I think I am back

[Guest]

I'm glad I stumbled onto this thread. I have been lurking for a little while. I am currently in a LTR, so I have disappeared from the community. It seems that I am not alone, and that got me thinking.

It seems that many guys have a hard time reconciling being a PUA and having a LTR. Some practice the game with the ultimate goal of finding that one woman to be with. Many guys feel like they were stuck in relationships by default, being with women who chose them rather than being the choosers, and that's what brings them to the community. So they set out to become men with variety and choice in their lives.

There are biological and evolutionary reasons why this is a fallacy, but that is not the point of my post.

The mistake we men make is that we compartmentalize our lives into single phases and relationship phases. When in the single phase, we develop skills to attract women; we become fun, challenging, sexy, charming guys. Then when we get into relationships, we become different people; we develop the skills that we think will make us successful in our relationships. This, I think, is our undoing.

What we should be doing is developing a universal set of skills that makes us successful in all phases of our lives. We should always be fun, we should always be sexy, we should always be good listeners, we should always be challenging, we should always be loyal, we should always be honest.

This is something I have struggled with. I realize that I should always be gaming, but I just don't have the motivation to approach a strange woman and chat her up when I'm in a LTR. In my mind that's wrong to do when I'm in a "relationship phase." But I know this is a limiting belief, and I endeavor to eliminate that from my belief system.

As long as I don't close, I can talk to whoever I want. In fact, I'm doing my girlfriend a favor by developing the universal set of skills that make me an awesome person.

Forgive me for hijacking the thread.

[Guest]

[QUOTE=Rhody;33138]I'm glad I stumbled onto this thread. I have been lurking for a little while. I am currently in a LTR, so I have disappeared from the community. It seems that I am not alone, and that got me thinking.

It seems that many guys have a hard time reconciling being a PUA and having a LTR. Some practice the game with the ultimate goal of finding that one woman to be with. Many guys feel like they were stuck in relationships by default, being with women who chose them rather than being the choosers, and that's what brings them to the community. So they set out to become men with variety and choice in their lives.

There are biological and evolutionary reasons why this is a fallacy, but that is not the point of my post.

The mistake we men make is that we compartmentalize our lives into single phases and relationship phases. When in the single phase, we develop skills to attract women; we become fun, challenging, sexy, charming guys. Then when we get into relationships, we become different people; we develop the skills that we think will make us successful in our relationships. This, I think, is our undoing.

What we should be doing is developing a universal set of skills that makes us successful in all phases of our lives. We should always be fun, we should always be sexy, we should always be good listeners, we should always be challenging, we should always be loyal, we should always be honest.

This is something I have struggled with. I realize that I should always be gaming, but I just don't have the motivation to approach a strange woman and chat her up when I'm in a LTR. In my mind that's wrong to do when I'm in a "relationship phase." But I know this is a limiting belief, and I endeavor to eliminate that from my belief system.

As long as I don't close, I can talk to whoever I want. In fact, I'm doing my girlfriend a favor by developing the universal set of skills that make me an awesome person.

Forgive me for hijacking the thread.[/QUOTE]


Couldn't agree more.

[Guest]

[QUOTE=Rhody;33138]As long as I don't close, I can talk to whoever I want. In fact, I'm doing my girlfriend a favor by developing the universal set of skills that make me an awesome person.[/QUOTE]


I used to believe the same thing. But, I think women truly want their cake and to eat it too. I've had girls tell me that they think it's awesome that I went out with the boys and was social. Social is their word, not mine. And, I grew to learn that 'social' meant that I was talking to other girls.

But, as the relationship progressed their animosity towards my 'social' behavior grew. They began to hate the idea of me going out with the guys and talking to other women. They wanted me 100% to themselves, YET they wanted me to retain the skills that I used to 'get' them.

Eventually, I grew to understand that they wanted me to constantly be 'gaming' them. They wanted to me to talk and interact with them in a sexy, fun way (the way we act while we're single), but to interact with all other women in a very matter of fact way. No flirting. No hint of being fun and sexy. They wanted that person 100% to themselves.

