Cultivate feelings of attraction & desire, not feelings of obligation

DeepBlue

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Hi all,
Someone emailed me the other day asking for my thoughts about an interaction he had with a chick he found attractive in the gym that he goes to.

I wrote a very long response, because his story got me thinking about the whole concept of desire versus obligation, and how the art of seduction is really about how to cultivate a woman's attraction and her desire for you, it is not about trying to appeal to her sense of fair play, or feelings of obligation, or her wish to be percieved as a nice person, and so on.

So, for those who have the time and inclination, here I am posting his email to me, along with a lengthy discussion about the themes it brought up. I figured some of you out there might have some interesting and helpful insights to add.

Note, by the way, that I am posting his email here with his express consent, and I'm also referring to him by the pseudonym of "Richard" to protect his privacy.

First I will post his email, followed by my response. Oh, and because this is such a long post covering so much, feel free to requote & respond to just a small piece of it!


************

Hi DB,

I just had a fairly unpleasant C&B experience tonight, and I'm still trying to make sense of it. I'm not asking for or expecting answers. I just need to talk to someone, and I would appreciate your patience.

I had been sarging a chick who works out and teaches at my gym. I've known her for about two years, though not well. Not only was she hot-looking, but she had a cool, down-to-earth personality.

A few months ago, around the time I started learning SS, I started moving in on her. My sarge was drawn-out and very imperfect. Still, I patterned well enough so that it got a favorable response from her.

A little over a week ago, I went up to her, said outright she was cute and I wanted to get to know her better. She seemed torn but clearly open to the possibility of going out. She said she was uncomfortable with people at the gym knowing that she was going out with someone there.

I understood her concern, but I just couldn't find the words to reassure or comfort her (damn!), so I ended up saying nothing and just got her phone #. In the days after, we crossed paths but felt uneasy going forward.

I do admit I didn't convey comfort or reassurance in my demeanor, as I myself felt uncomfortable in the gym. This might have undid me in the end.

Goddamnit, DB, I was so goddamn close - THIS close - and I blew it!


I called her but couldn't reach her. Finally, at the gym I went up to her and asked to talk to her outside.

She kept stalling and said she had to go. I persisted and said, "well, let's make time then." She got mad that I persisted and finally left. Only later did I learn that this incident was the dealbreaker.

She called that night, and left a terse, unfriendly message saying we shouldn't go out. I called her 2 days later and she repeated her message.

I feel I have a good reason to be angry at her, even despite my imperfect sarge. I was respectful and direct, and I gave her no justification for her unfriendly behavior. She never acted like this before. I actually don't mind her rejection, but it's the *way* she rejected.

On ASF or SS we're so super-conscious of power dynamics between the sexes that it seems almost quaint to think a woman can and *should* show grace and kindness, even when they ditch a guy.

But maybe such acute awareness is justified. I thought about going up to her and saying, "you know, I don't mind rejection. But your unfriendly behavior was gratuitous."

But if I express such indignation, I lose because all she sees is a guy who didn't get what he wanted, and now he's just whining. The appeal solely to integrity is the tactic of the weak and defeated, and even if she did agree with me, she would feel only indifference or contempt.

I don't know, DB. I know the PU game is best viewed coolly, and that we employ some degree of predictability when analyzing chick behavior. And I do admit f**king up, and I can argue even that I got what was coming.

On the other hand, I wonder: is a chick's character worth recognizing so that when she behaves rudely - even during a sarge - criticism is warranted and not irrelevant?

I know, I know - guys on ASF will say, "tough, that's the way it is," and I mostly agree. But I wonder if that kind of thinking about chicks is sometimes a little too linear.

From one angle, I can be justly criticized for causing her unfriendliness. Yet, the fault was purely tactical, not because of my lack of integrity. The mistake was akin to using the wrong fork at the dinner table.

The funny thing is that by being unpleasant, she undid anything unique I had previously saw in her. She became just another b**ch, vindicating all the predictability I had just questioned above.

DB, I hope you understand. I'm a little bent out of shape right now, but I'll be fine. Well, anyway, this was a learning experience, and even the bad experiences are good ones. :)

Richard

******************
DeepBlue reply:

Hi Richard,

Before I get started, there is one thing you will need to keep in mind. Namely that the things you did, you did because they flow from how you see things, your logic about the world, and even though some of the things you did, did NOT get the results you wanted, a part of you is inevitably going to continue viewing what you said and did as being “right” and the things I’m going to suggest will to some extent seem “wrong” to you.

If you are going to benefit from my suggestions, you have to trust in the possibility that maybe the things I say are right for you, even if on a gut level they might at first seem like they can't possibly be right. Consider them, give them a chance, and you may find that they ultimately become a comfortable fit for you, while bringing you the outcomes you seek.


Richard wrote:
Hi DB,
I just had a fairly unpleasant C&B experience tonight, and I'm still trying to make sense of it. I'm not asking for or expecting answers. I just need to talk to someone, and I would appreciate your patience.

I had been sarging a chick who works out and teaches at my gym. I've known her for about two years, though not well. Not only was she hot-looking, but she had a cool, down-to-earth personality.

A few months ago, around the time I started learning SS, I started moving in on her. My sarge was drawn-out and very imperfect. Still, I patterned well enough so that it got a favorable response from her.

A little over a week ago, I went up to her, said outright she was cute and I wanted to get to know her better.


DeepBlue reply:
Sorry you had an unpleasant crash & burn, I guess that’s why they call it “burn”.

To begin with, I see two things that went wrong right off the bat.

First, it sounds like you presented her cuteness as the basis for your wanting to get to know her better. That probably reflects the honest truth about how you feel, but it is a RICHARD-centric approach. In other words, I see what is in it for you--you get to be with a cute girl. But what is in it for her? The fact that you find her cute? If she were unattractive or unpopular then it could mean a lot to her to be with a guy who thinks she is cute, just so that in his eyes she gets to be cute. But you said she is “hot” looking so that isn’t enough. She probably knows that a lot of guys find her attractive. So there needs to be something more drawing her to you.

It could be that you get into a discussion that is SO fascinating to her (let me emphasize the words: *to her*) or it could be that you are so sexy that she finds herself getting excited by talking to you, or it could be that you appear to be very popular and she is drawn to you for social status, etc.

The point is that your side of the equation is obvious--you are drawn to her because she looks hot. The other half of the equation is for you to be a guy whom SHE feels drawn to. That is the girl-centric half of the equation--her needs, her wants, her desires--that is the side of the equation you need to provide. It’s a bit like a salesman trying to sell a product.

How far is a salesman going to get talking about how much he’d love to have the customer’s money? He has to pitch what the product is going to do for the customer. And when YOU are the product, then there is the added complexity that pitching your own value must be done indirectly.

Why? Because desirable guys are accustomed to having women eagerly pursuing them. This means that any effort you put into making a woman desire you has to appear effortless and unintentional or it will backfire--any visible effort you put into trying to attract women is associated with unpopular guys who aren’t accustomed to having women chasing after them. (This concept is most difficult for those guys who are used to being highly rewarded for putting a lot of visible effort into solving problems at work.)


