Righteous Seduction: Redemption for Nerds, Unappreciated Nice Guys, and Captives of the Friend Zone

RIGHTEOUS SEDUCTION

Redemption for Nerds, Unappreciated Nice Guys, and Captives of the Friend Zone

by Rainbow Albrecht

Copyright 2015 Rainbow Albrecht

Smashwords Edition

Dedicated to William Shockley, the inventor of the transistor.

The great question, that I - despite my thirty years of study of the feminine psyche - have never been able to answer, is What does a woman really want?

- Sigmund Freud

Obligatory disclaimer: By reading this book, you agree to the following terms. This book is opinion, social commentary, and entertainment, not professional advice. Consult a professional for any decision requiring professional advice. The author advocates discretion and good judgment, and does not recommend or condone illegal or unethical activity. That being said, the reader's actions are his own responsibility, which should already be manifestly obvious. The author disclaims liability for negative outcomes resulting from the reader's choices, including but not limited to getting drinks thrown on him, restraining orders, lawsuits, criminal charges, deportation, Congressional censure, shotgun weddings, and making an ass of himself. Further, the author disclaims liability from third parties, because what a person chooses to do is his own responsibility resulting from his own free will, not something he read in a book. Go forth and be righteous.

Table of Contents

Part 1 - Theory

I. BRIEFING

Introduction

Why seduction?

Women love sex

General considerations

My struggle

II. THE BATTLE PLAN

Odds and ends

The sexual economy

Marketplace disparity between the sexes

Why women don't chase men

The Fundamental Dilemma

The changing dating scene

How it all went to hell

What went wrong

Thoughts and philosophy about manhood

III. BASIC TRAINING

Perceived shortcomings

What women want and how to get there

Putting your best foot forward

Hit the weights

Diet: your favorite four-lettered word

Fix your life

Outcome Independence and more

Approach Anxiety and Bitch Shields

The numbers game

The four pillars of success

Chick Logic

Part 2 - Dangers

IV. THE MINEFIELD

The much-maligned Nice Guys

It's just WRONG

Out of their league?

The Friend Zone and its malcontents

Retreating to safety

The Kiss of Death

The Preemptive Strike

Marching through the minefield

Avoiding the minefield

The alternatives to being nice

V. CLUSTER B(OMBS)

Sheer lunacy

Diagnosing the deranged

A Caveat or Warning from the 17th Century

Exit strategies

VI. COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Flakes

When she's not a she

Other red flags

VII. WMDs, IEDs, STDs

16 gets you 20

Don't let 'yes' become 'no' retroactively

That burning feeling isn't always love

I feel like a broken typewriter

Part 3 - Action

VIII. RECONNAISANCE

The wrong way to interact with women

Shit Tests

Tips for the first date

Tips on conversation

Considerations other than dialogue

Should you admit to reading this stuff?

Quick troubleshooters

Don't be 'that guy'

IX. SITUATION MAP

Compatibility

Where to meet women

Online dating

Dating at work

The forbidden lisle of Lesbos

Exotic dancers

Women who are already seeing someone

X. TACTICS

The parable of the Game

Calibration

Pickup lines

Routines

Framing

Demonstrating High Value

Cat String Theory

Negging

Parting shots

Direct Game

Push-Pull

Defeating Bitch Shields

IOIs and IODs

State

Time Constraint

Cocky / Funny

Peacocking

Social Proof

Kino escalation

Obstacles

Anti-Slut Defense and Last Minute Resistance

Part 4 - Maintaining

XI. STRATEGY

Relationship types and a word on ethics

Quality is better than quantity

Poly want a cracker?

The Golden Unicorn

Poly drama

Polyamory in the final analysis

XII. SWEET VICTORY

Lighting bedroom fireworks

Nut'n Raisin Honey: good only if a breakfast cereal

The new drug

XIII. THE GOLDEN PEACE

LTR dynamics

Conflict in relationships

Endings

Holy handcuffs?

Marital bliss, not blahs

FINAL NOTES

Last but not least

For further reading

End blurb

I. BRIEFING

Militiae species amor est.

- Ovid (1,981 years before Pat Benatar)

Brave looking for love is like brave going on warpath.

- Chief Tall Pole

Sharing the human experience, men and women have a tremendous amount in common. Yet we differ in many ways, especially concerning romance and sex. Companionship is something both men and women desire; nobody likes to be lonely. This common goal should make things easy, but the reality is far from it. There is a tremendous and confusing variety of literature about dating and relationships, though much of it is out of step with the times. We naturally try to do whatever will work - but what if much of the advice we've heard is dead wrong?

Introduction

If you ask a woman what she desires in a man, usually she'll say that she wants a nice guy who is romantic, sensitive, a good listener, always there for her, and treats her like a princess. However, men who exemplify these attributes the most are like a knight in shining armor in the middle of a tank battle: noble, chivalrous, and quite likely to get shot down. These alone don't put you at the front of the pack, and are certainly counterproductive if taken too far. We're in a state of cultural confusion and shifting values, and the time-worn romantic advice and old-fashioned courtship strategies that worked for generations aren't nearly as effective these days. What would have been a fine way to ask for a date to the 1959 sophomore sock hop might not work so well any more.

One fairly new sub-genre of dating material concerns seduction, of which pickup artistry is a subset. This is geared specifically towards men, and what differentiates it from other advice is that it takes a pragmatic, goal-oriented approach and is unafraid to make politically incorrect observations. This goes a step beyond John Gray's insightful Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. For example, it explores Chick Logic in depth to delve into this Fundamental Paradox: why the types of men women say they want are often the opposite from the men they actually choose, despite any considerations of who will be any good for them or even treat them decently. Another thing that sets it apart is that it works!

