The goal is to date successfully. The subgoal is to get one date. Despite meeting a lot of single women, flirting with them, and getting some phone numbers, none of them have been willing to actually go out, or they’ve made plans and then cancelled. The working theory is that I’m way less attractive than I think. So I’m debugging my appearance and behavior.
Clothes. My process was this: go online, read about fashion, put clothes on, stare at mirror. “According to this, none of my shirts actually fit!” Go to the store, try shirts on, “and none of these fit either!” Go to a tailor, spend $180 to get five shirts ruined (N.B. test a tailor before giving them a big chunk of your wardrobe). Go to a new tailor, and finally I now own a shirt that fits like it’s supposed to.
I had tried improving my clothes before without effect, but I think the latest batch of changes bumped me up a level. I’ve also been testing out these high-status behaviors, so it’s hard to isolate changes, but these are new in the last two months:
People walking on the street get out of my way (this led to a lot of “sidewalk dancing” for a while, because I was still expecting them to expect me to move).
Pretty girls have started conversations with me. That NEVER happened before.
In groups, men have been taking way more shots at me.
Social. I can now reliably initiate conversations with strangers. I did this by noticing that I was comfortable engaging with people, as long as they made the first move (i.e. they said something to me). So I started gradually lowering my standard for what qualified as a first move in my mind, e.g. if they asked me to save their place in a line, then I’d start a conversation when they got back. I’m at the point now where even passive things qualify, like “he’s carrying a trombone case” or “she’s wearing a cool shirt.” And when someone walks across the room to stand near me, to not talk to them feels almost as awkward as ignoring something they said.
This is a useful skill in general, but it’s really nice for flirting, because you don’t have to rely on them or some external event to throw you together. There are some other benefits too, like having more control of the conversation. The most surprising thing I’ve noticed is how pleasant it always is: even when I’m hitting on girls that just aren’t interested, they’re friendly, and never offended. We talk for a while, I say goodbye, and we go our separate ways. What was I so worried about?
There’s a lot more that I’m trying, but this comment is already too long. I am keeping a log of my changes that I’m sure will be completely useless to everyone except me, but I’m tracking it anyway. See you in August, hopefully I’ll have some good news!
I am keeping a log of my changes that I’m sure will be completely useless to everyone except me, but I’m tracking it anyway.
Well, I would be interested if you don’t mind sharing such personal information. I want (to want) to embark on a similar journey and I could use some motivation.
nah, instead he should fall in love with a girl in a relationship, spend years of his life obsessing over her, having adventures and meeting interesting characters, and then eventually marry her. Then turn into a fish
Um. Many of those high-status behaviours sound pretty rude. Others lead to low epistemic hygeine. If we start behaving in those ways to each other, it won’t work out. It’s hard to be confident about these things, but people say that I manage to come across as confident about myself without doing other people down, which is certainly both what I aim for and how I feel. I’d like to imagine that I’d be happy if other people behaved the way I do. It’s hard to hit that target—indeed, hard to know whether you’ve hit it or not—but it seems the right one to aim for.
EDIT: at least one person seems to have carried away the impression I’m saying that all of those behaviours are always rude and should always be avoided. That definitely isn’t the case; I think it’s nearly always rude to interrupt before you know what you’re going to say, but I’m not, for example, against speaking in complete sentences.
For what it’s worth, I think you make great points in your comment and I agree with all of them :-D
I’m reminded of what Joe McNally said about tradeoffs between goals and principles:
If someone won’t listen to what you have to say because you’re not wearing a tie, then put on a tie, ’cause what you have to say is more important than not wearing a tie.
There’s a difference between behavior that’s obviously harmful and seriously harmful. Status games are silly and rude and promote bad epistemology, I agree, but they’re everywhere, I doubt I’m really hurting anyone on the margin of my participation, and the potential payoff, AFAICT, is of life-changing importance. So I’m treading carefully, but moving forward.
I’d be interested to know what other people think about this; I’d like to be a polite contributor to Less Wrong. Most of the stuff in that list is physical and can’t be done in a comment; here’s what can AFAICT:
Speaking in complete sentences.
Talking matter-of-factly about things that the other person finds displeasing or offensive.
Speaking authoritatively, with certainty.
Making decisions for a group; taking responsibility.
Giving or withholding permission.
Evaluating other people’s work.
Speaking cryptically, not adjusting your speech to be easily understood by the other person (except that mumbling does not count). E.g. saying, “Chomper not right” with no explanation of what you mean or what you want the other person to do.
I’d be interested to know what other people think about this; I’d like to be a polite contributor to Less Wrong.
The troubling underlying message here and particularly in the earlier comment is that the behaviors that improv actors would describe as ‘high status’ are intrinsically rude or that avoiding them is polite. On those lists politeness serves both as a high status move and as a low status move—so does rudeness. An improv actor tasked with roleplaying “I manage to come across as confident about myself without doing other people down” would execute behaviors predominantly from the high status list while avoiding rudeness.
Most of the stuff in that list is physical and can’t be done in a comment; here’s what can AFAICT:
That seems about right. Of those the only one that doesn’t apply to your comment (to some degree) is the last point—you were not cryptic. The reasoning to apply here isn’t “ciphergoth is using high status moves therefore ciphergoth is bad” but rather “ciphergoth is using high status moves from that list without being objectionable therefore executing behaviors from that list is not inherently objectionable.”
I suggest that rather than judge and avoid actions from the “high status behaviors” list you apply your wariness to the “Lowering another person’s status” list, somewhat lower on the page. That list is somewhat more representative of the kind of thing that “sounds pretty rude”.
