I think I've read too many articles - I don't know how to be myself anymore

0x48656c6c6f · 2013-05-19T22:18:46+00:00

If you don't follow the advice, it doesn't mean you can't get a girl. However, there are personality traits that are considered universally attractive. For example, a fun outgoing person that other people like is going to be attractive to most women. By showing others you posses these traits, you maximize your chances.

I'm not sure you understand the underlying reasons behind the advice. You're basically faking these traits rather than having them. If you're a fun and outgoing guy with lots of friends, all those things you're being told to do would come naturally. Even if I don't have other girls, I still have friends that I go out with. I'm not going to all of a sudden shift my social life completely to the new girl I'm dating. Since I have a busy social life, it might take me two days to get back to her texts because stuff is constantly happening that two days go by very quickly. In other words, I'm texting when I want to, but it's not going to be that frequent because I have other things going on.

This is what people mean when they talk about inner game. By having your own exciting life not dependent on her, you don't have to overthink, you can just be natural.

Once you're in a relationship, things are different. Both of you will be higher priority to each other than early on dating. Texting more frequently is a natural progression in the relationship and does not lower your value at all because you're becoming a bigger part of each other's lives. Even if you do lower your value, she might stay with you because of the existing emotional investment.

Also, things will be different at different ages. At 18, people might be getting into their first relationships. They may exchange "I love you"s very quickly or communicate more often. But at 25, they'll have a serious relationship under their belt and those things will become negatives.

TL;DR; - Live an interesting life and everything will come more naturally. But relationships are definitely hard, yo.

TooPly · 2013-05-19T23:12:59+00:00

At 18, people might be getting into their first relationships. They may exchange "I love you"s very quickly or communicate more often. But at 25, they'll have a serious relationship under their belt and those things will become negatives.

This - My first "big boy" relationship, age 15-20, it failed and I see more and more everyday why it did so. During the first relationship, people do not put restraint on their hearts, over time this becomes unnatractive to both parties. The feelings diminish, cliche saying of the 'spark' is gone. And its because the floodgates were opened too soon. There becomes a point when there is no motive to be attracted to the other person anymore. All about their love has been said and done, the man will become less 'alpha', the woman will become less of a 'prize' - there will be a point when the two simply exist and drone on and on and on without any meaning, the love is still there, but the life is gone.

This happens I think because the 'hearts' were opened full force for too long. Their hearts will be like a binary toggle, on or off. It seems to better to instead of a light switch, have a dimmer knob. Controlling the release of ones heart is much more attractive and entertaining to the female then giving it all and giving it too fast.

OP your friends relationship may seem awesome and you and others may even be jealous, and I may be being a bit cynical here, but they have their problems. They have problems right now that they are not even aware of - problems that are only going to come to light years from now when they realize what I've realized. They'll realize they gave themselves to eachother fully, and now there is nothing else to give. It is sad, and I don't say this out of spite, but really out of genuine sorrow. This is most likely what will happen.

So with all that said - I am of the belief that all these things, all this advice is good help in showing a man how to control the release of his heart in order to best suit and entertain the woman he desires. It's not about being someone else - it's about becoming a mature person. It's about understanding this pitfall of humanity, where our neurobiological circuitry is at constant discourse with itself and how it can lead us to make many mistakes. You be yourself - when you think about it, you are already many different persons. An attractive man is a lover and a fighter, he is an actor and he is genuine, he is aloof but serious all at one time. The advice you get sometimes may seem conflicting and against what how you truly wish to behave but, an attractive and interesting man seems to be conflicted as well as balanced all at one time. There is always good reason to constrain your mind and your heart.

Edit: And take all this bullshit with a grain of salt. I am only 3 years older than you, the only thing I think I have ahead of you in general life experience is that I was in a 5 year relationship, and lived with that female for 2 of those years. This is just what I gather and how I look at things. If anyone even older with more life experience would like to follow up to confirm or deny anything that I've said, I would actually really appreciate that.

t3h_kommand-0 · 2013-05-20T01:24:34+00:00

its simple- you are the articles now. you must accept your new life as such.

or maybe get away from this sociopathic nonsense you read here.

itseemstoberaining · 2013-05-20T12:08:19+00:00

OP, browse http://postmasculine.com for a much healthier perspective on dating.

