As much as I’d love to read more Field Reports and follow ups (which I do agree are important) the simple fact of the matter is that you’re relying on whatever it is any one blogger or forum poster is telling you. I speak ‘manosphere’ very fluently. I could very easily go on the RSD boards, create a new identity, and fabricate a very believable story about how I managed a 4-Way with three HB 9 swimsuit models using using a direct approach or any number of PUA techniques. Once I posted, there’d be guys who’d virtually pat me on the back and ask how they could repeat it themselves because they want to believe it.
Then there’d also be another set who’d believe it, but take the faux-pity position and say I was wasting my life away in meaningless orgies with the ‘low quality’ centerfolds they wish their LTR girlfriends looked like.
And finally, there’d be the nonbelievers who’d accuse me of making it all up. Not because it was too fanciful a story, but rather they’d think all women are just smarter than to be suckered into an instant porn movie with a random guy – only to lose all faith in women in general after watching another home-made amateur porn video.
Legitimacy of experience vs. Online personae.
Even when PUA gurus go to the trouble of making as anonymous, and as inconspicuous as possible, videos of themselves showing their approach techniques, the first thing anyone says is it was staged. And unless he could someway get a camera secretly into his bedroom after the successful pull, there will still be an element that will think it was arranged, or there’ll be another element that say the girl is just a common slut so of course it worked.
Now as bad as all that sounds, I think Field Reports definitely have their place as field testing experiments, doubters or not. Just bear in mind, you will never filter out that situational bias. Observing a process will change that process.
What’s interesting is this constant, perceived conflict between “theorists” and “practitioners”. Honestly, I don’t believe you can separate them. All the tools a guy will have at his disposal to practice don’t amount to much if he doesn’t understand why those tool work in the first place. Similarly all the theory in the world is useless until you develop an application of it by trial and error. Now, add to all that the situational bias I just described – what do you tell an AFC who’s stuck on Matrix conditioning “try using negs” or “here’s why Negs work”? I’d say both of course, but which do you start with?
Wax On, Wax Off
If you’ve seen the original Karate Kid, where Mr. Miyagi teaches Daniel-San karate by having him wax his car you kind of see the disconnect here. Wax on, wax off; silly in premise, but useful in teaching. Here you have Daniel wanting to be able to fight, but for the moment his teacher seems like an exploitative fool, and he wonders if he’s been duped by an old man who doesn’t know shit about karate. That is until he puts it into practice.
Mr. Miyagi knows his shit, but Daniel has to take all that on faith; faith that Mr. Miyagi is who he claims to be, and possesses the experience he claims to have.
I am not a Guru, nor am I a Master Pick Up Artist, nor am I some motivational speaker, pastor or self-help psychologist. I’m a man with experience. What I write here is in the hopes that others can benefit from that experience and the insight that comes from sorting it out. When I can devise practices from those insights I’ll offer them, but understand that the validity of what anyone you have respect for professes or suggests you do, it’s still up to you to decide what works best for yourself and critically determine its veracity.
I can tell you, you can trust that I am who I say I am, but my experiences and how I relate them is how you can verify my own or anyone else’s perspectives. It’s exactly for this reason I take a hands-off approach to moderating my comments on this blog. I may sharply disagree with certain perspectives, but it’s more important to read them to know just what that commenter’s experience and/or legitimacy is.