https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShSf1ex72lo
It’s actually a beautiful day at the beach, but we’re going to be deep diving into a very important topic of being more likable to girls versus unlikable. Deep diving this topic because you can come across as unlikable in very subtle ways you might not even be fully aware of, not even be fully conscious of.
Now many years ago, I was really interested in computer programming, programming video games but specifically what made a game fun to play, what made characters interesting. I was interested in fiction writing, why did The Lord of the Rings go on to sell millions of copies and be read all over the world, why did the Harry Potter series did so well. It wasn’t about plot and character development that made a story good and fun to read, fun to listen to, fun to watch.
I would read how to write fiction books that would teach you how to construct characters, how to construct plots, how to construct themes. I came across this one book that made a really interesting point about what made a villain a great villain, what made a villain a great villain that you just loved to hate, so to speak.
It made this observation that villains tend to be very intellectual. Villains tend to be up inside their head. They have plans. They’re manipulating people. They are also braggarts. They are perfectionists. They tend to have a stick up their ass. They tend to be judging of other peoples, so it’s kind of like this intellectualism in a snobbery kind of way, in a braggadocios kind of way.
If we take some famous villains like James Bond villains, what are James Bond villains famous for doing? What is the cliché? Well, James Bond is trapped. It looks he’s going to get killed. It looks like it’s the end of James Bond and the villains comes up and starts to explain to James Bond all of his sneaky plans, all of his intellectualism, and it comes across in a braggadocios kind of way.
Even though that’s kind of corny and sounds like a cliché, what do those scenes do? Well, they set up the villain as an unlikable character because it reveals the villain’s plan. It reveals that the villain is up inside his head. It reveals that the villain likes to brag. It reveals that the villain has overconfidence. It reveals that the villain looks down on other people. He’s judging other people.
Another example of a great villain would be the emperor from Star Wars. The emperor is manipulating people. He’s manipulating Luke. He’s manipulating Darth Vader. He wants Luke to replace Darth Vader. He’s built this technical superweapon based on science, the Death Star that is a picture-perfect image of perfection. It’s based on science. It’s based on intellectualism. The emperor thinks he’s better than anyone else. The emperor is kind of a snob. He’s distant. He’s remote.
Let’s contrast that to the likable hero, the likable protagonist.
I think a perfect likable hero would be someone like Harrison Ford playing Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones, unlike the villain, is just rolling with the punches. He’s a very free flow state. He’s not planning out how he’s going to win the day. It’s more like an obstacle comes and he figures out how to get past that obstacle in the moment. It’s not about winning through intellectualism or winning through his mind. It’s more like winning by taking action, winning by being resourceful, winning by being persistent, winning by never giving up, and just winning by free flowing through the obstacles.
It shows that the character doesn’t think he’s above anyone else. In fact, the character has a lot of foibles, a lot of flaws. Indiana Jones is scared of snakes, but he’s also kind of bumbling his way through. He kind of wins the day in spite of himself. He kind of gets in his own way. He is not feeling above other people. He is not trying to strive for perfection. They even show Indiana Jones as a professor like it’s implying he’s a really smart guy. He’s got the professor jacket on. He’s got the professor glasses. He’s writing up on the chalkboard, but it’s not to show off him like this intellectual guy. It’s more like to establish a plot point that girls are flirting with him, that girls like him. It keeps the free-flowing nature of Indy.
Another great character hero would be Luke Skywalker again from Star Wars. When Luke Skywalker is going to destroy the Death Star, he’s flying in his Tie fighter ship, he has to get the torpedo through the shaft exactly correctly and he has the sight. He has this targeting device machine coming up so he can target to get that torpedo through the shaft, and then you have the force voice of Obi-Wan Kanobi saying, “Hey, Luke, just relax. Let go of the machine. Let go of trying to plan things in the future. Just flow, flow with the light side of the force. Just let go of everything and flow.” That is a characteristic of a hero. Luke Skywalker grows from this farm boy to his guy who learns to let go, a guy who learns to go on the moment.
Another great characteristic of Luke as that he is doing it for selfless reasons. He just wants to save the princess. He wants to save the Rebel Alliance, and that is in contrast against Han Solo who is doing it for purely selfish monetary reward and Han Solo is almost kind of like an antihero, the guy more you kind of want to hate whereas Luke Skywalker, you just love that guy.
Another sophisticated example of a likable hero, a likable protagonist would be Dr. Strange from the recent Marvel movie. Dr. Strange starts out as this very intellectual surgeon who is just out to make as much money as possible. He’s fundamentally a good guy but he’s an antihero in the sense that he feels that he is above everybody else. He feels like he has intellectually superiority. He feels judging of other people. He thinks other people are beneath him. He wins the day by using his intellect.
But very quickly on in the movie he has this terrible car accident. He loses the use of his hands, and he has to start over from the beginning. He is reborn. He’s homeless for a while. He grows out his beard. Now he has to learn magic. He has to learn mastery through magic and learning magic is more about letting go. It’s more of a Zen art where you can’t just control everything and manipulate everything, manipulate people to get what you want. You have to let go of everything and then the magic will come to you.
