The Magic Pill to getting better at Pickup FAST

Tradman · 2011-07-14T05:00:07+00:00

Get Out (and write field reports) Seriously. All you need is a basic book such as mystery method/magic bullets, RSD foundations, or deangelo to get the core...

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[–]intjpua 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (6 children) | Copy Link

How? My job is entirely remote-able. So, I chose to entirely remote it. I haven't been back to the "home" state in over a year. You should read The Four Hour Work Week. It's not where I learned how to do it, but when I listened to the audio book version of it 6 months or so into my own lifestyle overhaul, I realized it pretty much covered all the same stuff I'd figured out on my own. So, if you read it, you'll probably know most of what I know. It certainly tells you how to do it (mostly, though, it's just a matter of deciding you want to do it...the details work themselves out when you have a very firmly held goal).

I'm currently on the east coast. I started on the west. I've switched back and forth a few times based on weather and whim. Sometimes I go to Canada, and I'll probably go somewhere European or Asian before too long. South America also seems really interesting, so I'm planning to bone up on my Spanish and maybe go to Argentina or Brazil in the winter. We'll see. I don't plan that far ahead.

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[–]intjpua 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

I'm sorry I don't have easy answers for you. It depends on who you are and what you are already competent to do.

I am a software developer. But, many jobs can be done on a contract basis remotely. I happen to own my own company, which sells commercial software products. It took me a few years to build it up to making enough money to support this lifestyle. But, I could be doing the contract work I did (IT systems management for a very specific niche) before this company, as well...I usually did it remotely anyway, and when I did travel, I got paid a lot extra, so I could still do that now, if I needed to.

But, that doesn't really help you. You need to figure out what you're good at, have experience at, that can be remoted. If you don't have any such skills, I guess you'll need to get them. Trying to do exactly what I do won't work for you...I have more than a dozen years experience at the work I do. I'm well-known in my field because of it (not necessarily like "Oh, I know his name" but more in the sense of "Oh, I know the stuff he's worked on"). But, had I know what I know now, I would have started shaping my life up this way from much, much earlier, and it could have been done in a couple of years, if not less.

Again, the single most important thing is to set a goal for yourself, and start doing the things you need to do to reach it. What those steps are will be different for everyone.

[–]Sed5 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]intjpua 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

Yeah, it's a small company. I don't have a lot of people to manage (and the people I choose to hire are very self-directed, so they do the right thing 99% of the time, without asking or being told; if they turn out not to have that ability, they aren't right for my company), or a lot of stuff that requires direct interaction with people. Since it's software, it's possible to automate nearly every aspect of the process. A lot of technology is available to enable a wholly virtual office. Google voice, Skype, fax services (though I haven't actually received a fax in a year or two, I still have to send them now and then for old-fashioned businesses that I have to interact with), Google docs, mail forwarding via one of many services, etc. I can even do most of my job, except the actual software development part, using just my phone, since it has decent email, and access to most Google apps.

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[–]Tradman[S] 5 points6 points7 points 15 years ago* (21 children) | Copy Link

My first weeks sarging were 90% about destroying AA and 10% about closing.

AA is always going to be an issue for anyone starting out, but the solution is not sitting at home and thinking about it, it's having the proper mindset, approaching sets, and seeing that it's not so bad. Having a wingman to talk you through or challenge you is good for getting through this patch, but i know a few people who had no choice but to sarge solo and have less AA than anyone i know.

Inner game things like AA are one area where reading material is slightly more helpful becaues it can help you get in the right mindset. However you still need to go out to solidify that perspective in your head and prove it to yourself, otherwise things like "carpe diem" or "outcome independence" are just going to be pretty sounding but empty phrases.

[–]rubygeek 5 points6 points7 points 15 years ago (20 children) | Copy Link

My first weeks sarging were 90% about destroying AA and 10% about closing.

You don't deal with clinical anxiety in that kind of timeframe, which means your AA was weak to trivial to begin with.

but the solution is not sitting at home and thinking about it, it's having the proper mindset, approaching sets

We agree that you need to go out and do something about it, but trying to force yourself past AA by approaching if you're dealing with actual anxiety as opposed to getting a bit nervous is not healthy.

If it is weak, sure, I agree. If you just feel your heart racing a bit, and a rush of adrenaline, like you might for any activity that makes you a bit nervous, sure. In that case just pushing through it is the right thing. But if you've ever experienced actual anxiety, you'd know the difference.

You describe mild AA at best. For someone dealing with strong AA, it is counter-productive and potentially damaging to their long term prospects of overcoming their anxiety to force themselves into situations that induce strong anxiety.

It took me months of trying (and failing to force myself to do even a single "proper" approach) before I realized that the approach was flawed, and spent time reading up on the actual mechanisms of social anxieties and realized that mine was a fairly normal experience.

For people dealing with strong AA, a far better approach, actually supported by science (look up "graduated exposure"), is to map out a set of progressions ranging from those that just induce light anxiety and up (which could be even something as seemingly trivial as holding eye contact for a second or even watching film clips of social situations that would cause you anxiety) up to actual approaches, learn some anxiety management techniques (breathing, visualizations of something that will calm you, etc.) and slowly work your way through the progressions for short periods at a time while using anxiety management techniques to reduce the level of anxiety you feel during that progression.

Note that you can push your way through strong anxieties quickly too, with the help of someone, but it rarely if ever "sticks". E.g. long before I was ready for real approaches, I was able to do them with the help of a wingman that'd goad me into it, but the anxiety didn't lessen at all, and in fact when I was on my own afterwards it got worse.

AA gets trivialized far too often. Sure, it's "easy" to overcome for a lot of people, but there are also a lot for whom it is a real problem, and even a lot of the people who do manage to push themselves into sets reasonably well would find their anxieties would reduce a lot if they applied methods taken from actual anxiety management, such as graduated exposure therapy, rather than just listen to typical seduction advice and trying to "man up" and pretend it's not an issue.

