Valach

Agreed. But then why do we want someone who is not capable of being intimate with us?

Absolute vulnerability to me. It is the lack of controlling.

I actually have the old RSD course (I think it was Hotseat at Home), so I'm familiar with the concepts they teach. Where I think we disagree is on what self-esteem actually is. To me, genuine self-esteem isn't confidence that comes from approaching women, getting results, or being in a certain state. It's the ability to accept yourself regardless of what state you're currently in. If you wake up feeling grumpy, anxious, or mentally exhausted after a long day of work, you're still okay. You don't immediately feel the need to escape into a different emotional state before you can accept yourself. That's a much deeper issue than game. The reason I keep pushing back is that your framework still ties your sense of self to external evidence. If you're approaching, opening, in flow, and getting positive reactions, then you feel confident. If those things disappear, what happens to that confidence? That's exactly what toxic shame tends to do. It says, "I'm not enough as I am, but if I collect enough external proof, I can finally feel okay." To me, that's the same pattern you see in other areas of life. If you talked to a very Stage Orange businessman about self-love, he might say, "Show me your bank account and then I'll tell you whether self-love works." The metric simply changes—from money, to women, to status—but the underlying mechanism is the same: using external achievements to regulate your self-worth. None of this means approaching is bad. Exposure can be incredibly valuable. I just don't think it creates self-esteem. At best, it can increase confidence in a specific skill. Genuine self-esteem is something much more unconditional than that.

Most of them, yes. Obviously most of my friends are also only the people who are interested in this kind of work. But I have friends who are "normal". Like recently I started to hang out with my gym trainer. But I do not hide from him who I am - I try to present in a way that is digestible for him but I do not think that is me being inauthentic. Also I do not understand the part about becoming mirror - could you expand on that? @Miguel1 I do not think being authetic means that I go around telling people some insights or telling them how I view their inner worlds.

Could be. I have not lived it for so long to talk about it. But even now I have couple of friends who resonate with who I am so I am okay in this regard. Finding a partner is going to be different task though, lets see

That's actually where I think my perspective differs. Learning fundamentals like listening well, communicating clearly or respecting boundaries obviously makes sense. What I'm questioning is learning to optimise your behaviour primarily around what gets the best reactions from other people. My concern is that if the underlying motivation is "How do I get people to like me?" then repeatedly practising that may strengthen the habit of looking outside yourself for validation. From my perspective, authenticity isn't something you add after mastering performance. It's a different way of relating to people altogether.

I agree that a middle path will probably maximise social results. My question is whether maximising social results should always be the objective. If expressing something that is genuinely true for me causes someone to like me less, I'm becoming less convinced that's necessarily a bad outcome. It may simply reveal incompatibility rather than represent a failure of social skills. In other words, I think authenticity changes the optimisation target. Instead of optimising for being liked by as many people as possible, you're optimising for expressing yourself honestly and seeing who naturally resonates with that. Not to mention it is just so much more fulfilling for your own soul.

You have a misunderstanding what innergame is. It is not some affirmation you tell yourself. The "authentic" thought you have that tell you that you are not attractive are not yours. They have been planted there. What happens if you are out of the flow state? Do you lose your confidence? Average person is highly traumatised. Average guy who gets into pickup even more so. This is not being critical of you taking action. By any means go for it. But you seem to lack understanding what innergame or real self esteem etc is about. The real confidence is not build upon something. Not upon your looks, not upon how much money you make or how many woman want you in the moment, or what is your current flow/momentum or how much action you are taking. Flow is basically an attempt to compensate for having low self esteem. "When I am not in state I am not acceptable and worthy, but when I reach it I am okay - works quite similiar with alcohol or drugs".

Agreed. Many of the folks I met in pickup communities simply had no real friendships. You can't go out and talk to random people from such a low place.

The status/finances advice is actually mainstream advice - what we suggest on here is niche. My experience is that charisma/social skills/confidence absolutely dominate over money. Of course if you are some famous rapper or sports person you are gonna be above charismatic dudes. But that is just not really realistic or productive outlook for average guy. Average guy can build up his charisma in fairly short time frame. Building up any material success from a scratch in that time frame is quite a bit harder so the ROI is lower. Ps: I can't view what you sent, I do not have IG, what is it about?

Just sparking good emotions in people is a ton of social value but not much materialistic value. Some funny, charismatic guy who has not much else going on for him is just more appealing to woman than someone who may have money and cool lifestyle but is a bore. Seen it too many times.

You can go fulfill your survival needs without being manipulative or exploiting others.

What I find interesting is that your framework seems to evaluate the quality of a man's relationship with women primarily by how successful or efficient he is with them. To me, that actually hints at a subtle form of objectification. If the health of your relationship with women is measured mainly by how much attraction, sex or cooperation you get from them, then women are still being evaluated largely in terms of what they provide for you. That's still making your internal state dependent on them fulfilling your emotional or physical needs. I'd almost argue the opposite: the healthier your relationship with women becomes, the less your well-being depends on how successful you are with them. To me, genuine empathy starts when you see someone as a human being first and a woman second. Their value isn't determined by how attracted they are to you, how much validation they give you, or how efficiently the interaction goes. Those things may improve naturally, but they're no longer the metric by which you evaluate the relationship.

While some of what you say has some validity, there are definitely many many men who dislike woman and have not much of empathy for them whilst being succesfull with them.

I just want to say that, regardless of whether I agree with every opinions of yours, I really appreciate how elegantly and constructively you present your opinions. Been noticing it for some time

What do you feel would be productive?

Sorry bro but that is just such a cringe thing to say

That is fair. I was just pointing that out You could easily say a woman is manipulating by putting on a makeup or nice fit if we get down to it.

Most of what we consider "normal social skills" is essentially manipulation though. Average guy who doesn't do pickup and goes on a date say from tinder is still gonna be very manipulative.

But the men are just as immature and shallow as woman so I do not understand why we highlight it in woman?

It is a nice step, but none of this implies the people attending will be secure. That stuff just is way more complicated.

Of course, I understand that. It is frustrating a little bit nonetheless. That probably just means I have more healing to do

I think I understand your framework now, and I actually agree that your approach may well be more effective on average. I guess the question I'm left with is whether maximizing attraction should always be the objective. Imagine that expressing straightforward interest feels like the most authentic thing for someone in that moment. Even if it's slightly less effective than a more playful indirect approach, wouldn't there still be value in expressing themselves honestly rather than optimizing the interaction? At what point does authenticity become more important than optimization? This reminds me of a discussion I once had with my coach friend. We asked ourselves: Which is actually the better outcome? Going into an interaction with the goal of getting the outcome I want. Expressing myself as honestly and fully as I can, while being completely okay with whatever outcome follows—even if that means rejection. It feels like those are two fundamentally different paradigms. In the first, success is measured by whether I create attraction. In the second, success is measured by whether I acted in alignment with myself. Ironically, I suspect the second mindset often ends up being attractive anyway—but that isn't its purpose.

I feel like you just hang around this forum to troll and not to stimulate any conversations.

I think we're actually getting closer in our views. I completely agree that approaching from a playful, expressive state is very different from approaching out of validation-seeking. The only thing I'm still not sure about is whether that playfulness has to take a particular form. Imagine two equally secure, equally abundant men. One naturally enjoys teasing and gradually building tension. The other naturally enjoys being very straightforward and saying, "I thought you looked beautiful, so I wanted to come say hi," without any attachment to the outcome. Would you really see the second man as lower value, or simply as expressing the same inner security through a different personality?