As has become obvious even to those who used to fully buy into the promises of the pick-up industry, “game” does not exist. If she is not attracted to you, then approaching her from a 45-degree angle from behind or asking her if she flosses before or after brushing is not going to get her wet for you. I’m not making this up. PUAs really did promote such nonsense.
The concept of “game” does not make any sense because you can assess someone’s attractiveness by looking at them. She does not need to talk to you to know whether she wants you to put your penis in her. However, it is certainly possible that you wreck your chances of getting laid if you act like a weirdo. However, even in such cases she will cut you more slack the more attracted she is to you.
While “game” is not real, “anti-game” certainly is. By this I mean anything you do that makes you waste your chances with women. In “game”, the assumption is that you can move her from “disinterest” to “fuck me harder!”. A PUA will only hear these words if he forgets turning the volume on his laptop down while watching porn, though. In contrast, with “anti-game” you take her from “I wonder if he fucks well” to “what was I thinking?”
It is easy to diagnose anti-game. Just keep in mind that women are very selective with regards to whom they talk to, make out with, go on a date with, or bend over for. There is obviously some attrition, meaning that not every girl who looks at you with big eyes and an eager, inviting smile is going to end up riding you. However, if there is a sudden drop-off in this pipeline, it is most certainly due to anti-game.
Let me give you an example of what I just said. Consider a guy who likes going to clubs. He ends up making out with a few girls a night. It happens so regularly that it strikes him as normal. Yet, he almost always goes home empty-handed. None of his friends gets responses like that, but he nonetheless thinks that making out with girls doesn’t mean anything. Here’s a problem: girls don’t randomly make out with guys. The reason this dude does not get his dick wet on a regular basis is due to anti-game. Maybe he makes out with girls for hours until they lose interest. Maybe he says something stupid to her girlfriends. Whatever it may be, there must be something in his behavior that leads to him hitting a brick wall after making out with random girls.
Then there are guys who get a lot of girls to go on dates with. They have one date after another but a success rate of just a few percent. It’s the same story. Those guys will tell you that girls aren’t really interested in sex or that it’s nice to just talk to a woman (lol) to excuse their lack of success. However, agai, women don’t just go on dates with any random dude. There has to be a significant level of interest to get her to take a few hours out of her day to meet up with you. Yes, it’s a few hours: selecting clothes, dressing, putting on makeup, fretting about pointless crap, getting to the place where you meet, the actual date, etc. The exception is if you pay for expensive dinner dates. In that case, she may do it just to save some money and for the experience.
There are even guys who take girls home on a semi-frequent basis and end up making out for a few hours with them or getting a blowjob. The girl does that to get things finally started, and some girls quite happily take that kind of initiative, but the guy believes that this was it already and maybe next time they’ll have P-in-V sex. Yet, this is not what is going on. Instead, the girl is dying to get fucked, but the dude is too passive. If she ends up at your place, then having sex with you is basically a sure thing. If it is not, then you can thank your top-notch anti-game for it.
In casual dating, there is a clear pipeline from “hello” to sex. If you make it past “hello” and get at least a modicum of interest, but at one point your success rate of getting from one step to the next drops down a cliff, you have your culprit. It’s anti-game. The positive message, though, is that it is normally quite easy to fix it. In contrast, a guy who does not get any interest from girls at all is in a much more difficult spot.
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>>Let me give you an example of what I just said. Consider a guy who likes going to clubs. He ends up making out with a few girls a night. It happens so regularly that it strikes him as normal. Yet, he almost always goes home empty-handed.<<
Lisbon? :=D
I don’t think he gets that many make-outs, but, yes, he is certainly a case of a guy with strong anti-game.
I remember him writing that he’s been kissing girls at DISCO and making out with them, but then he complained that they didn’t go home with him.
My thoughts were: kissing Girls at the DISCO is not that bad, on the contrary, it’s quite an achievement, provided that they are not ugly as fuck. He probably self-sabotaged himself… (he presumably has some form of BDD, because he often mentions that he’s ugly, but on the posted photos he looks quite manly, with robust build, strong jaw, full head of hair)
I agree with that diagnosis. Many of us have repeatedly told him that he’s pretty good-looking. Sure, his skin color may not always work in his favor, but in terms of having masculine features, he has done rather well in the genetic lottery.
“They have one date after another but a success rate of just a few percent.”
What is usually the problem in this case? Assuming the guy is proactive in escalating and trying to move things forward logistically?
It’s not about “the” problem but about a potentially wide variety of problems that need to be fixed. While there is one path from “hello” to sex, with some variations, there are countless ways to not get to sex.
Going to share an Anecdote from today, and it’s another thing guys forget when they convince themselves that they “can’t get women”.
Here are some facts:
– Women only show obvious signs of interest if you’re extremely approachable (at least somewhat charismatic)
If he has a scowl on his face… even a chad light will go through life never getting obvious signs of interest from women. The only guy who can walk around with a depressed (or asocial) demeanor and get looks from women is a male 10 or at least 9. Even a male 8 can’t get away with it.
