Asking subjectively answerable questions

I will discuss communication, specifically subjectively answerable questions, questions that will have different answers for different persons because they have different properties.

Don't ask me "Do you understand X?" if what you mean is "Would you like me to explain X?". Even better would be to state: "Y, which I'm about to explain, depends on X. Stop me if you need more information on X.".

My answer to "Do you understand X?" will often reflect more on whether there is something about X I know I don't understand yet, rather than how much of X I already understand, and this may differ from your definition of understanding. Since I'm a perfectionist I will also often estimate very cautiously, unless I'm in a cocky mood, or I choose to answer in terms of some other idea of the word than my own.

In general, don't ask questions about vague concepts when you can instead frame them as questions about actions or concepts we can agree on (for example quantitatively definable concepts). Those are much easier to answer, because I don't have to guess or shoot back questions about your intention of asking the question to avoid misunderstandings. In my experience, abstract words have very different meaning for me and other people, and only by guessing the intent of the question being asked can I infer what meaning they attribute to it and what they are really asking.

Of course, there's a difference between satisfying emotions and acquiring information, and here we are talking about acquiring information. For example, if you ask "Do you love me?" as an emotional question and just want to quench insecurities, and the words carry only sentiments, then this is fine. But if you mean for example "At this point do you see any reason which you will want to ever end this relationship?" then that is what you should ask, especially since love has such a multitude of contradictory definitions.

This method of concrete communication that considers a person a universe of facts to be elicited all makes sense in terms of game, where it has been fine-tuned(*1) by evolution in that women(2) come up with tests and hear actions much louder than words. I think of these tests as just reductions of abstract concepts to actions and concepts that can be defined.

1: Fine-tuned in the sense of correspondence to survival. "On average good for survival of the species" is by no means equated with "good for the individual", although they often coincide, but that is besides the topic. What I mean is, the individual has more control and can test more efficiently if he/she can translate the concepts into tests consciously rather than by instinct and emotion.

2: Men seem not to have been granted the same degree of innate ability, and our tests are often simple and visual, though we seem to be internally more encouraged in the use of logic and reason, on average, which can be used to consciously implement the screening process. Thus when a male screens a female in depth it could indicate use of reason and so resourcefulness to the woman. Not to mention that the strictness of the screening process hints at the kind of women available to him and so his value. That's basic well-known game theory.

Values in game

The topic is values in game, what kind of relationships to aim for and what kind of women to aim for.

We start with the motivating factors:
- Pair-bonding: the desire for an emotional connection and to be understood.
- Sexual desire
- Validation: the need to often make sure to look good in the eyes of others in order to feel good about yourself

We add the fair assumption that it is, to a certain degree, possible to limit one's desires:
- Pair-bonding: having passions about something and feeling valuable by doing something important and belonging, socializing, dreaming and satisfying the need with surrogate fiction. This is perhaps the desire that is hardest to satisfy with surrogates.
- Sexual desire: controlling masturbation, watching porn.
- Validation: having a property of yourself to treasure that doesn't depend on other people's continuous affirmation, or that one can be quite certain is always valued highly beyond the need to validate it.

And now it starts to get fuzzy. How do the primary motivations affect the results you can get positively or negatively:
- Pair-bonding.
- Pros: it's easier to be genuinely interested in other people and it focuses your effort on adding value to the interaction because it's mostly a mental process, not disregarding the bonding effects of touch.
- Cons: you can easily scare off girls by sending out too strong, serious signals about a relationship too early.
- Sexual desire
- Pros: it can make you more aggressive, more macho, give you more energy and incentive.
- Cons: can make you cynical, not genuine, single-minded and impatient.
- Validation
- Pros: (artifically) high standards.
- Cons: grows out of pride. of the motivating factors, it is the hardest to satisfy since arrogance is an unlikable trait, thus self-defeating, and never satisfied for long before you need revalidation.

