The Problem With Pickup

Are you familiar with the concept of pickup or pickup artists? If you're a man who has looked on the Internet to find a solution to become more confident in yourself, better at meeting women, dating and relationships, then I have no doubt this is something that you've come across because it's everywhere. And I got a problem with pickup. There are a lot of problems with pickup. And if you've explored it and had some benefit from it, but then a lot of downsides or negative effects or you looked at it and it just didn't quite feel right to you, then you're gonna wanna listen to this episode. Cause we're gonna highlight the problems with pickup and then you're gonna find a much, much better way to get out there. Be confident, be yourself and meet incredible women. Coming to you from the center for social confidence in Portland, Oregon, welcome to shrink for the shy guy. Helping men everywhere go from social anxiety to social domination with your host, Dr. Hey. Hey. Welcome to another episode of shrink for the shy guy. Excited to be with you here today. Today we're going to be looking at the problem with pickup. That's right. I got some beef and I got to air it here. And I think that if you've explored it yourself, you're really going to resonate with what I say. It's really going to make sense to you. If you haven't come across it, well, then you're in good shape because you're going to sidestep a whole sticky path that you don't need to go down. And so I'm excited to jump in and share all of that with you. We're gonna highlight some of the benefits as well so you can get the good side without getting stuck in the downside, because that's what I'm all about. If you'd like to check out more about the episodes of the show, leave comments, send me Messages, go to shrinkfortheshyguy.com youm can also go to facebook.com SocialConfidence that's our Facebook page. You can like that. Get more updates about the show as well as a bunch of confidence tips and other stu. Or if you want to leave a message and ask a question that I can answer on an upcoming show, call us at the studio hotline, 206-338-3176. That's 206-338-3176. I'd love to hear from you. I love when I get those and I try to answer them on upcoming episodes. So let's dive into the problem with pickup now, what is, you know, pick up, as I said in the intro, it's basically if you go on the Internet and you type in how to meet women, how to meet girls, how to talk to women, how to be more confident with women, anything about developing yourself in this area, what you will find first and foremost, front and center, is a whole field of teaching called pickup. Artists pick up artistry, picking up women. And basically there's a big spectrum of stuff out there, but the essence of it is they teach you what to say and do to get her to go out with you and ultimately to get her to sleep with you. That's the primary focus of this. And you might be listening to that and being like, what was that? What was that term? I'm gonna go look that up right now on my phone. I mean, what's wrong with that? How to talk to women, what to say. I don't know what to say. Talking to women, I don't know what to do. So you're telling me that someone can tell me what to say and what to do, and then I can sleep with women? Like, holy shit, where is that then? That's how I was. And actually that's how I know so much about this stuff is because I delved into it myself, studied it for a long time, and then I also have clients that have done the same. So let's look at that real quick because is there anything wrong with that? Well, the end result is good. More confident meeting women, more success with women, sleeping with women, dating women, girlfriend, eventually a wife. I mean, hey, that's great. That's what I want for you as well, if that's what you want for yourself. But how you do something is just as important, maybe more important than the result how you do something. So let's take an example here. There was a craze. It still might be going on, but it was kind of a low carb diet fad that moved through the country. One of the premier sort of names in that movement was Atkins. The Atkins diet, you might have heard of it. Now, I honestly never read a book by Atkins, so I didn't know the nuances of his diet. But I could see a lot of people who said they were applying the Atkins diet. And I would see people who are avoiding all carbs because that's what you're supposed to do. And eating a shit ton of meat and not like healthy meats. I don't just like bacon and sausage wrapped bacon and eggs and meats and dairy, and not that many Vegetables. And I'm like, you know, I'm no doctor. Well, I guess I am a doctor, but I'm not that kind of doctor. And I don't think that not eating that many fruits and vegetables and a big pile of meat is necessarily the path to long lasting health and freedom. And of course, though people would lose weight, they would be not getting as much calories, and they'd also be going into something called ketosis, where they wouldn't betheir body would be trying to process a different fuel and all this stuff. And I don't want to go down that whole rabbit hole because there are ways that that could be beneficial to reduce certain kinds of carbohydrates. But basically, people would lose weight, but they'd be doing something that would be unsustainable and potentially very unhealthy for themselves. And so how we go about losing the weight is just as important as actually it's more important, right, because you can drop 10 pounds, but if your breath smells terrible and you're weak and you're uncomfortable, that's not what you want, right? You want to be full of energy, vitality. That's the whole purpose of getting healthier. And it's the same with the pickup artist stuff. So let's look at some of the benefits of pickup, though, before we get into the problems with pickup, because there are benefits to it, and I don't want to set up a strawman situation where we just make it all look bad. And