Richard wrote:
She seemed torn but clearly open to the possibility of going out.


DeepBlue reply:
Based on other things you described, I see two possibilities here:

One is that she was torn, but only because she wanted to say no, and at the same time she wanted to avoid hurting your feelings or create an uncomfortable situation--especially considering that she is likely to run into you again in the gym.

The other possibility is that she genuinely did feel a spark of interest at that point, and it conflicted with an ingrained resistance to overtures by gym members.



Richard wrote:
She said she was uncomfortable with people at the gym knowing that she was going out with someone there.


DeepBlue reply:
That sounds like a good description of an ingrained resistance to overtures by fellow gym members! Which brings me to the second problem with the “you’re cute, and I’d like to get to know you better” approach which is that it doesn’t distinguish you from the general mass of other gym members. On the contrary, it makes it easy for her to perceive you as “just another gym member” hitting on her, and that will trigger her general resistance to opening herself to overtures from that whole category of guys. In your approach, you need to find a way to come across as being “different from the rest”.


Richard wrote:
I understood her concern, but I just couldn't find the words to reassure or comfort her (damn!), so I ended up saying nothing and just got her phone #. In the days after, we crossed paths but felt uneasy going forward.

I do admit I didn't convey comfort or reassurance in my demeanor, as I myself felt uncomfortable in the gym. This might have undid me in the end.

Goddamnit, DB, I was so goddamn close - THIS close - and I blew it!


I called her but couldn't reach her. Finally, at the gym I went up to her and asked to talk to her outside.


DeepBlue reply:
Going up to her and asking her to talk outside may have made talking into a BIG deal. Sometimes that's ok, but since she’s already a bit leery about her involvement with you, the last thing she wants is to have that feeling amplified by making the meeting into a big deal. That’s why she kept stalling--it’s like you’re calling her into the Principals office for a “serious talk”. Bottom line is that you need to find a way to have those convos come up in a more casual way--at least until you get to the point where she is clearly eager to talk to you. At that point, it’s okay to make a bigger deal out of taking time to talk because she will like it.


Richard wrote:
She kept stalling and said she had to go. I persisted and said, "well, let's make time then."


DeepBlue reply:
Aaaack! You are bullying her! You probably don’t realize it, and don’t think you intend to bully her, but you are. Why should she make time???? You’re essentially saying that she “should” make time. Why? Just because YOU want it? You have shifted over to guiding her through feelings of *obligation* based on notions about what is fair, what she “should” or “shouldn’t” do, and so on.

That is not seduction. It is a form of pressure. You want to be guiding her actions by creatively managing her feelings of attraction and desire, not some sense of obligation or fair play.

Listen very carefully here, because this is the essence of everything I have to say here. She has to WANT to spend time with you. THAT has always got to be your goal. You’re getting caught up in pursuing the objective of spending time with her, and proceeding in an efficient goal oriented way you are losing sight of the essential goal which is to make her WANT to spend time with you.

The reason you’ve been doing this is because you’ve been focusing on your RICHARD-centric goal of being with a cute girl, and you have not been thinking enough in terms of what a woman wants, and the art of making HER want and desire being with you.

The rationale in your head might be, “ha, if I can get her to spend time with me then I’ll be able to work my magic on her and make her really desire me.” But that magic must begin from the moment she first sees you. You aren’t getting a date, then making her desire you. You are making her desire to talk to you, making her desire to give you her number, making her desire to get together with you and spend more time with you. These are essential intermediate level victories you must win in order to make genuine progress. Making her WANT you every step of the way is the difference between seduction and rape.

Instead you are jumping ahead. As a guy you are ready to have sex with that hot babe, right now! That has made you impatient with her needs, and has caused you to overlook the significance of these little victories--the cultivation of her desire, step by step--in the seduction process.

If you get her to WANT to give you her number, you should consider that a far greater victory than the actual fact of getting her number. Having a chick’s number doesn’t count for much. Having her eagerly awaiting your call is what counts. I have tens of thousands of chicks phone numbers--after all, they are all sitting there in the public phone book. The real achievement is making her want to give it to you, and making her long to have you call her.

If she did have any spark of interest in you, then your job is to nurture that little spark and fan it into flames of full blown desire. You do that by being a magnet. Pull not push. You have to operate through the force of *attraction* rather than the force of pressure, every step of the way.

You are relying heavily on “shoulds” in your expectations towards her:

I ask for her number so she should give it, I call her so she should want to talk, I ask her to get together so she should agree, etc.

The “should” expectation arises entirely from your own wants, not from hers. If you want to work with her reality you have to discard most of those shoulds. Not all, but most. If she says she’ll meet you at 3:00 sharp then she should be there at 3:00 or close to it.

But if you ask her to meet you, you will either succeed at making her want to meet you, or you won’t. Get rid of the idea that she “should” want to talk to you or get together with you just because you want to. That thinking comes from your own needs, your own urgency, and that whole perspective will reveal itself in your demeanor, making her feel pressured. The problem is that this approach actually works, in the short run, and that often leads guys into viewing it as the right way to proceed. You CAN force a yes from a chick that way, because she’ll give in to the pressure, but later she’ll look for a way to get out of it and you’ll end up dismissing her as yet another “flake.”

Rather than running after a girl, trying to get her to do things, strive to bring about in her a desire that draws her to you. Then reward her, by giving her opportunities to be with you. That way you are *attracting* her to you, rather than trying to push and prod her into various agreements which you then try to hold her to. The first path leads to success, the second path creates the illusion of progress, but is a dead end.

Whatever you do, always keep in mind that the goal is to get her to reach for you, emotionally speaking, every step of the way. Even the words “get her to reach” is risky here, because words like “make her,” “get her” and so on are frequently associated with the push approach, and the idea is to step back and learn to create a situation that makes her eagerly seek you.

If a guy isn’t accustomed to being pursued by women, this approach can seem very alien making it difficult to switch gears and then he stay’s stuck in the pursuer role. That isn’t all bad--the devoted pursuer type often appeals to women who want to get married--such women often seek guys who will pursue her ardently enough to jump through one hoop after another till finally he jumps through the hoop of marrying her.

But if your interest is mainly sexual, because you have a hard on for some hot babe, in that scenario you must make her pursue you. Sure, you still make the *overt* moves, and on the surface it may look like you are pursuing her, but that’s an illusion. What is really happening is that you are making her reach for you emotionally (just as her *looks* have drawn you towards her, emotionally) and then your overt moves come to her not as pressure, but as a reward for successfully pursuing you.

In your case, you as a man, feel a full blown desire for the gym chick because she looks hot, and that desire you feel is pressuring YOU. And, feeling yourself being pressured, you are passing that pressured feeling on to her, because you’d like her to feel the same urgent level of interest towards you that you feel towards her. Your desire hit you suddenly, and naturally you wish she’d hurry up and feel the exact same way towards you, PRONTO!

But to be a good Casanova, you must let go of that impatience. Incidentally, if you’ve ever read a “Penthouse Letter” that sort of fantasy about immediate gratification will interfere with real life success. That fantasy is misleading. It is very rare for a woman to go from being strangers to wanting to f**k in a matter of minutes, and when it happens it is usually in a special place, the chick is in an unusual state of mind--on top of the guy being both perceptive enough to recognize the girl’s smoldering feelings of lust, and also ballsy enough to act on it.

