Socializing

When you start to change your appearance or behavior, people can call you fake. Or you might even feel fake. Yet with Practice Mentality, you can avoid all this.

In my August article on seven major dating mistakes, a reader asks about people who view (or attack) self-improvement efforts or general behavior as ‘being fake’ or ‘not being real’:

“This is regarding barriers to improving fundamentals and improving your life in general:

Did you notice how people label any potential improvement as fake? If they improve, they think, people won’t like them for who they are and that’s bad. For people who have had advantages for a long time it seems like a natural part of them.

For example:

– Someone who is fat thinks that if he loses weight and women start liking him more, then they don’t like him for who he really is. They are just a bunch of superficial cunts. But, if you’ve been thin for a long time, it seems like a part of you.

– If you dress poorly, improving your fashion will seem as fake. Who cares how you dress? People should like you for who you are. But, those who dress well will tell you it’s just a part of them – part of who they are.

– Being famous or wealthy and getting great results with women also seems fake to many people (99.999% of people don’t have access to fame or great wealth). So, you’ll hear terms like ‘fame-digger’ or ‘gold-digger’ used to describe those superficial women who like rock stars, football players or bankers/CEOs.

– The same goes for learning ‘game’. If you’re learning it, then you’re just a fake manipulator.

etc.

What do you think about this phenomenon? Is it even real or am I delusional?”

Well, first off, this is absolutely a genuine phenomenon, and it’s something every man who sits down to improve himself in one dimension or another encounters.

You start to change something about yourself, and somebody calls you fake. Or you see others change their reactions toward you as you change superficial details about yourself, and you decide they are fake. Or maybe you even look at your outward displays, deem them nothing like whom you are on the inside, and label yourself a fake.

I’m going to talk briefly about why people view people engaged in self-improvement as fake, and then I’m going to give you a useful mindset I’ve long used to not have to worry about this.

I call it the ‘Practice Mentality’. But we’ll get to that.

Donald Trump used masterful persuasion in his dark horse candidacy for U.S. President. Six (6) powerful persuasion tactics underpin his success.

A reader asks:

“it’s been a year now since donald trump has been succesfully running his campaign.

Love him or hate him, the guy is a master persuader, really alpha, entertaining and never boring. He’s also extremely concise and repetitive in the way he speaks.

Exactly what robert greene would define as charismatic in his art of seduction

The funny thing though is I’ve noticed that he does a lot of things that you advocate not too do. ( explicit qualifying is the bread and butter of his persuasive effectiveness and constant repetition is another one. Plus, he’s got this essential quality of being brutal and effective when being under attack – an approach that is probably going to revolutionize politics world forever. )

Love him or not, what’s obvious is that he CAN persuade

Can u deconstruct his main strenghts and maybe reccomend some sources to how one can master verbal attack and , mainly, DEFENSE, like he does? I guess you could call that frame control. ”

Donald Trump is a persuasion phenomenon the likes of which the U.S. presidential election has not seen before. There are Donald Trump parallels in other civilizations and other eras; for instance, quite possibly ancient Rome’s Cato the Elder. But we haven’t seen a Donald Trump in the American presidential elections before.

In this article, I’m going to break down some of Donald Trump’s most oft-used persuasion techniques. I’ll point out what they are to you, show you how to use them, and give you plenty of examples.

If you’re reading this and you’re already bristling for political bias, I should note that I won’t be voting in this election (because I’m outside the U.S. with a Nevada citizenship, a Pennsylvania address, and a California driver license; I have no way to receive a mail-in ballot). I do not agree with all of any of the candidates’ policies, although I am a white male small business owner high in what psychologists call Traditional Masculinity Ideology, so that will necessarily bias me toward candidates offering some solutions over others. This article will be about tactics and strategies, not politics, but we’re all men and all men are inherently biased, so take that as you may. If any of my own bias leaks through, my apologies in advance; I am a (flawed) human, like you.

Disclaimers aside, let’s peel back the skin on Donald Trump-style persuasion... and see what we’ve got underneath.

What do you do when a girl tests you and you’re suddenly out of your depth? Sidestep! The sidestep lets you avoid all manner of traps, snares, and pitfalls.

The sidestep: it’s an incredibly powerful move and the antidote for a lot of men’s problems when facing resistance.

When a man encounters a wall in a conversation or with a girl, his first reaction is either to give up or to push past the resistance. The flaw in giving up is obvious: neither of you win. You don’t show up to play the game, and it’s over.

