EDIT: I hope I'm not butchering the quotes too much.
I do see a lot of "social gaming" as exploitive or dishonest. For example, one is expected to show some interest in what others have to say. If someone else talks to me about, say, sports, or The Office, or her day in music class, I struggle to feign interest and usually try to find a way to gracefully change the topic or escape the conversation. I just can't trick them into thinking I care. Nor can I feign confidence, or feign friendliness, or do all these other acts of pretending we're expected to do.
I don't feel it's about trying to feign interest, but rather when you really take interest in someone else and what's important to her. I can completely understand how you don't have an interest in something your partner does, but caring about someone is also about caring what's important to her, and she'll likely be very upset when you refuse to talk about her interests and only change the subject. You're not going to only talk about mutual interests with another person, you'll share things important to you and she'll share things important to her, and together both of you will explore each other. You don't want to feign any of those things, someone would hope you'd really feel confident, and be friendly and not be pretending.
@Phrossack is utterly interesting to me. because he likes horses and old battleships and archery and has a generally unique outlook on life. I would be interested in him if I was a cute girl (hopefully in another life..? :lol ) would most women? I doubt it.
This is all true.
It's hard to show interest if the other person is not interesting. But you can make it yourself interesting (game teaches that), or the other person could be taught to be more interesting.
And then you will find it interesting. One of the main messages which some of the talking lessons in game teaches is that if you find something interesting, the other person will find it interesting too.
As an example I have a male friend of mine. He is a very good talker (and not into game at all). Once, during lunch, he talked for full 15 minutes about weird samurai helmets he found on google. And it was super interesting. Do I care about samurai helmets? Would I talk about images on google? Would I find this interesting? No, normally not. But this guy was so amazed by it, he made it really interesting. He has some conversation skills, which are just great. (the samurai helmets are only an example, he can talk about nearly anything)
Same for Phrossak. You say/he says his hobbies might not be interesting. But it's how you talk about them. You can say "I have some nerdy little side hobbies, nothing more". Or you can say how the last time you rode with a horse through an amazing scenery, how it smelled, how it felt, what you say... and it will be interesting. With enough details, with enough passion I'll easily listen to this for a half hour. With the first description... it#s a sentence.
This also has nothing to do with faking. If you think it is interesting, you need the skills to sell it (yes, a transaction) as interesting. It will be interesting for all conversation partners. And you'll have a great interaction.
You don't see how him talking about women solely in terms of physical attractiveness is demeaning? Are you even aware at all about sexual objectification of women?
If that's the only information I have...?
If I see a random person, I'll describe them as black, tall, fat, hot, whatever. It's a description of the outerior, nothing else.
He only talks about how he's trying to have sex with as many attractive women as he can. He doesn't view women as people, but just physical objects in a game he's playing. I feel like you're totally missing the whole point here?
This sounds like you don't see sex as a nice interaction between 2 people (which it should be, but sometimes isn't).
Trying to have as much sex with as many people should lead to many nice interactions between people (because... you don't only have sex, there is a social interaction beforehand, you go on a date, etc). I don't think that trying to have much sex is seeing other people as objects. If so, you'd have sex with your vacuum cleaner. It's explicetely seeing other people as people.
self improvement for the sake of "improving" or "scoring" is literally just vanity though and i'd hardly say it makes anybody grow as a person, especially when i look at my gymbros. if anything, their idea of self improvement made them worse people.
I think we both agree that they're probably doing something wrong.
but I think when you say "interesting" you really mean "desirable", and when you mean "desirable" you really mean "makes women choose you over another", which is really just part of the game, which is what people are constantly telling you. no person is inherently interesting, it's utterly subjective, that much we agree on, right?
you become a more interesting person by chasing your own passions, not via self-improvement.
Yes, the first part is true, I admit. No issue here.
And maybe improving myself is my passion? No, not really, but it helps me to figure them out, I thik. Or having lots of sex is maybe my passion? I think at the moment this might even be. I don't have any problems with that.
They’ll have headphones ripped out of their ears, hands waved in their faces, and all too often they’ll even be physically grabbed or otherwise touched. Men can and will enact violence on girls they believe they are entitled to the attention of, and this does and has manifested as assault, rape, even murder. So what do you do? Ignoring men doesn’t work, and my friends often fear that itself might be what invites violence itself. [...]
These are all feelings and experiences that women and girls around me have expressed frequently enough to convince me that I should probably never just take behavior in these public places as a given invitation, and should mind my own business until girls or women approach me. And so that’s kind of how I try to base my behavior.
Uh... this sounds like you assume that anyone here is suggesting that. I hope it really doesn't read so, because nobody says that this is the behaviour you should display.
Yes, women get harrased. This is bad. You should not do this. But talking to someone is, if done in a normal and polite way, not harrasment.
As far as I can tell, approaching women in person carries a very high risk of making them uncomfortable.
That is true.
But what's the trade-off here?
Option a) You approach her, she feels slightly uncomfortable for the next 5 minutes while you might be talking absolute BS (or maybe not), until you figure out it's not going anywhere
Option b) you approach her, the conversation is amazing, she gives you her numbe, you go out, it is amazing, and she is the love of your life.
Yes, option b is unlikely. You can still end up with nice conversations though.
What's someone's possible minor discomfort in my quest for the big love? Not much.
before someone is trying to misquote me: "Minor discomfort". Harrasment is not, rape is not. I'm not suggesting any of that.
So let the women come, if it's dating they want. If they don't like being approached, then they can do the approaching. If they don't, that's on them, not something they can blame me for.
Well, equality might come, but right now it's still so that if you want a date, or more, you need to do it. This is not necessarily a matter of sexism, but of self confidence. You might be missing out.