FR: The Loves we Lost

Day 1: The Green Mango

There was pretty much only one good venue for sarging: The Green Mango. Koh Samui wasn't the PUA's Utopian dream, but then, not many places can claim such a title. And besides, isn't it our personal duty to make "it" happen?

I'm standing on the outer terrace which always transforms into a dance floor around midnight. As always in Thailand, there are whores and lady-boys everywhere, but to my slight disappointment, few western girls. It is true that sarging is largely governed by the laws of supply and demand, and a shortage of supply not only makes the competition harder (which, after all, isn't so bad, since you stand out more from the clueless ones), it also diminishes my "bargaining power". After all, it's hard to put credibility into the sense of "comply, or I'll find an equally hot girl that does" when there are virtually no other girls to start with.

In this story, abundance will not bless me, but my unwillingness to compromise away choice will. It's rather "comply or forget about me" that will do the trick. Unfortunately there is a catch - you really have to mean it - you have to be willing to lose it all to win it all, for otherwise the threat isn't credible.

But let me go back to the beginning again.

In The Green Mango, there is one person that matches the rare criteria - she's female, hot, and looks interesting. She came in with three guys and no female friends, but right now she's dancing close, her back turned towards me. I assume proximity, and off we go. I put my left hand on her left shoulder, she turns around to face me.

Oracle: Är du svensk?

HB_Crazy: What?

Oracle: Are you Swedish?

HB_Crazy: No, I'm from Israel.

I've moved my hand from her shoulder to her arm during the opener. As she reciprocated kino by touching my arm and standing close enough to convey attraction, it quickly moved to her waist. Predictably, she unconsciously reciprocated that kino too. Small kino steps are transparent - girls don't break continuous escalation except when it transitions to sexual kino (the fun parts: boobs, butt, pussy). However, they may prevent kino from occurring if it hasn't done so early enough - and early enough is right from the beginning.

We've talked for about 3 minutes, about Sweden, Israel, the fact that she is from Russian descent and born in Russia (imagine the beauty of a Russian with the attitude of an Israeli!). I then tell her to come with me to the bar for a drink. She tells me she has to inform her male friends first, so I say "OK", take her hand, and let her take me to them. Meeting her three male friends may sound like a probable way to lose her, but that erroneous assumption is based on the false beliefs that guys have cockblock power. On the one hand, they aren't attention whores like most girls in clubs, and so they don't actually spend half their nights looking to recollect everybody. On the other hand, most guys are some girl's orbiter, so there seems to be a reason to worry. But their lack of cockblock power come from another logic: guys can't block without revealing their own romantic interest for the girl. They cannot damage your game without jeopardizing their own chances, and as you may know, selfishness is the most reliable incentive. So I don't have to hope for them to be nice to me because they happen to like me, I can rely on them acting in their own best interest, and for that reason, not trying to cockblock (don't get me wrong though, orbiters will try to make your life harder whenever they can without damaging their own opportunities). She tells them we're heading to the bar in Hebrew.

After ordering a drink, I take my favourite isolation position: each of us on a bar stool, facing each other at close distance, her legs between mine. The position gives me enough degrees of freedom for pretty much anything relevant to comfort: If I want to be more intense ("pull"), I can put my hands on her knees, or put hers on mine and then my hands on her hands. If I want to be less intense ("push"), I can lean back or against the bar on my side. If I want to be neutral, I can put my hands on my own knees, always talking at proximity since we're sitting close (that you are sitting close should implicitly be because it's "loud" in the venue, it's not something you explain as it would then be obvious that you are in fact using loudness as an excuse!).

She's very talkative, more so than I am unless I either use routines or talk about what truly fascinates me. I used to implicitly believe that men need to be extroverted and take a lot of social space to become more attractive. As the years went by and my glowing desire to be every woman's desire, every man's wish, cooled down into an indifference about what others desire, I realized there was a certain - in the words of close friends and PUAs - "calm/quiet confidence" over me. Today, the phenomena is obvious to me: the calmness and lack of need to exert my presence reveals precisely how genuine my unreactiveness is. Unless someone is socially interesting - hot girls included - that person isn't sexually interesting (exceptions apply if I'm hammered). It works that way not by my conscious will, but by those of my emotional incentives. Most people talk about confidence as something you have to build, that it is a mental property you acquire. To me, confidence is the lack of nervousness and discomfort (where there is pressure). Hence, in my view, it's more like the lack of some mental properties (insecurity, nervousness, reactiveness), not something you acquire. If anything, it's about what you don't feel, not about what you feel.

She's not the calm type - she's hot, spicy, energetic, loud. I'm more cold, ambiguous, calm, relaxed. She is fire, I am ice. But make no mistake about it, it is precisely this difference that makes things interesting, because not only do we have different personalities, we also have different preferences. I'm drawn to fire, she is drawn to ice.

I explain the rules of the question game and we play it. The fact that she isn't asking me very sexual questions suggests that it may not be a good idea to attempt to close tonight. Of course, one must always leave the door open should the opportunity arise. However, there is a difference in creating opportunities versus taking given ones. The logic is obvious: try to sleep with a girl that wants to be special to you before she feels special ("qualified"), and she won't feel special. In fact, not only that, but she will feel selectively unspecial: like you've chosen her because she seemed particularly easy to mack. If you haven't figured it out yet, that will dramatically lower your chances of closing. I'm not saying you should always wait until you are almost sure to hit it home. In fact, even pressure can work to your advantage - because it creates fear of loss, but also because it may actually convey a lot more interest than you think - and this report will make the point clear. Reality can be a mess, as you are about to discover.

After an hour in the bar, I pull her to the dance floor. By then, one of her male friends has lightly interrupted our isolation by entering to check that she's OK. He talks to her for a minute, then takes off. I don't try to befriend him, nor do I try to ignore his presence. I simply wait, and she resumes the conversation with me as he leaves. I want to know how she knows the guys she's there with, so we talk about it. The one checking up on her is her best male friend. The other two are friends of theirs. There doesn't seem to be any potential threat there, but to safeguard, I throw in "I think he likes you. Yeah, probably more than you think." I don't want to come across as jealous either, so I leave it at that. I've made her more aware of a dangerous scenario, and would he start acting weird because of jealousy, she would now be able to figure out why quicker.

On the dance floor, we shake and escalate, but the dancing comes to a abrupt end as we start kissing instead. I like to be standing still on the dance floor with a girl, firmly holding and kissing her while she is slightly moving her body to the rhythm. Ice and fire. After some more kissing I lead her back to the bar and we continue talking.

A little later, the place is about to close down, and there's another one opening up at the same time. I want to continue the night and get to know her better, so I suggest we all venue change. She complies, but her friends are going home and she doesn't know the way back, so she wants to follow them first and then meet up at Sound Club. We exchange phone numbers, and I introduce her to Styx and our two female pawns.

The pawns. They were actually a 2-set we gamed in Bangkok, and our intentions were to close them. After a long night out with venue changes and splitted isolation (Styx with the friendly alpha female, me with her shy submissive friend), I asked my girl the only thing that mattered to me that night:

Oracle: do you want to go home with me?

A quick glance at her friend revealed that she needed her approval.

HB_Crazy: we'll see, I don't know yet.

We continued talking, but shortly thereafter I suggested we all head back to Khaosan Road in the backpacker district we were all staying. They all agreed, but I couldn't yet know why. As we are standing on the crossroad that splits our paths home, the moment of truth is about to come. I'm kissing my girl and create the only opportunity I will have for tonight.

Oracle: are you coming to my place? They can go to your place.

She looks at her friend. Her friend says no. Mine doesn't protest. Neither do I. Time to get some precious sleep.

After that night, we decided they would be more useful to us as pawns than targets, in part because they weren't that hot, in part because they weren't that interesting. And so here I am, and they are fulfilling their purpose.

The fact that HB_Crazy is taking a round trip home first implies something she doesn't know yet: she's very unlikely to come back tonight. This I know from past experiences. I don't know what the given reason is going to be (perhaps sleepiness), and I can only make qualified guesses as to that the real reason is going to be (probably a combination of safety concerns and sleepiness). But the reasons do not matter. I already know she likes me, that we will see other again, and that it won't be tonight. I kiss her goodbye, indulge in some alcohol, and fall for the temporary temptation of making out with my pawn (she never saw me kissing HB_Crazy, and assumed we were just friends. I didn't care to correct her assumption). I get the inevitable text that HB_Crazy won't return. The given reason? Her male friend isn't feeling well.

Day 2: Same Same, but Different

We text each other and decide to meet up again at the Mango. The pawns have left the island and Styx doesn't want to go out. I decide to meet up with HB_Crazy around midnight, although she doesn't know I'm coming alone. I want her to figure out on her own that I went back just to meet her again, and the only way she'll appreciate that investment will be by figuring it out once we meet. When you tell someone something you are in essence giving away two pieces of information: the content of what you are saying, and the fact that you wanted the other person to know it. From her perspective, the fact that I would want her to know this fact would most likely be because I was trying to motivate her to see me again. The irony then, is that the best way to only convey what you want - without conveying the fact that you also want them to know it - is by doing so implicitly (through the context in it becomes obvious anyway). Sometimes, of course, you want them not just to know something, but also that you want them to know that you wanted them to know, in which case you should state the facts directly. In this case, it boils down to what comes across as desperate and not.

Just before midnight, I am alone drinking a beer in the Green Mango bar. To my left is a couple that have been together for too long, apparent by the fact they never kiss and barely kino. To my right is a Thai prostitute that pretends to be shy so I will open her. In front of me is my cold, delicious Heineken. HB_Crazy texts me to let me know they're arriving a little late.

I don't get to finish my first beer before the hooker opens me with "cheers", although it's not a good one - she's holding a can of Sprite. I guess real professionals don't drink when they work. It's a good idea, but together with the fact that she's alone, it gives away her carrier choice. She's good. She talks about her family, especially her sister. This is interesting because in Koh Tao, I had the privilege to live in a brothel, right next to six hookers. I took the opportunity to get to know the ones that spoke English, and I was somewhat surprised by how easily they talked about their families. I think it's because it highlights their humanness, which creates more rapport, and presumably reduces the risk of being assaulted. This one will be my pawn tonight: she will be my social company when HB_Crazy comes in.

After that, I will have to ignore her and focus my attention on the most interesting girl I've found in Thailand, HB_Crazy. So there we are, me sitting on the bar stool, HB_Crazy standing between my legs, touching me, kissing me. I exchange some words with her male friend, which seems to be feeling better tonight. The undercover prostitute is waiting for me to return the attention, but it will take another minute or two before she gives up.

By that time, we are in full conversation. She asks me where my friends are, I tell them they didn't go out tonight. She asks me if I'm alone, i remind her that I had a charming prostitute while waiting. She laughs, I smile, we kiss. We spend the night together in the bar, and tonight her friends are leaving us alone. I tell her that I like her male friend.

After the place has closed down, I suggest we head down to the beach. She agrees. I don't intend to close her tonight either, because my intuition tells me some important things:

- she likes me a lot: consciously or not, she sees me as LTR material

- she wants me to like her in the corresponding way: as LTR material

- she isn't accustomed to have sex with guys this early. Doing so would violate her self image, which may lead to later problems. I want develop this into a FB relationship, and giving her post-coital tristesse isn't to my advantage.

The conclusion is both obvious and intuitive: I go for the close, she resists the final escalation steps, she feels I don't think of her the same way, she lowers her compliance level to see how much I'm willing to invest before I give up, I have to work uphill. It's a trap.

So instead, we walk along the ocean holding hands, occasionally stopping to watch the waves and kiss. Yes, it's romantic yet casual. Then we sit down on a sun chair at a quiet spot, start kissing again. I can feel her body responding in a sexually inviting way. It's telling me to seize the moment and escalate. My body agrees, and I end up fucking her on the sun chair. There's no cushion on it at this time of the night, so it's not comfortable at all. My knee is scratching up really badly, and after a while I can feel blood dripping down on my leg. It's going to leave a scare there, forever reminding me of this beautiful moment. The thought justifies the pain, and I continue in the same pace. Afterwards, we jump into the water naked, watching the sunset. We decide to head up before the first hippies come down for their morning cleansing bath. I escort her home, then go back to my place for a good morning of sleep. I don't know what got into her, but I know this isn't typical for her, and that means less predictability. Will she have post-coital tristesse and rationalize this as a mistake, or will she embrace the serendipity of having met me in Thailand, creating a worthy memory of this night? I am hoping for latter, but I also refuse to help her make that choice.

Day 3: A little bit of Everything

Next day, we meet for dinner. Styx joins us. It's the first time we meet outside of a clubbing context, and she's as talkative and interesting sober. After a delicious meal of Mexican food, which she has never tried before, we head down to the beach. There doesn't seem to be much night life there, so Styx heads home. We take a seat on a quiet place on the beach, sharing a water pipe. We're both very tired, but the naturalness in the vibe creates a feeling of mutual connection, further reinforcing our bonds.

Later we head back to her place to see if her roommate (her best male friend) needs the shared key. They are having drinks before going out and we join their company. Although exhausted, we head back to the Green Mango with her friends, perhaps more to be close to one another than anything else. We both give up early, going back to our respective places for sleep.

Phuket: Connection

By coincidence, or so it seems, we are all heading to Phuket on the same day - we by bus, they by plane (but only her and her male friend, the other two are going home). She has already told me she's going to text me once she gets there, and I receive her text while on a minibus to our destination. Unfortunately - or perhaps fortunately - I ran out of credits on the bus, with no possibility to top up. That means she'll have to wait at least another 4 hours before I reply, and before that happens she will have assumed I've arrived but not answered - we are behind schedule, and she doesn't know that. I like the idea because it may reveal some things about her interest through leaking signs revealing fear of loss. Will she invest more by writing again, or even calling? The answer came after about one hour: she called, her well thought out first line being "hi, I just called to see that your still alive and have arrived". To translate into relevant information: "I am giving you a reason for calling so I won't come across as needy, have you arrived?" - precisely the bonus revelation (and to a lesser extent, investment) I wanted. One cannot accurately base a girl's interest levels on one IOI, but by combining them together, I have the big picture - she likes me a lot, she misses me, and she wants to see me again soon. But don't worry! There's plenty of excitement coming in this FR, otherwise I would not have written it!

We meet the next evening to check out Phuket's night life, which amounts to legions of prostitutes filling otherwise empty bars and dance floors. On our way back to the hostels, she tells me she wants me to sleep at her place but can't have sex with me. I ask her why, she tells me it's because she has promised herself not to for a couple of days. Why? Because she's never slept with someone that early on before, and although she doesn't regret it, she needs time to mentally digest it. In a nice and clear way, I tell her I'm not going to sleep in the same bed as her then. Why? Because I find it frustrating to sleep next to someone I'm attracted to when sex isn't an option. Although true, here's a more productive way for you to look at it: Because I don't help girls to make me feel gay.

