A Metaphor for Pick Up in Relation to Female Sexuality

[Karmadhi]

27 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

You know that situation isnt unique to men?

You will almost never have a girl be in a situation where she feels like nobody wants her. If she takes basic basiccc care of herself then she will always have some options. Whether she considered those options its on her.

The boy that cries to her mom is not getting liked by ANYONE, not just by who he likes.

Big nuance here.

Another example: I can get some bread but i want a cake versus i cannot get ANY food.

[soos_mite_ah]

8 minutes ago, Karmadhi said:

You will almost never have a girl be in a situation where she feels like nobody wants her. I

it might not be the same radio silence that man might feel but there are plenty of women and girls who feel unwanted and disrespected either because no one actually likes her or because the only time she gets attention, it's from men who see her as nothing more than a warm hole.  And being dehumanized and reduced down to just that can feel incredibly isolating and hopeless. Forget about feeling unlovable. Imagine not even feeling like a human being. 

Edited July 19, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[RendHeaven]

2 hours ago, soos_mite_ah said:

If my son or daughter came up to me I would tell him that they are beautiful, smart, interesting, and lovable people.

If the whole world says otherwise, your word means nothing.

2 hours ago, soos_mite_ah said:

I would teach him self acceptance even if it feels like it's going at odds with society's standards for him. 

Good luck... you make it sound so simple to "teach" someone so young and helpless something so advanced. You've written "I would teach" or "I would tell" as though smooth sailing were guaranteed, but I think you take for granted that you'll be heard at all.

A young boy suffering from lack of approval by his peers doesn't care about mom's lecture. Be prepared for tremendous backlash. He will scream at you, maybe even call you a bitch. And if you punish him for that he will just stop associating with you. Conversely, if you let him step all over you by maintaining a lovey-dovey "tolerant" persona, he won't learn anything either.

As a parent raising an anxty teenager, you're sort of caught in this damned-if-you-do damned-if-you-don't double-bind. What seems true to me is that you simply lack influence over your kid once they hit their teens. They will naturally start to look for alternative sources of growth.

This is where pickup comes in. Pickup simply promises: "Let's get girls to like you (sexually)." It meets young boys where they are at, and provides practical solutions in a way that no parent can.

Moreover, I think you underestimate the societal pressure young boys/men deal with. Female sexual validation is literal currency... in a way that's totally unrelatable to the female psyche. Of course, this currency is a collective illusion as is with all forms of currency, but there are practical day-to-day consequences involved.

Every time you say "Just accept yourself! you're already beautiful!" in male-speak that translates to "Go starve and die, broke boy." Empty platitudes mean nothing to a guy with zero female validation, because at the end of the day the whole world still treats him like a homeless person.

You're right in the sense that ultimately, radical self-love solves everything. But young boys don't realize this until after they've gone through their "pickup journey." And you can't force the process.

I also find it interesting that I thought Karmadhi asked in a fair manner about a male-specific problem, and the energy of your responses all undermine the gravity of this problem by basically saying "but women also!"

And yet, the topic at hand is obviously a male-specific problem because pickup has a target audience of men. I've never even heard of pickup for women (though maybe it exists haha). As I'm sure you've read somewhere, men seek attraction solutions while women seek relationship solutions. I think we're all in agreement that everyone has problems, but I think it's appropriate to notice the general differences in the kind of problem.

I think it's necessary to talk about the problems that women face, but not at the expense of the problems that men face - and of course, vice versa.

Edited July 20, 2021 by RendHeaven

[RendHeaven]

4 hours ago, Emerald said:

to where puas advocate not listening to women at all about their desires.

@Emerald It's very simple:

Men care about sex.

If a man listens to a woman about "her desires," he does not get more sex.

Conversely, when we listen to other men, we actually DO get more sex.

This is easily personally tested. It's almost universal. Hence the saying "don't listen to women blah blah."

---

Is this biased and self-serving and partial and myopic? YES! OF COURSE!

Sex is like 1% of human interaction lol. There's no reason to hyper-focus on it other than skewed judgement.

BUT - insofar as we come from the paradigm of wanting more sex, it is simply the case that not listening to women produces the desired result.

Therefore, if you want a strong critique of pickup culture, I suggest you attack the fundamental bias of wanting to maximize sex; because the text above in red is a given.

[soos_mite_ah]

7 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

If the whole world says otherwise, your word means nothing.

