So-so night out with Lair bros

Yesterday I met up with three fellow lair members, and we went to this well-known pub/club downtown.
Contrary to the other time I sarged with the Lair at that place, I wasn't that 'good' last night. I define good as being able to open and maintain conversations for some time. This messed up my objectives for the night, because I was planning to practice getting into rapport and comfort.
Oh well, there are lessons to be learned here anyway.

For example, the fact that my openers weren't as successful is probably due to lack of sufficient training. I tend to conclude too fast that I have mastered a certain level, and it was obvious from last night that I still needed to practice how to present a strong body language and tonality when approaching.
On the positive side of things, I DID go out, even though I wasn't feeling at my best, both physically and mentally. This falls into the whole 'pushing yourself' category, as well as into the realisation that there will be good days and bad days, and the latter is always better than just staying at home.
Another positive point, and a more technical one, is that I tested the concept of negging the dominant woman of a set, here's how it went:

It was a 2-set, one blonde one brunette. The blonde was very talkative, and the brunette not at all. So I come in and deliver an opener I'd just made up: "Do you think it is cool for a guy to have a tatoo on the lower back?"
The blonde answers immediately by "it's gay", with that sense of finality that subcommunicates "you as a guy have not made a positive impression on me".
I try to salvage the set by asking for the brunette's opinion, but she was totally blank. I try and develop a conversation on the topic, but the blonde restates her opinion, says something else and then initiates a high-five with the brunette. The hi-5 is pretty much an indication of total failure, so I decide to try the negging before ejecting:

Me: (to the blonde, after a quick look at her hair) Nice hair, but what's your real hair color?
Blonde: No, it's actually my real color.
She then tries to explain something about her roots being dark or whatever, but I ignore her and turn back to the brunette with another question, but she was again unresponsive, so I eject.
It was obvious that the blonde was caught by surprise. For a split second, she was no longer in control, had her perceived value reduced and thus started to justify herself, which is I guess the whole point of a neg. An experienced guy would have been able to use that element to his advantage, but alas, not me, not yet :-).

So, what is the conclusion?

(everybody) : Keep Training!

Cheers,
F.

Chronic One-itis Syndrome Example

I'm going to illustrate what I said in my previous post, about how I get into AFC and one-itis mode everytime I find out a girl is interested in me. I will give two simple and recent examples:

The first one is about this asian girl that I often bump into as part of my social circle. As a friend of friends, I see her like once every couple of months. Last fall, I saw her at a house party, and even though asian girls aren't really my type, her body definitely is (she's tall, thin and a brunette). Consequently, and as a confident man, I have to do two things: First, I have to identify what my desires toward that girl are; and second, I have to make the necessary moves to achieve what I want.
In her case, I want to have an open sexual relationship, either as a one-night stand (ONS) or as a fuck buddy (FB).
Things were thus very clear in my head the next time I saw her (at another house party). I was relaxed around her, and my guess is she sensed that I was interested. I also had a feeling that she liked me. Nothing happened during that party, and I didn't spend that much time with her. However, I was very alpha, cracking jokes left and right, and was basically being very sociable. We exchanged contacts because she expressed interest in going to the salsa lessons some of her friends and I had been attending.
Now for the one-itis syndrome. As we had exchanged numbers, my interest in her was thus made clear. What happened is that, when I started thinking about her in the next few days, I would exhibit all the AFC one-itis symptoms: Worrying about pleasing her, about when is the right time to call her; worrying that I might hurt her because I only want sex, and she seems like the quiet sweet type of girl; worrying that she might fall in love with me, etc...

Yuk.

This was typical AFC me. Luckily, I have changed and know more about myself these days. I was thus able to identify those thoughts, and forced myself to recenter my thinking with the following affirmations:

-First of all, I'm not sure I even like her, because we barely know each other. I am merely curious about her and I want to see if she has anything going on for her.
-It is ALL about me. I am not here to please anyone but myself.
-The best way not to hurt her is by being honest. If I make it clear that I am looking for a sexual relationship, she will get the message. She is no dumb girl and can make her own decisions.
-I am in control of my interactions, I lead things where I want them to go. It is my frame, and my job as a man is to be true to myself and to strive to accomplish what I desire.
-I am in control of myself, and do not allow the AFC me to surface. The AFC me is looking for maternal-type nuturing, and thus is the one that causes one-itisness.

I might see that girl on thursday, so this is to be continued...

