The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.

– Oscar Wilde

A while back I read a book called Real-Time Relationships, by Stefan Molyneux. It’s a book about creating relationships that are healthy, enjoyable, loving, and virtuous. The author hosts a philosophy podcast called Freedomain Radio, which deals with everything from overcoming procrastination and how to be a good parent, to the ethics of taxation and philosophical analyses of current events.

This article is not a review of the book, so I’ll avoid any comments on its read-worthiness as a whole. But I would like to share with you an extract that forever changed the way I look at things. It’s a quote from the book that concisely summarizes what the whole thing is about:

The Real-Time Relationship (RTR) is based on two core principles, designed to liberate both you and others in your communication with each other:

1. Thoughts precede emotions.
2. Honesty requires that we communicate our thoughts and feelings, not our conclusions.

Molyneux’s point is that so much of the negative communication in relationships arises because we treat feelings as facts, and tend to skip over the thoughts that underly those feelings. This results in arguments that are, in essence, based on mythology.

So let’s say one day Alice says to her husband Bob:

You’re so lazy! You never help around the house!

This is an example of communicating a conclusion — that Bob is lazy — rather than communicating just her thoughts and feelings. It is not necessarily true that Bob is lazy. Perhaps he doesn’t help clean up after dinner because he assumes that, since he cooked dinner, the cleaning task should naturally fall to Alice. Or maybe he left washing the dishes to Alice because he did the vacuuming earlier in the day.

Alice calling Bob “lazy” bypasses these possibilities. It’s a conclusion derived from anger, rather than an honest deployment of what she’s experiencing on the inside. A more sincere approach would be for her to tell Bob that she feels frustrated because he left her to do the dishes, which makes her feel disrespected, makes her think that Bob doesn’t care, and so on.

Replacing the name-calling with an accurate testimony of what it made her feel opens the door for Bob to address those feelings. On the one hand, it might make Bob realize that he really is lazy, and if he cares about his partner he better work on that. On the other hand, he has a chance to clarify a misunderstanding. He could talk to Alice about how he assumed that since he cooked dinner, he thought it was okay if he left the clean up to her.

Whether that division of labour is something they can both accept is a separate issue. The point is that communicating with integrity requires describing your thoughts and feelings, not rushing to conclusions about what’s really going on.

RTR’ing Yourself

In my experience, the Real-Time Relationship is an excellent model not only for productive communication between two people, but also for communicating with yourself. In particular, it’s a powerful tool for dealing with negative emotions.

Let’s revisit those two core principles of the RTR, to see how they apply to dealing with one’s own negativity:

1. Thoughts precede emotions. Emotions, in and of themselves, tell you nothing about the facts of reality. Feeling hopeless about your chances of meeting an amazing girl does not actually mean that you have no hope of meeting an amazing girl. And just because losing that game damaged your confidence so much that you feel like you’ll never win again does not mean you actually will never win again.
2. Honesty requires that we communicate our thoughts and feelings, not our conclusions. The best way to deal with negative emotions — which are often negative conclusions we’ve come to about ourselves — is to examine the thoughts and feelings behind them.

For example, I have always had a fear of losing. As a chess player during my teenage years, this fear surfaced in the form of offering draws to higher rated players when I had a clearly better position. Other times it just kept me out of tournaments altogether: by not playing, I guaranteed not losing.

Recently that fear resurfaced when I started playing go (a board game invented in China 4,000 years ago.) One particular loss a few weeks ago was particularly hard to swallow. I was a solid 50 points ahead in the game, and my opponent was ready to resign. But my follow through was so terrible that he ended up beating me by about 50 points instead.

I don’t mind when I lose because my opponent just outplayed me, but I get really frustrated when I outplay myself. And after this particular loss, my confidence was deeply shaken: How the hell could I play so badly? Why did I try to get so fancy? It’s impossible to blow a lead that big. If anything I had to congratulate myself for being able to fail so spectacularly.

And on it went, to the point that I wondered whether I should just quit playing altogether. What was the point of all the studying I was doing if I was just going to blow games like that? How would I regain my confidence to actually win a won position? Would I ever even win another game again?

Challenging Negative Thoughts

When you start thinking negative thoughts like this, don’t try to ignore them. If you’ve ever tried to repress negative feelings you know that it just doesn’t work. If anything, it amplifies them. Further, trying to stamp out bad feelings gives you no actionable way out of that state. There are underlying premises, beliefs, and assumptions about you and the world around you that have led you to feeling that way, and those need to be addressed.

So the way out of negative emotional loops is not to ignore them, subdue them, or even “just let them be there”, but to challenge them. Confront the negative self-talk directly and identify exactly why you feel that way. Extract the thoughts that precede the emotions.

Returning to my go example, I knew I loved the game and I had no intention of actually giving it up, so I forced myself to figure out how to better handle major upsets like the one I’d just endured. I did that by taking a close look at the thoughts that were going through my head. Here are some examples:

• How could I play so badly? Easy: by making mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. When a doctor makes a mistake, he might kill someone and/or get sued. When a computer programmer makes a mistake, it might lead to a huge security flaw in his software. When an investor makes a mistake, she might lose a few million bucks. And when a go player makes a mistake, he loses a game of go.
• How could I lose such a won position? Because deserving to win is not the same as winning. And by the way, this probably won’t be the last time you blow such a big lead. This is more like “the first major screw up of the rest of your (go playing) life.” But the more it happens, the better you’ll learn to deal with it.
• Will I ever win again? Erm, seriously? Do you really think that if you play another five or ten thousand games you’re going to lose all of them? Do you really think that if you spend a couple hours a day studying and playing go, and constantly seek out opportunities to learn from stronger players, that you’re going to be the same strength in five years from now that you are today? Not. Likely.

The more I cranked up the resolution on my thoughts, the more I realized how silly they were. Sure, I still fear losing and I still hate blowing won positions, but challenging those feelings and forcing myself to reveal the thinking behind them has greatly diminished their control over my actions. And they no longer threaten my continued enjoyment of the game.

I’ve intentionally given a rather tame example here of course, but I use these same principles to confront all kinds of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. I have the same kinds of worries about my writing, my consulting work, my health, my relationships, etc., and I’ve found this process to be extremely helpful for putting things in perspective.

The networking that matters is helping people achieve their goals. Doing it reliably and repeatedly so that over time people have an interest in helping you achieve your goals, because they have a stake in it.

– Seth Godin

I wouldn’t call myself an introvert, but I am definitely a not-extrovert. I am reasonably good at meeting new people, but only for the same reasons that I am reasonably good at building websites or playing chess: I’ve treated it as a problem that can be solved through directed thinking and deliberate effort.

As a geek, I see getting one’s social life off the ground not as a lottery, but as a knowledge activity. Clearly there are wrong ways to go about meeting people, which means that there must be right ways to go about it too. I don’t believe in premeditated interactions — the only script I offer is “Hi”, with the rest left as an exercise to the reader — but there is a lot to be said for foundational knowledge: cultivating the right attitude, managing your expectations, embracing rejection, setting goals, and so on. Ultimately, problems in your social life are just like any other kinds of problems: they can be identified, characterized, and worked on.

One of the most common questions I get asked by social skydivers, both male and female, is: Where the heck do you meet people?

In fact, having recently moved halfway around the world — from Montreal to Berlin — it’s a question I’ve had to ask myself. But even though I arrived here less than three months ago, I’ve already started to weave my way into the fabric of Berlin life. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some really interesting people and have enjoyed getting to know them.

