Pickup Blogs

Taken from an old folk tale:
“An old man lived alone on a street where boys played noisily every afternoon. The din annoyed him, so one day he called the boys to his door. He told them he loved the cheerful sound of the children’s voices and promised them each 50 cents if they would return the next day. Next afternoon, the youngsters raced back and played more lustily than ever. The old man paid them and promised another reward the next day. Again they returned, whooping it up, and the man paid them; this time 25 cents. The following day they only got 15 cents, and the man explained that his meager resources were being exhausted. “Please, though, would you come to play for 10 cents tomorrow?” The disappointed boys told the man they would not be back. It wasn’t worth the effort, they said, to play all afternoon at his house for only 10 cents.”

There are many elements in psychology that can explain the behavioral responses of women to AFCs and PUAs. Social psychology offers the theory of the overjustification effect as one underlying reason as to why AFCs fail to elicit desired responses from women.

The overjustification effect – The result of bribing people to do what they already like doing; they may then see their actions as externally controlled rather than intrinsically appealing.

Intrinsic motivation – Motivation to do something out of genuine internal preference and liking.

From his study and development of Inner Game, a PUA comes to fully understand and believe, with every fiber of his being, that women love sex. The act of sex is intrinsically motivated within both men and women. The AFC, on the other hand, fails to truly recognize women’s genuine liking of sex. Therefore, he, in a way, feels compelled to instill an external motivation within her to do the dirty with him.

In the mind of an AFC, women don’t like sex. He comes to this conclusion through his faulty interpretation of social scripts.

Social scripts – Culturally provided mental instructions for how to act in various situations.

Women, from being sexually oppressed by a patriarchal society that has used sex as a competitive resource for too many generations, developed the social script of responding negatively to sexual topics when presented in public situations. Examples of this behavior can be seen whenever a woman responds to a sexual joke in disgust or when she says anything along the lines of, “I’m not a slut” and “I don’t do that on the first date.”

The AFC interprets the social script as “women don’t like sex.” Logically, if you want someone to do something that they don’t like doing, you must compensate them with external rewards. The AFC takes this logical path and compensates women with external rewards such as drinks, dinners, gifts, and an overall attitude of supplication, during the process of courtship. In doing so, the AFC triggers the overjustification effect. When a person is rewarded with external factors to do something he or she already likes, he or she loses sight of his or her intrinsic motivation and justifies his or her actions as “I did it because I was paid to do so.”

Proof of the reality of this effect can be observed in experiments by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan (1991, 1997) at the University of Rochester, by Mark Lepper and David Greene (1979) at Stanford, and by Ann Boggiano and her colleagues (1985, 1987) at the University of Colorado:
“Pay people for playing with puzzles, and they will later play with the puzzles less than those who play for no pay. Promise children a reward for doing what they intrinsically enjoy (for example, playing with Magic Markers), and you will turn their play into work.”

It is implied that intrinsic motivation is an undeniably more powerful and consistent of a driving force in motivation than any mode of external compensation. In failing to recognize women’s innate desire to have sex, the AFC forces his targets to replace her intrinsic motivations with his inconsistent, incongruent, and desperate offerings of resources.

Social Psychology, ninth edition, by David G. Myers:
“When people do something they enjoy, without reward or coercion, they attribute their behavior to their love of the activity. External rewards undermine intrinsic motivation by leading people to attribute their behavior to the incentive.”

Myers also points out that “the overjustification effect occurs when someone offers an unnecessary reward beforehand in an obvious effort to control behavior.“

Rosenfeld & others, 1980; Sansone, 1986:
“Rewards that seek to control people and lead them to believe it was the reward that caused their effort – ‘I did it for the money’ – diminish the intrinsic appeal of an enjoyable task.”

In terms of pickup, this evidence is a clear explanation as to why women feel unappreciative toward AFCs who supplicate to them as a strategy of bedding her. The supplication makes the woman feel less intrinsic motivation, and therefore more jaded, bitchy, and less able to revel in the beauty of pure human desires.

Consciously armed with this knowledge of the overjustification effect, a PUA can keep himself in check to make sure that he isn’t preemptively rewarding a woman with external factors such as IOIs and SOIs for following him in the progressive route toward the mutually pleasurable experience of sex. By acknowledging and reinforcing the woman’s intrinsic motivation (not just for sex, but for all areas of life), the PUA can “leave her better than he found her,” letting her fully enjoy an internal cultivation of her enthusiasm for life.

-Chief

There’s a keg at the house tonight and I’m going, but I’d like to take a minute to talk about how this underground pickup community is surfacing into the mainstream.

