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Anti-Slut Defense

Anti-Slut Defense is any action a girl takes to shut down sexual escalation, often suddenly and counter to her previous behavior. Typically they do this by breaking a sexual mood through sudden, often irrational, inexplicable verbal or non-verbal non-compliance.

It tends to strike just when you think everything is lined up and the full-close is inevitable.

Why does it exist?

It boils down to the Madonna/Whore dichotomy.

Madonna(not the singer)–Jesus’s mother–a woman so perfect and pure that not only did she give birth to the son of god, but she did it without having to resort to dirty, dirty sex

Whore–A woman who will do any sexual act with anyone for the right price, as often as often as she can.

Every culture has there own scale that runs from Madonna to Whore and you can place any behavior somewhere on that scale. Each culture draws a line somewhere along that scale and anything on the right half of the scale is Whore behavior and anything on the left is Madonna behavior.

In particularly conservative cultures a woman showing her face, for example, or being in the presence of a non-family male without a chaperon is whore behavior. In more liberal cultures a woman can wear a mini-skirt with no panties, get sloshed, make out with every guy in the bar and then if some guy tries to take her home she can still say with a totally straight face, “I’m not that kind of girl.” << Anti-Slut Defense!

Anti-Slut Defense happens whenever you start to get close to the border(or cross the border) between the Madonna and the Whore and a girl wants to preserve her Madonna status. For some behaviors in some cultures, once a whore always a whore, while in others it’s a matter of balancing the amount of Madonna behaviors with the amount of Whore behaviors to maintain the right image.

This is why the longer you’re with a woman the kinkier sex becomes. She might have wanted you to hang her from the ceiling and drip candle wax on top of her while watching lesbian porn the first time you had sex with her, but she doesn’t want to ask.

She knows that if she saves that for later, you’ll see her as a “really nice girl who’s a tiger in the sack” rather than as a “total freak who can’t get enough”. In fact, she knows that bringing out her Whore too soon could even disqualify her from long term relationships with the guys that she most wants to do the most depraved things her imagination can conjure.

Anti-Slut Defense can range anywhere from, “I don’t usually do this,” right before a woman gives you a blow job on Ferris wheel on the first date, to a girl refusing to give you her phone number because, “I don’t give my number to people I just met,” to a sudden “Don’t touch me!” when you’ve gotten lots of kino compliance, as a she rushes out of your house because she suddenly remembered she has to paint her toenails for her big presentation next month on the evolution of frog spinal cords.

In milder cases the simple re-assurance, of an “I know, baby,” will do it. In other cases more qualification(especially) or more comfort will do the trick.

Setting up lots of plausible deniability, handling logistics very smoothly, “2-steps forward, 1 back” and pull-push can make the interaction slide so smoothly that her Anti-Slut Defense doesn’t have a chance to engage.

You should save hardcore sexcalation for a sexcalation location whenever possible and stay away from cheap thrills like make-outs in the park or the club where you play your hand too soon.

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No One Is Nice! (Especially YOU!)

I don’t mean this in some nihilistic sense, by the way.  And I don’t mean it in the sense that when someone does something nice they are doing it for purely selfish reasons, to “feel good”.

That’s an old argument for others to make (though I think that it’s quite valid).  What I’m going to say is far more practical and far less philosophical.

Whether people are “good” or not, “nice” or not, at a fundamental level is irrelevant to your daily experience of them.  What matters to you is if people DO good.

Do you do good?  I hope so.  Does that make you nice.  Hell no.

In fact doing good and being nice are totally different when you take a short term view.  In the short term,  being nice is often quite bad.

A lot of the issues in modern society revolve around this difference.  Now, don’t get me wrong…you can definitely do bad in the attempt to do good.  I’d say that the real goal is to be kind, which I think is totally different from being nice.

The difference becomes quite obvious when you look at the definitions (from Google):

nice

And…

kind

Often, giving someone pleasure and satisfaction will get in the way of being considerate.

It’s not nice to stick a needle into a 2yo but it’s kind because vaccinations prevent them from getting sick later.

The reason it’s important to understand the difference is because as in the example above, being nice can get in the way of being kind and kindness determines the success of people and long term relationships far more.

The fact is that other people are annoying.  Even your favorite people will piss you off if you spend enough time with them.  Each person is a combination of both positive and negative traits and impulses, including you.

Now the balance will vary from person to person and your positives with one person will be negatives for another person.  In short term or very limited relationships like you have with the barista at your local Starbucks or your next door neighbor the exposure is so limited that it’s easy to always present a positive demeanor towards them–to be nice.

But when you are with someone for long stretches of time, it’s impossible to hide your worst.  Hiding your worst would be the nice thing to do, but then when it leaps out at them later, they’ll feel confused and betrayed.

It’s far kinder to let them know in advance what your weaknesses are and in what ways you don’t meet up to their ideal image of what they want in a partner (business, sex, dating, girlfriend or other).

Now it’s not nice to tell people that they can’t have exactly what they want, and it’s scary to open up to people because they might not want to be with the real you.

Now, that’s true, but the alternative is really far, far worse.

If you don’t let people know what you’re really like, and they sign up to be with you, you’ll be stressed working to tamp down and hide your negatives.  That pressure builds up over time and definitely takes a mental and emotional toll.

You’ll always be terrified that when they find you out, you’ll lose that person and of course you’ll also be unhappy because you’re not living out the life you want.

You’ll start to resent that relationship because of the sacrifices you have to make for them and one day, who you really are will come out.

And when that happens, that person has every right to be angry with you for running a bait-and-switch scam on them.  If you really care about that person, you’ll feel terrible when you see how deeply you hurt and disappointed them.

The worst part is that it was all preventable if you’d just communicated properly up front.  Sometimes even when you try, you’ll mess this up because it takes time to know yourself, for sure.

In a new relationship, when you’re more worried about keeping them and you’re caught in the fantasy ideal you’ve projected onto them, it’s easy to make promises and think that you’ll keep them.  It’s hard to look back to your past and accept the future it predicts.  I’m not saying that you can’t break past behavioral patterns, but what I am saying is that you should warn people in your life about those proclivities so they can be prepared for them when they happen.

I make a habit on a first date of asking women what’s wrong with them.  What’s not good about them and what might make it so I wouldn’t like them.

It’s a great chance for you to find out what’s gotten in the way of her having successful relationships in the past—and her too because a lot of women have never thought about it before.

Some girls might say that they are always late, for example.  And that might be ok for you while it might drive another guy totally crazy.

One time a girl told me that she had a really bad temper.  I asked her some questions about what kind of things trigger it and then when she blew up at me several weeks later, I was shocked at first, but then I realized that this is exactly what she warned me about so I didn’t take it personally though I noted it so that I could do a better job of not triggering it again.

