Dating Advice Leading to Lack of Confidence

[Todd1]

Last week I finished reading Models and one point really stuck in my mind. In chapter 11 the book talks about how anxiety is caused by neediness but only hinders people when they do not feel competent. After thinking about it for a day I believe that reading a lot of dating material is actually making my anxiety worse.

At times I still feel massive anxiety even though I have had positive experiences with women. Within the last school year (around 9 months) I've had sex with 5 new women and have fooled around with a hand full more. Ironically I noticed most times I met girls, I was just out with friends to relax and wasn't thinking about dating advice or even hooking up.

It seems that I become so self-aware when I think about dating advice that I can not have normal interactions with women. My head is often filled with thoughts like say this, touch her on the arm like that... Meanwhile I really have not thought much about the positive experiences I have had in the past. Until recently I did not think about it, but dating advice in general (not only PUA stuff) reinforces the idea that you need to do something "special" including touching her a certain way, connecting emotionally... While these things help, consciously thinking about them only seems to get me lost in my own head.

I am wondering from guys with a fair amount of experience, have you ever felt like absorbing too much information was counter productive? I'm starting to think that less is more, and that I should stop reading / thinking so much, and instead focus on my positive past experiences (boosting my feeling of competence). Thoughts?

[SeXyBaCk]

You've had plenty of relationship within the last year, you don't need dating advice. Just stop reading it, stop "using" PUA stuff (for a better lack of term). Toss it away, delete it ...whatever. Not disregarding the fact that you obviously feel unsettled about something (since you posted). I don't think dating is your problem though. Maybe you should aim for a relationship and see how that goes? Good relationships are harder to have than getting women to come out on a date with you. I can't really comment on absorbing too much stuff being counterproductive. I haven't done it. I'm sure others here can relate. But I'm certain I can't do calculus or my tax return while talking to a woman I like. It's both going to go tits up. It seems plain counterproductive to me though trying to approach and tackle something that's in the realm of the emotional/social with an academic/cognitive approach. I might as well be trying to talk someone who has lost a loved one out of their grief.

Maybe you should elaborate further on what you feel is your lack of confidence.

[Thor]

OK I am no ladies man but these days theres far too much information out there when it comes to meeting women.

I get mails each week about new products "how to get girls into bed using text" or "how to get a ten minute lay". Too much information fucks you up mentally. If your already getting laid on a frequent bassi and from the sounds of it you are. Forget accumulating information from other products.

Whilst travelling around Bulgaria during the summer last year. I met a guy who claimed he had shagged nearly 100 women and he was hitting 30 years of age.

He had 5 girls on the go. He had never heard of PU or the community. I met some of his girlfriends so he wasnt bullshitting me. When I asked him how he managed to accomplish what he did. He couldn't really explain himself he just say "oh just go and talk to them" or "organise a party and invite them along". We became good friends as he had never seen the world outside the Balkans and when I talked about my travels around the world he was fascinated yet he knew just about everything there was to know about women and I knew so little.

I am planning to go and visit him this year and spend some time with him maybe I can learn a thing or two from him.

[Mark]

Too much information can hurt you.

As I've said forever... Dating advice will try to convince you that success with women is very complicated to learn but easy to do once you understand their "secrets" or the information they're selling.

The reality is that success with women is extremely simple (like so simple, it fucking hurts my head), but it's hard to actually do it.

Just walk up, say "Hi, my name is Todd," talk to her like a human being, make a joke or two, tell her she's pretty and ask her if she'd like to go out some time. Text her once to meet up and if she doesn't meet you, then find another girl. On the first date, kiss her. On the second date, invite her home.

If she ever flakes or rejects you along the way, FIND ANOTHER GIRL. STOP ANALYZING FUCKING EVERYTHING AND JUST GO TALK TO ANOTHER GIRL.

The only thing you should be analyzing is yourself: How happy am I with my life? How awesome is my life? What could I be doing better in my life? Why am I not confident or not happy? What can I do to fix that? What would I like to do with my life that I'm not already doing? How honest am I with those around me? How satisfied am I with the people in my life?

Stop assuming more girls or hotter girls or getting rejected less will make you feel any better. You need to learn how to make yourself feel better by yourself first. If you can do that, then the women will start showing up.

[Creatine Dreams]

Awesome post Mark! But if that is all we need to know, why should we buy your book!

[juggernaut92]

^Because people believe that the process is much harder than that.

[Mark]

Because my book is all about WHY that's all you need to do, and then how to get the balls to do that and how to shut your friggin' mind up every time you start chickening out.

http://postmasculine.com/models

If every guy could calmly and confidently do what I wrote in the post above, then there wouldn't be a dating advice industry at all.

