A couple months ago I had a debilitating hypochondria attack that lasted a week. I thought I was going to die of a rare disease. I wrote about a previous attack in A Dead Bat In Paraguay, where I described moments of terror in between obsessive checking of symptoms and health resources. In both cases I couldn’t stop negative health thoughts from entering my head, even though I knew they were unreasonable. An above-average intelligence offered me no immunity and probably made me even more susceptible.

During this recent attack my sister said, “Why don’t you read a book about it.”

“A book?” I replied.

“Yeah you know—words and paper.”

I went to Amazon and read reviews on several. I eventually settled on The Worry Cure by Robet Leahy. My attack subsided by the time it came to my door. It’s definitely a self-help book and I felt hesitant to begin reading. I’m a highly experienced man of the world—how much more can I possibly learn? Several weeks passed before I cracked it open.

The book takes a cognitive approach at addressing the anxiety problem (cognitive therapy is the mainstream term for “NLP”). It says that the way you think is flawed, and the only way to get rid of phobias, anxiety, or other mental issues is to change your belief system. Replace the faulty beliefs with the correct ones, and voila, the desired change should result.

Here’s a couple of things I learned from the book about my problem:

- Obsessive checking on the internet and seeking reassurance from family or friends that I wasn’t going to die soon only had a temporary benefit, and kept the attack going. I wanted to be an expert on health to rule out possible problems.

- It’s impossible to be 100% certain of your health status. No reasonable person is an expert on every little symptom and disease.

- During an attack, I was overestimating my risk of having something serious. I only read about the deadliest outcomes that were most improbable.

- Death can be delayed, never denied. One day you will get sick with something that millions of other people have been through. You will adapt and life will go on (hopefully). You must accept that you are mortal.

You may be able to see how these statements can be spun around on other sources of anxiety. Let’s apply them to social anxiety for guys who are too scared to approach:

- Obsessive preparation and reading of pickup advice in an attempt to gain control of future approaches, which doesn’t reduce the anxiety when it’s actually time to approach.

- It’s impossible to be 100% certain that a girl won’t reject you. No man is everything to every girl.

- When you are about to approach a girl, you overestimate the chance of getting rejected outright. You imagine the worst possible outcome.

- Rejection can be delayed, never denied. Millions of men get rejected every day. You will get over it and life will go on. You must accept that most girls don’t want to be with you.

One thing I liked about the book is that it doesn’t only detail health anxiety, but other areas as well (work, relationships, money, and social interactions). Second to approach anxiety, relationship anxiety in the form of jealousy and a fear of getting dumped is a popular topic of guys who email me. They are unreasonably scared of losing their girl, doing things that, ironically, are more likely to push those girls away.

The book offers mental techniques to reduce anxiety. I’ll share two:

- Practice your fear. For 20 minutes a day, repeat the feared thought in your head (i.e. “I probably have cancer” or “The next girl I talk to will reject me”). Make the thought intense, vivid and full of doom. What happens is you begin to accept the negative outcome and get bored of it. I know this works because it’s a strategy I’ve shared to help guys approach girls, but something I didn’t use when it came to health. (The funny thing about anxiety is that it can be crippling in one area but completely absent in another. A successful businessman can make important presentations in front of dozens of people but can’t approach a girl if his life depended on it. We use different strategies for different things.)

- Test your predictions. Look back to when you had anxiety about something in the past. Did it turn out to be true? How correct were you? Obviously I’ve been wrong every time I had a hypochondria attack. I’m batting 0%, so there is no reason to believe any future attack unless a doctor properly diagnoses me. Even guys with approach anxiety have had prior interactions with girls. How did those go? Were rejections as awful as you thought? Or was the rejection rather benign?

Realize there is a difference between run-of-the-mill nervousness and genuine approach anxiety. It’s very normal if you hesitate before approaches or notice your heart picking up in speed. It’s okay if you chicken out every now and then because in the end you’re not a robot. Even I get a little nervous if I haven’t approached in a while or if I’m in a new environment. In these cases I don’t think you need to read this book.