Yes, I realize you weren’t trying to get the gym girl to f**k you then and there, but your approach is almost as pressured as if you were. And the essence of “pressure” is that you are in the mindset of trying to nudge her into doing things she apparently doesn’t feel like doing, instead of focusing 100% on bringing out & working with her attraction and her desire so that she’ll eagerly WANT to do those things.

The process of making a woman want you is in some ways similar to training a dog to jump through a hoop. But instead of making the woman jump, you are making her reach for you emotionally, inside.

You do what you can to get that first little spark of desire and then when she reaches for you, you *reward* that in some small way. With kino, or a flattering remark, or a big smile. But then you have to take a small step back, emotionally, and wait for her to emotionally reach out a little bit more, before you reward her again. It’s like a dance. And it takes some patience. To cultivate feelings of *longing* in her, you must periodically give her room to indulge in feelings of longing.

Guys who feel pressured by their own sex drive, or by the insecure fear that the girl may not reciprocate with similar interest have a tendency to run after a woman, to crowd her, trying to *make* her agree to things and it is counterproductive. It fails to make her desire him so the approach is doomed from the start. That is the sort of approach that always leads to some guy complaining about how a woman agreed to something, but then she rudely backed out or “flaked”.


Richard wrote:
She got mad that I persisted and finally left. Only later did I learn that this incident was the dealbreaker.


DeepBlue reply:
Because you were singlemindedly focusing on what YOU want, based on a RICHARD-centric view, and pushing for that as though her interest in you were irrelevant, when you should have been gradually developing her initial spark of interest into something greater through repeated steps of withdrawing slightly, then rewarding her when she takes a step towards pursuing you.


Richard wrote:
She called that night, and left a terse, unfriendly message saying we shouldn't go out. I called her 2 days later and she repeated her message.


DeepBlue reply:
The sequence you initiated here is simple:
Each time you pushed, she pulls back.
She pulls back, you pushed even more.
You push even more, she pulls back even more.

Instead of drawing out her impulse to pursue you by being the one to pull back now and then, you did the opposite. You cultivated her impulse to push you away, by pursuing her whenever she pulled back.

Building attraction is a bit like a tennis rally. You hit the ball to her, then wait for her to hit it back. If she isn’t hitting it back fast enough for you, you can’t just keep on hitting more balls to her. You must get a back and forth rally going.


Richard wrote:
I feel I have a good reason to be angry at her, even despite my imperfect sarge. I was respectful and direct, and I gave her no justification for her unfriendly behavior. She never acted like this before I actually don't mind her rejection, but it's the *way* she rejected.


DeepBlue reply:
I see this often. When a guy becomes too focused on his own needs, and his objective of having a girl give him a phone number, or having her agree to spend time with him, it becomes too easy for him to overlook the essential step of getting the girl to WANT these things. Instead, it rapidly deteriorates into a push, push interaction every step of the way, asking for her number, asking for her to go outside, asking for her to agree to something. You need to jettison that viewpoint entirely.

Women will tend to go along with those little nudges, because they fear confrontations, but I guarantee they will be dropping hints the whole time that they don’t feel interested. They will make excuses, they will stall, they will exhibit a bored look on their face or even act a little rude.

Unfortunately, some guys become so accustomed to pushing for what they want, instead of attracting the woman into seeking him, that they keep pushing, and when the woman starts dropping even more blatant hints that she isn’t interested the pressure-oriented guy is liable to confront her about how she is being rude or unfriendly or whatever. Since chicks usually try to avoid confrontations, she may say that she is sorry and politely agree to something, but that is just more illusory success because it fails to accomplish the all important step of making her WANT the things she is agreeing to.

So...the fact that you were “respectful and direct” is not relevant from the standpoint of seduction. She doesn’t owe you her number or a date or sex, just because you are respectful and direct. Nothing short of arousing her interest and her desire so that SHE is seeking to be with you will do.


Richard wrote:
On ASF or SS we're so super-conscious of power dynamics between the sexes that it seems almost quaint to think a woman can and *should* show grace and kindness, even when they ditch a guy.

But maybe such acute awareness is justified. I thought about going up to her and saying, "you know, I don't mind rejection. But your unfriendly behavior was gratuitous."


DeepBlue reply:
As far as her owing you politeness is concerned, it sounds like she was polite at first and she hinted many times that she wasn’t interested, and it is only because you continued pursuing her that she finally blew up about it.

Let me say again that women are often afraid of confrontation. If you ask her for something point blank, especially in the place where she works, then she is not misleading you by giving you her number, she is protecting herself. I often hear guys complain that a woman “should be up front about what she wants and not agree to something if she isn’t interested.” This notion--that women “should” be unafraid of confrontation--is nothing more than a rationalization that some guys lean on to excuse their use of pressure with women. You are far better off giving up that approach entirely and learning the dance of attraction, because the pressure approach is a *dead end*.

The pressure approach--leading a woman through various should’s and feelings of obligation brings only illusory progress at best.

It is NOT a form of genuine progress, seduction-wise, to get a woman’s number or get her to agree to anything if you aren’t also making her WANT those things every step of the way.

If a chick starts looking bored, or giving excuses and stalling or acts a bit rude and unfriendly, it usually means you have been pursuing her too hard, and you need to re-establish the dynamic of letting her pursue you.

Always remember that your goal is to have her desiring you--not to have her begrudgingly agreeing to things. Don’t suggest anything without first whetting her appetite for it. And as much as possible, get her to suggest the thing you want as though it was her idea.



Richard wrote:
But if I express such indignation, I lose because all she sees is a guy who didn't get what he wanted, and now he's just whining. The appeal solely to integrity is the tactic of the weak and defeated, and even if she did agree with me, she would feel only indifference or contempt.


DeepBlue reply:
Again, you didn’t pay proper attention to making her WANT things every step of the way, and once you asked her out, from that point forward everything you got from her was coerced (from a woman’s non-confrontational point of view) rather than arising from her feelings of attraction and desire towards you--feelings which you must bring out in her.


Richard wrote:
I don't know, DB. I know the PU game is best viewed coolly, and that we employ some degree of predictability when analyzing chick behavior. And I do admit f**king up, and I can argue even that I got what was coming.

On the other hand, I wonder: is a chick's character worth recognizing so that when she behaves rudely - even during a sarge - criticism is warranted and not irrelevant?


DeepBlue reply:
Sorry Richard, but I can’t fault her for being rude in this situation, because she started out by giving polite hints and excuses and it was only when you kept pushing for more that she finally resorted to rudeness.

I myself have experienced the receiving end of that. A girl I wasn't attracted to was pursuing me, and she had a way of making me feel like I either had to go along with whatever she wanted or else she’d be hurt or insulted, so to not hurt her feelings I resorted to hints and excuses.

Instead of taking a hint, she confronted each of my excuses trying to pick them apart, giving me a hard time about them. Finally one day when I was trying really hard to avoid her she countered by completely putting me on the spot. She said, “you know, I’m beginning to get the feeling that you don’t like me”!

