A chick is bizarrely fascinated by PUAs

[Angela Leeds]

Originally Posted by cylon

I know you get a kick out of calling me feminine, but you never back your stuff up. You just say "that's feminine". I imagine you never say this to guys in the real world, or they would dump you on the spot.

Good luck finding your lid.

I'm not getting a kick out of anything except the conversation and exploring the topic...I thought we were talking pick-up dynamics here, and the inter-relationship between masculine & feminine.

You and I certainly don't have to dialogue if it upsets you.

[Angela Leeds]

Originally Posted by Jasonv

It seems like the women are saying, "I don't want to date some cheap guy who won't invest $6 on me, of all people, a great woman who is not trying to use them. I am not like those women being described by the men. I am sincere. If I am talking to a man that I am attracted to and that is attracted to me it's really no big deal to buy me a drink. In fact, it's in poor form if he doesn't. It shows he is immature and does not know how to treat a lady."

Just to be clear fro my end, I'm in no way a woman expecting drinks from guys when I'm out. I think we got on that subject out of my responding to a comment about men not wanting to "pay" for a lady...and I was stressing that there's some logic or purpose behind why a guy would pay for dates.

Meh...or not. It's really all good, as long as one is getting what one wants. Making one choice that has natural consequences which are actually different from what one wants...that's no fun!

Mahalo.

[Angela Leeds]

Originally Posted by fitx3

I wonder if there is a correlation between how generous a man is at the introduction point of a relationship, i.e. buying a woman a drink, to how generous he is in bed. Hmmmmmm.

LoL. IME, no correlation.

Money issues are complex...ya can't generalize why a man may or may not be "generous" with his money. In fact, a more "feminine" take-care-of-me man at the outset may carry that thru and be more giving and attentive in bed, while a more "masculine" i-got-the-tab sort may be a stereotypical i-got-mine-and-now-i'm-done sort.

[munish]

Originally Posted by cylon

Many of the conventions that men are told by women are completely the opposite of what works. Pyrogen was nice enough to put some truth to this:

?

You may read this article

Why Women are Attracted to Bad Boys by David Deangelo

He has explained why are woman attracted to abusive rock stars.

They say something and do something else,when it comes to romance.Says Johnny soporno, a good friend of steve pavlina.

Introduction to Seductive Reasoning 101

[munish]

Have you read this book. The Book of the City of Ladies: Christine De Pizan .

As suggested by Zan Parrion.

Natural Game Forum by Zan Perrion

[cylon]

Zan kicks ass. I really like his message, especially about the Natural. Inspirational stuff. Thanks for the link.

The whole abusive rock-star thing is true. But it should be pointed out that they aren't necessarily attractive because they are ABUSIVE, but because the "bad boy" is just a contrast to the weak nice guys out there. Women are attracted to masculinity, not supplicating puppy dogs who try to buy affection.

The abusive guys don't have much going for them, but as far as many women are concerned, at least they aren't the spineless jelly-fish they are used to. It's like the expression "even bad pizza is still pretty good."

But a lot of those tough rock-stars fall apart and become even more spineless when in a LTR. I think a big part of the attraction is just how volatile they are, or at the very least, unpredictable.

So I think the bar has been set so low that any guy who is NOT like that, becomes more attractive. Not the best commentary on our society.

[Angela Leeds]

Originally Posted by Angela

In my experience, using manipulative (for a win/lose result) or inauthentic tactics just doesn't work well for me, and I find The Rules (as well as some approaches that some PUA's use) to be both win/lose and inauthentic. The PUAs who have results that I would want to have are people who put aside tactics and show up authentically and highly present in their interactions -- maybe they have a few tricks up their sleeve for being what they want to see in their life, like being confident and being engaging and taking on physiology and language that feels good to self and others, but they're not shooting for Power Over.

My perspective on it as well. In my chat with my male friend earlier today, I was telling him that -- after somebody here mentioned Mystery -- I went and did a little googling & youtubing, and found that the guy was very interesting, and that there are many valuable things he seems to understand about the general male-female dynamic, which he's figured out how to apply toward his own end.

But what my friend and I both agreed was how utterly foreign the whole PUA thing is to our experience of finding relationships...he's never done anything consciously other than to be authentic, and he's had good success with women in his life. And his circle of friends are the same. My own relationships have always launched similarly, just bein' real. But I do find the PUA thing interesting, as I'd never seen it before

What struck me about Mystery is that...he's still young, exploring his power...and eventually he may get sick, turned off even, by the women who allow themselves to be manipulated by him. Eventually, he may crave authenticity...and to find a woman who's truly in her power so he can feel what that's like.

