Date older women :)

Great post:

http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2010/02/16/the-case-for-an-older-woman/

Hands off

I’m a bit exasperated still in a phase where I don’t want to use strategies to get something, and realising more and more that if I want anything to happen in this phase, I need to do the work on myself. That means identifying my deepest fear, and changing that underlying pattern.

I’ve been doing exactly that for the last four days in my NLP training, and it’s been quite confronting. I’ve also reached this point where I know what the deeper-lying issue is. This may sound dramatic, but my deepest, underlying fear and conviction is/was that I’m worthless.

Confronted with this, I’m not entirely sure yet how to deal with this. I’ve done some exercises and things that have transformed it, but my awareness of this deep conviction makes me slightly uneasy. Like a kid that’s been in the basement and the door is open, I’m never sure when it’s going to pop up and be awkward. I feel strongly for throwing him back in because I don’t know how to deal with him (yet), on the other hand I really want to deal with it.

If I don’t the only other option is refining my ego-structures, the strategies and mechanisms I use to hide my feeling of unworthiness. Becoming more skilled, smoother, getting more knowledge, getting status… I know it’ll get me my rational wants but will it ever satisfy me on a deeper level? So this is very confronting.

Will deal with this feeling for a while, see where it takes me to really confront it and accept it, transform it into something positive: I’m super worthy! That also means amassing experiences that affirm that belief. Keeping check on my negative feelings, accepting them and transforming them. Enjoying life! Which is hard when I feel this so close to my chest.

I’ve been moving slower with girls, but it’s frustrating me. I feel like being more agressive, even though I know it’ll also take me back to needing the confirmation to feel ok. I was having lunch with a friend of mine who’s built his life around this structure: he’s been together with his girlfriend for thirteen years now. They’ve had rough times but now they’re at a level where they can have a bad temper around each other, be themselves completely without fear. This gives him great security and confidence. This is what I, and a lot of you I presume, are trying to do by ourselves, without other person. It’s the hard road, a road that I’m cursing a bit right now But patience, positivity and persistence eh!

Check yourself

Some questions you may ask yourself when pondering the question why, oh why, aren’t you getting laid?

- Are you turning up at parties alone, with a gang of single dudes or with your crazy band of groovy brothers and sisters?
- Have you ever thrown a party that more than, say, twenty-five people attended? Did they dance, get drunk, and send you messages that it was the craziest party ever?
- Are you being invited to social events, and how often? By whom, close friends, relatives, strangers, your mom?
- Are you talking about ‘seduction’ more than you spend time jerking off?
- Do you even still undertake to talk about the act of seduction while going out? Kill it please – it’s not helping.
- Do you jerk off more than you talk to girls?
- Have you read more pages of material than you’ve talked to girls? I bet you have.
- Do you look and act like every other guy (even though in your head you though you were doing it different), or on the other hand, try so hard to stick out that it’s awkward?
- Do you delude yourself that that girl was checking you out? And more importantly, did you go up to her and ask her if she was?
- When was the last time you allowed yourself to talk to and like a girl without feeling you NEEDED to bone her or you’d be a total loser?
- When was the last time you had a relaxed, interesting conversation with anyone about something other than ‘social interactions’?

And so on – anymore of these? I love using these to check where I am.

xPR

Drop the backup plan

I used to be a proponent of the ‘Go fuck ten other girls’ principle. For me it basically implies – from a larger perspective than purely effacing your obsession with one girl by bedding as many other girls as possible – that you make sure you always have some kind of backup girl.

Let’s say you’re working on this one girl. You like her, she drives you crazy. It would suck if it didn’t work out, and that feeling is making you fearful and less effective and natural. What I used to do, is make sure I was also seeing another girl. Having another girl in the back of your mind does effectively alleviate a lot of the anxiety, and as such you can’t say much against the principle of having something in the back of your head that puts any undue anxiety you may be having about a particular situation in a more bearable perspective.

However; having a backup girl has the fundamental flaw that it is a shaky foundation. On the longer term, it means that your peace of mind in a certain situation depends on your relationship to your backup. Say you met a girl and with your backup in mind, you managed to stay calm and move forward. Then all of a sudden, your backup falls through. She doesn’t answer your texts, she has a new boyfriend, whatever. That’s right, your whole base falls through and you go right back to being outcome-dependent.

OK easy solution: get more than one backup! Yes again there is nothing to be said about the effectiveness of this strategy, and as I’ll tell you later it’s actually something that will be in your life even when you don’t actively pursue it as we are obviously doing in the situation where you ‘make sure’ you get some backup.

