Strangers aside, you feel as if your role with your family and friends has already been typecast, and it is beyond you to go against their expectations. (Friends)

Un-Consider others:

Next are friends who don’t appreciate your efforts at becoming awesome with socialising and women. They are that way for a reason: They themselves aren’t successful, and thus require the company of those similarly mediocre or worse off, in order to validate their own shitty lives. This is basically the opposite of the rooting-for-underdog effect: The difference being that the RFU protagonists are seen to not represent reality[1], therefore you can afford your feel-good jolt in the cop-out comfort of “yes they win, but their predicaments don’t accurately reflect my own” – even going as far as citing protagonist’s might, laser-guided karma, and/or Bond villain stupidity to justify the underdog’s unrealistic advantage[2].

In contrast, when you start to win at life, the underdog analogy start cutting too close for your friends’ comfort: Because you are real, started off as truly mediocre, and are realistically prone to all sorts of cop-outs during your struggle for awesomeness, your friends can no longer arm-chair theorise comfortably as to how good things would be if only the situation went their way, and actually feel the obligation to do the hard yards. This awkward confrontation will confuse and piss off those content with fantasising only, and they will promptly try to drag you under.

The thing to do then, is to Noah’s-Ark your friends: Distance yourself from your current clique, and make new friends[3] – but take the worthy old friends with you. You can tell who’s worth keeping by touching upon (not bragging about) your recent successes: If they verbally abuse you, guilt-trip you, or stonewall you jealously – then no; if they seem genuinely proud and happy[4] of your success, then consider it.

Also, introduce the topics of self-development, socialising, and pick-up to your friends. If they become overwhelmingly defensive, it may be that they already know a bit about this, and has chosen to reject these changes for the ease of their comfort zones, or that they’ve never heard of it, and have already decided never to leave their comfort zone – they’re not ready[5], and there’s no need to waste your time trying to convert them. If they seem keen, or sceptical[6] but curious, then either they’ve heard of it, would like to change, but were too caught up in counterproductive friendships; or they’ve never heard of it before, but are open enough to experience to wish to entertain change for the better – take these friends with you.

Lastly, be sure to survey your friends individually, in the absence of group-think and peer pressure[7]. If you’ve only ever known your friends in large groups, one-on-one time can often also lead to pleasant interpersonal discoveries, and an easier deepening of rapport.

[[3]]Birds of a feather, flock together: Surround yourself with ppl who have your ideal qualities (such as optimism, street-smarts, social success, etc.). Their qualities will rub off on you, and you’ll gradually learn relevant stuff from them. Not only that, you’ll be in an environment conducive to practicing and discussing these ideal qualities.

If you see someone (guys and gals alike) dressed in awesome, or looks good in the fashion style you want for yourself, or look like they’ve got their shit together: Go up and say hi, tell them what you find compelling about them, befriend them, and explore ways in which you can make each other’s lives richer.

As long as you come across not as desperate, but as humble and genuine, the ppl who are new-best-friend material will only be too happy to get to know and help you – because they live their lives via concepts of win/win decisions and abundance, and they recognise that you’re on your way to becoming one of them – and they welcome this.[[3]]

FOOTNOTES
1. This is obvious for fictional characters – cos they’re, um, fictional; but also cos their goals (e.g. saving the world, demolishing evil empires, winning at politics) are far too epic to reflect real life. Those spectator sportspeople (WWE doesn’t count, by virtue of being fiction already) also seem fantastical, as they too are so far out of our league, usually seen performing on TV or on stadium fields.↑
2. Which, ironically, negates the very underdog nature of the protagonists, setting them up for “virtual” success (haven’t punned that hard in ages). So essentially, there’s nothing there to inspire anyone, or to feel good about.↑
3. Birds of a feather, flock together: Surround yourself with ppl who have your ideal qualities (such as optimism, street-smarts, social success, etc.). Their qualities will rub off on you, and you’ll gradually learn relevant stuff from them. Not only that, you’ll be in an environment conducive to practicing and discussing these ideal qualities.

If you see someone (guys and gals alike) dressed in awesome, or looks good in the fashion style you want for yourself, or look like they’ve got their shit together: Go up and say hi, tell them what you find compelling about them, befriend them, and explore ways in which you can make each other’s lives richer.

As long as you come across not as desperate, but as humble and genuine, the ppl who are new-best-friend material will only be too happy to get to know and help you – because they live their lives via concepts of win/win decisions and abundance, and they recognise that you’re on your way to becoming one of them – and they welcome this.↑
4. Note that there’s a fine line between being happy that you succeeded, and taking credit as a group for you succeeding. Just like how countries are quick to claim their citizens of acclaim (e.g. “Australia’s golden girl” or “Russell Crowe? Yeah he’s Australian.”), or the sport fans’ delusional gibberish such as “We won!”, as if the amount and intensity of their yelling and cursing during the game drew direct correlation with their team’s victory.↑
5. Nor is there any evidence that they’ll ever be, too; and there’s no reason for you to wait around while they fail to come around.↑
6. The difference between a cynic and a sceptic, is that the former has his mind already made up, whereas the latter is still open-minded. Ironically, I learned this off John Edward the “psychic” when he was explaining the types of disbelievers (Weekend Today on Channel 9).↑
7. Meaning that, no other members are around to impact upon their reactions. Also, if your clique tends to joke around, and be judgemental, intolerant, and immature; then, before you start evaluating them, let it become apparent that you want to have a non-joking discussion, and that you’ll be objective, open-minded, and mature about their response. In case you don’t know how to do this, just start acting these ways yourself, and hint at these things during the chit-chat before the main discussion. Be wary not to come across too dire and confrontational from the get-go though – start interacting how you normally would if in the group (e.g. joke and shoot the shit), then gradually ease into the serious discussion.↑

Strangers aside, you feel as if your role with your family and friends has already been typecast, and it is beyond you to go against their expectations. (Family)

Un-Consider others:

It may also be the case that, by being so closely affiliated with your family[1], you feel that you must stay loyal to family expectations, and (a) get a generic stable job, (b) get married to that parent-approved someone, (c) and have how many children/sons that your cultural convention advocates; without ever standing out in any way not explicitly condoned by your cultural/family conventions, or rocking the Family Name boat. In short, your actions and decisions directly reflect upon your family, and you’re not at all free to live your own life.