In this article, I’ll share with you the approach I’ve taken, including a list of the specific events and activities that I find most useful for bringing me into contact with the kinds of people I want to get to know.

Developing the Right Approach

Before I list my favourite places to meet people, I’ll start by outlining the principles I use to come up with these ideas in the first place. Using these guidelines, you’ll be able to tweak my later list of suggestions to fit your own tastes.

• Who can you help? Not just in a humanitarian sense, but in any sense that involves enabling other people to achieve their goals. For example, if you’re a geek working at a startup looking for Ruby programmers, why not visit your local Ruby group and spread the word? If you speak French and English fluently, why not go to a language exchange group and help other people become fluent too?
• Go open source. Don’t try to copyright your connections. The best way to build your social life is by giving things away, including your knowledge, your time, and your support.
• It’s not about meeting people, it’s about building things. Or learning things. Or teaching things. Shared pursuits are the ultimate social lubricant. When you have a common goal, you don’t have to try to meet people, it just happens. If you actually care about the interest that brought you together, you will need each other to advance.
• Be flexible. Remember the Weird Idea Radar? Turns out this is more than just a tool for discovering your passion — it’s also a great way to meet people. If you want to maximize your social potential, then you’re going to have to be open-minded. If you’re wondering whether some group is really your kind of thing, do it. If looking at their website makes you wonder if you’ll be the only person who shows up at the next meeting, do it. If you’re unsure whether you even know enough about the subject matter to talk about it, DO IT! Be willing to act on uncertainty. I’ve discovered some of my favourite interest groups by plowing through my initial hesitations.
• Be creative. Meeting people requires a capacity for original thinking. You should always be thinking of ways in which you can offer value to others, not as an entertainment monkey of course, but as a volunteer, a connector, and an enabler.
• Be an initiator. A lot of people wait for others to make the first move. I’d be lying to pretend I’m not guilty of this myself at times. I know there are at least a few people I should know a lot better than I do right now, but I’ve been waiting for them to inaugurate our friendship. And I can tell they’re probably waiting for me to do the same. But building social connections is not a game of chess — in a stalemate, both people lose.
• It won’t happen overnight. Allow for at least a few months before you expect to start connecting with people outside of the groups that brought you together. This is especially true if the group meets only once or twice a month.

Where to Meet People

With the above principles in mind, here are some of my favourite places to meet people:

• Philosophy groups. The more focussed, the better. You needn’t be a diehard adherent to the group’s philosophy to participate. For example, I’d hardly call myself an Objectivist, but I am a fan of Ayn Rand’s work. So I got involved in the Montreal Objectivist Club over a year ago and remained a member right up until I left for Berlin. Good food and great discussions which never failed to challenge my way of thinking.
• Couch surfing. CouchSurfing is a travel community that helps people wander the world by making it easy to find, and share, crash space. While this is particularly useful if you’ve just arrived in a new city, it’s also a great opportunity for locals. CS’ers organize regular parties and other events, and travelers are a fascinating bunch to get to know. I attended some CS events in Montreal. My polyglot buddy Benny travels the world acquiring new languages, and uses CS as a key part of building his social life in foreign places.
• Expat forums. This is also not limited to out-of-towners. Most people on expat forums are keen to mix with locals. In Berlin, I’ve made ample use of Germany’s most popular English-speaking expat forum and I’ve found many Germans present at the gatherings I attend.
• Meditation groups. You needn’t be New Age to sit quietly in a room with other people. I’m an atheist, but I find meditation to be a great way to relax and refocus.
• Language exchange groups. To language junkies, the benefits here are obvious. But even if you’re monolingual, you can still use your mother tongue to help others learn the language. It was through attending a language exchange group in Berlin that I met Lijit founder Stan James. He’s a brilliant guy to converse with, and we’ve parlayed our interest in German into discussions about startups, social media, the paradox of choice, “procrastiflation” (the idea that the likelihood of completing a task decreases exponentially with every day you put it off), and various other geeky subjects.
• Coworking. Coworking means sharing an office space with other people who would otherwise be working from home too. This is a great way to meet people who share the social challenges of self-employment. Coworking environments often bring together people with complementary skill sets — graphic designers, web developers, photographers, marketers, copywriters, etc. — which tends to create lots of opportunities for everyone involved.
• Take your online activities into meatspace. I did this a couple years ago with online poker. I started participating in real-life tournaments and met lots of people who were equally passionate about the game. Recently, I’ve replaced the time I normally spend playing go online with going out two nights a week to my favourite go clubs in Berlin.
• Toolchains are social objects. People love getting together and talking about the tools they use to build things. I’ve attended many different programming language groups in Montreal and more recently attended an Ubuntu BBQ in Berlin.
• Political change groups. I’m cheating a bit here, because I haven’t yet done this one myself. But I will soon be on my way to Vancouver and I am really looking forward to participating in ChangeCamp, which its website describes as “an open community and a set of tools and ideas designed to give citizens and governments the ability to work collaboratively in new ways to make change and to better address real-world challenges in our communities.” Wordy, but intriguing.

If you’re serious about getting your social life moving, I would encourage you to try every one of these suggestions, even if they seem a bit outside your range of interests. In the worst case, it might cost you an evening. But trying something that doesn’t work is never a waste of time if it brings you closer to finding something that does.

Exercises

So now that you have some ideas for developing the right attitude to building your social life, and several examples of where to meet interesting people, how do you put these ideas to work? Here are three ways to get started:

1. 30-day challenge. Make a commitment that, for the next 30 days, you will go to some kind of event or activity at least two nights a week. Be willing to stretch your definition of a good time if you have to. The priority is to get out of your house. I did this from the moment I arrived in Berlin (but more like four or five nights a week) and it is the main reason why I feel connected to this city, rather than feeling like an outsider who has a hard time breaking through.
2. Initiate, Initiate, Initiate. Make a list, either in your head or written down, of all the people with whom you have wanted to initiate a get-together (e.g. to hang out outside the gatherings where you normally see them), but have been too shy to do it. Then do it! Try for a minimum of at least three people to get started.
3. Where do you meet people? Add a comment below to share the specific activities that have worked best for you. While suggestions like “user groups” or “taking a course” are useful, it’s easy to overlook exactly what those might be. So the more detailed your suggestions, the better.

If you got the skin to be rejected 800 times in a row, 801 is gonna be a crazy play.

– Social Media Entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, describing the Hot Girl Rule (~45:10)

Having travelled and moved around a lot in the past several years, I’ve been through a number of social resets. I like exploring the world, so my reasons for moving have a lot less to do with jobs, family, and other social connections, and a lot more to do with adventure. I am addicted to culture shock.

But my reasons for starting over have not always involved relocation. Sometimes I’ve just fallen out with a few key people and find myself, socially speaking, back at square one.

This is not an easy place to be. I think I spent my first year in Montreal just feeling sorry for myself: Why is it so hard to meet people? Why can’t I just find a girl who loves me? Why can’t there be someone out there who worries about me?

It was around that time, a little over four years ago, that I realized that self-pity is self-destruction. The reason it was so hard to meet people was because all I did was sit on my own ass and whine — to myself — about how hard it was to meet people. The reason I was single for the first year I lived in Montreal was because I rarely went out. Except maybe for a walk to contemplate how lonely I was.