Conversely, I’ve seen plenty of people reluctantly try long distance relationships when they already knew that they would want to see other people, but didn’t want to tell their partner.  They don’t want to seem like they don’t really love their boyfriend, and they don’t want to hurt their feelings or seem slutty for going off to a foreign country and finding a new guy within a few weeks.

So they make some vague promises, pushing it off until later and hoping it will all work out somehow.  Then a month later she posts a picture on her Instagram and there is a comment from a guy who seems far too familiar for a girl who is supposed to have a boyfriend.

Then the suspicious boyfriend confronts her about it and she tries to innocently explain it away…this drags on for week or months.

She wastes time pretending that everything is fine, hiding what she’s doing and placating him because she wants to be nice to him while he’s wasting time he could spend looking for another girl—worrying about his relationship with her, monitoring her closely and parsing every bit of information he can get to figure out what’s really going on.

It would be far kinder for her to have said that she really loved her boyfriend but that she wanted to have a different experience and the freedom to do what she wanted without having to think about him and his feelings and that she understands that this might mean the end of their relationship forever but that it’s something she needs to do.

Or maybe, she could have said that she’s going away because she thinks it will be a good experience for her and while she’s scared about how that will affect their relationship, it’s important for her and she doesn’t know how she’ll feel about him when she’s away so he shouldn’t expect anything from her until she has some time and that she understands that she can’t expect him to wait for her or be available to her if she wants to be with him again.

I know this isn’t easy.  And it’s not even simple, because it can be very hard to communicate to others the uncertainty that we feel and it’s very natural to avoid these kinds of difficult conversations.

It’s much easier to procrastinate and put these things off and say that we’re being “nice” by saving them from dealing with truths they wouldn’t want to handle.  We decide to take what we think is the easy route of denying what we really feel and believe and trying to manage it all by ourselves.

My client was recently in a situation where because he wasn’t upfront about his needs and wants he started seeing other women on the side and when his “girlfriend” found out that he was getting his wants and needs met elsewhere, she flipped out and started wreaking havoc on his life and the side girl’s life too.

This girl was disowned by her family after the “girlfriend” contacted them and told them about what their daughter had really been up to on all those trips and he lost his job as part of this too.

Maybe you’re honest enough with yourself to admit that it’s not your attempts to be nice that are the problem, but your fear that no one will accept the real you.

Well..I’ve got GREAT news for you.  Other people, especially if they are decent and well adjusted, are walking around terrified of the exact same thing.  And when you are willing to be up front about how you might disappoint them, they can accept it because they know their shit stinks as much as yours.

And when you can be honest with them and they can be honest with you, you have a real basis for negotiation which is what successful relationships are actually all about.

I have a friend who was an inveterate swinger.  He dated a girl for many years while he openly continued his swinging lifestyle.  She wanted to marry him and have a family with him.  He reminded her about his swinging ways and his intention to continue that.  She said she wanted to be with him anyway.

You never know…everyone has skeletons in their closet and it’s only when you are kind and confident that you can play, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

And if you have a hard time being honest with yourself, I highly recommend reading, Radical Honesty

Radical Honesty

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How to Run Game Solo

If you’re out solo gaming, here are your best strategies.

1) Mixed 3-set

Find a mixed 3-set (2 girls and one guy) and take the girl that he’s ignoring.  Most guys always focus in on the girl they like leaving the 2nd girl really bored, so she’ll generally be really happy to have someone to talk to.  Sometimes guys can be hostile, especially if you’re foreign and the guy is local.

If he’s another foreigner though, he will usually be quite happy to have you there to handle the friend because he recognizes that this will make it much easier for him.

In this case, it’s really important that you communicate with him what your strategy is because a lot of times they won’t have one at all so you need to fill him in on what it is you’re trying to do.

For example, you can tell him that you want to take your girl to the bar, or go outside and that you’ll be back with your girl shortly.  You will really need to direct the whole set and you should keep an ear out for what he’s doing and saying and help him fill in any lulls in the conversation.

2) 3-sets

In the case where you open a set with 3 girls, then you have a somewhat easier situation because the other two girls can hang out together once you isolate your target.

Early in the set, you need to win over the other two girls and you need your target to show that she’s into you so that her friends don’t mind to leave her with you for at least some time.

Once you get level 2 isolation then you need to keep an eye on the friends.  It’s typical that in the first 5-minutes or so they will be totally cool with you talking to their friend, but as time goes on, they’ll start to glance over at you more often and move closer to you.

You need to pay attention to this so that you’re not surprised when they finally make a move to join your conversation or to pull your girl away.

If you notice them getting antsy, looking bored and like they want their friend back, the best thing you can do is to lead by bringing your girl back to them.  This makes you out to be a good considerate guy and makes it easier to isolate her more later.

At this point, you have the choice to eject from the set with the idea to find them later OR to take them to the dance floor, or to the bar to get drinks.  I think that it’s often better to eject because almost invariably there will be some point where the girls will want to all go off to the bathroom or something to have a chat, but I think you need to make this call based on how much the set seems to like you and how much compliance they’re giving you.

Later in the night, you can re-engage and go for higher isolation levels with your target, especially if the obstacles have had a chance to find guys they like to hang out with.

3) 2-sets

If you approach a 2-set you may not be  able to isolate.  You’ll open the set as usual, and hook both girls.  However instead of moving into level one isolation by bringing in a wing as you would normally do you will ask the obstacle qualifying questions about the target.

The set should run where you’re primarily talking TO THE OBSTACLE but the topic is about the target.  Especially anything you can qualify the target on that the obstacle doesn’t match are great topics so it starts to seem like it makes a lot of sense for you to be with the target.

If you do this right, the obstacle will start to tell you how great the target is and will try to help her “get” you.  You should kino both, but kino the target more.

Usually, if you’re running this well, the obstacle will go to the bathroom or leave you alone with the target for a while.  This is a great time to throw statements of interest (SOIs) at the target directly and to time-bridge and number/qr/chat ID close.

If possible, you can introduce guys into the set and throw them at the obstacle and this can sometimes work.  In this case, you’ll usually need to direct the set the same way that I mentioned in the first part of this article.  Often times, though, the guys won’t be able to handle it an will eject prematurely.

If that’s the case, it’s not big deal as you can proceed to bounce the set to another venue and ultimately put the obstacle in a taxi or drop her off at the train station.

If they live close together and want to travel together, you can alternatively bounce them both back to your place or other closing location.  Once you have them back at the closing location, the obstacle will often “sleep” and basically leave you alone with the target for the close.

Kane has even had the obstacle in the same bed and I once took a girl to her bathroom while 2 of her friends were passed out in her one room place.

Let me know if you have any questions about anything I’ve written above because this can be complex.

