Social copycat

August 31, 2010 //
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I can still vividly remember one particular day when I was seven years old back in Finland. I was at a fair with my Mom and couple of my friends from our neighborhood. I wanted candy, so my Mom gave me 5 Finnish markka, and told me to go buy some. I could not do it. I was too shy to go up to the candy stand and buy candy from a complete stranger. I actually had to ask my friends to do it for me. They bought me the candy and then made fun of me for being shy. What does this tell about me? I am shy. Not only that, I am not a social person. I feel awkward with people I have just met. I am not very good at having small talk. However, at the same time, I make new friends all the time, flap my social butterfly wings around the town, and have no trouble meeting girls. How is this possible?

All of my social awkwardness does not limit me because I offset with the one thing I am good at: learning. School was never easy for me but I loved learning. My love of learning is probably why I continued all the way to get a PhD. I am still learning, but now instead of learning physics, I am a student of social dynamics. Most of the time, I still get nervous in social situations. However, now the nervousness is dampened and replaced by something else. Excitement. I am excited because every social situation is a new challenge for me, a learning opportunity.

One of the biggest learning opportunities for me is when I meet people who are cooler than me. In the corner of my eye, I follow them. How do they talk? How do they stand? How do they walk? Then, I copy them. I talk the way the cool guy talks, I stand the way the cool guy stands, and I walk the way cool guy walks. When I have a choice to make, I ask myself: “What would my cool friend do?” Then I do it. Although I might feel awkward, I choose to act differently.

It might sound like I am a fake. Like I am pretending to be someone else. That is fine. I could not care less. Who am I anyway? There is no definition of me that I have to live up to. I get to choose my own definition. And where do you think the cool people learned their stuff? Probably from their parents or the people they grew up with. They were not born with it. There is no cool-gene. It is not their birthright to be cool, and others not. Plus, all the truly cool people, you know, the coolest of the cool, want to lift your value and help you to be cool also. They want you to learn from them!

I believe that it only really matters how you act and not how you feel. Feelings and thoughts fly around your head 100mph. You cannot choose them more than you can choose the weather. If you could, you could just choose to feel happy all the time and there would be no need for wars, arguments, or self-help books. What you can choose is the way you act. This, I find, is the only difference between the cool and social people, and the rest. They choose, subconsciously or not, to act differently.

What do you choose? What kind of person do you want to be? Look at your friends, maybe you find role models among them. Copy their positive features. Really pay attention to how they act. When you have a choice to make, ask yourself: “What would my cool and/or social friend do?” Then do your best imitation of that. It is still you, just a more awesome version of you. Soon you will notice yourself subconsciously acting differently. Or maybe you are one of the lucky ones, “born” with amazing social skills and charm. Brilliant. The rest of us, we will be copying from you, thanks!

Categories Dating

You are already living your dream – don’t forget your dream

August 11, 2010 //
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If you are like me, you have moments when you feel miserable and complain about your life. I hate my job. Why don’t I make more money? Why am I not married already? You might feel like you didn’t get what you deserved from life. Like you didn’t get enough. I’ve got news for you. You got exactly what you asked for. No more, no less.

I had one of these whiny moments earlier in the spring. I was walking down Manhattan Beach, Los Angeles. It was a beautiful day. The waves were calmly combing the sand like fingers through a lover’s hair. California girls were playing volleyball just behind me. This is supposed to be the picture perfect moment of happiness. However, I felt absolutely miserable. I looked at the multi-million dollar beach houses across the bike path. I said to myself: “Why can’t I have that? Those people must be happy; they have reached their dreams. Certainly they got exactly what they wanted”. Then it hit me: I remembered my dream. My dream, years ago, was to have a PhD, earn my living as a physicist, and to live in a city in America. That’s it. No more, no less. I had reached my dream exactly. My eyes became wet from tears of joy. My dream was never to be rich, drive a Ferrari, and have a supermodel wife with double Ds. So why was I feeling miserable? It was not because I didn’t get exactly what I wanted. I was miserable because I had forgotten what I wanted in the first place.