[Creatine Dreams]

Haha, I know Mark. I was just kidding. Based on all of the articles you have written and the great advice you have given in this forum, I will be buying the book in about a month when I have time to sit down and read it all the way through.

I just haven't decided if I want to buy a hard copy so I can take notes and underline stuff or the e-book.

[Todd1]

Thanks for the advice, I've always been analytical and it sometimes hurts me. It sounds that I'm making things more complicated than they need to be.

Returning to part of my initial post, I still feel lack of confidence around girls despite positive reference experiences and a high sense of self esteem. When I am actually out in social situations (parties...) will consciously thinking about positive past experiences help me better cope with anxiety?

@Creatine Dreams - The ebook comes in a pdf format that allows you to highlight information and add notes in the margins. Just thought you would want to know.

[Chaos]

If I can add my two cents here I'm going to disagree a little bit because I was in the same process that you are right now, having exactly the same feelings.

When a person does OK with women (not real good, but ok) the all this PUA advice can be counterproductive in the short run and sometimes even in the long run, specially the traditional PUA advice which is so centered on IOIs, routines and an method (attract, qualify, break rapport, etc). That's not because it's necessarily wrong, but because you already did that unconsciously most of the time, and unconcious abilities always work better. So when you're made aware of the actual process you're already doing, you get worst at it.

On the other hand, if you're not so good with women to begin with, PUA advice works miracles, because you suddenly become aware of the thing you're doing wrong and fix them.

Is that old ladder from unconscius incompetence, conscius incompetence, conscious competence and inconscios competence.

If you're in the first case you're already on inconscious competence... But you might get better, so that requires to to go back a couple of steps to some place between steps two and three to see what you're doing all right and what you can improve. Then you can go back to step four better than you started. This is a process that happens for everything you want to improve, not just for dating, whenever you're trying to improve at something there will be a period in time in which you'll actually be doing worst. Of course the main thing is if you really need that improvement or you were ok where you were.

In the other hand, for the second case you start on the first step, you have oidea of how to pickup girls and you don't even know that you don't know. This is the case (this was my case) where you get the most out of it, as almost any result is better than no result. But again, you reach a point where you have interiorized your "tactics", the way you flirt, approach and everything. Is something so natural you just flow and get a gut feeling feedback about how things are going... Now you are at the same point than the other guy and are faced with the same dilemma, but since you're already in a path to self improvement the temptation might be greater.

I could stay just where I am right now, I have women in my life, I'm happy with who I am and I get laid enough so that's not a worry anymore. Still I have this urge to continue improving and sometimes that means that I actually do worst that I would if I wasn't trying, because I'm aware of what I'm doing so, even if I try not to, I still analyze things with the PUA prism, I analyze myself and see where I can improve (was I to needy? Was I to nervous? I forgot to cold read?) and then I have to try to apply those things until I make them unconsciously, there's no other way, you have to do things counciously until it becomes an habit, and until then it will feel worst than before.

[Mark]

Quote:On the other hand, if you're not so good with women to begin with, PUA advice works miracles, because you suddenly become aware of the thing you're doing wrong and fix them.

This is a big over-simplification. It's going to vary a lot from person-to-person based on what their issues are, their past experiences and what exactly they study.

Quote:...you have to do things conciously until it becomes an habit, and until then it will feel worst than before.

I think the big thing that is missed by most dating advice is that these habits need to be habits based on yourself (Why was I so nervous? How can I express my thoughts better? How can I feel better about my appearance? etc.) rather than on others (When do I touch her arm? When do I cold read? How do I qualify? How do I respond to a shit test?) etc. The latter habits, even if you get to the point of doing them unconsciously, and even if you get results with them, you're still avoiding actually connecting with anyone in a meaningful way and not actually confronting your issues.

[Chaos]

Yeah Mark, I agree. I was talking from my own perspective of course. I think I've already mentioned this some time, but one of my biggest realizations and steps on the way was to become aware and to merge my pickup persona with my old self into a coherent persona that was in itself me.

To actually reduce that dichotomy into a consistent self is one of the most important things I did. So at some point in the way you have to adapt the game to you, instead of adapting yourself to the game.

[Leo]

(04-08-2012 07:30 PM)Mark Wrote:  Stop assuming more girls or hotter girls or getting rejected less will make you feel any better. You need to learn how to make yourself feel better by yourself first. If you can do that, then the women will start showing up.