Yeah but what your parents say to you repeatedly is something that still has an impact on your overall self image and how you deal with the world. I get that these things don't get solved by a single conversation. That's why things like reaffirming self worth and showing that you are are a safe place to confide in for kids is incredibly important. It's not something you bring out of the blue when something bad happens. It's something you reinforce time and time again. Even if they don't believe me in the moment, it's important to at least give them some type of reassurance and way to process these types of emotions in a healthy way. 

I get that what I wrote is super general and cliche. I think i would tailor it depending on what kind of specific situation my kid got into and their specific emotions. Obviously i would try to comfort and reassure them first and then have a conversation on how do deal with said issue. 

12 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

He will scream at you, maybe even call you a bitch. And if you punish him for that he will just stop associating with you. Conversely, if you let him step all over you by maintaining a lovey-dovey "tolerant" persona, he won't learn anything either.

When a child or teenager is going through things like this, they're usually not at the age where they're throwing tantrums and can't be reasoned with. It's important to teach kids the importance self expression in a healthy way so that they don't have an angry outburst. You have to model that shit and reinforce those emotional regulation skills again, from a very young age. 

Listen, I'm too young to know all the right words to say to a potential teenage son. I just know that if there is an angry outburst I would probably have to cool that down by giving him the space to process those things and then talking to him in a calmer mood and he's ready to have a constructive conversation. 

18 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

As a parent raising an anxty teenager, you're sort of caught in this damned-if-you-do damned-if-you-don't double-bind. What seems true to me is that you simply lack influence over your kid once they hit their teens. They will naturally start to look for alternative sources for growth.

And the reason why teenagers feel this way is because the adults around them talk to them like they are stupid and that their problems are trivial. People can be so dismissive and so condescending towards teenagers that like no shit they have a rebellion phase. That phase doesn't come out of nowhere. I've met kids who come from healthy households. They don't simply hate their parents and assume that the parent can't help them. 

If you don't create an emotionally available environment, the kid will look for that comfort and validation else where, and sometimes it can be in healthy places like if they have a solid group of friends or it can be in really sketchy place. 

22 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

This is where pickup comes in. Pickup simply promises: "let's get girls to like you." It meets young boys where they are at, and provides practical solutions in a way that no parent can.

While pick up isn't all bad, you can still teach valuable lessons from pick up to guys without them going through that whole cringey stage orange alpha male phase. You can teach your son to have boundaries, to have standards, to not go chasing women who don't care about them, to have their own lives, dreams and ambitions which later on gives them the foundation to be well rounded emotionally attractive people. You can teach your son on how to approach women in a respectful and assertive way. 

I think of it as kids who don't get the sex talk from their parents and instead resorting to something constructive, they resort to searching up porn on their computer to satisfy their curiorsity. That then leads to all types of issues and distorted views on sex which could all be avoided if you created a sex positive space in your home. That doesn't always mean you sit your kid down formally to explain this but it means that as things come up, you don't deflect them and give them a bs answer. 

29 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

Moreover, I think you underestimate the societal pressure young boys/men deal with. Female validation is literal currency... in a way that's totally unrelatable to the female psyche. Of course, this is a collective illusion as is with all forms of currency, but there are practical day-to-day consequences involved.

Every time you say "Just accept yourself! you're already beautiful!" in male-speak that translates to "Go starve and die, broke boy." Empty platitudes mean nothing to a guy with zero female validation, because at the end of the day the whole world still treats him like a homeless person.

You're right in the sense that ultimately, radical self-love solves everything. But young boys don't realize this until after they've gone through their "pickup journey." And you can't force the process.

You don't have to go through a pick up journey to learn that self love. You can learn that self love from other sources. I've met plenty of men who didn't have to learn that type of self love in the hard way and instead had parents and even peers guiding them in the right direction. I agree with you, empty platitudes don't work. That's why you have to back up those statements of how loved your kids are and how they have self worth by the way you treat them on a day to day basis. By the time I say those words to my kids, it's not a new message. They have a foundation built up and the words I said are simply reminders. 

And as much as guys who are into pick up may seem like they care about female validation, they don't. A lot of insecure men don't care about a woman's agenda at all. They do all of this to show off to their guy friends. Women are just pawns in their game. They're just another status symbol for men to conquer and show off as a trophy to other men. If pick up artists really did care that much about female validation, you wouldn't have as many misogynists there. You would have more men trying to understand the female experience. But they don't do that because that was never the goal. The goal is to get laid and show off to your buddies the 10 that you pulled in. That's it. It's not about female validation. 

[RendHeaven]

37 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

When a child or teenager is going through things like this, they're usually not at the age where they're throwing tantrums and can't be reasoned with. It's important to teach kids the importance self expression in a healthy way so that they don't have an angry outburst. You have to model that shit and reinforce those emotional regulation skills again, from a very young age. 

