Your Future Self Will Suck Too (Unless You Do Something About It Now) Darius Belejevas's pictureby Darius Belejevas Saturday, 26 September 2015Its Thursday afternoon, you planned on hitting the streets (or was it bars?) to chat up some girls, but as the day is coming to a close and you feel the daily stresses are taking their toll on you, you find yourself thinking how maybe today is not the best day to do it, after all:I had a stressful day.I need to wake up early tomorrow.I dont feel like my best self, and surely it wont be as effectivedo-somethingYou even start bargaining with yourself:Hey, you know what, I better hit the gym after work, eat a healthy meal Ive been meaning to improve my physique for some time now. Heres my chance.OrI could stay at work for a little while longer and cover some of tomorrows tasks. This way tomorrow Ill have an easier day and feel so much more energetic to go out and meet women.Then it hits youYes! Tomorrow I will feel so much more like it, I will have a good nights sleep, wake up earlier, get myself ready and sexy, and Ill even talk to twice as many women for skipping today. Yes, tomorrow!So you go home. You didnt stay at work to finish tomorrows tasks nor did you hit the gym on your way back. Instead of a healthy meal you grabbed an XL combo meal at a fast food joint and stayed up late watching re-runs of The Office.And yet for some reason you kind of feel good about yourself. After all, tomorrow you will make it all worth it!When Tomorrow Never ComesFriday morning comes, youre feeling excited about your afternoons commitment it will be so much fun and finally you will start putting into practice what youve been reading about for so long now.You get yourself ready for the upcoming day, you dont really have time to groom yourself solidly because you overslept a bit and its time for work, but thats fine. Well, it was fine until you realized that the traffic is moving even slower today Lazy bastards Come on Move!After lunch your boss calls you into his office to ask what happened and why you were late. He seems displeased at your explanation about the traffic, but says its okay, he gets it. Phew Then he starts giving you shit about yesterdays report and how youll need to re-do it today.As the work day is coming to an end, you feel tired again, stressed out, and all you think about is going home, grabbing some more feel-good food on your way back, maybe even a few beers, and chilling watching those same sitcoms.But wait, you planned on hitting the streets this evening. Its Friday after all and you really want to get better with women! Heck, not just practice, you promised yourself to practice twice as hard today!And then it begins againYou know what, tomorrow I wont have to work. I can start earlier and do an even better job. And after all, I did a good freaking good job today at work and deserve to take a break!.........Now, as you were reading this story, did you see yourself in it, your own excuses and rationalizations, or did you find it silly and so obviously unbelievable how can someone be so obviously delusional and fool themselves?In either case, nearly all of us are extremely adept at fooling ourselves in your case it might not be getting better with women, but something else like a business project, starting an exercise regimen or diet, or maybe quitting smoking.And unfortunately, so many of us fall into the trap of putting the pressure of doing the right thing on our future self instead of taking responsibility for it now.Alek wrote a great piece on how to get yourself motivated to act when youre already out in the field but dont feel motivated to actually practice. Today I would like to talk about what happens before you get there, how to stop sabotaging and fooling yourself, and actually put yourself in the position where youre able to practice your social arts and get better with our pretty ladies.Your Future-Self is not a Superhuman (Actually, Hes Kind of an Asshole)One of the reasons why we make this mistake of assuming that tomorrow or next week, or next month, we will act in situations that we know are good for us, but that for various reasons we dont feel like doing it today (or now) is because by default we tend to imagine an idealized world when thinking about the future:Researchers asked a whole bunch of people to predict, How many times per week (on average) will you exercise in the next month? Then they asked another group of people the same question, with one important preface: In an ideal world, how many times per week will you exercise in the next month? The two groups showed no differences in their estimatespeople were, by default, answering the question in an ideal world even when they had been asked to predict their actual, not ideal, behavior..........The experimenters decided they had to give these optimists a reality check, so they invited them back two weeks later to report how many times they had actually exercised. Not surprisingly, this number was lower than predicted. People had made their predictions for an ideal world, but lived through two weeks in the real world.We highly overestimate how our future-self will be able to handle those same situations and because we know that tomorrow, or next week, we will have a chance to make up for slipping up and skipping practice today, we convince ourselves that its only fair to let ourselves off the hook now.Even when confronted with factual evidence Well, Ive been saying Ill do it for the last month now and havent actually acted on it, we still tend to imagine that next time the stars will align, all traffic lights will turn green, and we will somehow feel more inclined, even eager, to act on something that we dread today.But the truth is its almost never the case.The next problem is that psychologically we tend to view our future-self as someone else: someone more confident, more motivated, and more energetic a superhuman. Hell have no problem talking to girls and practicing escalating and isolating.As a result, we have no trouble outsourcing our less than enjoyable tasks, those that require us to leave our comfort zones and daily routines that were so used to by now.But once again, when we think about it consciously and rationally its easy to see the logical fallacy here.Unless youre currently affected by external, temporary factor (maybe a hangover?) your current state, how you