I used to try to frame it by asking them that don't they like it and feel even more special if other women are attracted to me yet I still choose her. They say yes, but mean no. Sure, they want other women to want me...but, they don't want me to do anything for said desire to exist. They didn't want me to create the attraction, just have it thrown at me.

The reason, I think, is that no matter how secure you think a woman is in herself or how confident she is, once she makes the decision to care about you or 'fall' for you she immediately becomes vulnerable. It's wired in her to create a relationship full of stability. They would rather you become a totally awkward loser socially yet be 100% secure in the idea that you are not going to leave than for you to be great socially but her feel as if there is a chance you will leave.

Now, you may not want to leave. Being social and deciding to end a relationship are not correlated, it just makes leaving easier. But, not to her. In her mind, she thinks that if you have the capacity to attract other mates then you have the capacity to leave her. Just the mere idea that you could leave means that you leaving will, eventually, become a reality. Hence the notion that if you are good socially, then it's just a matter of time before you will leave the relationship.

It's different for her to be desired by others because men come to her. But, in order for a man to keep his social skills sharp he, generally, has to go to women. In her mind, she is fending off mates while you are trying to gather them. The act of being the instigator also adds to her insecurity and her desire to squash your ability to attract other women.

I'm not saying men are doomed to either have a failed relationship (i.e. they fight to retain their skills) or that they lose their skills (i.e. have a 'successful' relationship). I'm just saying that men aren't totally at fault for compartmentalizing their phases in their lives. Part of the reason for doing this is because the mere presence of the relationship can dictate that we alter the way we interact with the world. I'm not so sure that being in a relationship means that we have no other choice but to crush 'that single guy' mentality.

Talking with women the same way you would talk to them if you were single but not closing is only your way of justifying to yourself that doing something that your LTR would clearly disapprove of is OK because you are doing it for her. I would venture to say that, if you asked her and she answered honestly that she would not be happy with you approaching women.

The fact is that men have to change a whole lot more than women if they decide to be in a relationship. The problem that most of us are having is how we retain our identity while we bridge that gap, is it even possible to do, and is it worth the effort?

[Guest]

[QUOTE=Bull Run;33152]
[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Talking with women the same way you would talk to them if you were single but not closing is only your way of justifying to yourself that doing something that your LTR would clearly disapprove of is OK because you are doing it for her. I would venture to say that, if you asked her and she answered honestly that she would not be happy with you approaching women.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]The fact is that men have to change a whole lot more than women if they decide to be in a relationship. The problem that most of us are having is how we retain our identity while we bridge that gap, is it even possible to do, and is it worth the effort?[/FONT][/COLOR][/QUOTE]

[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]That’s what I did in my last LTR to try and keep my skills sharp. In my past few LTRS I stopped gaming and that seemed to be one of the thing that helped end them and make it harder for me to move on. This last time I gaming other girls but it turned in to such a problem the longer I was in my LTR it was almost not worth it any more. I have really been trying to figure out a good way to keep my skills sharp and be in a good healthy LTR.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]At this time the only answer I have come up with is to lie to the GF and say I am going out to have a guys night then work on my skills while I am out. [/FONT][/COLOR]

[Guest]

Having just got out of a LTR, I can say that PU and LTR are very different animals. In the beginning of the relationships, all the tricks you got in your arsenal to game her will certainly come in handy, but once you cross a certain threshold then the two of you are forced to deal with each other nakedly on a human level. The two of you just become too comfortable with each other. If you're of a mindset that you have to improve your skills because you think it's the only way to keep your gf, or because you're preparing for a time when you'll llose her, then what's the point of being in a relationship? Sometimes it just doesn't click between two people. Yes, sometimes that manifests itself in ways that may hurt you (she cheats, becomes a real bitch), but those are just symptoms of the fact that the two of you can't get along and shouldn't be together.

