something_else

Build a solid social circle. Holy fuck, that supercharges your dating results. I tried for years to do things without many friends and it's such a handicap. Dating apps may work well for you too, but you need good pics. It took me like 3-4 years to get solid dating app pics, almost all of them are from travel.

It always freaks me out when I see high ageplay scores because I know what questions it asks for that category

I think corruption is too strong of a word for this. I suspect if the mother was known amongst the community of these churches they'd have helped her. Christian churches are very cliquey from what I gather and they'll be very supportive of members, but not very supportive of random people unknown to the church. I also suspect that if the mother went there in person she'd have been offered more help as well. Buddhists make a bigger deal out of helping everybody they can regardless of their relationship to the organisation.

I'm similar. I had two tiny draws off a joint my friend has and it was almost like I'd taken a low strength tab of acid. Insane. They thought I was making it up. I think this explains why I HATE smoking weed around other people, especially when I've been drinking. It makes me incredibly hyperaware, paranoid and anxious.

I’m having more success on dating apps than ever. I’ve used them at three different ages, 17 (was allowed on tinder at the time), 21-22 and now at 25. At 17 I barely got any attention at all. At 21-22 I got some, but rarely from girls I actually thought were cute. And now at 25 I finally feel like I’ve got it on lock. The success largely comes from having really cool travel photos from a year of backpacking. I also look a bit better than I used to in terms of style and grooming

You're right, but what I think you're missing is that in order to transform your life from that of a socially anxious basement dwelling neckbeard into that of a work of art will require a lot of effort. It isn't something you can just 'do' or 'be' on a whim. I don't particularly like the framing of a lot of pickup advice but it is a good first step to get a man out into the world and talking to people. I think framing it as 'pickup' is a fundamental mistake because, like you say, it's very needy. It has a lot of very negative connotations and for good reason. It's much better to instead frame it as building social skills, but a lot of the stuff involved is very similar regardless of what you call it. It largely just involves forcing yourself into social situations, pushing your comfort zone socially, making friends, and yea, trying to get laid. I'm sure you'd agree that none of this is inherently bad behaviour. Most men go through a stage like this in their late teens to early twenties without even really knowing what pickup is, it's just a natural stage of male development that got formalised into pickup at some point.

I don't doubt there is some truth to this. There's a good quote: "Society views men as disposable agents and women as precious objects" which explains this quite well. Because men are typically seen to have more agency, they are blamed for their actions much more. While women are seen to have less agency and control over their behaviour, and therefore society sees them as less inherently responsible for their actions. While it sucks that men are often blamed more, being treated as actually having agency is of massive benefit too. For example I expect if you conducted a similar experiment which attributed credit to positive actions, men would receive much more credit than the women would for the same actions.

Are you financially capable of moving into a serviced apartment or built-to-rent style place? A lot of them offer social events for residents, it's a very easy way to make friends and reduce the feeling of isolation. Moving into one of these places was one of the best decisions I've ever made. Like you I used to struggle with isolation, but now I have a really solid friend group living in the same building as me. It's amazing. The downside is they're really expensive.

Yea, I hate going out with guys who are hyper-competitive. I can compete if I want, to but it just sucks the fun out of the night. I'd rather go out with people who's main goal is to have fun rather than to get laid. I've always gotten laid more when out with chill mixed gender groups anyway, mostly when I wasn't even trying. It makes you look more high status and approachable than being with a group of 5 thirsty dudes scanning for women on the dancefloor like meerkats. Also, ironically, I've found that the best wingmen are always women, married dudes, or gay guys.

If you're relatively good looking as a guy, "acting properly" can pretty much be summarised as "be sociable, meet lots of people, and don't be weird" and in many cases that will be enough. If you want to set charisma as your main goal then there is more involved. Being weird/unique is actually a good thing, but it can take a lot of practice to figure out how to express your weirdness in a way that is charismatic and not off putting.

Club nights aren't as popular with my generation or younger anymore. They typically seem to prefer what I'd call a 'bar with a dance floor' over a traditional nightclub. But that's just a preference, it's not like clubs are going to go away anytime soon. And these bars are good places to party. I will say this is very UK centred opinion as well. I have no idea what it's like elsewhere.

It’s usually just some light teasing or flirting that socially awkward pickup dudes have given a name to because they don’t know how to respond

It’s definitely not too late. I’d focus on making friends first though, having friends to do stuff with makes meeting women much easier

In some sense I agree with you, our society favours quick pharmaceutical fixes over long term healthy choices. That isn't really a secret, and yes, big pharmaceutical companies exploit this desire we have for quick fixes. But you are suggesting something even more extreme than this. You're suggesting that there is a natural quick fix available to anybody, which is being kept secret in some worldwide conspiracy. There are many problems with this thinking. Here are a few that come to mind: why do the rich and powerful, who are presumably aware of this conspiracy, still die of cancer and other ailments when simple and readily available vegetables could cure them? how many people would need to know about a conspiracy of this scale? probably several million people worldwide, what are the chances they all keep their mouth shut and the secret doesn't leak? any one of them could revolutionise the world at a moment's notice, yet for some reason they don't what is the mechanism by which, for example, broccoli, kills cancer cells? yes, eating healthy throughout your entire life will prevent many diseases, but you are suggesting that eating a specific diet can cure, not just prevent, cancer. That literally means there has to be a mechanism via which broccoli kills cancer cells if what you are saying is true

Sure they did, lol. Obviously if you eat healthy throughout your entire life it significantly reduces the chance of you getting serious diseases, it's a preventative/proactive measure you take over many years. But the idea that you could cure pre-existing late stage cancer with a temporary prescription of broccoli and camping just seems a bit delusional.