aurum

That it will take too much “time” is just your excuse for not doing this. You don’t actually care about the time. In the time it took for us to have this conversation, you probably could have already made multiple friends. The alternative is you spending even more time, spinning your wheels. Which will likely get you no where except frustrated. No, the whole point of pickup is to get the girl. Which, from what I gather from your posts, you are not. Dating is inherently social. Its never been something people were self reliant on. There is a reason why almost every guy meets women through their social circle, and it’s not that they’re all a bunch of losers who can’t approach. And why would you even want to be self-reliant? As long as you don’t fall into toxic co-dependency, it’s so much better to rely on other people. It’s way more fun and it’s waaaay easier. Good, then go do that. Forget about cold approach. Not every guy needs to do it.

Don’t just blame cancel culture. No one is mad that guys are improving themselves. That just fuels a self-righteous attitude. It’s more complex than that. And there are some legitimately shady things taught in the pua world. I think RSD was definitely one of the better group of teachers and had healthier teachings overall. But the overall industry has lots of toxicity.

Nothing to do with copyright. Legal liability as in teaching things that are controversial. And that could get them sued, removed from YouTube, or cause another media fiasco.

My guess is legal liability. They’ve moved to more general self-dev content.

Firstly, I’d say all these things are not just the man’s responsibility. It may be practical to assume that responsibility at times, but it’s not really how these things work. You cannot build intimacy or anything else on that list in a vacuum. Both the man and woman are equal parts of that dance. Seeing it otherwise creates resentment. “How come the man has to do everything? It’s not fair”.

As I already said in this thread, hit the online forums. This is where a sizeable number of pua guys still congregate. And go to local pua events. Like if RSD does a free tour or event in your city, 100% go to that. Otherwise, I would make friends with some of those party animals who you don’t resonate with. I know it’s not ideal, but if your intention is to get good at pickup, those guys can help you with that.

Seddit (r/seduction on Reddit) was decent back in the day. I have no idea how it is now, I haven’t used it in years. RSD forums were also decent. But they’ve been shut down last I heard. You’ll just have to google around. As long as you’re in a major city, you should have no problem finding at least one or two guys. Don’t be picky at first, if they’re willing to go out, that’s good enough. I would give this narrative up. You are spending even more dozens of hours trying to learn something that isn’t meant to be achieved alone. It’s not about kissing ass. I never once kissed ass and I had literally dozens of wingmen when I was going out regularly. When guys see that you approach hard and get results, they will be begging to go out with you. And if you’re not going out with “wingmen”, then at the very least you need to be going out with normal friends. Nothing else will sky rocket your results like this. Nothing.

I know you get this already, but I’ll just reiterate my POV for other guys reading this. Having good wings is arguably the most important part of learning pickup. And by “good”, I just mean guys who are willing to go out a lot and approach. You cannot do this alone. Even if you want to go out solo to push your comfort zone and strengthen your independence, that should still be a minority of your nights out. The vast majority should involve other people you know. Which can also include female friends who are maybe not formal “wings”. In you’re in a major city, hit the online forums. There will be other guys who are into this. Message them or post an ad. If you don’t live in a major city, then your goal should be to move to one. Trying to learn pickup in a small town doesn’t work, you need lots of people.

Not believing in aliens and telekinesis = total normie move.

@charlie cho These kind of nights are common for new guys learning pickup. You’re going to feel like you’ve been by a truck. They do get less frequent, but I’m not sure they ever go away. Usually in a day or two you’ll feel fine. One of the things I used to do when I felt like that was watch RSD videos. Not even to really learn anything, just for the encouragement. If you live in a major city, I’d consider either joining or starting a group of guys who are into learning pickup. Online forums are where it’s at for this kind of thing.

@charlie cho If she’s ignoring you, she’s not that interested. There may be situations where she will ignore you for other reasons, like wanting to see if you’ll come towards her. But those are in the minority.

I’m not talking about behaviors that are pro-social but just happen to be outside your comfort zone. If approaching a stranger or asking for a phone number is outside your comfort zone, I agree you need to learn that. I am talking about having been in the community for many years and witnessing many guys go through it. A lot of what goes down is manipulative and / or anti-social behavior. This guise of “we’re just learning to become more congruent” is often just a convenient excuse. That’s the theory at least. It doesn’t often happen that way. But I agree that more of a focus on inner game is necessary if the community is going to evolve. Its gotta eventually go stage Green. Of course by that point, it won’t even be pickup anymore. It will just be socially atuned, emotionally intelligent men being men. And they won’t have much interest in trying to pick up huge numbers of women.

Because many times they are being fake. And it’s not this evo-psych narrative that women just don’t want to be impregnated with inferior beta-male genes. No one wants to be manipulated or taken advantage of. It’s egotism and anti-social behavior.

