(2) Intermediate

Note from Chase: Colt is one of our writers who contributed to the site a while back, with the 'Student of the Game' series and the 'Social Skills 101' series. Colt's roughly intermediate in his skills with women - he's still learning, but he's having success and taking new and pretty girls to bed - and he's focused on helping guys who are new to working on themselves and their dating skill sets to get in gear. Now returned from adventures in Thailand and the wilds of central Africa, we welcome him back to pick up where he left off with 'Social Skills 101'.

We live in a world designed for extroverts. It is designed for people who love parties, large social gatherings, and constant social stimulation. Today’s post is designed for the underrepresented men, the men who still want to attract beautiful women, but want to remain true to their selves: this post is for the introverts. So without further ado, here we go: dating for introverts.

What is an introvert?

It’s estimated that around 30% of the American population is introverted. But I would guess that the true number of people who are at least somewhat introverted (say, people who qualify as ambiverts - those who switch back and forth between introvert and extrovert) is actually much higher. But before we go any further, let me first clear something up: being introverted is not the same as being shy.

Shyness means that you are afraid of social interaction because you fear social judgment. If you find yourself in that category, there are plenty of articles on this site that can help you brave the social waters, such as:

• How to Take Your Self-Esteem to the Stratosphere
• Anxiety in Men: Where it Comes From and How to Stop It
• The Pig and the Mirror
• How to be a Sexy Man
• Becoming a Social Success
• The Purpose of Life from a Practical Point of View

However, being an introvert means that you still possess social skills and have the ability to attract women, but you would rather spend your time reading, working out, or otherwise improving yourself.

Plenty of Fish - as chances are you already know - is an out-and-out treasure trove of young, cool, attractive girls who want to meet cool, sexy guys and... well, it's a dating site.

Thing is, it's a free dating site, which means it's open to the masses... which in turn means the most beautiful women on POF get inundated by messages from hopeful (sometimes desperate) men - so much so that the average pretty girl with options doesn't last longer than a few weeks on the site before throwing her hands up in frustration and resignation and abandoning her account.

And the ones who stick around? Grizzled POF dating veterans who cut through newbie online dating hopefuls like female paramilitary troopers trained at mercilessly crushing and cannibalizing the unready and unprepared.

In this article, I'm going to take you through what I learned in four (4) years of using Plenty of Fish to meet, date, and sleep with tons of new girls, including some of the hottest girls on POF in Southern California.

So sit back, relax, and let's get you doing what most of the rest of the online dating crowd can't do: lining up dates and taking pretty new girls to bed by the bushel.

In the piece on how to treat a woman, a reader shared a tale of having a wonderful date with a girl, ending it by holding hands with her as they walked together, her talking excitedly... only for things to fall apart and her get suddenly uncomfortable when they arrived at his place. He then commented this:

“I am in my 40s, well-paid mid-level manager in a prestigious organization. Most of the women I meet are around 25. Even if I don't tell them what I am doing for a living, they just can tell where I stand. The problem I face quite often is "this guy is not in my league, therefore he must be just playing". Can't tease too much, must be careful to show not too high value, and sometimes the move fast approach back fires, as described above.”

Thus enters the status dynamic: the man who is sufficiently high status compared to the girl that she does not want to just sleep with him quickly and one-and-done him, but who is not so high status that he can ask for whatever he wants with her and get it.

He is, in other words, ideal husband material - or, to put it differently, a whole lot more valuable to her as a long-term prospect than a simple fling.

Something I've called, for a long time, the boyfriend dilemma.

It's time now for the 25th Carnival of Dating Advice - our last.

In our final carnival here - wrapping up one full year after we got started - we have a grab bag of solid articles, focused primarily on having great relationships and avoiding the bad ones, but also on getting over a breakup, and dealing with self-doubt.

So dive in, friends, and get ready for a nice sendoff of the carnival.

Without further ado, your articles...

In "Time Efficiency Done Right," Michal asks the following about how to be unpredictable:

“Hi, Chase.

I can't stress enough how your site helped me and opened my eyes. I feel you spend less time on projects because you have great analytic skills and you come up with solution pretty fast while others take hours to think it through.

I have been thinking, could you write a post on How to be unpredictable/not to be predictable? It struck me the other day when I was talking with a female friend - I am too predictable. So I used search and I only found some shattered information here and on forum too. I found on other sites that good technique for this is Push/Pull which you already wrote about. But you said that push/pull is only to increase attraction, not to build it. I know the core of the issue (being predictable), it kills attraction, they are not excited and you are slotted as a boring person. But I dont really know what should I do about this. Make her guessing? And how? Like not saying things outright? Tell her "Ah, now I know why your pink skirt does not seem right to me". She asks why and then I should say like.. "Maybe if you behave good today, I will tell you." Should I start saying "Maybe" more? And answering with: "Maybe I will, maybe I won't" And what other things should I keep in mind? Because I feel it's what women want in a man among other traits - to be able to surprise them even after 5 years in a relationship.