Then he becomes more of an Indiana Jones character he’s almost getting killed throughout the movie. He faces obstacles and he just has to roll with the punches. He has to take one obstacle at a time because he’s a new magician. He’s bumbling around. He’s making all kinds of mistakes. Yet just through his perseverance, and self-sacrifice, and resourcefulness, he still manages to squeak through the day.
Another example of an antihero would be Sherlock Holmes in the BBC television show, Sherlock. Sherlock is really up inside his head. He’s all intellectual. He’s striving for perfection. He blatantly looks down on other people, thinks he’s better than other people.
How do you make that character likable? Well, you have to introduce someone like Watson. Watson is the other half of Sherlock. Watson is the character that is relatable. He is likable. He is not particularly an intellectual. He just goes with the flow and he wins the day just by being resourceful, just going with the moment, being present in the moment, not planning ahead, self-sacrificing, not judging other people. Watson is kind of like the other half to Sherlock and makes Sherlock morel likable and makes that character work.
Now guys who get into pickup and are interested in this kind of technology, they’re usually coming from scientific backgrounds, engineering backgrounds, computer backgrounds like I was a computer programmer.
What I love about computer programming was that you really have to focus, get up inside your head, and be a perfectionist essentially because if you had like one semicolon off, it could break the entire program, but you have complete control and you could get the computer to output exactly the result you wanted. I would take mindset. It’s a very great mindset by the way in the sense that companies want to hire guys like that. That’s how you make the big bucks, that’s how you succeed in the capitalist world, right? But I want to take that mindset and apply it to girls.
The problem is that then you see the girl as like this program like you just go up to the girl and you’re going to be like, “Beep, beep, beep, hit the buttons to make her react the way I want. Use this technique. Use this technique. Then use this technique, get the output that I want because I have a particular objective. I want to look cool in front of my friends. I want to get laid. I want to make her smile. I want to make her laugh. I want her to become my girlfriend.”
I see the girl as almost getting in the way of my objective. I’m selfishly manipulating her to reach my selfish objective and I just see her as a number like you go up to 10 girls, you might just see them all as numbers. It kind of loses its humanity because you’re just programing this girl to get a result that you want. That is a characteristic of the villain. That is a characteristic of the antagonist.
Another trait the guys have when they are starting out is that they tend to be very perfectionist. They tend to be preplanning everything like, “I want to say the exact right thing. I want to say the perfect thing. I want to have the perfect line that’s going to get the perfect result from the girl. That’s going to get the perfect reaction from the girl or the reaction that I want. I want to know exactly what I’m going to say ahead of time. If she’s going to say this, I’m going to say that. If she’s going to say this, I’m going to say that.”
The hero doesn’t do that, right? The hero takes obstacles as they come and once he’s in the obstacle, then he figures it out just by being resourceful, trusting in himself to say the right thing or say the wrong thing, it doesn’t matter. But he just lets go of it all. He doesn’t bring his game theory with him to the obstacle.
Another thing that guys tend to do is that they are very judging and they think they’ve above everybody else. They think they’re intellectually superior, again a characteristic of the villain. For example, “I read all these techniques about the game, and these other guys don’t know anything. I see the matrix now. I see how it all works. I’m better than these other guys.” Or, “These other girls the way they’re acting, they’re probably sluts.” Or, “This girl, she dyed her hair green, she’s probably a social justice warrior feminist bitch.”
They’re going around judging people, being very negative. That is the characteristic of the villain, of the antagonist, up inside your head, wanting perfection, wanting to manipulate people to get a certain result.
Caveat: it’s good to have goals. You definitely want to have goals, but your objective shouldn’t be like, “I want to get this girl laid and if she doesn’t react the way I want, I’m going to feel rejected, I’m going to feel pissed off, I’m going to feel angry.”
It’s more about having the objective in the moment, “I’m just taking action. I’m proud of myself for taking action.” Or, “I want to contribute value to this interaction where maybe I can give the girl some good emotions, or I can create more of a feminine-masculine polarity where there is more sexual tension. I can create that. and I’m not trying to rush to get to my objective. I’m going to get to know this girl for who she is. Get to know this human being, pick something out about her that I can appreciate. Maybe she’s particularly smart. Maybe she has a great posture. Maybe she knows how to dress. Maybe she’s funny. Maybe she’s interesting. Maybe she likes something that I like. I’m going to get to know her for that thing, appreciate that about the girl. It’s not just about using the girl like a computer program to get to something that I selfishly want. I’m going to selfishly manipulate her, and she’s getting in my way of getting what I want.”
It’s not about that, right?
You want to be almost like the Indiana Jones of Pickup.
One way to think of it is like you want to practice, have repetition so you can learn how to do things, you can learn all the techniques. That takes repetition. It takes field experience. But still go up to the girl and make her feel as if she’s the first girl you’ve ever gone up to. That’s the trick. That’s the trick to making it feel really natural and nice.
Being the Indiana Jones of Pickup is not be judging, not wanting perfection, allowing the little mistakes and the foibles and your flaws to make the interaction feel real. Going with the flow, just being in the moment, not trying to preplan everything, not trying to have everything go exactly your way. It’s like Luke Skywalker in the Tie fighter and you have the little targeting device where you’re trying to target to an objective. You don’t want that. You want to just let that go and go with the flow a little bit more, be in the moment.