The issue here is largely similar to that of Point 6, regarding parents: Chances are that, up until this point, you have been strongly dependent upon your family for resources, and that your family has reciprocally seen and treated you as nothing more than a dependent[2]. This support can be both physical and mental, meaning that – apart from stuff like pocket money, free food, and a roof over your head – your identity is also strongly borrowed from your family[3].

Thus, part of the solution here is similar to that of Point 6: Expand your boundaries[4], to the point where your family ceases to view and treat you as a boy, and start to interact with you as a man that is self-efficacious, and autonomous in thought and desires. In his program Power Masculinity, David DeAngelo notes that “The boy must die”, indicating that the natural development of males must take place: The fragility, naivety, and restrictedness of the boy must give way to the resilience, worldly maturity, and physical and mental liberty of the man. As a man, you discover the burden of responsibility (through the accountability of your actions and abilities), but also the opposite and bright side, that is your right to strive unapologetically towards fulfilling your purpose and desires.

Of course, the above solution only makes your family see you as a possibly autonomous person instead of a faceless pawn of the family army, and does not fully resolve the pressures of family expectations[5]. At this point for ppl in non-laissez faire families, there are only two options: Stop giving a shit about family expectations, and go away to take on the big bad world by yourself; or start negotiating passes towards fulfilling your wants and needs. The first option is likely to burn the bridge down (going against the family) and dirty-bomb it simultaneously (shaming the family name), such that future reconciliation may be prove unnecessarily difficult, and you also lose the most reliable social support network for the rest of your life[6]. In contrast, the second option is more likely to end in win/win:

a)      Your family may turn out more understanding than you expected.

b)      Even if your family is not that immediately yielding, by virtue of your disclosure and investment[7] in your wants and needs, your family may slowly concede “That’s just who he is”, and become more tolerant of your “antics”.

c)      Meanwhile, you up your social/negotiation skills

If you consider Point B above, you may conclude that, even if your family deep down is ok with your goals[8], they may not be in a position to explicitly condone your behaviour[9]. This means that you should be forwarding your goals even while negotiating: The rules and expectations set by your family are largely passive[10], and that passiveness cannot be countered by passiveness, but action[11] – act and expect acceptance[12], don’t wait and ask for permission.

[[12]]Maybe negotiating with your family feels like asking for permission – and that was the initial intention (using the magic word and asking nicely to bypass opposition completely). However, since your family still won’t budge, the negotiation now serves two purposes: To continue to chip away at your family’s stubbornness; and – more practically – for show: It represents to outsiders that you’re not the bad son who doesn’t give a toss about his family, and that you’re still willing to negotiate reasonably.

It’s quite amusing that, as you press on with your agendas during negotiations, you might be indirectly helping the negotiation process along: You pressing along means that your family is in no position to stop you; and this, coupled with the appearance of your willingness to negotiate, puts the family in quite a pickle. Thus, in order not to lose face (from their lack of authority to control their son), the family needs to portray to outsiders that they actually are beginning to support your cause.

This is a lot of tasty arm-chair theorising, but it is all based on your autonomy and self-efficacy: If you can’t become at least financially self-sufficient by the time you start to forward you goals, expect to be easily blackmailed out of your quest by losing your pocket-money or parental housing.[[12]]

FOOTNOTES
1. Such as by living at home, or in more-than-necessary contact with your family (e.g. Calling your parents every 1 or 2 days even if not living at home). My personal family-centred tendencies (whether I like it or not) is greatly exacerbated by (a) being asian (mostly of collectivistic cultures which prioritise family relations), (b) being a son, (c) being the eldest sibling and only son of my parents, and (d) my dad being the only son of my grandparents (meaning that I’m the only legitimate heir to my family’s name). Even though my parents aren’t the total hard-line authoritative types, I have always felt a salient sense of family pressure weighing down on myself.↑
2. E.g. “Mommy’s boy”, “that good kid”, and worse – whatever your juvenile family nickname is.↑
3. Whether or not by choice: You may have known yourself as “one of the kids in the family”, with your lack of social experience preventing the development of higher-level identities such as “reliable friend”, “guy with social smarts and can handle self in the night-life”, or “man who’s flexible yet in control, and can take care of women in all categories of his life”.↑
4. In all aspects: Get a job, hang out more with friends, arrange to travel interstate or overseas without your parents (or even sadder, your guardian/chaperone), discover hobbies and favourite food and venues, learn to take care of various problems by yourself, etc.↑
5. Hence the saying “Blood is thicker than water”: The flip-side of your parents’ biological imperative to look after you, is you the offspring’s imperative to live up to family and cultural expectations.↑
6. Not to mention that, even when you’re rich and famous, your family issues will continue to haunt for satisfaction; and you will note one less crowd to – more or less genuinely – celebrate your successes and progresses.↑
7. It takes effort and motivation to negotiate stuff.↑
8. You know how most parents (in this case, probably especially yours) are always trying to level-up their children to compensate for the success they’ve never milked out of life? Similarly, your oldies or grand-oldies may be secretly rooting for your self-centred ends, and projecting their inner rebelliousness (unfulfilled through strict adherence to family values) through you.↑
9. Because, since your goals are not conventionally accepted by your family or culture, condoning your agendas would inevitably threaten family cohesion and tradition.↑
10. In that they are reactive – without power or action until they are transgressed upon. To clarify, think about passive-aggressiveness: The person doesn’t tell you what to do, or how to do whatever it is you don’t know to do, but readily indulges in reprimanding you when you do something wrong.↑
11. It is around this point that I realised that the family members charged with enforcing expectations are, in fact, a lot like women: Both parties have social status and standards to uphold, and are not allowed to condone your transgressive behaviours even if it benefits them in some way. Both exercise the balance between unspoken-“unbreakable”-norms and plausible deniability nicely, and the only way to get your way is the boil the frog slowly: Gradual but consistent escalation/transgressions, and as long as they don’t completely shut you down – to keep on truckin’.↑
12. Maybe negotiating with your family feels like asking for permission – and that was the initial intention (using the magic word and asking nicely to bypass opposition completely). However, since your family still won’t budge, the negotiation now serves two purposes: To continue to chip away at your family’s stubbornness; and – more practically – for show: It represents to outsiders that you’re not the bad son who doesn’t give a toss about his family, and that you’re still willing to negotiate reasonably.