[Guest]

[QUOTE=Fuzz;33156]If you're of a mindset that you have to improve your skills because you think it's the only way to keep your gf, or because you're preparing for a time when you'll llose her, then what's the point of being in a relationship?[/QUOTE]


I'm not sure any of us are afraid to lose an LTR. Instead, I think we're afraid to lose an important part of us. It seems to me that we all work so very hard to develop our specific skill set only to have to abandon large portions of that skill set once we get in an LTR.

Sometimes, I think the community is a cruel joke. Here's a scenario:
Boy sucks with girls
Boy finds the community
Boy works hard, I mean really hard to build himself into something that he is not naturally
Boy begins to experience success with women, which is the goal
Boy then internalizes this behavior because he is getting positive feedback from girls and the rest of the world
Boy has built an entirely new world with which to work inside
Boy meets girl and boy uses his new found skills, philosophy, confidence, and personae to attract a girl
Boy then decides he'd like to have a relationship with the girl
What now?

Sure, your skills are great in the beginning of the relationship. I know from experience that you can totally leverage off of them. Most effective is the use of frames and setting expectations. But, those tools are only effective for a while.

There's a saying that, of all people, my mom has always quoted. Men change to get married, women get married and change. Replace marriage with monogamy and you have something more accurate for our generation.

I've seen it over and over again in my friends' marriages/relationships, and I've experienced it myself. The man tends to change his behavior so he can be with the woman, but once that happens and the relationship is set in stone, the woman becomes someone very, very different. They're like politicians. They cozy up to the center, then once they are elected into office they make a hard sprint to the Left or Right. Once they know they're in, they become someone totally different.

But, back to our skill set. One of the BIGGEST reasons a woman wants to be in an LTR with us is that we can attract other women and, more specifically, we know how to attract her. As PUAs, that's our natural state. To build attraction with as many women as possible. But, once you're in an LTR, that is off limits. A woman will never allow you to build attraction with women other than her, never.

I've always said that if a woman respects you, she'll never stray. If a woman has a healthy fear that you'll leave, then she'll never stray and will continue to be that girl that you want. Not the girl that she wants to become. Those are two very different things.

But, how do you keep that respect and that healthy fear if she shuts off your one outlet to show her that you are a wanted man? Because, you know what? She'll forget that you're a wanted man, because you are never allowed to let that manifest itself in the real world with other women. And, then she becomes a tyrant really fucking fast.

You see, we're not afraid to lose her. We're afraid that she'll turn into someone totally different. Someone that we don't love. Happens all the time. It seems that the only thing that prevents her from turning is our ability to attract other women, which is exactly why she goes after that first. She wants you to lose those skills because she wants to keep you, she wants to know you'll stick around, and because she knows that the person she is now is not who she really wants to be. I mean, she can only fuck or suck you every morning for so long before she gets tired of it...going out of her way to do something for you is only convenient for so long...remaining beautiful and vibrate is hard work and she doesn't have an unlimited amount of energy.

[QUOTE=Fuzz;33156]Sometimes it just doesn't click between two people. Yes, sometimes that manifests itself in ways that may hurt you (she cheats, becomes a real bitch), but those are just symptoms of the fact that the two of you can't get along and shouldn't be together.[/QUOTE]


This is very true. But, my whole argument is that when you begin a relationship, the person you are going into it is not the person you are as you walk through it. Concessions and compromises have to made. And, usually, it's the man making them.

I'm not afraid a woman will leave me. I'm not afraid she'll cheat. I'm not afraid to be alone. What does scare me is that I'll find myself alone and have to rebuild my skill set that I use to attract people to me. To me, that's like dropping an average man in the middle of a remote forest without any supplies or tools or even knowledge on how to survive. Many of us have lived that life before and there's a reason we're here now. That life is no bueno...

For a PUA, we risk more than the average man when we have an LTR. We risk giving up everything that we worked so hard for, everything we strived for, everything that we've become. Sure, you could say that for any man. But, for us, it's different. For us, it seems like stripping out that skill set is tearing us down, tearing us apart, turning us into the person that we didn't want to be any longer.

