There are times when I am amazed at the kind of honesty and deep kind of stuff I get to talk about with my guy friends late at night.

If you’ve read my blog for a while, you know I am all about demystifying incorrect beliefs.  I’m all about thinking and living life in a way that helps you achieve the things you set yourself to achieve.

So today, I decided to share with you my raw self.  You get to see me chat honestly about life and dating.  You get to see a side of me that not everyone gets to see unless you know me for a while… or unless you do long-a coaching with me.

Manuel is a friend of mine I’ve mentioned in a previous blog.  He was the jock who needed help with dating.  I’ve helped him for a few months and boy oh boy, he has come a long way since then.  Let’s just say he’s been having some fun.

A lot of the concepts I teach in bootcamps or in private coaching sessions are stuff I’ve experienced and studied myself… and more importantly, stuff that I have experimented with by teaching it to friends to see how it affects their lives.  That’s how I know whether the stuff I talk about works or not.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your favorite drink is before reading.

It is a long post but you have plenty of time!!!  You have all the time in your life actually because…  well… we ARE talking about life.

1:16:18 AM Manuel : we tend to get lazy
1:16:22 AM Manuel : in relationships
1:16:23 AM Manuel : men
1:16:30 AM Manuel : don’t you think
1:16:30 AM Khiem : no… I typically don’t
1:16:37 AM Manuel : hmm
1:16:39 AM Khiem : b/c I put a high emphasis on always appreciating
1:16:52 AM Khiem : if I keep the idea of rewarding her behaviors by showing appreciation in various forms
1:16:55 AM Khiem : it keeps her hooked
1:17:04 AM Khiem : so I may get lazy on initiating sex
1:17:08 AM Khiem : but I don’t get lazy in the relationship
1:20:35 AM Manuel : yes, I meant in terms of sex
1:20:45 AM Manuel : sometimes I feel like the fact that it is guaranteed
1:20:52 AM Manuel : makes us take it for granted a little bit
1:20:57 AM Khiem : well maybe for you
1:21:01 AM Khiem : I try to not take it for granted
1:21:01 AM Manuel : in relationships
1:21:03 AM Khiem : b/c I told you before
1:21:07 AM Manuel : hahaha
1:21:08 AM Khiem : if you don’t do the effort to keep her happy
1:21:09 AM Manuel : i know
1:21:14 AM Khiem : her eyes and heart will start to wander
1:21:19 AM Khiem : it’s your job to keep her hooked
1:21:19 AM Manuel : YOU are the Supafreak
1:21:31 AM Khiem : just as it’s her job to seduce us with her femininity
1:22:19 AM Manuel : makes sense
1:22:35 AM Manuel : do you feel that requires a lot of attention on the man’s part? (more…)

I haven’t written on my blog in a while… and I haven’t forgotten about it.  I just haven’t been inspired as much.

I used to write a lot on topics related to the teachings of the Pickup Artists but ever since I started working with David Wygant, I’m starting to care less and less about what PUAs believe or teach.

The truth is… meeting women isn’t that hard.  If you’ve been submerged in the PUA Community for a while, everything they tell you makes meeting women sound really really really hard.

You got to be alpha!  You got to lead!  You got to peacock!  You got to be fun!  You got to touch more!  You got to plough through her bitch shield/resistance!

Have you ever stopped and thought:  Damn, that’s a fucking lot of “you got to do x, or y or z”!!!  You really got to wonder…  Men have been hooking up with women since the dawn of time, how did they do it before?  Shiiiiit, how did your parents do it?

If I was to listen and believe everything PUAs teach, it’d seem that women are trying to do EVERYTHING in their power not to hook up with you.

The reality is… women DO want to meet you.  Women do want to hang out with you.  Women do want to hook up with you.  But do you really believe that?  Are you too much in your head to really notice?

It’s really not that hard!  If you’ve been reading and using PUA material for a year or more and you still haven’t been able to date and hook-up occasionally with some women, maybe you are trying too hard!

Ask yourself:  Are you nice?  Are you a little bit cool, fun or interesting?  Are you normal (aka fun and non-creepy)?

You really don’t need a PhD in the latest PUA technology to be that, do you?

I’ll tell you right now what’s important:  do you have a minimum level of social lifestyle.  Do you go out?  Do you have hobbies?  Can you make friends?

If you can make friends, you can meet women!

And if you can make female friends, you should be able to go on dates.  Being able to make friends with women means that women find you safe and fun enough to hang with you.  And if so, why aren’t you going on dates?  And I’m not talking about group dates either.  Are you going out alone, 1-on-1 with her?

