Chuck

Thank you guys for so many comments. I really appreciate them. I have been thinking more about it lately and seem to found a personal pick-up/relationship couch out of nowhere, who is for some reason eager to help me. I also realised that if you want to push yourself in the direction that is against all your values it can be useful but you cannot sustain it for any meaningful amount of time and you will definitely sabotage yourself. This was for me the case with pick-up. I did get dates but I was reluctant to call back girls because I did not subconsciously see any point in having short-term relationship and because all this manipulative game repelled me. Another interesting thing that happened to me was when things turned out bad and a girl that was into me and who I was about to have sex soon decided to cancel our date at my place. So, it instantly occurred to me that she somehow realised that I was doing it only because of pick-up and our relationship was not 100% genuine. So, I stopped going to this pick-up course of mine and decided to approach relationships from another less manipulative perspective. Because I simply couldn't go against myself and pretend to be someone that I am not.

This is my first post here and I would love to hear some honest feedback on this. I think this story is typical of those who are very successful in certain domains of life e.g. education, business, finance, etc but struggle with having relationships with the opposite sex. I have a superior education, as I finished 3 universities (1 Bsc and 2 Msc). The 2nd one was a top business school in Germany and the third one was a top business school in England. I speak two foreign languages, which is rare if you consider that I am Russian. After leaving my last university without any effort I set up a profitable business, so that now I can focus on other things in my life. Also, I started meditating and contemplating, which brought me a relatively short but powerful enlightenment experience as well as some minor revelations. I am doing sports regularly and run a half-marathon. And I am only 24 year-old. It seems that I managed to accomplish all these things because I was concerned with the opinion of others and wanted to be better than the rest. For this very reason I struggled with relationships and had a very limited experience with girls. After attending public speaking courses I was advised to try pick-up. I realised that I could not approach girls, unless a had a flower in my hand to give to them or some other tangible excuse to talk to them. Another thing about me is that I was heavily addicted to porn for the last 7 years, though I realised it only three years ago. I've been trying to stop it since then but I could not for a long period of time. I realised that the only way to really become free is to start dating girls and replace my addiction with something else, even if it is another addiction. Because of the two aforementioned reasons I decided to attend pick-up courses. This has been incredibly painful, as I am a nice guy and a gentlemen: breaking my rose glasses was not a nice experience. Despite this, it was also incredibly rewarding, as I know now how the opposite sex thinks and what it wants. I learnt how to pay compliments, entertain girls and be fun around them. I believe that if I continue this I would be able to solve my remaining problems. In terms of spiral dynamics, I think I was on the green level but now I decided go back to the orange one. Though it is hard, I believe I need to get handle of relationships and significantly improve my communication skills before going forward. If it means that in the process I may harm girls a little bit by not being a gentleman and by having one-night stands this should be ok. Is anyone here also thinks that being on the green level is no good, unless you already solved all your problems and issues? I also believe that thinks that you may learn in pick-up are not anyhow less life-changing than those that you realise by doing consciousness work. I had a limited exposure to the both and I guess you do need to get handle on relationships e.g. overcome your approach anxiety, learn how to flirt, etc before focusing on enlightenment. What do you guys think?