"If you are out in a club and feeling too self-conscious, it’s because you haven’t had enough to drink." This is nicely put. "Also, read standard PUA advice." This is solid. That is hard-won, empirical wisdom.
Yeah, if you have a "question" like this, standard PUA stuff is where you should look. Yes, yes, it's possible to get sucked in and get too into it, or to get jaded by casual sex (the kind of problems you wish you had, amiright?) etc etc...
There are potential pitfalls in anything. But it's the only place where you can find actual, real practical advice on how to go from being a socially awkward virgin to being someone who is comfortable and confident meeting and dating women.
Poor social calibration as they call it in the jargon (what normies just call being awkward AF) is at least as bad as being ugly or poor, but it's easier to correct than the former.
And the #1 foundational thing you learn is: above all, you have to get outside (if you can legally and safely do so) and actually talk to real humans. At the very absolute minimum twice a week for 4 hours. Go to bars/clubs, because that's where lots of people (especially women) are, and it's even considered fairly normal to approach strangers under those circumstances.
And that's what it's about. You get better at interacting with people by, guess what, practicing interacting with people. Forget about getting laid at first. Think of it like going to the gym. Trying to ingratiate yourself with strangers gives instant feedback on how you are coming across socially.
Ok, that's enough. DAFS, you AFC. Jesus, it almost makes me angry... In this day and age, for a guy to be like: I'm totally awkward, help me! I have no idea what to do about it! I've tried everything! By everything I mean I actually tried to talk to a girl one time, and I asked my mom for advice...
It's like, um...have you tried Google? (Especially if you're supposedly a programmer, FFS.) If you wouldn't dare listen to those nasty PUAs because you're afraid of what Tumblr feminists and random shitposters would think about it... You are mentally weak and don't deserve to reproduce. I have no pity.
Another option is volunteering. Homeless shelters, soup kitchens, etc always need help and typically have a balanced gender ratio.
You can do your due diligence to make sure they’re actually helping people and not just scratching the power itch. Anywhere that distributes “clean needles” is a good sign that you should avoid that place. Church run soup kitchens tend to be solid, as long as they’re not the weird prog Protestant sects.
This is a testament to the power of modern Progressivism. It has destroyed local cultures so thoroughly, has so utterly dissolved their natural social links, that Uncle Yarv's advice to someone who hates clubbing is... to club harder.
Which isn't bad advice! Because what else is there (besides "horribly depressing" dating apps)? Such is our predicament.
I feel you, "Siegfried." Unfortunately, I have no solution to the social-interaction enigma of modern dating. I don't know how to recreate the festivals that once animated villages/small towns and brought their young people together. The last chick I hooked up with was a 5th-year Biology Major with a mild speech-impediment who I met whilst bar-hopping on a Sunday. Like I said, no solution.
I will tell you one thing though: since you follow this blog, you have a leg up on the competition. You can conceptualize, in a way that normie dudes cannot, the state-sponsored insanity gripping modern women's minds. You can see those Satanic gears turning, and thus your role in potential relationships is laid bare. This is what you, an intellectually urbane man, can bring to the table:
BE LESS NEUROTIC (or at least less neurotic than her potential 'allies').
Be a rock. Be a stone embedded in beach-sand. Let the tide wash over you every 12 hours while she frolics in the surf. And remember, during high tide, when she gets a little nuts, and you think she might drown you... She can't. Remember that, no matter her education level, she believes in some combination of astrology / state-sponspored anti-hereditarianism.
So sit on it. You'll always be right, and less neurotic. Ideally, you'll be so un-neurotic you'll swallow her neuroticism like a black hole eating its smaller twin-star. And if you're ever backed into a corner, you can always say something like:
"Someone's character has more to do with who their parents are than in what month their parents happened to fuck."
Siegfried, to reinforce what Curtis said, have a look into the Manosphere/PUA circles. Not everything has to be taken as gospel, but there's a lot of good advice there.
Have you also considered going travelling? You're a software engineer, so you have the ability to work remotely. To get the full benefit, going on your own will massively develop you as a person. Even if you don't want to get too involved in backpacker partying, frequently being exposed to new people helps develop your social skills and reduces the pressure of speaking to strangers. After awhile, it becomes second nature to strike up a conversation with people. This gives you a solid foundation to build from when you want to start trying to pursue something more sexual with women.