But if the thought of approaching fills you with dread and you’ve gone out several times without doing what you’ve intended to do, in spite of how much you’ve prepared yourself or how much encouragement your wingman was giving you, then I think this book will help. If you follow its solutions I think you’ll notice a difference in about a month. I’d lend you my copy but my sister is reading it right now.

I’m a strong proponent of calling out cockblockers, but I noticed that two things have to be present for me to do it:

1. The cockblocker has to interrupt the conversation and stay in the vicinity, as if to rub it in my face. If she whisks the girl away I’m not going to chase them down because the energy to call out the cockblock has to be less than the actual cockblock.

2. The girl has to be high quality. Most cockblockers actually do me a favor, but if I was liking the girl then the cockblocker must pay, especially since in D.C. it will take another month until I meet another reasonable chick.

That said, here are some additional cockblocker responses to the one I already shared.

RESPONSE #1:

Approach the cockblocker and say, “Hi do you have a finance or husband?”

99% of the time the answer will be no. If she doesn’t answer or tries to ignore you then glance at her left hand ring finger for confirmation.

“It looks like you don’t. Well I think your time would be better spent trying to find a man instead of worrying about who your friend is talking to. Maybe that’s the reason why you don’t have a ring on your finger.”

Babality!

Say it like you’re trying to give her relationship advice. If she gets nasty on you then it just confirms how much you upset her.

If she’s in a relationship say, “Well I think your time would be better spent pleasing your man at home instead of worrying about me. I feel sorry for him.” You just called her out for being a shitty wife more concerned with cockblocking you then giving her spouse blowjobs. These are devastating comebacks. She’ll cry, I promise you.

RESPONSE #2 (By Mike):

YOU: “Wow, your life must really suck.”

HER: “What do you mean/WTF do you mean?”

YOU: “You’re life is so miserable and unhappy that you can’t bear seeing anyone else have fun. That must suck.”

[Banshee screed.]

YOU: “No, really, I am so sorry.” *Walk away*

It’s not important what you say, just that you say something penetrating enough that she’ll cockblock at least 1% less in the future. All the guys who say “You can’t change anything” are terribly wrong, and only showing their complete ignorance about human nature. People have changed for much less. One or two public verbal lashings will be all that it takes to temper the cockblocker for the rest of her life. Don’t do it for me—do it for your countrymen.

Since I came back in May, I’ve been refreshing my Western-style game with VK and The Rookie. It was fun at first, but after just two months going out is no longer more satisfying for me than rolling solo in a large foreign club. To show you why, let me highlight a recent Friday night out.

GIRL #1:

I’ve gotten so used to running solo dolo game at night that a good wingman is like an added bonus. I love hanging out with my boys because of the laughs we share, not necessarily because they’re gonna help me get laid. Out of habit, sometimes I wander in a one-man wolf pack looking for opportunities.

I approached a group of four girls alone, got in, and was talking to the one I preferred (21-year-old college student) while the other three walked away. One good skill to learn is to engage the group enough so they accept you, but not so much that they all want to keep talking to you at the same time. This is where I find that Mystery’s strategy of ignoring the girl you want rarely works, because what happens is you build some rapport with a friend you don’t like, and the best-looking one will let it proceed. By the two minute mark I must engage my first choice if I want to isolate her in a reasonable amount of time.

I have a rough framework for the first thirty minutes of conversation with topics that include music, dancing, age, clothing, bar ambiance, taste in mates, and people appearances. Within each topic I have my little lines and conversation threads (I share this in Bang). This framework makes it impossible not to get a decent conversation going if the girl is single and doesn’t mind my look, allowing me to “fake” a connection with someone I have nothing in common with. If I get to the thirty minute mark, the kiss is usually mine for the taking as long as I don’t get cockblocked, but after that a semi-real connection is needed to have a good shot at the one-night stand.

With this girl I lost motivation to continue. She had no personality, no sexy vibe. I didn’t want to “work” anymore by talking to her because I had no interest in taking her to bed. So I said it was nice meeting her and walked away.

Her genetic beauty: 7
Her femininity: 5
Her sexuality: 1
Total interaction time: 10-15 minutes
Reason for no sex: I wasn’t digging the girl

GIRL #2:

We went to a different bar. I approached a cute girl walking by me and it opened. Her girlfriend started talking to my friend.