What is, or was, your dream? By dream I don’t just mean a daydream. In my daydream I am Richard Branson jetting around the world with Russian supermodels. No. I mean a dream you see vividly and you believe you can achieve. If you dig deep, I am pretty sure you will find that you have already reached your dream. Or maybe you are on your way still. Or, if you never had a dream, you are probably drifting through the years and not getting very much at all.

Do you feel like you haven’t gotten enough, like something in your life is lacking? If so, maybe it is time for a new dream. Make your dream exciting, vivid, and detailed. What gets you up in the morning before the alarm goes off? Where do you see yourself living? What kind of partner do you see yourself with? Maybe your dream is so silly you don’t even want to talk about it. That’s fine. Maybe you don’t see the path to reaching your dream. That’s fine. Just take the first step. If you don’t know what the first step is, take any step that feels right. It might be a wrong step, but then you’ll know more than you did before. Do something to get your life moving! Merely thinking of doing something is the same as doing nothing.

Do not think, however, that reaching your dream will necessarily make you happy. In my case, reaching my dream made me fleetingly miserable. Think about Mel Gibson. He is a multi-millionaire actor, director, and producer. Surely he reached his dream. But look at him. He is also a miserable alcoholic who beats his girlfriend. He got exactly what he wanted, but I am sure he is not happy.

Walking back from the beach I looked at the multi-million dollar beach houses. Is that my dream? Are those people happy? I believe they are happy, but only if they remembered what it is they wanted in the first place. So what is my new dream? Maybe I will tell you later. Right now I can only tell you my dream is silly.

Manhattan Beach on the day I remembered my dream.

Categories Life goals

Everyone likes me – and you

August 3, 2010 //
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She likes me, she likes me not, she likes me, she likes me not… I remember playing this game as a kid sitting by the sandbox pulling pedals of a flower. Maybe half the time she would like me, half the time not. Now the game has changed. I assume everyone likes me. And I mean everyone. Before I’m proven otherwise, that is what I believe. You might think I am mentally ill, but before you call Nurse Ratched, let me explain how this works in practice.

Recently, I parked next to a cute girl at a parking garage. From they way she looked at me, I immediately thought “She is so hitting on me. OK I’ll say hi”. We talked for a bit and I got her number. After some back and forth we set a time and place to go for drinks. She called me two hours before our date to cancel. My first thought was: “She likes me, why would she otherwise call to cancel. Most girls wouldn’t bother calling”. After a month, she texted me. Nothing special, just a friendly txt. I thought: “It’s on, the poor girl misses me!” I set up a casual date. On our first date, she would barely talk to me. Instead she spent the time having a long conversation with my friend. Not only that, she stood about a foot further from me than what is normal and she pretty much avoided all physical contact. After the date I told my friend: “That was weird. She must really like me, why would she otherwise be so nervous around me?” Understandably, my friend was skeptical. After the second date, I went for the kiss but got the cheek. I walked back to my car and told my friend: “Wow! She’s really into me, she would not even let me kiss her”. At this point my friend was ready to prescribe me anti-hallucination drugs. On the third date we kissed.

Now did she really like me right from the start? In my mind she did. According to her, definitely not. But who cares? Reality is subjective when it comes to social situations. The one with the strongest mental frame will always win. You choose the belief that is going to be most helpful for you, and stick to it no matter what. Suddenly you’ll see reality twist in your favor. For instance, had I stopped believing that this particular girl likes me, she might have never actually liked me, and we would have never kissed.

Beliefs are simply thoughts for which you have found evidence. They become your “reality”. However, they are just as real as the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Many of our beliefs come from childhood or, especially the bad ones, from traumatic experiences in our past. Maybe you just happened to be unlucky at some point in your life. Maybe you, like me, happened to get dumped or denied by a girl who you really liked. And now you have this silly belief that girls don’t like you.