The most fundamental criterion by which a man should judge a woman's behaviour was given to me by yusha.p: if a girl makes you feel alpha, it's good. If she makes you feel gay, it's bad. I'm still fascinated by its unshakable truth and simplicity.

Now, you don't have to be a genius to figure out that sex withdrawal feels gay. My instincts work that way, and from experience I've learnt that it's almost always best to take actions that are congruent with these emotions. The question then, is which congruent actions to take?

Let us first discuss what this issue really is about. It is about her testing to see how much I like her - as opposed to how much I only want to sleep with her - and to find out, she'll do the obvious thing: spend time with me, withholding sex, and see if how much I'm willing to invest. The logic is that if I only care about sex, the cost of spending a lot of non sexual time won't justify the benefit of having sex. On the other hand, if I do care about her for more than sex, I will be willing to spend (more) non sexual time since it may not be so much of a cost then. I don't feel gay because I can't have sex tonight - that I think I can survive - but understanding what I just told you, that is, understanding the reason why she has promised herself not to have sex for a couple of days, that is what creates a negative response in me, and for good reasons.

I like her, and I do enjoy spending a lot of time with her outside the bedroom. However, it isn't a dichotomy from my perspective: without social time, I don't get to know her better in some important ways. Without sex, in some others, but more importantly, I feel gay. Gay because to her, I could be the guy she's not so attracted to, but would rather keep around for protection, company, and even favors. In short, she may be trying to turn me into her provider (consciously or not, it doesn't matter). None of that is probably true - she is just looking for more non sexual investments from my part, to see that I like in a non sexual way too - but the feeling of being that person to someone is, to me, completely unacceptable, totally uncompromisable.

The dilemma then is that we can't both have what we want, since it's hard to both have and not have sex. Furthermore, one benefits from the others loss. You may think the universal solution is to compromise, but that wouldn't work for me, since I would lose more by doing so than by leaving her. Of course, I could try to persuade her into having it my way (directly or indirectly) but for reasons that will become obvious later, that would remove the whole point. I am left with only one option it seems - to give her just that little bit of time my patience can endure, then, if we aren't having sex, end our relationship. The prospects of getting a good ending to this situation is further diminished by the realization that all my attempts at escalating are likely to be met by defiance, lowering my own motivation to solve the situation. I don't like to fix what's broken, I like that which doesn't break easily.

Girls oftentimes complain that you don't see their point of view, but how often do they try to see things your way? They won't even try unless you require them to, because they have become so comfortable with guys accounting for their emotions, never asking for the same thing back. So demand it, and if they don't think it's fair, what have they got left to offer you but years of manipulation and degradation?

So, in a means to persuade, why do I not try to help girls see my perspective? After all, through understanding comes sympathy, and through sympathy comes agreeableness. It makes all the sense in the world to discuss things, and try to solve them together. But not this time. In essence, this field report is about the dilemma of not getting what you want by trying to persuade, which I hope will become obvious by the end.

I keep her company back to her place, then head back to my.

The next night, I go out without her. Late at night, I text her to let her know I'm out. She's staying home, feeling sick.

Fast forward another night, I'm out partying with Styx when she calls and wants to meet up. I tell her where I am, and she tells me she's going to be there in about half an hour. One and an half hour passes by, and I'm getting sleepy. I decide to head home without informing her. Twenty minutes later she calls while I'm in bed.

HB_Crazy: You're an asshole.

Oracle: However you like me.

HB_Crazy: You could have said something before you went home.

Oracle: You said half an hour. You came more than an hour late.

HB_Crazy: Bla bla bla asshole

Oracle: Are you coming over now?

HB_Crazy: Haha. Yeah.

She comes over, and she's horny. She wants sex, and we have sex. No LMR. Seems like there is still hope.

I get sick the next day. Being on long term vacations in Thailand, I drink and smoke more than is healthy for me, and sometimes I have to pay the price of such extravagances. HB_Crazy isn't always in top shape herself, and the next week contains some sex but mostly non sexual activities, such as going around Phuket on a scooter, seeing concealed beaches and local suburbs.

On our last day in Phuket, we book a joint trip to Phi Phi Island, then head to the cinema for a calm evening. With respect to sex, the moment of truth again comes at the crossroad that separates our hotels. Just by the fact that it's not obvious whether she's going home with me or not, after almost three weeks together, I know something is wrong. Or to be more precise, I know something is far from what I want it to be. I'm running short of patience, and the inevitable is about to happen. She tells me she's tired and wants to get sleep. Refusing to persuade, I simply reply "OK, good night" and turn around to leave.

Koh Phi Phi: Final Showdown

On phi phi, we have rooms next to each other. On our second day, after lunch, we are all taking a rest in our rooms. I head over to my dear neighbor, invite myself in, and start kissing her. She seems to like it, and I am blatantly obvious about my intentions. I can still feel some inner resistance from her side. I ignore it in order to not get turned off. I start fingering her, which works for a while, but then she tells me she thinks we should "go do something". I lose attraction completely, leaving the room. She comes over after a few minutes to see if I want to do something, I tell her that I want to read my book. The mental energy I am exerting to keep myself from bringing up the issue is as enormous as my frustration. You may think I'm making things hard for myself. You would be right, but for the wrong reason. I am making it hard for myself by still seeing her, not by refusing to bring the issue to the table. This is because from from my perspective, attraction cannot be requested, it must be given. Otherwise, it loses its meaning, and the meaning is the value of receiving attraction - in knowing that for the sender, it's an involuntary response to your presence.

After a couple of hours resting, I go into her room and repeat the procedure. It's a success in the sense that we're having sex, but a failure in the sense that I the attraction has lost much of its meaning. I want the sexual frame "yes, fuck me, give me all you've got!", not "okay, lets do it if you really want to". Considering sex is mostly psychological, as opposed to physical, it doesn't give much satisfaction.

My patience is over. This needs to end, but before it does, I am going to learn everything there is to know about this situation. By doing that, my frustration would have been worth the trouble.

After dinner, I walk into her room. I lay down next to her, first initiating a casual conversation.

Oracle: I came here to talk to you about us. We aren't having a lot of sex, and it's because you are holding back. Now, I want to know why.

HB_Crazy: You know I've never slept with someone this early before. I liked it but I also feel bad about it. I always see the guy for a long time first, so I know he's serious. With you it's different.

Oracle: To me, it feels like you're not attracted enough. So what's the point with seeing each other?

HB_Crazy: Hey that's not true! I'm very attracted to you, really. Every morning when I wake up I want to have with you, but then it feels like you only want sex and I lose my appetite for sex.

Fueled by my selfish quest for insight, I manage to hide the contempt I feel inside. I calmly ask her the relevant question:

Oracle: So you want me to pretend to not want sex so we can have sex?

HB_Crazy: No, no. Listen. You've been with many girls. You know that we want sex as much as you do. We just don't want to feel bad about it.

Oracle: The general case for male-female differences doesn't matter here. It doesn't change the fact that I don't get the attraction I want to have from you, and I'm rationally ignorant to the rest. All I care about here is how happy I am in this relationship.

HB_Crazy: But I am attracted to you! You know what.

Oracle: I judge you by what you do, not what you say and don't show.

HB_Crazy: You know what. I'm happy you brought this up. It makes me trust you more. Now I understand you better.

Oracle: I don't think you do yet. I've felt this way since we got to Phuket, it's not a new feeling.

HB_Crazy: So why didn't you tell me back then?

Oracle: Because attraction cannot be begged for, it has to be given. Otherwise, it loses its meaning and value. I don't want someone who sleeps with me because they think they are giving me something in return for my company; I want someone who cannot avoid sleeping with me because their attraction to me overwhelms them. If I can't have that with someone I like, I don't want it. And now that I've told you this, how can I know whether you will sleep with me because you are truly attracted to me or because you are making a sacrifice for me? I don't want someone that is with me because of a compromise, I want someone that wants me for their own selfish, uncompromised values. I want to be their match in its own right, just as they are my match because of my selfish motives. I would never sleep with someone out of pity for them, and the only thing that could possibly be worse is if I allowed someone to do it out of pity for me.

HB_Crazy: But you have to compromise sometimes. You can't tell me that you never compromise with people. Then you would never could never have a relationship.

Oracle: Oh yeah, I compromise all the time. When I buy food, I give something that is valuable to me in exchange for something else. If I would have it my way, I would get it for free or even charge them for cooking me food. But attraction is different in that a girl offers no value is she cannot offer mutual enjoyment, and so there is nothing to compromise about anymore. You don't compromise and buy things you don't want, and you don't sacrifice time for a relationship that isn't making you happy.

Reflecting upon the fact that all that needs to be said has been said, there is a long silence in which we process the information.

We're lying in bed next to each other, and she rolls up on top of me. This is the "redemption through connection" part, which will end in make up sex if I comply. Considering what the problem is, that is the last thing I want. She tries to kiss me, but I turn away.

Oracle: Not now. I don't feel like it.

HB_Crazy: Hey! Don't ever say that to a girl you like.

Oracle: And why would that be?

HB_Crazy: Because it makes me feel unattractive, like you don't want me.

Oracle: Firstly, do you really think everything I do is to make girls happy? You should know me better than that. I serve my own happiness, not yours. And secondly, how is your feeling of being unattractive any different than mine? Why do you expect me to make you feel attractive by kissing you, when you are withholding sex and thus making me feel unattractive? I want to know, how is that different in any way that I should care about?

HB_Crazy: It's not.

I see the calmness in her eyes. The insight hit her at the moment she realized that I must like her a lot to feel this way, because that is precisely what she just felt from her point of view. But I am not looking for mutual redemption. I am looking for the epitome of my ideal in flesh and blood, and I don't think I am looking at her right now.

Oracle: I'm going to get ready for tonight.

HB_Crazy: Okay.

I head back to my room, getting ready for clubbing.

To her, this discussion brought us closer than ever. To me, it has brought us further away. Why? Because for her, understanding for one another takes precedence over the incompatibilities it may shed light upon. As previously mentioned, the idea is that problems can be solved if we begin to understand one another. To me, the situation looks different. Understanding our differences means to realize a deep difference in our values when it comes to relationships, a difference that isn't worth compromising for. The expression "let us agree to disagree" would then be the most we could hope for. That hope seems lost, considering she thinks our relationship is strengthening, whereas I don't. But then, it takes two to tango, but only one to end the dance. Understanding is a bonus, but far from a necessity. To rephrase the first sentence of this paragraph, the situation has brought her closer to me, and me further away from her.

That night, I am winging Styx in a 2-set for an hour and a half. HB_Crazy comes in every now and then, but I don't give her much attention. I still like her, but I want some time off. By bringing up the problem of her not showing enough attraction, I have deprived her of her chances to satisfy me. I have taken away the only move she could make to undo the damage, because it was simply no longer worth the wait.

Around 1 o'clock, I'm tired and decide to go home. To avoid the trouble of having a "you're an asshole" discussion, I text her a message letting her know I'm going to bed. Naturally, she's pissed off since I've been ignoring her all night, and it's not obvious at all whether she will reply or not. Does it give any interesting information? Intuition suggests that a reply would entail that she's giving more than I am because she cares about our relationship, and presumably, more so than I do. A no-reply would entail that she's not willing to invest more when I am investing less, opening up the possibility for a break up. The matter is complicated by the fact that we humans sometimes bluff, and that, we do for one of two reasons. We may pretend to be either less or more interested than we truly are. Hired guns notwithstanding, girls rarely bluff interest. They simply don't have any reason to, because they have relatively few short term gains. However, they have all the more reason to fake disinterest, to evaluate men's willingness to invest. So faked disinterest, when spotted, is not just interest, but an actively doing something in the hope of getting more interest back. Considering she knows she's pushed my patience to its limits, she has everything to lose by bluffing disinterest now. She's going to be here soon. Realizing this releases a smile on my face as I'm about to fall asleep, and, lying in my state of lowered consciousness, I can hear the distant sound of someone knocking on my door. She comes in.

Oracle: Did you get my message?

HB_Crazy: Yes.

Oracle: Didn't you have fun out there?

HB_Crazy: Yeah but I'm tired too.

She looks at me. The instability is manifested in the physical distance that separates us: we're not even touching each other. But I don't fear losing what I don't value nearly as much anymore. The alternative - to seek out a new girl, is becoming increasingly tempting. I close my eyes, almost falling asleep.

HB_Crazy: Do you want me to leave?

Oracle: No.

HB_Crazy: You've ignored me the whole night.

Oracle: Yes, I have.

HB_Crazy: Why?

Oracle: Because I needed a break from you. You are taking up too much of my energy.

HB_Crazy: Why am I taking your energy?

Oracle: We've already talked about it today. You understand me perfectly well now, and I understand you. There's nothing more to say.

HB_Crazy: No you don't understand me then!

Oracle: Try me.

HB_Crazy: Okay, how do I feel about this situation?

Oracle: You are attracted to me. You want to have sex with me often, but then you feel as if it is the only thing I want, and you lose your attraction for the moment. So you don't have sex with me often.

HB_Crazy: Yeah.

Oracle: Good, we're done then. I understand you perfectly well.

HB_Crazy: But I feel differently now. I trust you more.

Oracle: Now I see the problem. You don't understand me yet. Because you now know how I feel, and that makes you like me more, I can no longer tell whether you like me for the right or wrong reasons.

HB_Crazy: But you can make a judgement about it. You can try. If you look I know you will see the difference.

Oracle: I have given you so many opportunities to show it to me before. You never took them then, so it doesn't make sense to believe you would now, weren't it for what you now know.

HB_Crazy: Look, I know what the problem is. It's silly. We have been going around in circles. I didn't want to have much sex because I sometimes felt you were distant. And you were distant because you didn't feel i was attracted, because I didn't want to have as much sex. We were both stupid. The situation was stupid.

Oracle: I'm too tired for this now. Lets go to sleep.

HB_Crazy: Okay.

The next day, I take a shower alone and get ready to go to an internet café and eat lunch. She meets me outside my door.

HB_Crazy: Are you going to an internet café?

Oracle: Yes:

HB_Crazy: Can I come?

Oracle: sure.

HB_Crazy: Should I...

Oracle: Yes, bring it.

HB_Crazy: You knew what I was going to say.

Oracle: It's a good idea. We'll do it now. That way, we'll both have all the photos of each other and we won't need to trust the other one to send them.

She fetches the camera cable, and we start walking without hand holding.

