John Anthony vs Owen Cook meeting clavicular - perfect illustration of frame

[Lyubov]

9 minutes ago, Valach said:

@LyubovDoes not build a healthy foundation for a building a relationship though. That is my issue with it.

Of course. I didn’t get a fraction of the sex I could have simply because I realized what a shit life pick up generally is. It’s boring and unsustainable for most men, most guys hype up their results and it’s largely a waste of time. You can do the pick up grind and some guys are extroverted and able to churn out some results for themselves but this isn’t really a good life if you are a spiritual person. 

[Twentyfirst]

@nerdspeak I agree that a natural can be surpassed by a PUA but I still think the PUA has to let go of game and enter flow. Too much game makes you an autistic geek that peacocks when he is 40 years old. I don't think a man should even cold approach past 30. By then women should come to you through your lifestyle framing. If a PUA lets go of game and he creates a lifestyle funnel to bring in leads and has an assistant or even AI organize all that for him then he will be better than the natural.

[Valach]

@TwentyfirstNot everyone is interested in creating such lifestyle.

[Twentyfirst]

5 minutes ago, Valach said:

@TwentyfirstNot everyone is interested in creating such lifestyle.

It's hard to beat a natural. Naturals actually have that lifestyle without even trying. They just set up social gatherings and have female friends that do all the grunt organizing. They have perfect body language and internal game. They barely have to think about it, it's just a flow. Naturals are rarer than PUAs think though. Not every man who gets women without learning PUA is a natural. I have probably met 5 naturals in my life and they all smoke any of these PUA dorks.

[nerdspeak]

@Twentyfirst You don't necessarily need to set up social gatherings or have a big social circle to be a natural. There are loner naturals with 2-3 male friends who go out not that often, max once per week, but usually just once per month (usually while a bit tipsy), and pull almost every time off a couple of warm approaches (based on eye contact or proximity, like the girl kind of lingering around), and otherwise just do online. I met a couple of people like this in NYC and i basically imitate their approach because I lack the energy to run around nightclubs.

To maintain a big social circle, with lots of beta orbiters and female friends doing grunt work, you have to actually like superficial socializing and invest energy in maintaining these relationships. These guys don't really enjoy that sort of thing. They want to have intense intellectual conversations with their long-time friends and then snipe hot girls who are already a bit attracted to them. 

It takes some confidence; the people I met who were like this had rich parents and/or were reasonably successful and good-looking, went to fancy private schools, played sports in college, etc. Not saying you need these things to pull like this, but they had strong, entitled frames. Not all of them were good-looking, but they all dressed well, in clothes that signalled their wealthy, highly educated East Coast patrician backgrounds. 

Edited 16 hours ago by nerdspeak

[Leo Gura]

Naturals are better than PUAs. I know this first hand. I have professional PUA coach friends and one natural friend. The natural friend is way better.

One time I was talking about getting in state and he asked me, "What's state?" I explained it to him and he said, "Oh. I'm in state as soon as I get in my car." I said, You fucker!

You cannot beat a natural. That's because he is genetically wired for extreme extroversion. No introvert can be that good. These kind of extroverts are also usually quite good-looking. So they got all the cards stacked in their favor. It is a perfect storm of pussy magnetism.

Gaming with my natural friend is so fun. It's incredible. It's just like a party around him. And he knows nothing about pickup theory. It's all just intuitive. He could sell satanism to a nun.

But then he struggles in other areas of life. So it's all trade-offs. Extroverts got plenty of other problems.

Edited 10 hours ago by Leo Gura

[How to be wise]

44 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Naturals are better than PUAs. I know this first hand. I have professional PUA coach friends and one natural friend. The natural friend is way better.

One time I was talking about getting in state and he asked me, "What's state?" I explained it to him and he said, "Oh. I'm in state as soon as I get in my car." I said, You fucker!

You cannot beat a natural. That's because he is genetically wired for extreme extroversion. No introvert can be that good. These kind of extroverts are also usually quite good-looking. So they got all the cards stacked in their favor. It is a perfect storm of pussy magnetism.

Gaming with my natural friend is so fun. It's incredible. It's just like a party around him. And he knows nothing about pickup theory. It's all just intuitive. He could sell satanism to a nun.

But then he struggles in other areas of life. So it's all trade-offs. Extroverts got plenty of other problems.

