One lesson I have learned in life is that to get good at things, it is sometimes helpful to look at them like a game.

Life is complicated and confusing, and there are no clearly defined rules, goals or challenges. A game, on the other hand, has a well-defined goal. And every game has a “challenge.” Without the challenge, the game would be too easy and not worth playing. For example, the challenge in soccer for the player is to kick the ball in the goal and the challenge for the goalie is to keep the ball out of the goal. If you were just playing with a soccer ball in the park and somebody kept taking the ball, you would get angry, but if you were playing a soccer “game” you would have fun because it was part of the game.

Once you look at every game as a “challenge” you can clear out of your brain all other thoughts and just focus on the challenge. You can focus and succeed rather than obsessing over anxieties and worries. Another advantage of looking at activities as if they were games is that you don’t feel as bad if you lose. If you lose at Dungeons & Dragons, you don’t think to yourself “I am a worthless person, nobody loves me.” Instead, you think, “I made some mistakes and lost, I need to get better at this game.” If you have a clearly defined challenge and goal, you don’t lose self-esteem when you fail – you just work harder at conquering the challenge.

In life, it is sometimes hard to figure out what the “challenge” in a particular activity is. For example, I do stand up comedy and everybody I know is trying to “make it.” Unfortunately, many of these people never figure out what the “challenge” of being a comedian is. Some people think it is having a stupid shtick, or “building your fan base,” or targeting a certain demographic. That’s wrong – the real challenge is writing good, original material that is really funny. Anybody can do that other stuff – the thing not everybody can do is write great material.

So what is the challenge in PUA?

Well, let’s look at it from the woman’s perspective. Women want sex, but they have some goals men don’t have. Women obviously sex, but they also want a guy that is a badass and is “better than them.” The problem is that it is not obvious to determine this from meeting a guy. Another challenge women have is that they need to find a guy who isn’t a creep or a stalker. Unfortunately, there are a lot of shitty, crazy, predatory men out there. Every hot girl has run into a complete creep and many of them have had stalkers or even crazy exes that won’t stop harassing them. Because men have a higher and more immediate sex drive than women, women also need to avoid men that just want to use them for sex or even, god forbid, rape them.

So if you are a woman, your challenge is to find a man who is 1) awesome and high-status, 2) is not a creep or a stalker, and 3) likes her. That’s HER game. To play this game, women are forced to build up a wall to keep out the low-status and creepy guys. If a woman DOES NOT do this, she will probably be taken advantage of and/or treated like shit. If you are an attractive woman, men are going to constantly approach you – it is your responsibility to keep the creeps out. Think about if you had a sister – would you want her to just talk to every guy that came up to her at a bar and “accept” them? No! You would want her to have standards and reject the creeps and weirdos.

When a woman “rejects” you she is not doing just to be a bitch or because you are a worthless person – she is doing it because THAT IS HER GAME. She is SUPPOSED TO REJECT YOU. It’s nothing personal – she is just building a wall to keep the creeps out. The more high-status the woman, the higher a wall she is allowed to have. And the reality is that most women are terrible at this game – they let too many creeps in and keep out too many high-status males.

What’s the man’s goal? Well, that’s up to you, but let’s assume for the sake of this article that your challenge is to have sex. In that case, your “challenge” is to scale her wall. And the reality is that once you understand what the game is, it is actually pretty easy to scale the wall. You just need to make sure that she realizes that 1) you are high status, 2) you are not a creep, and 3) you like her. That’s all. A lot of times you can accomplish all three of those things with 15 minutes of good conversation.

Unfortunately, most guys are terrible at the game (probably because they don’t even know what the game is) so they immediately fail. Most men’s openers immediately paint them as low-status creeps. When a guy goes up to a girl and “negs” her, or says something about her ass, or stares at her creepily, he is automatically losing the game. It’s literally like a basketball player went on a soccer field and didn’t realize the rules were different and he immediately grabbed the ball with his hands.

I don’t know about you, but for me, looking at PUA like a game makes it much easier for me. For some weird reason, girls appreciate it when you know and understand the rules of the game. Sometimes even saying “I’m awesome I like you” works (don’t try this at home unless it is appropriate for the situation. An easy method is to 1) approach 2) say something semi-braggadocious, 3) make fun of creepy guys in the club, 4) tell her you’re interested in her. If you fuck up, don’t beat yourself up – just realize that you failed at one of the challenges. You either weren’t high status enough, you didn’t show it, you acted creepy, or you didn’t show enough interest.