S5E3 An insiders look into the pickup community

00:00:03 - 00:05:04

The Dateable podcast is an insider's look into modern dating that the Huffington post calls one of the top ten podcast about love and sex. On each episode, we'll talk to real daters about. From sex parties to sex droughts, date fails a diaper fetishes and first moves to first loves. I'm your host Yue Xu, former dating coach turned dating sociologists. You also hear from my co host and producer Julie Krafchick as we explored this crazy dateable world.

This episode of dateable is brought to you by five hundred brunches. Five hundred branches connect like minded people with similar interests in real life brunch. You answer a questionnaire about your interest and how you spend your time. And then they'll match you in small groups of sixty eight at a brench spot in san francisco get a free entry into brench now by signing up at five hundred branches dot com and using the code date able everyone. Welcome to another episode of dateable. A show all about modern dating and when it comes to modern dating. We're always looking for tips and advice to see how other people have done it to see what creates the most successful dating outcomes. And what better way to do that than to talk to someone who's been there who's been on the coaching side of dating. We have dj high dj guys. How are you good so dj. I know you were part of the pickup community. Before how did you get into that. Sure. why got an. It's so the whole. Obviously you know nowadays with the the way the industry is It's not something that that you know. That's kind of our background. That's not something that we identify with right now. But i realized for guys for a lot of people listening. A lot of people have a lot of preconceived notions about what the industry is and there are absolutely scammers out there. They're absolutely bad people out there but they're good people so the the main thing is is i want to let the listeners know to kind of keep an open mind on that if they don't already have that I started in this as a students and so fifteen or so years ago I was kind of the guy that couldn't make anything work like nothing was working for me. Nothing was happening And so my entire life. I had tried to compensate for that. You know my my breathing and my culture and you know everything had basically parents always said. Look this is something you either have. You don't and it was very evident to me that i was not one of the guys that had it My parents even pretty much straight out told me like look. You're you don't have a lot going for you so you're gonna be really smart. Can you be more specific when you talk about upbringing culture. Yes so. I'm half japanese chinese. And apparently there's a little bit of korean mixed in but According to a dna tasked with my parents don't like to acknowledge that we all have a little karimun extent. Yes there's a. There's a lot going on there I'm fourth generation. So my parents have family's been here for over one hundred years But obviously we still retain a lot of the cultural values so i grew up very much americanized. I grew up in southern california and You know my my parents push kind of your traditional asian values of you know doing well in school but they were. They were also americanized enough to where It wasn't it wasn't really really like like a like traditional. In that sense it was a little bit of a mix. You have a theory about asian men so the theory that i have in in coaching for about ten years. Now little over. Actually and the theory about asian by asian ibm encompassing india's well Is that. there's this like hidden or like a secret. Shame that we have. And if you guys remember. When steve harvey made that crack about asian men deep down for almost every asian guy listening. It was like very hurtful like really a remind our listeners. What he said yes. So steve. harvey made a crack about He found this book on amazon and the book was like how to date a date white women. Or how did they racially for asian men and he made a joke about how You can't you just don't because nobody likes you and nobody wants a day. You and i'm paraphrasing but that's basically the joke I understand he probably wasn't trying to necessarily puts people down. He's trying to be funny trying to make a joke. The reason that it had such a big impact as there's a very large and pervasive hidden shame that asian men in indian men have because nobody understands or plate Nobody other than black women really understand. And the reason is because and this has been shown in study after study at uci at berkeley. I think the reason is that when it comes to dating. Asian men in black women are considered the unbeatable 's they're considered the demographic that nobody wants to date for a variety of reasons One of them specifically is obviously the media and another one. is that You basically have this kind of look back. Historically you have this group of people in this case asian people and they say hey You know we will. Don't worry about dating only focus on career only folks academia focusing really good grades and and and getting a great job We will get you guys set up with with dates.