It's quite cringey to see a 40-year-old man still doing pick up pretending he's in his 20s

[Leo Gura]

@How to be wise You see what you want to see.

[Lyubov]

This is why I keep saying that PUA is ultimately a loser’s game. What do I mean by that? What I mean by that is that almost every guy including me who got into PUA made the choice to do so because of faulty reasoning, usually around lack, needing to fix some issue about being introverted, etc. Very few if any guy has ever took up PUA aligned with truth. Because of this there is always this faulty crack in the foundation of it which will culminate in some problematic manifestation of it. 

The closest I believe one can sustainably get to being a natural is dropping PUA entirely and then working on becoming an extroverted introvert. Looking for ways to make socializing fun and actually drawing some value from it. That will open up far more doors long term and sustainably than doing any PUA (which is a massive waste of time for most men). 

Guys who are naturally very extroverted and decent looking absolutely do have the most sustainable lifestyles when it comes to women but I do believe it’s possible to engineer this yourself as an introvert in a way that serves you well BUT you will have to change your mindset and come to terms on a new way of seeing relating.

[Leo Gura]

48 minutes ago, Lyubov said:

What I mean by that is that almost every guy including me who got into PUA made the choice to do so because of faulty reasoning, usually around lack, needing to fix some issue about being introverted, etc.

Obviously. Because not all of us are born naturals. This is not wrong. Practice is required. Even naturals have tons of practice, it's just more their natural lifestyle.

Edited 4 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Magnanimous]

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

But then he struggles in other areas of life. So it's all trade-offs. Extroverts got plenty of other problems.

Leo what sorts of problems do extroverts have? 

It'd be nice to know before they come up.

[Leo Gura]

11 minutes ago, Magnanimous said:

Leo what sorts of problems do extroverts have? 

It'd be nice to know before they come up.

That's way overgeneralizing. They don't all have the same problems.

Introverts are good at introspective work.

My friend could not create Actualized.org videos.

Edited 3 hours ago by Leo Gura

[LordFall]

That was pretty cringe to watch from John. It's what you call being reactive and qualifying yourself instead of being at the cause not the effect. 

[Raze]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Naturals are better than PUAs. I know this first hand. I have professional PUA coach friends and one natural friend. The natural friend is way better.

One time I was talking about getting in state and he asked me, "What's state?" I explained it to him and he said, "Oh. I'm in state as soon as I get in my car." I said, You fucker!

You cannot beat a natural. That's because he is genetically wired for extreme extroversion. No introvert can be that good. These kind of extroverts are also usually quite good-looking. So they got all the cards stacked in their favor. It is a perfect storm of pussy magnetism.

Gaming with my natural friend is so fun. It's incredible. It's just like a party around him. And he knows nothing about pickup theory. It's all just intuitive. He could sell satanism to a nun.

But then he struggles in other areas of life. So it's all trade-offs. Extroverts got plenty of other problems.

Naturals are just naturally able to bring out the instinctive parts of their personality designed for socializing and flirting. 

[Lyubov]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Obviously. Because not all of us are born naturals. This is not wrong. Practice is required. Even naturals have tons of practice, it's just more their natural lifestyle.

There’s some nuance here. I want to try to communicate this as clearly and as simply as possible so everyone can understand me the best. 

I’m not saying there is anything wrong at wanting to improve at something or to practice and get better at something and get certain needs or desires met. 

What I’m saying is the intention and reasoning behind it for most men is usually coming from a place of lack or a falsehood about lacking value. “If I suck at getting women, I’m not a real man.” 

This reasoning which leads most men to PUA is the Achilles heel, it has an unknown long term cost on your soul. Practicing in alignment with this reasoning in extreme cases will make you into a John Anthony. 

I’m not saying wanting to practice social skills and flirting and romance and getting sex with women is bad or wrong to pursue. I’m saying most men launch their rocket on a faulty foundation in pursuit for it and that’s largely what the manifestation of PUA is. 

There is few material on this subject that isn’t tainted by PUA corruption. I would say the most truthful way of doing it is usually forging your own path where you pull together a lot of your own material and learn from different teachers but it’s risky. 

For every one guy who can safely pull the useful stuff from Owen there are another three who will get scammed or corrupted.

[AION]

This is a critique of the looks maxing movement from a dating coach with 23 years of experience. The speaker acknowledges that physical attractiveness provides initial advantages—better first impressions, more forgiveness for mistakes, easier social entry. However, they argue this is just the "gate," not the finish line.