People have been having sex for as long as humans have existed. Attraction and sex are natural things that happen all the time, automatically. No theory or techniques required.

Of course, many of us aren't having the kind of success with women that we want. But I think this is most often caused by anxieties and other emotional issues, that are preventing us from acting the way we want to act, or the way we know we should act. You see questions here all the time about how to ask for a number, approach a girl in XYZ situation, go for a kiss. The answer is usually: Just ask her number. Just approach her. Just go for the kiss. But it's our emotional issues that are in the way. So we have to work through them, and then things magically improve and everything seems to happen by itself.

Remember, the entire PUA community was created by guys who couldn't get laid and who didn't understand women. While Mystery was making up his formulas on how to attract women while not getting laid, countless of perfectly normal guys were getting laid just fine. On top of that, a good percentage of PUA products are made with the primary objective of making money. So take PUA advice with a grain of salt.

I'm not familiar with the website you linked to, but I read the article called "Explaining Game", and the guy seems to delight in being an asshole and seems to argue that all women like assholes because a low self-esteem girl on an online dating site said so.

recyclablebantha · 2013-05-20T11:55:14+00:00

I've been browsing seddit for maybe a year now and have learned loads. When I started I learned about the basics and they made sense to me - be confident, maintain eye contact, kino, etc.

So far, so good.....

As I've progressed I started reading more advanced stuff. I recently discovered www.solvemygirlproblems.com......However, as legit as everything sounds on the website it's revealing a grim reality and shifting the way I think about social relationships.......I understand there's not really anyone to blame because it's how girls (and generally everyone) are hardwired but it makes the world seem miserable.

I understood that girls sometimes did weird things to test guys or whatever.

This could be just semantics, but most shit tests are not necessarily deliberate. What's more, YOU do them, too, so think about that. Everyone uses "shit tests" on people at some point and it's not always so deliberate as someone actively deciding to administer a test.

Every action I want to take now is preceded by overthinking of how the girl will react or how it will ruin my chances.

Yeah.... Aside from confidence, being able to pay attention to the situation and what the girl is doing, is FAR less of a mentally intense endeavor. Compare these two mentalities:

Thinking/over-thinking about IOIs and what she might do and what you should do when X happens and what will happen if you don't do it "right"....... You'll find yourself reacting SLOWLY because doing that much work internally, pulls you INSIDE your head. It takes your attention away from where it needs to be, in the present moment, able to react AS things occur.
Or, you can simply be present in the moment. Something happens, you react. Lag time between events and your reaction time is lower because you're not having to shift your attention away from that checklist in your head that you're thinking about, and you also don't have to confer with that checklist to see if something that just happened is on it.

.....don't become too available,

don't text too much with a girl,

don't show your emotions verbally,

I'm afraid to do the things I did before because that's what these guidelines tell me.

A couple of things.

Dude, there are NO rules. There are things you don't do if you want a certain kind of girl or a certain kind of interaction (disposable). You're young so that website you listed is pretty much describing the immature girls in your age set. But before you start tailoring yourself for the kind of girls that they describe at that website, think about whether you even WANT those kinds of girls. Because the kind of described by the kinds of approaches they're recommending, are young girls (emphasis on GIRLS)..... the kind that like being treated poorly. If you want those kind of disposable girls and the drama that comes with them, knock yourself out. Just realize what you're getting yourself into first.
Related to the first point about there being no rules..... it's not so much what you should or shouldn't do, so much as HOW you do or don't do things. Example: I can understand why someone thought up the rule about not texting too much with a girl, maybe they were too needy to begin with and they had to make a rule like that to keep themselves from texting from a needy place. It's kind of like an alcoholic who needs to stop drinking because he has a problem. But if you're not an alcoholic, you can drink without having a problem, in plenty of situations. Similarly, you will find that there are some situations where being a minimalist texter could screw you over. You really have to play things by ear.

And in general, think about this. Provided you are strong of self and confident, having the balls to be sincere can be powerful.

But I know so many relationships where these things aren't done and they've lasted longer than just a month so it makes me wonder, how much of this do you have to follow?

You can follow whatever rules you want as long as you are adaptable to the situation. If a girl is texting you about something deep, you don't have to be a cock and kill the conversation just because you have a fucking rule. Let the situation be what it's going to be.

What if I really like this girl? Why shouldn't I be texting her when I feel like it?

