Discussion: Smoothness vs. something being "off," awkwardness, "red flags."

mgtownigga · 2017-09-19T06:02:47+00:00

barring mental issues that need to be rectified, it's mostly just practice. The more you do something, the more comfortable you are, and eventually you don't think about it so much and just act naturally. Unfortunately, a lot of guys are not that experienced, and yes, this applies to non virgins as well as virgins. A lot of guys can eventually find a girl to date them, but theyre still awkard as sin and have trouble with this when the relationship ends. It's something you have to learn

infps · 2017-09-20T16:29:22+00:00

I think I can contribute to answering number 5.

Sometimes it takes particular experiences. I think the 250 approaches or 10,000 hour rule is more about setting yourself up to have some insights. Because a lot of those 250 would probably not include much improvement, and if you could have the 10 experiences that led to improvement, then it might work out a lot faster (could be the difference between a "natural" and a "not natural.")

Here were a couple of mine:

1) When I was teaching English, there was a girl in the class who was a total "bitch alpha" to everyone. The other girls were clearly intimidated by her, and the boys clearly thought she was cute. She was definitely flirty as well as an apparent power-play, liked to slip in bad words to be sexy and alpha. I mean, she had some good game (damned good for a 14 year old).

As the teacher, I am sometimes almost invisible to the social worlds of middle-schoolers. So, as I was watching everything that went down in the class, a few times I caught her scanning to see people's reactions while they weren't directly looking at her. While she did this she had the hugest look of anxiety on her face (I'm sure she'll have learned to hide that by the time she's 25 :) ). Basically, the biggest alpha wolf girl in the room was the most horrifyingly insecure one as well.

That was my first year. I saw similar things a few other times over the ensuing decade of teaching. It sometimes strips the most powerful girl in the social group down to this naked and scared little thing. After that, I could often catch almost like a microscopic glimpse of the naked and scared little porcelain doll child sitting under "adult" women who were habitually and reflexively trying to play dominance and alpha games. (Not to say every alpha is doing that, but plenty definitely are). The simple experience of observation changed my whole life forever.

2) While training in NLP and tracking many years ago, my teacher would take us out to the mall. Many of the relationships of men and women amounted to a woman making the man wrong and a man wrestling with trying to balance pleasing her with also respecting himself....

Maybe 80% of couples fit that pattern. I still see it when I go to malls in the states. Actually, in Taiwan (outside Taipei especially), maybe 80% of women will have the respectful "I want to balance pleasing and respecting you with my self-respect" which is delightful. So, it's also basically a cultural thing.

Can you imagine HAVING to be right ALL THE FUCKING TIME? That's the neurosis of a lot of American women. Once you can see it that way, it looks very differently and less threatening.

Also, dating women who want to be pleasing and respectful of me while honoring their own self-respect has been very healing. It's something usually only men think of in the states, but in Asia it's common for women to be socialized that way.

The girl I am still with, when we were in our first year of dating, we hung out with an American couple, and the American wife was so contemptuous of things her husband said, always rolling her eyes and such like, "Oh, he gets nothing," and he was so loyal and niceguy (Christian, believed once married, it was forever).

When we stepped away from those two, the first thing my girl said was, "She doesn't pay any attention to anything he says, or respect him, which is why he's not happy."

Said with total spontenaity, caring, and innocence.

Spending a decade in a world of that type of women will do a lot for a man who is wounded from all the nonsense in America.

Electra_Cute · 2017-09-19T06:03:28+00:00

I also imagine that way back when the Native Americans lived on this continent they weren't cringing all the time in their interactions.

I would surmise they were too busy going to war to worry about such trivial matters.

Sexual strategy is amoral, find a way that works for you.

blackedoutfast · 2017-09-19T18:46:31+00:00

your social awkwardness compared to other people was caused by on a relative lack of experience.

those "natural" guys who seem smooth and cool around girls probably had better role models and have been figuring this stuff out since they were little kids.

Chad didn't know how to properly escalate with a girl when he was a little kid, but the girls didn't know either, so they both awkwardly bumbled through it and started figuring things out.

but now an adult awkward guy is going to be talking to an adult, socially competent and very experienced girl. if he starts fumbling due to inexperience, she's not going to just roll with it and walk him through the process, she's just going to realize he is an awkward socially incompetent guy.

a lot of awkward adult guys tend to avoid getting the kind of experience they need from interacting with and watching socially competent people because they feel uncomfortable in that environment. they will either sit at home being an introvert, or hang out with their other equally awkward friends. the bad thing about this is that it will reinforce the awkwardness.

so yes you do need a lot of experience and practice to get over your awkwardness. you do need to play the numbers game. get out of your comfort zone, go interact with socially competent people.

and you are correct that you need to practice the right things and not go out and simply reinforce the existing awkwardness. you need to do a LOT of visualization and internalization of YOU doing the right kinds of social behaviors and responding appropriately in social situations. then go out and practice it.

if only there was some place on the internet for all these awkward guys to go to where they could learn about how to become high quality men and learn how they should be interacting with women and other men....

