(3) Journeyman

Paradiastole is a technique for reframing criticism into trophies. That vice of yours? Hey, look on the bright side! At least it means you (something good). That’s paradiastole.

"You shouldn't say something like that to a woman!" a girl recently told me, half-tickled, half-irate. "It shows you have low EQ!"

"Well, least I'm honest," I said. "Just think how bad it'd be if I was low EQ and I wasn't honest!"

I use this kind of reframe a lot. There's a name for it: it's called 'paradiastole'.

(my EQ's pretty good, by the way)

Paradiastole is a way to reframe a criticism into something positive, in a playful and humorous way. It deflects the other person's judgment, often with a bit of moderate self-deprecation.

If you don't do this, or you don't do it enough, it's a handy little tactic you can add to your arsenal.

Each man forms his opinions on women from the women he meets. Yet not every man meets the same sorts of women — so selection bias shapes his opinions.

I've talked about this a bit here and there. But today I'd like to highlight it specifically (and clearly).

You (yes you, the reader) are suffering from selection bias in the women you date.

Your opinions about women form from a subsection of all women that is almost certainly not comprehensive.

Further, even if you've experienced a broad cross section of women over time, if your seductions of late have been limited to a smaller cross section of women (and any chunk of your seductions across any discrete chunk of time will likely have been), selection bias has crept in whether you realize it or not.

Selection bias is subtle but sometimes insidious. It can lead men to sweeping, inaccurate beliefs about women they don't realize are inaccurate at a broad scale.

Right now, I'd like to highlight how selection bias in dating works, to help you be aware, and allow you to shield yourself from the downsides of this mental glitch we all possess.

When your girlfriend (or wife) starts bringing up feminist talking points, you need to know how to respond. Here’s how to defuse these and get your relationship back on track.

This is going to be a somewhat in-depth article, with a deep look at the full (i.e., millennia- and civilization-spanning) history of feminism.

The purpose is to give you a broad, complete, and meta-view of what feminism is, how it arises, and what its function is in a civilization, so you can break out of male-female power struggles and get the women in your life to take a sweeping historical view of feminism as part of a natural cycle, rather than a more basic/low level "Fight the patriarchy! Permanent progress for the first time ever!" view.

Before we get to the real history of feminism though, first let's talk about why you'd need to talk a girlfriend or wife out of feminist leanings.

No matter your political beliefs, it is a self-evident fact that there is a certain branch of feminism that is toxic to male-female relations.

Some feminist views are fine, and not all of it is bad. However, there is a very vocal chunk of it that is acidic to happy relationships.

There are two tried and tested ways to approach a mixed group. One is to wait for the opportune moment. The other? Mystery Method.

Hey guys, welcome back.

Last week we discussed mixed groups and the tendency guys have to immediately assume that any men interacting with girls must be part of their group, when they could have met the girls that same night.

You can’t assume all men in a club will spend the entire night idle. Some approach girls eventually (especially after binging booze — if you’re able to do the same somewhat sober you’ll enjoy a significant advantage).

In my experience, most men don’t cold approach much (unless drunk) in bars and clubs, but it still happens. Cultural differences can play a part. In some more social cultures, men walk up to talk to girls more often.

What if you happen to belong to a culture where that is not the norm? It could be that the guys with the girl you fancy know each other. But does that mean they’re part of the same group?

Your first time in bed goes a long way toward determining whether a woman sees you again. But it’s not about your technical performance. It’s about how you make her feel.

I'm seeing a lot of cases recently where guys are laying girls, giving mediocre performances in bed, then not being able to get those girls out again.

They message them for a while, and the girls message back less and less enthusiastically, less and less frequently.

Eventually these girls drop off their radars altogether.

There are some common themes I'm seeing in both why these girls drop off and why the guys in question can't get them back.

I started this article wanting to talk about follow-up strategies, and I may get around to that.

But as I got into it, it occurred to me that really the core problem is how guys are behaving with women in the bedroom.

So instead, in today's article, I want to give the reader some tactics he can use to reverse this trend in his own seductions, in the bedroom, and retain more of the women he takes to bed.

Plan a date together, before you leave her side, to raise the odds she shows up for it later. Use a few date-maximizing tricks to stack things in your favor.

Usually when we talk about how to ask a girl out, I tell you to keep it as simple as possible:

1. Ask her out
2. Then take her contact info

The reason is because in general I think the simpler your processes are, while still being effective, they easier they are to learn, the easier they are to remember, and the easier they are to stick to when there's a lot of other stuff going on.

However, what if you're a more intermediate guy, or advanced?

What if you want another way to reduce flakes and up the odds girls show up on dates with you?

Enter joint date planning, a surefire method to slash your flakes and up your date turnout.

Best of all, it's not something you need to fumble your thumbs with doing over messages -- you'll do it right there in person with the girl when you meet her, before you ever leave her side.

Mixed groups are more challenging than single-girl sets. But are all guys with girls signs of a mixed set?

Hey guys.

I was hanging out in the Skilled Seducer chat (the live chat in our online discussion forum), and member DaVinciMatrixStyle asked a great question, which guys often ask: