omg I was actually thinking exactly this at the LessOnline Hot Girl Feedback event! The guys who went up expressed how artificial it felt when asked to do an approach in front of 50 people, but that's exactly what doing improv is like. When I'm on stage, I don't see the audience at all. I'm just focused on attuning to my scene partner and trying to pick up on what they need. I'm not trying to be funny or impress my scene partner, which means I'm not trying to impression-manage
Ha! This helps crystallize something I intuited (or picked up from a half remembered blog, or synthesi- anyway) about competitive card gaming - I used to get overwhelmed, especially in the single elimination rounds of tournaments. When I banned myself from contemplating the outcomes - the stakes, the possible next round, the acclaim if I might win - and focus only on what was directly in front of me, the next step, then the anxiety went way down. Experientially alone, this insight was worth its weight in gold, and also it probably helped me win marginally more. I've been trying to think how to explain or justify this for some time, and had pattern-matched it to the "tanha leads to dukkha" lesson - but I'm even less qualified to teach people Buddhism than any other writing project. So I'm really grateful for these twin analogies of improv comedy and cold approach
Phone numbers are a pretty unreliable metric in pick-up, as you yourself hint since you gave up a reliable way to gather them.
Rejection buffering is definitely a grossly underappreciated factor for many guys but obviously I cannot know whether that was at play in your case. It also might be that the girls recognized your approaches as entertaining theatrical performances and were curious what comes next in the program.
I think the most off-putting behavior is not really grasping but poorly pretending that you are confident and non-grasping, which is what most if not all training programs have you do. For some demographics, being openly nervous can be perfectly reasonable and successful enough.
I tried “speak to a very large number of people that you don’t know while having no agenda” and immediately gave up. It absolutely did not work for me but I'm very, very high on introversion. For over a year now I have been developing/finding a way to approach hot girls with minimal grasping. And while a strong experience in meditation comes helpful, I don't think that Buddhism is very useful for dealing with psychological issues and goals.
I think in most cultural contexts, cold approaching is just unnatural. It’s not worth the grind if you just want a girlfriend (what are the odds a random woman at the supermarket is compatible with you?), but if your deep desire really is to have sex with a lot of different beautiful women, then yeah, you need to grind that shit out.
On either path, you should read Models by Mark Manson.
I just think it provides a path to improve at dating that's better than cold approaching or anything resembling the PUA mindset. Though I also think for best results you have to be somewhat normie, I'm not, and I feel there's a bunch of stuff not covered in the book that I need to handle.
Thanks. I might have read it some 10 years ago but don't remember anymore. Anyway, I will probably at least skim through it since it keeps coming up on my radar.
Yeah, the problem with all dating advice is that the authors always make implicit assumptions about their audience and that it never is as general as they seem to think.
"cold approaching is just unnatural" - nothing wrong with doing the "unnatural" (if there are no safety concerns)
"It’s not worth the grind" - getting comfortable with cold approaching is a grind. Cold approaching itself doesn't have to be. You can do that opportunistically, as you go about your day. Although I have to admit, virtually all the guys that I know to cold approach do it in deliberate sessions with warmups and debriefs. I'm one of very few exceptions. Roosh also had a daygame method where he approached opportunistically.
"what are the odds a random woman at the supermarket is compatible with you?" - that's a very good question. The choice between cold approaching and other ways of meeting women (like dating apps) depends on what's attractive to you. Personally, I need to see someone live, hear her voice, etc. Pictures alone carry very little information to me. Besides, I find that cold approach is a great motivator for spiritual growth. Believe it or not, it seems to be my main reason to keep doing it.
"It’s not worth the grind if you just want a girlfriend (...), but if your deep desire really is to have sex with a lot of different beautiful women" - I would actually flip that. Effortful cold approaching makes more sense if you are looking for a girlfriend because the potential upside is huge. Short-lived relationships less so.