HB_Crazy: Are you going to be an asshole today too?

She is smiling. I smile back.

Oracle: No, not today.

I take her hand, and we walk out to another sunny day on the beach.

Oracle's Way

Introduction

In this article, I will explain how I get girls: the different phases, why they exist, and how to deal with them. The model is a mix of two worlds: the need to efficiently meet real world challenges with the need to stay congruent with yourself. Thus, it is a consistent and efficient fusion of a logical and emotional perspective; a coalition of the pragmatic and the ideal.

It is my personal perspective on "sarging": I feel no need to convince others to share it with me, nor do believe that everyone would gain from understanding this. I believe this to be the kind of knowledge that comes to life in the hands of the right person, but is otherwise useless.

I will present my way by first explaining the key observations I've made, that is, the fundamental facts of sarging. I will then present my personal philosophy. Finally, by combining the two, I will present the step by step model.



The World: Fundamental Observations



These are the facts I've gathered through my experiences, with the help of many both skilled and intelligent PUAs I've met.

This is the practical, outer game part of the model. The ideal, inner game part is given in the next section. Together they form the model I will present.

No arguments will be given here, I am simply going to state the propositions.


Attraction Determinism
Attraction can be amplified when it already exists, according to my escalation model. However, the first sparkle, the initial attraction, cannot be created. It is either present or not from the beginning. If it's not there, in 95% of all cases, there's nothing you can do to bring it to life. Her initial attraction however, can disappear if you do things that are not consistent with her preferences.

Rationalization
Humans rationalize their investments (or lack thereof) towards others by increasing or decreasing their compliance. The details are in my escalation model. Connection is entirely built through rationalization of investments, whereas an initial spark of attraction is needed to kick start the escalation process (see Attraction Determinism above).

Two Compliance Mechanisms
There are two, and only two, mechanisms that create more compliance: attraction and connection. They can both be measured on a one-dimensional scale, such as from -10 (disgust/hatred) to 0 (neutral/indifferent) to 10 (burning passion/deep love).

Attraction functions as the selection mechanism and defines ones mate preferences. Connection works as a second layer built on top of attraction, by offering irrationality of mating preferences to increase ones own attractiveness. See Rationality and Genuine behavior.

Human Nature
The theory of human sexuality given by evolutionary psychology is correct, both in their assumptions, reasoning, and more importantly, conclusions, implications, and predictions. See Evolution of Desire and Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind, both books written by David Buss.


The Self: Fundamental Perspective

My fundamental perspective on human existence and meaning is that of Objectivism.

The question that remains is: which girls can offer me happiness through sexual satisfaction, friendship, and love? Here are the basic criteria:

1. I must want her, I have to be sexually attracted to her.
2. She must want me. She must be sexually attracted to me.
3. She must be willing to comply through the necessary steps that lead to sex: opening, moving, and extraction.

My brain is perfectly capable of automatically evaluating my own attraction for girls on the fly, so the first point is not an issue (unless I am wondering where to go to find my type of girls, but that is beyond the scope of this article).

The second one demands that she is attracted. The third demands that she will comply. Since compliance comes through attraction, the third point is implied by the second.

The third point is known as the principle of choice: in PUA form, it demands that girls have chosen to comply (usually unconsciously, but sometimes explicitly) to my escalation baits. Another way of stating it is that it forbids plowing, or any techniques that would push you through any significant escalation steps: reaching the social hook point (girls that don't want to talk to me won't talk to me), isolation or mini-isolation (is she doesn't even want to leave her friends for a short while with me, there's nothing to build a rapport driven interaction), extraction (if she doesn't want to go home with me, we're not going to have sex anyway), and setting up a day 2. In essence, the principle of choice in PUA form is "I only like girls that want me 100%".

The widespread view that one must chose between inner and outer game - "do what you are" and "convey what she wants" - what we are and what we do - are separated only holds when one doesn't have "inner game". When you don't have a strong identity, of course actions that are incongruent with your personality will feel awkward. What it takes to do things that we wouldn't feel good doing, is a strong identity, because when you truly know who you are, you can do anything - things that are consistent with your personality, and things that are not, because you already know that the things you don't like doing must be done for a reason, for something you ultimately believe in. Just like you may have to endure painful training to get muscles, or hard working days of work to fulfill your dreams, you may have to do sacrifices to get girls. The only price we never pay, is to let go of our core - our self respect and independence.

The starting point for this model is the assumption that you have a strong identity, self esteem, and confidence. Not the kind you like to brag about, but the real thing - the one that never makes you feel any need to show others, because it isn't about them but you.


The Model

Since the model directly reflects my private perspective and philosophy, it contains some main features of my own personality. I will restrict the model to the time up until the first sexual encounter.

Firstly, it emphasizes simplicity. There are no unnecessary steps. Everything develops in a simple, natural way.

Secondly, there are no flashy, cool things that are done to impress your friends. Everything is aimed at getting the job done, and the job is to quickly reach a sexual relationship that the both of you will appreciate because of mutual attraction.

Thirdly, the flow of escalation is never broken: this model is not created to turn hesitant girls into FBs, but to get everything rolling from start to finish. The flow of escalation is tested three or four times during the interaction: during the opening stage, to see if she wants to interact (hooks); shortly thereafter, to see if she is willing to move; and finally, to extract; or, if extraction is not an option, arrange for a day 2. If the flow of escalation is broken at any of those moments - meaning the defies one of these important steps - everything the two of you have "built" breaks. You will leave her, with no intentions to try to get her back. More generally, you will never plow, since that is something that already indicates a broken flow of escalation (by lack of compliance).

The model builds around my escalation model, with some requirements:

1. Initial attraction must be present to kick start escalation
2. She/they must comply to an implicit move (or explicit) shortly after opening
3. She must comply to an explicit extraction or an explicit day 2

Although kino escalation is normally present after step (2) - and it is indeed good to have it as early as possible - it is strictly speaking not necessary. However, if you have kino escalation and she doesn't comply to kissing, then the flow of escalation is considered broken and you'll eject immediately. Again: if there is kino and you fail to kiss, it is an additional requirement that you eject immediately.


Step 1: Initial Attraction

Initial attraction is the first thing that needs to be present. A girl's attraction level is usually obvious: it is reflected by how responsive she is. The details have been treated in hundreds of books, but the best way to calibrate this is through personal experiences (intuition).

After 0-20 seconds, you will know whether you have reached the social hook point. There are 3 typical kinds of responses:


1. She doesn't wanna talk to you
This is the obvious one. She is ignoring you, or at least trying to. This, as you may have guessed, means she definitely isn't attracted to you. The number of possible reasons are endless: she could have had a bad day, she could have misinterpreted you, she could have found you to be repulsive, she may have a jealous boyfriend nearby. The one thing all reasons share happens to be the only reason that matters: that you don't need a reason, and you won't get one. Eject immediately, without any comment, neither positive nor negative. Be indifferent; but don't try to be indifferent.

2. She isn't attracted but wants to have a nice conversation
She contributes to the conversation, but doesn't smile or giggle much. Look at her facial expressions. She doesn't look happy nor bored. Some of these girls are sometimes possible to attract with a variety of different techniques that all involve breaking rapport - anything from indirectness to arrogance could work. In this model however, we simply eject without even trying. If they turn out to be attracted, they'll give proximity or AIs later. If they don't, well, then they don't. Remember, this model emphasises that concept such as self esteem and self respect are more important than anything else - including girls. Be truly indifferent to girls that don't really want you.

I could certainly have more girls by working harder on the ones that didn't really like me in the first place, those that were hesitating, not really knowing if I would be good enough or not. These girls are considering you from a "50-50" perspective, and if they do chose you it means you are about "51%" right and "49%" wrong, or in other words, close to not being good enough. Such girls have nothing to offer me in terms of happiness through sexual and emotional satisfaction, because I will never be a second hand choice to anyone else. Such people cannot appreciate me for what I appreciate myself for, and hence offer me little more than something to kill time with. And I am not the one who will be waiting, hoping that they would "see me in another light" and "realize" that I am the perfect one for them. I would much rather find the ones which would never hesitate to have me, the ones that say "yes!" immediately, and from there, there is a steep escalation all the way to sex, and later, perhaps love.


3. She is attracted to you and wants you to stay
As above, she contributes to the conversation, but this time she is also smiling or giggling. She looks happy, and has more eye contact with you. She carefully listens to what you have to say, may interrupt her friends to talk to you, may stand noticeably closer to you than what would be considered normal distance for formal conversation, will not pull away when you come closer or touch her.

Her compliance level, of course, may not be high enough to sleep with you immediately, but you have pretty much reached the hook point as soon as you open, and she will even help you continue the interaction by asking questions, telling you things, or simply stand in front of you, looking at you. She would even pretend like your semi-crappy indirect opener is interesting because she likes you.
This is the girls you want in your life. They are naturally attracted to you, and their attraction for you will never fade. They may stop seeing you for specific reasons, such as you refusing to quit sleeping with other girls, but they will still always feel something when they see you, and that is because they are predisposed to be attracted to you. You are one of her chosen ones, attraction-wise, and such preferences remain very constant over time.


Opening
What should you open it? The type of opener matters a lot: you want to use openers that you feel good about using in various situations. If you don't like canned openers, don't use them. Go situational and spontaneous. If you prefer not to be creative in the field, go canned: use indirect or direct canned openers, or quasi-spontaneous openers. Do whatever works for you. You may want different types of openers depending on the situation, you may want different types of openers depending on venue. The most important thing is that you like the openers you are using, so that you will open congruently and properly.

There are many ways to hide ones fear of rejection. One of the most popular ways is to make the opening as insincerely as possible, so that you could then tell yourself "of course it didn't work! I wasn't even trying to open, I'm just messing around!!". The problem is, simply put, that it doesn't work. Don't be the entertainer/dancing monkey and don't fake energy just to open a set. Just open in a way that feels genuine to you. Be prepared to be rejected for who you really are; don't put on a protection mask. We want to be chosen for the closest thing to what we are, and rejected on the same grounds.


Step 2: Implicit Move

You could be standing talking to the girl you want all night, without anything interesting ever happening. Although it may feel convenient to keep girls hooked for as long as possible, I don't deal with show game. Escalation needs to take place, otherwise sex will be an increasingly distant dream.

The first escalation step will be an implicit move, and it will be done within the first two minutes maximum. You will try to move the girl, or the group, to another spot. Mini-isolation shows some amount of compliance, but doesn't qualify as a move. The move can be to anywhere: to the bar, to a sitting area (isolation), to another room. The important point is to make them invest by going somewhere else with you. The dance floor doesn't qualify as a proper move (because it doesn't necessarily require any compliance), but it may be used as an intermediate step to move her somewhere else (usually not recommended).

Implicit means that the move can be subtle: you could for example start moving while talking and wait for her to "unconsciously" follow, or if you have kino, you could take her hand, start walking and say "come", or you could tell her you are going to introduce her to your friends and start moving. The point is that you don't need to "force" a choice by using "Do you want to..." or anything similar (that would be an explicit move).

By all means, an explicit move is preferable to an implicit since it proves you have a significant amount of attraction, and also, she will rationalize much stronger when the hoops are explicit ("because I really wanted to do go with him!"). The problem with explicit hoops is that they require more compliance, and as this move happens shortly after opening, you don't want to put too much pressure on her/them.

While moving, grab your girl's hand and leading her. Even if she isn't attracted she's likely to comply. The point is not so much to check for attraction (since it doesn't give you much information) than it is to get smooth kino escalation right after the move.

The move is not only a matter of checking for compliance, it is also a strategic move to set up for easier escalation (socially, kino, and ultimately, the extraction step). The psychology behind it should be obvious: when you enter a set where they are located, it feels like you are "invading" their space; when you move them, it feels like they are tagging along with you to where ever you want to go. From then on, they are there with you.

If she/they defy the move, you will eject immediately (that's the point of these steps: they each represent an important decision point).


Step 3: Explicit Extraction

Extraction usually occurs within two hours from meeting. The earlier, the better.

The extraction step is very simple, because all it takes is one explicit question: "Do you want to go home with me?". Any variation of that line would work. I could even say "I want to go home with you now.", where the following silence will work as the explicit choice she will have to make.

The important thing is that the extraction step is phrased as an explicit choice and that the purpose of the extraction is sexual. This is the raw genuinity with which I've developed the model: no plausible deniability will be used here.

If she complies, you won't have any problems with LMR once you initiate foreplay. If you still do, simply ask "Do you not want this?". If she hesitates just a little, try releasing her discomfort by reinitiating the escalation. If she says "no", ask her to leave (if you don't, she will make you feel very gay sleeping next to her without doing anything).

If she doesn't comply to extraction (the reasons are irrelevant), set up a day 2 according to what's written below.


Step 2.5: Setting up for a day 2

The set up is explicit. Tell her you would like to see her again. Then, ask her if she wants to see you again. Then give her your number, and tell her you would be happy if she called you. This way, you will make her give you a proof of attraction by contacting you, which will will then rationalize for the next meeting. It is important that you don't exchange numbers: if you do, she won't contact you since she will expect you to do so, knowing you have her number. If you don't have her number, she knows you can't contact her, and so she will have to be the one who does it. If she insists on you taking hers too, do it, but remember that you will have to be the one contacting her.

When you want to set up your day 2, usually through a phone call or text, make it explicit: "I want to see you again. When is good for you?". Make it clear that you want to see her because of her. Don't use any implicit, indirect methods like "me and my friends are going to do something, join us". She has to make a choice, we are not going to work on squishing through her compliance levels. This set up for day 2 is also what you will do when you have already had sex with her on your day 1 (FNC), and you want to continue the escalation.


Important notes on kino

Although kino typically starts during the move (by grabbing her hand), or right after (brush kino), it isn't always necessary. By calibrating your "girl attraction radar", you will quickly see how attracted she is by simply look at her face (what emotions it expresses), rather than through more complicated things, like her body language, voice, or voice/language.

When she is attracted, you may sometimes notice that she neither responds to nor avoids your kino. These girls are usually passive-submissive, and contrary to what most guys think, they can be closed. What they respond to is usually "lack of choice", in the sense that they want to be lead as much as possible. Hence they will agree to all implicit escalation, and in particular, to the move in step (2). However, they may hesitate on explicit extraction, because it puts pressure on them. There are thus two instances where you would perhaps rather use implicit extraction: when you meet passive-submissive girls and have no kino, and when you caveman and have heavy kino. Ironically, these are two opposites.