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And that's the arranged marriage and a your. Your stereotypical arranged marriage. Fifty a hundred years ago and so everyone bought into this idea of our good would just study and do good job. And we'll arranged marriage or introduce or whatever and that'll be good and then somehow somewhere in the last twenty or thirty years An indian men especially identify with this They come to america. And it's like we don't do this arranged marriage thing anymore but we still don't want you to focus on dating so Just figured out do something. Yeah we realize that we have. Yeah oh god like now what now. What do we do right. That's why you get this sense of being stuck now so i just want to backtrack for a sec. Back to steve harvey's comment. He pulled out a book called how to date a white woman. A practical guide for asian men and he explained that the book should only have one single page asking white women. Excuse me do you like asian men and the answer should be no thank you. So that's you know to sit pillow context around that so your background. Dj really played into you wanting to get into the pickup community. So talk about you being a student in that yeah. I don't think anybody it's funny. I don't think any of us want to be in the community in the sense that You know in the early two thousands. I found this. I didn't find it because this was cool I didn't find it. Because yeah i wanted to be part of a community what i found it because i was lonely. And the only guys that founded this is hidden in a deep recess of the web at that point. And you only found it if you were at your wit's ends If you were really looking hard for it because there weren't there was no tv show and there's no movie in there. It wasn't advertised anywhere This was a group of very very lonely Many times like emotionally mentally handicapped gives that were existing on the internet. And we're trying to figure out. How do we change our lot in life. And that's really what it came down to and a lot of people. Think the camis about all these guys trying to take advantage of women and and these guys are trying to be players and there is that segment but originally what this was designed as is rehab. It was a trick. Is that had a huge problem. And they were essentially dateable They were The term now is involuntarily celebrates. Which as you can imagine is not a great place to be And so our only goal at that point is. How do we fix this because our family our culture society says you can't you're screwed. There's nothing you can do about it and so by getting into this. It was my way of of going out the saying. Hey how can i change this. What can i do about this. Because i i went i in high school. I varsity sports Thinking that would do. Something didn't do anything. I went to the marine corps. The would do something. That was my main reason but i thought in the back of my head. That would help didn't help. The uniform didn't help being started didn't help Being in mixed martial arts did not help i got out i thought. Oh it's my must be money then. I got a six figure job as a programmer. I bought a house. I bought a sports car. That's gonna help. That's the key right. That didn't work either. And eventually what i realize was dirt. Nothing's working like it. Must be me and so i went searching for. Is there some way to compensate his. Maybe there's some way to fix me. And that's kinda i stumbled across this and looking back ten years later or fifteen years later. What i realize was these are social skills and as much as people try to tell you social skills they wanna believe and social skills are not skills. They absolutely are. And if you didn't learn growing up your to severe social disadvantage now and now you have to learn later in life or don't learn it and let those consequences fall where they may now Take us into this insider's view of your first time being you know in this pickup community. What if what was that like It was really. It was really sad to be honest. It was very sad. It was a mix of emotions. It was sad because you would show up to these meetings and everyone it's funny and culture of one. Has this idea of like. Oh there's a guy with furry hat and there's these guys downing lines and like taking advantage like knows really side like you have a lot of guys who are autistic. You guys wheelchairs. You had a blind guy You had guys in the the one thing everyone like had in common even though we're from different walks of life in different cities and everything is that everyone was intensely lonely and we had a lot of the things that come along with being lonely. Some men were angry. some were just heard. Some men were traumatized. Someone were victims of abuse Eh but everyone just had this unifying sense of being lonely so it was very sad in. that sense. Sounds import group. That is crazy physically not the perception of pickup artists and all will correct. So is that mystery mystery. They painted a very different picture. I understand that because we've done a lot of tv work and A lot of our tv work at the end of the day. The produce comes right out and says look What you guys do is really cool and is very wholesome.