Now it gets even trickier, and that is how to balance the motivating factors for their pros and cons in order to achieve the best results, and time enters the picture. In a perfect human and in the society we evolved in, all of the emotional instincts would serve to enhance replication value and they would have no cons. But to live in perfect harmony with my desires and be "natural" has not fulfilled those desires in the past, which is the reason to apply reason and science in the hope of better results. This, of course, adds the toll of having to reason about my actions, so the idea is to eventually learn to do the right thing naturally, like learning to ride a bicycle. But unlike riding a bicycle, there seems to be a high tipping point, the point where you don't fall back into the old erroneous ways of thinking. I think at least some of the difference is that when you are not riding a bicycle, you forget it and it doesn't affect your training for riding it, but every social interaction that is not game affects your social conditioning.

So what are the potential effects of controlling one's desires? Here are the 2 extremes. The best approach is probably somewhere in between.

A planned approach:
Bring all the desires to a very low baseline, then rationally evaluate what kind of woman and what kind of relationship you want to decide what kinds of actions to take in her presence to increase desires in that moment. For example, I may converse about deeply important ideas to raise the desire for pair-bonding, or escalate physically to raise the desire for sex. This is kind of turning everything on it's head, by letting actions precede desire, but brings everything more easily under rational control.
- Pros: More rational control.
- Cons: Less natural. You might be too disinterested and not follow the woman's desire escalation curve quickly enough. It can be hard to act rationally in the absence of desire if there are fears that are usually overthrown by desire.

A spontaneous approach:
Bring the desires up to a high baseline and act "naturally", as desire determines.
- Pros: If the conditioning is in place to do the right thing based on desires, less work is needed, you can act more quickly without thinking and it appears natural.
- Cons: Less rational control. I might come on too strong, be too impatient. I'm easily controlled by someone who plays on my desires. If my desires don't make me act I might end up doing something I only wanted in the moment, which isn't necessarily bad, but takes my focus off pursuit of long-term values.

In my life in general, I've decided to value that kind of pleasure which I pay for before I get it, like work -> feeling of accomplishment, exercise -> runner's high and better health, and abstaining from pleasures that I pay for after I enjoy them, such as alcohol, caffeine and sugar, and also valuing higher the pleasures that are longer lasting. The sustainable pleasures all seem to be pleasures that you don't quest for in their own right, but that follow from some other pursuit, which is why I "try to be my best" instead of directly hunting down pleasure.

So if my values in pick-up should be congruent with my values in life, I should maximize the desire for pair-bonding, because it seems to be the pleasure that is most directly linked to the amount of work put into it, and minimize sexual desire and need for validation as they are very temporary. However, minimizing sexual desire does not mean not to put sex as measure of progress or neglect it as a goal, because it is, in the end pleasant even if the actions to get there at the start of the interaction, before I make her turn me on, are driven by rational thought rather than spontaneous desire.

Before you ask, yes, this whole text is merely a justification for masturbating as much as I want to ;)

A complicated story

Purpose: I've been spending some time thinking about this issue, about her, and have just been avoiding it, avoiding her. I need some fresh perspective. It's also feels like a good story, but I don't know if I can portray it like it deserves. Since the forerunners to to the current state of affairs happened more than a year ago the chronology is a bit jumbled like my memory.

First meet
In fall of 2008 I used to frequent a student bar, let's call it The Blue Horse. I had worked there from 2004-2006 as a volunteer in the IT department, so I knew many of the bartenders and bouncers. I was sitting around reading a newspaper one night, when 2 young girls, let's call them Blonde and Brunette, juniors or sophomores in college, walked in the door. I waited for them to order beer and sit down opposite each other in 2 couches with a table in between, to play some kind of board game. A bouncer I knew sat down next to the blonde. I went up there and sat next to the brunette. The bouncer was explaining to them what it meant to volunteer as a bouncer, and they had obviously shown interest in signing up. Conditions are usually very civil, so not many bouncers need physical authority, allowing tiny girls to be bouncers. The brunette sitting next to me, my target, started foot flirting with me as soon as I sat down. I thought it was a shit test to see how easy I was since I hadn't said anything. So I didn't respond physically, just started talking. After a while, after I'd demonstrated enough value, I started kino escalating and met no resistance. I put my arm around her and my hand on her thigh sometimes, but didn't kiss her (which I probably should have). At one time she said "you should call my friend (Blonde) little shit later" without her friend hearing. I asked why, but she said "just do it". We played the board game until finish. Then she took the game to give it back to the bartender. Soon I noticed a piece for the game she had forgotten and went down there to give it back. It was crowded and she didn't see me so I stretched my hand with the piece out in front of her face, and to my surprise she put her mouth around it and started sucking it. I didn't have a good response to that, so I just said something like "no silly, you can't eat it, it's for the game".

