For among animals the principle is the same as with us, and mortal nature seeks so far as possible to live forever and be immortal. And this is possible in one way only: reproduction, because it always leaves behind a new young one in place of the old.
…it is for the sake of immortality that everything shows this zeal, which is Love.
Look, if you will, how human beings seek honor… wanting to be famous and ‘to lay glory immortal forever’
I believe that anyone will do anything for the sake of immortal virtue and the glorious fame that follows; and the better the people, the more they will do, for they are all in love with immortality. – Plato, Symposium 207d – 208e
Everyone wants to feel important. She has that same vulnerable human need just like you.
“And because she’s served with all the attentions due to a god by a lover who is not pretending otherwise but is truly in the throes of love, and because she’s disposed to be a friend of the man who’s serving her (even if she… initially rejects the lover)… she lets the man spend time with her. It is a decree of fate, you see, that bad is never friends with bad, while good cannot fail to be friends with good. Now that she allows her lover to talk and spend time with her, and the man’s good will is close at hand, the girl is amazed by it as she realizes that all the friendship she has… is nothing compared to that of this friend who’s inspired by a god.
After the lover has spent some time doing this, staying near the girl (even touching her… on occasions), then the spring… named ‘Desire’… begins to flow mightily in the lover and is partly absorbed by her, and when she is filled, it overflows and runs away outside her. Think how a breeze or an echo bounces back from a smooth solid object to its source; that is how the stream of beauty goes back to the beautiful girl and sets her aflutter. It enters through her eyes, which are its natural route to the soul; there it waters the passages for the wings, starts the wings growing, and fills the soul of the loved one with love in return. Then the girl is in love, but has no idea what she loves. She does not understand, and cannot explain, what has happened to her. It is as if she had caught an eye disease from someone else, but could not identify the cause; she does not realize that she is seeing herself in the lover as in a mirror. So when the lover is near, the girl’s pain is relieved just as the lover’s is, and when they are apart she yearns as much as she is yearned for, because she has a mirror image of love in him–‘back love’– though she neither speaks nor thinks of it as love, but as friendship. Still, her desire is nearly the same as her lover’s, though weaker: he wants to see, touch, kiss, and lie down with her; and of course, as you might expect, she acts on these desires soon after they occur..
Meanwhile… swelling with desire, confused, she hugs her lover and kisses him in delight at his great good will. And whenever they are lying together she’s completely unable, for her own part, to deny the lover any favor he might beg to have… Now if victory goes to the better elements in both their minds… their life here below is one of bliss and shared understanding.”
If something doesn’t go right, no need to freak out. There’s always a solution to a problem. If you listen to the Stoic philosophers and to the Taoists, they seem to believe things will work out one way or another.
And in the larger scheme of things, whatever the “big” deal is, is never really THAT big of a big deal. In fact, I’m constantly getting reminded that pain is usually something to learn and grow from, not to freak out over. Wouldn’t you agree?
So, remain calm. You can handle it whatever life throws at you. You can handle it.
It’s an attitude that’s attractive to women, no doubt. I mean, how are we to supposed take care of our women, and be a strong man for our women if we can’t keep calm in the storm that’s life?
But more important than being attractive to women, it’s a critical attitude to have for life in general. I repeat this mantra to myself whenever things don’t go right, and it always helps me to stay calm and focused.
“Men are like fire–quick to ignite and quick to extinguish. Women are like water–slow to boil but keep on boiling” – a Taoist expression as quoted by Sex Coach Kim Amami, from July/August 2012 Playboy
We’ll be better lovers if we can learn to prolong our arousal.
How?
Relax the muscles around the groin, and breathe out the tension. The tenser we are around the groin, the closer we get pushed over the edge. The more relaxed we are, the longer we’ll last.
“Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.”
–Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, page 1
This applies to pickup.
All of us are born socially free. But we got bound by social chains of “you can’t do this,” esteem, hurt feelings, limited thinking, insecurities.
Pickup is one way to free us from these chains.
Brad P: what all the master pickup artists have in common, despite whatever school of pickup they represent, is
Social Freedom
MOST people have social anxiety. They’re afraid of rejection, afraid to say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing.
But the key to success in pickup is to break free from this anxiety and be socially free again. The way we already were as kids.
Like Rousseau says, EACH ONE OF US has freedom inside us already. We just have to return to it.
When I think of social freedom, I think of the movie The Mask.
Remember how Jim Carey transformed from this timid, Mr. Nice Guy into a wild, fearless, powerful and invincible guy when he put on The Mask?
Then Ben Stein explains The Mask had released his id from his super-conscious. With The Mask on, he now had no more social pressures like “you’re not supposed to this” or that. Just total non-self-consciousness and freedom!
When I picture The Mask before I go into the field it’s amazing how approach anxiety kind of lessens for me. What other people think of me? Screw that. All I care about is doing the right thing… being friendly to EVERYONE and giving lots of love. That’s higher than what people might think of me.
Now here’s the best part of all this. How do we break our social restraints?
Approaching.