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Step 1 to Being a Beginner Sociopath

What holds people back in the path to being a sociopath in the Gervais Principle sense, is their desire to be a “good person”.  This usually means that other people like them. And if you want people to like you, you won’t be able to focus on real gains.
(Unless of course, you’re playing at that higher level where people liking you is a tool to get what you really want. )
But in most cases, people are held back by their desire to be liked. They may lose the negotiation but they take comfort in the fact that people like them. And it’s true. It’s easy for everyone to like the loser. They can look down on them and feel pity–and even better feel a sense of superiority.
So what’s not to like?
If you’re like me though, the sight of a loser just reminds you of how low a human can go and you recognize the same ineffective, destructive characteristics in yourself so that the loser is a constant reminder of what might happen to you if I don’t make the hard choices.
I was thinking about this last night because one of my clients was on a date with a girl.  He’s known her from about 4 years ago but because she lives in Taiwan and he lives in San Diego, he hasn’t been able to meet her even though they’ve kept in touch over Facebook all this time.
He’s leaving  in only two days and even though he’s been trying to schedule her for the past week, he wasn’t able to until  last night when he invited her out for drinks.  After drinks he brought her back to our place where he’s staying in the extra bedroom and tried to “make a move”.

She was pretty unreceptive and started looking for an uber soon after.  Lols!

We assured him that this is not unusual and that he learned the most important thing…that she wasn’t interested in sex with him.
Many guys would feel bad about that.  Those same guys will be angry when she chooses to be with some “asshole” instead of them after taking a girl on date after date after date for months and being the nice respectful gentlemen .
These guys, are more concerned with feeling good about themselves and be liked than with getting what they want.  And because of that, they often forfeit what they want.  Many times, in the dating and pickup space, people tell you to not care what other people think.
That’s a pretty high hurdle in my opinion, so I think that step one is making this shift from wanting to be liked to focusing on getting what you want.  it’s not as hard as it may seem.  Because in the moment of decision, you can think, “what do I want, and what can I do to get it.”
Women might read it and cry, “rape!” but the fact is that guys have, across agricultural societies and into modern times, been the ones who chase.
And that means showing intent.
That’s quite a bit different from force.  Showing intent is going to try to kiss a girl and pausing a few centimeters from her face so she has the option to turn her head away or lean away before it actually happens and that’s very different from grabbing a girl’s head and forcing her lips onto yours.
Totally different.
Because if you don’t show intent, other people won’t even know what you want and that robs them of the ability to give it to you.  There is that scene in the movie Fight Club that illustrates this perfectly:
https://youtu.be/KbGw-fnlf1Q
There are a lot of ways to ask and some of them are better than others, but a lot of guys when they are on a date are like the Ed Norton in that scene.  Hoping the girl is going to get the hint and throw themselves at him.
It happens so rarely, it’s not even worth discussing.  And it’s best to assume it never happens because that will drive you toward right action–action that will get you the results you want–on a consistent basis.
The goal of learning pickup and dating skills is the same as memorizing the percentages of each hand in poker.  If you know the precentages then you can make the right decisions based on the probability of each hand winning.
If you want to be liked, you’ll miss out on some of your best plays.
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John Boyd, I Presume?

John BoydAbout 2 or 3 years ago, I started listening to the Hardcore History podcast which I HIGHLY recommend.  Anyway, he did an awesome series on World War I which is something I never really studied that much as I’m far more intersted in eye-to-eye death battles, lols.

Anyway, after getting into Hardcore History, I told a friend of mine about it and he passed a book about World War II to me that was translated from German and talked about the details of the initial offensive on France in excruciatingly interesting detail including lots of info about tank specs (cannon types, crew sizes, armor thickness, size and range, etc).

In the book, he goes into detail explaining why the blitzkrieg tactics were possible and why it only worked on that offensive BEFORE it was an actual official military doctrine.  It talks in even more detail about the fact that the structure of the German military allowed for decisions to take place much lower in ranks without needing approval from the higher ups in as was necessary in the French and British armies and this meant they had a much faster operational tempo and that’s what led to the blitzkrieg.  It was a result of the force structure and not the other way around.

The author also mentions that the seeds of this force structure were set at the end of WWI with German storm trooper tactics.  Very briefly those tactics were basically about small units trying to advance against enemy positions probing for weaknesses as they advanced and exploiting any vulnerabilities they found.  The unit commanders had to be in charge of this because it was so fluid that there wasn’t enough time to communicate back to the higher tier commanders.

This very organic style of warfare was implemented throughout a large enough part of the German WWII army that they could have an effect on the overall tempo of the operation against the French.

In any case, that same friend, then suggested I read a biography of John Boyd an air force fighter pilot and military strategist who created and worked to proliferate his concept of the O-O-D-A loop.

Here it is:

John Boyd's OODA loop

Now you don’t need to spend too much time looking at that.  I’ll just cover some of the basics as I see them.

Observe
Orient
Decide
Act

Observe means that you need to take in your environment and collect information

Orient means that you use that information to figure out your current situation

Decide means that you then choose a course of action

Act means that you execute that decision

The key thing to understand is that it’s a loop so that after you act, you go back to observing and run through it again and the faster you can do this the more control over the overall engagement you’ll have.

I can think of a great example from when I took martial arts…

During my red sash test, I was sparring with my fellow test taker and he was a very experienced boxer.  He noticed that every time, he threw a jab, I would duck my head with my hands down (observe), then he realized that I was open at that point and he could easily get me with a kick (orient) which he then decided to do (decide) and then he executed that (act) by jabbing and waiting for me to duck my head with my hands down and WHAM!  His foot came up and and knocked me “the fuck out!”

So, I read this quite a long time ago, and looked into the O-O-D-A loop a bit, but didn’t see much practical application for it.  But then, that damn loop popped up again in my more recent reading.  I’ve been preparing for the story telling seminar since the end of last year and step one of preparing for any seminar I do is to pull ALL the resources I can think of that are related.  Usually what happens though is that I gradually end up pulling weirder and more disconnected material and then somehow find a way that it all fits together.

This time is no different…I started with Joseph Campbell’s PBS special The Power of Myth (where else would you start, right?), moved on to various TED talks that I’d watched and noted and somehow ended up finding some connection to a series of articles I read a few years ago on RibbonFarm.com called The Gervais Principle.

In the previous blog post I mentioned this and his discussion of psychopaths/sociopaths.  And this time due to some of the things that I learned while putting together the Relationship Seminar, I thought it was worth pursuing his line of thought more deeply so I read his book, Be Slightly Evil, which was an incredibly interesting read.  In it, he talks about dealing with conflict and John Boyd makes a small appearance in that book.