there are some great benefits, and I got some benefits from it. So what are the benefits of pickup artists? First, they teach that you can learn this stuff, that you can learn how to be better with women, how to be more successful with women. And that is incredibly liberating because what it does is it busts one of the myths that I talk about in I think it's the confidence code, one of those where we have this. It's called the different species myth, where we look at someone who's really confident, really smooth, really skillful, maybe with women, but maybe in any area of life. And on some level we conclude, wow, that person is so different than I am. They're so different. They're like a different species. And we then distance ourselves from them in our heads, as if we could never do what they're doing. And so one of the benefits of what the pickup artist guys are teaching is that you can learn this stuff. And that's true. You absolutely can. They also encourage action and practice. And you know anything about me and listen to Any of these episodes, there's always an action step. And when I work with anyone one on one, it's a big focus on action. You know, maybe we spend a little while on the inner game stuff before they can start taking action. But then it's like, let's work on the inner game stuff while you take action at the same time. It's not like we do all this inner game stuff for five years and then all of a sudden your life's different. You got to go take action. That's what I encourage. Get out there, talk to women, get out there and practice. It's incredibly valuable. And they also have some good insight into being more powerful in yourself, self respecting, more bold, less pleasing, and trying to get women's approval. So that is a really important benefit as well. Because if you approach women from a place of I'm no good, please like me. I don't know why you would like me, because you're so much better than I am. And you put her on this pedestal and that just really does not produce. It doesn't feel good for you, it doesn't feel good for her. It's a lose, lose. So they teach people how to be different than that. And that is really valuable too. Now, of course that's part of one of the problems too though, because how they teach people and how they go, it doesn't lead as much to the deep transformations and it doesn't lead to as lot of the inner success that we're really going for. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's get into the problems of pickup. That'll be one of them. We're going to get to that one. But I mean, there's a whole host. Those are some benefits. But now we got to get into the problems and we're going to take a quick break and when we get back, we're going to dive in and you're going to want to listen to these. Because if you've ever explored any pickup artist stuff or if you're doing some of it now, or if you watch some videos online, these problems are sneaky, they're insidious, they get into your mind and they fuck with you and they're going to really limit your success not just externally with women, but internally and how you feel. So we're going to take a quick break and we'll get right back to that right after this. If someone tells you there is one magical thing you can say to any woman anywhere and her knees will go weak with lust for you, be Wary. This sounds appealing, but it's just a sales tactic. In reality, creating healthy, lifelong confidence with women comes from transforming your psychology and practicing new skills daily. When you do this, the results are real, lasting, and more rapid than you can imagine. So when you're ready to ditch the pickup lines and make a real shift, check out Dr. Aziz dating program@30daystodatingmastery.com your future girlfriend will thank you for it. Welcome back. So what are the problems with pickup? And the overarching problem, I'd say, is that it's focused on outer success. It's outcome focused, as in get the girl, particularly seduce the girl. I mean, a big part of the pickup movement. I know sometimes they'll market it as like, get a girlfriend and stuff. But then when you get into the material, it's all this stuff that was, like, derived from kind of guys who were focused on sleeping with women as quickly as possible. So outcome focused. Clothes her is the language they'll use. Get laid, basically. And again, I don't have any sort of moral philosophy that's bad to have sex or bad to sleep with someone quickly. I think that's great. And I've done that before, and it's been a very enjoyable experience sometimes. And other times it's been an awkward, uncomfortable experience, which is something that the pickup stuff doesn't get into either. But there's nothing wrong with that in itself. But we get really focused on the outer part, and we don't really have as much focus on the inner success, because the whole purpose, like, why do you want to sleep with women in the first place? Why do you want a girlfriend? In fact, think about that for a second. I don't know where you're at. Maybe you want to be able to talk to women. Maybe you want to be able to date women. Maybe you want to sleep with several women. Maybe you want to have the sowing your oats phase, as a teacher once said I was doing, which is you go out, you meet a lot of women, you sleep with them. Maybe you want a girlfriend, Steady, settle down girlfriend. Maybe you want a wife. Wherever you're at. Why do you want that? What would that bring to your life? How would you feel when you have that right? Whatever you're feeling right now, that's what you're going for. You're going for an inner feeling of success, of love, of feeling proud that you were able to do something, of feeling strong that you could create what you wanted in your life, of feeling free to be able to go talk to someone of feeling happy because you have someone to share life with. Of feeling connected and in love and not lonely. So it's all about these inner feelings, this inner success. And the pickup artist stuff is so