Aloof busy? Oh, Lord . . . the PUA stuff

Was reading the stats for the blog when I noticed a pick-up artist (PUA) concept clearly embedded in one of the searches.  This was a search about what in PUA lingo is called "aloof busy".

Now, to preface, in the broad outline I'm fairly cool with a lot of the PUA logic.  But there are some specific tactics I shake my head at.  One of those is "aloof busy".

Aloof busy is this notion that the key to getting women is to seem aloof (that part's true, up to a point) and busy (which is not).  In other words, you should be a distant jackass who has no time for the girl.  The basic idea being that a high value man is aloof and occupied.  So, you want her to think you've got a cluttered schedule and that it will take time to fit her in.

The #1 issue I have with aloof busy is that it just doesn't jive.  It's a tactic that's basically begging guys to go overboard faking their alpha-ness.  It contradicts the much more valid PUA idea that whatever story you tell needs to have a fair amount of continuity to it.  I will tell you from experience, when I am busy, chasing women is just not very much in the cards.  Truly busy people don't have the free time it takes to play PUA game.

The #2 issue is this notion that there is alpha-ness in being busy.  I strongly reject this notion, again from personal experience.  Some of the busiest times in my life were also some of the least alpha times in my life, because I was chasing after other people's shit.  To be blunt, a truly alpha male has free time because he has the resources and/or the minions to handle business well enough to create free time.

Aloof works.  To a point. 

What point does it fail?

Well, it fails when you get to the point the girl feels completely disregarded.  It fails when you get to the point she wonders if you're gay.  It fails when you get into a relationship and then keep flaking just to show how aloof and busy you are.

If you think of sex as a chess match, then a lot of PUA material is about the open of the match.  While PUA material is handy in the middle and end games, it's mostly handy for creating strategic ambiguity -- essentially just to keep the girl on her toes and to not take you for granted.  In the open, PUA ideas work best at setting between 8 and 11 on the dial, depending on the girl, the setting and the chemistry.  After that, PUA stuff should be dialed down into the 4 to 7 range.  And sometimes you need to hit the fuckin mute button completely on the PUA game.

What do I mean?

In general, PUA stuff is a gambit.  It's an aggressive play in the hopes of an aggressive payoff.  But, like any gamble, the less risk there is in getting the payoff, the less need there is to push hard.  If a girl really likes you, you don't blast her in the face repeatedly with hardcore PUA sets -- you dial back all the "cocky/funny" and "aloof busy" and just try to be cute. 

There's nothing wrong with PUA.  It's a tool and deployed correctly it's a damned effective tool.  But, you don't use a 50-cal sniper rifle to waste a squirrel.

And that's where aloof busy is just wrong.  It's just too big.  It's too obvious a gambit.  It's so overboard that really you should only use it on girls that are essentially hopeless cases.  And since you shouldn't game hard on any one girl, you shouldn't over-game hopeless cases.  At all.  Ever.

I trash the pick-up community a lot.  Especially considering I find a lot of the conversation there to be interesting.  But, a big problem with PUA is not that the idea itself.  It's the hopeless guys who hopelessly deploy PUA in hopeless ways.

And aloofness in PUA is a big misfire, IMHO.

Worse, I'm not even certain that PUA actually teaches aloofness.  What exactly is "aloof" about the notion of being "cocky/funny"?  Not a damned thing.  Done right, cocky/funny is the diametric opposite of aloof!

What PUA really teaches is a hint of aloofness. 

Where I think guys go wrong is that scared, awkward penguins pick-up on the hint of aloofness and decide that's a great place to hide.  You have a guy who already feels invisible to women.  And what does he do?  He grabs the part of PUA that feels safe to him: the part that allows him to continue being invisible.

What PUA is trying to communicate to guys is that you don't race around being a lame horn dog or some attention monkey doing everything in your power to get a single woman to somehow trip over you and fall in love.  You play back. 

When I say "play back", I mean like an NFL free safety plays back.  An NFL safety is sometimes 20 to 30 yards off the ball at the beginning of a play.  But when the ball is in the air, he closes fast.  He plays back only until the moment is about to materialize.  And then he breaks with a controlled aggression.  If he has the quarterback totally fooled, he picks off the ball.  If the QB felt the play out, he drives on the receiver and tries to break the play up.  Failing that, he honors his position and cleans up the tackle.

It's much the same with women.  You only play back until the moment materializes.  Once the moment materializes, you get in there and you finish the damned play! 

And some safeties just get burned so much they wash out of football because all they can do is play back.  They never close, they never drive on the ball, they never finish.  And eventually, they lose their value altogether and cease to be useful.

Does that sound like a lot of guys you know?

Remember, there's a hint of aloofness.  And then there's just being so goddamned distant the girl isn't sure at all what you're doing.  At some point, if you want a woman, you have to make it known.  When PUAs are talking about kino and escalation, that's what they're talking about.  Aloof only gets you so far.

Trust me.  I speak from experience.