The following is a reply to a PM but I think it's an important idea for all . . .

If you haven't yet, read "How to Win Friends and Influence People", read it. The most important take away from that book, in my mind is, "YOU".

"YOU" is simple to understand but 80% of the World will die never being able to practice it. For one, it's difficult to be get excited about "YOU". It's difficult to genuinely be happy for another person or to be sad for another person. . . This takes compassion.

The average person gets excited about another person's interest when that interest happens to be something that interests them. That sounded weird . . . an example would be a girl in front of you likes snowboarding and you do too? High five!

Some people might get excited about another person's interest just because you know that particular interest makes him/her happy. So you're not a fan of Russian food. . . but you know that your friend loves it. So you give in one night and you let your friend enjoy it.

Some people can be even more open minded than ^this to be excited for another person, even if they are into things that you absolutely despise. This takes detachment. This takes understanding that other than eating, shitting, sleeping, walking around, and the people around you, everything else is just material bullshit. When it comes down to it, there is no difference between a golf club, bicycle, a Gucci bag, or fried chicken. . . do you get what I'm saying here?

For some people, this takes time. . . Many guys in this community who have decent game are still stuck on ME: Hey, you're hot and I want you. I like you. I feel this, I feel that I want this and I want that. I am going to do x,y,z to you!

Your approach isn't bad. . . but you actually believe it. You actually go there thinking you like her and you want to get to know her. The problem is . . you haven't thought about enticing those same feelings from her. You want to ask her a question that YOU ARE genuinely interested in? Go ahead. . . she gives you an answer . . .now what? Are you so satisfied now that you've got a genuine answer to your genuine question?
So what you really want is HER to ask genuine questions about you.

Opener:

bolognese-opener-vt58443.html

^This is just an example... you see, the opener isn't about me, and it's not about a damn pasta sauce either. the opener is about her and her interests. Similar would be:

"Woh _____, your company force you to wear your name tag 24/7?" - Girl left her name tag on after some event.
"My God, what are they doing to you kids. Your professor make you read all those books?" - To go girl who is clearly no longer in school who's carrying a huge travel bag.
"You know . . . I could sing to you. We'll do it old school." - To a girl who is fumbling around with her knotted headphones.

I know people in the community call this 'indirect' or 'under the radar' but you know what this is? It's genuine interest in an other human being. It's humor, it's a connection, it's actually being able to think about another person instead of thinking about what another person's vagina will do for my penis. (But of course if you do this well, that will come in time. . .)

Minimizing the YOU factor.
Some topic you`ve adressed here.

This goes all the way down to religions as buddhism, tao, zen, etc.
Since I was a kid I was thought the importance of being able to disconnect of things, results, and myself; but let`s be honest for a second: how hard this task is?

Doesn`t it take a lifetime of practice to buddhist monks to fullfil this one task?
I`m no monk, nor I will ever be if I`m asked at this moment. I`m a man with my problems, enjoyment and living the best life I think I can achieve or trying hard to.

But to achieve this final happiness, to become the disinterested of outcome guy who is really happy because of the activity he`s doing it`s another type of game.

Related to your bolognede opener topic: I find that`s the best way to approach, a situational opener. I love those because they are genuine, you show a part of you that the next guy won`t probably have, or if he does, won`t have the gut to tell her.

I feel connected to the person who wrote you the PM for the simple reason that, it`s not appoaching and opening a problem to me anymore, at least that`s what I think; but the real issue to me is connecting with people. Finding similar interests, opening my eyes with a girl that`s interesting for me.
And this is against all the things you`ve wrote about leaving the YOU factor in this topic, but it`s what works best with me. If a girl catches my eye I know something good is going to happen between the two of us. But it`s been a long time since a girl catches my eye, or is it me that I haven`t give it a try?

Overall, it's not really minimizing YOU or ME . . . the idea is to seek a balance because YOU = ME. But because most of us are egotistical reptile-brained, it takes some conscious efforts to be genuinely concerned for another. It seems that for most, this will be impossible.

Very nice post Kasabi!

I havent read the book but it seems to be something well worth the time. Getting out of the "I want this" mentality and into the "She would be interested in" mentality sounds like it should be obvious to everyone but isnt.

Just for the sake of argument I would like to ask you this:
When people start out being needy whiny losers, it is all about pleasing her and what she wants. How can I make her like me and how can I "buy" her love? I understand that what you are saying is not that people should go back to that behaviour by backing away from their newfound self respect but rather move forward and approach it from the other side with their experience as a solid wingman.

Would you care to explain how the YOU concept is different from buying a bunch of red roses and beg for her attention?

_________________
I'm not trying to be a dick Ezo, but you're being a Pick Up Snob in my opinion.

bbardot: you just reminded me about porn

I like this.