Having been through this experience many times, I eventually forced myself to adapt. Blaming the world for problems I created was just not a long-term option. I realized that this feeling that “nobody cares” wasn’t what caused my loneliness. Far from it. In fact, it was only by truly understanding that nobody cares that I was able to finally make sense of my social life issues, and figure out how to solve them.

Why Meeting People Is Hard

Building your social life is a lot like building a business. The currencies are different, but the mechanics are similar.

The startup entrepreneur starts out in a war against indifference. But those that succeed at attracting customers do well because they know this: Nobody cares. Nobody cares about your architecture. Nobody cares about your website. Nobody cares that you’ve reached Inbox Zero. Nobody has even heard of the event at which you won that award. Nobody knows that you have something for sale. And even if they do, they probably still don’t care.

And the same principle applies for startup socialites as well: Nobody cares.

Nobody knows that you exist. Nobody wants to meet you. Nobody cares that you are interesting to talk to. Nobody is going to coax you out of hiding. And that bikini-clad babe who just moved in next door? Borrow some sugar? Bottle of wine? Night of unbelievable sex?

Uh, no.

“Nobody cares” is not meant to be cynical or patronizing. Rather, it is a natural byproduct of the scale of humanity. In business, your potential customers just have so much stuff to choose from that they can’t possibly notice more than the tiniest fraction of what is out there. They might not even realize that they “need” what you are selling, and even if they’re aware of their need, they may not understand that your product fulfills it.

In social spheres, the barriers to entry aren’t nearly as high, but there are similar forces — and similar filters — to contend with. Overcoming loneliness means fully accepting that these forces exist and working with them, instead of against them.

So how does “nobody cares” translate from a reality check for entrepreneurs to a wake up call for expanding your social life? Here are some thoughts:

• Don’t buy the rhetoric that “it’s hard to meet people” where you live. Those are the words of an energy vampire. That’s like a business owner saying “it’s hard to find customers in this city.” Of course it’s hard. It’s hard to find customers in any city. Welcome to Planet Earth. Population: 6.7 billion. Retaining one’s sanity here requires an unconcern for the vast majority of things. And — by default at least — that includes you.
• 80% of businesses fail. Which means that 80% of the time, indifference wins. If you’re hitting it off with more than 20% — even 10% — of the people you make contact with, I have only two questions for you: 1. How are your writing skills? 2. Wanna write a guest post?
• Get out of your house. Nobody cares. And if you’re staying at home, taking long baths to “think” about things, and repeatedly promising yourself that tomorrow is The Day that you are really going to crank it up, then they will keep not caring.
• Salespeople are the masters of rejection. They spend most of their day getting brushed off by people that don’t care. And they make a hell of a good living at it too. If you’re willing to expose yourself to massive rejection, you win.
• We buy products for the same reason that we choose friends and lovers: they make us feel better and do better. Social success isn’t about you kicking ass, it’s about helping other people kick ass. So consider: What do you know that you can share with others? What can you help other people be better at? What do you want to see changed in the world, and where might you find others that want the same thing?
• Be honest: How many people where you live even know that you exist? 50? 100? Maybe 150? What about as a percentage of your city’s population? 0.00005%? Unless you live in a smaller place, cracking even 1% is almost impossible. An entrepreneur who doesn’t advertise his product would not get depressed if nobody bought it. And yet a lot of people do get depressed when they don’t “advertise” themselves (by going out, meeting people, talking to strangers, etc.) and nobody comes knocking.

Ultimately, if you are in a social rut, I am there with you. I know what loneliness is like and I know there is a way out. Nobody cares does not mean that nobody will care. It’s just a reminder that there are forces and filters that, while helping us cope with information overload, also make us invisible to each other. And the way to social savviness is not to ignore them, but to incorporate them into your action plan.

As I mentioned in the beginning, I’ve moved a lot. And a few months ago I moved again, to Berlin. But unlike when I moved to Montreal, this time I wasted no time waiting for the world to come to me. I have built an active social life since arriving here. I’ve met some brilliant and interesting people. I will write more about this later this week, including the specific places I go and the activities I participate in that have exposed me to a wide variety of people who have been fun getting to know.

Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.

– Thomas Jefferson

Deception is cancerous. The first mutation of a truth charts a path to colonize its host. One fib demands another, two lies need the proof of two more, until eventually even the most innocent half-truth metastasizes into a falsehood requiring surgery.

A lie is a deliberate attempt to fake the nature of reality. So a scientist who reaches a flawed conclusion through an error in her experimentation method may hint at incompetence, but she is not lying. But a guy who trades his own happiness for a fat paycheque and calls himself “successful”, must be charged with first-degree bullshit. His deception may succeed temporarily but he has not altered the facts, and the moral transaction is still charged to his account.

Why is faking the nature of reality bad? Because reality exists. No matter how hard you try to treat things differently than they really are, they still are. A job that drains your will to live is a job that drains your will to live. A girl who doesn’t respect you, doesn’t respect you.

When the disconnect with reality comes from a genuine error, the mistake is open to correction. The evidence of a fallacy shows up in the form of contradiction, and logic and reason can help stitch things back together. But intentional deceit makes the perpetrator a fugitive; sometimes physically, always intellectually. For whenever a liar’s evidence contradicts itself, he must flee further and further from the facts to maintain his sliding grip on sincerity.

The safe haven from the perils of denying what is, is radical honesty. To commit to radical honesty is to take an oath sworn directly on the face of existence. It’s a pledge–in your work, in your relationships, and to yourself–to see things exactly as they are, to the best of your ability. It acknowledges that almost all things are small things and that nothing is bigger than the truth.

Radical Honesty at Work

Few relationships will last longer, or have a larger effect on your day-to-day life, than the relationship between you and the value-producing activity that is your work. Applying radical honesty in your work means creating things that are of value to you personally.

Can each of us really do work that is of value to us personally? On what planet would we ever find someone to specialize in the manufacture of, say, toilet paper? Someone who would claim that such work is of value to him personally? You’d find that guy on the planet where ass-wiping technology doesn’t yet exist, where there’s a guy who’s sick of using his bare hands for the task, and where he is the only man alive annoyed enough to scratch this particular itch himself.

The things that are of value to you personally are entirely dependent on your environment and how you relate to it. For example, I couldn’t care less about growing my own food. There are lots of lots of people–”farmers” as they’re called–who already do this. And they’re willing, with the aid of an elaborate supply chain, to take my money in exchange for their food. If I didn’t have access to anyone who was willing to grow food, maintain livestock, and sell me either when I needed them, then I’d pretty quickly become interested in this problem. I value my own life and I need food to live.

What most frustrates you about the world? Almost every answer to that question is a business idea with your name written all over it. And when the work you do pays the bills both financially and spiritually, you have truly become your own boss.

Radical Honesty in Relationships

There’s a strong tie between your work and your relationships. Asking “What most frustrates you about the world?” is not only a means of identifying opportunities to create value in your life, it’s also a compass that directs you towards the people that will help make those dreams come true.

Radical honesty in relationships–whether platonic or intimate–requires self-respect. Self-respect is a seed planted by the standards you set: How do you treat people? How do you let them treat you?

Purpose is also paramount. In geek terms, your mission is like an Uninterruptible Power Supply, a primary source of energy and the motive power behind all the moving parts of your life. The relationships worth having are those with a voltage high enough to match your own, not those that cause a power failure.

