I think it would be wise for people from the PUA community to reach a consensus on how a person should react to a HB's negative action. Such actions include her flaking on him, not answering calls/messages, or any un-accidental or intentional negative action done by the HB.

There are a few ways someone could react, but two main "recommended" ways come to mind:
A. Using "Operant Conditioning" (Very important)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning
B. Being totally unreactive, pretending like it never happened.

There are a few points "for" and "against" both solutions, feel free to add any that I have not mentioned, or even any extra solutions you feel may be better.

If you opt for the B solution, it could be considered "Alpha Male", as Alpha males have stable emotions and are generally "unreactive". And if you opt for A, then it is "dissuading" her from her negative behaviors, which is considered important in Operant Conditioning. But - if you opt for B, then it could lead to there being "no consequences" for her insulting you, so you're allowing yourself to get insulted without doing anything about it (which could affect your dignity), and without dissuading the behavior (so the same type of insulting action could occur again just as likely). And if you opt for A, some would say it is "reacting" to her, which isn't Alpha.

What would you do? How would you react? If it's situational, then when will you adopt each one of the two solutions, and how do you tell?

Edit: A simple explanation of Operant Conditioning:

Put simply and in my own words, Operant Conditioning can be broken down into this:

1. Positive reinforcement (Reinforcement): A person does a good action, and that behavior is reinforced with a "reward". This makes the good action more likely to occur in the future. A pickup example could be giving the HB more attention after she does something that pleases you.

2. Negative reinforcement (Escape): A person does a good action, and that behavior is reinforced by removing a bad stimuli (I couldn't think of another wording for the opposite of "reward" that wasn't "punishment" or "penalty"). This makes the good action more likely to occur in the future. A pickup example could be to stop freezing the HB out after she does something that pleases you.

3. Positive punishment (Punishment): A person does a bad action, and that behavior is dissuaded with a bad stimuli. This makes the bad action less likely to occur in the future. A pickup example could be freezing out the female after she does something that upsets you (Mystery uses that to get past LMR).

4. Negative punishment (Penalty): A person does a bad action, and that behavior is dissuaded by removing a "reward". This make the bad action less likely to occur in the future. A pickup example could be giving the HB less attention after she does something that upsets you.

It should be noted that in the examples I gave, I used attention as both the reward and punishment, as demonstrated on this example line:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/47933939@N03/4392318948/" title="Line by Celestias, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4066/439 ... d911_o.jpg" width="495" height="95" alt="Line" /></a>

i've recently been in this situation with a hb I work directly with, several things have happened. She just didn't reply to my texts (x2) that I sent her, they were friendly, not creepy. I found it f*cking rude.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'A' - can you briefly explain it (I looked at your link but it blew my mind).

I found the following:-

- If I was totally unreactive and remained very confident, this seemed to turn her on, she instigated kino and flirting again.

- If I was civil (said hello in the morning) and friendly, but then sort of freezed her out, joked with colleagues in front of her, remained very confident but avoided eye contact with her, this again really seemed to turn her on and she instigated kino and flirting again.

- The one time I was a bit hostile around her (as she had pissed me off), but not directly towards her. I think she probably knew she'd pissed me off. Needless to say this did not initiate a positive response (or indeed ANY response) from her.

So, having just gone through this, my definitive answer is this:-
Yes, remain totally unreactive and remain confident. Your life is too exciting to give a shite if one girl (abundant mindset) says or acts in a certain way towards you. It is water of a ducks back. Then freeze her out and have a great time in front of her - be funny and confident, you can try DHV stories in front of her, but not directly to her. This will show her that you will not invest your valuable time in her, if she is rude and disrespectful to you. When you ignore her, her social value will plummet and yours will increase - she'll think "this guy has something about him".

Take care,
Rich

I updated my initial post to include a simple explanation of Operant Conditioning.

Your story shows that B (being completely unresponsive) works great, but I wonder if perhaps A works BETTER? I'm pretty sure both solutions can be used to varying degrees of success, but I am out to find out, which of the two works BETTER? Frankly, my personality goes with A, but I'm out to find out which one is the better response, not to prove myself .