It’s quite amusing that, as you press on with your agendas during negotiations, you might be indirectly helping the negotiation process along: You pressing along means that your family is in no position to stop you; and this, coupled with the appearance of your willingness to negotiate, puts the family in quite a pickle. Thus, in order not to lose face (from their lack of authority to control their son), the family needs to portray to outsiders that they actually are beginning to support your cause.

This is a lot of tasty arm-chair theorising, but it is all based on your autonomy and self-efficacy: If you can’t become at least financially self-sufficient by the time you start to forward you goals, expect to be easily blackmailed out of your quest by losing your pocket-money or parental housing.↑

Strangers aside, you feel as if your role with your family and friends has already been typecast, and it is beyond you to go against their expectations. (Parents)

Un-Consider others:

I know that feeling: Having lived with my family for so long, and habituated to domestication, you feel that you are simply a liability that they tolerate, and that to earn your keep, you must keep your head down and abide by the expectations[1] of those who house and feed you. And because most parents are without serious regard for their kids’ social success[2], nor do they know what to teach you other than relevant cultural conventions, the blind leading the blind usually will not result in a favourable outcome.

If you want to feel more like a cause than an effect within the house, start taking on responsibilities: Help more around the house, (maybe) pay board, become more substantial within family discussions, and involve yourself in family decisions. When you scale down your hikikomori tendencies, and come to the forefront of the household as a integral and contributing factor, you hold more bargaining power, as well as the freedom to actualise your identity to a further extent before any other members feel they have the right to make you feel inadequate.

In addition, most PU methods advocate that, the sooner you sleep with a woman, the more power and freedom you will have within this duo interaction[3]. Therefore, there is also the issue of uncool reactions of parentals when you randomly bring girls home[4]. There are 3 ways of dealing with this:

1. Moving out: An indirect way of dealing with the issue, as you are conceding to your parents expectations on their terms. However, this is sometimes the easiest way of side-stepping the issue altogether, and to the more western-oriented readers, may be the natural thing to do anyway.
2. Simply not caring: A bit risky, as your parents might just kick you out – which ironically benefits your endeavours towards independence/self-efficacy. However, some PULL readers may not be ready to take the plunge yet. So it’s probably a matter of first building rapport with her outside of your house, drop a few hints to your parents that you might be seeing someone, and being modest to front of your parents when she does visit; and remembering to lock the doors and turn up the music (give your parents these impressions early on, to avoid suspicion[5]).
3. Impression management: Start to bring friends home more and more, and establish your role as changing to one which is socially active, to the point where your parents (a) view that hot chick you brought home as just another of your friends, or (b) perceive “success with the ladies” as simply an aspect of your growing social success. This is a very indirect way, can be very time-, resource-, and effort-consuming; but probably in sync with your goal already, if you’re into the hosting aspect of socialising.

At the end of the day, the most direct and savory way of getting your way at home is to start acting more manly and responsible, to the extent that:

• Your parents stop seeing you as a humanoid house parasite, and start taking pride in your masculinity, and the proactivity that comes with taking responsibility for your ambitions and desires (read: the male sex urge[6]) – and the concessions regarding girls will naturally follow.
• Living at home is simply a convenience, and that you are in a position to move out on short notice. Thus, if your parents are so unreasonably conservative, they’d still have to start making concessions for you in order to have you at home, where they can see that you’re safe and sound (*sigh* at biologically-driven irrational possessiveness).

FOOTNOTES
1. That thou shall not prioritise girls in life – they will come automatically with wealth and success (BS unless blind dates and arranged marriages are your thing), thou shall not adopt “out-there” hairstyles (including hair-dyeing) or dress-senses, thou shall not go out with ____, _______, ___, ________, and all other types of girls, etc.↑
2. Or the type of social success you value anyway. I say this cos arranged marriages apparently constitutes social success within certain cultures.↑
3. Um, not to mention the ♥ profit ♥ gained by both parties.↑
4. Especially if you’re from any moderately conservative household – and it being an Asian one just exasperates things out of all sensible proportions.↑
5. Yes I know, un-consider others; but when you insist on still living that home, and don’t hold all/most of the leverage, then you have to give a little too.↑
6. Yep – sometimes social stereotyping can work in our favour.↑

Consider others:

Success in socialising and pick-up will entail additional responsibilities (such as time spent getting nowhere, and/or maintaining additional relationships), which would obviously impede one’s capacity for altruism.

