole time thinking to yourselves, “I should approach. I need to approach.”
-Doing the lap around the club, looking for “sets.”
But also:
-When you do an approach, your wings are just standing around, watching and evaluating you. They are (explicitly or not) checking your body language, your tonality, your delivery of routines, etc. and then after the interaction, they either:
a) Judge your performance and analyze your interaction. They say, “Not bad, dude! But…” and then they start to give you pointers. They say you did this and this, and that’s not good. Instead, they say, you should do such and such, “Next time, body rock out before you deliver that line,” etc.
b) Or, likewise judge your performance and analyze your interaction. But, they conclude that you did well! “Congratulations, dude! That was awesome! You’re the man!” You probably didn’t think that this would be an example of how NOT to wing, but yes, it is. Your wings are still too self-conscious. They are still judging you, analyzing your performance, and then giving you their immediate feedback.
The only time this is called for is during a time-intensive training, like in a bootcamp, in which there isn’t the luxury of time, or if it is an emergency and the error is egregious yet easily corrected. Otherwise, you’re f–king up everybody’s state by doing this.
If you and your wings do these things, then I’ll tell you right now, you are doing well DESPITE this mindset and behavior.
I know that the vast majority of lair guys have this mentality when they go out. I’d say it’s like 98.2%. This is one reason why the guys who get really good really fast actually don’t hang with lair guys much during their steep learning curve. Instead, they find a series of naturals and learn directly from them, or they take a bootcamp with a guy who really knows his sh-t and can teach it.
What’s the most effective mindset and behavior to have when you go out to socialize?
Like a friend of mine likes to say, “Let’s go f–k around!”
This means we are out to amuse ourselves. We don’t give one damn what the girl thinks of us. We are NOT looking for validation from them to gauge our skills. We do not need a good reaction from them for us to have fun. We are just plain amusing ourselves.
One perfect compliment to this mindset is a game my wings and I like to play. The game goes like this. One (or all, haha) of us goes in and says the most direct thing possible as an opener, like [stepping inside the polite zone], “OMG, you are beautiful. I’m in love with you [shaking your head in disbelief at how gorgeous she is]. Who are you?… Come here!” and pull her in.
If it goes well, great.
If it doesn’t, and the girl shrieks and runs away, which unfortunately doesn’t happen nearly as much as I’d like, … great! Why? Because when I return to my wings, they are doubled over laughing, not at me, but at the whole situation! We all find it f–king hilarious! Then, it’s the next guy’s turn to go in super-aggressive.
It’s a WIN-WIN situation.
Pretty soon, just because we’re having non-needy, non-validation-seeking, unselfconscious fun, we’re all in interactions that escalate really f–king scary fast. Not one of my wings is judging or evaluating anything. They’re not hi-fiving me for doing well and they’re not consoling me when the girl doesn’t react so well. We are all outcome-independent.
(caveat: If you’re going to play this game, remember to do it in big, loud dance clubs. On higher class girls, I’d say the same things, but go light on kino at first.)
Why is it bad for my wings to congratulate me when the interaction goes great? Aren’t they building up my confidence and making me feel better by doing this?
When you go about life, you should already have the mindset that you are THE MAN. You are a 10. Believe it.
Now, how would a 10 act when the girl goes ga-ga over him? Would his friends be surprised? Would they high-five him and congratulate him? Hell, no. It’s just expected. It’s as expected as Steve Nash hitting that free throw. It’s as expected as Joshua Bell nailing those arpeggios in a Mozart concerto. It’s as expected as James Bond getting that beautiful girl in the movie. Duh.
It is crucial that you and your wings reinforce each other’s images of yourselves as 10s. By high-fiving and congratulating each other in the venue, you are actually UNDERMINING that whole frame, mindset, and belief. No wonder guys just can’t get it in their heads that they’re 10s.
When you or your wings come back to the group after an especially spectacularly-run interaction, the most you should do is give him a slight nod of respect. Then, continue like normal. Leave the celebrations until the next morning.
Or better yet, find something more important to celebrate together because after all, we should all have higher priorities and purposes in life that trump our interests in women.
Now, here’s a personal reason why this kind of mindset was so effective for me. I’ve discovered that I am naturally externally-referenced. That is, I naturally look to others for feedback on how I’m doing.
This manifests itself in different ways. In school, I didn’t know whether the paper I wrote was any good until my professor gave me an A. In music, I didn’t know whether my jazz solo was any good until I heard the enthusiastic applause from the audience or the evaluations from my teacher or the adjudicators. With women, I didn’t know whether I had gotten a 6 or a 9 until my buddies were all congratulating me on getting a really hot girl or chiding me for thinking that 6 was a 9.
Of course, the downside of this is that sometimes, I had a great paper but an awful professor who for whatever reasons, was blind to a good argument. Or, I had an adjudicator who preferred old-time swing over 70s free jazz, so didn’t like when I played outside the chord changes. Or, I had buddies who are virgins and jack it to pics of silicone implants and can’t appreciate natural beauty, which I like.
I’ve since learned that with expertise and experience comes confidence in one own’s judgement. So I’ve developed my academic abilities so that I know for myself when I’ve got a good paper. I’ve honed my ear so that I know what a good jazz solo sounds like. I’ve trained my eye so that I can make an informed, expert assessment of what I find beautiful, not just in women, but in art, architecture, design, and fashion. Over time, I developed confidence in my own trained intuitions.
In pickup, I doubted myself way too much. I listened way too much to the bad, but well-intentioned, advice of other guys at my level or even below. It’s far better for newbies (or even intermediates looking to get advanced) not to be giving each other advice at all, especially in the venue. But instead, to just focus on having UNSELFCONSCIOUS FUN. Do that first, and everything else will begin to make sense and fall in place.
Worst of all, whenever I was lucky enough to get myself into state, they’d disrupt my state and bring me out of it by doing one of those things I mentioned above.
When is it right to evaluate and analyze your wings? If you’re going to do this at all, the best time is at the end of the night or the next day, when there’s no danger to breaking your state. That’s why on the best bootcamps, the debriefing is at the end of the night, or even better (’cause you never know when the night will really end, lol), the next afternoon.
When you go out tonight, take on this mindset. Just be cool guys having fun and completely independent of any validation from the women you’re interacting with. It doesn’t matter whether it’s going well or poorly. Just be in the moment. Laugh at yourselves, at her, at your buddies, at life. Life’s short. Live it up!
Happy playin’, The Asian Rake.
