Is this going to let me post or am I going to be flagged as spam?

Ok dude, I have been reading you for a while. I spent a lot of years in Boston and thats how I got to know your stuff.

But I have to say man, I dont know what youre complaining about. You live an extraordinary lifestyle. I doubt youre extremely wealthy or anything like that, but you dont work a shit 9-5 and you basically get paid to go out.

You mentioned “getting older”…youre not that old though right? Arent you like mid to late 20s? So much game left man, seriously.

I have always liked that fact that your posts are well reasoned and thought out. But I honestly think you are thinking too much at this point. It sort of sounds like youre over pickup. Well if thats the case, then maybe you should shut it down for a while.

This shit is FUN, man. Just a point, maybe if you are thinking more in terms of “emotional needs” then you just need a girlfriend and need to leave the game.

I dont think anything you have said is unreasonable, however I have to say that as a reader I come here to hear stories about the game. Not saying that you have to give a shit about what I want, but Im just saying thats probably why most people read your stuff.

Contrasting some of your recent posts to somebody like Sinn, I mean that guy is in 100% and doesnt show any signs of wavering or fatiguing. I sort of feel like if youre in, you gotta be in 100%, and if youre not, you gotta do like your boy Doc Holliday did and just hang it up and dont look back.

One last point man, maybe you just need a change of pace. I moved to the West Coast from Boston and it was one of the best moves I ever made for a number of reasons.

Fuck, just had an enormous reply and then accidentally deleted it. Ok I’ll try to summarize. Edit: summarize fail.

1. The reason I used celebrities/ public figures is because you and I don’t know each other. I can’t say ‘my friend Jack’, because you don’t know anything about Jack! But that’s ok; I think using public figures/celebrities is pointless, because how well do we really know them? They do have some purpose though; if you were surprised by Tiger Woods cheating, then obviously you lack the ability to analyse a person on the most basic level. Quick side note to the world: that should not have been a shock to you!

2. As DFW says: what you worship defines your reality. The community worships beauty, not needing the approval of any woman, and being ’self-sufficient’. If you spend enough time in it, you will inevitably adopt that mindset, at least to some degree. Guys like Brad P, whose whole life appears to be centred on PUA, is so defined by those beliefs that he cannot possibly see his own misogyny. I read his ‘diary of a PUA’ and in it he describes coming on a girl’s ass in an alleyway, and then laughs at how she doesn’t wipe the cum off before pulling up her pants and going back to her friends. If the fact that he would decide to tell the reader a detail like this, which can in no way have a positive effect on a guy’s game or mindset towards women, doesn’t disturb you, then you need to remind yourself ‘this is water’.

3. If you do not believe that there are guys out there who would not trade up in the looks department, you will never find them, and you will never become one of them. These men are far and few between, but they do exist. They aren’t bugged by their wife of 20 or 30 or 40 years lack of hotness, and they probably would refuse to trade up in their looks department, because, and this will make all you seasoned pussy-crunchers vomit, ‘I love her the way she is’. My first girlfriend, the only girl I’ve ever loved, was only a ‘6′ or so, but I was perfectly happy with her the way she was. Now you can take the community viewpoint, and say that I was suffering from one-itus. You can argue that I was only happy with her looks because I didn’t believe in myself to get anyone better. Or you can say ‘this is water’, and see that some guys are truly happy with their girls. They DO NOT care about them being any hotter. Sure, if you offered for the next girl I fall in love with to look like Miranda Kerr, I would happily say yes. But while I was with the girl I was in love with, my response would have been ‘no, why the fuck are you asking me that? I want my girlfriend to look like herself, not Miranda Kerr’. Again; if you do not believe these guys exist, you will never find them, and you will never become one. You will meet these guys, but you will find reasons to burst that bubble. You will tell yourself that these guys are not truly happy, that they are settling, and that you know better. This is the attitude of the community in general. In our not so secret world we know best. Ours eyes have been opened to the reality of the AFC. We see men fawning over women and think ‘what a loser’. This happens so often that what eventually happens to us is that we develop the hammer and nail mindset. We see every non-community guy’s relationships with women as unsuccessful, and as proof of their beta-ness. And we always know the solution. So then when we finally do meet a guy who is in a loving relationship with a not so attractive woman, we look for reasons why he can’t really be satisfied. He has self-esteem issues. He’s self-deceiving. He needs our help!

