EDIT: Thread stops being about semantics at the 4th/5th paragraph

Hi Seddit! With the recent amount of posts having to do with treating women a certain way vs. another way, with inner game vs. outer game, with routines vs. the natural approach, I figured I would drop some coins into the fountain.

The whole inner vs. outer game debate is a false dichotomy. What does that mean? Well, a dichotomy is a way of classifying a whole category into distinct parts. These parts are mutually exclusive from one another… they don’t overlap. Unfortunately, for game and seduction, there is nothing but inner game, and inner game described in the pickup community is very shallow.

Inner game, as defined by the community, is our behaviors and our cognitions that occur inside of us through everyday interactions. They are generally a list of behaviors that we should adopt to become successful in pickup and to be a more attractive person overall. Outer game is how we’re perceived in the outside world based on the actions and behaviors we present. Both are influenced by us.

The us factor, however, is entirely dependent on our inner selves. And our inner selves is not inner game as described in the community. There is a deeper state that personality that everyone carries, which is known as character. Personality is merely a branch of our character.

Unfortunately, most self-help gurus, motivational speakers, and managers attack our personality traits. Personality traits are helpful and in some situations required for us to be successful everyday but our personalities are governed by our deeper character traits. Character traits require a deeper and more long-term approach. They are principles that govern human interactions and the closer we align ourselves to these principles, the more successful and smooth our learning will be.

So now we have outer game, inner game, and inner inner game. Outer game is how we present ourselves to the world; inner game is our behaviors and cognitions; and inner inner game is the base in which all of this is built. It’s our character. It is also the reason why so many people in the community are unsuccessful with pickup.

Simply put, we stand where we sit. We can get ourselves hyped up, excited, and “in state” all we want; we can close in any way we desire; however, if our fundamental character traits are not well-aligned, our interactions will not go far. Think of inner inner game as soil: inner game can be the behaviors we’re trying to adopt – the seeds we plant and the plants we try to grow – but if the soil itself is of bad quality, the behaviors we adopt will not grow very well. Sometimes, as hard as it is to accept, the soil is the problem; that is, the root of our character.

Now, from a business perspective, it makes much more sense to address inner game than our character traits. Character traits are much more difficult to address and gauge than a simple short-term solution to our problems. It also offers up repeat customers because the solutions will be short-term as well. However, between outer game, inner game, and inner inner game, our strongest point should lie in inner inner game.

It very well comes back to ancient Greece advice: know thyself. The problem is more often than not the picture itself but the lens at which we see it with. To even question and fix the lens, we have to understand and question ourselves. This is the only way anyone can expect to be good at pickup.

I am not denying that inner game is helpful, if not at times necessary for success. It is. Adopting the correct behaviors will make us successful, even if only for the short term. However, your learning ability will be determined on how closely you can align yourself with the fundamentals of healthy relationships, both with yourself and with others. Know yourself.

Now, let me tell you why inner game is a bullshit term. Game is essentially the game you play with others – the way people see you. It does not only need to be applied to a seduction sense; the way people perceive you is your inner game. You can employ a variety of tactics and strategies to make people see you differently and you can understand people better to improve your game, but in the end, game is a very well-defined and binary term.

However, if you were to put the term “game” into the context of understanding yourself, doesn’t it seem a little manipulative? Why exactly do you need to game... yourself? To me, that sounds extremely dishonest – gaming yourself. Why should you play a game with yourself? If anything, you should be absolutely honest with yourself. Breaking down the term game is ridiculous if you think about it close enough, especially when there are so many better ways of describing what inner game is.

EDIT: I actually went to a coffee shop to collect my thoughts before sharing them with you, but as a little bonus, there’s something I would like to touch on: naturals vs. routines that I didn’t do a writeup about.

Naturals use routines. Naturals use routines all the time. The only thing that’s different with naturals is that their routines are internalized; they know what to say and how to say it because they internalized social cues early on. Naturals are not exempt from routines, though.

People who use routines can focus on other objectives in the interactions as well, such as kino or eye contact, because what they do is more memorized. There is nothing wrong with this, either. In some situations, it will help accelerate the learning process.

What the determining factor is how goal-oriented the person is. If you set out to achieve goals, it doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you are being honest to yourself and achieving your goals. Sometimes, routines help you achieve these goals; sometimes, they do not. There should be no discrimination between people because they choose different methods to achieve their goals. There is nothing holier about not using routines vs. using routines.