Thread by @daemonhugger, I’ve never opened up about this before. And I can tell this [...]

I’ve never opened up about this before. And I can tell this is going to be painful to write.

But a few hours ago I had one of the most vivid realizations ever of how pickup has shaped my identity. And not for the better.

Last month, my girlfriend and I took a week off and visited my hometown. While we were there, she snapped a photo of me on top one of the mountains in the area.

As I was looking through the photos today, I realized that I had taken almost the exact same photo 9 years ago.

Standing in the same place. On the same mountain. In nearly the same outfit.

I pulled it up on Facebook and compared the two side-by-side.

WHAM. It hit me. Almost ten years had gone by between those two moments.

So I got to thinking about all the time that’s passed between 17 and 26 years old.

Leaving high school. Going off to college. Nearly quitting college. Getting my first job. Moving to a new city by myself. And then moving again. And again. And again. Always by myself.

I wish I could say I could look back over the last ten years and be happy.

But that’s not how I felt.

Honestly, the first thing I felt looking at those two pictures was sadness.

Sad because, “What if I’d quit college and travelled instead?”

Sad because, “What if I hadn’t been so hard on myself all those years?”

And sad because, “What would life be like now if I hadn’t discovered The Game?”

I started to think back on my social life during all those years. During the years when I was working my first jobs. During college. During high school. Heck, even during middle school and elementary.

One thing stood out in common between all of them.

I always felt like an outsider.

In elementary I was shy and quiet. I transferred for middle school. So all of a sudden I was shy, quiet, and I didn’t know anybody. Almost everybody knew each other, but not me.

I became a loner.

In high school, even though I was athletic and always played sports, I never felt like a part of the team. I’d be out there on the field with the rest of them, but as soon as I was off the field, I felt insecure and alone.

I’d sit on the bus by myself. I’d watch other people laugh and joke amongst each other. I never knew how to do that. But I fantasized about being a part of it. Of having people pay attention to me. Of having people interested in me. Captivated by me.

I switched high schools for sophomore year. I thought it was my chance. I’d finally get a fresh start. I’d be one of the “cool” guys. Everyone would like me. Everyone would want to hang out.

But it didn’t happen.

So I left for college a year early. I had the same fantasy.

“THIS is going to be my fresh start. THIS is where I’m going to find my people. THIS is where I’m going to finally fit in.”

But again, it didn’t happen.

I was still a loner.

For my entire freshman year, I went to bed at 8pm. My school was right next to the mountains. So instead of hanging out with people, instead of going to parties, I’d go on hikes by myself. Or I’d read books in my dorm.

In my third year there I discovered The Game.

It seemed like the solution to all my problems. Finally, a guidebook for how to be more social. And of course, being as shy and introverted as I was, I’d always struggled with girls. This book gave me a way out of that. Or so it seemed.

I read that book and started down the rabbit hole of PUA material online. RSD caught my attention early on and kept it.

I got it into my head that I had to start taking MASSIVE ACTION and approach lots of girls and try these different techniques.

The problem?

My school only had 300 people in it. And the town it was in was tiny. There was no way I could get away with doing all those approaches. I was terrified of it going poorly and becoming known as “that guy.”

So I didn’t do anything with it. I kept reading. I kept watching PUA videos. But I never took action.

I began FANTASIZING about the day I could move to a big city. When I could finally be anonymous and experiment socially with no one knowing me.

So now I was shy, introverted, and the only way I knew how to fix it required me to move to the big city some day.

My insecurities around girls multiplied. I was shy before, but now I had a desire for being able to attract any girl I wanted. This became my impossible standard.

And it created a wall between me and the girls I was interested in. I wanted to do it “correctly” (I.e. the PUA way), but I knew I couldn’t do it in my small college. So I’d go on doing nothing.

I felt like even more of an outsider.

I couldn’t take action with girls. I couldn’t bring myself to talk to my handful of guy friends about PUA. I’d boxed myself in. I hid it all inside, this obsession that I could never reveal.

Fast forward a few years. I’d graduated. I’d moved around to a few different cities chasing jobs.

In every city, I had the same experience. “Not yet. This city’s not big enough.” Or “Not yet. You have to focus on your career right now.”

So I continued to put off taking action. These fantasies of trying out this PUA stuff continued to stew inside me.

So all the while, I couldn’t connect with girls and I barely connected with guys. I was always an outsider. This feeling just grew and grew.

Now, this isn’t meant to be a sob story. Things did finally improve.

I did finally get my chance to move to a big city. I had a remote job, so I packed up all my stuff and moved halfway across the country.

But surprise surprise, it wasn’t by doing the PUA stuff that I stopped feeling like an outsider. In fact, just the opposite.

I started trying to do “approaches.” I did comfort zone challenges. I asked cashiers out on dates who in retrospect were CLEARLY only being nice because I was a customer.

I was watching PUA videos the whole time. And the more I did that stuff, the more disconnected I felt. The more disheartened I became. And I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. It felt like a dark secret I had to keep close to the chest.

It wasn’t until I STOPPED watching PUA videos… and STOPPED doing the PUA stuff… that things finally started getting better.

I enrolled in improv classes. Almost instantly my mood and social anxiety improved. I kept these up for nearly a year.

I also enrolled in acting classes. These gave me an emotional slap in the face. I was working with people who were deeply emotionally and socially sensitive. And ALL of them were uncomfortable around me.

I didn’t understand at first. “What’s wrong?” I thought. “I’m a nice guy. I have no bad intentions!” But these actors could see right through me. They could FEEL how wound up I was. How anxious and disconnected I was. And they reflected it right back at me like a mirror.

I spent the next eight months immersing myself in these classes. I started letting my guard down. I started opening my heart to other people. And I finally started feeling like I was on the INSIDE.

It changed everything for me. It changed my values. It changed how I look at myself. It changed the kind of person I want to be and the kind of people I respect.

And it was only then, after three years of zero romantic relationships, that I finally started meeting girls. I’ve had a couple girlfriends since then. And right now I’m in the longest, deepest, most significant relationship of my life.

This is something that could’ve NEVER happened a few years ago, when I was neck deep in PUA.

Now, I know this was a fucking LONG story. If you read all the way through, you’re amazing. I totally didn’t mean to go on this long. But when I started typing I couldn’t stop.

I really hope you were able to relate to some of this.

I won’t claim that my life is perfect now. I still deal with social anxiety. I’m still shy and introverted. And I still often feel like an outsider (I recently moved to a new city, again).

But I can say one thing without question. Getting into PUA led to a lot of pain over the last 5-6 years. I won’t blame it for the pain I’ve gone through. It didn’t create it. But it did feed off the insecurities I already had and blew them up way out of proportion.

So again, hopefully you connected with some of this.

If you want to chat about it at all, feel free to ask me anything. I never had anyone to talk to about this stuff, so I want to be an open book for anyone else who may be going through the same thing.

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