aurum

I lived in Miami for 6 years and loved it. The weather is basically perfect sunshine year round. And the girls are ridiculously attractive, with more of a mix of lots of tourists and locals. You can also easily game there 24/7 if you want like Vegas, but with more potential for normalcy. Miami also has incredibly high status, social circle game like Vegas or LA. Celebrities are always around and you can get pulled into some pretty crazy scenarios if you know a few of the right people.

@CodyXarex Church game, that’s a new one. I would simply practice basic socializing at this point. You are not in a conducive environment for doing cold approach at volume. Maybe every once in a while there will be an opportunity, but that’s not going to be enough to develop a skill set. Just learn how to interact in a social circle and date whoever you can. There is value in building basic experience when you are young. And then use your dissatisfaction for where you’re currently living as leverage to motivate you to move.

Then it’s time to get to work. It will take longer for you to get results but they will come. Be stupid, overly excited about even small victories. This will create positive reinforcement and encourage you to keep going. Do your best to honestly assess your situation and any mistakes you’re making, but then let it go. If you’re too hard on yourself you’ll burnout quick and want to quit. Practice self-love here. You can’t control the hand you were dealt, but you can make the choice to do your best and create your future. And fuck everyone who doesn’t understand that.

Yes you will miss some girls. So what? That’s why you need to be in an area where there is a bunch around. This way it doesn’t matter. Never once have I had to run up to a girl doing day game. I just walk and open whoever is along my path that I want to open. That’s enough. You can even just stand and open girls that walk by you if you get a good position. Set yourself up right. And if you can’t find an spot like this, then you probably should go to a new area entirely. Or just accept that your number of approaches will be lower. You can keep doing it if it’s really working for you. But you sounded concerned for your reputation. I mostly don’t do it out of principle and because I feel it puts subconsciously in the wrong mindset of “chasing”. A very quick, light jog might be okay in certain circumstances if you really wanted to open a girl.

@Vrubel This can actually happen. Even in a major city, you can approach so many girls that people start recognizing you. But it’s really not that big of a deal as long as your approaches aren’t overly atrocious and there’s enough people. Don’t run up to girls. I get checking your ego at the door and not make excuses to approach, but I personally draw a line here. You’re literally chasing girls. No thanks. You can also get away with a lot more in a night game environment. Part of the advantage of moving to a major city is that you get anonymity. Which is good if you know you’re about to do a lot of potentially cringe inducing approaches. Anonymity is bad once you know what you’re doing. Then you want to be known, and your reputation will do more work for you than your actual approaches. But if you’re new you may not be at that level yet.

@Fadious It depends on a lot of factors. What was your upbringing like? How much experience did you have being social and with women growing up? How is your self-esteem? How is your career going? Where do you live? How much of a social circle do you have already? Etc etc If those questions were all negative for you, then you’re gonna have some work cut out for you. The more of those boxes you tick the easier it likely will be for you. For the average guy, I’d say you could start seeing noticeable results in a couple months to a year if you’re hitting it hard. You may also get a lot of smaller wins before then.

You can experiment with the “player approach” that is Leo is describing and is advocated by most puas. Play the field a lot, and wait for one of the girls you’re seeing to choose you. Then if you want to date her as well, cut off the rest of the girls. But otherwise you don’t treat her any different than any other girl you’re seeing. This approach does in fact work. You can get a very attractive girl who you deeply connect with to fall head over heels for you this way. And that’s because you’ve flipped all the investment dynamics in your favor. She will be chasing you. She might be jealous of other girls you are seeing or she imagines you might be seeing. She might even explicitly text you for sex and you’re so blasé that you forget to answer her. One of my problems though with this “player approach” is that it can cause problems down the line. You’re setting up a pattern where she is constantly chasing you, which feels like you’re winning in the moment, but later on can create a needy girlfriend who always feels insecure in the relationship. And you don’t want that. Also, I find that this player approach tends to attract needy girls who may potentially have low self-esteem in general. This is what happens when you play power games. Girls who are more secure with themselves are not likely to continually chase you around and be so manipulated by you. Final problem with this approach is that it cuts off alternative ways of getting into a relationship that may actually be healthier. If you insist this is how it must be, than it will be for you. My theory at the moment is that your highest quality relationship will not be born from this approach. So experiment if you want. It could be a worthwhile experience. But you are playing with fire and will likely break some hearts this way. Another option is you sleep with a girl and then pretty quickly take her on a more traditional “couple” activity, like maybe a nice dinner. This will show her that you’re serious about you and her, and assuming she feels the same about you, you can progress to serious dating very quickly.