I called my mom a "fucking bitch" and threw a wooden chair across the room, shattering it into pieces when I was 15 because I didn't feel understood. She kept lecturing at me even though I was yelling at her to stop. I felt like she didn't care about the immediate pain that I was undergoing, it felt like she was trying to rush me to the finish line of being a problem-less child. And I thought I was a rather reasonable kid, haha. So yeah I wouldn't bank on reason

37 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

And the reason why teenagers feel this way is because the adults around them talk to them like they are stupid and that their problems are trivial. People can be so dismissive and so condescending towards teenagers that like no shit they have a rebellion phase. That phase doesn't come out of nowhere. I've met kids who come from healthy households. They don't simply hate their parents and assume that the parent can't help them. 

If you don't create an emotionally available environment, the kid will look for that comfort and validation else where, and sometimes it can be in healthy places like if they have a solid group of friends or it can be in really sketchy place. 

This. Excellent. It seems like the hard lifting as a parent actually comes prior to even conceiving kids. Environment matters sooooo much.

37 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

While pick up isn't all bad, you can still teach valuable lessons from pick up to guys without them going through that whole cringey stage orange alpha male phase.

I agree. To me, pickup is an awesome thing because in my mind it's divorced from the "cringey stage orange alpha male phase."

For example, learning to not take yourself so seriously. That's a core principle I learned from pickup which has made me more attractive. I'm always laughing when pickup is interpreted as this satanic ritual of dudes who nefariously plot their next manipulation tactic when some of its best teachings boil down to: "Relax your body, find something to genuinely smile about, say something you find authentically funny with good eye contact, don't burden her with the expectation of a reaction, show her that she can be comfortable holding your hand," etc. etc.

Oh no, the terror ?? 

It's almost like religion honestly. In both religion and pickup we find some core principles that positively impact lives.

Then, it goes mainstream and becomes corrupt and wars are fought over it.

37 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

You don't have to go through a pick up journey to learn that self love. You can learn that self love from other sources.

Yes, but if you are a guy that specifically struggles with attracting women sexually, and you authentically desire women sexually, it makes sense to resolve that specific problem. You can pretend you're "transcending" your desire or you can tell yourself that you don't need sex because you have self love, but that usually ends up being bypassing, and you harbor even more resentment towards yourself for being a sexual failure.

37 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

And as much as guys who are into pick up may seem like they care about female validation, they don't. A lot of insecure men don't care about a woman's agenda at all. They do all of this to show off to their guy friends. Women are just pawns in their game. They're just another status symbol for men to conquer and show off as a trophy to other men. If pick up artists really did care that much about female validation, you wouldn't have as many misogynists there. You would have more men trying to understand the female experience. But they don't do that because that was never the goal. The goal is to get laid and show off to your buddies the 10 that you pulled in. That's it. It's not about female validation. 

I strongly disagree. That's not the heart of pickup. The heart of pickup is simply to become sexually attractive to women. The majority of guys get into this because they just crave intimacy with a girlfriend, but reality slaps them in the face as they realize that girls don't want them. How can you fault these guys for finally owning up to their insecurities and taking action towards a better life? It actually takes some guts to say "I suck with women, I want to be better."

The nefarious attributes you describe are ego-corruptions of the loudest people who have no introspection, but they only represent a tiny fraction of the community.

Edited July 20, 2021 by RendHeaven

[Bando]

I dont even understand the purpose of these types of threads, ofc to any woman the notion of "pick up" is going to come across of as slimy or manipulative. Some of that I do agree but its all on how the person goes about implementing the information.

Unless you've dated/slept with multiple women and had to overcome hundreds of rejections/flakes/failed experiences, you don't really understand how attraction works. I'd like to see the ladies on this forum give practical advice on how a 17-23 year old should go about dating and getting their sexual needs met.

[Emerald]

54 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

@Emerald It's very simple:

Men care about sex.

If a man listens to a woman about "her desires," he does not get more sex.

Conversely, when we listen to other men, we actually DO get more sex.

This is easily personally tested. It's almost universal. Hence the saying "don't listen to women blah blah."

---

Is this biased and self-serving and partial and myopic? YES! OF COURSE!

Sex is like 1% of human interaction lol. There's no reason to hyper-focus on it other than skewed judgement.

BUT - insofar as we come from the paradigm of wanting more sex, it is simply the case that not listening to women produces the desired result.

Therefore, if you want a strong critique of pickup culture, I suggest you attack the fundamental bias of wanting to maximize sex; because the text above in red is a given.

If that’s your agenda that’s fine. You don’t need to understand women to get sex.

