Confidence

I was out last night with a friend at about midnight, and we stopped to ask for directions. I saw a pair of women on a patio as they were leaving a bar, and asked them if they knew where the place we were trying to find was. In the midst of them telling me as I stood there a bit beneath them on the street -- "Go to the cinema, then..." a large, obviously drunken man strode up to the edge of the patio they were standing on, towering over me.

"Oy," he said, and raised his fist in what sort of looked like a greeting.

"Hi," I said, and flashed him a smile. He dropped his fist smack into my forehead, and it connected with a dull thud and a mild sting.

Now, I come from a background of formerly having been a bit of an angry guy, and a bit of a fighter. I used to get in a fair amount of fights, about all kinds of pointless things. Anything that might just be considered disrespect, I used to be ready to go to war over.

These days, I don't make physical confrontation that much a priority for me. I'll use it when absolutely necessary -- I manhandled a guy a few days back who tried pickpocketing me late at night in the rain -- but the risk is often far greater than the reward.

And that's what I want to discuss today -- assessing combat situations well and accurately gauging the risk-reward ratio -- not just for yourself, but for your opponent. Because it's necessary that, as you make your way through the world, you learn when it's worth fighting -- and when it isn't.

In the post on how to get foreign girls, a reader named swingcat (no relation to the other guy!) asks the following:

There are quite a few Chinese girls I know who ONLY speak Chinese and who told me they always dreamt of meeting a foreigner. Out of experience I know that with nightgame you can pull girls without speaking a single word. What about daygame however? And for nightgame, how can you go beyond SNLs without being able to communicate?

You mention leading. Yes, that is indespensable but how do you establish comfort or comfort? How do you non-verbally qualify? Maye you can post some examples orFRs, since you mention that you have quite a few of these experiences. I think this would be really helpful.

Basically, he asks how do you move things forward with a woman you can't (or prefer not to) communicate with?

Which, I think, is a great question.

You won't just use this with women who don't speak your language. I use a lot of what is to follow in my regular interactions with women who are native or fluent English speakers, too.

But, you ask, why choose to go wordless rather than make use of verbiage-laden, well-worded conversation? Well, that's a part of what we'll talk about here today.

I've always been a big fan of games. I invented games to play on the schoolyard with my classmates in first and second grade; I played Atari games and Nintendo games and games on the computer. Games are quite often a lot of fun.

And... they can also be really, really challenging.

I remember how there were a few games I'd play as a kid that went on for a really long time, and I'd always get killed before getting to the end. Ninja Crusaders on Nintendo was one... I only ever beat that game once, after playing it for what seemed like forever. I got pretty good at the first four levels or so, but once I got to level 5 my survival rate went way down... and reaching level 10, the last level, was an achievement in and of itself. That one win I finally got felt like I'd climbed a mountain.

Most games that were that hard I never even bothered trying to beat. You'd get good at the first few levels, then keep getting beat at the same spot, and much of the time you'd just give up and go do something easier.

The pick up game is just like this.

The other day I was walking down the street with a friend of mine when I happened to see a couple walking toward us. The man in that couple then lifted his arm up and wrapped it around the girl's shoulders; immediately though, she reached up and removed his hand from her shoulders, and a sheepish grin spread across his face. When he noticed that I'd been watching, he then hung his head a little lower.

I laughed, but it made me think. It's quite demeaning as a man when a woman does that -- when she pushes you aside or ignores you.

And when it happens in a bar or a nightclub -- when there are other, aggressive males around -- it can be downright dangerous.

Hence, this post, about competitive men trying to steal your girl, and about blood in the water. I want to identify a common but under-discussed phenomenon you'll run into when you're out with women -- and I want to teach you how to avoid falling victim to the sharks.

Yesterday I went out with a guy I mentor, and he asked to watch me do some direct daytime approaches.

"Sure, no problem," I told him.

I scouted around for a while, and saw a really cute girl walking along, wearing a blue blouse and big sunglasses, apparently looking for a taxi, her cell phone in hand. Usually I don't go for women who are visibly occupied like that -- taxi-searching and texting / calling, as her headspace is going to be elsewhere -- but I wasn't seeing all that many cute girls around solo, so up I went.

"I saw you walking here, and I had to come tell you," I began -- and she put her hand up and waved me off. "...that you're incredibly cute. I'm Chase," I finished. She waved me off again. I walked next to her, matching her stride.

"What's your name, then?" I asked, sticking my hand in her direction. She smiled, turned her head away, and waved me off again.

"I'm sure you've got to be called something," I said. "Your friends don't just call you this [I demonstrated waving], right?" She cracked a bigger smile, laughed, and kept walking.

I'm being driven nuts right now about a discussion I'm having with my girlfriend about something we've already discussed and I thought was settled. It has to do with a difference in belief systems; I show her solid evidence and research from the West proving my position, she returns to hearsay, word-of-mouth, and ingrained beliefs she's getting from friends in the East who aren't actually informed on the matters at hand but have firm beliefs on them nonetheless.

She's normally a very logical, rational girl, but this specific matter is driving her uncharacteristically batty, and she's falling back to fears refuted by science but given weight by popular opinion. Understanding why this happens to otherwise sane, rational individuals is key to understanding how people's views of the world are built and maintained.

It's similar to the autism-vaccine "debate" that's going on in the States right now, or the electricity-cancer "debate." No matter how much research is done to show that there is absolutely, positively, no link whatsoever between vaccines and autism, or power stations and cancer, people continue to believe there are causal links anyway, because they've seen and heard sources that support their position.

The worst part is, it doesn't matter where those sources got their information from. It doesn't even matter if the sources outright say, "I just know it." The only thing that matters is that there are, indeed, sources that support the position.

Enter reference points: something I've mentioned at times on this blog but haven't devoted an actual post on (see "How to Get Real Girls" and "Social Status: Building It and Using It" for the latest posts that mentioned these). Reference points and reference experiences are what we use to define our belief systems, worldviews, and ideas about reality, and they're absolutely crucial to the way we see life on Planet Earth.

I've been getting called "gentle" and "a gentleman" quite a bit recently. Me, of all people! The man who prides himself on taking women as lovers within a few hours of meeting them, and who hardly ever goes on second dates because he either sleeps with a girl on the first date, or burns the house down trying.

Yet I am, according to more and more women I meet these days, a gentleman.

I've had an interesting and at times soap opera-y progression of events over the past week in which my girlfriend has contacted an ex-girlfriend of mine, whom she'd never met or spoken to, in order to, at first, vent about me and seek her guidance, and now to be friends with her. My ex-girlfriend and I have since reconciled, and my current girlfriend and my ex-girlfriend have been comparing notes on me: the good and the bad.

I have a big belly (I'm skinny by American standards, but... I'm not in America anymore).

My face gets red very easily.

I'm troublesome and not simple. Just when they think they have me figured out... they realize they were wrong.

And, I'm a gentleman. I have gentle eyes. I'm a gentle person.

That last one is no accident, mind you. Being a gentleman is something I've long aspired to be. I'm a big believer that a man can be fast, powerful, and incredibly seductive – and yet, still manage to be dashing, enchanting, and considerate.

James Bond is a rogue and a knave, and he shoots bad guys and beds women – a LOT of women – with speed and expertise.

But he's still a gentleman. And if you aren't – well, I think you should aim to be, too.