That’s an excellent point! I think it is more serious than acting in a strange way. You can work on getting rid of unattractive mannerisms, but if you scowl often enough, you end up with a perma-scowl and then only botox will help you. On a related note, among women the phenomenon is called “resting bitch face” and — surprise, surprise! — it’s causing a significant wealth transfer from working women to (male) cosmetic surgeons.
Ain’t that the truth. This has been the single most important obstacle for me. Even if I am rather good looking and pretty charismatic when I am relaxed, my default facial expression downright scares people. How do you deal with that?
It depends on how bad it is. If you have a perma-scowl on your face, then your only hope may be botox. Otherwise, one reason for a scowl to appear is if you squint a lot. In that case, get your eyes checked out. If you’re lucky, a pair of glasses or contact lenses will resolve this problem for you.
i have the scowl, fuck.
lol
It’s mostly related to tension in the muscles around the mouth and the fact that I have a pretty intensive stare. In Scandinavia, people seem to perceive me as a serial killer. In Eastern Europe, nobody gives a shit.
Aaron, I have been following your blog for quite some time and have read Minimal Game as well as Club Game. I haven’t decided to post until now because you have so accurately described my problem here — anti-game. What is the solution?
My favorite quote from Club Game is when you wrote this about good looking guys who don’t get laid: “All they needed was just to be a little bit more aggressive. If you are in this position, then your problems might all be solved within a few weekends.”
Is that the solution to the problem of anti-game? Simply just be a little more aggressive?
— Thanks for reading Aaron, I’m a big fan.
Thanks for your comment! Yes, it can be really as simple as that.
I also wanted to ask what the difference is between signals and “strong signals” from girls. I have always gotten signals even though I was a pretty unhappy man in my 20s. I had girls linger around me, brush up against me, rub their tits against me, smile at me etc. But I was such a dope I never did a damn thing about it. And I’m talking about hotties — 8/10. There was always eye contact first. One girl even rubbed me close to my cock with her boyfriend right by her side. Another brushed her tit against me with her boyfriend right there. I don’t know if I have perma-scowl but I definitely have creases on my forehead/face. I have greatly improved my confidence/posture/body language thanks to guys like Aaron and Good Looking Loser and going to the gym. I still get attention from hot 20-somethings. I guess it’s just a matter of pulling the damn trigger?
This issue is discussed in my books, but it also crops up in the comments on my blog every once in a while.
Yes, a guy who has great “foundations” (cf. Minimal Game) but who is passive only needs to make a move. Of course, the first few times you make out with a girl or, eventually, have sex with will be a bit awkward, but such men progress at a rapid pace nonetheless. I was in that very same boat, not caring about women in my early to mid-20s, but when I finally focused on this issue, I got really good in a very short amount of time. I just needed a new set of clothes and the balls to sexually escalate.
You guys ever heard the song by Weezer called “Perfect Situation?” It essentially explains anti-game. Here is a quote from the song:
“Here’s the pitch, slow and straight. All I have to do is swing and I’m the hero!……………….but I’m the zero…”
It’s actually kinda difficult for me to listen to that song.
Alek, studies show that women find smiling men less attractive than brooding men. Smiling is associated with low testosterone cuckface. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az352YaZNM0
This isn’t about attraction, it’s about interest. When you walk around with a scowl, women don’t find you less attractive, they have less interest in talking to you or meeting you due to safety concerns (etc).
It was a common mistake in PUAs to conflate attraction and interest. Two separate things. Let me give you an example.
Take the hottest 10 you can imagine. How interested are you in kissing her from 1 to 10? It’s a 10 right?
What if she’s smeared her face with fecal matter and there’s maggots in her mouth? How interested are you in kissing her? Interest dropped to zero right? But do you find her less attractive? No. She’s still a 10 in attractiveness, but your interest is at zero.
Scowling at women kills their interest.
Unless you’re a 9 or 10, or it’s social circle. That’s why scowlcels can sometimes get a girlfriend from social circle, after a girl gets to know them after months/years being in the same circle. But it really slows things down a lot.
And again, in the conversation in here, we were talking about guys who believe they’re unattractive because women don’t show them obvious signs of interest.
Whether women show you interest is NOT determined by how attractive they find you. It’s not a direct correlation.
It’s not as simple as “woman find you attractive enough, she shows obvious signs of interest”. Not on this planet. Being attractive enough is only a pre-requisite. She also has to feel safe about showing that interest (which they find 100000x times easier to do if you’re approachable).
The cuckface consists of a very particular smile, though, i.e. there is a clear separation between both rows of teeth. There are also non-cuckfaced smiles. I hardly ever smile, by the way. I would also subscribe to the notion that it is not masculine to smile. Isn’t it an evolutionary sign of submission to smile? I vaguely recall reading about this some time ago.
