something_else

You sound VERY angry mate, over something that’s ultimately pretty inconsequential. Why did this post hurt you so much? You doing OK?

I was bullied relentlessly in school and had essentially zero friends, zero social life and crippling social anxiety until I was 22. I got sick of it, so for around 2 years from 22 to 24 I committed to doing something sociable every single weeknight and pushing myself to go out and partying at weekends. At first solo (which was tough) and then eventually I made a group of friends to go out with and I started to really love it. I'm not judging guys like that at all because I basically was one. But I feel compelled to push other people to take action and become properly sociable because I did and it made my life so much better. I'm not part of any hippy groups at all really, I went to a chess club, a jiu jitsu gym, and some hiking groups and then had some friends who I partied with at weekends. I spent the vast majority of my free time from aged 5 to 21 playing video games. It's probably one of my biggest regrets because it's socially fucked me for the rest of my life. But like I said I've done a good amount of work to try and undo all of that shitty social conditioning as much as possible.

What statistics? Any I can find show an increase in lack of sex among both genders since covid. With younger men being hit maybe 5-15% harder depending on the source. And that imbalance evens out as you look at older age ranges too, which makes sense. There's a difference between having a few friends and having an active social life. Smoking weed in your mates flat with a few friends every weekend doesn't count. Not suggesting that applies to the people you're talking about here, but in general when I've had these discussions with dudes before and they tell me they have an active social life but still can't get laid, that's what it ends up looking like. If you're doing activities where you're in busy mixed gender groups and meeting lots of new people every week, you're going to have opportunities to get laid at least occasionally. Well the cause is kind of simple. It's mainly the fact that we are much less sociable than we used to be overall, especially since covid. Men get hit harder by that than women because the barrier to entry for building a social life from scratch for guys is a bit higher than it is for women. But the solution from the POV of a guy who can't get laid is pretty much the same, you need to become a lot more sociable.

The regular nice guy with no social life isn't getting any. Most of the 'regular nice guys' I've met who have an active social life are getting laid at least sometimes. The idea that 'the regular nice guy is getting nothing' comes from incel subcultures that are composed of guys who are chronically online and rarely leave their house. They conclude that women must not like them because they are 'regular nice guys' but it isn't that. It's because they have no social skills.

If she can’t afford $50 for half a dinner I’d like to know that sooner rather than later lol Also you talk a lot about how one should be open to other perspectives here, but that seems to apply only when that other perspective is yours. When it’s reversed you don’t seem particularly open to anything other than your own opinions. Just something I noticed in this thread. Make of that what you will.

I went backpacking SEA for the past year. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Not entirely. In fact, in many ways it's the opposite. Yes, the model used in the Web UI for Deepseek is heavily censored by the Chinese government, but the open source models they have released have no censoring at all. OpenAI's offerings have probably have more bias in the form of human intervention than Deepseek's open source models.

Look at Leo's post from the start. That covers it pretty well. In the early stages you just want to avoid any awkward discussions over who pays because they kill the mood. So if it's cheap (like a coffee or drinks) then just offer to pay. It's nice and the girl will appreciate it. If she really insists on paying her share (which in my experience a lot of girls do nowadays) then split it. It's really not that hard. IMO going for big expensive meals with girls before you actually know them properly is kind of silly. It can create a lot of tension, expectation and awkwardness. You want first dates to be casual, playful, and cheap to the point where you can just pay without really thinking much of it.

'Acting authentic' is an oxymoron. Generally speaking the most authentic guys do pretty well. But it's a kind of "I don't give a fuck what anyone thinks" authenticity. That's actual authenticity. Also you're massively stereotyping here and vaguely hinting at the fact that you think you're a 'good guy' which is funny given the rest of your posts, lol.