Now kissing. Kissing is not always necessary to do before foreplay, but if it becomes a natural part of the physical escalation, it should be done (unless you have specific reasons for avoiding it, such as consciously wanting to frustrate her, and she knows it and likes it). Kissing is typically a natural continuity during kino escalation, and should then always be done implicitly during hold kino (see my post about kino escalation). When there isn't a natural way into kissing, there is almost never any reason to go for the kiss anyway. If you for some very specific reason would want to do it anyway, you would have to use an explicit hoop.

If they defy kissing, they are not attracted (or not passive-submissive), you have just created negative compliance, and you will now eject immediately. If they hesitate, skip the kissing step entirely and try to extract shortly thereafter. The logic is that she may hesitate because she wants to be with you but doesn't want anyone else to see you kissing in the club, or wants to save the kissing for foreplay. In either case, you try to extract, and if it doesn't work, you will eject immediately.

This is the core of the model. It catches most of what's relevant during a sarge. As I develop, the model develops too, so expect small updates to be made.

Any questions and comments welcome.

Rationality and Genuine Behavior

This post unifies the core perspective of Variety and Existential Duality into one, and further extends them by providing a stronger link between them. Furthermore, I don't assume any prior knowledge of my memetic posts: you can read this post without having read anything else before, and no specialized knowledge in any field is required. Game theoretic arguments, inspired by evolutionary biology, psychology, and economic theory are hidden behind intuitive notions most of us immediately recognize.

I will start by asking you some rhetorical questions.

Would you ever sleep with someone you weren't attracted to just because they wanted to? Would you ever love someone just because they loved you?

Probably not, so let me take it further.

Would you keep going out with someone because they were attached to you, and you knew they would get hurt if you left them? Would you stop having sex with someone because their ex disapproved? Would you avoid approaching an attractive person because they may disapprove? Would you change your values and beliefs to gain acceptance by others?

If you are like me, the answer to all these questions are unhesitatingly "no". The underlying perspective I want to present to you has a name: rational self interest, and it is based on the fundamental premise that the only thing that truly matters is personal happiness. (An observation made by Yusha.p long before we joined this community.)

The problem is that most of us lose this fundamental notion of life quality.

We are taught that we must conform to some principles that are positively labelled as altruistic, kind, considerate, or modern. We learn that classical gender views are obsolete. We learn that we should not care too much about looks or economic status in a partner because it is shallow. We learn that it is unfair for us to demand of others what we do not live by ourselves.

If we look for friends that are more altruistic than we are, we are labelled egoistic (with negative connotation). If we look for girls that are less promiscuous than we are, we are labelled mans chauvinistic.

But who said we all should to have preferences towards that which is closest to ourselves? By that logic, I should prefer men over women, or at least women which are masculine in both appearance and personality. Girls should then have preferences towards girls (I think that's nice too), or at least towards feminine girls.

With the perspective that equality no longer means having equal value, but rather, equal preferences, it becomes increasingly difficult to relate to reality, for the obvious reason that the perspective has little to do with how brains function. It also ignores everything we know in modern psychology, but yet we are called "old fashioned" when we understand that human instincts simply don't change because some fucking politician, journalist, or writer thinks it ought to. Even the idea that whatever is "right" for one person must be "right" for everyone else flourishes across this community.

Fuck that nonsense. It is an illusion, created by yourself to retain a dream of endless possibilities for everyone, no matter how or where they were born, how little resources they have, and how shitty their lives have been. The only problem, is that it's complete bullshit. Most of us know it when we look through the curtains of our so called modern culture, but we choose to turn away as soon as we see it. Why? Because it hurts. If the very foundations by which they have built their world view breaks, their reality will break. Reality, as in, the actual, physical world we live in, is no longer that beautiful, peace loving, community of little humans singing together and all helping each other out, like it so many times is in the end of a cheesy Hollywood movie about love and romance. To be honest, the very idea that the world would be such a place for me to live in makes me wanna puke.

Worst of all, is that it turns us into cowards, with fear of disapproval, fear of (social) rejection, and ultimately, fear of being the people we want to be.

People don't say "I have no feelings for you anymore" when they want to break up, they come up with all possible kinds of excuses, in the pretence that we are being considerate for not being "brutally honest" towards our partners, when in fact, it only has to do with our fear of dealing with social conflict.

Guys don't dare to approach attractive women in bars and clubs that they wish to approach, in the pretence of being busy, too drunk, too sober, not interested, or needing to go to the bathroom, when, as we all know, it is about fear of rejection.

We are afraid to look for qualities in others what we cannot give them because we fear they may perceive us as being unfair. We are afraid of not being accepted for what we want. But why the hell would I only look for qualities in others that I already possess? How much fun would I have interacting with myself? How much would I learn from interacting with myself? Close to nothing.

I have a better idea.

How about we stop giving a shit about what our culture - or anyone else's for that matter - say we should feel about certain things? How about we stop caring about investing so much energy into emotions about how the world ought to be? How about we drop all "should be"s from our minds for a while, and direct all that emotional energy into ourselves instead? How about we all find out what we, as individuals, want, and then do whatever it takes to get it? You are promiscuous but want someone who isn't? Look for someone who isn't promiscuous but wants an experienced partner. There is no need for some bullshit ideal of "same rights, same preferences for everybody". One thing I definitely don't want, is a girl that is like me. I am looking for girls that are more emotional than me, kinder than me, and think I am the greatest thing that has ever existed. As Yusha.p puts our common preference: when girls are gay, it's alpha, and when they are alpha, it's gay.

There are probably those who disagree with my preferences, and they can go fuck themselves. We live in a democracy, but my mind is certainly not one. You don't have a vote for what I should feel or want. I am the only rightful holder of that power, for the simple reason that my free will is exerted on myself. Similarly, others don't control your mind, and so they don't get to vote on what you should or shouldn't feel or want. However, with freedom over personal thought and feeling, comes personal responsibility for our actions, we are to take both blame and pride over the consequences of our own choices.

I promise you - you are not important to the rest of the world. It doesn't need you, it did fine for millions of years before you were born, and it will do just fine when you are dead. The only meaning life will ever give you is the one you choose for yourself, the one you want.

Ethical objectivism, founded by the philosopher Ayn Rand, states that rational self interest is in the best interest of society itself. Although interesting, I make no such assumption here. I don't claim that rational self interest is for the best of humankind. I just don't care whether it is or not. It's fine if others do though, I just don't. That is what I am rightfully entitled do - choice over my own thoughts and actions, and I choose my own dreams before those of others.

Well, at least most of the time... There is a problem with rational self interest, and it is love.

Imagine a world without love. Presumably, all humans would act in a manner consistent with rational self interest, as described above. In particular, the emotion of attraction is calibrated towards choosing the best partner possible.

Experiencing an attraction of 8 for someone, you would want to have sex, but whenever you would encounter someone who made you feel an attraction of 9, you would prioritize that new person, possibly leaving the older one behind. With only attraction, we would be entirely driven by the supply-demand economics of sex.

Now, imagine a new scenario. Let us say you have found two attractive twins, which are equal in every respect, except for one: the first twin selects partners according to the rational supply-demand driven self interest above, whereas the other one does not. Instead, the second one has an involuntary "error" which works to your advantage: it makes her estimate you as more important than you are from her rational perspective.

Both twins experience an attraction of 8 towards you, but the second one has another mechanism that will guarantee she will not swap you for someone whom she would be more attracted to. In other words, the first twin, being entirely rational, would swap you for a 9, whereas the second one would not.

Everything else being equal, the second twin provides you with a benefit that the first doesn't, and hence the irrational twin becomes more compelling to you by rational standards. Furthermore, that benefit may seem to be at the second twins own expense: the second twin may envy the first for being able to make such rational choices whereas the first twin would consider the other one to be "rationally handicapped".

But the irrational twin is more attractive to you, and hence, she does better at attracting you! She has a benefit over her twin sister, which does a worse job at attracting you, although she is the more rational one.

The conclusion so far is that irrationality can provide people with a benefit over rationality.

This is presumably how love came to evolve: as an involuntary "error" to the rational emotion of attraction (which is entirely calibrated towards evolutionary fitness).

Let us look at two examples.

We don't want friends who rationally compute whether it would be worth helping us at times where we really need it. This wouldn't be considered "friendly" by most people's standards, for understandable reasons. Exchanging services and bargaining is a great way of reaching an equilibrium of supply-demand, but that equilibrium is not what people want friends for. Friends are supposed to provide a benefit beyond an equilibrium that is suboptimal to our personal needs, and the solution is to want friends that have an irrational bias towards us. And of course, they expect us to have an irrational bias towards them too.

And we certainly don't want a partner that has rationally concluded that we are a beneficial. As we've seen, rational computation of expected gain is as far from love as you could possibly come. The last thing we want to see, is that our partner is rationally considering leaving us for someone they don't even know but find more appealing than we are, at least in that moment. That would clearly indicate that our partner has no feeling towards us, no matter what the relationship is about.

Rationality, by this definition, is what we do because we believe it provides us with benefits. In this sense, altruistic acts can be rational: buying a girl dinner in hopes of having sex for example. Irrationality, or non-rational behavior, is the cost of doing something with no expected return profit. All acts of altruism that would never be acknowledged are examples of irrational behavior. For example, if you were to help someone far away, and you knew that person would never know it was you, so you could not even in theory be rewarded with an expected gain, is a perfect instance of irrational behavior.

What's interesting about irrationality is that it also provides the irrational person with a benefit (as in the examples with the twins). And this observation is what it all comes down to: irrational behaviors can be very attractive.

People aren't attracted to others whom are rationally computing what is in their own best interest in every moment. That's why most girls dislike guys who consciously use techniques to attract them. The discomfort girls experience when a guy is rationally trying to pursue them into thinking or feeling a certain way stems from the motive of self interest it reveals. There is no guarantee that what's in the guys best interest coincides with the girl, and in practice, it never does completely (what a wonderful world that would be!). So there is every reason for a girl to be skeptic towards guys that behave a little too rational.

One way girls detects whether a guy's self interest may be brutally rational (at their expense) is to see whether they are having fun together in the moment or not. The more they are both in the moment, the less skepticism. Another way is through shit tests: the more he would bother to take shit, the more it reveals an underlying rational motive to go through this shit.

By definition, rational behavior has incentives of self interest; irrational behavior is what goes beyond that.

I personally fall in love with girls that are very emotional, rather than logical, because signs of rational self interest in our relationship is unattractive, to say the least. Likewise, girls that have been attracted to me have always responded very positively to any signs of irrational behavior: spontaneously traveling miles to see them (because they know I am missing them), putting a lot of effort into creating personal gifts for them (because I am wasting more time and energy on her that is rationally needed to sustain our relationship), spending a lot of time talking on the phone when we are apart, when I have other things to do.

They become happy precisely because they know I am doing something that I would not do for anyone else, and that something is a cost in terms of time, energy, or resources.

And such is the existential duality of life: we logically perceive the world in terms of rational self interest, we choose friends and lovers, at first somewhat rationally, but our as our bonds grow, so does our irrationality.

If you think this only applies to girlfriends, think again. All relationships between people have a certain amount of irrationality.

Even when a girl has a one night stand, chances are she does so because she believes the possibility that it could develop into something more still exists. This could be because she has picked up ambiguous signs of irrationality from your side. Whether her uncertainty is legitimate or not doesn't matter, what does is that it may very well be what still keeps her around.

There's no doubt girls in any form of sexual relationships are looking for development: either towards more connection, which requires more signs of irrationality, or towards a break up. Very rarely do girls try to sustain casual sex indefinitely, that is, as an equilibrium.

Giving value to everyone cannot create this level of attractiveness because it is either rational (there is an obvious gain and so the motive is self interest) or non-selective irrationality. Irrational behavior needs to be directed towards the people you want, otherwise, there is nothing attractive about it. People don't want to be treated like everyone else by those they like. They want to have a special place, one that is recognized through directed irrationality.

This is why buying drinks doesn't work on girls you don't know. The drink is meant to simulate an irrational behavior (wasting more resources than is rationally in your best interest), but it doesn't come across that way. From her perspective, you are a guy and she is a girl, you are in a meat market, and you buying her a drink is not at all irrational - it is completely consistent with rational self interest, since she most definitely considers herself worth more than the few bucks you put into buying that drink.

Ironically, if you knew the bartender at got drinks for free, and passed on one to her, it would no longer seem as rational - there could possibly be an element of irrationality in that behavior - and that uncertainty may actually make her more curious.

Genuine behavior captures the notion of "behavior-motive congruency": when we are rationally computing how to fake irrational behavior, and fail, our behavior is non-genuine. And because humans have evolved extremely sophisticated ways to detect behavior-motive incongruencies, it is actually more costly to fake congruency than to actually have it for real (known as the handicap principle in biology). Believe your own lies and others will too, some say, but there is also another possibility: believe your own truths and others will too.

Note that purely rational behavior can be attractive, even when considered somewhat "cold". What matters is that we are genuine about our rational motives. Rationality is attractive because it is rational, so don't pretend to be irrational when you're not. By being honest about when we are rational, it becomes obvious when we are irrational, and hence, our genuine behavior - both rational and irrational - becomes attractive, honest signals of our true motives.

It's not be the best way to get laid as often as possible, but it is the best way to get the ones who can and will make us the most happy. And that, without even trying too hard.

Any comments and reflections welcome.

Practical Consequences of Variety

This post is a direct follow up to Core Stability and Meme Selection.

In this post, I will further discuss consequences of Variety and give you some of its many practical consequences. These are all usable in field but no in the sense that they may help you get this one particular girl there and now, but because ultimately, by using the meme acquisition algorithm, you will have a complete understanding for the Variety perspective.


The Principles of Choice and Respect
The obvious direct consequence of the principle of choice (PoC) is that you should always actively make her choose. Of course, in order to make her choose, you have to give her the opportunity to choose. There are some escalation steps that require obvious choices: will she comply or defy? The following are the most obvious steps and provide the playground for you to experiment:

1. On the approach - you want to talk to her - will she respond or not?
2. While indirectly sharing meme maps - you want to get to know her - does she want to share time?
3. While kino pinging - you want mutual kino - will she reciprocate or not?
4. Extraction - you want to go home with her - does she want the same?
5. Meeting for a day 2 - you want to see her again - does she want to see you again?
6. Sex - you want to sleep with her - does she want to sleep with you?
   

Before moving on, I want to point out an important fact: you don't guess what she wants or not. You give appropriate signals of interest - opening, talking, kinoing, extracting, calling/texting, and undressing, respectively - and let her respond as she wants. The different lies in what you do if she defies: you don't plow, you don't try to "convince" her that she should be doing it.

If doesn't want to, then you are standing in front of a girl that doesn't want the same thing as you. By the principle of respect (PoR), you now have an incompatibility. Respect means not dropping your beliefs and desires for hers. Move on.