After looking into Club Game again (I hadn’t read it in a couple years) I realise that I indeed have experienced strong signals. And I did absolutely nothing about them. I think I even experienced many forms of subtle signals and didn’t see them or wrote them off as nothing.
There are reasons for this that go beyond the scope of this particular discussion.
This stuff is bitter-sweet as I have choked MANY times with women who I would love to be with. But at least I know that I have a good chance with women that I want and I hope the goddamn lesson is fucking learned.
Maybe it also depends on the county. https://www.quora.com/Why-don’t-Eastern-European-people-smile-much
Thanks for the replies, Aarron! When I get some time and put aside some money I will go back into the clubs with a completely different attitude/mindset. In the meantime I will just look for signals (strong and subtle) everywhere. I’ll post my results.
The reason why I had given up is because I took every rejection personally. I had bad “support” networks in my life and thought that every rejection reinforced what these toxic people were saying about my personality (even though I was just a bit introverted).
The PUA industry played into that as well. Not just the people who read their material either. Their ideas permeated society back in the day and influenced male magazines as well. I remember reading in Maxim magazine a step by step process on how to pick up a girl at a bar–maxim was a very influential magazine for single men back then. But even back then I was skeptical of how rigid and mechanical they made it seem.
Another problem is the PUA industry made it seem like personality is everything and it’s all about what you say, making her laugh etc. Remember, I was told that my personality was BAD by people I trusted (even though it was probably average).
On top of that everyone was saying that looks don’t matter. I always knew that my looks were good. But hey, girls don’t care about looks, right? They supposedly are all about personality of which I thought I had none. I thought I had NOTHING. I had NO confidence.
This is all thanks to the lies of PUAs and women themselves. And eaten up by average or unattractive men who were eager to hear such lies. I don’t know if you guys have noticed but ugly and or fat men love to demoralize good looking guys who struggle with women. So you have men who are not attractive (the vast majority) and the vast majority of women all repeating the same lie.
Thank you Aaron from the bottom of my heart for taking down the destructive PUA industry. Forgot to mention I have also read your e-book on them. GLL also has some choice words for them. He even worked for one of them. He never names names, but I am almost certain it was RSD. What a joke those guys are!! All you have to do is look at Mystery, Tyler, Neil Strauss etc and you can tell they don’t get chicks–at least not hot ones. Effeminate dorks all of them!
Sorry I was so long-winded but I had to get that off my chest. I would also like to explain my handel. It is actually a tribute to both Aaron and GLL.
Thanks for reading, guys. Cheers!
Don’t lump Mystery in with those other two. I think he actually did get hot chicks. The scam was that this was nothing to do with his “method” and more to do with him being good looking, very tall and having a cool job (magician) that allowed him to show off. If you read The Game you also find out that he didn’t start wearing those ridiculous outfits until after he’d moved to LA and was living with other PUAs.
This is correct. Mystery got girls because of his height, good facial aesthetics, and social status. However, the product he sold was nonsense. Certainly at the beginning of his PUA career, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, i.e. he may seriously have deluded himself that his “method” is what gets him laid, not his looks. That being said, it is inconceivable that he didn’t grasp that he’s selling snake oil once he started teaching bottom-tier men how to pull women.
You’re very welcome. I’m happy to hear you found my work helpful.
I’ll give u guys Mystery, but Tyler and Neil Strauss? Sheesh, what dorks! I saw Strauss on Jimmy Kimmel one time and he was talking about all the stupid terminology he and his fellow PUAs use with each other when they go out. Strauss said, “And it all means something.” To which Jimmy replied, “Yeah, it means you guys are dorks!” Strauss actually agreed saying, “It’s like World of Warcraft, but we’re doing it with people.” That’s another problem with these idiots. They think picking up a girl is like fucking warfare. I remember this idiot back in the day who thought he was good with chicks saying “You have to flank ’em.” This is what the PUA industry has brought us.
Neil got hot chicks because he was rich and friends with lots of celebrities.
Tyler was never good with chicks, it’s all lies and hype. He doesn’t even care about getting girls, he just wants money and cult followers.
I remember on the same Jimmy Kimmel episode Neil introduced his wife to the show’s audience. I’m not gonna lie she was pretty hot. But that was years after he had written “The Game.” And had made tons of money–beta bucks. I bet she screws good looking, masculine dudes on the side if they’re still even together.
Another thing Neil said on the show was that he got Brittany Spears’ number (back when she was the shit). But even Neil said that afterwards she ran down the hallway, looked in a mirror and said, “What did I just do?” It’s like he was proud of his manipulation skills.
I had the impression that his marriage was mostly a PR stunt. It certainly was suspicious that he got a lot of media coverage on it, quickly followed by a book on relationships. It could well be that she simply played him — because they got divorced in the meantime. She got a kid out of the marriage, which means child support and alimony. Thus, she’s the typical modern self-made woman.
Haha! I knew she didn’t love that nerd. But I bet he sold tons more books as blue pilled average Joe’s thought “It could happen to me!”