feel, and how youre inclined to act now are the best predictors of how you will feel and act in the future.But the issue with this type of thinking doesnt stop thereLets say that external, temporary factor is not negative, but positive youve read a motivating article or a field report on Girls Chase, maybe you just spent time imagining and visualizing your goals, how you go out and approach women, how youre having tons of fun doing it and amuse yourself now youre eager, beating your hands into your chest Thats it, Im doing it!!! Raaaaaaaawwwwrrr.Except youre stuck at the office to complete a big project before the deadline or preparing for an exam and actually will be spending the next two or three days sleeping in the office/the library to prepare, because after all, youre a man on a mission with goals larger than life.So in this super-motivated state you convince yourself that right after that deadline you will go out and meet women and do all those other crazy things youve read about.Yeah probably not. This is where the asshole part comes into play. You see, our future-self is not only NOT a superhuman, but sometimes has the emotional memory of a goldfish Yeah, I kind of feel tired and what was all that fuss about going out and practicing? Feels like a choreOr in other words, just because we plan something and promise ourselves to act on it in the future doesnt necessarily mean that our future-self will be inclined to act on these plans (just as you dont right now when youre not getting that life-affirming rush of motivation).I know that some men tend to hold a grudge on women for sometimes flaking on plans, but the truth is, not following up every once in a while is simply human. Thats not to say that its an admirable quality, its not, but hey whos perfect?What to Do InsteadAt this point weve spent a lot of time discussing the issue of counting on our future selves to make our lives better and why it rarely works. Does this mean that if right now you find yourself procrastinating on going out and practicing getting better with women youre doomed to live a sad and lonely life, forever and ever?Not at all!You see, the fact that youre here, reading this article on a site dedicated to getting better with women and improving yourself means that you really do have desire to do so. This desire for something (whether thats a better love life, better body, more confidence, etc.) is the prime mover and shaker for our behavior.Secondly, when talking about the issue itself, we need to understand that this all is by no means absolute just because youre putting something off today doesnt mean that youll never do it for certain, it simply means that you need to be smart on how you go about it to put the odds in your favor again.The rest of this article will focus on doing that. I would, however, like to stress that different strategies will work better for different people, so experiment to see what gets you going and discard the rest!And the first technique is actually not a technique at all AWARENESS.I know, awareness lately has been becoming a sort of buzz-word, supposedly a miracle cure (and Ive been referring to it a lot in my articles too) its not. What it is, however, is an essential tool to enable other strategies to work simply because unless youre able to notice and act-on your own BS self-talk, youre very unlikely to make the necessary changes.The intro to this article describes some of the more popular ways we rationalize and delude ourselves. Simply being aware that this is happening is a big step in overcoming the issues that arise from that type of thinking.How to Modify Your Behavior to Act NowLets start with strategies that will help us to take action in the short-term, without postponing it to the future.Man Up! You Need to Stop Being Such a Pussy! Vs. Youre AlrightThe most common response when we realize that we are trying to talk ourselves (usually unconsciously) out of something that is good for us, for example going out and meeting women, is to be hard on ourselves, guilt ourselves into action Stop being such a pussy! Whats wrong with you!And in a way it makes so much sense, its so intuitive and logical, I mean really if only you stopped being so soft on yourself, surely you could force yourself into action?Well, not necessarilyWhen we guilt ourselves after failing to take action (or indulge in something we know shouldnt), we feel bad.Well, thats the point! You make yourself feel like a loser after missing an opportunity to talk to this girl, so you stop being such a pussy in the future! Duh!do-somethingExcept our brains work in peculiar ways and often feeling bad because of self-guilt, which will lead to giving into temptation of staying home altogether, playing video games or calling your ex, because its a promise of an easy dopamine rush.For example, theres a study that discusses the effects of guilt when failing to drink less:The limit violation, rather than excessive drinking per se or negative consequences related to excessive drinking (e.g. a hangover) is the critical factor in the experience of guilt and remorse. Failing at self-control, rather than the results of losing control, may be more likely to lead to distress (see, e.g. Norcross, Ratzin, & Payne, 1989; Polivy & Herman, 1999). This is especially likely to happen if the drinker attributes the limit violation to a personal weakness or failure..........They then drink more alcohol to cope with the resultant negative affective state. In this way, there is a negative and reciprocal relationship between emotional distress and the self-regulation of alcohol intake.In other words, trying to guilt yourself after failing to take action will often lead to counter-productive results.A better, more productive alternative is to actually cut yourself some slack. Help yourself remove the guilt from not taking action.For example,Remind yourself that every single man who ever got great with women have procrastinated, failed to approach, got scared, rationalized and evaded, and once or twice had one-itis every single one and most still occasionally find themselves in such situations. The difference is that over time they focused on doing better. Its not the failures to act that define how good youll get, its the times when you do act that help you get better. Dont be so hard on yourself.That said, there is an underlining brilliance in