The Tipping Point - The Moment It All Turns Around

[drjekyll]

Hello everyone. A new forum. Remarkable.

A friend of mine asked me "how do you know when you make it? Is there a point where it all comes together?"

Fair questions. A lot of the time, when I was still all over the place, I had a head full of tactics and ideas, I had no centre to it, no point of reference. It was as if there was so much information it paralyzed me. And sometimes I'd get a success, and then sometimes I'd go through a dry spell.

I was improving so slowly that I could hardly see it. It was tough as fuck, like slogging through thick mud in a night-time storm toward a place you'd never been, with 50 different sets of directions on how to get there.

And no shoes.

My answer to my friend was annoyingly cryptic - I said "yes and no."

I'm like that sometimes.

This community, to my mind, isn't really about the sex. This may seem ludicrious to suggest, and I understand how it sounds, but bear with me. I believe that the sex is incidental. It's incidental in the way that the Colosseum was incidental to what the Gladiators were going out there to do. They wanted glory, and honour. They wanted to prove themselves.

The Colosseum just provided the arena.

The truth is that a lot of men have never felt truly desirable.

Back in the day, beautiful women were like barbed wire to me. If I saw one, it wrenched at my heart. It really was that bad. I was so lonely I could not bear to see couples kiss. I hated it. I'd walk through a club and see a woman kissing a guy up against a wall and it would cut me up inside, it would really hurt me. I'd feel so useless. So powerless.

I just wanted to be loved and I had no way of making that happen. How pathetic is that?

It's wasn't really about the sex for me. It was about the pain. It was about the pain of loneliness. It was about the desperation, and the envy in me for all the men to whom this seemed so effortless, envy that tore me up like blades and broken glass.

It drove me on. That pain motivated me more, I believe, than any lofty idea or idealised goal. I was angry. I just wanted my fucking dignity back.

It broke my heart and infuriated me to feel such a weight of pathetic sorrow in me, as a young man. I felt that I would never be as young and as able as I was right now - but I was just incapable of doing anything with my youth. I hated it. Hated to bear the indignity, and the half-mocking, half-pitying glances of the women I wanted, or the men I looked up to.

I worked at this because I felt as if my heart were breaking in my chest whenever I saw a hot chick with a hot guy. I felt like a leper. Here - I'll tell you something pathetic and funny about me. It got so bad when I was doing this stuff that if I opened a door marked 'Pull' I'd think to myself "I'm fucking trying! Fuck off!"

Seriously.

Yeah, I know.

This whole endeavour revolves around connecting with women. On sleeping with them. But to be honest, seducing women is an arena in which we learn to face the men we are. Where we stand up. Where we learn to be strong inside, not weak as we always have been. It is a place of honour and glory. Where we revile that thing each of us was - where we cultivate hatred for that part of ourselves that is average, and frustrated. We fight to be exceptional, and fulfilled.

Women are the arena, the crucible. This game is about facing yourself. It's about learning how to use your humanity, your masculinity.

When my friend asked me when it came together for me, I told him this story.

I was pushing myself and pushing myself at this. I started to have more success, piece by piece. Then, one day I pulled a hot chick. I was totally open and genuine with her the entire time. She loved it. We had sex. It was cool.

Same thing happened the next night.

The next night, the same thing happened again.

The next day, I had a threesome.

The day after that, I was mainly gloating.

The day after that, I pulled again, and the day after that, once more, I pulled a really hot chick.

And then something amazing happened.

The next day, I was sitting inside my flat, and the evening came around. I knew that if I went out, I could pull. I knew I could. There was no question in my mind, not a shred of doubt.

I looked at the Xbox. The Xbox looked at me.

Fuck it, I thought. I jacked in a copy of TimeSplitters 2. I kicked the shit out of a load of monkeys armed with heavy weaponry until 4am. Then I passed out.

On all the days from that day till this, I have never once felt that I am an unattractive man. I have felt annoyed, and have been blown out by girls I was talking to, but that base-level proof that I got of my attractiveness that week has never, ever left me.

And granted, that does not mean that I am able to pull anyone, of course not. But that's the point.

Of course it doesn't. Because this game is not about women. It's about you.

Was there a point where it all came together? I guess so. And not in my abilities with women - they could use a little spit and polish, and that's the truth. But there was a point, when I picked up that Xbox controller, where it came together for me in some indefinable way. Where I found in this community what I had been seeking for a long time - proof positive that I was worth a damn.

That was the moment for me, the moment that things changed. And it wasn't anything more dramatic than me losing the sense of desperation that had filled me ever since I began this. I was able to genuinely chill out about it. I'd never been able to do that - ever. I could actually properly chill. It was cool. And the more I could chill out about this, the faster I found myself able to learn. It wasn't agonising anymore. Progress became - and has stayed - comparatively rapid without the desperation clouding my mind.

And I certainly found that desperation was something I had to face down time and again before this moment. Not desperation for sex - I really hate it when people suggest that's all the community is about. It makes me want to say "fuck you people, give us some credit. We're human beings."

It's more the experience of being desperate for some fucking affection. Desperate to feel attractive. Desperate not to be constantly blown out time and again. Desperate to have some power, to be a force in the world and not feel like a leech on the lives of these women.

The deperation of not knowing - not knowing how to make it better, and so just continuing on through the indignity of approaching and fucking up and approaching and fucking up and so on and so on ad fucking nauseum.

They say sex is like money and food - it only becomes really, really important when you don't get any. I have found that that's true.