Why should you let an unfortunate belief hold you back? You should not. Change it! The catch is, you can’t just all of the sudden start believing something radically different. Your mind will fight back. So what you do instead is start looking for evidence that people like you. Start small. Next time you walk up to a barista, put a big smile on your face, assume he or she likes you, give the “raised eyebrow look” as if you were already friends, and say: “Hey what’s up?” If this doesn’t work, find a friendlier barista. Do the same at shops and restaurants, and everywhere where you’re getting service. The reason why you should start at these places is that the people working there have to be friendly to you. Otherwise they are out of work. Once you believe your local barista practically loves you, expand this to everywhere you go. Soon you’ll start to notice how guys and girls, old and young, just can’t help but like you. By the way, there is nothing gender specific about this. Girls, I understand you sometimes need to hide behind a shield, but assuming the cute guy likes you is going to raise the odds of him liking you.

You will face resistance. This technique will not work for everyone, all the time. Don’t become discouraged. Your goal is to give it your best shot. You can’t win everyone over, yet. Most importantly, be patient. Changing your beliefs takes time. And who knows, one day you’ll find yourself believing the cute girl (or guy) in the parking garage is hitting on you.

Categories Dating, Positive beliefs

Money and Mating

July 27, 2010 //
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Does money get you the girl? Here in the US, anyone with a reasonable amount of education and/or ambition can make enough money to support a family and live a perfectly decent life. What is the consequence of this? One of the biggest for us guys is that we now live in a world where making 10 times more money does not get you a girl 10 times hotter. The reason is that the average guy already has enough money. Therefore, making 10 times more money will not make you any more attractive to a woman. Yes, there are the gold diggers, who are only attracted to money, and yes, many of them are extremely attractive. But do you really want to have a woman in your life who after 7 years of marriage divorces you, takes half your shit, and the two estranged kids she had with the pool boy while you were too busy working 14 hour days at your job?

Don’t get me wrong; I think money is great. It can make life easier, it can enable you to do the things you love to do. Hell, if you have enough money, you can probably solve the problems of an entire continent http://www.gatesfoundation.org/. Speaking of Bill Gates, he could have had a supermodel wife, but chose not to. Ask yourself: Do I work unreasonable hours just to make more money to impress the girls? Personally, I make enough money to pay the mortgage and do the things I love to do: rock climb, snowboard, salsa dance, and go out with friends.

The other night I met a guy at a bar through a mutual friend. Lets call him Joe. After talking to Joe for a while, I asked what he did for living. “Sales of …”, he said, but quickly added: “But I’m moving to medical equipment sales”. (For those who don’t know, medical equipment sales is an extremely lucrative profession with many salespeople making more than the surgeons they work with). He then continued, “Yeah, I think that would certainly impress the girls in the bar”. Although I had the urge, I didn’t say anything. In away I admire this guy. He is expressing explicitly what most guys only subconsciously think. Not only that, he truly believes girls will be impressed by his money and career. If that gives him the courage to approach girls with confidence, they will be impressed. But it’s not the money that will get him the girl, it’s his confidence.

For women, making a lot of money can be an issue. Many guys are intimidated by a woman who makes more than them. I meet and hang out with girls who make more than me all the time. Probably because I don’t make that much money, but probably also because I am not intimidated by them. Right after I talked Joe, I turned around and started talking to a group of three girls. I got them giggling and talking. At some point I asked what they did for living. Somewhat reluctantly and with a slight bit of shame two of them told me they were airline pilots. Airline captains for one of the major carriers, to be more accurate. “Airline pilots! Holy shit! That’s so awesome!”, I said. I was excited to have just met two cute airline pilots, so I went on to tell this to everyone around me. I could tell these girls were a bit hesitant to admit what they did for living. I’m guessing this is because they have met so many guys who get intimidated by their career and walk away. Many men feel like they have to impress women with their career or money. With this thinking, what do you do when the girl has a higher status career and makes two times as much as you? You ask her to pay for the dinner, that’s what you do!

If money doesn’t matter when it comes to mating, what does? Social status. In social situations, your status is defined by how people treat you, and how you treat other people. We all know that one cool guy who everyone likes and who always gets the hottest girl. Is he the richest guy on the block? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Categories Dating, Mating, Money