the simplicity of focusing simply on taking action. Which brings us to our next point.Start SmallOne of the reasons why sometimes taking action feels so difficult is that we mentally take a bigger bite than we can chew:Focusing on same day/night pulls when youve barely done any approaching.Wondering about relationship dynamics before youve even slept with a particular girl.OrTrying to start a perfect diet when youve never even tried counting macros/calories and restricting types of food.Etc.Once again, this might sound reasonable after all, your end goal is not to rack up thousands of approaches, it is to sleep with beautiful women (maybe start a relationship), so why the hell would you not focus on that?Because when youre starting out at something (anything), chances are youll suck at it and thats fine as long as you focus on the fundamentals, take action, and practice. Its pretty much a fool-proof way to get better (not necessarily world-class, but definitely enough to get results).The problem is when the skill forces you to push your boundaries or change your behaviors. Then taking action and practicing becomes something that we need to spend our precious willpower/self-control on.As a result, when we put pressure to do everything right and have everything figured out it becomes exponentially more difficult to even start; to do anything at all. More often than not, we just go screw this! Ill do it next time and dont do anything.For example,If youre struggling with making a habit out of approaching, maybe instead of a lofty goal of Ill approach 30 women every day! start with a Ill approach one woman every day.This applies every other aspect of seduction too escalation, isolation, improving verbal techniques, body language, etc.Getting there slower is better than not getting there at all because youre too busy trying to be perfect from the start.Note: What exactly small is will vary from person to person, for some just asking for the time will get their blood rushing and thats small enough, for others approaching is a no-brainer already adjust to something that you can do without putting too much pressure on yourself but it still should push your comfort zones.Use Three Miracle Cures Of Self-ControlThere are no magic bullets when it comes to changing your behavior. No argument here.Yet, if I were to tell you that there are certain techniques that if practiced regularly can reduce your stress, increase your tolerance for discomfort, help you delay short-term gratification, focus on tasks longer and with more clarity, and overall help you do the right thing more easily all scientifically proven (properly) and with countless other health and mental benefitsYoud probably think Sooo thats 9 payments of 49.95$ or 449.95$?Nope, absolutely free too.Okay, enough with the teasing, Im talking about few daily behaviors that we take for granted and often ignore:Exercising Start working out is one of the most popular advices for newbies and even though its usually meant to help them improve their physique and appearance, the other, mental, benefits are actually much more helpful yup, youre more likely to stick with your goals if you exercise regularly.Meditation Reduced anxiety, calm, outcome independence, etc., etc. Meditation is truly one of the few things that we could really call a brain hacking technique.Relaxing No, Im not talking about chilling and watching Adventure Time, smoking a joint, and having a pizza. Instead, think of it as a lite version of meditation. You lay down for 10 to 20 minutes, close your eyes or focus on a single point, focus on part of your body (toes, feet, legs, buttocks, torso, etc.) and let them relax. The extra benefit of relaxing is feeling rested were more likely to make the right decisions that are good for us when were feeling rested compared to sleep-deprived states.Ideally, all of these should be part of your daily routine, but even taking 10 or 20 minutes before going out or before you need to make an important decision (i.e., if youll going out) will help you re-focus and will make it much more stressful to do the thing that will lead to your long-term goals.How to Make Sure Your Future Self Stays with the PlanBut lets say right now youre actually stuck in an uninhabited island with only a laptop (and Wi-Fi?) and wont be back for another week or so.How can you help your future-self stick with the goals you made today?Pre-commitOne of the most effective tricks you can do to make sure that your future-self acts in a way you want him to now is to pre-commit:Want to start meeting women? Give a buddy a generous sum of money (just enough so it really hurts if you dont follow through) and tell him not to give it back until approached a certain amount of women, or asked them out, or whatever youre struggling with. If you dont have a friend you can trust with something so important, there are online services like Stickk.com that essential do the same.Want to hit the gym (you know, to get all the amazing bonuses from exercising)? Buy a yearly membership or make arrangements to go with a friend and that whenever one of you skips, he has to pay up or do something embarrassing.Want to dress better? Throw out/donate your old, unfitting clothes (its scary when you realize thats like half your wardrobe. Hehe).You get the drill put your future-self in a position where not following up is more painful than doing it. And yes, turns out we can be that simple.Adjust Your EnvironmentThe people who surround are extremely influential in your life. We all like to think that were strong and independent, and that other people dont affect us, but it couldnt be further from the truth.If you constantly hang out with guys who are in committed relationships or couldnt care less about getting better with women, you will often find yourself sipping beer in a bar, talking shit, and by the end of the night you realized that you havent talked with a single girl there.do-somethingEven if you go out alone, it will be much more difficult to push your comfort zones and practice if you know that 3 of your best friends right now are playing board games and drinking beer at home you will have this inner struggle Ah I dont feel like it tonight, maybe I should join themOn the other hand, I dare you to befriend and regularly hang out with naturals and not get better. Rather quickly your how can I approach that