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[–]rubygeek 7 points8 points9 points 15 years ago (13 children) | Copy Link

[Bah, this turned into another huge wall of text, but I care greatly about this because of how it affected me.... TL;DR: Anxiety and shyness are related; shyness often results in masking anxiety by avoiding situations that would trigger it; you can't really tell if someone are anxious or shy; anxiety symptoms are pretty much the same as strong fear, the main difference is anxiety is not based on a concrete "threat", but a generalized fear of the situation and future consequences of it; push through fear/nervousness, but deal with anxiety by gradually exposing yourself to slightly anxiety inducing situations step by step]

First it's worth noting that "AA" is a seduction term that has no clinical meaning. What is described as "AA" ranges from people feeling a bit nervous, via people who are really shy, to people with strong clinical social anxiety. The latter should go see a therapist first before even thinking of listening to seduction advice.

Note that often people who say they are shy does have some or significant social anxiety, but have just learned avoidant behavior that means they rarely actually get to experience the anxiety (e.g. we "decide" we don't "want" to go up and talk to people rather than try to go up to talk to people and get faced with massive anxiety). Of course many people are just shy without the anxiety too.

I fall somewhere towards the very shy / somewhat anxious in some respects. I'm definitively not hard hit by social anxiety in general, and in fact I rarely experience symptoms that would indicate clinical anxiety, but part of that is likely because of the many coping mechanisms I've developed over the years without really thinking about it. It was actually first when I tried to figure out why the various AA advice did not work for me, and I started unraveling the whole anxiety issue for myself that I started realizing just how much avoidance I've been engaging in. As I started confronting some of it, I did "find" more situations that cause me reasonably strong symptoms of anxiety than what I was aware of.

Some things that used to be really hard for me includes:

Calling someone on the phone. Even people I knew. Calling someone anonymous (e.g. the pizza place) was easier, but I still hated it.
Going up to a stranger for any reason. Though I could go up to ask for directions etc., I would generally avoid it if I could so at all, e.g. by always looking at maps in advance, getting really good at telling directions and finding clues, being "stubborn" and giving myself extra time to walk around and get familiar in a place. Avoidance is a classical coping mechanism for anyone with shyness or social anxiety.
Telling someone I like them or in fact giving any compliment. Next to impossible. During school, I never had any girlfriends and only twice did I dare tell girls how I felt - in both cases by letter. And even after having written to them, it took me agonizing for weeks and then dropping the letters in front of them while walking past and not looking back to dare give it to them. Of course both of those led to rejections, and in both cases I was relieved by the rejections because I was terrified about what would happen otherwise: Being seen with them etc.
Changes in my social appearance (e.g. someone seeing me with a girlfriend and commenting on it).
Greeting people on the street - even people I knew; I'd cross the street or pretend I didn't see people in order to avoid having to say hi.
Dealing with shop staff. I for a long time used to insist that the reason I used to do so much shopping online was that it was convenient, but the truth is that I used to hate having to talk to shop staff.
Fancy dress. Anything social that does not conform to my normal routine was horrible, and still makes me feel more uncomfortable than . I skived off school once by pretending to be sick because we were meant to have a costume party, and the thought just horrified me.

On the other hand, some things many would be surprised was never a problem for me given the things I listed above:

Holding the commencement speech at my university (in front of thousands of new students, dozens of staff and a TV crew): Distance and the other people being anonymous to me at the time makes things easier. I didn't even get slightly nervous at writing and holding that speech, despite the fact that at the time I would have been unable to walk up to any of the people in front of me and introduce myself one-on-one. People commented about how confident I was, and how they could never do it. People who were not the least shy.
Doing phone sales - did this for a few months while at university. Reason: It's scripted, and they are anonymous. You get trained in following a very strict routine. So this was actually easier to me than calling the pizza place, because someone had told me to follow a specific routine and I did.
Being on TV or interviewed for newspapers or magazines. In addition to the commencement speech, I was interviewed, and I've been part of a debate panel as well, and I've been interviewed in several newspapers due to various companies I've been involved in. Same thing: The audience is anonymous to me.
Being part of school election debates for a fringe party (a Marxist party which at the time had the support of something like 0.1% in Norway where I'm from). I "toured" and did 20 or so of them in various parts of the country because the party was small enough to not be able to field a lot of people to do these. Combination of semi-anonymous audience and the formalized nature of the debates made it easy even though I knew in advance I'd get laughed at or booed at at times due to the nature of being part of a fringe group. Anything formalized is easier for me than "free flowing" social situations.
Very fast sexual escalation. This shocks the women I meet, because I have practically no boundaries as to what I find ok to do. A large part of this is that before I learned to control my AA, I pretty much exclusively used chatrooms and online dating sites to find women, and I did all my initial escalation in writing. When I met girls, I already had attraction, and to me, I just kept going from where we left off, and got used to being able to do that. So I still do, and it works. Up to and including taking girls tits out or fingering them in public, high traffic places... This is the results of graduated exposure - try something step by step often enough and push through mild levels of anxiety, and you can eventually go very, very far without feeling fear at all.
Heated debates - if I get into discussions about issues I care greatly about, my anxieties go out the window entirely. Passions override anxieties for a lot shy or anxious people.

Depending on situation, my energy levels and mood a lot of things become more or less of a problem

So, the upshot of the combination of these is that to the surrounding world and myself, I just used to seem like this quiet guy that was uninterested in people who was clearly confident about myself and my views etc., because people saw a combination of me being shy but avoidant and me being in peoples faces in situations they would never think a shy or anxious person would be able to. This was also how I saw myself for most of my life so far.

As for what I feel when actually confronting anxiety, keep in mind that I am not towards the severe range in terms of anxiety, but here's a few examples of what happens for me:

Heart rate goes through the roof.
In severe cases I can get breathing problems, but this is very, very rare for me. I think it's literally only happened in an instance where I got a guy to try to help me "step up" with my AA and he tried to physically force me into a situation I just could not deal with (something "trivial" like picking up a handbag in the womens department in a shop and ask women how the thought it fit me).
I am likely to "freeze up", as in I will stop moving, and at that point you can threaten to kick me in the balls or push me or whatever, and I will still feel completely unable to take a step further. It's not that I don't want to, but that "something" prevents my body from obeying. This I first experienced with the same guy when he tried pushing me into sets that were "too difficult" for me.

