Weird Dynamics That Can Occur Between Seduction Community Members

Some of the weirdness of the Seduction Community is due to its ideas. Even if you never met another guy in the scene, if you went along with some of the stranger beliefs you'd come across as messed up. A sizeable chunk of the Community's weirdness is because of how its members interact with each other though. There are some odd interpersonal dynamics that pop up pretty regularly.

Arguments about particular methods or gurus

Guys in the Seduction Community constantly debate with each other about particular seduction methods and the gurus who teach them. The arguments often have a passionate fanboyish quality to them. When people align themselves with a certain school of thought they tend to see it as the best way, and all other methods as inferior. They get a sense of identity and belonging out of it, and view those who think otherwise as opponents. A common analogy is that different methods are like rival dojos.

The people arguing often aren't all that good with women or even experienced with the ideas they're defending. So their reason for liking one thing over another is more about how good it seems on a theoretical, abstract level. It's also possible they've decided they like a certain personality first, and taking up his ideas goes along with that. Or they may just be the type of person who will argue about anything.

Guys in the scene have a tendency to switch their loyalties fairly often. They may like one method, then hear about something else and take that up. They may like a certain personality, only to turn on him when they experience frustration over their techniques not working for them. They may switch to a new concept just because it's the flavor of the month. A guy may have idolized a guru but now hates him because when they met in person the guru brushed him off.

Guys who are nothing special being seen as amazing players

The Seduction Community is mostly made up of guys who aren't very good with women. A respectable chunk are virgins. There are some genuine lady's men in the ranks, but they're more rare. It's mainly a bunch of awkward to average guys who are striving to be better.

The skewed demographics in the Community can make fairly unexceptional guys appear to be sexual gods. In the regular world halfway cool, well-adjusted guys have no problem finding dates or getting regular sex. Sure some periods may be dryer than others, but overall they take it for granted that women will be in their life. It's seen as a bare minimum to being a healthy adult, not something to be proud of. Inexperienced guys in the Community would see the same type of person very differently. He'd be way ahead of the pack. Men would be coming to him for advice. Compared to a guy who's never kissed a girl, he's a master pick up artist. Actually even a guy who can just approach a girl in a bar, period, would be seen as super skilled by some.

Guys who are nothing special wanting to see themselves as amazing players

It's not only that some unspectacular guys are seen as good by other people, they may also see themselves unrealistically. A guy may get a handful of numbers and think he's a pimp because all the people he hangs around with can't even keep a conversation going for more than a minute. He may even get a swell head and start acting aloof around other Community guys, not realizing in a different environment, like a fraternity, no one would look at him twice.

There are some other reasons guys are a little quick to crown themselves as experts. First, many guys in the scene have their egos wrapped up in the idea of their becoming players and so are in a rush to want to see themselves that way. Secondly, all those cognitive biases come into play where people who aren't all that good at something mistakenly think they're more competent than they really are.

Constant gossip, rumors, scandals, and drama

The Seduction Community is like a soap opera. Feuds, lies, betrayals, accusations of theft, guys leaving one message board or company to start a rival one, friendships falling out, conflicting stories about what happened, people not being what they seem, personal attacks and shit talking across forums, blogs, and podcasts, golden boys becoming pariahs overnight.

Most of what anyone knows about a certain Seduction Community character is from what they've read over the internet. Aside from their writing and maybe the odd YouTube clip, there's a lot of unknown information. Gossip thrives in these situations. People fill in the blanks with all kinds of speculation.

There's always some new juicy tidbit floating around. Like with any type of gossip, everyone's high and mighty about how lame and trashy it is, but everyone also follows it, relishes every new development, and chimes in with their own opinions. I think in moderation it's pretty harmless, but if you're spending half your day arguing with people in comment threads about what so and so supposedly did, anyone would say you need to ease down.

Endless speculation, gossip, and call outs about whether certain people are skilled or not

Picking up girls isn't like playing in the NBA. No impartial body keeps track of everyone's stats. Nothing is recorded and broadcast for all to see. Your rank compared to other players in the world isn't obvious and transparent.

In the Seduction Community there isn't a reliable way to tell how good someone is. There's not even really an agreed upon definition of what 'good' is. As a result there's always talk of whether so-and-so is really as competent with women as they say they are. No one is immune to the accusations. It never ends. Guys feel it's important to know in the first place for a few reasons:

There are also more personal, less legitimate reasons this topic always comes up:

Like I said, there's no flawless way to tell how good someone is. What's worse is that no matter what evidence is presented that someone is skilled, there's always a counter argument:

In some cases these arguments might hold water as well. Basically it's impossible to win if someone is dead set against thinking you suck.