There's also meeting women through friends of friends, a party, any kind of in-person event, it's not just cold approaching or dating apps.
Sell me more on spiritual growth through cold approaching. I also feel cold approaching is kind of unethical, you're hassling women like some kind of sketchy salesman. And I also didn't like that it made me feel like I'm knowingly being socially retarded, in my culture, we don't strike up conversations with people in the street or at the supermarket, no one does that. I definitely was more willing to cold approach when I was more socially oblivious.
“There's also meeting women through friends of friends, a party, any kind of in-person event.” Absolutely. I didn’t mention those because they are not suitable for me but that’s too me-specific. Cold approaching is just one of a plethora of options.
“Sell me more on spiritual growth through cold approaching.” - I’ve been meaning to write a post on this for a few weeks and just today I thought that I might be ready. I will ping you when it’s up.
“cold approaching is kind of unethical, you're hassling women like some kind of sketchy salesman” - The “sketchy salesman” vibe is unfortunately what many men end up doing. There were countless times in the past when I did that as well. However, that’s not the only way.
“in my culture, we don't strike up conversations with people in the street or at the supermarket” - same here. However, I strongly disagree that going against that social norm is being socially retarded. Not knowing the social norms might certainly help. But so does understanding the social norm and going against it, knowing that the norm is suboptimal.
That was my first thought about Michael Greenberg as well. That he's basically just discovering the core principles of Buddhism and realizing that they're very effective for reducing social anxiety.
I've long theorized that I'd be better at talking to girls if I just pretended to be a different guy with a funny accent...striking to hear that you did exactly that and it seemingly worked extremely well
My big cold approach blocker is that it's weird in my culture: we don't strike up conversations with strangers in the street, there is no organic way to do that.
I kinda wish someone would deconstruct that for me, yet I know when I was more socially oblivious, it was easier to go for cold approaches.
omg I was actually thinking exactly this at the LessOnline Hot Girl Feedback event! The guys who went up expressed how artificial it felt when asked to do an approach in front of 50 people, but that's exactly what doing improv is like. When I'm on stage, I don't see the audience at all. I'm just focused on attuning to my scene partner and trying to pick up on what they need. I'm not trying to be funny or impress my scene partner, which means I'm not trying to impression-manage
Ha! This helps crystallize something I intuited (or picked up from a half remembered blog, or synthesi- anyway) about competitive card gaming - I used to get overwhelmed, especially in the single elimination rounds of tournaments. When I banned myself from contemplating the outcomes - the stakes, the possible next round, the acclaim if I might win - and focus only on what was directly in front of me, the next step, then the anxiety went way down. Experientially alone, this insight was worth its weight in gold, and also it probably helped me win marginally more. I've been trying to think how to explain or justify this for some time, and had pattern-matched it to the "tanha leads to dukkha" lesson - but I'm even less qualified to teach people Buddhism than any other writing project. So I'm really grateful for these twin analogies of improv comedy and cold approach
Phone numbers are a pretty unreliable metric in pick-up, as you yourself hint since you gave up a reliable way to gather them.
Rejection buffering is definitely a grossly underappreciated factor for many guys but obviously I cannot know whether that was at play in your case. It also might be that the girls recognized your approaches as entertaining theatrical performances and were curious what comes next in the program.
I think the most off-putting behavior is not really grasping but poorly pretending that you are confident and non-grasping, which is what most if not all training programs have you do. For some demographics, being openly nervous can be perfectly reasonable and successful enough.
I tried “speak to a very large number of people that you don’t know while having no agenda” and immediately gave up. It absolutely did not work for me but I'm very, very high on introversion. For over a year now I have been developing/finding a way to approach hot girls with minimal grasping. And while a strong experience in meditation comes helpful, I don't think that Buddhism is very useful for dealing with psychological issues and goals.
