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Approach Anxiety by Matador

May 28, 2007 by Matador
Filed under Dating Advice and Tips

I have read many references to this topic. It occurs to me that many people think that there is something wrong with them for having approach anxiety and are looking for ways to ?get rid of it.?

WHAT IS APPROACH ANXIETY?

Approach anxiety is the hard-wired, natural emotional circuit that fires and causes you to experience discomfort at the thought of approaching a set.

WHY DO I FEEL APPROACH ANXIETY?

Approach anxiety stems from two sources of fear that have been hard-wired through evolution.

FEAR#1: Fear of being retaliated against by other males.

FEAR#2: Fear of being ostracized by the remaining available female population.

WHERE DID IT COME FROM?

We have descended from a tribal culture. We still live in a tribal culture, although not one that easily identifiable compared to what we think a tribe is (i.e. African Tribes).

Take the movie Braveheart for example. Think of the William Wallace?s tribe or clan and that was how life used to be for our ancestors. A lot of our emotions have been developed and refined for survival in that environment. However, our environment has changed far too rapidly and our emotional circuitry has not adapted fast enough.

In a tribal culture of let?s say 100 people, roughly half would be male and half would be female. So you have 50 viable females to choose from. From that 50, half of those would be too old to align with, so now you are down to 25. Out of those 25, half would be already taken by another man, so now you are down to approximately 12.

In this environment, it is very easy to step up to the wrong girl?a girl who is already spoken for by another man. Times were brutal back then. It was a real possibility that if you stepped to the wrong girl, that man would come by with his friends and kill with a rock. That?s were fear number 1 comes into play. Fear of being retaliated against by other males. Remember, there are a lot of blood lines that are not here with us today that didn?t have the precise emotional circuitry that you have. There emotional circuitry proved insufficient to govern their behavior for optimal survival purposes. To put it into context, a lot the guys who didn?t pay respect to this legitimate danger back then died out and their descendants with them. You are looking at a biased population.

Now, remember from the paragraph above, you have 12 healthy, viable females to choose from now. If you step to on of those 12 and she rejects you?word will spread of that rejection and pretty soon, the other 11 will not want to align with as well. You can see this trend in some small college communities?have you ever gotten player/scumbag reputation and all of a sudden none of the other girls will want to go out with you. If the cause of the rejection was bad enough, you might have to leave your tribe to another to find a woman that will align with you. This is the cause for fear number 2: Fear of being ostracized by the remaining available female population.

HOW DO I GET RID OF IT?

Now, to try to accomplish this is to say something along the lines of, ?how do I not scan a girls breast, hair, body, and the rest of her health indicators when she walks in the room.? The answer is you can?t. You will do so as an automatic reflex. The universe behaves has it should gentlemen. God only knows where we were given all the false stories and references points that leave us wallowing in a sea of confusion and frustration at the contradiction between reality and idealistic fantasies. You approach anxiety will always be there. It is a hardwired response. Try not to think in terms of getting rid of it, but understand it, and de-fang it.

Logically, in the watering holes and public gatherings that we TYPICALLY roll in, is a jealous boyfriend going to kill you with his friends if you open properly?I have never had someone try to kill me with his friends for opening a girl?I pulled a girl right out of her boyfriends arms last week in south beach and I did it without hitch?it is not something to brag about either?anyone, can do it with the right approach. The fear should be inoculated for our CURRENT ENVIRONMENT. It does not apply.

QUICK NOTE: There are some environments that are very tribal?there are some cultures that are very primitive?don?t try trust test with a bunch of natives of one of those Hawaiian islands where the blood line is still pure and expect not to get some shit.

Next, in the watering holes and public gatherings that we TYPICALLY roll in, is a target in a set, that didn?t go well, going to inform the entire city, state, or country that you live in of your game and how bad it is? Is she going to put up a website call, www.bobsgamesucks.com? Hell no, she will have forgotten what you look by the end of the next day and life goes on.

In the sea of people that big cities provide, this fear does not apply and should be logically neutralized.

QUICK NOTE: In closed communities, such as small colleges or small towns where word spreads. If you get a reputation as a guy who is a player, who impregnated a girl and left, who beats girls, or does anything that would red flag a girl?s S&R value judging circuit, then they will spread the word about you and you will have to leave and game somewhere else.

Our emotional and logical parts of our brain are in constant conflict. I am not suggesting that by logically knowing why you are feeling AA that it should go away?that would be unnatural. I am however suggesting arming yourself with the logic of the situation so that you can better control it, rather than, it control you and ruin so many possibilities in the making.

Even TOP PUAs feel it. Imagine a Master Instructor?s approach anxiety on bootcamp night?not only do we have to deal with our own?we have performance anxiety on top of that?we have to hug, kiss, number-close, and pull girls for an audience in a totally unscripted and unpredictable environment.

How do I deal with it? I feel it and immediately identify it. Next, I logically deal with it and dissect it. Then I logically override what I am feeling by crudely saying, ?FUCK IT?I?M GOING IN? and then DO IT. I?ve done this some many times at this point, I am kind of desensitized to it, but it is always still there?if we could attach ourselves to heart rates monitors, you would see a little bleep here and there?the point it, at a TOP PUA level, it doesn?t CONTROL us?we CONTROL it!

One final note. ALCOHOL is not a solution for AA. You can drink to be social, unwind, and have fun with the boys when gaming, but drinking should not be a tool to combat AA. In fact, drinking more than a few drinks impairs my game. If I am being filmed or I have some audience, I am in top form with one beer maximum if any.

I once had a bootcamp student in Los Angeles, and I kid you not, had eight shots of tequila before he opened one single set. I felt really bad for him. His approach anxiety was BAD?he looked like he was really in pain. I?ve had grown men start crying when I try to push them to open (some were ex-military). AA is very real and no joke and if you don?t understand it, de-fang it, and control it?it can SEVERERLY lower the quality of your life by destroying so many possibilities. I think back to all those years, I was clueless about game and girls and all the potential LOVES I?ve lost?all the popular girls in high school that I could?ve gotten?oh well, fuck it?going to plow forward! To briefly reference my ?Excuse Master? post?I believe this is many times the true culprit behind all those fantastic rationalizations we have to not go into a set or not call a girl the next day.

I am not above my humanity either?I feel it same as you. I am not always as strong as I would like to be and am imperfect in many ways?what I strive for is a higher level of awareness and execution of my elaborate plans for this life with the ultimate goal of what I perceive to be happiness.

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