Pickup

About a day ago, we had a commentator on the post on how to become romantic who weighed in to let me know that it's silly to try and get better with people, and that most people have better things to do, and that in fact you really should just be yourself, and anyone who doesn't realize how awesome you are is simply intellectually stunted.

Where do people come up with this malarkey?

I know he represents a vanishingly small minority on this site -- and likely was just a passerby -- but this mentality represents the majority of the thought on the subject in mainstream society.

"Just be yourself. If people don't like you for who you are, who needs 'em?"

Quite likely one of the most counterproductive mindsets a man could possibly have. Anyway, I addressed that commentator's individual points pretty thoroughly in the comments section of that article itself, so I won't revisit it here, but I do want to talk about this mentality of "just be yourself" -- and why it's such terrible, terrible advice.

Unless you exclusively meet women by yourself, sooner or later you're going to have a buddy along with you when you meet a new girl or two. And what your buddy does -- and what you do -- can go a long way toward determining the outcome of that encounter.

There are, it seems, as many prescriptions out there on how to be a wingman as there are on how to become a millionaire, or how to get six-pack abs. But, you know me -- I don't tend to agree with too much of the advice that's out there. I usually find it overcomplicated and too "fancy."

Like, if you want great abs, you don't get the Super Ab Roller 3000 and start rubbing lotions on your stomach to melt away the fat. Instead, you just scale down the number of calories you're taking in and cut your carbs to drop the belly that's hiding your abs, and regularly hit the gym, go grab a bar above your head, and start lifting your knees up against your chest until your abs are on fire a couple times a week to build up your abdominals. Presto, great abs without magic machines or mysterious ointments.

Learning how to be a wingman is like that. You'll get all kinds of crazy advice out there -- some of which I'll highlight today, as examples of what not to do, before we get into what to do. But you'll be better off avoiding all that crazy advice, and instead sticking to what works.

If you're like me and you come from a background of being low attainability with girls -- teasing them a little too hard, seeming a little too aloof, causing them to clam up and get cold and snippy and dismissive -- or if you started off as a nice guy and ended up swinging to the opposite extreme, you'd probably be inclined to thinking screening and qualifying is the best thing since sliced bread. I know I sure was.

Screening and qualifying is an effective way of finding out if a girl meets your standards. If you're just starting out with women, of course, most of those "standards" are arbitrary standards you're putting up for the sake of seeming like you're being picky; but as you accumulate more success with women, you really do become a lot pickier.

So how do you find out if a girl's your kind of girl? Well, you screen her and, when she passes your screens, you qualify her. At least, that's the standard advice.

What I've realized lately though is that stand-alone screening and qualifying -- even at its acme, its highest levels -- it's still a technique best suited to beginners and early intermediates.

Why? Because, one, screening and qualifying as a stand-alone technique is clumsy. It's unnatural, and it feels contrived. And in fact, as you start getting better, there's something a lot more natural you can use in this approach's place.

If there's one pet peeve I have right now, it's the current way being an "alpha male" is talked about in most pick up and dating circles. I've gotten to the point personally where I cringe every time I hear some guy talking about "being alpha."

But I don't want to go on an anti-alpha tirade here, because at it's core, the alpha male ideology is very correct; it's just that the term itself has become so laden with cultural baggage that "the alpha male" has just about become a stereotype -- a clownish, cartoon caricature of what an alpha male used to be.

Every time I hear the term "alpha" these days, I imagine some bald, shirtless, gargantuan, vein-popping 'roid-head screaming, "Alpha... ALPHA!!!" at the top of his lungs, and a crowd of skinny nerdy guys standing around him, pointing at him in awe, and whispering to each other, "That's alpha. That's how you get the ladies."

This post is my effort to wrestle back the term "alpha male" from the shadow of itself it's become, and redefine once and for all what the term really means -- and exactly how to be an alpha male... without turning yourself into a cartoon character.

The post "Should You Pay for a Date?" is still, it appears, attracting its fair share of outrage from what seems mostly to be women, who don't like the fact that I'm recommending, based on my own experiences and all of those of every man I'm acquainted with whose tried both ways, that men not pay for their dates if they want better results with girls.

These commentators are protesting, of course, because doesn't fit with the way they think the world ought to work.

But I don't write this blog to talk to people about the way the world ought to work. It'd be great if men could just buy women dinner and women would automatically upon the completion of that romantic date then become the men's lovers, girlfriends, and wives immediately thereafter.

That's not what happens, though. And what this site is about is what does happen -- what works, what doesn't, and everything in between.

So let's settle this, then. I've decided to craft for you, today, the definitive post on how to get girls. After reading this post, your core questions on how to be successful with women are all going be answered -- and any of you ladies reading on here, buckle yourselves in because we're going to take an intensive, in-depth look at the way you choose the men you do.

Think for a moment of a time you were talking to a pretty girl you'd just met. You started hitting it off -- things were going great. You took the conversation deeper and deeper -- getting to know her more and more. It felt like the two of you were bonding at this incredibly close level, and it kept getting closer. There was more and more magic... more and more chemistry... crazy amounts of electricity sparking in the air...

... then, suddenly, the spell was broken. It was like the two of you came up for air, then realized that you'd emerged back up at the surface and couldn't get back down to where you were before.

It was as if you'd awakened from a dream.

Then, try as you might, you couldn't get back into that dream again... and both of you knew it. The interaction with this girl -- this girl you'd been bonding and connecting with so deeply mere minutes before -- ended soon after.

It became too awkward to continue once it'd returned to that surface level of shallow conversation and superficiality, and she uncomfortably excused herself, telling you she had to go find her friends or that it was time for her to head home.

But you were close -- you knew you were. There was so much intensity between the two of you, until it just... evaporated.

A reader writes in a comment on the post about building emotional connections:

"This worked great with a beautiful young lady I was interested in. We had many things in common. She got presumptuous and began whining & nagging about her car repairs. I was a gentleman throughout yet she felt perfectly entitled to tool me!! How would you treat her inappropriate request? Oh I forgot to mention this demand was asked of me after the third date..."

That's an unfortunate outcome for our reader, losing a girl he had a great connection with to presumptuous requests, but it's all too common a scenario, and it's one that gives us an outstanding jumping off point for getting into a meaty topic: dealing with dating situations where women complain, try to get stuff from you, and push to use you.

For the relationship equivalent of this phenomenon, check out "Women and Drama." What I want to talk to you about today is dealing with this when it happens on dates -- and how you can sidestep, shut down, and otherwise flummox women's attempts to get favors and "gain the upper hand," so to speak.

I think you'll find it invaluable.