It’s a numbers game at the end of the day. If you keep approaching, you’ll eventually find a woman who’s horny and thus open to a one-night stand with you... or simply one who’s lonely or lacking boundaries.

Just don’t kid yourself into thinking that you’ve satisfied her on any level that women generally would consider meaningful. 

Also, understand that most women will rightly screen you out because most women aren’t interested in the experience you’re offering.

[RendHeaven]

7 minutes ago, Emerald said:

It’s a numbers game at the end of the day. If you keep approaching, you’ll eventually find a woman who’s horny and thus open to a one-night stand with you... or simply one who’s lonely or lacking boundaries.

That's some disingenuous self-serving framing there  You make it sound like the guy's efforts has nothing to do with his sexual results, but that rather the woman's desperation or lack must be the reason for the sexual encounter... but consider that the guy becoming more attractive actually has an effect on the woman's decision.

7 minutes ago, Emerald said:

Just don’t kid yourself into thinking that you’ve satisfied her on any level that women generally would consider meaningful. 

I agree. Well said.

7 minutes ago, Emerald said:

Also, understand that most women will rightly screen you out because most women aren’t interested in the experience you’re offering.

***most women looking for a relationship?

Edited July 20, 2021 by RendHeaven

[soos_mite_ah]

9 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

I called my mom a "fucking bitch" and threw a wooden chair across the room, shattering it into pieces when I was 15 because I didn't feel understood. She kept lecturing at me even though I was yelling at her to stop. I felt like she didn't care about the immediate pain that I was undergoing, it felt like she was trying to rush me to the finish line of being a problem-less child. And I thought I was a rather reasonable kid, haha. So yeah I wouldn't bank on reason

What. in. the. absolute. fuck.

Listen, I'm not trying to invalidate whatever anger or pain you were feeling at the time. It's also not right to lecture to a kid when they are in that amount of emotional pain. No one likes to be lectured when they're in the heat of the moment. It just leads to frustration, feeling like you're not being heard or empathized with, and feeling like you're dumb for feeling the way you were feeling. Lecturing doesn't help. You need to emotionally connect with that kid. 

That said..... I only have so much context but that is not a normal reaction or a healthy way of communicating. Like I don't know where you got the idea at that age that treating someone in that way just because you're upset was acceptable behavior. I wouldn't even tolerate that kind of reaction with a 2 year old. No offense, but you needed a lot of help. 

14 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

For example, learning to not take yourself so seriously. That's a core principle I learned from pickup which has made me more attractive. I'm always laughing when pickup is interpreted as this satanic ritual of dudes who nefariously plot their next manipulation tactic when some of its best teachings boil down to: "Relax your body, find something to genuinely smile about, say something you find authentically funny with good eye contact, don't burden her with the expectation of a reaction, show her that she can be comfortable holding your hand," etc. etc.

You can learn to not take yourself seriously in dating outside of pick up. I would bet money that whatever positive thing you got from pick up, you could get that in a good upbringing or in any other type of help like therapy. You don't need pick up for that particular thing, just the way you don't need religion to teach you to have morals and impulse control. You can learn the valuable lessons in pick up without getting wrapped up in the toxic ideology and doing pick up. 

18 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

Yes, but if you are a guy that specifically struggles with attracting women sexually, and you authentically desire women sexually, it makes sense to resolve that specific problem. You can pretend you're "transcending" your desire or you can tell yourself that you don't need sex because you have self love, but that usually ends up being bypassing, and you harbor even more resentment towards yourself for being a sexual failure.

I mean yeah. If you still have that urge to go out and have sex with a lot of girls, you should do that. But it's also important to ensure that this need is coming from a healthy place so you don't reinforce any traumas that you are reacting to. Having that self love is what helps you get to that point in a healthy and constructive way in a lot of cases. You need to build that foundation for self love first or else you could easily get into the trap of using sex in an unhealthy way of filling a void in your soul. 

You can acknowledge your desire for sex and have an outlet for it while building up self love. You don't have to resort to pick up for that. Helping your child build that foundation of self love growing up is honestly the parents responsibility in the first stage of the kid's life. 

[soos_mite_ah]

2 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

That's some disingenuous self-serving framing there  You make it sound like the guy's efforts has nothing to do with his sexual results, but that rather the woman's desperation or lack must be the reason for the sexual encounter... but consider that the guy becoming more attractive actually has an effect on the woman's decision.

And that's why pick up has a 1-2% success rate. 

I mean that's better than 0% as far as attractiveness goes but yeah, most women don't usually respond to cold approaches. 

