In the last week alone I've had 4 or 5 guys approach me with issues where the root of their problem is their inability to defy context. Consider:

  • "I really like this girl, but I can't come up with a good reason to start a conversation."

  • "I really think a boundary needs to be set with my wife, but the issue is in the past, so I need to wait until it comes up again to talk about it."

  • "I want to do something, but it would be out of character and people might think I'm weird."

  • "I really do/don't want to do this, but it would be socially awkward or unacceptable for me to do/not do it."

These (and more) are signs of a person who is controlled by social constructs.

Social Influence Matters

Given the frequency with which I see this as an issue on r/RPChristians, I'm going to have to dive into this some more over there too, but social influence and the size of your social circle matters.

When I start mentoring guys one of the first things I tell them is that if they want to earn influence with people, they must advance their social network - and I'm talking in the real world, not on reddit or facebook. Social networking is how I make most of my money. It's how I advance my mission. It's how I increase my sphere of influence. It's how I dread my wife. Etc.

A guy once told me, "I'd like to meet more girls, but I'm just not good at initiating conversations. How can I have more girls in my social circle?" The answer seems too obvious: Increase your social circle. He replies, "But I'm not good at meeting new people?" I point to a couple sitting at the table next to us and said, There you are - new people. Go introduce yourself. He couldn't do it (at least not back then). "I can't, he says." Why not? "Because it would be weird."

What he meant was: "There's no context for me to talk to them."

The Non-Importance of Context

I have spent most of my life practicing the art of defying social norms when it would advantage me to do so. Don't get me wrong: defying social norms absolutely can be disadvantageous to you in many circumstances. But complying with social norms against your own interests can be equally disadvantageous. Why do we do it? Because it's "safe." Screw safe. Women don't want safe. Safe is not sexy.

Consider many of the Blue Pill PUA strategies. A lot of them revolve around creating context or leveraging an existing context. Why? Because they're too scared to break context. Examples: (1) Spill something small on her and try to clean it up, then start a conversation. (2) Bump into her, apologize, and start a conversation. (3) Take something innocuous going on in the room and use it as a context to start a conversation. The list goes on.

This happens in blue pill marriages all the time too. Examples: (1) Guy takes wife out on a date to create a context for sex afterward. (2) Guy puts on a racy movie/TV show or encourages his wife to read the Twilight/50 Shades books to create a context for his wife to get a little horny. (3) Guy starts massaging his wife's shoulders while they talk on the couch after dinner, hoping to transition that into sex. The list goes on.

Yes, context can be utilized for your advantage. But the one who has no qualms with breaking social niceties to get what he wants - that is an attractive man, not only to his wife and other women, but to prospective employers, reporters, social media junkies, and passive follower types all across the world.

What to Do?

One of the things I've recently started assigning guys to do: Go start a 60+ second conversation with someone you've never met before and without context.

One guy came back saying, "I had a few dates with girls I met online, and those conversations were over 60 seconds each," so he thought he'd done well. But that defeated the point of the exercise. He had context for the conversation. She expected him to talk to her on the date. I sent him back out to try again. The point wasn't for him to have conversations - it was to stretch him past his comfort zone. I wanted him learning to be comfortable engaging with people in new ways, whether it made sense to do so or not.

In my younger days this type of task was scary. In college and law school I started mastering it as an art. Today, I have no-context conversations with people almost every single day.

  • In the elevator? How's it going?

  • At the grocery store? You're definitely going to want to pick up a box of these.

  • Walking down the street? Nice day. Heading anywhere interesting?

Yeah, people think I'm weird sometimes. More often they're thinking, "That was really cool that someone I don't know wanted to talk to me." Initiating without context often makes people feel good about themselves - especially if you employ charm in the midst of your context-defying conversations.

But even beyond making them feel good about themselves, it makes them feel good about you. They think, "Most people just stick to themselves, but that guy is actually interested in talking to people. He just does what he wants. I wish I could be like that." The phrase "I wish I could be like that" is a stone's throw away from, "I'll buy whatever he's selling." If I'm selling sex, she's buying.

After you've been doing this a while, you'll be surprised how many people you end up recognizing around town. I live in a suburb of 35,000 people. No matter what side of town I'm on, if I walk into a grocery store there's about a 75% chance I'll run into someone who waves to me because they remember me from a past conversation, and maybe 50/50 that one of these people re-initiates a new conversation [and this is not counting the people who no-context initiate with me]. THEY are the ones initiating now. Why? Because they had a positive experience talking to me, even though the only other times I've talked to them have been at a restaurant or in a store at the mall or whatever. I once overheard one such acquaintance asking another, "Oh, how do you know him?" with the answer, "I don't really know, I just see him around a lot and we chat."

I suppose if I wanted to, I could really leverage this for some money-making opportunities. For now, it's enough that most places we go, my wife sees that people know me - and she wonders how. I'm not going to the movies with these people. I'm not going to meals. I'm not calling them on the phone. I'll let her hamster spin on that one.

What's Holding You Back?

Are you living the life you want? If not, what's stopping you? You ever just walk up to your wife and grab her crotch? "No! I could never do that. I have to kino her first. Then I've got to get her into bed. Then, once it's clear we're going to have sex, that's when I have context to grab her crotch." Screw context. If you want to do it, do it. Is it always going to be wise? Probably not. Oh well. Figure out discretion as you go.

Did she cross a boundary in a restaurant? You going to do something about it? "Not yet. We're in public. Strangers might see how I'm talking to her - that's a double-whammy. It's poor social etiquette to have a confrontation in public, and I can't let anyone know that I set boundaries on my wife's behavior." So, you decide to wait until you're home to bring it up, but the conversation has long since moved on and you think, "Well, things are going well now, so there's really no context to bring it up and it might spoil the mood, so I'll just let this one slide." Then you fester some resentment. If it's important to you, just bring it up. Screw social norms. Let the people at the table next to you gawk at the fact that you're not ashamed.

In fact, social norms are the constructs your wife utilizes to keep you in control. They're how she creates her expectations for the relationship. They're also what establishes a sense of monotony in many dead bedrooms because they make you predictable. If you learn to defy social norms, she will never know what to expect from you. That's exciting. That's sexy. That's what lets her know you're worth being with - because you'll do what others won't, which makes you far more suitable as a protector and provider. It simultaneously adds healthy instability and reliability in the relationship. Screw context, screw your wife.