Tuesday, August 23, 2011

A Chat with Tyler Durden from RSD

Normally on Monday nights I teach the pickup mansion residents theory for about an hour, but last night I decided to switch things up and head out with them for the night to do a spot check on their game and spend some time not in hardcore workshop mode with them.  We hit a popular Monday night spot in Hollywood, did some chatting and some approaches, and later in the night Tyler Durden from Real Social Dynamics (RSD) showed up and we talked some game as well.


My history with Tyler is that we've both run bootcamps at various times in the same venues around Hollywood, so we've known each other for some time now, we've got great camaraderie, and I think he's a great guy.  We'll even sometimes answer each others student's questions when we're teaching.  When we see each other outside of work we even sometimes bounce ideas and theory off of each other, and since last night was one of those nights I thought i'd spill the details of our conversation to give you a sneak peak into what professional PUA's talk about when no one's around.   

The first topic of the night was one-itis.  Tyler asked me if I ever got one-itis anymore or felt extreme excitement for a girl I met.  This was an interesting topic for me, because just yesterday I saw a post from my one-itis talking about her "big day."  I checked out her profile for the first time in years and found out that she's pregnant and getting married.  I felt no jealousy or bitterness, and actually felt very glad that I wasn't the one going down that road.  I also felt myself comparing her to women i've dated since then and it made me feel extremely fulfilled about my path through learning game and the progress i've made (since obviously now the women are way hotter and younger than her).  I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel some dull amount of closure from learning the information, but it was more like the closure you'd feel when someone dies whom you knew but not enough to get upset about them dying, only a little sad (if that makes sense).  Afterall, the old me has been dead for awhile and the man that's here now is a genuinely happy and fulfilled one, so i'm happy I got to experience it.  

I told Tyler about this and how nowadays I don't really get a feeling of excitement with a girl until I realize that she's got a great personality and that we have great chemistry together.  Even then the overwhelming feelings of elation that I used to get for a girl are long gone and i'm guessing will likely never return.  At worst if I feel feelings coming on, I quicky and automatically put myself in-check and come back to reality.  Tyler talked about how he can sometimes still get those types of feelings from a girl, so I'm hoping that perhaps i'll feel that way again sometime in the future.  

My better judgement tells me that the feelings of "love" or new love that happen when you meet someone new and are excited about them are simply often coming from a place of infatuation.  They're unfounded.  The reality is that often a guy builds up the woman he's about to date a huge amount and then when she reciprocates feeling (even in some small way) it causes the built up feelings of the girl to turn into simple infatuation, in other words a "crush," or hope that the guy can get the girl he doesn't believe he could ever get.

In my book an experienced guy doesn't have these feelings as much, his love instead grows slowly through time and communication on a common ground with his woman.  Furthermore, was she really a girl he couldn't get?  I believe that a buildup-turned-infatuation or "crush" is a naive thought that's simply a function of a scarcity mentality.  Obviously it hurts the man's chances with the woman, and if the relationship breaks before the man takes the woman off the pedestal he has put her on, then a one-itis situation results and the man's left only to try harder (and fall harder) with his next woman as a result.  

Is all this true?  Well it's my hope that i'll experience huge emotions in the future towards someone i've formed a pair type bond with, but my guess is that the "young love" types of emotions are short-lived among couples that end up together.  I've never yet talked with a guy who has been married 5 years or more who has expressed continued feelings of this nature.  Instead a different type of love grows from the connection the two build with each other over time.  BTW, I'm not trying to put this out there as gospel, i'm simply trying to write it out the way I think about it right now.  I'm not above being wrong by any means, and I suspect my opinion on this could grow or change in the coming years.  

Aside from the whole one-itis and love talk, Tyler and I discussed some things we've been saying to women lately and the theory behind them.  Tyler told me that one thing he's been saying lately to women is something like "Kill yourself and go to hell."  I tried it on a girl with mixed results, and then we talked about what Brad P calls my "harder than hard" game, which is essentially very close to what he was doing with that comment.  The idea is that you say something straight-faced to a girl, and the thing you say is so harsh that it can't possibly be true, so it has to be you teasing her.  It's confusing to girls for a few moments until she laughs, you laugh to release the tension, or she gets really offended and takes it seriously.  All three are great results in my book, the first two for obvious reasons and the last because any girl who takes crazy stuff like that seriously is supporting her negative world view and is best not invited into your life.  

All in all, I tried the "kill yourself and go to hell" thing and it was okay, not great.  However it not like i've done it nearly as much as something like "Listen, I think actually you're a really terrible person and I think you probably make anyone's life worse just by talking to them.  It's okay though, I think you probably just had a really bad family and a terrible upbringing."  I guess I like to draw it out as long as possible with a straight face just for my own personal amusement, even though both things are right on the same track.  

Another topic we discussed was coaching and whether or not doing demo approaches for your students during a workshop was a necessity.  I talked with Tyler about how I recently taught a 1-on-1 and had a student who had trained with an instructor whom he hadn't seen demo.  Being the stickler I am on who I choose for mentors (I absolutely MUST know the person i'm learning from is wildly successful before they can gain my trust), it surprised me initially that an instructor wouldn't demonstrate his skillset to gain the trust of the student and to help them learn.  

Tyler brought up a good point that the result that the student has from the workshop is of the utmost importance, and if a student sees a great improvement as a result of the training, he'll know that his instructor was in fact good and the lack of a demo wouldn't necessarily matter.  For me, watching Brad demo was one of the most important things for me to see maybe ever.  It gave me a tangible goal and a model for game to follow, so I am forever a believer in doing demos and you won't ever be getting a first training with me without seeing me demo. 

Summing things up here, it's always a great thing to bounce ideas off of your peers and seeing Tyler was no different last night.  If you're a guy going through a one-itis or you seem to fall in love very quickly, try and be a little more reasonable about the view you've got of a girl when you meet her.  Understand that if you're with her for a long period of time, the overwhelming feelings of love won't likely be there and instead you'll find love through day to day ritual and the connection that you form through effective communication, both in the bedroom and outside of it.  If you haven't yet tried saying some crazy negative stuff to girls, it's time to cultivate your ability to keep a straight face while fucking with a girl.  Ideally she'll be confused as to whether or not you're telling the truth, and that confusion and tension release will create some great attraction for you.  Give both his line and mine a try and see what you think, and if you still can't get it right i'd be glad to demo it for you :)  As always good luck and keep meeting women!  A fulfilled life awaits those who work for it. 

1 comment:

  1. Great insights. I can see how that might work with the right tonality- like you said. That'd be fun to test out. I think some the most fun I've had is testing and failing with new material.

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