Note that the main distinction between being anxious and being nervous or scared is not the symptoms in themselves, but that anxiety or phobias can also manifest itself without the stimulus.

E.g. if you feel dread when thinking about approaching, it is highly likely anxiety, not fear or nervousness. If you feel dread just when actually approaching, it could be either. Separating them if they just occur when you are approaching is harder, but an anxiety is generally not based on an identifiable "threat". E.g. being nervous about rejection or about having a drink thrown in your face - whether the threat is real or not - is not anxiety because it is based on a perceived threat. If what fills you with dread is the entire idea of the approach, on the other hand, it is most likely anxiety.

This is why "pushing through" works for nervousness: When repeated exposure shows you there's nothing to fear, the reason for the nervousness or fear goes away. The reason for anxiety, on the other hand does not, as the anxiety is not tied to a real or perceived "threat" but to the situation itself.

This is murky waters unless you're a trained psychologist (I'm not), but in general, while I don't think there's any evidence that it is harmful for anyone to try to push through their fear/nervousness/anxiety, if you do and it doesn't work, that's a good sign that you need to try graduated exposure or other methods intended for anxiety or phobias instead.

[–]Fulllplate 2 points3 points4 points 15 years ago (6 children) | Copy Link

Holy shit, if I could upvote this a million times I would. Everything you said is extremely relevant to my situation, I think we pretty much have (or have had?) the same level of shyness/anxiety.

All the stuff you said about coping mechanisms make perfect sense. I always hated initiating conversation through phone calls...if I got a call the onus was on them to guide the conversation, but the other way 'round you have to articulate what you want without sounding awkward and I used to hate that. I had the girl problems as well, and weirdly enough experienced the same thing you did with physical interactions. I made out with this girl I'd known for ages for an hour or two, got to third base and would probably have fucked her if I'd actually maintained a relationship with her. Alas, I pretty much ignored her the next day and from then on. Pretty much completely confident physically but completely incompetent socially/emotionally. Definately had a chance at my first proper relationship but could barely handle interacting with her socially let alone dealing with my friends/her friends/family asking questions and seeing me with her. Man, looking back on that, life could have been so much different if I had just "manned up" so to speak or had the opportunity to talk with her alone for a period of time and not have to go through so many social hoops. Oh, and the fancy dress bit is 100% me, I have never gone to a party and dressed in anything other than my normal clothes, to me it just potential awkwardness so I simply avoid it. Oh, and I'm good at talking about stuff I'm passionate about as well, because I don't need to think about it. It just comes out, and I don't really care because it's who I am and I can't really change it.

I incorrectly assumed that it was the people in my town that were doing this for me, seeing as I kind of screwed myself over by being "the super quiet smart guy" for the entirety of high school pretty much. I thought that in my first year of college I could completely change this, so I basically went to all of the initial social events, met everyone I could, went out drinking with people I barely knew, hung out in dorm rooms playing drinking games... After a while I realised that I could socialise with people I don't know that well, but it wasn't exactly enjoyable because I was still pretty quiet, boring and not too confident. Basically just maintained enough social contact to find weed for the first time, became a depressed stoner/gamer and gave up on the idea of finding a girlfriend/getting laid etc.

My motivation is well and truly back now though, 2-3 months ago I grabbed some new clothes and managed to get 2 dancefloor hookups with a HB7/8.5 (feel kinda douchey using that lingo lol) in 2 weeks. Been working on my fitness/health since then. Recently went out with a couple of mates and one of them asked if I had been going to the gym, which was nice.

I think I still have some kinda heavy anxiety over female relationships though, got served by a girl with an amazing smile working in a local subway and got her name off a friend. Told her over facebook that she had an amazing smile/was cute etc, which is huge for me. I actually had a pretty horrible feeling just sending that to her, and the day after I sent it I still had a fucking horrible anxious feeling in my stomach. But when she replied I didn't seem like too much of a creep, and it felt pretty damn good. Didn't really get very far, talked to her indirectly in real life but not very confidently.

Sorry for the enormous diaryesque post, but I feel like you'd be able to give me some great advice seeing as you came from the same situation. I have been planning on getting into some seduction stuff over the next few months but i don't see myself doing solo or even wingman approaches without being super in the zone and drunk. What sort of stuff did you do to get over the AA and social anxiety in general? I'm going to start going to the gym, not avoiding incidental social contact like I used to etc. but I think I should be more pro-active in this. I came up with a little saying when I was super motivated at the start of all this - "shit doesn't come to you, you have to take it if you want it" but it doesn't really help beyond not giving up :(

[–]rubygeek 1 point2 points3 points 15 years ago (5 children) | Copy Link

Alas, I pretty much ignored her the next day and from then on. Pretty much completely confident physically but completely incompetent socially/emotionally.

This reminds me, I have this girl I need to get back to - she texted me "want to fuck me?" after we exchanged some flirty texts, and she was out when I called her to set something out, and as a result I've ignored her for pretty much a week... How is that for avoidance? :) I still have to keep very much an eye out for crap like that, because I still invent stupid reasons not to call.

Sorry for the enormous diaryesque post,

Uhm.. Have you seen the number of walls of text I've produced on this post :)

but I feel like you'd be able to give me some great advice seeing as you came from the same situation. I have been planning on getting into some seduction stuff over the next few months but i don't see myself doing solo or even wingman approaches without being super in the zone and drunk.

Be aware that apparently the indication is that exposure while drunk does little to nothing to help people like us when we sober up. The risk is you end up in a situation where you can approach, but only when drunk and end up with a drinking problem instead - people with social anxiety are overrepresented amongst drunks or drug addicts for this reason...

What sort of stuff did you do to get over the AA and social anxiety in general?

