Considering that in Western society, the man is traditionally the pursuer and the woman the pursued
A more accurate way of putting that is that the man is the first to break plausible deniability. If you also take into account non-verbal, indirect signals (where if the recipient isn’t interested they can just pretend to not notice and nothing bad happens), most of the times the very first move is the woman’s, both according to this report about Britain and in my experience in both Italy and Ireland: I can’t say I can recall ever getting a positive reaction from approaching a woman who wasn’t already smiling at me. Now, a guy who has good social skills but poor introspection may only approach women who are smiling at them but not be consciously aware that he’s preselecting women that way; likewise, a socially savvy but not introspectively savvy woman may not be consciously aware that she’s smiling at the guy she likes; as a result, it feels to them like it’s the man who’s initiating the interaction, which I guess is the main cause of that confusion.
With people you already know, the kinds of indirect signals (where if the recipient isn’t interested they can just pretend to not notice and nothing bad happens) are different (and not all of them are entirely non-verbal), but otherwise the same kind-of applies.
I think I know it when I see them (at least some of the time—there might be more of them that I’m not noticing), but I can’t think of a good intensional description of them (and it doesn’t seem polite to me to point at extensional examples based on actual people, even in anonymized form).
It probably also depends on what common knowledge exists or does not exist among the two of you, incl. what culture you’re in.
To be fair, I have filtered the reasonable parts of PUA. There is also a lot of crap. And most of the focus is on the short-term relationship—the ending part is based solely on “Married Man Sex Life”. (I guess that reflects the needs of a typical customer—and perhaps even a typical PUA guru. Also, the society does give rather decent advice on “beta” traits; the “alpha” is the missing part, so teaching it is more popular and profitable.)
you seem to be arguing that the core tenet of PUA is “women are attracted to status”. The problem is that this isn’t a secret at all.
Yeah, this is difficult to explain (so outside view suggests I am prone to rationalization here). I agree with the examples you gave. And yet… the society gives contradictory and incomplete information on this. Consider saying: “If you have an expensive foreign car, you are more likely to get pretty girls.” Say it at one place, and you will get: “Duh, news at 11.” Say it at another place, and you will get: “You sexist! How dare you! Not all women are like that. Bringing an expensive car would never impress me.”
So we have two separate magisteria here. In one universe, you only get girls by being bold and rich. In other universe, you only get girls by being polite and patient. Both messages are given by the society, none of them is literally a secret. Yet they seem contradictory, and how to successfully put them together, that is kind of a secret. Because people living in one universe typically deny the existence of the other universe.
Perhaps the information is all out there, in pieces, but you need some level of social skills to put it all correctly together. Judging by the popularity of PUAs, many people lack this skill. I certainly did.
Everyone knows that the cool jocks get the girls and the nerds don’t.
I guess the nerds would appreciate a more precise advice; which parts of jocks’ behavior are necessary for the desired effect, and which can be left out. Which is the 20% that brings 80% of the result. Otherwise, the price is too high. PUA explains how to get some of what jocks get, without having to become a full-time jock.
Perhaps the key is to be rational enough to take the next step and actually decide to either become or fake becoming higher status … Or just deciding that it’s not worth the effort.
If you map says that higher status is not actually important, that it is mostly sought by insecure or evil people, and is not really worth sacrificing your life to get it… then the rational choice is to ignore it. If your map says that higher status will improve your life in almost all aspects, and that the first steps to improve it are rather easy… then the rational choice is to go for it. So you need to get your map right to make the right decision.
The problem with PUA is that it all seems very clearly designed for attracting strangers, and consequently uses a high-risk, high-reward strategy.
There is no need to go high-risk all the time. In some situations (a disco with a hundred pretty girls, you don’t care about any one in particular, you don’t mind dozens of rejections), high-risk, high-reward strategy is the best one. In other situations, tone down appropriately. There will always be some risk, because willingness to risk is an important “alpha” trait. (But keeping the risk reasonably low is an important “beta” trait.)
Basically I wish someone could just tell me the socially acceptable, standard strategy that the people around me use, and then after I gain a better understanding of it, maybe I can tweak it as I see fit.
A new strategy is better tested on strangers. The people who already know you, will not react to your new strategy per se, but to your change. And people usually perceive change negatively; it disrupts social order. The stranger sees your new strategy and thinks this is what you are—so you get a better response on what your future relationships would be if you became that.
And yes, you have to tweak all the advice to fit your personality. Also, while experimenting, you may discover traits you didn’t know you had. Some of them good, some of them bad. You will have to deal with it too.