Maintaining integrity in relationships means addressing problems that come up in real-time. Emotions are not chess pieces, and love is not a game of strategy. If you sense that something might be wrong, seek to identify and resolve the issue on the spot. If you’re constantly met with responses like the Solemn Downward Stare, followed by the Evening of Awkward Silence, and the Night Without Sex, then be warned: the game you’re playing isn’t worth winning.

Radical Self-Honesty

The hardest person to be honest with is yourself. Really, the only person you can be honest with is you. All delusion is ultimately self-delusion.

Radical self-honesty requires a matching dose of humility. Whatever score you give yourself in any category is almost surely inflated. If the currency by which we measure others is pounds, the currency by which we measure ourselves is yen. Some of these feelings of superior knowledge, skill, or judgement are no doubt justified. But many, if not most of them, aren’t. The moment you become conscious of this, your self-awareness expands. You begin to ask yourself more honest questions and give yourself more honest answers.

I find journalling to be an effective way to keep myself honest. I reach for my journal whenever I feel there’s an idea or milestone–good or bad–worth documenting. For example, I’ve got an overwhelming appetite for change. So when several months ago I started getting bored with my day-to-day routine, I made a journal entry about it. I even made a list of specific adjustments I wanted to make to shake things up. Looking at that list now, I’ve installed about 60% of those tweaks so far with more currently in progress.

How Honest Is Too Honest?

In the honesty business, there’s a fine line between radical and reckless.

Reckless honesty is the result of pushing the authenticity envelope so far that you shoot yourself in the foot. Radical honesty is having the balls to walk up to a girl and say “Hi” because you think she’s attractive and you want to find out more. Reckless honesty is walking up to the same girl and saying “Wow, you are absolutely gorgeous. There’s nothing I’d like to do more right now than to take you into the nearest bathroom, rip all your clothes off, and fuck you to God.”

Both approaches are, technically speaking, completely authentic. But one is obviously somewhat more productive. The border between radical and reckless must be patrolled by your intuition. Sometimes that line is obvious (like in the example above), but sometimes it’s not. As a general rule, accuracy is more important than precision.

If you have a habit of stopping short of saying what you really think, turning things around will take time. But there is no challenge more worth tackling. Authenticity accrues a compound interest, and even a few extra cents of veracity today could become a large down payment on your happiness tomorrow.

It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not.

– Author Unknown

If your primary goal in life is to meet an amazing woman, you probably won’t.

Setting out on a mission to find a girlfriend is like starting a company to get rich: It focusses you on the wrong things and you eventually realize that the game you’re playing isn’t worth winning.

When money is your center of gravity, you make decisions based on dollars rather than sense. Instead of being a Merchant of Wow, you become a Merchant of Ow, building boring, ugly, and painful things, hoping you might flip before you flop. By trading passion for profit you confine yourself to mediocrity, blazing a trail to unhappiness and unwealth as you sink ever deeper into spiritual overdraft.

Likewise, when you make women your focal point, you let go of your I. Instead of asking what you want most in life, you ask what women want most in life: What traits do women find attractive in a man? What kind of social events do hot women go to? What kind of hobbies do women consider sexy? What should I say to a girl when I approach her? Will she be turned off if I do XYZ?

Questions are like shovels: they unearth the truth. But when you ask questions like these, you dig your own grave.

There Is No Secret

In How to Meet Women Without Really Trying, I suggested that the best way to meet women is by talking to them. This advice is so simple that it’s almost impossible to understand.

I’ve experienced the entire spectrum of success with women, from being a chess-playing, virgin, overweight cookie monster in high school all the way to where I am now, where I don’t even think about meeting girls anymore and It Just Happens. I know how easy–and, more importantly, how hard–it is to accept and apply the idea of meeting girls by talking to them.

What do I mean by “talk” to women? What do you say? What’s the best opener? What do you say after that? Where do you meet them? How do you get them interested in you? How do you ask for their number? How can you possibly meet hot girls without using magic potions and super sekrit seduction techniques?

To demystify the mechanics of making a connection, I’ll describe exactly how I met the girl I’m currently dating. I’ll include some philosophical context to paint the bigger picture that led to us finding, meeting, and connecting with each other.

This story is only coincidentally about seduction. It’s really more a tale of me just living my life, and how that inevitably leads to meeting charming and beautiful creatures.

Shared Interests Are Everything

I never go out to meet girls anymore. The success or failure of my social engagements is never measured by how many approaches I did (ugh), how many numbers I walked away with (ugh!), or how many kisses I got (UGH!@#*!).

Every activity I’m involved in is fueled by self-interest. For example, I organize a personal growth group in Montreal because I want to surround myself with like-minded, positive people, and create an environment that promotes the conscious pursuit of happiness. The more I care about that goal, the better the group gets. I’m helping organize BarCamp Canada, a geek conference coming up later this year, because I’m interested in helping smart people talk to others about what they’re working on. And every article on this blog is, first and foremost, a letter written to myself. Writing helps me crystallize my thoughts and make sense of my experiences. I use my content to build traffic, rather than letting traffic build my content.

The natural consequence of defining your own hierarchy of values and pursuing them to your utmost ability is that you meet people who share those interests. For example, by stepping up to volunteer for BarCamp, I’ve created the opportunity to work with smart hackers. My choice to start a personal growth group has resulted in forming friendships with some hot girls and cool guys. From there I get invited to parties and other social events, which leads to meeting more interesting people. And, of course, starting this blog has added a whole new dimension to my world.

Which brings me to how I met Mary.

Seduction Secret #172: Live Your Own Life

Mary was yet another girl I crossed paths with while doing something that mattered to me.

You may remember that a few months ago I did a 30-day trial on learning to cook. Since I started from almost zero, I had to make regular trips to a funky little kitchen boutique nearby for crockery and cookware.

I was in there a few times a week during the challenge. The girls that worked there were really sweet and we started talking more and more. My requests for kitchen advice eventually led to discussions about the rest of our lives. I told them about 30 sleeps and how I was learning to cook, and we all got more interested in each other.

There was one girl in particular there who caught my eye. She had dark hair, a pretty face, a gorgeous body, and radiated an irresistibly feminine sparkle. We never got around to exchanging names, though I couldn’t help but make a mental note of her.

Eventually, I completed the 30-day challenge and my culinary needs died down. Time passed. Life went on. I didn’t get around to the store much anymore, but I kept bumping into that cute girl around the neighbourhood.

Girl Approaches Guy, Film at 11

One day I got an email from a reader of my blog. She told me that my articles inspired her. She confessed a little embarrassment to be writing me out of the blue, but said she had just read my article How to Get a Life and found it really interesting. One of the points I make in that article is how powerful it can be to just email someone you want to get in touch with. That’s exactly what made her decide to email me.

But it wasn’t until I reached the bottom of the email that I finally put two and two together.

“I hope you haven’t stopped cooking!” she said. Signed Mary.

Opportunity Will Knock

When opportunity knocks, you either answer the door, or you light up your internet connection and spank away your sorrows. So a few days later, I invited her out to a social gathering and things took off from there.

Of course, I’m not suggesting that pursuing your goals will make the women you desire chase after you. In most cases, you’ll have to make the first move. But shared interests plant the seeds for a healthy social life, and a healthy social life plants the seeds for a healthy sex life. 99% of the girls you meet will never end up in your bedroom, and that’s fine. Mary is the one girl I did connect with out of the dozens and dozens (and dozens) that I didn’t.