Step one, which I wish I'd had when I began finally figuring it out: Goodbye to Shy by Leil Lowndes, she's also written some books specifically about conversation skills etc. But Godbye to Shy is great for a step by step approach to overcoming shyness, while at the same time most of the advice is "seduction compatible", just in "non-PUA" language... A lot of what's covered in that book is stuff I did, but it also covers a lot of stuff that I didn't try initially. A lot of it seems ridiculously obvious when you read it, but make sure you actually try it...

It also have references to the actual research papers her various recommendations are based on, for those who want to read more.

Second: Pick up meditation. Mindfulness meditation is "simple", relatively free of religious baggage (it's Buddhist, but you can simply ignore any of the religious stuff - most material only mention stuff about Buddhism for historical context). Check out Mindfulness in Plain English (free e-book, but you can also buy it from Amazon), and Gil Fronsdal's Introduction to Meditation podcasts (also free). I recommend reading/listening to these two in parallel - they cover the same material but in slightly different ways, and the podcasts also include short guided meditation recordings which makes it a lot easier.

The reason I recommend meditation is that it is a perfect companion to graduated exposure as it teaches you concentration methods (focusing on your breath) and contemplation practices that will help you control your anxiety when you expose yourself to it, and understanding more about the sources of your anxiety respectively. Graduated exposure is covered in Goodbye to Shy, but you can also find material on it plenty of other places; basically you write a detailed list of what situations makes you anxious, order them from least to most anxiety, and go out and try to expose yourself to the stuff that makes you least anxious while using methods to reduce your anxiety to make you used to accept that you can remove anxiety from the low anxiety situations.

Two methods for anxiety control I recommend for use with graduated exposure, both drawing on mindfulness meditation: Focus on breathing - clear your mind and focus all your attention on the tip of your nose or your chest and feel how your breath moves in and out (this is the basic concentration exercise in mindfulness meditation). This both serves to clear your mind of unhelpful thoughts and focus you on the now, and also of bringing your breath under control and slow it down which can counteract many symptoms of anxiety that are ultimately tied to breathing too fast.

Secondly, visualize a situation that will trigger some anxiety for you, or put yourself in a situation that makes you slightly anxious/nervous. You want to feel some symptoms, but not be paralyzed by it.

Then pay attention to the physical reactions and your thoughts. There will be various things. Maybe your heart beats faster, or your cheeks flush, or you feel nauseous. Whatever. Pick one of the symptoms. Then focus on it, and try to feel like it takes up all your attention, and spreads throughout your body and is everywhere. If it's your heart beat, for example, try to feel like the heart beat pulses through your entire body and your mind.

Once you do this successfully, you'll generally feel that thing slowly subside and become less and less noticeable. Think about when you smell something foul - shortly you'll stop smelling it at all, other than as low grade whiffs now and again, because your brain suppresses signals that are "normal" and everywhere. So by doing the opposite of what you normally would (normally you'd try to ignore pain, or ignore uncomfortable things), you "spread it thin" and make it normal until your brain decides enough is enough and switches it off.

This is covered in "mindfulness of the body" as a pain management technique, but it's something you can apply to a lot of things. Once you've managed to get one symptom to subside a few times, chances are that symptom will become less prominent, and you can move on to the next one. You can also practice this on other things before trying to apply it to anxiety. If you have a headache, or a sore muscle after gym or anything that's localized, and try to generalize it throughout your body and mind. The Gil Fronsdal podcasts includes a whole recording on this, that also gives you a good starting point by teaching you to focus on various parts of the body as a starting point.

The key there, which is also key to not giving up, is to make sure the steps you take are gradual enough that you avoid exposing yourself to really anxiety inducing situations - you want to be slightly challenged, just enough that you can reduce the anxiety through management methods like breathing, not so much that you keep exposing yourself to strong anxiety. The second is likely to just make it seem hopeless and in my experience can trigger really strong counter-reactions (e.g. I'd suddenly "shut down" and invent all kinds of reasons why I couldn't go out today - for weeks on end - after trying to push myself into too anxiety inducing situations, before I finally managed to overcome it). You want to build sustainable habits - the good thing is that the focus on rules that often accompany shyness or introversion becomes a massive help once you have established habits, because once something is established as a habit you get similar resistance to breaking that habit again.

(NOTE: There is no guarantee that graduated exposure will be enough for you. If it isn't, it's time to see a professional. Worst case for some people is to be put on beta blockers, SSRI's etc. to counteract part of the anxiety or symptoms - either short term while doing therapy and/or graduated exposure, or even long term. Of course it's pretty rare to need all of that.)

Other than that, continue to exercise. It's a great help to build self confidence. Also read up on fixing your body language, which is also a massive help to self confidence.

Also, check out meetup.com or others and find small groups to go out and meet and practice on. Worst case you never need to go to the group again if you feel you've embarrassed yourself, and that's something to tell yourself to reduce anxiety while introducing yourself etc. Secondly, there are groups specifically for shy people near/in many larger cities in particular. We're also back to the "rules" bit - when you specifically meet a group, you're "expected" to introduce yourself and talk to them, and this overrides a lot of anxiety for a lot of people. Gradually up the size of the groups you go to, and pick groups that are more "socially challenging", and eventually pick groups that go to clubs, parties etc. where there are people from outside the group - sooner or later in groups like that you'll find you've "accidentally" opened someone not part of the group without feeling anxious about it because it becomes harder to keep track of who you're there with.

I'd love to hear how it goes...

[–]Fulllplate 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (4 children) | Copy Link

[–]rubygeek 1 point2 points3 points 15 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

Here's the quick and dirty summary. The book suggests that you follow the various recommendations pretty much according to what makes you most anxious (so according to a graduated exposure list) so don't be intimidated by any of them - just do them when you're ready.

