Development, Other, PUA Theory - Saturday, December 26, 2009 16:11 - 4 Comments

Lost at Intermediate

Great post on a forum recently from an intermediate skilled guy about feeling “lost” in the community.

“There is plenty of help for newbie. Where I see a lack of help is in the middle. If you can open, get numbers and even follow up, but you just aren’t able to get past that final hump and be successful with girls, where do you turn? The only advice I have seen is go open more sets, learn to calibrate and yet that is no magic bullet for a lot of guys. The other thing I hear is ‘hire a coach.’ But most of us don’t have that kind of money, or we’re not sure it’d be worth it.”

There are a couple reasons for this. First of all, it takes far longer for an intermediate guy to become advanced (1-2 years, if not more) than for a beginner to become intermediate (6 months or so). So because the transition is far longer, it’s much easier to get frustrated at a lack of development.

But another part of the problem is WHAT intermediate guys’ sticking points are. Beginners need to focus on the fundamentals, opening, good conversation, escalating, etc. This stuff is VERY easy to teach, and is very clear-cut, easy to measure, so it’s quite easy to learn for anyone who puts in the effort.

Intermediate guys almost ALWAYS fall into one of two categories of sticking points: lack of calibration/lack of experience or inner game issues.

Intermediate guys are basically guys who have the basic skills down, but they still don’t feel like they control their results, or get consistent results. This is either because they’re uncalibrated — i.e., they don’t know precisely when to use each skill or how much to use — or they have some sort of belief system that’s sabotaging them somehow or deep-seated emotional issue that’s preventing them from attaining their goals.

Unfortunately, the ways to fix these sticking points aren’t really anything you can find in any single forum post (unlike something like body language or fashion). Resolving these sticking points is often complicated and unique to each specific guy and his situation.

In the case of calibration, the solution is exactly what you complain about here: go out and do more sets and be mindful of what you’re doing and what works. Continue…