The Silence

no champagne facials tonight

This post is primarily for men who’ve had success with women but who feel stuck and disillusioned.

If you’ve ever tried to convince a child to play with a toy it’s not interested in, you understand the futility of trying to get a woman to talk to/date/sleep with you when she’s not interested.

If you’re fixated on how you did this or that wrong, how you should calibrate this or tweak that, and you never evaluate women on their merits: you’re in sales.

Obviously, you have to learn somehow, and approaching and evaluating your approaches is a common enough thing. But let’s call a spade a spade and recognize that at some point you’re just trying to sell yourself to her and aren’t taking into consideration whether or not you’d like what she has to offer. (Additionally, it’d be foolish to believe that a woman can’t sniff your selling attempts from the moment she lays eyes on you, sauntering over to her to spit whatever game you’ve got ready.)

Now, some important questions:

• When was the last time a woman approached you?
• or smiled at you or asked what you were reading or how you were?
• or how your day was going, nervously interested in you?
• Have you had a girl you’ve seen on several occasions use a well-rehearsed gambit to show that she’s not noticed you before (obviously lying if you have your eyes open)? Some might use the expression, “she’s sweating you.” The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

You may think that women approaching or expressing overt interest in men is pie in the sky, for men that have material things that you don’t have. It exists, it’s just rarer, and therefore less often witnessed. Even less often lived. And perhaps in some places, it is rarer than a four leafed clover or a kakapo.

Now, something to do:

• Hold eye contact with a woman in a way so that she isn’t quite sure why you’re looking at her.
• In that moment when you’re looking at her, assess her. It doesn’t mean you pick her apart so that you rationalize not approaching her, it means you see her more clearly. This will become second-nature over time. This is how men who have their shit together and who aren’t hard-up for sex look at women. Women know the difference.

Try it.

Compare the reactions you get doing that to the reactions you get when a woman knows you want something and aren’t discriminating; when she knows you’re going to try to sell something to her: your dick inside of her, no matter what it takes. Imagine how she feels when you’ve broadcasted (non-verbally of course) that she can give nothing, nor take anything away from you. Imagine how you compare to the bulk of men she encounters.

If you’ve never been a buyer [I don't mean paying for sex, I mean in the sense that there are buyers and sellers], the initial experience can be unsettling. Much the way it is jarring to be in a foreign country, standing in a horde of buyers around an open air meat butcher who’s swinging his insanely sharp blade with rapidity, people shouting at him for the best cuts. You get in, you get what you want, and you get out. There’s no line, there’s no order. It takes getting used to.

In other words, being a buyer is a different paradigm.

No longer looking at a fixed price and forking over the dough, you engage in one of the oldest games in human history. In Western Cultures, we typically aren’t exposed to it, so it takes getting used to.

It’s much the same way with becoming a buyer. It can be uncomfortable taking on that position. The point isn’t to engage in some kind of intellectual masturbation, but to fully realize your potential as having value to offer which you don’t give away to just anyone.

At some point you begin evaluating opportunities more fully.

When you realize your value and adjust your perspective, there’s an inner silence, a stillness. It’s a position of having and deciding whether or not to dispense what you have. Is it worth it? Would what I have best be utilized elsewhere? 

If you like this post, read End Game, which explores the how of this post’s what.

Silentium.

Letters to a young man 25

Hello my friend.

I have been thinking over your situation. For starters, I am sorry to hear about your breakup. I’m sure there was emotional investment and this kind of thing is never easy to deal with and I can understand your ire at the situation.

Firstly, I recommend that you try not communicating with her, especially in your current state. I can see that no good will come of it. This is of course easy for me to say, as I’m removed from the situation. However, judging from my life experience I can say that you’d be better off staying away from confronting her in any way. As you said yourself, it’s over.

Also, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I would say that every man has dealt with such a thing, and I’m no exception. Sometimes we see what we want to see in people, and overlook obvious clues that something isn’t quite right. Again, I know this from personal experience.

The hardest lesson in all of this, perhaps, is that you’ll have to accept those feelings. You’ll have to accept that maybe you were wronged, and maybe you were duped. I have a good personal friend who’s dealing with just this same type of thing right now, in fact. I’ve asked him these questions, and I’ll ask you,

So what if it’s true that she duped you? What would that mean to you? What would that tell you about yourself?

My point in asking these questions is to get you to reflect on them fully. The point I hope you will arrive at is that everyone, even the smartest, boldest, strongest men, has been duped and wronged. It shouldn’t take anything away from who you are. Whether or not it does, is ultimately up to you. This is where your power lies. It’s something that no one can take away from you, nor give to you.