What could be more socially free than approaching complete strangers? Approaching is an exercise of social freedom, like an athlete exercising to become healthy and strong.
Social freedom is our natural right. It’s in ALL of us. We just have to reclaim it. The art of pickup is an awesome… and very practical… way to do this.
Who cares what she thinks about you? Just give her “feeling good.” No need to get anything in return.
“Having a lot of money has nothing to do with being a success in life. You’re a success in life when you wake up! Then you don’t have to apologize to anyone, you don’t have to explain anything to anyone, you don’t give a damn what anybody thinks about you or what anybody says about you. You have no worries; you’re happy. That’s what I call being a success…
(Those who are worried what people think of them–even if rich and famous)… are controlled, so manipulated. They are unhappy people, they are miserable people. They don’t enjoy life. They are constantly tense and anxious. Do you call that human? And do you know why that happens? Only one reason: They identified with some label. They identified the “I” with their money or their job or their profession or (what women thought of them).”
-Anthony DeMello, “Obstacles to Happiness” in Awareness
Don’t worry what women–or anybody–thinks of you. Connect with reality. Who cares about getting “esteem” from others? Irony: when you don’t care what a woman thinks about you, you’ll become more successful with women.
I read the passage below a few years back while getting over a broken heart. It helped. The idea of it might upset some. But I know it helped me to feel freer, and as a byproduct, be more successful with women.
The passage comes from a chapter called “Detachment” in a book called “Awareness” by Jesuit priest Anthony DeMello. I know it’s a little long. But it’s totally worth it.
Do this little exercise for a few minutes: Think of something or someone you are attached to; in other words, something or someone without which or without whom you think you are not going to be happy. It could be your job, your career, your profession, your friend, your money, whatever. And say to this object or person, “I really do not need you to be happy. I’m only deluding myself in the belief that without you I will not be happy. But I really don’t need you for my happiness; I can be happy without you. You are not my happiness, you are not my joy.” If your attachment is a person, he or she is not going to be very happy to hear you say this, but go ahead anyway. You can say it in the secrecy of your heart. In any case, you’ll be making contact with the truth; you’ll be smashing through a fantasy. Happiness is a state of non-illusion, of dropping illusion.
Or you could try another exercise: Think of a time when you were heartbroken and thought you would never be happy again (your husband died, your wife died, your best friend deserted you, you lost your money). What happened? Time went on, and if you managed to pick up another attachment or managed to find somebody else you were attracted to or something else you were attracted to, what happened to the old attachment? You didn’t really need it to be happy, did you? That should have taught you, but we never learn. We’re programmed; we’re conditioned. How liberating it is not to depend emotionally on anything. If you could get one second’s experience of that, you’d be breaking through your prison and getting a glimpse of the sky. Someday, maybe, you will even fly.
I was afraid to say this, but I talked to God, and I told Him that I don’t need Him. My initial reaction was: “This is so contrary to everything I’ve been brought up with.” Now, some people want to make an exception of their attachment to God. They say, “If God is the God that I think He ought to be, He’s not going to like it when I give up my attachment to Him!” All right, if you think that unless you get God you’re not going to be happy, then this “God” you’re thinking of has nothing to do with the real God. You’re thinking of a dream state; you’re thinking of your concept. Sometimes you have to get rid of “God” in order to find God. Lots of mystics tell us that.
We’ve been so blinded by everything that we have not discovered the basic truth that attachments hurt rather than help relationships. I remember how frightened I was to say to an intimate friend of mine, “I don’t really need you. I can be perfectly happy without you. And by telling you this I find I can enjoy your company thoroughly–no more anxieties, no more jealousies, no more possessiveness, no more clinging. It is a delight to be with you when I am enjoying you on a non-clinging basis. You’re free; so am I.” But to many of you this is like talking a foreign language. It took me many, many months to fully understand this, and mind you, I’m a Jesuit, whose spiritual exercises are all about exactly this, although I missed the point because my culture and my society in general had taught me to view people in terms of my attachments.
I’m quite amused, sometimes, to see even seemingly objective people like therapists and spiritual directors say of someone, “He’s a great guy, great guy, I really like him.” I find out later that it’s because he likes me that I like him. I look into myself, and I find the same thing coming up now and again: If you’re attached to appreciation and praise, you’re going to view people in terms of their threat to your attachment or their fostering of your attachment. If you’re a politician and you want to be elected, how do you think you’re going to look at people, how will your interest in people be guided? You will be concerned for the person who’s going to get you the vote. If what you’re interested in is sex, how do you think you’re going to look at men and women? If you’re attached to power, that colors your view of human beings. An attachment destroys your capacity to love.
What is love? Love is sensitivity, love is consciousness. To give you an example: I’m listening to a symphony. What is a loving heart? A loving heart is sensitive to the whole of life, to all persons; a loving heart doesn’t harden itself to any person or thing. But the moment you become attached in my sense of the word, then you’re blocking out many other things. You’ve got eyes only for the drums; the heart has hardened. Moreover, it’s blinded, because it no longer sees the object of its attachment objectively. Love entails clarity of perception, objectivity; there is nothing so clear-sighted as love.