These observations and new perspectives happen to be quite controversial. Society has changed greatly in the last fifty years, and the dust has yet to settle. In the current social scene, the cards are stacked against average guys. I will explain why, but for now, one major reason is that they don't know what the real rules are in a game where protocol is critical. Thus, the study of seduction is a game-changer, just as the automobile was a disruptive technology. (A century ago, the horse traders and buggy makers surely weren't too happy about the Ford Motor Company!) Most men are unwittingly relying on a very outdated rulebook, placing them at a steep disadvantage in the game. Correct information would help level the playing field, thus it threatens the status quo. Much of the criticism of men learning seduction basically amounts to this:

You were told to act super-nice, always be attentive, listen to our problems, cater to our every wish, and woo us with flowers, poems, and gifts. Because that got you nowhere, now you're trying to figure out what we really want so we'll stop ignoring you, and also discover why we like bad boys so you'll give off that vibe without actually being bad. But that's cheating! You're not allowed!

It's rarely stated quite that honestly, of course. Just remember: knowledge is power!

Let this book be the Promethean torch of enlightenment. Here you will find the truth, but be aware that some of the things you discover might challenge some deep-seated beliefs, or even be shocking. Some facts are counterintuitive, like the one I just mentioned. You may well disagree with some of this - all I have to say is, if you've been getting great results with what you're doing, then keep at it. Now you have a decision before you. Either take the Blue Pill, stop reading, and return to the lowly place set aside for you on the social totem pole - or take the Red Pill and read on to learn how the game really works.

The missing pieces

Seduction literature has been around for a while. Ovid began the genre in 2AD with Ars Amatoria - The Art of Love. The language is quite flowery, replete with mythological references that are a bit obscure to us these days, and it has a few glaringly bad pieces of advice. Still, if you can get past that, it is a classic and does have some good tidbits of wisdom. The first modern guide for the perplexed came in 1970 with Eric Weber's book How to Pick up Girls! That introduced a few of the game principles known today. From these modest beginnings, the discipline has been picking up steam while it matured over time. The new perspectives are often quite enlightening. Still, even the best usually has huge gaps.

There is much focus on how to meet a woman - often in a club scene - and close her (get her phone number, kiss her, or take her to bed). Far less is said about what happens the morning after. Also, there is hardly anything about potential pitfalls other than time-wasting situations; some of these dangers are quite serious. With a few notable exceptions, there is a general lack of material on how to maintain a healthy and satisfying relationship, which is unfortunate since a Red Pill perspective on this matter could be quite beneficial.

Some of the literature seems to have an unwritten assumption that getting laid is everything. I certainly wouldn't deny that sex is great, but there are three problems with focusing on that alone: first, one needs more than that for a balanced life; second, random hook-ups are emotionally unsatisfying; and third, even if all someone wants is sex, then being in a lasting relationship is a potentially unlimited source of it!

Finally, much of the existing material - though certainly not all - suffers from a flaw which in a few cases is fairly severe. From a casual reading of the literature, some of it seems just a bit too mercenary. One might even come away with the impression that a few of the writers don't like women very much, except in bed. They have a right to their opinion, but that perspective is somewhat off-putting to many who have a more cheerful outlook, and less than helpful to those who seek a more nuanced methodology. Women are awesome, and I love them. They are fun to be around, they are beautiful (sometimes breathtakingly so), they have the power to create life, and they're not shy about asking directions when they get lost.

To qualify this, individual women have their flaws just like men do, of course. More accurately, most women are awesome. I will discuss the ones you should avoid: time-wasters who want to make you their boyfriend-without-benefits, the neurotic who thrive on drama and chaos, gold diggers who only want a piece of your assets, those who are decent people but simply aren't compatible with you, and so forth. My descriptions will be hard-hitting. Still, although my cynicism comes out from time to time, I never lose sight of the fact that the rest are awesome.

Quality varies in this new genre, as it does with just about everything. I certainly wouldn't discourage you from reading the better materials in seduction literature. There are a number of excellent guides which go into further depth on some items than I do. Yet the varying schools of thought are sometimes rather dogmatic, and some of the advice can be contradictory between them. I have a synthetic focus, in contrast to others with a conceptual framework. Also, much seduction literature teaches lines and openers and Routines - there are countless ones out there - but a dynamic approach which is more adaptable to differing circumstances is better. Further, this has a broader scope with subjects that are seldom explored. Although I will draw on the acquired wisdom of the seduction community, in many cases I will go further.

What you will and won't find here

Let me state up front that this book is not any of the following:

Not about quick fixes or gimmicks. Looking for the one golden ticket is the wrong approach; there are countless ways to screw up, and you might have to fix a lot of sticking points. There are some easy solutions here and there, especially if you've been doing something very wrong. It's true that many men need to unlearn a lot of outdated advice, misinformation, things that only work in Hollywood, as well as unproductive thought processes. (Many Blue Pill notions amount to the same level of ignorance as believing in the Tooth Fairy.) Still, this is easier said than done sometimes, and there's more to it than just that. I won't say Just be yourself; I will tell you to strive to improve yourself and stand out.

Not a formula for instant success. I'm not going to give you a few magic words to get models into your bed; if such a thing existed, I'd keep that secret to myself! There's no getting around the fact that finding suitable partners is hard work, especially for guys. Getting good with women will take a while, but this will be worth it. Learning to do it the right way should get you better results than what you have now, saving you lots of time and effort.

Not a three week plan to go from a forty year old virgin to someone who makes rock stars jealous. Learning skills to the point of proficiency takes lots of practice, and mistakes will be made, especially in the beginning. Allegory time: if you see an investment book promising 50% annual returns with no risk, then someone is trying to separate you from your money. I'm going to be realistic. I can't guarantee extraordinary results, but my perspectives should take you in the right direction. Of course, if the day comes when a rock star eats his heart out after hearing about your social life, so much the better. If you do happen to be a forty year old virgin, I'm there for you, bro, read on.

Not a How to Bang New Chicks Every Week guide. If that's your style, fine, but everything here about maintaining a healthy relationship will go to waste. I take the balanced approach. Involuntary celibacy sucks, especially those long dry spells, but a string of meaningless hookups isn't the point either. I am very sex-positive, going a little further than some; it is serious business, and deserves due respect and even reverence. Emotional intimacy adds another dimension to the physical pleasure, and the synergy is awesome. Having a vibrant social life is where it's at, ideally with a steady girlfriend (or possibly more) who you love or at least care about. That's the direction I prefer to take you. So this isn't specifically about how to become a pickup artist, though you can do that if you like. Instead, it draws on their collective insights which are necessary because the modern social scene has changed and old-fashioned dating advice is obsolescent.

Not something that will definitely get you that one special lady finally to start seeing you in a different light. I might be able to help, and I do cover those sorts of situations, but it's certainly not a sure bet. I have an even better idea - start looking for several better options.

Not politically correct. Be warned, some of my harangues could make heads explode. Sacred cows will be barbecued; they make the best hamburgers.

Not a scholarly monograph. Although I have studied some psychology, I don't have any professional credentials. So sorry. I'm writing extensively from my own observations and experience, so this will be heavy on anecdotes and light on academic studies. There is plenty of theory here, but if you want a book with lots of citations from peer-reviewed journals, survey results, charts with regression lines, or extensive digressions on evolutionary biology, then feel free to cut me a check for a research grant and I'll come up with a second edition.

I've made some assumptions about my audience. You're likely of above-average intelligence, and - like so many of us - can use some help developing a vibrant social life. Further, you're interested in high quality relationships, preferably long-lasting. Also, this is geared toward men who like women. This is largely because I'm writing from my own experience. Even so, a woman certainly may be able to get some things out of this; if it lets her understand things from a male perspective, or helps her land a lesbian date, then may she have fun with it. For all the missing pieces, well, you ladies have Cosmo, right? As for gay guys, some of this may be useful, though their dating situation is different and I don't know enough about it to be very helpful. Also, I'm writing from the perspective of the American dating scene, because it's what I know. This is likely to be fairly applicable to other Western countries as well, though less so in other parts of the world. If you're in Bangladesh, I'm afraid I just don't know how it rolls over there. You'll have to wait until Roosh Valizadeh comes out with Bang Bangladesh for specific advice. I'm not making assumptions about skill level, though. Some things may seem obvious, which I'm including because many guys need a lot of help with this.

Finally, I especially deal with the problems faced by the Nice Guys of this world, a demographic that seems to be not much better understood than yak herders who like disco music. There is particular focus on the Friend Zone dynamic, commonly afflicting them and causing a tremendous amount of despair and wasted time. To date, this is one of the most extensive treatises out there on the subject, perhaps the most of all. I address how these situations come up, what to do about them, and how to avoid them in the future. If you've ever wondered how you can get taken seriously by women even though your prudent life choices didn't leave you with a drug habit or lots of prison tattoos, then read on. You don't need to compromise your principles - and you shouldn't. Likewise, you don't need to learn how to method-act a silverback gorilla. What you've done so far probably hasn't been working too well. I will teach you something better: the way of the Righteous Guy.

Why Seduction?

Many men are learning the methods of seduction for one reason: the dating scene just isn't working for them. The rules have changed throughout the last several decades, and there hasn't been any official whitepaper or press release explaining the New Era's rules. Men especially need information that is practical, effective, and comprehensive. Just as military technology has evolved - you can't defeat a tank with a sword, or even Civil War era artillery - the social environment has too, necessitating new tactics. The Old Era methods of courtship that worked for centuries sometimes still will get results, but all too often, they get you nowhere. An average guy these days with no game is not too different from someone bringing a knife to a gunfight. If you're not as well-prepared as the competition, you'll get shot down pretty quickly!

Humans have by far the most complex courtship ritual on earth, one that can play out in innumerable ways. In fact, this makes for entertainment, such as RomComs and many chick flicks. (Penguins have only one good movie.) Unfortunately, Hollywood stuff doesn't work too well in the real world. Neither does outdated information, such as folk wisdom unchanged since your grandparents were in grade school, for instance women love it when you're super-nice and do everything they want, you will only be able to get her after a long courtship, and all you have to do is just be yourself. (There are quite a few social guidance films from the '50s about dating, gender relations, etc. People watch them now as entertainment because they're often pretty corny.) An even worse category is outright disinformation - women don't like sex, you're not allowed to start a conversation, etc. If you're relying on incorrect instructions, you're at a great disadvantage in navigating this ritual successfully.

If you set out to accomplish a certain goal, but you notice time and again that the methods turn out to be as productive and enjoyable as repeatedly banging your head into a brick wall, then quite naturally you're going to look for a better way. This is what many men have realized they must do. So far, the seduction community has had to take on the role of explaining the New Era's rules, which had to be discovered in the first place through considerable research, observation, and field testing. Like Newton, I stand on the shoulders of giants. I've done some research of my own, and will introduce new knowledge to the field.

The terminology problem

The word seduction is a bit unfortunate, since it has a rather tawdry ring to it. For some, that may conjure the image of a home wrecker, or a dastardly rake corrupting and abandoning an innocent maiden, and so forth. If you've internalized negative connotations like that, it's time to get rid of them! I use seduction in a neutral context. Since good personal ethics is important, I don't recommend becoming a cad or recklessly breaking hearts. The word seduction connotes leading astray, but really, there's nothing inherently wrong with adults having consensual sex. I'm using the term because it's well-recognized. I could instead speak of non-traditional dating advice for men, but that's not too catchy and would fail to acknowledge the seduction community from which it originated. They've done men a world of good in illustrating what the real rules are after the sexual revolution.

Pickup artistry is a notable subset of seduction - most exemplifying modern methods, Outer Game, and rapid escalation - though unfortunately it has a good bit of baggage too. Even the phrase picking someone up doesn't always have the most positive connotation, though again, we'll consider this in a neutral context. Also, the artistry part makes it sound too easy. Although pickup artists do better than average guys because they know what does and doesn't work, even the most experienced ones get shot down quite frequently. (It also helps greatly that they understand they can't let it get to them.) Further, PUAs go clubbing every day that ends in a y and aren't exactly known for steady relationships; not everyone is that much of a party animal. You certainly could do that, but you also could learn what works for them and use it to your advantage to acquire more serious relationships too. It's all up to you.

Other than that, seduction skills are sometimes called game, though this has less of a serious and specific connotation than I would like. Mystery (Erik von Markovic, the guy in the fuzzy hat) came up with Venusian Arts, which is the most positive of all terms for the human courtship ritual, though unfortunately it is little known to the general public thus far.

However you think of it, always remember that there's nothing wrong with having natural desires, or acting on them in an ethical way. None of that is sleazy, neither is there anything wrong with a woman who acts on her desires too. It's time we got rid of all this Victorian prudery. Finally, it will trip you up if you go into an interaction with a guilty mindset when in fact you're not doing anything objectively wrong.

What seduction is not

Seduction has received lots of bad publicity, much of it ignorant. There are many misconceptions that must be addressed; I'll take on a few here. Perhaps you're a bit apprehensive about reading this, or maybe even feeling vaguely guilty. You might wonder, isn't seduction manipulative? I describe how to understand what women want and respond to, not how to be pushy. This isn't manipulation, unless someone creatively redefines the term to include any form of persuasion. (That redefinition, by extension, would turn all advertisement, religion, political debate, and even public service announcements into damnable dark arts.) Moreover, having sex with someone is a highly personal decision completely within that individual's sovereignty, so manipulating someone into bed would be pretty much impossible, short of outright coercion such as blackmail or Stockholm syndrome. (I certainly don't recommend anything like that.) You also may have heard critics describe seduction as something sneaky, unethical, disrespectful to women, or all about meaningless promiscuity. None of this is inherently so, and in fact it shouldn't be. Let's put all this to rest once and for all. Seduction is a set of applied social skills to get you a relationship, anything from a hookup to a marriage. As such, it has no more of a good or bad moral value than a hammer, knife, or screwdriver. It's what you do with it that counts. Learning this skillset is no more immoral than getting help to pass a math course. Is it cheating to read a book about algebra, watch Khan Academy's YouTube presentations, or get a geometry tutor? If your love life is something you need to get help with, then by all means, get it.

Actually, a seducer is just someone who has learned to be good at quickly initiating a well-received, flirtatious conversation with a woman; and a pickup artist is someone who does that quite frequently, often while clubbing. The common suspicion is that they're basically sorcerers who have learned some forbidden type of black magic - that notion says many things about modern society! The truth is that it has nothing to do with wizardry.

Seduction is not mind control; anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you a book. (So am I, of course, but at least I'm being honest here.) Lonely guys are desperate for a golden ticket, and surely some are so utterly frustrated that they'd be tempted to think about resorting to sorcery, but that's just not how it works. The closest thing to mind control that seduction literature offers basically amounts to dropping hints subtly. That alone wouldn't do very much, if isolated from the other Red Pill insights of seduction; it would be like a vanilla cupcake with sugar sprinkles if you took away the cupcake. It would have zero chance of piquing interest in anyone who simply isn't into you, so the ethical implications are a non-issue. All that said, I'm not going to dwell on delivering an evocative double entendre, because there are far more important fundamentals to cover.

Also, seduction is not coercion; you're not getting anyone to do anything she didn't agree to do, or didn't want to do. Neither is it about being sneaky or unethical. There are those who have the impression that seduction involves telling a bunch of lies. I don't recommend anything like that, because a relationship built on deception won't last and will only leave hurt feelings. Lastly, it's certainly not about taking advantage of someone - this is about creating a great time, and hopefully an awesome relationship, for both of you.

What seduction is

So what is seduction then? Our ostensive definition for this context is: the skills used toward initiating a romantic relationship. (This is, of course, also useful for initiating a hookup, though many people will want to take it further into a relationship - which I do recommend - be it brief or long term.) The basic fundamentals include the following:

How to get the confidence to put yourself out there, even if bad past experiences have made you so shy that even the thought of talking to a woman fills you with dread;

Improving your appearance to make you a hotter commodity;

Self-improvement to make your personality more attractive, make your conversations more interesting, and make you a better person overall;

Insights to understand what women want, so that you can become more appealing;

Knowledge of what women don't want, so you can avoid turn-offs such as acting needy, desperate, awkward, frightening, unpleasant, etc.; and

Tips on navigating the social scene, along with its thrusts, dodges, and parries of dialogue.