The goal is to date successfully. The subgoal is to get one date. Despite meeting a lot of single women, flirting with them, and getting some phone numbers, none of them have been willing to actually go out, or they’ve made plans and then cancelled. The working theory is that I’m way less attractive than I think. So I’m debugging my appearance and behavior.
Clothes. My process was this: go online, read about fashion, put clothes on, stare at mirror. “According to this, none of my shirts actually fit!” Go to the store, try shirts on, “and none of these fit either!” Go to a tailor, spend $180 to get five shirts ruined (N.B. test a tailor before giving them a big chunk of your wardrobe). Go to a new tailor, and finally I now own a shirt that fits like it’s supposed to.
I had tried improving my clothes before without effect, but I think the latest batch of changes bumped me up a level. I’ve also been testing out these high-status behaviors, so it’s hard to isolate changes, but these are new in the last two months:
People walking on the street get out of my way (this led to a lot of “sidewalk dancing” for a while, because I was still expecting them to expect me to move).
Pretty girls have started conversations with me. That NEVER happened before.
In groups, men have been taking way more shots at me.
Social. I can now reliably initiate conversations with strangers. I did this by noticing that I was comfortable engaging with people, as long as they made the first move (i.e. they said something to me). So I started gradually lowering my standard for what qualified as a first move in my mind, e.g. if they asked me to save their place in a line, then I’d start a conversation when they got back. I’m at the point now where even passive things qualify, like “he’s carrying a trombone case” or “she’s wearing a cool shirt.” And when someone walks across the room to stand near me, to not talk to them feels almost as awkward as ignoring something they said.
This is a useful skill in general, but it’s really nice for flirting, because you don’t have to rely on them or some external event to throw you together. There are some other benefits too, like having more control of the conversation. The most surprising thing I’ve noticed is how pleasant it always is: even when I’m hitting on girls that just aren’t interested, they’re friendly, and never offended. We talk for a while, I say goodbye, and we go our separate ways. What was I so worried about?
There’s a lot more that I’m trying, but this comment is already too long. I am keeping a log of my changes that I’m sure will be completely useless to everyone except me, but I’m tracking it anyway. See you in August, hopefully I’ll have some good news!
Upvoted for a very granular description of what you’re up to and how it’s going.
Well, I would be interested if you don’t mind sharing such personal information. I want (to want) to embark on a similar journey and I could use some motivation.
Alright, I’ll PM you something this month; we can see if you get anything out of it.
Yeah, man, your journey is most interesting than you think. PM me too, if possible.
Can you hit me up too? I am in the process of improving myself and getting a girlfriend is subgoal and part of that process.
Thanks a lot!
Get a successful dater as a mentor to go out and score dates together, let him observe you in action and give you feedback.
nah, instead he should fall in love with a girl in a relationship, spend years of his life obsessing over her, having adventures and meeting interesting characters, and then eventually marry her. Then turn into a fish
Um. Many of those high-status behaviours sound pretty rude. Others lead to low epistemic hygeine. If we start behaving in those ways to each other, it won’t work out. It’s hard to be confident about these things, but people say that I manage to come across as confident about myself without doing other people down, which is certainly both what I aim for and how I feel. I’d like to imagine that I’d be happy if other people behaved the way I do. It’s hard to hit that target—indeed, hard to know whether you’ve hit it or not—but it seems the right one to aim for.
EDIT: at least one person seems to have carried away the impression I’m saying that all of those behaviours are always rude and should always be avoided. That definitely isn’t the case; I think it’s nearly always rude to interrupt before you know what you’re going to say, but I’m not, for example, against speaking in complete sentences.
For what it’s worth, I think you make great points in your comment and I agree with all of them :-D
I’m reminded of what Joe McNally said about tradeoffs between goals and principles:
There’s a difference between behavior that’s obviously harmful and seriously harmful. Status games are silly and rude and promote bad epistemology, I agree, but they’re everywhere, I doubt I’m really hurting anyone on the margin of my participation, and the potential payoff, AFAICT, is of life-changing importance. So I’m treading carefully, but moving forward.
You execute many of them in this very comment, your objection would seem not to be too fundamental.
I’d be interested to know what other people think about this; I’d like to be a polite contributor to Less Wrong. Most of the stuff in that list is physical and can’t be done in a comment; here’s what can AFAICT:
Speaking in complete sentences.
Talking matter-of-factly about things that the other person finds displeasing or offensive.
Speaking authoritatively, with certainty.
Making decisions for a group; taking responsibility.
Giving or withholding permission.
Evaluating other people’s work.
Speaking cryptically, not adjusting your speech to be easily understood by the other person (except that mumbling does not count). E.g. saying, “Chomper not right” with no explanation of what you mean or what you want the other person to do.
The troubling underlying message here and particularly in the earlier comment is that the behaviors that improv actors would describe as ‘high status’ are intrinsically rude or that avoiding them is polite. On those lists politeness serves both as a high status move and as a low status move—so does rudeness. An improv actor tasked with roleplaying “I manage to come across as confident about myself without doing other people down” would execute behaviors predominantly from the high status list while avoiding rudeness.
That seems about right. Of those the only one that doesn’t apply to your comment (to some degree) is the last point—you were not cryptic. The reasoning to apply here isn’t “ciphergoth is using high status moves therefore ciphergoth is bad” but rather “ciphergoth is using high status moves from that list without being objectionable therefore executing behaviors from that list is not inherently objectionable.”
I suggest that rather than judge and avoid actions from the “high status behaviors” list you apply your wariness to the “Lowering another person’s status” list, somewhat lower on the page. That list is somewhat more representative of the kind of thing that “sounds pretty rude”.
I don’t believe that all of those behaviours are always rude.
The discussion of my comment I’ll leave aside unless someone else is interested.
Contact info for your tailor?
Sure thing