One more time, because I’m an insistent dickhead, but also because I really really believe this: If you do not believe these men exist, you will never find them and you will never be one of them.

I don’t say this because I’m a know it all arsehole who thinks he knows better than you, but because I think you’re one of those guys out there fighting the good fight, and I really hope you come to agree with me.

4. I don’t know about Steve Pavlina. To be honest, the guy seems so bulletproof it’s impossible to know exactly what to think of him. He’s mentioned the PUA community in the past, and he says he’s generally quite against it, for a few reasons. There are the obvious ones, like that it’s misogynistic, and that it’s full of bad advice for the majority of guys who don’t need to be sold all that crap to make small simple fixes to lead a successful love life. Nothing new there. His strongest point against it is that he favours direct communication with women, rather than going through a longwinded flirting process. This is an interesting point about the community, especially as people have begun to favour direct game recently, but again, I don’t think he has anything new to say on it.

The thing is, when you reach a level of success like he has, there are inevitably going to be people trying to tear you down. Now perhaps what you’ve heard is true, and he does have confidence issues with women, or secretly desires to sleep with a whole lot of women, but thinks that would look bad to his readers.

What I’m saying is that from reading his blog over many years, I’ve never sensed any incongruency with what he claims to desire with women. Of all the blogs I read, yours and his are the two that I trust the most. You both are open with a readers in a way that some other bloggers attempt to be, but don’t achieve, because they aren’t really willing to let their weaknesses show.

When I read the post a while back about how you didn’t care that your girlfriend was a ‘7’, I sensed that wasn’t completely congruent with the truth. I’ve never felt that incongruency reading his blog. Don’t worry, I don’t think i’m some fucking sensai, it’s very easy to be completely mistaken over the internet.

I think the only way to really figure out how legitimate a guy like Steve Pavlina is if you actually get to know them, or at the very least meet them in person. Which is exactly what I intend to do later this year, when I attend one of his workshops in Las Vegas. Now, like I said before, I don’t know exactly what to make of a guy like him. I’ve spent enough time in the community and on this earth to know that most people are easily sucked in by the claims of someone with a strong frame. I expect that there’ll be a lot of people who are there just looking for someone to follow. So I’ll be sure to bring a healthy dose of cynicism, and if you’d like to hear my opinions of him then, I’m sure they’ll be pretty strong as a result.

On a final note, how much longer are you in Boston? I’m moving there in mid July, probably for about a year (I decided to come to the states, and despite it’s 3 awesome sports teams, and a couple of years of reading your blog, I only settled on it after rejecting 2 or 3 other cities). I’d love to get some one on one training before you leave, or if you return some time over that year. You still coach as much as I ever I assume.

Ok, so I just reread your post for the third time before posting this, and I feel like I didn’t give you your due.

“Like I said earlier, as I get older, the more I value things such as intelligence, personality, energy, humor, etc. and the less I value looks (despite my standards going up). And I imagine one day it’ll become a non-issue. But as for now… I’m entering my prime as a male. I’d like to try and find the best of all worlds if possible.”

That’s fair enough. I won’t delete what I wrote above though, because I feel it’s something that needs to be said more.

Also, I totally understand the whole desire to be understood issue. Honestly, the only women who have come close to truly understanding me were friends that I was never attracted to. I’ve always had high standards for my girlfriends, and I’m talking intellectually (triple degree student), physically (ex-cheerleader), and in terms of creative genius (Fine Arts degree). However, none of them properly understood my motivations, dreams, passions, etc, and I reached limits in my relationship with each of them because of that. That’s ok; I still think there are plenty of women out there who can do that for me one day. I just doubt I’ll find them in a bar at 2 am, and if I focus too much on the idea of them being beautiful as well as everything else, I’ll probably end up passing over some amazing women, who I only dismiss because of a part of my ego I never tried to get under my control.

