Another week, another mailbag. This week’s mailbag is that of “guys with problems we all wish we had.” As always, post your questions in the comments section here or email them to entropy@practicalpickup.com, pick up related or not.

I totally agree with you that being physically imposing can be a big drawback once it comes to kino’ing. Being 6′, 220 lbs. at only 5% bodyfat, I get lots of looks and compliments from girls, and well honestly, gay guys and bisexuals too, on how I dress or how I look, but I have trouble escalating on sets that I open myself (as opposed to the ones who come to me) for the reasons you described. Do you have any tips on how to escalate as someone whose advantages are always getting in his way?

- Anonymous

OK, everyone all together now, “Aww, you’re too good looking, YOU POOR MOTHERFUCKER!”

There, now that we got that out of the way. The answer to your question is easy, based on the rules of passive/active attraction (which I lay out in the “Personalizing Pickup” series).

You’re overvalued. You’re trying to build attraction and get sexual when your look is already attractive and sexual. Therefore you come across as if you’re compensating for something.

What I recommend is to run 90% comfort game. Compliment girls more. Tell them you find them sexy. They’re assuming that you hook up with girls constantly, so they need to feel special or unique before they fuck you (or at least most of them will).

Hey Entropy,

I’m having a problem attracting women that I don’t find attractive. I’m in my late 30’s, pretty good-looking for my age and very successful. The women I attract tend to also be in their thirty’s and honestly, they’ve kind of let themselves go. What should I do?

- Jason

Date younger women. If you don’t want a committed relationship and want women who are in great shape, why the hell are you dating women in their 30’s? My guess is you have some sort of limiting belief concerning your age. I have a friend who is 49 and dates women in their mid to late 20’s. It should be no problem for you if what you say is true.

Time to ditch the hotel bars and hit the night clubs.

Is 5 supposed to represent the median girl, or the average one? Because the ugliest girls are far ugly than the hottest ones are hot. So that would mean the median girl must be significantly hotter than the average.

- Aaron

This is what I never understood about the 1-10 scale. For the vast majority it breaks down like this: 10 = ungodly hot, 9 = really hot, 8 = I’d do her, 7 = I’d do her, but I wouldn’t be proud, 6 = only if I’m really drunk and desparate, 5 and below = ugly with varying degrees.

This never made sense to me. This is another reason I recommend guys raising their standards, to have 2/3 of the scale dedicated to girls you’re not interested in seems silly. What ends up happening is you get guys debating with themselves whether she’s an 8.5 or an 8.75.

Here’s my scale:
10 = doesn’t exist except for on magazine covers and in Photoshop.
9 = A model.
8 = Super hot, the hottest girl in a nice club on any given Friday night.
7 = Hot, hottest girl in a regular bar on any given Friday night.
6 = Attractive, but not going to cause any car accidents just by walking down the street. You’ll see maybe a dozen of these on any given Friday night out.
5 = Cute, but nothing you’d be too proud of.
4 = Have to be really drunk.
3 = Ugly-but-has-potential
2 = Ugly-but-no-potential
1 = Vomit-inducing

And a side-note for all the self-righteous “You shouldn’t rate girls” assholes. I don’t care if you have a binary scale, a 1-4 scale, or a 1-52 scale, it’s all arbitrary. Answer the following question: are some women more physically attractive than others? YES! Then whether we distinguish that with a 10-point scale or a 2-point scale is completely arbitrary and not even worth arguing.

And no, just because we rate women’s attractiveness (something that every man on the planet has been doing since adolescence) doesn’t mean we’re “de-valuing” her in some way. My girlfriend is a 6.5 on my scale (8.5 on most guys’ scales) but that doesn’t mean I treat her as a 6.5. Some of the hottest girls I’ve ever gotten with were shitty people. Were they still 9’s? Hell yeah, they were.

OK, end rant.

Hey Entropy,

Can you escalate too quickly if your goal is an LTR?

- Skulder

Great question! I teach in my relationship management seminars that you ideally want to have sex with a woman AS SOON AS POSSIBLE because it gives you the widest available options as far as where to take the relationship. So you would assume the answer is “no.”

Well, surprisingly, the answer is “yes,” but to escalate too quickly you have to escalate at lightning fucking speed.

If I had to estimate, having sex with a girl in under an hour of meeting her will nix you from her “long-term” potential. Anything under 30 minutes, no question. I don’t know what it is, but when you hook up with a girl exceedingly fast, it’s like she almost doesn’t even feel like you’re real. I noticed this last year when I was getting a bunch of 30-second make-outs, the kissing would end and then there’d just be this awkward moment where the girl felt like she was in a dream or something and we had nothing to say to each other. It’s the same for fast bathroom pulls… afterward is just a horribly awkward experience.

I suppose theoretically it’s possible, but in general, the slower you escalate, the more you sub-communicate LTR expectations, the faster you escalate the less you do. In my experience, the cut off would be around an 30-60 minutes.