I would recommend you to find a torrent of “The Blueprint Decoded”, watch it, go meet some new people, and do the experiments you feel (emotionally and ethically) comfortable with. Be just a little more courageous than you usually are, and notice how other people react to you, and how you feel inside once you become comfortable with it. Don’t try too much at once. For example, if you have problem starting a conversation with a stranger, then during the first week consider successfully starting a conversation a victory. Don’t push too far on the first try; you would sabotage yourself by converting every victory to a defeat.
EDIT: As a new environment with lot of girls, may I recommend dancing lessons? ;)
I’m going to be starting college in the fall, so that obviously gives me a new environment with lots of girls...
The more incentive to develop the skills before the college. You are right that if you approach ten girls every night in the same environment, sooner or later someone will notice. I would suggest training your skills somewhere else, and use the interaction in college only to maintain the level you already have. -- For example if you are uncomfortable making eye contact, train it somewhere else, but when you become comfortable with it, do it every day at the college to strenghten the habit. -- If you change your college behavior slowly and without obvious effort, people won’t notice. It will be just “growing up”.
Not to mention that I can’t just magically make myself not feel shame.
I recommend two powerful branches of modern magic, called “reductionism” and “conditioning”. The first one can literally crush mountains to sand, the second one can be used by a wizard to transform themselves. The most successful school of these branches is CBT.
What exactly makes you feel shame? What words do you hear or what video do you see in your mind when you consider talking to an attractive girl? First step, write it down, in as much detail as you can (not publicly). For example: “If I say ‘hello’ to a girl, she will run away screaming / start laughing at me / coldly ignore me / call the cops.” (Merely writing it down helps to dispell the magic, because you notice how silly it is.) Second step, try to trace when and how did this idea get into your mind, and what evidence do you have about its literal truth. Was it said or suggested to you by someone when you were 10 years old? What is the probability that the person (a) had a correct model of the world, (b) had a motivation at given moment to give you a literally correct information, and (c) you understood and remembered it perfectly? Or it is something that happened to you in the past? Are there some specific things about (a) you, (b) the person you are going to interact with, (c) the environment, that have changed? Third step, make a statistics: Take a notebook, make a specific prediction, do the experiment, note the results. Out of 10 approaches, what happened how often?
If something is difficult, try splitting it into smaller pieces, and train it piece by piece. Asking “what time is it now?” is easier and shorter than having a conversation. Making eye contact and smiling for half a second is even easier. But perhaps smiling at a photograph or an imaginary person could be even easier. Even the smile, or more precisely the causal chain in your brain that naturally makes you smile, can be analyzed. Is there a pleasant thought that is likely to make you smile? (Imagine lying at the beach, observing the wide sky under the warm sun.) Try smiling alone, perhaps lying relaxed on your bed, until you feel pleasant doing it. Then smile at photographs, at real people not looking at you, at real people looking at you, starting with the people you know. (Note: If someone asks you why you smile, just say: “I just have a great day” and stop there.) For a successully completed task, reward yourself with an M&M.
Creepiness is a really hard concept to deal with. … PUA-y stuff saying “men being passionate and clear about their intentions is attractive” … poorly socially calibrated might do something creepy like writing someone in his class he’s talked to a few times a long Facebook message confessing his feelings for her
I think the essence of creepiness is the victim’s (real or perceived) inability to easily stop the interaction. The PUA attitude is like: “girl, if you want, my bed is over there and I don’t have any mental problem about doing it like rabbits… but if you don’t want, I am perfectly okay with that, too; there are other girls who will be happy to get this offer, and meanwhile, we can talk, but we also don’t have to”. Of course not using those words; this is just the internal model of the world. Clear about: yes, I am a healthy human male. Clear about: you are given the opportunity, but the choice is yours.
On the other hand “confessing feelings” is probably kind of creepy at almost every context. It works only if the girl is at the given moment 100% sure she wants you (and you are so biased to overestimate this), or if you are a fictional Hollywood hero and her positive response is in the script. Rule of thumb: Don’t do it, except if the girl does it first, and even then don’t make it stronger than she did. Otherwise it can go like: “Oh, this guy needs me so much, but I am not completely sure about him… and maybe I will later decide I don’t want him… and maybe then he will do something creepy… so perhaps I should play it safe and get rid of him before he gets even more attached.” Not having an easy opportunity to leave, if you decide to, is also creepy. -- Also, if you make a social mistake, leaving a written proof makes it much worse.
