What is the most common proximate cause for failure when trying to meet and connect with women?

So many times in the community, guys make up these really flashy and cool sounding techniques to blow away any problem that arises in an approach. Methods make it seem that the more techniques one knows, the better equipped one is for the field. It’s like going into battle with every weapon imaginable.

Did Bruce Lee ever take down 50 guys by going into a fight with 50 weapons? No.

So these guys who are running routine stacks, boyfriend destroyers, cold readings, DHV Stories, AMOG plans, etc… are all trying to pull an “off the shelf solution” to remedy whatever they see as a problem. Many times it ends up like a child taking a square peg, and trying to mash it into the circle opening.

Rather then trying to fit some “uber-kewl technique” to a situation, stick to being 100% committed to the interaction and realize that there are other things going on outside of the question “is she into me”. Be social. Be ok with not knowing how to handle EVERY situation out there. Be ok with your flaws. Focus on your vibe and the logistics of the current situation.

Don’t become one of those guys who try to read every possible piece of information on pick-up out there, and expect to hit the ground with “mad skillz”. Much like a warrior going into battle with 50 weapons, they will end up stuck, unable to move. And then wondering why they aren’t successful.

Here is an example of a profile I came across from a new co-worker of mine. He is a really nice guy, and decided to recently start a myspace page. His profile resembles what mine would have looked like a couple years ago.

About me:
I just moved to —— for a great work opportunity and am enjoying what the city has to offer (including viewing the incredible ——— mountains as I write this). I’d like to meet an intelligent, attractive, woman who stays in good shape. I love to travel - especially internationally. My favorite destinations are Europe and the Caribbean. I also enjoy taking cruises. Meeting new people, learning new cultures and histories of the area, eating new foods, and visiting museums are great fun. I also like to play tennis, table tennis, golf, Duplicate Bridge, and poker. Don’t worry, I’m not compulsive about these. I’ve had success with my career and other pursuits, but I haven’t found the right woman, yet. I’m surprised that I’m still single (ergo my branching out on MySpace) and without children because I’d like to have both in my life, be it yours or ours. I’m easy-going and optimistic; financially and emotionally stable; witty, warm, worldly, and wise; and work hard at building relationships with people who are important in my life. I believe in honesty, integrity, always trying to better myself, living life to the fullest, and keeping a sound mind and fit body (I work out regularly). I enjoy stimulating conversation on myriad subjects with an intelligent woman. Do you like being with a man who knows how to put a smile on your face, treat you with respect, and who supports your goals and dreams? The best compliment I ever got was from a relative who said I had the kindest heart of anyone she knew. By the way, most people are very surprised to find out I’m over 40 (I sure don’t feel it). It’s amazing what a young heart and liberal amount of sun block can do!……….

Who I’d like to meet:
My ideal match would be a woman who is educated, intelligent with common sense, attractive, healthy, fit, principled, a good communicator, curious, honest, loves life, is positive, goal and family-oriented, not too religious and not bigoted. I’m less concerned about age as I am about the quality of your “being.” And would I be asking for too much if you had some sweetness and sophistication to your character?

I came to a realization a year or so ago, that this is NOT what keeps women interested. If the woman in fact reads this all, they will not only close the page, but probably find some way to block it from ever appearing on their screen again.

A couple weeks ago, I was spending sometime with two young female co-workers at my place. They both have “boyfriends” but like any other young attractive women, can smell neediness miles away, even through an internet connection haha. We ended up browsing myspace profiles and gossiping about them, and came across this one. The girls proceeded to read it aloud and basically ripped this guy to shreds, it almost made me cry. After about 30 minutes of talking about his profile (yes 30 minutes) they then ended the topic by saying “I feel so sorry for the guy, he seems really nice”.

I felt like standing up and screaming in defense of all men who have been at that point where they spend so much time talking about themselves (which women always say they want to know more about you, etc) and women dump all over it. Instead, I just remembered how far I came from something even as simple as posting an interesting profile that gets womens attention. If I could do it, and I’ve seen so many others do it, there is no reason for anyone to put up a profile like this… they just need the right direction.

A “dating for men” article on a popular womens dating website (not the best target audience haha) had some things to say about most mens introductions.

They used a couple common examples like:

Starting online profiles or correspondence with “God, this is so hard! What do I say about myself?”
If it’s that hard, it doesn’t bode well for the future…..

Men who don’t bother to write anything about themselves, don’t post photos, then complain that they never get any responses from women
like what is she supposed to go on?

Men who don’t bother to write anything about themselves, and expect women to “interview” them; “right, what do you want/need to know about me?”
It’s supposed to be fun guys, not about presenting for a job!