The gay mistake
I went back to the couch and waited for Brunette to return, but she had been caught up at the bar talking to some other guy and I started talking to Blonde. I was in a mood to make her jealous for leaving me there by hitting on her friend instead. The bouncer sitting next to Blonde had left after he had finished with formalities, so it was only the two of us. We chatted and bantered for a while. I used the bit from Brunette calling her "little shit" at one point when she said something about her behavior I didn't like. I had qualms about calling her "little shit", but I reasoned that most men must be supplicating her and that only her friends who she could relate to called her that in a friendly playful way. Her eyes lit up and she smiled very brightly. Suddenly she asked me if I was gay, out of the blue. In retrospect I surmise that Brunette was really hitting on me, it was no shit test, and had expected me to escalate faster, and that's why Blonde asked. But since I didn't understand this at the time, I thought it was an invitation to a role-playing game and I responded with "yes, didn't you get that before now?". Also I'd seen Mystery's bit about disarming her with the "If I hadn't been gay you'd been so my type" so I figured it was a good idea. After I said that, she started light cuddling and hugging me. She's very emotional, bubbly and vulnerable, but she also has a bossy exterior to protect herself, but now her shields seemed to be all down. I fell into the gay-role-playing-frame and when she put on chapstick, I asked to taste it, and when she offered the box, instead I put my lips to hers, then with a serious face, as if it was insignificant that I had kissed her, I made a trivial comment about the taste of the chapstick, and she played along. At one point she said she had a boyfriend, but that he treated her like crap and that it was probably going to end soon.

Our couch and the one on the other side of the table was now filling up with people. She said she liked one of the guys down opposite of us. I played along saying "you want to make him jealous? I'll fondle your breasts and you pretend to like it". She hesitated for a moment, but then pushed herself into me. I was playing my role very plausibly, making no outward sign that I was enjoying myself verily, and actually started to take peeks at the guy to see if it was working, and she had to stop me by saying "don't look or he'll know". Then she moved over to sit next to the guy and started talking to him, but after a few minutes she apparently found what he said (which I couldn't hear) completely uninteresting and came back to me. At this point Brunette came back and she had the guy she'd been talking to (who on closer inspection seemed gay or at least too nice to be anything but friend-zoned) with her and was inviting Blonde to bounce to another place. Blonde turned to me, but I said I was going to stay at this place, but urged her to go with her friend, since I might be going home soon anyway. To my surprise, and Brunette, who started arguing "how are you going to get home safe? bla bla", she elected to stay with me. Blonde was firm though, and Brunette gave up and left with something like "fine, be that way".

Disaster
I figured it was time to try to get Blonde back to my place, so started saying "I'm hungry. I have some delicious chicken meal from earlier in my fridge. Want to come?". My frame had switched out of gay-mode as soon as I realized the possibility of getting her home. I became kind of needy and pressed her, coming up with different excuses to get her home. Then her face turned morbid and she stated "you're not actually gay, are you". The transformation was complete, from loving and caring to cold as a fish, and she would hardly respond, so I figured the best thing was to leave her alone. I think she was really hurt and masking it with anger. I had no idea she actually thought I was gay and that it wasn't just a game. Maybe it was a little more complicated than that: maybe she kind of knew it was a game, but as long as I acted in a way she liked, she didn't mind, but what made it all into a big lie was that I turned "typical needy supplicating male" on her (something she'd expressed disgust with earlier, how all men are with her). It wasn't the actual words that was the lie, but the deception in appearance of having played a better person in order to get her to bed. I wasn't proud of myself, and was feeling really shitty, like I needed to throw up, all the way home until sleep.