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But wholesome doesn't sell tv shows and it's not. It's not good enough for tv but back to the pickup community. I mean julie just said her. The stereotypical view of what to pick up community. Looks like a bunch of slick scam artists. Who are out there to get as many one night stands as possible. So what were you guys. Learning you learning these tricks. you know. it's funny. Because when i started this the idea of a one night stand was not something that not only. Was it not something we were going for. It was deemed impossible. Like it was like for us. It wasn't possible it was it would never happen. We were just hoping a girl would talk to us. And that seems really sad and it was when you when you look back on it but we had no concept of even getting a phone number we had no concept of like kissing a girl and most of us were virgins or near virgins and the idea of of just being able. I remember a destroy. Tell students a lot. Is the first time i was able to start a conversation with a like like attractive drawn a bar and just talked for ten minutes and have retreat me like a human being. I celebrated that experience for like three months. Y'all did we all thought that was the greatest thing ever because for the first time. Some stranger that we didn't know that was even attractive which treating us like human a human being now. Dj was this. Was this experience. A product of being in the community. Do they teach you some these social skills When i got in there was no one really teaching except for a couple of guys and they were so new at the teaching process It was very much the blind leading the blind in in most cases and so a lot of it. We had some stuff your trading information. Some of it was good. Some of it was most of it was bad We had a lot of misguided information out there but a lot of it was look i. It just gave us an excuse to go talk to people because most of us didn't have that level of courage but if you gave us a hope and a dream that you could go and you could recite this like line and then maybe like you and then you could talk to her and whatever That was all it took for a lot of us to at least get initial courage to golden talk and that was something most was didn't have in our in our child in her background and so for me. That experience really wasn't any there was any technique in it. it was just. I suddenly had kind of a lot of faith in this process. That if i go up. And i can like have something to say. Now i can start a conversation and i didn't go anywhere i didn't take your home and even get a phone number or anything else. It was a ten minute conversation but to us. That was everything. Because it represented the idea that this was learnable like you could actually learn social skills or charisma or being popular being cool like all of us were dorks in high school so like we never thought that it was possible for us so that was the exciting part of through all the sadness. Now we've heard some of the tactics like you. Neg someone or your this. These ridiculous tactics did you learn. And you've this. Can you recall any. I learned basically all of them and give us top story. That you thought weren't the most ridiculous ones while at the time nothing was ridiculous At the time you just so bought into the idea that you would try anything that an and you were so new to that We didn't know any difference like it was like tito teaching someone who doesn't know how to walk or does know how to ride a bike. The idea of riding a bike we had nothing to compare to. so we just believed everything If we look back on it though and we look at one of the most ridiculous ideas a one was that you could hypnotize women Looking back that was pretty slide There was there was an entire industry spawned or really the precursor to what we know. Now is the industry Was the idea that dorks could learn to hypnotize women and they would hypnotize them into liking them. How how how through through conversational hypnosis Neuro linguistic programming There is an element of truth to that in the sense that it's not hypnosis but it's the sense that you can influence people using techniques from marketing from sales We know works. Sales works so the idea was. Let's take that one step further and try to hypnotize people and it didn't it wasn't like a rock on a string going back and forth weary but no it was it was a lot of embedded commands that had patterns a lot of stuff taken from nlp and tried to apply. If you ever watched darren brown on youtube. He does amazing things and so the idea was. Maybe we could learn that and it didn't work but that was one of the ideas Eggs or a big thing although they were mostly overblown for the media for tv. Yeah in the same sense. That the way i look at it is This industry is a lot like feminism and is a lot like islam that feminism and islam are these ideas. Ideologies are like these cultures right. What do we think of when we think of feminism. We think like woman who like hates men and burns bras and doesn't shave her legs in lake just absolutely hate anything mayo and she just wants to oppress like that's why do we think that often not always but why do we a lot of us have the stereotype because that's the vocal minority and that's what makes the news Like moderate feminism.