The Core Argument: What determines success after that initial moment is presence—the ability to hold eye contact, own intentions, lead conversations, recover from mistakes, and stay relaxed under social pressure. A high-presence person creates opportunities where none existed; a low-presence person can't capitalize even on good looks.

Historical Context:

• Early 2000s PUA era: "Looks don't matter" was the mantra. Focus was on getting reps in the field, developing game through actual practice
• Mid-2010s shift: Failed PUA guys formed incel communities, then looks maxing emerged as a spin-off focused entirely on appearance optimization
• Current landscape: Dating moved to apps (Tinder, Instagram), making first impressions 100% visual. A generation raised on screens has weak nervous systems in real-life interactions

The Paradox: Looks maxers are "obsessed with the body yet still disembodied"—they treat the body as a product to optimize rather than an instrument to train. They're using self-improvement as an avoidance loop to escape the actual problem: nervous system freeze response when facing real social pressure.

The Solution: Get field experience. One night, one approach, fully present—the field will reveal what's real in 10 seconds. If even thinking about this causes tension, that's the real issue (trainable nervous system), not facial structure.

Bottom line: Looks are a supplement/modifier, not the engine. The engine is signal—congruent nervous system functioning under social pressure.

Edited 2 hours ago by AION

[Lyubov]

Looksmaxxing is the logical outcome for western incels from a generation that socializes mostly online. Everything has gone hyper x or y because you have to operate from extremes and be functioning at a crazy high percentile to sleep with pretty women in the USA. There is massive hoeflation so now every guy rightfully sees that you have to maximize everything to get results. Tate was about money and now you have streamers about looks. Obviously there is a sustainable balance but it likely means living by that means a trade off in other areas you’ve been priced out of. 

Edited 53 minutes ago by Lyubov

[Lyubov]

The truth is relationships and women you want are not a guarantee in life and you aren’t entitled one bit to them. I think the narrative is really off about the whole male loneliness epidemic. Maybe most of these guys don’t have women because they offer nothing in return in a relationship? I think men need to step into their value as being fine as who they are. This PUA and looksmaxxing stuff is largely a distraction from that. 

[something_else]

1 hour ago, Lyubov said:

There’s some nuance here. I want to try to communicate this as clearly and as simply as possible so everyone can understand me the best. 

I’m not saying there is anything wrong at wanting to improve at something or to practice and get better at something and get certain needs or desires met. 

What I’m saying is the intention and reasoning behind it for most men is usually coming from a place of lack or a falsehood about lacking value. “If I suck at getting women, I’m not a real man.” 

This reasoning which leads most men to PUA is the Achilles heel, it has an unknown long term cost on your soul. Practicing in alignment with this reasoning in extreme cases will make you into a John Anthony. 

I’m not saying wanting to practice social skills and flirting and romance and getting sex with women is bad or wrong to pursue. I’m saying most men launch their rocket on a faulty foundation in pursuit for it and that’s largely what the manifestation of PUA is. 

There is few material on this subject that isn’t tainted by PUA corruption. I would say the most truthful way of doing it is usually forging your own path where you pull together a lot of your own material and learn from different teachers but it’s risky. 

For every one guy who can safely pull the useful stuff from Owen there are another three who will get scammed or corrupted.

Yea, I agree. IMO the best framing is something like "I want to improve my social skills"

I think this is a healthier approach than pure pickup, although I may be biased because it's what worked for me. I never really went out with the sole intent of getting laid, I went out with the intent of talking to as many new people as possible, pushing my comfort zone, learning to relax in busy bars/clubs, learning to have fun and be playful, learning to flirt, learning to make friends. I learnt all of the same stuff as you learn doing pure PU but with a much less shameful framing of the whole process.

One of the issues with pickup is that it kind of frames everything as "you must learn how to trick your way into a woman's pants" which is a very unhealthy mindset to have as a guy. It's very needy and very forced, unnatural. Instead you wanna focus on building yourself into a solid, confident and well rounded guy and then you can just place yourself into environments with lots of women, where stuff can happen quite naturally.

I also didn't do any daygame, I think it's fundamentally quite a degenerate thing to do. At least the spammy kind where you camp out on a high street and approach every woman like a toll both operator. The ratio of "creeped out women" to "women who might give you a shot" is just so fucking high.