So in addition to dating two great girls, I had a brief fling with a much younger woman who is absolutely gorgeous. She was easily one of the most attractive women I've ever been with, which distracted me from some of the red flags indicating that this wouldn't be more than a fling. I think we all fall into this trap from time to time. The more successful we get, the more attractive and desirable women we have in our lives and the more quickly we lose perspective about how we got where we are. Two years ago, I would never have believed that I'd be where I am now, and I'd have had unquenchable crushes on half the women I've placed permanently into the friend-zone for various reasons.

In the case of my fling, she's been a good friend for a long time. When we finally got together, it absolutely blew my mind because she really is gorgeous. Regardless, she's much younger than I am, which comes with a heaping dose of potential problems. After allowing myself to be blinded by my success with her, I finally took a step back and realized that it wasn't going to go anywhere good. I hope that I stepped back before making a complete ass out of myself. I'm not even particularly upset about it because I'm still dating two very cool girls, neither of whom seem to be anxious to make things more exclusive or serious. It's hard to be upset with that.

Tags: dating, david deangelo, mystery method, niel strauss, pick-up artists, pua, relationships, seduction
Current Mood: blah

One of the two women I'm dating, we'll call her "Colorado" met me after having a short fling with another guy. She's kept the guy in her life, despite having made a number of comments to me about how annoying he's become. In a previous life, I'd be insecure about the fact that she's keeping him around and feel the need to compete with this guy for her attention and affection. This is very beta behavior and I certainly don't feel the need to do it any more. This is probably one of the most significant transformations of my personality I've undergone since starting this journey, one that we should all undergo.

It helps that she's one of two women I'm dating. It also helps that I have plenty of other dating options if she decides she wants to part ways. More to the point, I don't want to be with someone who doesn't want to be with me; there are plenty of other fish in the proverbial sea. This mind set is essential to keeping your game tight. Allowing yourself to get too attached to a particular girl, especially prematurely is a recipe for driving her away, which is what my "competition" is actively doing. Let's compare and contrast approaches keeping in mind that what I say about his tactics is largely second-hand information provided by Colorado.

The two of them met at a Halloween party and hooked up for the weekend. He is apparently from out of town and lives approximately 4 hours away. On the basis of a weekend's tryst, he's trying to get her to relocate to his town and move in with him. After their first time together, he showed up to see her bearing flowers and truffles. Apparently he also gained access to her computer and sent himself an email from her account so that he could keep in touch with her that way. Aside from extremely bad boundary issues and generally creepy behavior, I think we can all see the reasons this guy is driving her away.

My approach with Colorado has been almost a polar opposite. At the time I met her, I was about to perform so my head space had nothing to do with meeting women. I was already apparently in the company of two very attractive women so I had plenty of social proof and higher social value. I've made it clear that my social calendar is already very busy (which it is) and so we don't see each other very often, perhaps once or twice a week. I rarely call her except to make plans and I've made it clear that I don't do SMS text messages. In short, I've set very clear boundaries with her which she seems perfectly content to respect.

The effect of the difference in our approaches is that Colorado is annoyed by the other guy's behavior and very responsive to me. She tells me that she considers me a challenge and that she likes how in control of her I am. I also don't express any negative or jealous-sounding sentiments about this other guy's attention towards her. I tease her about it lightly, but I don't harp on it. Meanwhile, his reaction to me is pretty negative. Apparently he's even expressed the desire to fight me and has gone so far as to ask her "what does he have that I don't?" Knowing that she was going to spend the evening with me last Friday, he made sure to call her pretty early on Saturday morning while she and I were still in bed. Again, I was amused but she was pissed. Poor guy, he just doesn't understand.

Now, admittedly, there is some question as to why she's maintaining any contact with this guy and I suppose if it really bothered me much I could analyze it. I'm sure she appreciates the attention even if it can be annoying. If I were more into her at this point, I suppose this would be a red flag for me, but its only been a week and that's far too soon to get very attached. He'll play his game, she'll play hers and I'll play mine.

Tags: dating, david deangelo, mystery method, niel strauss, pick-up artists, pua, relationships, romance, seduction
Current Mood: cheerful

I'm absolutely exhausted as I'm writing this but my mind is reeling and I feel like I need to put what I'm feeling down. Last night, I spent the night with the new girl. It was unintentional, but I don't regret it at all. We had an amazing time. Once again, all the work I've done on sexual communication really paid off. So much so that she's labeled me a "God among men" when it comes to sex. As much of an ego boost as it is to kiss-close a girl, it doesn't even approach being told that.

