You're trying to help a guy to run before he can walk. Your friend has people anxiety before he has approach anxiety. Throwing him in at deep ends is too stressful. Got to get him comfortable with people without pressure or expectations before you can worry about anything more.

Although it might be hard to introduce him to anyone now without him thinking you're surreptitiously trying to set him.

Two things.

1. Keep your excellent PUA state, and just be positive and outgoing. Solo sarge if need be, but so long as you keep up your sarging and your forward progress, it will eventually become infectious.

2. Wait. You can't force him to do anything. But, if he follows the path he's been going down, eventually he will become fed up. He will reach his "pain threshold" and desperately search for an alternative. TA DA! In comes PUA and he commits.

Another alternative would be forcing him into situations where he will get rejected, until he is desperate to learn PUA.

My thoughts: sure, you could kind of push him if you like, but the more you push, the more he will resist. It's like the movie inception-- the subject has to think of the idea as their own. You could do sneaky subconscious hypnosis triggers to try this, though I would recommend against it as such. Just use the two-step method I outlined above.

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Don't hate, just dominate.