1) Shit tests.

For me, this was the major eye-opener. I didn't get women's behavior when I was teen or even in my early 20s, and the tendency of women to run hot-cold absolutely pissed me off.

What really frustrated the hell out of me was that when I got pissed and emotionally withdrew from a particular chick, that's when she'd suddenly cut the bullshit and make an effort to get my attention. The problem was that by that point I was too pissed to forgive her.

I could've been rolling in pussy from the time I hit puberty if I had any idea what a shit test was and what it was about.

2) Preselection.

Another one that drove me nuts, especially with this one girl when i was in college. I gave this girl the full blue pill treatment and eventually worked up the nerve to ask her out only to be blasted the fuck out of the water. Naturally, I withdrew as I always did.

About a week or two later, this really hot girl joined one of the academic clubs we were, and she and I got along very well. Within a few weeks, the girl who had flat-out rejected me went into full cock-tease mode, right down to sitting on my lap in front of everyone.

Another case where I would have benefited immensely from any knowledge of game.

3) Outcome independence.

There's almost nothing in TRP that actually works right without outcome independence. If you lift because you insist upon a specific outcome, you risk getting discouraged and backing off your routine. If you hit on a specific girl and only hope for her and no one else, she's going to smell it on you. Everything follows from outcome independence, even if it's not something you immediately internalize and work with when you're learning.

4) Abundance.

People buy into whoever displays a sense of abundance. If you have abundant friends, people see that and want to talk with you. If you have abundant personality, people connect with that and want to be your friend. If you have abundant style, people assume it means money (never mind how many 30k millionaires there are in this world).

That's something I'd have never bought into in my younger, angry phase, when I would have just considered it all "in group" behavior that left me on the outside.

5) Nobody cares.

This helped me more in my family life than it did anything else. Once I learned that everybody's whiny bullshit is just a gimmick trying to get others to commit a little of their resources to them, I became much more capable of keeping my family at the right distance.

People don't like it, but I keep score, and I make a point to always keep people slightly in my debt with the understanding that when I need them they either show the fuck up or get cut the fuck off. It's just simpler that way, and I've been surprised how much people respect me for it.