(Be patient to learn how this is relevant to your sex life)

This insight came to me as I was watching an interview with a smart man. He got asked whether he was a believer in a higher power. Keep in mind, he is a public person in a country with a significant proportion of people who take religion seriously, at least as a social marker of in-group belonging. Here's what he said:

"<Name>, unfortunately I am not a man of faith. I have respect for religion, for the church, and for its attendees. But unfortunately I am not a frequent visitor of temples, and probably I should do it more often."

There he got interrupted with a: "So are you agnostic, or an atheist, or?.."

He goes on: "No, I am moderate... I don't want to say I am an atheist, since it's somehow... bad - to be an atheist. I'm just not there yet." - "But there is something out there, isn't there?" - "Yes, there probably is, but I have not found my faith yet. Probably one day I will."

So why is this smart? Way I see it, he just defused a bomb without paying any cost. That's an ideal outcome.

He had an opportunity to alienate numerous people by bluntly stating his actual position. It's a very natural thing to do. If you know without doubt that your personal stance is so and so, what most people do is just blurt it out. That's your ego that makes you do that, your pride.

Other people, though, make a different mistake. They lie. A liar would say: "Of course, faith plays an important role in my life. Bla bla bla bla bla..." What's the problem with this? You've just taken upon yourself a commitment to live up to those irrational people's expectations. Now if you violate those expectations, they will be mad, and will probably take action to punish you. At the very least they will feel entitled to give you instructions on how to fix the errors of your ways. And they'll monitor your compliance, limiting your freedom.

So what's the middle path? What did the smart man do? He validated the plebs by mirroring. He voiced their own thoughts. "It's bad to be an atheist; He should go to church more often; He should have religious faith". He agreed with their values (which cost him nothing). What he did not do was commit to acting on those values any time soon. And he was able to get away with that because he threw them a bone right before. He was still well liked afterwards, despite his answer being essentially "no".

Now about sex. If you happen do be running game in parts of the world where the average girl expects commitment before putting out, and asks you about your plans for the future (perhaps with her?)? Don't be stupid, alright? You don't say "I like being single, so I'm not looking for a relationship". What do you say? If you got anything out of what I wrote, you'll say something along the lines of: "I AM looking for my soulmate, for a girl who's right for me, so I can spend the rest of my life with her. I just don't know that I've found her yet, and I want to be careful not to be tricked by a bad one, because I've been hurt before". Now THAT kind of response gives her an incentive to go some extra miles winning you over, doesn't it? Who knows, you might even get your dick wet. And the best part? You've committed to nothing.

Bonus thought: what do you say when they ask about your politics?
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Update: A lot of responses here argue for absolutist "always alpha" / "never back down" kind of ethos. And I reject it because I tried it. I lived those values quite accurately, I'd always say what's on my mind. I did not make distinctions between situations where it had good odds of giving me a desirable outcome, and other situations where it was clearly stupid and got me what I did not want. I witnessed over and over people who shared the ambition, but had more finesse, getting further than me in every pursuit imaginable, without any other factor being clearly responsible for the difference. It held true professionally, socially, and yes, even sexually. So I say with certainty: a man who knows WHEN to be indirect, and HOW to do it well, will beat the direct "I don't stop for anything" brainlet most of the goddamn time. Insistence on NEVER spending brainpower to consider the indirect path is just intellectual sloth, not virtue. People who advocate that are not very smart, nor very successful usually.

In this post I'm sharing a discovery I made on my way to reform. Some comments suggest it's been beneficial for SOME of you, and that means I succeeded. This post is about HOW to be indirect WHEN it is called for. I am NOT arguing for NEVER being direct, despite the clickbaity title. Clickbait is just a rule of good writing, deal with it.