what’s the difference between a fake alpha male and someone but didn’t use to be an alpha male but has since become one?
Congruency. If someone became an alpha male by PUA training, they will probably have the “visible” traits of alpha male, but lack the “invisible” traits (where “invisible” is a short for “not easy to detect during the first date”), because the training will focus on the “visible” traits.
Unless it is a PUA training that explicitly focuses on teaching the “invisible” traits (because they believe that this is the best way to learn and maintain the “visible” traits in long term).
At this point people usually begin to discuss the definition of the term “PUA”. People who like PUA will insist that such trainings belong under the PUA label, and perhaps they are the ultimate PUA trainings, the results of decades of field research. People who dislike the PUA will insist that the label “PUA” should be used only for those surface trainings that create “fake alpha males”, which is a bad thing, and that any complex personality improvement program is just old-fashioned “manning up”, which is a good thing, and should not be confused with the bad thing. This battle for the correct definition is simply the battle for attaching the bad or good label to the whole concept of PUA.
Good story. Someone who didn’t use to be an alpha male but has become one often has a good story that explains why it happened. A story “first I was pathetic, but then I paid a lot of money to people who taught me to be less pathetic, so I could get laid” is not a good story. A good story involves your favorite dog dying, and you being lost in a jungle after the helicopter crash, feeding for weeks on scorpions and venomous snakes. Or spending a few years in army. If a miracle transformed you to an alpha male, your past is forgiven, because there is a clean line between the old you and the new you. Also if the shock was enough to wake you up, then you probably had a good potential, you just didn’t use it fully; you had to be pushed forward, but you found the way instinctively.
There is a fear that if someone gained a trait too easily, they can also lose it easily. (Imagine the shame of being known as Joe’s former girlfriend, if Joe returns to his previous pathetic behavior, because the PUA lessons did not stick.) And if their gaining the trait was based on education, not genetics, then what is the point of getting their genes? :D
Is someone who didn’t grow up speaking English but now does a “fake English speaker”?
A proper analogy would be someone who memorizes a list of English phrases frequently used in some context, with a perfect accent, and then meets you in that context to make a good impression. Only when you ask something unexpected, it turns out the person does not understand most English words.
Of course there is a continuum between fake English knowledge and real English knowledge, but people are expected to cross the continuum in a predictable manner (gradually getting better in all topics). When people speak about “natural” and “fake”, they often mean “predictable and reliable” and “optimized for cheap first impression”. If someone knows 20% of English words in any context, then 50%, then 80%, then 98%, that is learning; if someone knows 100% in one context while knowing 5% in other contexts, that is cheating—this path might finally take you to the same goal, but the mere fact that someone is using this path suggests that they are too lazy to finish it.
Don’t lots of men drink alcohol in order for women to look more attractive to them? :-)
I am not sure if this describes the real behavior, but supposing that they do, they do it voluntarily.
And if their gaining the trait was based on education, not genetics, then what is the point of getting their genes? :D
At least for short-term relationships, people don’t actually want good genes; they want things which correlated with good genes in the ancestral environment. (Not all men would be outraged by the possibility that a woman has undergone breast enlargement surgery, for example.)
(Why was that downvoted? It didn’t explicitly answer my question, but it also contains lots of interesting points. Upvoted back to zero)
Congruency. If someone became an alpha male by PUA training, they will probably have the “visible” traits of alpha male, but lack the “invisible” traits (where “invisible” is a short for “not easy to detect during the first date”), because the training will focus on the “visible” traits.
My question was what those invisible traits are.
Also if the shock was enough to wake you up, then you probably had a good potential, you just didn’t use it fully; you had to be pushed forward, but you found the way instinctively.
Well, I guess if someone just didn’t have “a good potential” it’d be hardly possible for them to learn PUA stuff anyway, much like it’d be hardly possible for someone with an IQ of 75 to learn computational quantum chromodynamics (or even convincingly faking a knowledge thereof). I’m not terribly familiar with PUAs, but I was under the impression that most of their disciples are healthy, non-poor people who for some reason just didn’t have a chance to learn alpha behaviour before (say, they weren’t as interested in relationships as they are now, or they’ve just broken up from a ten-year-long relationship they had started when they were 14, or something).
staying alpha when the situation becomes more intense. (A fake alpha may behave like a real alpha while in the bar, but lose his coolness when alone with the girl in her room. Or may behave like a real alpha the first night, but lose his coolness if they fall in love and a long-term relationship develops.)
heroic reaction in case of a real threat. (A fake alpha is only trained to overcome and perhaps overcompensate for shyness in social situations where real danger is improbable.)
other kinds of consistency. (A fake alpha may forget some parts of alpha behavior when he is outside of the bar, in a situation his PUA teachers did not provide him a script for. For example he does not fear to say “Hello” to a nice unknown girl, but still fears to ask his boss for a higher salary.)