Here is the thing. Someday, somehow, your backup is going to fall flat on its arse. However well you structure it. It’s like those rainy Sunday nights where none of your friends picks up the phone. What I realised is that the strategy of having other girls as a backup for your peace of mind is flawed, as the ground it rests on is shaky.

So what other base could you have that is as effective, and that is rock solid? It’s yourself. The biggest point of growth for me lately is to finally get round to enjoying my own company, constantly. I used to do it occasionally and then let it slep again. But what gives you a really solid foundation is that even within a conversation you can turn back to that feeling of being all good, all by yourself. So you don’t need the conversation! It might be great, and very exciting, but you won’t feel lonely and dejected when nothing comes out of it. You still have yourself!

This process forced me to spend a lot of quality time for myself and shunning any form of neediness. It’s not easy, because these patterns are years old. And the replacement for that strategy, my natural way of being when I’m not trying to get anything may be readily available, it’s also rusty from ill-use. So I’ve had to get used to situations where I knew I could have done something better, but I didn’t want to use a strategy and I simply didn’t know how to handle it spontaneously. Without panicking or self-blame, I accepted the situations as they were and all of them turned out all right, even though they might not have been the fireworks they could possibly have been.

A very peaceful state to be in! And I am noticing with the strengthening of my natural way and complete independence of peace of mind, that people are becoming more attracted to me. Logical, I really love myself  As this happens, the true meaning of ‘being, not doing’ emerges again. Goals are directions, intentions that are there without you consciously having to strive for them. It’s in your aura: what you want is what you exude to the world, and the world gives you back. So for starters, take a look at what you’re getting right now: it could tell you something about what you are actually going for.

First blood

Just got home, I’m tired. Had a good time. I realise that what excites me most is great interactions. I could also feel that tonight, I wasn’t completely there. Still tired from yesterday, my energy was too low to enjoy being there. That’s either a lesson in sleeping out and taking time to rest, or a lesson in underlying things.

Met many people, and basically did what I felt I needed to do, letting go of all anxiety of the result of my actions. What happens, happens. It’s the first step towards living for myself. At a certain moment, I stopped interacting. Tired I guess, I leaned back and let it happen. This was nice, but it wasn’t superbly satisfying. In a way, I didn’t really care. Like I said, I’m probably tired.

Things are changing though. No more anxiety. Better connections with the people I meet, as I completely refrain from any pushing. Handed my number to three girls, without taking theirs. Honestly, I don’t think any will call me. But that’s just incongruence from me when I stop shining. I also don’t approach strangers that much anymore. I do, but less. I hang with the people I know more, and make sidetracks. Playing it cool, letting people come to me. I feel how the vibrant energy, the open smiling face and not looking for anything but my own amusement are very compelling. It’s working! Enjoying this ride…

New Year’s Resolutions

Letter to a friend:

Hey man,

I’m glad you find it useful! I wrote this also in reference to how I want to be dealing with the girl I went to Las Palmas with, with whom I have more or less the same situation. She just broke up with her boyfriend and is as such not open to new adventures for the meantime, and she’s still angry. But we spent much time together so we’re becoming closer. I want to avoid becoming the gay friend, so keep the tension up, and still stay close and have her chase me. Yesterday she sent me that she loved the holiday, and that she’ll probably miss me in days to come. I kept it simple and replied ‘me too xzb’, because now she’s telling me how much she likes me and I go ‘okay then’. Yes!

I did tell her during the holiday that she would make a nice girlfriend, and she became all flustered and said that she liked being with me, but she also kept me at a distance and said something in the likes of ‘we’ll see what happens later’, of which I concluded that I have her permission to hit on her, which is good – she sees me as a sexual man – but that I have no preference over other guys. From a historical perspective, that’s a step forward! I used to fall in love with her and then subtly be told that it wasn’t going to happen

So this is my challenge; to be the guy in her life without pushing it and also not pushing myself, because I haven’t even kissed her! Maybe it’s a turnoff and if I’ve invested too much in it, it’ll be a shitty situation. To let it happen and let the attraction make itself out of the quality of our interaction, not out of the smoothness of my way of playing her (because then I can’t respect her as she’s falling for a fake game).

So I want to get to know her, and be the one thinking ‘do I like this girl? Do I want her as my girlfriend? Or do I just want to fuck her?’ and also to be honest about this and have her play by my rules. It’s a lot harder than chasing because it involves taking the risk of losing her completely whereas sucking up to her will keep you close even though you may become the gay friend.