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Doesn't make the news because it's modern same. As moderate income does not make the news because nobody wants to hear about that they want to hear about the guy you know committing the the jihad and other stuff so we think of islam is like ninety nine percent terrorism with probably like half a percent and so minus very much like that in the things they get the most exposure are the things that the most outlandish the things that are the most controversial. So but it's not necessarily what's actually happening when you first start out on this pickup community. You're saying that it's just from extreme loneliness and everyone else in the community. Kinda felt that when we think it's an outsider. I think of pickup community. I just think you're trying to get this one goal which is to get women to sleep with you. So what do you think. The actual wall issue was for everyone that underlying issue was it. Loneliness was it. Just a talk to people was to have a support network. What do you think was the one issue. Why was everything it really was. The loneliness was a symptom a symptom of bigger problem. That problem is a lack of social skills. Often a lack of Developmental like on emotional development throughout the years so most people in this industry In in the media the most people in the industry is kind of like the like the slick like guy trying to take advantage of women. Most guys in this industry are like asian and indian guys who have never slept with anyone and they're just terrified of the idea of touching a girl. That's their stereotypical guy. That's most of the guys here And and so. That's the cell. Obviously right but that's the reality of it and so Most of us to two thousand three or twenty seventeen. Most of us getting into this Had a lot of emotional trauma in her past. We've had very traumatic experiences around women A lot of us have our some of us are on the autism spectrum A lot of us have had like bad upbringing sometimes abuse so you know were essentially dysfunctional as adults and we find this because we're dysfunctional and there are there. You're there is the sociopath who finds us because he wants to take advantage of people absolutely but most people that find this are dysfunctional and their dysfunctional because of a lack of training or because of a handicap mental physical or otherwise emotional And they're looking to fix this in their life and the seems like an answer to them curiosity. How expensive is it like. Is this like a costly endeavor. It can't be. It can be when i started there. There were no cost aside from you. Know close and you know sh- showing up. it was just an underground support group for For guys to push each other to talk to people and it was really it. Would i if you look at it now. It's looking back on it. It's a group of a dozen guys that will go out to a bar all be terrified huddled in a corner and they would psych each other up to go talk to a girl and then they go up. It's a hey I I wanted to get your opinion on something because My friends were arguing and then she the girl was be like i'm not interested. And then he walkaway and then the guy's a pat on the back like it's okay man like we'll do it again. That's really what that was and it's more throughout the years but that's what that was very similar to sports. Leagues is the same thing. Right you practice now be skills and then you go out there and you you use these skills and you see if you win or not. So it's it's very similar. I can see how the camaraderie is really the selling point. Because you have all these other people who are in your same boat and you're cheering each other on and just for shits and giggles get. Give us one more really ridiculous tactic that you guys did. One of them was idea. It's still so here today. It's this idea of being alpha. And the the idea of being alpha means that in at least according to a lot of people in the industry it means that like you can never show Any vulnerability any fear. You always have to like pick fights people like you. Basically it's basically like be jackass. You know what i mean. It's like a jerk and it's so far from reality that you you see guys and you know an old lady will cross the street like get hit by a car and the guy will look at her. I will not suffocate to women like i will not help any woman because that shows weaknesses. A met like it's. It's obviously hugely over exaggerated idea. But i remember being in those situations and thinking. Oh this is the right thing and then kind of coming to my senses later realizing like what was i doing. This is not the way. I was raised right so being a douche bag douchebag without the the actual hooking up with girls part so that actually goes back to nagging because i think some of our listeners may not actually know what that means explained to us when nagging is so so a neg- is was short front naked And this was something popularized early. Two thousands The main ideas this a neg- hit or a neg- in this case is Away technique you'd use on someone who's very very full of themselves so you're using it on the quote unquote hollywood ten.

