muggiwhplar

Contemplating deactivating my Facebook account for a while. In the past I've always just used it as a means to keep in touch with old friends and see what they've been up to lately. I'd usually only get on Facebook for like 5 minutes at a time, right when I wake up and right before I go to bed. I'd just scroll down my news feed and see what people are up to. Though these days my news feed is overflowing with people "liking," sharing, and commenting on memes and irrational political articles. There used to only be a few of my friends whose stories like that would show up on my news feed, and I'd just "unfollow" them so they wouldn't show up anymore. But now it seems that everyone's using Facebook as their own personal soapbox for sharing stuff like that. Though I suppose if I wasn't such an outcast in my worldview compared to my friends' worldviews, this wouldn't really be an issue. Ahh, first world problems. :D

Last year I made a new account to see what things were like in EoC as a "new" player. I wrote about it here (don't bump). While I'm sure my post is now a bit dated (and I personally hope it is), it was sad how "difficult" the game is to figure out now as a new player. I remember how simple and intuitive the game was when I started playing in 2004. When I did that experiment, the biggest obstacles as a new player were: 1. You had to have the optimal gear for your level to survive in combat against monsters close to your combat level. Training against such monsters isn't really even an option. You basically have to stick with goblins and cows forever instead of fighting monsters your level. 2. Nobody on the GE even sold the low level equipment you needed. 3. There were no guides anywhere on where/how to train. Hopefully nowadays there's more information on low level training methods in addition to more low level equipment being traded on the GE. However, it wouldn't really surprise me if nothing's changed. After all, along with EoC came the extinction of pures. And without experienced players making new accounts, there's nobody to write guides on the best ways to train combat at low levels.

I've never read any manga and don't really have any plans to do so. Maybe if/when Berserk finally comes to an end I'll read it

Dude your life is GAME OVER if you decide to be a father at your age Well it will be with that sort of attitude.It's a cultural thing. In America, unplanned pregnancy at a young age means the mother, the father, and the child are almost guaranteed to spend the rest of their lives (or at the very least, the next 18 years) in poverty. Not sure if rocc0 lives in the US though, as I'm posting from my phone right now

Dude your life is GAME OVER if you decide to be a father at your age

For separate endeavors yeah In other news, a girl on POF has her occupation set as "future nurse." Well shit, I should just change my occupation to "future retired millionaire" since we're allowed to do that

Saw this pic somewhere a few days ago, it struck a chord with me. Pretty much every personal self-development venture summed up in a simple picture:

all the cool kids had the codes memorized

:roll: ^Haven't seen that emoticon used in YEARS on TIF. I remember back in the day, you'd see that in like every other post lol

Mixed feelings about this-- I really dig the Baroque and 8-bit parts of the album. And I really hate the dubstep parts of the album (which is the majority). I really just don't understand what's appealing about dubstep lol, there's like no melody. Lyrics were pretty obnoxious too-- going from something along the lines of "[bleep] the police" in one song to "oh baby I just wanna hold you in my arms and hand over my balls to you" in the next song >_> Yuck! :P

Makes sense to omit it actually since nobody intentionally trains defense to level 5 and then stops there

Alternatively, go and spend the night with me and obfuscator

I have a feeling that she already thinks of him as boyfriend material, hence the invitation If that's not the case though then ya I agree w/ RPG

I avoid them just because that kind of sends the message that you're her [exclusive] boyfriend. Especially if she's "just" a FB and you haven't been seeing her for very long.

Hmm so there isn't any trimmed steel armor?

Finished watching Berserk with my brother last week while we were in our hometown on vacation. It's the only anime he's ever watched and enjoyed. [hide=spoiler] Him: So they all just... die? Me: Yep. Him: Damn. I miss this show already, I wish there were more episodes :( [/hide] Still remains one of my top 3 animes next to DBZ and Yu Yu Hakusho.

