Wondering how to get into her pants
Since the beginning of our species, there have been men trying to learn how to be more successful in attracting women.
Recently, and primary through the Internet, the culture of the “pickup artist” (PUA) has become the most common cultural force for “where men go to learn how to get chicks” (and that is largely driven by big marketing dollars and profit, but I digress).
In the language of the PUA, men who don’t understand how to skillfully navigate social dynamics in the ways that they teach are called “average frustrated chumps” or AFCs.
I’ve been looking at this for a while now, and I’ve come to the important insight that the PUA and the AFC share the absolutely identical strategy for winning attention from women… they only vary at the tactical level.
The AFC (according to PUAs) is a guy who tries to trade “being nice” or money (offering anything from paying for dinner to the financial security of marriage) in order to get female attention and sex.
The PUA, by contrast, trades feigned social status, demonstrations of high value (clever ways of making it appear that you have high social status), witty banter, and other learned behaviors in order to get female attention and sex.
And it appears to me that while these tactics are quite different, the strategy is the same: There is a necessary TRANSACTION in order to win female attention.
And this root strategy is the cause of a dizzying list of problems in the way men and women relate to each other.
Fans of PUA tactics might (rightly) point out that even if the strategy is the same, the tactics have wildly different results. And it is true, if you’re trying to get laid, you’re going to get miles further by feigning social status than by being nice or spending money.
But the cost is extremely high for both strategies.
Whether you are a PUA or AFC, your transactional strategy for getting the girl has these predictable consequences:
1) You can’t forge an authentic relationship based on intimate knowledge of each other’s deep truth
2) You are constructing a relationship that is built upon, and must be sustained by, the transaction. In other words, AFC’s have to continue to spend money and “nice points,” and PUAs have to keep “gaming” their girlfriends in order to keep the relationship alive.
3) You are damaging the self-esteem of the woman you are with by creating this unhealthy structure. I constantly hear men saying that women cannot be trusted or that women lie or that women are always willing to leave you if someone “better” comes along…
And it turns out that this is true if it’s the way you have created your relationship with her. It’s not that she IS that way… it’s that she’s that way with YOU.
All of us know at least one person who thinks we are a wonderful person, and at least one person who thinks we are a big asshole. They are both right. We really do act differently with different people.
4) You are damaging your own self esteem and robbing yourself of the opportunity of being truly seen, known, and loved for who you really are in this lifetime. You are strengthening that voice in your head that is afraid that the REAL you is not worthy of female attention, sex, or love.
…And honestly, all of these consequences might just be worth it… if it gets you laid!
Look, I’m not going to paint it in pretty colors. It’s a simple fact that we humans need sex. We need attention and affection from others. We need validation and approval and to feel sexually attractive. And when we don’t get these things, we are really, really unhappy.
Millions of years of evolution have formed our brain to be exquisite in the delivery of both pleasure and pain around whether or not we can get laid.
If you can: PLEASURE!
If you can’t: PAIN!
And the ONLY thing that is more absorbing, more immediately and stubbornly captivating of our attention, time, and focus, is the threat of imminent death.
If you’re pretty sure that you’re not going to be killed in the next couple of minutes, then the question of whether or not you are getting laid looms large.
Especially if you’re not.
So I don’t blame anyone for trying to be Mr. Nice Guy or paying for dinner… or figuring out how to appear to have high social status using body language, or feigning disinterest, or whatever, in order to exchange those things for a little nookie.
But it turns out that there are OTHER OPTIONS.
There are plenty of men out there who have a completely different model of how to get female attention, sex, and love.
There are plenty of men out there for whom it is NOT TRANSACTIONAL.
And here’s the kicker: These guys get laid. They get female attention. And most of all, they get love.
It’s called maturity, the development of self esteem, and sexual confidence.
In our unfair world, some men arrive at this quite easily…
If a man is born extremely handsome and clever, and he gets lots of approval and attention for his personality, sense of humor, intelligence, skills, and appearance as a child, then very often his internal wiring by the time he reaches puberty is: Of course women want to give me attention and be with me!
Don’t let anyone tell you that looks don’t matter. They matter a great deal to this natural formation.