My theme for this year is not to ‘chase’ girls. I’ll get to know them of course, even actively. Like when I go out I’ll go over and talk to new people, but I won’t ask for numbers unless I have a good reason, like socially. I’ll hang out with them, and of course indicate my interest when the opportunity arises. But no more going out just to meet girls; no more walking up thinking that I just want to take her home; no more dating and hoping to get together. It’s taking distance of the frame that I need to go after girls to get them, and letting them come because I can just relax around them and show them what I’m all about without being scared of her rejecting me.

I think that’s one of the most attractive and most authentic ways of being as a man, and also hard because you make no compromise to be with her, and you have to trust in what happens and in yourself. It’s being that guy that girls say about: ‘He drives me crazy. I’ve been trying to get his attention all night and I just can’t get a grip on him. God, he’s so HOT!’ Instead of :’He’s been hitting on me all night. I kind of like him so I might take him home, even though I have the feeling that he’s just after the sex and not really interested in me.’ You know what I mean?

What wasn’t in the letter but what I realised yesterday night as I was lying in bed stoned and drunk after living it up with my flatmate’s boyfriend who needed a study break:

Separate the yearning from the actual pleasure of having it

Beautiful concept this is. Imagine you see a hot girl. You want her. You crave her. You want to lick her face and… well, you get the picture. You yearn for her. This is why you want to get to know her and make her become attracted to you. So far so good. What happens next is that ideally, you walk up to her and talk to her. You get to know her, and you gradually replace projections and intuitions about her with the reality of her being. This is where the actual pleasure comes in, and the schism between your yearning and what’s actually there.

What I’ve had so often is that I don’t really enjoy a girl’s company as much as I imagined, but that the illusions I had about her before are constantly superimposed on the reality of the situation. I identify myself with my yearning. Ergo, I am more affected by her than is warranted by the actual situation. She of course notes this and accordingly, feels like she’s being chased by me and that she’s such high quality. Like most guys make her feel, without reason.

I’ve noticed that beautiful girls get so much slack, it’s not even funny. Just because of their looks people treat them like they’re special, and they haven’t even done anything! It’s extremely powerful. It’s the opposite of being black in Texas; people look at you like you’re a turd that got up and started talking. When you’re a beautiful girl, people enjoy you using the word ‘like’ every three seconds and fawn over your stupid remarks like you just redefined the course of Western philosophy.

But you know all this. What I want to introduce is the concept of the division between your yearning and the actual pleasure of knowing her and being with her. Yearning is a good incentive to get to know her, but it should be replaced as soon as possible with your estimation of her character. This is where you can combine proactively meeting people and still not throwing yourself at them. You take the first step to get to know them, but from then on it’s a two-sided process where both parties continuously decide whether they want to engage further or not.

For me, it’s a gut feeling. Something that I know even when I’m horny as hell and I just want to fuck her. In the back of my mind, I still know what the truth of the situation is. Connecting to this makes my interaction more real, and more fulfilling. And makes me shitloads more attractive of course, because who else does that?

This last part shouldn’t be the goal however. Using this insight as a strategy is probably unavoidable, but in the end the objective is to BE this way, not ACT this way. It should be part of who you are, which has so many implications that it basically defines the way you live your life.

two quotes

‘The line between a chump and a cool guy is ultra-thin’ – words spoken to me by the foxiest momma I know.

‘Pickup is messy’ – Tyler Durden and my way of shrugging and just enjoying the ride.

Guest Post – Fizmo – Trying to fill the inner void

This is going to be one of the deepest posts I have ever written. Fasten your seatbelts.

Recently, I had a meeting with Ashura, Angel, Phoenix and Cruise at my place. We had a good, stimulating conversation and afterwards we went out to a bar. I didn’t have the intention to seduce any women, but hey with these guys you never know :p

Cruise started talking to a lady, asking her what she thought about my ideas for a script (long term project of mine). I joined the conversation and Cruise introduced me to the two ladies. To my surprise, I knew one of those ladies!

I tried to seduce her one time, like a year ago, but without success, I left the club without her and her girlfriend told me ‘she wished me a lot of luck and that she liked me, but that I wouldn’t stand a chance because she had a boyfriend’. Got her number, but didn’t get a chance to meet her again. It was a shame, because I really liked this one (‘relationship material’ and trust me I’m pretty picky).