If she hesitates, well, it could be because of two things: either she doesn't want to, or you're escalating too fast. The question you need to ask yourself is this: is she attracted to me or not? If so, how attracted is she? Is this just the wrong place or time, or the wrong emotional state? There's room for escalation at another, more appropriate place and time. But if she doesn't feel the same way towards you as you do, then again, you are incompatible. Move on. The key here lies in being honest to yourself about your beliefs regarding her desires. If you are unsure, there are plenty of subtle ways to find out.

I will give you practical examples of all situations.

If you approach a girl and she isn't responding to whatever you have to say, then move on. If she is boring, well, it means you find her boring. Move on. By PoR, you have the power to exert your own choice whenever someone doesn't meet your criteria, so use it!

If you tell her something and she doesn't seem to be interested, it's not because of whatever you are saying. It's because of what little impression she has of you. There is a time and place for analyzing why you didn't make such a good impression, and that is called tomorrow. For now, the fact of the matter is, she doesn't find you interesting. She has made her choice. Move on. If she regrets it, she will give you proximity later, or even reopen you. But that has nothing to do with why you are moving on. You are moving on because you want girls that want you, and she has therefore disqualified herself. Really, you have to believe it.

If you are kinoing her and she doesn't kino back, it may not be hesitation but passive-submissiveness. While kino reciprocation clearly means she is attracted, lack of it doesn't imply anything at all. It could be because she is nervous or shy. Or because she has her ex boyfriend there. Or because she would rather save those bits for later. What you should do instead, is to find out whether she is responsive at all - test for other investments: engage her in conversation, see how much she naturally invests socially (don't force it with obvious hoops). Try to move or isolate her. Does she comply now? If not, move on.

Extraction. Saying "do you want to have sex with me?" would certainly force her to choose, but it is uncalibrated because it signals more than your attraction for her: it also signals that you aren't really interested in her at all, only to have sex with her. Assuming you could imagine seeing her again, you would be giving her the wrong impression. Instead, ask her this very simple question: "Do you want to go back to my place?". If she says no, then she doesn't want to have sex tonight. Again, it may simply be too early. If she says yes, well, you know the rest. If she hesitates, it could be because of a sense of guilt leaving her friends, or because she doesn't really want to be doesn't want you to think she's not attracted, or because she's unsure what you will think of her. Here comes an important difference in perspective: it is not your job to release her negative emotions, but it is your job to help her release those negative emotions. Let her female friend join you, who knows how things will end up. Tell her she could go home with you now or see you next week, but you would prefer both. As far as ASD is concerned, the concept is the same as used by the ASD-killer: convey that you are sexually non-judgmental, preferably indirectly, but if it's not enough (because she is hesitating due to ASD), then more or less directly. Don't be afraid to be genuine (but see my upcoming post about calibration for the difference between being genuine and uncalibrated).

Meeting for a day 2 is an interesting one, because the solution is so obvious. You could either call or text, it doesn't matter. Assuming you are texting, write one or two fluff messages to get in touch again, and then, at the end of your next message, write: "I want to see you again. What are you doing on Sunday?". Of course, any variation is fine: "next week", "this weekend", "Wednesday evening", or whatever is suitable. Whether she wants to see you again or not will be obvious by her answer. This is choice in a nutshell, because here she has all the time in the world to think about it. Should you write "kisses" or "hugs"? Although seemingly very trivial, the logic behind calibration versus genuine expression is quite complex and deserves a rigorous treatment (upcoming post).

And finally, sex. You could occupy every couch and chair with stuff to avoid making her sit there, but it wouldn't be giving her a choice would it? The logic is the following: sometimes girls have an unconscious desire to have sex with you, but they don't consciously manage to express it. So they may end up in your couch even though they want to fuck, creating a huge and unnecessary challenge to move them to your bed in what would signal an obvious attempt to have sex. How about this: Don't occupy chairs and couches, give her the choice to sit there. Lead her towards the bed, and if she's already sitting there (because you were in the bathroom or getting a glass of water), move towards her and say: "No not there. I want you here." And lead her to the bed. As for hesitation, it is your job to help her remove it, but not remove it for her. Last minute time bridges (what I've previously called "instant pair bonds", but this term is misleading) does a great job conveying that you want to see her again in a calibrated way.

These ideas are implemented in the following way.

Therefore, you must show some level of (calibrated) interest. Usually the approach itself will do. Disqualifiers of any kinds: negs, false time constraints, false disqualifiers, cannot be used unless you need to disarm an obstacle. The purpose of the interaction is to find out whether you naturally have rapport with her. Whether you use a direct or indirect style of approach doesn't matter. What matters is that you make her understand that you are interesting in her (and this can be done in subtle ways if you want), and already then comes choice. Does she want to know more about you or not? If not, then leave. Otherwise, it's time to have fun together. Go into the emotional perspective of existential duality, be in the moment (mindfulness), and have fun together. The purpose of the interaction is to provide an indirect way for you to display your meme map to her, and for her to display hers to you. Her choice of getting to know you more or not lies in how responsive she will be to you, because that is the signature of attraction.

Don't be afraid to escalate. If you go for a kiss and she defies, then she simply isn't attracted to you. Move on. If she kisses you, then she has "made" the choice to get to know you more. Use this opportunity for meme sharing, resulting in more rapport. Meme sharing doesn't mean you have to directly explain your memes. They are diffused through your interpretations, your reactions, your behavior. Don't focus on getting that part right: be in the moment, obtain complete mindfulness.

Now to more general rules.


No Plowing
PoC implies that you can never plow, because plowing means always trying to fight through her unresponsiveness until you she becomes responsive. Of course, a person living up to the core five may still plow on rare occasions, namely those where he is experimenting or just messing around for the sake of fun. But this requires that the core five are already installed into his core. When you are trying to install the core five, there is no excuse for plowing: it will only divert you from discovering the core five, and hence, from improving. PUAs despise chodes for plowing in neediness, but they do exactly the same thing. The reason, they say, is that they know how the game is played and they only plow because they are practicing. Only, the practicing never ends, and neither does the plowing. And so their keep doing the same things as the people they are trying to illuminate. But how about we make a decision to be the person who always has self respect (in the sense previously defined), and from now on, become that person? Why all the waiting? Are you that afraid of the sacrifices you have to make to become that person?

Mission:
Brush kino within the first minute of approaching.

If you've been talking to a girl for more than 5 minutes (by the end of the next song they are playing) and have no reciprocated kino, try to move her. Eject if it doesn't work.

At any time, if you sense she's not that into you, and it makes you feel less alpha, you could do one of two things: either give her the choice, or simply eject. To make her choose say "I'm wondering about something...are you happy right now?" The only way you'll stay is if she's in a bad state, that is because of something you can't control, and she changes state to a more positive. You eject with "I want to find my friends now. Have fun tonight."

If you try to kiss and it doesn't work, look at her and say: "we'll try one more time" and go for it again. If it doesn't work, eject. Don't be rude, don't say anything challenging. Just eject with "okay, bye". And back to mindfulness; no analyzing now.

For the next 6 months, don't take any phone number (or anything), only give yours. Tell them you want to see them again and would be happy if they called or texted (they will text first). No exceptions to this rule. Make her choose.



Perfect Sequence Hypothesis
Another perspective some outer game guys hold is the following: for every girl, there is a sequence of actions that will bring her in bed with you. Let us call this the perfect sequence hypothesis (PSH). Typically, PSH results in the ideal of perfect game: approach N girls, close all of them. This perspective has dramatic consequences: since girls can respond to different things, it means that you have to be careful when attracting and escalating. In particular, you should avoid doing "risky" things: conveying memes that might possibly contradict hers, or showing interest too early. This strongly contradicts both the principle of choice and respect: choice because you never actively let her choose you or not when you are trying to do anything you can to make her choose (it's the exact opposite), respect because you are never showing her your own principles, you are only playing by her rules. Whether PSH is true or not is irrelevant. Whether the sequence is even real time computable, which would be the interesting question if you believe PSH to be true, is also irrelevant. What is relevant is that the sequence of actions you take do not have the purpose of achieving a result with her, they have the purpose of finding out whether the two of you are compatible in terms of attraction, connection, sexually, and usually later, memetically.

Mission: If a girl says something that you disagree with, say it. Don't be afraid to mention what you find interesting or important. They may not be great topics of conversation for the bar, but throwing in small indications of which memes you have (beliefs, opinions, principles, perspectives) will help her choose you based on who you are. And don't overdo it - do it when there's an opportunity, when your current conversation allows for such throw ins. Don't be afraid to express yourself.


Principle of Unreactiveness
Here is a principle that many PUAs adhere to: never react more to the girl than she reacts to you. (Some even have the stronger principle "never react to girls".) I call this the principle of unreactiveness. The idea behind it is that girls are attracted to unreactive guys, and so by being unreactive, you hence become attractive.

The principle of respect directly contradicts this: whenever you aren't satisfied with someone's behavior, that someone is doing something that conflicts with your principles, and you should show it to them to give them the opportunity to show you respect. It could come from a shit test, but whether she is doing it consciously or not doesn't affect the issue here: whenever you are unsatisfied with something that someone else has caused, and you know this could repeat itself, it is your job to help them avoid this dissatisfaction by explaining what you don't like. You show a principle, they reciprocate respect. And of course, it's mutual.

The reason why many adhere to the principle of unreactiveness is because of a misunderstanding: neediness is unattractive, reactiveness is not necessarily. You aren't needy just because you are reacting, it depends on how you are reacting. PoR provides a natural way of reacting with both self respect and respect for others. Indeed, there is something very wrong about putting effort into behaving as if one didn't put effort into it.

Many PUGs claim that you get more shit tests the better you become. This is true when you do PU from an "arrogant unaffected uninterested frame" or from a "cool guy doing lots of cool things frame". The more annoyingly interesting you are, the more she will annoy you. Using this third paradigm, I promise you that you will barely get any shit tests, conscious or unconscious. Yes, there will be a lot of playful teasing, but it's from an obvious "I am attracted to you, I am having so much fun with you" frame. It's mutual. Reciprocate the fun and together you will have a great time with lots of fun. Throw shit at her and she will become chocked, disappointed, uncomfortable, and lose attraction.

Mission: Whenever you get a shit test, react in whatever way you feel about it.

If she asks whether you want to buy her a drink, ask her why she wants you to do it? If she gives a shitty explanation, ask her if she's playing games with you (but in a light and fun tone, there nothing to get upset over!).

If she tells you to wait for her while she goes to the bathroom, tell her you'll wait if she really wants you to. It's important to say it with the right smile and tone, the frame is supposed to be: "I'll wait if you really like me".

If she brings up her boyfriend, say: "do you really want to be talking about him right now?". If she says yes, tell her it's better be a fun story because you're not interested in men.

These examples all came up as I was creating typical situations relevant to unreactiveness. I wrote them all without pausing: it was the first thing I wanted to say as I was imagining the situation. With the right perspectives, you don't need to figure out what to say because your emotions will speak for you. With the right mood and perspectives on calibration (a later issue), you will always know how to say it right.


One-Itis and Orbiters
One itis is a gay emotion that reveals a weak core. One itis, by definition, means that you are trying to get back someone that doesn't want you. So that someone has made the choice to not be with you, and you are not definitely not embracing her choice, directly contradicting the principle of choice. This holds true for any girl that knows you want her but doesn't want you.

An orbiter is a boy that holds a friendship with a girl in the hope of having sex with her one day. Whether she knows about it or not constitutes two different cases: if she knows about it, then this is the one itis case above. If she doesn't know about it, then you aren't actively giving her any choice. In both cases, you are contradicting the principle of choice.

If it sounds impossible to avoid experiencing one itis with someone you truly love, it is only because you cannot even conceive of a person bearing the core five. Of course, being sad, feeling lonely, and missing someone are natural feelings that we must allow ourselves to experience. But those feelings are for you, and only you. One itis goes one step further, making those feelings about someone else: it's the desire to have something back, as opposed to the sadness of losing something and moving on.

Mission: If your LTR leaves you and you miss her, let her know you don't want any contact with her, and remove her number. Remove any contact information you have about her. Don't make any attempts at calling her, don't keep yourself updating about her life. Erase. Completely. If you see her out, feel free to talk to her for a while, but don't try to get anywhere. Have fun with other people. Focus your mind on the rest of the world, where there is opportunity. She belongs to the past now.


Abundance Mentality
Abundance mentality is the perspective that there are so many girls (and more generality, of almost anything you could want) that it's just dumb to focus on one particular if she doesn't want you.

This may sound like the principle of choice, but PoC is actually more general than abundance mentality: PoC states that you want girls to choose you based on who you are. If they choose not to be with you, that is a good thing because you only want girls that really want you. Abundance mentality states the same thing, but relies on an environment where there are many girls. In a place where there are only warpigs or few girls, abundance mentality breaks down because it relies on an external fact of the world.

The Principle of choice is completely internal, and hence more idealized (but at least equally pragmatic of course). Therefore abundance mentality can be used as a helper meme to reach a conviction of PoC.

Mission: When you are talking to a girl that is unresponsive, go find someone else (or a group) to talk to (there's an abundance). With the principle of choice, you could do either that or simply stop talking to her and, without moving, start looking for fun elsewhere. This must be done without regard to her reactions: you can't pretend to not be interested, you simply have to not care about her anymore.


Mutuality
By PoR, you treat others as they want to be treated, and you expect the same from them. Given that some situations are boring for all of us, we can give some missions.

Mission: When you are 1-on-1 with a girl and she pulls up her phone to text or call someone, let her know (calibrate how: jokingly, indirectly, directly) you think it's disrespectful and you're not having fun.

If she's talking to someone else while you're waiting for her to finish, let her know you're bored and waiting for her to finish.

If she flakes, and you're disappointed, do show it. If she flakes again and you become irritated, show it. If she doesn't understand, or pretends like she doesn't understand, ask her to call you if and when she understands. Then next her.

Memetics: Core Stability and Meme Selection

This post is a follow up to a series of memetical post, the previous one being The Core Five Perspectives. They should be read in the appropriate order; a sorted list of all the posts are available in my blog.

Before I go into the fifth perspective, Core Stability, I need to generalize the principle of choice and respect into a full blown perspective: Variety Endorsement. This perspective will replace the more specific principles in the following way.



Variety Endorsement

We are all different. We are born different, with different sets of genes. We learn different skills, shape different memories, and acquire different set of beliefs, opinions, passions, ambitions and dreams. In other words, we all have a unique set of genes and memes which, presumably, are the only two relevant forces that act on our will.