What was I to say? If I said, “you’re right” she’d be really hurt. I felt myself about to say, “uh, it’s not that, it’s just...blah blah” and I caught myself. I realized if I said that, she’d immediately take it as a justification for continuing to aggressively pursue me and for continuing to ignore my hints that I wasn’t interested.

So I did the only thing I felt I could--I told her “you’re right, I don’t.” And I was finally free. She hated my guts for having rejected her, though in her mind she was hating me for having being “so rude”. Rude or not, she had demonstrated that she would not back off in response to anything *less* than a rude insensitive statement.

I’m not saying that the gym girl didn’t like you and that you should have pursued someone else. Not at all. The sad thing is that if you had handled it differently from the start then you might have slowly escalated her initial spark of interest into full blown desire.



Richard wrote:
I know, I know - guys on ASF will say, "tough, that's the way it is," and I mostly agree. But I wonder if that kind of thinking about chicks is sometimes a little too linear.

From one angle, I can be justly criticized for causing her unfriendliness. Yet, the fault was purely tactical, not because of my lack of integrity. The mistake was akin to using the wrong fork at the dinner table.


DeepBlue reply:
Richard, it is better not to rely on your own analysis of this situation, because your analysis is coming from the same place as the actions you chose to take at the time, and that whole way of seeing things led you down an unproductive path.


Richard wrote:
The funny thing is that by being unpleasant, she undid anything unique I had previously saw in her. She became just another b**ch, vindicating all the predictability I had just questioned above.


DeepBlue reply:
Don’t even waste your time on that train of thought. Under different circumstances the b**ch might’ve been a kitten. If you want to gain anything from this, you will do it only by being open to the possibility that the way you interacted with her gradually brought out her rejecting side, instead of her warm welcoming side.

It can be painful to realize that we must change something about ourselves, but it is also a wonderful opportunity for growth because it holds the promise of things being far better in the future. Putting the blame on her, by dismissing her as a “b**ch type” is appealing because it frees us of the need to change, but sadly it only holds the promise of repeating the same scenario again and again till it will seem as though all women were b**ches.


Richard wrote:
DB, I hope you understand. I'm a little bent out of shape right now, but I'll be fine. Well, anyway, this was a learning experience, and even the bad experiences are good ones. :)


DeepBlue reply:
Yes, it is a learning experience, and it’s just a matter of choosing the right lessons.

Take care,
DeepBlue


[This message has been edited by DeepBlue (edited 03-08-2002).]

[This message has been edited by DeepBlue (edited 03-08-2002).]

[This message has been edited by DeepBlue (edited 03-08-2002).]
 

bartender

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Originally posted by DeepBlue:

************
Hi Richard,

Before I get started, there is one thing you will need to keep in mind. Namely that the things you did, you did because they flow from how you see things, your logic about the world, and even though some of the things you did, did NOT get the results you wanted, a part of you is inevitably going to continue viewing what you said and did as being “right” and the things I’m going to suggest will to some extent seem “wrong” to you.

If you are going to benefit from my suggestions, you have to trust in the possibility that maybe the things I say are right for you, even if on a gut level they might at first seem like they can't possibly be right. Consider them, give them a chance, and you may find that they ultimately become a comfortable fit for you, while bringing you the outcomes you seek.

a smooth start
 

bartender

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Originally posted by DeepBlue:

Richard wrote:
Hi DB,
I just had a fairly unpleasant C&B experience tonight, and I'm still trying to make sense of it. I'm not asking for or expecting answers. I just need to talk
to someone, and I would appreciate your patience.

I had been sarging a chick who works out and teaches at my gym. I've known her for about two years, though not well. Not only was she hot-looking, but she had a cool, down-to-earth personality.

A few months ago, around the time I started learning SS, I started moving in on her. My sarge was drawn-out and very imperfect. Still, I patterned well enough so that it got a favorable response from her.

A little over a week ago, I went up to her, said outright she was cute and I wanted to get to know her better.


DeepBlue reply:
Hi Richard. Sorry you had an unpleasant crash & burn, I guess that’s why they call it “burn”.

To begin with, I see two things that went wrong right off the bat.

First, it sounds like you presented her cuteness as the basis for your wanting to get to know her better. That probably reflects the honest truth about how you feel, but it is a RICHARD-centric approach. In other words, I see what is in it for you--you get to be with a cute girl. But what is in it for her? The fact that you find her cute? If she were unattractive or unpopular then it could mean a lot to her to be with a guy who thinks she is cute, just so that in his eyes she gets to be cute. But you said she is “hot” looking so that isn’t enough. She probably knows that a lot of guys find her attractive. So there needs to be something more drawing her to you.

It could be that you get into a discussion that is SO fascinating to her (let me emphasize the words: *to her*) or it could be that you are so sexy that she finds herself getting excited by talking to you, or it could be that you appear to be very popular and she is drawn to you for social status, etc.

The point is that your side of the equation is obvious--you are drawn to her because she looks hot. The other half of the equation is for you to be a guy whom SHE feels drawn to. That is the girl-centric half of the equation--her needs, her wants, her desires--that is the side of the equation you need to provide. It’s a bit like a salesman trying to sell a product.

How far is a salesman going to get talking about how much he’d love to have the customer’s money? He has to pitch what the product is going to do for the customer. And when YOU are the product, then there is the added complexity that pitching your own value must be done indirectly.

Why? Because desirable guys are accustomed to having women eagerly pursuing them. This means that any effort you put into making a woman desire you has to appear effortless and unintentional or it will backfire--any visible effort you put into trying to attract women is associated with unpopular guys who aren’t accustomed to having women chasing after them. (This concept is most difficult for those guys who are used to being highly rewarded for putting a lot of visible effort into solving problems at work.)

Agree and nice analogy. I couldn't have said it better.
 

bartender

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Originally posted by DeepBlue:

Richard wrote:
She seemed torn but clearly open to the possibility of going out.


DeepBlue reply:
Based on other things you described, I see two possibilities here:

One is that she was torn, but only because she wanted to say no, and at the same time she wanted to avoid hurting your feelings or create an uncomfortable situation--especially considering that she is likely to run into you again in the gym.
Agree

The other possibility is that she genuinely did feel a spark of interest at that point, and it conflicted with an ingrained resistance to overtures by gym members.
This I think is unlikely. There is no reason for conflict... or not yet.
 

bartender

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Originally posted by DeepBlue:

Richard wrote:
She said she was uncomfortable with people at the gym knowing that she was going out with someone there.

Bullsh1t!

DeepBlue reply:
That sounds like a good description of an ingrained resistance to overtures by fellow gym members!
I think this whole fellow gym members thing is bullsh1t to make it easier for her to say No!

Which brings me to the second problem with the “you’re cute, and I’d like to get to know you better” approach which is that it doesn’t distinguish you from the general mass of other gym members. On the contrary, it makes it easy for her to perceive you as “just another gym member” hitting on her, and that will trigger her general resistance to opening herself to overtures from that whole category of guys. In your approach, you need to find a way to come across as being “different from the rest”.
Spoken like a true Don Juan
 

bartender

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Originally posted by DeepBlue:

Richard wrote:
I understood her concern, but I just couldn't find the words to reassure or comfort her (damn!), so I ended up saying nothing and just got her phone #. In the
days after, we crossed paths but felt uneasy going forward.