Where things get very interesting is that, I'm now getting text messages from the other girl I'm dating. She and I haven't seen each other much in the past two weeks because she went on vacation and is now working at a conference in town. Before she left, we had a wonderful encounter that didn't go all the way, but gave her a few things to think about. We didn't talk about it when she got back, I just waited to see if there would be a reaction. Today, the text messages confirmed that yes, our last time together was very much in her mind, and she is looking for a repeat performance tonight. My mind is blown.

Considering the guy I was even two years ago, this is a monumental improvement. I simply can't imagine ever going back to the way I was before. The only down side is that I haven't seen much sleep in awhile.

Tags: dating, david deangelo, mystery method, niel strauss, pick-up artists, pua, romance, seduction
Current Mood: tired

I was riding pretty high on my successes this week, but last night really cemented how far I've come in my journey. It was a validation of all the material I've learned and struggled to incorporate into who I am. While I still need to keep in mind that I have a long road still ahead, its fulfilling to reap the rewards of milestones earned.

Last night I called the girl who approached me at the comedy showcase and met her for a drink. Although I wasn't originally intending to meet up with her that night, the plan worked out great. We had a pot of tea at a local independent and appropriately snobby coffee shop, and then moved to a bar. I had a series of planned transitions so as to cram 2-3 mini-dates into the evening assuming things went well. Each time, I had an out planned as well just in case things started to go badly.

It was clear from the beginning that she was very into me, and also nervous. Considering how I grew up, to have this happen was hugely flattering because this girl is very good looking. Knowing how into me she was, and knowing that I'm already successfully in with another girl, it was very easy to be casual and in control of the evening. This turned out to be an extremely important mind set.

At the bar, I started getting very serious IOIs and knew that there were green lights ahead. However, in our conversation, she mentioned that she had recently had several casual flings with guys who were obviously deeply in the AFC category. I knew that success would depend on me demonstrating how different I was from these guys. I made sure to set conversational boundaries and then after a little kino escalation, I told her that while I was enjoying her company, she was absolutely not going to get laid tonight. Fortune favors the bold and this comment suddenly rendered the "doggy dinner bowl" expression we've all read so much about.

At that point, it was time to move to another more private place, but I knew that moving to her place or mine would be too uncomfortable. Instead we went for a walk along the riverwalk and ended up making out for a long while. She turned our first kiss into an aggressive one, that I immediately broke from and softly told her to slow down. All of the sexual communication material that David DeAngelo has should be required listening for any guy doing this journey. It didn't take long before she needed to take a deep breath and put up some last minute resistance. Again, I re-iterated that while I was enjoying her, I was not going to have sex with her that night. Setting that boundary myself meant that I took it away from her and showed her again that I was in complete control. Another boundary I set was when she bit my neck a little hard and commented that she liked to leave marks. I assured her that it would not be in her best interest to do that with me. She replied playfully asking "what if it was an accident" and again I shut her down saying that those kinds of marks are never accidents and re-affirmed that it would not be a good idea for her to do it. She commented on this a little bit later, expressing just how different I was from the guys she had recently been involved with and how she could walk all over them, but that I was a challenge.

To me, this is validation of everything that we learn about pick-up artistry. This woman sees me as a challenge, as someone of high status who will not simply let her run roughshod over me because I find her attractive. It will be extremely important for me to maintain this dynamic, something that I feel I can do because, while I definitely dig her, I also dig the other woman I'm dating, and I'm not eager to jump into anything serious with either of them right now. It will be essential for me to maintain my frame with both women and to ensure that I'm completely casual about dating them both. Part of that will involve setting boundaries with them both. I'm already very busy, so making time to spend with both of them will be a challenge, but it will also help me focus and not get too wrapped up in either of them. Right now, however, I intend to bask in the glory of the moment for a little bit longer because after what I've been going through emotionally, this feels _very_ good.

Tags: dating, david deangelo, mystery method, niel strauss, pick-up artists, relationships, seduction
Current Mood: ecstatic

As a side effect of this journey, I decided on a whim to try my hand at doing stand-up comedy. My thought process was to go do an open-mic performance one time just to see if I could hold my nerve. At the time, my schedule was pretty hectic so I held it in the back of my mind, worked on some material and then after a few weeks, went to the club and put my name on the list. Through a twist of fate, I was able to go up that night and perform. Despite being extremely nervous and in the presence of some very seasoned comics, I made it through and by all accounts did very well, although I remember very little about that night.