A lot of people say what you just said BUT why is everybody looking for someone that makes them feel good? Isn't love the most fantastic emotion? Isn't infatuation great, so wonderful that blinds you and make you pursue a woman for a long time and put and extra effort? Isn't that what Hollywood movies show? You are gonna be happy when you find the one! I used to work as a waiter and almost every time I had a table full of women, they were talking about men, relationships, dating strategies, etc. to get the guy. What do we do here spending SO MUCH time OVER-ANALIZING how to get more women? How to get a woman that I like? How to overcome my anxiety that prevents me to go to talk to the girl that I LIKE, to take the risk to get rejected. Is not everybody or ALMOST everybody looking to feel that incredible sensatition: Love? And to do that you need (ooops!) another person?
This has been very confusing for me for a long time. Nevertheless I've heard a lot of people mentioning before what you just mentioned.


Did you notice that you said: You need to learn how to make yourself feel better by yourself first.
THEN: the women will start showing up.

Isn't it kinda contradictory? If I feel so good why do I need women? Why so much obsession about dating then?

Why people get married? Why people get into LTRs? Why some women are so obsessed about getting married? Why almost nobody wants to be alone? If I can be happy by myself I wouldn't need another person.

[Chaos]

One of the things I hate the most about Hollywood romantic touches (not just romantic comedies) is that Hollywood sells the idea of a having someone "complete" you. "You complete me" you're "my other half".

That way a lot of people look for someone that will complete them instead of looking for someone that shares with them. Instead of love you're talking about greed, the other person makes you complete and you're not a real person if you haven't found love, if you haven't found that special half that gives your life a purpose.

And incidentally I think that's the cause that most marriages end up in divorce. You're not a complete person that shares himself with another person out of love, you're that person that sucks what you need from the other person, until that situation doesn't satisfy your needs anymore or the other person becomes bored (extreme over generalization here just to make the point, obviously things aren't black or white).

Point being you should be already a complete (self improving also, I don't find those two terms to conflict) person, which offers things to the other person and who enjoys what the other person freely shares.

[dr. love]

I think this summarizes how creepy the idea of someone else completing you actually is

[baller08]

Honestly guys, it's not a lot to learn, but its a ton to UNLEARN. Mark is dead on about how simple it can be and it really is simple in terms of getting girls and getting into a relationship. Where it gets complicated is making a relationship work and knowing how to filter out the right kind of woman to share your life with....that's a different topic all together.

Chaos is right that good dating advice can be very valuable for the men who have little to no experience. But those advice is still based on unlearning all the brain washing that men go through in this society. In my last few years of doing this, I focus more on helping men unlearn rather than learn. I find that if I can get them to unlearn their nice guy/pansy thought process, they tend to start to do the right thing naturally.

[Swimmer]

(04-08-2012 11:30 PM)Mark Wrote:  

Quote:On the other hand, if you're not so good with women to begin with, PUA advice works miracles, because you suddenly become aware of the thing you're doing wrong and fix them.

This is a big over-simplification. It's going to vary a lot from person-to-person based on what their issues are, their past experiences and what exactly they study.

Exactly!

Otherwise a lot more damage can be caused to inexperienced guys that good.

[Drewid]

(04-08-2012 07:30 PM)Mark Wrote:  The only thing you should be analyzing is yourself: How happy am I with my life? How awesome is my life? What could I be doing better in my life? Why am I not confident or not happy? What can I do to fix that? What would I like to do with my life that I'm not already doing? How honest am I with those around me? How satisfied am I with the people in my life?

This is insanely inspiring stuff. I've printed it out this section, and pinned them on my wall, because I want to be asking myself those questions EVERY DAY.

This is the post that has convinced me to join your site and try out your stuff. I've done PUA stuff on and off since I got into Ross Jeffries speed seduction stuff back in the late 90s. I bailed out when the Mystery method came in around 2001 and started turning everything into a game about scoring notches instead of genuine self-improvement, but kept an eye on what was going on as I had turned some friends onto it who ended up becoming a big part of the scene in the early/mid 2000s.

In that time I've gotten married, divorced, and just broke up with my 24/25 year-old girlfriend after an amazing year. I'm back in the dating world and my goal is still to improve *myself* and the quality of women in my life. For me approaches have always been a source of fear, and it's something I've been wanting to get over for a long long time.

But all the PUA stuff out there just seems complicated. Simpler than Jeffries maybe, but still full of obtuse systems for getting simple results.

I believe that conquering approach will improve my self-esteem greatly. And if it doesn't, then I'll at least I'll have learned that I have bigger hills to climb.