Now for the second girl:
I met her at my salsa lessons. We had seen each other several times, so last session I said hi and introduced myself. And, during the break, I sat next to her. Most of what I did or said was wrong by PU standard, but she was clearly attracted to me, so that helped. The good stuff I did was mainly when I made a very good C+F comment that sent her laughing for like 5 mins. It happened as follows:

her: I like to travel, I've been around Europe a lot.
Me: Really, that's great! I would love to go there. Europe is my first travel objective. Next, I would love to go to a tropical island. I know it's a cliche, but I can picture myself on a beautiful beach, lying in a hamac, and taken care of by 5 gorgeous tropical beauties.
Her: Yeah, I would like that too.
Me: (Looking puzzled)....You would like to be with FIVE women at the same time!!!???
Her: (looks surprised for a second, then bursts out laughing)
Me: So, you're into not one, not TWO, but FIVE women simultaneously!! You're like into wild orgies with exotic women!!!

At that point she was laughing all the way. The good thing about this comment was that it was sexual, and I can tell she was looking at me differently after it happened.
That was it really. After the break, I immediately went back to the dance floor, without waiting for her to come back from the toilet.
(patting myself on the back for showing non-neediness, and identifying what I wanted at the moment, which was to learn salsa).

I think that, if I play it well with this girl, she will turn into a ONS, maybe even an FB. Apart from being attracted to me, she is only in Montreal for another 4 months, something she made sure to mention :-). Also, on the way out, she said goodbye again and gave me a nice punch on the shoulder.

It seems that this post is turning into one lame field report lol! Anyway, as far as one-itis syndrome is concerned, I am constanly watching myself. So far, I haven't fallen into AFC mode with the second girl yet.

and yes...the training continues.
F.

On Inner Game issues

Van Wilder has a blog and has posted some interesting points on the difficulty of having positive inner states. It is a nice coincidence, as I have been going through a similar phase. So here is my take on the issue.

Inner Game is the term used by the seduction community to describe your inner state of mind, and how it affects your external behavior with respect to relationships with women.

I have deep inner game issues. This is basically my single biggest problem with regards to PU. Unfortunately, it is also one that is difficult to fix. In Outer Game, the wannabe PUA can easily practice techniques, routines, magic tricks, etc..., and after a few sarges they will become natural. Having a positive inner state, however, is another ball game. All seduction schools agree that radiating self-confidence, high self-esteem, and a strong sense of values are very attractive traits for women. Now, some methods out there say that you CAN 'fake it till you make it'. That is, you are not really a very confident person around women, however you fine-tune your body language, voice tonality and general behavior, so as to appear confident, and get the HBs.

In my case, however, I have low self-esteem in general. The fact that I do not have as much success with women is a by-product of that. I am good-looking, charming and naturally sociable, but the fact that I am insecure is messing everything up.

Now, the theory about building up self-esteem is not complicated, but it is damn hard and long to accomplish (at least it seems so to me at this point). Basically what I have been doing these past months is to go through an extensive introspective phase. I am constantly asking myself questions such as: Who am I? Why am I doing this job? Are those people really my friends? Where do I see myself going? etc...
The questions are endless, and they can be asked on at least 2 different levels. On one hand, I start honestly asking myself what I like to do, what my hobbies are, and then I examine my actual life and try to weed out all the stuff that are not actually 'me'. There is a lot of stuff that I have incorporated into my life because I wanted to please other people, I sought validation and did what was deemed the right thing to do.

The other level is in my day-to-day interactions with people. I am finally learning to say "no", that beautiful and simple word that is an expression of who we are. I used to have a major case of approval-seeking behavior, always trying to please and not 'rock the boat'. Now I am becoming more and more assertive. For example, if my group of friends decides to do something that doesn't tempt me, I realised that I can just say no (though I do still feel guilty about it :-) ). I have the right to do that, and believe it or not, previously I didn't allow myself even that!

