Confidence

When you find yourself in a conflict, you can back down… or you can escalate. How far should you take it? How do you know what the right thing to do is? A few simple rules can guide you.

I recently binge-read a series of colorful Quora answers from ex-convict Matthew Holmes. Holmes was someone who grew up, more or less, inside the US penitentiary system, and shares advice on how to survive the hostile conditions there. He contrasts the prison world with the outside world; inside the prison system, a prisoner's life is a Hobbesian war of all-against-all, where there is no real law and no one you can trust to have your back but you.

One of the many repeating sentiments in Holmes's prison advice is you must be prepared to defend your reputation at any time, and go to almost any length to do so. Holmes stopped short of killing anyone in prison (as doing so would've added an automatic life sentence to his 10-year term), but came close to it on several occasions, where he severely beat inmates who tried to fight or rob from him.

In terms of general principles, I'd call his approach to conflict "always escalate a confrontation until you win."

For some time, I've followed 'always escalate' as a general (but not absolute) rule. I generally follow it with:

• Girlfriend drama
• Some business disputes
• Some physical confrontations
• Moral high ground debates
• Any kind of interpersonal argument

However, the real world isn't a penitentiary. It is not (for the most part) a Hobbesian situation of all-against-all.

Thus, much of the time, you will not want to continue escalating to the extremes in real life situations. In many cases it's counterproductive; the gains you get from continuing to escalate outweigh the costs.

Today I want to talk about the 'always escalate' philosophy -- which is one I've long found helpful -- and where the limits are to it where you decide to hop off that train and not always escalate.

Does it seem like most girls are awful, horrid, mean-spirited bitches? If it does, it’s a sign you’re doing something wrong – and that’s a good thing (it means you can fix it).

Does it seem to you that almost every girl you meet is just an unnecessarily mean person?

Do you ever find yourself wondering why so many girls are just horrid, ruthless bitches?

Commenting on my article that "Female Bad Behavior Is Often Defensive", Xander writes:

Ok. I agree if bad behavior is one-off interaction that doesn’t mean anything. However, even in this case if that negative reaction is overly negative i.e. overly expressed toward guy (and most women do this at least where I live) that is also the sign that particular woman can be considered as bad person. Many guys (at least what I have seen) don’t do overly annoying things with women and still get overly negative reactions from uninterested/unsure/insecure women.

Also, what I have seen is that the majority of women where I live rarely changes previously negative attitude toward guy. If she is negative during approach, initial interaction or later in courtship she stays that way no matter what guy will do. In live interactions they are rude, bitchy, aloof or disrespectful and it just increases no matter what new tech or moment guy will choose. In online/text interactions they ghost immediately after 2-3 messages, no matter how message is interesting, non-pushy, polite and easy to reply.

I feel sad whenever I read comments like these, for the person who writes them, because you know that person's dating life is hard.

I have read many, many comments by men talking about how horrible most women are. I have also read many, many analogous comments by women panning men (on various Reddit boards and what have you; here's an article about how horrid men are to women, with a bunch of women commenting their bad experiences).

If you take these comments at face value, both most men and most women are absolutely loathsome people: bad dates, bad lovers, and almost all men and women are totally undatable, unpleasant individuals.

It makes you wonder how the species perpetuates itself at all.

Of course, the reality is most men and most women are actually just fine, normal, nice, pleasant people... but that people who have continually negative experiences cause this in others, or misinterpret that from others, almost always without realizing they're causing it or misinterpreting it.

Self-monitoring allows you to adapt yourself to the people around you. It’s a good thing… but too much of it can really cramp your style (and the naturalness of your interactions).

If you've gone through my charisma course, Charisma In A Bottle (which, incidentally, I'll be re-releasing soon), you're familiar with the concept of 'self-monitoring'.

A self-monitor is someone who keeps a mental eye on himself, observing his own actions, making sure he is acting in 'correct' ways and not screwing things up.

Charismatic people are high self-monitors. While they might seem to be the most casual, relaxed folks out there, they are in fact carefully monitoring and adjusting their social presentation.