Rejection feels incredibly personal, but it isn’t. Women respond to our skill level, not to who we really, truly are at our core. Whatever perception she might have of us is impermanent and changeable. Her false perception of us isn’t reality, it’s her illusion.
There’s “actual value” and “perceived value” of a person. Credit goes to Lovedrop’s book Revelation for this insight. Actual value is a person’s actual character. These are real and have a real influence in the world. But they’re not easily known.
Perceived value, on the other hand, is the surface stuff. It’s the limited information, cues, and signals we see on the surface to judge someone’s value, in lieu of not knowing what a person’s actual value is.
The skill of success with women is all about communicating our actual value in terms of perceived value. Attraction has to do with persona, not a person’s actual substance. We have to PRESENT ourselves well, as well as work on ourselves as men.
Getting better with women, then, is like learning how to do a better lay-up in basketball. It’s just a skill. As my basketball coach used to always tell us, perfect practice makes perfect. Women’s rejection of us has to do with our skill level, not with our intrinsic worth as a person. Happily, a skill is learnable—by anyone.
Now, that’s all well and good on an intellectual level, but if her rejection still has you in pain, USE the emotion. Don’t surrender to it. Here’s an action plan how to do this. Credit goes to J.R. Ridinger for this insight.
STEP #1. Identify the emotion. There are two ways people deal with emotion. They either ignore it or feed it. Don’t do these. Instead, feel the emotion. Next, put a label on it. Is it anger? Sadness? Frustration? What category does it fall under?
STEP #2.Clarify the emotion. Ask yourself, “what is the emotion telling me?” Emotion is information. There’s a reason you’re feeling an emotion. Analyze the emotion to understand why you’re feeling that way.
STEP #3.Identify the action signal. Ask yourself what you can DO about it. There’s basically two actions you can take.
A. Change your perception.
B. Change your procedure.
In other words, you can change the way you think or INTERPRET whatever is making you feel the negative emotion. Or you can change your BEHAVIOR so the negative situation doesn’t happen again.
When a woman rejects you, ask what’s the SIGNAL to change? Change either your negative thoughts, or your negative behavior. This way YOU take control of emotion, rather than it control you. You make it USEFUL.
Last point. Despite any rejection from a woman, NEVER give up. KEEP on the track that you’re on. Her rejection is not of you. It’s of your skill level. Keep honing the skill. And you’ll make it through to the other side. Her rejection can empower you.
“It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.” – Confucius
How did Style get so successful in the game? According to him it was these things:
1. Hang out with people better than you: He hung with Mystery. Obviously that might be a little more difficult now, but there are other guys out there you can find that are good with women. When you hang out with that guy, he’ll rub off on you. You’ll SEE him in action. And you’ll learn subtle lessons from him a book could never capture. If you can’t find anyone, models on tape or video are a good temporary substitute.
2. PRACTICE: Style went out all the time and PRACTICED pickup. You can’t learn how to surf from books. Same thing with women. When you practice pickup, you’ll fail. It’ll hurt. But failure is the backdoor to success. And your learning will go from your head into your BONES.
3. Learn in small chunks: Style learned in chunks. He didn’t try to get a threesome before learning how to approach first. Master opening first. Next, master “negs.” Next, “DHV,” next qualify, next isolate and so on until you learn how to stack orgasms.
4. Learn from your mistakes: No situation is impossible. There is ALWAYS a solution to a problem, and ANY obstacle can be solved. The most difficult situation you can imagine, like a girl surrounded by 8 guys or a girl on her way out the door or a girl who’s heard your opener already, can be solved.
5. It’s YOUR fault: If something goes wrong, it’s not her fault. She’s not a bitch or mean or uptight. YOU did something to make her feel uncomfortable. Look to yourself for what went wrong in the situation. Think about how you could do it better next time. And do it better next time.
6. Don’t take it personally: Take in all criticism, and take a hard look at yourself. If the criticism is true, then learn from it. If the criticism is garbage, throw it away. Rather than waste energy being “hurt,” use the info to better the skill.
7. Preparedness: Before going out, Style would study his routines and structure until he knew them like the back of his hand. He would then fold up the piece of paper, put it into his back pocket, and forget about it. He’d go out into the field, and just flow. His sets would go awesome.
Know what you’re going to say, and what you want to accomplish before you approach. This will allow you to take the lead, move things to a destination, and detach your ego from the results. The focus will be on improving your SKILLS rather than being on an ego trip.
Then if you REALLY wanna skyrocket your success, TRACK your results! When you track, don’t only criticize yourself. Acknowledge the good, too. You can tell who’s going to be a great pickup artist by the ones who get scientific, and track their approaches.
Some other nuggets that helped him in the field:
Belief: whatever is possible you can manifest—so believe it, and do it despite any obstacles that get in your way. It WILL happen
Make sure she orgasms before you—that way she’ll always come back for more.
When approaching a mixed set, as long as you show the guys respect, they will be cool with you