Go buy the book when you can afford it - it has lots more detail and is well worth it :)

Part 1:

The first part is about how to deal with playing down your shyness to others. Generally people don't care, can't tell and don't really understand. That doesn't mean you should try hard to hide it, but if facing situations where people ask you to do things that are hard for you to do because of shyness, joke about it and offer to do something else instead, or laugh about any physical symptoms (blushing etc.).
Don't call yourself shy. Avoid doing it even to yourself. Negative self-talk is self-reinforcing, and lets you hide behind the label.
If you regularly face situations that are difficult, until you're ready to face them, create a list of workarounds - while avoidance is not great, it is better than regularly facing anxiety inducing situations. Make a list of your positive qualities and figure out how to use them to work around your shyness.

Part 2:

People can't tell you're shy. Research shows that non-shy people can not pick out shy people in the general case - even when it's people they know very well. So stop thinking people do.
Most of the time when talking to people, keep in mind that they generally are not thinking about you, but about themselves. Most of the time when people are thinking of you during a conversation, they are worried about what you think of them.
Research shows that shy people consistently overestimate signs of disapproval or rejection. So whenever you think someone dislikes or disapproves of you, keep in mind that you're most likely wrong.
Research shows that shy people very often misremembers situations in a way that makes it more negative than it is, and also remembers negative experiences longer than positive experiences. Write down notes from your interactions. So in other words: Field reports. Always. Even for small interactions if you can. The sooner the better - so keep a notebook on you whenever possible. Make note of body language, what they said, etc. This will also teach you to pay better attention. Re-read them now and again to remind you how few negative reactions you actually get.
Eject people that negative affect your self-esteem from your life.
Avoid people who play games that trigger anxiety for you.
Observe others, not yourself. People who are shy are more likely than others to pay more attention to their own mind and behavior than to others in social situations. You're likely to think about how awkward you feel, or wonder what other people think about you. People who are not shy, on the other hand, spend more time looking at other people and what they do, wear or say. Practice this. It gives you more to talk about, and less chance for negative self-talk.
Realize that you're better than you think you are. Someone who is shy will generally underestimate their social skills and popularity with others even if they have high self esteem.

Part 3

Stop avoiding situations that causes anxiety. Learn to pay attention to when you are avoiding, and gradually stop doing the ones that won't cause you a lot of anxiety (eventually, of course, getting rid of all of them).
Create a Graduated Exposure program, as per what I've lined out elsewhere. Include the other recommendations from the book in it, as well as anything else you can think of that makes you nervous.
Run around your bedroom in your underwear in the morning and flap your arms like a demented duck on speed (yes, this advice is in the book - compare with "unstifling" or "state pumping" exercises from seduction literature...). The idea is to get you "warmed up" in the morning by doing something crazy and energetic.

Part 4 - Fake it til you make it.

Focus your energy on being super-social for short periods. E.g. when being introduced to be people, be extra animated and friendly for the first ten seconds. Greet them really warmly, call them by name, shake their hands vigorously and smile. People will remember your bursts of energy and totally ignore that you're quiet the rest of the time.
Portray confident body language. Stand up straight. Smile. Stand in the middle of a room rather than along the walls; walk in the middle of corridors or sidewalks, not along the side. Go for end seats at restaurants (unless a work dinner and someone more senior is there). Pick the highest chairs and spread your arms out (take space in general). Practice being the last to break eye contact when passing someone. Don't touch your face. Slow down and make larger, more fluid movements. Swing your arms slightly more than you normally do. SPread your legs wider when walking.
Fix your eye contact: Start with eye contact with people much younger and older than you (just don't stare at kids for too long, or their moms will freak out...) and gradually move to people closer to your own age range - generally you'll find it's easier to hold eye contact with kids and old people. Then practice on sales people - they're seeking out eye contact, and so are "easy targets" (of course they'll come over and try to sell you stuff, but that's another opportunity to practice talking to strangers).
Find a sympathetic friend, and stare into his/hers eyes for longer and longer periods of time. It will afterwards be easier to do it with a stranger. Once you're up to a minute, do it while holding a conversation with him/her.
Say "I Like you" silently when looking someone in your eye. Use it as a timer for how long to hold initial eye contact for, as well as a way to soften your face and body language.
Make faces in your mirror to learn what it feels like when you're making "good" faces. Especially learn how it feels when you're slowly pulling your face into a smile. Slow smiles are valued a lot more by people you meet than quick ones.
Look for a good quality in everyone you see, and use it as your focus for pulling your face into a smile - it will be more natural.
Work at smiling at more and more people.
Realize that if you don't smile at people, people take you for a snob. In fact, your social "risk" is higher if you don't smile than if you smile. Think about this the next time you're being shy about smiling at someone you pass.

Part 5

Dress up... Yeah, I know. I have a big issue with this advice too. But try a masked ball where you can wear normal clothes but get a simple venetian mask or something. Use a false name when talking to people. See if being anonymous helps you losen up.
Consider taking a part time job that forces you to talk to people. I've done phone sales, and while I wouldn't recommend that, my shyness was never an issue. Maybe a retail job etc. You're playing a role, which generally makes it easier.
Go somewhere nobody knows you, and see if your shyness is less pronounced. Often being away from familiar surroundings "weakens the rules". Play dumb - ask for directions, ask for recommendations of places to eat etc..
Get some out of character clothes and try wearing them and playing the part. This one is also still nasty for me...

Part 6 deals with finding a new job, and dealing with tricky interviews by interviewing for a bunch of jobs you don't want in the same sector you want to work first, and pay attention to the questions and then rehearse the same/similar questions that keep popping up before you go for the "real" job.