Yea when it comes to the sexual stuff I pretty much just send her home if she's resisting my advances. It turns me off when they resist and I'm not very fond of being persistent under those circumstances. I'd prefer us to both be on the same wavelength. :P If she's resisting my advances, that means I did a poor job of turning her on at some point.

Lol if they smoke too, then just be like "hey you wanna smoke weed and play ____ or watch ____ after class/work?" Nobody's going to decline free weed :P Besides if you're both stoned then that right there's enough to take the pressure off and ensure you have a good time. In my case I usually just ask them if they wanna go grab a beer after work. Then you talk about work and stuff with them while having a drink.

One more thing regarding escalation... I don't wait for any "invitations" from her to do any of that stuff. Instead of asking myself, "is she ready for me to do this?" or "how will she react if I do this?" I just do it regardless of how she's acting and see what happens. I don't wait for any golden opportunities or anything. So if we're at Starbucks together and we're both talking, I just casually grab her hand and start holding it and then continue the conversation as if nothing ever happened. If I'm watching a movie with her on my couch, I just put my arm around her. Or I'll just turn to look at her, put my hand on her cheek/chin and kiss her.

I wrote that post under the assumption that you guys know what you should be doing, but you're just not doing it for whatever reason. @Saqs, just follow this as closely as possible. In my case, my "escalation" looks like this: (first date) 1. Talk to her like normal, make her laugh and feel comfortable 2. Start holding her hand, occasionally rubbing her hand with my thumb 3. Let go of her hand, rest my hand on her thigh (second date at my place on my couch) 4. Put my arm around her while sitting on my couch with her 5. Use my free hand to caress her hair/face 6. Go for the kiss, and be the first to pull away if she kisses me back 7. Wait a little bit then start making out with her, then proceed to sex. If she doesn't want to have sex, then I'll have a 3rd date with her and repeat what I did on the 2nd date. If on the 3rd date, I don't get any "farther" than I did on the 2nd date, I quit seeing her and never contact her again. And then I go repeat the process with a different girl. If I didn't have the ability to "replace" her so easily, then I can almost guarantee I'd make up all kinds of excuses to keep seeing her... and then I'd wind up unhappy and sexually frustrated while she [bleep]s other guys. This is why it's important for every man to learn how to bring new women into his life. @Ring, when I was a kid I was afraid of hanging out with new friends after school because I was afraid we'd get bored or run out of things to do or talk about, and things would get awkward. I'm assuming that's a similar kind of feeling you're getting now? Anyways, if you have any mutual friends, invite them along and try to hang out with 2+ other people at a time outside of work/school so that way you won't feel any "pressure" to have fun with them. Then when you're comfortable with that, you can hang out with them alone. Like I said though, just do what you're afraid of doing and see what happens. I could give you a bulletproof logical explanation of what to do and why, but it wouldn't matter if you're still too afraid to try.