My girl was very enthusiastic in the beginning, judging by her smiling and touching. She was a little too sassy, but there was some charm lurking underneath and I liked her provocative outfit (with heels). I felt like she was a good one-night stand candidate.

Suddenly she said, “I don’t think my girl is into your friend.”

“Hmmm well they seem to be getting along, but who knows,” I said.

“No, I know her. She’s not into him.”

So what the fuck do you want me to do? I changed the subject. The energy of the interaction changed. She was smiling less. I felt like I was losing her, unable to maintain the initial momentum. Then her friend pulled her away. This is another reason why flying solo can be easier—in pairs of girls you don’t have to worry about if the friend likes your friend, though I’m not certain that’s exactly why it ended in this case. Either way, bros before hoes. Her friend’s loss.

Her genetic beauty: 7.5
Her femininity: 7
Her sexuality: 6
Total interaction time: 5-10 minutes
Reason for no sex: The girls weren’t digging me and/or my friend

GIRL #3

There was a petite girl who appeared a little sloppy (untucked collared shirt), but I saw some potential. The Rookie said she looked like Ellen Page from the movie Juno, which I haven’t seen. I approached her and we’re talking, but I realized she was totally lame. Even my energetic Moroccan friend couldn’t get her to make a facial expression. I politely bowed out.

Her genetic beauty: 6
Her femininity: 2
Her sexuality: 0
Total interaction time: 5 minutes
Reason for no sex: I wasn’t digging the girl

GIRL #4:

This girl was definitely the hottest of the night. She was a 21-year-old half-Paraguayan blonde that lived in Peru for three years as a child. Her body and face were exceptional. Her Spanish was fluent. We talked for a while and she made several compliments, saying I was “interesting” with a “rugged” look. She made a comment that her ex was about the same age as me. While it’s hard to connect with young girls, if that young girl has traveled a bit, I’ll probably be very close to her ideal type (I have a brooding traveler look they tend to like).

One problem I had is that she didn’t give me a lot to work off of, due to having little life experience (she just got out of college). At some point in the conversation we talked about dating culture in the U.S. versus other countries. My intention was to insinuate how it can be tough to meet someone you connect with, even if you live in a large city, but I think she interpreted that to mean she would die a cat lady.

Speed bump aside, we kept going. I felt like this was a very solid prospect, the best of the night thus far. Then four of her college girlfriends joined the conversation. They didn’t cockblock, thankfully, but the energy changed to where I completely lost her attention. Within a few minutes they all decided to check out another bar. I didn’t get the invite to go with them, a very bad sign. They left.

My Moroccan friend said, “Dude why didn’t you get her number?”

“Get a number off a 21 y/o that I didn’t even kiss? Pointless.” I still had a lot of groundwork to lay.

Her genetic beauty: 8.5
Her femininity: 6
Her sexuality: 3
Total interaction time: 30 minutes
Reason for no sex: Logistics, lack of solid connection

GIRL #5:

It was getting at that hour where you could see the desperation on a guy’s face. Bitch shields were going up. Men with cigars were smoking at double speed in the hopes that a woman would notice them. Other men with fedoras were constantly fixing themselves. No time for mistakes.

I saw a curly-haired girl walking through the bar alone. I stopped her and we talked for a while, in a conversation that began very similarly as the other four of the night. She was a PhD student, unfortunately, but her body was exceptional. I wanted to keep going to see what would happen.

After 15 minutes her sister rushed up to her and took her away. I wasn’t upset (am ominous sign). A short time later, she walked up to me to continue the conversation. This was a huge indicator of interest, and normally my one-night stand radar would go bonkers, but while we’re talking I noticed she was careful about maintaining her distance from me. She had proper posture, not the sloppy slouching that I would be looking for at this time of night (she stopped drinking because she had to “get up early”). There was very little touching and the interaction had a coolness about it. The auto-shutoff mechanism on my one-night stand radar kicked in. She also had lazy eye, which was rather distracting (her right eye had a mind of her own when she got excited about something). I told Morocco not to leave me alone with her, because I didn’t want to talk to her continuously.