[Emerald]

5 minutes ago, Bando said:

I dont even understand the purpose of these types of threads, ofc to any woman the notion of "pick up" is going to come across of as slimy or manipulative. Some of that I do agree but its all on how the person goes about implementing the information.

Unless you've dated/slept with multiple women and had to overcome hundreds of rejections/flakes/failed experiences, you don't really understand how attraction works. I'd like to see the ladies on this forum give practical advice on how a 17-23 year old should go about dating and getting their sexual needs met.

Again, I already said I understand why pick up exists. This isn’t a “don’t do pick up” thread. Go out and meet and have sex with as many women as you want.

The thread is about the useful, but still incorrect, distortions of the pick up perspective and how that leaves men misunderstanding women’s actual needs and leaving them unsatisfied and underfucked.

So, pick up only really works for men having their needs and desires met.

Genuine female desire doesn’t really come into the picture with pick up beyond the most surface level stuff. Pick up doesn’t teach you about what women really want or need. It just teaches you how to approach and play the numbers game until you can harvest the low hanging fruit.

So understand that, when you do pick up, the woman may tell you that she’s satisfied in hopes it will help her get the intimacy she’s looking for from you. But this is likely self-deception because sex by itself (from the female perspective) is pretty high-risk/low-reward without the cultivation of deeper love and intimacy.

And a one-night-stand with some pick up guy will never scratch that itch. 

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it though. Just understand that the experience you’re having is a lot more interesting than the experience she’s probably having. 

[Emerald]

41 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

That's some disingenuous self-serving framing there  You make it sound like the guy's efforts has nothing to do with his sexual results, but that rather the woman's desperation or lack must be the reason for the sexual encounter... but consider that the guy becoming more attractive actually has an effect on the woman's decision.

I didn’t say a man couldn’t become more attractive. If he gets over his self-esteem issues, develops himself, and learns to socialize more, he will be more magnetic and attractive. But this is more general personal development.

But beyond learning the absolute basics of what women respond to sexually, pick-up is honestly mostly a placebo.

It’s like Dumbo’s magic feather. Dumbo thinks he can’t fly unless he’s holding his magic feather, until he realizes that he had mistakenly attributed his innate ability to fly to a placebo.

The fact of the matter is that women are usually attracted to men. And you are a man. That’s honestly doing the majority of your legwork for you as long as your self-esteem is okay and you are able to carry on a normal conversation. 

And if a sizable percentage of women are horny enough or lonely enough and you’re above her looks- threshold, she may be receptive to sex with you.

And that is the low-hanging fruit that cold approach is good for. 

There are just a lot of female purity myths that give men the impression that sexual acceptance from a woman is difficult to find, and also that if they’ve gotten a woman to sleep with them that it means something about their general  desirability and quality in the eyes of women.

But to really have more women desiring you, pick up can be like 10% of your focus just to get some experience. The other 90% is about developing yourself into the best version of you. That’s the thing that really moves a woman and makes her knees weak. 

Edited July 20, 2021 by Emerald

[RendHeaven]

16 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

What. in. the. absolute. fuck.

Bwahaha

16 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

That said..... I only have so much context but that is not a normal reaction or a healthy way of communicating. Like I don't know where you got the idea at that age that treating someone in that way just because you're upset was acceptable behavior. I wouldn't even tolerate that kind of reaction with a 2 year old. No offense, but you needed a lot of help. 

40 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

I agree. But clearly, talking at me more wouldn't have been "help." I used my obnoxious example to illustrate that. I think at the end of the day we all want to feel understood first and foremost, prior to anything else. That means that if I feel sexually inadequate and I want to change my life, telling me to have self love is counterproductive. Trust me, it pains me to say that because the term "Self-Love" is baked into my Life Purpose statement, but I'm trying to approach this with nuance.

25 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

You can learn to not take yourself seriously in dating outside of pick up. I would bet money that whatever positive thing you got from pick up, you could get that in a good upbringing or in any other type of help like therapy. You don't need pick up for that particular thing, just the way you don't need religion to teach you to have morals and impulse control. You can learn the valuable lessons in pick up without getting wrapped up in the toxic ideology and doing pick up. 

Yes, in the pickup community they call that "being a natural" - as in "oh he's a natural [with girls]." But I think it's a luxury to assume that the societal solution to poor sexual self-esteem in men is to "just have better upbringings."

Especially since - get this (I'm about to appeal to you hard lmao) - capitalism actively taints young men's ideas of what is attractive to women. We're taught that we need to look good or be rich or act like certain mainstream men to become the object of female desire... pickup actively goes against that narrative, by showing you that NO you can just BE YOU and still be desired by women, as long as you adhere to fundamental principles like not taking yourself seriously. Pickup provides a learning structure and shows you the link between your inner behavior and the exterior result, which is not found anywhere else.