He also alludes to his other book, Tempo, which is (supposed to be) focused on conflict and tactics.  And in that book, he talks about another book called, Certain to Win, which I just finished reading yesterday.  Certain to Win is about applying Boyd’s concepts and the O-O-D-A loop to business.

 But as I was reading it, I started to see a lot of applications in dating…now bear with me because people already think that the world of dating is perilous enough without bringing military tactics into it, but, oh well.  What can you do?

In season 1 of True Detectives, Marty was constantly counsels Rust to follow where the evidence takes you, not where you want it to go and I try to do the same.  So here we go…

My linking the two also has a lot to do with a recent dating(?) experience I’ve been embroiled in in various ways over the past 6 months or so, and the experience of the dating world in Taiwan in general which is far more conflict ridden than what I’ve experienced in Japan, Korea, and China though it’s possible that Hong Kong may have a somewhat similar dynamic.

I see several ways where Boyd’s principles apply to dating and actually to human interaction in general…

The O-O-D-A loop in a conversation works as the two people (in this example) talk.  Each is saying and doing things and the other person is reacting and responding to it.  Now, this could be collaborative, but in most dating situations, and many business situations, it’s not just idle chatter, but purposeful chatter where each participant has particular goals in mind as they are interacting.

Like with most negotiations, it’s not purely adversarial.  It’s largely cooperative, but there is an adversarial element to it.

In my explanation, I’ll stick with dating because that’s more my bag (baby!).  And I’ll start with the initial approach as I teach it.

Before I get into it, I want to point out that the seeds of the O-O-D-A loop (from now on, I’m going to call it The Loop for short because I’m tired of finding the hyphen key) was developed originally from Boyd’s experience as a fighter pilot.  He got the nickname “40-second Boyd” not from his wife (as far as we know, lols) but for his standing bet that he could defeat any other fighter pilot in under 40-seconds no matter what relative position he started out in.

I think most people while they wouldn’t want to think of dating as a jet fighter dog fight can easily see the parallels.  Things are moving very quickly, there is a lot going on and you may not catch everything but you can’t dwell on it because you need to move forward or risk really looking slow and dull so you don’t get “shot down”.

In the earliest days of the world of pickup, the movie Top Gun was iconic enough that in a certain respect rolling out The Loop kind of makes a lot of sense.  Anyway I’m  not going to justify this any further and would rather just get to the important part about discussing how this all works…

As a girl recently said to me when I threw an unexpected question out at her over coffee, “Are we really doing this?”  “Yes, ma’am, we are.”

Observe

Before making an approach, every guy should assess the situation he’s going into.  Is she alone, is she with friends, is she waiting for someone, is she on the phone?  How many people is she with? How many guys and how many girls?  Is she having a serious conversation or is she relaxed and casual?

How is she facing, relative to you and how are all the other people positioned?  Is there another guy checking out the same opportunity you are?  What is she wearing—is she dressed casually, is she wearing work clothes, is she wearing gym cloths or something else?  Is she dressed for the location and venue or does her outfit seem out of place?  There are millions of valuable details that you could collect to help you assess the situation that you’re about to walk into.

In the criminal world, this is called “casing the target,” among law enforcement, it’s called, surveillance.

Orient

This is where you combine what you’re seeing in front of you with your previous experience, and accumulated knowledge to figure out what’s going on.  It’s where you take the information about what she’s wearing, who she’s with, her body language, her clothing, etc to get your best understanding of the situation.

Let’s assume that you’re in a major city like Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, or Shanghai for example and your at a downtown bar in the business area of the city around 7pm.

You spot two women in their mid-20s sitting together at the bar, one wearing a business suit and the other wearing work out clothes.

Just from this information you could come up with a few different possibilities.  For example, you might think that the girl in the business suit is an insurance salesman and the girl in the work out clothes is a prospect she’s doing a sales call with.

Or maybe the girl in the workout clothes is a personal trainer trying to sign up the office worker as a client or trying to sell her on Amway or Nuskin.

While both of these are possible, and it’s also possible that they are co-workers and the workout girl finished sooner, it’s more likely that these are two friends meeting up after work, but the friend in the workout clothes finishes work earlier and could go to the gym before coming out to meet her friend for a drink.

If you observed that they were sitting at the bar with people sitting on both sides of them, you might come up with several options for approaching them.  Maybe it would be better to wait until there is a free seat next to them, or until one of the friends goes to the bathroom.  Alternatively maybe there is space along the bar between them and the next seats over where you could position yourself.

If you observed that they’re talking very enthusiastically versus if they’re very casually checking their phones with brief exchanges, you might conclude that whatever they are more or less open to the opportunity of talking to someone else.

Decide

If you’re experienced with approaching women, you might already know how you’ve approached in similar situations in the past and then you could decide whether you want to approach, and exactly how you would do it.

Using what you Observe to Orient, you then use your past experience go through all the possible ways you could start the interaction and Decide which you think has the highest probability of success.

You could also run through the possible things you could say to start the conversation and maybe what you will follow up with depending on how you think they will respond.

When you’re new at this and you don’t have as much experience you wont make as good decisions and it will take you longer to Decide.  But once you have a lot more reference experience you don’t need to Decide because it’s “implicit” in the situation, much like how when you get ready for bed, you don’t need to Decide to brush your teeth.

In The Loop diagram, you’ll see that in the line running directly from Orient to Act that’s labeled, “implicit guidance and control”

John Boyd's OODA loop

Also note how under Decide it says, hypothesis, in parenthesis.  This means that you have a hypothesis about your situation as in our example where you think that they are friends out for a drink based on how you used what you Observe to Orient.

You Decide based on the hypothesis you built based on your past experience and that’s why there is an element of probability that I mentioned when considering the various possible ways you could Orient according to what you Observe.

Once you Decide, it’s time to…

Act

The key thing to understand about this part is that it feeds directly back into the Observe stage.  Because when you Act, there will be a response.  In this case, to approach, you’ll need to start walking in their direction.

Putting It All Together

As you walk towards them, they may notice you.  If they notice you, you then have to Decide if you’re going to engage them at that point, or if you’re going to wait until you get closer.  So, you see, you’re already going through another Observe-Orient-Decide-Act cycle.

So, one of them may look up at you from her phone as you get closer to them attempting to take a space next to one of them.  When she looks up, you may Observe exactly how she looks at you.  In the Orient stage, you’ll Decide if she’s just looking up randomly, and happens to see you, or if she is acknowledging you, or even if she is hostile to your presence.

If she’s acknowledging you, you may Decide to approach her directly.  If you think she’s hostile then you may Decide to approach the bar and check out the menu to give you more time to Observe and Orient.

Also, if you Decide to open after she acknowledges you, you are operating under the hypothesis that she will be receptive.  That’s the hypothesis that causes you to make that decision.  When you Act, you “test” that hypothesis and then you Observe the results of that “test” and the Orient accordingly.