The bar eventually closed and I walked to a pizza place with her, her friend, and some random guy. While they waited in line for their grease injection, I told them I was going to wait outside. I stepped out, realized that I only wanted to bang her if I didn’t have to talk or kiss her, an impossibility, then ditched without saying goodbye. I went home alone and jerked off.

Her genetic beauty: 7
Her femininity: 4
Her sexuality: 2
Total interaction time: 45 minutes.
Reason for no sex: I wasn’t into her.

Let’s say it takes me around 30 solid approaches to get one lay in D.C., and by solid I mean that I have to be into the girl and willing to do whatever it takes to get laid. On this night I made only two solid attempts. If I go out twice a week, that’s only 15 attempts a month (my day game opportunities are lacking right now). Unfortunately I back out in most of my approaches in D.C. because of not being interested in the girl, something that rarely happened in Brazil or Colombia. I put my heart into just about every approach I did down in those countries.

Since banging a new girl every two months in unacceptable (1-2 new notches a month is a rate that I prefer), there are two possible solutions for when I’m in America:

1. Go out more to increase the odds of finding girls that I like.

2. Lower my standards.

I’ve chosen option two. When I’m particularly horny I would drink more and go for the gold on girls number 1 and 5 above, in effect doubling my attempt rate. While I still consider them bangable, I know I’m reducing myself to specimens whose personalities and vibes I dislike. It slightly burns that I was pulling superior quality just a few months ago.

An interesting thing I’ve noticed since I’ve been back: my libido has decreased to such a level that I’ve considered going on supplements like horny goat weed. Ultimately I decided against it (I’m already numbing myself with more alcohol), but I do think it’s amusing how a city’s lackluster women can drive me to increased drug usage. My horny goat weed will continue to be stints abroad, not a pill, no matter how “natural” it is.

Believe it or not, I’m not upset about this at all. I’ve made peace with life in America because it’s feeding the beast for richer experiences elsewhere. Only thing is I doubt that I could live in this area permanently. Why should I when I can live like a prince in cities with better women?

On the next night I went out, I had a one-night stand with a girl I started talking to a little before last call.

Her genetic beauty: 6
Her femininity: 6
Her sexuality: 2
Total interaction time: 75-90 minutes
Reason for sex: Game, alcohol, lowering my standards
Happiness level: Unchanged

UPDATE: Videos are now viewable

Recently I was walking to a bus stop while trailing behind two people, a thickish black woman dressed seductively and a doughy white man in painters work clothes. His appearance was especially average: it wouldn’t hurt him to lose 15 pounds and shave off his blonde goatee. I was able to make out an exciting 15-second portion of their conversation, which I’ve reenacted for you. Note the facial expressions towards the end.

He got her number. What surprised me the most was that this this blue-collared white man possessed a large set of balls. If he was a wigger it’d make more sense, but this was average Joe Schmo spitting game like a champ, and it didn’t matter that at least four other people could hear him. He had no shame in his game.

I had a conversation with my sister about it, which I have also reenacted with teddy bears.

In the end I do think his game is a bit superfluous and would only have the desired effect on a specific subset of girls that most of us don’t interact with. I mean do you see this going well with “professional” or hipster white girls? A girl who isn’t used to being hit with direct game simply won’t know how to respond to you. You’ll get something like, “Uhhhhhhh… sorry I’m actually the masculinized form of what you think to be a woman, but if you make a sarcastic or snarky comment instead, I’ll be able to respond to you and we can play the dance where we both pretend that we’re not sexually interested in each other even though we’ll end up doing it tonight on my Ikea bed.”

One type of girl I could really see this working on is Brazilian girls, who get bombarded with direct game on a regular basis. I can easily imagine myself doing Doughboy’s routine and getting a very positive response since those girls clearly prefer boyfriends to one-night stands. I could kill her objections about whether I am serious or not before she brings up her whole “so how long are you here/what are you doing here” spiel that stalls my progress most of the time. Combined with exaggerating how long I’m staying in her city, my success rate would probably go up quite a bit to where I wouldn’t have to approach nearly as many girls.

