This is an article for people that are having issues connecting with girls, or are doing “everything right” but not feeling any lasting satisfaction from the game, as well as guys that find meeting new women “boring,” and guys that are approaching sets but finding themselves unable to get any “deeper” than casual conversation.

A lot of you probably know me because I’m an operator in the Reddit Seddit IRC channel, and before that I ran the now defunct pickup irc community. There’s always a steady stream of people coming in with questions and situations for us to work through. It’s a lot of fun, and it’s a great way to solidify your own understanding of seduction mechanics and share your own experiences.

After meeting and getting to know hundreds of guys, I found a lot of them had similar issues. The easiest ones to identify are the outer game issues, like a lack of sexual-tone or poor logistics. The other category of issues I’ve ran into in my friends and students are what I call “game-centric inner game issues,” these are the things like mindset issues [she won’t like me if I tell her I play video games! I gotta get really good at approaching before she’ll let me fuck her.] and issues that get smoothed over with experience [being nervous in groups, for example.]

However, there is a huge inner-game issue that more than a few men in the community suffer from. One that could even stem from childhood. It’s an issue that prevents guys from having the lifestyle they desire. It’s an issue that keeps guys from enjoying the process of meeting and connecting with new women. Even worse, it’s an issue that makes it difficult for guys to actually enjoy the success they do get!

I am speaking about a lack of empathy towards women.

That is to say, consciously or unconsciously they don’t view women as human beings, or are using women as a means to an end, like to appeal to society or satisfy their own ego. More than a few guys that visit our community even hate women, even though they would never say it, their behavior just reeks of a strong dislike of women.

They don’t enjoy the company of women, and approaching women to them isn’t a chance to meet someone cool. To them, the act of approaching is a way to prove something to themselves. To stop being a coward, or to prove some abstract authority figure wrong, or they just don’t like not being in control. They view seduction as a strict numbers game, and don’t get any emotional satisfaction from their success or their failures; sometimes they’ll approach hundreds, thousands of sets without getting laid or even getting a kiss. Even worse, sometimes they get laid and don’t even feel any lasting pleasure from it. They also don’t like being too vulnerable around women, they want to keep any emotional investment to a minimum, even after physical intimacy.

Sometimes you can identify this behavior simply by looking at how someone talks about seduction. Someone who says “I met this cool girl the other day, we found out we had a lot in common and we had a lot of fun hanging out together,” likely has a good mindset towards women and authentically enjoys their company. A guy who is lacking in empathy will very rarely talk about women in such a way, usually the qualities they are looking for in a women are “submissiveness” (aka, she doesn’t put up much of a fight and lets me fuck her), and they won’t even think about women beyond “HB9 Brazilian, k-close.”

You can identify this problem in yourself rather easily, just think about the last 5 or 10 women you’ve talked to. What did you think about them? If your thoughts about them are related to their personality or the connection you had with them, you’re probably emphasizing with women in a healthy way. A guy that emphasizes with women can say “It was fun getting to know Veronica, I liked the way she carried herself, I felt we had good chemistry but it turns out her boyfriend is one of my friends.” A guy that views women as a chess game will primarily say “I met this HB9 and got the boyfriend rejection, she didn’t respond to my escalation so I nexted her.”

What causes a lack of empathy towards women?

Lack of empathy is a two-sided issue. There’s a conscious, surface level to the problem, and then there’s an unconscious level to the problem that runs deeper.

The conscious lack of empathy towards women is, ironically, usually created by the PUA community as an ego defense mechanism. To deal with the natural highs and lows of the PUA lifestyle, most PUA advocate adopting a numbers-game mentality. Let’s face it, this is a lifestyle that requires vulnerability, you have to put yourself out there, and sometimes when you put yourself out there and it doesn’t work out, you get hurt. Especially when you meet a girl that you really like and it doesn’t work out. It’s easy to adopt a stoic world view, “I don’t chase I replace, it’s a numbers game,” but in doing so you’re attempting to cut yourself off from natural, healthy human emotions, and denying yourself opportunites to grow as a person. The guys in your life that are fearless and confident are not the guys who say “I don’t chase, I replace” and go out and crash and burn 2,000 times in a row. They’re the guys that are willing to risk being genuinely hurt. “AFCs” suffer from a similar problem, although for different reasons. Usually they want to look cool, or act like James Bond, what they don’t realize is taking the risk of being hurt is what leads to true personal development.

