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But your post makes one thing very clear: 'the Game' and strategies such as negging are not the kind of coaching that will help them. (In fact, I'll bet that genuine good guys will not fail to have at least great doubts, probably be simply repulsed, by this kind of manipulative strategy.)
That's what I've been trying to make clear, and I'm glad it came through.
When The Rules came out, a lot of women, myself included, thought it was pathetic. We were not surprised to find used bookstores rejecting old copies because of pre-existing, unsellable overloads, nor were we surprised when one of the writers ended up divorced. You can get a man with The Rules, true, but why would you want him?
The Game is the same way.
Some men do need some coaching (and I'll bet some women do, too).
Yes, some women do, me included. Several factors in my life converged into a perfect storm of unpopularity starting in about third grade, and while I'm glad I wasn't part of the in-crowd, I was unpopular with everyone. I had a brother, but I was unpopular with him, too.
The end result was the I got cut out of an entire chunk of social skills development. I can talk to men just fine, but I never learned how to flirt with them. I have reached points in interactions where I've been thinking "Okay, what am I supposed to do now?", gotten it wrong, gotten rejected, and still had no clue what would have been right. As I've gotten older, I've begun to suspect an organic problem with seeing and interpreting non-verbal cues. I'm that consistently bad at it.
So I understand problems with social skills because I have them. I'm also someone for whom "be yourself" is problematic, because my self is introverted and moody, as well as not prone to sweet nothings and kissy-face games. This translates into "stuck-up, cold-hearted bitch", so I understand that, too. Thankfully, at this point I've been alone for so many long stretches of time that I'm not only used to it, I prefer it. .
I do understand, though, although I guess I don't understand the part about thinking you're wonderful. I know I'm not. Introverted and moody isn't wonderful. I also really, really like my "baggage" and am a bit of a mother bear, which makes me even less wonderful. Combine it with chronic illness, and you have another perfect storm.
But all in all, I think I agree with you. If you have a personality, and if you don't seem to be so darn dependent on getting a woman for self-justification ('scoring'), if you do have principles and ideals all your own that orient your life, you end up becoming interesting to others. Being desperate isn't going to help.
Right. And being desperate is often considered a good indication that you lack all of this, in men and women both.