The take-home from this is always keep your eyes open for naturals in the wild. In fact, I’d estimate that around half of my game is a mashup from other men. Thanks Doughboy, for adding one more tool to my toolbox.

In the past couple of years the quantity of girls I sleep with has crept up. This is due to many reasons I’m sure, but during that same time period I notice that I’m “rejecting” a lot more girls. By that I mean I walk away when I find out that she isn’t close to what I want. I may be talking to her and the light from her cell phone screen reveals some acne. Or I realize she doesn’t have a fun vibe. Or she’s socially awkward. Or her black dress was hiding a pancake ass. Or she’s way too witty (at the expense of being sexy). When one of these things happen, I politely end the conversation. No hard feelings.

There was a time I used to keep these interactions going because, ultimately, the girl was bangable—or else I wouldn’t have approached her—and I was hungry for sex, since I didn’t get it as often. But I rarely did bang those girls. It would stall at the number or makeout stage. Why is that I’m going full court press on far fewer girls today, but getting a lot more bangs in shorter amounts of time? Two reasons:

1. I free up more time for the girls I better connect with. Talking to a girl you’re not crazy about means you won’t spit your best game. And without your best game the odds you’ll bang her, assuming she’s not throwing herself on you, is extremely low. It’s futile to force the attraction if you don’t feel it around the 5-10 minute mark. In these cases you’ll only get a number.

Time is crucial. I still run most of my game at night during the weekends and each night has, at most, four hours of prime game time. If I spend ninety minutes on these mediocre interactions, I’ve given up 38% of my night for nothing. Plus my energy will be lower for the better prospects I may encounter later. If you’re a game newbie then grinding it out can be valuable to getting your social skills up to speed, but it’s very possible that talking to the boring chick with the lame sense of humor will cost you for that entire night. It’s too risky to exchange an extra word with a girl that I know deep down is someone who won’t get me excited. That time is better spent maintaining your state with your boys instead.

2. It subconsciously increases your value. When you pass on enough girls, you start to believe you’re the man. Of course with my experiences I think I’m a pimp, and that shines through with my body language and tone, without me having to think about it.

Girls pick up on things that you cannot see, hear, or feel (think of them as a mutant species that can sense more than three dimensions of space). Luckily for us, we don’t have to consciously learn how to subcommunicate these positive traits—we pick up on them in time. This is how I can meet a guy and within about 15 seconds know if he’s good with women or not (a side effect of my heavy involvement with the game has given me the female ability to screen men). Now imagine what type of vibe a guy who tries to bang anything he talks to puts out. You better believe that girls can pick up on that.

For me there has to be something in those first 10 minutes that tells me there’s something special going on. There has to be humor and laughing, meaningful questions, flirty looks, and a magnetism simmering underneath the surface. My energy and time are the two most important things I have, and when I begin to value it yourself by passing on mediocre chicks, I get more. In the end it’s so much easier to bang a cool chick. Don’t waste your time on those who aren’t.

When you first meet a girl, it’s safe to suggest ideas for future dates based on things you have in common. But once you start dating her, you have to be very careful about throwing ideas for longer dates that could be considered trips, like a visit to Atlantic City, the beach, or some full-day excursion to a national park. This conveys heavy-duty interest and forces her to evaluate her power.

I’ve made this mistake twice. I thought things were going great, threw out a trip idea to the beach, and then watched the girl go cold on me. A somewhat recent example involved a very young girl who was on my large nutsack 24/7. She’d call or text me every day, sometimes asking if I missed her or telling me how much she was thinking about me. I relaxed my game and contacted her often too, slightly relieved that I didn’t have to play as hard as I normally do (but of course I didn’t get mushy on her).

Eventually I suggested a weekend trip to the beach. It’s not so much that I really wanted to go to the beach and that it’d be important for us, but it was a way to keep up with her and maintain the exciting momentum. She replied with “I don’t know,” and flaked on me the next date. The upper hand I did so well to maintain was lost in just a few words. I was disappointed with myself.

The proper move is to wait for her to suggest a trip first. Then when she does, say, “Maybe we can do that.” I already knew this, but there are times I get cocky and feel like I have enough experience to take a risk and break the rules. Sometimes it works out in my favor, but other times it doesn’t and I have to relearn something I already mastered. Experimentation is a double-edged sword best meant for girls you don’t care about keeping around for more than a couple bangs.