Un-Consider others:

Maybe you think that becoming more proficient with socialising and pick-up will entail additional responsibilities, such as grooming calls[3], additional obligatory (and unenjoyable) hanging-outs with clique/s, and the demands of maintaining a girlfriend; all of which will deteriorate your capacity for altruism. This mentality has 4 flaws:

1. The assumption that you genuinely want to help others in the first place – “genuinely” is the key word here: You may feel a superficial altruistic tickle from social conditioning – that’s not genuine. When it is precisely your “consideration” for others that is hindering your progress towards social and sexual/romantic success, you tend to become spiteful of others, wishing that they would all die satisfyingly horrible deaths instead of thinking how to help them best.
2. Actively sabotaging your own progress is twice the amount of work[4] than aiming congruently for your targets; and rest assured, you will not have enough motivation to help others meaningfully – let alone optimally.
3. Being socially/romantically/sexually fulfilled means that you’ve gained enough constructive experience to enjoy durable success. It also means that you can move up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to pursue success in other areas of your life (e.g. career, business, hobbies, family relations, self-betterment) with all your might, which will accumulate other types of success and constructive experience for you. This means, the more success you enjoy, the more you have to share with others.
4. There comes perks with being successful in interpersonal interactions: (a) You level-up on your negotiating skills, (b) you filter out ppl incompatible with your personality or needs, and (c) you interact in a way that builds and sustains your respect and flexibility within the relationship. With social expertise comes the power to influence the course and nature of your relationships, so if you want to teach kid’s soccer, get home early enough to cook for your children, be there for your nephew’s school play charade with costumes, and lobby for the homeless, you will find even more time for such altruistic affairs once you master your social interactions.

Thus ironically, by fulfilling your needs first, you are in a better position to help others: By being physically and mentally abundant, you will be in a more charitable state, and also be able to give more constructively (in terms of resources and experience). Your own O₂ mask always takes priority.

FOOTNOTES
1. That are non-sociopathic and/or psychotic in nature, and don’t belittle, mislead, or hurt others.↑
2. Read this in the context of the previous sentence: If you’re mentally deranged and for some reason is reading this, please take prompt action, and hand yourself into authorities. Why? Cos I’m the little voice inside your head and I said so.↑
3. The calls you make for no reason other than to “catch up”. These calls can alleviate boredom at times, but for the less extroverted and/or socially inclined, such interaction-maintenance behaviours are tolerated simply as obligations.↑
4. Just like physical energy, you naturally generate a certain amount of drive everyday to fuel your constant quest to fulfill your needs (e.g. find food/shelter/sex/love), and it takes the same amount of anti-matter to neutralise this natural drive. Therefore, you expend twice the drive only to end up with jack all progress. This is why socially suppressed individuals seem tired and unmotivated all the time, even though they’ve done nothing significant that day every day.↑

Through physical and mental insecurities, you conclude that winning at life is not socially normative, and that you require more unnatural confidence, self-worth, and physical power, before you feel sociopathic enough to go out and strive for what should not be rightfully yours.

Un-Consider others:

It’s true that humans, being social animals, learn the conventions from observing others: And since most “real-life” ppl[1] seem to be living shitty (or at least mediocre) lives, we naturally conclude that life is suffering, or at least a drag until you score your next chupa-chup/bag of chips/eight-ball – or, failing that – till you die of natural causes. And since hot chicks = total awesomeness, they’re naturally out of the picture.

To add further chaos to confusion, in real life, we rarely see the “worthy” {{2} guys with the hot chicks – the good ones all seem to go to guys who are fixated with nothing but ricers and gyms, or are comfy on the dole, or are loud and obnoxious, or insecure and violent, or rude and callous, or just plain dumb; and we cringe at the idea that we need to sink to such a level of unscrupulous anti-altruism to stand a chance with the hotties.

Before we tackle this point, I should first mention that the sorts of inconsiderate/self-centred behaviours condoned on this post, do not include transgressions which are deliberately harmful to others, such as verbal or physical violence. Win/lose actions are rarely sustainable; and even if you can somehow make it work, the result is moral degradation, which is out of line with the self-betterment direction of PULL.

Moving along: I see this has lined me up to use the spare paragraphs from my “On the topic of deservingness[3]” development-hell document. So, without further ado:

Maintain your confidence as a man, and in your ability to attract women; never assume that you are less worthy of the companion of attractive women, than guys who have lower aspirations than you, are dimmer than you, and have personality defects which qualify as court-room defenses after they hurt their women.

Most guys are unsuccessful with women as they question their deservingness of attractive women (I know I do sometimes) – know this: Unless you have some sort of criminal intent which you’re suppressing with your self-suspicion of deservingness, your self-doubt is no more than a symptom of low self-esteem – the interaction between the lack of past success and your mental vulnerabilities[4]; and that, just by raising the issue of deservingness, you possess more moral compass to treat a woman right, than the idiots and scumbags out there currently having more success due to the absence of social and moral inhibitions in their brains – so you deserve success with attractive women way more than them (if you require a point of comparison for your arbitrary evaluation of deservingness).

If somehow the above reasoning does not provide adequate incentive to go out and pick up, then maybe it’s a motivation issue – in which case, go sleep.

So the irony is that pick-up can actually be morally defensible – in the words of the priest in the opening scene of Boondock Saints:

We must fear evil men, and deal with them accordingly; but what we must truly guard against, what we must fear most, is the indifference of good men.

The truth is, women (yes, even attractive women) are wired to respond to attractive qualities in men, and if the good men of society don’t strive to portray themselves attractively, the women will inevitably be taken by the bad men – who are proactive and confident by nature, and therefore attractive to women.

If you needed any excuse to shirk the opinions of others and pick-up to your heart’s content, how does moral imperative[5] sound?

By the way, if you genuinely feel that you literally have nothing going for you, then that’s a self-developmental issue: Get proactive, get social, get passionate, get specialised, and get awesome. Recommended readings include 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey (how to live life), The Dip by Seth Godin (about the advantages of being the best, and how to get there), and 700 Habits of Highly Ineffective People by Jonathon Biggins (how NOT to live life; and hilarious and highly readable in general).

[[5]]If you complain that the above is not an inconsiderate and selfish act – cos you are abiding by the expectations of morality, propagated by society and religion – I offer 2 counterpoints:

First, if you genuinely subscribe to the above moral reasoning, then you are honoring your own principles, not living the expectations of others. That’s being selfish.

