I know how much sedditors like useful reading material so I wanted to recommend a book that's helped my AA and inner game. It's called Positive Intelligence. He also has a TED talk and the website is full of useful info but I wanted to summarize the basics of the book. It's a quick read and has applications beyond pickup so I highly recommend it.

His primary argument is that there are two people inhabiting our brain: the Judge and the Sage. The judge has 10 accomplices that also sabotage our behavior and the sage has 5 powers that it can use to help us be more effective in navigating relationships -- his focus is on work relationships, but there's a small segment about a married couple. Ultimately, the judge is dominating our thoughts when we're living in our "survival brain" (i.e. avoiding conflict and assigning blame) and the sage is active when we're trying to thrive.

How does this apply here?

I immediately thought of seddit when he described 3 of the saboteurs (the judge is the chief saboteur, but he has 10 accomplices): the avoider, the pleaser, and the victim. He goes on to identify the negative thought patterns associated with each. Here's a brief summary of the 3 most relevant ones:

  • Avoider - A focus on the positive and pleasant in an extreme way. An avoidance of difficult and unpleasant tasks and conflicts. Has thoughts such as, "This is just too unpleasant. Maybe if I let it go it will take care of itself", "I'd rather give someone else his or her own way than to create a scene".

  • Pleaser - Indirect attempt to gain acceptance and affection by helping, pleasing, rescuing or flattering others. Loses sight of own needs and becomes resentful as a result. Has thoughts such as, "It bothers me when people don't notice or care about what I have done for them. They can be so selfish."

  • Victim - Emotional and temperamental style to gain attention and affection. An extreme focus on internal feelings, particularly painful ones. Martyr streak. Has thoughts such as, "No one understands me", "I am what I feel", "I wish someone would rescue me from this dreary mess".

These sound exactly like typical AFC's. The book details how to minimize the effect of the saboteurs (it helps a lot just to assign names to the negative thoughts and realize you're in a negative feedback loop) and to strengthen your sage by empathizing, exploring, navigating, innovating, and activating. A quick overview of how to strengthen the sage:

  • Empathy recharges us and in the context of seduction, it shows that you're engaged and a real person. Empathizing with yourself can help you work through difficult emotions that might be holding you back. Being hard on yourself for failure will only put you into negative feedback loop.

  • Exploring is about learning without presumptions. He suggests playing "fascinated anthropologist" to be more open minded in an interaction. We tend to selectively hear parts of what people say to reaffirm what we already believe.

  • Innovate. Try saying "Yes, and..." more often. Bottom line: be more open instead of trying to control every little detail of an interaction.

  • Navigate is more for business and life decisions. The technique he describes is "flash forward" where you ask yourself how you'll feel about a decision down the road. In this one, I think about random pickups versus finding someone I really click with. For me, it's not worth chasing a girl I don't really like just to increase my number.

  • Activate. Get into your sage mindset. Preempt what negative thoughts you will have so that when they come into your mind, you'll be ready. "Oh she looks busy, I don't want to interrupt her and her friends." NO. She's a friendly person out at a bar, go up to her and play fascinated anthropologist. She could be the most interesting person in the world and you just want to meet her. You don't need validation, you're interested in making a new friend.

I hate the term, "the game" for picking up women because it suggests that you can either win or lose. All we're doing is trying to build a new relationship. Just walk up and talk. The only reason that becomes so hard is because we put so much weight on the interaction. If she doesn't want to talk, you'll get the hint. Move on and find someone that does.