Believe me, I know it is easy to say and harder to put into practice. But this is only so because men try to force something out, rather than let something remain within.

It hurts, and it will hurt. I think you can make great strides forward if you embrace it, feel it fully, and them move forward. I know that’s maybe not comforting, and it would be nice if I could offer a panacea, but I think we both know that’s not possible, nor in the long run even desirable.

Going forward, you may start to look back on the relationship and see things you didn’t see before. There’s no need to beat yourself up over them, though that is commonly what men do, but you can certainly learn from them. Consider that at the very least, as you go forward you will have your eyes opened and will likely see things differently in the future.

Finally, regarding your concern that you may see her again when school resumes. My guess is that by the end of Summer you’ll feel much less anxiety about running into her. Over time, you’ll probably see her flaws more and that will make it easier to deal with knowledge of her being with other guys. For now, you might try to put it out of your mind. An alternative might be to think about it fully so that you embrace the rage/bitterness/pain of those feelings so that you can put them down and not be affected by it any more.

I hope this finds you well, and that it in some way has been helpful.

Farewell for now.

End Game now available in ebook formats

You can find details on where to get it here.

How to tell if you’re lucky, or good

[Please read all the way to the end before making snap judgments.]

A reader asked me recently if I might elaborate on a passage in End Game, where I mention chance having a role to play in life outcomes. I am happy to do so.

In order to carry out this experiment, you’ll need the following:

• Excel or some other spreadsheet
• Diligence
• Honesty

Now, before we begin, you need to identify what it is you’re going to measure. Is it going to be your free throws made vs. free throws attempted? Number of hot girls seen and approached vs. number of hot girls seen and not approached? What are you looking to measure?

For this experiment I propose something simple that I think most men can relate to and easily keep track of:

How many women you’ve approached and slept with vs. how many women you’ve approached and not slept with.

Many men will judge their success with women based on this kind of comparison even if they don’t do it consciously, so I think it’s a fair place to begin. (I’m not recommending that you do use it as a basis of comparison, just acknowledging that a lot of men do.) However, as I illustrated with free throws, this experiment can be carried out with most anything. As long as you’re diligent and honest, you can put your results to the test.

Step 1.

Every month, keep track of how many new women you’ve approached and whether or not you have sex with them. Only keep track of women that you approach and who you’ve set your sights on as a target. Women who approach you do not count. Women who are introduced to you in social circles do not count. Enter this data into your spreadsheet or keep a written tally. The spreadsheet won’t be necessary until later, but it’s easier if you keep good records.

Use your judgement, and be honest. If you sleep with the woman, score a 1, if not, score a 0. Easy enough, right?

(Note: if you meet a girl towards the end of the month and your first scheduled meet up occurs in the next month, you are allowed to carry that girl over into the next month, just don’t use her numbers in the current month. I recognize that in some cases it may be more than a week or so between when you meet her and have sex, you’ll just have to use your best judgement.)

Step 2.

At the end of each month, log your scores for the month. Let’s say it’s January and you’ve approached 10 girls, and have had sex with 0 (you Lothario, you!). In the first column (x), you enter the number of girls you had sex with, and in the second column (y) you enter the number of girls you approached. Your data at the end of 8 months should look something like this (this is made up data):

Looks like things ramped up towards the end! Okay, let’s continue.

Step 3.

Continue Step 2 for at least 6-8 months, 12 months if you prefer. Once you’re finished you should have 6-12 data pairs (sex/approaches).

Let’s say you have 8 months of data, like our Lothario in the data above. The next step is to calculate the Correlation Coefficient. This will tell us if there is a relationship between the numbers. Our ultimate goal is to determine if the results occurred by chance or not.

Remember, correlation doesn’t mean causation, so you can’t really infer anything as being caused by anything else, but what this experiment will tell you is whether or not your numbers are a result of luck or if there is something else at play, like persistence of skill. (Here‘s a decent primer on correlation coefficients.)

To calculate the correlation coefficient for the data in the image above using excel, you’d click in an empty cell and type: CORREL(B1:B8,C1:C8) and hit Enter.

B1:B8 is a range of X values and C1:C8 is a range of Y values. You should now see something like this:

Way to go you Lothario, you! .88 is a fairly strong positive correlation, so you must really have some skills. Moreover, it looks as though with increased approaches, you gradually increased your sex counts on average. Perhaps you’re getting better with age. (Of course it’s just conjecture as there’s no proof of any causality, remember?)