So back to the future. I start a conversation with her, everything goes well: she buys me the first drink, she desperately invited me to go with her to the club she is going to, touching me, etc …. Me and Cruise decide to go with her and her girlfriend to the dancing. All fun and games there, we start dancing intimate. I see her IOI’s, I can touch her without her feeling discomfort, I know I could go for the kiss. But then …. Let me give you a look at the amusement park that is my head:

‘ Damn, I was supposed to go out with my friends. I can’t keep on following this girl around, that doesn’t seem dominant. Other times I rushed the kissing too fast and they got buyers remorse, so I am gonna do it different this time. I am insecure about my sexual performances. I really like this girl and I want her to become my girlfriend (something I’ve been screening all those past girls for and only very few have passed it).

I tell her I’m leaving. The girl asks if I wanna go up front and dance with her, but I say ‘My friends are begging me to come over’ so I am going to a new place, wanna join? (after spending 2 hours with her in that dancing). But she says she is gonna stay here for a little while and that she has to work tommorow. I say ‘ cool, we’ll meet up at the photo exhibition next week (she brings it up first), I definitely give you a call.’

We hug, say goodbye and I am off to the place where my friends are, only to find they just left the place. I invite one friend who is still there to go with me to the dancing again, while sending the girl a sms ‘if she is still there’. No response. I dance a little there, she is nowhere around, and go home disappointed. I realise I am really crazy about this girl and have butterflies in my stomach.

The next day I am running around like a crazy idiot, constantly going inside my head and reviewing the night, looking at which flaws I made and why she won’t return my sms. I go crazy with the energy that is building inside me. I can feel my old identity intensely, feeling that I am not worthy enough, that it is gonna end like all other past times when I really had a deep feeling for a girl (and it didn’t work), feeling like a victim and helpless.

Calls with Phoenix River and Hayabusa help a little to relieve the stress, but I can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t focus my energy on something. They say ‘you should be happy with your life and not seek so much validation from getting a relationship’. That’s easy to say with women I don’t really have a deep feeling for, but this one I really like.

I also started out playing squash, not needing it or seeing it as something to enrich my life, but now I enjoy it so much, I really feel it complements and has a positive influence on my life. I have the same view of a relationship with a girl you have a deep connection with, you can live without it, but it would definitely supplement my life and have a positive influence on it.

The next day I add her to facebook. I go to work, really not feeling like myself, feeling like a little insecure boy, unable to relax. (mostly because I am so outcome-oriented, but I really don’t meet girls like this every weekend. If I am really honest with you guys, I only have met 2 other girls who gave me the same feeling and had the same characteristics as this girl. This is why I spent all those hours, reading, learning, doing stuff to understand woman and myself.

I arrive home after work to find a msg on facebook, that she couldn’t meet Wednesday to go to the photo expo, because she is going to see her parents, but that we could meet this week or next week. I answer it’s ok, I will let her know when I had the time (had Flemish Championship of Squash that week and the semi-final and finals were in the weekend). I played like shit the first day, because I really couldn’t focus on the game and really felt like seeing her.

I called in the evening the next day, had a good, amusing conversation with her and decide to meet up next Wednesday. Monday I go home, log on facebook and see that she is back with her ex. I still contact her for Wednesday but she says she has to work and that we’ll meet another day. GAME OVER.

I sported like hell that day, was exhausted, had so much anger and disappointment inside me, but as always I am suppressing the feeling now, knowing it’s somewhere in the back of my head, waiting to explode one day.

I had the same experience with the previous girl I fell in love with, I wanted to get together (but hesitated to get physical with her, because she said she wasn’t ready for a relationship’), but somebody came over, who was her friend for a long time and he became her boyfriend. I was so frustrated back then, I didn’t want it to happen again, that’s what I ‘trained’ for.

With woman I like an superficial level or I have a connection with or not a deep one, it’s easy to stay confident, but my feelings for those girls aren’t deep. Mostly I get tired of seeing them after a couple of times. Also, I feel most at ease during daygame, when I really get to know the girl and there isn’t so much distraction, gaming in a nightclub always seems so superficial the next day, since you didn’t really get to have any meaningful conversations and I get so many flakes (the return rate is about 15%).

My insecurity stems from the fact that I never got any attention from my parents, did everything by myself and for myself, always tried to prove that I am worth living and worthwhile, have performance-anxiety and always wanna prove myself, thinking I am never good enough. During all these self-improvement development this gaping hole is still there and it’s hard to fix it. Mix this with my limited sexual experience (longest relationship I had was 2 months) and you have a cocktail for explosive insecurity (which I mask under a macho-image, but woman still are my soft spot).