I thought I should write a post on how I personally overcame those fears since AFAIK most of the people ITT are still virgins, or at the very least they don't have very much control over their dating/sex/relationship lives >_> Pretty much just wrote as much stuff as I could as it popped into my mind so I apologize if this post seems incoherent and shit. I also didn't feel like re-reading and proofreading it after I wrote it cuz it's long as [bleep] and I've got stuff to do :P [hide=How to Succeed at Dating: A Brief Guide for Socially-Awkward Basement-Dwelling Neckbeards and Virgins:] 1. Get a part-time job in retail/customer service. My first job was a part-time cashier at the university book store. Many of the customers were hot college girls. This job was great because it forced me to interact with hot women, even if all I was doing was ringing up their textbooks and then telling them to have a nice day. In my first week working there, I remember feeling nervous when a hot girl would come to my register. By the time I quit working there, I would always hope that hot girls would come to my register so I could talk to them. This job didn't teach me how to get laid, but it did teach me that most people are inherently friendly and polite to strangers, and that making small talk with strangers (whether it's a little old lady or a smoking hot sorority girl) is nothing to be afraid of. 2. Spend as much time as possible with friends/acquaintances who possess desirable qualities/attitudes/beliefs I had two close friends who I spent as much time as possible with. One friend was basically a troll in real life. He was socially fearless, he straight up didn't give a [bleep]. He would "dress up" as party boy and run around the frat house humping our fraternity brothers just to make them uncomfortable while everybody else would laugh. But the biggest thing to note here is: everybody LOVED him. He said the things that everybody else was thinking but nobody had the balls to say. People admired him for that. He also had a 4.0GPA and made a lot of contributions to the fraternity. So at the end of the day, he was well-liked by everybody. It's important to note that everybody liked him because this was enough real-life proof for my brain that you can possess the same qualities as him and people won't hate you for it; quite the opposite in fact. So these days I'm very confident and carefree as a result of my time spent with him... and I'm like a people-magnet now >_> People who are super carefree and confident are a rare breed these days, so I'm a breath of fresh air for everybody that I meet, just like my friend was for me many years ago. My other close friend was extremely confident and got laid all the time. We'd be out eating lunch somewhere and he'd be making dirty sexual comments to our waitress. I'd always get embarrassed, thinking about how uncomfortable and creeped out or waitress must feel... except the waitress would smile, blush, and then end up sleeping with him later on. He was proof to me that if you have a certain vibe and attitude, you can say almost anything to women and instead of creeping them out, you'll turn them on. The funny thing is, we had a mutual friend who would also feel uncomfortable when he seduced girls. He'd always say, "Man I can't believe he can say stuff like that. I'd get slapped if I said that! He's just got that certain kind of charm to him." Last week I ate dinner with that same mutual friend. Apparently I said something to our waitress that our old friend would've said. "I can't believe you just told our waitress that! If I said that, she'd slap me!" my friend said to me. I smiled to myself and changed the subject. :) So if you follow those two basic points, you'll probably have pretty high self-esteem and you'll feel very comfortable in your own skin. You'll be able to make small talk with just about anybody and they'll think you're a pretty cool guy. But despite being a "cool guy," that will all go down the drain if you still don't understand how dating works. I know tons of guys who are social butterflies, yet still constantly get condemned to the Friend Zone. 3. Get a job in sales The sales world and the dating world are extremely similar. You'll get rejected several times on a daily basis-- enough to desensitize your fear of rejection. You'll make clients very uncomfortable when you try to close the deal-- enough to desensitize your fear of discomfort and awkward situations. And you'll get in the habit of expressing your interest upfront and actively forcing people to reject you, because you will understand that is much better to be rejected than it is to be uncertain. I remember my first month of sales... it was a nightmare because I couldn't get any sales. I was being too "nice" (read: passive). I'll never forget this one man I was trying to sell. I was comparing our product to his, and our product was better across the board. I was saving him money and I was getting him better stuff. He even told me how he'd thought about switching over to my product in the past. I'll never forget that conversation: Him: Wow this really is a better deal then. I'll save money and I'll get better stuff. Me: Yup! :) (silence as he continues to compare the two products) Him: Ok well I think I'll just stick with what I've got for now, but thanks! Bye! I rarely get angry. Including this incident, I've only been "angry" about 3 times in the past 6-7 years. The reason why this pissed me off so much because it was proof that being nice and passive just isn't enough to achieve success in sales. As my sales coach would later tell me, the reason why I didn't get that sale was because I didn't take control. I didn't force him to make a decision. I (incorrectly) assumed that this guy was smart enough to realize "this is a better deal. therefore I'll take it." I (incorrectly) felt like I was being "manipulative" if I took control of the situation. "You need to understand, muggi," said my sales coach, "Most people are terrified of taking risks. They're terrified of being held accountable. They're terrified of making their own decisions, and having those decisions end up as poor decisions. That's why you have to take control... if they take a risk and fail, then they can tell themselves that it's your fault and not theirs. They will no longer be afraid of taking risks and making decisions because they have you to blame. These clients look like adults, but they are really just children, and you are their parent. They think they know what they want, but they don't. You know better than they do-- their judgment is impaired by fear. You are the parent, they are the child, and our product is the vegetables they don't want to eat. You both know that they should eat their vegetables. But they're never going to do it unless you take control and make them." After that conversation, I started taking control in sales. Instead of waiting for my clients to come to a decision, I forced them to make a decision on the spot. Within one week, my sales tripled and my clients were all extremely grateful for my services. Dating really isn't that different. Most guys view sex as something