@StarStruck Dude this is a bad thread. I get that some feminists are angry at men and devalue us. And that can be triggering for us guys because we want to be valued. But this is not a solution, nor would it prove anything. Good luck getting any random 10k people dropped on an island to create a functioning society.

@gggkkk The problem is that people find copywriting valuable precisely because it manipulates people. No one is going to hire you for writing “hey I made this course, you might find it useful if you have X problem”. You get paid for writing “Only 2 hours left until the deal closes!! Act now!! Dwanye Johnson just bought one!” I do think there’s an ethical way to market to people. You can speak with confidence about your product and how it might help people. That’s important and all fine. But that’s not going to be what is found in most copywriting courses. Most copywriting courses will teach you how the press on the cognitive biases. Ethical marketing is almost like anti-marketing. Which can be hard to teach, because it’s like you’re not actually marketing.

I’m not really a fan of having a sex playlist. Feels super cheesy and just distracting most of the time. But I did have this one girl who loved Billie Eilish. She put this on a lot:

@chakra_7654321 My advice for you would be to just keep socializing. Focus on learning, not perfection. Transmute those painful past experiences into motivation. The more time you spend around people who are socially calibrated, the more it will subconsciously rub off on you. You’ll see more and more what is appropriate in what circumstances if you’re observant. Also, I’d keep doing any inner work you may already be doing like meditation, yoga etc. A lot of what seems like awkwardness can actually be trauma / an overactive nervous system.

@john1 I’d start building skills that will serve society. How you choose to do that is up to you. That’s one of the blessings and the curse of living in the modern world. But you want to focus on being valuable to others. If you want some examples to get started, just looking at what people pay a lot of money for and what they don’t. That should give you a clue. I wouldn’t expect too much in the beginning. Even 2 years and 7 months is ultimately too small a time horizon. Start thinking about where you could maybe be in 10, 20, or even 30 years. Follow those inklings of things that seem interesting, but also learn how to deeply commit to something when it’s time. As far as books, there’s some decent one on Leo’s booklist. MJ Demarco has written two decent ones. Also the LP course will likely help you here. Keep in mind though that there‘s a lot of gurus in the self-help world who will exploit eager young people like yourself by selling them a dream or get-rich-quick nonsense. Don’t get clowned by them.

@Johnny Galt Can we just stop collectively defining everything in military terms? I get that it’s kind of adrenalizing. Maybe it’s motivating at a place on the spiral / emotional scale. But really, past a certain point it’s just self-defeating and toxic.

@soos_mite_ah I think it’s a good list for you. I would follow it as long as it feels realistic. I think for many people though, it would be asking too much. For instance, your point about not doing psychs until you’ve had 2 years of mentality. But some of the most promising research being done right now is with PTSD and drug addiction. Telling these people to “get clean” before they try psychedelics would be missing the point. In fact, the founder of Rhythmia was one such person. Same thing about your goal of reaching Yellow. I would say the majority of people who could probably benefit the most from psychedelics are stage Orange. Psychedelics can help move them past secularism / materialism. So again, I’d stick your list if it feels right. But I wouldn’t expect it of others.

Right, so in that case our friend needs a bit of an intervention. He needs to learn how to properly attract someone without assuming he can just buy his way into their pants. So put the wallet away. The danger then becomes when our friend actually then gets some success doing that. Then he goes “ah, so the secret is to NOT pay for girls! Therefore I will never pay for them”. And of course that is equally stupid, but also a very common conclusion you’ll see guys make. It usually happens when they’re learning how to flex their “alpha” muscle and take it too far.

@StarStruck Not buying things for girls is just a good rule of thumb for guys who are newer at game. Because unfortunately a lot of guys have been conditioned into thinking they can or need to buy a girl’s affection. So telling those guys “don’t buy her a drink” is probably good advice. But in reality, you can totally spend money on a girl and it’ll be fine. You just want to avoid this transactional expectation. Equally dumb of a move would be to refuse to pay for something when it would make sense to do so. But because you heard from a PUA guru and have built an ideology around not buying things for girls in order to seem alpha, you’ll not do it. And it’ll come off as strange or even cheap.

I’ll check them out, thank you ?

@SamC I never had any luck with earplugs. Couldn’t hear the conversation. Musician earplugs are probably your best bet but I wouldn’t count on it. The reality is that going into night clubs for a long period of time on a regular basis may damage your hearing to a degree. But you’ve got to be pretty hardcore about it. Most likely you’ll grow out of clubs before that happens. I’d just make sure you stay away from the speakers if possible. They can be substantially louder than the rest of the club, so be conscious of where you are standing.