Back-and-forth
Next time I met Blonde and Brunette, I talked mostly to Brunette, because Blonde was still angry with me, but more toned down now, and she kept giving off angry comments, but with a playful or lighter hint to them, like she was letting me know she was still angry but making it socially acceptable and livable for us in the same social sphere by not spreading a negative mood to everyone. It was kind of banter-ish, but with both of us having our shields up, not taking up the issue seriously. I was hurt and felt like I'd done something wrong, but faked a nonchalant frame like she'd been overreacting. Brunette still believed I was gay (even though I hadn't even said to her that I was). I tried explaining in a serious voice that I wasn't, but she still didn't believe it, or want to believe it, so I said "what the hell" and played along, because it was fun. I was flirting with her and building sexual tension over time. My hypothesis was that she was just pretending to believe that I was gay in order to play around without having to commit to anything until she wanted to, in which case she could change her mind about me being gay. One night we were eating at the Blue Horse and she asked me if she had something on her face and I dipped my finger in some white dressing, put it on her chin while saying "yeah, I think you got something right there". She smiled and licked it off. Then I asked "Do you swallow?". She responded in a louder voice "if you weren't gay, you'd be so in for it right now. I'd never let a straight person ask me that.", but with a sly smile. I couldn't really tell if she really thought I was gay. Then she asked if I was gay. I said "Maybe", with the same sly smile. She'd asked before but every time I said "no" she didn't believe me and if I said "yes" she just smiled. Sometimes it was kind of frustrating, when I wanted do stuff with her, and she was turning it against me, sometimes it was fun, because it allowed me to get away with things and play around much more freely.

Blonde wasn't really sure if she thought I was gay or not, and she got happier again whenever Brunette managed to convince her I was gay, so I helped Brunette convince her again, if only to make her happy. One time me and a Buddy was sitting at a table drinking with Brunette and Blonde, we decided to play them by pretending we were a couple. Now Brunette got a quizzical look on her face, confirming my suspicion that she really only was pretending to still believe I was gay, but now actually doubting again. That was kind of hilarious for me and my buddy, and we were laughing, and they couldn't tell if we were joking or not, swinging from one side to the other. Another time another girl, let's call her Physicist, since that's what she studies, I'd been gaming a little bit but lost interest in came and cuddled up to me while Brunette was watching, and Brunette started fighting for my attention, driving the balance against straightness again. It was all such a big mess, playing these games with each other and they were continually getting confused to whether I was gay or straight, but I realized it was also a source of their fascination with me, never knowing what to expect.

Playing with Brunette
Sometimes when Brunette was coming to sit next to me I used to do this trick on her, scooching over just as she was sitting down so she'd land in my lap, and I'd put my arms around her. I think that was what finally convinced her I wasn't gay, because there was something hard poking at her from below. She still kept up appearances though. She used to sit there for a long time, and didn't move away, but when I thought I had her and started to escalate, she looked at me with a playful smile and moved away. She's kind of a player, and I had plenty of competition from other regulars at the Blue Horse. One thing to note was that she had broken up with her long-standing boyfriend not long ago, so she was a bit distant and emotionally unavailable, but not sexually unavailable. If you gave her too much attention at any time, she thought she'd won and she'd go play with someone else, so you could never be sure if she was coming onto you or testing you. One time we were going downstairs to fetch something, she walked into me in the middle of the stairs and I felt her whole body press into me. It was hard to tell if she had stumbled, what I thought first, or if she expected me to grab her and kiss her or something, what I thought afterwards when she had pulled away and exclaimed "What's wrong with you?". I didn't know how to react and we both walked on and pretended it hadn't happened. I had major inner games issues at this time and needed very strong hints to escalate, but I thought about it for a while, then at the end of that evening said "I'm going home. You coming with?", but she didn't come. But what really made me ask that was that she was making me jealous by getting cozy with one of my rivals. She had the upper hand. Of course I should have asked when I had it. It had become mostly a game between us, a game ruled by lust and power. There was nothing deep about it.

