Valach

Because then you get stuck in this place and you do not evolve. You "abundance" of woman becomes an addiction. You are not free, you are slave to your egoic desires.

I don't even know how to respond to that man. Your hot corporate girl is gonna be deeply in stage orange.

You are gonna have better luck turning non-hot woman into hot than turning unconsciousness person into consciousness.

That's not how it works. The reason people do it is exactly because it hurts them.

That freedom is quite illusory.

Yeah, that is what the guy saud. The inner wound creates a general sense of anxiety and the feeling of not being safe. One of the ways to cope with this is to get the validation of another human being, the more attractive this human being is, the better soothing this wound gets. Once you began to heal this wound you might find yourself with way lower sex drive. But I am still on the journey - though I totally can say that sex is way more psychological than physical.

Fascinating. I attended a healing retreat on attachment and almost word-to-word this is what the "therapist" said on the retreat. He did not view it in the sense of attraction since he is not involved in PUA but this is how he described a "healthy person". Interestingly, he also told me that he numerously saw that as people healed through their inner work, their sex drives dropped - often massively.

Hold on, I am not offering any copassion. I am over my experimental phase

I am not really certain on who makes better or worse leader. But there is definitely a biological advantage men have when they want to have a leading/commanding aura.

I think @LordFall deserves compassion with his struggles just like everyone else. But maybe you know him better than me

People get addicted to stuff because of internal shame. Because of feeling of wrongness. You do not help them by shaming them more. You have to understand that addictions are not a personal flow. They are an attempt of the organism to deal with some internal stuff. They actually make a lot of sense. I have to agree with @something_else here. This was not productive comment.

Never been. Would love to in the future

I live in Central Europe.

hmmm, hard to say. I did change cities but at 19 right after finishing high school so it is not really measurable. Doing cold approach pickup with dedicating coach did give me some benefits, but the biggest one by far is doing a true inner work and spiritual practices related to that. Nothing even compares. But I am quite new to the path.

Those are very basic needs. I do need others in the sense that I would perish otherwise. But I do not need the validation of woman. You do need some sort of tribe and close connections to thrive, but you do not get that by manipulating. You get that by being truly yourself and the right people will gravitate towards you. Manipulation is not so much about what you do or what you say. It is about why you say/do these things. If you say that out of wanting to provoke some sort of reaction, that is a manipulation. If you say that as a genuine expression of yourself, then that is fine. You need to cultivate strong inner connection first to even recognize it in yourself.

I am not dennying that increasing your real or percieved value does not bring benefits of getting the attention of others. I am simply saying that it is based on faulty premises that you need others in some ways. You do not. You only need that when your childhood was not great (which is almost everyone) and you feel like you need to gain your value by work achievments, getting woman etc. Essentially it all boils down to - instead of asking yourself how, ask yourself why. And it requires a lot of self awareness to answer that question.

@LordFall I can share a story regarding the manipulation and being vulnerable. I went on a date couple of months ago with a woman I was attracted to. Funnily enough I met her at one of the speed dating events. The date was "going well", we were vibing, we clicked and she was clearly attracted to me. At some point during the date she asked me "how do you do it that you are so confident, have you always been like that"? I could have rode this wave of validation and "manipulate" it into my gain. But I stopped and said to myself "lets be fucking real". And then I responded something like: "You know, I am actually not that confident. Couple of minutes ago you talked about how you are attracted to gym guys with great bodies. And I am not one (I am quite skinny). And now I feel inadequate for you." And I said that full well knowing that it is not the "correct" thing to say. That it is not attractive. And actually it made us connect even more - but that is not the point. The really satisfying thing was the self connection to my inner self I felt in the moment. That no matter the reaction I stay connected to myself and honor the stuff that is going on in me and express it freely. This is really in my opinion the road towards true connections and towards healthy self esteem. Not the performative pickup bullshit.

I am not offended by that. We have been there already in other topics. I went through the journey just like many of my friends. This desire is just stemming from bad childhood experiences and lack of self esteem, nothing. What else but manipulation is this? Sure, you can learn social skills a little bit. Though I have my opinions on that, but that is deeper topic. But at the end of the day whenever you act some way to get something from the other party, you are manipulating. When you surpress your bad sides that are unattractive in your opinion, that is text book manipulation just like lying about your job, intentions etc.. I agree with the connection. But connection is not about winning people over. It is about absolute vulnerability. And it start with a self connection firstly - with your inner child and the needs it has.

What do you mean by ego? The whole intention of trying to bed a lot of woman and attractive woman etc. is mostly just a plain old ego gratification. If you felt truly good about yourself, you felt worthy and loved yourself - you would then not think about ways to "improve" yoursself or to manipulate others into giving you validation. You would simply express yourself in the moment, even if you knew it might not be attractive. The core of this is self acceptance really. I am not talking about you specifically. Just a general "guy". I think you are cool dude, we just differ in our opinions.

I have tried that. I didn't feel like it increased my match ration much. Though I have to admit I did not do online dating that much since then. The thing is that it still does not resonate with myself, that I have to curate my profile artificially to appeal. I understand the dynamic, I just don't want to play it. I have issue with this approach. Firstly it assumes that woman can objectively describe what triggers and what does not trigger attraction in them. And that is not truth in my experience. Secondly, this is my whole issue with most of pickup industry. It is trying to artificially bend your personality to be validated more. It is the ultimate self abandonment. Really, when you think about it, it is coming from the same place as people pleasing - trying to change your behaviour/looks to be accepted and loved. Sure, you might get more/better woman because of that but it does not lead to long term happiness or healthy self esteem.

Yup. I have. the same opinion on them and experience. I really struggled getting good dates with them (attractive or interesting woman). When I compare it to the results I got in the real life it barely makes sense for me to use dating apps. And I would say I am even fairly good looking and quite tall. Just not really photogenic. And you can not convey personality on your dating profile much. it definitely is interesting how woman who like me when they meet me in real life would not really give me the like on the dating app.

Pickup is almost an anti thesis of good relationships.

How do you feel with dating apps? Do you like using them? I kind of see your point about the structure, but I highly value authenticity (though obviously it's very complex to describe what is actually means to be authetic) and I find that dating apps sort of force everyone to curate their profile for maximum reach and has an "off" feeling for me.

The guys also want the "best" possible partner.

In the future, I might. I am not dating at the moment.