I think in most cultural contexts, cold approaching is just unnatural. It’s not worth the grind if you just want a girlfriend (what are the odds a random woman at the supermarket is compatible with you?), but if your deep desire really is to have sex with a lot of different beautiful women, then yeah, you need to grind that shit out.
On either path, you should read Models by Mark Manson.
"you should read Models by Mark Manson"
Why?
I just think it provides a path to improve at dating that's better than cold approaching or anything resembling the PUA mindset. Though I also think for best results you have to be somewhat normie, I'm not, and I feel there's a bunch of stuff not covered in the book that I need to handle.
Thanks. I might have read it some 10 years ago but don't remember anymore. Anyway, I will probably at least skim through it since it keeps coming up on my radar.
Yeah, the problem with all dating advice is that the authors always make implicit assumptions about their audience and that it never is as general as they seem to think.
"cold approaching is just unnatural" - nothing wrong with doing the "unnatural" (if there are no safety concerns)
"It’s not worth the grind" - getting comfortable with cold approaching is a grind. Cold approaching itself doesn't have to be. You can do that opportunistically, as you go about your day. Although I have to admit, virtually all the guys that I know to cold approach do it in deliberate sessions with warmups and debriefs. I'm one of very few exceptions. Roosh also had a daygame method where he approached opportunistically.
"what are the odds a random woman at the supermarket is compatible with you?" - that's a very good question. The choice between cold approaching and other ways of meeting women (like dating apps) depends on what's attractive to you. Personally, I need to see someone live, hear her voice, etc. Pictures alone carry very little information to me. Besides, I find that cold approach is a great motivator for spiritual growth. Believe it or not, it seems to be my main reason to keep doing it.
"It’s not worth the grind if you just want a girlfriend (...), but if your deep desire really is to have sex with a lot of different beautiful women" - I would actually flip that. Effortful cold approaching makes more sense if you are looking for a girlfriend because the potential upside is huge. Short-lived relationships less so.
There's also meeting women through friends of friends, a party, any kind of in-person event, it's not just cold approaching or dating apps.
Sell me more on spiritual growth through cold approaching. I also feel cold approaching is kind of unethical, you're hassling women like some kind of sketchy salesman. And I also didn't like that it made me feel like I'm knowingly being socially retarded, in my culture, we don't strike up conversations with people in the street or at the supermarket, no one does that. I definitely was more willing to cold approach when I was more socially oblivious.
“There's also meeting women through friends of friends, a party, any kind of in-person event.” Absolutely. I didn’t mention those because they are not suitable for me but that’s too me-specific. Cold approaching is just one of a plethora of options.
“Sell me more on spiritual growth through cold approaching.” - I’ve been meaning to write a post on this for a few weeks and just today I thought that I might be ready. I will ping you when it’s up.
“cold approaching is kind of unethical, you're hassling women like some kind of sketchy salesman” - The “sketchy salesman” vibe is unfortunately what many men end up doing. There were countless times in the past when I did that as well. However, that’s not the only way.
“in my culture, we don't strike up conversations with people in the street or at the supermarket” - same here. However, I strongly disagree that going against that social norm is being socially retarded. Not knowing the social norms might certainly help. But so does understanding the social norm and going against it, knowing that the norm is suboptimal.
That was my first thought about Michael Greenberg as well. That he's basically just discovering the core principles of Buddhism and realizing that they're very effective for reducing social anxiety.
Currently doing ERP, and love the parallels to improv.
I thought this article was about sales, like DM Cold Approaching ahhashsa
BUT THE CONCEPTS TRANSFER TO THAT AREA TOO!!
So I'm going to try them
Great article :D
I've long theorized that I'd be better at talking to girls if I just pretended to be a different guy with a funny accent...striking to hear that you did exactly that and it seemingly worked extremely well
My big cold approach blocker is that it's weird in my culture: we don't strike up conversations with strangers in the street, there is no organic way to do that.
I kinda wish someone would deconstruct that for me, yet I know when I was more socially oblivious, it was easier to go for cold approaches.