| When I was maybe 19, I went to a work Christmas party. During the course of the evening, this girl initiated conversation with me and someone told me that she fancied me. This was a girl that I had always fancied but hadn’t talked to very much. I made one overt move and it wasn’t a very good one. Meanwhile, another guy who was more confident than me swooped in and started making out with her during the slowdance, and when I made eye contact with him at one point, he slid his hands down onto her arse with an evil grin as if to punish me further.
This obviously made me feel like shit, and I went and sat down at the edge of the dancefloor, despite there being another girl there who was also sat at the edge of the dancefloor who no doubt wasn’t very amused by being left out either. Still, I remember the feeling of passivity that came over me, the feeling that I just couldn’t do anything. Rationally I knew that this girl almost certainly would want to dance with someone and not be left out, but the worry that she would knock me back left me frozen. Then the longer I left it the more awkward it became and it started to feel like it would almost be wrong to make the move, like the moment had passed.
Fast-forward to this year and I’ve been doing dance lessons. I’ve gone maybe 10 weeks, during which time I’ve fully participated and enjoyed it. Then for some reason the other night I had this feeling like I couldn’t be bothered and so I just hung around on the sidelines for a few minutes watching others. The reason I mention this is that when I decided, even for five minutes, to stop participating in the action, this same feeling came over me. The longer I left it not joining in, the more I felt like I COULDN’T join in. This is despite the fact that I’ve been doing this maybe ten weeks, I know I can do it, and have done it, and enjoyed it. The fact that I stopped participating immediately made it feel harder to participate, despite the fact that I KNEW participating was EASY from experience.
Last night I was dancing with a girl I was interested in and I knew I needed to take some kind of action. I knew I needed to say or do something that would show intent, and yet for some reason I found myself responding in the same way, being passive and observing HER. I suppose I was thinking to myself “maybe she’ll do or say something that will inspire me with what to do next”. But the longer I left it waiting for inspiration, observing instead of participating, the harder and more awkward it felt. The more I thought about it, the more I realised the problem was not my failure to act NOW. The problem was my failure to act at the BEGINNING of the interaction. The way the situation was playing out was all rooted in that first moment when action was needed and wasn’t taken. As soon as that happened, it’s like the passivity of not acting was a poison that was gradually spreading through my system, the only remedy being the antibodies of courage.
Eventually, when I did suggest getting her number, it was okay, but it’s like my system had been weakened by several minutes of passivity, and the confidence and cockiness and self-belief had gradually drained. I realised that if I had acted in some way at the very start, I would be still be benefitting from the momentum of that. Because I hadn’t, it was like I was getting stuck in the mud and finding it harder to move.
This is all fairly obvious, but my insight is just how fast passivity can affect you, even when it comes to things you have absolutely proven you can do. Just five minutes of not participating while everyone else was dancing took me back to my younger days of having zero confidence. The very moment I stopped participating, my confidence immediately fled the scene.
If you consider this on a larger scale, how much effect must it have when we don’t participate in major things that we should be doing in our lives? If five minutes of passivity can spread poison through our system, what kind of damage can five years do? I guess the point I’m trying to make is that the consequences of not taking action are SERIOUS. When action is needed and you don’t take it, you’re poisoning yourself. We’re men. We’re not made to sit on the sidelines and wait till someone else shows us the way. We should be the first to act.
The girl’s response when I did eventually ask her (she’d said she wasn’t going to be there for several weeks, and I said “well I should probably get your number or else we won’t see each other till then” – so not brilliant or terrible, just okay) also made me think about this issue. It turned out she had been in a relationship for two years, but she was so pleased by me asking that I initially thought I was in (she didn’t say anything for a few seconds but just grinned like a Cheshire cat, leading me to say “I’ll take that as a yes” and get my phone out). But she explained that she was so delighted because noone had asked her since she’d been in a relationship and she was used to thinking that “noone else would ever see her in that way again”. She said that I’d made her day.
So my point is, since she’s been in this two year relationship, HOW MANY GUYS must have seen her and liked the look of her but done absolutely FUCK ALL about it? And as a result, she’s ended up feeling like she’s only attractive to one guy and no other guy would be interested, which is ridiculous. I’m not prolific like some guys here in terms of making approaches, asking for numbers etc, but I’ve done it on a number of occasions, enough to know that it can be done and the world won’t fall on my head if she says no. But I know guys who say they have NEVER initiated a conversation with a girl they don’t know, purely because they find her attractive and want to try and pull her. To me, that’s just not living. If the passivity that led me to wait five minutes before asking for this girl’s number made me feel bad, how bad must it feel to never ask a girl anything ever?
And the result of so many guys out there being passive (apart from making it incredibly easy for those guys who have even half a testicle), is that women don’t appreciate their own attractiveness, don’t realise that they have options, and are probably having a very boring time for the most part.
What I appreciate about the PUA community is that it sets a different benchmark for what men should be able to achieve. In society in general, it’s considered quite acceptable for a guy to never approach women and just hope for them to magically come to him and make it easy on him. I mean, noone especially respects guys for this, but people don’t generally encourage them to break that pattern of behaviour and start taking risks. In society in general, approaching women is seen as something to be praised: “wow, you went up to that girl and told her she was hot, and you didn’t even know her? You’ve got some balls, man…” In this community, not approaching women is seen as a failure to step up and do what a man needs to do, and I think that’s the correct view of things. If passivity feels this bad, how can it be okay? It just can’t be. And my conversation with this girl last night made me think that men being passive is SERIOUSLY not good for women either.
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If something's not fun, it's not worth doing
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CHAT
) and bring this stuff out in the open. Noone benefits from attraction being kept secret.