Endless speculation and gossip about whether certain guys are good people or not

To be held in high regard in the Community it's not enough to technically be good at sleeping with women, you also have to be a virtuous person. You can't be a snake, a liar, a backstabber, messed up, a copycat, a manipulator, depressed, an arrogant prick, a sleazy businessman, or an all around fake and phony.

Since for most guys, learning how to be good with women is about getting your act together in general, you don't want to be taught anything from a guy who doesn't have their shit together themselves. On a more drama related note, if a guy is less than perfect that's fuel for talk that he and anything he has to teach is a built on a flawed foundation. There's dirt on pretty much every guy in the scene, so if you don't like someone there's usually some anecdote you can use to show what a talentless scumbag he is.

Community guys place a lot of importance on whether someone seems like a normal, chilled out cool guy or not. It's the highest compliment you can pay someone, to say they're "a really cool guy." That's what everyone is working to become. If you come across that way then everything you say and do gets cast in a positive light. Coming across as weird, combative, or flaky is the opposite, everything you do will be suspect. However, how cool someone is may be up for debate. And there's always the warning of, "They seem cool, but they're sneaky rats underneath."

Guys doing things to gain status in the Community

A common criticism of the Community is that lots of guys in it seem more concerned with impressing other men from the scene than getting girls. They want to hook up with girls and be seen as players so other dudes will think they're awesome and be impressed. I've heard some people take it one step further and say the Community is really as much about guys bonding with each other as getting laid.

Guys doing things to stroke their own egos

In the Community guys sometimes do things because they're mainly trying to gain a positive feeling for themselves. They may want to feel smart and capable. They may want to feel superior to other people. They may want to be seen a certain way. They may want to be admired.

Irritating things guys do to try and gain illegitimate status and/or stroke their egos

Within reason I don't think there's anything all that wrong about wanting to increase in stature within a social group or feel good about yourself. The problem is more when guys do things that irk other Community members in their attempt to gain prestige or self-regard. They may not have evil intentions when they do any of the things below, but their actions may still rub people the wrong way.

Central to the issue of status is that guys often try to obtain it through 'illegitimate' means. In the Seduction Community your status is almost solely determined by how good you are with women. That's what the subculture values. Being someone who makes contributions to the knowledge base is also important, but it has to come from a place of actual skill. The well known pick up artists, who not only get laid a lot, but who also come up with new tactics and advice, are at the top of the heap. The clueless, inexperienced, stupid-question-asking newbies are at the bottom. The better you genuinely are with girls, the more well regarded you'll be. Newbies aren't given any respect. Bigger personalities can have legions of hero worshipers.

Truly becoming better with women or contributing useful ideas to the scene is the 'real' way to up your status. It 'counts'. Trying to increase your standing by other means tends to be looked down on. Guys who do it are seen as trying to game the system and are thought of as vaguely annoying.

Anyways here are some of those ways guys try to collect faux-status or boost their confidence. They'll often do the same actions to get one or the other or both. Not everyone who does these things is automatically doing it due to messed up motivations, though some are for sure:

Giving advice to people that you're not qualified to give

Everyone in the scene knows about this widespread issue. In forums and in person, guys often try to give other people advice about topics that are beyond their level of expertise. The classic scenario is a virgin who has never approached a woman giving another person advice on how to close the deal with a girl. As everyone also knows, the reason for this phenomenon is that anyone can memorize advice and regurgitate it back to other people.

Status seekers are trying to appear better with women than they actually are. Ego seekers want to feel like experts for themselves.

If a guy truly becomes an encyclopedia of pick up information, and is forward enough about wanting to give advice to people, some inexperienced newcomers may be impressed by the depth of his knowledge. Most Community guys know better however.

I categorized this issue under a discussion of status and ego seeking, but there are really a lot of reasons why it occurs. Two of them are: Guys just being new and eager and contribute to the conversation. And people honestly not realizing they don't know as much as they think they do.

Self-promotion and bragging

I'm sure there are really skilled guys in the Community who fly under the radar. They hook up plenty and know what they're talking about, but they keep it to themselves. Lots of other guys aggressively try to cultivate a reputation as being rising stars though. They post a lot on forums, responding to calls for advice and publishing their various theories and tactics. They talk up their skills. They post field reports that don't teach much, but sure brag a lot. Or they insert little bragging statements into their other writing. They may start their own blog. In person they do things along a similar line.

These guys may actually be good, it's just that no one likes a bragger. This behavior is mildly obnoxious to a neutral party. The Community guys who really hate it are the ones who are inexperienced, frustrated, and struggling. They don't want their problems rubbed in their faces by someone's story of how he slept with two girls that weekend. They can be so hyper-sensitive to this that they'll sometimes lash out at people aren't even showing off, just stating facts.

Status-wise this is all about letting people know how great you are, so they'll proceed to admire you. Ironically it often has the opposite effect of making you seem like an exaggerator or a try hard. Ego-wise it's just purely about patting yourself on the back. A more neutral reason people may seem to be bragging is they just get talking and let their mouths get away from them.