You don’t need pickup skills to meet girls; you need goals that have absolutely nothing to do with girls. Attracting worthwhile women into your life happens only when you throw the entire force of your existence into creating a life that matters.

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

– Dale Carnegie

Positive relationships are the foundation of an interesting life.

Regular readers of my blog know that I advocate talking to strangers as a fantastic way of shaking up reality. But that’s not the whole story. If your interactional energy is misspent, you can end up in a repetitive cycle of drive-by friendships, random sexual adventures that are as fun as they are meaningless, and a general sense of wondering why you seem to always end up back where you started.

Making your own introductions is a life-changing force. But how do you channel this bravado into building relationships that last? How do you find friends that will raise the ceiling of your potential rather than criticize you for your passions? How do you meet girls that belong in your world and not just in your bedroom?

How do you get a life?

Love Being Alone

The prerequisite to building a healthy social life is, ironically, being comfortable by yourself. If you’re starting from zero, the reasons for this are obvious: you don’t have much choice. If you have a few friends but find that they drag you down, withdrawing from that crowd and starting anew will probably require staying in more frequently. Also, being too desperate for the company of others will hinder authentic interaction. You’ll be more worried about external validation instead of just letting it flow and being open to discovering connections.

Appreciating aloneness starts by consciously acknowledging the freedom it brings. When you enjoy your own company you can be flexible about who you choose to hang with, instead of letting the ego’s fear of being alone suck you into social scenes you don’t really like.

It also helps to have interests that can be pursued on your own. I’m fortunate to have many: reading, writing, cooking, software development, and online poker, among others. I’m just as happy staying in as going out, as long as I keep a good balance between the two. You can even use your alone time to apply the ideas in this article to help build your social life.

Start With Who You Already Know

Getting a life means becoming a person who initiates interactions, instead of always waiting for others to make the first move. A great place to start is with the people you already know. Most of us can probably think of one or more people that we’re horrible at keeping in touch with. These might be former acquaintances, people you met while travelling, someone you enjoyed working with in the past, old friends, or even current friends. When making this list, reach as far back into your past as you can, as long as you keep finding examples of people you wish you’d stayed in touch with.

Then contact them. I prefer email, especially when it’s someone I haven’t talked to in a while. If you don’t have the person’s email address, try Google. Alternatively, you might have a mutual friend who can put you in touch.

I did this several weeks ago. It was easy for me to think of many people with whom I’m horrible at keeping in touch. I ended up sending over a dozen emails to former coworkers I enjoyed working with, friends in other cities, and even local buddies who I don’t talk to nearly enough, often because I rely on them to always ping me.

I got responses from all but two people. I ended up going for lunch with one girl I’d never socialized with outside of a party setting. I reconnected with a former boss of mine from Quebec City who travels to Montreal frequently, and plan to have lunch with him next time he’s in town. And I reestablished contact with some friends I was starting to lose touch with.

The ROI on this simple gesture made me wonder: Why the fuck haven’t I been doing this all along?

Generosity Is Golden

It’s one thing to take the social initiative with people you already know, but what about with someone you’ve never met?

Sometimes I’ll get an email from a fellow blogger who wants to “network” with me. This is the greasiest way to introduce yourself to anyone. When making a new connection, start with generosity. Focus on how you can help the other person get where they’re going. This is an idea I got from Keith Ferrazzi’s excellent book, Never Eat Alone.

Do you have information that may interest them? Do you know someone whom they could benefit from knowing too? Can you volunteer to help their cause?

For example, I recently moved into a coworking space in Montreal called Station C. It’s a group of independent consultants and entrepreneurs who don’t like working from home. I think Patrick and Dan have done a fantastic job setting it up. It’s an amazing workspace with a great mix of people.

One of the first things I did when I moved in was volunteer to help build the office’s scheduling application. I have a lot of respect for the project and, now that I’m involved as a member, it can only be a good use of my time to make it even better. I also introduced myself to most people in the office early on and asked them to show me what they were working on. I wanted to get a sense of what skills they had and consider ways in which I could give them more work. In showing my own interest, I found others naturally reciprocating. I’ve already been getting work offered in my direction.

One of the best investments you can make in yourself is to take a genuine interest in other people.

User Groups

The best places to plant the seeds that will improve your social life are user groups. A “user group” might be a professional association, a political party, an orchestra, a yoga class, or any other gathering of people who have a common passion.

To start down this road, make a list of keywords for everything you enjoy and every issue that matters to you. For example, mine looks like:

• personal growth
• spirituality
• private health care in canada
• cooking
• longboarding
• grassroots geek conferences
• design
• usability
• eco-friendly housing
• etc.

Do a complete brain dump. If you haven’t got at least 50 lines of output, you aren’t trying hard enough. When finished, head to Meetup.com and see what you can find. Alternatively, add the name of your city to each line and you’ve got a Google search query. This will help you find local user groups, bloggers, discussion forums, businesses, and other organizations related to these topics.

What if you can’t find a group that fits your needs? Organize it. This is exactly how I started a personal growth group in Montreal. The downside of being an organizer is that it takes a little more time and energy. The upside is everything else.

Finding a great group of people that like what you like may require some detective work, but it’s worth it. A shared interest is the active ingredient in building positive relationships.

Don’t Limit Yourself

When I was doing my 30-day trial on learning to cook, I took inspiration from Laura Calder’s show French Food at Home. I think she has a unique charm and her enthusiasm for cooking is contagious.

Then I thought: Why not email her?

So I did. And she replied.

Next thing you know, we’re exchanging email about The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle, spirituality, and general thoughts on the art of happiness.

Don’t limit yourself. Take a look at your bookshelf, for example, and ask yourself: Which of these authors might I like to get to know? Email them. Authors in particular seem to have more easily accessible email addresses than other public figures. It’s unlikely that you’ll meet or even get a personal response from most of the people you contact this way, but it’s still fun to make a connection with someone that inspires you.

I’ve turned this last one into a 30-day trial. Every day I email one person I want to know more about, whom I might normally consider out of reach. I find some of the most fun 30-day trials are the ones related to meeting new people. If you feel like you could use some help in the social arena, why not make now the time you choose to break out of your bubble?

Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.

– Chuang Tzu

95% of everything you’ll ever need to know about meeting women can be summed up in four words: Go with the flow. Instead of trying to meet girls, focus entirely on yourself. Create a life that’s interesting and worthwhile to you, not because that’s an attractive quality to women, but because it’s your life and you are all you have. If you can’t live your own adventure, you’ll never be happy.

Funnily enough, doing things to impress women is pretty unimpressive. Neediness will bury you. The only way to attract the types of girls that actually belong in your life is to direct all your energy into being a world-class chef, rock star computer geek, champion race car driver, or whatever else lights your fire.

And then just talk to the people that show up on your path. Whether that path is the sidewalk on the way to the grocery store, the poker table, the front row of the audience at your show, or a bar or club that you’d be going to anyway, even if you already had a girlfriend. No matter what you do, there will be people all around you. The guy who asks, “Where’s a good place to meet girls?”, assumes that he can’t say hi to the gorgeous girl picking tomatoes beside him at the grocery store, or that he can’t walk up to a girl in a room full of seated people and just start talking to her.

