I recently read “The Game” by Neil Strauss – a fascinating, hilarious, at at times sad true-life account of a short, balding guy in Los Angeles who goes from a compete failure with women to the self-proclaimed “greatest pickup artist in the world” in the space of a year or so after methodically studying the art of seduction. After reading this book I learned there is actually a huge community of guys out there that call themselves PUAs (pickup artists) that study this stuff and share their ideas online. Now, personally I find a lot of their material quite degrading to women, and I’m not suggesting anyone take it too seriously, but when it comes to social anxiety, I think you can sometimes learn lessons from unlikely sources.
When you read about the troubles of these fledgeling “PUAs”, the funny thing is that what they are really trying to overcome is a form of social anxiety. It is often said that public speaking is man’s biggest fear next to death, but for most guys, next to that I would put the fear of walking up to a very attractive woman and initiating a conversation. Before it happens they start to imagine what might go wrong, how they might run out of things to say, make a complete fool of themselves, and get humiliated in public. And of course this becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Sound familiar? Anyway, the interesting thing is that when you read about some of these “pickup masters”, even the experienced ones will say that they still get nervous before going out to a club or bar to meet women. So what’s the solution? They talk about “getting in state” before diving into the situation.
What this means is that before approaching a single “target” it is vital that the PUA gets himself into a fun, sociable mood, otherwise he is setting himself up for failure. So on the way to the bar, he will do all sorts of little things like practicing his smile on every person he walks past on the street, locking eyes and just saying a friendly “Hi” to every third or fourth person, or starting a small conversation with the woman behind the counter of the drugstore. That way by the time he arrives and it comes time to start a conversation with a woman he is attracted to, he will be feeling a lot more RELAXED and natural and not looking like a deer in the headlights.
Now, this is not a post about picking up girls. But reading some of this material it just struck me how it really contains some pretty good advice for people with social anxiety. For example, if talking to your boss at work makes you really nervous, then you DON’T want him or her to be the first person you speak to for the entire day. If you pick up a coffee at starbucks on the way to work, how about just making an effort to smile and say hi at the counter before ordering your coffee? As you walk into the building, how about stopping to say hi to that receptionist you always ignore, and asking how her weekend was? When you stop and think, there are all sorts of opportunities to “warm up” before you have to go and speak to your boss or attend that morning meeting.
Now, as a little experiment I’ve tried to make this sort of thing a part of my daily routine for the past couple of weeks, and I’m finding that it really is helping take the edge off the anxiety for me at work. I find it quite amusing that after all the books I’ve read about social anxiety one of the most practical tips I have discovered recently came from the pickup artists. But maybe that shouldn’t be such a surprise. Some guys are willing to try anything in order to get a woman into bed.
Blogging Against Social Anxiety 
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