Second, if you can see the logic of this moral imperative, but are just not morally stubborn enough for it to become a source of motivation, then just use it as an excuse for countering your low self-esteem – exploiting the expectations of society to your own genuine advantage is a very selfish thing to do. *Nods in approval*[[5]]

FOOTNOTES
1. i.e. PPL not on TV, who we actually meet or know from everyday life.↑
3. A word I made up for the concept of how deserving one is to enjoy the success of having attractive women in one’s life. In other words, low self-esteem gave this jargon existence.↑
4. Be they “the little voice in your head”, an external locus of control (thinking that the stuff which happens to you are outside of your control), social phobia, or other barriers standing between you and effectiveness and success at life.↑
5. If you complain that the above is not an inconsiderate and selfish act – cos you are abiding by the expectations of morality, propagated by society and religion – I offer 2 counterpoints:

First, if you genuinely subscribe to the above moral reasoning, then you are honoring your own principles, not living the expectations of others. That’s being selfish.

Second, if you can see the logic of this moral imperative, but are just not morally stubborn enough for it to become a source of motivation, then just use it as an excuse for countering your low self-esteem – exploiting the expectations of society to your own genuine advantage is a very selfish thing to do. *Nods in approval*↑

Through some blind concept of altruism, you conclude that the needs of others are more important than your own, that you live but only to serve others, and that you cannot win without others losing.

Un-Consider others:

A key element regarding Approach Anxiety is the concept of Tragedy of the Commons: That if everyone pursued their desires, that there wouldn’t be enough resources to go around – including attractive women. This scarcity mentality proceeds to mesh conveniently with the low self-esteem from lack of previous success, and before you know it, you’re starting to doubt your worthiness to secure such a valued commodity such as an attractive female.

Don’t be so wrong.

For one, negotiation expert Herb Cohen notes that win-win negotiations are possible, because no two ppl’s needs are the same. The same is true with attraction: Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, and not everyone is into the beauty pageant or Playboy Playmate look – just google “Moe/萌え” or “fetish” and behold the sheer variety of qualities ppl are into. So don’t feel that you have to forfeit approaching or “taking” that attractive woman – there’s a market for everyone out there. Remember too, that ppl go through life stages, through which your taste in women will also change. Therefore, not only will every guy’s ideal female be unique, this ideal is constantly changing.

Moreover, as Mystery of Verusian Arts dutifully noted, new girls are turning 18 every year. Scarcity, says you? There is no spoon, says I Spoon Boy.

“No one else is doing pick-up, and there must be a reason for this – who am I to cast the first stone? Everyone will hate me – and I won’t be able to live with that.”

Un-Consider others:

The most important thing Hitler taught the world about pick-up and socialising, is that the ill-thoughts of others have no effect on oneself – especially if it is simply perceived. The steely gazes you feel when you approach may be that of the cock-blocker, the jealous friend-ed dude, or insecure female friends; and yes, maybe they are projecting their disapproval and/or homicidal intent upon you, and may mouth off at you and drag the girl off in a blink – so what? They won’t lynch you, or cut your balls off, or dedicate the rest of their productive lives to making yours hell – they’ll simply think a few negative thoughts about you, and after you remove yourself (or vice versa), you’ll never see them again. You’ll simply be back where you started, but with more experience[1].

However, in most cases, reality fails to live up to the dramatic and scandalous consequences hallucinated by yourself:

-        Bystanders:

• Maybe bored, and want something to watch
• May actually root for you the underdog[2]
• May be curious/anxious about how to attract women, and would appreciate the case study of your approach

-        Her male companion[3]

• May be her brother
• May be gay
• May be already LJBF-ed^G
• May not be interested in her
• May be interested in her, but haven’t gotten far at all
• May be interested in her, but have no balls to do anything about it

-        Her female friends

• May actually want her to stop being single
• May be social and friendly
• May be bored by each other’s company

-        Pretty much everyone

• Maybe pissed off at you, but won’t do anything, due to their own immaculate socially inhibitive conditioning
• They may then go home and hex you, and you’ll die out of sheer irony from believing in voodoo/in curses/that thoughts can kill.

In the case where you are concerned about serious transgressions such as physical violence (“Here comes a challenger the violent insecure bf”), take up martial arts or self-defence. Don’t let any factor become the source of cop-outs.

FOOTNOTES
1. Btw, unless you actually ask, there is no evidence that others wish ill of you when you socialise or pick up: A girl looking unfriendly might be worrying about her uni test result, her friends may be bored shitless listening to each other yab on about the inane, and that angry-looking bystander may just look severe by nature (and worrying about his mortgage payments). In fact, everyone has their own problems – stop thinking that your approach is that important in the eyes of others.↑
2. Just watch any competitive sport, or film/TV show featuring character growth (such as the high-school musical-themed Glee): We connect easily with the underdog, because in reality it’s hard to win at life, and we project our hopes and aspirations upon these characters, believing that, if they can overcome their overwhelming adversities, there may be hope for us yet.↑
3. Be sensible: If he has arms around her, and/or are hugging intimately or making out at regular intervals – they’re probably an item. In other, more ambiguous cases (like hand-holding), if you’re that smitten by the woman, go and find out the duo’s relationship: Start by chatting with the guy; then as soon as appropriate, ask “So how do you guys know each other?”↑

We correlate “mundane social thoughtfulness” with “social expectations own my soul” (as aforementioned), and then think we’re being first-class citizens by following the latter.

Un-Consider others:

Think for a second, has society ever actively taught or pushed you to be social and attractive? Education teaches us to fit in and abide by rules, but nothing about socialising or pick-up; the “social scenes” such as bars and clubs demand cover changes and $$$ for drinks; and dating convention decrees buying drinks and dinners and flowers and gifts… see where this is going? Society makes us conform, then tap into our sex drive by obscuring the male tools of attraction, then lead us – the lambs to the slaughter – to resign ourselves to an endless cycle of wage-dependency and sex-fuelled consumerism[1].

There are two types of rules: One is to prevent civilisation from disintegrating into anarchy, and the other is to turn citizens into productive citizens; and by productive citizens I mean those who exchange sacrifice their fulfilment for servitude. There is only a need to follow one of the two – don’t squander your happiness for ppl/establishments/constructs that only want your money, and don’t give a shit about your well-being.