focused on the outer success that it's entirely possible. And I've done it to get outer success, as in be sleeping with a woman, having sex with her or about to, or dating her or whatever and not really feeling that great. And I've had that experience. I remember one time I was in San Francisco and there's a beautiful woman and we're on this date and we were in her high rise loft. She was pretty wealthy and successful in business. And we were in a high rise loft in San Francisco. And she was really into me and she wanted no strings attached sex. I mean, you hear that scenario and you're kind of like, whoa, that's like the perfect situation. And there we were and we were having sex. And I remember having this moment that I'll never forget for the rest of my life where I'm looking at her and she's beautiful. And I think she had breast implants, if I remember correctly. And you know, just kind of this sort of what movies and maybe porn has taught us is the perfect thing. And I was doing it and I had this moment where I thought to myself, this looks better than it feels. This experience, like seems more awesome. I was telling someone about it, it would be awesome. But in this moment, I don't feel that awesome. It doesn't feel that great. Because it was too much focus on the outer success. And that's what one of the problems with pickup is. Another problem with pickup is because of the focus on quick seduction. Quick seduction. There's sort of a use and discard attitude that is taught use and discard, which is like, get through, break through the resistance, sleep with her and then whatever, move on. And this is not all pickup artist stuff, but most of it, right? It's just kind of, you know, because that's the whole goal. And once you've reached the goal, then you got to move on. Because it's about the conquest, it's about the conquering, it's about the winning, it's about the significance and the personal victory of getting her. Not about creating a real connection and a real relationship. In fact, a lot of it's designed to simulate like you are creating. So she feels like she's creating a real connection. I mean, if you get into some of this stuff, it is freaking like a really complex machine that these guys build in their heads. You know, and I think a big part of the pickup artist thing is like, guys like me who were kind of nerdy and not successful with women and felt powerless, and they're like, okay, I'm gonna, like, use all of my nerd power and brains and intelligence to like, study this as if it were a math problem or a code and just break it. And they invest huge amounts of focus and manpower intelligence in their community, and they talk about it and then they come up with all these systems and things, and they could work, but they're like simulations of real connection and they have all these terms for it and acronyms. So in this moment, I'm gonna do a high value story so she feels like she looks up to me. And now I'm gonna do a moment of vulnerability so she feels more connected to me. And it's all planned out and maybe even scripted. Maybe they even use the same story of Vul to get her to connect with them. And it's this weird, like, pseudo connection simulation thing. So that's another downside. And it leads to a use and discard attitude. When that leaves is that leaves kind of like a trail of dissatisfied or upset women in your wake. And I'm like, let's create. You don't have to marry a woman after you sleep with her. In fact, you can just sleep with her once. But it's how you go about doing that, how you've talked to her beforehand, what you talk about, whether you choose to talk about what your desires are and find out what hers are. I don't think a lot of the pickup artist guys encourage that. They say, don't talk too much about it. You might scare her off, just bang her and move on. But what my experience was is I would date women, even if it was for a short period of time, and they would still like me. I'd run into them a month later or a year later, and they'd be like, aziz. And this happened just a little while back. I ran into a beautiful woman that I dated for a short period of time, and I ended it and she was upset, but we talked about it and it was a real connection. And I ran into her a couple years later, and I was with my wife and I introduced them and she was really sweet with my wife and interested in her. So you can have this really this mutually beneficial experience, or you don't leave a trail of bodies in your wake along with the kind of simulated connection that comes from the pickup artist stuff. What you get is a lack of real intimacy A lack of real connection, of really feeling like, oh, we're on this together. I like this person. They like me. They know me. I know them. Because it's this whole role that you're playing. In fact, that's another problem with pickup, is you're playing a role. You're playing this character that you've constructed or learned. Because the pickup guys will mostly teach you what to say, how to do it, what to look like, sit like this, say like this. Don't say these kinds of things. Say these kinds of things. Instead, do this because it builds attraction. Don't do this because it makes you look bad. And so you have this character, this role that you're playing. And whenever we're playing a role, we're not being fully authentic. And as a result, even if the role is successful, we still don't feel the benefits of it. That's why that story I was telling about with that woman, even though sleeping with her, I didn't feel that amazing, is because I was playing this role beforehand. I wasn't really connecting with her. I didn't feel really good and relaxed and totally myself. And so what's happening is. And this is as far from the pickup artist stuff as possible. But I mean, what I teach is very different is what this is really about is those positive feelings that I was talking about. And really, it's about love. I mean, I don't mean love as in I love this person. You're the one for me. I want