What about social skills?

I'm curious as to the challenges guys experience being an Alpha Man and leveraging social skills out there.

Are there areas where you find it hard to be socially "cool" or hip?

The big area for me was feeling like I was unimportant in conversations. Guys would talk over me and interrupt me when I was talking about something.

It's like I was completely devalued in the social context.

Any experiences like that?

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Carlos Xuma. PUA Forums Official Bad Boy

Become The Bad Boy That Women Love.

Ya, I've definitely come across that, and still do depending on the atmosphere of the groups I'm in. When I'm just out meeting people, sometimes I'll let the conversation do its thing on its own, but generally and especially when I'm out sarging, I just keep telling myself to "push" the conversation. It reminds me of when I'm working out, and towards that last rep I'm shouting in my head to "push push push!". Same thing here. I'll have a voice in my head telling me to move this conversation and drive it myself.

As far as dealing with other alphas who make this a little difficult, this is generally a great time to get a neg in. When you manage to get a brief word in, direct it towards your target or at least a girl in the group and neg her. If you have done this correctly, she'll respond to you, and even if she says something negative or challenges you, the girl in the group is now engaging you. The alphas may be the ones with something to say, but if you can get the women talking to you (about anything!), then you can get past blockers.

In a similar vein, I find that I have trouble being alpha in large group dynamics. If the group is under about five people, I find it to be very easy to be alpha. I can lead the group, as well as Isolate each member for small amounts of time, quite easily. I find it easy to talk to the group as a whole, or to any of the people. It isn't hard for me to stay on top of the group dynamic.

If it gets much larger than that, I all the sudden find that the conversations go all over the place, much of which I have absolutely no interest in, or nothing to input. In smaller groups, my lack of input would generally be noticed, and the conversation would naturally shift to include me. In larger groups that is not the case. I find myself easily marginalize unless I really focus my energies on being in the thick of things, but then I waste most of my energy on staying involved. In either case I lose. I therefore, generally choose to just do my own thing, and occasionally grab the spot light because I am having fun. I also, try to isolate those that interest me, but generally avoid the group dynamic, in these large group scenarios.

Yes. In fact, in my "PUA Dark arts: defensive skills" post, this is exactly what happened to me. I was left stone cold being let on by my AMOG friend. He got all the guys and girl's attention and at that point I didn't know how to engage any of them because they were so tuned into him. Reading all your responses let me to think that I could've spoken my female friend on the right to pull her out of the group and just start a small conversation with her. To make matters worse, he rubbed it in on me by saying "you're so quiet" which made me even more pissed.

You might also consider this approach in conversation: Aikido.

The martial art of turning your opponent's energy against him.

When you're in a conversation, experiment with asking questions that get people talking - and revealing. I find it very redeeming to minimize my energy output, and steer the conversation with questions. And when you get the knack of it, you can wait until someone talks himself into a circle or a dead end, then you rescue the conversation thread by putting your THOUGHT OUT response out there.

I do this frequently with subjects I've pondered long and hard about and have something interesting to say.

Dont' wait for the conversation to come to you - direct it to where you want it to go.

What do you think?

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Carlos Xuma. PUA Forums Official Bad Boy

Become The Bad Boy That Women Love.

I like that technique. I have used it many times, in none game related scenarios, but it never occurred to me to try it while gaming. Sounds really stupid now that I think about it. I will definitely keep that in mind.

Carlos, you took my approach to this right from me. I actually did a grading in Aikido when I was a Judoka/Jujitsu exponent. I didn't really think of the analogy in terms of Martial Arts now wonder if the training came to use mentally as well as being fun to learn and good exercise through my teens.

Aikido translated means "Way of Harmony". Besides techniques we learnt Japanese and Chinese philosophy such as the symbol of Yin and Yang. It basically represents opposing forces that contain each other.
Just as in life we have life and death, in conversation we have silence and conversation. If a person is to view the self as the Yin Yang symbol then conversation with other Yin Yang symbols would be able to communicate with the self. The ideal is harmony. If this harmony is broken, your job as the alpha is to restart the harmony.
If you want to become a good conversationalist sometimes you have to learn to be the quiet one. Find out where your opinion counts and capitalise on it (if you feel it is of value).
Another thing you should do is add value to the conversation. Tell stories about your experiences, tell jokes, make fun of stuff, be light hearted, direct the conversations, ask questions, listen. Use as many conversation skills as you can, use social proof, bring others into the conversation, AMOG guys, let them down nicely, make stupid noises, admit to forgetting stuff, make stuff up and be honest you don't know where the information came from. Make conversations more and more and you will get better at it.. Conversations will improve with practise.
Remember sometimes it's good to be the quiet guy.. you can listen to the way people talk and bring ideas across, you can figure out what's useful and what's not.
Best of all, enjoy it, and if you're not find someone with better conversation topics or make your own.

This used to be the #1 technique for a while. you've only got one pecker. don't overspend valuable energies. Hard to Isolate just one girl, but if you can cut a couple choice fillies from the stallion, you're the new stallion of YOUR universe and you'll be happy until..atleast tomorrow night. Helps to have a wing man so you can cut a couple cuz one girl may be unwilling to leave the security or inclusiveness of the group, but if you're in a group with more than 4 people, your wingman should've been positioned strait across from you for ultimate "I'm obviously not with that guy, but, just look at how we play into each other.." then givin the signal, you two step a step closer and walla... two groups, yours containing the girls you've picked and not the SAMOG.

If working alone, or unable to get the #1 target from the group, engage her friend or the closest 5+ in an move to gain familiarity and intrigue from the chosen #1, and engage her in convorsation off the topic of the group, but PREFERABLY segwaying from something she said, is wearing, drinking, thinks, likes, or atleast more interesting/ current. Just with the side conversation if her + girlfriends see her hogging the beta they may butt in or cockblock her to get your attention/attraction and raise you to alpha. wierd science.



***Beta. to some it's a badword. to some it's a loser. to some it's a fish. I considere it the "second winner." Unless you're in a social situation where there is only one hot chick, or one hottest chcik with two males competing is when it's absolutely necessary to be the alpha. Also in a prolongued social context where you're part of a large group and want to eventually work your way through every YY in the 'in-crowd', do you need to worry about that. when you work with wings, only one can be THE guy, and in this case, in a group setting, runner up is pretty damn good too. Curly and moe got laid too. It's important not to be the omega, the one who don't talk, doesn't assert, is the butt of jokes, and doesn't look up from his drinks. Being "any" assertive will get you girls, and in scenarios where it's possible to be the MOST confident/ aura assertive, will get you the hottest ones, but even being the wing, or the quiet, confident second, not doing magic tricks or the light of the show, you'll get hot girls. Mr. AMOG is not taking them all home. He might take the Hottest, but somenights Beta takes home Ms. #2, #3, & #4.