I don’t want to go into too much statistics, but regarding type 1 and 2 errors and whether or not our results could have occurred at random, using Table 1. on the page I linked to above, we can see that there is a .707 alpha, which is smaller than our correlation value, so essentially we can pretty safely conclude that our correlation didn’t occur due to chance alone (i.e., it’s statistically significant).

Still with me or have you fallen asleep? Or left?

Now, let’s get real

Before anyone gets overly optimistic about these results, let’s look at another example, one likely more in line with reality, and perhaps itself overly optimistic. (Keep in mind this is made up data, but I hope it may illustrate my point):

In this case, we see overall less approaches (20% less), and overall much less sex (60% less). Our correlation value is moderate (0.46), and looking as it is below our alpha of .707 the results likely could have occurred by chance alone (think flipping of a coin). In other words, there’s no real relationship in the numbers and this Lothario’s success was likely due to luck rather than persistence of skill.

Some might say, “Yes, but he approached 20% less, and this is all made up data anyway!”

It’s true that this is made up data. Since I haven’t ever kept good records on this myself, and since no one has volunteered their data to me, I’ve made up what seems reasonable to me based on other people’s reports in blogs and forum posts. Granted the fake data isn’t perfect. But let’s imagine that the approach count was held constant at 272, but the sex increased only marginally from 8 to 10, which I think is still more realistic for most men than 20 (you may disagree). Something like this:

As you can see, the approaches are the same, there are two more notches, and the correlation is about the same. (It’s slightly better, but is still likely explained by chance alone.)

One step further

There’s one final step we can do and that is to calculate the Coefficient of Determination, which scores between 0 – 1.0, with 0 demonstrating the absence of a systematic relationship, and 1.0 being a perfect relationship. The lower the value, the lower the evidence of a systematic relationship. To do this is very easy, you just square the Correlation Coefficient (multiply it by itself).

In excel, if your Correlation Coefficient is in E1, you can just type E1^2 in a blank cell like so:

In our first example, we had a Correlation Coefficient of 0.881046. Squared yields: 0.78 (rounding up). Another way to look at this is that 78% of the variance of one variable is explained by variance in the other. That’s fairly strong. 

In our second example, with a CC of 0.469897 squared yields: 0.22 (22%.) Weak.

In the third example, with a CC of 0.491344 squared yields: 0.24 (24%.) Weak.

Remember, the specific numbers in these examples aren’t important, it’s what happens with the correlation analysis and whether or not the results are likely to have occurred by chance or not. It’s entirely possible that a guy could have sex with 10 different women in that same period and approach way, way less. This could represent better skill (e.g., better target acquisition and execution) mixed with laziness and untapped potential, or luck. Again, there’s no causation to infer here. Plug your values in and see what happens. If anyone wants to report their results, do so in the comments, or to me privately in email, or your own blog if you have one.

Conclusion

What you do with this kind of experiment is up to you. As I mentioned in End Game, for many of us, chance/fate/luck/fortune, whatever you want to call it, can play a big role in our lives. Rare is the man that can score consistently, attributing it to persistence of skill and not luck. That isn’t to say that such men don’t exist, I’m sure they do, but they are rare.

I suppose a downside of this experiment could be if you feel you’re the most kick ass Lothario since, Lothario, but your numbers show you’re just one lucky bastard. However, I’m not sure your dick will care one way or the other, and I don’t think you should sweat it either. There’s no shame in being lucky.

The upside is that you needn’t be entirely discouraged if you aren’t hitting certain number targets that you’d set for yourself. It cannot hurt to practice, but unlike an activity such as shooting free throws, which involve an inanimate ball and goal, sexual pursuits involve a myriad of impossible to pin down variables. We call these variables women.

Regardless of what the numbers say, you still have every incentive to work hard, play hard, improve, and enjoy life to the fullest. I present all this primarily to suggest that you keep as realistic a view of reality as possible. Ultimately, it’s for your own benefit.

*A better title to this post might be, “Examining the aspect of luck in life success”, but I thought the current title would be more flashy and eye-catching.

**My example data sets in the 2nd and 3rd examples (low correlation) assume western female high flakiness.

***If you really want to go down the rabbit hole into this stuff, here‘s a great place to start.

Ebook version of End Game on the way

The people have spoken.

A number of you have asked me when there will be an ebook version of End Game. I’ve not been happy with the formatting of it for ebook as of yet, but after your expressing interest in an ebook version, and the results of my poll (see below), I’m going to redouble my efforts and hope to have an ebook version very soon, perhaps this weekend or next week.

