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Observation, Context, & Social Calibration
by Jay Valens
of The Art of the Pickup
July 24th, 2006
This week we’re going to talk about why two different men of equal objective value who are given the same exact advice will many times experience significantly different levels of success.
If you have ever received what you perceived as helpful advice for social interaction, whether general or specifically about meeting and dating women, you may have also occasionally experienced that “why am I not getting results?” feeling.
You are left wondering why the advice is not working for you.
I am here to tell you that the advice itself is unlikely to be wrong. That’s right, I am going to tell you what nobody else will: It’s probably you.
Sometimes even conflicting advice from different quality sources will work just as well for someone but not as well for someone else, across the board. The reason more often than not is that most sources of authoritative advice come from some level of qualified experience.
However, the execution of that same advice is also coming from that same experience and it is many times presumed that the reader will execute as expected.
Usually the source of the issue is a misunderstanding or lack of understanding with the most basic necessary components of successful social interaction:
Observation, Context, & Social Calibration
I have been a guest to many self-help gatherings; those specifically geared towards helping men gain more successful social interactions with women. These are men who are having difficulty having success with women and are there to gain some new knowledge.
Typically, those men have also found some resources to help them out such as books, web sites, videos, etc, but no matter how much they’ve gotten access to, they continue having problems.
What they are overlooking is their means of execution.
More often than not, they are seeking out “magic pill” pickup lines or specific things to say in a specific order as the means to a successful social interaction.
On top of that, they wouldn’t be seeking this advice if they didn’t already have quirks with their social interactions in the first place.
So, they are actually moving backwards – taking an already-existing difficulty in social situations and exacerbating it by mis-calibrating their new pickup advice as simply regurgitated lines, possibly without applying any observation to the situation and probably out-of-context.
These same men who feel like they are empowering themselves with new knowledge on picking up women, which requires gaining more confidence in oneself and improving body language», presence, etc, will have difficulty looking people in the eye when shaking hands, speak timidly, and many times are glued to a wall not taking initiative to talk to others.
The first aspect for you to ensure you’re focusing on is observation. It is very important to mind your surroundings and be aware of your environment and what is happening around you.
Just as important, you need to be observant of the woman you are interacting with and pay attention to her actions, reactions, and especially her non-verbal communication.
A woman may say one thing yet her body language» or tonality will provide you a more reliable indicator of what she is thinking or how she’s feeling.
Is she smiling? Is she responding to you with good eye contact? Is she laughing? Does she have a pleasant demeanor towards you? Is she paying attention? Is she leaning into you? Is she touching you (your arm, hands, elbows, etc)?
If you are not observing the reactions you are seeking, consider the following:
* Perhaps you are getting good reactions but not yet able to discern good ones from bad ones yet (this takes time & experience).
* Perhaps it’s not what you are saying, but HOW you are saying it. Is your body language» congruent with the way you are talking about yourself?
* Perhaps you’ve said something she didn’t react to well, didn’t notice, and continue on a subject that is off-color to her.
You will not be able to formulate an answer to ANY of these possibilities if you are not actively observing.
The next aspect to focus on is context.
You may have the best story in the world to tell her. It may have just happened to you. It may have a great beginning, middle, and end. However, if you blurt into it without a relevant context, the reaction are likely to get is an awkward gaze of confusion before you even get partway through it.
Imagine two people having a conversation at a party…
They are mingling and discussing their pets and funny antics about their respective fuzzy animals. You are nearby and overhear the conversation, one of the women interests you, and you want to join the conversation.
You should already have an intuitive understanding that you can’t join such a conversation by busting in and blurting “How about those Chicago Bears? Quite a season they’re having this year!”
Well, this is essentially the same as already being in a conversation with a woman, and interjecting with something of irrelevant context.
Men who do this display a lack of social experience.
There are ways to jump into different subjects and lead a conversation in a different direction, but being unaware of context will leave you susceptible to making these kinds of mistakes.
It is very easy to understand context. Just be aware of it and don’t display a lack of awareness of it.
Finally, we get to the all-important social calibration.
Social calibration is being attuned to the social dynamics of your interaction with a single person or group of people, and making the best use of your observational skills and understanding of context.
For example, if you were at a party where the theme was wildlife preservation, you would generally know not to tell people stories of your recent deer-hunting trip.
Nobody would need to explain this to you. You would innately know this wouldn’t come across too well.
The thing is, many guys will make this same exact kind of mistake without realizing it when they feel pressured in social situations to come across positively - having something to say to fill a lull in conversation or keep an interaction going.
Saying something out of context merely for these reasons will actually backfire and if you are lacking observational skills then you won’t even realize the faux pas.
These may seem like simple concepts. Observation, context, and social calibration. But, they are literally the first things to fly out the window when a man who is not used to well-calibrated social interactions tries to head out to pick up women. He focuses primarily on “pickup lines” or canned stories and not preparing himself for the potential of actual dynamic interactions, the cornerstone to most normal and productive human communications. He learns to memorize words and lines and routines but fails to progress beyond that to REAL success.
Don’t be like him.
This will be your roadmap to helping you evaluate your experiences and a means to correct your behavior and conscious awareness of some of the most elemental yet elusive issues for most men. “The Art of the Pickup»” DVDs include a treasure chest of information about the elements of this topic.
So remember: Observe, pay attention to context, and calibrate!
Always helping you to pay attention,
Jay Valens
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