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Though the the person who thinks like i'm too good for you Everyone should should worship at my feet and it's a way essentially of letting them know you are not a suitor. You are not someone who's chasing them. You are not someone who's affected by their by their beauty and so a lot of times. It comes off as like slightly passive aggressive or sometimes just awkward so like the one of the very stereotypical negative. No one really seems to to remember that the classic one is an insult. It's blowing your nose because who blows their nose in front of a beautiful woman. Nobody and what it conveys is that she doesn't affect you. You're not intimidated by her now. The reason this came about is because all of us were extremely intimidated by women. All women especially very attractive ones so the idea behind the net was to to show even though there should be some truth behind it but at least it was a fake to show that you were not affected by her and that somehow it went into teasing a little bit but You know what people took with it and ran with it with is the idea of like you know you can also insult women. And that would that would be a neg- to in it's not but people would take that and run with it and to people on the outside The media especially that's a great story. Oh guys running around insult women and into guys listening. They're like oh. This is great because this is the woman that district highschool. I can now give back at her and she will like me for it. It doesn't work but they thought it would. Because that's what was popularized. So you have this. This huge group of people running around is an echo chamber trying to insult women than wondering why it doesn't work. What does it work is. That's not the point of it. So i want to quickly switch gears now because you are sort of out of the pickup community. I wanna talk about your journey to becoming a dating and confidence coach. How did you get here. So i started off as a student and then didn't have any real advantages in the dating in the day. Sam fight for four on the shortest asian. I'm sure dating coach in the industry I you know. I not only that amac classically good looking. I didn't have a lot of social advantages and very introverted. I basically every disadvantage known men And i got through those things. I learned things i got better through. Sheer force of will just sheer willpower. Just like getting rejected twenty five times a night getting back up and doing it again. Next night And eventually you pick up patterns over the time Most it wouldn't just not the most efficient way of learning this. But i got through it just through that willpower and what happened is People in the group started to ask me for advice and say. How'd you do this. I wanna follow that. Same methodology I wouldn't advise it but In that particular case but they wanted to follow that And then eventually. I got hired by another company To teach for them So kind of like. I developed this like weird name in this group of lonely guys and so i i got my name out there and then eventually after working for another company for a few years i went starting my own company and at that point. We're still very much entrenched in this idea of the industry over time. The industry's most a lot. It's it's changed so much throughout the years because A lot of it is is through marketing and money People realized very quickly that you can make a lot money scamming people on this. So there's a huge influx of scammers that came into the industry much like i'm sure personal trainers really hate the you lose a hundred pounds over hijack kind of right they. I'm sure they hate that because it's like they're like look. We're just trying to get people in and go to the gym and nobody wants to do because they just want to buy this pill all right. Well that's why. I asked you how much it costs because that was like initially where my mind went. Yeah has a lot of money is people are willing to pay for it. Can if it's you know if you go when you take training for it again so the training can run. You know anywhere. I send the low for a few hundred dollars to thousands some as tens of thousands of dollars depending on who you train with also depending on how legitimate person is So it can be really expensive if you're looking for a very personalized training And especially because so few people in the world are good at this and so few people the world can teach it. It's a really obscure niche. So anytime you have that. The training for that becomes very expensive. So what are you teaching now personally. So over the years. The kind of metamorphosis of the industry and especially what we've teaching We've been teaching long enough at this point where our teaching and our methodologies of changed because we realize what works for our clientele is not. What the industry's about At this point the industry is very much of a marketing because marketing mix money The sad thing by industry and much like a lot of industry is content doesn't make money marketing does Quality does not make any money.

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Marketing does because no one knows the difference in quality so P p the people that are creating content are very much incentivized to spend all of their money on marketing and very little on content because people absorbing the content either won't read. It won't listen to it or don't know the difference so instead of spending the money on getting a subject matter expert to support heart and soul into products. Why not just get some random guy in india to ghost. Write the product based on random stuff. He pulled off the internet and then take ninety nine percent of that money and throw it into marketing. So that that's kind of what is turned into. Yeah so it. That's why there's a lot of scammers in this and it is. I understand why people see it that way yeah it. We obviously became very disillusioned with that idea and In teaching we teach very much one on one and what the individual student or client needs. And what we found over the years is guys don't need lines Necessarily guys don't need A secret magic formula guys. Don't even really need confidence. Like yes they do. But that's not the main thing what guys needed social skills and life skills. I'd seems like oh. Yeah obviously but like when you really get into it. One of the first things that i do when i work with the client is i make them take a picture of his wardrobe his car and his house. And you'd be surprised how many times those pictures come back. And he's a hoarder or his house indicates there's some like there's some crazy thing wrong with it. So many things that are just absolute dealbreakers without any social skill development whatsoever right or guys that just their financial lives are a mess because they never learned how to balance a finance or manage finances So many people just don't have basic life skills and they've gotten by basically just on. Oh i got a good job or something well. Isn't it funny because we always talk about on. Our podcast is that dating is not silo. I mean it should be related and it is affected by every other aspect of your life. So if you're a hoarder at home you're probably a hoarder when it comes to dating if you're at home you're probably a mess when it comes to dating so these are all interconnected. I'm so glad you bring this up because there's something to be said about coaching someone not on dating. But on life in general it aligns to getting to the deeper root of what is the actual social skills in new development. Post the one off quick fixes. Yeah so what are the these comments social skills that you've worked on It's it's funny. Because when when i when i talk to you guys you guys are going to look at this. And be like oh. We'll just something. I take for granted but if you're autistic you don't you can't take that for granted so for example. If let's say you guys were to sit next somebody Cena bar right. And maybe it's intentional. Maybe it's not and that person like tensai up and they move a little bit away from you. We know that that means they're uncomfortable. And maybe we got too close and we kind of like keep space gray. Want to get the fuck out If you're on the autism spectrum you all a lot of times you don't know what that means to to you that that moving away means absolutely nothing to you. You have no idea like you don't have the ability to look at those social cues and say this means that person's uncomfortable And so if you can't read any those social cues just general things. We take for granted during credibly. Difficult it. Let's say you're not autistic writer. You're not on that spectrum. Even for a lotta guys that have just very socially handicapped Our ability you know in normal conversation to Do free association. There was to associate on different topics. So if i say you know Let's it as a place in oakland That's has really good chicago. Style pizza right but it's not as good as the actual chicago style pizza deep dish in chicago. Now when you hear that we're automatically thinking okay. Oh clin maybe. I used to live there. What do i know about that. Oh chicago i love chicago. Oh pizza oh maybe i like new york pizza better. You're thinking of new york chicago. Pizza food travel all these things. Imagine you didn't have the ability to associate to any of those topic signs. And when i said that statement all you can think of is deep dish pizza and so your responses. I don't like pizza. She's like why not. I don't like it okay. What do you like sushi. What do you like about it. It's good right like what's happening is you. Don't have any ability to like when he connections. Yeah like there's no ability to make any mental connections there and that's a skill and a lotta people people that have taken for granted and people that don't have it are bewildered like how is that possible. Like how were you able to like. Just talk and have something to say not freeze up because to them and and where i was to me that just seems like voodoo magic. Like how is this possible and then to people that have it. They're like how is it possible. You don't have it.