Thanks for your interest in the book, and your patience.

Three book reviews

Long ago I told three men that I would read and review their books. It’s taken me forever to do so. Most readers will have already read these books or read reviews of them. I hope you will get and these books if you haven’t already, they are all worthwhile. 

30 Bangs: The Shaping of One Man’s Game from Patient Mouse to Rabid Wolf by Roosh V.

Roosh’s greatest assets as a writer are his humor and his down to earthnes. That is to say, when you read his blog posts and books, you feel that it’s easy to relate on some level to what he’s going through, to be in his shoes to some degree. This is easier said than done, and a quality lacking in many of his peer writers. (Roissy, for example, rarely showed his failures.) And while I’m on the topic of his humor, I wish I could find the old Roosh video with him playing with the kids. I don’t see how anyone, especially the most hardened feministas, could fail to see his humor and human warmth. The title is a good indicator of that humor as well.

30 Bangs is hilarious. With chapter titles (bang titles?) like “The Big Ass”, “The Clown Lips”, and “The Squeaker”, you know you’re in for some fun. I can only guess that Roosh intended much of this book to be humorous, if also a revealing look into his personal development with the ladies.

There are many instructional moments as well, such as when he teaches “The Clown Lips” the ‘Turkish Kiss’, which I’ve never tried, but there’s a first time for everything. One other classic detail of the book is how often the girls say, “We’re not having sex!” Ladies, you’re not fooling anyone but yourself, but we’ll let you pretend if it makes you feel better the next day.

My favorite story is “The Freckles”, I think in part because he mentions Punky Brewster. It’s nice to read stories by  men of your generation who remember such things. And of course because Roosh manages to turn an innocent look from a cute girl into her asking what his favorite ice cream is, into a bang on a leather couch.

30 Bangs is an entertaining and fun read, with play-by-play, and is my favorite of Roosh’s books thus far because he is showing us via his own life, in memoir form, how he’s achieved, how he’s failed, and all with humor and humility. A tall order to be sure. It’s not an instruction manual, yet if you pay attention you can learn from it. His final thoughts break Roosh’s personal method down in a paragraph that’s as instructive as anything else he’s written.

The Way of Men by Jack Donovan

I’ve read this book three times. The first thing that struck me is that Donovan is obviously very well read. His forays into the epic of Gilgamesh, for example, are tastefully summarized and utilized for intelligent discussion.

The primary thrust of Donovan’s work is to answer the question, What is masculinity?, and he answers that question by telling us that the way of men is the way of the gang. He further tells us that, “Masculinity is about being a man within a group of men.” It’s hard to argue with this point, as looking around you in society you see how men naturally gravitate towards their own gangs/tribes, and we as men define ourselves, if not always consciously, by our relationships to other men. It extends to countries as a whole, though there are many divisions within any country.

While I understand and agree with many of Donovan’s points, I have two primary criticisms of the book.

The first is that it rests somewhat uncomfortably between academic thesis and philosophical theory/opinion. There are references, but in many cases they are incomplete, extrapolations of opinion, or references to personal email. In many ways I’d prefer that Donovan just give me his opinion and not tie things to references which are incomplete. To me, his opinion is every bit as relevant without the references. For example, he makes a number of salient points about what men should spend their time on. Rather than consume yourself in “fun”, perhaps there is more to life, more to achieve, more to conquer. I do appreciate the reading list he has. If this criticism seems a bit nit-picky, and perhaps it is, I have similar criticisms about books by authors like Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

The second problem with the book is that it seems incomplete to me. I think this is part one, and I’m awaiting a part two, or part three. Donovan never fully addresses the role that scientists or other men (shamans?) play in a society/gang. The man who cannot fight well or hunt well but invents the atlatl or electricity, for example. It’s unclear to me where these people fit into the gang, and if they enhance and improve the lot of the gang, they should explored more fully. Donovan seems to characterize these types of feats as their human characteristics, rather than characteristics that make them Men. I may misunderstand him on this point, but I’d disagree. That they are mentioned but not dealt with in detail may be because Donovan seems micro-focused on confrontation and what men will do when the shit hits the fan. This seems myopic to me and weakens his overall thesis. I think a broader view of the gang is in order, a more complete picture.