group of sexy girls? will transform to how can I NOT approach that group of sexy girls?!That said, this is not the time to blame your friends just because they have different priorities and goals than you doesnt make them any better or worse its your job to surround yourself with like-minded people, not to change them.Make it a priority to do so and your future-self will be much more inclined and even eager to follow up with your goals.Finishing ThoughtsId like to finish with giving credit where its due. This article is very much inspired by the book The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonical, one of the best books on behavior Ive ever read (highly recommended if you would like to see more scientific reasoning to some of the principles explained in this article).Its absolutely amazing in what counter-intuitive ways we and others influence our behavior and how simple choices and mental tricks can mean the difference between doing actions that will lead to our long-term goals versus laying in our bed, whining about how everything sucks and how hard it is to change.And of course, Im sure that while reading this you recognized that the strategies and techniques go well beyond seduction and getting better with women they can be applied to all areas of our lives.Cheers,Darius---------------------------At Ease in Your Skin: Key to Being a Great Natural Flirt Ethan Fierre's pictureby Ethan Fierre Monday, 21 September 2015natural flirtYou dont have to be a master of observation to realize most guys flat out suck when it comes to flirting. And this isnt even necessarily because they dont know all the right techniques. The reason for it is actually much more fundamental.What is this fundamental reason, you ask?Only this: more often than not, we repress our emotions and act too stiff or too mechanical.Just imagine what a terrific flirt you could be IF you didnt repress your emotions.Why do we repress them?Out of fear of failure and public humiliation if efforts fall flat, or *gasp!* a girl snubbing you. Repress them, and snubs and failures seem easier to shrug off.But imagine what itd be like to be completely comfortable flirting with even the hottest girls you meet.What would you have to do to be that guy? Thats what well be covering today.Flirting TechGuys can go about learning how to flirt with girls all wrong: they try and learn all the tactics they can, while ignoring the core of what they NEED to do if they are to be successful attracting the opposite sex.Yes, honing specific techniques for flirting makes a lot of sense, but those techniques will often fall flat unless you are, first and foremost, able to express your feelings naturally.Otherwise, youre likely to come off either inexperienced, or like a caricature.The first step to expressing yourself naturally is to change the way you view flirting... and by extension, seduction.Step #1: The ReframeInstead of solely viewing flirting as a tactic for seducing women, what if instead you viewed it as the natural response to feeling attracted to a woman (at least, natural for a man whos not repressed by anxiety)?When were relaxed and uninhibited, our feelings are naturally communicated to those around us through our behavior. When youre uninhibited and youre angry, depressed, offended, or thrilled to see someone, your behavior makes those feelings clear.Flirting is just a special case of this. Its only when anxiety makes you feel like you need to hide how you feel that flirting becomes awkward and forced.This is all once again not to say there arent useful things to be learned from objective descriptions of flirting. There is much that can be learned from a technical behavioristic viewpoint, most significantly:how to have a bigger impact on the women you meet,how to attract more women with targeted approaches,and how to increase your overall efficiency.We have loads of articles on here that look at flirting from a behavioristic perspective:How to be playfulHow to touch herFlying under the radarHow to use eye contactLeaning in, wry smiles, pulling her into youYet if we really think about it, this type of advice is not really addressing the core issue that most people who click on articles like these are trying to resolve.Practicing the right type of touch to use, getting down sexy facial expressions, learning how to stimulate women with implicit sexual humor, etc., will help the beginner of course! at the very least you wont be sending mixed signals any more (which, when coupled with being inexperienced, alarms girls more often than it intrigues them).However, I think lists of behaviors explaining the technical aspects of flirting should be studied as DESCRIPTIONS of how a person would naturally express their interest in a woman if they were open and uninhibited, NOT as a guide for how you should ideally act.This distinction is subtle, so let me explain. The latter way of seeing things implicitly identifies overt signs of attraction to be atypical (based in the domain of conscious acting) and perhaps even inherently risky, while the former experiences them to be the natural default.This brings me to one of the best pieces of advice for flirting Ive ever received: Dont make flirting a thing different from other things.You may realize that what Im saying is that being witty, using implications, and setting chase frames is simply the normal expression of a guy communicating his sexual interest. The wise man does not pedestalize these as difficult to learn skills, but instead views them simply as the objective description of how an uninhibited man flirts.If Im attracted to a woman, I naturally stand closer to her than if I wasnt. If I feel like we are really connecting, I might lean in and joke in a low voice that only the two of us can hear. And certain kinds of touching just feel natural as well.Flirting behavior is not a code to be broken or a game plan to be strategized but a natural side-effect of you feeling attracted and connected to someone.Step #2: Becoming a NaturalSince the main obstacle were dealing with is the repression of all our emotions out of fear that some of them may appear inappropriate, the number one thing you can do to reduce and then control the degree that you self-police yourself is to practice expressing your emotions in many different scenarios every day. Be willing to accept unpleasant and embarrassing feelings