I only know one MIT grad and she was hot but not very bright but I did meet a lot of grad students from Yale and you could tell they were a little nervous but not to the point where it interfered with their ability to socialize. They would talk about the subject of the conference at first until they got more comfortable and then they were ok but they needed that common starting ground or I could see them having issues.

Anyway lets take the MIT undergrad who is socially awkward. He is aware of this and lets assume he wants to fix it. One option is to go study PUA where they are told do the following things. A second option is change their appearance so that at least just by looking at them they can't be identified as anything different than anyone else. Go out and keep quiet and just basically be a fly on the wall. They are at MIT so we are talking about smart people I can't imagine it would be hard to figure out social interaction. The reason most people have problems is because they are trying to participate too much and that gets them all nervous and while they are focusing on what they should say / do they are distracted from observing and learning. The amount of time it takes will depend on the person but I don't believe that someone who is intelligent can't figure it out.

When it comes to self-improvement again I can't imagine someone from MIT not knowing what to do. Obviously they know someone in good physical shape is better than someone who is fat or too skinny. If they don't know how to get to that they know that they can hire a personal trainer who does. Same with clothing. If they know absolutely nothing about fashion they at least know that GQ exists. Likely they know at least the name of a few designers and where the clothing is sold. Most nicer stores will have staff that will help. Failing that it is pretty easy to deduce that the mannequins were dress to match and likewise the models in men's magazines. That will get someone started until they get a feel for it. Same with hair. Just go to the popular trendy salon and give a youngish stylist who you like the look of complete creative freedom. The vast majority of the time you'll be very happy with the results and a few times it will be a complete disaster but it is temporary.

I dont disagree with any of that but this is sort of an interesting article I read a while ago. It some what confirms sterotypes about smart nerds. But the reason is low testosterone and lack of time I believe.

http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/04/int...telligence.php

you're just rambling now. all of the above things could be true and it's still doesn't really change the argument. the majority of the stuff from PUA that has value is close enough to "obvious" that anyone with intelligence who spent time focusing on the issue could figure out on their own.

though clearly there are many who haven't made that step on their own. so all your talk about how MIT guys shouldn't be socially inept because they have the capacity to figure it out is mostly meaningless because these people still exist and haven't changed despite the expressed interest of making that change. it's clear to everyone else in this thread that giving someone the focus to spend time on improving your interactions with women is a primary point of the whole thing.

now you've also claimed that no PUAs recommend improving yourself through lifting and better clothes, though on the first page of a simple google search i found this:
first few parts of this sound like you wrote them
and
non-peacocking style tips from a PUA site

and from a blog i've referenced before i found this about working out:
two PUA bloggers talk about developing a lifting plan

the last guy (the one being interviewed, not the interviewer), is an example of PUA's success. he doesn't sell anything, yet he claims that PUA helped changed him from geek to player. i'm sure you will decide that he's a fake also or somehow explain away his success as not being from PUA. there really are plenty of examples you can find of people who claim success who really don't have anything to prove or anything to sell.

your claim that no one has been able to provide evidence is just not right. you can explain away any individual piece of evidence but it's not reasonable to assume everyone who supports it is full of ****. there are too many people that aren't involved in the business to give a perfect analogy to pyramid marketing.

just pulling out a section from that post that has some amazing numbers:

i know i posted here a couple of times a few months back out of curiosity, but jesus ****ing christ at this thread and the length of the responses. it's like an Asperger convention landed on EDF. how can anyone read this? i'd rather watch Kathy Bates and Rosie O'Donnell re-enact the ass-to-ass scene at the end of Requiem for a Dream than read any more of these posts. this isn't a thread, it's a goddamn Ken Burns series.