You’re welcome ?

Then my guess is you’re not hitting it hard enough. In order for this to work, you have to be fast. You can’t do one and then wait 10 minutes. Ideally less than a minute in between these approaches. You could easily do 10-20 of these before you do a “real” approach. So unless your numbers look like that, I’d say bump it up. The key is you’ve got to send a signal to your subconscious that it’s safe for you to be outgoing and approach. Which means you’ve got to be continually leaning into your edge of what seems “scary” at the moment. If an approach is too scary, you’ll lock up. If it’s not scary enough, you won’t be sending that subconscious signal that it’s safe. So feel into that edge of where it’s uncomfortable, but still do-able. This is not a problem at all. At this point, you don’t even want wings who are too experienced. They’ll just shove you in your head and make you more insecure. And they probably won’t to go out with you anyway. You need guys who are also inexperienced. This is why I think my friends and I got better at this. We all knew we sucked, which took the pressure off of failure. Instead of posturing about how good we were at pickup, we created an internal culture where mistakes were legitimately encouraged. Our criteria for guys joining our inner circle was not how experienced they were but if they were doing the approaches. Learning was our top priority. Later on you can be more picky about wings. There’s a time when that’s appropriate. But for now, as long as they approach and they’re not a psychopath, that’s good enough. As far as your comment on night game, I wouldn’t give up on it. What night game really does is generate more extreme responses than day game. So you’ll have more girls who will blow you out hard, but you’ll also have girls who looking to party and open to moving things fast. Your quickest results will usually come by doing night game. There’s also a lot more girls and social grace to fuck up because “partying”. I would not be running up to girls. That is kind of a bad look and it’s also just unnecessary 99% of the time. The vast majority of time, you should be approaching before it gets to that point. However, it sounds like even if you didn’t have to run up to those girls, you still wouldn’t have done the approach. You’re still trying to go from 0 to 100 in no time. It doesn’t usually work. If you were very experienced then maybe you could get away with that. But as a newbie that’s just shooting yourself in the foot. Now if you had spent the last 15-30 minutes warming up like I described above, then that could have been doable. That’s all good.

Well I’m not at all an expert on autism. But what I do know is that all diagnosing is largely just labeling. And it seems to me that if you were truly on the spectrum, you’d not be aware that you were weirding others out and that you’re acting “off”. That already requires an ability to read social cues. Study social skills in an intellectual way if you want, it certainly can be of some value. Otherwise I’d look into relaxing your system. I’d also dig deeper into that nervousness. What are you so nervous of? And why?

@Molaric Do you think you could be misdiagnosing the problem? Unless you’re on the autism spectrum, most people with an average upbringing are perfectly capable of reading social cues. Your brain is literally wired to do this, the same way we could say a dog’s nose is wired to smell. So if you can’t do what a human being is meant to do, consider that the problem isn’t that you haven’t read enough books or watched enough YT videos on socializing. Consider that the problem is that you are not intune with your own signals. Most likely because you struggle with relaxing, and therefore your nervous system is in a state of fight-or-flight, which is anti-social. You can of course read books and study body language. Charisma on Command is a good YT channel for this. But that’s honestly not what is going to make the biggest difference for people. The biggest difference is going to come from relaxing your nervous system and socializing a lot. Of course now that I said this, relaxing may become the new thing that you start to stress about. Is my nervous system relaxed enough??? Am I in fight or flight??? But you gotta start somewhere.

@Javfly33 this has been discussed many times. You needs wings and you need to baby step your way into approaching. Maybe just start by saying “hi” to people if that’s all you can muster. Take the pressure off, don’t try to hit a home run. When you’re not approaching, you want to stay in a relatively positive / social state. This is just who you are and what you do 24/7. When you go to the grocery store, talk to the cashier. Talk to your Uber driver. Get lunch with friends. Pregame before you go out if you’re doing night game. Final piece is to do the inner work. There’s endless techniques when it comes to it. See if you can become aware of why you have the anxiety. What exactly are you anxious of? Start also building a habit of pushing your comfort zone little everyday so you have that muscle. Cold showers can help here. If you do all of that, approaching may still sometimes be awkward, but in general it will be significantly easier.

