realsmoothie said:
It's all in MY head? How so?
First, you can stop thinking in binary terms like this:
realsmoothie said:
So I guess I just walk over there and start making out with her... and when she says something like "where is this going" (which she WILL) I just ignore her and go for the tits?
On or off, black or white, one extreme or the other, this is the most fundamental indicator of binary thinking; a lack of seeing the whole picture and writing off the situation as an extreme. Put the brakes on when you hear yourself talking like this and try to see the trees for the forest.
realsmoothie said:
Rollo: I understand the motivation behind spinning plates... it's the process of making it happen that's the tough part. For me, sex is a very intimate thing, and most of my experience is that as soon as I start fooling around with a girl they're pretty much thinking something LTR related. It's finding a way to short circuit this and redistribute their focus that i find hard.
First off, you don't HAVE to be sexual with every one of the plates you're spinning. It's the potential in knowing that you could be, or that there are women who will value your attention that prompts a competitive anxiety in women - often when you don't even know you're doing it. If you are sexual with some of the plates you're spinning, so much the better since you know that they're proven commodities and if one isn't performing as you'd like, you have the unconscious knowledge that others will.
One of the biggest hurdles guys have with Plate Theory is breaking themselves of this 'LTR-as-Goal' mentality. Monogamy should never be a goal, it should be a by-product of Plate Theory, but only when you've properly filtered through enough plates and even into monogamy itself. If a woman is unwilling to be non-exclusive with you (i.e. "she'll leave me if I see other girls" fear) she isn't a plate to spin. This seems counterintuitive to a guy with a LTR-As-Goal mentality and it is, but the guy who can fearlessly, and honestly stay above-board with his intent is the one who'll be spinning more plates. Most guys (AFCs in particular) are deathly afraid of losing that ONE perfect girl and so never even attempt to spin more than one plate, much less have any others to compare her 'perfection' in the first place.
I've seen mPUA do exactly this. They're so impressed with the success of newly perfected techniques that they settle for the ONE 'dream girl' and find that their attentions become valueless to her because she perceives she is his only option for intimacy and he gets marginalized. It's not a failure in technique, but rather a failure in his mindset.
So what do you do to establish your plates and be truly, and successfully, non-exclusive with women? Initially I'd suggest doing exactly what most women have perfected for the better part of their lifetimes, stay intentionally ambiguous. Women practice Plate Theory by default - they play hard to get, they know how to be ambiguous enough to keep their options open, but not so much as to let a guy's interest fail. They naturally know that we only chase what runs away from us. They never commit fully, but still keep the carrot in front of the donkey.
Women communicate COVERTLY, with gesture, with looks, with veiled meanings - you have to communicate your intent to be non-exclusive COVERTLY. Never OVERTLY tell a woman you've got other plates than her spinning, allow her to discover this by your mannerisms, your behaviors, and definitely by your availability to her. Create value through scarcity, don't be so available to her, but just enough to keep her interest and allow her mind to consider that maybe you have other options. Even when you don't, fomenting this anxiety is a VERY useful tool for you while you do get more plates to spin.
At some point a woman will resort to OVERT communications when she's run out of options in her COVERT communications tool set. At this point the anxiety becomes unbearable and the need for security forces her to be OVERT. This is usually the point at which she's ask something like "where is this going?" or "am I your girlfriend?" or she may even give you an ultimatum. See this for what it is, she feels powerless and this a press to commit. This is the point at which you will end up as a "cheater" or you'll continue to spin plates.
You actually have a lot of options in this situation, in fact more than you will ever have with any individual woman. You can of course take the coward's path and just agree to exclusivity with her, but in doing so you lose all options (for as far as you're willing to commit) as she intently becomes your only means of intimacy. She becomes the broker for your sexuality and you lose power, whereas before YOU were in control of your sexual availability.
You can continue to spin her as well, but bear in mind she's resorted to OVERTLY confronting you about it and it wont be the last you hear of it. Depending on how long you've had her around you may simply just let her drop. You might also keep her going, but let her cool a bit and come back to her in a few weeks time. Again, this seems counterintuitive, but your attention will either wildly increase in her value of it or she'll simply bug out in which case it wasn't worth pursuing and you aren't wasting your time and effort on a less than 100% IL.
I could very easily make the case that you need to re-assess your attitudes towards sex REALSMOOTHIE, but I can only do so insofar as you're willing to accept that you have an LTR-as-goal mentality. Breaking that midset is the first step towards solving a lot of problems, not just spinning plates or being with women, but also what you're willing to settle for in life.