If you go out on dates enough, you should be able to get laid.  You may not be getting laid like a rock star but you are getting laid!  Make the math yourself.

1 date per week = 4 dates per month

Do you know what is the average amount of dates women claim they have before having sex with a man?  Three!

So assuming you are pretty normal, pretty chill and you go out with the same woman once a week, you connect with her well and you don’t do anything super wrong to actually turn her off… well lookee lookee here, you might just have gotten some!  You just got laid!!!

Let me pull out my calculator again.  So… if my genius calculations are correct, you just got laid at least once a month based on the assumption that most men and women hook up by the third date.

And notice this:  if you go out with her every week, you actually have a spare 4th week.  The 4th week is your margin of error… in case she wants to wait a bit longer and you need a 4th date to get intimate with her… or who knows, maybe plans didn’t pan out on one of the weeks or one of you just got sick or tired one week.

This is the most common and fairly conservative take I could give you on a realistic semi-active dating life.

If you are any good, you can probably have more than one date per week.  If you’re fun, you and her may actually hang out more than once a week after the first one or two dates.  Your chances of getting some can only increase if you become more proactive in your social life or if you fix your bad dating habits.

So how hard is it really to meet women?

Quite frankly, from working with David Wygant, the 2 most common problems I’ve found with men and their dating life are:

1. Having an active enough social life that is conducive to meeting women
2. Knowing how to turn a woman on

Most men think they need to build killer inner game to approach women… killer confidence… alpha-esque demeanor or witty James Bond-like conversational skills but the reality is:

Get a social lifestyle!!!  That will take care of your ability to meet women.  The more comfortable you find yourself doing the things you love, the less likely you are to freeze up when you want to talk to a woman because you are in your own environment!  It’s really a comfort level thing.  Like David said in his Men’s Mastery Series, choose 5 locations that you go often to… and start socializing there.  Get to know people.  Start with small talk.  You’ll eventually talk to the women that go there and it will all feel easy.

As far as learning how to turn a woman on, most of that takes care of itself if you hang around enough women… or better… if you hang around enough guys who are cool and attractive.  Most cool guys know how to flirt with women.  Just watch them… and soon enough, you’ll end up emulating them without knowing it.

If you have to take an academic approach to learning how to turn women on, watch a lot of sex educational videos and read more on sexual psychology.  Turning a woman on is like a dance.  You just have to learn how to lead her mind and body.  You have to create a safe environment for her to express her sexual side to you.  You got to talk directly to how she feels about herself.  It’s not rocket science.

So seriously, for the guys out there who are really struggling, stop reading so much about pickup.  Go out there and make it easier on yourself to meet women by being normal and learning to just talk.  Just say something.

You don’t get extra points for doing fancy crazy approaches or make outs in the middle of the street or club.  You don’t get extra points for being super duper confident a la Pickup Artist.

All you want is a nice girlfriend, right?  All you want is to get a little bit of action, right?

Well get out there and be normal!

Surprisingly, most women are looking for that normal, yet fun easy going guy.  Ask the damn women!  They’ll tell you.  There are more creepy guys out there than you think.

You aren’t THAT bad!

Yesterday, I told my Mom I was planning on going to the Adult Convention in L.A. this weekend.  Surprised, she asked:

HER:  What is it?
ME:  Hmm, have you heard of pornography?
HER:  What?…  Why would you want to go to that?
ME:  Some of my friends are planning to go.  I’d like to go too.  I have never been to one so I’m  curious to see what it is about.
HER:  Do you always partake in what your friends do?  Do you think you are being negatively influenced?

As you can imagine, I wasn’t too happy after our phone conversation.  She turned a discussion of an event I was planning to attend into a debate over the types of friends I have and a debate over my moral compass.  I love my Mom!  She has always been a strong positive influence on my life… but sometimes, I wish she could see my way a little bit more before casting her judgment.

I guess it is our parents’ job to see the world in black and white for us because they want to protect us, but I don’t see everything in dual tone colors anymore.  As I wrote in my Art of Conversation and Storytelling post, trying to be right all the time hinders your ability to communicate well.

Let go of your attachment to being right, and suddenly your mind is more open.  You’re able to benefit from the unique viewpoints of others, without being crippled by your own judgment.
– Ralph Marston

A lot of things in life are actually neither right or wrong.  The way you react or interpret them is what makes them right or wrong.  Is Adultcon in itself wrong?  Probably not.  It’s neutral.  If you come from a very conservative or religious background, you will probably condemn the event as morally unthinkable.  If you come from a more liberal background, you may argue that it is a celebration of human sexuality, which then makes it a reason to rejoice.  It all depends on how you frame things.

