I would not call game mainstream. While Neil Strauss' "The Game" in 2005 sold a lot of copies then, there's been a whole generation of men who've started to date since then. Most men are betas who haven't read "Mystery Method", "The Rational Male", the Return of Kings website in its 2010s prime, or Roosh before his religious conversion. Most men are not watching infields on YouTube.
Still,
@SmoothSmooth does make some valid points.
If you leave the house and go to Soho NYC on a Friday you will see NOTHING but men and women on dates in bars and restaurants. LITERALLY 80% of people will be couples on dates.
Soho NYC is both literal and figurative. It can literally mean observing Soho or figuratively represent any trendy spot in a major metropolitan area. It's important to realize that at any given time, most people are in some sort of romantic relationship.
@SmoothSmooth -- Did you mean that 80% represents established couples on dates? It's possible that part of that 80% are couples within their first 5 dates. Saying Friday night does change the dynamic a little bit. Cute/hot women in their 20s won't give up a Friday night for a 1st/2nd date with some swipe app stranger. That's also true in most cases for a random, in-person approacher. If you're having a 1st/2nd date on a Friday night, it's likely a woman 30+ with friends who are mostly married or in multiyear LTRs who aren't available to her on a Fri/Sat night OR it was a strong social circle setup.
Women are as easy to date now as 20 years ago. In my experience it’s even easier now. You need to analyse YOURSELF if you’re not experiencing this. A lot of it comes down to being weird. Some of you take the game thing way too far and too literal; and it messes up your interactions with girls. I know this because I went through this phase too. ‘Knowing too much’ will screw up your game as much as ‘knowing too little‘. You need to externally play the game just like a normal guy that doesn’t know about game would, but sprinkle in the game so it’s almost unnoticeable.
I wouldn't agree it was easier 20 years ago. I was 18 at that time. I arrived on campus as a college freshman unattached and looking to date. I have experienced the early 2000s and post 2015. Have you? I also think the article below is a good comparison piece of eras in the dating environment.
A lot of men ask me what it was like to run game on American women over 15 years ago. While I don't automatically take the nostalgic view that everything in the past was better than today, if you knew how to cold approach in 2001, you received significantly higher results than from the same effort i
www.rooshv.com
The biggest change in the past 15-20 years is technology. You weren't competing with her smartphone for attention as much. A higher percentage of women now wear earbuds in the gym than in the 2001-2005 era. It's more difficult now to get attention in-person and keep that attention due to the smartphone distraction. In the early 2000s, women were just getting their first basic cell phones which were only good for phone calls away from home. The other change is that a greater percentage of women use some tech based dating method to meet men. 15-20 years ago, a smaller percentage of women were on some dating website.
Your point about weird guys is valid. There has been an erosion of social skills in the past 20 years. It's happened for both men and women but I think it is more pronounced in men since men typically begin with worse social skills.
Some of you also give online dating way too much weight, because you spend too much time on the internet and have no social awareness. OLD has been around for ages and women never respected men that messaged them on MySpace or Match in 2004. Tinder is no different, it’s just easier to make a profile on (takes seconds and can be done from a phone rather than a computer), so more people have profiles. But the dynamic is the same. OLD feels important/relevant because you log on and see all these hot chicks, but those are just profiles; it doesn’t mean the hot chicks are actually present or even online at the time. It’s a mind trick…if you actually want to go were hot girls are present and concentrated then join a yoga class or visit a popular bar. The men on OLD are not your competition, the boss at a company is still banging his receptionists despite her having 1000 OLD matches, the pilots are still banging the air hostesses, club promoters still banging club girls, etc
You're right in your assessments on tech based dating methods. If you were messaging women on MySpace or Match in 2004, it was a sign that your social skills were not up to par.
You're right that websites/swipe apps are an illusion. If you spend a lot of time swiping/viewing profiles, you'll see enough cute/hot women. It's a massive inefficiency. Most men's match percentages are a fraction of 1% of their swipes. The bottom line is that websites/swipe apps are one marketing channel available to meet women. It's probably the most difficult channel out there to do it, but you can swipe of hundreds to thousands of women in a few days so it gives the illusion of efficiency. Most men can't approach more than 50 women in-person 3-5 days. If you swipe on thousands of women, a less than 1% match rate will get you some matches and you might get some dates out of the women you message. You might get more dates swiping on thousands of women in a week than you would get in 2-3 months of non-bar cold approaching. However, most of their tech arranged dates will be complete garbage, mostly of the "one date, no sex, no second date" variety. Those failed dates will affect your psyche.
If you are a man with more self-respect, you'll choose to market yourself in a marketing channel that emphasizes quality over quantity. Your best choice for doing that is developing a social circle. That's a difficult thing to do in a lot of cases. Approaching strangers in-person is still less quantity than swiping. If you can get a stranger into an in-person conversation for a few minutes, you are better positioned with her than you would be with the typical woman you interact with behind an electronic screen.
Both fitness classes and bars are places I've approached women in person over the years. Fitness classes usually have better ratios than bars.
You also need to make a hard decision on who you want to be - are you the leather jacket cool hairstyle guy or are you the safe family guy? Some guys are stuck in the middle; they know the game but they dress like dweebs, don’t have the voice/image to match; it’s like sticking a Mercedes logo on a Honda, you’re all over the place and women can’t read you.
This is accurate. There's a niche for a lot of types of men, just like some consumers choose a Mercedes-Benz for transportation and others choose a Honda.
If you are a vanilla corporate guy with 0-2 small tattoos, you're going to need to figure something out to attract women. You'd need to be active in a female friendly hobby like certain fitness pursuits to have a solid body to attract women and possibly meet some women through the fitness process itself. Classes rather than the gym floor would be better. Maybe you need to learn to play guitar to melt panties. If you want to play the game with money, you'll need to drive a Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, or similar car AND have other awesome possessions. Women make their own money from their own bullshiit white collar jobs so you need more money than you would have needed in 1980 to play provider game. Additionally, provider game now tends to work more on experienced carouselers in their 30s looking to settle down after being chucked by other guys, often really good looking guys who didn't perceive the need to commit to them. Provider game isn't the best strategy for attracting women in their 20s if you have nothing else going for you besides your above average paying corporate job.
If you are a tattooed dirtbag, there is a niche of women for you as well.
Every man needs to find a way to position themselves towards women. You as a man are the product. You must have product attributes appealing to enough women out there.
Good looking and successful guys get more ‘choosing signals’, but without understanding game you aren’t getting laid. Most attractive guys with social sense figure out the game pretty easily, because they end up getting turned down by girls despite their looks or success and learning from their mistakes. You’ll get rinsed for dates and attention, but to make her wet you need to be polarising, edgy, know how and when to flirt, maintain good eye contact and body language and vocal tonality.
Yes.
@sangheilios is an example of this. He has a huge advantage with his 6'4" height and big muscles. If game were only looks,
@sangheilios would be one of the most successful men on this board and among the general population. A looks advantage is great. A looks advantage can reduce the amount of personality you need to close the deal. However, there is still a minimal threshold of personality needed.