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So does this clear. Divide and so a lot of what we teach is for the guys at this is how you acquire it. This is how you get that skill. My only question though is i'm putting myself in the shoes of someone who says okay. I need to hone in on my social skills. I'm lacking social skills. And i come to you but when i hear you talk about these basic social skills. I'm going to be in denial. Because i'm gonna think. I i have common sense. I can make associations i don't necessarily have the ability to diagnose myself at that level. I'm coming to you to say. Dj tommy how to what's good line to say to a woman what's a good line to say to a stranger but i don't know that i had these deep seated social issues. How do you diagnose people. We've been doing this for a while right. So it's very obvious us when we see as soon as we start a conversation With student we know kind of what he's working with like. What are the things What you're describing is is very much male ego And so a lot of guys are very defensive about that. And that's okay like we understand that The guys that you come to us are usually the guys that have gotten to the point where it's so bad they're like i don't care about the ego but it doesn't matter like the i i have any go but it's not as important as fixing this. I've screw eagle. I need to fix this. It's so bad that they're willing to put aside that you go. Have you ever remain come to you or is it. Just men We yeah we. We have coach men and women. A women generally don't have nearly the ego guys do and women tend to be much more social in general so Most of the raw social skills women will have unless there's a disability so we will work with some women who have disabilities but a lot of times. The trouble women have been dating is more is further in is not necessarily getting the guy but keeping him or understanding how guys work understanding their thought processes. It's more along that lines whereas when we walk with guy it's usually essentially a handicap where that social physical mental or otherwise. Yeah it makes the people you work with like you said are already open to working with you and they already have diagnosed themselves to some extent. What if you know what what happens to those people who could really use your help. But they're not you know they don't think they need your help yet. What would you say to them. I'd say wait until it gets really bad. And then you'll find me hanley that way. Are there ties. They can do at home or like ways. They they're diagnosed. Yeah no that are absolutely ways you can improve no matter where you are The thing is you have to be open and this is why. It's so easy much easier to coach women because women don't have an ego about this like like they're just like like help me like ah tell me ways in which i can improve and i'll do it right Men often have an ego. The more kind of traditionally masculine the guy is more of an ego. He has about this the more he thinks he's the man the less he's gonna actually listen and so that's the guy at the gym. Who wants to get really big but doesn't want to listen to the trainer. Yeah in those cases. It's like there's not much. I can do right. It's like there's that old adage in martial arts that when the student is ready the master will appear very similar thing in that when he's ready to make that that change your say. Hey i wanna get better at this one improve where i want to fix something. Whatever then at that point he's ready to accept that advice right. So what are some of your top three tips for people who are struggling with like social interactions So we take kind of your so it varies person person rates. Obviously the one of the weird things about this in particular. Is that one of the things i say as advice is only as good as it is applicable. Yeah so if you took michael jordan basketball and you made a ask them to give me advice as a five foot. Four basketball player is not very good. He's gonna most likely tell you because he's not a coach he's gonna tell you what works for him and that doesn't necessarily work for me at all right so he's gonna say like just close. Your eyes put that shot up and you've got to to go in. That's really good for michael jordan. And that's not so good for guy does not actually shoot as canucks so if we if we narrowed down really the general idea of our audience. And if if people if you're in this audience cool If you're not in that audience is understand. It may not apply to you If our audience is someone who struggling with dating or someone who wants to improve a dating and they're going through your kind of common Difficulties of i run out of things to say for example right Or i don't know what to say when i go up One of the things is understand. What you say to start is not nearly as important as what you say after that as what you say in your conversation right because you can hope you can start a conversation with almost anything. It's what you do after that like. Whoa who are you in terms of like how you communicate after that point is much more important than your opening thing because ninety nine percent of the time the first thing i say when i talk to strangers.

