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Original discussion thread: http://www.fastseduction.com/masf/23/433546/
After teaching pickup for close to three years now, and ruminating on the subject for decades, I've come to the conclusion that the most important key is this: Social Freedom. I use the term "social freedom" as in "the opposite of social anxiety." Social anxiety is the most debilitating problem to people trying to succeed with women. It sabotages every part of your game from opening to mid game to escalation to retention to relationships.
Social anxiety rears it's head in many ways. It's that little voice in your head that says "Don't do that, someone might laugh at you"...."if you do that you'll totally blow it...." so many times it goes through your mind. It makes you lost a little bit of focus here and there. It makes you a little less dominant, a little less funny, a little less attractive. You walk with your head a little lower, you talk a little quieter. It affects all the little things that matter so much.
Before I get really deep into it, let me tell you why I believe this and how I came to this conclusion.
As many of you already know, I got good at picking up girls long before I was ever on ASF or in the community. I'm largely self taught. The only people that I did actually study under were naturals, and I worked with them long before I was teaching or posting here. When I was learning I spent about 80% of my time going out along, and the other 20% hanging with naturals. I'd learn a bunch of stuff from naturals, then I'd take the lessons out on my own to work them into my own game and internalize things better.
Later when I came into the community, I got invited to speak in Montreal at Cliff's List and I met the other coaches. I've hung out with lots of the gurus and community leaders since then, and I've sarged with some of them also. Lance, David Shade», Savoy, Formhandle, Sinn, Sebastian, RSD Geoff, etc etc. These guys also have really good game, but it's a different style than the naturals have.
I've seen some amazing shit. I could tell you stories that would blow your mind. Eventually, I started looking for the commonalities between the naturals and the gurus, and they are kind of hard to find. But there is one HUGE intangible that the gurus and the naturals have in common. Social freedom. They just simply don't care that much about what the people around them think. They are going after what they want, and the possibility of being embarrassed doesn't even enter their mind. They have far more social freedom than normal guys, and of course more SF than the students just coming in to learn.
The guys just coming in to learn usually are looking like a bunch of jumpy cats, ready to run under the couch at any second.
What if she has a boyfriend?
yada yada yada, bitch bitch bitch.....
It's all creative avoidance. If you have social anxiety, your brain will dream up ANY reason it can to prevent you from approaching.
Now when I first came into the community, I was floored by the sheer volume of techniques and strategies that are available. Thousands of good openers. Negs, cocky funny, Gunwitch» style, VAC, holy shit! TD's boyfriend destroyer stuff? That sounded like the most brilliant devious shit I ever heard in my life. And that's just the outer game stuff. Simply amazing.
I joined ASF totally humble, even though I had been teaching a year already, I figured the people in the community were getting WAY more pussy than me. They just had access to so much more information. After about 6 months guys were telling me I have more LRs than most guys, and i was getting laid more than community guys, and it made no sense to me.
Now that it's a few years later, I can see what's going on. Yes these techniques are still amazing, but if you have social anxiety, you cannot support them. You just won't have the intangibles to actually use them. How are you gonna do TDs BF destroyer line if the girl already knows you're shitting your pants? She sees right through everything you're doing. Social anxiety reduces all our great techniques to useless text on a computer screen.
So the techniques get read, some people even put them into a database, and then they don't get used in field. The social anxiety is taking up so much of your brain that you can only remember a few drips and drabs of the techniques. Maybe "who lies more" or "best friends test." That's only gonna get you so far.
Being a cold approach pickup artist is really hard, and that's what the majority of guys come here for. Sure, people's goals vary, but the reason guys get really obsessed with PU is the idea that you could just walk up to any girl and then be banging her a few hours later. It's a really exciting idea, that's for sure.
Weird part is that the community generally attracts guys who don't have much success with women, don't have much social skill, and have a high level of social anxiety. So we end up trying to teach the hardest skillset (cold approach pickup) to the guys least prepared to learn it (guys with social anxiety).
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180 being super charged social freedom. No fear of social situations. Thriving in social situations.
Everyone has SOME social anxiety. I'd say "normal people" have lots of it actually. For some reason we just don't seem to be built for dealing with new people on an every day basis. Maybe it's a difference between the urban cultures we live in and the hunter gatherer cultures we evolved for, but let's not get too far into all the evolutionary stuff here.
The point is that normal people have social anxiety. Your parents had it. Your teachers had it. All your friends probably had it. So let's say a "normal" person is at 90 on the Social Freedom scale. Average newbie seduction student who never had success with women before? Maybe more like 70 or 80, but it varies.
A functional PUA who can get laid probably has like 130. Gurus around 160. Top naturals would be 180+. These are just estimates and just my opinion, but I've seen the best there is, so I think it's fairly accurate.
If you have social anxiety, here's how it affects your game, step by step:
Opening- obviously the more social anxiety you have, the more approach anxiety you will have.
Mid game- you will have trouble with peer groups. you will look nervous. You will have a hard time applying the principles and strategies you've learned.
Escalation- You will be afraid to escalate.
Attraction- You will seem nervous and get less attraction
Comfort- Girls will be less comfortable around you because you seem uncomfortable in general.