that you normally would repress into ambivalence.At being invited to the party, do you experience a feeling of desperation underlying your gratitude?Do you feel a bit hostile towards that secretary who told you that their boss was not in for the third time in a row?Do you feel annoyed at a teacher or boss for shrugging off your input that you thought was more than praiseworthy?Whenever you feel it would be inappropriate for you to express your feelings, you should figure out why. This way, instead of repressing all your emotions because youre afraid that some of them may be inappropriate, you are analyzing the social appropriateness and inappropriateness of them, which will give you the confidence to SELECT which emotions to repress, instead of implementing a blanket strategy where you repress all of them irrespectively.Here is how you do this on a practical level:Techniques for Selective ExpressionPractice expressing your emotions in many different scenarios every day. Put yourself in situations that challenge you, like taking a public speaking course, moving to a foreign country, or talking to more girls on your way to class or work. The external situation isnt so important, its more a matter of your commitment to being honest with yourself that will make the difference in the long term.Amplify your emotions. Slowly turn up the volume on your emoting as you ease yourself into expressing how you feel to a greater degree. Perhaps exaggerate your feelings so you get used to a wider scope (when I first started doing this, what felt to me like exaggerating my feelings was, upon later reflection, still quite repressed).Reflect on ambiguous feelings. Practicing this may also encourage you to deal with some emotional baggage and train you to interpret your emotions more clearly.Step #3: RelaxUnderstand that good flirting is more a relaxing into sort of thing than a stepping up sort of thing. If you can do this, the next time you read or hear something about flirting behavior (use implicit sexual humor, establish an us vs. them dynamic) you wont be thinking This just isnt me, but, This is how people in my culture act when they feel a certain way about someone. Its totally appropriate that I feel this way, and when I do, this is how I will act so people will be able to know how Im feeling.natural flirtThere are likely some objections you may have to my argument, so let me address those:Objection #1: What about negative emotions?At this point you may object: If I were to show my real emotions, wouldnt that scare girls away? Not everything I feel is positive. Some of the emotions I feel are toxic. Do I want to enhance those too?The answer to this is of course yes, toxic emotions will scare girls away, and no, you dont want to enhance those feelings. However, unless youre able to be open about these emotions, theyre going to fester and youre not likely to get over them in the first place.Any sensible person can let go of fatalism, cruelty, hostility, self-doubt, etc. (Hectors written a nice article about dealing with anger that covers in more detail ways to deal with negative emotions). But if in the short term you are unable to, itll regardless save you a lot of time and pain if you dont try and mask them from your partners, as that way you avoid them cropping up later on in the relationship after youre both more emotionally attached and vulnerable to each other.But dont worry: most girls dont really care if youre a beacon of confidence. Its okay to be nervous and a little self-conscious.Actually, the first girls you will attract will likely be into you because you are a little awkward. There are a lot of girls out there who love awkward, nervous guys, as they themselves are awkward, nervous girls, or they see potential in you and think you might be a good long-term investment.After some more experience however, your values will change and you will grow more confident. And when that happens, you will find that the types of women that interest you has changed as well; youre now interested in women who match your new values, experience level, and increased level of confidence.Pretty cool how that works, eh? The way men and women get together will start to seem like an imperfect but somewhat logical system.This vision of leveling up through experience will motivate you to keep putting yourself out there. However, what you need to do TODAY if you want to make that vision a reality is start practicing amplifying and analyzing your emotions. It sounds simple, but its actually one of the most beneficial things you can do for yourself.Focus In On What You Do & How You FeelWhat helped me focus was for years I kept a journal where I tracked my daily activities, how my emotions changed throughout the day, and what I thought I could do better the next day (this has extra benefits beyond just getting more in touch with your emotions too).This helped me enormously in finding out my true unadulterated feelings about things, and nowadays I have the awareness to quickly recognize things like I feel slightly jealous right now. Why is this? or I have been starting to snap at people a bit today whats the problem?Or even more difficult to admit to yourself: Ive been working on this dream for years and its not progressing as I hoped. Would dropping it now be the reasonable thing to do, or should I continue on? I know Ill never be able to measure all the variables here, so how do each of these options feel to me and what will I choose to do so I can move on with my life, enjoying the satisfaction of being decisive even with difficult, open-ended decisions?Objection #2: Wont this way of looking at things encourage guys to be lazy?Another objection you may have is that this way of looking at flirting may encourage guys to get lazy, or to delude themselves that they dont have to improve. This is a good objection, and it deserves some attention.I dont want to validate you guys who already are pretty in tune with your emotions and arent plagued by a blanket self-dampening of your emotions. You guys are like farmers who have successfully sown a garden. However, that garden may still need some tending be it overrun with unprofitable weeds that suffocate your crop yield (unbeneficial habits) or it be simply in need of a bit of pruning. Or even more, you may want to start introducing a new hydroponic growth system (e.g. getting involved