Just one advice from experience. Try to avoid practicing social skills(pick up and related) in environments where people know you(workplace, school, university). Of course it depends on the size of the university but you don’t want to be the weird guy who is using the same lines again and again, if you get my idea.
I agree with your overarching point: I don’t want to be that guy.
While my university is pretty large, I also don’t want to be using “lines” in the first place. Or at least, not cute-flippant pickup lines. Women tend not to respond well to them in experimental settings (see page 107 of Handbook of Relationship Initiation).
To clarify my goals a bit more, I’m looking to meet women for short and long term dating. Pickup lines—as I understand them—are associated with hookups, casual sex, etc. I’m not looking for the latter group.
Or maybe I misunderstand what you mean by “lines”?
Sorry, I was assuming you are familiar with the seduction community. By lines I mean any scripted piece of conversation that you use repeatedly. For example you could open a conversation saying “Hi, did you see my hamster?” This is supposed to be funny and if done correctly should elicit a positive response from the beginning. The thing is, you probably will have to try it several times until you get it to work. This is a general characteristic of PU stuff that you are supposed to use it repeatedly, until you get it. That’s why the idea is to go out several nights a week and open 12 sets(groups of women) every night to get practice. The more socially awkward you are the more practice you will need. But practicing at your university may backfire. The good thing about night venues is that people usually are drunk and are used to weird behavior, so you have more social leeway to make mistakes that would be frowned upon in a work environment.
I’m not up-to-date on with the seduction community. Though in context with what I do know, I understand better what you mean now. I agree with you, practicing lines in that setting wouldn’t be optimal.
Do you find the techniques of the seduction community useful? It may be worth me looking into. I’m much more interested in “day game” than “night game,” though. (If I have the terminology correct.) I trust practice is still essential for the former, as well.
Do you find the techniques of the seduction community useful?
Yes I do, though there is lots of misinformation and bullshit out there so nowadays you have a hard time distilling the useful stuff. Also a lot of it is very hard to understand if you don’t see it applied in field by a pro.
I agree that day game is great although night game can be very good for practice because people are often more in a social mood than during day.
Could you point me in the direction of the useful stuff, please? I’d like to avoid the misinformation and bullshit, if at all possible. I just don’t know enough to separate the good information from the bad.
After reading 100+ pages, I’m a 1⁄3 of the way through the book. A lot of the information makes sense to me! I think my biggest challenge will be the implementation.
Edit: Just got to the part about negs. Wow! Now this seems like something I could implement well.
Mystery is the PUA. His book “The Mystery Method” is a classic and while some canned routines are dated, the overall theoretical foundation is solid. Perhaps he could have optimised presentation a bit to more easily facilitate inner game and perhaps Bang by Roosh does a better job of presenting game to the average Joe layman by ditching the geeky acronyms and pseudo-evopsych(I love the geeky acronyms and pseudo-evopsych) but overall if you want to understand how dating and seduction works I have yet to see a better book.
I haven’t read his newer work (Revelation ect.) but I’d put a high probability on it being quality stuff.
Have you tried online dating sites? OkCupid has a good reputation for being decent for members of the skeptics/rationalist/agnostics/atheists amalgam and there’s been a lot of prior discussion of it on Less Wrong such as this thread.
I have tried OkCupid, without much success. I sent out about messages to (about seven) women I found attractive, but I got no responses. Pretty disheartening at the time. In retrospect, I think my approach to these women and to my profile could have been optimized better.
I didn’t know OkCupid had such a reputation, though. Maybe I’ll give it another shot, especially after reading the advice in the linked thread on how to improve my profile. I think it’d be fantastic to meet a LessWrong-er (or someone of equivalent rationality) in my area.
Seven is a pretty small number. I’m not about to go through my entire log to check how many are to separate individuals, but my Sent box contains 466 messages. I’ve received more than half that many, but it took a lot more than seven messages before I learned to improve my profile and messages to get a reasonable response rate.
Interesting. 7 sounded small to me, but I’m pretty sure that 466 was way above anything I sent. Are you sure you are counting individual people sent and not each separate message which will include longer conversations? (Also how long have you been active on OkC?)
I’m counting individual messages, not individual people; I’ve definitely contacted fewer than 466 people, but without going through the whole list I can definitely say it’s been over a hundred individuals. I prefer to talk in real time rather than correspondence, so if I get along well with someone initially, I’ll progress to instant messaging and/or meeting in person.
I joined the site about four years ago, but I’ve only been active on and off, and disabled my account for about a year.
Honestly, 7 sounds like a fairly small number. I don’t remember how many people I messaged, but it was a lot more than that. Profile optimization seems to definitely help a lot. Also, one has to remember that females seem to be getting messaged a lot more than guys, so you generally need something in your message that stands out, especially showing that you read their profile and found something interesting.
I may be a biased source in regards to how effective this is. The last three people I’ve dated (including my now current, sort of long-term girlfriend) I met on OkCupid, although I think she messaged me first.
Reluctantly, I agree with you that seven women is fairly small set. Maybe my searches weren’t properly done or my standards were too high, but these were the only women I found attractive in my searching.
To my credit, I definitely did try to put something my message that stood out, especially something related to her profile. I think one of the errors in my messages was that I came off too strong.
Congratulations! I’m glad that the service is working for you. Gives me a bit of hope (=
Just one advice from experience. Try to avoid practicing social skills(pick up and related) in environments where people know you(workplace, school, university). Of course it depends on the size of the university but you don’t want to be the weird guy who is using the same lines again and again, if you get my idea.
