Update on Crossfit

I mentioned in an earlier post here that I was thinking about starting up at a Crossfit gym. Well, I went ahead and made that move about 4 weeks ago and the verdict so far is that it is really, really awesome. It's changing the way I work out completely. Right now, I'm going twice a week and paying the rate they have for that. Then I'm going to my regular gym on other days and using a lot of what I've learned to make my workouts that much more effective.

My plan for the new year is to up my membership to unlimited, which means I can go as many times per week as I like, which for me will be 4-5 days. That's actually a $200/mo commitment, but my feeling right now is that it will be totally worth it. I never worked out like this when I was in the Marine Corps. In fact, the big thing that boot camp did for me back then was it just took off a bunch of weight. Yeah, my overall fitness level was better back then, but youth helps a lot too. If we had worked out like this in boot camp, guys would have been a lot better off. Instead, what happens is guys lose a bunch of weight in boot camp through restricted diet, running, marching all day, and all the other training we do, then gain half or more of it back within a few months. I was at about 160 lbs when I finished boot camp, but for most of the rest of my 4 years, I stayed right around 190. Then I got out and ballooned up to about 215 within a year or so, and onward and upwards from there. My height is 6'1".

One thing I wish is that I could find the time to do a Step Aerobics class once or twice a week, along with the Crossfit. The problem is there just aren't enough hours in the day/week for that. Step really is pretty awesome. As I've said before, I don't know why more guys don't do it. What I might do is dedicate January to doing Crossfit 4-5 days/week and then move back down to twice a week in February and try to get some stepping in. Have to think about that.

Stuff I want to write more about

I think the time has come to make this blog a little less self-referential and maybe, just maybe, a little bit less of a self-indulgent pity party. I think this will make it more interesting and hopefully draw more readers, thereby leading to actual conversations and dialogue, which will hopefully give me some relevance, which will lead to even more conversations and dialogue, which will bring even more relevance, etc. I think you see where I'm going with this.

In this spirit, here are a couple of closely related subjects I would like to write more about:

Attraction - i.e. what is it that women are really attracted to in a man? Some of my sources for this subject include the work done by Lovesystems and published in their e-book Magic Bullets (which of course is derived from Mystery Method). Lovesystems, of course, used to be called The Mystery Method Corporation, until Mystery left to become part of Venusian Arts. David Deida's Way of the Superior Man is another good source. I will very likely reference some Roissy posts as well. Also, there is a frequent commenter at Roissy that goes by aliasclio. She made some comments the other day that really stuck with me.

Clio has her own blog here.

The Roissy post that she was commenting on is here.

Realistic Dating Strategy - this is a subject I started mulling over a number of months ago. The basic premise here is that when you think about it in terms of long-term outcomes, the Community really doesn't serve the needs of most of the guys that seek it out. There are all sorts of reasons for this, which I plan to go into more detail about, but the bottom line is that most guys simply aren't going to become true Players. By itself, that's fine. In fact, if you talk to most guys, they'll probably tell you that isn't their goal anyway. But, the way the Community is set up, the marketing, hype, and mentality really pushes the idea that this is what the goal is. So, the question I'm trying to answer is this: short of completely dedicating himself for months, or even years, to becoming this great player, a master seducer of women, what is a realistic strategy that would help the average guy improve his social life and his prospects with women? I DO think that learning some Game is an important part of this effort. But, I think there's a lot to be said for spending more time on other stuff. Some guys, for instance, really need to develop their conversational skills. I think that's a big one - having the ability to talk to and truly engage almost anyone.

I'm really, really interested in feedback on these ideas.

Day Game

Went out day gaming today in downtown Seattle. My new wing, S, really seems to think that all I need to do is go direct. He's really firm about that. But right now, doing a direct approach on the street, with no pretext, is still really, really hard. However, I did manage some bookstore approaches and, if I'd been a little more ballsy and aggressive at the right time, I know I could have made them hook. I know, that sounds lame, and it is.

The interesting thing that happened was that I totally entranced a salesgirl without even really trying. She wasn't really hot, but she was fuckable. I would call her a fuckable 5.5. On my scale, a 6 is an above average, cute girl, so 5.5 isn't really that bad.

Anyway, I had made a few approaches already and was just kind of browsing when the salesgirl came up to ask me if I needed any help. We started talking and, as it turned out, she knew nothing about the section of books I was browsing, so I opened up and started telling her about some of the books there, explaining in one case how the ideas brought up by one author were the subject of a book by a different author. I also pointed out a couple of books that would be good gifts, since holidays are just around the corner. Then I got to talking about the publishing industry, the impact of the Kindle on the book business, and how I thought Amazon was starting to act kind of evil and monopolistic, especially with regards to the newspaper industry. This, of course, led to my thoughts on the problems the newspaper industry is having with declining ad revenue and what the implications of that are for the news media in general. It's amazing what happens when you have a pretext for talking about stuff you know a lot about.

To be fair, she could have just been listening to me to be polite. But, my gut instinct is that wasn't what was happening, mostly because of the way she was staring at me. Also, right at the end, her boyfriend/husband came in the store and motioned for her to come (he was obviously there to pick her up) and it was like he woke her up from a trance. She was kind of startled and said something like "oh gosh, I guess I need to go clock out." She literally sounded stunned.

