(1) Beginner

The longer you’ve been together, the harder it is to cope with a breakup. The key is to distract yourself until your emotions settle, and do things that move you forward.

Have you ever had to cope with a breakup?

Unless you’re a virgin, or you’ve never had a girlfriend, then you know that no matter which side you’re on, breaking up is never pleasant. At the worst, it’s highly traumatic; at best, it's an uncomfortable chore.

Even if you don’t really like the person that much, you probably liked them enough to have sex at least once. This means there’s a certain degree of trust and a shared experience (sex). If you’ve slept together many times, then emotional bonds exist, like it or not.

Even when a breakup is a good thing for you in the long term, the process still sucks donkey balls. Humans are wired to have empathy. If you see someone bleed, you feel yourself bleed; if you see someone laughing or crying, you laugh or cry with them. We feel what other people feel. These are mirror neurons at work.

Breakups hurt no matter what.

This weekend, Chase posted an article titled "Can You Still Meet People During Coronavirus?" The article is jam packed with great statistics and details about what to expect in the coming weeks and months, and how your dating life could be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Depending on your local quarantine situation (or whether you've chosen to self-quarantine), the answer to the title question can feel pretty bleak.

You could be facing weeks of strict social distancing or complete isolation. If so, after you've sorted out your good-citizen strategy to slow the spread of the virus, you may suddenly realize a greater need to tend to your sanity.

We may not be accustomed to our new (albeit temporary) way of life, but that's no reason to let ourselves stagnate by just waiting things out. In fact, a global pandemic is a great excuse to have a quarantine vacation and focus on inner game and lifestyle work.

I define inner game as everything that makes you proud and happy to be you. So whatever you do that improves the quality of your life will increase your inner game.

Rather than obsessing over the constant stream of news about the coronavirus and resulting economic perils, we can use this time to improve the neglected areas of our lives, like health, wealth, and happiness.

Focus on what you can control. By doing so, you'll come out the other end of this thing more ripe, not rotten. So here are 10 things you can do to improve (or at least occupy) yourself during your coronavirus quarantine.

As coronavirus locks down the world, can you still have a social life… and what ARE the real risks of the disease – should you risk a venture outdoors? Image credit: Kukuruyo.com

Coronavirus is sweeping the Western world now, after having already swept across East Asia.

Somehow, despite the existence of this website, and the half million to million people who read it every month, there are apparently more men desperate for female approval than ever in recorded history.

There is an outright simp epidemic.

Is there anything sadder than a man who swallows his pride, pedestalizes the feminine, and launches limp-wristed attacks against his fellow man in a feeble attempt to curry favor with women?

Truly, there is no man more tragic than the simp.

First, here is the SIMP TEST. Watch this video, and pay careful attention to your emotions:

SIMPING IS KING SHIT CONFIRMED pic.twitter.com/B7kF1f6wfN

— Ching (@Hotline_Ching) March 10, 2020

Did you experience a sort of cognitive dissonance, and a kind of revulsion that says, "Though this woman is young and attractive, I find her oddly and off-puttingly moronic, and I also think she is lying?"

Congratulations, you are not a simp. The rest of this article does not apply to you.

However, you may want to read it anyway to make especially sure to inoculate yourself against the dangers of simp-dom.

On the other hand, if, when watching that video, did you not experience any cognitive dissonance, and instead experienced a swelling of pride? Did you feel something along the lines of, "This beautiful woman recognizes me for my superior quality?"

If so, I regret to inform you you are a carrier of SIMP.

But don't fear.

There is a cure.

If you follow my 10-step method, we can restore your testosterone levels to normal, train you to prefer manly domination over effeminate obeisance, and make you a man women actually respect and desire to sleep with (perhaps even chase), rather than one they manipulate then giggle about as he conducts himself in embarrassing fashion on their behalfs.

To stop being nervous around women, you need to interact with people and gain a level of social normalcy. You just need more experience, and here’s how to get it.

Would you like to stop being nervous around women? You’re not alone.

Every student I’ve taught told me they have approach anxiety. Why do they suffer? Because they don’t know what to say. They don’t know what to say largely because they’re nervous.

It’s an evil feedback loop of despair.

If it weren’t for nervous men, I’d be out of a job. It’s the #1 reason most of us find the seduction community. Not because we want to be big pimps, have harems, and run a pickup company. We just want to be able to attract women.

I used to be very nervous around beautiful women.