What followed was a slowly increasing interest in doing stand-up comedy as a hobby as a way of building up my confidence in groups. I found as I slowly got better with my comedy acts, my personality off-stage similarly improved. I've always been pretty social, but where I'm at now makes my previous self seem like an awkward introvert. Standing up on stage, even just doing a 4 minute open-mic set for 15 people, running the risk of completely bombing and being boo'ed off stage has effectively killed any approach anxiety I ever had. I can now approach anyone, any time, for any reason and that's liberating as hell.

I never really intended to use comedy, in the direct sense, as a springboard for meeting women; it was always meant to be a tool for building up some of the interpersonal skills I could then use in other places. Even so, I have heard many times, and it makes sense when you factor in Mystery's discussion of being the leader of your tribe, that doing something like successfully performing on stage, can also have direct benefits in attracting women.

Last night I performed at a showcase of local comics. I was asked to perform based on the strength of my open-mic material and it was really a great validation of the work I've been doing on my comedy to have been invited. At the last minute, two very dear, very attractive female friends of mine showed up to watch me perform. I did my set, which went very well, and then afterwards sat down in front with a hot girl on each side to watch the rest of the show. Afterwards, one of the other comics came up to let me know that his female room mate thought I was cute and wanted him to put us in contact. What an amazing feeling that was!

Breaking it down, I can see how the whole evening really worked in my favor. When I first talked to the girl, it was very brief as part of a larger group. I made a comment or two and then immediately moved on. This is exactly the kind of behavior we are supposed to be using anyhow in large mixed groups, but I did it naturally, without thinking about it, because I was getting geared up for my set. This must have first piqued her interest. Then, having a successful set only further served to demonstrate higher value, which was then set in stone when I spent the rest of the evening in the company of the two most attractive women in the building. None of this was planned of course, but in some ways that makes it more of a success.

Considering the emotional hardships I've been doing through lately, this was a nice reminder of how powerful the PUA material is, and how happy I am to have it as a part of my life. It also means that my social life may very well be pretty busy for awhile. What a shame!

Tags: dating, david deangelo, mystery method, niel strauss, pick-up artists, relationships, seduction
Current Mood: accomplished

I've held off with this post for awhile because the emotions were still pretty raw and my feelings about it weren't entirely organized. I'm in a much more philosophical frame of mind now and feel I can do the story the objective justice it deserves.

Around May, my girlfriend's mother became extremely sick. So sick, in fact, that my girlfriend was forced to fly back to Australia to be with her. It's since become clear that, while her mother will make a full recovery eventually, the road to recovery is going to be long and arduous. My girlfriend's family needed her, and she didn't hesitate to tear up her roots here to move home and do what needed to be done. Her willingness and ability to make such a huge sacrifice on behalf of her family has only confirms what an amazing woman she is. Of course, it also put some strain on our relationship.

Prior to her mom getting sick, my girlfriend and I had been talking about moving in together. I was also making more concrete plans around us. With her relocation back to Australia, all of that had to change. Her emotional focus needed to be on her family and her mom's recovery. While I was certainly willing to entertain the idea of relocating myself to Australia as well, it wasn't something as simple and packing a couple of bags and buying a ticket. It became clear that we would have some protracted time apart. During that time, we fell out of connection with each other. Long distance is hard enough, especially when being on almost exactly opposite time zones, but the addition of the emotional trauma and shock inflicted by her mom's illness, has taken the spark out of the woman I've been in love with. Both seeing what was happening, we put our relationship on hold, broke up and agreed to stay in touch and stay friends.

While seemingly a contrary move, this was the best decision at the time for us both, but it wasn't easy. I think its clear from my previous posts the depths of the feelings I have for this woman. I made the decision because I know that she needs to focus her emotional attention on her family and on re-building her life and career back in Sydney. The last thing she needs is to contend with trying to maintain a relationship across the world. I know that if there is to be a chance for her and I later, that ending things when we did was the right choice. She can work on the things she needs to do, and I can do what I need as well. If its meant to be, we'll find a way.