Those who consider seduction to be sinister have some major misconceptions! If not that, they have some sort of problem with men trying to be more successful with women. (What's the matter with that, anyway?) In fact, all of these fundamentals are the basis of any good, comprehensive seduction literature out there, despite differences between the various schools of thought. Actually, a man who dresses well, or a woman who puts on makeup, or anyone who takes care not to use offensive language - all to improve their chances with a potential partner - are already using some very basic game principles.

In short, seduction is how to put your best foot forward, get yourself toward the head of the pack, overcome any obstacles, and spark reciprocal interest. You're trying to maximize the likelihood that someone will give you a chance and get to know you, as opposed to blowing you off in less than a minute of opening a conversation. Naturally, the decision is hers as to whether she wants things to proceed further. Seduction certainly is a two-way street! If she wants more, then the object is for both of you to share an awesome time and create fond memories.

Actually, seduction isn't limited only to men. Women tend to be pretty well-versed in several aspects of it, way ahead of us in some areas. (How many guys do you know who spend an hour or more on his outfit before a night on the town?) Many women are quite good at it. An unscrupulous one might become a gold digger. Another might use her skills to have suitors falling at her feet, bringing gifts, and doing free favors for her, all for the futile hope that she might choose one of them at some future time.

For a historical example, it's pretty clear that Anne Boleyn - one of the most famous social climbers in British history - gamed Henry VIII as proficiently as a top-rate modern pickup artist. Again, I disapprove of home wreckers, but you get the point. Rumors around court and not producing a male heir set the stage for her ultimate downfall, but forgetting to tone down the Negs after she became Queen surely didn't help. (To be fair, she didn't deserve her final fate, and I might add that her daughter Queen Elizabeth was truly awesome.) A similar thing happened more recently with Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson. The ending wasn't ideal - he had to abdicate the throne in order to marry her, due to public opinion and other considerations - but at least no heads got chopped off this time.

What's all the fuss about?

Perhaps you've noticed sort of a cultural bias against guys who learn seduction methods. The stereotype is that they're all a bunch of geeks and their pursuit of pickup artistry is laughable. For instance, I recall reading someone who said that she'd never date a guy who had a copy of The Game by Neil Strauss (a journalist better known as Style in the seduction community). Of course, that's just a bit harsh. It's ignorant too, since - despite a good amount of practical information - it's not really one of the many how-to manuals such as this one, but rather an autobiography and at the same time a biography of his friend Mystery through a couple of very interesting years.

Actually, learning seduction is a good way for a guy to stop being maladroit. If he puts it into practice, internalizes it, and does the introspection that normally accompanies this process, then he will be transformed. Let's turn it around - if a woman wanted to learn how to overcome crippling shyness and become more attractive to men, is there anything wrong with that? Is she just supposed to get used to being lonely, accept her lot as a wallflower, and eventually die all alone? Hell no!

This prejudice originated partly with the general bias against male sexuality: some comes from sex-negative interpretations of religions, and more lately from radical feminism. (One of the latest feminist causes du jour is denouncing the injustice of slut-shaming. Go figure.) I'm certainly not one of the silly people who say that we live in a Puritanical society; anyone who thinks so should listen to the radio, watch some movies, or turn on the TV. What we do have is a culture that celebrates sexuality, but you're not supposed to celebrate it too much. Cool, huh? Some might doubt this bias exists, but it's real. For instance, a woman buying a vibrator is considered sexy, but a man buying a blow-up doll is considered strange - at best. Also, a man going to a strip club is a dog, but a woman visiting the local Chippendale's is adventurous. (For the record, I disapprove of sexually oriented businesses on social and economic grounds, but it's not because I have a hang-up about nudity.) The attributes that would make a woman be considered vivaciously friendly, coquettish, or sexually empowered are the same that would brand a man as creepy - a word worse than the condition it describes. There are nasty names for women who are too sexually provocative according to someone else's opinion, of course. However, in practice, women get quite a bit more leeway for that.

Of course, this bias against male sexuality is a flagrant double standard, and it's quite silly where it comes to stereotypes about guys who try to improve their game. For instance, magazines make quite a bit of money selling periodicals geared to women that include romantic and sexual advice, including the perennial favorite "How to make your man do X for you". Likewise, many paperbacks with similar fare come out every year, and some become bestsellers. Actually, seduction literature isn't too much different from this fare, beyond methodology and stylistic differences. Finally, how many men out there refuse to date women who read Cosmo?

Another part of the prejudice against men who learn seduction includes the bias against people trying to rise above their so-called place, or station in life. This is similar to crabs pulling back their buddies trying to escape from the fisherman's bucket. It's the same phenomenon that causes some to snicker with Schadenfreude as they read stories about people who win the lottery and lose their fortune in a couple of years. (Not everyone who unexpectedly comes into a lot of money has the expertise to manage a portfolio, the financial street smarts to avoid scams and lousy investments, and the resolve to fend off the hordes of long-lost friends and relatives who inevitably come out of the woodwork with hard-luck stories.) Apparently, in some people's enlightened opinion, so-called geeks should never aspire to transform themselves to become dashing and popular. Basically, they want people like you to stay lonely. I say they can take a long walk off of a short pier; then they can be crabby at the bottom of the ocean where they belong.

A final objection is that guys who learn seduction are just bitter, or some other unpleasant noun or adjective. That's an argumentum ad hominem fallacy, of course. Setting that aside for a moment, the social scene certainly isn't too kind to average guys, most especially those who have absorbed a lot of incorrect information about how the dating scene works. Are we supposed to be happy about it? A better way of considering men who learn seduction is that they've identified a problem that needs fixing, and are acquiring knowledge to do something about it. Whether or not you've been burned in the past, there's nothing wrong with trying to get better with women.

