IF THERE’S ONE CLICHE THAT I HATE, it’s that game is a muscle. But if there’s one cliche that’s true, it’s that game is a muscle.
The more you engage with following your desire, and dealing with issues of neediness, the more free and effortless your dating life becomes. The less you engage with it, however, the harder it becomes.
The problem with this is that when it comes to how men think they should perceive this muscle; they perceive it as a variety of skills when really, it’s just one. Taking their balls in their hand and approaching.
PROCESSES AND OUTCOMES
In my article ‘The 100 Hour Work Week’ I discussed the idea that you should focus your attention on the process that ensures your outcome, and not the outcome itself. This process could be a small 1% increase or it could be something I called a ‘You’re Fucked Without It™’ factor, which is an element that is fundamentally essential to whatever goal you’re pursuing.
In game, this would be making a move. If you don’t make a move, it’s not going to happen. I don’t care how good you look, how charming you are, how tall, how rich, how smart you are; if you don’t make a move, you’ll always lose out to the man who does.
And one of the simplest ways of making a move is to approach. Or as I like to call it: sucking it up and talking to girls.
Because if you don’t talk to them, nothing is going to happen. You’re just going to be, at best, a let down; most likely invisible, and; at worst, another creep who’s awkwardly staring at her.
Yeah, I don’t imagine you want to be that.
So focus on making that move; and only on making that move.
Because beyond the initial introduction, approaching is a conversation, with organic dynamics and a spontaneous interplay of energy. There are certain techniques you can be aware of, i.e not being boring and learning how to flirt, but by and large, deviating from an organic structure is generally a decision motivated by fear, and not one I recommend.
It’s just a girl after all. It should be as easy as talking to anyone.
Exercise 1: Stop allowing yourself to overthink interactions, and just focus on making a move.
COMMITTING TO THE APPROACH
When I’m lost in my head, or tired, or anxious; my approaches completely suck. I walk up to her, dribble some comment out that stinks of ‘reject me please so I’ll be spared this social awkwardness’, and she does, and I leave.
And it’s because I’m not committed.
When you approach half-heartedly, you can expect half-hearted results. So if you’re going to approach, then fucking approaching.
Now, I’m not saying you have to cartwheel across the room towards her, before doing a triple-backflip handshake (get your own moves); all I’m saying is that your conviction behind your intention is important. If you’re going to do it, then back yourself to do it.
It doesn’t matter if you’re tired, low-energy and not really in the mood to socialize. You don’t have to be in state. But you do have to commit to whatever approach you’re going to make.
You have to back your intention to go up and say hi.
Because if you don’t, you’ll just end up getting blown out because she’ll sense you don’t really want to be there, and it’ll make her feel uncomfortable, and probably creeped out.
Like when your friend asks you for something, but they do it in a round about way, avoiding directly asking you.
Fuck that.
Exercise 2: Stop hoping for the interaction to end as soon as you’re in it.
LEANING INTO VULNERABILITY
Too often, guys get stuck in their heads, trying to think of ways to get the girl (by this, despite any of their protests to the contrary, they mean ‘get laid’), and as a result, end up doing nothing or taking some action that’s completely second guessed and lacking in conviction.
But more importantly than this, they fail to have any fucking fun.
And here’s the thing; the easiest way to get out of your head and stop second guessing yourself is to just start approaching, and start letting reactions happen.
The very thing you’re stopping yourself from doing is the cure to the very thing that’s stopping you.
“Hi, I wonder if you could help me get out of my head?”
It’s the Mindfuck of Game. You don’t talk to girls because you’re in your head, but girls are the best way out of your head. It’s a nice little result of what I like to call learning into vulnerability. The more exposed you allow yourself to be; the more rapidly you begin to fear exposure (read: rejection) less. And that’s when you can start having fun with it.
Because in each approach, you just don’t know what’s going to happen; there should always be an element of curiosity there. But what you do know, is that it will get you out of your head; and that, it itself, is liberating.
Exercise 3: To get out of your head, get rejected. A lot.
THE SAD TRUTH
If you’re honest with yourself, you don’t fear rejection because you fear losing the chance to sleep with a girl. You fear rejection because of what that rejection says about you. You fear that rejection because other people might see. And ultimately, you fear that rejection because you’re vain.
You care more about how she and everyone else in your social environment view you, and you’ve allowed that to enter your mind, and stifle your actions and pollute your thinking.
Where the right choice is always ‘go and talk to her.’ You’ve invested your identity in your vanity, and as a result, are making choices that are based around protecting that vanity. But the more you invest in that vanity, the more you invite conflict into your ability to make decisions. You may think you want to approach, but you also don’t want to be seen getting rejected; you may think you want to approach, but you fear the reality of what that rejection might say about you, and you might just fear how that feels.
It’s a conflict of thought, that leads to a conflict of actions, that leads to a conflict of results. And the easiest way I know of escaping is to call yourself on what you’re really being; vain. And act in spite of it.
Don’t let yourself be vain.
Exercise 4: Say and do whatever the fuck comes into your head. Throw your filter into the trash, and burn the trash alive.
APPROACHING AND SHYNESS
Approaching is a word I have a mixed relationship with. One the one hand, it fits the concept, but on the other hand; it makes it seem more special than it is. Beyond vanity and outcome dependence; one of the main reasons you don’t approach is because you’re shy. Social situations probably frighten you, you’re invested in other people’s opinions and when you put all the sexual rejection on top of that, it becomes a little too much to handle. And that’s fine. In fact, it’s perfectly normal.
Approaching is, at its core, shyness.
And there’s power in that. Shyness is something that is challenging, but simple to overcome. You just slowly push the boundaries of your shyness until it goes away, you let yourself express your identity and realize that people actually like you as you really are, and through this, you challenge the beliefs that made you shy in the first place.
Anyone can do this, and ‘approaching’ is no different.
At the start of this article, I said there was only one thing men needed to do to improve their dating life and remove their neediness, and I believe this. You just need to approach. You just need to whittle down your shyness.
Because at the end of the day, game is a muscle, and that’s all it takes.
Final exercise: You already know what to do, so go and do it.
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