The unconscious lack of empathy towards women tends to stem from experiences in childhood or adolecense, during sensitive ‘imprinting” times as Dr. Timmothy Leary would say. In our community we see guys that have been really wronged by women in their youth. Some guys were physically, emotionally, or mentally abused by women. Or they have picked up some negative imprinting from their adult role models. Some guys are taught from youth women have power over men. Or women will ruin your life unless you control them. Some guys are taught women are foolish, and will run around with whoever treats them the worst. These experiences weigh heavy on the individual. These issues can be fixed, however they take time, and it’ll take a lot of maturity to fix them. Maturity as in, you’ll have to learn to be patient with yourself, and rexamine the things that have happened to you in the past with an objective eye. There’s a saying in the self-help community that “Every remember is a reframe.” You can’t change the events in your past, but you can change what they mean to you. This is one reason why meditation, positive thinking, and reading books like “Prometheus Rising” and “I’m OK, you’re OK” have had such a profound impact on the members of our community.

How to start emphasizing with women?

This is a skill that can be developed, but not quite taught. However, making it a conscious goal to emphasize more with women as human beings is a good start. Once you know there’s an area you want to improve on, the natural tendency is for your mind to create plans of action. Over time, you can even change your early imprints by experiencing new situations with an open mind.

My first piece of advice would be to realize that women are in the same boat as you are. Chances are you’re trying to balance personal ideals, the expectations of society, and the pursuit of personal happiness and enlightenment. So is she. Just like you, she is pounded with b/s messages about her sexuality and place in society. She’s hammered with advertisments telling her how to act, just like you are. Just like you, she has goals, things she enjoys, fantasies and dreams. She probably has some really confusing impritning from her childhood as well.

Contrary to what mainstream seduction advice says, she is not a porcelin statue without insecurities, and she isn’t in constant opposition to what you want and she isn’t there to hit you with shit test after shit test to make sure you’re on your game. You don’t have to “beat” her in some imaginary chess game in order to get the pussy.

My next advice would be to just be around more women. I don’t mean do more “sets.” I mean find a girl that’s normal, maybe one you’re not physically attracted to, and just see if you can hang out with her as you would one of your guy friends. Spend a day, watch movies, play video games. Don’t try to game her in any way. If you’re already doing this, then good job. However, for guys that don’t have any female friends or are putting pussy on a pedestal or are thinking women are operating on some different wavelength then they are, this can be a very enlightening experience. One of the best ways to build empathy with your fellow man is to spend time interacting with people you stand to “gain” nothing from.

Find a girl, or even multiple girls, and try and see what makes them “tick.” Obviously it’s impossible to understand a person’s entire outlook on life, but see if you can figure out what things are important to them. What their ideals are. What they want out of life. Or hell, even just how they kill time. Try to see what their “reality-tunnel” is like, if I may borrow a term from Robert Anton Wilson.

In closing:

I’ve met a lot of guys in our community, and lack of empathy towards women is probably the most common inner game issue. In fact, as sad as it makes me to admit it, I feel some people in our community hate women. The good news is, this behavior can be changed. A large percentage of guys can fix this problem just by meeting and interacting with more women. However there are guys that are closing themselves off from empathising with women, likely to avoid being hurt. The solution then is to gradually put yourself out there more. Yes, it will make you feel worse when your plans with a girl you’re feeling a strong connection with don’t pan out, but the reward is much greater. Making love with a woman you’re feeling a strong emotional connection with is satisfying beyond words, it’s something that is truly a high point in your life, and it’s something I hope you all experience at least once in your life.

– Duke Alan, the Free Love PUA.