The 5 Ways to Answer a Challenge in Social Situations

Hey Paolo,

Yes, my recommendation is you do just that - kill TV, kill radio, etc. Movies are still okay, you just have to be more cognizant of what you're watching when you watch it. e.g., you start realizing that a lot of movies are about a "nice guy" whose life sucks until something magical happens to him, then suddenly he has beautiful women and adventure and the life he's always dreamed about.

But it doesn't happen that way in real life - nothing magical happens; you either slave and slog away to make it happen or you keep living an unsatisfying life. You can watch a movie and understand this, but with TV and commercials or radio everything's switching so fast you don't have much time to reflect - instead, you just absorb the message without questioning it and are overwhelmed.

A few years off from TV and radio, you'll find you have zero desire to return to it when you try and plug back in. The right TV show can be somewhat addicting, but you know it's a vapid kind of addiction - it adds nothing to your life, and only takes away from it (free time, free will). And the REST of the stuff on TV and radio... it's just annoying and off-putting, and clearly there to cater to the unthinking, unquestioning masses out there.

Really, when you think about it - do you think movie stars, or big shot politicians, or wealthy business magnates, or anyone who's a "success" spends much time in front of the television? Seems silly to think about it that way, right? They have too much to do. TV is there to fill the dead time for average people who have nothing else to do with their time and need to be hypnotized into believing their lives will improve someday, when some lucky strike occurs for them.

The further you get from TV and radio, the faster you'll find you improve, and the more control you'll find you have over your own thoughts, feelings, and impressions about the world.

Chase

Hi Pellaeon,

Using meta-frames is about pointing out the frame above the frame. Most people want to talk about you and them; instead, you go over their heads and talk about what EVERYONE does. Conversely, you can also point out what they are doing that they don't realize.

The examples I used in-article were about discussing what was happening across people in general. An example about a specific person might be saying to the guy, "What's actually happening here is that you saw me talking to a girl that you like, and you decided you'd come over and see if you could intervene and either make me feel intimidated and leave, or make her feel disgusted and leave, and that way YOU could end up with the girl and I'd be off somewhere doing something else. Except you did it in an awkward way that only makes you look bad, and makes me look kind of good if you're working this hard to try and discredit me, and you're PROBABLY better off just biding your time, hoping I don't succeed with Anna, and then trying your hand with her again later."

Improvising this on the spot is difficult until you train yourself to think this way... you've got to go places and routinely meta things to yourself internally until it's something you do naturally. That is, you go to places and explain to yourself mentally what everyone is doing at higher and higher levels. Once you think this way, then you get yourself in the habit of talking this way to people during a challenge. It blows them out of the water and/or impresses them... but it's challenging to start doing, and thus rather more "advanced."

On agree and amplify, I don't recommend that one these days because on a nuance level it buys into the girl's frame, which gives power to her and makes you look weaker. e.g., the asshole example, the guy's ACTUALLY communicating, "I'm not REALLY an asshole... I'm actually a really fun guy!" So she laughs, and feels more comfortable - he's harmless. Far better if he simply smiles and continues on with the conversation, ignoring it, and she gets excited at how nonchalant he was about the whole thing.

Cheers,
Chase

Hey Nick,

Tricky situation. It depends on the severity and form of the attack, and the kind of crowd it is; i.e., you need to speak in a "tone" that the crowd understands.

If it's a high class crowd, you must use wit and cunning to put the man down, e.g.:

Guy: Lisa is quite possibly the loosest woman we have present.

You: So says the man who hasn't been with a woman since the Republicans were in the White House [laughs].

If it's a high class crowd and you cause a stir without using subtlety, you'll be thought of as dim-witted and the other man looks stronger (and you reflect poorly on your girl).

However, if you're with a lower class crowd, such subtlety is mistaken for weakness, and you need to go with something more aggressive.

Guy: That girl Lisa's a complete slut.

You: Isn't it amazing how bitter people get about women who are out of their leagues?

Typically, you'll find that those who wield insults are also quite vulnerable to them. They use insults as a means of trying to elevate themselves through tearing down others, and are usually deathly afraid of being torn down themselves. You'll frequently cause them to become emotional and lose their cool when you return fire, and that makes them look weaker and more discredited to everyone around than anything else you could do.

If a guy is really laying into your girl - like, really attacking her, hard - typically you're best served to calmly tear him apart, and challenge him to a fight, no matter the crowd. e.g.,

Guy: Everyone knows Lisa is the dumbest, ugliest hag this side of the Prime Meridian. She's been with more men than a five-dollar whore, and probably has every STD known to man.

You: Bill, the only thing that matches your miniscule IQ is your complete lack of social compunction or your ability to relate with other human beings. Please join me outside, and let's settle this with our fists. We're either going to do it inside, or we're going to do it outside, and I'd rather we do it somewhere where we're not going to hit innocent bystanders by accident.