Aside from actually messaging women online, and wanting to peak their interest in you when they look at your profile… there are actually women who browse personals looking and messaging guys first. So it really is important to have an introduction that at the very least doesn’t send a woman screaming, and preferably one that keeps the woman’s attention to the point where she would want to know more about what you are really like.

In a few days I will post an example of what scares away women. Poor co-worker of mine needs help… badly!!

We all tend to sabotoge ourselves better then any other person can. I still have this thought when in a conversation with a woman, that if I tell her my intentions that it would make her uncomfortable.

In fact, I am hoping I do or don’t. I want to know right away if the thought is the farthest thing from her mind, or if she is open to the idea and continue on.

A quote from a recent Cosmo magazine designed to help women to be open about what they want in relationships really helps me when I start to think about this issue.

This might make someone uncomfortable, but is their discomfort a valid reason for me not to go for what I want?

As long as I am honest with my intentions, I owe it to myself to pursue my goals.

There is so much information out there for men who are wanting to improve themselves. Since the begging of time, women have had the training from childhood on how to attract men. Mothers dressing up their daughters, to magazines, to TV Shows, to a store called Victoria’s Secret. There has never been the male equivalant to such wealth of knowledge as there is now.

As liberating as it is to have this amount of knowledge available, there is a ton of bad advice out there. Just the other day I was reading a blog from David Wygant, a “dating guru” I occasionaly like to read up on. I was floored to hear some of his advice to a member who questioned him on dating two people at the same time. This person was having trouble “keeping the stories straight”. Rather then get to the root issue, and have a healthy discussion of why you should never lie and hide relationships from others, he had this to say:

“Concentrate a little more, and remember what is distinctly different between the two of them.”

He even went on as far to say that this person should keep a journal (which is a great thing) but for the purpose of keeping the stories straight between the people they date!

I could only shake my head as I closed the browser…

There are some simple ways to move the interaction to a phone conversation while chatting online.

My personal approach to getting the phone number normally takes one of two styles to it.

• Time constraint. Mentioning I am about to sign off-line to do something else (cook dinner, get ready for bed, go get the mail, whatever) but I would like to continue the conversation at this very moment, without ending it. The point to get across here, is that you are only unavailable at your computer… not unavailable from talking. If you say “Well I have to go to bed now” or “I need to go eat dinner”, that leaves no room for continuing the conversation. You want to convey that you are still available to talk to, just not at the computer.

orRegardless of which approach you get her on the phone with you have some simple goals at this step.

Wayne Elise (Juggler) explains escalation as “taking something to another level.”

Escalation when dealing with online conversations needs to be handled differently then in real world conversations. In the real world what you say is a very small part of your conversation with the girl when you meet for the first time. The way you say it, the tone, the pitch, the confidence behind it, the congruity of how it comes across, the physical touching, the facial expressions… all of that, speaks louder then your words ever could.

But online, words are the only medium you have to convey your intentions and thoughts. So escalation in this realm that I am talking about is the steps you take to get the conversation from one point to another level.

What do the majority of single men on the internet do when trying to talk to single women online do (or don’t do actually)? Most men get in that zone where they are in an online messaging relationship. Even if they hate the fact that it’s going no where outside of the messages back and forth, they do nothing to remedy that… but at least they have a new girl to add to their friends list or messenger contacts right? Wow… congrats to them!!

What’s more is they end up showering the woman with comments that she hears all the time. You’ve seen em, and you’ve sent them I’m sure. We all have. “You’re so beautiful”, “You have sexy eyes”, “So pretty”, etc. Basically they are saying “You are too beautiful for me”, and unfortunately it’s even said in those exact words sometimes!

The main escalations in an online pick up:

First Message

- Going from no contact, to reaching out to connect
- There is more detail on this part of the online approach in the forum Openers

Reply

- Without this, you have no conversation. The reply is an escalation on her part showing she gave the time to respond to your comments. Unlike the real world where she is almost forced to say something (good or bad), online she has the choice to not respond (the bad response).. which makes any response a good response for the most part. (ok, her responding for you to jump off a tall building is a bad response… unless she adds a smiley face to the end of the message)

Fun conversation

- You’ve gotten past the “who is this guy” or “who are you” tone of the messages, and it’s turned into a fun time for the both of you.
- If you both are having a good time messaging, the jump to a more personalized conversation is much more easier.

Messenger

- A fast way for her to find out if you are for real.
- This step is not needed really. If you are not a quick typer this would definately be a step to avoid. However, messenger is a easy way for her to have a faster conversation with you in real time, without having to wait for replys from each other.
- Its a smooth step to escalate to the phone call.

