When I was in fifth grade I had an incredibly important, transformative experience. I was playing basketball with two of my friends and after the game was over they had an “intervention.” They basically told me that the new cool shoes everybody in school was wearing were Airwalks and Vans, and if I did not start wearing those shoes they could not be my friends anymore.

Why was this such an important experience in my life? Well, to us now, as adults, it sounds incredibly stupid to dumb somebody as a friend because they are not wearing the right shoes. But the reality is that that kind of thing happens all the time, even to adults. Humans have a natural desire to bond with other humans and feel accepted as part of a group, and oftentimes the people in that group will make up weird rules that you have to follow or else you will be rejected from the group. Even as an adult, I know tons of dudes in relationships with shitty, manipulative women who impose weird conditions and rules on them and threaten to leave if the guy does not comply.

Worse yet, people will oftentimes not even tell you the rules you need to follow to be accepted – you have to figure them out on your own. I was lucky that my friends were even willing to articulate exactly what I needed to do to be “cool.” Many people wouldn’t even do that – they would just start ignoring you. And in fact, the reason many people have social anxiety is that they are afraid of getting rejected by people they want validation from, and they oftentimes don’t even know what they need to do to get that validation.

That fear is also the root of approach anxiety. When we see a hot girl, we are afraid of approaching her because we are afraid of her thinking and/or saying “no, you’re wearing the wrong shoes” or whatever arbitrary rule she has in her mind. If we knew exactly what girls wanted, life would be easy – we would just go do that. If we knew that this particular girl in the bar wanted a guy wearing jeans and had a Mohawk, we would approach her if we had those things and not approach her if he didn’t. But the fact that we don’t know – THAT is what gives us anxiety.

Here is another reason that shoe experience was transformative. Even at that young age, I could tell they were being stupid and that it is dumb to dump a friend over the wrong shoes. I was a cool, smart, funny, athletic, awesome kid – you should be lucky to be my friend. I was lucky that my friends articulated the social standard so clearly because I could think about it logically and realize it was bullshit. I didn’t need to fit into anybody else’s bullshit rules. I just had to focus on being an awesome person and if you wanted to be friends with me, great. If not, fuck off. I made my own standards for cool.

Of course, this doesn’t mean go off and be a weirdo and not care about what anybody thinks at all. There are certain objective things that make a person desirable – kindness, a sense of humor, confidence, physical attractiveness, etc... Those things are universally attractive. Shoe styles come and go, musical tastes come and go, but it is pretty clear what you need to do as a person to be liked and as a guy to get laid. I realized from a young age that all I needed to do to be liked was be confident in myself and be an awesome person. If you had some weird rules that you wanted me to follow, that was your problem. Nobody is going to reject Brad Pitt because he is wearing the wrong shoes. And if they did, they would be the idiot, not Brad Pitt.

This may seem like an insignificant point, but it is not. Think about all the kinds of people you see every day – frat boys, goths, “thugs”, hipsters – all those people are playing a character so that they can fit into some stupid group. A lot of those people don’t even really feel that way all the time. I remember that everybody in my middle school pretended to like this terrible pop punk that was all the rage. Some of the songs were good but most of them were just a whiny guy yelling nonsense over simple, unoriginal guitar riffs. I remember one day sitting with my friends and just saying “do you guys really just like this shit or are you just trying to be cool.” They admitted the latter. But humans have a burning desire to fit in.

That’s why “peacocking” works in PUA. It’s not that girls like guys who dress ridiculous – rather, they are attracted to the guy who does what he wants and doesn’t fit into social convention. Girls think guys that dress like Mystery look silly and douchey, but there is something incredibly attractive about him because he does want he wants. The question is not whether you accept him, it is whether he accepts you. This is also, by the way, why girls like guys with tattoos and long hair, etc... (although nowadays most people get those things to fit in too).

So now that you have liberated yourself from the vice grip of social convention, what should you do? Here is the answer – be nice. Be radically, overwhelmingly, unflappably nice. Be nice like you were on drugs and you couldn’t feel sad or angry even if you wanted. Be nice to everybody you see, even if they are a guy, an ugly girl, your mom, your enemy, etc... Be nice like there is a burning fire of niceness inside of you and you need to get it out. Be nice like you don’t know how to be sad. Be nice like you just won the lottery and this is the best day of your life. Be nice like it’s almost rude to those who are having a bad day. And don’t let anybody affect your niceness – if you run into somebody angry, or depressed, or bored, don’t change your energy to fit theirs – keep your own energy. Be nice no matter what – and if the person acts like a true dickhead to you, just move on and go do something else. You can’t have time for negativity in your life.

You may be thinking: no, girls like assholes and/or guys that ignore them. That is not true. Girls don’t like assholes, they like CONFIDENCE and POWER. And you can only really be nice if you are confident and powerful. Most guys act wanty and needy around girls and therefore don’t look powerful.

There are 2 kinds of niceness: niceness from above and niceness from below. Imagine a party with a struggling rapper and Jay-Z. Imagine that Jay-Z could change this guy’s life if he signed him to his label. Now imagine they talked. If the struggling rapper is nice to Jay-Z, that is niceness from below, because most people would assume he is just being nice to get something from Jay-Z. But if Jay-Z is nice to the guy that is niceness from above, and most people would think that is a more “genuine” niceness because Jay-Z doesn’t need anything from guy.

You can’t really be nice to somebody unless you are powerful and need nothing from them. If you need something from them, you are being manipulative and two-faced. If you don’t need anything, your niceness is more pure and attractive.

Another problem is that in our society pop culture teaches us that we need to be angsty, “hard,” angry, or brooding to be “cool.” That again, is false. You see, women are attracted to power, so sometimes the “gangster” or the brooding artist is seen as powerful. But nobody is as powerful as somebody who is happy, joyful and having fun. If you are happy and joyful you have literally conquered everything. A girl may be looking for a brooding, angry guy but if you are unrelentingly nice she eventually will be overwhelmed with positive emotions and will be attracted to you.