You see, after that week I proved something to myself. And whatever that was, it's stayed with me. I don't feel ugly anymore. I used to. I don't now. I don't feel powerless anymore. I used to feel powerless all the time. I don't feel like I need to beg for affection from the women I want.

I feel strong. Not impervious, mind. Not even close. But strong.

And that's made all the hardship worthwhile.

Here's to the future.

Ever Yours

Jekyll

[smoothlatinkid]

Excellent post, Good Doctor.

Mirrors exactly what I---and I suspect a good number of us---have gone through.

It's not just about getting women. It's about self-actualization. And it transfers to every area of your life.

I'm a year in. I've pulled more women that ever, but in doing that, I see that it's really about healing ME. And having/learning the tools to do so...and having cool brothers at your side---it's a blessing.

It's going to be a great 2007.

[drjekyll]

Absolutely.

It's hard to talk about what you refer to as 'self-actualisation' without sounding like a hippie, but you are of course totally correct. This community is, when taken in a positive way, like a self-help programme of incredible power. It's like Tony Robbins with teeth. And what you say about it suffusing other parts oif your life - again, you're bang on.

I think it's because your relationships with the opposite sex are crucial to your self worth in an incredibly personal and universal way. We're hardwired by evolution to make this whole issue massively important to us, at every level.

It's like the foundation. If there's a problem there, it's reflected in the whole building, no matter how grandiose that building is.

I found that a lot of this meant I actually got worse before I got better. It was like I needed to punch down through the levels of my psyche, to face a lot of shit I'd never really faced. But once I'd reached that tipping point, I knew that I was stronger than my fear.

It's weird, I'm trying to put words to something that I'm sure a lot of people would feel is really abstract and perhaps a little pointless, but to me it seems the very heart of what we truly fight to acheive, whether or not we even know it is our real goal. To be excellent men. To be unafraid. To be strong, and yes - to be loved. I believe that it is this Style speaks about when he talks about being your best self, not merely yourself.

I remember very clearly, my last girlfriend, before I got into this. I remember being amazed that she liked me, that she wanted to be with me. It's pathetic, I know. Nonetheless it is the truth. And sure enough, that feeling I had, that I did not deserve that woman - it pervaded the relationship, and ultimately destroyed it.

I think that we fight to earn the right to be with those women, the best women. To know that you do possess the faculty of strength, and although you've done well by pulling that amazing girl - she could have done a hell of a lot worse than by pulling you.

I feel that this community is for many a kind of belated rite of passage into manhood. There's nothing in our society like some Native American Indians had, where they'd send you off into the wilderness at the age of 12 to learn to survive on your own, or even the culture of 100 years ago when young boys were expected to work to support their families. Made you grow up fast.

It's almost as if the complacency endemic in our society has infected us, and frozen millions of men in a state of sexual and emotional immaturity. This is not just about learning to pick up chicks. It is a war on approach anxiety, and other kinds of fear. An art, a craft in which a man can take pride and find a sense of self. A place where the weak can become empowered. A place where we can face that complacency, and face it down.

And although we do not, nor can we, destroy self-doubt, we at least are prepared to stand up and defy it, until we prove to ourselves that there is another way out of weakness other than surrender. There is, as many of us are increasingly finding, victory.

Viva la revolution.

[smoothlatinkid]

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I remember very clearly, my last girlfriend, before I got into this. I remember being amazed that she liked me, that she wanted to be with me. Its pathetic, I know. Nonetheless it is the truth. And sure enough, that feeling I had, that I did not deserve that woman - it pervaded the relationship, and ultimately destroyed it. 


The exact same thing happened to me. She was, at that time, plainly the hottest woman I'd ever been with.

Which made me overlook her cocaine problem and all-too-casual relationship with the truth.

But what I looked at more was my own AFC behavior....and the pain I went through afterwards told me one word...

CHANGE.

[daredevil]

Beautiful...

Thanks for your insights DrJekyll!

[TheCoolerKing]

I feel the same as you right now.

AA can be quite crippling.
And sometimes all I do is say how I'll get over.
But its usually never comes about.

So yes, I'm still plauged with AA.

I'm transfering to another school after this year.
So I'm telling myself that I have to pull out all the stops.
I'm leaving so it wont matter...

I know its probably going to be different (or should I say the same) when I get back to school.
And I got back pretty soon.

[eVan]

Hey DrJekyll, I love your posts, man. I liked the one on Stylelife also about "The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth." You really inspired me on that one. I've been down and out and slogging for a pittance in a boot and shoe yard myself lately. The fact that you have gone through this and acknowledged the absolutely deep deep petrifying pain, loneliness, desparation, and unloveableness that I feel makes me feel, in a certain way, heard and validated. I look forward to posts like yours. I really hope that this forum, and all the others can work together for the benefit of all men, and women too. Especially women. Afterall, we are doing this work for them as well as ourselves.

Some guys, like that one on Stylelife who you were having a thread discussion with in the meek thread just give me the creeps. It seemed like, to me, that he just lost his conscience because of some deep pain, and became kind of psychopathic. You seemed like a knight in comparison. Perhaps you are both a reflection of myself. I do see the mysoginist and the knight who loves and is loved by women in myself.

a brotherly thanks, eVan

[crypticfox]

I couldn't have said it better myself.

I need to have a week like that.

[Herminator]

Awesome post. I'm half a year in the field and going thru a plateau and maybe even some relapse. Your post reminds me to keep pushing on and endure the pain period till the next phase of my game.