It is a good feeling to develop this assertiveness. So many times I notice myself , such as during a group conversation, trying to fit in by not being too frank about what I felt, out of fear of 'hurting' other people's feelings. This is of course nonsense, because people respect those who have opinions and are not afraid to be honest about them.
To quote Dr Phil (I don't really like the guy, but it IS his quote), 'you have to take control of your life'. And that is hard -at least for me!- because, as I have shown above, this neediness and approval-seeking is very insidious. They are infiltrated in all aspects of my life and my interactions, and they have been so for at least 15 years! I can remember vividly my teenage years, and how needy I was, so merely identifying the problem isn't going to cure me. Rather, it is the painstaking constant vigilance that will instill new heatlhy habits in my behavior. Basically I have now a long-term job, that of constantly identifying weak elements in my behavior and eliminating them. Examples are:

-Taking the time to let an external element, such as a proposed activity, or an opinion made by a person, sink in, sensing what my true feelings/opinions toward that element are, and finally giving an authentic response.
-The response could be just saying no. It is okay to say no. People won't be 'hurt' if I say it.
-I could also propose something else, something I WANT to do.
-If it is an opinion that I disagree with, then just freaking saying that I have a different point of vue on the subject IS OKAY.
-Sometimes I am in a group and the energy is high, whereas I would be in a calmer mood. The old me would try desperatly to fit in, to laugh at the jokes and to give the appearance of enjoying himself. The new me responds accordingly to his desires, and no more.

A way to summarize that would be that I am learning to be authentic, to be true to myself. To do that, I must dig deep. My psyche is like a complicated knot, and I need to systematically untie it piece by piece, so that I can have a clear view of myself. Another way of putting it is that in my brain, there is the true me, and there is the fake me. The latter is a fraud, built from external factors such as thru input from family/friends/society. This non-self is the cause of low self-esteem, because it gets its validation from external sources, hence the neediness and desperate desire to please. This is why I used to fuck up in my relationships: I used to turn into this wuss, into this AFC looking for maternal affection, because the fake me would be in control, and this is how it validated itself.

The true path to happiness is established by eliminating the fake self. But weeding it out is only half the work. the real self has to be nurtured as well. I think this takes more time than eliminating the fake self. Indeed, building self-confidence is a long process that starts from before adolescence. I think that in my case, since the fake me has evolved and has repressed the real me, I never took the time to truly thrive, to build myself a healthy and balanced personnality. Instead, I spent all those years trying to be somebody else and to please others. So the only solution (if my analysis is correct) is that I need to restart that authenticity-building process. By doing more and more what I like to do, be it the activities and hobbies, or the type of career, or the hangouts with friends I actually like, by taking an active role in developping those aspects of my life (according to MY desires), self-love and thus self-esteem and happiness should start to creep in.

Very psychological stuff. Like I said, I'm a mess on the inside. But at least now I'm starting to have a plan on how to un-mess myself.

To go back to Van Wilder and the world of pickup, here are two quotes from a post of his:

"I look back at my previous failures with women (e.g. my one-itis) and it does bring me a smile because I realize that what I was seeking with those women was love and acceptance and maternal nurturing qualities"
In my case, and because of my inner issues, every girl I met who I would be remotely interested in would turn into a one-itis. I know now what causes that, but it's still a bitch to fight.

"For me, affection and love with women is so powerful and always brings me joy, but as I remember previous girlfriends now, I am starting to realize that success with women does not equate to happiness."
I have also realised that. Picking up women is a big validation rush. However, it affects us only on the outside, but doesn't nurture us deeply and give us that inner peace and happiness. It's like eating sugar, it feels good, but is not really nourrishing as opposed to eating a complete meal. PUAs who are well-grounded on the inside became good because failure with women didn't affect them much (so early approach anxiety quickly went away). Also, since they are 'solid' on the inside, their confidence shows, and is attractive.

In my case, how do I deal with PU? On one hand, every rejection affects me a lot since I am 'weak' on the inside. On the other hand, even if I plow through the rejections, the actual success with women is only a temporay 'band-aid'. I will feel good for a bit because this external validation has temporarily covered the wounds, however after a little while the band-aid effect goes away, and the wounds start aching as much as before.
This is why some people become addicted to PU. It becomes like a drug, with a temporary feel-good effect that is quickly replaced by a gut-wrenching feeling after withdrawal, which pushes the PUA to sarge even more, and suffer the cycle endlessly.
My solution is not to give the game of seduction too large a chunk of my life. Becoming good with women is but A PART of my reconstructive process. There are many other elements in my life that I need to develop as well. If I am able to put my pickup life in that perspective, and with those limits, and work in parallel on the other aspects of my life, I might be able to avoid the whole manic-depressive cycle.

F.