If you didn’t already know, ever since Neil Strauss (Style) released his best-selling novel The Game back in 2005 and Erik Von Markovik (Mystery) had that show “The Pickup Artist” on VH1 just last year or something, more and more people have become aware of this community. It isn’t so “underground” anymore.

Sure, I kinda miss the days when all this stuff was more secretive and all I knew was the C&F and Inner Game shit that David Deangelo preached, but these mainstream additions to the community have actually opened my eyes to more and different schools of pickup, and gave me the opportunity to expand my horizons.

I think Mystery and Style have done very good things for the world by letting more people know about this stuff. However, there have been unfortunate consequences.

A lot of PUAs complain that more girls or HBs call them out on canned material. “OMG you got that from that VH1 show!” …but that’s not what I’m talking about. That is NOT a bad thing. If a PUA hasn’t reached the level where he’s using his OWN authentic material, he’s just being a copy cat and isn’t really learning the real lessons. It’s a good thing that more people are recognizing this.

The unfortunate consequence that I think has taken place, however, is that the Mystery Method is currently the reigning “mainstream” method for pickup. Sure, I think the Mystery Method is a fun and legit Outer Game method to follow, but it really isn’t the best way to go about learning pickup… and it’s unfortunate to see so many newbies flocking to Mystery’s school of thought.

Why do I say this? I think the Mystery Method somewhat promotes being fake. I have nothing against Indirect Game, but to me the Mystery Method is mostly about acting like something that you’re not. It’s the method that involves mostly canned material and the idea of “fake it til you make it.” It’s useful as hell to learn, but not so great when you’ve fixated on learning ONLY the Mystery Method. There’s almost zero Inner Game development involved.

I think people should turn to the Mystery Method once they have already gotten their Inner Game and confidence honed from other schools such as David Deangelo, Carlos Xuma, Inner Game specific programs from Ross Jeffries, and even RSD. This whole “fake it til you make it” crap is going to mess up a lot of heads.

It IS a good thing, however, that the mainstream form of pickup has shifted to being a social development centered discipline rather than a hypnosis/NLP centered discipline. That Speed Seduction stuff is tricky shit, man. I’m learning from that school of thought because the psychology behind it is really interesting to me, but it really isn’t worth learning just for the sake of pickup.

I am personally planning on moving completely away from Mystery Method and taking up Gunwitch Method. It’s seems a lot more authentic and honest to me, and there’s almost no canned material involved.

Tonight I had the chance to meet up with some friends who were in town, and we had a fantastic dinner. It was with a few “HBs” from way old FRs that I haven’t seen in a while, including one that I foolishly made a move on a while ago.

You see, I got clouded by all of this community bullshit that you can’t have female friends that you don’t fuck because eventually one of you becomes into the other. It’s not true, you can have platonic, lifelong friendships (and don’t get it twisted, you can absolutely have female friendships that last forever and you still fuck – I have one of these back home and I’ve seen Entropy manage it as well). I have many platonic friends, and I think I am better off for it. Women are absolutely amazing, and I’ve found that “game” has freed me to enable me to have even deeper relationships (without fooling around) because I’ve been able to really be honest and open with girls. They truly appreciate this.

To be clear, the reason why most of these women are such great friends now is because when we met, I was too insecure in myself and my desires to try to get physical with them. It’s funny bc some of the women I sleep with now are much lower quality than these girls I love dearly. The thing is, there’s no spark anymore with these friends, and new girls are much more exciting and fun for me. The newness of it all is intoxicating. Lately when I meet a girl that’s attractive and we hit it off, I go for it because I am not as scared as I used to be. The only newer female friends I meet and keep these days are co-workers and friends’ girlfriends.

But back to my good friend – about 4-5 months ago, she had a party, and I decided I was going to make a move. Not because I felt deep innate desire for her, but because everything about her seemed great on paper (Ivy Leaguer, complete sweetheart, incredibly intelligent, redonk body). I had a few fellow PUAs that I deeply respect and trust tell me that I was being stupid for not hitting on her. There was a time when I asked them all to respect our friendship and not hit on her, and there was some kind of jealousy about them hitting on her and getting her number (which a few did). Then I had some of my best non-community friends meet her and tell me that we were perfect for each other. Basically, I had all of the outside forces telling me something that was right for me that I did not feel at all for myself. But I went with it, and I made a move on her and kissed her one night in her bedroom. She said “I didn’t see that coming.” If you want the real FR from that night, you can read it here. Nothing amazing in it though.