In the meantime, I've been spending a lot of time dusting off my game, reviewing some of my study material and going out. While I'm not doing any serious hunting, just going out and running game has helped improve my attitude about where things stand for me. I've also come to the conclusion that, while guys like Mystery can be very successful with women on the initial meeting, eventually the cracks in their facade show through and the women lose interest. They are giving the appearance of substance, without the actuality of it. It's a stage performance, a very effective one. While I have a deep respect for their craft, I know that for myself, its much more important to me to have actual substance. For that reason, I intend to be spending a lot of time working through the David DeAngelo Inner Game and Mastery material. I'm also doing some other self-improvement things just for myself. I'm happy and content right now, taking every thing one day at a time.

Tags: dating, david deangelo, mystery method, neil strauss, pick-up artists, relationships, seduction, self-confidence
Current Mood: happy

I've seen this happen with a few guys lately and the most recent example screams for me to write about it. A certain class of guys seems completely incapable of being separated from a woman he's involved with while in social settings. You see this behavior at parties where the guy shadows his wife or girlfriend around as she socializes with their friends. In fact, this behavior is so commonplace that its become fodder for social satire. I used to assume that this was behavior bred into men over years of being in a relationship with a woman. I even used to use analogies like the jungle cat who has been captured and put into a zoo, slowly becoming docile and domesticated over the years of seeing life through the bars of a cage. Unfortunately, I've learned the error of my thinking. At least in some cases, this behavior pre-exists the relationship. Take, for example, the case of a female friend of mine.

We'll call her "Katie". She's stunningly attractive. She's also a very sweet girl with lots of charm and intelligence. Most guys would consider her to be a complete catch, which is why she has no shortage of guys circling for an opportunity to date her. The most recent guy, we'll call "Vance" was introduced to her at a dance. Apparently Vance can't dance, but he gave it the old college try and I respect that a lot. Unfortunately, Vance has since expressed a desire to be the only guy who dances with her. Bad Vance, no biscuit!

Is it any wonder that I'm going to be spending the evening in the company of this lovely woman and Vance isn't? No, this isn't one of those self-aggrandizing comparison posts. I'm not even pursuing this girl romantically. The reason she's going out tonight and leaving him at home is that Vance apparently never mastered the founding principle of pre-school social interaction: sharing. By trying to monopolize her time, Vance demonstrated low value and low self-esteem. A high value guy doesn't want or need to monopolize the time of a desirable woman, he has access to plenty of them; a high value guy doesn't need to be possessive.

Women, especially attractive, highly desirable woman are regularly exposed to every possible archetype of guy. The very smart ones can quickly extrapolate out what a relationship with each new guy would be like. By demonstrating low value, neediness and low-self esteem, a relationship with Vance, at least from Katie's perspective, is likely to be an endless series of awkward social encounters where she has to pull his weight as well as her own. Or, even worse, she'll have to sacrifice her social agenda and friends because Vance isn't comfortable with her going out with anyone other than him. Vance may not fit this mold. He could be a genuinely good guy. Unfortunately, he may never get the chance to demonstrate that. He's already got a solid strike against him and that may be all that Katie needs to move on to the next contender for her attention. If only he'd learned to share.

Tags: dating, mystery method, niel strauss, pick-up artists, relationships, seduction
Current Mood: apathetic

I came across one of the most complete and comprehensive examples of utter failure on YouTube today. This video has been making its way around all the viral meme sites and so I'm sure you've probably seen it before. If you haven't, I'm including it in all its glory here. What makes it extra special is that this guy has clearly done some work with PUA material. Unfortunately for him, he obviously hasn't internalized any of the lessons. Also, he suffers from a very overdeveloped sense of himself and he hasn't learned when to shut up. Here's the video, and we'll talk more after the jump:



So, let's talk about this a little. When you call a woman, confidence is a great thing to have. Over-confidence is not. There's a fine line between "cocky" and "asshole". Leaving a voice mail for a woman that you've only had a 2-minute conversation with isn't a good place to push the limit as you have had no opportunity to really calibrate. Where Dmitri really falls flat here is that he's not actually confident, and it becomes painfully obvious. When guys are not confident, they tend to talk WAY more than they should. They ramble. If you do this on the phone with a woman you barely know, every second that ticks by and every inane thing that comes out of your mouth causes whatever interest she had in you to fade rapidly. Messages should be short, sweet and to the point.

Keep self-aggrandizing talk out of it. Women, especially attractive, desirable women, have heard just about every story a guy can tell about how great he is or how cool his life is. Guys who have cool lives, lake houses, million dollar yachts or who work on movies don't throw that out there the second they meet someone. Having these things is a part of who they are and they don't need to advertise it. If you try to, even if you do work in movies or own a yacht, you come across as a liar. Remember than really attractive, desirable women have had every line in the book thrown at them. Most of them have actually been with guys who live cool lives. They notice details. They can smell the bullshit.