I can have sex (only last week I refused a trio with two lesbians), but it just doesn’t give me the fulfillment I crave for. I wanna have sex with a girl I really feel a deep connection with (it’s still a mindset that is hard to get rid off). If I have sex with a girl I know isn’t relationship-material for me, I lose interest and break contact to regain my independence and freedom again and I don’t regret it one second, I also don’t long for sex with that girl again, just a feeling of sadness that again ‘it isn’t what I am looking for’.

I got disappointed so many times that it’s hard to stay in touch with my feelings, I always thought I had almost no feelings, but maybe it’s just an illusion I have of myself, maybe I am over-sensitive, but I tried to react against it by acting that ‘I don’t care’ and to suppress it and lock it somewhere in place where all my disappointments are stacked.

Phoenix told me something that makes sense : ‘You can’t improve this by learning more and new routines and phases or reading more.’ It’s something that is inside us, some kind of a vibe we give off. Every time I really like a girl it seems that a self-destruction device goes off, planted by my old identity, so I end up feeling depressed, negative about myself and victim minded.

It really was a wake-up call, I never wanna go to this mindset again, I lived in this mindset for about a year and a half and it was the worst time in my life, so negative and so full of frustration, it really was a wake-up call. A part of me is glad that I have butterflies and act nervous around a girl I really like, it means that I still can have a deep feeling inside of longing for a woman and not just seeing her as one of many women.

This kind of woman, who gives me that feeling, is what I am searching for, else this whole gaming thing leads to nothing, just an eternal search for something I will not find. Also, after I meet a girl that lights my inner fire, I get disappointed with new girls I meet.

Like last weekend. I scored some numbers, but I just didn’t have the same conversation and feelings like I had with that one girl. Gaming girls just feels like filling an inner void, which seems cool at the moment, but afterwards you got the feeling of ‘it wasn’t worth the trouble’.

I don’t know how I can fix this, so I’m reaching out to you guys. I’m being as honest as I can be, so I can learn from this. It hurts, although I am a master at masking it. Mix this with the winterblues and I am really not in a good mood these days, the last days of the year always make me depressed.

Yours truly,

Fiz

You’re already there

Check out my post that I wrote on my English Life Coaching Blog:

http://www.yourcoach.be/en/blog/index.php/youre-already-there/2009/12/

Here’s the intro:

My conviction is growing stronger: there is nothing to “improve” in yourself. Or at least: silence all voices that urge you to change!

Thinking changes nothing – personal growth is necessarily action oriented

I’m a huge fan of personal growth and progress, but one thing has always particularly bothered me with the concept of self-development. In the years I’ve spent reading and thinking about self-improvement, awareness … I must admit I didn’t get much out of it.

Stephen Covey’s book is wonderful but if you just read it and hope that your life will change of its own accord, you’re wrong. Yet this is the way I have gone through several books: reading, and in the inspiration that I got from reading it, I forgot to bring practical change into my daily life. And then after a while I would establish that it hadn’t “worked”. As if that book was some kind of magic pill.

I believe less and less in magic pills – which is good! My faith is being replaced by a growing belief in practical everyday changes with immense repercussions.

Answers vs daily practice

Here’s a thought: a lot of what we do on this blog is look for answers. As we’ve seen many times, the same answers keep emerging, and we keep on saying: ‘but it’s so hard! I know what to do but I can never keep it up!’

We ask ‘But how?’ – as if we don’t know. By going inside and right up to where our fundamental unease is manifesting and confronting it with an open heart, saying: ‘What is it you want from me? What can I do for you?’ Every time. Every hour. Every day. Freeing up the energy that we would otherwise lose in useless circles of thought. Like a gardener, gently weeding.

I think here lies a big answer for many of us. We all know what to do, but don’t consistently do it. Call it lack of discipline, or failing to keep the big picture.

I’ll have an epiphany, see some truth, adapt. I’ll try to apply my new insight on every single situation. If it doesn’t work, I’ll slide into old habits or make a new one, which then again starts manifesting as I lose flexibility and the ability to improvise. And so the cycle continues, breaking and rebuilding and sometimes I wonder if I’m making any progress at all, as the same things keep coming up.

So here’s to staying on our toes; staying on the edge so we can remain grateful, conscious, balanced, focused, peaceful, present, confident.