(messages too long - rest in a reply)

[–]rubygeek 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

Part 7

Go to smaller parties and work your way up.
Go to parties for short periods of time and work your way up.
Arrive early while there are fewer people around if that helps you start talking to people, so when there are more people you already know someone there.
Set yourself a goal for any social function. E.g. improving eye contact, or fixing your posture, or smile more, or talk to x number of people. Make it achievable, but keep pushing for more than last time.
Find a wing and make sure he understands you need a shove (but don't rely on a wing all the time)
Have a wing pay attention to your body language and nudge you whenever it needs correction.
Don't drink / drink less

Part 8 - conversations

Try to be the first to say something when being introduced or meeting someone. It portrays more confidence.
When being asked a question, make it a rule to give a full and complete reply and then immediately ask a related question (note: This may easily result in a boring conversation, but it will keep a conversation going - this is more important for your initial confidence than making her super-attracted; you can fix the conversations later).
Fake excitement over the things you say if needed. People respond better if you sound like your life is awesome even when you're just telling them things are ok.
Practice upbeat, "excited" responses to common questions such as "what do you do?" instead of giving one word/sentence answers.
Practice varying your voice (and increasing volume)
Practice open ended follow up questions (think like a child: why? Why do you say that? What makes you think X? What do you like about Y? Where did you go?). Be obnoxious if you have to, but practice keeping conversations going as long as you can even if it doesn't give you any attraction. Knowing you can keep a conversation going without awkwardness can help reduce anxiety about approaching a lot.
It's better to be banal than brief. In other words: Keep talking even if you don't have anything smart to say. Again, you want to practice keeping conversatins going first. Making them interesting is far easier to do once you can talk endlessly.
Use their name (but sparingly; don't become obnoxious sales guy or I'll hunt you down and kill you)
Read up on subjects likely to come up in conversation - whatever subjects your peer group cares about, even if you yourself find them trite. This one used to kill me at school - I knew nothing about the music, sports or fashion my peers cared about, because I was reading computer science, philosophy and classical literature.... Spend at least a few minutes a day getting at least a cursory knowledge of subjects people around you care about.
Introduce topics you're passionate about.
Ask people what they think after you've spoken for a bit.
Smile, nod and keep eye contact and people will often not notice at all that you don't actually talk a lot, but will find you an interesting conversation partner regardless.
Learn to understand and cultivate your passions, so you know what you can speak about that is interesting to other people. Find new ones.

The remaining parts are pretty much "standard" seduction advice:

Subtle peacocking
Keep looking at girls until they look back (the book recommends at least 45 seconds)
Assign yourself dares.
Extend eye contact more
Let your eyes move slowly around her face. etc.

[–]Fulllplate1 point 15 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Wow, amazing post(s) once again. Should consolidate your posts into one post and have it stickied (or whatever they call it in reddit-land).

I now realise that I may have overplayed my anxiety a bit. I mean, it has been bad in the past but I think recently I may have subconsciously realised that I have been subconsciously avoiding things, if that makes any sense. At uni before break started I was trying to make eye contact and smile at girls who walked past. I stopped avoiding going shopping/out for food so much because I found I could actually go through it pretty smoothly and enjoy it when I did so. Stopped ignoring people that I could have greeted/farewelled/asked how they were because that was simply the no-anxiety way out. Now that I realise I have already been doing a lot of things that would have gone on my "list", I think it will be a lot easier to get to harder tasks now. Honestly the only big things I would put on it are

not avoiding people I kind of know/attractive females
smiling more to avoid being seen as a snob - actually pretty big for me. My careers advisor teacher a couple of years ago actually told me "Don't take this the wrong way but you mostly come across to me as distant/aloof", which was the first sign I got that I was like this.
comfortably initializing a conversation
keeping a non-easy conversation going. Like recently I was chatting to a mate's girlfriend who I had met maybe 10 minutes ago and it was really natural and easy, but recently I also encountered someone I knew for ages and had a serious case of "one-itis" years ago, and could not for the life of me saying anything more than "hey". It took me like 3 seconds to process what she even said back to me, which kind of made things very awkward so I just said later and kept walking.

I think tomorrow I will head to some local shops which I know have girls working in them and work on some eye contact+smiling+confidence. I'm a little wary of doing the FR in notebook thing (just seems a little weird/creepy, not to mention what it would be like if someone found it). I usually tend to over-analyse everything so i might put this to good use and record finer aspects of the encounter in my memory so I get used to noticing them more.

EDIT: Got a quick question for the body language side of things. Something I have noticed doing a lot around people lately is incessantly tapping/drumming on my legs/whatever. I have a lot of nervous energy, and because I listen to way to much hardcore punk I just go overboard. If I continue with this I feel awkward/hyperactive, and if I don't I don't know what to do with my hands/legs. I find the whole idea of kino way too much at this point. It's like the AA version of physical contact, randomly touching people is pretty much a huge no-no for me.

[–]rubygeek2 points 15 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

I'm a little wary of doing the FR in notebook thing (just seems a little weird/creepy, not to mention what it would be like if someone found it).

Then put in on Google docs or livejournal under a pseudonym, or whatever makes you comfortable. But write stuff down. It makes a big difference. Consider it a diary, but with more detail about conversations and positive observations of interactions with people than about what you do. In the beginning, yes, it'll be weird, but as you improve the content will be more and more "normal".

I usually tend to over-analyse everything so i might put this to good use and record finer aspects of the encounter in my memory so I get used to noticing them more.

Your memory is not reliable. That is the problem. Memories are ridiculously malleable. 6 months from now, you're more likely to have forgotten the good stuff than then bad stuff, and then you're left with a twisted image of how you're actually doing. If you have it in writing you get a correction that ensure you actually see how much you're likely doing right.

You also get a useful way of checking regularly that you're actually following up your plans to improve.

[–]yokhai 1 point2 points3 points 15 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

[–]rubygeek 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

It is the most common mental disorder. Estimates for the US is ca. 20 million people affected of social anxiety alone. In terms of shyness the spectrum is vast - most people (something like 80%) go through periods in their life where they are shy, but most of them will be relatively mild and will get over it. There's likely a significant overlap and the line between shyness and social anxiety is very blurred.

There's not really any generally recognized single cause, but part of the solution lies in the avoidant behavior (there's a whole separate disorder called avoidant personality disorder that covers the extreme cases) - e.g. if you first start developing some anxiety around a situation and then learn to avoid that situation, for some people that leads to the anxiety strengthening because you never get any counterindication to your negative thoughts about it. You can see a lot of avoidant behaviour in shy people as well.

I'm vary curious because I've helped many "shy" guys go out and start chatting up women and i've never come across something you are describing. Or the guys i've helped have never let on.