There are some PUA techniques to reduce creepiness, for example by introducing an artificial limit like: “Hi—oh, I am so sorry I must leave within a minute to catch my train—but I just noticed you and really wanted to say hello.” Properly done, the girl now feels no pressure (unless something else is wrong). Of course, you should then leave as promised. (Advanced version: Or have a very credible excuse.) Also, you can send similar signals with your body language; don’t lean towards the girl, don’t even turn your body against her, only your head. She must feel free to leave; and if she does, you must accept it calmly, preferably with a smile. To keep your mind in the proper state, relax and congratulate yourself for starting the conversation. And eat an M&M. And remember that if she left without any obstacles, she is more likely to talk with you again, perhaps for a longer time.
Note: Feel free to punch me if I talk about dancing lessons too much, but it is a social activity where it is socially okay and even required to touch girls. ;) The idea is to become comfortable with non-zero contact. Actually, for really good ballroom dancing, rather intimate contact is required; but let the girl decide how much is okay for her. It will still be more than zero. To avoid creepiness, make it obvious you expect only one dance at a time from the girl. Then lead her back to her chair, smile, compliment her dancing, and say: thank you. (Rule of thumb: Don’t make her send you away or escape from you; leave first.)
I am sure that there are socially acceptable ways to show a girl your attraction that would 80% of the time end up with you not being given the creepy label, regardless of whether or not she reciprocates.
She does something interesting. You approach her (don’t go directly to her, just around her), make eye contact, smile, compliment her on what she did, and leave immediately (if possible, don’t go back, continue in approximately the same direction). Repeat 20 times (with different girls, in different situations).
“creepy” is also one of the most common critiques people give of PUA
Selection bias: If a PUA does something wrong, people think: “This was a creepy PUA”. If a PUA does something right, people think: “This was a charming young man.” Attribution error: If you attend a seminar, then smile at a strange girl and say hello, your friends will think: “He never did this before, but after the seminar he keeps smiling at strange girls and saying hello, that’s creepy.” Everyone else will think: “He is a nice and happy guy.” Confirmation bias: If someone has already decided that you are creepy, anything you do will seem creepy to them. -- Therefore, if you learn and use PUA stuff, don’t say it to people around you, because then you will get feedback about their models of PUA, not about what you do. (In the worst case they could start punishing all your social behavior. Like, you would do something nice and social that you would have done before too, and they would say: please stop doing this PUA stuff all the time, it’s creepy.)
A thought experiment: Imagine than in another universe I would write here on LW exactly the same information and advice, but I would start with the following disclaimer: -- “Please don’t ever do PUA. PUA is creepy and it is for losers. It is evil and should be illegal. How about just naturally being yourself, being nice and polite and attractive? Why are guys so opposed to doing that? Are they afraid that they would lose their masculinity? No, that is a patriachal nonsense. Actually, here is some advice from my feminist friends about how to become a real man: …”—and then I would follow with all the PUA advice, just being very careful not to ever mention “PUA” or any PUA slang (e.g. “alpha” and “beta”), and to always frame it like: This is how you become a good man (connotationally: good doggie) and make women happier (because that is the only thing that truly matters). Would such version be more socially acceptable? Oh, it certainly would; it would show everyone that I am a good Blue, not an evil Green. So why don’t I do it? Well, I am stubborn; and I consider it intellectually dishonest to use someone’s knowledge without giving them the proper credit. I am not saying PUAs invented this all, but they certainly widely popularized it. They are the ones who tried to help the low-status male, before it became profitable. I have no problem with using other sources of information on the same topic, as long as the information is useful; I just didn’t find any.
Maybe we can charitably extend your definition to include not taking no for an answer, since people feel social pressure to not cut off a conversation halfway through.
Yes, ‘not taking “no” for an answer’ is very creepy!
Maybe we can charitably extend your definition to include not taking no for an answer, since people feel social pressure to not cut off a conversation halfway through.
Note also that people vary a lot in their propensity to say no in spite of pressure to the contrary, so if you’re someone who hardly ever has much trouble with that and you generalize from one example...
(I’ve recently seen lots of anecdotal evidence that ‘if she hasn’t withdrawn from the interaction, she must be enjoying it’ isn’t a viable heuristic for certain people.)
If there is a web discussion about something, people naturally extend the meaning of something. Let’s take LW for an obvious example: It started with epistemic rationality, and expanded even to rational toothpaste.
So by the same mechanism, I would expect that if you make a web community discussing “creepiness”, the scope will naturally grow. -- The example you linked doesn’t seem creepy to me, assuming it was on a dating website. (A context could make it creepy: for example if the same man keeps sending this message repeatedly to the same woman.)
You know, haters gonna hate. Try avoiding the obvious haters, and don’t leave written records that could fall in wrong hands.
I guess a proper protocol for dating a schoolmate is to invite them somewhere outside of the school (some interesting place, or for a walk). In school, just be friendly. This way you leave an obvious exit. Also, the girl may appreciate your discretion.
