(1) Beginner

Singles running clubs are kind of the rage right now. You’re outdoors, you’re not online, you’re forced to put your phone away… but do they get you dates?

I always have folks ask me for fresh ideas about where to go to meet new people and get dates. Frankly, everyone’s pretty sick of online these days and ready to focus on real life again. (we’ve got some folks who are still killing it on apps, but… a lot of readers are over it)

We have plenty of articles on Girls Chase recommending various places you can go to meet people and get dates in the real world. Here is one such example. In fact, we have an entire section of the website dedicated to the topic.

However, one phenomenon we have not previously covered is run clubs. In particular, singles run clubs. I think it’s worth covering: what are singles run clubs, and should you bother joining a running club just to get dates?

Why is it so hard for you to talk to girls? There’s more than one reason men struggle to approach girls. From anxiety to trauma, the causes vary – as do the solutions.

This post written by COCPORN and edited by Carousal originally appeared on our forum here.

This is a draft. I want this to be a helpful article over time, please contribute. This article draws on information from Levine and Berceli, and makes assumptions that they’re right. I’m looking for more clearly defined stages and overall correctness. I hope this can help diagnose problems and make it easier to prescribe the correct remedies for different situations.

A personal note from me to you: If you decide to comment or answer to this, reflect on where you’re currently at personally in terms of opening.

Carousel: This is a post written by COCPORN in 2014. Much of it is still valid. I have made comments some places with my 2020 understanding of the topic. The topic is that AA is not just one thing, hence there is a lot of confusion about what it is on how to solve it. Note that this is advanced material, so please take time to try to understand us before you disagree. Also please read THIS thread explaining TRE and other therapies before you read this post, otherwise you won't understand the terminology.

Intention: To create a helpful tool for escaping problems related to approaching. This tool will work by identifying the stages of approach problems and presenting solutions to them. At this point there might not be solutions to all stages. I’ll try to present the solutions I’ve personally seen for the different stages. I’ll also try to theorize around some solutions to different stages, but these will be clearly marked. I’m not necessarily looking for new techniques with this article, old and proven methods are welcome as suggestions to solving the different stages of approach problems.

Problem: People have problems approaching. These problems range from deeply rooted to superficial. Even without deeply rooted problems related to approaching, there often seems to emerge a pattern of avoidance or forceful exposure.

Carousel: This is why you see so much disagreement on causes and remedies to AA - people are in different stages and some of the more advanced guys may never have even been in the worst stages described here, while the hardcases have only been in the worst stages. Of course these guys will have zero understanding of each other both in terms of perception of the problem and devising an useful solution. I have personally gone through all of them so I can relate to most of the perspectives.

Half of young women spend 3+ hours a day on social media. But what about you – must you be on social media if you hope to get girls?

The other day, a forum member posted a video of social media influencer Michael Sartain talking about (among other things) the crucial importance of social media to getting girls:

I only watched the first 10 minutes or so. However, in that 10 minutes, Sartain makes a number of strident (one might say absolutist) claims about how social media is the present and future of socializing. He suggests that if you’re not using social media you’re a dinosaur who’s been left behind socially. You can’t have a social life without social media and you’re not going to get girls without social media, Sartain submits.

Longtime Girls Chase readers will know I find this position silly. But I haven’t discussed it in-depth in over a decade. Since then, a number of new social media platforms have emerged. People are every bit as crazy about social media now as they were when I first wrote on it, and you will still find social media mavens like Sartain harping on about the pivotal importance of social media to one’s friendships, love life, and career.

So, has anything changed?

Has social media indeed taken over in the dozen years since I last wrote on it – and made those not all-in on social media ancient relics which time forgot?

Guys can make meeting new women a lot more complicated than it needs to be. Whether you need to build momentum or just get into a social mood, start by making an approach.

Hey guys and welcome back.

Today’s post is beginner-friendly and may benefit intermediate players (and even pros).

It covers an in-field philosophy that has helped me tremendously.

It’s one thing what game looks like on paper and quite another how it unfolds in real life. Sometimes, all those openings and windows you see the pros talk about may be less apparent in the field when you are out there doing it. The scenarios described here may not look the same when you are out.

Is it because my setting is different than yours? That may be true, but it’s rarely the cause. The primary reason is that you often do not see openings. Why? You might be so stressed that your attention is elsewhere. Your attention may be inward, reflecting on your mood, or you could be distracted by something irrelevant. Perhaps you are unable to decipher the openings.

The opportunities are ripe for the picking, but you are simply not seeing them.

Or you may not see them clearly.