This recursive element of The Loop is one of the most powerful aspects of it because it includes the effect your actions have on the results you get, which means that you can gradually shape the interaction as you cycle through The Loop.

In my training I often say that “pickup is a continuous testing process” because you never really know the situation until you Act and Observe the “feedback” and the “unfolding interaction with the environment”.

As a simpler example, I was at the club a few weeks ago at a railing looking over the dance floor.  I turned around and saw a girl who looked like she was looking in my direction and had just finished taking a picture (Observe).

I wasn’t sure if she was taking a picture of me, or if she was taking a picture of the club and I happened to be in it, or what (Orient).  So, I posed a bit (Decision and Act) when she went to take another and I got no reaction from her (Observe).  So then, I assumed that she was taking a picture of what was beyond me (Orient).

I wanted to know what so I turned around to see if there was anything unusual (Decide and Act).  And I noticed at table of guys and girls (Observe) and I looked at her face again and noticed that she looked angry (Observe) and thought that she saw some guy, maybe her boyfriend with another girl, (Orient) and kept watching to see what would happen (Decide, Act, Observe, Orient…) and in the end I did see her and some guy having an argument right in the middle of the club.

The Loop is so useful for troubleshooting your life because you can always look back at each part and start to figure out where you made mistakes in the past and figure out how to make better moves in the future.

Did you fail to Observe information that could have helped you Orient better?  Did you Observe the right information but then you Oriented badly?  Did you Orient well, but you made the wrong Decision?  When you made your Decision did you fail to Act properly or too slowly, or sloppily?

Typically with guys that aren’t good with women, they may not Observe well enough to notice the women that they could be engaging with.  If they do Observe them, they frequently fail to Orient well and don’t see the positive signals that allow them to have build a hypothesis that says that they have a chance with a girl, so they Decide not to do anything and then they Act by not trying and then they Observe that nothing happens and then Orient to think they don’t have a chance and it continues like that ceaselessly.

When you break down The Loop you can take each of the stages and the pieces of each stage to find The Loops that work in your favor and discard the old Loops that are keeping you where you are.

In another article, I’ll talk about how your Loop interacts with a girl’s Loop during the process, because that’s where it really gets interesting.

I did a talk on the O-O-D-A Loop at the 2017 All Asia Summit and you can watch it here:

The O-O-D-A Loop

The O-O-D-A loop is a way to think about interactions that was developed by a famous Air Force pilot, John Boyd. His theory went on to influence military doctrine, especially among the marines. In crafting strategy for the Operation Desert Storm and Operation Desert Shield, the generals used the concepts to quickly and decisively defeat Saddam’s military forces with a minimal of casualties.

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Mind Games and Powertalk

In the Gervais Principle Ribbonfarm series, he spends several posts talking about how Sociopaths, Clueless, and Losers communicate among themselves and among each other and this is another aspect that I think is really valuable to apply to the dating world and gives great insight into why women are so much better at this than men.

Here’s the diagram:

Language Spoken in Organizations

The first thing to understand before we move on is to talk about what he calls “table stakes”.  As I mentioned in the previous post on the Gervais Principle the difference between Sociopaths and Losers is that Losers care about emotional gains while Sociopaths care about “real” gains.

Table stakes are potential “real” gains for others.  In the case where a Sociopath is interacting with a Clueless he an offer empty signifiers of success like a better title, or a trophy, while in dealing with a Loser he might offer praise.  These are not “table stakes” because they are essentially cost free for the Sociopath.

However when a Sociopath is negotiating with another Sociopath, they both have to be very careful about how they present their table stakes.  This is the world of boardroom confrontations and backroom haggling, where people are playing hardball—this is Powertalk.

Where you are trying to get the maximum while giving up the minimum.

Gametalk by comparison is the world of emotional payoffs.  This is the world of letting everyone be a winner, and making sure that everyone feels good about themselves all the time.

If you’re not good with women then you’ve heard a constant stream of Gametalk, and probably participated in a fair bit of it too.  Things like:

“Don’t worry, there’s someone out there that’s perfect for you.”
“I’m sure you’ll find a nice girl who will really appreciate you.”
“These girls aren’t good enough for you…you can do way better.”
“There’s someone for everyone.”
“She just too stupid to know how great you are.”
“Just be yourself and girls will like you.”
“She doesn’t deserve you.”

These kind of empty phrases that are designed to make you feel better about your lack of success without providing any real way for you to change your outcomes is what Gametalk is all about.

Cover up your failure with good feelings and slaps on the back—verbal handjobs for everyone!

Usually Gametalk is from well-meaning guy friends who also are terrible with women or women who are still living in a fairy tale world of everyone finding the perfect one.

It can also be said by female Socoipaths who know better in which case, it’s Babytalk.  They don’t want to tell you the truth—you’re boring, you’re fashion is terrible, you are too weak to be attractive to women, etc—which would be Straighttalk, so they give you a pat on the back to make you feel good in the moment and then send you off to get slaughtered again tomorrow.

For the Losers, the world of dating isn’t a competitive environment.  It’s a matter of being authentic and waiting for luck and fate to lead you to your perfect match—your soulmate.

For Clueless, the dating world is about accruing the right “things” for women to select you.  These are the guys that think that if they make a certain amount of money, or have the right kind of job or drive the right car, that they will be successful with women (hence Posturetalk).

Now, let’s circle back to Powertalk…

As I said earlier, this is Sociopath-Sociopath communication.  Where both people have table stakes and know it.  As it turns out, women are much better at this than men which is why men end up pussy whipped and broke.

Except for a few, most men feel that women are the ones running the show and that women are the selectors.  Women often dictate the terms when it comes to sex and withhold it selectively to get what they want, and it’s commonly thought that women always win arguments.

So, why are women so much better at the dating game than men?

Because they start out with table stakes as soon as they hit puberty.  And the more attractive they are the earlier they have table stakes and the more opportunities they have to learn how to bargain with them. As the original Ribbonfarm article on Powetalk points out, the only way to learn Powertalk is to practice it with Sociopaths, and through observing other Sociopaths using it.

So, the first problem is that most guys don’t start accumulating table stakes until they are in their early-20s at best, and most not until they are in their mid to late 20s which means that they have a 6+ year gap where they don’t have table stakes to bargain with.

The 2nd problem for guys is that you need a detailed model of other people and social situations to understand how to deploy your table stakes well.  As in all bargaining, you need to understand your adversary’s position, strengths and weaknesses as well as your own, and guys don’t spend as much time studying other people as women do and tend to compete in more direct and structured ways like Clueless do.

Additionally what counts as table stakes varies widely according to a lot of different factors.  For example if you’re the first guy in your class to have a car in high school, that’s table stakes if you live in a suburban area where public transport is mostly unavailable.