00:35:07 - 00:40:06

It's not that complicated. It's what you say afterward. So don't worry so much about that thing in most social environments hello is sufficient in non-social environment so the grocery stores particularly social environments Functional is fine as in. Do you know where this department is. You know where a starbucks is you know where the bathroom is anything like that and then again this comes back to our ability to associate right the you say. Hey do you know where They have. Let's see the butter right and she says oh. I think it's like in the back. And then your mind says what do i know about that right and then maybe what you know about that is. I always feel like that's a scam where they put the butter and the bread and the milk in the back because they know i have to walk through the ice cream ale hilar- and i have no discipline whatsoever in the ice cream mile. And then she's going to be like. Oh my god and you're like. I wish they didn't put the haagen-dazs rain in the front. I wish they put that way in the back. So i can't see i don't see it i won't buy yeah becomes a conversation over ice cream. I'm monica bryce. A lot of this. Like i know we're tight like Out social skills. I think this is applicable. Everyone everyone to learn all the time from people especially how difficult it is to strike up conversation nowadays huge help and also it's helpful for the receiving end too because like let's say that guy says that to me at a grocery store i probably would just be like i don't know in the back in walkaway but i should also read these cues of. Hey maybe he really wants to open up a conversation with me he cares about. Yeah exactly who cares about better. You should be eating butter anyway. Yeah it definitely does apply to a lot of people. It's just most people again. Most people don't believe these are social skills. They believe something just born with or you're born without and so most people don't have much of a drive to learn in order to apply it unless he gets to be so bad. Where you're like. I have to do something. Love that gives one more another one is and and this is i. I realize this is easier said than done but the best tool that you have in. Social interactions is humor. It's more effective than looks more effective than height. It's more effective than anything else. You can think of short of being famous. That's about the only thing that compares and even then sometimes it works right so the problem with that is humorous. Really hard to learn. As i'm sure anyone listening struggling with that is like yeah. No kidding Humor of really really effective tool. And it's gonna take a few years if you don't get if you're not good at it naturally. You're just not a funny guy or you just don't really like no one's appropriate to say things or You have a trouble like making a joke. Whatever that skill set understand humor's skill and it's gonna take a couple years or maybe three or four years to learn to really get down but the reason that's so worth it is your return on investment is for most people forty fifty sixty years because what humor does he was one of the most powerful things because it can humor is the closest we have to mind-control because humour can actually change how people feel against their will. If this is something that the you know the listeners are you guys wanna get better at. It's one of the first things you focus on and it's not telling jokes. It's learning the patterns the structure of humor the timing the pacing. And that's coming to improv. That can mean go to stand up comedy studying the structure of it that can mean being around people that are funny. We have a lot of drills and exercises and workshops around that But it's learning that that's so important. Yeah i always say people should go to improv improv classes. Because it's not about you trying to be funny. It's about you laughing at yourself and if you can laugh at yourself you can be funny ya so. Dj what's your relationship dating situation. I'm in really ship. Okay and how long have you been go above seven months. Okay how did you guys meet We met on bumble i. It's funny. I feel like such an old man because This is the first time that i've met someone online. Because traditionally it's always been in person But i knew. I needed to You know teaching. We have to be wolf. I can't just do one thing. And then the guys come and say. I don't get better at dating in other avenues. And it's like oh i have no idea. I've never tried that before. I hadn't you had feel like on your own. You progressed wrong. I mean obviously time is one part of it but was there anything that got you confident enough to annely find that person. It's a journey like anything else. And it's very similar to a journey of insecurity in physicality or insecurity in in how you handle yourself say martial arts right so you come in and you're bullied and people pick on you and you're not confident you know walker you don't walk like your confidence and everything about you says. I'm picked on bullied and the journey takes you in. In my case. I did martial arts as well and that that black bolt journey took me ten years. Well and it's a gradual progression where you start gaining the skills to conference the walk everything about that and at the end the irony.