So, from a game perspective, what seems to have happened here is that I generated very strong attraction by massively DHV'ing myself and hitting a number of attraction switches. I went into her world (the book industry) and showed that I know a lot about it, probably more than most of her peers and supervisors. That's a DHV right there. Then I started telling her about some of the books in that section, which is more DHV but also displays dominance (teacher/student). Then I started picking up different, related threads, demonstrating intelligence and knowledge. I was also well-dressed,groomed, etc.

Now, assuming that I wanted to turn this interaction into a number, what I needed to do was qualify her and give her a reason to believe that there were some things about her (other than her vagina) that I found attractive. In other words, after massively DHV'ing myself, I had to find a way to bring her up closer to my level.

So, the first lesson learned here is find a pretext, any pretext, to start blabbing about shit I know a lot about.

The second lesson is to qualify, qualify, qualify. Then, when I'm done with that, I need to qualify some more. In fact, the beauty of qualification is that it should help me find some pretext, whatever it is, to start blabbing about stuff I know a lot about.

Speed Dating Sucks

I went to this speed dating charity fundraiser last night. I've done speed dating a couple of times before, mostly because I was curious about it. This time I went because a friend of mine was organizing it and he was short of guys.

Anyway, it sucked. That's what I'm getting to here. It would have been better if I could have lied about my age, but that wasn't in the cards since my friend obviously knows how old I am. Since I got stuck in the older group, some of the women I talked to were really, really older than me - I'm talking women that looked like they were in their mid-50's. Keep in mind that I am a very young looking 39. My dating strategy is go younger, not older. And it wasn't just that they were old, but some of these women were just absolutely hideous warpigs. In fact, even in the younger group I didn't see many women that were very good looking - maybe a handful.

Next time he does this, if he wants me to go, I am going to insist that he at least put me in the younger group.

Weekend In Review

I changed things up a bit this week. Went out on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday with my regular wing, M, and a new guy in town, S, that is probably more advanced than most guys in Seattle right now. On Saturday, a couple other new guys joined us that I have a pretty good feeling about. I really hope that this group of guys can turn into a solid group that goes out together regularly. The new guys are REALLY inexperienced, but at the same time they seem pretty serious. But even if the new guys don't work out, it looks like S will, which is awesome.

Towards the end of the night on Thursday, I talked with M and S wrt my frustrations about how useless it is to go out with the big group from the previous week. My basic point was that nobody is really improving in that sort of situation, partly because the group is just too damn big, but also because, like I said before, it's the blind leading the blind - none of those guys are going out with any kind of a plan. So, we agreed to start meeting earlier in the night and to start reviewing our plan before we head out.

Incidentally, I've started calling that big group of guys the super squad, which I think is hilarious. On the forum, I didn't even have to explain it. Everyone knew immediately who I was talking about. Last night, I even turned it into an opener, asking a couple groups in Amber, "hey, have you guys seen the super squad?" Of course, they didn't have any idea who or what I was talking about, but I amused myself, which was sort of the point.

The blind leading the blind

Went out last Saturday with some of the local community guys. It's becoming more and more clear to me that this sort of an outing is simply an exercise in the blind leading the blind. None of these guys really have any clue what they're doing. They don't know what they want to open with, how to transition, how to build attraction, establish comfort, etc. I don't think any of them really understand how to escalate. I believe I mentioned in a previous post that there are just a handful of guys connected to the Seattle Lair that have any real game. Yeah, none of those guys were out with us on Saturday.

Seriously, what exactly is the point of a bunch of dudes with sub-par social skills all going out together?

Which isn't to say that I'm any better, because I'm not. But, it's clear to me that I'm not going to get any better just going out with these guys and hanging out. This is reinforcing to me my conviction that I need to do an RSD bootcamp, and the sooner I can get that done the better off I'll be.

In the meantime, I can work on tightening up my game. When I first started this stuff last spring, I was going out with a plan. I knew what I wanted to open and transition with and I had some ideas at least about building attraction. But then that shit all got lost somewhere in the following few months. This doesn't mean I want to become robo-pua, spitting out attraction routines like some kind of social robot, but I do want to make sure I'm going out at night with a basic idea of how to open, transition, build attraction, etc. so that I can start building up some positive reference experiences.

Two Questions About Calling Chicks

Question #1 - I got this girl's phone number a few months ago and never called. I did text her once, but I got discouraged when she didn't respond. So I didn't call. Since then, I've learned that this is extremely common, especially with the more social type of female that has lots going on, which is exactly what this girl is. I know this because I have since found out that we have some mutual acquaintances and because I'm a crazy online stalker. The good part about knowing some people in common is that I'm more likely to run into her again.

So, the question is this, am I better off calling her cold, after several months, or should I wait for a more opportune time to "casually" run into her via our common social connections? I'm leaning towards giving her a call. I really, really regret not pursuing this girl harder.

Question #2 - Is it better to leave a voice mail or not? I've heard all kinds of conflicting advice on this. I'm mostly referring to situations where you've gotten the number (via a cold approach or whatever) but you still don't know her very well.