But I constantly meet plenty of strikingly handsome men who couldn’t get laid to save themselves (it’s almost weird to watch how they manage to creep-out and sabotage the affection of the dozens of women that give them opportunities every day), and plenty of other handsome men whose self esteem was crushed as a child and who believe that women ONLY want them for their looks and end up in the same sabotaged and shallow relationships as PUAs and AFCs…
And I constantly meet “ugly” men who have great ease and comfort with the simple fact that women find them attractive.
It turns out that the simple active distinction is sexual confidence and sense of worthiness. This frees you up to actually get curious about knowing the woman you are interested in, while enjoying the underlying and natural sexual tension.
Imagine a world where women find you naturally attractive, want to be with you, feel sexual desire towards you, feel GOOD and healthy and open when YOU are around them, and feel safe to share their heart’s deepest secrets and yearnings with you…
In this imagined world, women are trustworthy exactly because they are actually fulfilled without any need for transaction, and they feel open to be themselves, and validate you, and cheer you on to be your greatest self, as both your lover and your friend.
Good stuff! Different…and good to see there is no video ‘that may be taken down at any time ‘due
to it’s controversial nature’
Thank you, Alex.
I believe you are so correct in encouraging us to nurture our own love of our authentic self.
It sounds cliche, but its true that we must love ourselves and accept ourselves if we want that affirmation from others .
Keep up the good work you are doing to improves the lives of many
Well written Alex!
Imagining that world where men and women are authentic and feel SAFE to be themselves would certainly make this world amazing.
Let’s stop the ‘games’ and play authentically with each other, with the reward of deeper, richer relationships.
Alex you are so on the money it’s (almost!) scary if it wasn’t such a relief.
Listen up men.
Alex, thank you so much for this blog post. It really struck a chord inside of me when you said that PUAs go through all of that high social status feigning, witty banter, etc in order to get laid, but that kills their chances of authentic relationships.
There is something deep inside of me that resonates with the message you are trying to get across. I am certainly interested in what it takes to develop an authentic, lasting, and loving relationship with women.
Thank you Alex, you are a breath of fresh air. It’s sad how many people long for true love, but have no idea how to create it. Unfortunately there are a lot of so called “experts” willing to exploit people’s desperation for connection, giving terrible soul crushing advice. So glad, you’re not one of them Alex. Keep up the good work.
I read pua material for a while and I think your not total correct. From my point of view pua is a way to become a more confident man simular as your material and this finally leads to more women.
Of course thers a lot material who teaches stuff you mentioned in your post but there are great people who teach most important is that you need to work on yourself bevor learning gaming and this is natural attractive to women.
Thanks for the perspective Dani, and I do agree that many of the new generation of PUAs are doing a better job of of helping men to become better men as at least part of their message.
The persistent issues I see, even with most of those guys (though obviously I don’t everything going on out there on the interwebs) are:
1) Working on the self as a path to pussy is, in itself, a potentially shaky path because it cuts short a deeper exploration of the self that ought to be prior to deciding who you are trying to become. Figuring out who we are and what we are evolving towards is a very tricky business.
Sorting out the “real” from the “should” takes deep presence and rigorous exploration. If we begin with the quest for pussy, then we can comfortably pretend that we don’t need to do all of that work and rigorous exploration and simply take it on faith that what the PUA guru thinks we ought to become to get those girls, is a true path for us.
2) Frequently the path they suggest is filled with ideas that are devaluing to women in order to pump up a synthetic belief in our own superior social status. And we know that this can be superficially attractive in social situations and even get your laid, but it completely lacks foundation.
But because installing these new beliefs is functional (it can get you laid more often than you are getting laid now), it reinforces a series of new chimerical beliefs that, in the long run, can cut you off from the deeper satisfaction of true intimacy, nourishing relationships, and the beauty of being truly known and truly loved for who you truly are… eccentricities, insecurities, and all.
Look, I understand that seeing a PUA with hot, sexy girls that they get to have sex with is extremely alluring! It’s easy to look at that and say, “I’d like some of THAT, please!”
Nothing wrong with that, and I support any man in that quest… provided it does not ultimately cost him too much in the rest of his life. It can be a fun short term goal if you don’t sell off your soul and become a deceitful prick in order to achieve it.
The guys have fun, the girls have fun, win-win, it’s all good.
And then… it’s worth remembering that there is more to life and to also nurture that part of yourself that will get you what you’re going to want (or even NEED for your emotional health) later. And then it’s worth openly observing: Does this PUA have a relationship that I admire?