Maybe you guys don't see it that way. But, like I said. We, as PUAs, have to change so much to be in her life. And, THEN on top of that, we have to deal with her incrementalism as she changes from the girl you fell for to the girl that she truly is.

Sometimes, I'm not sure it's worth it...

[Guest]

[QUOTE=Bull Run;33152]I used to believe the same thing. But, I think women truly want their cake and to eat it too. I've had girls tell me that they think it's awesome that I went out with the boys and was social. Social is their word, not mine. And, I grew to learn that 'social' meant that I was talking to other girls.

But, as the relationship progressed their animosity towards my 'social' behavior grew. They began to hate the idea of me going out with the guys and talking to other women. They wanted me 100% to themselves, YET they wanted me to retain the skills that I used to 'get' them.[/QUOTE]

The way I used to look at it is that when you become a PUA, and through that skill set you get into a LTR, you make a promise. You owe it to her to be that man that she fell in love with; otherwise, she will not trust and respect you.

However, do you have to keep practicing those skills to remain that man and keep your promise?

That is where the "universal set" of skills comes in. I think it is possible to be an awesome, social person without picking up women. There are ways to attract women without getting directly sexual. For example, you can open everybody you meet, banter, establish comfort, tease, lead, and challenge. As long as you do this with everybody you meet rather than just HBs, I don't see how a secure woman would object.

But there is a line. You can be an attraction and comfort machine, engaging people in any situation, but you better not be pulling girls home. I don't know how to reconcile that. Do those endgame skills erode over time?

[Guest]

[QUOTE=Rhody;33160]As long as you do this with everybody you meet rather than just HBs, I don't see how a secure woman would object.[/QUOTE]

AND, there it is!!!

Secure.

You qualified what type of woman would be OK with our antics, for lack of a better word. But, I don't think you really get it. There is no such thing as a secure woman. Period. They do not exist.

I know you've been in situations in which you thought to yourself, why is my LTR being such a bitch for no good, legit reason. The answer is simple. Attention. Women are like children in that they just want YOUR attention. They don't care how the get it. Be it good or bad, they just want you to pay them some attention. They want to be the center of your life.

Have you ever noticed that when you have a busy week at the office and don't get to see the woman you're with very often that they become irritated with you? It's not your fault that you have other things going on in your life. It is what it is. BUT, when those other things are not her, she freaks the fuck out.

Women are attention whores. And, the reason for that desire is fundamentally rooted in the fact that they are not secure enough in themselves to just be. Someone that is secure will simply live their life without regard to whether or not they are getting any attention. A woman on the other hand has to have your full attention. Good or bad.

The reason is obvious, at least to me. Women are incredible at being social. But, with that comes the knowledge that other women are social as well. That is their competition. Men beat the shit out of each other on the playing field. But, women beat the shit out of each other in the social world.

Once you understand that the 'social world' is code for men and relationships you can see that women compete with each other for men. That is their game. Since they know that this is the game, they will always be insecure with the idea that you can build attraction with other women because women know what they are capable of...they know that another woman will try to steal you away from her because that's exactly what she would do!!!

This leads to insecurity.

For any of us that have been in relationships, I know that what I'm saying isn't new. Women need constant reinforcement that they are special and unique. And, that all stems from the fact that they are insecure.

There is no such thing as a secure woman. Period. Kid yourself all you want, but they do not exist.

[Guest]

I think I may have an answer to all this but I am in a research phase and don't want to let the cat out of the bag right now. I will say that I believe the problem lies in how we approach pick up and not the LTR.

[Guest]

[QUOTE=Bull Run;33162]AND, there it is!!!

Have you ever noticed that when you have a busy week at the office and don't get to see the woman you're with very often that they become irritated with you? It's not your fault that you have other things going on in your life. It is what it is. BUT, when those other things are not her, she freaks the fuck out.
[/QUOTE]

This is one of the biggest problems (if not top) i deal with in every LTR. And then this spills over to other things and snowballs.