What about the Melbourne Cup, without the ladies in big hats and high heels? A bunch of superstitious ppl betting on tiny men riding horses with stupid names (no, not just silly – stupid) round and round circles.

In fact, a lot of products/events are inherently worthless (meaning that you neither need them, nor have reason to want them) unless they invoke the “will give you sex” factor – because society has successfully made most guys sexually frustrated.[[1]]

FOOTNOTES
1. NOT as awesome as it sounds. What I meant is that “Sex Sells”. Think of the Indy Car Racing events – how would they be without the Indy girls? Just a bunch of whooshes, eardrum-bursting white noise, and you sitting/standing there like a time-wasting dumb-ass. To paraphrase Stephen Colbert describing NASCAR:  The most exciting version of traffic. Sure it’s probably challenging and exhilarating for the drivers and the mechanics – but chances are you’re not that awesome (yet), and neither is the event sans the sex factor (ever).

What about the Melbourne Cup, without the ladies in big hats and high heels? A bunch of superstitious ppl betting on tiny men riding horses with stupid names (no, not just silly – stupid) round and round circles.

In fact, a lot of products/events are inherently worthless (meaning that you neither need them, nor have reason to want them) unless they invoke the “will give you sex” factor – because society has successfully made most guys sexually frustrated.↑

In the superficial altruistic context, “consider others” simply involve trivially sensible behaviours, such as thinking before opening your mouth and not bullying others. However, being over-analytic by nature, I gradually concluded that all my significant motivations and behaviours must be contingent upon the expectations and judgement of others.

The sharp-eyed audience probably made the connection at once – socially inhibiting thoughts are THE major hurdles experienced in socialising and pick-up, and they come a dime a dozen, be it “They look unfriendly”, “I’ll only be intruding”, “She probably has a boyfriend”, “They’ll never accept me”, etc. These self-defeating questions are the sure-fire way of landing oneself in a plateau of progress or lifestyle.

So, if such mental limiters are so insidious, why do we acquire and retain them? For a variety of reasons, uncovered and systematically destroyed below – but first, I like to clarify that selfishness is not inherently evil: It is in our own best interest to survive and thrive, and selfishness – or the drive for self-preservation – is the factor that drives us forward. It is untrue that selfishness is the cause of pain and suffering in society – such atrocities of the human condition are only brought about when one foregoes his own best interests, and to compromise for the blind altruism of “the greater good” – be it for his family, his friends, his partner, so fuzzy society in general.

In fact, if everyone in society operated from a perspective of self-interest, there would be more tolerance, and more creative solutions to problems, as ppl realise that it is in their best interest to work win-win, as the most productive relationships are mutually benefiting, sustainably long-term, and built not on blind trust – but the business-like honouring of past transactions.

Also, according to Herb Cohen, the win-win solution is based upon the premise that everyone’s true needs are different[1]; and only through unabridged selfishness is one able to identify one’s true needs, and approach the bargaining table with a different agenda than the other party, so you’re not fighting over generic and scarce resources such as money. Thus, to reiterate, just like money is not the source of all evil, selfishness is similarly not inherently evil – these things are only avenues through which individuals assert their agenda, and if it’s through scarce means (win-lose), then it can be rightfully considered “evil”; whereas through abundant means (win-win), it is innocuous at worst, but mostly a great service to all involved.

But alas, without further ado, below are the links to Unconsider Others entries. Also note that they are tagged and categorised under Unconsider Others. Please enjoy.

1. “Mundane social thoughtfulness” ≠ “social expectations own me”
2. “All shall hate me, the PUA.”
3. “I must lose for others to win.”
4. “I’m not sociopathic enough to deserve success”
5. “Social success brings too much work”
6. “I’m already typecast by my parents”
7. “I’m already typecast by my family”
8. “I’m already typecast by my friends”
9. “Every interaction is awesome-precious”
10. “I refuse to succumb to the Moral Slippery-Slope!”
11. “I like her so much that I will leave her alone”
12. “Nobody welcomes an INTRUDER”
13. “I hate causing scenes and/or dying”

FOOTNOTES
1. I may have little man syndrome, and require you to douse me with flattery and fluff; you may be looking for a favour by someone I know, and desire a warm introduction; he may just be in it for the fame…. If everyone’s agendas reflected their genuine needs (rather than the generic and unimaginative excuses: “I want all that money on the table” or “I want the consumers all for myself” or “I want to win, so you have to lose” or “I want to invade you just cos”), it’s possible to meet everyone’s needs, making the world a happier place without bullshit fights and wars.↑

The basis of lifestyle religions.

“God helps those that help themselves.” Gee, the God of Religions must be peeved to have to help me disprove religion.

Faith is for religious ppl – I hate faith.

As a pseudo-scientist[1], pop-psychologist, and atheist, I have never failed to find confusion and contempt for the topic of personal faith: Why is it that one can be innately predisposed to believe in God, an entity so allegedly omnipotent yet even more so existentially handicapped – being both invisible and undetectable, whose arbitrary efforts[2] do nothing to inspire – um, faith – in Him?

To no respite to my contempt, the religiously faithful also seem to be happier and more purposeful. All evidence points to the stance that, to stand a chance of living a fulfilling life, one must be able to hold beliefs unwaveringly and unconditionally.

After much subconscious philosophising, I notice that the above sentence is – ironically[3] – absolutely true: Because the true purpose of faith is for believing in yourself. Allow me to explain.

[By the way, on this topic, my friend (slug-named Baron for now) commented that, in the pie-throwing jollies between Creationists and Evolutionists, and former always seem to hold a trump card of “Ha! Well if God doesn’t exist, how do you explain mankind’s natural propensity towards faith?”. Being the spiteful atheist bastard I am, I will attempt to directly counter the creationist rhetoric by explaining faith from an evolutionary psychology standpoint.]