Look at the number of people who talk about how approaching when they are out alone is so much harder than when they go out with someone else. I too could approach when someone was there to validate me as I was about to approach. Even a lot of people with pretty severe social anxiety can do that. Validation from someone else evens the field * a lot*.

The real issue then is, are they still able to approach when alone?

A large part of social anxiety is an irrational fear of being judged by others - when someone else is pushing me to approach, a part of that fear gets counteracted. In the right situation, just "enough" got counteracted that I could approach despite still feeling extremely anxious. The problem is that if the cause of your AA is anxiety rather than fear, approaching while still feeling extremely anxious without doing something to manage the anxiety just validates your anxiety, and so when I didn't have people present, things were back exactly where they were.

So someone who is "just" a bit shy or who have very mild social anxieties could easily start seeing things improve after someone helps them approach a few times, but the stronger it is, the more likely you are to stay just as anxious or even get worse when you're back on your own.

Even if they manage to approach, the question is whether or not the AA subsides, or if they have to keep dealing with it and lean on wings to do it. If the AA doesn't subside over time, but they just manage to control it enough to do the approach, it is more likely they have social anxiety.

[–]yokhai 1 point2 points3 points 15 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

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[–]areyn7 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

Usually the worst case scenario you can imagine, and that is if you can think beyond the immediate situation. Sometimes you get stuck in the moment and cannot think beyond it. Usually, it is a result of a malfunctioning "fight or flight" response. For example, the first time you get punched in the face the appropriate response is to fight back or run away; however, some people do nothing because it is such a shock that they have no frame of reference for what to do next and just stand there frozen. So, as far as what can go through your head when approach anxiety hits, it is usually not one thing, but every negative thing you can imagine. "She's too pretty, probably has a boyfriend, she wont want to talk to me, she'll think I'm a creep, I'll make a fool of myself, the situation will be awkward for both of us, I'll freeze up and wont be able to talk, I've blown another chance at connecting with someone, why do I always fail, I'm a loser, I have nothing to offer, I'm only going to keep failing so why bother in the first place, I'll always be alone and never enjoy what others have, I hate myself."

Note: This is not regular approach anxiety, but a description of anxiety disorder.

[–]yokhai 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

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[–]rubygeek 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

Graduated exposure therapy -- isnt that just like talking to progressively hotter girls?

If you can't talk to cute girls than talk to female employees at the mall. If you can't even do that, try striking up conversations with guys, grannies, whatever.

If you can approach without much anxiety, then yes, that's GET adjusted for someone who can already approach, sort of.

Generally you would also want to learn coping mechanisms for the anxiety too. If you have anxiety, exposure while retaining the anxiety does you no good (if you're just "scared", exposure is enough) - you need to learn to suppress small levels of anxiety, say through breathing exercises or meditation exercises, while exposing yourself to it, so that you get used to getting into situations that used to cause you anxiety and feel that you can remove it.

For someone with social anxiety or strong shyness, though, the initial progressions would be more likely to be doing things like visualizing yourself approaching, then going out and trying to smile at strangers, then going out and trying to hold eye contact for a second and smile, then hold eye contact for 3 seconds and smile, then adding a "how are you" when paying for something at the store, then going up and asking what the time is, and so on - of course adjusted depending on what triggers the anxiety. With social anxiety you could easily spend months before you even think of going up and doing a "real" cold approach with either a direct opener or a transition to showing interest.

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[–]rubygeek 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

To an extent I agree, as long as you focus on the right things. Anxiety is often caused by irrational fears of rejection or future reactions, and so it's not necessarily going to help, but yeah, many people can certainly remove some of it and shut down some fears if you know that you've learned lots of ways of making the approach "harmless". E.g. if you know you have memorized X number of routines that lets you choose to have a normal conversation it may let you "override" and shut down anxieties about freezing up in the first few minutes.

I think a lot of that have been lost in the move to "natural" game - for shy or anxious people routines are very useful training wheels, also because a lot of my anxieties lessen if I am following rules. This is fairly normal, as shy people in general tends to be more "tuned" to follow rules and feel nervous or anxious mainly when we have to break rules - whether or not the rules are self imposed or illusory (e.g. if you think people around you consider cold approaches to be weird, and it's "against the rules" for you to do it, it'll make you more anxious). The more you can ritualize approaches as something that follows rules, the easier it can be to overcome initial anxiety.

[–]nip90 -1 points0 points1 point 15 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

[–]rubygeek 1 point2 points3 points 15 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

Because people with real anxiety, or even strong degrees of shyness, for whom this advice is not beneficial in my experience make up a very significant portion of those who have (persistent) problems with AA, yet many - perhaps even most - of those with strong enough anxieties to face real problems with that advice have not seen their anxieties as something to seek professional help for. This is not helped by the insistence in the seduction community that overcoming AA is just about "manning up", which makes it seem like you're just not trying hard enough if you don't manage to overcome it on your own.

Why exactly do you believe it falls outside the purview of his advice? For those for whom AA is mild, there's little need for advice. And for those for whom it is strong, the given advice is flat out wrong. His advice did not explain his starting point, so there was nothing there to indicate to someone with strong AA that it is not applicable to them at all.

The very name AA massively misleads, and that alone in my view makes it important to counter this idea that AA is so simple to deal with. It is simply for those who deals with something that should have the label "anxiety" slapped on it at all, and not even for all of them.

Many of us who fall or fell in the category of strong AA are outwardly confident and will have even convinced ourself that we're just "situationally shy" and so without someone explaining why it is flawed, many will follow that kind of advice, and will fail and in some cases be significantly worse off.

The problem is - even most people who deal with social anxiety on a daily basis don't understand the symptoms. E.g. in my case, I've held speeches in front of thousands of people, I've been on TV, I've done a whole lot of stuff that will make people a lot less shy and a lot more extrovert than me exhibit get nervous as fuck - on the outside I do not seem like an anxious or shy person to most people. And I told myself too that I wasn't, and simply avoided situations I felt uncomfortable in, often by telling myself they were "boring" or "uninteresting" or insisting to myself I was just enjoying dancing when I was out instead of admitting to myself it was because approaching was flat out impossible for me. Denial and avoidance are powerful, and people who are shy or have social anxiety are experts at both.