When I was a kid, I developed man boobs, otherwise known as gynecomastia. Nothing hurts a young man’s self-esteem like having tits. Also, I was raised by a single mother and two sisters who surprisingly taught me nothing about attracting women.

I was horribly insecure, especially around the pretty girls. I couldn’t talk to them because I’d get too excited. My heart would start racing, and I’d sweat, stutter, stammer, and have panic attacks. The girls would just look at me with concerned expressions and ask, “Are you okay, Tony?” This happened often enough to be a big problem.

I did date a few girls: the ones who basically threw themselves at me. But because I was so needy, those relationships rarely lasted longer than a month. I felt that if I screwed up a relationship, it might be years before I found another girlfriend. Of course, this desperation drove the girls away.

That is, until I got liposuction, and found the pickup advice forums.

On the forums, I learned about “game.” How to cold approach women in bars, day game, push-pull, teasing, stories, cold reads, future projections, and on and on. So I started going out to practice, to change my life with this new arsenal of tactics, techniques, and philosophies. This was it, I thought, I’m totally going to pick up hot women with all this knowledge!

You’ve approached a hot girl and the seduction is going well, then some “friend” of yours swoops in and steals her. Here’s what to watch out for to avoid babe theft.

Welcome back to my series about how to manage your circle of friends as you get better with women! It’s one of the most aggravating problems men face as they increase their skillset and get with more higher-quality women. They eventually realize they’ll need to upgrade their group of male friends to follow their progress.

In Part 1, we talked about how many men are unfortunately clueless or dumb when it comes to women. Their lack of knowledge can make things awkward if you’re trying to do something with your girl, like maintaining a solid frame. With clueless and dumb friends, one split second mistake can affect you and your woman for months. The clueless friend will either downplay their actions or can’t fathom why their actions could have a serious impact. After all, they are typically hanging out with friends for the good times and will do nothing to impact their stake in the game.

Today we cover a more serious type of male friend: the conniving and shady friend, who uses you as a crutch to get the woman you are gaming. Shady friends often use the powerful tool of state transference to take a girl you approached, gamed, or even slept with and dated to twist the situation and get her for himself. As you can imagine, things can get ugly.

We all have dating droughts for one reason or another, or perhaps we just got out of a relationship. Either way, the good news is it’s not hard to start dating again.

Last year I decided to start dating again. As a professional dating coach, I obviously don’t showcase this much, but I had a two-year sojourn from women.

This type of thing is not uncommon for guys of any age, especially for guys past their 30s like me. All men go through dating/no-dating phases throughout their lives for whatever reason or no reason at all. Other priorities and interests pop up, or they get stuck in a rut, or they get bored or burnt out with the dating scene and decide to take a break and focus on something else, or they get out of a long-term relationship and are recovering from it or they don't know how to get back in the game and attract a woman they'd like to date.

Whatever the reason you find yourself getting back into the dating life, it's important to start with the right mindset. That means not thinking you're doomed because you've had a break; it means knowing there are plenty of high-quality women out there you can attract if you put in the effort. But that's true for every guy! Not having dated for a time doesn't make you an anomaly. You just need a refresher course and to gain a bit of momentum. Dating is like riding a bike.

That said, if you've let yourself go and have become a fat, jaded, neck-bearded slob since your last date, you'll have a harder time getting back on the trail (also true with riding bikes, no?).

Your dating confidence may be low right now, which is why you're here reading this. At the very least, you're on the right path, and it could just be a matter of one or two good dates or evenings vigorously thrusting your manhood into a hot, wet vagina to get you rolling again. Sometimes all it takes is to be reminded of how amazing it feels to have sex with a woman, have a meaningful connection with one, or both.

Personally, I went with no sex for about 20 months. And to be honest, it didn’t really bother me. If I died tomorrow and my life flashed before my eyes, I wouldn’t cry about my lack of sexual experiences.

Why would a man with a skillset such as mine decide to isolate himself from the sexual marketplace? To answer that, I’d have to share too much of myself for a blog post. But I’ll just say, sometimes turning your hobby into a job has unintended effects. I felt a little bit of dating PTSD, like a kick boxer who’d been kicked in the head too many times and just wanted to lie down.

I’ve been into this stuff for almost 14 years, slept with hundreds of women, fell in and out of love, traveled the world, and went “Okay, now what?” I’m no guru. I’m just a man.

Long story short, the phases of my life shifted back to dating, and it wasn’t easy at first. But I’m back, baby! And I’ll share with you what I’ve learned from the upside-down of dating.