Unlike our genes, which are only transmitted vertically (from parents to children), our memes are transmitted in every possible way - between friends, and acquaintances; by celebrities through tv, radio, by authors through books, by parents to children. The problem is that memes, just like genes, spread not because we necessarily want them to, but because of a simple result of statistics: whatever is more likely to spread, will spread.

We try to spread our memes to people by convincing them of our beliefs, opinions, and perspectives not because we necessarily feel good about it. We certainly find it tempting to "enlighten" people with that which we are convinced of, but we keep trying even when it becomes frustrating to us. It is this frustration that defines the borderline between the memes interest in spreading and your well being, because you are no longer doing what is good for you, you are instead doing what is good for your memes.

If we are to take control of our lives and consciousness, we must stop trying to convince others when it no longer gives us any good. We must think about our own well being, and embrace the fact that we all are memetically different. Only then can we truly appreciate what it means to be an individual, a distinct consciousness, and break free from the slavery of our memes.

We must choose our friends based on their set of memes, not on our hope to "convert" them into our perspectives. We must choose girls based on their set of memes (our emotions will do the genetical matching through the triggering of attraction). This is what variety implies: that we are all different, and we should look for both the similarities and differences we appreciate in others. Whatever it is we may be able to offer others, is up to them to decide. Whatever they have to offer us, is for us to decide. Some may not like us for our perspectives, and this is a good thing. Frustration is the only thing we gain by not accepting this fact. Here's another way to put it (that I personally don't like but may help some of you): the prize we pay for being free of our memes control over us is letting others decide how close to us they want to be, based on whatever criteria they have. Instead, we will focus on our own decision making with regard to other people. It is never about what we can get, it is about what we want. This is the principle of choice.

If we treat others like we would like to be treated (the golden rule), we are assuming that others are, or should be, like us, which violates variety endorsement. By showing others what we value, and by finding out what they value, we can treat others like they want to be treated. Whenever this is impossible because differences in perspectives imply different principles (conscious rules for behavior), we must accept these differences and find theequilibrium point. This could mean that we only interact with certain people in a specific context (where our principles will not collide), such as drinking buddies, coworkers, FBs, or nothing at all. This is the principle of respect.

Core Stability

As pointed out earlier, your core memes have to match each other. Inconsistencies disrupt the stream of consciousness, because it causes confusion. It makes us wonder what choices to make in situation that would otherwise be trivial? Confusion arises because of an internal conflict of will: some memes emotionally pull you in one direction, others in another. The less suchinconsistencies, the less internal conflicts, the less confusion. We become more decisive, and feel more complete.

The immediate implication of this realization is that you can't squish every meme out there into your brain. Guys that are into self development are especially open minded when it comes to new ideas, making them prone to try out pretty much any meme out there. Critical thinking is low or non-existent, requirements for truth and even usability are preferably but anything will do in the hope of achieving something. With this point of view, you become memetically desperate.

There are many ways in which you could fail to have a solid core: you could have a large pool of memes, of which none are really core memes, because you lack certainty/conviction. Or you could have a large pool of disconnected memes, giving plenty of small insights here and there, but no perspective. Or you could have lots of core inconsistencies: things just don't fit together, although you are trying really hard to make them fit, hence misunderstanding at least one of the perspectives. These three problems - disconnectedness and inconsistency - occur because of a lack of efficient meme acquisition mechanism. By being memetically desperate, we are susceptible to the latter two problems: connectedness and consistency.

What happens is that you end up having two broken perspectives rather than one solid whole. The first is worth less than a blank slate, whereas the second is the ideal. Why then, do so many guys end up with the broken parts? As mentioned, memetically desperate people want to absorb as many good memes as possible. The problem arises when there is an additional meme: the belief that memes cannot do any harm. It's strange to provide arguments for why memes can harm you in, since there isn't any reason to believe that they wouldn't, considering the facts that memes are indifferent about your well being and we all agree they have the power to change the way we think.

Just like a random gene, or a random computer program, doesn't necessarily do any good to it's host, neither to the memes. We avoid installing unknown software on our computers because we have been taught that there is harmful software. But it is really something they had to learn; it just doesn't come automatically. The analogy is obvious: most of us, not being meme experts, do not understand the potential danger some memes have.

Unfortunately, the problems don't end here. The "memes can't harm" belief is not one people hold with great certainty. They don't keep thinking "memes can't harm, so I'll try them all". They just never think about it that way in the first place. New memes are introduced, and there is no resistance - they are inhaled like air. The explanation is probably this simple: as children, we can't afford any resistance, because we have to learn, and we have to learn really fast. Given that our parents (for the vast majority of the time) mean us well, the optimal (gene) strategy is to have no memetic defence at all. As we grow up, we become somewhat more memetically stable (because of an inherent need for some level of consistency), but some of us aren't satisfied with their memetic core. Typically, this is because society - their parents, teachers, siblings, upbringing - failed to provide them with a solid core foundation. So they need to do what children did a long time ago: install a memetic core, only this time they'll have to do it themselves. This is the essence of it: realizing you don't have a solid core makes you memetically desperate. Not having a solid core also makes you memetically unstable, because there are no memeplexes that stabilize incoming memes. You absorb anything, and change in any direction. The memes are in effect controlling you.

The Meme Sceptic Meme

The solution is to install the "meme sceptic meme", which states the following:

"Whenever you encounter a meme, carefully consider the effects this meme will have on you based on your current memetic core. Assume that a new meme could be harmful until proven otherwise. That they spread fast, meaning that many people have it, is no proof of being it being a "nice" meme. It only means that the meme is good at replicating itself."

The sceptic meme adds a control mechanism to the process of acquiring new memes: there is both selection, where the meme sceptic meme is used to examine and screen new memes, and installation, where the memes get properly installed for efficient use (so they are triggered whenever needed). Together, these two processes shape the meme acquisition algorithm: there is a concurrent development of both meme selection and installation.

The Meme Acquisition Algorithm

This Meme Aquisition Algorithm lays the foundation for learning the core five perspectives.

How do you install new memes efficiently? The answer lies in exploiting the same mechanisms as the memes you to spread themselves to you. In effect, it is about applying my escalation model to the theory of memetics.

Cognitive dissonance is one of the most fascinating and strongest mechanisms at increasing our compliance towards things. By considering the memes as sargers and you as the target in the escalation model, we have an interesting analogy: the memes are trying to make you more attracted to them, and whenever you invest in them it rationalizes into more compliance for the memes. In a world of information technology, where ideas are given, patented, and sold, the memes are in fierce competition for survival. Most of them died a long time ago, some evolved and fused into larger memeplexes and spread to the world through speech, text, images, audio, video, rituals, and war. The more we invest in them, the better they survive inside our brains.

You invest in your memes by thinking about them. The more you analyze them, the more you will feel them, the more convicted you will become.

An ever better way is to spread and discuss them with others. The more you are mentioning your memes to others, bringing it into discussion, the more invested you become in your memes.

This is how we consciously create more compliance for our memes, which is my definition of meme installation. But how do we become attracted to memes in the first place?

First, some necessary conditions are required: the meme must be logically consistent with your memetic core, since core memes hold personal value and conviction. In fact, this is best understood as various degrees of personal value:

Low: you understand the meme logically
Moderate: you can see how the meme fits or doesn't fit with your core
High: you have emotional attachment to the meme

Take the meme "most girls want guys to approach them". At a logical level, you understand what the meme means: it states that a majority of girls, presumably in bars and clubs, want to be approached.

On a moderate level, you can see how this fits with your current set of beliefs. Combined with the already installed meme "girls want to have sex as much as guys" would give a very different conclusion from the installed "girls are bitchy to guys they don't know". The expression the memes give - its logical/emotional conclusion - depends on your already installed set of beliefs. In other words, memes interact in memeplexes, and their phenotype is dependent on this interaction.

On a high level, you emotionally feel the meme. It's not just "most girls want guys to approach them". It's "Of course! I knew it already, most girls want guys to approach them, that's why they usually (insert any explanation based on previous experiences)".

Note that this algorithm is not the natural one people use: people, at least those who do hold interesting beliefs, are naturally convinced of some things without even realizing that they may in fact contradict other beliefs they hold. This is because they directly jump from "low" to "high" without passing the "moderate" filter: the flaw is to think that what sounds good is good (the meme desperate meme).

By using the meme sceptic meme, we have three things to check: is the meme self consistent (low), is it consistent with your meme core (moderate), does it provide you (not necessarily itself) with any benefit (moderate)?

The last check leads us to the concept of usefulness. People usually absorb memes depending on one criteria only: does this meme make me feel good right now? This is why retarded ideas like "just be yourself, don't change" propagate better than more productive ideas like "be your best self": the first one is easier to understand, it involves less work, and hence less pain. It pretty much says "stay in your comfort zone, right where you are" which indeed feels nice. We are tempted to look for easy, quick "feel good" fixes. These memes make you feel better now, but offer you nothing in the long run.

The meme sceptic meme provides a way of detecting useless and destructive memes; after screening them out, only the useful ones remain. The huge benefit we receive in the process of eliminating shitty memes is that once a memes has passed our sceptical tests, it becomes truly solid. I take the meme sceptic meme to an extreme, and it only benefits me: my core memes aren't threatened whenever someone comes up with another meme that sounds good, because I have already thought about it, figured out its flaws or inconsistencies (within my own core of course), and rejected it (otherwise I would already have installed it). The practical consequence is that memes get further divided into two categories: really good ones, and really crappy ones. The idea is a binary view on meme conviction: install it into my core, or throw it out. There is no middle way (but there is a switch of perspective as specified by Existential Dualism). Conviction, or rejection. I am left with one solid core instead of fragments from various different memeplexes that don't make any sense together. When memes don't make sense together, they obviously don't bring much usefulness, and will many times bring in more problems than they solve.

In a world of information, we are constantly bombarded with new memes. The core stability perspective not only protects you from harmful memes, it also creates a further segregation of memes, namely into the ones that will be inside your head and those who will never be. This creates a stronger conviction towards your own core.

If you have understood everything so far, I am now ready to synthesize this into the installation algorithm. Let us say you encounter a new meme X.

1. Get a logical understanding for X (by logically interpreting it).
2. Associate X with your memetic core. How does X fit with the rest? Together with your core, what are the new implications?
3. Identify past experiences you've had in which X may have been relevant.
4. Visualize how you behave with X in hypothetical (but common) situations.
5. Identify live situations in which X is relevant (e.g. in the field). Analyze the practical consequences of X: How did it affect your emotions? And consequently, your behavior? If X is a perspective: try out some of the principles implied by the perspective.
   
6. Experiment for a while: repeat step 5.
   
7. Start investing in X (thinking, spreading, discussing) to increase your own conviction.
8. Finally, having X nicely installed, relax and enjoy! X is now naturalized into your core.
   

Where does the meme sceptic meme come into play? I have omitted it from the installation algorithm above. The screening process comes in during each step. Compare with the above, and add the following intuitive rejection principle:

1. Reject X if self inconsistent.
2. Reject X if it's inconsistent with your own core or if it would become destructive.
   
3. Reject X if it has been destructive and there's no reason to believe it would do better now (it can only do better if your core has changed).
4. Reject X if you can't see yourself being congruent with X. If you say "no that's not me", then this meme is not for you.
5. Reject X if, after a repeated number of experiences, this meme does you no good.
6. Repeated tests on X according to step 5.
   
7. The meme has now been accepted. The meme sceptic meme is now turned off.
8. See above.
   

In other words, step 1-6 are both installation and control measures, where the meme is rejected when it doesn't do what it's supposed to do (in the sense discussed above). Step 7 is about strenghtening the meme (fully installing it). Step 8 is about letting go of your conscious behaviors surrounding the meme: get used to it being a natural part of you.

Reprogramming yourself

The memes installation I am further going to address is, of course, that of the core five perspectives. The good news is that core stability is a meme about how to install (and reject) other memes: so you don't practice to learn it: you just do it, and after practicing on installing the other core four, this one will automatically have been installed.

Look at the memetic acquisition algorithm above. I have already addressed the content (logical structure) of each meme. This is step 1.

The second step is for you to relate it to yourself. The core five are consistent and relate to each other in a very natural way. If you have memes that conflict with them, throw them out now. If you don't wish to do that, then you will have to realize that the core five will do you no good (not now at least) and stop reading my posts.

The third step is to identity past experiences with each of the core five. Can you see situations in which you've thought about them, or felt them, even if only in the blink of an eye? Have there been situations in which you would have needed them?

The fourth step is to imagine various scenarios. Take your sticking points. Got AA? Got problems escalating? Got problems extracting? I am going to guess that whatever sticking point you have, it comes down to fear on some level. Ninety nine percent of all sticking points do. How does the core five change your pain and pleasure center? What are the emotional implications of the core five in various situations? What usefulness do they bring you?

Step five is about trying out the principles that are implied by the core five. These are obvious to anyone who already has installed the core five, or that has a great capacity for deductive thinking. I will help you with the latter by stating the general principles implied: these are the practical consequences of the core five. I will give you these practical consequences in my next post(s). I want to warn you however, that understanding special cases like those I will give you will not automatically give you an understanding for the larger perspectives themselves. After all, the point is that you should understand them well enough to arrive at the proper conclusions yourself. The principles are there because we people have an easier time understanding general things by starting with simpler special cases. Ultimately, you are responsible for properly assimilating the core five.

The sixth step is simply a repetition of the above, until you feel comfortable with the new meme.

Step 7. Finally, start spreading the word! By Variety, you can't spread your memes in an attempt to convince others of your core. We don't serve our memes, they serve us. Memes exploit our rationalization and hence would want us to invest. We generally avoid spreading memes because it's only frustrating to try to change others. However, in this case, where we have been sceptical and finally want to absorb a new meme, it helps us to spread it because it creates stronger personal value and conviction. It is for our benefit, not the meme's.

And by the logic above, when the meme is installed (we have personal value and conviction), we drop whatever isn't in our own interest, which by Variety, means we don't try to spread it for the sake of spreading anymore.

In my next post, I will describe go into some very specific details on the fifth step of the meme acquisition algorithm above by giving you concrete examples of how to implement the core five. Because they are deeply interconnected, I will both give you examples in which one of the perspectives is separated from the rest, but also examples that rely on combining them.


Any comments welcome.

Memetics: The Core Five Perspectives

This is a follow up to Principles and Pride.

As we saw, principles are conscious decision rules. They are a special form of opinions, namely those who give a personal sense of justice or moral value. For example, you may refuse to plow because it feels bad. You may want to be honest about your intentions because you believe it's the right thing to do.