These two criticisms aside, The Way of Men is a very good and important book for men of our times. This topic hasn’t been looked at properly by any other author that I’m aware of, and Donovan has broken ground on an area that concerns men from all walks of life. There is perhaps no better book written on male/male dynamics, and it is a fascinating journey into our minds and psyches. As Donovan rightly puts it, “Being good at being a man has more to do with a man’s ability to succeed with men and within groups of men than it does with a relationship to any woman or any group of women.” This truth has all been unlearned, never learned, or totally forgotten by men today.

While I would counter some of his conclusions that the benefits of civilization come at too great a cost to our manliness, his point is well taken. There are certainly extremes, and some men seem to have lost all masculinity. His observation of our society as a “bonobo masturbation society” perhaps better sums up the wimpification than anyone else.

I further believe there is a middle-ground (beyond societal collapse) wherein men can reclaim their manhood. This may be a point upon which Donovan and I just disagree on because he seems to view that level of strife as being a pre-requisite. I suppose I may be influenced by having been in fights, having had a gun put in my face, and having spent countless hours on gun ranges working on my shooting skills that I view such levels of violence and armed conflict as a waste of human potential and something to be turned to only as a last resort. In addition, I think that constant warring and strife against a perimeter can in fact work against men’s development in sum total. In my view, there is plenty of strife currently, it’s just handled differently and requires different aspects of masculinity, albeit a more “toned down” version. I touch briefly on these things in End Game as part of my overall conception of manhood.

The Way of Men is a must read book for the modern man. If nothing else I hope you will take away Donovan’s call to, “Get off your asses and do something. (Italics are his.) I will no doubt be reading it again. I hope Donovan will continue to write on this topic and expand his thesis.

Naughty Nomad: Not your typical backpacker story by Mark Zolo

It’s been said before, but I’ll repeat it: It’s a wonder that Zolo is still alive. The title of this book is entirely appropriate. I know a lot of people who have some wild travel stories, but I’ve never read anything close to this. Someone should make a movie of Zolo’s adventures and misadventures, I would definitely go see it.

One of the best aspects of the book, aside from the trip to Antarctica, the bloodshed and seeming near-endless sex in southeast Asia, the adventures in Africa, a train ride through Hades, and everywhere else, are his moments of reflection. The lessons Zolo picks up along the way, make this more than an adventure story, but a window into lessons learned in places far from where most of us will ever go. The pictures are a nice complement and disarm even the most strident cynic who might disbelieve his tales. This is for real. My hat is off to you Mark.

A good example of this is the contrast Zolo draws between time spent in homes of billionaires and homes of the penniless, as he notes, “Money and happiness do not go hand in hand.” (Italics are his.) While many of us know this in an abstract sense, Zolo has seen both extremes up close and was paying attention for his and our benefit.

There’s also a bit of history thrown in for good measure, which is good for those not initiated into the past of places like Cambodia. It’s enlightening, to say the least. Having set the scene with such bloody history, the tension is raised considerably when, as an example, he finds himself in a Cambodian interrogation room, trying to get a police report for a replacement visa with no money and his pregnant girlfriend screaming at the police chief. That he survives such situations relatively unscathed is pretty incredible, and I won’t spoil how he gets out of it.

At times Naughty Nomad shows a stark view of the world, that is to say, it’s very honest. He doesn’t gloss over the abject human misery in places like Pattaya, Thailand, which is a strength of the book. There is a bittersweet quality to the book, as the ‘stoner version of James Bond’ leaves behind women who are trapped in their very difficult lives, and a gut-wrenching aspect as we’re presented with sobering tales of men being macheted to death after watching their wives and nine year old daughters be gang-raped by Congolese rebels. I wonder what Zolo’s thoughts would be on Donovan’s idea of society crumbling and men assembling into gangs after being confronted with this kind of barbarism first hand.

If you’ve ever wanted inspiration for travel, with a grain of salt to let you know what you may be really getting yourself into if you go off the rails, this life story/adventure story isn’t to be missed. Naughty Nomad is a page turner, a ride where you can’t wait to see what happens next, but at the same time you almost wince at times upon finding out. If I’m honest, this is one of the first books to come out of the ‘sphere to give me a touch of envy, and I can imagine myself booking a trip to Ethiopia, and perhaps I will. I think you may imagine yourself doing the same after you read this book.

I’m already looking forward to his next effort, as I’m sure he must have many more tales to tell.

Letters to a young man 24

Hello my friend. I appreciate your kind words about my book and want you to know that I’ve thought carefully about your letter. It is indeed a difficult place you find yourself in, to have put so much effort into your creative endeavor only to find the world is less than interested or supportive in what you’re doing. I know this is hard, for I’ve experienced this myself in life. Though you may not find this much of a comfort, I have some words that I hope you will think on. They are,

The world is full of people who judge themselves based on other people’s opinions. Don’t be one of them.