However, if you live in downtown Brooklyn, then it wouldn’t be and when everyone has a car, it’s not much to work with.  Many a guy has tried to use his car to get dates and sex from girls and has ended up becoming a chauffeur for her and her friends and getting neither dates nor sex.

In this negotiation, her table stakes are sex, but she’s managing to get driven around without having to put up any table stakes of her own.  If the guy is Clueless he might feel that he’s winning though because he’s getting a reputation boost by having this girl in his car, and think that he’s getting somewhere with her.

A Loser might think that he has no chance, but be willing to drive her around and then be content to get sympathy from friends about how much he does for her and how he really does deserve her but she’s to blind to realize what a great guy he is.

A Sociopath, would only be angling to get some action—whether that is sex, blow jobs, hand jobs, to be able to finger or whatever.  But he wants something more than an emotional pay off and he DEFINITELY doesn’t want a reputation UNLESS he can use his association with her to get access to her friends (for example).

In this case, he’s willing to use his table stakes (rides) as a means to an end and not as an end in and of itself.

Even in the simple example above you can see how complicated this could be for him to negotiate.  He would need to present his offer of giving her rides, or have her hint at it, and then he would need to find a way to offer it contingent on certain behavior from her without losing by being caught out for being a misogynist pig, a creep, or for sexual harassment, among many other labels she could paint him with if he doesn’t speak Powertalk well and move skillfully.

As I mentioned in a previous article, the first step in learning game is to make your status illegible so that guys stop appearing to be at the bottom of the social dominance hierarchy.  The higher up the social dominance hierarchy, the more table stakes a guy has, which is why women pay attention to higher status guys.

The basic game structure as originally developed by Mystery, is a structure for using Powertalk in dating.  In the initial stages of traditional game, you don’t communicate direct interest in the “target” (the girl you want) and by not showing her direct interest while being really interesting to her and the people she’s with in the Attraction phase, you communicate high status and therefore likely to have table stakes.

Meanwhile as a universally attractive woman, she knows she has table stakes and when you move into Qualification you demonstrate that her beauty isn’t enough on it’s own and that she needs to put up more value than just that to get at your table stakes.

Once you’ve established mutual table stakes of sufficient value to spend engage with, you move into Comfort where you establish that each party is essentially acting in good faith.  Comfort is where both parties communicate information about themselves to one another that each can feel safe that the other will actually deliver on their table stakes.

By time-bridging you communicate that this is an ongoing relationship with a next step and by sharing more information about yourselves you communicate that you can be trusted.  Additionally, she gets to collect some of her “real” gains from the experience you provide with future projection working to let her know that there is the possibility of more to come.

The Sexcalation phase, at a minimum is his opportunity to collect some “real” gains and maybe is her opportunity to collect “real” gains if part of his table stakes was his skill in bed.

As pickup has gone more mainstream, there has been a shift away from this style of game to focusing purely on Gametalk.  Being in “state” which is an emotional pay off and focusing a lot on pumping the target’s emotional state and rapidly sexcalating to keep that emotional high going until sex happens.

This is why a lot of recent pickup material is so weak on creating ongoing relationships but really effective with one night stands from clubs with mediocre girls but not particularly effective at snagging top tier girls.

If you want the best women out there, sit down, work out your “table stakes” and then get out there and start practicing your Powertalk.

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Obscure Status, Deliver Value

This is going to be a fairly quick post as compared to the other two posts I’m working on that are multi week projects to get just right.

Many girls get pretty upset that guys learn PickUp and dating skills in general.  Over the years it’s often been compared to makeup for men.  I always thought that was a good way to look at it, but until recently, I didn’t have such a great way to articulate it that made it  clear why women are so negative about it and also why it’s so effective.

Dating is a combination of a status game and a value game.  It’s a value game in that everything in life is a value game.  Something that has no value is useless to us.

Now, it’s true that in western culture, humanism has made it so that we view each person has being someone worthy of some level of human dignity.  This is how democracy works.  Each person gets an equal say because each person is accorded some basic level of respect in society.

No matter who you are, walking around beating up, kicking or spitting on random people, is rude and unacceptable behavior.  Even doing this to a criminal or a murderer would be considered out of place and it’s why even the death penalty is administered with a minimum desire to inflict pain on the person.

Now, clearly women are looking for the maximum value they can get, but figuring out how much value a given guy has is a difficult problem given that a lot of the value that men can provide is not inherent in who they are.  In evolutionary terms, in addition to good genes, which are relatively easy to determine, there are a lot more attributes that are important given the inherent vulnerability of pregnant women and women with children.

Because this is such a difficult problem women can’t assess a man’s absolute value.  Instead, they assess his relative value, and relative value is what status is.

Assessing someone’s status is also a somewhat difficult problem, but it’s far easier than assessing absolute value.  It’s a kind of shorthand in the same way that if I do an internet search for the 10 most beautiful women of the year, I can get a rough estimate of status, but I’d have no idea if any of those women would make a good long  term (or short term) partner–you never know who has a stank vag and who doesn’t! Lols.

As you can see, that isn’t to say that status is a great measure to use to assess value, but it’s a far easier problem to solve and works well enough that it’s the default method girls use at least for the initial screening problem.  It’s something like how Harvard cuts out anyone with a GPA below a certain level.

One of the reasons that PickUp is so effective for guys when they first get into it is that the first things that you learn are designed to obscure your value so that guys aren’t immediately eliminated.

Improving body language is a key aspect to obscuring status as all throughout the animal kingdom because it provides clues to a person’s disposition.  Speaking more loudly, standing up straight, having open body language, dressing in an eye-catching fashion that draws attention, and engaging people in conversation are all behaviors that imply a level of status that women should pay attention to.

Makeup and fashion work in the same way for women where by using a push up bra, reddening the lips and using eyeliner, they obscure their actual physical features making their value more uncertain and giving them a higher level of exposure to men than they would otherwise get.

As such, it’s no surprise that women really are unhappy with guys learning pickup and dating skills.  It essentially makes their attempts to determine status harder than it would otherwise be.

There are some really interesting side effect of this.  I love the perplexed look on a client’s face when he as a 25yo virgin who’s never chatted up a girl at a club before, gets accused of being a playboy!

The interesting thing is that by obscuring their status, they get the opportunity to present their unique value to women who may never have had gotten the chance to find a guy who is closer to what she’s looking for than she typically comes across in that environment.

So, in the end, it’s win-win for everyone, lols.

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Monster Killers

I’ve gotten so much out of watching Jordan Peterson’s lectures.  It’s really impressive how deep what he says goes, and how many meanings are contained in the ideas he puts across.  One of them is the idea of the dragon slayer or the monster killer.

