I don't really want to write this article. It can't help but be negative and it'll take the wind out a few people's sails. But I think sometimes people need to hear certain things, even if they are a bit hard to swallow at first. Hopefully one day the points below will become irrelevant.
Ah, the Seduction Community. Some of you may not know what this is, but I think a fair percentage of guys who want to do better with women know about it. The summary is that it's a bunch of advice on how to hook up with girls, with a whole subculture of (mostly wannabe) practitioners formed around it. If you'd like some information about it, check out the Wikipedia article. It's a big can of worms though, let me warn you. Also, a good overview can be gained by reading The Game: Penetrating The Secret Society of Pickup Artists by Neil Strauss. This book is also good about discussing the pitfalls of this unique subculture. Some of the ideas here are already covered by Strauss' concept of Social Robots. Anyways, the rest of this article will assume you're familiar with the so-called 'Community'.
I don't consider myself part of the Seduction Community. When I was a few years younger and totally hard-up, I knew all about it though. I was your regular eager little Kool-Aid swigging newbie trying to apply all the advice he read on the message boards. As of writing this I've been in a relationship for two years and have largely dropped out of the scene. Even before I met her, I was starting to have some reservations about it. Well, except I have this site and the other one, so I naturally try to follow along with it, but I'm hardly out at the bars trying to pick up.
I have a much more ambivalent ,[conflicting feelings], attitude towards the Community than I used to. On one hand, it can introduce a lot of positive things into the life of really lonely, hopeless guys. But on the other hand, it's just so damned weird and unhealthy at times. Some people get into it and end up becoming a lot more strange than they were going in.
I have nothing against the idea of trying to learn the stuff the Community teaches, I just think you need to extract the benefits and avoid succumbing , [to yield to superior strength or force], to the weirdness. Use the individual pieces of advice that help you, but don't go too far into the whole thing and become a totally different, less appealing person. Hopefully this article will help you avoid the common problems.
Here are some of the good aspects of the Community:
It has an overall positive focus on self-help and self-improvement, however misguided these good intentions can be at times.
Some of the advice is really helpful. It helped me.
It helps correct the overly needy, desperate, naive, or romanticized attitudes that some guys have about women.
It helps correct the unhelpful tendencies towards dating some men have, like thinking they must spend a lot of money on a woman to impress her.
It teaches guys that being attractive to women is something you can work on and develop, that it's not a matter of, "You just have it or you don't" or that you must have money or looks or power first.
Through applying advice ultimately designed to help them get women, guys can become more attractive, personable, and confident on the whole.
It provides them with a system in which they can work to improve with women.
Oh, but there's the weird stuff too. Oh, is there ever. Some of it revolves around the advice and ideas, but a lot is based on the Community itself. Many of the guys who are attracted to this stuff can be weird, awkward, and undersocialized, so the cause-and-effect isn't clear. Does the Community make you weird, or is it just that a lot of weird people are drawn to it, or does something about it bring out a new kind of weirdness in a certain type of person?
Anyways, here's an extensive list of things to watch out for in yourself. As someone who used to be into this stuff, I'd be lying if I said none of these things ever happened to me, a lot of them did:
Feeling arrogant and superior just for being in the 'Community'
Being an unsolicited advice and opinion giver
Misapplying advice you don't truly 'get'
A skewed perspective towards other guys
Idolizing the wrong types of people
Overdoing it with the Community jargon
Focusing on flashy tricks instead of truly being effective with women
Trading one set of misguided ideas about women for another
Interpreting everything you come across through Community concepts
Buying too much into the self-hype that the Community is some movement
Being too into the idea of the Community being secret and underground
Being too against mainstream society
Wanting to be a guru who's looked up to by other guys
Falling into a cult-like atmosphere towards certain personalities or schools of thought
Seeing being good with women as a skill to compete with other guys over for its own sake
Getting too sucked into all the drama and gossip of the scene
Personally hanging out with too many really weird people
Going too far with Self-Improvement
Buying into the weirdness of particular personalities or schools of thought
Feeling you have to abandon your past life
Feeling that getting a girlfriend is a sign of weakness and settling
Focusing on nothing but getting women and valuing everything in terms of how it helps your game
Trying to proselytize, [influence], and convert your friends
Being way too over confident for how cool your actually are
Doing weird, anti-social things to get over your fears
Thinking you can reduce all human interactions down to a repeatable formula
Basing your entire identity around being a 'PUA'
Chasing after and glorifying a lifestyle you don't even know you want