I do admit I didn't convey comfort or reassurance in my demeanor, as I myself felt uncomfortable in the gym. This might have undid me in the end.

Goddamnit, DB, I was so goddamn close - THIS close - and I blew it!
Where did Richard come close here? He never came close in a positive way.

I called her but couldn't reach her. Finally, at the gym I went up to her and asked to talk to her outside.


DeepBlue reply:
Going up to her and asking her to talk outside may have made talking into a BIG deal. Sometimes that's ok, but since she’s already a bit leery about her involvement with you, the last thing she wants is to have that feeling amplified by making the meeting into a big deal. That’s why she kept stalling--it’s like you’re calling her into the Principals office for a “serious talk”. Bottom line is that you need to find a way to have those convos come up in a more casual way--at least until you get to the point where she is clearly eager to talk to you. At that point, it’s okay to make a bigger deal out of taking time to talk because she will like it.
Yep

[This message has been edited by bartender (edited 03-08-2002).]
 

bartender

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Originally posted by DeepBlue:

Richard wrote:
She kept stalling and said she had to go. I
persisted and said, "well, let's make time then."


DeepBlue reply:
Aaaack! You are bullying her! You probably don’t realize it, and don’t think you intend to bully her, but you are. Why should she make time???? You’re essentially saying that she “should” make time. Why? Just because YOU want it? You have shifted over to guiding her through feelings of *obligation* based on notions about what is fair, what she “should” or “shouldn’t” do, and so on.

That is not seduction. It is a form of pressure. You want to be guiding her actions by creatively managing her feelings of attraction and desire, not some sense of obligation or fair play.

Listen very carefully here, because this is the essence of everything I have to say here. She has to WANT to spend time with you. THAT has always got to be your goal. You’re getting caught up in pursuing the objective of spending time with her, and proceeding in an efficient goal oriented way you are losing sight of the essential goal which is to make her WANT to spend time with you.

The reason you’ve been doing this is because you’ve been focusing on your RICHARD-centric goal of being with a cute girl, and you have not been thinking enough in terms of what a woman wants, and the art of making HER want and desire being with you.

The rationale in your head might be, “ha, if I can get her to spend time with me then I’ll be able to work my magic on her and make her really desire me.” But that magic must begin from the moment she first sees you. You aren’t getting a date, then making her desire you. You are making her desire to talk to you, making her desire to give you her number, making her desire to get together with you and spend more time with you. These are essential intermediate level victories you must win in order to make genuine progress. Making her WANT you every step of the way is the difference between seduction and rape.

Instead you are jumping ahead. As a guy you are ready to have sex with that hot babe, right now! That has made you impatient with her needs, and has caused you to overlook the significance of these little victories--the cultivation of her desire, step by step--in the seduction process.

If you get her to WANT to give you her number, you should consider that a far greater victory than the actual fact of getting her number. Having a chick’s number doesn’t count for much. Having her eagerly awaiting your call is what counts. I have tens of thousands of chicks phone numbers--after all, they are all sitting there in the public phone book. The real achievement is making her want to give it to you, and making her long to have you call her.

If she did have any spark of interest in you, then your job is to nurture that little spark and fan it into flames of full blown desire. You do that by being a magnet. Pull not push. You have to operate through the force of *attraction* rather than the force of pressure, every step of the way.

You are relying heavily on “shoulds” in your expectations towards her:

I ask for her number so she should give it, I call her so she should want to talk, I ask her to get together so she should agree, etc.

The “should” expectation arises entirely from your own wants, not from hers. If you want to work with her reality you have to discard most of those shoulds. Not all, but most. If she says she’ll meet you at 3:00 sharp then she should be there at 3:00 or close to it.

But if you ask her to meet you, you will either succeed at making her want to meet you, or you won’t. Get rid of the idea that she “should” want to talk to you or get together with you just because you want to. That thinking comes from your own needs, your own urgency, and that whole perspective will reveal itself in your demeanor, making her feel pressured. The problem is that this approach actually works, in the short run, and that often leads guys into viewing it as the right way to proceed. You CAN force a yes from a chick that way, because she’ll give in to the pressure, but later she’ll look for a way to get out of it and you’ll end up dismissing her as yet another “flake.”

Rather than running after a girl, trying to get her to do things, strive to bring about in her a desire that draws her to you. Then reward her, by giving her opportunities to be with you. That way you are *attracting* her to you, rather than trying to push and prod her into various agreements which you then try to hold her to. The first path leads to success, the second path creates the illusion of progress, but is a dead end.

Whatever you do, always keep in mind that the goal is to get her to reach for you, emotionally speaking, every step of the way. Even the words “get her to reach” is risky here, because words like “make her,” “get her” and so on are frequently associated with the push approach, and the idea is to step back and learn to create a situation that makes her eagerly seek you.

If a guy isn’t accustomed to being pursued by women, this approach can seem very alien making it difficult to switch gears and then he stay’s stuck in the pursuer role. That isn’t all bad--the devoted pursuer type often appeals to women who want to get married--such women often seek guys who will pursue her ardently enough to jump through one hoop after another till finally he jumps through the hoop of marrying her.

But if your interest is mainly sexual, because you have a hard on for some hot babe, in that scenario you must make her pursue you. Sure, you still make the *overt* moves, and on the surface it may look like you are pursuing her, but that’s an illusion. What is really happening is that you are making her reach for you emotionally (just as her *looks* have drawn you towards her, emotionally) and then your overt moves come to her not as pressure, but as a reward for successfully pursuing you.

In your case, you as a man, feel a full blown desire for the gym chick because she looks hot, and that desire you feel is pressuring YOU. And, feeling yourself being pressured, you are passing that pressured feeling on to her, because you’d like her to feel the same urgent level of interest towards you that you feel towards her. Your desire hit you suddenly, and naturally you wish she’d hurry up and feel the exact same way towards you, PRONTO!

But to be a good Casanova, you must let go of that impatience. Incidentally, if you’ve ever read a “Penthouse Letter” that sort of fantasy about immediate gratification will interfere with real life success. That fantasy is misleading. It is very rare for a woman to go from being strangers to wanting to f**k in a matter of minutes, and when it happens it is usually in a special place, the chick is in an unusual state of mind--on top of the guy being both perceptive enough to recognize the girl’s smoldering feelings of lust, and also ballsy enough to act on it.

Yes, I realize you weren’t trying to get the gym girl to f**k you then and there, but your approach is almost as pressured as if you were. And the essence of “pressure” is that you are in the mindset of trying to nudge her into doing things she apparently doesn’t feel like doing, instead of focusing 100% on bringing out & working with her attraction and her desire so that she’ll eagerly WANT to do those things.

The process of making a woman want you is in some ways similar to training a dog to jump through a hoop. But instead of making the woman jump, you are making her reach for you emotionally, inside.

