Consolation: “I’m already typecast by my friends”
Consider others:
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.↑
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