How does talking to a girl for only one minute help you?
If you are nervous about approaching strange girls, the time limit also reduces your stress. Gradually you will start feeling relaxed while doing it. That is the time to approach someone else without using the time limit.
Is this for practice or for results? Am I doing this on strangers or on people I know?
Always start with easy and progress to more difficult. Start complimenting the people you know, and progress to strangers. The more you do it, the more “natural” it will feel to you. (I use scare quotes around “natural”, because “natural” simply means: learned and practiced long time ago, and “not natural” means: learned yesterday, have not practice yet. You become “natural” by practice, not by being born with the ability.) At first just practice, but with enough experience you will learn the scale of reactions, when people are just polite and when they are really happy… and then at some moment, when you get a happy reaction, you can ask whether it is okay to talk.
Sorry, the advice ends here—this is not a PUA forum, and some people don’t like this topic. I hope I made you interested, and perhaps provided a good starting map. Many specific answers and new ideas are in the books. As usual, use your brain. If something feels morally wrong or dangerous, don’t do it. But if something merely feels uncomfortable, expand your comfort zone; do it slowly, but do it. You can’t learn social skills by discussing them online. You have to practice. With practice, it will become easier. Don’t mention “PUA” to people, and feel free to ignore any bullshit. Just be aware that a lot of advice you get from traditional sources is also bullshit. Explore the territory, don’t just copy other people’s maps. Do it sooner rather than later, because then you will have more time to enjoy the gains.
I guess a proper protocol for dating a schoolmate is to invite them somewhere outside of the school (some interesting place, or for a walk). In school, just be friendly. This way you leave an obvious exit. Also, the girl may appreciate your discretion.
This actually makes a lot of sense. “Only show attraction to girls outside of school/work, so that they are aware that you compartmentalize your life in such a way that they will not have to deal with the topic of romance with you at school/work if they are not inclined to do so.” This is why at a school dance it’s okay to go and rub your crotch on the butt of a girl you treat completely non-sexually during the day.
EDIT: And now the concept of sexual harassment in the workplace makes a lot more sense.
Sorry, the advice ends here—this is not a PUA forum, and some people don’t like this topic.
That’s fine, I understand that you probably have better things to do. Thank you for the advice/discussion, and good luck in your future endeavors. :)
“Only show attraction to girls outside of school/work, so that they are aware that you compartmentalize your life in such a way that they will not have to deal with the topic of romance with you at school/work if they are not inclined to do so.”
That’s pretty much what I do instinctively, except that the compartments are more gerrymandered than that (and they’re not much clearer to my System 2 than (say) grammatical rules), and they depend on who the woman is (and, to a lesser extent, on what we’re talking about) but not much on where we are (e.g., with some people I’ll do the hover hand thing in pictures, with others I’m perfectly comfortable putting a hand on their thigh during class).
(This might be part of a same pattern as Feynman’s observation that it’s common for European physicists to talk about their work in bars but rare for American physicists.)
The example you linked doesn’t seem creepy to me, assuming it was on a dating website. (A context could make it creepy: for example if the same man keeps sending this message repeatedly to the same woman.)
Actually, I think the lack of context makes it creepier.
Being that explicit so early in a conversation is usually considered impolite. (There’s no need to explicitly mention the bedroom—they’re on a dating site, she knows you mean that even if you just say you want to hang out.) Therefore, it demonstrates a lack of familiarity with politeness norms, and possibly with social interactions in general. In more usual contexts, it would instead demonstrate that you can afford flouting politeness rules without much of a status hit, but when you’re talking to someone who knows basically nothing about you other than what you’re communicating at the moment (for all she knows, you could be a sexual predator, a dork who basically never talks to women in meatspace, or even an uFAI), countersignalling is a bad idea.
Also, it pattern-matches a kind of guy who gets very resentful, sometimes in a scary way, when he doesn’t get his way. (And for some reason they seem to always be awful at writing—“your beautiful”, “knew to the area”...)
Not necessarily—there are things I used to never do when sober because I assumed I would regret them, then I once did them when drunk, noticed that the (social) consequences weren’t anywhere near as negative as I had feared and were in fact quite positive, and now I often do them even when I’m sober.
Considering that in Western society, the man is traditionally the pursuer and the woman the pursued, this seems non-ideal,
What do you care what the traditional roles in Western society are, so long as you’re both happy?
and considering that my male friends say stuff like “I’m going to go for Susan tonight”
What fraction of the time do they succeed? (And when they do, how do you know that part of the reason why they had picked Susan rather than Jane in the first place was that on some level they already knew that they had less of a chance with the latter than with the former?)