34 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

You can acknowledge your desire for sex and have an outlet for it while building up self love. You don't have to resort to pick up for that.

You say "resort to pickup" as though all other options have been exhausted and we're selling our souls LOL 

What other practical "outlet" do you propose? What other "outlet" actually listens to the needs of men and helps them where they're at?

From what I can tell, you're not actually listening to the needs of men. You're ascribing how you think men ought to be upon men.

Don't worry, it's not lost on me that the opposite is (more) true. Men listen to women even less. Emerald is spot on with this comment:

48 minutes ago, Emerald said:

Just don’t kid yourself into thinking that you’ve satisfied her on any level that women generally would consider meaningful. 

 

[RendHeaven]

52 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

And that's why pick up has a 1-2% success rate. 

I mean that's better than 0%

This is lifechanging.

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

If he gets over his self-esteem issues, develops himself, and learns to socialize more, he will be more magnetic and attractive.

But Emerald, all of that IS pickup!

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

The fact of the matter is that women are usually attracted to men. And you are a man. That’s honestly doing the majority of your legwork for you as long as your self-esteem is okay and you are able to carry on a normal conversation. 

Haha, yes.

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

And that is the low-hanging fruit that cold approach is good for. 

This still feels condescending somehow (to both women and men). But I'm open to the possibility that I'm projecting.

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

But to really have more women desiring you, pick up can be like 10% of your focus just to get some experience. The other 90% is about developing yourself into the best version of you. 

From the perspective of "having more women desiring you," I see no difference between "pickup" and "developing yourself into the best version of you."

Of course, from other perspectives there is a difference.

I don't deny that the culture is generally toxic, and furthermore I agree with you that pickup doesn't have anything to say about intimacy or long term relationships.

The difference between our perspectives is that:

• I differentiate between the core principles of pickup vs its toxic culture (these aren't synonymous to me, although maybe they are the same to you)
• I don't fault pickup for lacking concern for intimacy/LTRs, because pickup imo is very clear on its promises. It's meant to make men more sexually attractive. That's it. Believe it or not, I'm a huge proponent of intimacy/LTRs and understanding the female experience - I just believe that such topics are trans-pickup (embracing pickup and going beyond) as opposed to anti-pickup (denial of pickup in favor of going beyond)

Edited July 20, 2021 by RendHeaven

[Emerald]

Just now, RendHeaven said:

This is lifechanging.

But Emerald, all of that IS pickup!

Haha, yes.

This still feels condescending somehow (to both women and men). But I'm open to the possibility that I'm projecting.

From the perspective of "having more women desiring you," I see no difference between "pickup" and "developing yourself into the best version of you."

When I’m talking about pick-up, I’m talking mostly about cold approach.

But personal development done for the purpose of attracting women is a lot different than personal development done for the sake of becoming your best self. 

The former type of personal development will always be delimited to the tastes of the average woman because it is always about gaining more mass appeal.

So, it won’t take you into your full potential because most things designed specifically for mass appeal must be watered down to fit the sensitivities, level of development, and perspective of the average person. And the average person (male or female) is not very well developed.

The latter type of personal development  is only limited by the limits of your own imagination. And as a perk, this will make you truly magnetic and infinitely more attractive and admirable to women on the same wavelength as you as you will truly embody your unique masculine energy.

And you won’t have scarcity... though you also might lose some mass appeal. But the women who are interested in you will be more prone to respecting  and admiring you for exactly who you are. 

[soos_mite_ah]

8 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

Especially since - get this (I'm about to appeal to you hard lmao) - capitalism actively taints young men's ideas of what is attractive to women. We're taught that we need to look good or be rich or act like certain mainstream men to become the object of female desire... pickup actively goes against that narrative, by showing you that NO you can just BE YOU and still be desired by women, as long as you adhere to fundamental principles like not taking yourself seriously. Pickup provides a learning structure and shows you the link between your inner behavior and the exterior result, which is not found anywhere else.

And women have been saying that you don't have to be rich, famous, and be a ten to have a hook up and a relationship. This goes back to the whole appealing to men thing. Men care about status, looks, and how much you can bench press. Women don't give af. 

But then when we say this, we are brushed off as "oh she's self biased. women do care about these things. They're lying to us to seem like angels" or "don't ask a fish how to catch them." 