You do what you can to get that first little spark of desire and then when she reaches for you, you *reward* that in some small way. With kino, or a flattering remark, or a big smile. But then you have to take a small step back, emotionally, and wait for her to emotionally reach out a little bit more, before you reward her again. It’s like a dance. And it takes some patience. To cultivate feelings of *longing* in her, you must periodically give her room to indulge in feelings of longing.

Guys who feel pressured by their own sex drive, or by the insecure fear that the girl may not reciprocate with similar interest have a tendency to run after a woman, to crowd her, trying to *make* her agree to things and it is counterproductive. It fails to make her desire him so the approach is doomed from the start. That is the sort of approach that always leads to some guy complaining about how a woman agreed to something, but then she rudely backed out or “flaked”.
errrr DeepBlue maybe you should write tips for in the Don Juan Bible
 

bartender

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Originally posted by DeepBlue:

Richard wrote:
She got mad that I persisted and finally left. Only later did I learn that this incident was the dealbreaker.
The dealbreaker was the first approach.

DeepBlue reply:
Because you were singlemindedly focusing on what YOU want, based on a RICHARD-centric view, and pushing for that as though her interest in you were irrelevant, when you should have been gradually developing her initial spark of interest into something greater through repeated steps of withdrawing slightly, then rewarding her when she takes a step towards pursuing you.
An short description of "being a challenge."


Richard wrote:
She called that night, and left a terse, unfriendly message saying we shouldn't go out. I called her 2 days later and she repeated her message.


DeepBlue reply:
The sequence you initiated here is simple:
Each time you pushed, she pulls back.
She pulls back, you pushed even more.
You push even more, she pulls back even more.

Instead of drawing out her impulse to pursue you by being the one to pull back now and then, you did the opposite. You cultivated her impulse to push you away, by pursuing her whenever she pulled back.

Building attraction is a bit like a tennis rally. You hit the ball to her, then wait for her to hit it back. If she isn’t hitting it back fast enough for you, you can’t just keep on hitting more balls to her. You must get a back and forth rally going.
Richard was taking steps forward all the time without taking a step back every now and then and that's why he failed. Specially after the incidents before this one it would have been better for him to totally withdraw.
 

bartender

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Originally posted by DeepBlue:

Richard wrote:
I feel I have a good reason to be angry at her, even despite my imperfect sarge.
errr she gave you clues... you should have picked them up. So stop whining and get a grip on your anger... and you have no good reason to be angry of her. It's your own fault Richard.

I was respectful and direct, and I gave her no justification for her unfriendly behavior. She never acted like this before I actually don't mind her rejection, but it's the *way* she rejected.
Welcome to the game of seduction. In this game you gave her justification for her unfriendly behavior. She never acted like this before because you never pushed her like this before. You got away with a pretty clean rejection. She could have made you a pet and then rejected you.

DeepBlue reply:
I see this often. When a guy becomes too focused on his own needs, and his objective of having a girl give him a phone number, or having her agree to spend time with him, it becomes too easy for him to overlook the essential step of getting the girl to WANT these things. Instead, it rapidly deteriorates into a push, push interaction every step of the way, asking for her number, asking for her to go outside, asking for her to agree to something. You need to jettison that viewpoint entirely.

Women will tend to go along with those little nudges, because they fear confrontations, but I guarantee they will be dropping hints the whole time that they don’t feel interested. They will make excuses, they will stall, they will exhibit a bored look on their face or even act a little rude.

Unfortunately, some guys become so accustomed to pushing for what they want, instead of attracting the woman into seeking him, that they keep pushing, and when the woman starts dropping even more blatant hints that she isn’t interested the pressure-oriented guy is liable to confront her about how she is being rude or unfriendly or whatever. Since chicks usually try to avoid confrontations, she may say that she is sorry and politely agree to something, but that is just more illusory success because it fails to accomplish the all important step of making her WANT the things she is agreeing to.

So...the fact that you were “respectful and direct” is not relevant from the standpoint of seduction. She doesn’t owe you her number or a date or sex, just because you are respectful and direct. Nothing short of arousing her interest and her desire so that SHE is seeking to be with you will do.
I like that "she doesn't owe you" part. It's a good thing Richard has you as a friend.
 

bartender

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Originally posted by DeepBlue:

Richard wrote:
On ASF or SS we're so super-conscious of power dynamics between the sexes that it seems almost quaint to think a woman can and *should* show grace and kindness, even when they ditch a guy.

"assumption is the mother of all fvck ups." (a quote from Under Siege 2 Dark Territory.)

But maybe such acute awareness is justified. I thought about going up to her and saying, "you know, I don't mind rejection. But your unfriendly behavior was gratuitous."
She could have said "What about your behaviour? You were practically saying that you want to fvck me and you were trying to talk/force me into it."

...also Speed Seduction on itself is useless. You still need some Don Juan skills.


DeepBlue reply:
As far as her owing you politeness is concerned, it sounds like she was polite at first and she hinted many times that she wasn’t interested, and it is only because you continued pursuing her that she finally blew up about it.

Let me say again that women are often afraid of confrontation. If you ask her for something point blank, especially in the place where she works, then she is not misleading you by giving you her number, she is protecting herself. I often hear guys complain that a woman “should be up front about what she wants and not agree to something if she isn’t interested.” This notion--that women “should” be unafraid of confrontation--is nothing more than a rationalization that some guys lean on to excuse their use of pressure with women. You are far better off giving up that approach entirely and learning the dance of attraction, because the pressure approach is a *dead end*.

The pressure approach--leading a woman through various should’s and feelings of obligation brings only illusory progress at best.

It is NOT a form of genuine progress, seduction-wise, to get a woman’s number or get her to agree to anything if you aren’t also making her WANT those things every step of the way.

If a chick starts looking bored, or giving excuses and stalling or acts a bit rude and unfriendly, it usually means you have been pursuing her too hard, and you need to re-establish the dynamic of letting her pursue you.

Always remember that your goal is to have her desiring you--not to have her begrudgingly agreeing to things. Don’t suggest anything without first whetting her appetite for it. And as much as possible, get her to suggest the thing you want as though it was her idea.

You said it: the pressure (or AFC) approach sucks.



Richard wrote:
But if I express such indignation, I lose because all she sees is a guy who didn't get what he wanted, and now he's just whining.
She gets to see the truth then.

The appeal solely to integrity is the tactic of the weak and defeated, and even if she did agree with me, she would feel only indifference or contempt.
Pressuring is weakness and you are defeated because you made it personal.


DeepBlue reply:
Again, you didn’t pay proper attention to making her WANT things every step of the way, and once you asked her out, from that point forward everything you got from her was coerced (from a woman’s non-confrontational point of view) rather than arising from her feelings of attraction and desire towards you--feelings which you must bring out in her.
No comment


Richard wrote:
I don't know, DB. I know the PU game is best viewed coolly, and that we employ some degree of predictability when analyzing chick behavior. And I do admit f**king up, and I can argue even that I got what was coming.

On the other hand, I wonder: is a chick's character worth recognizing so that when she behaves rudely - even during a sarge - criticism is warranted and not irrelevant?


DeepBlue reply:
Sorry Richard, but I can’t fault her for being rude in this situation, because she started out by giving polite hints and excuses and it was only when you kept pushing for more that she finally resorted to rudeness.