But we don't adhere to principles simply because they may provide a strategic benefit. Principles require conviction, and conviction doesn't come for free. The question we must ask then, is where does this conviction come from? The answer lies in generalizing what we have encountered so far. Factual beliefs and opinions come together in large memeplexes, and they shape a personal world view. I will call such memeplexes perspectives.

Some perspectives are so profoundly important that they are rediscovered over and over again. They underlie much of the implicit assumptions in everyday conversations, ranging from existential meaning, moral values, politics, religion, and of course, sex.

In this post, I will present the core memes of the new paradigm I am presenting to you. As a perspective on life, they are all general and have profound implications for interpretation, decision making, and behavior. The core five perspectives are: existential duality, mindfulness, the principles of choice and respect, success isolation, and core stability. I will present the four first here, the fifth is relevant to the process of implementing new memes ("the learning process") and will be given in the proper context.

Existential Duality

An enormous amount of people's disagreements are based on one sole difference in perspective. In turn, it leads to different interpretations, decisions, and behavior in everyday life. The perspective amounts to whether we relate the world to our subjective, personal experience of it, or whether we analyze it objectively, as an outside observer.

Relating to personal experience causes feelings. Observing objectively requires logical analysis, and since emotions are subjective, they are excluded from such analysis. Hence, people prefer either perspective based on whether they are emotional or logical: emotional people prefer the subjective perspective, whereas logical people prefer the objective one.

Before getting deeper into the issue. I want to make a short presentation of typical assumptions and reasoning behind each of the perspectives.

The Subjective/Emotional Perspective

We are all born as blank slates that can be moulded into anything possible: bullies, victims, alpha males, losers, and homosexuals. Parents, teachers, and society then bears the responsibility for shaping us as we grow up. In the process of reaching adulthood, the soul presumably takes control of our otherwise mechanical body, giving us free will. And with free will, comes responsibility for our actions. Since our souls possess the power to make choices, our destinies are not predetermined.

Also, since we are born empty, every emotion, behavior, and reaction we express are in some way learnt, for example through imitation, conditioning, or explanation. Hence, beauty, fear, attraction, and love are all culturally relative: we cannot understand other people and cultures through our own eyes, only through their perspective. Stereotypes and other categorizations are arbitrary. They give no addition information besides from what is already stated. In particular, every difference between men and women must be due to the environment. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Truth depends on perspective. Everything is relative.

We humans are distinct from all other life in fundamental ways, and much too complex to ever fully understand. Human thinking cannot be simulated by an algorithm, and hence human reasoning, creativity, and consciousness can never be implemented on a machine. Human life is and will always remain a mystery.

Because of relativism and irreducible complexity, things only make sense from a personal perspective. We must relate everything to our personal experiences.

The Objective/Logical Perspective

We are biological robots created through our coding instructions, the genes, and it is these that program our emotions, behaviors, and reactions. Since we have all the instructions needed to react to our environments, free will is an illusion created by the complexity of our brains' computations. Given an environment, we are genetically predisposed to act in a certain way.

Biological evolution is the genes' struggle for survival, and since the genes have evolved to solve adaptive problems in the past, humans have evolved and inherited the same solutions. Hence, beauty, fear, attraction, and love are universal across all cultures. We can and should understand others through our own eyes; there is absolute truth and moral. Men and women have faced different adaptive problems when it comes to mate selection, and so we should expect them to exhibit different but predictable emotions and behaviors.

What separates humans from other life forms is the level of complexity, and although an enormous challenge, it can and will be solved as we slowly unfold the various cognitive modules of the brain. Human life is a scientific problem like all others, unique only in its remarkable challenge.

Because of absolutism and reducible complexity, knowledge, and hence useful information, can only be acquired from an objective perspective. We must always take an independent observers point of view when learning new things.

These two memeplexes are quite the opposite of each other. They each address some fundamental questions about our essence: nature vs nurture, determinism vs indeterminism, absolutism vs relativism, algorithmic vs free will.

The fundamentals (nature/nurture, determinism, relativism, free will) are rarely mixed in any arbitrary combination, precisely because they easily become inconsistent. Nature is closer to genetical determinism, whereas nurture to indeterminism. Absolutism assumes the existence of a universal structure, whereas relativism rejects it. Structures are thought to be more or less predictable, and we end up having determinism again. The question of free will directly relates to determinism, because most people intuitively understand that a mechanistic universe, obeying predictable laws of nature, cannot give rise to free will. (Some logical people go one step further, noticing that random processes in the universe will only give rise to random will, certainly not free will.)

What I am arguing for is not that people consciously are aware of these assumptions, but that they typically use them in conversations without even question their truth. Through analysis and reasoning, it is hard to avoid some of the observations made in the second perspective (such as the rejection of free will interpretation made by most people). On the other hand, many people don't like long chains of reasoning: they prefer relying on direct first hand experience, intuition, and common sense, which all undoubtedly conclude that we have free will.

Since people dislike inconsistency (for good reasons), they don't hold both these perspectives simultaneously. People typically choose a mix of both, but certainly with a bias towards either based on how emotional vs logical their thinking is.

The logical perspective is about insight and knowledge. It is about looking at people as a scientist, and as always, the scientist should be separated from the experiment, which in this case is humanity. The logical perspective is very efficient when one needs to break down and understand what's going on. People can be understood in terms of probabilities and statistics. Solutions to typical social problems can be developed based on rational foresight. Various behaviors can be analyzed and interpreted in the right context.

The very strength in the logical perspective lies in its ability to separate yourself from what you are observing, and it is precisely this separation that so happens to be its biggest weakness too. The perspective offers great insight into the world outside of yourself, but virtually nothing about your own mind. Logical analysis can tell you why you feel in a certain way, but it has limited abilities actually making you feel differently.

On the other hand, the emotional perspective gives an incredible spectrum of colors to the world as you perceive it (relativism, again). It's a path to learn more about your own emotions: your experience of them, what they are trying to tell you, and how you should deal with it. It can help you overcome your fears and limiting beliefs. Developing in this way can make you feel more alive, bring more happiness and hence emotional state, and give you a deeper sense of consciousness.

However, the emotional perspective is also the opposite of the logical in terms of contribution: it does a poor job of analyzing the outside world, because it would rather ignore it when it doesn't correspond to your sense of reality.

As you may already suspect, the subjective and objective perspectives are both common among PUAs: typically, outer game guys tend to prefer the objective perspective whereas inner game guys tend to prefer the subjective one.

As you already know, I oppose myself both the inner and outer game paradigms, and it then makes sense that I would suggest leaving this dichotomy too. The way out is not to make a compromise between the two (as previously mentioned, this adds nothing new), but to be able to quite fully switch between them when appropriate. Here, "appropriate" refers to personal fitness: when you need to analyze, take the logical perspective. When you need to relate on a personal level, take the emotional perspective.

Switching can be difficult because the two perspectives are in sharp contrast to each other. Whenever there is a continuous transition from more external/analytical to more internal/emotional experience, there needs to be a binary threshold where one does a complete switch from the logical to emotional perspective (or vice versa). This is precisely why people who strongly adhere to one of these perspectives resist the opposite view, even when it makes sense to account for it. Switching too early doesn't make sense, because it would mean a loss of identity. Switching too late, i.e. resisting, means we don't get new insights.

Being an extremely logical person myself, I have had difficulties coping with the emotional perspective, on pretty much every level: personal, philosophical, and logical. It is only through my close relationship with FMI, my old LTR HB_hairdresser, and my current one, HB_coala, that I have come to discover the true power of the emotional perspective.

The key, to me, was to understand that whatever perspective we take, it is only a perspective, because the world is just the way it is. Reality doesn't change according to my perspectives. Only I change through my perspectives. The world is still the same, but I am not.

Whether I choose to relate to things personally or scientifically depends on how well those things connect with my core memeplex. It is only a question of whether the new memes should end up inside my core memeplex or in another memeplex with less personal value (see my first memetics post). In other words, if the new meme is very interesting, useful, or makes perfect sense with what I already value, I will relate to it personally. Otherwise, I will only understand it logically and introduce the new meme into another memeplex where it makes sense outside of the important things of my life.

The next memeplex will further clarify the switching between emotional and logical perspectives.

Mindfulness

The past cannot be changed, you can only learn from it. We can and should learn from it by analyzing it. We should take a logical perspective on past events. Never regret the things you've done: learn from your mistakes, but don't let them put you down. What can't be changed doesn't matter, and the past is a perfect example of something that can't be changed. Again,
the past should be analyzed with logic.

The future can only be predicted (correctly or incorrectly). We should plan our future using a logical perspective, based on our emotional preferences.

The moment can only be experience through emotions, not yet understood (as it takes several milliseconds to understand something consciously/logically). We should thus experience it with our emotional perspective when it fills us with positive emotions, or negative emotions that will ultimately give us something we will benefit from. When negative emotions don't serve a meaningful purpose to us, we should block them by switching to a logical perspective. This is done by acknowledging the situation, but observing it from the outside, only as an interesting phenomena worthy of further analysis (since it would normally have given you negative emotions, it is certainly worth to understand the situation logically).

So when I am writing to you here, I am mainly in logical mode because I'm analyzing my past experiences and current knowledge. Be sure however, that I am in emotional mode when kissing a beautiful girl or having sex. When something feels good, I am in emotional mode. When something ought to feel bad, I am in logical "protected" mode. And sometimes they can be mixed: when I lost my old LTR, one of the most important people in my life, I was happy thinking about how much more freedom this would give me to reach new heights in my development. At the same time, I logically understood that the price I had to pay for this growth was the ties that bound us. She could not understand why I didn't share her agony, but now you do: it is because I felt the positive emotions and understood the negative consequences.

Similarly, you may have both positive and negative emotions at the same time. The productive thing to do then is to focus on feeling the positive ones, while logically acknowledging the negative ones.

Think of your thoughts and emotions as a stream of consciousness. Most thoughts and emotions follow the next one. You are standing in a bar and you see a gorgeous girl. Your stream goes:

Hot girl. Feel attraction. Want sex. Need conversation. Need to approach. Feel nervous. Don't know what to say. May get rejected. Feel very nervous. Approach bad idea. Drink in the bar better (break out of this stream into another one)

See how your emotions controls the reasoning here? Since the emotions are negative, the reasoning is counter productive. The logical perspective doesn't remove your AA, because you are observing your environment as an outsider. You are the experimenter, they are the lab. You are separated from them. The perspective creates a gap that you will need to remove, typically using a canned opener (after all, this would be the obvious choice from a logical perspective).

Instead you could control the stream in this way:

Hot girl. Feel attraction. Want sex. Want to share reality. Want approach. Feel nervous. Feel attraction. Want approach. Want to share reality (opener starts here)

Here, you disconnect your negative emotions of fear by focusing on the positive emotion of attraction instead. That is, you must of course consider your attraction for someone as a positive thing, not as something that needs to be suppressed. The feeling is "I'm attracted to her, is she also attracted to me?". This is why you need to embrace her choice based on her attraction for you (see Principles and Pride). Then, you focus on what you want to do: approach to get to know her.

There is a belief that we need to feel pain and be sad in order to appreciate happiness. This is an good example of a meme that is false, provides you with negative fitness, but sounds good and hence has positive fitness itself. This latter fact means it is able to spread fast, which it does.

Although it is true that we need to experience variations to feel differences, i.e. "ups and downs", there is nothing that says that our "downs" have to be negative on the happiness-scale. On a scale -10 to 10, where -10 means extremely negative emotions (e.g. extreme sadness or anger), 0 indifference, and 10 complete happiness, there is nothing wrong with having a variation ranging from +5 to +10. That idea that we need to go down to -8 in order to experience +8 is a stupid zero-sum assumption of happiness, which creates social hierarchies where the least happy people are the ones with highest status, an example of a memeoid.

The Principles of Choice and Respect

Reality is something you discover, not develop. Reality is what it is, not what you or anyone else thinks it ought to be.

Trying to develop is what people are trying to do when they insist on everyone else having the same perspectives as themselves. You shouldn't motivate those who don't want to be motivated, and you shouldn't change those who don't want to change.

And you shouldn't make those who don't like you like you, whether they are girls or guys. You want people (and therefore girls) to choose or reject you based on your core memeplex. The principle of choice states that you should always embrace peoples choices of investing in you. This is much stronger than simply accepting other people's choices: acceptance is passive, embracement is active, you are actively giving the other person the choice: you or not you.

Peoples priorities is not something you should try to change, only discover. If you don't like the way they prioritize, you have two choices: leave them or let them know what you feel (show them your principles). The principle of respect states that you should show people your social rules (principles), and find out theirs. If they are too incompatible, compromise is not the solution. Instead, you move on, knowing it wasn't meant to be. And as long as there is compatibility, escalation can take place.

Discovering means taking things for what they are: some people will love you, others will hate you, and that is something you will appreciate.

Some things you'll discover are good, others are bad. This is where choice comes in: take what you like, and leave the rest. As Zan puts it, move towards beauty and away from things that are not. Take things for what they are. Never complain. Never let the bad things put you down. If something makes you feel worse, then why is it still in your life? Leave it behind. If you can't, then ask yourself what you can do. And if you still have a problem but truly believe you've done the best you can, then don't worry because the problem can't go away now!

Success Isolation [credit: Yusha.p]

You have a personality, filled with things that people may like and dislike. Do we have strengths and weaknesses, that is, can we really talk about some things being bad and others good? We can, if we choose to view our memes in terms of good and bad. We tend to do so for sure, but should we? It depends on the purpose.

We should never use our previous accomplishments, or our current successes, as an ego booster to achieve our future goals. Using the fact that you've closed a hundred girls may sound like a good idea to reduce your AA and feel confident during your next approach. The problem is simple: this prediction is as incorrect as it could be. In practice, boosting your confidence through good emotions from previous experiences has the exact opposite effect: it gives you more AA and hesitation!

This is because when you stimulate yourself based on previous success stories, you are tricking your mind into believing it has achieve an enormous amount of success, hence boosting your ego (remember what I've previously mentioned about the research on confidence due to Barkow?). With confidence built on your previous successes, your mind now feels that you are on top. It then becomes a terrible idea to take further risks considering the expected payoff: If you succeed with the next girl, you will only confirm what others already believe to be true: that you are a ladies man. On the other hand, if you fail, they will be disappointed, and your status will diminished. Since your confidence is built on this perception of status, it too will be decreased (again, by Barkow). The fear of status loss translates into fear of rejection, and there you have AA. You've lost before you've even begun.

This leads to the somewhat counter-intuitive realization that we can never let our long term well being (e.g. confidence, state) depend on our past achievements. We must go back to simplicity: the realization that each girl is a separate situation, that the one in front of you right now has nothing to do with the girls you had yesterday.

Yusha.p is the one who came to this realization.