So where am I going with this?  I see this issue a lot when guys come ask me if what they are doing is right or wrong in their endeavor to get with a girl.  I am no expert but it really depends.  It depends on how well she responds to what you are doing/saying, but more importantly, it depends on how well you react to HER response.  The question you should ask yourself in those situations is:  is my response moving the interaction closer to where I want it to go… or further?  If you are moving the interaction forward, you are doing well.  Let me give you an example.

A girl sent a text to my friend saying :  “Fool, study… Study fool!!!”  So he turned to me and said:  “does that mean she doesn’t like me?  She called me a fool.”  I asked him:  “what is the context?”  It appears that they were flirting all along.  He needed to study for an exam the next day but as they kept on texting each other, he finally sent her:  “Oh you need to stop that, you are distracting me.  Don’t make me spank you the next time I see you ;p”  Her “study fool” response to his text is by itself neutral.  But within the context, calling him a fool means she’s being affectionate with him.  She was playing along by flirting but she knew when to let him go.  The interaction so far was positive.  Now imagine what would have happened if he replied with:  “why did you call me a fool?  That’s so mean.  That was so uncalled for.”  Do you see how bad of a turn the conversation would take?

I like what Vin DiCarlo said about attraction in his Dating Diablo program: 

“You have to stop thinking about attraction as something that is either there or not… and rather a process, in which leading the logistics is included.  Attraction and seduction is a process ANY man can lead any woman through.  So instead of wondering what is going on, lead her through the process and make her attracted.”

By keeping the big picture in mind, you don’t get stuck with small frivolous concerns:  am I saying the right thing?  Does she really like me?  What you say in a specific moment is usually not very important as long as you mean it well and you move the interaction forward.  Even if she gives you a negative response, you CAN recover by reacting positively.  Generally speaking, there really isn’t a right or wrong thing to say to a woman.  However, there may be better ways of saying what you want to tell her.

This leads to my next topic:  what do Indicators of Interest (IOI) really mean?

I feel that a lot of guys who are deep in the Community rely too heavily on Indicators of Interests to gauge the likelihood of success for their next escalation move.  They look for IOIs to determine if the girl is attracted enough to them before they attempt a move on them.  This is a big mistake.  This type of logic reeks of approval-seeking behavior:  “I want to make sure the woman will not reject me before I try <insert whatever action you are trying to do>.”

While interacting with a man, a woman doesn’t consciously think:  “OK, I like him.  I’m going to flip my hair now to let him know he can go on” or “Oh, I want to kiss him.  Let me flutter my eyelashes and pucker up my lips so that he knows I’m ready.”  This is ridiculous!  Yeah… some women may actually do that intentionally but most won’t.  What they do as a sign of interest to you is usually subconscious and spontaneous.  In addition, some women won’t even give out any IOI at all.  They are either shy/reserved or they are too much in their head to even think about that.  They are not as sexually-attuned as their more social friends.

Last but not least, an IOI is neither a credible, nor consistent enough measure of a woman’s interest in you because they can be easily misinterpreted.  If a woman is twirling her straw in her drink, that doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s thinking of sex with you.  She might just be bored with you so she’s doing something else.  If she’s touching you, it doesn’t always mean that she’s into you.  She just might be one of those very touchy feely person. 

An Indicator of Interest (IOI) should not be treated like a red or green light.  To me, an IOI is a sign that what I did previously was right.  If the girl laughs at my joke, it means I had a good joke.  Her IOI is a response to what I did.  I want to be aware of any IOI a woman sends me but I am not paralyzed by a lack of IOIs.  A lack of IOIs does not stop me from pushing the limits of the interaction.  I am the man.  I am supposed to lead the interaction with her.  Remember, attraction is a process.  It is a gradual emotional and physical arousal that you are in control of.

Think of Indicators of Interests as guiding posts.  Imagine yourself driving on a road in heavy fog.  You can only see so far ahead of you but you are trying to get to city X.  Every so often, you see a sign that says:  City X – 55 mi.  Then you see another one later on that says, City X – 30 mi.  Seeing the signs reassure you that you are going the right way.  However, if you don’t see one, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep driving and turn around.

So guys, be aware of IOIs but don’t think too much about them.  I don’t ever want to read or hear anything like this anymore:  “So I had this many IOIs (she laughed at my jokes, she flipped her hair, she touched me…) but then when I tried to kiss her, she gave me the cheek.”  This means you tried to kiss her the wrong way, it doesn’t mean she didn’t like you.  You probably escalated too abruptly.  Got it?