The flaw with pushing past resistance is that most guys do it in a needy or overly aggressive way.

They concede to her way of thinking and find a way to please her or assuage her concern.

Or, if they do choose to face her frame head to head, they attempt to strong-arm her emotions at a much more severe emotional level than that at which she resisted. Their brute conversational force scares her off.

Instead, when a man faces resistance, he should consider sidestepping or moving around the obstacle rather than wrestling against it, which usually leaves either your two egos broken.

Parry her loving strikes.

But before we get into the how-to, allow me to illustrate how badly you can embarrass yourself when you try to outmaneuver a much more dominant and socially savvy girl... By sharing with you perhaps one of my most shameful stories.

Make the wrong social move, and you’re a buzzkill no one wants to be around. There are nine (9) such wrong moves, including bad topics, zero confidence, and talking over the other party.

A reader asks:

“Chase, could you write about things that turn you into a buzzkill around people? I read your article on how to overcome depression and I’m currently working hard to get myself out that rut. But sometimes when I’m around people I turn into buzz killington without even knowing it. What are the things I can consciously do to hide my depression?”

It’s a great question.

This site’s about pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, self-improvement, and doing better. Various guys start out at various places. Some guys start out dealing with depression or saddled with victim mentality. Either of these can make you a downer in conversation who sends others running in the opposite direction.

Or even if these aren’t your particular afflictions and you’re content with life, you still may have behaviors you’ve picked up somewhere that inadvertently make you a total buzzkill to other people... Without even realizing you’re doing it.

So, to help you be a more pleasant interlocutor and allow you to rack up positive conversational reference points all the faster, I’ve compiled a list of nine (9) things that serve to kill the buzz any time you use them in a conversation with other people.

Stamp these behaviors out of your repartee repertoire, and you’ll notice people start to like you a whole lot more, more girls say “yes” when you ask them out, and more of the folks you meet want to see you again and include you in what they’re doing.

Here’s our list.

Lots of people struggle to make new friendships outside school or work (or even in these places). Yet, follow the 6 steps to new friends, and friends start to come easy.

Until I turned 19, I had no real friends. I had no idea how to make friends. I was disturbingly alone. It was painful.

Now I am 24 and can say that I am the leader and popular guy in every clique I am a part of.

What am I doing differently that changed things so much that now I write about the social arts for a site called GirlsChase? And how can you use my experience to make new friendships, enjoy an awesome social life... And, oh, by the way – get girls chasing you?

Men in STEM fields, despite their smarts, often don’t do well with girls. What’s the cause of this handicap – and what can you do about it?

STEM is an acronym for the academic disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. It is a moderately strong stereotype that men educated in these fields are socially awkward nerds who struggle with women.

Why is this the case (that STEM men are so often nerdy and awkward and not good with girls), and what can be done about it?

The author has studied math, physics, and computer science and would like to give his thoughts on this issue.

The first thing to be said about this problem is that it IS to some extent true that STEM-educated guys have problems with socializing and women, and thus the corresponding “nerd” stereotype is rather common with students and workers in such fields.

Obviously not all STEM guys have problems, and for those who do have problems, they are rarely unsolvable. The challenges STEM guys face have several different causes, and some personality traits should be reviewed before we start discussing solutions.

Ever feel bad because random girls don’t like you? This is the “I have to get every girl insecurity” – and it can lose you dates and lays.

Not so long ago, I was out with a girlfriend. I’d just left a café I was working at to meet her, waiting outside. When I got there, I greeted her, and then she pointed me to a girl next to her I hadn’t met before. “This is my friend,” she said.

I glanced at the friend, and she glanced at me, and I saw a half-second automatic expression of displeasure flash across her face, before she forced a smile and said hi. I said hello. And I laughed to myself.

The friend wasn’t particularly attractive (she wasn’t ugly; just ordinary). The reaction could’ve been because she didn’t like my look / something about me, or it could’ve been because I accidentally (instinctively) checked her out quickly upon turning toward her (and she didn’t like my look / something about me). I can’t really help it, it’s just an automatic thing, and it excites girls who like me but turns off the ones who don’t.

Either way, once I excused myself to use the toilet, but before I returned, I thought about this interaction, and realized that while this did not bother me now, four or five years ago I’d have taken it personal and felt hurt. And I thought back and realized I’ve seen plenty of this (girl flashes me a look of distaste; I find it amusing), and it hasn’t bothered me in a good long while.

A girl was rejecting me – right? That’s a negative judgment.

But I got a kick out of it. So what’s changed?