something_else

I have dated casually for extended periods of time, and it's for a few reasons. Firstly, most relationships I see look pretty miserable. You sacrifice most of your freedom and lose a lot of yourself in a relationship. Secondly, the consequences of getting it wrong are high. Especially once you've been together for 4+ years it becomes very hard to end things, yet it is often not until around the 3-4 year mark that you really see the core issues actually start to develop. Thirdly, dating casually, especially as a man, grows you quite a lot in many ways. Gotta face a lot of fears. Fourth, sex with lots of different people is fun, and if you make sure to follow safe sex principles, the risk is low as well. This is not to say I don't want a long term relationship some day, just probably not in my 20s. I would rather live my own life throughout my 20s than sacrifice half of it for someone else in a way that ends up blowing up. I'm probably on the avoidant scale to a degree, but I am also capable of forming deep emotional connections. I don't mind opening myself up to other people fully, or sharing my authentic self. I just fundamentally hate the loss of freedom that a long term relationship requires and so it is not worth the risk/sacrifice for me just now It's pretty easy as long as everybody involved knows that it's just casual. Treat partners with respect, treat them as humans, and enjoy their company. Don't just use their body and then discard them

Perhaps. In my case, I go on a date every few weeks with somebody from a dating app who also has similarly casual intentions, or maybe once per month (or less) I go out to a bar/club with my friends and sometimes end up hooking up with someone. It's not really clear to me what the negative impacts of that on my life would even be.

Majority came from a year of backpacking, but in total this came from around 3 years of being single.

It's how I got to over 100 partners, lol Never had an STD, unwanted pregnancy, and I've also had two healthy long term (3+ year) relationships as well.

You're allowed your preferences, but it seems extreme to call it a mental illness. Especially if you do it responsibly by focusing on having safe sex, regular STD tests, not leading people on, communicating clearly that everything is casual etc. having a lot of partners isn't really inherently a negative thing. Context is important.

I find low effort mass appeal marketing to be quite annoying as well. Occasionally I see some really clever and creative marketing that I feel shows marketing can be appreciated as an art form.

That sounds like a pretty accurate assessment of pickup, although I (perhaps because I am biased) do not think avoidant attachment style is really a negative. I have quite a few deep friendship bonds and I've been in several long term relationships where there was a deep emotional connection, so I'm capable of attachment. I just don't really see why it's necessary to completely attach on to a person to the degree that a long term relationship requires. That is all very fair, I agree with basically everything here

I think the primary reason men end up casually dating for extended periods of time (probably myself included) is avoidant tendencies. You must sacrifice so much freedom to be in a relationship and to me that is rarely worth it. I think freedom is one of my highest values. Whether that is healthy or not is debatable. I can just maintain friendships and casual relationships and get all of my emotional and physical needs met while still also maintaining the freedom I enjoy. Most long term relationships I see are pretty miserable, though there are exceptions. Hedonism is chasing only pleasure in your life. Chasing some pleasure in your life is not really hedonism. Doing nothing fun or pleasurable sounds like a miserable way to live life, like at that point why even bother being alive. Life is about finding a balance of pleasure seeking and achieving longer term goals.

It's not really clear to me why pursuing pleasure is inherently wrong. It only becomes a problem if it is pursued to the degree that it severely interferes with other things in your life. Also, especially as a guy, dating casually can force you to confront a lot of your fears as well. It definitely grows you.

The guys who have success doing this have mastered convincing a woman that she was just so special that he had to approach her on the street. Meanwhile he has executed this exact same deception on 30 other woman that passed down that high street in past few hours. Success in this kind of thing is fundamentally based on deception because if the girls knew what you were doing they'd be repulsed.

It is not really inherently high value or low value. Some people who have a lot of casual sex are doing it unethically and unconsciously and some are doing it ethically and consciously.

If every now and then you approach a women you see while going about your day, that's totally fine, lots of perfectly normal but confident dudes do this. I don't think anybody takes issue with it. It's spam approaching every girl that passes down a high street that is quite toxic and rightfully perceived as creepy by women. The reason is because a man who actually had value and a social life would not need to do this, and so it makes you come across as incredibly low value, to the point of being a social outcast.

Mine is pretty high, but I never set out to "sleep with 100 women", I just kind of got there over several years by partying and travelling a lot. Largely all of this was done under the lens of improving my social skills and overcoming social anxiety rather than actual 'pickup'. Setting yourself a goal of sleeping with 100 women is quite odd, and I think pickup as a framework is quite degenerate in general. Especially the spammy high street kind.

This is nuanced, I suspect a lot of the stats here are skewed by things like gang activity, which your average man does not really need to worry about just walking down the street. An average woman is probably more likely to be attacked/injured/assaulted/harassed by random men on the street just because she is a woman. Your average man has probably rarely or never been bothered by a stranger on the street, while the average woman has somewhat frequently. This is why women fear walking down the street on their own more.

Yes, and if you give her nothing other than boring mechanical and logistical texting she will largely feel nothing towards you. Again, I'm not arguing you shouldn't be direct, I'm arguing that you should try to be engaging and interesting as well as direct, and that combining all of those together is where the skill in texting lies.