@Reader: I don’t want to seem like I’m crying about this or complaining about my life. As we say in the community, “this is a high-value problem.”

But you’re right. I’m way over the “fuck 100 chicks and glorify it” phase of PUA. I left that phase behind about two years ago. It definitely has its place, but I haven’t been there in a long time, and the guys who stay there, in a sick way I kind of admire it, but I also don’t think it’s healthy in the long-term.

As for hanging it up, I would have 1-2 years ago except two reasons: 1) it’s my job and livelihood, and 2) I really think the PUA community could go much further and is really in its infant stages of development. I’d like to be a part of bringing it to a more mature, healthier and happier realm of learning for men.

@Eros: All solid points. I should clarify, I didn’t “hear” that about Steve, I’m just saying it could be true for all you know. I’ve never met Steve, and I’m sure he’s a phenomenal guy in person as well as on his blog. But you have to always, always remember, no one is bullet proof, and no matter how honest him or I are on our blogs, you’re still only getting a snippet of who we are.

As far as coaching, I’m planning on being in Boston through September and am still coaching. Shoot me an email and we can talk about it.

I don’t have anything to add to this discussion but I just wanted to say that I admire both Entropy and the commentors for keeping things civil and respecting each other’s views. This is one of the few PUA sites I visit anymore due to the high quality of the content here. Thank you everyone.

Just to say I second what H3x. I REALLY appreciate this about your blog Entropy – and you have some really good respectful posters which add to what you write…

Looks like I have a lot of catching up reading to do from this week!

If life is about self-development, it sounds like you might have more to learn by being a good partner to someone who isn’t your ideal, rather than someone who is. The gist I get from these two posts is that you’re looking for someone to make staying with them easy, and someone who affirms your worldview. That just seems a bit lazy to me.

As someone who’s been with someone who meets all of my “must have” criteria for over 4 years (we are both liberal, atheist Mensans with advanced degrees, vegetarian, animal lovers who don’t want children – both I’d say at least a 7 on the attractiveness scale) I came to the conclusion a while back that if I were ever actively dating again, my list of criteria wouldn’t be more restrictive, it’d be a lot more broad. Compromise is the single most important aspect of any relationship – and I think that goes not only for relationship maintenance, but choosing who to be involved with.

Great series of posts

Posting about my six pack… eat it

i cant take this serious…you are wierd entropy..wierd

This reminds me of this thing that I read on marketing theory. There’s optimisers, and satisfiers. Optimisers are the people that always want the best out of everything, that constantly chase improvement. Satisfiers are content with what they have. Consequently, the degree of happiness is higher in the second group.

In a way, a lot of PUA is the optimiser movement: improve what you have, get the best. Then, here and there, there are the voice that call to ‘be happy with what you have’, ‘be happy in the now’, ‘feel good about yourself no matter what’. It seems these two threads run parallel: optimise on the one hand while being happy with what you have at the same time.

Is it possible? My guess it’s an eternal balancing act, returning to satisfaction and departing to improvement cyclically and ceaselessly.

Really interesting Ben. I actually just read recently that the University of Chicago did a widespread study on happiness and found two things: 1) married men are on average happier than single men, and 2) single men who are not dating are on average happier than single men who are.

As a group of compulsive single male daters, we’re statistically one of the unhappiest groups out there.

[...] last few posts (here and here) caused quite a stir of debate. Both in the comments here, through email, and even on other blogs. [...]

[...] The Isolation Paradox,  The Isolation Paradox, Ctd., The Abundance [...]

Hey man, interesting stuff you’ve been posting lately.

I’m not trying to take a jab at you but I’d like to make a point that someone by the name of “onenatural” on a certain site that hates on puas wrote awhile back that opened up my eyes on this kind issue, why do you think you’re entitled to this calibar of woman? What makes you think you deserve this type of woman??

Okay so you want a chick who can match your wits, understand you’re world and also be arm candy, well maybe you don’t deserve that kind of girl, maybe you haven’t done enough or will never do enough to get a girl like that, maybe your not good looking enough or don’t make enough money etc to have that kind of woman.