based on chance/luck, instead of having a systematic view of human psychology and biology. If I go on a first date with a girl and I just talk to her for an hour as if she was any other person, at the end of the night she'll probably think, "he's a really cool guy!" However she probably won't want to sleep with me. Or if she does, she won't want to sleep with me until I've taken her out to dinner at least three more times and taken things very slowly (and expensively) with her. The reason why she's behaving this way is my fault for being a [kitty] and not expressing my interest in her. But if on the first date, in addition to just talking to her as if she was any other person, I simply start holding her hand without asking for her permission, suddenly the chances of her wanting to come back to my place to "watch a movie" skyrocket. Why? Because now she knows that I want to [bleep] her and I'm not afraid to show it. The funny thing is, that's all it takes. We live in an interesting time period where most men are [kitties] and are afraid to be direct with women. So when a guy like me comes along, it's a breath of fresh air for her. Confident men are very rare these days. And like I said, all I'm doing is just holding her hand while I continue to talk to her as if I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary. The first time I tried touching a girl on a first date, I knocked her beer over as I went to grab her hand. It was extremely awkward....... and she wouldn't stop texting me the next day. Even though I was extremely awkward and nervous about doing it, the fact that I had the balls to do it was enough to turn her on and demonstrate that I'm the kind of guy she fantasizes about. I've been on dozens of dates now, and so far I've only had one girl get extremely uncomfortable when I grabbed her hand. And the funny thing is, it didn't bother me at all because by that point I understood how girls like that are rare. And not only are they rare, they probably aren't completely socially/emotionally mature yet. Even if you're awkward, most women will still be very pleased with your confidence. And a lot of the time, you can see their eyes light up when you do this. That alone is enough to convince you that you're doing something right :P At the end of the day, I think for a lot of guys, the reason why they can't muster up the balls to talk to women (or touch them, or express their intent with them) is because: 1. they overestimate how unhappy rejection/failure will make them and/or 2. deep down, they still believe what they're doing is effective To give you some perspective, think about something else in which you risked failure in order to master. For example, riding a bike. When I was a little kid, I worried about everything. I didn't learn how to ride a bike until I was 9 years old (whereas most of my friends could ride their bikes by the time they were like 6 or 7). Mostly because I knew I was bad at it, and I was afraid to try to improve because I didn't want to fall of my bike and get hurt. The thought of getting injured scared the shit out of me. I didn't learn how to ride my bike until my older brother dedicated his entire day to teaching me how to learn. I looked up to my older brother and thought he was really cool, so that was my motivation to overcome my fear. I didn't want to disappoint him and waste his time. It's interesting to note that my brother came to me and basically told me, "You're learning how to ride a bike today. If you don't want to learn, tough shit, you gon' learn today." Fast forward to the end of the day and I could ride my bike decently well. Well enough to improve on my own without the fear of injuring myself. The interesting thing to note is, as soon as I learned how to ride my bike, suddenly all of failures became irrelevant. It didn't matter that I fell off my bike a thousand times before learning. The success justified the failures. The failures would only remain relevant if I gave up before I succeeded. Additionally, as soon as I started risking failure, and failed, I didn't actually feel bad. Instead of feeling unhappy for failing like I thought I would, I actually felt happy for failing! Failing made me feel alive and proud of myself for doing what I knew I should be doing, even though I was terrified to do so. Next time you see a hot girl, just TALK to her and see what happens. I can almost guarantee that your interaction will ultimately go nowhere, but I can also guarantee that you feel extremely happy regardless. You're afraid of making a move because you're afraid that if you fail, you will think, "Wow I [bleep]ed that up, I'm such an idiot for even trying, I feel so unhappy now and I regret doing that! My life is over! I should probably just kill myself." In reality, if you make a move and fail, you will think, "Wow I [bleep]ed that up, but I'm so proud of myself for trying. That wasn't as bad as I thought it would be-- in fact, it was kind of exciting! I want to do that again now! I feel more confident now than I've ever felt before!" As an adult, I no longer have the luxury of someone forcing me outside of my comfort zone because they know what's best for me. If I want to succeed, I'm the only person who can force me out of my comfort zone to get what I want out of life. If I don't want to eat my vegetables, I don't have to, but I'll suffer the consequences for such a decision down the road. And things will remain that way until I change. Because I can guarantee that nobody is going to come along to save me and force me to eat my veggies. Finally, keep in mind that your time on this earth is limited. And the sooner you start making smart choices and habits, the better your life will be in the long run. I started exercising consistently when I was 18. By the time I was 22, I could bench press 4x as much as I could at age 18. What if I started exercising at age 23 instead? Then that means when I hit age 24, I would be nowhere near lifting 4x (or even 3x or 2x) my starting weight. If I'm going to live to be 70 years old, then that means it would be in my best interest to start developing healthy habits and beliefs as soon as possible. I'd rather hit age 70 with 50+ years of exercise under my belt than 1 year because at age 69 my doctor told me I'm going to die if I don't start exercising. Don't wait till tomorrow. If you keep telling yourself that you're going to wait until tomorrow to start getting out of your comfort zone, then before you know it, you'll be on your deathbed with all of your fears still intact. Except this time, you'll no longer have the luxury of saying "I'll just do it tomorrow." By then it will be too late. [/hide] TL;DR: Go get a job that forces you to be social if you get anxious around all types of strangers (not just women). Go spend as much time as possible with people who are well-liked and have what you want if you don't have high self-esteem yet. Go get a job in sales if you don't have full control over your dating life. If you have any objections to my advice, let me know. Otherwise you have no excuses and your life will remain as it is until you die-- comfortable, but incomplete.