9 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

I agree. But clearly, talking at me more wouldn't have been "help." I used my obnoxious example to illustrate that. I think at the end of the day we all want to feel understood first and foremost, prior to anything else.

You're not supposed to lecture to people, you're supposed to guide them to the correct conclusion by asking questions and have a conversation with them where they can express their feelings and concerns. You aren't supposed to talk at people, you're supposed to talk to them. You can teach through conversation. It doesn't have to be a cold hard, bullet pointed list of what you should do and don't do. You don't simply tell people to have self love, you need them to get to that conclusion themselves with your guidance.  

What I'm trying to say is that your mom handled that situation in the wrong way and that you can easily have a conversation with someone without it turning into that. But also, seriously wtf?!?! I hate to say it but you had a hand on how this conversation was going. In no circumstance is it justifiable to throw a chair at someone. You weren't inconsolable. You were 15 and should have known better and taken responsibility in that situation. 

13 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

But I think it's a luxury to assume that the societal solution to poor sexual self-esteem in men is to "just have better upbringings."

How is that a luxury? A lot of the reasons why men are the way that they are is because of the way their families and society raised them. Raising the future generation right or at the very least in a more healthy way than the previous one is the best way to deal with misogyny and sexism. Yes, that is very long term, but at some point, a lot of men simply won't listen or change their ways. 

15 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

You say "resort to pickup" as though all other options have been exhausted and we're selling our souls LOL 

What other practical "outlet" do you propose? What other "outlet" actually listens to the needs of men and helps them where they're at?

• Therapy or counseling 
• Talking to your friends and having close emotional relationships with them to where you can vent, have constructive conversations, and have an outlet for any negative emotions you deal with when getting rejected 
• Journaling 
• Talking to a trusted adult and asking them for advice if that's what you feel you need 
• Finding an outlet for your emotions whether it be something creative like art or music, or something physical like going for a run
• Contemplating how society effects attraction and relationships and thinking critically 
• Reflection

That's what most women do when they have issues with guys. They lean on their friends and family and try to express and feel their emotions. They allow themselves to be upset for however long it hurts. If it comes down to it, ideally they might try to get some distance from the guy they got rejected by to get over him. And as a result, it isn't surprising that women handle a lot of emotional situations in a healthier way. 

Granted I know the typical guy probably doesn't feel comfortable with expressing his emotions and can easily be labeled as gay or masculine for doing so. That's a larger societal issue. Which is why it's even more important for men to build quality healthy relationships with other men where they can open up and be vulnerable. 

From my observations, of course I could be wrong, but the men who typically go towards pickup are typically the ones that don't have that supportive social network. I'm not saying they are complete loner (though some are) but I'm saying that a lot of male friendships aren't places where they can be vulnerable with their issues without judgement. 

[RendHeaven]

@Emerald

2 minutes ago, Emerald said:

When I’m talking about pick-up, I’m talking mostly about cold approach.

But personal development done for the purpose of attracting women is a lot different than personal development done for the sake of becoming your best self. 

The former type of personal development will always be delimited to the tastes of the average woman because it is always about gaining more mass appeal.

So, it won’t take you into your full potential because most things designed specifically for mass appeal must be watered down to fit the sensitivities, level of development, and perspective of the average person. And the average person (male or female) is not very well developed.

The latter type of personal development  is only limited by the limits of your own imagination. And as a perk, this will make you truly magnetic and infinitely more attractive and admirable to women on the same wavelength as you as you will truly embody your unique masculine energy.

And you won’t have scarcity... though you also might lose some mass appeal. But the women who are interested in you will be more prone to respecting  and admiring you for exactly who you are. 

Jeeeez well said! Spot on.

I edited my original comment a bit more elaborating on the differences between our perceptions of "pickup," let me know if I've misunderstood you.

 

[4201]

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

But beyond learning the absolute basics of what women respond to sexually, pick-up is honestly mostly a placebo.

Who is saying that pickup is supposed to give you a deep understading of a person though? Leo's take on pickup? Someone else's take on pickup?

You are criticizing the whole of pickup as if all people who engage in pickup are joined together in some pickup manifesto, where they write down their dysfunctional beliefs about women. In practice pickup is just a way to get to talk to women as opposed to doing nothing in your mom's basement.

Could this group of people who probably don't have much people to talk to anyway, who are left with nothing but pickup to meet people, possibly in general also hold dysfunctional beliefs about relationships? Yes but that would just be a generality. 

This demographic of people is likely present on this forum because it overlaps the demographic of people who needs self-help with relationships. As long as this forum is about helping people, there will be people who need help in it and those people who need help may hold wrong views about reality. If they didn't, they wouldn't need help. You could consider this a systemic problem within the demographic of this forum but then how do we "solve" the issue?