Let's expand on this point a little. Saying too much will always hurt you. Women like mystery, that excites them. Calling a woman and expounding for 5-10 minutes about how busy you are and all the things you're doing kills the mystery and sounds like bullshit. People who are that busy rarely have 5-10 minutes to leave a voice mail. More importantly, people who are that busy never have time to make a second phone call days later to follow up. If you leave a message for a woman and she doesn't return your call, don't ever call her back. Remember that you're far too busy with the other women in your life to waste time waiting and hoping for one particular one to call you back. It smacks of neediness and what David DeAngelo calls the "wuss factor".

In the same vein, you never want to tell a woman how attractive, desirable and selective you are. This is what Mystery talks about as "social proof". Being seen in a club or out with many different attractive women having a good time tells women all they need to know about how desirable and attractive you are. Having a good female wing who can help sell you up only helps this process. Never say something that can easily be demonstrated by your actions and behavior.

Lastly, and I kept this one because its the most important rule. Never, ever become abusive or hateful. I'm a firm believer in karma, but even if you're not, this youtube video is an excellent example of your hatefulness turning around and biting you in the ass. If a woman rejects you, even if she's hateful to you, don't reciprocate. If a woman doesn't call you back, don't leave messages on her voice mail accusing her of mental instability. In addition to killing even the slimmest chance you had of ever hearing from her again, there's a very good chance that she'll share her experience with you with all of her friends and there's a very good chance that you'll run into one of those friends at some point when its lease convenient for you.

Don't be a Dmitri. Don't be a douche.

Tags: dating, david deangelo, failure, mystery method, pick-up artists, relationships, seduction
Current Mood: amused

Last night I was invited to a dinner party at a friend's house and had the opportunity to meet a girl he'd just started dating. The dinner party was good times, and gave me an opportunity to witness, up-close and personal a guy make a complete jackass out of himself. Now, admittedly, this isn't exactly a new phenomenon, you can see this kind of thing at any bar or club from 1am to last call, but this was the first time I've had a chance to see a guy go the full range from being a relatively interesting guy to being a complete blithering idiot in the course of a few hours.

The dinner party was a mixed group including several guys I'd never met before. I knew all the girls except the new one. We were all drinking, although most of us maintained a little more moderation than others. Unfortunately, when the new girl showed up, there was a decent amount of ogling because she is an attractive girl. Unfortunately, as the liquor set in, especially with one guy, that old game of attempting to impress the girl with self-aggrandizing stories started. It's never good to see and women definitely know about this game and they're rarely impressed. Again, if the girl isn't already attracted to you, you can't build attraction by telling her stories about how great you are. Further, if you're drunk, your judgement about what stories to tell and your sense of humor is going to be impaired.

In a nutshell, the drunk guy made a bit of an ass out of himself. He was clearly trying to make points with his buddy's girlfriend which is never a cool move, plus he was failing in a major way. The fact that he was wearing a wedding ring only helped catapult him into the realms of douchebaggery.

Tags: dating, mystery method, niel strauss, pick-up artists, relationships, seduction
Current Mood: contemplative

I've recently run into a couple of women who can't be happy with plans and instead try to get you to deviate from existing plans, apparently just to inflate their own egos and demonstrate your willingness to cave. David DeAngelo talks about this, but I'd never personally experienced it. Then suddenly I did.

This girl is a friend and I was making plans for a group outing where I was going to introduce her to a male friend of mine. The outing was planned, people were invited and then she tries the whole "what if we went to this other place instead?" Gentlemen, this is a ploy. This is what Mystery calls a "shit test" where she's trying to see if you'll submit to her boorish behavior like all other guys. Since I'm not interested in her, and have more self-respect than that, of course I immediately told her no and she calmly submitted.

There's no reason to make a capital case out of it or call her on it. When a woman tries this ploy with you, whether you're head over heels for her or not, the answer is always "no". In fact, think of her as a small child trying to do something bratty. There's no reason to get upset, its what bratty children (and beautiful women) tend to do. Say "no" and hold firm. If she decides she wants to push the issue, then drop your plans with her entirely and make yourself unavailable to her for awhile. See if that adjusts her behavior.

Tags: dating, david deangelo, mystery method, niel strauss, pick-up artists, relationships
Current Mood: apathetic