The reconciliation
Blonde, now believing I was straight, and saying so, got angry at first, but warmed up after a while and started talking to me, but was still not all there. Then one night I finally cracked. I was talking to her and I was trying to tell her I was sorry for having pretended to be gay, but I kept choking up and couldn't get a word out of my mouth. She didn't realize what was going on and she went to the bathroom or something, then came back and sat next to another guy in the same seated group and started talking. Sometimes she looked at me. I was feeling pain and was on the verge of crying, but it was all mixed up with intensely pleasant feelings for her, and when I looked at her I felt like I was staring into the sun, and she must have noticed my look as I kept eye-contact, for she smiled really brightly and openly and said "What's going on? Tell me." and then "Come here. Sit." patting the seat next to her. I did as she requested and she was looking at me expectantly and excitedly. I started trying to formulate something but my voice crumbled and faded away and she asked "What is it you want to tell me that's so important?" and I started to shed a few tears. She was consoling me and being patient and then finally I managed to say "I'm sorry that I said I was gay (that first night). I thought we were just playing a game. But when I saw that you got hurt I got really sad too." She was holding me and said "You're so delicate." and some other things I don't remember, but to the effect that she liked me. The other guy was trying to get back in and make fun of me, but she ignored him completely the whole time. Suddenly some strong emotion for her came over me and I spontaneously put my arms around her and pulled her into and laid down on the couch. She giggled and pushed me gently away and said "It takes time."

Those strong feelings for her didn't last long, but after that we had a sort of deep serene connection and everything was good between us and she always smiled at me like the sun. I kept thinking of her as a friend that I loved but wasn't really that sexually interested in, although there's nothing wrong with her she just isn't exactly my type, as I was still lusting for Brunette. Sometimes Blonde did things like put her hair in my face for me to smell it and blow kisses at me, that I kept interpreting in a friend context. Also one of my friends was hot for her, and though I didn't think he had a chance I used it as an excuse for not really thinking about her in that way. It's not that I wouldn't make love to her, but I don't feel like I need to, and I don't want to jeopardize the connection I have with her. One thing that she said the first time I met her though, after I said "we should just be friends" (don't remember if it was before or after she thought I was gay) was "Oh, I don't need more friends. I have so many friends." might lead me to think I'm jeopardizing the connection by just being friends.

Intermission
I was going back and forth thinking about what I want. My target was Brunette, and we have sexual chemistry, but little emotional connection. I had sort of locked her as my target. Blonde is hot (I suck at estimating HB levels), but she's not really my type, she doesn't really turn me on sexually unless it's "gated through non-sexual feelings", but her personality is shiny, and over time I've built a strong connection with her.

Leaving Norway
I was still chasing after Brunette's tail. We'd met probably around 10 nights (never planned, always randomly) at the Blue Horse during the autumn months. We'd chatted for a few hours on Facebook now and then. Then one night it looked as though one of my rivals at the Blue Horse was winning her over, and I let them be and he kept fighting long into the night, but then he grew impatient and left around 2-3 AM when she wasn't giving in. I stayed at the after-party until morning. This was my last night in Norway before leaving for Boston. We'd been playing games of jealousy all night. Blonde was also there, but peripheral. Sometimes Brunette had been sitting on my lap, sometimes on someone else's, sometimes I had another girl in my arm (kind of a slut, easy to game). At the end of the evening, they were all quite drunk, except me (I don't drink). Another friend of Brunette and Blonde was sitting on my lap (I'd been dancing with her earlier, she was nice enough), but then they inoculated her by telling her I was gay, even though by now they knew I wasn't and she went home. Brunette was sitting in another couch, just staring at me with a cunning smile, and I just stared back right into her eyes. Then she came and sprawled herself on top of me, letting her leg fall between mine and just relaxing. By now I'd tried to escalate so many times before with her on my lap and have her move away that I didn't dare to grab her, I just let her lie there, because it was extremely pleasant, a great victory in itself. Blonde was sitting next to us, not saying anything. We all just sat there for a while, almost sleeping. Then they were ending the after-party and throwing us out. Blonde kind of disappeared before I could say a proper goodbye (jealous or just disappointed that I was still going for Brunette?), but as Brunette was leaving I turned her around I gave her a long hug. She said "Contact me when you get back from the US".