The question I'd ask here is: "What is the source of your need to text her?" If it's because you're thinking about her all the time, then consider finding something to do with yourself, rather than texting her whenever your mind wanders and gets fixated on her. That is the path to neediness.

But we were talking about situation where you have your own fucking life but you happen to see something that made you think about her, then sure, why not shoot her a text? But then drop it and walk away unless she starts blowing up your phone with texts. [Example: maybe you see a store that's named after her or something, you might shoot her a text with a picture..... or whatever.]

One of my best friends has a relationship where he's texting his girl everyday, doing stuff at least every other day, etc etc. stuff that would be called ass needy, desperate, demonstrating lower value and not having own hobbies. But they're happy together and it's working out fine.

I'm not going to comment on your friend specifically because I don't know them. But the thing is, if you are in a healthy relationship, a lot of things in it go against the rules you would follow if you were trying to maintain some relationship with the kind of broken girls that go for being treated like crap.

The advice says, never be the first to say I love you. Don't tell her how much you'd be upset if she left blah blah. I know guys that do this, the girls didn't magically leave them overnight.

However all the reasoning behind these guidelines make sense so I'm really just confused and depressed.

It doesn't matter how much the guidelines make sense, if they don't hold up in real fucking life. People thought that the Earth was the center of the solar system. It made sense from our perspective. But obviously, that idea didn't match up with the reality that people discovered.

You're now observing inconsistencies in some of the dogma of the particular branch of PUA you've been studying. Does it mean that everything on that website is wrong? No. But it does mean that you should be taking everything with a grain of salt. A few things I'd point out:

There ARE other branches and philosophies in PUA. Youtube David Wygant or RSD Tyler (Durden) for some guys with different ideas from the ones you've apparently been reading.
Each of those philosophies/branches has it's strengths and weakness.
No one has 100% of the truth.

So stop trying to find a way to verify that this website is 100% dead on. Drop the idea that the website you linked to has it all figured out. They may know how to pick up on some kinds of women, for sure. They may know how to create a certain kind of disposable relationship/interaction with a girl, but they aren't describing the path to every girl. They might not even be describing the path to the kinds of girls YOU'D want.

While being independent and strong of self is fucking important, too much of this philosophy describes a man who is afraid of being vulnerable. Note: there is a big fucking difference between a guy who is NEEDY and a guy who accepts that he is not perfect and that he is vulnerable. The former guy is weak and often tries to make rules to compensate for his neediness instead of addressing it. The latter is strong and doesn't need rules like that. He's truly capable of making connections of whatever kind he desires: Casual or serious connections.

By way of example: I know a guy like this. He has an erectile dysfunction because of an infection he got when he was travelling abroad..... This would fuck up most guys' game because they'd always be thinking, "well, even if I get her back home, I can't get it up all the time, so....why try?"

But no, this guy not only gets more tail than ANYone I know, he's pretty much ridiculously upfront about his problem. The guy just says whatever is on his mind..... he's so damn direct but kind, too. This is the kind of guy who's capable of sweet/thoughtful things for the people around him (girls OR boys), but I've also seen him outright say to a girl, "Why don't you suck my dick?" not as an insult, but as a command..... and I sat there dumbfounded as she said, "Okay, why not?" and she FUCKING DID IT.

He's most distinctly NOT following many of the bullshit rules you listed but he's got ridiculous game.

TL;DR: Fuck the rules. Study every branch of PUA you can find and take the bits of truth wherever they may be, without assuming any particular person has ALL the truth. In general, inner game basics like confidence, outcome independence, are key, while many "rules" that prescribe certain actions or forbid others (like those rules you mentioned), are often either matters of personal taste or bullshit.

banalredditing · 2013-05-19T21:04:01+00:00

you can't be anyone else, so long as you aren't doing things to please others, or because you think you are expected to do something, youll be fine.

As you get older you'll ease into it.

Title	I think I've read too many articles - I don't know how to be myself anymore
Author	im_fucking_zeez_brah
Upvotes	12
Comments	7
Date	May 19, 2013 8:56 PM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/seduction
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/1engv4/i_think_ive_read_too_many_articles_i_dont_know/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/seduction/i-think-ive-read-too-many-articles-i-dont-know-how.1352502 https://theredarchive.com/post/1352502

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