What is his intention then? You honestly think he was intending to do a Roman salute? Even if he was then he is claiming that he is totally unaware of how it's identical to a Nazi salute and in that case he should be removed from his position for being utterly stupid. He's either being racist or utterly stupid but there's no way to spin this as a acceptable behaviour for a (now essentially) world leader unless you're also racist. If you go around asking people in Britain for a f*ggot you'll get your head smashed in. The word you're thinking of is 'fa*' and most young people and plenty of old people won't use that term anymore for this very reason. Again, you would be right if he wasn't currently the top advisor for one of the most powerful world leaders in the world. He has a higher standard of behaviour placed on him because of his position.

If the city has nightlife you'll be fine, otherwise you'll struggle. I actually managed really well in a city with 100k. It has some advantages. It's usually cheaper. For example, this city had two decent clubs and I lived like 30 seconds round the corner from the entrance to both. It would be unbelievably expensive to live that close to the centre of nightlife in a big city.

This thread gave me a good laugh, but it is a shame how badly he's taken this. I hope he's alright. I remember NoSelf being a pretty decent poster in the past but honestly I've been wondering how he was still a mod for a while now. Almost every post he made was confrontational, or made zero sense, or both. It's also interesting to see a bit more about how modding works on the forum too you bald fuck @Leo Gura

F*ggot used to mean bundle of sticks, but if you go around calling people a f*ggot now and tell them "I'm just calling you a bundle of sticks" then everyone is going to, rightly, accuse you of being homophobic and shun you.

Another quick point. Men feel like these manipulation tactics are necessary because they don't think they are good enough to deserve a woman without tricking her. If they were good enough (or more specifically if they believed they were good enough) they wouldn't feel like they had to spend time learning how to trick women into liking them. This^ is like the fundamental problem with the pickup style of thinking.

I'd rather spend time making a great product instead of learning to manipulate people into buying a shitty product. That's always worked for me in dating contexts. Yea, exactly. Study these people from a distance, but don't try to become them. You can learn to be very interesting and emotionally stimulating person without resorting to outright manipulation.

He's essentially recommending that you become extremely emotionally manipulative, lol.

I had a friend in high school who was in on the blackpill trend super early, around 2014. We'd been using the term 'normie' together for probably 5 years before that. It was standard vocabulary in nerdy gen z high school groups to refer to the cool popular people. I'm guessing that most of the blackpill community is built from people who were in those nerdy friend groups and they've just taken the phrase 'normie' with them. Honestly most blackpill terminology is heavily based on high school dynamics, I think a lot of them have just never grown up past high school. That friend I have still primarily talks about dynamics we had with people in school 10 years ago whenever I see him.

I don't think that's right. I've heard it used far more in contexts outside of blackpill/redpill than inside them

I'm coming to meet some friends who live in Cologne for Carneval haha, so any recommendations would be awesome. Then going to Frankfurt and Munich.

As someone who sweats under my armpits pretty badly, I'd say just use deodorants (not anti-perspirants) Anti-perspirants clog up your pores and make you sweat more in other places. And they eventually make you sweat more in the places you do use them too. I'll use an anti-perspirant occasionally if I'm going out partying or doing something where I really don't want to sweat under my pits a whole bunch, but using them every day isn't really necessary if you use deodorants to kill the bacteria that produce the smell.

Dunno. Don’t have that much experience. Only really partied in the UK and South East Asia. I’m going to Germany next week which is known for having pretty good nightlife though.

IMO it’s better to just go out to clubs and bars and practice chatting, flirting, and being sociable. The best instructor is a charismatic friend to go partying with. These pickup people are largely grifters preying on your insecurity. You’ll notice that the more you watch, the worse you feel about yourself. That’s by design. Because it primes you to buy shit from them that you think will solve your problems.

Yes, of course. But the manner in which you do it should not be so emotionally cold, like discarding an old car. Which is how you were describing it. I don't know where you're getting this "crumbs" thing from. It's not really apparent from OPs post. It's like you're assuming OP is some low value loser who is stuck with this girl because he doesn't have other options. Which I don't think is the case at all.

This almost sounds sociopathic. You can't just discard someone you've been with and loved for 4 years like this. Even if it's the right thing to do, you should do your absolute best to consider your partners feelings when breaking up. Not just discard them like an old car

Bro wtf lol