Getting into the local seduction lair

I got into the local seduction lair recently. It was interesting to see how varied the guys in the lair were, in terms of age and personnality.
This lair is definitely not made up of uneducated bums, who have nothing going on in their lives. Of course, any person who would hear about such a lair would shrug off its members as 'losers', according to the above definition. The reality is completely different. The guys are mostly highly educated, intelligent people, ranging from university students to lawyers and engineers. Moreover, from the posts I have been reading, I found so many of them to be very cultured and interesting.

What I found to be a common point about these guys, at least the active members I have met so far, is a genuine desire to improve themselves. These are people who have gone through the necessary steps of self improvement, namely:

1- They have identified that they have a problem -in this case, with women. They have acknowledged to themselves that they are not satisified with the quality of their dating/sexual life.
2- They have realised that they WANT to improve that particular aspect of their lives, that they do NOT accept themselves as they are now because they know they deserve better.
3- Having found the seduction community, they learn that they are not alone, and most importantly, that becoming good with women is a SKILL. It is something that is based on certain rules that can be learned. They do not believe anymore in the "some guys are born good, others are not" type of bullshit. They understand that relationships and meeting women is like any sport or game or activity, it is based on rules and requires a lot of practice to achieve any level of competence.
4- The final point is that they actually had the COURAGE to take that first step, to dedicate themselves to that new activity and to give it time and effort. After the initial jump, they have the willpower to hang on, to continuously get out there, out of their comfort zone, and face head-on the risk of being rejected, being laughed at, and feeling angry at themselves for pushing so hard.

I think the final point is a major one. I have at least one person I know who didn't go through it. I introduced him to the community through the book "The Game", and after the inital mockery and denial, he accepted the fact that seduction is a skillset that can be learned. However, he never took the plunge, at least not so far.

Because of my low self-esteem issues, I'm very often hard on myself, chastizing myself for being weak, a loser, or whatever.. This is why I have to constantly remind myself that I have at least had the intelligence and courage to go through the 4 steps. I have gone out several times so far with other bros for day and pub game, and they have been very helpful. Thanks to them, I have been able to control my fear of approaching women, something that, on my own, I still cannot seem to be able to do.

But then again, I am only at the beginning!

From those few interactions, I have learned already a lot about the game, and more importantly about myself. I can compare my pickup style with others, I can identify my weakpoints and my strong ones. It is also more comfortable to have people such as them to practice with, and with whom I am able to talk openly. Any guy, after giving it some thought, will realise that men do not generally talk that much with their other male friends about their problems.
Rarely do they do that, because:
"Girls do that"
"dude, that is so gay"
and other crap...

Generally, for a guy to talk about how he is not satisfied with his dating life, and to ask for advice, is seen as not macho, not manly. Just think of how many sitcoms revolve around the subject. Think of the TV series Friends, where the interaction between "macho seductor" Joey and his "nice/clueless/shy" guy friends Chandler and Ross, and you can see how much humor is spun around those topics.

In society today, guys are conditioned to the fact that it is not cool to talk about your dating life, or lack of. When a guy asks his friend how it went with that girl he met at the club, the response is usually a one-liner: Either "Dude, I banged her senseless", or "she was a bitch".

Here is another good example of societal messed up conditionning: A bit after joining the lair, one of the main members, a guy who has become a very successful seducer, calls me. Apparently, at some point, he was entertaining a harem of 5 women, and they all knew. He calls me and proceeds to ask about my goals and my weak points concerning women. This is what he does with all newbies, and is an indication of the fraternity that is prevalent in such a community.

Among the questions he asked was "do you consider yourself to be a good lover?". I answered truthfully to this question. Later on, I realised how rarely such a question is asked among guys!! How often would two male friends ask themselves that type of question, without ANY of the usual jokes, sexual innuendos, and competitiveness that form such a large part of male-male interactions?

Not very often.

On a similar note, I really like to read the posts written by the members on the private bulletin board. These guys talk about all their problems honestly and without any fear. They do that because they know they are asking the opinion of like-minded men, people who will not make fun of them, but who instead will try and help them and give them advice.

A final point: all members of the lair are instructed NOT TO TALK about the existence of such a community to non-members. And since I have been involved in this activity, I have come to see how utterly incomprehensible and odd such a community would sound to outside people. Not only to women (that much is obvious, although there are a few women out there who approve totally), but also men: If you tell some guys you are trying to improve your success with women, as part of a lifelong quest for a quality life, the fact is that they will make fun of you. That in itself is proof that you are better than them.

Screw all of them losers. I am in control of my life, and will do what I want to increase its value.

Let the training continue.
F.

