site banner

Wellness Wednesday for January 17, 2024

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Frankly this approach seems dead in the water in this day and age.

It isn't. There's never been a better time to .... go outside and talk to girls.

With respect, this demonstrates an already very constrained mental attitude towards the possibilities you impute in dating. It also begs the question; if you can't start a conversation in the real world, what makes you think you'll be able to shepherd a digital conversation into it with any more success?

The only way to do it is to do it. There are millions of pages of text online theorizing about the optimal risk-frontier controlled way to strike up a conversation. It's all pointless. Talk to everyone. I've written about how to do this before;

Well, how does a fellow with underdeveloped social skills go about improving? The answer is to talk to everyone about boring shit all of the time. Master small-talk. "But small talk is bullshit! I want to get into deep conversations! And isn't that also what a mate wants?" Sure, eventually. But being able to make small-talk that isn't cliche ("crazy weather we're having"), or boring, or just you free-associating demonstrates a similar kind of subtle communication very much like flirting.

If you can get a stranger, in 60 seconds, to tell them something about themselves (basic, nothing deep), laugh at an observation, and then ask you a question, you've just made a stranger begin to trust you (in the telling of the something), enjoy being around you (laugh), and take a reciprocate interest in you (the question). And, remembering that being sneaky is bad, you're doing this in a context where you don't already want to have sex with the stranger (or, you preemptively discard that outcome. Sometimes the Barista is cute, but you're not really trying to make it happen).

The reason that reasonable women have, at best, a tepid interest in the Dating Apps is because even well-intentioned young men (like yourself) go through this optimization program to boost their matches. This lack of authenticity and, frankly, salesman-ish numbers game, will come through on dates. And, probably, via text as well. To be clear, I'm not saying it doesn't "work" (if your rubric for success is consistent dates and sex). But it doesn't work in the way you really want, which is a fulfilling and high trust relationship.

Go outside and talk to girls. The sex robots are already here. You've got a choice to make.

To be clear, I'm not saying it doesn't "work" (if your rubric for success is consistent dates and sex). But it doesn't work in the way you really want, which is a fulfilling and high trust relationship.

Go outside and talk to girls. The sex robots are already here. You've got a choice to make.

Heartily Endorsed.