Thank you for sharing your story.

Being 'unreactive' to her negative behaviour is also a form of operant conditioning; you are providing a consistent consequence to a consistent behaviour, and thus you are shaping her behaviour using operant conditioning (á la Thorndike's law of effect).

So...the fundamental question is flawed; perhaps you should be more specific about what form of operant conditioning you mean, e.g. 'punishing' her for negative behaviour, rather than just being 'unreactive'.

Trying to consider the question though - I don't think there's any need for a consensus; both methods work, and different ones are better for different situations. Trying to narrow it down into one perfect golden bullet or 'rule' is just too typical of the community and perhaps short-sighted? Nice idea though.

What doesnt make me happy gets ignored, what does make me happy gets rewarded.





I WANNA BE HAPPYYYYYYYYYYY

Both of these could be considered alpha. Conditioning/teaching the female is an alpha trait as much as being non-reactive. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer - you have to gauge the girl. If she has a weaker ego and is receptive to it, you could probably condition her more. If she has a very strong personality, is particularly beautiful or has a very strong bitch-shield, being non-reactive would probably be better. Dunno, just a thought.

Rafiel, when you deal with a female (perhaps one you like), then I assume that the consistent behavior is good, and that the undesired behavior is what breaks the trend. So going by what you are saying, providing a consistent consequence to her inconsistent behaviors, this shows her that no matter what she does, good or bad, you will always treat her the same, being unreactive to whether she's acting good or bad. This is the complete opposite of Operant Conditioning, and it tells her "it doesn't matter what I do, he will always treat me the same". The way I personally see it, she could then think "I could walk all over him and he will STILL be unreactive and perfectly good to me, so I can practically do whatever I want".

I think you misread my post, I already gave examples of "reward and punishment" (the line). To further elaborate on the example:

Solution A suggests where you stand on the line I drew will reflect what you think of her, and what you think of her depends on her actions. If she wants your attention, she will do things that will make you happy, and thus inducing the "positive stimuli". If you think she is wasting your time, you just give her less attention and move on to others who give you what you want.

On the other hand, solution B suggests, that you are permanently stuck on Neutral or at any specific point of the line, no matter what she does, and anything bad she does does will not change your stance towards her. Isn't that what "nice guys" do? A girl would disrespect them in some way, and they still act like her little lapdogs?

And last of all, what FORM of operant conditioning depends on the situation, so I am not trying to narrow it down to the golden bullet. Rather, the question is "should operant conditioning (of any form) be used in the first place? Or should you be totally unreactive?"

And Jav, I totally agree. This is what I mean by operant conditioning, rather than the other solution, which suggests "No matter what she does, I will continue to reward her to seem unreactive and alpha."

Option B is the same thing as negative punishment because you are taking away your attention from her.

^Which is pretty much what I said.

Me: You: Lol. I think you should take look at yourself before you accuse others of misreading. I think you've got a decent point somewhere in this though, if, as you almost rightly said of me, I read your post fully (as opposed to misread it). Keep searching xx.

You misunderstood. If you look at my post, I started by explaining how her behavior is INCONSISTENT (you said in your quote it's consistent), then I corrected your sentence to reflect my explanation, in order to continue answering the rest of your post. Don't forget though, I'm not trying to prove myself correct here -_- the point of this is for the entire community to learn and improve, right?

And Smartbomb, you made some very interesting points. It does indeed depend on the female's personality a lot, and the two categories you put them in make a lot of sense too. Kudos for the good post.

Interesting topic. Being unresponsive to what she does comes to a point where it's ploughing, but then the top one is not always the best.

I don't think there is a right or wrong answer.

I would pick option B simply out of pride. If she misses out it's her loss. Even if you like the bitch there's no point worrying about, just move on and find another girl.

Also, if she flakes it usually means your game wasn't tight enough so make sure to build enough comfort next time (after attraction of course) and take it from there.