Too much inauthenticity leads to a kind of soul sickness. The heart does long for fulfillment & bein' real...

[Angela Leeds]

Originally Posted by fitx3

I'm just getting back home from my day's events and read the above. Everyone may have interpreted something different, but what I got from it is how two mature, non game playing people "hooked up." It's in the same way that my serious relationships developed. I was the "star" from the beginning as she appears to be above. Men aren't blind, they can look over a room and see what's there pretty quickly. A man who sees something he's interested in and goes for it is brave and I find that SO attractive. That's what makes a woman feel special. Perhaps it's an age thing as well as a confidence issue, I don't know, but I do know that all the men in my life have been decent, good men who were able to see things through good and bad. Again, I'm curious about the psychological health of these women who fall for these guys who play things so cool. I know I'd lose interest pretty quickly.

For my part...ditto all that.

[Angela Leeds]

Originally Posted by cylon

No strings. Just free drinks. Good deal for you, bad deal for me. Where in the world are you getting this notion of "hospitality"? For what? What did you do? This isn't my home. I don't own this bar/club/whatever. And most likely, I paid to get in, and you got in for free. And it's probably women's night where your drinks are free. And etc. And since YOU got in for free, and got free drinks because it lures guys like me in, the least you could do, is help a guy out, and buy ME a drink. Thanks. I did have to pay a cover charge you know.

And hey, about that dance. Here you are telling me I'm supposed to pay you undivided attention, but there you are dancing with all the guys in the club! That hurts me really bad inside. You're supposed to pay me undivided attention too right? Didn't that dance mean anything to you? Wasn't that officially "our song"?

You're going to proudly dance with multiple partners? After our dance? I feel so betrayed.

Just kidding. But I will take that drink now.

Huh??? I guess you're just venting...

[Angela]

Originally Posted by pyrogen

The Rules is NOT about making a man do anything he doesn't want to do. It's not about manipulating ANYTHING.

02: Don't Talk to a Man First (and Don't Ask Him to Dance)
03: Don't Stare at Men or Talk Too Much
04: Don't Meet Him Halfway or Go Dutch on a Date
05: Don't Call Him & Rarely Return His Calls[3]
06: Always End Phone Calls and dates First
07: Don't Accept a Saturday Night Date after Wednesday
12: Stop Dating Him if He Doesn't Buy You a Romantic Gift for Your Birthday or Valentine's Day
13: Don’t See Him More than Once or Twice a Week
14: No More than Casual Kissing on the First Date

No. No manipulation about anything. Just EVERYTHING. #12 is my personal favorite -- it's all about ME! ME!!! DAMMIT! MEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

[cylon]

Those would all be considered signs of low interest by lots of guys. Actually the opposite of those behaviors, is what guys are told (by other guys) to look for.

Signs of high interest would be, calling all the time, arranging dates, getting cute little texts, making him a high priority for your time. The idea being, when you get those types of IOI's, you just may have a girl who is really interested in you, and is worth getting to know better.

But it works. Challenge works. Doesn't matter who's doing it. The "Rules" men follow are pretty similar.

But, yeah that stuff listed would mean don't pursue her. Because you can't tell if she's just playing hard to get, or is a Professional Dater.™

[Angela]

Originally Posted by Jasonv

It also seems like you're "married" to the idea of reframing him.

Me and reframing... we're just dating (but we had sex on the first date).

[pyrogen]

Manipulation? I still don't think it's manipulative. I fail to see how passively screening for specific IOIs is manipulative; you're not forcing the other person's hand or influencing their behavior in ANY WAY.

And as for gifts - "romantic" doesn't necessarily mean they buy you a diamond necklace and shower you with flowers and goopy stereotypical stuff. It means IMO that they pay attention to your individual preferences. Which a person in love will do.

[RT Wolf]

Maybe I just haven't read the book, but the phrasing of those rules makes them sound like pretty uncourteous and downright a**hole things to do. Maybe you need to use that to weed out certain kinds of men. Clearly mine isn't the typical male experience. Just like cylon's using his no free drinks rule. The catch is the ladies in the thread are basically saying that "you won't just filter our the undesirables, you'll also filter out the good ones...like me!" Which is true with any filter. It filters out a lot of the bad stuff but also occasionally the good stuff. If you think that you're more likely to find what you're looking for in the filtered selectoin than in the whole of the unfiltered selection, then filtering makes sense.

