(2) Intermediate

I deal with bipolar episodes. One minute I’m on top of the world and have more confidence, testosterone, and optimism than ANYONE... then the next minute, I’m devising a thousand different ways I could off myself and rationalizing why I’m the greatest piece of shit that has ever existed.

And my depressive episodes DEFINITELY impact my dating life. Of course they do.

But you can still find success. Hell, you can even USE your depression to your advantage.

This video is for those who aren’t feeling okay, those who rarely feel okay, and anyone who will ever at some point NOT feel okay... which is everyone.

So here’s how to navigate the dating world when you’re not feeling your best.

One of the things that dawns on you after years of cold approaching is that some women are much easier to date and bed than other women are. Further, it dawns on you that the factors that make a woman easier to date and bed are not always ones obvious to guys who don't approach a lot of women.

You learn counterintuitive truths like that very beautiful women are nicer and friendlier to strangers than mediocre-looking women are. Or that the most physically attractive women usually try to blend in more, while the most eye-catching women tend to be lower down on the looks scale but are far more deliberately flashy. You learn it's usually better to move faster than it is to wait around until some girl is 'ready' to date you (which, if it doesn't happen fast, most likely won't ever happen). You discover women have more respect for men who challenge them and ask them for favors than they do for men who go out of their ways to do favors for them.

You learn to look for signs a woman wants you to approach, as well as for signs you should stay away from her. You learn to tell how a girl shows interest in you and which women want you for sex.

Another thing you figure out, sooner or later, is how important the size of a woman's dating pool is to the odds you date or sleep with her.

If you want to learn dating, the key is to gain experience. But you don’t have to learn everything directly. These pro tips will save you a lot of pain and suffering.

To learn dating and be successful at it, you need experience. There might be a few lucky (or unlucky) guys who married their high school sweeties, but for most of us, it’s trial and error.

But can you even learn dating to an extent that your life will be significantly improved? Yes, you can. And you should.

In this article, when I say “learn dating,” I don’t mean knowing whether to show up 15 minutes early or 15 minutes late, or whether to wait three days afterward to text again. I'm talking about dating a girl who’s addicted to meth, and now her drug-dealing ex-boyfriend feels you owe him a kidney.

To be clear, it's not our intention to feed your cynicism when it comes to women and dating, but to help you prepare for some very real situations that will seriously trip you up if you're not prepared. If thus far in your dating life your cynicism has boiled up to the point of overflowing, these articles will help you understand where women are coming from:

• Understanding Women: It's Not as Hard as You Think
• “Women Are Evil”
• Women Are Emotional (But Not Irrational) – The Method Behind the Madness
• A Few Thoughts on MGTOW: Men Going Their Own Way

Either way, if you're looking for some great tips that will save you a lot of sanity, read on.

Dates can be a major stressor for guys. Especially if you don't have  a lot of dates, or you put pressure on yourself, it can be hard to get out of that. Going out to meet new women can also be a big stressor. You can put a lot of pressure on yourself to succeed, and get in your head about it.

There's a neat little way you can make both of these a whole lot less stressing, however. It just takes a bit of scheduling to do.

If you use this scheduling tactic, it'll give you other benefits aside from the stress reduction. It'll let you give yourself multiple chances to succeed with women on any given day. Further, it'll let your later interactions piggyback on momentum from your earlier ones... and your earlier ones relax quite a bit because you know you have more coming up.

What the tactic is is to schedule dates and pickup time one after another on the same day.

Women test men to ensure they aren’t with a loser or impostor. The final shit test before sex can be a real doozy, so make sure you’re not caught off guard.

I approached her on the street in the rain. She was a sexy young Asian girl who walked past quickly. I turned and caught up to her and opened. She smiled but said she was in a rush. I quickly asked if she was single; we had a quick one minute exchange, and I grabbed her number.

We texted in a flirty way, and she was pretty invested in the texting. I set up a date for the following week on a Tuesday (one of my standard dates). We went to an art gallery then walked over to have drinks. However, the vibe on this date felt different from most others. It was fast, and she was touching me often. At times, I got the sense that she was getting impatient when she started looking at her watch repeatedly. At this point, I hadn’t even gone through my sex talk stack yet; once I began to bring it up, she told me that most of her friends were gay men and she was super nonjudgmental.

Well, okay, neat.

She looked at her watch a third time and was quiet.

We had only met for an hour and change, but I figured what the hell; let’s try pulling anyway, and I went for it.