Typically the guy will back down, because he's a coward (which is why he's insulting a woman); you simply challenge him enough times ("No, really; let's go outside. I'm going to beat your ugly, pathetic face in before it spews out any further blind insults dredged up from the depths of your shrunken brain") and let him back down enough times that everyone realizes he's all talk and no walk.

The one common theme through all of these though is that you never defend the woman (e.g., "But Lisa is beautiful!" "But Lisa's only been with 3 men in her entire LIFE!"), because your objective is to move the focus OFF of Lisa and ON to Bill.

Get the focus on him, and get everyone laughing about how pathetic and weak he is, and they'll forget all about anything he said about your girl. And he probably won't say anything about her again, to boot.

Chase

Howdy Vaughn,

Not being "too nice" is about being a lot more firm and less "pleasing" to other people. See these articles for more on this one:

• Overproviding Good Feelings
• Why Girls Like Bad Boys
• Why Nice Guys Finish Last

"10 against you" is a little vague, but I'm going to assume you mean someone says something, and everyone else jumps in and piles on. Usually you don't get people piling on against you unless you try to defend yourself. Generally speaking, you should NEVER try to defend yourself verbally ("No I don't!" "I'm not like that at all!" "But I DO do XYZ!"), because it's read as a sign of weakness and encourages others to jump in the fray and get their own status boosts by tearing you down.

Also, if this is a specific group of friends, it's typically best to cut this group off and find a new one if this has happened repeatedly. Once people sort out their roles in a group, those roles are "stuck;" e.g., when I was in middle school, I'd hang out with these nerdy kids who'd insult me and act like they were better than me. Meantime, the prettiest girls in school were asking me on dates (and ignoring these guys altogether), and the coolest guys in school were trying to talk to me and get me to come to their parties. Those nerdy kids were never going to reset their views of me in a thousand years, no matter how much anyone else liked me or how much I changed, so I eventually just announced to them that I was no longer hanging out with them or talking to them, and I cut them off. Sometimes, that's the only way to deal with people who get into a habit of putting you down (and with whom you get into a pattern of being put down by).

Cheers,
Chase

Hey ShotCalla,

Awesome, I'll take a look. I saw your last post, it was solid stuff. The bonus book is going out in about a week to everybody who's made at least 2 quality posts (that way we only have to go through the nearly 500 members on there once!), so keep your eyes peeled for it.

Re: challenges to race, height, weight, etc., simply follow the guidelines for challenges. e.g., ignore it if you can and simply proceed forward with the conversation, or dismiss it ("That's great. So why'd you switch majors then, if you blah blah"), or use any of the other answers - you can even meta it (e.g., "I saw a study where they took a group of men and women and had them sit down before a session of speed dating, and had each of them write down all the qualities they were looking for in someone they'd date. And then they did the actual speed dating session, and had everyone go around and all the men meet the women and all the women meet the men. And at the end, after everyone traded phone numbers with the people they liked, do you know how much correlation they found between what people THOUGHT they liked and what people ACTUALLY liked? [wait for her to guess or answer] None. There was zero correlation. The scientists found that no matter how certain people were about what they definitely liked or definitely didn't, it was all bullshit and didn't matter. [pause for effect] So why'd you switch majors then, if you blah blah").

Pick whichever one works best for you - and let it rip.

Best,
Chase

Hey Anon,

Welcome to the site! Glad you're enjoying going through all the material.

When you get that one that you look like someone famous, it's best to be warmly self-deprecating there, as if a 5-year old just told you that, "Wow, you look just like He-Man!" or something else outlandish but well-meant. "Well, I have nowhere near his talent, unfortunately," you'd say, and then immediately move onto asking her about herself (deep diving, connection building, etc.). The reason you do that is because she's equating you to a celebrity - and celebrities are out of her league. So you make yourself more relatable, and then have her start telling you about herself, and she gets a bit of that jolt of having met a guy who's almost a celebrity, but is also a real, relatable human being and now he's getting to know her.

Chase

Hey Anon,

There's a lot to go into in hairstyles - I'll do a proper post on it sometime hopefully within the next month or two (big backlog of posts to get up these days).

Your surest solution is usually letting your hair grow out a bit, then finding the top fashion hairstylists in your town and heading to one of them. Usually you'll be paying $50 to $100 for a haircut, but it makes a HUGE difference in how people perceive you. You really don't realize how big an impact hair makes until you've played around with different hairstyles and observed the effects.

The important thing is, when you visit a stylist (usually you want a gay male to cut your hair - they tend to be better at this than female hairdressers / more artistic / more talented), tell him he has free range over your hair, and that you want him to make you look sexy and edgy (but still presentable during the day, if you have a day job). And tell him beyond that, you trust his judgment, he knows better than you do, and just let him do his thing. He'll appreciate the artistic freedom - and he'll give you a cut that women find very alluring.

Chase