Yesterday I did a stream with James Tusk where we discussed an article ‘Sales Funnels and High Value Men – The Rise of Strategic Dating’ about a new book called 138 Dates by Rebekah Campbell. In it Campbell encourages women to be strategic about their dating and to utilise ‘sales funnels’ and vetting in order to find a partner.
The piece also examines the Reddit forum Female Dating Strategy and its offshoot podcast of the same name. These forums offer similar no-nonsense dating advice for women eager to sort the wheat from the chaff in their search for ‘the one’.
The article attracted a predictable degree of ire from guys in the ‘red pill’ community, who were outraged that a woman might have standards for herself seek to systemise her approach.
More damningly (and perhaps more pertinently) they pointed out that if a man had written such an article then, in today’s political climate, he would likely be vilified as a misogynist hellbent on objectifying women, whereas Campbell’s book was awarded prime real estate in The Guardian.
This is doubtless true, but it shouldn’t be up to me, dear reader, to remind you that we live in a cruel world and that since you only have a few useful decades on this planet it’s wise to pick your battles with care.
There was one quote in The Guardian piece that stood out for me, where Savannah, host of The Female Dating Strategy Podcast, sought to distance her approach from that of latter-day PUAS and their ‘manipulation’:
While female dating strategy has been compared to pick-up artistry for the way it “gamifies” dating, Savannah believes FDS “isn’t about trying to manipulate men into trying to behave a certain way … it’s more about finding a man who is comfortable with you having boundaries and standards, and who understands how to treat a woman.”
This interested me because the default assumption is always that so-called ‘pick-up artists’ are engaged in manipulation, which Cambridge defines as ‘controlling someone or something to your advantage, often unfairly or dishonestly’.
Now since I am not a pick-up artist myself I can’t say whether this is accurate in the majority of cases, but it seems to me a little unfair to tar everyone with the same brush. Certainly, what those of us interested in inter-gender dynamics and social skills teach these days is effectively the opposite of manipulation: what we advocate for is simply putting oneself out there socially in an open, honest and authentic manner (yes, there’s that terrible ‘new age’ sounding buzzword).
Through this practice of ‘radical honesty’ (because after all, when you see someone you are attracted to the most honest thing you can possibly do is go and appraise them of the fact) you are quickly able to identify those women who are interested versus those who are not.
How? Well, those are interested will respond to you in a warm, appreciative and positive manner. They will smile, ask you questions, flick their hair and so on. Those not interested will be short and dismissive. In the former cases you proceed with the conversation by asking questions and making compliments. In the latter cases you simply smile and say goodbye.
It’s not rocket science, even though some may have a vested interest in implying that it is.
I recently read the book ‘Dating Essentials For Men’ by Dr Robert Glover, and I was very struck by his conception of ‘high interest’ versus ‘low interest’. His prescription is that you socialise with as many women as possible while going about your normal business and you simply screen for those who live you versus those who don’t.
Yes, it’s an extremely simple formulation, but in the end this stuff is pretty simple. The only difficult aspects are acquiring the knowledge in the first place, motivation and accountability – and this is why so many guys require a mentor to help them up-skill.
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