to marry you. But just, like, positive energy. You're making her laugh. You feel excited talking to her. She feels excited talking to you. That's why we sleep together. That's why we have sex, right? Exciting and fun. And there's an exchange of energy there that could be called love. And we can't let that in. When we're playing a role, it kind of bounces right off us. It doesn't get into our hearts because our hearts are not exposed. They're kind of guarded when we play a role. So there's actually a really major problem with pickup that I haven't gotten to yet. That is, I think, one of the core fundamental ones. It's sort of the source of a lot of these other problems. And I want to give that a specific focus. Let's take a quick break right now. And then we're going to get back into this core problem of pickup. And then we're also going to get into how to be free of it, how to do it differently, how to approach this whole thing from A place that is much more liberating, much more rewarding, much more successful in terms of internal feelings, which is what we're all going after, as well as the outer success and all the rest. So stay tuned. We'll be right back right after this. The other day I was at the supermarket and I saw this cute guy in the produce aisle. I was hoping he would come and talk to me. I gave him all the signals. I looked at him for a second to get his attention. I stood nearby pretending to look at some apples, and I even smiled at him as I walked by. He just looked nervous, averted his eyes and turned away. It was almost as if he wanted to talk to me, but just didn't know what to say or do. It was a shame too. I was really hoping to meet him. I've been feeling lonely recently. Are you tired of being that guy? I personally spent many years in that place where there was women everywhere around me that would have dated me if I just had the courage to go talk to them. And that is the same that is true for you. Even if you think you're too short or too fat or not rich enough, that is all just stories in your head. And if you want to learn how to transform that and break through to the next level and create the relationship that you really want just by being yourself, then go to www.30daystodatingmastery.com and get started today. Welcome back. So one of the core problems with pickup, probably the fundamental problem, is that the guys teaching it view it as a sales process. They view it as just like a funnel, sales funnel or a pipeline. And even the language that a lot of them use is sales language, leads. Or if she is overcoming resistance, that's a common term, overcoming objections and resistance, that's sales language. That's closing her. They'll talk about, did you close her? Closing is a sales term, as in you get the sale. And so what's happening is people view it as a sales process. And what that does is that makes people focus. Like they create this sort of system that they run women through. And I remember one guy was telling me about how he was studying these pickup artist things and certain guys in his community would have like a set, a funnel that they'd run women through where they'd bring them to a certain place, they'd map it out like, okay, well, first we're going to go here, then we're going to go to a high energy place, then we're going to go to a seductive place. That's within 200 meters of my house. And it was the same places that they took each date to. To run her through this process. And that's kind of a lot of the pickup stuff is like sort of running women through the same thing. You tell the same stories at the same time to get the same results. And the reason that's the core problem is because it's not a sales process. I mean, it could be if you make it that. But then you're gonna have what I think the ultimate failure is, which is success without fulfillment, which is you get some results, but it doesn't feel great. It doesn't get you what you want. And then you might just think, well, shit, maybe I need to sleep with more women. Maybe I need to sleep with hotter women. Maybe I need to have sex with her faster. That would give me what I want. And it won't, because that's not what it's about. And then on top of that, with the pickup artist stuff, there can be this implication that you of perfection, of somehow you could get any woman, because that's what often the marketing. There's these false promises. And the marketing of pickup artist stuff is really interesting and somewhat twisted. If you've. I'm interested in marketing, and I've been learning more about that. And as I study it, I mean, they'll have videos that come on that are designed to shock you or like, warning, women will not like this video, and it will be taken down because it's controversial and it's designed to hook you. And then they'll, you know, talk about sort of a lot of this stuff. Right. You know how they're going to. Basically, there's this one woman that you want. We're going to teach you exactly what to say to not get rejected and make her want you. And, you know, you can be more bold. You can be a different way in the world, more of yourself. That makes women more attracted to you and reject you less. And that's. Of course you can do that. But they sort of make it seem like you should be able to get any woman. And that's not at all what I teach. You should be able to get any woman. Like, how would you have to be in order to get any woman? You have to be this, like, super, whatever, malleable salesman who can say whatever you need to to get her. And maybe you could pull that off to have sex with her once, maybe, but even that, probably not, right? So wouldn't you much rather be more of yourself in every situation? And the women that are attracted to you and you're attracted to them. Something happens and the ones that it's just not a good fit, just let them go and not worry about it. I mean, that's how I wanted to be. Now one other problem of pickup is because there's all these rules and roles and things to do and make sure you