Reading the other posts on this site about,
Getting laid, getting numbers, getting drunk. Reading in to it.......far to much.

When we should perhaps think about making new friends, rather than new conquests.
Seeing things from both sides.Finding a balanced lifestyle.

It has always been about making friends.

I think kasabi belongs to another era.
Maybe the 60's or 70's when we were driven by peace and love and jimi hendrix.
Now all everybody wants is an i phone 5 and will sell there own mother to get one.

Modern times.........hrmmn.

We all want to be jedi.....master pick up artists and be rich and live a lavish lifestyle.

Truth is.........we all want to be LOVED.

_________________
Its getting Hot out there.

Its all to easy.

I want to be a tree!

@Ezo,

Hey, we're not enlightened monks with no desire for personal gain so I'm not suggesting that we throw "ME" out the window completely. Most of us however are pretty imbalanced. . .
^This is pretty egotistic, right? This is beggary. This is 'gimme, gimme, gimme'.

An interesting thing happens to those who focus ONLY on "me"; strangely enough, their "me" disappears! They become consumed with beggary and lose sight of their strengths and their own passions. This is why the typical "afc" story here always involves some guy doing nothing else but the monkey act for a specific vagina.

Unfortunately for most people here, the only difference between those who think they do well with women vs. the people who don't do well is advanced beggary vs. low level beggary. It's still all beggary. I like this, I like that. I want this. I want that. It amounts to two bums on the corner with one making 5 bucks in change vs. another making 20 bucks in change because the latter figures out that some self-mockery rants pulls more bucks.

And how's this for an ironic twist: "YOU" people are often the most powerful people in our society. We often shines light on "YOU" people, not just to applaud them but because these folks usually have the most power. Because to be genuinely concerned with others and to support them, one needs power. For some, this could be social power. For others, it could be political power . . . there's financial power, referent power, physical power, etc. . . To actually be "YOU" is to shine light on and to improve our own strengths.

Herb Kelleher, the form CEO of South West Airlines used to make personal visits to sick relatives of his employees. (This is just an example of the level of "YOU" this guy was) His employees, when asked, "Would you work for South West over a Holiday with no over-time if your company needed you," they all raised their hands.

^I could probably come up with a hundred similar examples. . .

Thanks for clarifying Kasabi,

I understand what you mean. It makes perfect sense, all of the leaders you wanna follow are YOU people as opposed to the bosses who force people to obey (as ME people).

_________________
I'm not trying to be a dick Ezo, but you're being a Pick Up Snob in my opinion.

bbardot: you just reminded me about porn

so to sum up, you're saying stop being egoistic assholes, and try to genuinely care about other people. Still, how do you make the distinction between the beggary and genuine concern for another?

Most nice guys (including myself) are quite genuinely concerned and do not only concentrate on what they want.

It still backfires. All the time. The moment you go from the so called "advanced beggary" to "you person"/low-level beggary, the whole thing collapses.

So where's the difference?

Beggary is still beggary. But the you person is more disguised beggary. The real difference is more time and energy from your interaction goes to them instead of you. Therefore it feels better to them and the magic of the moment is strengthened and solidified. People don't want the truth they want distractions. Ignorance is bliss.

Now I am fucking terrible at game.I used to run around bars just being me. I genuinely thought if i was honest about myself I'd get laid. This belief system i have been nurturing for a year just completely fell apart. Turns out me being honest about myself just lead to me talking about myself all the time.

Lately i have been thinking should i be so honest about myself? Because to be honest most/almost all people don't give a fuck about a strangers problems. So shouldn't i build a mask or a persona and partially hide my true self behind it?

A nerdy example would be Bruce Wayne becoming SPAM. Being SPAM hurt Bruce Wayne a lot. But he did it for other people and the people loved SPAM and he became a symbol to them.

Alot of people shit on Mystery now saying his method is overkill. Routines suck compared to natural. But naturally Mystery was fucked up in the head. He's a narcissist with some schizophrenia. How can mystery in his natural state be attractive to anyone?

When you think about it though, all his routines and tricks he invented (aside from the manipulation) were their to entertain people. I'm not saying he didn't do it for validation because he did. It's just he spent all that time evolving and inventing these tricks/ routines that in the end entertain and delight people. And people loved him for it.

My problem with the whole concept of "YOU" and "ME" is that even though I've improved drastically when it comes to caring about people (asking how their day was, and actually paying attention to their answers etc.) I'm still stuck feeling that at the end of the day, I still do it for me.

Don't misunderstand me, ofcourse I care about my friends, and I do things for them with no personal gain. But I'm often stuck feeling like I do it only because it's the right thing to do and that it will benefit me when they return the favor.