Making getting women into something to compete over

This isn't about getting girls for its own sake, it's about turning it into a competition so you can be better than other people. Sometimes guys are openly competitive and issue challenges to each other, like who can get the most phone numbers in an hour. That's relatively rare though. What's more common is guys just feeling competitive in their own minds, like, "Ha Ha, I've slept with more girls than that guy.", or "That guy is pretty good. I have to improve my skills so I can beat him."

When it comes to seeking status, this can come off as insecure in the same way bragging can. I don't know if it's the best source for self-confidence either.

Taking on a leadership or organizer role within the Community

I'll reiterate here that not everyone who does these things is doing it solely for status or self-esteem. I know some are though, I've seen them firsthand. In this case basically a guy's unconscious thought process is if he can't gain ego or legitimate status through actually being good with women, he'll give himself a substitute. They moderate discussion boards. They set up and run local lairs. They create websites or blogs that collect and comment on other people's ides. They set up conferences and other events. Or they may just generally try to become people with influence and power on a forum or in a lair, e.g, by just posting a lot and being around for a long time.

Through these means they become more well known than the average Community member. People depend on them. They can wield some amount of influence. Some guys may look up to them. In the end though what the Seduction Community really answers to is expertise with women. If people know a leader or organizer really isn't that great with girls, there's only so much respect he's going to get. Some may even resent them for holding what is seen as undeserved power over others.

Knowing a lot of people in the Community

These guys have met many of the well known personalities in the scene, and they have all these little anecdotes and tidbits of gossip to share. There are a lot of hero worshipers in the Community and knowing some of the big gurus can really impress them. Partially you're getting some reflected glory. If you've met a guru you seem a little more important and skilled yourself. On a more hollow level though, the hero worshipers don't care about you. They're just using you to gain info about the person they admire. You're just a source to pump for information, or possibly even a ticket to meeting them in person.

I covered the appeal of this status-wise. In terms of self-esteem, it's all about feeling like a connected insider.

Wanting to be a guru

This encompasses the points above, but it's more than the sum of the parts. Lots of guys in the scene, especially beginners, want to be a seen as a guru. They want the respect and admiration. They want the ego boost. They want the followers. They want the satisfaction of giving people advice and having them hang off their every word. They want to know people are using their ideas to get girls. Some want the potential to make money. They probably genuinely want to help out as well, but they don't see they should slow down and learn more first.

This urge generally leads to people giving out lots of advice they're not qualified to give and trying to become known as an authority. They usually repeat other people's ideas, but they may come up with their own untested theories. The creation of a blog or website is getting more common. At worst a guy will create a company and start charging people money way before he's ready to do so.

What seems to motivate a lot of wannabe gurus, besides the "fame" is that they're having trouble getting better with women, and on some level they think that if they can be seen as a guru that will actually make them successful somehow.

Good old internet irritations

The Community is largely on the internet. A lot of the annoying dynamics that occur are because of this. One category of these are the same ones that happens in any online subculture, especially those mainly made up of younger guys. I'm talking about your garden variety stuff like:

This is all par for the course on the internet, but at the same time I don't think it's okay just because it's common. When I was into the scene the points above are what kept me from participating more in forums. I'd maybe participate in one for three weeks or so then get fed up and have to take a break.

Guys trying to "out alpha" each other

I left the Community because I was put off by the way the people in it acted in real life. One of the big reasons I thought they were so annoying was that a few of them were trying to follow the advice about how to be Alpha Males. A few dudes acting this way is more than enough.

The main feature of Community guys trying to be Alpha/High Status/High Value is that they don't act like real alpha males. They act how they think dominant males behave. They're pretty insufferable to be around. They do things such as:

Certain gurus sucking people into a cult-like atmosphere

Some of gurus are pretty low key, normal guys, but others, intentionally or not, end up creating a cult-like atmosphere around themselves and their beliefs. They may do things like:

People who have fallen into a 'cult' tend to do the following:

Drama and power struggles in lairs

The lairs you can join in many big cities aren't immune to weird dynamics. They experience drama such as:

Guys using each other as a means to an end

On paper the Community is a noble movement, where members are brothers who help each other improve as men, and as human beings. When you meet some guys in real life though the reality is a little different. You get along with them okay. There are some melodramatic moments where you feel like you're all in it together, striving for a common goal. But at other times you can't help but feel everyone is just using each other as a means to their own end. They aren't aware they're thinking this way, but they really just care about their own development, not anyone else's. They just hang out with other guys because they want people to go out and practice with and learn from. Or to a guinea pig to hone their out-alpha techniques on.


Other Articles On The Seduction Community
Main Article Index
www.succeedsocially.com - My other site on people skills