So faith is for you to enjoy, not God?

As explained by Richard Dawkin’s The Selfish Gene, our body and mind are simply a means of survival and reproduction of our genes. Due to these biologically-derived imperatives, we set goals, and strive to fulfil them: Building a career, making worthy friends, finding that special person and hoping they feel the same way…. Sometimes we succeed. Sometimes we fail – and when we fail, we sometimes question ourselves: Am I not good enough? Will I ever be good enough? Are my genes not worth the gene pool’s dollar? Are my goals righteous[4]? Do I deserve happiness? And stuff.

But at the end of the day, it is our imperative – as vessels to the purpose we hold – to actualise our goals; and to actualise them while believing in ourselves unconditionally, without the burden to having to analyse our competence, our direction, our reason, and least of all – our worth. Faith is a sustainable source of unconditional self-belief, and in terms of magnitude and significance, is the spiritual equivalent of one’s will to live: One guards your life; the other guards what you make of your life.

So what’s this affair between Faith and Religion all about?

Now, as some of you know, mainstream religions are overwhelming successful, because they hijack and reroute most (if not all) of man’s fundamental drives for religion’s own ends. Thus, the Religious Overmind naturally finds the factor of Faith to be extremely delicious, and assimilates the factor into its own gene pool for great justice. The result: You don’t get to believe in yourself – you get to believe in God, who may or may not believe in you[5]; and if He doesn’t, then you’re stuffed.

If you think God doesn’t have a man/woman, think again.

The original purpose of faith is for ppl to have an internal locus of control – meaning a sense that you are in control of yourself and your own life. Thus, your self-esteem is produced from the same place as where it’s consumed – it is growing and eating your own food; it’s self-efficacy, it’s independence.

In contrast, when you need to put your faith in God, you have an external locus of control – that you’re not in control of you and your life. You are still generating your own faith, except now it’s going out and coming back in. Or not coming back in. It’s like growing your own food, then giving it to someone else, who will determine how much you get back, or whether or not you get to have any at all; and you don’t get a say in this. If this sounds like something similar, it does: Slavery. Religion is mental slavery.

♥♥♥ Lead us Jack! Lead us! ♥♥♥

Now, granted, why do some husbands give all their salary to their wives, in exchange for measly allowances? Whilst some men simply have no balls; such disempowerment is advantageous if the man has no self-control over his own resources (e.g. Gambling addicts, financially unintelligent ppl). And yes, religion was good for controlling the allegedly uncultured masses. But in terms of self-development, outsourcing your responsibility and accountability is unpleasantly emasculating.

Also notice a self-perpetuating cycle: When ppl have an external locus of control, their source of success and happiness arbitrarily fluctuates, and their level of anxiety and uncertainty goes up, leading them to crave guidance. And since they can’t guide themselves, who can? Oh right, “The Lord is my Shepherd” – conformity in authority skyrockets. It’s not hard to understand why religious figures are usually powerful; and why it’s sometimes hard to separate religion from politics.

If you’re telling the truth, then why do religious ppl seem more happy than I am?

So now the question to ask is, despite the lunacy of religion, why are the religious more fulfilled in life? This issue invokes one of the rare advantages of religion – The cultivation or recultivation of faith: Because religion requires one to go from zero to suddenly accepting the existence of God with not much no hard evidence at all, the jump requires a very conscious decision to invest in faith; and as long-winded as “belief in God ultimately translates as belief in self” is, the religious still end up believing in themselves, and reaping the benefits of unwavering advancement in personal endeavours. Plus, it can be quite empowering to have some figure in authority telling you that your cause is just (nope, nothing to do with Stanley Milgram at all).

It's funny cos it's true. Oh Leonard you magnificent beast.

In contrast, the “Ye of little faith” crowd – or scientific-minded ppl/atheists, have what is called scepticism, which is pretty much the exact opposite of faith. Scepticism advocates that you shouldn’t believe in any ideas not backed up by evidence, that belief itself doesn’t constitute proof, and that ideas can never be proved – only falsified.

For these reasons, atheists tend to work under the anti-faith frame of scepticism – which is fine in the pursuit for evidence-based truth, for the Great Justice of scientific rigour; but this habit tends to spill over, and atheists can end up inhibiting their faith with regards to their own lives[6]. Don’t do that! Logic and faith CAN exist simultaneously within a person: The rub simply lies in the direction of one’s faith. Fortunately, that direction does not involve religion – though it does involve God.

So faith is for self-belief…. Then where does this leave God? And I?

If you strip away all the impossibilities and absurdities from the pompous rhetoric (e.g. Creation occurred in 7 days), God is simply an entity who is great, because He knows who He is[7] (identity), He is everywhere (“omnipresence”), He knows stuff (“omniscience”), and He makes things happen (“omnipotence”)

In my view, omnipresence (being everywhere at once), omniscience (all-knowingness) and omnipotence (all-powerfulness) are only as valid as their context and relevance: A religious God who is conceptualised to transcend time and space is naturally expected to be literally all-powerful, as His relevant context is infinity itself. By contrast, is a mere mortal dimensionally bound: If he is able to master the knowledge and practice of his chosen field, he can also be termed all-powerful, as his context does not – and need not – extend beyond the domain that is relevant to him. And also, when a person’s mastery of an expertise surpasses a tipping point, they start creating the illusion of making the impossible look simple (e.g. Tiger Woods), and pretty much become revered as gods anyway.

With the above premise in mind, if you take humans, and have them believe in themselves:

• They will be able to identify their wants and needs unrestrictedly – because they know they have only their own fulfilment to account for – and thus come to know themselves (identity).
• They have no need for a finite comfort zone, which potentially places them anywhere around the world, and in any situation that their purpose requires of them – just like spies, which are awesome (“omnipresence”).
• To get what they want and need, they will do research, they will enquire, they will learn, and they will come to know all there is to know about reaching their goals (“omniscience”).
• Once they have all the info they need, they will plan, they will accumulate resources, and they will march upright and unabashedly towards their goals (“omnipotence”).