Consistent intersections between this perspective and Mindfulness can be found: whenever you are interacting with one girl, it is only about you and her, in this moment. No one else matters, no where else in time matters. There is only the experience of the now.

In terms of existential duality, it is of course fine to enjoy your memories of successes, but it is important that the enjoyment stays in the moment you are enjoying them. Memories are not a form of therapy to increase your confidence. Past and present successes need to be emotionally isolated in terms of confidence. However, you should also learn from past experiences, in terms of causality, which amounts to using the logical perspective of bringing information gathered from your past into future decisions.

In my next post, I will present the fifth core and discuss the process of reprogramming oneself with the core five perspectives.

Any comments welcome.

Memetics: Principles and Pride

This post is a follow up to these two:
A World of Ideas
The Sovereign Meme

Another class of beliefs that are usually mistaken to be factual beliefs are opinions: "cheating is wrong", "brunettes are more attractive than blondes". Opinions don't have truth degree, instead they have degrees of good/bad, wrong/right (moral values), delicious/disgusting (taste), and alpha/gay (existential values). Opinions have conviction, the analogy to certainty in factual beliefs. And just like factual beliefs, they also have personal value. However, opinions are simpler than factual beliefs in one regard: personal value and conviction are, for all we need to care about, the same thing. It's hard to imagine someone strongly believing something is wrong without being touched by any observed injustice. By definition, we would equate "strong opinion" with "personal value". However, "has personal value" doesn't meant "takes it personally" when it comes to discussing: one of the key elements of being alpha with respect to opinions is the ability to have them and being able to tolerate those of others.

This brings us very close to what is essential about opinions. Some opinions aren't that interesting to study: I don't care whether you prefer strawberry or chocolate, kissing ears or necks, baths or showers. Instead, I will focus on one particular subset of opinions: principles. A principle, being a meme, is an algorithm. What it does is to trigger an emotion that will affect your behavior according to a set of conscious standards you have. In other words, a principle is a rule for decision making in a set of generalized situations.

Why do people have principles? Is it rational to have them? Compare the guy who will accept any flaky behavior from a girl, versus one who will by principle NEXT any girl that flakes. From a closing perspective, it would seem like the first guy would do better since he isn't eliminating any opportunities by accepting a couple of flakes in the hope of getting a close later. Even if it rarely works, it's still better than zero right?

Actually, it isn't that simple. The problem is that there are two disadvantages to this "pragmatic" strategy, and they are both invisible if one doesn't know where to look for them. Take the girls perspective for a moment, put yourself in her shoes: You are slightly interested by this guy you recently met, but you have other options too. You would like to meet him, but there are other things on your priority list as well. Now, it's time to make a choice: meet him now, or not now. By meeting him now, you could end up having a good night with a guy that turns out to be someone you like. Or it could turn into a nice conversation over a drink and nothing more. There is a discomfort in meeting new people face to face. Having dinner with your friends would therefore put you somewhere in between these two outcomes. Do you go for the risker bet of meeting him now or take the safe one of having dinner with your friends? The choice is not obvious. But what if I you knew that this guy would be available for a meet up next weekend if you were to choose the dinner? What if I told you he would always be available for a day 2, whenever you are ready? Suddenly, the investment of going on a day 2 isn't so important to make right now, since there will be lots of opportunities later. He can and will wait.

On the other hand, what if you didn't have that choice? What if you could only meet him this weekend and maybe the one after? It could be because he is only visiting your home town. Or it could be because from what you've learnt about him, he doesn't deal with that kind of indecisiveness. He would rather move on. If you are curious about him, you are presented with two simple choices: meet soon, or never. He won't wait.

You may now leave her perspective.

Here's the dilemma: what this entails is that there is a gain by having the principle of Nexting flakes, because you are restricting other peoples choices when they interfere with your own. Only...the gain of doing so is only useful before the damage is done, because when she does flake, there is no point in nexting her when you could give it another go! So faking a principle is the optimal strategy when we are playing this game once only. In reality, we are playing it again and again with different people, but because of gossip, people know about others principles. When we say someone is jealous, it means they punish behavior that they consider to be strategies of fear of loss. When we say someone is needy, it means they take any chance they can at getting somewhere. Does it sound like this last definition may have something to do with my analysis of principles above?

It has everything to do with it, but then principles have to do with a lot more than just that. In the many people version of the game above, where people know who will accept anything and who have what boundaries, the optimal strategy is not to fake principles but to follow them! So principles can and do provide a real benefit. These memes provide you with positive fitness.

The second advantage (remember, there were two) is that principles are indirectly transmitted to others through communication. A girl can almost smell which guys are needy and which are not. Many body language techniques are specifically given to help you avoid needy behavior, but imitating behavior is a form of "soft" memetic copying: you only learn the behavior, not the feeling. The idea, is that you will start to feel good when you behave in a certain way, which is true to a certain extent. The feeling that is missing is it the conviction of a principle, and since we by default behave in a manner congruent with our memes, it will actually be harder to have bad BL once these memes are installed. Principles are hence signaled through cues in your behavior. You are leaking some of your memes all the time, through state, through your voice, your choice of words, your facial expressions, what you are looking and when doing what, etc. The only viable solution is to hold a set of memes (with positive fitness), and relevant to our current discussion, a set of principles.

I want to illustrate a difference between the "inner game" and "outer game" paradigm. Every PU works like this: every girl has set of instructions related to PU. Some things she finds attractive, fun, funny, and some she finds creepy, needy, or gay. Due to biological evolution, many instructions are near identical in everyone, or follow a pattern based on environmental differences. Due to memetics, some are arbitrary. Whether the conscious mind is aware of these instruction or not is irrelevant: we only care about what behavior the instructions produce (which typically follows from what emotions they produce). Outer game is a game of calibration: you go in, you try to learn as much as possible about her instructions - by making inferences based on her hotness, her style, her attitude, the size and dynamics of her peer group, etc - so that you can find an appropriate sequence of actions that will bring her to your bedroom. Inner game is a frame game: you go in, you follow your own instructions, and if she likes them you'll have fun, if not, then you Next her. I am exaggerating the "be smooth vs don't give a fuck" attitude for a particular reason: I support none of them, and neither to a support something in between them.

Whereas outer game is about playing her game, inner game is about setting the rules of the game (showing her your rules).

By gaming girls, we can affect their choices towards us. Techniques are made precisely for that purpose: to "change her mind" about us, in terms of attraction. So we don't have to be slaves to others choices. Free will becomes an illusion. But one of the most profound realizations I've had is that I want girls to make that choice, because I want to be liked or dislike for who I am. I don't want girls to reject my opener. I want them to reject me, for everything I am, everything I symbolize. And I want them to like me because they have seen who I am, my core. It is about mutuality, and the realization comes from many years of experience: I have for a very long time suspected that attraction is to a large extent based on factors that are outside of our immediate control. It could be pheromones, genetic matching/mismatching, or anything else for all I know. (And it doesn't meant that we can't do anything to get attraction, it means that we can do things to get arbitrarily close to a certain bound on how much attraction we can get, but that bound is far below 100%) This uncontrollable element of attraction is ubiquitous. It works both to our advantage and disadvantage: some girls are automatically attracted to us, some are just not at all. And then there's everything in between. Attraction is a continuous measurem, I use a 10-scale. But why bother fighting to get something that you would want to be present from day one? Those who are initially 3/10 attracted to you will never experience 10/10 with you. That would be the equivalent of you experiencing a warpig as Carmen Electra, attraction wise.

Here's a thought experiment. Imagine the problem turned out to be pheromones. There is now a perfume that is able to create instant attraction, and combined with your own game, this means that you can now attract virtually anyone. Would you use it? Of course you would, I would too. But how would it be to see your FB lose attraction for you everytime the scent disappears because you're showering? As you literally wash away her attraction for you, she suddenly feels like being "alone" for a while. Until you put on your perfume again, and she's suddenly really sexually attracted again. With this in mind, is it not obvious that we must embrace the fact that some are naturally attracted to us, and others are not? When we only care about ONS, this becomes less relevant. But that's not what I am looking for. I am looking for LTRs (but not necessarily girlfriends, that is not something that can be decided ahead of time). In practice, you will rarely get the girl you want without attraction, it's working your way uphill. Yes, it is possible, and it can be fun to do it. But such relationships lack the sexual charge and tension that I find necessary to even feel alive to start with. My life is more important than PU, and so PU must serve the purpose of finding girls that improve my life. My life value can never be sacrifized for PU, and I will return to this below.

In terms of games and rules, here's a way to think about it: I don't want girls to think I'm uninterested or indifferent if I'm not. If I see something I like, then I'll go for it. I want them to know from the very beginning, because I want them to make the same choice. I like to open girls indirectly, but not because I want to fake disinterest: they still know I'm interested, and they understand that I'm using an indirect approach to give us both a space to communicate in another mode. I set the rules for our game, she chooses whether she wants to play or not. If she does, she will be able to communicate her own instructions during the game. From there only two things can happen: we will either escalate (socially and physically) until we end up having sex, or we will both realize that we are incompatible (our memetics are incompatible). It doesn't matter who makes the realization. What matters is that it is important for both of us: if a girl doesn't want me for something I am, then I am glad she found out because I don't want a girl that doesn't want me for who I am. And the reason why I don't want that, as mentioned above, is because it gives shitty relationships. I want a girl that believe in me, for all I am and do. And I want her feel something special everytime she sees me, from the first time we meet. If they don't feel that way about me, I have lost nothing. In terms of the escalation model, I am happy to use rationalized attraction (because it is very real), but I am not going to work my ass off just to get the escalation process started. If it doesn't start at all naturally, then I will leave it at that.

You won't understand this principle until you feel it: recall that memes need emotional attachment in order to trigger. And when you do feel it, you will see how profound this realization is. It is only one principle, but it is general and profound enough to imply a large set of smaller principles.

Should you assume attraction when you approach? No, because attraction is precisely what you are "looking" for. Yes, you will use your charisma to attract her. You may even want to use techniques/routines (I'll make a separate post about this when it's time). You will do the best you can, as you should always do. You will convey your core personality, and if she isn't attracted, it's time to move on (unless you're only there to socialize of course).

Should you chase girls? Never. You can show them that you want more of their attention or time, but if they don't reciprocate, you will always leave them alone. It's what they want, but it will also be what you want. All we will ever do is approach girls, show them who we are (our state and memes, I will talk about the details of this very soon), and once we have done that, we will only look to see if she's reciprocating herself to us. If she does there will be mutual escalation. If not it's over.

You will never keep texting or calling girls that don't respond. You will never plow. You will never excuse yourself for being rejected. You will never be sad or disappointed for being rejected. You will never let go of who you are, no matter who you are with, and that is what matters. It's about respect, and I want to elaborate on the connection between principles and respect.

Yusha.p analyzed how respect is built between two people: First, you give others knowledge of your principles (normally this is done indirectly through subcommunication). Then, you try to figure out the other persons principles, and follow their principles whenever it doesn't collide with your own (the part where respect is displayed). When their principles collide with yours, you go back to showing them your own principles.

You don't treat others as you want to be treated; you treat them as they would like to be treated. And you expect them to treat you the way you want to be treated. In most instances, this isn't something we consciously think about, because we have social norms that enforce a culturally agreed upon set of behaviors. Many of these are universal: we only need to look at the deviations from the expected. So when someone says "I like energetic people", we assume he means "I like people that are more energetic than what you would expect from me if I hadn't said so".

As Yusha.p points out, his breakdown entails that a person without principles will only adhere to others principles. He has no boundaries, and is only conforming to others. This is gay.

Another point to make, is that you will not get along with everyone. Some people will be incompatible with you, because they may have a principle that directly contradicts one of yours. Perhaps when they say "see you at 18 tomorrow" they implicitly add "unless any of my girls call for sex, or I feel like going out", which is not the way you interpret it. The failure in communication reflects the differences in beliefs.

Some people conform to others beliefs just to get along. This is an example of a reactive behavior at the memetic core, and I think the consequences for your own core (that is, for you) can be devastating in the long run. The prize we pay for being ourselves may even be dislike among some people, but that's what it truly means to stand out, to be yourself and nothing else but that. Recall that I want others to choose or reject me for who I am, and that I don't want girls that aren't naturally attracted to me. It's pretty much all or nothing. I want people to be "meant" to be to me. My closest friends and girls, we never had to meet each other half way in between our dreams, for we share similar dreams and paths.

Now, I want you to apply Yusha.p's principle of respect to yourself: it then says you have figure out your own principles, and follow them as long as they are consistent with your other principles. We cannot show other people our principles if we don't understand them. And we can't expect them to value our principles if we don't follow them ourselves. Moreover, inconsistencies (meme paradoxes) lead to double standards, something people definitely disrespect. The conclusion is obvious: if you don't have self respect, you cannot allow for others to respect you.

There is no relaxing of these conditions. I see guys in this community that do exactly the same things as AFCs: they are needy, plow in every possible way, and never give up. The difference, as they would have it, is that they are "community guys" and they are doing it to "practice". That's fine if you mean practice as in "have a sticking point and will do whatever it takes to solve it within 4 weeks" (see my previous post), because doing it a couple of times during a limited time decreases the damages it causes you. Most important, the requirement is that you install the proper memes and that the purpose of the training is to stimulate the memes, to spark them to life. So that you will start believing in them. This is a far step from what most of these guys are doing, because to them it has nothing to do about their memes, and everything to do with this one particular girl: if they could only plow just a little bit more, and see how it goes...maybe she will change her mind? There is no lesson to learn from this mindset, because there are no new memes that get installed. There is only meaningless hope from a primitive brain that cannot see the long term consequence of its own choices.

You can't possibly hold the principle I've defined above if you behave in a manner incongruent with it.

FMI's paradox is this: you learn game because you want girls. To get girls, you learn that you shouldn't care too much about girls. So you stop caring about girls...but for what reason? Well, so that you can have girls. But...in order to have girls, you can't care about girls! It's a memetic paradox, and I believe the reason why so many guys never get good "inner game" is because of this core inconsistency. With the paradigm I've presented to you, FMI's paradox doesn't appear to begin with, because you should care about girls. You should give them attention, interest, and sometimes love. And you should never compromise your own beliefs and principles while doing so. Girls become an important element of your life, but they could never consume nor dictate it.

That's all for now. Give it some serious thought. Reread it until you understand it. It is one of the most profound realizations I've had, I've paid a big prize to get to it, and I did so without hesitating because of my own conviction that this paradigm is what I have been looking for during the last six months.

My next posts will give practical advice on memetic self reprogramming, examples of powerful memes, and a FR about what it looks like when I'm using this paradigm in the real world.