@Raptorsin7 In a way, highly collectivist societies have always had a influence over who people date. There’s never just been 100% freedom. If you were in a stage Purple tribe, you’d be constrained on dating by a) who was a member of your tribe (which was already highly constrained by geography) and perhaps also b) some sort of arranged marriage, which would have been based off of the well-being of the tribe. That’s also why sacrifice has been an important part of these cultures. You are expected to surrender to the needs of the tribe, so that we can then all live a successful life. What you’re describing sounds like a more modern version of an arranged marriage. It’s sort of the equivalent of your father coming to you and saying “you need to marry so-and-so because then we’ll get X benefits”. Now in our modern society, that seems crazy. We want people to get married because they fall in love organically, not out of coercion. We want personal freedom to choose. We want to feel like it was an internal decision, not one forced upon us. And there’s good reason for that. Many arranged marriages end up not being good ones. If someone feels they were coerced into a relationship, they may not fully invest in it because they see it as an “obligation” vs something they want to do. And what if you get stuck with someone who is abusive or who you just aren’t compatible with? My grandparents had an arranged marriage and I don’t think I ever saw much love there. It was purely a survival move. At the same time, I doubt that societies that regularly had arranged marriages saw their situation as “dystopian”. I suspect they just saw it as a part of life, and many of them were able to find happiness regardless. You have to remember that autonomy and freedom of choice is really an SD Orange value. Anywhere else on the spiral does not place such a high value on this. Even Red does not value “personal freedom” on the whole, as someone at Stage Red is okay being a warlord / dictator that enslaves people. So my conclusion is that life would go on. Yes, there be a lot of problems with government trying to arrange marriages. But people would do it temporarily for the sake of survival, until we no longer felt it was at stake. There is also a cost for freedom. How much emotional and mental energy have you spent trying to figure out your dating life? The more freedom you have, the more decisions you have to make. While I like personal freedom, too much freedom can very quickly backfire, leaving you stuck in paralysis and making your life miserable.