What happened from there was very interesting – she had already invited me to join her at her company holiday party, but she had been screening my calls since then. Finally she calls last minute and tells me I am still invited, and so I join her at the party and we have an absolute blast. But it was pretty clear she was uninterested so I hit on other girls and eventually left her to meet up with Brewer and a girl I have been on/off seeing since then. After that, she completely screened my calls/e-mails/texts etc for months.

I don’t blame her at all – I projected interest that came out of no where. I had other people in my ear telling me what society/PU tells us we want to hear. “Oh, you guys are great on paper or dude she’s really hot why aren’t you fucking her?” I started interpreting things we always did – go shopping, try a new restaurant, etc as interest from her (as you can see in that FR), and suddenly I started perceiving them as signals from her. Coincidentally, I wasn’t seeing any other girls at the time.

I decided that I would stop trying to call her because it was futile. If she no longer wanted to be friends, I would be sad, but I couldn’t blame her at all. If she wanted to see me, she would reach out. And she did a few weeks ago when I was swamped with work, but I never responded. I was near her apartment last weekend, so we met up and walked around town. It was like absolutely nothing had happened between us. She told me about dinner then so I met her tonight. The funny thing about tonight was, at the end she invited me to come out with her and a few other girls, but I really felt out of it and I wanted to chill at home. She was cool with that, but then after I told her about how I was going to text my booty call, she asked if it was the girl I saw last week. I told her it was a different one, and after a few minutes, she was getting mad at me for not coming out with them and started flirting very heavily. Oh…women. I had to throw that nugget in there just because we all know how women are, and even if I made a move now, it still wouldn’t work because there is no spark between us.

Moral(oral) of the story: trust your gut. You’ll know when it’s on, don’t settle for something that doesn’t feel right just because society/PU tells you it should. Be your own man, and make your own decisions. And if you do feel the spark and you do go for it and it doesn’t work out, if she really cared about you and valued you as a friend, she’ll be your friend in the long run.

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Other benefits of having female friends:
- Incredible insight into their sex lives (especially if you show them that you are non-judgmental and you share yourself with them)
- What really works with women (you’ll need to filter the information because only a very rare woman knows what really works from our perspective)
- Get to meet their female friends and social circles
- The ability to enjoy the incredible female energy
- If you’re like me, you’ll have female friends to do things with that your male friends might not want to do (art galleries, new restaurants, cooking dinner, etc.)
- You’ll really get a much better idea of what women are like.

I highly recommend you get some PLATONIC female friends in your life – you’ll see the benefits.

My self-imposed focus on work that lasted a majority of January-early April has yielded me a very likely promotion within the next few months. Most of you guys know that I am part of (and mostly enjoy) corporate America. This means that it’s very likely that I am going to be leaving Boston within 6 months (that’s being generous). Boston is an option for me to further my career, but not with the speed in which I would like to do so.

I’ve thought really long and hard about staying in Boston versus moving to another brand new city. I’ve documented fairly extensively what it was like for me to set up a life here, and it only really got great after a year. (Just around the time when I moved into BAB). It’s been about 9 months since then, it’s been a ton of fun. However, every time I’ve pushed myself into what was going to be a difficult life choice, I’ve always come out of it much better off. Challenging myself is very important and necessary. Moving to a new city is never easy, requires time for adjusting, involves finding new friends and things to do, and is in general a huge pain in the ass. This is a list of pros and cons.

Cons:
- Having to build a new social circle
- Having to start over a again
- Leaving the game & my wings behind (perhaps my biggest reason to want to stay)
- Where I’m moving is colder than Boston
- No good male friends where I’m headed

Pros:
- True Independence
- Putting my career on the fast-track
- Controlling my own destiny
- Experiencing a brand new city
- Living in a brand new part of the country
- New way of living
- New experiences
- A work based social circle (also a bit of a con because of the inclusive nature)

Within the past few months, my game has really stagnated. It’s directly correlated to one core issue, I haven’t been going out as much as I should have been.

There have been other issues as well (post coming shortly on another), and I think another big one for me has been my dependency on wings. I’ve been really dependent on other people. There have been nights where I stayed in (because I pussied out) because I couldn’t find guys going out. Going to a new city would FORCE me to go out and learn this skillset by myself. It would make me get good on my own. It’s almost as if part of me thought that moving into a project would make me better by osmosis, but what I’ve come to realize that my own growth is in my own hands. Entropy and Big aren’t going to make me get better, and while they care about me getting better, they can’t make it happen for me. Only I can do that. Only I can decide to approach, etc. There can be as much motivation as possible, and even if I am physically pushed into set, only I can choose to open my mouth or walk away.