Perhaps the problem is that you have not created those openings.

The result? You may begin to stress, feel anxious, demoralized, and demotivated.

This in-field stress happens in both night and day game but is more prevalent in night game. It’s partly due to the intimidating nature of night game (cool looking dudes, intimidating bouncers, chaos, many hot, dolled up girls). In day game, it could be due to approach anxiety. But you will experience far less chaos during the day, making it easier to see openings and opportunities.

A reader wonders if he may simply not have what it takes to seduce women. Are there men who lack the ‘right stuff’ to put new girls into their beds?

Commenting on my article “Don't Hate the Player. And Don't Hate the Game”, a reader named Garud says

Whenever I read your post about women. I feel that there is still hope. I most of the time thinks otherwise because I am a bit emotional person unlike badboys or fuck boys... Not very socially good and also a bit sensitive.. to be socially dominant it feels like I am going against my own basic nature. But sometimes when my emotions are under control due to some reasons for temporarily i feel like I must approach a girl and I am very confident about that but the question which I kept asking about myself is why I am having to struggle and suffer so much to learn the things which so called bad boys or insensitive guys knew or learnt for free It fills me with so much self-hate. It feels like a loser. Initially i used to blame girls for this now after reading your articles on girls are silly and cute. Now I blame myself. Sometimes I feel like to focus only on career and fuck this shit. And get arranged marriage..but whenever I read your post i feel there is still hope.. it feels like climbing Mount Everest and I don't know whether we will a be alive by the time we reach the top. Chase, you are doing wonderful Job. I used to be a woman-hater. I used to think that they are evil. Now at least after reading you my view of looking at them has changed..

One thing which always bothers me is that, I can try million times but what if my nature is not suitable for seduction and I am wasting my time trying to learn something for which I am not made for... Chase, what advice you would give me on this?

He raises some interesting questions.

Because the fact is, we all have quite varying natures.

Some of us are inclined to this game of seducing women far more than others.

What do you do if you just are not ‘seducer material’?

Looksmaxxed men can look very good. Some become truly beautiful men. So why, if they look so good, and get so many likes online, can’t they get laid?

Over on the forum, we have a thread by a Singaporean guy planning to travel to the US for school who is concerned American white women won’t want him because he is 5’9” and Asian.

For a while we talked to him about what he needs to do to attain the results he is after (namely, Caucasian-American girls on his cock). We talked about numerous examples of men like him, or even men who (according to his looks-based paradigm) should be ‘worse off’ than him (e.g., shorter, heavily accented Asian men) who excel with precisely the demographics he longs for.

This forum member brushed all our guidance aside and kept returning to his looks, saying he wanted to get plastic surgery, and finally saying this:

So yeah, maybe I have just watched too many lookism / looks-maxing videos, but they seem to make some valid points about how shallow white women can be and how critical first impressions are. I just want to know if investing in my appearance will potentially make a huge difference.

Aha. So it’s media influence.

Yet however ‘valid’ the glowing screen’s points may appear, it doesn’t change the fact that the guys who pour heaps of time and energy into extreme looksmaxxing (mewing, plastic surgery, bone smashing – which started as a joke meme, FYI, before looksmaxxers started taking it seriously; Poe’s law in action) often still end up dateless, sexless incels.

Exhibit A:

How am I attractive but can never get laid?

Exhibit B:

I've looksmaxxed to HTN and for the most part I've seen the results of it, but for the terminally-online types like myself and most people on here, that just means internet-based stuff. I've gotten the matches on OLD, gotten follows from hot girls on insta, but it doesn't translate to shit lol. Most matches don't mean shit, even girls who message you first will not respond a lot of the time. Chats end nowhere (i'm putting in no effort tho tbh, refuse to jestermaxx). Even girls who follow you on IG won't respond to DMs.

Exhibit C:

Lookmaxxing was not enough to get me the results I wanted, it is part of what I needed to do to get results but only part of it.

If I isolate the kind of improvements I got only for the changes I made to my looks and discard the improvements I got for the changes I made to my status, finantial situation and social skills then... No... looksmaxxing does not provide enough results to be worth the effort.

So, riddle me this, Batman: what’s the difference between getting romantic advice from a voluntarily celibate monk who lives in a monastery and has pledged his life to chastity versus getting romantic advice from an involuntarily celibate looksmax guru who splits his life between the gym and the plastic surgery clinic and has pledged his life to vanity?

Will the romantic acumen of one celibate man surpass the romantic acumen of another?

Would you take dietary advice from an obese man, or career advice from a beggar?

And for that matter – why don’t looksmaxxed men get laid?