00:40:06 - 00:45:01

Is that when you actually come out of that tunnel or or you reach the point where you're happy the ironies that you actually end up not needing to fight and it doesn't mean you don't date it just means everyone thinks all i have these skills. I'm gonna have threesomes every night. I'm going to do all this stuff. And i'm going to all it's gonna be amazing and i'm i'm just never going to settle down because i'm just gonna i'm just gonna like abuse all these skills that have and the irony is just in fighting when you have it. You realize that's most of of what you actually wanted. The confidence of knowing. I can handle myself. Yeah like i. I have done it. I've been in the fights. I've competed i've done those things and i no longer have to go around trying to fight everybody. I know that if i need to do it if i need to use those skills over there and so that's that were most people end up if they're on a healthy path. It's almost like i. I hate saying this. Bud's fake it till you make it right so we have. These posture coaches will say. You just open up your shoulders and walk into a room. You'll already feel one hundred times more confident. So it's that kind of like you. Just gotta own this confidence that you wanna have cool. Yeah the not make it. Thing is is is actually. The is one of the core tenants of cognitive. Psychology are accountable therapy It's the idea that not only do feel that way. But it's a it's a positive feedback loop If you are able to fake say confidence people react to you as if you are confident you start to do the things confident people. Do you start to feel confident. You start to believe you're that person It perfectly mirrors. How they get civilians to divert a grenade in three months in say the military right like. How do you get someone to do that. You have to make him believe he's no longer civilian again. You have to make him believe now. He's a marine and so the path conference is. This is a very very similar path. In that you have to act the part entirely up to walk the part talk to part at the part live apart. And when you do that you start to believe you're the part. I had a friend who told me what he does is. He has glasses a. He calls them his superman glasses whenever he puts them on. He feels like he can conquer the world so he's basically trained his mind to think every time he puts on the glasses he the world has ever. He can do whatever cool. Well this has been really. I ain't dj. If people wanna get a hold of you how should they go about doing that. On any social media the web faith. Facebook twitter on facebook. I am Darren digi Or you guys can look up on the web That's dow fuji dot com sets dow. Tv show oh f- dj f j. I dot com and you'll my website I'm pretty active on facebook Someone on twitter. Um so those are also with a hold of me. And i know you live in la but you do come up to the bay area every every so often right. Yeah we teach We teach primarily out of la. But we do some traveling here and there so we'll go to different cities and teaching and hold workshops. they're awesome. Maybe we'll have you up here for a workshop or one of our events that definitely that would be awesome sweet while thank you so much. Dj for taking the time to talk to us. This was really really fun. And i'm gonna go grocery store nassar butter and if you're listening to this and you want to get a hold of dj you you heard all the different ways you can get a hold of leading to them you can. Yeah and you can also go through us up to make that connection for you in you know if you have your dating stories and tactics you wanna share. Reach out to us. We want to have you as a guest on our show. We love having you know all sorts of different perspectives. So reach out to us last but not least day jailable. Your action item for this week is to make a list of your social weaknesses and figure out a plan to tackle these weaknesses. We have so many resources at our fingertips it would be a shame not to take advantage of everything that's available to us to improve ourselves. We want to give a huge dateable. Shout out to nick. Been helping us with sound. Thank you so much for your generosity your kindness and your technical skills to make all of us some better on air. Thank you again. Nick didn't already in our off season. We launched a premium series the y series where we dissect analyze an offer solutions to some of the most common dating conundrums. We've had some great feedback on. How actionable these episodes are so. Check it out on our website under the tab why series or you can now buy directly from eighteen. Music and other exciting announcement is that we revamped our website. We now have written stories from past guests and writers and we have playlist to organize episodes by topics. These playlists can also be found on soundcloud.

00:45:01 - 00:45:40

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