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Tyler_Gatsby · 2017-09-19T11:02:38+00:00

As the great Kat Williams says, "I think pimp, therefore I am pimp."

You need to change your mindset of how you are viewing yourself. Maybe try and imagine watching yourself like a third person, or out of body experience, and critique yourself and be aware of what you are looking like.

Posture is very important. I get that you're tall, but slouching is still a turn off. It's easy to tell people or say be confident, project confidence, but what does that really even mean in real terms that you can relate to?

Try instead of "think confidence," try to "think comfort." Comfortable people make other people make other people comfortable, which translates to making them feel secure. It will probably be easier for you or whoever to think comfortable, than think confidence- but it's close to the same thing. They are hand in hand siblings even.

Also we took a test here a while back about reading emotions/feelings of people based solely on their eyes. Think about that. Human beings can reliably transfer information using only their eyes. Maybe you should practice this, and be mindful of what you are thinking when you talk to people. No, most people can't read your mind, but most people can read what your mindset is through your eyes, and as been said- women tend to be extra astute at this. Her subconscious can pick up on "your vibes" of how you feel, to some degree, depending on the woman/person, so be mindful of this. Learn to think happy, relaxed, comfortable thoughts, in the background, and this will be projected, and she'll pick up on this.

Try and be more comfortable brother, like your brother does.

Mattcwu · 2017-09-19T06:01:38+00:00

Why is it so painful for us to be in a socially awkward situation? It poses no threat to us

Perhaps women like dangerous men and a man who poses no threat is unattractive.

We don't talk about sex in my family; it would be mortifying to talk about it. Why is it so awkward when people go to 2nd or 3rd base in public? And why do I sometimes find kissing scenes in movies awkward to watch and feel a need to avert my gaze?

Perhaps a lack of experience? That would be pretty normal actually.

Yangel · 2017-09-19T06:06:40+00:00

Can machines pick up on it?

Butt-Factory · 2017-09-19T06:24:56+00:00

I'm hesitant to believe that it's reasonable to expect going from awkward to charming with practice is possible for most people, just because I've only known one person to do it. He was painfully shy and awkward, his face turned beet red when I so much as said hello to him. I ran into him a few years after high school and he was a totally new man. Came right up to me, smiled big, gave me a hug, and talked my ear off. It was remarkable. I later found out he had a near death experience and a subsequent life meltdown and decided to change everything about his life. I guess he got a major confidence boost.

He's an exception, though.

eatthemenu · 2017-09-19T07:02:50+00:00

Just be awkward. It sounds like you already know you're awkward so just be fun and light hearted about it and you'll be fine. Awkward can be charming/endearing if you can laugh about it.

newName543456 · 2017-09-19T08:53:42+00:00

1: How can men become smooth?

2: It just takes practice before you become truly comfortable in social/intersexual settings, right?

Pretty much.

You can talk big game and have theory down to a T, but if you lack real world practice of interacting with people, you will fumble around. And you won't magically get super smooth one day. You will just be getting progressively better as you keep at it, to the point that one day you will realize you are in fact pretty damn smooth.

3: There are heuristics like the 10,000-Hour Rule (although that time has to be spent intelligently/properly/deliberately, of course...if you don't practice well then you won't magically become good just by putting in the hours) and the notion that you have to cold-approach 250 (!!!) women before you can become seriously comfortable about it (that's a lot of women!). Is this basically the secret?

10k hr rule relates to becoming world-class expert in the field. Relative competence can be achieved much sooner. How soon? Try for yourself, don't rigidly stick to given numbers.

Entropy-7 · 2017-09-19T10:59:07+00:00

The three components are 1) to have some substantial skills, 2) to be comfortable in your own skin and 3) to have some social radar to understand what creeps girls out.

This is a triad where the components can't function in isolation.

And yet, the big thing is DNGAF.

notevenathrowaway456 · 2017-09-19T13:10:05+00:00

I'm going to go and say it.

I don't think this thing is a thing.

In actual real life I see these distinct circumstances:

1) She gets close to you and you're uglier than expected. Disengage after "awkward" moment.

2) You say something completely off-the-wall and the conversation comes to an abrupt end. This is not lack of "smoothness" but rather lack of "game", i.e. 99% of men know what should not be said but some will choose to say it anyway from time to time because gaming women is boring and annoying.

3) You do do not show sufficient sexual aggression. Disengage after conversation dies off.

4) She was there to make fun of you. Random normal socialization gets construed as "awkward" after the fact.

Rarely if ever I've seen a protracted conversation where any evaluation of the type described actually takes place. This is especially true for casual sexual encounters, where loud music and alcohol and drugs are involved to a degree such that implying that any such evaluation is taking place is ridiculous.