I just invited her home. “So I think I want to show you my art, and I have this really awesome beer you’ll love that I brought from Canada. We can sit on my rooftop and have drinks. Let’s get out of here.”

“Are you inviting me over to have sex with you?” She replied.

With a deadpan face, I said, “Yes.” And smiled.

Without stopping, she said “Okay” and started getting up to leave.

The moment we walked into my apartment building, I kissed her. It was on before we even got into my place.

I passed her shit test, and we screwed all night.

With certain types of relationships, don’t expect things to go back to business as usual after she returns from a vacation or is away from you very long.

Over the years as you grow in the game and experience more women, you see many patterns in male and female dynamics. Men and women have different agendas. A woman’s ultimate agenda is to find and keep a provider, especially one who is high-value (but still attainable) and one she can commit to monogamously.

Monogamy is virtually the only acceptable social frame for a woman as far as dating and relationships go. Other relationship models likely don’t fit so well with the world view held by her family, friends, and peers. So she most likely always has the monogamy goal in mind, despite what she’s doing with a guy or guys in the moment.

If you’re in a committed, monogamous, and stable relationship that’s going well (this is an important condition distinction), you might not experience the pattern I describe below. Similarly, if you’re dating a girl but haven’t yet slept with her, you might be able to avoid this situation. Finally, if she already has a provider, you’re just having sex, and she’s not emotionally intertwined, you can escape unharmed.

However, for nearly every other scenario, a girl taking a vacation without you equates to the impending doom of whatever it is you have going with her. I’ve found that when a girl you’re seeing takes a vacation — like a 1-2 week vacation to a faraway place — there’s a good chance you won’t see her again. At least your relationship can fundamentally change once she returns from her trip.

This concept applies mostly to these setups:

• F-buddies
• Friends with benefits
• Open relationships
• Multiple long-term relationships (mLTRs)
• Rocky monogamous relationships
• Just started dating, five dates or less

It’s also true regardless of how much you both communicate with each other during the trip. This naturally tends to dip a little during trips per the nature of the above setups.

It can be a strange phenomenon to observe. But we have to remember that when a woman sees you regularly, she feels emotionally tied to you, especially if you’re giving her a great experience.

This fades away once she experiences a little distance.

You might worry what she'll think of your clothes, hair, mood, or your place. But she doesn't always care about this stuff as much as you think.

There are many things men often think women care about... that they really, absolutely do NOT.

It's one of the biggest mental blocks that holds men back with women. Guy worries about something women don't care about, and proceeds to not try. "I'm too X; she won't want me. So I won't try." "I'm not Y enough; she won't want me. So I won't try." Meanwhile the reality is she doesn't care about X or Y, or not to the extent you think she does.

I have a friend who was prolific with women years back and took some time off from proper dating. He's now getting back into the swing of meeting new girls. The other day he had a sexy girl eye him up hard... another guy was hitting on her friend, and this girl wanted my buddy. But he had a few reasons to not go for her: he had to finish some work he had a deadline for, and also... his place was too dingy and dirty. He'll switch to a newer, nicer apartment in a few days and prefers to wait to pick up until then.

The work thing is understandable. But the apartment thing stuck out at me.

Because women (most women) do not care about a dingy apartment when they are into you enough.

I have slept with plenty of women in small, crummy apartments or hotel rooms.

I have shagged women in friends' filthy, crumb-filled, stained sheets that hadn't been changed in months.

I have shagged women on the dirt outside, shagged them on rocks, have gone raw on countless women I just met (most objections I've gotten to that have come during or after, rather than before). I have shagged women after not having showered for a week. I have shagged women when I had body odor they complained about (but not enough to stop the sex. Also, just for the record, my body odor is usually not bad. Not sure why it occasionally is. Diet? Stress? Who knows?). This is all stuff about which a whole lot of guys would say "Oh no, I couldn't possibly have sex with her now, because X!"

Women will tell you they care about all this stuff. But mating itself is a dirty act, and once a woman decides she wants you, dirty stuff she'd have told you would be a deal breaker other times largely stops mattering.

I grew up compulsively clean, too. It took me time to get over that, and to realize all but the most germophobic women do not care about it, when they want you. I get a kick out of dirty lays today. It's a bit of a thrill to be some girl's dirty man. Many guys these days are too tidy to be that for her. (that said, I do usually try to keep things clean. If only for my own peace of mind)

However, this article isn't just about being a dirty lover. It's about ALL the stuff guys use to talk themselves out of taking action... yet that girls don't actually care about.

There is a lot more stuff guys think women care about that they don't than dirty apartments, sheets, showers, or smells.