If you don't believe me, it worked for me. To the point where I wrote in to Curtis earlier this week, complaining of too much causal sex!
Pretend the girls are compilers... keep typing and hitting F5 until something compiles. Expect it to crash on the first and subsequent 10 tries.
It wouldn't hurt to try a few of the setups that the parents are pushing for. Just make sure the expectations for everyone involved are "this is a friends only" type of date. It'll let you learn to relate without the pressure of breaking the ice. I know I never would have wanted to do it either, but it could be useful.
The opener is the easy part. The relating is a harder skill so get some reps with that. I know many don't think so but they are people after all ;-)
I didn’t really start dating until my late twenties, and part of it involved just figuring out how to talk to girls. This was hard. It involved many, many mistakes. Remember, if you hit on a girl worth a damn and it goes south, it’s not the first time that it’s happened to her, even if it’s not the first time that it’s happened to you. You are not that important.
Independent coffee shops are still a thing in parts of the country where Starbucks hasn’t killed them all off. A few coffee shops actually have clientele who shave and bathe regularly. Go there, grab a coffee, read a book, and just watch how Normies do things. Worst case, you buy overpriced coffee and read a crappy novel. You might even run into a girl who you can chat up. Caffeine isn’t alcohol, but enough of it can lead to similarly poor decisions.
Find guys who know how to find girls and hang out with them. Old single friends are single for a reason and might be reinforcing bad patterns. Learn to break bad patterns. It sounds like you already have a start on this.
If nothing else works, move to another state/city where you know no one. You might find a new crowd with better prospects. Or you might have a near nervous breakdown from the isolation (ask me how I know this is an option), and end up trying new things that would have seemed crazy six months before. Good things can happen.
When I was in my early 20s, I would often talk to men who sat quietly reading, writing, or working in the same places I went to sit quietly and read, write, or work. One of those men and I now have a family even though we didn't become romantically involved until many years later. We just found that one afternoon we had Paracelsus and Red Stripe in common and kept in touch.
"If you are out in a club and feeling too self-conscious, it’s because you haven’t had enough to drink." This is nicely put. "Also, read standard PUA advice." This is solid. That is hard-won, empirical wisdom.
Yeah, if you have a "question" like this, standard PUA stuff is where you should look. Yes, yes, it's possible to get sucked in and get too into it, or to get jaded by casual sex (the kind of problems you wish you had, amiright?) etc etc...
There are potential pitfalls in anything. But it's the only place where you can find actual, real practical advice on how to go from being a socially awkward virgin to being someone who is comfortable and confident meeting and dating women.
Poor social calibration as they call it in the jargon (what normies just call being awkward AF) is at least as bad as being ugly or poor, but it's easier to correct than the former.
And the #1 foundational thing you learn is: above all, you have to get outside (if you can legally and safely do so) and actually talk to real humans. At the very absolute minimum twice a week for 4 hours. Go to bars/clubs, because that's where lots of people (especially women) are, and it's even considered fairly normal to approach strangers under those circumstances.
And that's what it's about. You get better at interacting with people by, guess what, practicing interacting with people. Forget about getting laid at first. Think of it like going to the gym. Trying to ingratiate yourself with strangers gives instant feedback on how you are coming across socially.
Ok, that's enough. DAFS, you AFC. Jesus, it almost makes me angry... In this day and age, for a guy to be like: I'm totally awkward, help me! I have no idea what to do about it! I've tried everything! By everything I mean I actually tried to talk to a girl one time, and I asked my mom for advice...
It's like, um...have you tried Google? (Especially if you're supposedly a programmer, FFS.) If you wouldn't dare listen to those nasty PUAs because you're afraid of what Tumblr feminists and random shitposters would think about it... You are mentally weak and don't deserve to reproduce. I have no pity.
Curtis Yarvin the next Jordan Peterson, when? Lol
Another option is volunteering. Homeless shelters, soup kitchens, etc always need help and typically have a balanced gender ratio.
You can do your due diligence to make sure they’re actually helping people and not just scratching the power itch. Anywhere that distributes “clean needles” is a good sign that you should avoid that place. Church run soup kitchens tend to be solid, as long as they’re not the weird prog Protestant sects.
This is a testament to the power of modern Progressivism. It has destroyed local cultures so thoroughly, has so utterly dissolved their natural social links, that Uncle Yarv's advice to someone who hates clubbing is... to club harder.