Then go for it. Demonization of pickup is untenable as all demonization is untenable upon close enough inspection. Which includes even demonizing people who demonize. Pickup itself is a manifestation of a stage Orange society. As such, it has most of the flaws and benefits of stage Orange. You gain optionality and freedom of choice, but you can lose deep intimacy. You can gain novelty and faster gratification, but can lose commitment. But of course if you’re stage Orange, you don’t care that much about commitment or intimacy anyway. So PUA makes sense. And as much as I’d wish that society was higher up the spiral, I have to recognize that is my bias. And remember how much I appreciated that people were willing to meet me where I was at.

Because it’s not the phase of life they are in. Most guys here are young and feel like they lack options when it comes to dating. So their main concern is maximizing optionality. That’s also what PUA instructors tend to teach. Then they conflate optionality with abundance. I believe it’s also a product of our larger stage Orange society. Everything is about maximizing options and freedom of choice.

I think it’s even deeper than that. If you truly had a level of self-worth close to that high, it’s highly unlikely you’d be interested in doing pick up at all. Or at the very least, you’d be uninterested in the more ego-based parts of pickup, like cranking your lay count as high as possible to feel good about yourself. Most guys I see who are actually “in sexual abundance” with women are quite content to just be in a relationship with one woman. It’s actually scarcity that drives a “I need more” attitude and that you need four girls on rotation. In the same way that it’s sometimes someone with the MOST money that feels the most scarcity. Abundance does not equal optionality. A cutting down of options can actually signify abundance, because you feel that choice is enough. Which is not to say I’m against guys going through a PUA phase. I’ve been very critical of PUA lately, but any guys reading this should understand my bias is that I’ve already been there. I’ve done my 1,000+ approaches. If you haven’t done that, PUA might be temporarily valuable for you.

Rape exists, therefore it obviously is. Any of that stuff that you’re imagining isn’t for the greatest good is only your limited ego’s perspective. Which of course does not mean we should go around raping each other. Or that society cannot be made more loving / conscious. If we made the decision as a society not to rape anymore, that would also be the greatest good. Everything that happens is the greatest good.

There are no limitations on consciousness. But would that be in service to the greatest good? Probably not. Therefore it won’t happen.

If you’re saying that some women will withhold sex out of fear in order to get commitment, I would agree. That does happen. Both genders can play these fear-based power games.

??? People commit to each other before sex all the time. And it absolutely can be desirable to build a proper relationship. Only in pick up artist land is commitment a scary thing that needs to be withheld by the guy until he gets laid. And that’s because most PUAs are coming from a place where they felt like they were taken advantage of. They tried being “nice” up front, but that didn’t get them laid. So they overcompensate. I don’t read that what OP is requesting is that unreasonable. She’s not asking for a marriage proposal and three gold balloons. She just wants to know that this guy she is emotionally investing in isn’t going to flip and bounce on her.

@Flowerfaeiry Speaking from my own experience, I wouldn’t say sleeping on the second date would make me lose respect for her. But there is a possibility of rushing into things physically before both of you are ready. Especially when we have rules in our head about when sex “should” occur. I would let it be more intuitive than that. Listen to your body.

? OP wanted to make this a mega thread. Posting examples is generally what that’s all about. There are certainly risks to sharing conspiracy videos, which is what I was referring to in my previous post. This is epistemological off-roading. It is potentially dangerous, but there’s also lessons to be learned by studying conspiracies to see how they delude people.

This should about cover it: Conspiracy theories are one of the major problems I see in the new age community. It’s tempting to think that maybe just because you’ve discovered some truths outside the mainstream level of consciousness, that EVERY theory that isn’t mainstream must be true. In reality, not being a sheep and going epistemically off-roading is a big responsibility. If you’re not careful, you’ll just end up sucked into crazy conspiracy theories. And it seems many new age people fail at this.

@WonderSeeker I did a bootcamp with Todd. In hindsight, I’d say the bootcamp was really only valuable because I made it valuable. I did an absurd amount of approaches that weekend. But truthfully, I could have saved myself the 2.5k and done the same thing at home. Todd mostly just had us do our own thing without much attention. The thing that ultimately really helped me was not doing a bootcamp. It was having good wings / friends, and committing over the course of months / years to going out.

My sense is that you should flip this. You’re already assuming you will not find the right degree. Instead, I would commit myself fully to finding and obtaining your degree, EVEN IF it turns out not to be what you want to do. I would cross that bridge when you get there, not try to deal with it when you don’t even know if it’s going to happen. And if you split your focus between your plan A and plan B, realistically you will likely fail at plan A. So don’t hedge. Assume plan A is all you got, even if it’s not.