Ever heard of the Evolutionary arms race - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ? That's the situation we're dealing with here. Sure, the people in this thread are a bit more aware of things.

Wikipedia is full of interesting things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen_effect

[cylon]

Lol, it is like an Arms Race. ESCALATION!

I can see why the Rules are used from a female perspective, but from a male perspective, those are all signs of low interest. What's sad about the whole thing is it could be an woman with high interest, but since she masks it, a man might wrongly conclude she has low interest and move on.

I think the point was made earlier that it was good at keeping "alpha men" at bay, to make them work for it. These masculine, Apha Men do not have time for that. They aren't going to play along. They'll just move onto someone else who is giving them clear signals. Alpha Men have their pick. So it filters out the masculine men, and invites the feminine/ AFC men, who are willing and eager to jump through a bunch of hoops.

Seems to me this is all designed to get the most return for the least investment, which is totally understandable. The guy does most of the work and pays for most of the stuff, which means he is auditioning for the "provider role", and the woman can sit back and observe and control the frame of the developing relationship.

It's also been pointed out that women respond to the "bad boy", which is completely opposite of a guy who would play by the Rules. So which guy is the guy that is "doing it right"?

Both. "bad boy/jerk" is the guy the woman actually, physically, sexually responds to (healthy genes) and the provider is the guy that unknowingly raises kids who aren't his after the bad boy has moved on.

This way women get the best of both worlds, good genes from the bad boy, and a nice guy provider to help them raise the children.

Johhny Soporno has a good take on this in his free videos that were linked to earlier in the thread. I do agree a man has to be upfront about his intentions. He should let his basic interest be known, and set the tone from there.

But the degree of interest can be wisely developed. I think what's funny about this thread is it shows everyone wants to call the shots, and be the one who does the "filtering", but doesn't actually want to be the one being FILTERED.

Now to read RT's links....

[Plato]

My question to everyone here is (and I think I have an idea of the answer but I'm not certain):

How important is what you CONSCIOUSLY say and do?

My understanding is that your INTENT (focus/desire + will/power) is what makes the real difference. Your intent is subcommunicated through everything you do, no matter what acting you try to do to cover it up.

MEN: try this. Next time you're talking to a woman (but not your mum) fill your mind with images, sounds, and sensations of you two making the most erotic love ever and connecting on the deepest level.

I'm serious. See what happens.

Forn further fun and games hold eye contact with her, and "feel" the depths of her soul. As you breath in feel yourself drinking in her essence, and as you breath out give yours to her.

[edith]

Originally Posted by Plato

Next time you're talking to a woman (but not your mum)

LOL This is a great thread, but that just completely tickled my funny bone.

Plato, you are definitely a catch.

[Angela Leeds]

Originally Posted by Plato

MEN: try this. Next time you're talking to a woman (but not your mum) fill your mind with images, sounds, and sensations of you two making the most erotic love ever and connecting on the deepest level.

I'm serious. See what happens.

Forn further fun and games hold eye contact with her, and "feel" the depths of her soul. As you breath in feel yourself drinking in her essence, and as you breath out give yours to her.

<<fanning self>>

my...that would be quite the bar-mix with my cocktail...

[Angela]

Originally Posted by pyrogen

Manipulation? I still don't think it's manipulative. I fail to see how passively screening for specific IOIs is manipulative; you're not forcing the other person's hand or influencing their behavior in ANY WAY.

And as for gifts - "romantic" doesn't necessarily mean they buy you a diamond necklace and shower you with flowers and goopy stereotypical stuff. It means IMO that they pay attention to your individual preferences. Which a person in love will do.

Maybe you and I didn't read the same book. The bestseller, "The Rules" by Ellen Fein and Sherry Schneider, outlines a plan for deliberate inauthenticity to the point of lying, programming into self expectations for material gain, limitations on intimate interaction, stifling full self-expression, and a focus on *getting* -- in particular, *getting* marriage, with the assumption that even though men SAY they just want sex, WE know them better than they know themselves, and they'll never REALLY be happy until we artfully lead them to self-knowledge and fulfillment, against their conscious wishes. We're doing them a favor, actually -- it's for their own good. They should be grateful.

I can see how someone might not see that as manipulative or going for a win/lose outcome. But the manipulation of self encouraged by The Rules -- purposely become a creature unlike any other, except for all the other women who value marriage over authentic intimacy -- is that so difficult to see?