First off, a monster is a representation of things in the world that can hurt us.  That’s why monsters are often composites of many different animals as in the case of the dragon, chimera, or the Minotaur.

The monster killer is he (or she) who confronts the things that can hurt us and prevails. The reason this is important to humans and is the central “hero story” is  because life is full of encounters with things that can hurt us, and the job of life is to defeat those things for as long as we possibly can.

“Death hast to win only once, but life has to win everyday.”
-Roy F. Baumeister, Is There Anything Good About Men?

Those things can be external, like floods, storms, predatory animals, the hunt for food and water, other humans or they can be internal, like sickness, or mental and psychological stress.

The dragon slayer is he who can surmount those things.  Or at least he who confronts those things, and traditionally, women wanted a monster killer because they are more vulnerable both because they become pregnant, but also because they are the primary caretakers of children.

Only those women who were wired to seek out monster killers had offspring and here we are.

The problem with a monster killer is that he’s still a killer, and that makes him not tame which means he might kill you too!  Jordan B. suggests that the primary “hero story” for women is Beauty and the Beast.  He thinks that the taming of the beast to serve as her protector is the primary motif in women’s stories.

Now, this is not too surprising for most men who have learned “game” or who have studied evolutionary psychology.  It’s been well established that women like “bad boys” and they don’t like “nice guys”.  And this is the background for why.

But I want to note, that it’s not that women like “bad boys”, it’s that women want to tame the “bad boy” more than they want to toughen up the “nice guy”.  Arguably, they don’t have time to toughen up the “nice guy”.  By the time she’s got him ready, she’s dead.

I was thinking about this last night and it made me wonder what the difference is between dangerous and not tame.  And I figured out that, dangerous means able to slay dragons, while tame means will not do harm to her in particular.

And this is where signaling comes in, because the dating world is all about signaling, since you can’t KNOW about the fitness of a particular potential mate, you use signals to make a decision about them.  There is so much literature on this that I won’t go into it now.

If you’re really not familiar with this concept, you can read the details about it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory

So, here we have a problem…how can men signal they are dangerous while also signaling that they are tame or tamable?

Signaling that you are dangerous is what a lot of pickup is about.  Actually, if done properly it’s about developing yourself into someone who is dangerous.  If done improperly, it’s about signaling without actually being dangerous (think, The Wizard of Oz).

Now, let me be clear and reiterate that dangerous means, able to face problems and theoretically if you are able to face them, it is because you are reasonably confident that you can prevail against them so that facing them and being able to overcome them are almost synonymous.

Hence why, all of the Greeks who die in the Iliad are heroes.  I think, but I’m not sure, that the reason why Achilles is the supreme hero for the Greeks, though, is that he is the strongest, and most powerful warrior, but when given the opportunity to show mercy, he does.

Because having the power to do and have whatever you want and choosing not to use it is a part of being a well socialized individual.

We’re still caught with signaling the right balance of dangerousness and tameness.  I haven’t really worked this out, yet, but if a woman is attracted to you at all, it is some indication that she sees you as being some level of dangerous.

Certainly, one signal of being tame is asking her to be your girlfriend, expending cash and buying gifts and calling her everyday are example signals of being tame, but of course if she thinks that that’s just the way you are and it’s not a reaction to her behavior then it signals that you are not even dangerous enough to be considered.

This balance is not an easy one and it changes as your life changes too.

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Emotional Payoffs vs Real Gains

A few years ago, I read a series of blog posts on ribbonfarm.com that he ultimately turned into a book called The Gervais Principle. When I read it originally I thought it was a really interesting post, and I thought that it was a good model for corporate reality.

But outside of the corporate world, I didn’t see much application.  So, let me VERY briefly explain…

The article is based on the idea of taking something called the McLeod hierarchy and seeing how it plays out in the American version of the tv series, The Office.

Here’s a visual:

Company Hierarchy

I’m going to briefly explain what these labels mean, because they have separate meanings from what they typically mean in every day conversation.

Losers are basically clock punchers.  They put the minimum effort into their jobs necessary to get a paycheck and get meaning from elsewhere in their lives like family, outside hobbies, friends, etc.  They don’t care about their company and are just going through the motions.

Clueless are usually the overachieving team players who end up in middle management for their dedication and going the extra mile for their company.

Sociopaths are not clinical sociopaths…these  are people who are bent on climbing the corporate hierarchy.  They are clever, hard-nosed, tough and very logical and are always looking for an angle or an edge over other people and are willing to break rules or not play fair to win.

The main difference between these 3 from my perspective is how they see  value in life and social interactions.

Clueless seek tangible recognition like job titles, badges, honors to put on their walls, certificates of achievement, etc.  Many conspicuous displays of wealth like expensive cars and obvious brand label clothes could also fall into this category.

What they want is to be respected for their achievements in out-performing others.  This is the kind of person who likes to have lots of initials behind their names, and will make sure that if they have a PhD, that you call them Dr.

In contrast, the Losers care primarily about emotional payoffs.  Emotional payoffs come from the regard of their peers so this is things like being a valued member of the team, being a pillar of the community, and generally getting praise for being a “good person”.  Cheap fame like landing a spot in a reality tv show, or having a lot of followers on social media could also fit into this.

What they want is to feel good about themselves and for other people to affirm them and their life decisions.  This can be in whatever their social circle is so winning a drinking competition at the local pub, and running in a marathon for cancer would be exactly the types of things that Losers love to do.

Lastly, we have the Sociopaths.  Sociopaths, care about what I call, “real” gains.  And “real” gains are anything that checks out from a cost-benefit analysis.  It’s a bit difficult to tease these apart from the accolades that Clueless seek, but the difference is that a Sociopath wants the accolades in as much as they help him achieve some other aim.

They are a means, not an end in that they don’t care about the accolade itself.  They care what it can do for them.  In this regard, a fake would be just as good as a real one if they won’t get caught.

The Clueless wouldn’t be satisfied with a fake, because they want the achievement, itself, and in fact, would be quite upset to find that someone else cheated to get it, while a Sociopath would likely respect a person as clever for finding a way to get the same benefits without any of the hard work.

Now, you might be wondering why I’m even talking about this and how this relates to dating and women and especially how this relates to dating Asian girls so keep reading…

In the dating world, some girls are mainly going for emotional payoffs and others are going for “real” gains.  The smartest girls are going for “real” gains while making it seem that they are after emotional gains.  After all, girls who are only going after “real” gains are called: whores, gold diggers, social climbers, etc.

Now this is where the real difference in dating in the west vs dating in Asia comes up.  Asian women are much more looking for “real” gains than western women.

Why?

Well, in the west, if a girl wants a nice car, expensive brand goods, to go on exotic trips, and have a big house, she’s supposed to work hard and get it for herself.