Which isn't bad advice! Because what else is there (besides "horribly depressing" dating apps)? Such is our predicament.
I feel you, "Siegfried." Unfortunately, I have no solution to the social-interaction enigma of modern dating. I don't know how to recreate the festivals that once animated villages/small towns and brought their young people together. The last chick I hooked up with was a 5th-year Biology Major with a mild speech-impediment who I met whilst bar-hopping on a Sunday. Like I said, no solution.
I will tell you one thing though: since you follow this blog, you have a leg up on the competition. You can conceptualize, in a way that normie dudes cannot, the state-sponsored insanity gripping modern women's minds. You can see those Satanic gears turning, and thus your role in potential relationships is laid bare. This is what you, an intellectually urbane man, can bring to the table:
BE LESS NEUROTIC (or at least less neurotic than her potential 'allies').
Be a rock. Be a stone embedded in beach-sand. Let the tide wash over you every 12 hours while she frolics in the surf. And remember, during high tide, when she gets a little nuts, and you think she might drown you... She can't. Remember that, no matter her education level, she believes in some combination of astrology / state-sponspored anti-hereditarianism.
So sit on it. You'll always be right, and less neurotic. Ideally, you'll be so un-neurotic you'll swallow her neuroticism like a black hole eating its smaller twin-star. And if you're ever backed into a corner, you can always say something like:
"Someone's character has more to do with who their parents are than in what month their parents happened to fuck."
Up next: Yarvin tells us all how to raise awesome, functioning children in a dystopia (I hope)
Siegfried, to reinforce what Curtis said, have a look into the Manosphere/PUA circles. Not everything has to be taken as gospel, but there's a lot of good advice there.
Have you also considered going travelling? You're a software engineer, so you have the ability to work remotely. To get the full benefit, going on your own will massively develop you as a person. Even if you don't want to get too involved in backpacker partying, frequently being exposed to new people helps develop your social skills and reduces the pressure of speaking to strangers. After awhile, it becomes second nature to strike up a conversation with people. This gives you a solid foundation to build from when you want to start trying to pursue something more sexual with women.
If you don't believe me, it worked for me. To the point where I wrote in to Curtis earlier this week, complaining of too much causal sex!
You know, considering the age you left grad school I don't think you did too bad Curtis.
Pretend the girls are compilers... keep typing and hitting F5 until something compiles. Expect it to crash on the first and subsequent 10 tries.
It wouldn't hurt to try a few of the setups that the parents are pushing for. Just make sure the expectations for everyone involved are "this is a friends only" type of date. It'll let you learn to relate without the pressure of breaking the ice. I know I never would have wanted to do it either, but it could be useful.
The opener is the easy part. The relating is a harder skill so get some reps with that. I know many don't think so but they are people after all ;-)
All good advice and strangely enjoyable.
I didn’t really start dating until my late twenties, and part of it involved just figuring out how to talk to girls. This was hard. It involved many, many mistakes. Remember, if you hit on a girl worth a damn and it goes south, it’s not the first time that it’s happened to her, even if it’s not the first time that it’s happened to you. You are not that important.
Independent coffee shops are still a thing in parts of the country where Starbucks hasn’t killed them all off. A few coffee shops actually have clientele who shave and bathe regularly. Go there, grab a coffee, read a book, and just watch how Normies do things. Worst case, you buy overpriced coffee and read a crappy novel. You might even run into a girl who you can chat up. Caffeine isn’t alcohol, but enough of it can lead to similarly poor decisions.
Find guys who know how to find girls and hang out with them. Old single friends are single for a reason and might be reinforcing bad patterns. Learn to break bad patterns. It sounds like you already have a start on this.
If nothing else works, move to another state/city where you know no one. You might find a new crowd with better prospects. Or you might have a near nervous breakdown from the isolation (ask me how I know this is an option), and end up trying new things that would have seemed crazy six months before. Good things can happen.
When I was in my early 20s, I would often talk to men who sat quietly reading, writing, or working in the same places I went to sit quietly and read, write, or work. One of those men and I now have a family even though we didn't become romantically involved until many years later. We just found that one afternoon we had Paracelsus and Red Stripe in common and kept in touch.
I wonder how many people in Khartoum have the name, “Siegfried”. I hope Uncle Yarv’s advice helps him get laid. That’s what I call Effective Altruism.
"Mom, Uncle Yarv is drinking my mouthwash again!"
Do nihilists next Uncle