Again not trying to take you down a peg or whatever, its just something to think about.

I can relate to a lot of what you’re saying Entropy.

It’s really hard to figure out if I’m being too picky when I’m 80% sold on a girl that I know I’d have been 200% sold on 3 years ago.

I agree with you on so many levels.
I steer clear of having one-itis now, but there’s something I’m curious about. I haven’t encountered this before. I love beautiful girls and love to be seen with them, but lately there’s this particular girl who’s not that pretty, but her…sexuality and intelligence make a really great mix and we have almost perfect chemistry, and I’m kind of torn if I should pursue her or the other HB 8-10 girls (I’d rate her 6).. I’m new to feeling this way. Usually I wouldn’t even think about it and instantly go for the other HB 8-10 girls. Shes kind of different and I cant believe I’m writing this, cause this means she really does have an effect on me. haha. shit. she’s even got me chasing her. bloody hell.
I am usually “shallow” as some may call it, I mean, I appreciate a beautiful woman…
This relates to your post because…even though I am presented with <HB options, I am more curious about what "emotional" perks this one could provide my life with. Could it be a real emotional connection?

PS: is gagging while writing this a bad sign?

Haha… it’s fine. Yeah, it’s shallow, but I think part of being a single guy and definitely a part of being in the community is to condition us to be a bit shallow.

First off Jay, I’ll give you the same advice I give every guy who is starting to feel some serious emotions for a girl: don’t force anything. Whatever it is, let it play itself out naturally. If you find yourself wanting to see her every day, then do it. If you find yourself not caring about other girls you’re seeing, then stop seeing other girls. If you get sick of her and want to go bang someone else, then do that. If there’s something legitimate there (and it sounds like there may be), you’ll naturally just want to spend all of your time with her.

And to answer your question, in my experience those “emotional perks” outweigh any hotness by a mile. When I met my last girlfriend, I was dating a model (super hot) and this girl who ran track at her school (ridiculous body). My ex was cute, but not very hot… a 7 at most, not as hot as the track chick and DEFINITELY no where near the model’s caliber. But the way you describe this girl is exactly how I started feeling — mindblowing sex all the time, chemistry through the roof — whereas a lot of girls I wouldn’t even sleep over at their place half the time, I found myself staying up to 5am with her just talking and goofing around together. I’d find the next day I wouldn’t want to go home… and it scared the shit out of me at first too.

Anyway, I ended up dating her for two years. She probably doesn’t even crack the top 50% of hottest girls I’ve banged. But those two years were some of the happiest I’ve ever had. I wouldn’t trade a single day back.

I say go for it.

I only recently have stumbled upon your blog. It is one of the most interesting, well write out blogs on PUA and the community in general. So long have I struggled with girls to the point it was embarrassing. For the past 6 months I have turned to confidence building first, working on more inner game, and now I am seeing great results. That adds little value to this particular thread, and for that I apologize.

What I did want to discuss is the power of the subconscious mind. I am currently working/searching websites for NLP and other subconscious efforts to improve habits. Also, this has brought me to believe in finding what my subconscious wants by using techniques and exercises. One I can figure that out, I believe I would be able to find the girl that meets the needs of my subconscious (attractive enough, intelligent enough, dealing with habits) and meeting half way with my conscious thoughts (much of the same). I highly recommend you all try these techniques too, it has made a great improvement in my life.

I am not pegging for any websites or anything particular, simply a suggestion that many can benefit from.

“I’ll be 100% honest. I loved my ex to death. But her looks was something I never completely got past. It wasn’t a dealbreaker, and I obviously didn’t ever raise it as an issue or bring it out. But it was like a constant itch that pestered me. I do have abnormal standards and pre-occupation with physical beauty. Part of that may come from my job. Part of it may just be the bi-product of the amount of my experiences. But as time goes on, my standards in that department only go up. And as much as it hurts to say this, one of the primary things I’m looking for in my next girlfriend is a large upgrade in that department.”

- Mark “Entropy”

“The hottest girls rarely make us the happiest.”

- Mark “Entropy”

lol, nobody asked you…