display yourself as this and don't display low value and do that and just thousands of hours of teaching about it. What you can see is people get into patterns of over strategizing. They get super in their heads and I know I did this and I've seen a lot of clients that do this. They get really in their heads and then they're like, okay, I'm gonna do this and she's gonna say that and I'm gonna make sure I say this. And oh, that's too much of this. And. And you can just paralyze yourself. You can just stall out. The more in your head you are, the less in the moment you are, the less real connection you're going to feel with her. And then again you're just going back to that pseudo connection. So there's all kinds of problems with pickup. And at the end of the day, you're not just being truly and deeply comfortably yourself. And I know that's kind of cheesy advice or people don't know what that means and they roll their eyes like, be yourself. That's not working. I was trying to be myself and no one was talking to. But the who you think you are right now, if you're stuck in limited and fear or shyness or negative beliefs about yourself, that's not who you really are. That's just some stories, that's just some bs. And the key is to break through those and see who you really are. And the way you do that is you work on yourself. You listen to this show like you're doing, you develop your self esteem, you find your value, you speak up and you start taking risks in your life. You stop avoiding what's scared you, you stop being passive in and hoping things are going to happen for you. And you say, you know what? I'm going to get into the fucking driver's seat and I'm going to make something happen in my life. And then you start speaking up and you start taking risks, not just with women, but everywhere in your life, not just to get laid, but because you want to be a better man, a better human, a better person. And one of those risks is to go talk to women. And then you got to learn how to deal with women, how to interact with them, how to be all of your masculine self around them, which allows you to not be scared and timid and weak and sort of gentle and pleasing and allows you to just be real with them. Tease them like they were a buddy of yours. Give them a little bit of a hard time, be playful, be unpredictable, do whatever you want to do and not filter everything through, is she going to like this or not? And that comes from you being bold and authentic in yourself. And then you can express yourself more and more and more. And then you can learn how to handle a rejection or a no. And you can do all of this without having to study a bunch of pickup artist stuff. And, you know, of course, the best way that I know how to do it is something that I created, which was an exact alternative to the pickup artist stuff, which is my program. You might have heard of it. 30 days to dating mastery. And if you go to 30 days to dating mastery, the number spelled out 3, 0, 30 daysstodatingmastery.com, go there and enter your email and I will send you a free report. 7 Ways to Talk to women anywhere, anytime. And there's no weird pickup artist stuff in there. There's no 17 manipulation steps to get her through your sales funnel and close her rapidly. It is about how do you just boldly start to put yourself out there? And then if you want to go deeper with it, you can get the whole program, which would help you know your value on a core level. Be able to take those risks, be able to talk to anyone, not just women. Have great conversations, how to ask her out, how to do all this stuff in a way that's designed to radically transform your life, not just get you laid. And, you know, along the way, you'll be able to sleep with women and have great dates. So you can have both. And the key here, though, is to really realize that you can shift this stuff. You can do it in a really healthy, lasting, powerful way, which will actually lead into a great relationship. And a lot of pickup artist stuff doesn't lead into a great relationship. As I said, it's the use and discard attitude. We're out of time today. I mean, I could keep going. I had a list of even more problems that I have with pickup, but I ran out of time. And we gotta end with what we always end with, which is your action step. Time for action. Your action step today is to take a risk with a woman. I'm gonna leave it real vague like that. Take some risk with a woman. I don't know what your situation is. Maybe you're not talking to any woman at all. So for you, walking down the street and saying hi to a woman as you walk by her would be a risk. So do that. If you're kind of already beyond that level and you're talking to some women. And maybe the risk would be to flirt with a woman, to tease her a little bit, to make a joke. Maybe the risk for you would be to ask a certain woman out. Maybe there's a crush who you've been pining over for three months, walk up and talk to her. And then at the end of your conversation say, hey, I'd love to hang out again. What's your number? Or let's get some coffee. Do you have email? And if that's frying your circuits, check out 30 Days to Dating Mastery. Learn how to do all that stuff. Whatever it is, take a risk because that's how you're going to learn. That's how you're going to grow. And you don't need to learn 5,000 ways to do it and all the closing strategies. Just get out there and start doing it. You will learn. If you want to learn more rapidly, check out my program and I look forward to hearing Go to Shrink for the Shy Guy Leave comments Go to the Facebook page facebook.com SocialConfidence Share Talk about your experience. We want to help each other in this process and know that when you invest your energy, your focus, your intention on growing in this area and getting better, you absolutely can do it. So thanks for listening today. I am excited to talk with you in future episodes and until we speak again. May you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com it.