Michal”

Push-pull and hinting at things while not fully revealing them build intrigue, which contributes to unpredictability. These are good. And yes, I do use the word "Maybe" quite a lot with women. It's a great answer when you're being pressed for details on something that doesn't help you to answer, and you can add in all kinds of sexual undertones.

But there's a good bit more to unpredictability than these tactics.

This one's an especially interesting topic for me, largely because I love strategy. My favorite computer games were always the ones that demanded the most attention to being strategic - games like Age of Empires and StarCraft were at the top of my list. And my favorite board games likewise - Chess and Risk reigning supreme for me there.

Unpredictability has a very large strategic component to it - because, in learning how to be unpredictable, one must also learn the limits: how much unpredictability is enough?

How much is too much?

Because in this respect, your degree of unpredictability is much like your driving speed: too little compared to someone else and you're a snooze, too much compared to someone else and you're a mad man.

On the outcome independence article, Balla made the following (exasperated) comment:

“Chase, im letting you and myself down with my low success rate. Please help me find this missing piece to this puzzle and please understand why im going crazy.

Im going mad with these girls. What am I missing? What am I doing wrong? It doesn't matter if the girls are cold approach girls or social circle girls. Nothing is popping off. I can get all the numbers I can care for but they dont mean shit if I cant sleep with these girls. I read the article that you wrote, "The 10 ways to make a girl take you seriously". I read your stuff religiously and apply it all.

Im not even joking, everything you say to do I do. From moving girls, text and call only for dates, be sexy, be calm, be smooth. I read the serious article over and over again and apply all of the steps. I am really going mad right now, I never felt this bad before in my life. Im being 100% honest chase, I use all your stuff, but im still not sleeping with these girls. Im just getting phone numbers and attention, I dont even get damn dates. Im starting to get cold and bitter and getting ready to treat these girls like shit. Please Chase tell me what im doing wrong? Is it just that im not meant to get many girls to sleep with me? Is it that Luck is against me? I really dont know what to do, im trying not to vent but im frustrated beyond belief and enough is enough. I have an identity crisis also, after reading that comment you left for a reader about it and it makes me very angry that im all these good qualities but im not getting any action. People believe I sleep with alot of girls and it drives me crazy that im not. I even believe I should sleep with alot of girls but its not happening. Its been a year since I found this site and I havent bedded one girl I didnt know yet. Sorry for the long vent but I seriously don't know what im doing wrong. I still believe everything you write is true and it works, I just have no idea what I am doing wrong. Thank you Chase for everything.”

I can commiserate. In early 2006, when I had just started actively going out and approaching new women, I was frequently leaving similar notes on the message boards I participated in then. I was trying everything I knew to try... and it seemed like nothing was working.

This is something called "plateauing" - where your progress stalls and you hit a level plain where things just don't seem to be getting any better.

Plateaus are the result of running into sticking points.

What's a sticking point? It's something that no matter what you do or try, you just can't seem to get around it.

Today I want to talk about what your options are for when you hit these frustrating snags, and what you need to do to break free of their tangles and get yourself making progress with women - or with anything else - once more.

Yesterday, a friend of mine got married in Bali. The friend was my roommate in college, a partner of mine in three (failed) businesses, and someone I'd spent countless hours on the phone and in person dispensing "people" advice to (friendships, relationships, being a better manager), and receiving business and financial advice from. We'd traveled together on a number of different trips around the world, and I'd spent plenty of time crashing at his places and he'd spent plenty of time crashing at mine. Both of us have told one another (me grudgingly, since I'm not fond of emotional displays) at various times over the years that we were each others' best friends, and he'd told me many times that whenever he got married, he wanted me as his best man.

I attended his wedding, at a huge, beautiful private villa complex and grounds overlooking the ocean, with palm trees and sculpted pools and large gray monkeys running about on the roofs. In the reception I was seated at the farthest corner of the farthest table from the bride and groom. I was not asked to be the best man or a groomsman. I understand why.

His bride doesn't like me - I thought she wasn't good enough for him, and counseled him against her; he told her as much... and she felt betrayed that when I'd stayed at their apartment and she'd shown me about town and been a great host (while my friend was out of the country), I told him about her running out and disappearing for a long day with a male friend immediately after a big, blow-up fight they had over the phone in the apartment, and offered to find out if she was going, or would go, behind his back. She's told him repeatedly that she hates me. And I can't really blame her... were our positions reversed, I imagine I'd feel the same way.

The message at the wedding was clear enough. I was tucked away in a corner to be as invisible (and cause as little trouble) as possible. I respected that message, and stayed out of the way. I kept to my corner most of the night, long after everyone else at the table had left for the bar or the dance floor, and only joined the rest of the party toward the end of the evening, when the wait staff stopped coming around and the only way to get a drink was to go up to the front of the grounds.

I wasn't asked to make a speech - that duty fell to my friend's brother, and to a guy he'd recently met now serving as a groomsman - but if I had been, here's the one I would have made.