The big difference between moving now and moving to Boston is that I am much more confident in my skills now than I was when I moved here (and I’ll also have a natural social circle there – mostly female but that’s NEVER a bad thing).

I’ve made the decision that if I am offered a promotion in another city, I am going to take it. It’ll be hard to leave you guys behind, but those of you that really matter and the ones that have had a huge impact on me and I am on them other will stay friends for life. I’m not one to play it safe, and staying here would be playing it safe. Expanding my comfort zone has NEVER hurt me.

“Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same wornout soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth.” ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

ps. Hello to my (presumably) only lady reader, tell your man I say hi.

“I don’t know what’s sadder, the fact that I’ve seen him play this level like 4 times or the fact that I am watching him right now.” Big about Entropy playing Mario Bros on my Wii.

“Well it’s pretty sweet that you guys bought this so that I don’t have to pay for it. I’ve wanted to play this for a while but I didn’t want to pay for it. Yo warp right here!” Me referring to Level 1-2.

“Dude warping is for pussies.” Entropy

“You have a limiting belief about warping!” Big

As some of you may know, RSD has been giving free workshops with Jlaix (aka Jeffy) and Ciaran. They were in New Orleans yesterday so of course I HAD to attend.

I was completely stoked, man! I finally had the chance to meet some of the BEST masters in the field.

I walked into the room and was starstruck. I see Jlaix on the other side and Ciaran approaches me and we shake hands. Holy shit, dude. I am shaking the hand of the man who created the concept of Shock and Awe and the currently popular Apocalypse Opener. I pronounce his name wrong. He AMOGs me. After I shake Jlaix’s hand, I make a light joke making fun of the fact that he was using a Mac. He AMOGs me. It was great. =P

The presentation was awesome. Jlaix is definitely a man who lives up to his reputation. The entire time, I was thinking, “Wow, these guys have been through it all over years and years and years of this pickup artistry. I can really feel a strong difference in their energy because of that.”

Apparently Jlaix picked up one of the chicks working at the Crepe place while he was here. I probably know her.

Now, onward to shake the hands of all the other mPUAs!

So lately I’ve been trying to develop my DHV stories more, and I’ve come to realize something very liberating.

You don’t have to sit down and structure a story with some kind of formula.

As Mystery says, being a PUA is about “building a life.” I agree with this wholeheartedly. If you develop your Inner Game by adopting a success-oriented and fun-oriented frame of reality, you will become mentally prepared and motivated to live life to the fullest.

Inner Game is followed by Outer Game. Once you’ve got the right head on your shoulders, take Right Action. Start acting on your PUA impulses because you are READY RIGHT NOW to live the fucking life.

Put yourself out there and make your life an adventure. Once you do that, you’ll be living your DHV stories. Telling these real stories will definitely be naturally chock full of DHV spikes, and you’ll have this “DHV story” stuff down pat… in the best way possible.

So, what you want to do is this:
1. Get out and live life. Do what you want to do, and go where the wind takes you.
2. Pick some events that you feel GREAT about.
3. Tell your story and express your true self through it.

Don’t fucking worry about hitting the 5 attraction switches or anything like that. If you are telling a positive story that you can actually FEEL and express emotionally, you are going to convey attractive qualities with your genuine Inner Game-developed personality. The number one attractive quality that you will be expressing is AUTHENTICITY. It’s great shit.

If you don’t already have Inner Game, start developing that NOW. There’s an endless amount of material out there in the PUA community that can help you with that. Seek and you will find, bitches!

Rock,
-Chief

http://perezhilton.com/2008-03-18-cum-aboard-american-airlines

One of the best ways to gauge your growth or a new look is to get some outside feedback from attractive women.

I’m at a work meeting, and I see these folks about three times a year. Immediately, I’ve gotten comments on my weight loss, my hair (the most frequent), and my dress (ps, a post coming not dressing like a chode at work). Like most of corporate America, my company has become more diverse over time, but it’s still predominantly the Old White Man’s Club. Most of my customers are also part of the Old White Man’s Club. This has opened me up to a ton of comments about my unruly curly Jew-esque Indian hair (and if you how to keep it straight without me having to buy a straightener, please let me know. I’m a metro, but that’s a bit much) mainly which fall into two categories – 1) from the Old White Men, teasing me about my hair or 2) from the women, telling me that they love my hair. To the OWM, it’s a bit shocking to see someone be outside of the box. To the women, it means a change of underwear (along with the other stuff I’m about to mention) – ha! JK!.