It's always a learning process

Look at it this way: interpersonal skills are skills (obviously), and like any others, these things take time and effort to learn. Some folks may seem to be naturals at any given thing, but let's qualify this. People do have natural aptitudes for certain talents, but - for example - nobody picks up a guitar for the first time and starts playing like Eric Clapton or Manuel de Falla. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. If someone learns the guitar as a teenager and keeps at it, then with lots of perseverance and a little luck, he could become a rock star as a young adult. However, if someone never gets into music early on (or worse, gets booed off stage mercilessly at a high school talent show and lets the experience get to him) then he basically will have to start from the ground floor if he decides to pursue music later in life. Likewise, nobody dips a brush into paint for the first time and comes out with the equal of a Rembrandt - not even Rembrandt himself on his first attempt! All good writers produced amateurish prose or derivative fan fiction before hitting their stride. You may be a first-rate software developer, but on your first attempt it likely took an hour or two to write a hello world program. The Red Baron crashed and burned a few planes during training but later became a flying ace. (All the natural seducers out there crashed and burned quite a few times too!) Long ago, a young, skinny kid nervously stepped into a gym for the first time: his name was Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The skills needed to initiate and maintain romantic relationships are really no different than any of these. One doesn't come into the world knowing how to properly navigate a Shit Test, for example, or disarm a Bitch Shield. The naturals one hears about either lucked into an approach that worked for them early on, or at least had some very good role models to emulate or clue them in (a popular friend, older brother, or cool dad), and then got in lots of practice during their teen years while the rest of us were quivering with Approach Anxiety. So, by all means, go forward and don't let the naysayers choose your reading material.

Women love sex

Men only want one thing - you've heard that one before, right? I'm going to let you in on a little secret, something that is very good news for you. Women want it too! Perhaps you might doubt this, if you've been shot down quite a few times, listened to preachers denouncing the sins of the flesh, or ever been forced to read Andrea Dworkin (or others of that ilk). Well, I have news for you: women do get horny like we do, and they love sex! As Ovid put it, Man is a poor dissembler; woman is much more skillful in concealing her desire. Although so much has changed so rapidly, that one's still true two thousand years later!

Even though they're not as fast to arousal as we are - which is an important thing to remember - they have as much fun as we do, and usually more. Most women get really overwhelmed during sex, especially during the climax, which many can reach again and again. For us, it's a great time; for them, it's ecstasy. If you're doing it right, many will shake and scream, sometimes even see colors. Three of my girlfriends sometimes got such sensory overload that their vision faded out completely in the throes of passion. I've never heard of guys getting literally fucked blind, to put it a bit bluntly. Men love sex, but women take it to another dimension! There's a reason why it's called making love. You're creating joy and bringing it into the world. It is good to do that often.

If you have absorbed the idea from sex-negative feminists, blue-nosed ministers, or garden-variety prudes that this is some kind of chore that they patiently endure for us, this isn't so. Neither is sex a reward that you have to earn through some quid pro quo or another. It's a free gift, and should always be treated as such. (It's axiomatic that a relationship sucks if sex is reduced to a mere bargaining chip, used as a reward or withheld as a punishment.) Also, desiring sex doesn't mean that they're immoral or bad, or any number of nasty terms. Rather, it means they're normal. Experiencing sexual desire is natural for both men and women, and it is no more reprehensible than wanting a glass of water on a hot day. Sex is supposed to feel good; it's Nature's way of motivating us to propagate the species. If women didn't like it, then humanity would have died out half a million years ago before it got off the ground floor - or perhaps, more accurately, before we quit swinging through trees and got on the ground floor.

Some guys suffer from the good girl / bad girl dichotomy, something also known by other names. This involves classifying women into two categories - virtuous ladies who are wife material, and sluts. This false dichotomy is rather unfair to the fairer sex, and you should banish it from your mind if you suffer from it too. The truth is that character traits are on a continuum, and liking sex doesn't make anyone - male or female - a bad person. The vast majority of the population exists because their parents joined together in mutual desire - this probably includes you, even if you might prefer not to think about the details. Your sweet grandmothers who like to bake you cookies became your grandmothers for a reason. You can trace your genealogy and find lots of ancestors who were virtuous and pious ladies who had many children - surely they were doing more at the farmhouse than churning butter. It's all good, really - this is how you and all your ancestors before you came to exist. The desire women and men have for each other is the force that produces children and thus moves society forward in time. Sex is awesome!

Sexual desires are normal and natural, something that the vast majority of the population - male and female alike - experiences from adolescence onward. For that reason, you should never be apologetic about having natural desires. It's nothing to be ashamed of, either for a man or a woman. I might add that there's no contradiction in valuing someone as an individual and - not to put too fine a point on it - wanting to fuck her brains out. Sex can and should be a beautiful thing. There's nothing dirty about it, unless we irrationally choose to make it dirty.

Although women love sex, most of them are pretty shy about admitting to that. That's because of negative social programming, which is unfortunate. Even when a woman is horny and wants to get her toes curled, she's not allowed to express that too openly. They really don't want to be considered sluts by other people; it's the equivalent of a guy who is deemed creeeepy. The difference is that women do a better job of holding back their desires, and that's not really an option for men since we have to show some interest to get anywhere. Note that this must be displayed at an appropriate level, one of the reasons why approaching them can be pretty dicey; how you do so makes all the difference.

We're going to have some difficult topics to discuss, but I want you to bear in mind all throughout the fact that women love sex. Let this also be comforting thought whenever you have a bad night out on the town. Someone else out there is going to be a lot more appreciative of you!