(i'll probably keeping reading the thread anyway though)

the theory does not require that their time is spent in isolation. rather, it requires that they invest their ''attentional resources'' into learning skills that do not help them attract and seduce members of the opposite sex. newsflash: there is more than one ''social skill''. that's why the popular term is ''social skills'' (plural). as anyone in grade two has probably figured out, just because you're ''socializing'' does not mean you're practicing every ''social skill'' in equal measure. you can know how to have polite conversations with your friends and family and know exactly nothing about how to amuse and excite a woman you're attracted to.

imagine, for the sake of convenience, that there is a continuum ranging from ''pure information exchange'' to ''pure affective stimulation''. those most likely to become the best at ''clearly explaining stuff'' are those who spend most of their time having formal discussions where they rationally discuss theories and facts. those most likely to become the best at making others feel things will be those who spend most of their time having light, breezy bull sessions in the cafeteria and around watercoolers. ideally you want to cultivate both skills (most people demand a little information with their amusement and vice versa), but those who become the very best at anything (except for the rare genius) will be those who specialize. not surprisingly, most of those who end up at MIT and Harvard are ''pure information exchange'' specialists who do not know how to satisfy the goal of ''having mindless/purely emotional fun'' because they've never bothered to learn how.

it never ceases to amaze me how self-serving intelligence researchers are. tbh, i assume it is because they have literally nothing else going on. ''we're the smartest or we got nothing!''

Is it just me, or you Henry are failing to prove that PUA material is a scam, and you are just extending this discussion to death without reaching to any conclusion?

No wonder I epic failed to bang this chick from Wellesley. FML.


Obv it had nothing to me going through a nub mid 20s crisis.

there are many people in this thread that have tried to find common ground and reach a conclusion to the topic. henry takes would-be common ground and grafts it into his own argument or piles on against strawmen and purposely misconstrued snippets of what others are saying. the only reason i've started following this thread again is to see if vanveen can cut through henry's rhetorical acrobatics.

I dont think its unrealistic to think someone who does very well in school can be pressed for time from 7th grade til retirement. When I was in college I used to think to myself how if I'd done better in high school I could have gone to a better college. Of course then I'd have had to work even harder in college because it would be a better school. And if you do good in college maybe you can go to med school or law school. And if you do well there you can work 100 hours a week in a big law firm or a hospital. So to me it seems the reward for hard work is more harder work in the future.

But I think part of the thing is people who might naturally lack the ability to fit in socially for whatever reason do better in school because its an opportunity for them to shine and nothing stands in their way distraction wise.

I wonder how well girls can judge other girl's attractiveness. I was out with 3 girls once who were not too hot and this girl who was way hotter than any of them started talking with me and eventually making out with me. She even said when she came up to me how I was "surrounded by girls" and I remember thinking to myself ya and take a look at them. Then again she was hammered.

Also I have no ability to judge another man's attractiveness. I can tell if a guy is fat or ripped or whatever but aside from that I'm a really bad judge. People think I'm being homophobic when I say this but I really am way off all the time.

Its DHV to have women around as preselection. You immediately can't be a super creep or some other unsavory as you'd attract no women. You also get bonus points for aloof ambiguity as I'd assume you didn't introduce them all as "strictly platonic friends". It could be your sister, your gf, your **** buddy, your groupies... she has no clue.

One thing that is important is being thin. Fat chicks will get more scorn than thin ones. Cute chubby girls are markedly lower value to women than thinner less cute girls.

Better than a guy in a lot of cases. Females will notice when a hot girl enters a room before a guy will notice her.

right so it's an irrational problem, it is EMOTIONAL, NOT INTELLECTUAL. so how does one solve an emotional problem?

Wow. There is now way that I'm reading through this entire thread. Too many rehashed arguments and theory to keep my interest.

I'll just say this: the process of getting "game" is the actually the process of becoming attractive to the opposite sex. It has nothing to do with lines or routines.

Thank biology that it made it so that a mans behavior is 95% of this, instead of his looks. Thats a fact, verified by experience. Women aren't so fortunate. Thus, becoming attractive can be learned. Depending on how far a man was away from this to begin with, this can take a long time and a lot of PRACTICE, or a shorter time comprised of relatively small behavioral and personality adjustments.

It can be a mystery for a long time, but once it clicks it becomes very easy.

Assuming there isn't a shocking age difference or deep psychological problem, then most men can learn to be attractive enough to attain almost any woman, no matter how physically attractive she is. Will most men progress this far? No. But its well within their potential, IMO. They just need to keep working on it until it clicks.

They need to keep working on it until they learn to be 'cool' in a womans eyes, in a way that an attractive woman seems 'cool' or attractive in their eyes presently. If they are idealizing any woman, and finding her overly attractive and pining over her, than it is very unlikely that they will seem attractive to her. They will be exhibiting the opposite behavior that is needed for this to occur.