(Based on a comment I made at Pandagon.)
A discussion between Gabe and Tycho over at Penny Arcade has sparked responses across the interwebs.
As the epitome of what the PUA-types would call an “AFC“, I almost fell for the PUA nonsense. Eventually I realized that I absolutely loathe 99.9% of the PUA stuff out there. Most of it seems to boil down to “Chicks dig assholes, so here’s how you become an asshole”.
I don’t want to be an asshole. My stepdad was an asshole. I grew up seeing what being an asshole does to a person, to a relationship, to a family. And my conscience won’t allow it. While my rational mind keeps saying that PUA stuff makes sense, and may even be effective (the jury’s still out on that), my conscience screams, “Try it and I shut you down.” (PUA types call that being an AFC. My psychiatrist calls it severe social anxiety.)
However, it’s unwise to tar every self-help resource for shy men with the same brush as the mass-market PUA stuff. There are “PUA” resources that don’t teach guys to be manipulative dickheads. I’ve been listening to an audiobook called Overcoming the Nice Guy Syndrome, by Ron Louis and David Copeland. It could be described loosely as a PUA system, but it doesn’t seem to have the “hunting” mentality. Neither does it promise to let you sleep with any woman. In fact, much of the advice deals with giving the woman you’re flirting with opportunities to express her lack of interest or bow out gracefully.
In other words, it appears to be genuinely about giving guys like me the confidence to do what normal guys, the “good guys”, do naturally.
I really hope I’m not wrong about this.
#1 written by AFC 4Real November 18th, 2009 at 12:13
I have recently been looking at the PUA stuff as I am the poster child for nice-guy-ness. I think it can all be boiled down to a 4 step process: introduce/initiate, escalate, close, repeat. How far on the asshole-meter this reaches depends on the definition of escalate and close. If you want to still be “nice” and “good”, you can simply escalate to friendship with the hope for more and close with a phone number rather than escalating to a one-night-stand and closing with a used condom. But I do agree that escalating has to be further than friendship and that has to be understood very quickly. Otherwise, your iPhone is filled with girls’ numbers that can only be used to give “the male perspective” for all the other lovers they have. I’m in that trap now and can’t seem to get out of it because I’m still stuck in the idea that escalating too far too quickly makes me an asshole. Oh well.
#2 written by static February 21st, 2010 at 23:50
i’m a keyboard jockey but i think i know a few things. perhaps this will be relevant.
girls want to be emotionally stimulated. but in a fun way. a lot of asshole behavior comes off as fun and exciting to them if you’re being a fun upbeat alpha guy while you do it.
i think a lot of guys get confused here because we communicate in a relatively logical way. we communicate to transfer ideas and concepts. but girls communicate to transfer feelings. so, logically, while telling a girl that she’s a dork is an asshole thing to say on the surface, emotionally, if you’re smiling and being a FUN GUY when you say it, she feels it as being playful and fun.
it seems that the trick is to get in the FUN ZONE. to get in “state”. to be talkative. it’s a more free, alpha state of mind. everyone has this state of mind built into them. but our minds don’t want us to have access to it because we aren’t subconsciously comfortable in an alpha role. you said that your conscience threatens to shut you down / “social anxiety”. this may be what i’m talking about. i find that it’s easier for me to get into this state of mind when i’m exhausted because i stop caring what people think of me. also, if i see myself as the most interesting/alpha/high value person in a small group of people, i can get into this state of mind more easily.
at that point, it’s easier to talk to girls on their wavelength.. you can also do things consciously with your vocal tonality and pronunciation to say things in a FUN way. “noooOh, silly!!1!”, as opposed to “no. silly.”