To improve my game, and to improve my self, I've read up on a lot of man vs. boy psychology, and it brings up quite a lot on doing things for others without looking for personal gain. I must admit, I actually find this hard to do.

And this leads to my question, is there any (better) way to get rid of selfishness than to just "force" it by asking people genuine questions about themselves and show an interest in THEM, aswell as doing selfless things?

It's a complicated matter to adress, but I hope I made my point clear enough!

_________________
Alea iacta est - The die has been cast

I guess this is a bit like Star Wars vs Star Trek. You pick a dojo, at least most people do. You choose to be a ME person or you choose to be a YOU person, it is like a religion.

The danger being that you get stuck in one extreme and dont find a balance between the two. Either your strategy is being a total egoist making it your thing to not care about others (a very annoying lifestyle). Or you decide to live a life for others like some manservant, making it your strategy to beg for the wellwill of others. Everybody likes a yes-man right? (Pretty annoying too.)

You can watch both Star Wars and Star Trek, it all depends on the situation, just make sure you dont do it just to do it but you do it because you have found a balance.

_________________
I'm not trying to be a dick Ezo, but you're being a Pick Up Snob in my opinion.

bbardot: you just reminded me about porn

This forum can be a confusing space. What with "experienced" guys claiming to have slept with XXX women and how they deliver orgasm after orgasm to all their female friends' delight. They advise young kids to communicate with women as if they were reading excerpts from a page out of a dirty magazine. (Some of you may be too young to even know what a dirty magazine is . . . ) They advise young kids to "self entertain" don't give a rat's ass to whatever the hell is sitting in front of you. Even the commercial guys get in on the "Let's pretend we're retarded" game. . . Yeah, let's whine, bitch, and complain as if we're retarded kids begging for a Popsicle and and if we don't get a popsicle, let's just do the same to the girl standing next to the first one. . . Just believe and pretend that you're a PUA and girls will suck your cock. . . (By the way, there seems to be a lot more of this crap here lately. . . what's going on? Is there some new idiot guru on the scene that I don't know about?)

This documentary is on netflix:

http://www.thegreathappinessspace.com/

It's definitely worth a watch...

These guys make a living by swooning girls. Essentially, they make girls fall in love with them. These girls spend thousands of dollars just to share a few hours with these guys. What this means is that these girls VALUE the time spent with these guys to equal $2,000 a night. .. upwards to $10,000. . . and these girls aren't some silver spooners. They're go-go dancers, prostitutes, massage parlor girls. They really have to WORK for that freaking money.

So what the hell do these guys offer that is worth all of these girls' wages? I'll tell you one thing. . . it's not some horny teenager fantasy of gifting your cock to her ass. It's not "entertaining" her by entertaining yourself with endless chatter about yourself. It's not "I am this. I am that. I do this. I do that. You are hot. Your ass looks nice. I want you. I fuck you now."

If you've seen some of my posts, you've seen this formula:

Value = Perceived Benefits/Price.

How do you suppose the boys in the documentary would fill out this formula? How would the girls do it?

The great happiness space...love that movie.

On the other hand, you still didn't make the distinction between the so-called "low-level beggary" and a "you" person.

I disagree. Everyone's goal here is to get laid. This opener is sure to make you some new friends, but it won't get you laid. If you want to make new friends, go on a social forum. :S
- Wikipedia

Fact - The longer you wait to get sexual with a female the harder it will be to do her.

As far as reading "How to Win Friends and Influence People", I wouldn't do it. The book seems like a sure way to become a doormat. This book was written awhile ago so you can't really blame the author, but times have changed.

Mrmadman explained it well so I didn't want to be redundant.

Plug in your variables for the VALUE = perceived benefits/price formula and I think you'll understand this better. You saw the referenced documentary . . . there was one point when a "host" actually did a little math. He said that these girls were paying 10,000 yen for a bottle that costs 1,000. This means that there's a gap value of 9,000 yen. Why is she paying so much? This means that she values the company of this particular host to be at least 9,000 yen.

What happens in a 'beggary' situation? The man actually OFFERS what HE DETERMINES as high value. . . he gives expensive gifts. He gives her time and he sucks time out of his own life. What does she GIVE IN RETURN? Nothing. . . because he offers nothing which is valuable to her. Whatever the fuck a beggar does is worth NOTHING to her. . . no VALUE.

^This is the difference between being ME focused and YOU focused.

Value is determined by the purchaser, not the seller. If you can accept this truth, than you will figure out that it does not necessarily take much effort to offer things that are highly valuable to the girl. Those assholes in the video have NOTHING. They are a bunch of 20 something year old sons of whores with no education, no stability, and no strength of any kind other than that they can drink every night and look/behave like a bunch of fags. Yet they have a skill that 99% of members in this forum do not even seem to realize exists. . .

These guys are YOU people . . .