I don’t recommend you throw out trip (or even date) ideas after you already have sex with a girl. Whenever a girl suggests a trip to me, I think, “Cool she really likes me.” Don’t let her have that thought instead. Make her wonder if you see her as more than just a bang. Let her reveal her cards first in an attempt to get a look at yours. Being aloof and slightly cold pays off a lot more than showing you care.

I played around with the site Xtranormal, which lets you make videos with cartoon actors, and made a reenactment of a throwaway approach I did at a bar recently (the girl wasn’t very attractive).

I don’t think I’ve ever had a one-night stand with a girl who crossed her arms while talking to me. I feel my penis soften when it happens.

I had planned to do a contest for you to reenact an actual approach, but the site is way too buggy.

I spoke to an old friend the other day and we talked about a couple guys we went to college with. I remembered Steve, one of our classmates.

“Hey Steve took me off Facebook for some reason,” I said to my friend.

“Strange, he didn’t say anything to me about you.”

“Well since he’s a cardiologist now maybe he took down his profile because too many patients were trying to add him. I read about that problem in a newspaper article.”

“Hold on let me check.” Thirty seconds later: “Yeah he took me off too.”

“He probably deleted his profile.”

“You know he’s making serious cash now right?”

“How much?” I asked.

“Like half a million a year.”

In college Steve got more play than me, hooking up with the occasional girl from class (since I was getting zero play that wasn’t particularly difficult). He had a pretty cocky personality around other guys and even though he became much gentler around women, it was enough to get some attraction going.

After college he went to medical school and I went to work in the private sector. He got a girlfriend not long after that. While I’d peg his looks at about a 7, she was only a 4—a definite downgrade. My friend and I would talk about why he was going out with her. “Maybe she has a really great personality,” I’d say, followed by obnoxious snorting laughter. We didn’t understand why he was selling himself short, but agreed he’d probably step up after he was officially a doctor and making the big bucks.

Well, they’re about to get married. I highly doubt a prenup will be signed.

Talking about Steve made me do an evaluation of my life.

Cons: I have very few possessions. I don’t make a lot of money (a friend of mine joked that I probably qualify for public assistance). I don’t have health insurance. Every day I push concerns about the future into the back of my mind.

Pros: Freedom and mobility.

If I was a doctor making half a million a year, I’d sleep with fewer women than I am now. It’s possible I would land one really beautiful bride, but I currently desire variety, not monotony (while the act of banging doesn’t make me a happier person, the conquest does). I’d have more comfort and stability in life, but that’s what I want when I’m 51, not 31. If I worked 60 hours a week or more it’d be impossible to bang the girls that I have, along with doing just about everything that I have accomplished in my adult life so far (cue laughter from the haters).

Too many guys overestimate the benefits of a high paying job. What percentage of doctors do you think are pulling quality pussy? Surprisingly low, but if you want to land an ambitious yet plain Jewish or Indian girl with overbearing parents then it’s a great profession to get into. Do you really think doctors or lawyers have the ability and energy to creep on the side with the girls that you’re able to bang with game and free time? Truth is I know a ton doctors and not a single one is outpulling me, in either quality or quantity. I see pictures of their girlfriends on Facebook and I’m not impressed, especially considering their true cost per notch is more than $100,000. Mine are in the low four digits.

If you’re going to argue that a man’s job is important, I’ll agree with you if you’re talking about fashion photographer, club owner, bartender, surfing instructor, and so on—the jobs that put him in contact with a large number of sexy women. But lawyer? Doctor? Investment banker? Corporate executive? Raise your hand if you know guys with those jobs that get zero pussy, or have to pay out the ass for a pseudo-hooker.

Okay now put your hand down.

Game is the great equalizer, the savior of man. You can have a job where you’re stuck in front of a laptop all day and still pull more and hotter than a guy making half a million a year. If I was making that much money and pussy wasn’t raining from the sky, I’d feel disappointed and tricked to say the least. A twenty dollar game book and some practice would’ve gotten me much more.