Dating is another area that turns men into high self-monitors. You go out to approach girls and you focus relentlessly on:

• How nervous vs. confident you seem
• Whether you approach from the right angle
• If you're delivering an opener she'll respond to
• If you're getting enough compliance from her fast enough
• Whether you've moved her soon enough
• Whether you're dominant enough
• Whether you're bantering enough
• What your value is relative to hers
• What your attainability is relative to hers

... plus a whole bunch of other things you are doing or that are about you.

And while this is useful for spotting your weak points and improving on what you want to improve at, it hobbles your ability to truly be in-the-moment with a girl and interact with her in a truly smooth, natural way.

Thus, some of the time, you are going to want to do things the opposite way, and turn your self-monitoring way down.

A man is only as stuck as he allows himself to be. It can take some time to climb out, but you can cultivate options and knowhow, and build a life of freedom for yourself – if you choose.

On our forum, one of our long-time members writes:

My personal fears of the future, has me losing hope, I see no way to live the life I desire (that may be untrue and that what I want is possible) and that has me running to my addictions, instead of having enough hope and groundedness to overcome my problems. I don’t want to let this feeling of hopelessness drive me down my own rabbit hole anymore.

When I was a teen and early twenty-something, I was depressed to the point of despair.

Sometimes I got to dwelling on hitting 'eject', but the only kind of eject I could think of was ejecting from life.

I got over that eventually, and began to branch out into trying all these different things, meeting all these different people, traveling to and living in all these different places.

And I discovered a way of living that was the opposite of how I'd lived when depressed:

Rather than get stuck somewhere, trapped in a situation, with no way out, I could simply step out of any situation and enter a completely new one, any time I liked.

From any situation, at any time, I could hit 'eject', and be free.

What’re the odds you pick up a given sort of girl in a given sort of place? Well, it depends on a few different factors that affect that probability.

We had a conversation over on the forum where a forum member was asking where to find beautiful girls who aren't club goers, social media validation junkies, or nymphomaniacs. He reports that all the hottest girls he's been with came via dating apps, and all these girls were hot-but-broken. He's struggled to meet equally hot girls in-the-flesh via cold approach.

I replied with my thoughts, which included me stating that you are much more likely to find women with high partner counts and personality disorders in nightclubs and in any kind of show-off-y place (like with a prominent social media following) than you are elsewhere.

So, if he wanted to avoid those sorts of women, he'd be better off looking places other than in nightclubs and on dating apps or social media.

This triggered another member to jump on the thread and argue with me that the women you meet in nightclubs, the women you meet on dating apps, and the women you meet via daytime approaching (he even threw in "the women you meet in church") are all exactly one and the same, and any kind of differentiating between such girls is your imagination.

However, I soon realized we were talking about different things:

• He was talking about possibility, saying things like "You can meet a girl who's a virgin in a nightclub"

• I was talking about probability, saying things like "You are far less likely to meet a girl who's a virgin in a nightclub than in a campus library"

In seduction, the distinction between possibility and probability is a key one to make, as it influences so much of what you do, where you go to do it, and how exactly you go about it.

Every learner falls into one of the four (4) learner-motivation profiles. Achievers find success, Plateauers get stuck, Protestors protest, while Onlookers hang back.

I've been teaching in this space for over a decade-and-a-half now.

Without a map you’ll almost never reach an unfamiliar destination. If you want to succeed with women, you need a little navigation to get there.

What's your aim with women? Have you thought about it?

When you go out to talk to girls, are you just going out randomly or is there a purpose?

Do you go out to try some techniques, and maybe they work or maybe they don't, then you go out another day and try again?

Men who are successful improving rapidly with women walk a fine line between having clear intentions while remaining outcome independent. Most guys err too far on one side of the other of this.

You get guys who have clear intentions... but they get really attached to outcomes. Every outing is an emotional roller coaster ride as they deal with things going or not going their way (often for reasons outside their control).

Then you get guys who are outcome independent... but who have fuzzy intentions. They go out, talk to girls, don't take it personal when it doesn't go their way, but sort of hang about listlessly experimenting with this or that in an undirected way.

Mapping out your desired end goals with women and thinking it through clearly can be a big help to actually getting where you want to get go with girls.

Of course, you must build your map in the most useful way.