I've been compiling a list of insights I've had around “neediness” and relationships. In particular, I feel that neediness has become a bit of a bad word on this forum, so I wanted to shake things up a bit. Some of my influences in writing this were Dr. Marshall Rosenberg (Non-Violent Communication), Teal Swan and Charles Eisenstein. You may wish to check out their work if you resonate with what I've written here. Would love to hear what you think! **Note** I will be using the word “need” is a colloquial way that is synonymous with the word “want”. **Note 2** This advice should be read with extra discernment by those with anxious attachment style or enmeshment trauma. It's also not for people in abusive or codependent relationships. If you're in these situations, please honor your needs and consider leaving. I am mostly concerned here with helping move people from independence to interdependence. 1. Non-Neediness vs non-neediness We can think of capital Non-Neediness in a Absolute spiritual sense. God is without self and form, yet simultaneously is all things. It is without lack, including even the ability to lack. Therefore we could say God needs nothing. It is Complete. From this perspective, all needs are in fact imaginary, as life itself is a thought in the Mind of God. You as this ego are a thought. We can think of lower case “non-neediness” as more of a relative non-neediness. If I just ate a huge meal, I don't need food at that moment. If I just slept 8 hours, I don't need to sleep more. Needs in this category are generally finite and satiable. They are the needs we are mostly concerned with. We can tap into the Absolute perspective of Non-Neediness, which grounds us. It's sort of a “checks and balance” to living as this finite form. But as a finite entity, perfect non-neediness is impossible to achieve. Even if we are only imagining our neediness. Which brings me maybe the single most important point in all of this... 2. All human relationships are based on meeting needs Asking people to be totally non-needy in relationships is asking people for the impossible. We cannot not have needs in relationships. In fact, if there are no needs being met, then there is no relationship at all. Needs create relationships. If I truly need nothing from you, and you need nothing from me, there is no reason for us to have a relationship. *note* don't confuse this with a “harsh pragmatism” that sees the world purely from a utilitarian perspective. Your needs actually go far beyond this. Contribution is a need. Love is a need. 3. You cannot meet all your needs on your own This may be the most controversial piece of this post. We are often taught in spiritual circles to love ourselves, be sovereign, be whole and complete, and to not be attached to anything. Peace comes from within. But these truisms can easily get misconstrued. Not only is it impossible for you to meet all your basic survival needs on your own (food, shelter, clothing, etc), I am going to go one step further. You cannot meet all your emotional needs on your own. People who love themselves and who feel whole and complete do not just sit in a room loving themselves. It's because they love themselves that they seek out and meet their needs. Which often involves others. Self-love includes having others meet your needs, not excludes it. **Note** yes, at the highest levels of nonduality where the distinction of “self/other” collapses, this line gets blurry and nonsensical. But it is still practical to make this distinction for our purposes here. 4. You can either meet your needs consciously or unconsciously There are two choices regarding your needs: a) Meet your needs consciously and deliberately or b) unconsciously manipulate your way to meeting your needs. There simply is no option to be non-needy. Often when people talk about being non-needy, they are only doing so as a strategy to meet their needs. They've learned that when they act not-needy, they (sometimes) get their needs met. When we meet our needs consciously, we can often build synergistic and win/win scenarios with others. We actually become psychologically healthier and can avoid many of the toxic elements of neediness. When we manipulate and go unconscious, it often falls into lose/lose scenarios. Our neediness becomes more toxic and damaging to others. 5. Clarity of needs is key What do we really need? Much of the toxicity of “neediness” comes not from having needs themselves, but on poorly answering this question. We mistake what we really need all the time. We may think we need a mansion, the latest gadget, or another partner. The potential list of what we could think we need is endless. And due to a lot of trauma and social programming, this list is often thoroughly misguided. If we due not distinguish what our true needs are vs what we have been unconsciously programmed with, that is a recipe for disaster both individually and collectively. What I've found is that most of my real needs are incredibly basic. They tend not to be flashy. Simple things will do just fine. So while it is possible that this clarity will reduce the number of needs you have or tone them down, that is NOT the goal. We are not seeking to get rid of needs. We are seeking clarity, and to let the needs fall where they may. If a surrendering is needed, it will then take place naturally once proper clarity is found. 6. Commitment requires neediness To commit to a relationship with someone is inherently needy. When we are non-committal and prioritize optionality, it allows us to keep things non-needy. No one is investing too much. We can always change our minds. But when we commit to someone, we are investing. It is no longer non-needy. And yet, the strongest and most fulfilling relationships are based in equally strong commitment. Commitment in a relationship allows for repair when inevitably the relationship struggles. 7. People want to be needed This one also goes a bit against the grain. We are told to be non-needy because no one wants to feel pressured. Better to play it cool. And certainly there is some truth there. Coercion or making demands is usually socially unpopular. But in our attempts to play it cool or maybe be seen as “alpha”, we often overlook an obvious point. People want to be needed. To be needed means you are valuable or desirable. It makes people feel like they are bringing something to the table, even if it's just being themselves. 8. Needing people is where you will find your greatest joy There is a real payoff from isolation that must be acknowledged. That payoff is that you will stay safe. Alone, there is no conflict. No differing agendas or opinions. No one who can let you down or hurt you. No one who can break your heart. No one who can judge you. You can more easily feel into who you truly are, away previous cultural programming. And in this, there is a certain safety. It's important to not demand the part of ourselves that desires this safety to give that up. If that is you, stay safe as long as you need. But eventually some of us will inevitably ask ourselves, is safety our highest priority? Could we maybe redefine safety not as avoiding conflict, but as including it? Could we be safe while still in the jungle that is relationships? Because that is where the most fun is. The complimenting and collaboration of unique forms IS part of the point of being alive and in this world based in duality. But this requires that we NEED each other. And all the vulnerability that goes along with that. 9. Our social problems come from a lack of meeting needs Why climate change? Why homelessness? Why racism? Why pandemics? These are, of course, extremely complex problems. A full discussion of this is beyond this post. But I will offer one lens here to view these problems, which is a lack of us truly meeting our own needs as well as others. When these shadow needs run unconsciously, it can create havoc socially. It is true that win/win scenarios can be good for those involved but bad for the collective. For example, a corrupt government official and a CEO who work out a deal that is good for both of them, but bad for the country. However, even in a case like this, the problem is that not ENOUGH needs are being taken into account. They are not accounting for the needs of the whole country, just for a small percentage of people. 10. Telling the truth and honest dialogue requires addressing needs If you do not feel that a person you are talking with is taking into account your needs, you will not listen to them. And that goes equally for the person talking to you. But when everyone's needs are known and on the table, and people feel these needs are being taken into account, it's amazing the dialogue that can open up. We sometimes like to hit people over the heads with the “hard truth” of our opinions. This often never goes far in convincing people, and then we blame them for being closed minded. But often in these scenarios, there are no needs being taken into account by either party. We have to understand that giving harsh feedback is earned through trust and relationship. And this can only occur if needs are being addressed. 11. Intimacy requires neediness If I don't know what you need, then I don't understand you. And if I don't understand you, we don't have intimacy. So we must know what this person you are in a relationship needs. This causes the person to feel seen, understood, and builds trust. And while intimacy is certainly more complicated that someone knowing your needs, it is nonetheless a necessary prerequisite.