It looks like a perfect pair with the win/lose-style PUA's, who do pretty much the same thing -- squeezing themselves into some inauthentic attitudes and behaviors for the purpose of putting some X's on their spreadsheet, at the expense of authentic intimate relating, avoiding giving the woman what she wants (marriage or a LLTMBR), and telling himself he's doing it for her own good. And just as the Rules Girls often denigrate women who don't follow the rules (They're overeducated, bitchy, unfulfilled as women, sad), the Win/Lose PUA's often denigrate men who aren't interested in PUA (*******, wimps, not real men). Same stuff, different gender.

Not that there's anything wrong with it. I'm not saying that everything about PUA or The Rules is manipulative or inauthentic, and some of them are probably really good ideas. They just don't look like effective systems for getting your heart's desire, unless you really have win/lose intent as your core value. I just don't think many people do -- I think most don't feel completely congruent with a win/lose approach -- there's something just a little off, something that feels missing that would make a difference, when your life purpose is committed to winning at the expense of others, or at the expense of your own authentic life. Especially in the realm of human relationship. I've never encountered a truly joyful, satisfied and fulfilled win/lose person; have you?

By the way, one of The Rules' authors got divorced. The grounds? He "abandoned" her.

[cylon]

I have to read this book. I thought I knew the basics but Angela just made the whole thing way more interesting.

Everyone wants the same thing. But many people don't. You need ways to tell between who wants what you do, and who doesn't.

You also left out that many women denigrate men who are into PUA as being not real men.

[pyrogen]

Angela -

I'm actually pretty "Rules Lite". THE MOST IMPORTANT part of TR for me is the stuff about pacing the relationship. If I follow nothing else what I take away will be the pacing.

Their pacing guidelines are - one date every week for the first few weeks, then gradually you step up the number of dates, and you keep phone calls short.

I think much of the problem with the Rules is the tone that the book takes, not the principles in it, because many other books say exactly the same thing and never aroused as much furor. But some of us girls NEED a set of rules to follow or we will make a bunch of serious tactical errors. Those most common errors are:

* Waiting by the phone
* Oneitis (TR calls it "fantasy relationship") - when you are obsessed with someone and hold out a lot of hopes and you're not even dating them, or only just started dating them
* Going "doormatty" after realizing you like someone
* Overgiving
* Trying really hard to please and sell ourselves... this actually lowers our value.
* Talking talking talking too much and trying to be what they call a "knee slapping funny gal!" To clarify - this does NOT mean "don't be an extraverted, chatty, exuberant personality with a great sense of humor". I know in my own case I found that a lot of my talk-talk-talking and joking around was because of nervousness. It's the nervousness that's the turn off.

In the Rules community I'm in, how the Rules are actually applied in real life doesn't always square even 60% with the book. We call it "bootcamp" when someone follows Every.Single.Rule.To.The.Letter. Really only the most doormatty women who are used to being used for sex, who try to oversell themselves, end up doing "bootcamp" when they get converted to TR. After they get some amount of inner game going they tend to relax. A very confident woman trying to do bootcamp will never get a date, that's universally acknowledged on that board.

Most of the focus in the community I'm in is about "inner game" and the theory is that if you have the right inner game to begin with - you deserve to be cherished, your time is valuable, you are worth more than just sex, and anyone would be blessed to have you - that's better than slavishly following a list.

Many of the Rules have been applied with myself and with the women we've talked to, not to manipulate men we meet, but to counteract our *own* sabotaging behaviors... such as throwing ourselves at someone when they even show just a sign of interest. In MYSELF, since I started being a CUAO, I made a lot of discoveries. I used to think that I had this really exuberant personality and that trying to sit still and be quiet was going to be "faking" a personality. It wasn't - my "exuberance" was just nervousness. Real exuberance magnetizes. I also did so much talking that I didn't actually listen and learn anything about the other person's character.

TR takes kind of a tone a lot of people don't like, but a lot of books out there (John Gray's books, Pat Allen/"Getting To I Do", Lisa Daily/"Stop Getting Dumped") more or less say some version of the same thing.

Letting the guy lead, is not a zero-sum game. Many men feel empowered by this and even like themselves better and they are more attracted to their mate. What is zero-sum about giving someone what they want? John Gray's work actually makes a lot more sense out of

I follow the principles of a number of systems to develop my own tactical plan, but the core I've distilled is:

Don't accept dates with fewer than four days' notice
This is pretty self-explanatory - your time is worth something. This is almost impossible not to follow for me because I'm so busy and active anyway, which is what being a CUAO is about (INNER GAME).