What do you care what the traditional roles in Western society are, so long as you’re both happy?
Presumably if women rarely initiate and instead expect men to approach them, a man who frequently approaches women will be much more likely to find sex/a relationship than a man who just waits around for women to do the initiating.
What fraction of the time do they succeed?
I don’t know. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. But I am sure they succeed more than they would if, like me, they never tried.
(And when they do, how do you know that part of the reason why they had picked Susan rather than Jane in the first place was that on some level they already knew that they had less of a chance with the latter than with the former?)
OK, I thought you meant something like “I used to be in a relationship, but it had been initiated by the woman, which is untraditional; we were uncomfortable with that, and eventually we broke up as a result”, rather than “I used to be in a relationship, then for whatever reason we broke up, but I hadn’t been the one to initiate it so I don’t know how to initiate another one”; never mind. (I have heard a few women make the latter complaint before, though none of them mentioned the traditional roles.)
Are you happy with the number and quality of relationships? Your dubiousness about not initiating seemed to be about it seeming weird rather than practical drawbacks.
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A more accurate way of putting that is that the man is the first to break plausible deniability. If you also take into account non-verbal, indirect signals (where if the recipient isn’t interested they can just pretend to not notice and nothing bad happens), most of the times the very first move is the woman’s, both according to this report about Britain and in my experience in both Italy and Ireland: I can’t say I can recall ever getting a positive reaction from approaching a woman who wasn’t already smiling at me. Now, a guy who has good social skills but poor introspection may only approach women who are smiling at them but not be consciously aware that he’s preselecting women that way; likewise, a socially savvy but not introspectively savvy woman may not be consciously aware that she’s smiling at the guy she likes; as a result, it feels to them like it’s the man who’s initiating the interaction, which I guess is the main cause of that confusion.
Interesting. Although “if she’s smiling at you, she likes you” seems like it wouldn’t hold true when you’re trying to flirt with acquaintances.
With people you already know, the kinds of indirect signals (where if the recipient isn’t interested they can just pretend to not notice and nothing bad happens) are different (and not all of them are entirely non-verbal), but otherwise the same kind-of applies.
Do you know what these indirect signals are? This seems like useful information.
I think I know it when I see them (at least some of the time—there might be more of them that I’m not noticing), but I can’t think of a good intensional description of them (and it doesn’t seem polite to me to point at extensional examples based on actual people, even in anonymized form).
It probably also depends on what common knowledge exists or does not exist among the two of you, incl. what culture you’re in.
To be fair, I have filtered the reasonable parts of PUA. There is also a lot of crap. And most of the focus is on the short-term relationship—the ending part is based solely on “Married Man Sex Life”. (I guess that reflects the needs of a typical customer—and perhaps even a typical PUA guru. Also, the society does give rather decent advice on “beta” traits; the “alpha” is the missing part, so teaching it is more popular and profitable.)
Yeah, this is difficult to explain (so outside view suggests I am prone to rationalization here). I agree with the examples you gave. And yet… the society gives contradictory and incomplete information on this. Consider saying: “If you have an expensive foreign car, you are more likely to get pretty girls.” Say it at one place, and you will get: “Duh, news at 11.” Say it at another place, and you will get: “You sexist! How dare you! Not all women are like that. Bringing an expensive car would never impress me.”
So we have two separate magisteria here. In one universe, you only get girls by being bold and rich. In other universe, you only get girls by being polite and patient. Both messages are given by the society, none of them is literally a secret. Yet they seem contradictory, and how to successfully put them together, that is kind of a secret. Because people living in one universe typically deny the existence of the other universe.
Perhaps the information is all out there, in pieces, but you need some level of social skills to put it all correctly together. Judging by the popularity of PUAs, many people lack this skill. I certainly did.
I guess the nerds would appreciate a more precise advice; which parts of jocks’ behavior are necessary for the desired effect, and which can be left out. Which is the 20% that brings 80% of the result. Otherwise, the price is too high. PUA explains how to get some of what jocks get, without having to become a full-time jock.
If you map says that higher status is not actually important, that it is mostly sought by insecure or evil people, and is not really worth sacrificing your life to get it… then the rational choice is to ignore it. If your map says that higher status will improve your life in almost all aspects, and that the first steps to improve it are rather easy… then the rational choice is to go for it. So you need to get your map right to make the right decision.
There is no need to go high-risk all the time. In some situations (a disco with a hundred pretty girls, you don’t care about any one in particular, you don’t mind dozens of rejections), high-risk, high-reward strategy is the best one. In other situations, tone down appropriately. There will always be some risk, because willingness to risk is an important “alpha” trait. (But keeping the risk reasonably low is an important “beta” trait.)