in a social circle with more experienced people) or plant seeds more resistant to frost (learn to be more persistent).The all-important thing to remember here is that feeling comfortable with being attracted to someone is not the same as feeling complacent, and actually is a prerequisite to effective flirting.natural flirtFree to FeelThe benefits of being honest about your emotions are enormous. Not only are you in touch with how you feel and things like flirting and approaching women youre attracted to just feel like the natural, appropriate thing to do, but theres also a huge social benefit as well: you will get a reputation as an honest person who speaks his mind (speaking your mind is obviously difficult if you arent able to acknowledge your minds emotional content to begin with).This means that when you tell someone that you want them to come to your party, they will know that you actually want them to come and you arent just saying it.With some of my friends and acquaintances, I just can never be sure if what theyre communicating is really what they mean. Largely because they havent learned to be discerning of their own emotional states, they feel the need to be positive all the time, and will say what they think I want to hear instead of how they actually feel. But they dont realize that doing so, though perhaps better than constantly complaining and being a total downer, is not what people really want to hear. What non-egotists usually want to hear is how you actually feel!I have found that people who are at the top of social ladders as well as those who legitimately dont play that game and arent trying to prove anything or use you appreciate this type of openness enormously.Of course, also being able to mask your emotions is an equally useful skill but its a skill that becomes a prison unless you have the capacity to acknowledge and express how youre really feeling in the first place.Ethan Fierre---------------------3 Ways to Train Up Social Aptitude Chase Amante's pictureby Chase Amante Thursday, 20 August 2015social aptitudeYoure at a night school class you share with a pretty girl youve had your eye on. The semesters only halfway through, yet you have a feeling this girl likes you, and you like her too. Youve chatted a few times, and sometimes you sit near her or next to her, but not always.One evening, your class lets out and she takes a long time to gather her belongings. Coincidentally (or not), two of you head out at the same time. You strike up a conversation with her on the way out, and shes responsive, but the conversation quickly stalls out. She seems happy but nervous. You feel like shes waiting for something. Then you think how awkward it would be if you asked her out and she said no, and now youve got to keep coming back to this class and itd really suck if there was an awkward vibe between you and this girl you like.So, you tell her well, anyway, you guess youd better get going, and you peel off and head to your car. On the way home, you kick yourself for not asking her out.There are some men out there this kind of thing never happens to if they get a shot with a girl, they take it. They cant even understand why this would even be a problem for guys.For most guys though, this is something theyve had happen once or twice (or thrice... or four times... or more times).The difference between the man this doesnt happen to, and the man it does, quite often, comes down to a difference in their general and specific social aptitudes.social aptitudeSocial aptitude, pragmatically defined, is the ability to get into social situations, get what you want out of them, and get out of them with minimal negative ripple effects on the rest of your life / socializing / social standing in the event things dont go as youd hoped.The man with high social aptitude can ask the girl out in the above situation because he knows a few things:He knows how to put himself in a position to ask her outHe knows what to say and do to actually ask her outHe knows how to save face for both of them if she says noHe may or may not consciously realize he knows them, yet throw him into this situation and he runs it more or less smoothly, regardless of the outcome. None of the stuttering or mumbling or deer-in-the-headlights reactions of the man who doesnt know these things yet.How you develop social aptitude is interesting; because you may have a high degree of aptitude in some settings and a low aptitude in others.There is, however, an overall measure of social aptitude that, as you improve your base-level, general social aptitude, raises your scores across the board, in all kinds of situations.How Do You Know You Need This?In 2011, I teamed up with a couple of business partners with exceptionally high natural social aptitudes thatd been reinforced over the years with a lot of conscious practice and study. I was already pretty talented at this point in my own right at all things social, but these guys were the absolute cream of the crop. And they quickly ran circles around me.I got gypped, hoodwinked, bamboozled, outmanned, outmatched, and outclassed every which way around these guys. School was in session, and I barely hung on. Ultimately, I got my clock cleaned I lost a lot of money and went through a lot of drama.In the end though, after countless days and nights of situations where I just had no idea what the correct call to make was, I discovered Id evolved, and began operating on their level.It wasnt the first time Id had an experience like this I felt the same way when I first started going to parties with people in 2005, and I felt it when I started rolling with a party crowd in San Diego in 2007, and I felt it when I began mingling with a crowd of higher class and wealthier people in 2008. Each time I felt like a novice again, totally out of my depth, and whatever training Id had prior didnt seem to amount to spit.To me, thats the single biggest indicator you have growing to do in your present social aptitude: finding yourself in situations where youre completely out of your element and dont know what to do.Most people retreat from situations like this, and insulate themselves in the little bubbles of their comfort zones, returning to the safe spaces of social groups they know and social situations for which theyve already mapped the terrain.Yet, if you want to grow beyond that bubble, discomfort and