I have more wisdom, and confidence, although I usually only have true confidence when I stay in my lane - i.e. stay true to myself, but that itself is wisdom and every man's lane should be enough - and part of my lane is a bias towards growth and action and trying new things -- but personality wise in particular, you can't be all things. My lane is a thinker, a cultured person, and I seek to have gravitas, dignitas, pietas.
But I make mistakes. I have much to learn. I blunder with women from time to time, and it never feels good, at any age, so I keep reading and studying game books. You have to always be the student. The day we stop learning, Charlie (paraphrasing of a great movie).
I'm always reading all sorts of books - lately a lot of math, but for the purposes of this thread, the PDF of the "girls chase" crew and also Geoffrey Miller and Tucker Max's book Mating, both of which I can't recommend highly enough.
i read a little bit at a time now. As I get older I hate reading too much too fast, especially if it is the type of thing you have to internalize. I read in the girls chase book there are three reasons why a this (learning to get good with women) is one of the hardest things you'll do- and why many men quit. You're challenging many core areas of your very self: your ego, your social programming and your habits. So as I read this I stayed on this page for days as I lived my life. I've probably been on this page for over a week but I actually went back a little and that's what motivated this post.
I reread a line: for most men, meeting, romancing and seducing women is the hardest thing you will ever learn.
One words has jumped out at me there these last few days: romancing.
yes, it is about romancing right? At least for me, that's the way I want it. I don't want put down game, assuming that works. For me I've always enjoyed the romancing angle.
So the first thought I had is there are multiple angles one can "score" with a woman but they are not equal. They depend on what you want but I like the idea of romancing, in a kind of rapport or connection. Yes there will be banter and sarcasm, but no i mean no battle of the sexes in its toxic divisive form that is plaguing the internet and large sunsets of the real world. I want to get back into and be in this fun headspace only and always, as it relates to my time with women.
But a second point emerged. This is the "meta" in the subject line. It's like there's a pseudo fallacy in the mind of man, or person, or my mind historically, that if you don't have x, you need y. I didn't have a girl or girlfriend, so I needed more knowledge, more game knowledge, and I've always liked to learn so I always read more and more but in the case of game you can internalize bad ideas, you can misunderstand good ideas (why experience trumps reading), you can absorb good ideas suited for others, or you can displace your focus and momentum on good ideas with other strange ideas. It is not like math where you can pick up where you left it.
So like for me one has to keep the idea of romancing in the forefront. It's not all about that. You have to meet, you have to build your life- but the majority of hours, or sheer time in conversation and in interaction should be in a mutually pleasant romancing frame - where you romance her, break her heart down to liking you. I mean that's what romancing is. If you lose this frame you have to replace it with something equally good. Maybe you're a pimp or a different type. Well and good but I think in some ways they're all the same. Maybe frat boy is different.
But you can't think that if you don't have, you lack - skills or knowledge. You see people who have and may feel you lack. It's like money - you could be well on track to making it, doing Dave Ramsey's baby steps or something. Just because you see a flashy guy on TV doesn't mean you're not on track and should do something drastic. That's what happened with me. I think I made myself mental over the years with this stuff.
So romancing is both the be all and end all, the means and the end for me, which was the first revelation. Sex will happen in it's time if you romance well, so don't worry. And it can be a skill but if you lose focus on that, make it about tactics themselves, get too obsessed with begging or something, or an ego based things, you're off track. And there are skills to learn about romancing, and the female mind, and status, and making them chase. That's why there are books written.
But I realized you can't just be expected to turn this on at any given second, be able to perform on a dime. This is also something I gave myself head games with. Romancing someone is like work, and I don't mean not fun. I just mean it takes energy. I like work. I like all types of work and jobs. I know the harder I work the luckier I get, but I don't want to always be working. When it comes to women I always feel I have to be ready for action.
Wrong. I know that now. Wrong. Everything has a cost.
I like low energy better than high energy, a low energy vibe I mean, for the same reason I like paying less for my grass fed strip steak than more. Sometimes you can even pay zero energy, you can be a receiver, be the male lion in the pride.
Great if you want to romance someone. You choose.
You can tell I always put myself under a lot of pressure.
I guess this post's purpose is to build a meta frame for yourself about game. I want to pass wisdom down to other younger guys as well as self reflect and also identify some common fallacies.
I was on forums years ago. I'm not here to compete with anyone, prove myself or my game skill or keep score. I don't necessarily even believe in that, in the skill of it. I mean I do and I don't. It's a paradox. It's definitely real but I also know a well put together guy with a lot to offer objectively can satisfy a woman or women who he can connect with, and make her happy, on the life fundamentals, without game as such, just by being himself, being a good person, listening, and not being boring. It doesn't take forums or books. But that said, there is a certain skillset, as long as you keep it in it's place. If you move it from it's place, you've lost all perspective and it will get you into trouble, IMHO.
I could almost close here. This is long enough but I have a few more related points, fallacies to avoid.
I've been thinking about ethics. The Mating book referenced above strongly suggests clarifying your ethics, your dating and sexual ethics and at this point in my journey I couldn't agree more, because I agree with the authors- it's empowering. There's almost nothing more empowering. Despite being a thinker on many subjects, and someone who has tried to keep his conscience clear, I've never thought much about ethics, thinking it's a boring subject. Now I'm starting to think of it a lot, how central it is. If you pre clarify what you will and won't do by your own standards, you basically can have full confidence in everything on your ok list. I'm not articulating it well but it's basically unlocking your own mind and making your conscience your best friend, as opposed to killing your conscience. If your conscience says pre marital sex is bad, well then that's what it says. You can still date a lot of girls, taking them to dinner, having a lot of fun. If it says it's okay under x circumstances, then great. You decide but you have to do the work of thinking, evaluating, learning yourself. You can do this for the means (is it ok to lie) and the ends. When you know all things that will keep you feeling good, you should never be feeling crummy again with how you act around women, or fearful and neurotic.
Moral failings- this is an idea borrowed from health and nutrition that I'm expanding to other areas. The idea is your results in life, or your behavior, is not always the result of a moral failing. I'm as stoic as the next bro, and I'm all on board with the Jordan Peterson Jocko Willink idea of taking on as much responsibility as you can shoulder, but some things objectively, scientifically are not the result of moral failings, like greed, gluttony, sloth etc. If you can't lose weight and you blame your lack of exercise, it's likely not that as weight is usually diet, and I've rarely seen a big meat and animal fat eater fail to lose weight and control their appetite, though I'm not here to preach that. I'm just saying, it's hard to do, think and feel the right accurate thing if we've been misinformed, or if our biases and natural assumptions mislead us.
When things are not a moral failing but just the result of cause and effect, it's a huge relief. I do like the matrix movies more than I like to admit. Who doesn't? But honestly I don't want to like them that much. They're just movies. They're not reality. Reality should be interesting enough. That said I'm totally happy to admit I love the character of the Merovingian, by far my favorite, and not because of his name, though it's great, or because he has a French accent or he gave that woman a treat. It's his character overall and his ideas that I vibe with. Cause, and effect. You want something? Create a cause for it- but some cause creation is outside our control, even in the long run.
Have I bored you? Well I'm done. In this day and age I'm not sure people are interested in long form. I struggle very much to do short form. I can't embody my ideas in such a way, ideas that want out, that seek expression. I can't help this so I'm not sorry. I guess we also don't necessarily see the causes we are currently swept up in. We all have limited but existant causality maki
ng ability, and life and cause-in-process seeing ability.