A new strategy is better tested on strangers. The people who already know you, will not react to your new strategy per se, but to your change. And people usually perceive change negatively; it disrupts social order. The stranger sees your new strategy and thinks this is what you are—so you get a better response on what your future relationships would be if you became that.
And yes, you have to tweak all the advice to fit your personality. Also, while experimenting, you may discover traits you didn’t know you had. Some of them good, some of them bad. You will have to deal with it too.
I would recommend you to find a torrent of “The Blueprint Decoded”, watch it, go meet some new people, and do the experiments you feel (emotionally and ethically) comfortable with. Be just a little more courageous than you usually are, and notice how other people react to you, and how you feel inside once you become comfortable with it. Don’t try too much at once. For example, if you have problem starting a conversation with a stranger, then during the first week consider successfully starting a conversation a victory. Don’t push too far on the first try; you would sabotage yourself by converting every victory to a defeat.
EDIT: As a new environment with lot of girls, may I recommend dancing lessons? ;)
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The more incentive to develop the skills before the college. You are right that if you approach ten girls every night in the same environment, sooner or later someone will notice. I would suggest training your skills somewhere else, and use the interaction in college only to maintain the level you already have. -- For example if you are uncomfortable making eye contact, train it somewhere else, but when you become comfortable with it, do it every day at the college to strenghten the habit. -- If you change your college behavior slowly and without obvious effort, people won’t notice. It will be just “growing up”.
I recommend two powerful branches of modern magic, called “reductionism” and “conditioning”. The first one can literally crush mountains to sand, the second one can be used by a wizard to transform themselves. The most successful school of these branches is CBT.
What exactly makes you feel shame? What words do you hear or what video do you see in your mind when you consider talking to an attractive girl? First step, write it down, in as much detail as you can (not publicly). For example: “If I say ‘hello’ to a girl, she will run away screaming / start laughing at me / coldly ignore me / call the cops.” (Merely writing it down helps to dispell the magic, because you notice how silly it is.) Second step, try to trace when and how did this idea get into your mind, and what evidence do you have about its literal truth. Was it said or suggested to you by someone when you were 10 years old? What is the probability that the person (a) had a correct model of the world, (b) had a motivation at given moment to give you a literally correct information, and (c) you understood and remembered it perfectly? Or it is something that happened to you in the past? Are there some specific things about (a) you, (b) the person you are going to interact with, (c) the environment, that have changed? Third step, make a statistics: Take a notebook, make a specific prediction, do the experiment, note the results. Out of 10 approaches, what happened how often?
If something is difficult, try splitting it into smaller pieces, and train it piece by piece. Asking “what time is it now?” is easier and shorter than having a conversation. Making eye contact and smiling for half a second is even easier. But perhaps smiling at a photograph or an imaginary person could be even easier. Even the smile, or more precisely the causal chain in your brain that naturally makes you smile, can be analyzed. Is there a pleasant thought that is likely to make you smile? (Imagine lying at the beach, observing the wide sky under the warm sun.) Try smiling alone, perhaps lying relaxed on your bed, until you feel pleasant doing it. Then smile at photographs, at real people not looking at you, at real people looking at you, starting with the people you know. (Note: If someone asks you why you smile, just say: “I just have a great day” and stop there.) For a successully completed task, reward yourself with an M&M.
I think the essence of creepiness is the victim’s (real or perceived) inability to easily stop the interaction. The PUA attitude is like: “girl, if you want, my bed is over there and I don’t have any mental problem about doing it like rabbits… but if you don’t want, I am perfectly okay with that, too; there are other girls who will be happy to get this offer, and meanwhile, we can talk, but we also don’t have to”. Of course not using those words; this is just the internal model of the world. Clear about: yes, I am a healthy human male. Clear about: you are given the opportunity, but the choice is yours.
On the other hand “confessing feelings” is probably kind of creepy at almost every context. It works only if the girl is at the given moment 100% sure she wants you (and you are so biased to overestimate this), or if you are a fictional Hollywood hero and her positive response is in the script. Rule of thumb: Don’t do it, except if the girl does it first, and even then don’t make it stronger than she did. Otherwise it can go like: “Oh, this guy needs me so much, but I am not completely sure about him… and maybe I will later decide I don’t want him… and maybe then he will do something creepy… so perhaps I should play it safe and get rid of him before he gets even more attached.” Not having an easy opportunity to leave, if you decide to, is also creepy. -- Also, if you make a social mistake, leaving a written proof makes it much worse.