My gay monitor

As I was rereading this blog, my computer monitor went pink. All the whites started suddenly having this pinkish tinge. If I were a women, I would have been able to specify that it was more of a cotton candy type pink rather than a fushia one, but since I am a man, and therefore only see in 16 colors, I will not make that remark.

The monitor is one of those cool 19 inch black LCD flat screens by DELL. When a company or university buys a whole bunch of them, black is what you get.
After trying to unplug and replug the monitor, turning it off and back on again, and asking for a friend's help, I turned to my last resort: gay bashing.

I started saying how the monitor had finally decided to get out of the closet.

that i needed to rename it appropriately, and how the black color was so NOT him.

That's it, I'm gonna buy some of that shiny sparkle solution and spray it on the screen tomorrow.

I still need a name for it though, any ideas? It would be cool to have a play on words with the name DELL (dilly? dellia? )

I got it.....DELLORES!

Large dump in the S solved!

This morning, the problem was still there, so I went back to a hardware store and bought this.
Check out this also.
It's called a toilet auger, and man was it good. The metallic spring in it can be shoved all through the toilet's S, which finally allowed me to unclog the large lump that was stuck.
I have to admit that it was strangely satisfying to shove the S-probe all the way in the toilet.....i don't know why. I had a kind of evil grin while doing it.

Well. the sun is shining, and I feel better today.

Cheers,
F.

Shitty day....literally

Warning: this post in not about pickup, it is all about a hard and big lump of shit that got stuck in my toilet. So if this topic doesn't interest you...

Today is sunday, the sun is shining and the temperatures mild, which means it should be a great day to be alive and healthy in Montreal. Right? wrong.

I wake up, and spend 2 hrs glued on the Net. This is my escape mechanism when I don't want to face my present self. It often happens to me that i feel lethargic and lonely. During those phases, i cannot get any work done, it's like a depressive phase. The actual cause of this depressed state needs a post of its own, which I will post someday.

So anyway, the story today is that I took a large dump. Actually it wasn't the biggest chunk of shit ever to come out of me, but lately it seems that they all come out pretty wide, and I mean wide!. It's like they're all sliding sideways or something. When I'm shitting, it's slow and it hurts like hell. Luckily, so far, all of those colon-splitting dumps have happened outside my home toilet.....until today.

See, I take this dump, and a spherical lump of shit comes out, painfully, but not the worst ever, somewhere between the "shit I'm having a baby" dump and "OMFG, I'm having fucking triplets".
Afterwards, feeling some post-shitting high, I flush..................And the bowl fills up with water.

..........Shit.

After that very appropriate response, I try being environmentally unfriendly and start flushing every 10 mins, to no avail.

After trying unsuccessfully for a while, I go to a hardware store looking for some miracle solution. I felt somewhat uncomfortable telling the employees that my toilet was clogged up with a chunk of shit so hard and big that, when I eventually get rid of it, will probably break some machinery at the municipality shit-purifying plant.
Turns out there wasn't any miracle solution; and no, the sink plumbing unclogger fluid is NOT suited for toilets (bastards)... The only interesting part is learning that the tube in the toilet where the shit disappears is actually in the form of an S. This is case in point that engineers actually DO sometimes have a sense of humor when it comes to puns; and especially in my case, because my lump of shit is probably stuck somewhere in my toilet's S.

I finally return home with none other than the classical succion thingy that you use to suck or push something- i can't remember the thing's name, it's 'ventouse' in french.
-Update- I found it on the NET, it's called a flange plunger

That thingy is ancient and should disappear from the face of the Earth, because it sucks...in a bad way....in the sense that it is a bad instrument....you get my point. I have been trying for the past several hours to unclog that bitch without success, there is water splashed everywhere around the toilet, and I feel really, really, dirty.

It's night now, and here I am, having done absolutely nothing with my day, writing a post about my issues and shit. The depressed phase I was in this morning meant that it would have been hard for me to get up, get out of the house, and do something useful anyway -like going to a coffee shop and pretend to read scientific articles, while checking out the chicks. The advent of my plumbing problem made me even more lethargic (I didn't even have lunch, basically emptying a carton of milk and a Nutella jar).

Oh, and on msn my ex asks me if I am happy with my life, as if I NEEDED to be reminded of how bad I felt today, stuck at home, depressed, with specks of shit on my jeans. Apart from that I feel just great, just peachy. I'm smiling in bliss as my arms and my lower back ache from the unclogging effort.

What a lousy day.
F.