failure must be your good friends.Do You Need Game If You Have Aptitude?In many ways, game (as in the ability to do well with girls) is just a measure of social aptitude, which is why youll notice that the men who most fluidly navigate social situations also tend to be the men who most fluidly navigate women into bed.social aptitudeLearning game is just another way of learning some targeted aspects of social aptitude.A guy with elite-level social aptitude probably doesnt need to sit down and figure out how to respond to a girl not texting him back. His instincts kick in and hes got it.Or, a guy who has a great deal of medium-specific aptitude (he spends all day on his phone and is a text message pro)... he may not need to think about it at all either. He just responds automatically and gets his desired result.The kind of aptitude Im going to talk about learning today is general social aptitude... just the overall comfort and intuition about all manner of social situations.Learning game is the shortcut to aptitude in specific dating- and sex- and relationship-related areas.Developing a great overall social aptitude is how you give yourself immense flexibility in even totally novel social situations... romantic or otherwise.social aptitudeThere are three (3) ways I know of to reliably build social aptitude:Enter challenging social situationsAssociate with socially superior peopleStudy well (and put to practice)The first two are what you might call organic learning get yourself some exposure and learn naturally/automatically.The third is focused learning, or book learning (Ill actually recommend film and television here, though books can be informative too), with the practice part serving to translate theory into actual.#1: Enter Challenging Social SituationsIf youre going this route, you will actively seek out situations in which you dont know which way is up. The more confused and adrift you feel, the better. Most people wont do this because it doesnt feel so good, and the ego takes a beating.Cold approach pickup, when youre new, is one such kind of situation.Youre walking up to strangers, engaging them in conversation, and trying to lead that conversation somewhere. Rarely does it go quite as planned, and all manner of unpredictable things arise to throw a monkey wrench into your interactions. Your first few months doing it can feel like its you against the world.Socializing with cooler people than youre used to socializing with is another such situation. Or any kind of group that is insular and doesnt immediately accept you you could even be the cool guy hanging out with the computer programmers and getting a frosty reception from these chaps.Other examples of challenging social situations you might enter:Taking on a sales job, either face-to-face or over the phoneJoining a class that requires showing off, like acting or modelingSneaking into places you arent allowed, like a nightclub VIP sectionGoing for quick pulls with women, or intimacy in unusual locationsWorking groups of people to meet one specific girlBecoming a manager at your job (or in your own business)Becoming a teacher responsible for a group of studentsTraveling and staying in hostels with other travelersSpending longer periods of time in foreign cultures... and so on and so forth.Any kind of situation that will genuinely s-t-r-e-t-c-h your social acumen will do.Now, theres a catch, and thats this: you must strive to improve and come out on top in your new, challenging social situation.social aptitudeYou need to be able to put the male competitive instinct to work here, and not be the guy who finds himself in a challenging social situation and just gives up and mopes.By doing this by taking figure this scene out and get a handle on it as your objective you force yourself to adapt to this new challenge.Whats so good about this is that process of adaptation requires you to figure out certain social abilities you hadnt previously trained up well enough to immediately succeed in the environment:Sales trains you to close and qualify, to handle objections, persuade someone without triggering their defense mechanisms against being sold to, and moreTeaching trains you to explain things extremely clearly, understand what students do and do not understand both about the subject matter and the world, manage disruptions, and the likePulling quickly or to unusual locations trains you to see past womens logical objections and address the emotion underneath, to think on the fly and be adaptable under social pressure, to manage another persons emotions and keep her calm enough yet excited enough while you mentally run through a list of social chess moves, etc.Being a boss trains you to understand how best to motivate individual people to perform well and up-to-standard, how to manage multiple people who work better or worse together, how to maintain morale, and so onYou get the drift. Each different challenge you set for yourself trains up another aspect of your general social aptitude which then translates to increasingly higher aptitude and stronger social calibration in all manner of scenarios.#2: Associate with Socially Superior PeopleSocially superior... that sounds like a pretty highfalutin term, eh?Were not talking snobs with trust funds here (necessarily; though, we might be).Instead, were talking about anyone who is more socially savvy than you are:If youre a social hermit, this is just about anybody who actually goes out on a Friday or Saturday night.If youve been doing cold approach but neglecting social circle, this is anyone who does well in attractive or high value social circles.If youre doing well in high value social circles, this is anyone doing well in a higher value social circle.Note that high value here is relative (as value always is); like we discussed in the article on male authority, different men have different value levels in different situations.For instance, a guy may be super high value at work, with HOTSHOT written all over him, but drag him along to that barbecue your buddies are hosting this weekend and suddenly hes uncharacteristically awkward. Thisd be the case of a guy whos developed high domain aptitude (at work) but still needs work on his overall social aptitude (everywhere outside of work).You see this with some guys who are heavy into pickup, too. Ive met guys who are terrific at picking up girls