General considerations

It's time to get out a pen and some paper, guys. First, think about what your goals are. Now write it all down. Different people are looking for different things in their love lives. It might perhaps be one of the following:

Seek out a virtuous, marriage-minded woman

Look for a long-term girlfriend

Have a main girlfriend and a couple others on the side

Date casually and see what develops

Lose your cherry before you turn forty one

Now, think about what type of women you'll be looking for. Make a list of the attributes you consider desirable. I know, you want someone who is hot. Everyone does. That's cool; you like what you like. Suppose, though, you find a perfect 10 and she turns out to be a royal pain in the neck. (When she said she was bi you thought that was great until you found out she actually meant bipolar.) Suppose further that her goal is never to work a day in her life, and your intended role is to bring home the $$$ so she can afford shopping sprees, a maid, a nanny for any future kids, and of course her shrink bills. Not such a great catch any more, is she?

I'm not saying that all beautiful women are like that. The point is, you'll want to have some other selection criteria in mind too! Physical attractiveness is all well and good, but you might also want some more things, perhaps including the following:

Intelligence

Stability

Character

Work ethic

…and so forth. Give some thought to what other characteristics are desirable to you, and how important they are (want-to-haves versus must-haves). These attributes are on a continuum and will all fit together into a matrix of overall compatibility. Realistically, some compromises will have to be made. Not too many people have actress looks, scientist intelligence, yogini stability, saintly character, and industrialist work ethic all at once. So decide what compromises can be made, and what can't. There are quite likely some other important attributes you have in mind as well besides the ones above. Personally, I'm not too hung up on looks, but the exception is that redheads really do get bonus points with me!

Also, you'll want to assess what sticking points you have. Too shy? Not sure where to meet women? Conversations stall out? You want to be better in bed? Go ahead and write all this down. Start thinking about what you can do about it. Later on, we'll be covering these, and many other concerns you might have, so keep them in mind.

Finally, write down a synopsis of your dating history. It doesn't have to be too digressive like mine is below, but enough to give you some food for thought. That, too, will help make sticking points stand out, understand where things went wrong, and know what to do about all that.

My Struggle

No book on seduction would be complete without an autobiographical section detailing the author's rise from frustration to abundance, and far be it from me to break tradition. The heading is a shout-out to an aspiring impressionist artist. Like me, he was a classical music fan, notoriously hard-headed and opinionated, suffered from unrequited love with a pretty girl in his youth (Approach Anxiety was a huge problem for him then, much in contrast to the bull-headed audacity of his later executive decisions), and struggled to get by economically in young adulthood. He certainly could be a dick at times, but even his many critics will honestly have to admit he was a sharp cookie. After a big career change made him a celebrity, he had women falling all over him. He was a prim and proper type, though, and chose one lady who stood out from the crowd. He was influential in the beginnings of an automobile company, had a keen interest in civil engineering and urban planning, and was a backer of important aerospace technology, though these - and especially his art - were overshadowed by the ups and downs of his career.

Junior hell

I remember junior high quite well; my fellow classmates of most blessed memory excelled in maturity and courteousness. I was in the band all throughout those loveliest of bygone years, and the band director was a shining example of the very best that humanity has to offer.

I played little league football for two years. I wasn't the best, as at the time I was pretty skinny, and being a good linebacker has a lot to do with mass. The physics lesson was hammered home especially efficiently by the biggest kid on the team, who always could knock everyone backwards - for me, this was typically five feet, or ten feet if it was raining. So, I ended up warming the bench quite a bit. On my last game, we were losing so badly that the coach let me off the bench as defeat was a foregone conclusion. I spared my team some further humiliation by making two critical tackles, which was actually the height of my football career, so at least I had some potential.

In seventh grade, I saw an Apple ][ for the first time, which was a career-making epiphany. In eighth grade, another epiphany happened: girls went from being boring and mostly insufferable to being absolutely gorgeous and mostly insufferable. It was a sudden change, about like flipping a light switch, opening up to me a fresh and exciting new world of torment.

After I had served my sentence and was released from junior high, that summer I came pretty close to getting a real girlfriend. I got a brief but memorable makeout session, but that's as far as it went. My parents strongly discouraged me, since they considered her to be throwed off. (True, but well-adjusted fourteen year olds aren't too common.) I had just turned fourteen myself and wasn't in a good position to tell my folks to take a hike, though many others that age would have. How could life have been different if things had gone further? Would I have never lacked confidence in my early years, or perhaps would I have been regretful that it didn't mean as much as it should have? Still, it may have been for the best; later I found out that Girlfriend Zero suspected she was pregnant, possibly from her stepbrother (that was a little odd…) Had I taken it all the way, I could've been designated as the father if it hadn't been a false alarm. I wasn't too upset at the time, and I bear no grudges; she really did like me despite ulterior motives. Even so, it could have been an unimaginable mess if she really was pregnant and I had fallen for the oldest trick in the book.

After that, I figured at the new penitentiary, with a fresh batch of inmates (best of all!) I should be able to find a girlfriend before too long, perhaps within a few months. So… how did that work out?

Hell school

I made a dreadful mistake when I entered high school. That is, I continued my musical studies and joined the marching band, going the distance all four years for the sake of bull-headed persistence as much as anything else. Where I live, football is a religion, and I should have heeded that. I discovered a little too late that the jocks were practically the objects of worship. Sometimes girls cooed over one or another of the football players, Ooh, he's got musssscles! (Not only did they have a decent gym and coaches to show them the ropes, I have plausible reasons to believe that some of them were on steroids even at that age.) As for me, I was now a band fairy, and for half the school year, we served the jocks at pep rallies and games. In retrospect, it all seems so clear now. I was still skinny, unlike most of the football players, but at least I could have tried out for the team. I didn't dislike the jocks, as I counted some as friends, and I had played little league football with a few of them earlier. Still, in a school where status was everything, I should have seriously considered joining their ranks, even as a second-stringer.

