As I am the same person as Jaybot (apparently)
I feel that I need to agree with him/myself!
You can spend a lot of money and time on books and material without really learning anything at all. You need to have a reality to relate to. All the affirmations can give some inner game but do you really thing that it will work if all you have to relate to is your AFC day failures? Can a book just tell you to be confident? No! Can we just tell him to be confident? No! But we can tell him that if he wants to change it starts with going into the situation where you are gonna need the skill you wanna learn. Dont learn to swim on dry land.
Billionaire, I agree with Jaybot on his ignorance comment too! You have no idea about our backgrounds! It is not easy for anyone! It was not just to do it! But like it or not, if you are gonna learn PUA you need to freaking get out there and get the experience. I am not saying that it is useless to read books but like Jaybot pointed out, you can build all kinds of fake confidence that is gonna fall apart when challenged. I posted a thread a while ago about kicking AA. The main point was... It is a choice. You choose to beat or not beat AA. Same thing here. You can choose to stay home reading and hope that you will get enough confidence to go out one day or you can choose to make learning this shit your top priority. If the need to learn is greater than your fear of it then you are going out there.
We are not trying to keep anyone from learning, just trying to help you prioritize your learning. I used to read quite a lot about inner game but it wasnt until I got out in the field that I really got it.
And, remember, we have gone through exactly the same things you go through. We know that it is hard. We have felt the pain, the shame, the humiliation. We have spent too much money on stupid peacocking clothes, we have used the canned openers, we have negged too hard, we have crashed and burned. We KNOW how it feels! BUT!!! Going out to practice is the number one teacher!
Long post but you I got annoyed!
Ezo