one-on-one, but put them into social situations with lots of people and theyre lost at sea. Its another case of high domain aptitude, yet more work needed on aptitude overall.My recommendation, that Ive made in multiple articles, is that you try to make friends with as many high caliber people from different backgrounds as you can. Not only will you get to learn from people who are your social superiors in different ways, but theyll often drag you along into new and unfamiliar social situations too, so you get to bang out #1 and #2 in one fell swoop.Its kind of a 2-for-1 deal, like Tuesday night at Cold Stone Creamery.How do you identify people who are socially superior? Confidence is the chief trait. Charisma is the next one after this. If someone is both confident and charismatic, theyre usually worth getting to know, and learning from if theyre better than you.social aptitudeHow do you make friends with them? Thats beyond the scope of this article; however, check out these:How to Make Friends? The Master Key to New FriendshipsDating Narcissistic and Egotistical WomenHow to Master AnythingLike with #1, the key here is you must have learning switched on around them; you must be studying what these people do, how they do it, then emulating things you notice they do.For instance, I learned deep diving by watching several of my socially superior friends / girlfriends use probing questions to find out juicy details from people, get them qualifying themselves, and rapidly obtaining the upper hand socially. I learned chase framing in part from spending time around a pal with incredible sexual humor he used to great effect with women. Without associating with people with a greater social aptitude than I had at the time, and studying what they did and how they did it, I may never have learned these things that are now a key part of how I interact with others (and pick up girls!).#3: Study Well (and Put to Practice)Films and television shows can be great teachers too, if you pay attention to the right things.Guys who are total novices socially often try to focus on saying the same words an actor uses or simulating the process he uses in a movie to get a woman in bed. These usually arent worth paying too much attention to, though, because these aspects are reliant on how adept the screenwriter is at depicting a true-to-life pickup, and most screenwriters arent super experienced at picking up women.Instead, when going this route, the thing to focus on is the actor himself.Thats things like:His facial expressionsHis body languageHow he walksHow he talksHis comic timing when he says something wittyHow he says something witty is it goofy (likely not) or seductive (likely)?How he touches the women he interacts with (or the men dominance)How he moves through the sceneHow his countenance changes depending on the social situationThis stuff is the stuff you want to study. Especially the last one studying how an actor varies his interaction style depending on the situation is especially informative:Does he lean in with a pretty girl, yet lean back coolly when threatened by enemies?Does he slap a man on the back and laugh when he busts his stones (releasing the tension), yet with a woman he teases her and just stares at her and waits to see what shell do? Or, alternately, maybe he teases her and just keeps the interaction rolling after, never giving her the chance to respond?Does he pursue different women differently the shy girl vs. the confident one, for instance?The next step is going out and emulating what youve learned in real life, because its nothing but useless book learning (or, in this case, movie learning) if youre not using it out there.This may mean youre acting a little too much like whatever character/actors impressed you the most lately, but thats okay itll even out as you get more familiar with doing those things, then start adding your own touch to them and integrating them into your default behavior.social aptitudeWhat films/actors should you study? Thats a big topic I wont get into here, although we do have an article series by Ricardus on movie seductions that are worth checking out:Epic Movie Seductions: Part IEpic Movie Seductions: Part IIEpic Movie Seductions: Part III... as well as his two-parter on the California Pimp:The Legend of California Pimp Part IThe Legend of California Pimp Part II... and we also have a bunch of threads on the forum about these as well:Help! Being CharismaticFavorite Manly MovieSexy Mannerisms For Men?Clint Eastwood as the edgy guyporn actors as seduction modelsRecommend Me Some Series and/or MoviesWhat Emulating James Bond Actually MeansTv Shows / Movies to enhance seduction skills?Movie Question: Flick Where Girl Does Lots of Stuff for Guy?(probably more forum threads I missed in my quick look for these, too)Theres plenty of material out there you can study for edges if you look.Which Social Aptitude Builder Do You Choose?Well, most guys will probably start with #3, because thats easiest on a number of levels: it doesnt require going out or interacting with other people to start, the edges you get from it are easier to tease out (this guys walk, that guys mannerisms, etc... tougher to soak these up as quickly when youre watching a guy out in real life), plus you dont have to put the time into finding a challenging new social situation or making friends with a guy wholl be able to teach you a thing or two socially.However, I suggest you try to incorporate all three of these approaches to your aptitude bar-raising if becoming super socially talented is a priority for you.#1 and #2 may have a slower start than #3, but they are deeper forms of learning, most often; a movie only shows you an excerpt of the mans behavior, but when youre watching him in person, or youre navigating the full situation yourself, you learn it all.If you can combine the three ways to raise your social aptitude:Enter challenging social situationsAssociate with socially superior peopleStudy well (and put to practice)... then not only will you level up a lot faster, in a lot of different directions, but I guarantee, after the initial man, this is tough/draining acclimation period you endure with any situation or individual youre barely keeping up with socially, youll discover you start gaining some new social superpowers, and then it becomes downright fun.Ciao,Chase-------------------------------