Let him lead
Whenever I've dated a guy and he DIDN'T initially pursue, I ALWAYS felt insecure... and that insecurity led to behaviors that sabotaged the relationship. I've ALWAYS wished that he would've started things and I always feel like I just didn't inspire him enough.

Pursuing doesn't mean swamping someone with phone calls and flowers and engaging in pseudo stalking behavior. All it means is, calling a woman and asking her out. That's all it means.

Also, I'm tired of being the masculine energy in the relationship. When I've been the leader I ended up with someone who didn't cherish my femininity. I want to be the feminine energy and enjoy the differences between us. Enough said.

Let him be cherishing and chivalrous
Many men really have fun with this and us girls don't actually let them do it! What's wrong with a rule that lets a guy do what he wants to do?

[cylon]

Let the guy lead. Ok, so he's really busy and only has tomorrow night free. You like him a lot, and he calls you and says "all I got is tomorrow, can we get together?"

According to you, no... because that breaks the Rule.

All this stuff IS being the leader. You're deliberately setting the tone, you're the leader. So it follows you'd get more guys who are comfortable with being led. And even more masculine energy for you to have to summon up.

If you want him to LEAD, then let yourself be LED. Let him take charge. Follow his lead. You can't have it both ways.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by cylon

You also left out that many women denigrate men who are into PUA as being not real men.

And I reckon there are guys who pooh-pooh Rules Girls as less than real women, too -- or worse.

[cylon]

Maybe so. Guess we just have to do our best to meet the people who are best for us.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by pyrogen

Many of the Rules have been applied with myself and with the women we've talked to, not to manipulate men we meet, but to counteract our *own* sabotaging behaviors...

I can totally get on board with that approach, as well as similar for PUA's -- people who optimizing their own stuff with a win/win intention. There are so many *programs* that run in both PUA and The Rules that just don't fit with that approach, but a person who skillfully remains conscious about picking what works from the menu, while not buying in to the crap (the stuff that prevents you from relating honestly) could, I think, get great results.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by cylon

Maybe so. Guess we just have to do our best to meet the people who are best for us.

Everyone I meet is best for me.

[pyrogen]

Cylon,

Letting a guy lead doesn't mean letting him lead me around by the nose.

Setting up parameters for being respected, and having boundaries, doesn't mean I'm leading.

[angus]

I was just getting into PUA when I got 'derailed' by meeting the love of my life. Reading Dave DeAngelo, and applying 'Cocky + Funny' was enough for me to do better at meeting and dating women. I needed something; I married young and found myself in my 40s with no real experience dating. I have to say, it was a little disconcerting to realize that the game was actually kind of easy, and that things that seemed like tricks actually worked very well.

[pyrogen]

Angus - that's amazing. Good on ya.

I've been watching that show "The Pick Up Artist" on VH1 and it's been amazing to see these nerdy guys all transform, like butterflies coming out of a cocoon - they are all turning into very, very attractive men. And I bet they don't all become serious serial sleeparound guys because that's not who they were inside to begin with. The one who IMO was one of the dorkiest ones, computer geek type with a gap in his teeth, got the gap fixed and is really starting to rock the conservative tie-wearing look.

Some of what's so attractive about PUAs is not memorizing a bunch of corny lines... "So do you believe in spells?", heh. It's that we have a movement here of men WHO WORK ON THEMSELVES. They are interested in evolving. Sure, some of them will go on a casual sex rampage, but you have to get there from here. I've met more reformed he-sluts that turned out to be good family men than "40 year old virgins" who were. And for a lot of people, sex loses its mystic power once it stops being scarce... once it becomes really easy to get, so many guys actually decide to "level up" to where the real challenges lay. If sex were hard for women to get, we'd be as obsessed with it as men are!

The fact that over the course of history women worked on themselves and their game but men pretty much just showed up, was a source of frustration for so many women, and finally it's turning around.

[cylon]

Originally Posted by pyrogen

Cylon,

Letting a guy lead doesn't mean letting him lead me around by the nose.

Setting up parameters for being respected, and having boundaries, doesn't mean I'm leading.

Bummer for that guy who really liked you, but you weren't flexible enough to date him because it wasn't four days notice.

Onto the next guy.

(Actually I think if you really liked the guy, all your rules would be broken)