Hey roland. Thanks for the feedback.
I agree with your overarching point: I don’t want to be that guy.
While my university is pretty large, I also don’t want to be using “lines” in the first place. Or at least, not cute-flippant pickup lines. Women tend not to respond well to them in experimental settings (see page 107 of Handbook of Relationship Initiation).
To clarify my goals a bit more, I’m looking to meet women for short and long term dating. Pickup lines—as I understand them—are associated with hookups, casual sex, etc. I’m not looking for the latter group.
Or maybe I misunderstand what you mean by “lines”?
Sorry, I was assuming you are familiar with the seduction community. By lines I mean any scripted piece of conversation that you use repeatedly. For example you could open a conversation saying “Hi, did you see my hamster?” This is supposed to be funny and if done correctly should elicit a positive response from the beginning. The thing is, you probably will have to try it several times until you get it to work. This is a general characteristic of PU stuff that you are supposed to use it repeatedly, until you get it. That’s why the idea is to go out several nights a week and open 12 sets(groups of women) every night to get practice. The more socially awkward you are the more practice you will need. But practicing at your university may backfire. The good thing about night venues is that people usually are drunk and are used to weird behavior, so you have more social leeway to make mistakes that would be frowned upon in a work environment.
I’m not up-to-date on with the seduction community. Though in context with what I do know, I understand better what you mean now. I agree with you, practicing lines in that setting wouldn’t be optimal.
Do you find the techniques of the seduction community useful? It may be worth me looking into. I’m much more interested in “day game” than “night game,” though. (If I have the terminology correct.) I trust practice is still essential for the former, as well.
Yes I do, though there is lots of misinformation and bullshit out there so nowadays you have a hard time distilling the useful stuff. Also a lot of it is very hard to understand if you don’t see it applied in field by a pro.
I agree that day game is great although night game can be very good for practice because people are often more in a social mood than during day.
Could you point me in the direction of the useful stuff, please? I’d like to avoid the misinformation and bullshit, if at all possible. I just don’t know enough to separate the good information from the bad.
Venusian arts revelation(the book). http://www.venusianarts.com/
EDIT: And lets keep the pirates at bay. :)
Thanks for the suggestion!
After reading 100+ pages, I’m a 1⁄3 of the way through the book. A lot of the information makes sense to me! I think my biggest challenge will be the implementation.
Edit: Just got to the part about negs. Wow! Now this seems like something I could implement well.
I find that edit sort of chilling!
Mystery is the PUA. His book “The Mystery Method” is a classic and while some canned routines are dated, the overall theoretical foundation is solid. Perhaps he could have optimised presentation a bit to more easily facilitate inner game and perhaps Bang by Roosh does a better job of presenting game to the average Joe layman by ditching the geeky acronyms and pseudo-evopsych(I love the geeky acronyms and pseudo-evopsych) but overall if you want to understand how dating and seduction works I have yet to see a better book.
I haven’t read his newer work (Revelation ect.) but I’d put a high probability on it being quality stuff.
Have you tried online dating sites? OkCupid has a good reputation for being decent for members of the skeptics/rationalist/agnostics/atheists amalgam and there’s been a lot of prior discussion of it on Less Wrong such as this thread.
Hey JoshuaZ.
I have tried OkCupid, without much success. I sent out about messages to (about seven) women I found attractive, but I got no responses. Pretty disheartening at the time. In retrospect, I think my approach to these women and to my profile could have been optimized better.
I didn’t know OkCupid had such a reputation, though. Maybe I’ll give it another shot, especially after reading the advice in the linked thread on how to improve my profile. I think it’d be fantastic to meet a LessWrong-er (or someone of equivalent rationality) in my area.
Seven is a pretty small number. I’m not about to go through my entire log to check how many are to separate individuals, but my Sent box contains 466 messages. I’ve received more than half that many, but it took a lot more than seven messages before I learned to improve my profile and messages to get a reasonable response rate.
.
Interesting. 7 sounded small to me, but I’m pretty sure that 466 was way above anything I sent. Are you sure you are counting individual people sent and not each separate message which will include longer conversations? (Also how long have you been active on OkC?)
I’m counting individual messages, not individual people; I’ve definitely contacted fewer than 466 people, but without going through the whole list I can definitely say it’s been over a hundred individuals. I prefer to talk in real time rather than correspondence, so if I get along well with someone initially, I’ll progress to instant messaging and/or meeting in person.
I joined the site about four years ago, but I’ve only been active on and off, and disabled my account for about a year.
Honestly, 7 sounds like a fairly small number. I don’t remember how many people I messaged, but it was a lot more than that. Profile optimization seems to definitely help a lot. Also, one has to remember that females seem to be getting messaged a lot more than guys, so you generally need something in your message that stands out, especially showing that you read their profile and found something interesting.
I may be a biased source in regards to how effective this is. The last three people I’ve dated (including my now current, sort of long-term girlfriend) I met on OkCupid, although I think she messaged me first.
Reluctantly, I agree with you that seven women is fairly small set. Maybe my searches weren’t properly done or my standards were too high, but these were the only women I found attractive in my searching.
To my credit, I definitely did try to put something my message that stood out, especially something related to her profile. I think one of the errors in my messages was that I came off too strong.
Congratulations! I’m glad that the service is working for you. Gives me a bit of hope (=