Believe it or not, you can. It’s not the situation that stops you. It’s your ego that stops you. Getting rejected by a girl poses a serious threat to who you think you are. But here’s a little secret: If you’re constantly getting rejected, you’re constantly getting laid.

Fear of Rejection

You can’t do anything to change what a girl thinks of you. The moment you try to change someone’s opinion of you, you’ve conceded to their reality, instead of living life on your own terms and letting social polarity work out the details. The vast majority of guys who think they have no idea how to meet girls are really just making excuses for having a lethal fear of rejection.

How do you meet girls? By talking to them.

If you have the balls to talk to girls anywhere, anytime, you’ve nailed down a crucial 20% of the secret to attracting women that belong in your life. The other 80%, of course, is to be doing something so interesting with your life that women become an enjoyable diversion, rather than the foundation of your happiness. If you don’t respect yourself enough to approach girls that appeal to you, and find it hard to ignore being laughed at sometimes by the sexually frustrated masses, then you’re going to have to settle for whatever girl decides to allow you to have sex with her.

There Is No Try

The girls I meet are interested in me right away. If they aren’t, I’m not going to try and change their minds. In fact, I usually don’t even respond to anything less than a smile. If her reaction was anything but warm and receptive, I’m already talking to someone else. No hard feelings, but at the same time, life is too short to waste on the Nos. If Montreal weren’t full of astoundingly beautiful women, I might have to reconsider my wholesale approach. Thankfully, natural, high-fashion beauty is available here in bulk.

In fact, these days, I get approached more and more. The most recent example of this was New Year’s Eve. I was out with my buddy Yas, partying it up, when this girl came up to us and asked for a light. My buddy started talking to her really interestedly. A few minutes later, we all walked back inside. As I walked towards the dance floor, the girl grabs me from behind and pulls me over to introduce me to her friend. Here we go again…

This seemed pretty fun, so I stayed tuned in for several minutes. Then a good song came on so I headed to the dance floor once again. I noticed that the girl didn’t join me, but it didn’t matter either way. The Now moment is the only moment that counts, especially when it comes to social interactions.

During the next hour or two, I met a bunch of other people, and lost track of my buddy. This happens just about every time I go out to large social gatherings with friends. It’s also why I can have such a great time, even when I go out on my own.

By midnight, I was on the dance floor, dancing with these girls I had met outside about 20 minutes earlier. When the New Year hit, the girl who approached me and my buddy earlier finds me on the dance floor to come wish me Happy New Year–with a kiss.

We start dancing, and she ends up inviting me to her place afterwards. Rather, she didn’t invite me, but was saying things like, “Yeah, when you come to our place later on…” Hmmm, okay.

But apparently that kiss was a commitment. This girl eventually starts getting possessive towards me. She gets visibly jealous seeing me talk to other girls. Fast forward to a couple hours later, and I’m outside talking to a couple dudes about Quebec’s equivalent of Woodstock, how awesome Montreal girls are, and various other things, when this girl taps me from behind.

“Bye Brad. We’re leaving.” Whoa, she’s pissed now.

“Okay, have a good night!” I reply, with a goodbye cheek-to-cheek. And back to the conversation…

The more people you meet, the more you’ll see patterns emerge, and the less you’ll take it personally when things go sour. Sometimes the drama takes a few days, weeks, months, or even years to unfold, but it all boils down to the same ego-based insecurities. And it’s no big deal. Just go with the flow, and be thankful when you find things out up front.

No one is good or evil. We’re all just a bunch of egos passing judgement on other egos, to help keep our own ego intact. Strange but true.

Self-Created Problems

A guy who gets both legs amputated has a walking problem. A guy who loses his front teeth in a hockey fight has a dental problem. A guy who says, “I can’t approach that girl! What if she rejects me!?” does not have a problem meeting women. He’s created the problem in his head, but it isn’t real. So at any moment, you can delete this self-destruction from your life.

What do you say to a hot girl when you see her? Anything you want. Even asking that kind of question is just an excuse to not be alive, out there in the world, making yourself vulnerable, speaking your truth, and living with the consequences.

If there’s anything good about self-inflicted misery, it’s that only you can change it, and the present moment is always giving you permission to let go.

The greatest difficulty is that men do not think enough of themselves, do not consider what it is that they are sacrificing when they follow in a herd, or when they cater for their establishment.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Your entire reality is a reflection of how much you value your own life.

The people around you–bosses, business partners, friends, lovers–will treat you only as well as you treat yourself. The city you live in says a lot about your thirst for vibrance and opportunity. The goals you’re actively pursuing are an expression of your commitment to being alive, living dangerously, rather than hanging on in a palliative state, surviving the same day over and over again until the Grim Reaper comes knocking.

Unlike respect given to you by other people, self-respect is not something you earn, but something you choose. Choosing to respect yourself is more than just a personal promise or affirmation though: It’s a contract signed by your actions.

Spoiling Yourself

How many of us can honestly say something like, “I want to find a girl/guy who treats me as well I treat myself“, and actually mean it? For many people, that would result in a pretty messed up relationship. Their partner would be feeding them fast food and sugar all the time, telling them how ugly they are, convincing them that they don’t even deserve a great relationship, and be constantly manufacturing excuses for why now is not the right time to chase their dreams.

If your relationship with yourself is damaged, your relationship with everyone else is damaged too. Improving your relationship with yourself starts with raising your standards. Not by saying that you’re raising your standards, but by acting on that commitment.

30 Days to Self-Respect

To do that, you could try what I call the 30-Day Self-Respect Challenge. You can do it all at once, or piece-by-piece. I usually only run about two or three 30-day trials at a time myself, but feel free to bite off as much as you can chew. This 30-day challenge provides an action plan that will, from day one, raise your standards for how you expect to be treated by others and, as a result, change how you treat them.

Without further ado, here’s the challenge:

• Eat healthy. Buy a good cookbook. For 30 days, commit to cooking yourself at least three recipes from it every week. Try to focus on using “organic” (aka, “real”) ingredients to create meals that strike a balance between tasting good and being nutritious. I’m using Wholefood: Heal, Nourish, Delight. I’m also planning on picking up some of Jamie Oliver’s stuff. Everyone will have their eating preferences, so of course feel free to cook from whatever source interests you.
• Get some rest. For 30 days, commit to waking up at the same time every day, whether that’s 5:30 AM or 11:00 AM. I think being an early riser is vastly overrated, even though I am an early riser. What’s most important, IMHO, is to commit to a sleep schedule that fits your lifestyle and stick with it.
• Talk to strangers. For 30 days, talk to at least one stranger every day. Just say “Hi” and don’t worry about anything that happens after that. The last time I did this as a 30-day challenge, I got laid on day one. This isn’t even about just meeting women though. It’s about learning that rejection equals progress, and that building up a tolerance to getting blown out will completely change your life.
• Don’t work overtime. Take the five o’clock challenge. For 30 days, leave the office every single day at 5:00 PM, or whatever time you’re supposed to be off at. What’s the worst that can happen? Will you get fired? I spent two years working for a demanding billionaire, as the lead developer on one of his pet projects, and rarely worked a second over seven hours a day, and I didn’t.
• Take the smallest next step every day. I think every person reading this has, at the very least, a few goals loosely percolating in their minds. Take any one of those ideas (flip a coin, if you have to) and commit to it for 30 days. Then, every day, take the smallest next step to making that dream come true. Day one, register the domain name. Day two, sign up for web hosting. Day three, install some blogging software. Day four, write an article that introduces your site. Lather, rinse, repeat. If you end up realizing that this goal isn’t what you wanted, who cares? It’s only 30 days, and finding your passions requires trial and error.
• Don’t argue. Arguing is one of the more common forms of self-disrespect. It lowers the consciousness of both people involved. Nobody ever wins an argument, because neither side is even listening to the other. So for 30 days, don’t argue. Observe the ego wanting to lash out and react, without following through on it.