Relationships- this is a big one. There's a funny thing I've noticed where really attractive women (9s and 10s) have LOW levels of SA. Sure they have other insecurities, but they are NOT nervous in social situations. Everyone always has been nice to them, they never have to be embarrassed because doing something stupid is just considered "cute" and the whole world will bend over backwards to help them out if something goes wrong. I hang out with lots of these girls, and they really don't worry much about what people think. Just yesterday I was with this really hot girl at the beach and we were parking the car and a song she liked came on the radio. She accidentally started singing super loud at the top of her lungs just as the parking guy was poking his head into the car. She was yelling right into his face for a second with here eyes closed. If it was me, I would've felt embarrassed. With this girl, not the slightest HINT of embarrassment. This is common in hot girls. My point is this- if you have a high level of SA, you cannot be in the same reality as her, and she knows it. So your chances of hanging on to a really hot girl are slim.
Retention- Same as relationships, but I'm talking about retaining FBs. In order to keep FBs you need to have them convinced you are the coolest ever, all the time, 24/7 uber cool. Then they feel they're just lucky they get to hang out with you. Got social anxiety? Getting shook easy? Then you don't look so cool all the time. It only takes a few instances of looking nervous to kill the whole thing. Then she's thinking "Nah, he's not that great. I aint stick around unless he's gonna be my boyfriend. I'm not just gonna fuck this guy and not get the perks of a relationship out of it." or maybe "this guy gets shook easily, so glad he's not my BF, I'm gonna fuck him one more time then not call him anymore."
My opinion is that the community has done good things with this, but there's a bit more to it. We can improve the way it's being dealt with. It's currently viewed as a single isolated issue. People think "I have approach anxiety" as if it's that simple. It's not. Approach anxiety is actually just a symptom of a larger problem....you guessed it.....SOCIAL ANXIETY. That's how I view AA. It's s symptom of a a larger problem. People make a big deal of AA. To me, social anxiety is a way bigger deal.
If you treat just your approach anxiety, you will still run into loads of problems in your mid game, end game, relationships, etc. So you should be treating your overall social anxiety. AA will be cured as a byproduct of fixing social anxiety. I believe this represents a significant paradigm shift on treating AA.
There's many ways to treat it.
The psychiatric and medical communities have their take on it- pills, therapy, etc.
The seduction community has it's take- 1000 approaches.
and I have my take- A series of exercises done twice a week to quantify and reduce SA.
All these methods have their pluses and minuses. I think all 3 can work. I started looking for something else because I was not totally convinced by the "1000 approaches" strategy.
1. Takes too long. Some guys take years to get to 1000.
No disrespect to the guys who came up with the idea of 1000 approaches back in the day. It's a good bit of innovative thinking and it gets the job done.
As with anything I've posted that is a departure from the present doctrine, I expect there will be some naysayers, possible flaming, etc. But just keep in mind we must move the body of knowledge FORWARD. I'm not trying to replace old ideas, I'm trying to add new ones and enrich the overall body of literature. We can make things better and better by keeping an open mind. The community will grow more and more powerful as we gain the ability to teach people better. And what about teaching the guys who will never get to 1000? They shouldn't be left behind.
what is she's heard that line?
No, she's not my type, I can't approach.
What if she's read the game?
Her friend is looking at me funny...
I have approach anxiety...
Let's say social freedom can be ranked on a scale of 1 to 180.
S.Anxiety ................................................................S. Freedom
0 ........................................................................ 180
Zero meaning severe, debilitating social anxiety like agoraphobia. That's a condition where you're afraid to leave the house,so you jst stay home for months and years.
I'd say the most obvious and relevant issue to most readers here is approach anxiety.
2. Lots of guys drop out before getting anywhere close to 1000.
3. No quantifiable evidence of improvement. You could be at 500 and still not know what's helping and what's redundant. No scale of AA. Nothing being measured. People are mistakenly assuming that other results, such as getting phone numbers or emails, are proof of reduced AA. There's a correlation there, but no hard evidence.
4. Does anyone really count?? Not many people are seriously doing 1000 approaches to get rid of AA. People just say "Well I'll keep approaching" and hope for the best. No counting. No quantifying. I'm not sure that many people are actually serious about 1000 approaches. Perhaps it's too daunting of a suggestion to be taken seriously. Maybe people are just acting like they are serious about it because it is taboo to disagree with community doctrine.
5. Sounds like some kind of righteous buddha/sensei thing, so it kind of always rubbed me the wrong way.
student: I just paid $1800 for this bootcamp, how to do I beat AA?
coach: Go do 1000 approaches.
student: WTF?
1000 approaches, does it work? Yes I think it does work for getting rid of AA. Lots of people have done it and benefited. I do think it's too often touted as the "only way to beat AA." It's not attainable for everyone. It's not necessary for everyone. Of the 5 naturals I've worked with, 2 of the 5 have done 1000 approaches.
Brad P.
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www.BradPpresents.com
Coming Oct. 1st: How to beat Approach Anxiety
Interview with David DeAngelo»: May 2007 release
Cliff's List '06