Rationally, this should not be a problem for a one-night stand, if the probability of a real threat or falling in love is small. However, thinking that someone might have this kind of problem, can reduce his attractivity anyway.
Congruency. If someone became an alpha male by PUA training, they will probably have the “visible” traits of alpha male, but lack the “invisible” traits (where “invisible” is a short for “not easy to detect during the first date”), because the training will focus on the “visible” traits.
Unless it is a PUA training that explicitly focuses on teaching the “invisible” traits (because they believe that this is the best way to learn and maintain the “visible” traits in long term).
At this point people usually begin to discuss the definition of the term “PUA”. People who like PUA will insist that such trainings belong under the PUA label, and perhaps they are the ultimate PUA trainings, the results of decades of field research. People who dislike the PUA will insist that the label “PUA” should be used only for those surface trainings that create “fake alpha males”, which is a bad thing, and that any complex personality improvement program is just old-fashioned “manning up”, which is a good thing, and should not be confused with the bad thing. This battle for the correct definition is simply the battle for attaching the bad or good label to the whole concept of PUA.
Good story. Someone who didn’t use to be an alpha male but has become one often has a good story that explains why it happened. A story “first I was pathetic, but then I paid a lot of money to people who taught me to be less pathetic, so I could get laid” is not a good story. A good story involves your favorite dog dying, and you being lost in a jungle after the helicopter crash, feeding for weeks on scorpions and venomous snakes. Or spending a few years in army. If a miracle transformed you to an alpha male, your past is forgiven, because there is a clean line between the old you and the new you. Also if the shock was enough to wake you up, then you probably had a good potential, you just didn’t use it fully; you had to be pushed forward, but you found the way instinctively.
There is a fear that if someone gained a trait too easily, they can also lose it easily. (Imagine the shame of being known as Joe’s former girlfriend, if Joe returns to his previous pathetic behavior, because the PUA lessons did not stick.) And if their gaining the trait was based on education, not genetics, then what is the point of getting their genes? :D
A proper analogy would be someone who memorizes a list of English phrases frequently used in some context, with a perfect accent, and then meets you in that context to make a good impression. Only when you ask something unexpected, it turns out the person does not understand most English words.
Of course there is a continuum between fake English knowledge and real English knowledge, but people are expected to cross the continuum in a predictable manner (gradually getting better in all topics). When people speak about “natural” and “fake”, they often mean “predictable and reliable” and “optimized for cheap first impression”. If someone knows 20% of English words in any context, then 50%, then 80%, then 98%, that is learning; if someone knows 100% in one context while knowing 5% in other contexts, that is cheating—this path might finally take you to the same goal, but the mere fact that someone is using this path suggests that they are too lazy to finish it.
I am not sure if this describes the real behavior, but supposing that they do, they do it voluntarily.
At least for short-term relationships, people don’t actually want good genes; they want things which correlated with good genes in the ancestral environment. (Not all men would be outraged by the possibility that a woman has undergone breast enlargement surgery, for example.)
(Why was that downvoted? It didn’t explicitly answer my question, but it also contains lots of interesting points. Upvoted back to zero)
My question was what those invisible traits are.
Well, I guess if someone just didn’t have “a good potential” it’d be hardly possible for them to learn PUA stuff anyway, much like it’d be hardly possible for someone with an IQ of 75 to learn computational quantum chromodynamics (or even convincingly faking a knowledge thereof). I’m not terribly familiar with PUAs, but I was under the impression that most of their disciples are healthy, non-poor people who for some reason just didn’t have a chance to learn alpha behaviour before (say, they weren’t as interested in relationships as they are now, or they’ve just broken up from a ten-year-long relationship they had started when they were 14, or something).
staying alpha when the situation becomes more intense. (A fake alpha may behave like a real alpha while in the bar, but lose his coolness when alone with the girl in her room. Or may behave like a real alpha the first night, but lose his coolness if they fall in love and a long-term relationship develops.)
heroic reaction in case of a real threat. (A fake alpha is only trained to overcome and perhaps overcompensate for shyness in social situations where real danger is improbable.)
other kinds of consistency. (A fake alpha may forget some parts of alpha behavior when he is outside of the bar, in a situation his PUA teachers did not provide him a script for. For example he does not fear to say “Hello” to a nice unknown girl, but still fears to ask his boss for a higher salary.)
Rationally, this should not be a problem for a one-night stand, if the probability of a real threat or falling in love is small. However, thinking that someone might have this kind of problem, can reduce his attractivity anyway.
Thanks.