So, I recently swallowed the red pill (kind of), but I'm having a hard time using this knowledge to improve myself. Some back story:

A got my first red pill moments over 5 years ago. In the first year of college, I hooked up with a beautiful girl. She was my first (and is still my last as of this date). She and all her friends told me how good it was she finally found a decent guy.

After 3 months I started noticing a change in her behavior (she started to take more time to reply to my texts and initiated far fewer texts herself, finding all sorts of excuses for not texting, etc.). A few weeks later she starts talking a lot about her ex (her horrible, horrible ex who constantly cheated on her) and admitted she was seeing him again. Obviously, she said nothing happened between them. I couldn't understand why she would want to have contact with the guy she always used to complain about. When I 'confronted' her with it she replied he has been a very important person in her life and it's hard for her to let him go like that. A few days later she dumped me.

For a few weeks we still held hands and kissed, I even said she could see her ex if she really wanted to (I was so nice). But after a while I told her I wanted a relationship or nothing. She said I was a horrible person for asking her to choose and completely ignored me after that (removed from facebook etc.). I later found out she cheated on me with her 'horrible' ex who bragged about his friends. My world was shattered. She told me she finally found a decent guy, yet she decided to cheat on me with that bastard (her words). I was devastated.

That was over 5 years ago. I realized then women aren't the saints I thought they were. But I still didn't really swallow the red pill. Still haven't had another girl since.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I'm having a drink with two female friends. Girl A is unhappy because one of her male friends want a LTR with her, yet she's been in a relationship with another guy for quite some years. The conversation:

Fishy: Why are you sad?

Girl A: This guy, he told me he wanted to be together. It's either a relationship or no contact at all. I don't want to lose this guy.

Fishy: I understand you feel sad about it. Het needs to understand that you already have someone. But I understand him as well. You can't be friends if he's crazy about you, so it's better not to have contact at all for a while.

Girl A: Yeah, but not's the reason why I'm sad. I told him I need to get to know him better and then I can decide if we can go into a LTR.

Fishy: What? You're already seeing someone, why would you say that?

Girl A: Well if he turns out to be better than my BF, why wouldn't I dump my boyfriend for him?

Fishy: But don't you love your boyfriend?

Girl A: Sure I do (yeah right), but if the other guy turns out to be better I'm sure I'll love him as well.

I'm looking at girl B for support but she agrees with girl A. If you can trade up, why don't do it?

This really opened my eyes. And I found out all about the red pill. Yet, I'm a few weeks in and my life hasn't really changed. I haven't become more confident, assertive, better at picking up girls. I'm sure i I had a GF right now she could still walk over me. Where do I start?

tl;dr Found out about the red pill a few weeks ago, yet I'm struggling to use this knowledge to change my lifestyle.