Warning: The side effects of following this plan may include leaving a job that is draining you of your will to live, ending a relationship with someone who treats you like a piece of shit, making more money while working fewer hours, having way more energy than you do right now, and getting laid like a rock star. Your mileage may vary.

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.

– Dale Carnegie

It’s Friday night and you’re getting ready to go out. You shower, brush your teeth, put on some good music, crack open a beer, then spend some time trying on different outfits to find just the right look for the party tonight. It’s your buddy’s birthday, and it’s being held at a popular nightspot downtown.

“Why wait any longer for the world to begin? You can have your cake and eat it tooooo…” Ah, Bob Dylan. The ultimate warmup aphrodisiac. There’s going to be so many hot women there tonight man. It’s gonna be crazy.

9:30 PM and it’s time to roll. You turn the music off, kill the lights, set the alarm, and head out to catch the metro to downtown. When you get there, you’ve sobered up a little, which is making you slightly uncomfortable. You walk into the place and immediately order a drink. Aaaahhh, that’s better.

A minute later, you spot your buddy surrounded by a bunch of people you don’t know, along with a few familiar faces.

“What’s up man! Happy Birthday!” you say confidently as you slap him on the shoulder.

“How’s it going bro! Glad you came! So many hot women here tonight eh!”

“Oh YEAH baby”, you confirm, your voice giving off more than a hint of sexual famine.

A few hours pass and you haven’t managed to leave the corner of the room where your comfort zone is seated. In fact, you’ve hardly said much to anyone in the birthday group other than the people you already knew before you got there. Oh, except that one straight-faced, logical, almost scientific exchange you had with this one girl in the group. She is currently on a six-month break from her nutrition studies, and happily answered all your questions about her work experience job at an old folks home, with occasional breaks in the convo while she snuggled up to her boyfriend and made out with him.

Finally, end of evening nigh, the beer attempting to pry open the doors of your self-confidence, you saunter down the steps outside and look back at the crowd fanning out onto the sidewalk as the place closes down.

“Man, it’s fucking crazy how many hot chicks are here tonight!” you tell your buddy.

“Yeah. Too bad they all have boyfriends.”

Another night surrounded by a sea of fun and opportunity, floating in a lonely lifeboat, desperately trying to plug the leaks sprung by excuses.

Pursuing vs. Being

If you’re anything like me, you’ve had countless experiences like the one above. Great expectations; cowardly, pathetic outcomes.

What went wrong? Why does this always happen? Why do we keep imagining that tonight we will be King, yet we constantly sabotage our own efforts and walk away empty-handed?

First, the best way to screw up any social adventure is to go out with the intent of meeting women. It’s like starting a business with your primary goal being to make money. It focusses you on the wrong things and actually makes you less likely to achieve your objective. Desperation emits a high-pitched, annoying shriek that women can pick up from great distances. At the very least, going out to meet girls makes socializing much more stressful than fun.

Of course, this is no excuse to wrap yourself in a social cocoon and let your insecurities rule you either.

When I go out, I have only one goal in mind: radioactive fun. Any effort to convince someone that I’m worthy of their attention works against the natural laws of social polarity and dilutes my authenticity. My main concern is whether the person I’m talking to is worth my attention, because the best way for everyone around me to enjoy themselves is ultimately for me to have an amazing time too.

Last weekend was an example of the problems caused by pursuing rather than just being. On Saturday night, I was out with some good friends having a few drinks. Eventually the group whittled down to just me and a buddy, who was dressed up as Batman. His Halloween costume was so impressive that I could almost feel the protective shield of his superpowers. It was pretty late, and he wanted to head next door to meet some girls.

Pretty harmless, right?

But when we got out there, I froze up. The thought of actually trying to pick up girls put me in this totally incongruent, subordinate frame of mind. I got stuck in my head and couldn’t think of anything to say. It’s been ages since I felt like that, because it’s been several months since I last went “sarging”, i.e., chasing women. (As always, I take full responsibility for my outcomes. I’m not blaming my buddy for anything, just using this experience to illustrate a point.)

Rewind to the night before and it was a completely different story.

Choose Your Friends Wisely

Friday night was radioactive fun.

I was out with a few friends, a different group than Saturday night. I choose to spend time with these friends because they are always fun, not just because they give me a group to latch onto at the bar. One of them is a fellow web entrepreneur, another is a brilliant Open Source geek, and another is this girl who fascinates me with her cultural and literary depth.

This is important. Creating your own fun means consciously choosing who you spend your time with. If your friends regularly exert a downward pull on your emotions, you’ve got to be willing to let go and replace them with people that elevate you.

If, for example, you’re a guy trying to better himself by practicing social skydiving, you might find your friends in awe of your ability to push through the fear and approach. But they may instead tease you when you get blown out, or for how “lame” it is that you go out alone, as a way to compensate for knowing that they don’t have the balls to take that risk themselves. Criticism gives their ego a safe shelter that protects them from the challenges inherent in going for exactly what you want.

Firing your friends can be really awkward and hard. I know because I’ve done it a few times in recent memory. You might try to convince yourself that you can’t let a friend go because they’ve been there for you through so many hard times. But ask yourself this: How many of those “hard times” in your life have been caused by associating with someone you should have let go?

Also, realize that firing a friend isn’t about judging or disrespecting that person. It’s about raising your social standards and having the courage to accept that you’ll both be better off by going your separate ways.

Unshakeable Intent

So after some interesting, multi-threaded pub conversation on Friday night, we went to the same place that Batman wanted to go girl-cruising on Saturday. But this time, my intentions were focussed entirely on having fun.

At one point while I was dancing, I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I turned around and saw this girl I had been with earlier this summer. Initially, I was happy to see her.

“What’s new?” I said, making conversation.

“Nothing”, she responded aloofly, clearly having a chip on her shoulder.

Think about this for a second before reading further: What would you do in this situation? Even better, if you have some experiences like this to draw on, what have you done in this situation in the past? (Because, let’s face it, what we say we’d do is often not what we actually do when it happens.)

A lot of guys would try to smooth things over and suck up to the girl. Rather, they’re not so much trying to smooth things over as to regain the validation they got from her before. Why is she being so standoffish? What did I do? Why doesn’t she like me now? What can I do to neutralize this threat to my ego?

Instead of trying to use this girl to validate myself, I opted for the sane route: I immediately unplugged. I didn’t snub her back, pass judgement, or look down on her because of how she reacted. I know that we are all wounded, it’s only a matter of degree.

I just deleted the possibility of saying anything else to her. I had already met a bunch of people by that point and I wasn’t going to let someone else’s problems slow me down. If you want to have the most fun when you go out, don’t try to change people’s minds. Down that path lies chodeness. This is what social polarity feels like in the real world.

Be unshakeable in your intent to savour the Now, regardless of what’s happening around you. I was approaching girls right in front of this girl who blew me off, because making myself vulnerable by being social was my intent when I got there. If other people exert a strong influence over how you behave, then you’re still trying to feed the ego.