Boston
Then I went to Boston and joined the lair etc. So much with regard to women happened in the meantime. Lost my virginity among other things. I talked to Blonde on Facebook once while there, explaining that I couldn't talk to Brunette while being far away because talking online without any physical contact would only make everything fade away with the grayness of dull text, but I rattled off some detailed memories of Brunette that would imply how much she meant to me, hoping that that would make her tell Brunette and have her remember me when I got back. Of course, most of the things I told her about Brunette could just as well be true of her, and I realized I was mixing up my memories of them, or saying things about Brunette when Blonde was the one I really cared about and the one they were about, and she might have realized just that.

Back in Norway
When I got back to Norway I realized my thing for Brunette was just lust and sort of wanting to finish what I started, and that there was really no point in pursuing it. I'd lost all interest. So I kind of avoided going to the Blue Horse. But one time I did go, I randomly bumped into both Brunette and Blond. A party was being held for people who still worked there, but we were allowed to sit down for a short while and grab a drink since I'd worked there before and the party hadn't started yet. I was there with a friend who wanted to pick my brain about game I'd learned in the US. We'd just been to a lecture about sexual evolution, it being "the Darwin year". As we were leaving I noticed Blonde and Brunette had come in and were sitting by a table with some other people. I went over to at least greet them, and found myself smiling really brightly and feeling slightly buzzed talking to Blonde, while quickly summarizing my life-status and saying I really couldn't stay while backing out, and though I felt duty-bound to acknowledge Brunette I had a hard time tearing my eyes off of Blonde to look at her, and Brunette didn't really look happy to see me either.

I decided it's just too complicated and have continued to avoid going to the Blue Horse because I don't know what to do. I don't want to see Brunette, but I want to see Blonde. I've been putting the issue off and just going out gaming at other places. One night I bumped into a girl I recognized at the bus stop, but didn't remember where or when. I sat down next to her and started talking. I made a guess at where I'd met her and said so and she agreed, yeah, that was it, but later I remembered I'd actually met her somewhere else so she hadn't remembered either. Anyway, the point was that Blonde also appeared at the bus stop, and saw me talking to this girl, perhaps triggering some jealousy. I didn't notice Blonde before she tapped me on the shoulder as I was entering the bus. She was with a friend and Blonde was smiling brightly and her friend was making conspiratorial faces observing us. As I entered the bus I found that my bus card was empty and I didn't have cash, so I turned to go find an ATM, but Blonde's friend, who I'd never met before and was behind me, paid for my ride. The 2 of them sat down next to each other on a double seat and I sat on the closest seat of the double opposite. We caught ourselves up to speed about our doings in life, but everything superficial. I wasn't in the best of moods right then, and I think my frame had switched slightly to desiring her, being more needy, and she had noticed that I wasn't talking to her quite as much as a friend. Blonde seemed a bit distant and disappointed during the ride, but smiled to me as I left the bus for my destination.

Conclusion
I kind of want to start a relationship with Blonde, but I don't see myself staying with her for more than a few months. I also fear that I will be emotionally overpowered and go against my own rational decisions and stay with her longer than that, even though I want something else in the long run. I am still tempted, since it would be my first relationship. But maybe all this is just an excuse, and what I really want is to be with her, but I fear that when I really decide that, my frame is going to shift and I won't be able to treat her like a friend anymore and it will all just fall apart. I don't know how to be her friend and lover at the same time, but she won't let me be her lover without being her friend. Besides, it feels like what we connected on was just random circumstances and emotional turmoil. There's just this history that connects us, not common values, goals or interests as far as I know. Maybe I'm just over-analyzing, but I care about her and I don't want to just jump into it either. Maybe she just considers me a friend after all. Maybe she's pissed at me for avoiding her friend Brunette now. Maybe I'm idealizing her since I haven't seen her much lately and I will lose interest after a short time. Sometimes I feel like just mailing her the whole story as I see it, but that would be crazy. Doing stuff like that has never ended well in the past.

It feels good to tell the story from beginning to end and get it out of my system. Like it wasn't for nought if I don't pursue it.

