(2) Intermediate

One of our readers, Richard, asked about approach anxiety in the comments section of my last article on Girls Chase about dating for introverts:

“Colt, I must genuinely thank you for your article as, without consciously labeling my game as introverted, it is. Sex hasn't meant a whole lot to me, and even after opening several women, I generally only end up holding onto a few of the girls I meet. I respect what you write, and I greatly look forward to your future articles. That being said though, I have a few friends who introverts as well, and though my game has gotten worlds better, I can't get them over their massive approach anxiety, what worked for me hasn't worked for them. Any advice for the introverted man who has approach anxiety? You've become a huge inspiration for me man. Thank you,

Richard”

Approach anxiety is a topic that resurfaces from time to time on this site, addressed in articles such as "How to Approach a Girl Wherever You Are (Easily)" and "How to Pick Up Girls: The Success Factor, Part IV" and a smattering of other pieces. It was even systematically addressed by Chase in "Overcoming Approach Anxiety."

Yet, despite these excellent write ups, so many of our dear readers (as well as male friends of my own) continue to complain of completely freezing whenever they try to talk to an attractive woman.

I know exactly how this goes. Well... at least I used to. Approach anxiety was by far my biggest hurdle in greatly improving my skills with women. Bar none. I read everything I could, I talked to everyone I could possibly talk to, and did whatever was necessary to try to address the crippling anxiety I had.

Now, it’s not something I really think about anymore.

So team, I am now going to offer you a comprehensive post on approach anxiety; one from my own perspective, to complement Chase's previous piece and the other articles on this site that deal with the subject, to share with you everything I learned, the pitfalls you should avoid, and how you should go about moving forward. It is my hope that this will be the last post you will ever need on the topic.

While my normal recommendations are that guys stay far out of boyfriend-territory and focus on sealing the deal with girls they like on the first date, the truth is sometimes you're going to move too slow by accident, or not feel confident enough moving quickly with a girl, and you'll wind up as a boyfriend candidate after all.

So what do you do then, when she's not seeing you as a lover, and you can't move fast?

Just give up?

Or do you play the game the way she wants you to play it... but with your own twist?

I'm going to introduce you to the concept of date compression in today's article - making dates count for more than a single date, and having a full boyfriend-candidacy dating process in a short amount of time, rather than the protracted courtship these frequently turn out to be.

In the end, you'll be able to take girls who view you as a boyfriend candidate as lovers and as girlfriends much more quickly and reliably than the men who stretch things out - and often lose the girls they like after plowing time and money into trying to get them.

Let's talk about speeding up the entire dating process without skipping steps.

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.