Further, I was into things deemed uncool. In a perfect world, there would be no social penalties for being interested in advanced academics or harmless hobbies and pursuits. However, as perhaps you might be aware, high school isn't exactly a microcosm of a perfect world! To make room for an elective pre-calculus class, I went to summer school to knock out a required health class, and also typing so that I could work a computer without having to hunt and peck at the keyboard. Only a true nerd sacrifices a summer vacation for that! I miss having three months a year to kick back… Also, I took both of the programming classes offered; though it turns out I knew most of it already from self-study. (This was back when a personal computer was almost a luxury item, a 10 megabyte hard drive was an extravagance seeming like an endless vault, and a 1200 baud modem was the equivalent of a gigabit fiber optic Internet connection today.) I took four years of foreign language. My studies helped my later academics and professional career, and also enabled me to travel abroad without having to get by on gestures and dumb looks, so it wasn't a total bust. I also got interested in my ancestral culture, and along with it, philology. As a cunning linguist, I had consonant shifts figured out by 11th grade. I knew vowel shifts happened, though I didn't develop a consistent theory and had to wait for college to find out about Grimm's Law and the others. Also, I was into electronic circuit design, and perhaps I could have ended up designing guidance systems for Raytheon or Northrop-Grumman. I was heavily into classical music, much of the time scorning the popular music that everyone else liked as crap, especially early on. Actually, a lot of it was crap, but I shouldn't have tarred it all with the same brush. I was an avid role playing gamer during my high school days (especially Advanced Dungeons & Dragons), though not quite as fanatical as some.

In the ancient days, people were organized into tribes based on kinship. We still have the instinct to belong to tribes, even in modern times. In high school, these are cliques. Naturally, the magic sorting hat assigned me to House Nerd. This was, at most, 2% of the student body. We nerds may have been on the far right of the IQ bell curve, but we were at the bottom of the social pecking order, beneath the jocks, preppies (who I somewhat unfairly loathed on general principle), kickers (rednecks), and stoners. Fucking magic hat… I might have had some redemption if I drove a sports car, as did some of my fellow students with rich daddies, but all I had was a bike. (My father wasn't Daddy Warbucks, and he's a tightwad, though I'm not going to cry in my beer about it.) I did start to have some fun with it, though. Sometimes when a girl helpfully reminded me You're weeeeird! I would reply with a biting Nietzsche quote. Unfortunately, the full impact probably went over their heads. My later readings in seduction literature suggest that I was unconsciously on the right track with being unimpressed with the girls and not giving a damn about what people thought of me in general. At a place like that, though, having a Randian protagonist's refusal to follow the herd will just make the monkeys fling more poop at you. The refrain from Subdivisions by Rush is instructive. Perhaps some of this sounds familiar?

My mistakes in not trying out for the football team - the fast track to the in crowd - and not keeping my intellectual interests under the radar to please the ignorant made me unpopular in the status-obsessed high school environment. Thus, my love life was nonexistent. A worse than average case of acne sealed my doom a little further.

If all that wasn't bad enough, most of the girls at that age (in the harsh words of one of my gay friends) thought their vaginas were made of gold. Being on the periphery of the Bible Belt, the confluence of fundamentalist prudery and the Cult of the Golden Yoni made for a rather quaint synergy. Res ipse loquitur:

Me: Would you like to go to the dance with me?

Her: Get away from me!

Ah, what a sweet damsel! Her parents must have been so proud of the warm and charming daughter they raised. That brief dialogue stands out as symbolic of my high school experience. If I hadn't been a teenage atheist, perhaps I would have joined a monastery after graduation.

In another example of their fair and delightsome demeanor, some chick actually threatened to spread vicious rumors about me to ruin my chances with all the other girls, if I didn't kiss her ass. I didn't comply, I'm glad to say; that was an empty threat because my chances wouldn't have been much worse even if she convinced everyone I had AIDS or something. She looked me up on social media a while back and said hi. Maybe one of these years I'll get around to answering.

There were some exceptions; a fraction of the girls were not snotty and did not have egos the size of a hot air balloon. The foremost examples were a blonde perfect 10, a red haired cheerleader, a cute brunette, and a couple of skaters - all with sparkling personalities. They're all up there with Joan of Arc in my opinion. Unfortunately, almost all of the girls with good dispositions were already taken. So, in a high school like that, being a teenager awash in hormones was basically torture (as you might already know). It was like being in a parched desert that always had dark thunderclouds looming close by, with distant showers falling on other people's land, but nary a drop of rain for me. Eventually, my attitude became To hell with you all!

That didn't last. At seventeen, I fell in love for the first time. Unfortunately, she was just screwing with my head mercilessly, which took me far too long to figure out. (Years later, I found out from another of my classmates that she did that to quite a few guys.) I tried everything I heard you're supposed to do: poems, gifts, flowers… Take a wild guess how far all that got me! These days, I know why none of that works… I caught a bad case of ONEitis, a dreaded disease that caused me to believe that she was the only one for me. The first crack in the wall was when she got out her notebook right in front of me and ostentatiously practiced signing her name with her new boyfriend's last name. In fact, a couple of my classmates who saw that and knew of the situation were utterly disgusted with her. It got a bit worse, but