What should I do? I guess maybe just hang around and try to make it like it used to be before I left and go from there. Maybe it's just too late. I have no idea. The easiest thing by far is just to game on elsewhere like I've been doing, but that's being a pussy. I'm really confused about this. I know it pops up right now because I've been with family all Christmas and New Year and haven't gamed in a while, so I start to think about "girls of the past". I'm also supposed to be studying right now, another reason to start thinking about girls and unprocessed stories. Well, back to the studying. By the time I get to go out and game on Friday if I study enough I'll probably forget all about her, even though I think of her now.

Status and game plan for the semester

Purpose: Sum up my game status so far and game plan for the semester, mostly for myself. No input needed, but comments welcome.

My game has declined during the fall because I haven't put enough time into maintenance, and this semester will be even busier, but I'll try to make time by dropping unnecessary activities like watching movies and reading fiction. My goal is 8 hours of field-time each week. I've made a preliminary time budget, and I'm going to log how much time I spend on each activity, starting tomorrow, and make adjustments as I go.

Weekly time budget
14*7 = 70 + 28 = 98 hours
1: 3 hours of being TA
1: 21 hours, 3 hours of overhead per day (eating, walking, housework)
2: 8 hours of exercise
3: 40 hours of study
4: 4 hours of salsa
4: 4 hours of swing
5: 8 hours of PUA
3 + 21 + 8 + 40 + 4 + 4 + 8 = 88 hours

College game
I'm back in college now and I see more opportunities, but I still find game harder because of myself. It's hard to break free from my beliefs about people's expectations. Game becomes far less casual seeing the same people again, causing me to weigh my actions too carefully and over-analyze, and I consider my reputation, so mistakes are more expensive. I compensate by doing cold approach, because it affects my behavior also in social circle, providing the needed boost to confidence, spontaneity and aggression. On one hand doing cold approach while being in college is just an escape to a practice realm where my emotions are weaker and an excuse to avoid taking the risk of moving on girls I have invested time in building a connection with, but on the other hand I need to warm up to a higher level of game before I raise the stakes so I don't mess up my social circle in case I make mistakes. It's a balance. I also think I grow too attached too quickly and start sending out relationship signals when they only want something casual. More cold approach also reduces this tendency.

Focus
I need to work on conversation skills. I feel conversationally dried up because there are no major exciting changes in my life right now. I need to make a checklist, by writing down old stories from memory when I think of them, add interesting anecdotes from books or news and think about how can I present my identity and ambition through talking about my goals and how I'm trying to improve my life. Maybe read a book on conversation skills. I watched the video of how Mystery used "only 28000 days to live" to make a connection in-field. I need to think up a story like that but personalized, because that's how I feel a lot of the time: that my life isn't moving fast enough, that I'm not working hard enough. I want a girl that identifies with this and is committed to working hard and improving. Most of the time I want a serious, thoughtful, intelligent, mellow girl for a serious and deep relationship, not a party girl and I have a fairly specific idea of how she should look. I also desire casual sex with random hot chicks in the meantime, so I should make an intermediate list of qualifications that are more likely to be met. My concrete aim will just be to stay as long as possible in set and try to maintain a meaningful conversation and connect on a personal level, while keeping an eye on body language and forcing myself to do more kino.

Foundations
I'm continuing on the next level of salsa and swing training, will extend my interval training as much as restitution allows while maintaining intensity, start proper resistance training, continue to experiment with and improve my nutrition (currently trying low-carb) and keep a strict regular sleep schedule.

Finality and novelty

I love the sense of finality and accomplishment I get when something is completed, and the sense of novelty I get when starting something new that doesn't seem to be just new content in old abstractions. I value these two concepts highly. They are strong motivators.

The energy gained from finality should always be used to snowball into novelty before it melts.