Phone Conversation

- The quickest way for her to find out if you are a cool guy.
- It is also the safest way to find out if you are creepy guy, or if you are someone she HAS to meet in real life.
- This is the most key part to transition to a real life date.
- Without this key part of the pickup, you are guaranteed to have a huge flake ratio.

The goal should always be to get to the phone conversation. This doesn’t mean just asking for her number and calling it a few days later.

When you get to the point where you are messaging back and forth often (preferably in your first messenger conversation) you want to mention that she is fun to talk with. There are a number of ways to ask for the phone number. The point is that you want to get the feeling that both of you want to talk on the phone for a bit to see what each other sounds like as you get a better understanding of what that person is like. Friends call each other. Family call each other. But online aquantinces only message. You want out of that zone as soon as possible.

 

 Online Internet Interactions [9:45m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Many methods in the community focus on routines. To get good at routines, one needs to use it a lot to gauge the responses properly for progressing through the method. Many time, these methods promote “warm up sets” or even “burning sets”. My understanding of it when I tried it out, was to just talk to anyone to get into that talkative mood and practice before opening “sets” that I wanted to.

When out to meet women with other members of the community I would sometimes run into something very disappointing. The whole night was considered a “warm up” and maybe if we were lucky we had one good interaction. We would refer to sets that we opened early in the night as “that warm up set we burned at ___”, just the same as the one when last call rolled around. What a waste.

I started to feel that if I didn’t open X number of sets in the night, I was a failure with the exception of trying.

I even began to wonder if perhaps I wasn’t a “people person”. It was a weak point in my thinking of myself, and was very destructive.

I never got over this idea until I learned I had someone elses definition of “people person” rather than my own. When I redefined it, I realized I was actually more of a people person then I originally thought. I had a re-focused theme of making quality connections. Some of my best times out have been days when I may have only talked to only two or three people.

Having small goals to fight approach anxiety can serve their purpose, definitely. But I am no longer the type of person who wants or needs to meet 50+ people in a night to feel successful anymore.

From the September Issue of Cosmo, an article titled “When You Want to Meet a Guy”. Bold Text is taken straight from the magazine.

Ask all of your friends to set you up. [Not having an agenda makes the whole “I have a boyfriend” comment one that doesn’t kill the vibe. She’s probably got a friend she would love to get hooked up with a cool guy like me]

Build an online profile. [MySpace is a great place to set up real life “dates”, as a lot of women don’t view it as a “dating service” even though many want to meet men by getting online]

Hit up man-friendly sports bars [Um, duh]

Go in small groups of chicks, which are way more approachable to dudes. [Easier, definately. I tried opening a 20 set, then realized it doesn’t really matter since I can really only meet one person at a time anyway]

Lose the iPod so that hottie… can actually say hi to you [Hallelujah! I’ve never figured out a casual and congruent way to stop someone while listening to these darn things]

That next weekend was without a doubt, the single best weekend I experienced since joining the community (as far as the opposite sex was concerned). I went out to a sports bar, meet a girl, we came home and fooled around then she left. As she walked out I was amazed to grasp the fact it was only 10pm! So I showered and went out again, as I still felt the same as I did when I woke up in the morning. This time went to a night venue downtown and meet this really funny psychology major who just moved into town to get ready for the new semester. She ended up spending the night at my place and we had a blast. When she left, I still had that same damn feeling. That feeling of knowing I am worth it, but at the same time wondering if I am a failure. What a weird range of emotions that weekend was.

Later that day, I went out for some shopping (I’ve learned why women like to shop when they need to be cheered up). Started talking to a cashier at Best Buy to find out she was getting off work in about 30 minutes. Came back to take her out to lunch and for the first time kissed a girl that I’ve just met in public… during the day!

I’ve never felt so internally un-calibrated. On the outside I was happy, had no agenda, and was very warm and friendly. Inside I was ugly, upset, angry, uncertain…

As great as that weekend was, having not dealt with this stressful issue properly made these great connections fade quicker then they started.

I didn’t go out for 8 straight weekends after that. I would almost consider that bi-polar like, except that it was one really good high, followed by one very long low.

I started to review some random notes I keep around with me to keep me focused when I get undisciplined. One really hit me, I felt like I was staring at it for what felt like an hour. “You’re a man, get the fuck over it” (Thanks Rob). He was applying this to Approach Anxiety at the time I heard him say that at the Vegas Super Alumni Weekend, but I felt so childish for letting this WORK incident affect my entire well-being.

So here is one of major goals to focus on this year = Manage stress properly. Some simple ways to do this is to always be reminded of where I am in my life currently, and where I am trying to get to. Also, I should remain motivated in losing more weight. I’ve been successful at losing it, and need to keep working to my goal. Being in shape physically will help in many parts of my well-being, but will specifically help lower overall stress as well.