Unshakeable intent, like almost every other empowering character trait, is a learnable skill. Through consistent practice, you can immunize yourself from negative energy and move forward on a path of your own choosing, instead of allowing yourself to be dragged down by energy vampires. In the broad scale of humanity, even the worst possible reactions are completely insignificant.

Later that (Friday) night, I got to chatting with this cute blonde, whose friend I had actually talked to earlier in the evening. We got together for coffee last night and had a great time. What will happen next? Who knows? Who cares? What matters is this: Women will come and go, but effortless authenticity, a deep self-respect, and a complete commitment to living life on your own terms are the necessary ingredients to having fun wherever you go.

Popularity is the one insult I have never suffered.

– Oscar Wilde

For all the writing I do about social skydiving, the vast majority of my interactions with women don’t go any further than our initial conversation. In fact, sometimes they barely get beyond “Hi”. I’ve talked to hundreds of women in the past year, but I’ve gone on dates with a mere fraction of those, probably around three to five percent. Sometimes it’s because I’m not interested. The other 90% of the time it’s because she’s not interested.

Exercising choice in the women you bring into your life is all about being willing to get blown out and fail your way forward. An important tool with which to navigate yourself through the battlefield is social polarity.

Social polarity is the idea that no matter what you do, what you say, what you look like, how you act, how you dress, or what your opinions are, some people will like you and some won’t. Some guys will think you’re cool, some women will think you’re absolutely magnetic, and others will try to tool you and make you go away as quickly as possible. No matter how hard you try, there is no way to avoid the world around you being divided into the lovers and the haters. This idea applies as much to men as to women, and to interactions that are either purely platonic or more sexual in nature.

The implications of social polarity are extremely liberating. Knowing that, no matter what, I’m guaranteed to be liked by some and disliked by others has freed me up to be totally authentic. This has resulted in a tectonic shift in how I relate to others. Instead of trying to “get a good reaction”, I’m concerned only with radiating my personality and focussing my attention on only those who are a strong vibrational match.

(Note: As you read what follows, try not to get to hung up by the specific terms used. I’m just describing a model of reality that works for me in meeting people, and I find these terms useful in capturing the key concepts of this model.)

Social Polarity Vectors

Social polarity can be measured along four vectors:

1. Physical. How you present yourself, what you look like, how much money you have, who your friends are, how you dress, your personal hygiene, your mannerisms, and all your other “surface features”. A guy who is 350 pounds, constantly sweating, doesn’t believe in self-maintenance, and has Big Mac lettuce dripping from his chin is going to put out a different energy than a guy who is smartly dressed, takes care of himself, and always wears a smile.
2. Mental. Your opinions and beliefs, knowledge and skills; your “identity”. You won’t just automatically attract people with the same beliefs as you or repel those of lesser mental faculty, but your intellectual frequency will influence the dynamic of your interaction.
3. Emotional. The energy with which you express thoughts and respond to social inputs.
4. Spiritual. The extent to which you acknowledge and connect with the creative force that exists beyond your physical body and mind. This polarity vector has a critical influence on your ability to bounce back from blowouts.

Each of these parameters is a knob that you can adjust to modify your social energy signature, and thus change where the line is drawn between those who align with you and those that don’t. The key here is to understand that social polarization is a property of the energy exchanged, not the words exchanged.

Guys tend to polarize with other guys primarily along the mental vector, and secondarily the emotional one. If you’re at a party and happen to bump into a fellow Ruby on Rails geek, chances are you’re going to hit it off pretty well, platonically speaking.

Women tend to polarize with other women first emotionally, then mentally. While both men and women are emotional creatures, women tend to exhibit a much wider range of emotions than men and tend to express those emotions more openly to their friends and lovers.

Platonically, a guy will tend to polarize with a girl either physically, emotionally, or mentally and the level on which each person resonates with the other may be totally different. A common example is the guy that resonates with the girl physically (read: he wants to have sex with her), while she resonates with him emotionally (read: he is her emotional tampon).

Finally, guys will tend to polarize sexually with girls along the emotional and physical vectors, with the mental vector being a distant third.

Types of Social Polarity

There are two fundamental types of social polarity: natural and unnatural. Natural polarity results from having a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual profile that is consistent with itself. Among other things, it means that the way you think is the way you act, that you accurately express the way you feel, and that there’s a general balance between your spiritual belief system and the physical, emotional, and intellectual expression of those beliefs.

Unnatural polarity occurs when one or more of these vectors fall out of alignment with the others. Instead of acting the way you think, you may suppress your true intentions and take this out in other ways like overeating, drinking heavily, or through a wide range of undesirable emotional responses. It may also mean putting up a front instead of expressing yourself honestly. What you see isn’t really what you get.

Your Social Energy Signature

Your social energy signature (SES) represents your unique physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual fingerprint in a given social context. Context is an important part of your SES because different social situations will emphasize different aspects of your SES, affect how it gets interpreted by others, and may even redefine your SES, at least in part.

For example, your SES at a Thanksgiving dinner with the family will likely be different from when you’re out drinking at a pub with your coworkers. In some social contexts you may be seen as high status and/or have a lot of social proof where in others you might be a perfect stranger. And the social dynamics will be fundamentally different if you’re surrounded primarily by guys, primarily by girls, or by some mixture of both.

Social Polarity in Practice

So how can you use your knowledge of social polarity and social energy signatures to meet people?

For both men and women, social polarity has many implications for how you interact with the world as a social animal. I’m going to concentrate on what this means for the guy who wants to improve his success with women, since that’s the context in which I have the most experience applying these concepts.

When it comes to approaching women, you don’t need pickup lines. Social polarization implies that our alignment with others happens along energetic lines; the words don’t matter. The only purpose of your “opener” is to initiate the flow of energy. In my experience, guys who focus too much on specific lines often just use that as an excuse, so that when they get blown out they can blame it on the line they used, when really the rejection happened at a much more fundamental, energetic level.

Instead of trying to “get a good reaction” from women, focus on becoming a polarity detector. A great Poker player spends the vast majority of his time folding, and a guy who gets the kind of women he wants spends most of his time getting rejected. The only way to avoid rejection is to avoid talking to women.

Beyond just approaching them, you shouldn’t actually “try” to get women to like you at all. The most important thing is to express yourself as authentically as possible and leave the rest to polarity to determine if she’s a good fit for you. Sure, you can change your social energy signature “on the fly” and thus change the way you polarize with a girl (though she still might not like you), but when you do gravitate back to your natural polarity, you might end up repelling her anyway, so there’s no point faking it to begin with.

It’s important to not let blowouts faze you, or at least to minimize their impact on your emotions. Rejection and full-on blowouts are a fundamental part of the social polarity model, and are merely the sign of a polarity conflict. This is where the spiritual vector comes into play. Your ability to, at least conceptually, step outside of your body and mind and observe your physical, mental, and emotional states as an impartial spectator is crucial to becoming the “nuclear unreactor” when faced with negative social inputs.

Social polarity is a powerful tool for navigating yourself through social interactions. It’s a model that emphasizes that our alignment with other people happens primarily along energetic lines, rather than by carefully crafted conversation. Realizing that there is absolutely no way you can avoid having some people like you and some not frees you up to express yourself truthfully and focus your attention on only those who are a good vibrational match.