I'll also go on record saying that women are about as cringy as men are (if in different ways), and men detect it very easily but don't give a single fuck, so this is another one of those things that boils down to different levels of inherent value/willingness. Female sixth sense LMAO.

pill_throwawaybrp · 2017-09-19T14:59:19+00:00

1: How can men become smooth?

It's about comfort. When you're comfortable, you're not worried about fucking up. Smooth isn't necessarily "do everything perfectly" but "act like fucking up isn't a big deal if it happens."

4: There's still hope for guys like me who are a bit further to the left on the bell-curve, though, right?

Yup.

Think about those painful/awkward/uncomfortable pauses in the conversation that happen all the time when you live a boring life; they will no longer happen once you're living an exciting/interesting/awesome life.

I'd actually consider it a negative if you think you have to fill every quiet moment with talk just to talk.

7, 8 and 9: Why are women programmed for awkwardness

It potentially means danger. Eyes are supposed to be the window to the soul, not making eye contact supposedly means they're hiding something. It's thought that an easily readable person isn't a danger (not true) and that someone who is harder to read means they're taking more of a risk to figure out what their body language means.

I've somewhat found it interesting because as a kid and even now within my own peer group, if you're scoring it I'm more shy/awkward than the average for them. But then I see people from just ahead of me who grew up with their cell-phones having somewhat stunted body language growth, and I'm almost ahead of them in some ways, or I get like "Stop looking at your phone when you're talking to someone, it's rude" even though I probably don't do the eye contact thing enough.

Merger-Arbitrage · 2017-09-19T06:41:46+00:00

As usual, attractiveness in my mind for both genders comes from some mix of: looks, smarts/status and personality. Knowing how to leverage all three maximizes your ability to generate stronger and stronger levels of attraction to you (this is about the only "game" that anyone could have, frankly, your ability to leverage what you have). So if you're passing the looks threshold for a girl, and yet can't seem to get her interested enough in you to get physical with you, then you're probably dealing with issues off of a list I made ages ago. Might as well repost it:

Why Some Men Fail With Women - Age 22+ (some younger males are exempt from a few of these till they hit 22)

Some combination of:

Unfit (average US male, age 30 bodyfat is 27% as per CDC DEXA data)

Poor dress, styling and hygiene (cheap/poor-fitting clothing, bad habits, laziness, no money for quality self-care)

*Above 2 = not maximizing looks where they are under your control and really count (survey and attraction research based evidence exists)

Under-educated (no college degree, useless degree or degree from lackluster college)

Un-driven/unambitious (lack of passion and/or no career aspirations .. possibly connected to the above .. unable to explain your work in an interesting way)

Boring (no worldly knowledge, no interesting hobbies/interests/skills and no ability to make them interesting to others .. video games, sports, internet crap doesn't count)

*Above 3 = likely low income earner = low or no options to explore new things and share the experiences with others ; unable to afford high quality clothing

All of the above = lack of REAL confidence/charisma/charm and inability to show emotions, be intimate or escalate sexually ; lack of romance skills

PUA/TRP/etc. participants falsely believe they have the above - when they really do not - which leads to fake confidence, arrogance and illusions of grandeur

**Lack of respectable career and/or social circle limits quality dating pool (pre-selection missing) ; meeting complete strangers often results in flakes due to weak connection

**Social status (shown by behavior) is very hard to fake - and is determined by how you treat people / how they treat you / how to treat yourself

Therefore they are generally unattractive potential mates, lacking the qualities which naturally attract women

If you had many of these traits - you would naturally attract women through basic human interactions (you would essentially be adding value to other peoples' lives)

They put interactions with women as a priority over enjoying their work and other life activities

They are clueless about what they want in a female partner and/or only value relatively superficial aspects of women

They are just "average Joes" … but have unrealistically high expectations for a female partner

They don't understand that a human relationship is about give and take - not a one way street

BPremium · 2017-09-19T12:56:43+00:00

Nope. Not even gonna bother. As soon as you said women approach you, I checked out. Get the fuck outta here with all your "questions" when you get approached.

wtknight · 2017-09-19T11:23:00+00:00

If you're socially awkward just find a socially awkward woman. Faking social skills is too much work in my opinion. I suppose if you only want to fool women into sleeping with you casually then it might be helpful to fake social skills, but if you're looking for something more whether it's a relationship or an FWB then it's better to find someone who you can mesh with socially than to constantly having to fake being smooth.

Title	Discussion: Smoothness vs. something being "off," awkwardness, "red flags."
Author	HopefulAboutADHD
Upvotes	2
Comments	97
Date	September 19, 2017 5:48 AM UTC (8 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/710zm0/discussion_smoothness_vs_something_being_off/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/discussion-smoothness-vs-something-being-off.266024 https://theredarchive.com/post/266024

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