I know, for me personally, advice like the one above, and the lack of people providing alternative information, cost me a couple of years of trying to force myself through my AA before I realized that most of the seduction/PUA style advice on AA is not appropriate unless your AA is much milder than what I dealt with.

It's going to be very cumbersome if he has to fill his advice with qualifiers and caveats.

Without qualifiers and caveats for very real issues with his advice, it is flat out bad advice and better not given.

It's not helpful to say "just get out there and approach" as an advice for AA without stating that this advice is based on him overcoming AA in a few weeks (based on one of his replies) from a starting point of very mild AA, when that advice will be either detrimental, or at least not the best course of action, for a very substantial (perhaps even the majority) of people who read it and deal with AA.

Note, I don't have an issue with OP - the advice he gave is "standard fare" and based on his experience, and he had no reason to know better, since what he's saying is what most seduction resources out there is saying. But that just makes it more important to counter.

[–]nip90 2 points3 points4 points 15 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

I'm sympathetic, but I disagree. A lot of guys need encouragement to get over the fear of approaching women.

There's a guy on here now who is doing a great series of field reports on overcoming his AA by following a Neil Strauss challenge. It's fantastic to see him challenge himself.

Your situation is exceptional. I'm glad that you're here serving as a resource for others in your situation. And I understand where you would feel the same as a clinically depressed person who is told to "man up and feel better." It's like telling a hemophiliac to man up and stop bleeding.

Learning game is still challenging, though - even for the people who don't have your level of social anxiety. Even people with mild AA still have to put work in. I hope you're not diminishing their efforts.

You raise a good concern, and it would be great to get people the support that they need. If there's a way to concisely articulate the point, or if you have a better term for AA, I'd genuinely love to hear it.

[–]rubygeek 1 point2 points3 points 15 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

I'm sympathetic, but I disagree. A lot of guys need encouragement to get over the fear of approaching women.

I agree they need encouragement. What I don't agree with is giving blanket advice that is wrong to a lot of people.

Your situation is exceptional.

I very much doubt it is. Depending on who you believe, somewhere between 5% and 15% of people have actual social anxiety. My case is nowhere near the strong end of that spectrum, and might not even qualify as social anxiety (vs. "just" shyness). 80% go through periods of shyness, and while not nearly all of them get shy enough to have strong problems overcoming things like AA, that most people never do cold approaches or depend on alcohol or friends to manage to do them is a strong indicator that a good chunk of the people in the "shy" category also have these problems (even with what I described, I too could approach with someone there to push me hard enough, even while sober). In the end it's impossible to determine without actual research, but I've seen enough in person that I believe it's much more common than people think.

Judging by what I see on seduction forums, it's also massively over-represented amongst the type of people that seek out seduction advice. If most people only had mild AA that like OP could be overcome in weeks, then it wouldn't be such a persistent topic, to the point where there are dedicated sites to deal with it and entire programs centered around overcoming it.

A lot of people end up avoiding their ways around the problem by relying on wings or alcohol rather than solving it. Many others manage to approach but keep having strong AA. I even see people saying you "never get rid of AA". If you never get rid of it, it's almost certainly because you are dealing with social anxiety, and should be looking at things like graduated exposure, not just force yourself to keep doing what you are doing.

Learning game is still challenging, though - even for the people who don't have your level of social anxiety.

Of course, otherwise I wouldn't still be here :)

Even people with mild AA still have to put work in. I hope you're not diminishing their efforts.

I am not, but most of their efforts are in other areas of game. But on the contrary I feel they are often diminishing the challenge faced by the many people out there with more severe AA with the "go out and approach" manta.

You raise a good concern, and it would be great to get people the support that they need. If there's a way to concisely articulate the point, or if you have a better term for AA, I'd genuinely love to hear it.

I think the term AA is stuck. But a start would be for people to start realizing that the spectrum is wide, and keeping in mind the option of graduated exposure rather than telling people to "just go approach". Graduated exposure is likely to work better for you even with milder AA anyway, and more people ought to learn about it.

The short version of graduated exposure:

Write a long list of all situations that you get scared, nervous or anxious in that you want to be able to handle without anxiety; order them from least scary to scariest; start doing the least scary while focusing on clearing your mind and/or breathing slowly - learning basic breath meditation is a good basis - until that situation no longer makes you anxious; then and only then move on to the next one.

The hard part for someone with strong AA is figuring out a gradual enough list of steps to overcome some of the most anxiety inducing steps, but just realizing that overall framework was enough for me to start figuring out what "tweaks" I could do to make situations easier enough or harder enough to fill in the "gaps" to get a viable list.

People with mild AA will find their list is fairly short and simple and they'll make progress rapidly and their AA will actually diminish and largely disappear rather than just get "under control", while people with severe, actual social anxiety, will either at least not mess themselves up further, or see progress but much more gradually (e.g. you might have to start with something as basic as even picturing yourself approaching).

Note that this is not new even in the seduction community - there used to be quite a lot of posts advocating variations of this though it seemed they rarely were aware of the actual psychology research in the area; but with the advent of "new" game and the gradual death of routine based game, as well as with the "gurus" moving well past this point, it seems to have gotten thrown out with the bath water, possibly because it for many people means scripting out simple conversations to get low anxiety progressions, and also likely because it obscures the "we solve your problems fast" idea of seduction bootcamps that is such a big money spinner for many of the companies out there.

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Title	The Magic Pill to getting better at Pickup FAST
Author	Tradman
Upvotes	84
Comments	70
Date	July 14, 2011 5:00 AM UTC (15 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/seduction
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/ip5q5/the_magic_pill_to_getting_better_at_pickup_fast/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/seduction/the-magic-pill-to-getting-better-at-pickup-fast.1320243 https://theredarchive.com/post/1320243

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