There are some PUA techniques to reduce creepiness, for example by introducing an artificial limit like: “Hi—oh, I am so sorry I must leave within a minute to catch my train—but I just noticed you and really wanted to say hello.” Properly done, the girl now feels no pressure (unless something else is wrong). Of course, you should then leave as promised. (Advanced version: Or have a very credible excuse.) Also, you can send similar signals with your body language; don’t lean towards the girl, don’t even turn your body against her, only your head. She must feel free to leave; and if she does, you must accept it calmly, preferably with a smile. To keep your mind in the proper state, relax and congratulate yourself for starting the conversation. And eat an M&M. And remember that if she left without any obstacles, she is more likely to talk with you again, perhaps for a longer time.
Note: Feel free to punch me if I talk about dancing lessons too much, but it is a social activity where it is socially okay and even required to touch girls. ;) The idea is to become comfortable with non-zero contact. Actually, for really good ballroom dancing, rather intimate contact is required; but let the girl decide how much is okay for her. It will still be more than zero. To avoid creepiness, make it obvious you expect only one dance at a time from the girl. Then lead her back to her chair, smile, compliment her dancing, and say: thank you. (Rule of thumb: Don’t make her send you away or escape from you; leave first.)
She does something interesting. You approach her (don’t go directly to her, just around her), make eye contact, smile, compliment her on what she did, and leave immediately (if possible, don’t go back, continue in approximately the same direction). Repeat 20 times (with different girls, in different situations).
Selection bias: If a PUA does something wrong, people think: “This was a creepy PUA”. If a PUA does something right, people think: “This was a charming young man.” Attribution error: If you attend a seminar, then smile at a strange girl and say hello, your friends will think: “He never did this before, but after the seminar he keeps smiling at strange girls and saying hello, that’s creepy.” Everyone else will think: “He is a nice and happy guy.” Confirmation bias: If someone has already decided that you are creepy, anything you do will seem creepy to them. -- Therefore, if you learn and use PUA stuff, don’t say it to people around you, because then you will get feedback about their models of PUA, not about what you do. (In the worst case they could start punishing all your social behavior. Like, you would do something nice and social that you would have done before too, and they would say: please stop doing this PUA stuff all the time, it’s creepy.)
A thought experiment: Imagine than in another universe I would write here on LW exactly the same information and advice, but I would start with the following disclaimer: -- “Please don’t ever do PUA. PUA is creepy and it is for losers. It is evil and should be illegal. How about just naturally being yourself, being nice and polite and attractive? Why are guys so opposed to doing that? Are they afraid that they would lose their masculinity? No, that is a patriachal nonsense. Actually, here is some advice from my feminist friends about how to become a real man: …”—and then I would follow with all the PUA advice, just being very careful not to ever mention “PUA” or any PUA slang (e.g. “alpha” and “beta”), and to always frame it like: This is how you become a good man (connotationally: good doggie) and make women happier (because that is the only thing that truly matters). Would such version be more socially acceptable? Oh, it certainly would; it would show everyone that I am a good Blue, not an evil Green. So why don’t I do it? Well, I am stubborn; and I consider it intellectually dishonest to use someone’s knowledge without giving them the proper credit. I am not saying PUAs invented this all, but they certainly widely popularized it. They are the ones who tried to help the low-status male, before it became profitable. I have no problem with using other sources of information on the same topic, as long as the information is useful; I just didn’t find any.
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Yes, ‘not taking “no” for an answer’ is very creepy!
Note also that people vary a lot in their propensity to say no in spite of pressure to the contrary, so if you’re someone who hardly ever has much trouble with that and you generalize from one example...
(I’ve recently seen lots of anecdotal evidence that ‘if she hasn’t withdrawn from the interaction, she must be enjoying it’ isn’t a viable heuristic for certain people.)
If there is a web discussion about something, people naturally extend the meaning of something. Let’s take LW for an obvious example: It started with epistemic rationality, and expanded even to rational toothpaste.
So by the same mechanism, I would expect that if you make a web community discussing “creepiness”, the scope will naturally grow. -- The example you linked doesn’t seem creepy to me, assuming it was on a dating website. (A context could make it creepy: for example if the same man keeps sending this message repeatedly to the same woman.)
You know, haters gonna hate. Try avoiding the obvious haters, and don’t leave written records that could fall in wrong hands.
I guess a proper protocol for dating a schoolmate is to invite them somewhere outside of the school (some interesting place, or for a walk). In school, just be friendly. This way you leave an obvious exit. Also, the girl may appreciate your discretion.
If you are nervous about approaching strange girls, the time limit also reduces your stress. Gradually you will start feeling relaxed while doing it. That is the time to approach someone else without using the time limit.