All religions advocate faith, urging that it is THE factor which will bring man closer to God. The irony is that they are absolutely right: Faith brings man closer to God – uniformly for zealots and atheists; except that, for atheists, that God is quite simply the reflection of the self-actualising human ideal.

Although not many atheists know it yet, they believe in God too. Except they don’t go to the unnecessary effort of dissociating themselves from Him.

To atheists, God is the ideal; and when one strives genuinely to embody the human ideal, man and god become one.

God is great, of course, of course.

Because God is You.

If not you, then who?

[[2]]Read: Miracles. Don’t count on them. “Miracles”, by virtue of being unreliable, can be seen as less of God’s nose-picking, and more of the Self-Fulfilling Prophesy at work – namely, the human tendency to look for – and find – positive evidence to support readily-held beliefs: The indian rain dance always works, cos the indians always dance until it starts to drizzle; and gamblers ignore multiple losses by the same horse, only to take a fluke win as indisputable evidence that their underdog instinct was right all along. Similarly, no one takes the absence of reliable miracles (supposedly borne of intense wishful thinking, or as some like to call it, praying) as evidence of God not giving a shit (or more elegantly, simply not existing); but when one crops up like a random weed, the prophets and the lambs are all over it, chanting Holy holy holy (Refrain) or God is great/mighty/the shit.

The sooth-sayer’s fetish with finding positive evidence in chaos (where both affirmative and contrary evidence exists) is easily exploited by the agents of religion: Why do you think it’s ok to pray for your wish to come true, but not ok to “speak God’s name in vain”? Because praying is akin to working hard without using your brain: You’re not sure when you’ll reach your goal, but since you can feel your effort, you must be making progress, and you just continue to go in circles in ignorant bliss – there is no real causal link between God and your agenda, and no direct evidence contradicting God’s existence; so The Almighty’s existence is safe.

In contrast, calling for God in a real time of need, and having him not answer, because he doesn’t exist, is too much controversy. And the agents don’t want you to question God, so you’re not allowed to ring his doorbell or check his mailbox. Cos nobody’s been retrieving the mail for a long time (specifically, from as early as ppl could conceptualise a higher power and start fearing it).[[2]]

[[7]] God’s circular-sounding self-statement – “I am what I am”, actually makes sense from a self-developmental perspective: One does not need to derive his own identity from society, others, or any other source – he is his own individual, and he is free to like whatever he wants, do whatever he wants (without harming others), and be who he really is. Ironically, something as idiotic as circularity is the precise basis of faith, individualism, and self-actualisation.

[[7]]

FOOTNOTES
1. By virtue of not being very good at it.↑
2. Read: Miracles. Don’t count on them. “Miracles”, by virtue of being unreliable, can be seen as less of God’s nose-picking, and more of the Self-Fulfilling Prophesy at work – namely, the human tendency to look for – and find – positive evidence to support readily-held beliefs: The indian rain dance always works, cos the indians always dance until it starts to drizzle; and gamblers ignore multiple losses by the same horse, only to take a fluke win as indisputable evidence that their underdog instinct was right all along. Similarly, no one takes the absence of reliable miracles (supposedly borne of intense wishful thinking, or as some like to call it, praying) as evidence of God not giving a shit (or more elegantly, simply not existing); but when one crops up like a random weed, the prophets and the lambs are all over it, chanting Holy holy holy (Refrain) or God is great/mighty/the shit.

The sooth-sayer’s fetish with finding positive evidence in chaos (where both affirmative and contrary evidence exists) is easily exploited by the agents of religion: Why do you think it’s ok to pray for your wish to come true, but not ok to “speak God’s name in vain”? Because praying is akin to working hard without using your brain: You’re not sure when you’ll reach your goal, but since you can feel your effort, you must be making progress, and you just continue to go in circles in ignorant bliss – there is no real causal link between God and your agenda, and no direct evidence contradicting God’s existence; so The Almighty’s existence is safe.

In contrast, calling for God in a real time of need, and having him not answer, because he doesn’t exist, is too much controversy. And the agents don’t want you to question God, so you’re not allowed to ring his doorbell or check his mailbox. Cos nobody’s been retrieving the mail for a long time (specifically, from as early as ppl could conceptualise a higher power and start fearing it).↑
3. In the context of its original paragraph, the sentence is supposed to be my exclamation of frustration at the sight that “delusion = fulfilment”.↑
4. This is an interesting cop-out: Like saying that your failure is God/Nature/Life’s way of telling you that your agenda – or worse, existence – is morally wrong.↑
5. Most religious ppl allege that He does. What they don’t take into account is (a) whether you’ve been good in whatever arbitrary way He determines, (b) whether He feels like it, (c) whether He likes you, (d) whether He even gives a shit about you. If you were one of a million/billion bacteria grown on an ajar plate, would you expect your creator to single you out, just to become significantly emotionally invested in you? Or what if God was like a Discovery-Channel docu person – there for non-intervention purposes only? Even if you were somehow blessed, is this forever? Or for around the same duration as a kid remains fixated on his pet turtle?↑
6. With statements such as “What evidence – based on objective merit – do I have that I’m worthy of happiness?”. Well firstly, there is no absolutely objective premise by which to judge merit: Society may really value something you did; but if you don’t personally value the act – or were unwillingly forced to perform the act (e.g. peer pressure), is it still really meritable? Secondly, if you have no substantial achievements to date, then according to the above statement – you’re unworthy for life. And that sucks.↑
7.  God’s circular-sounding self-statement – “I am what I am”, actually makes sense from a self-developmental perspective: One does not need to derive his own identity from society, others, or any other source – he is his own individual, and he is free to like whatever he wants, do whatever he wants (without harming others), and be who he really is. Ironically, something as idiotic as circularity is the precise basis of faith, individualism, and self-actualisation.

↑