Salsa dancing and inner game thoughts

Today I started on a course in salsa dancing for students again. There are maybe a 100 girls in the class, most of which are in the correct age bracket, some very delicate, but some obviously there to get what they cannot get elsewhere. I focused on looking the girl straight in the eyes. If she was looking away often I assumed it was because her confidence was low and I should be the confident one to keep my eyes on hers, relaxed, and teach her that it is okay to look. I'm not afraid to look the ugly girls in the eyes because I'm confident nothing emotional is going to happen to me from it, and if it does I won't act on it because I've already tagged her with a firmly established "no". Then I looked a semi-attractive girl, HB5,6 maybe, in the eyes and she learned much more quickly than the less confident ones that it was "safe" to gaze into mine and then her pupils grew to saucers and I felt some attraction in response. We were dancing all the while and I noticed our body language was falling into tune and made it that much easier to dance, peripheral sensory details were wiped out and we were floating away into a mild trance to the music. When the next guy came along for the partner change he had to physically interrupt us to alert us to his presence. Such a simple technique can be so powerful with good inner game. No chit-chat, no psychology, no bullshit. Just looking her straight in the eye and dancing, as slow as the rhythm allows, without any defenses up to hide my feelings in case they should be inappropriate or unwanted. I expect there will be a calibration period over the semester where the emotional impact on me from eye-contact and kino lessens and it's going to be only natural after a while and not have much emotional impact, but being calibrated to the high intensity of eye-contact and kino that goes with dancing, and with no implications or commitments, I suspect will help me escalate much more quickly in the field. So in conclusion: taking a dance course is a great tool for scaling up your calibration to match the state of a guy who gets all the women.

Below is my attempt to describe some of what I think when I get the best results. It's hard to always think like this, but is an ideal to aspire to. Perhaps it's just a reformulation of "it's just a game".

- I am on the job. I am there to please her romantically and sexually because those are my orders and I do not question them. The pleasure and feelings I experience as a side-effect is only a tool to make my job easier. If I do not experience them I cannot do my job effectively so I should seek employment elsewhere. As long as there is no protest from my feelings, like revulsion over ugliness, over closing in on her I can proceed. This is different from acting on initial attraction because I can build my own attraction for a girl that I am initially neutral to by having her think that I am attracted and feeding my own attraction grow from her attraction that I unconsciously read in her body language, because we are attracted to people who are attracted to us. The peak of this attraction is not necessarily lower than an attraction that initially starts high with my attraction just based on her looks. Removing my ego over how hot a girl I can get from the equation also takes away the variables that destroy my confidence, and so even when I'm approaching a really hot girl my ego is not on the line because it is not adding to any statistic over how hot a girl I can get. If she rejects me it's because I'm not doing my job right and I need to work harder.

- When the job ends I have no commitments. This is how it is. I need to think this because when I take commitment into account, my standards are too unlikely realized. Of course, managing her expectations is important.

Imagining sex

Imagining having sex with a girl while talking to her and listening to her is the best advice from any PUA method and the credit goes to Gunwitch. Somehow it sends all the right signals and makes the girl just talk and talk and invest in you. I only ended up cuddling with a couple of girls, but it was very pleasant nonetheless.

I started with an easy target, #1, won her comfort, then her hotter friend, #2, came over, and it took a lot more effort to win her over, but I kept thinking about having sex with her and in the end she warmed up. Then I sat down with #3 and #4 and they started edging in and when they noticed the other girl's interest they just squeezed in on me. I cuddled and played with #4 for a while, then lost her to the last bus, but I continued cuddling with her friend, girl number #5. The most desirable was #2, but due to the fluidity of my logistics, just bouncing back and forth and escalating where possible it didn't go anywhere with her. I Facebooked all of them and I have an in for #2, math tutoring, that I will give one shot at following up. It was a really great party, and I was having great fun almost all the time.

I was in a good state. I did most things right just because of having the right mood and frame of mind, but I did not plan logistics so isolation didn't take place. I remember taking 1 step back and 2 step forwards, letting the girls leave and not following them but waiting for them to come back and even hint for kino reinitiation. I remember a good natural response to one girl showing me a Facebook photo with 8 nearly naked guys clamoring over her in a bikini in a small bathtub and I said "our girls were not as lucky, they had to share us", putting the correct frame of mind that she was the one getting value out of it, not raising her up because she was getting all the attention. I guess she showed the picture to provide proof of her desirability but I didn't bite :) .