Sure your thread may bring people to see through your perspective, if they are open to it. But if you were to take the perspective of a desperate person who tries pickup as an alternative to staying in their basement and not talking to anyone (prob the core audience of pickup), this post would likely appear as an attack from someone who dislikes pickup and try to invalidate something that helped them. For those people who had positive experiences and progress in their development through pickup, does this confrontation actually help them grow and go to the next level? 

In my opinion, if you wanted to advertise true relationships to people who are into pickup, so that they can get to the next level, the best way to do it would be to talk about the good and benefits of relationships instead of trying to talk down on pickup. It's like I'm trying to get you to try formula 1 racing by shit talking how the way you drive to get your groceries is "so casual". Yes there is more than pickup but you won't convince people who are identified with pickup to go beyong by shit talking what they are identified with.

But at last, are you doing this post out of true concern for the pickup artists who miss out on real relationships because they are too much into pickup? Or are you doing this to validate and defend your belief that pickup is bad and you shouldn't date with people you don't know? 

Edited July 20, 2021 by 4201

[RendHeaven]

46 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

And women have been saying that you don't have to be rich, famous, and be a ten to have a hook up and a relationship. This goes back to the whole appealing to men thing. Men care about status, looks, and how much you can bench press. Women don't give af. 

???

46 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

But then when we say this, we are brushed off as "oh she's self biased. women do care about these things. They're lying to us to seem like angels" or "don't ask a fish how to catch them." 

In my experience, whenever men say "don't ask a fish how to hunt," they're generally responding to claims such as "I want a guy who's nice and treats me well." Like yeah, we don't doubt that you want that, but you've conveniently assumed that the guy in question is already attractive. No matter how much an unattractive guy "treats you well," you're not going to spread your legs for him... because he's unattractive. It's the same deal with Teal Swan's "positive containment." Positive Containment is critical for intimacy/long term relationships, but it only has meaning because the guy is pre-assumed to be attractive... it doesn't matter how much "positive containment" an unattractive guy exhibits, he's just gonna come off as creepy and your legs will stay shut.

I mean, this should be intuitively obvious. What sane woman would spend the time and effort to deliberately teach a gross and creepy man accurate theory on how to get her to open her legs? Seriously self-reflect on this. You yourself wouldn't dare to do this. It will never happen, because you detest gross and creepy men. And I can't blame you women, it's part of your survival agenda. So instead, women talk about being treated right and receiving the emotional support of their dreams. Meanwhile, pickup theory teaches gross and creepy men how to legitimately stop being gross and creepy - how to be "normal men," as Emerald put it above.

Honestly, looking at it from "above" in a meta-sense, all things are occupying their rightful place. I think women's concerns about intimacy and emotional support are true and important. I'm just saying that pickup isn't the enemy. 

46 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

I hate to say it but you had a hand on how this conversation was going. In no circumstance is it justifiable to throw a chair at someone. You weren't inconsolable. You were 15 and should have known better and taken responsibility in that situation. 

Don't worry the chair wasn't thrown at anyone, it was aimed at a wall.

As a matter of fact, I was inconsolable. I needed to be left alone. If you can't understand that, I'm afraid you might one day have a son that acts in the way that I once did. But I haven't given much context to what happened that day so maybe I shouldn't expect immediate empathy lol.

I don't stand by what I did, and I now believe I was in the wrong, but I find myself now in the unique position of being able to have deep empathy for any kid in a similar position... you can moralize at my past self all you want but you're missing the point if you can't reach a point of "Oh. I understand."

46 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

How is that a luxury?

47 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

Yes, that is very long term

---

47 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

That's what most women do when they have issues with guys. They lean on their friends and family and try to express and feel their emotions. They allow themselves to be upset for however long it hurts. If it comes down to it, ideally they might try to get some distance from the guy they got rejected by to get over him. And as a result, it isn't surprising that women handle a lot of emotional situations in a healthier way. 

1 hour ago, RendHeaven said:

You're ascribing how you think men ought to be upon men.

---

49 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

Granted I know the typical guy probably doesn't feel comfortable with expressing his emotions and can easily be labeled as gay or masculine for doing so. That's a larger societal issue. Which is why it's even more important for men to build quality healthy relationships with other men where they can open up and be vulnerable. 

From my observations, of course I could be wrong, but the men who typically go towards pickup are typically the ones that don't have that supportive social network. I'm not saying they are complete loner (though some are) but I'm saying that a lot of male friendships aren't places where they can be vulnerable with their issues without judgement. 

Well said.