Always start with easy and progress to more difficult. Start complimenting the people you know, and progress to strangers. The more you do it, the more “natural” it will feel to you. (I use scare quotes around “natural”, because “natural” simply means: learned and practiced long time ago, and “not natural” means: learned yesterday, have not practice yet. You become “natural” by practice, not by being born with the ability.) At first just practice, but with enough experience you will learn the scale of reactions, when people are just polite and when they are really happy… and then at some moment, when you get a happy reaction, you can ask whether it is okay to talk.
Sorry, the advice ends here—this is not a PUA forum, and some people don’t like this topic. I hope I made you interested, and perhaps provided a good starting map. Many specific answers and new ideas are in the books. As usual, use your brain. If something feels morally wrong or dangerous, don’t do it. But if something merely feels uncomfortable, expand your comfort zone; do it slowly, but do it. You can’t learn social skills by discussing them online. You have to practice. With practice, it will become easier. Don’t mention “PUA” to people, and feel free to ignore any bullshit. Just be aware that a lot of advice you get from traditional sources is also bullshit. Explore the territory, don’t just copy other people’s maps. Do it sooner rather than later, because then you will have more time to enjoy the gains.
This actually makes a lot of sense. “Only show attraction to girls outside of school/work, so that they are aware that you compartmentalize your life in such a way that they will not have to deal with the topic of romance with you at school/work if they are not inclined to do so.” This is why at a school dance it’s okay to go and rub your crotch on the butt of a girl you treat completely non-sexually during the day.
EDIT: And now the concept of sexual harassment in the workplace makes a lot more sense.
That’s fine, I understand that you probably have better things to do. Thank you for the advice/discussion, and good luck in your future endeavors. :)
That’s pretty much what I do instinctively, except that the compartments are more gerrymandered than that (and they’re not much clearer to my System 2 than (say) grammatical rules), and they depend on who the woman is (and, to a lesser extent, on what we’re talking about) but not much on where we are (e.g., with some people I’ll do the hover hand thing in pictures, with others I’m perfectly comfortable putting a hand on their thigh during class).
(This might be part of a same pattern as Feynman’s observation that it’s common for European physicists to talk about their work in bars but rare for American physicists.)
Actually, I think the lack of context makes it creepier.
Being that explicit so early in a conversation is usually considered impolite. (There’s no need to explicitly mention the bedroom—they’re on a dating site, she knows you mean that even if you just say you want to hang out.) Therefore, it demonstrates a lack of familiarity with politeness norms, and possibly with social interactions in general. In more usual contexts, it would instead demonstrate that you can afford flouting politeness rules without much of a status hit, but when you’re talking to someone who knows basically nothing about you other than what you’re communicating at the moment (for all she knows, you could be a sexual predator, a dork who basically never talks to women in meatspace, or even an uFAI), countersignalling is a bad idea.
Also, it pattern-matches a kind of guy who gets very resentful, sometimes in a scary way, when he doesn’t get his way. (And for some reason they seem to always be awful at writing—“your beautiful”, “knew to the area”...)
That just mean that you’re too sober. Drink more and try again.
But then the next morning you end up with even more shame to deal with. :(
Not necessarily—there are things I used to never do when sober because I assumed I would regret them, then I once did them when drunk, noticed that the (social) consequences weren’t anywhere near as negative as I had feared and were in fact quite positive, and now I often do them even when I’m sober.
Do they? Because saying “not all women are like that” has the implicature that some women are.
What do you care what the traditional roles in Western society are, so long as you’re both happy?
What fraction of the time do they succeed? (And when they do, how do you know that part of the reason why they had picked Susan rather than Jane in the first place was that on some level they already knew that they had less of a chance with the latter than with the former?)
Presumably if women rarely initiate and instead expect men to approach them, a man who frequently approaches women will be much more likely to find sex/a relationship than a man who just waits around for women to do the initiating.
I don’t know. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. But I am sure they succeed more than they would if, like me, they never tried.
That definitely is part of it.
OK, I thought you meant something like “I used to be in a relationship, but it had been initiated by the woman, which is untraditional; we were uncomfortable with that, and eventually we broke up as a result”, rather than “I used to be in a relationship, then for whatever reason we broke up, but I hadn’t been the one to initiate it so I don’t know how to initiate another one”; never mind. (I have heard a few women make the latter complaint before, though none of them mentioned the traditional roles.)
You must have been doing something right! I bet you’ll have great success if you follow Villiam’s advice.
Haha, I hope so.
How has this worked out for you?
Can you rephrase this question? I’m not sure what you’re asking.
Are you happy with the number and quality of relationships? Your dubiousness about not initiating seemed to be about it seeming weird rather than practical drawbacks.
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