My dress was another factor – I’m always dressed sharp at work. Pressed pants & shirts, cool ties, well-fit suits etc. However, we had some casual time, and a bunch of people commented on my “casual wear”. Again, the OWM laughed about my dress (in the, ‘hmmm I don’t have the balls to be different so I’ll express it outwardly by teasing you about my own personal insecurities’), while the women commented about how I dress ‘New York hip.’ To which I responded, I don’t dress NY Hip, I AM NY Hip. My boss liked my white belt though, and then we decided that I’m Boston Preppy during the day and NY Hip at night.

Now this might cause problems for some guys without an identity because you’d constantly be challenged and buckle to please the OWM. However, I’ve created a strong workplace identity – I leave things better than how I found them and I constantly challenge management to answer hard questions and do things better. I offer insights and values into our processes, and I push us to get better and more efficient. My contributions and ideas are often implemented. I judge my contributions this way – is my group/customer/etc better than I how I found them? The answer is a resounding yes. In Corporate America if you can stand up, add value, deliver strong business results, and challenge the status quo, you will be rewarded. In turn, this allows me to be my own man in the workplace, and people want to work with me because I add value!

However, the above concerns are not without merit. I can dress a certain way at work (really the unruly hair) and get away with it because I have backed it up. The concerns from the OWM tells me that I need to get the hair figured out so it looks more professional in front of my customers, the good thing is that I’ve worked with my customers for some time so they do not judge me based on my appearance, however this could be a hindrance in front of new business that are part of the OWM (until I opened my mouth of course).

That also means that people like the hair that I’m getting kind of sick of. I’m going to see what my peeps in NY think when I see them in April before I make a decision to grow it even longer or it to cut it. Either way, it needs a serious trim.

Another random note I’ve noticed is that in a smaller group setting, I tend to talk way too fast and too soft. I have to really work on projecting my voice because numerous people have had a hard time hearing me at the meeting so far.

Okay, back to my regularly scheduled program – work!

Big and I decided around a year ago we wanted to start a Project in Boston. We had been looking at apartments for months, and due to the crazy Boston renting environment, we started way too late and the only options we were stuck with were overpriced/shitty locations. We kept it up though, and we found an amazing apartment, but we needed another roommate. We had recently met Funkfish and we quickly decided to move in together.

The three of us decided that if we wanted to really get this part of our lives handled, we were going to do it together and do it for real. I don’t think any of us actually understood what it would really be like. Shortly into the experience, Entropy moved in. (And by the way, it doesn’t really feel like a Project until you have someone living on your couch.)

So here’s a quick list of pros/cons.

Pro: You live pick up, pick up theory, every female interaction we have is overscrutinized, we never go more than a few hours without talking something pick up related.
Con: You live pick up, pick up theory, every female interaction we have is overscrutinized, we never go more than a few hours without talking something pick up related.

Pro: You always have wings and shit to do. Random and crazy nights happen when you least expect them to.
Con: You see each other all the time (in the house and out), and frankly, there are times when you just want to get away from each other.

Pro: You might have an anal retentive roommate who constantly cleans up.
Con: You might have an anal retentive roommate who constantly asks YOU to clean up.

Pro: You break down many paradigms of game, you get an entirely new perspective of game and people from your roommates, and you experience faster breakthroughs.
Con: Pick up overload – it becomes exhausting, more like a chore, and less fun than it ever used to be because of the constant scrutinizing and natural tendency to become results focused.

Pro: Your couch becomes another source of income.
Con: Lack of privacy because someone lives on your couch (or because you live on the couch).

Pro: Lots of different friends and opportunities to meet new people, throw parties, etc.
Con: Throwing GOOD parties gets expensive, dirty, and take lots of time to prepare for.

Pro: You make pick up a goal in your life because the in-house successes are intoxicating, and all of you want to go out and get better together.
Con: This makes you stress pick up too much and you lose sight of your passions, career/school, other goals – this leads to an unbalanced life.

Con: There will be drama. Drama over a girl two of you sarged, over bills/rent, jealousy when your roommates’ are having more success than you, etc. This shit is inevitable, it’s how you deal with it.
Pro: Learning how to deal with drama, learning how to deal with different personalities, and discovering how you personally deal with stress.

The major thing I’ve taken away from this thing is that having more people in your place than you have rooms for is not a good idea (unless your place is huge), and not one I plan on repeating any time soon no matter what the income or skill level of prospective tenant (but never say never, ha!).