Well you're probably gonna die lonely and unfulfilled unless you grow a pair :P

Yeah at this point I only discuss these things with my friends to plant a seed in their minds, so in the future if things go south, at least they know that they aren't completely doomed and they can come to me for help. It also helps me sleep a little better at night knowing that I at least tried to help them make smart decisions. As much as I'd love to prevent them from making bad decisions in the first place, I don't think it's realistic to expect them to change without getting burned first. In other words, I'm pessimistic about the next few years for my friends, however I remain optimistic about the distant future. Like you said, these things take time :P

Went drinking with one of my friends who wanted to try OKC after seeing my success with it. I asked him if I could see his phone, I wanted to try and schedule at least one date for him by the end of the night. He said he had given up and deleted his OKC account. SMH. Me: Why don't you just try to do what I've been doing? It's working for me and tons of other people too. Him: I just feel like I shouldn't have to change myself in order to get results. [keywords: feel; shouldn't have to] Me: Ok, let me just ask you two things then: 1. how is that working out so far? Are you getting the results you want with your current strategy/beliefs? Him: hahaha ok I see your point, you've got me there. No I'm not. Me: Ok, 2. You've known me for almost six years now. How much do you think I've changed since you first met me? Him: Well you're definitely a lot more confident. Me: Right, but my core personality's basically the same, right? I'm still more or less the same person you met five years ago? Him: Yeah. Me: Ok so then you can still improve your dating skills while "being yourself," right? Him: I have to go to the bathroom, brb......... Well I tried :P Didn't bother to bring up the subject again when he returned. I wish more people would ask themselves "How are my current beliefs/habits working out for me so far? Are they making me happy?" People just don't seem to realize that if A) your current beliefs and habits aren't making you happy B) you do not change Then you're doomed to remain unhappy

(Bump) that tingle down your spine when you go pee after maxing out your bladder from drinking lots of beer Posted from my iPhone in a bar