I myself have experienced the receiving end of that. A girl I wasn't attracted to was pursuing me, and she had a way of making me feel like I either had to go along with whatever she wanted or else she’d be hurt or insulted, so to not hurt her feelings I resorted to hints and excuses.

Instead of taking a hint, she confronted each of my excuses trying to pick them apart, giving me a hard time about them. Finally one day when I was trying really hard to avoid her she countered by completely putting me on the spot. She said, “you know, I’m beginning to get the feeling that you don’t like me”!

What was I to say? If I said, “you’re right” she’d be really hurt. I felt myself about to say, “uh, it’s not that, it’s just...blah blah” and I caught myself. I realized if I said that, she’d immediately take it as a justification for continuing to aggressively pursue me and for continuing to ignore my hints that I wasn’t interested.

So I did the only thing I felt I could--I told her “you’re right, I don’t.” And I was finally free. She hated my guts for having rejected her, though in her mind she was hating me for having being “so rude”. Rude or not, she had demonstrated that she would not back off in response to anything *less* than a rude insensitive statement.

I’m not saying that the gym girl didn’t like you and that you should have pursued someone else. Not at all. The sad thing is that if you had handled it differently from the start then you might have slowly escalated her initial spark of interest into full blown desire.
A freshening example. I think this will make Richard think about why "she was being rude"
 

bartender

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Originally posted by DeepBlue:

Richard wrote:
I know, I know - guys on ASF will say, "tough, that's the way it is," and I mostly agree. But I wonder if that kind of thinking about chicks is sometimes a little too linear.

From one angle, I can be justly criticized for causing her unfriendliness. Yet, the fault was purely tactical, not because of my lack of integrity. The mistake was akin to using the wrong fork at the dinner table.


DeepBlue reply:
Richard, it is better not to rely on your own analysis of this situation, because your analysis is coming from the same place as the actions you chose to take at the time, and that whole way of seeing things led you down an unproductive path.
Subtle


Richard wrote:
The funny thing is that by being unpleasant, she undid anything unique I had previously saw in her. She became just another b**ch, vindicating all the predictability I had just questioned above.


DeepBlue reply:
Don’t even waste your time on that train of thought. Under different circumstances the b**ch might’ve been a kitten. If you want to gain anything from this, you will do it only by being open to the possibility that the way you interacted with her gradually brought out her rejecting side, instead of her warm welcoming side.

It can be painful to realize that we must change something about ourselves, but it is also a wonderful opportunity for growth because it holds the promise of things being far better in the future. Putting the blame on her, by dismissing her as a “b**ch type” is appealing because it frees us of the need to change, but sadly it only holds the promise of repeating the same scenario again and again till it will seem as though all women were b**ches.
Now I'm saying this again but if you have more lessons like this here you should write them in the 'tips section'


Richard wrote:
DB, I hope you understand. I'm a little bent out of shape right now, but I'll be fine. Well, anyway, this was a learning experience, and even the bad experiences are good ones. :)


DeepBlue reply:
Yes, it is a learning experience, and it’s just a matter of choosing the right lessons.
no comment

Good advice. You were cool DeepBlue. This is also what Richard needs... to be cool. I'm guess he'll be alright.
 

DeepBlue

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Bartender wrote:
I like that "she doesn't owe you" part. It's a good thing Richard has you as a friend.


Hi Bartender,
I appreciate that you took on the challenge of responding to such a long post!

Regarding this one point (where I said to Richard that, "she doesn't owe you her number or a date or sex, just because you are respectful and direct") I suppose Richard's response would be that he isn't saying she owes him sex or a date, but that he should be able to expect some degree of basic human decency, kindness, etc. from her.

I agree with that, but the problem is that Richard is not acknowledging the degree to which his whole approach to getting her number and getting a date is leveraging off the woman's desire to be nice, kind, etc.

If you ask a chick for her number or to get together with you then you can do it in a way that makes her feel free to say no--like you have plenty of other options and if she says no it is perfectly OK with you, because it's her loss more than yours.

When you do that then her decision to give you her number is motivated freely by her feelings of interest, attraction, and desire.

It is also possible to ask a girl for her number or a date in a way that subtly lets her know that your feelings will be hurt if she doesn't have the "kindness and basic human decency" to give you this thing that means SO much to you--especially if you were "nice enough" to give her some compliments first.

Often a woman will go along with that, out of a desire to feel like she is kind and nice and not hurt the guys feelings.

But no chick wants to keep getting herded into one social engagement after the next just so some guy will continue to view her as a nice and kind person.

When it comes to her social life, a woman wants to be following her attraction and desire!

So sooner or later she will take steps to extricate herself from that type of social pressure, even if it means she finally has to take a stand and face having the guy accuse her of being a "b**ch" just because she's no longer going along with his program.

DeepBlue
 

DeepBlue

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Richard wrote:
She said she was uncomfortable with people at the gym knowing that she was going out with someone there.

Bartender responded:
I think this whole fellow gym members thing is bullsh1t to make it easier for her to say No!



Making it easy for her to say "no" is a good thing.

Make a woman WANT to say yes, but make it easy for her to say "no". That actually raises her awareness of the fact that she feels desire for you and is pursuing you, rather than leaving her thinking that she said yes just to be nice.

Trying to make it hard for a woman to say no is the wrong direction to head in 99 percent of the time. That includes all those guys who whine about how some chick gave him a lame excuse for not going out with him.

Yes, the lame excuse gives her an easy way out but... the goal is not to "catch her" in the act of giving a "bad" excuse and thereby "force" her into showing interest.

The point is to cultivate genuine feelings of attraction and desire in her to the point where she actually WANTS to go out with the guy (what a novel concept!) and then she won't have any inclination to come up with excuses--lame or otherwise.

If a woman comes up with an excuse for not agreeing to spend time with you, the only instance where makes sense to confront her about the "lameness" of her excuse, is if you are sure that she is in fact powerfully attracted to you, but is holding herself back to keep herself from giving in to her desire. There are plenty of movies dealing with that theme (for instance, "Moonstruck" with Nicholas Cage or "Frankie & Johnny" with Al Pacino).

However, I hesitate to even mention that, because those situations are the exception to the rule, and more often than not when a guy confronts a chick about the validity of her excuse, the real problem is that he hasn't created enough attraction and desire in her to ensure that she doesn't WANT to come up with any excuses.

At that point, giving a chick a hard time about the faulty logic of her excuse is nothing more than an attempt to pressure her into showing interest. That may create an illusion of progress in the short run, but down the road it's a guaranteed dead end. It also becomes a way for the guy to continue evading the truth that he needs to work on his ability to arouse attraction and desire in women.

DeepBlue

[This message has been edited by DeepBlue (edited 03-09-2002).]

[This message has been edited by DeepBlue (edited 03-09-2002).]
 