She’s an independent woman and she doesn’t need a man…

So why do they bother with men at all?  For the emotional payoffs of the Loser.  The attention, of course, and then the biological desire for sex is there, but with the modern idea that women shouldn’t try to get “real” gains from men, they are going for the most emotionally exciting experience.

There is no need to take into account practicalities in a western woman’s dating and sex life.

Contrast that with Asian girls who, for the most part, care a lot more about family and don’t want to be spending all day at an office (who does, right?).  So they are looking for “real” gains because that will allow them to stay home with the kids and go shopping and drink tea with the girls once the kids are old enough to go to school.

They also need to lock down a man who is going to stay with them because if you’re a 39yo divorced Asian woman raising your kids as a single mother, people will think you’re a damn fool for not being able to hold on to your man, or for choosing a dud in the first place.

And good luck having a dating life or getting remarried!

Now, whether you agree with this or not is irrelevant.  This is how Asian societies think and it shapes behavior, big time.

On the other hand, the 39yo divorced western women is still hot and can party after the kids are tucked in or the baby sitter shows up.

Once again, you can agree or disagree, but it doesn’t matter…these ideas are out there and they influence behavior.

This is why when many western guys who are awesome with girls back home come to Asia, they have a hard time understanding Asian girls.  They think that a hot club make-out while they’re grinding her clit through her jeans is going to go somewhere (and of course, sometimes it does,) but a lot of times it doesn’t and the guys is baffled when he goes home empty handed.

On the reverse, the reliable guy who may not be very emotionally compelling can get action in Asia like he can’t back at home because he has “real” gains on offer.

Now that I’ve outlined this basic dynamic, I want to shift to talking about why women run circles around guys in the dating world using another ribbonfarm.com diagram.

So, check it out in a few days…

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Attachment Theory vs (S)He Just Isn’t That Into You?

Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find and Keep Love

Just yesterday, I finished reading the book, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find and Keep Love (that’s a mouthful), and while I enjoyed reading it, I’m always really skeptical of anything I agree with too much.

If I agree with it then I’m reinforcing my existing beliefs which means that my brain is probably not critically engaged enough to pick up on what doesn’t match and I’m missing out on learning opportunities.

There’s a quote that goes something like:

If you and I both think the same thing, then one of us is redundant

Anyway, I enjoyed this book quite a bit, and there are a few things that are interesting about it and a few things that I think are adequately explained with how they fit in.  In fact, maybe all of the interesting points from my perspective may fall into the category of not being adequately explained, which is probably why I find those particular things interesting.

To VERY briefly explain attachment theory, there are 3 basic attachment styles:

Secure
Anxious
Avoidant

Secure people are just like you would expect…they are comfortable with intimacy, trust their partners easily, and assume the best in conflicts which helps keep them from escalating out of control.

Anxious people really crave intimacy with someone, but at the same time tend to be continuously concerned that their significant other doesn’t care for them enough and any small detail that could potentially mean that they are less loved than they want to be is highlighted and is cause for major concern.

Avoidant people want to be attached, but when they actually find someone the closeness is suffocating and they do various things to sabotage the intimacy they have in their relationships.

Now that we have the basics, we can  go into some of the weird things that come to mind when you think about this more closely.

A lot of the book is focused on what anxious and avoidant people can do to be happier in their relationships and the problems that they face and how you can manage those if you are with one of those two types.

One of the most surprising pieces of advice that I found in this book was the advice for anxious people that they date multiple people simultaneously.  It’s rare that a mainstream, (somewhat) scientifically rigorous book recommends that.  The authors’ reasoning is that anxious people put too many expectations on others early on and by having more than one prospect they reduce that anxiety by having a “plan b” (my words, not theirs).  They mention this kind of in passing, and they don’t go into detail about what this might look like.

It’s unclear if they are advocating some form of polyamory or they just mean for people to “play the field” before settling in on one person.  Either way, those kind of arrangements often open up other problems that are totally not addressed like how to manage multiple people, and how to pare down to one once you’ve selected a person from the pool to be with.

The next thing that struck me is that their characterizations of an avoidant person don’t distinguish between a person who has problems with intimacy and a person who just doesn’t want to get too intimate with a particular person for whatever reason (usually because that person doesn’t meet their minimum threshold for a serious partner because of looks, temperament, geography, religion, finances, education background, etc.)

There definitely is a difference between someone who has problems with intimacy and someone who really likes a person but doesn’t wnat to be serious about them because they have a major black mark against them like a drinking problem, for example.

Under these circumstances, the securely attached person might appear to be avoidant, when actually they are just being prudent.  What this highlights is that these types are really about a person’s INTERNAL experience, but since those aren’t visible to outsiders, they can mis-characterize your attachment style and then interact with you in a sub-optimal way.

Ultimately, the books seems to say that the conflicts that come when these three types interact with one another are the differing levels of intimacy with Anxious at one end, requiring lots of intimacy and Avoidants at the opposite end wanting a lot less intimacy and a lot more freedom.

Secures are..?  Able to be flexible according to their partners?  it’s quite unclear where secures fall into this, but I guess the authors may be saying that because they are secure they can negotiate their intimacy needs and make sensible compromises and trade-offs to (mostly?) satisfy their own intimacy needs and those of their partner.

The last thing, I want to mention is that they imply that the avoidant type uses seeing other people as a way to reduce their attachment to a given partner and to maintain their autonomy as they might also do by long absences, for example.  What’s not clear to me though is if someone engages in those behaviors but hides them from their partner.

So, an Avoidant might maintain contact with an ex and want it to be known so that the other person is on notice not to get too close, but a secure might maintain a relationship with an ex just because they like that person.  And I think that this can be even more confusing if you think of the case of a person wanting to and deciding to have sex with someone else.

From what he book seems to be saying, if the person is Avoidant, they would want their partner to know to keep them at bay, and if they were anxious they would either be doing it for some perceived slight and may or may not want to keep it a secret, or they are doing it to get more attention by trying to create jealousy in their partner in which case they would want their partner to find out.

But what about the securely attached person…

Theoretically, they are satisfied enough with the level of intimacy they are able to negotiate to stay with their partner and be calm and supportive but that doesn’t mean that their personal needs are being met at the level they want them to be met at.  So, if a Secure was seeing someone on the side, presumably they would work to keep it a secret because they don’t want to hurt their partner and aren’t playing any games to try and change their partners behavior because they can negotiate directly around their needs and wants, right?

The authors don’t say.

So ultimately, why this book is very interesting and while I found myself nodding along on a regular basis, I also felt that they conflated intimacy needs with these attachment styles but I suspect that even securely attached people have different intimacy preferences or, they may want to keep a low intimacy relationship because (s)he isn’t that into you at the moment…though that can definitely change with time.

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