Again you can have your intention, your focus that you want to create a man to woman vibe that’s awesome but not to have some objective where the girl is just a pawn to reach your objective like I want to impress my friends.
Those are the kind of characteristics you want to have as the hero. What’s going to happen is you’re going to come across as more natural, much more likable in subtle ways that can’t even be measured. If you take on the characteristics of being the villain like manipulative, after your objectives, and a perfectionist, and a braggart, and thinking you’re better than other people. The problem with that, I’m not telling you just to moralize like this is moral and this immoral, it’s more than that doesn’t work so well. You can still get laid off of that but it’s not going to be consistent.
More than that, it tends to be exhausting. The girl feels a little bit weird about it, but you will also feel weird about it if you’re coming from this negative place, it’s tiring, it’s exhaustive. But you’re also going to feel shitty yourself because on a deep, deep level, you know you’re not really bringing this other human being much value. You’re just trying to extract something from them.
It’s kind of like if you’re going to go around shoplifting from stores, you can make a little bit of money that way, but you’re not going to feel good about it. You’re not going to feel proud about yourself doing that and it’s going to make you feel shitty. If you go about game that way, you’re going to find the game is not enjoyable. It’s not fun. It’s tiring and you’re going to want to get out as fast as possible.
But take on the characteristics of the hero, of the protagonist, being the Indiana Jones of Pickup or the Luke Skywalker of Pickup, or the magician of pickup, just free flowing it, going home, studying, watching videos, doing all that awesome stuff, but then when you go out in the field, leaving it behind and just rolling with the punches, just going with the flow, taking massive action, achieving your results by being resourceful. Achieving good results by being persistent and consistent in taking massive action. You’re going to have a lot more fun and it’s just going to work better for you.
Okay, guys, quick shot of the beach. I just want to show you what a beautiful day it was.
I want to touch a little bit more on my personal story. I was a computer programmer back in the day, and I always approached conversations as very logical, like you just want to say as little information as possible, very curt, don’t need to get into any kind of fluff, very kind of guy logical programmer kind of conversation. I was very introverted, so even today, it doesn’t come naturally to me to see a human being as someone I actually want to get to know.
It’s more natural to me to think more in terms of I want something from this person. I have an objective. I’m going to manipulate them and press their buttons to get what I want and that usually doesn’t work out so well as compared to just being more gregarious and extroverted and sharing good energy, not seeing them as an adversary, but seeing it more as a collaborative effort of creating good feelings.
So every morning, I’ll spend about half an hour doing verbal exercises, verbal drills. It could be something as simple as doing associative verbal exercises or just working on maybe a topic that I want to talk to you guys, just to get my mouth moving, just to get outside my head, just to leave that perfectionism behind and being okay with making mistakes, just getting into that flow state where it just flows out of me and I can just blab and blab and blab and talk for hours and hours and hours. Just not running out of things to say, so to speak. A very important skill to develop, especially if you come from a background of being like an engineer or computer programmer.
Now there are people out there that are naturally gregarious. There’s people out there that are naturally extroverts. There’s guys that don’t need to do that. There’s guys that don’t need to watch this video. Maybe instead, they have trouble focusing. Maybe they have trouble going up inside their head and really concentrating on a topic for hours and hours at a time, and they need to work on building that muscle of focus and concentration and being intellectual or else they’re going to work the night shift at a Taco Bell. They have to work on their own things, their own deficiencies.
But the advantage you have over those gregarious extroverted guys is that they’re naturally going to get some results with girls. They’re naturally going to be somewhat attractive, so just being themselves, they’re going to get at least mediocre results.
The advantage that you have is that being yourself because you’re introverted and shy, or very logical in conversation, or kind of very objective goal-oriented, is that you’re going to experience a lot of pain when you’re younger. You’re going to experience a lot of rejection from girls. You’re going to experience a lot of loneliness and you can harness that rejection, that pain to create leverage for you to take massive action to practice that other side of yourself, to become that Indiana Jones of Pickup, to just go with the flow, go with that flow state, and be a cool guy in that way.
Whereas I kind of see being gregarious and naturally extroverted naturally kind of okay with girls almost like socialism so to speak like you’re going to be guaranteed to get some results but you’re never going to climb to the higher heights.
Whereas kind of being that engineer kind of guy that’s naturally awkward with girls, naturally kind of socially awkward, that’s more like the Wild Wild West of capitalism, of Darwinian capitalism where if you don’t take any action, your life is going to be miserable and suck and going to be lonely, but you can harness that pain to reach higher heights. You can harness that pain to watch videos like this to do verbal exercises, to do exercises that get you in the flow, that get you into the present moment, that teach you how to let go of control, let go of perfection, teach you not to be judging. Then you can become like the pickup equivalent of the CEO of Wal-Mart, or the millionaire, or the billionaire even by really working on those muscles. That pain can drive you to reach higher heights.
That’s the advantage that you have and you want to take advantage of that pain to harness yourself, to really run with it, really become an action taker.
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