I wish that I could change people’s minds and perspectives, to bend them for a moment away from their concerns and convince them to give you and your work the attention it deserves. However, we both know that this is not possible. In fact, you should be glad that I cannot do this. Why? Because the strength you’ll gain from this adversity will temper you and make you stronger for any further insults that are hurled your way.

It took me many years, frustrations, and let downs, to finally understand that being happy with my own endeavors and the enjoyment of achieving them is what counts. You are the person that has to live with yourself every day. Imagine that you had a hit song, or a best-selling book. What then? What about the days when you have no ideas, when there’s no work to be done, and what happens when the initial rush and spotlight have passed? If you cultivate good work habits and learn to enjoy the process itself without worrying about any rewards that may or may not come, you will always be the master of your fate. Yes, the world will sometimes kick you in the side, and spit on you, but it may also be kind to you. The point is that you should focus on what you’re doing with your time, and not concern yourself too much about what the world brings your way.

All things move towards their end. All things gravitate towards the middle, the average. Some days luck finds you on one side, on some days, the other. Don’t take it too personally.

End Game

A little over 2 years after I started this blog, End Game is now available.

End Game distills everything I’ve learned in life into a book you can read in an hour. By the end you’ll learn how I cut myself free from what held me down, the same things I see holding men back all around me. 

If you like my Letters to a young man  series, this book will be valuable to you especially. It is very short, and to the point. I’ve taken out absolutely everything that didn’t need to be there.

Print: available on Createspace (Createspace pays more royalties to authors) and Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. If you enjoy End Game, tell your friends, and write a positive review on Amazon.

E-Book: available in e-book formats (Kindle, Nook, etc.) at Smashwords.

Thanks for all your support of this blog.

 

Letters to a young man 23

Hello my friend. I’ve finished my book End Game, and am awaiting a proof of it. I’m eager to know your thoughts on it. It is short, but I hope you will not judge it by the length. A man can talk for hours and say nothing important, while some say but a few words and make an impact. I’m aiming for the latter, you can let me know if I’ve done it or if I’ve failed miserably. I’m telling you of my journey, some of it you know, I think much of it you don’t.

I want to address your latest concern that you sent to me. You’ve approached a girl who made eyes at you, and then when talking to her, she seemed to clam up and get very serious, not saying much. This in turn made you feel nervous, and threw you off. It seems the whole thing disintegrated quickly. You ask me what you did wrong.

Listen, you did nothing wrong. So often it’s not a matter of what you did wrong, or right. She no doubt became very nervous, most likely because she finds you attractive, and because she was probably surprised you actually came over to talk to her. Given her age, I’m guessing she’s in her early twenties like you, she probably had a flood of hormones and emotions going on. Of course, perhaps you mis-interpreted her looking at you, but I say that you should trust your instincts, which gave you the impression that she was interested. Don’t start second guessing yourself the next time an attractive girl gives you the eye.

You should be proud of yourself for taking action. Don’t beat yourself up and ask yourself what you did wrong. If I have any advice for such situations it is to say very little, and when it seems that things have run their course, just introduce yourself, say it was nice to meet her and then leave. If she can pull it together enough to keep conversation going, hang around. If not, she’s only going to continue feeling awkward, and so will you. Remember, you’d already made a joke which she giggled at but she was just too enamored of you to say much else. There’s no point to hang around trying to make jokes, to tease her out of her awkward and shy place if she doesn’t budge out of it quickly.

Conversation can’t bloom if only one person is talking.

And remember, not everything has to happen right away. Consider this a first meeting. Maybe the next time you see her she will be less nervous and will have kicked herself for not making more of the opportunity. You sailed your ship to her harbor. That’s just the first step.

There’s a bit more on this in End Game. I hope you will find it useful.

Farewell for now, my friend.

Baumeister and Vohs research

In case you missed it:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12115-012-9596-y

Indeed, the world of work is a daunting place for a young man today. Feminists quickly point to the continued dominance of men at the top of most organizations, but this is misleading if not outright disingenuous. Men create most organizations and work hard to succeed in them. Indeed, an open-minded scholar can search through history mostly in vain to find large organizations created and run by women that have contributed anything beyond complaining about men and demanding a bigger share of the male pie.

Brilliant people shooting feminism right between the eyes, as well they should.