I'm running out of ammo in dating.

[T_i_m]

On 24.10.2025 at 6:59 PM, Joshe said:

You want deep connection with a woman? Drop pickup altogether, uproot neediness, and regulate yourself. 

You still have to go outside and approach women though, right? You're just not gonna call it pickup?

@Joshe I love what you are saying. I've noticed myself recently that overstressed nervous system is capable of making dating hard. Anxiety grows, relaxation becomes impossible, hard to be yourself and grounded.

 

On 24.10.2025 at 6:59 PM, Joshe said:

If you befriend your nervous system - get to know it...
....
...and regulate yourself.

Do you have any advice on how to do that?

 

 

 

 

[meta_male]

19 hours ago, T_i_m said:

@Joshe I love what you are saying. I've noticed myself recently that overstressed nervous system is capable of making dating hard. Anxiety grows, relaxation becomes impossible, hard to be yourself and grounded.

@T_i_m Yep, same here. Reading some perspectives beyond full-on pickup was actually refreshing though.

This thread helped a lot already. Thank you everyone, appreciate all the advice from @Joshe and analysis from @Natasha Tori Maru. Will reply later, pretty busy atm.

[Joshe]

21 hours ago, T_i_m said:

You still have to go outside and approach women though, right? You're just not gonna call it pickup?

Kinda. I wouldn't think of it as "approach", because the very idea triggers your nervous system, then you automatically start fighting yourself, searching for calm and confidence, trying your best to pretend your nervous system doesn't exist whilst you conjure up your top inner-game wisdom and affirmations. 

I think women are more receptive to you when you're not performing anything and you don't want them one way or the other. I think just being in your own presence - authentically - with nothing to prove and nothing to gain is all most men need to have a fair amount of prospects. This might sound like bullshit but I don't know how else to put it. 

If you don't have looks, as long as you have some kind of redeeming quality, whether it be confidence, charisma, humor, demeanor, sexy, interesting character, style, or whatever, all you have to do is be around women and some will bite. If you don't have a hook at all, you will just be a nice guy (which is still better than coming off like pickup weirdo).

Just a couple of recent examples of how things start and potentially escalate with no effort:

I recently took my dog to the dog park and saw this chick there who invited me over to let our dogs play together. Had normal human conversation. At the end, without trying or wanting anything, we exchanged phone numbers and now she texts me every time she goes to the park. And out of the blue she's telling me her bf isn't actually her bf and that it's complicated, and she's texting almost on a daily basis. I didn't do anything - there was no approach or stress. 

Time before that, I met a super sexy, clean hippy with armpit hair who told me what time she usually comes so I can meet her there again. Again, no approach, no thoughts about how I wanted to have sex with her - just being normal and friendly.

It's almost like showing them basic respect as a person and not trying to get anything from them makes them receptive enough so that you don't have to neurotically pummel your nervous system to create a window for escalation. 🤔 You don't have to practice tactics when all you have to do is learn to be calm, cool, normal, nice, good-faith, and seeing them as a fellow human instead of your game. 

This method might not be for the high-standard trophy collector because it's not as targeted as pickup, but high standards = less sex. You're handicapping yourself for a pristine story. 1/3 the girls I've had sex with, you might call me disgusting for having sex with them, but some of the best sex I've had was with a girl most guys wouldn't be caught dead with in public. 

21 hours ago, T_i_m said:

Do you have any advice on how to do that?

Multiple pieces - but really too deep to dive into here. It's mostly about listening to, respecting, and retraining your nervous system for calm, which necessitates learning to identify and letting go of thoughts that induce fear and anxiety. First step is learn to listen to and accept what your nervous system is telling you. If you ignore it, you'll always just be masking and won't have true confidence and will wonder why you can't quite get it handled.

The reason you can do 1000 approaches and still experience intense emotion is because you're trying to do exposure therapy wrong. True exposure therapy pairs exposure with safety and nervous system regulation, but when you approach 1000 women, there's no safety and regulation - in fact, the opposite - which is why it doesn't work, hence the idea of building calm from the bottom-up, incrementally, with safety built-in (i.e. outside the domain of pickup).

There's probably not a one-size fits all strategy. It's kind of a long game and a lot of work tbh, but so is pickup. It's healthier in the long run but maybe pickup is better if you're hard up. 

You could check out the book called "Befriending Your Nervous System" to get some basic ideas, but the main work would be consciousness and somatic work, which you would have to figure out on your own for the most part. 

FYI, I'm no expert or master on this stuff. I'm still in the learning phase of cultivating calm. Also, since I'm not looking for sex, I'm likely biased towards methods that don't produce it.

It just seems to make more sense to cultivate calm incrementally in safe, low-pressure environments where the nervous system can actually learn what calm feels like and rewire itself. 

Edited Tuesday at 08:23 PM by Joshe

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@meta_male All G my man, no need to even reply.

Sometimes the words just act to trigger some contemplation and insight that starts the clarity.

I usually start to see different datapoints in my experience I was biased away from after big insights.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Joshe You made me recall something me and my girlfriends used to coin more often.

'The girlfriend zone' in opposition to 'The friend zone'

When a chick just wants some casual friendly shit but she is immediately girlfriend zoned. Now has to put effort into swatting off attempts and second guesses etc.

[T_i_m]

@Joshe Thank you for your answer!

I've been thinking similar thoughts recently after being extremly affected by stress and anxiety. Part of it girls-related. 

But this stuff is not even about women. It's just about feeling good. Letting go of the things in your mind that stress you out? Sounds like a key to happiness. And there's so much to unravel! I should be greatfull for my period of anxiety because I'm becoming aware of this. And it's a lesson for life on psycological and spiritual wellbeing.

Meditation helps me a lot with that, also removing distractions, being in silence with yourself more, good sleep.

And women, they'll have more fun with you when you breathe more and think less, be with them and not somewhere inside your head. 

I remember once I wanted to asked a girl for a number and remembered a video I watched recently of rsd tyler where he was talking about how you can have ineraction going great but once you ask for a number you'll suddenly be rejected and be surprised by that. That thought just appeared in my mind and I started freezing and mumbling embaracingly. And no, I wasn't rejected at all.
To be fair Tyler warned about this kind of stuff happaning as well. Goes away with practice I guess. 

Another thing I've noticed is being on edge can push you to do things you weren't motivated enough or coragous enough  to do before because you sometimes suffer so much and ready to do things that used to be scary just to stop suffering. Like approaching girls on a street or iviting someone for a date or going to some job interview etc. And that will even make you seem confident in the beginning... but it won't last long because everyone will see worried and anxious you pretty soon. Still can be usefull for some breakthrough learning experience maybe.

Also I see how this kind of advice if applied wrongly can lead to a trap of trying to spiritually bypass dating experience. Especially if someone doesn't have enough of it. We should be aware of that.
 

On 28.10.2025 at 10:47 PM, Joshe said:

just being normal and friendly.

 

On 28.10.2025 at 10:47 PM, Joshe said:

You don't have to practice tactics when all you have to do is learn to be calm, cool, normal, nice, good-faith, and seeing them as a fellow human instead of your game. 

Look at as discovering normal human interaction late into life. We must be all autistic people with some messed up unsocialized childehoods here 

Edited 3 hours ago by T_i_m