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OK, we've analyzed the mistakes made, but what should Richard have done instead? Instead of calling her cute and expressing immediate interest, should he have asked her out for a simple cup of coffee somewhere? How do you handle the "I don't date gym guys"? Would he not have gotten that response if he had gone for an easy first date? I keep on hearing that pressure will never raise an interest level, but what more can be done than taking a step back? Also ins't there a fine line between not pressuring a a girl and showing confidence? Isn't confidence, by nature, a little pushy?
 

crowes22

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Originally posted by KCFlyer:
OK, we've analyzed the mistakes made, but what should Richard have done instead? Instead of calling her cute and expressing immediate interest, should he have asked her out for a simple cup of coffee somewhere? How do you handle the "I don't date gym guys"? Would he not have gotten that response if he had gone for an easy first date? I keep on hearing that pressure will never raise an interest level, but what more can be done than taking a step back? Also ins't there a fine line between not pressuring a a girl and showing confidence? Isn't confidence, by nature, a little pushy?
No KC, you have it dead wrong on confidence being pushy. It is not. Confidence has way more to do w/ patience than it does w/ being pushy.

Confidence is asking the girl for he # or asking her out. But, it is not pressuring her to accept your invitations, she has every right not to, that has to be kept in mind.

Confidence is not needing her, or any other woman for that matter, to validate oneself. You may want her, fine, but you do not need her. You express interest, but you don't push her to be w/ you, only she can make that choice. She proves her worthiness to you. So if you are confident, and you don't need her, you walk. At the first sign of mixed signals or disrespect, you walk. If she is interested, she will chase.
 

JUST ME

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this is a vote for deep blue to bypass the amount of posts he needs in order to be a "master DJ". Amazing response DB- I was very impressed with your accurate, honest, thoughtful and detailed response to your friend.

Kind of strange, not only is putting pressure on a girl bad BEFORE EVER DATING, once you are dating a girl, even exclusively,you should NEVER pressure her- I should know! I did the same thing with my EX of 5 months.

A great read is a book from Dr. James Dobson, called- "LOVE MUST BE TOUGH"- it talks about the very thing of pulling back, not pressuring, pursuing,being a challenge,respecting, etc..a girl- a MUST read!

------------------
"sweetie, youre paying for dinner, right?"

Women avoid, men confront.

Only a REAL MAN admits his mistakes.

RULE#1-A woman knows in the first few minutes if she will sleep with you or not.

RULE#2-Regardless of her intentions, a woman will let you spend your time, money and attention on her.

RULE#3- You can't convince anyone to do anything.You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make 'em drink.


If we all took our OWN advice, we'd be alot smarter.
 

DeepBlue

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Bartender wrote:
errrr DeepBlue maybe you should write tips for in the Don Juan Bible

JUST ME wrote:
this is a vote for deep blue to bypass the amount of posts he needs in order to be a "master DJ". Amazing response DB- I was very impressed with your accurate, honest, thoughtful and detailed response to your friend.


Thank you Bartender and JUST ME for your generous compliments. What exactly IS the number of posts you need to be a "master DJ"?

As for the title, I appreciate the suggestion, but actually I get a kick out of being a "newbie" here, having just discovered the DJ forum recently.

In the alt.seduction.fast newsgroup I've posted over 700 messages, all searchable via google. (The recent ones are mostly scathing barbs directed at a newsloon named Ray Gordon who was/still is destroying the newsgroup with excessive off-topic posts (ASF is unmoderated).

It's a shame I discovered the DJ Forum right as I was about to take a nice long break from the internet. I like this group, it has a definite charm about it.

DeepBlue
 

Lothie

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Originally posted by bartender:
no comment

Good advice. You were cool DeepBlue. This is also what Richard needs... to be cool. I'm guess he'll be alright.
Yes, I will be all right. I'm "Richard" that you all read about. It was quite a job reading and considering all your criticisms and observations. But I've definitely learned a lot, and when you're told you're wrong, the experience is both humbling and gratifying.

I appreciate DeepBlue taking the time to respond - he's a treasure on this forum and elsewhere.
 

Lothie

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Hi DB,

just want to respond to your responses - and I'll do it in separate posts:


DeepBlue reply:

To begin with, I see two things that went wrong right off the bat.

First, it sounds like you presented her cuteness as the basis for your wanting to get to know her better.


I did say she was cute, but I immediately followed with a challenge – namely, that I didn’t know her well, and that I wanted to see if she really was worth getting to know better. That in turn was followed by some patterning about two people who begin to feel closer the more they hang out together, etc.

In my original email, I left out that she explained that she was at the time busy writing a manuscript (she’s an aspiring professor), and that after a few weeks, maybe she would have more time and we could possibly hang out.

I admit, DB, this was not a “yes” and could very well have been a stalling tactic. You already mentioned that generally, girls try to avoid confrontation. On the other hand, it was not a “no” either, and so I saw this merely as a possible opportunity whose outcome I could still determine favorably for myself.

DeepBlue reply:
I see what is in it for you--you get to be with a cute girl. But what is in it for her? The fact that you find her cute? … She probably knows that a lot of guys find her attractive. So there needs to be something more drawing her to you.

I agree. My mistake was thinking that just bluntly expressing my desire for her could make her attracted to me. I used quotations and stories to say outrageous things to her ("My friend said, 'can you imagine if we were making out…?'"), and it might have made me stand out – perhaps even favorably – among the guys there. But ultimately, I was just another guy there and it wasn’t enough to draw her in towards me.
 

Lothie

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Originally posted by DeepBlue:

The other half of the equation is for you to be a guy whom SHE feels drawn to.
That is the girl-centric half of the equation--her needs, her wants, her desires--that is the side of the equation you need to provide. It’s a bit like a salesman trying to sell a product.


Yes, this was my biggest failure, and something I’m trying to improve.

Based on other things you described, I see two possibilities here:

One is that she was torn, but only because she wanted to say no, and at the same time she wanted to avoid hurting your feelings or create an uncomfortable situation--especially considering that she is likely to run into you again in the gym.
The other possibility is that she genuinely did feel a spark of interest at that point, and it conflicted with an ingrained resistance to overtures by gym members.


I think the second is closer to the truth. I could be wrong, but her body language and demeanor indicated genuine interest and even attraction. This is hard to prove, and I know ultimately it doesn’t mean much, but I don’t think I was misleading myself.

Richard wrote:
She said she was uncomfortable with people at the gym knowing that she was going out with someone there.
DeepBlue reply:
That sounds like a good description of an ingrained resistance to overtures by fellow gym members! Which brings me to the second problem with the “you’re cute, and I’d like to get to know you better” approach which is that it doesn’t distinguish you from the general mass of other gym members.


Hahaha, you would be surprised DB!
Now, in no way am I saying I’m better – after that disaster, I’m DEFINITELY not. But almost all the guys in this gym are AFC’s who don’t approach girls at all. PUA skills & attitudes are totally unheard of here.

I crashed & burned badly. But even so, I can still smile at least in having gone further than I - or maybe any guy there - ever have.

I do agree, however, with the larger meaning of what you say. Even with what I knew and applied, I still didn’t distinguish myself from the rest. She said in rejecting me, “I don’t really you know that well.”

On the contrary, it makes it easy for her to perceive you as “just another gym member” hitting on her, and that will trigger her general resistance to opening herself to overtures from that whole category of guys. In your approach, you need to find a way to come across as being “different from the rest”.

I know, I know (sigh).
 
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