Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Plowing is one of the most damaging PUA concepts


In the comments section of my recent article Hubris as the basis of the PUA scam, I had a discussion with Alek Novy about the existing social norms regarding approaching women, and what they imply for men.  In this article, I'm going to expand on it, and will eventually point out the overly harmful consequences of what PUAs call "plowing".

First, let's just recapitulate how Western society works: In order to spare women the negative consequences of feeling rejection, it's the task of the man to approach her. However, the woman can't be too blatant about her interest, so you normally get mixed signals. This is all to allow for plausible deniability on her part. Let's say Jill Average gets wet for Joe Buff and sees him at the college bar. Joe is there as well, and looks for some new chick to bang. Jill thinks that now her time has come and makes a "move", but Joe ignores her. Then, she can still say to herself, "Oh, no, I wasn't flicking my long hair to get the attention of Joe Buff. He just happened to walk past when I did it, and of course I did it with no reason at all."

Let's say Janet Stunner does the same and happens to be Joe's type. Janet flicks her hair, Joe sees this and realizes that Janet is looking for dick. He takes her home, and they have sex. However, by merely sending out a signal as apposed to approaching the guy, Janet can keep telling herself that she isn't just some slut who is willing to any fit guy. Again, plausible deniability protects the female psyche.


However, because women normally don't approach you, you've got to make a move yourself. You hardly ever get a concrete signal. Well, it's just not particularly common, outside porn, that some hot chick would walk up to you in the club and grab your crotch. So what else are you supposed to do? Right, since you can't approach every woman in the place and hope that one will eventually take you, you have to be somewhat smart about the process.

One possible way, and the one I advocate, is to test the waters and see how it goes. If you get a bad vibe early on, just move on. I've talked about this elsewhere in great detail, so I'm not going to repeat myself. In sharp contrast, though, PUAs recommend "plowing", i.e. if the girl shows no interest, or maybe is even hostile towards you, you just keep spouting your PUA bullshit, hoping that something will stick. You don't know what "plowing" means? Don't worry, here's the definition from PUA Lingo, for comic effect:
Plowing is the idea of continuing to push through with a pickup, even if it doesn’t appear to be going well. Plowing is an important skill for PUAs to master because pick up attempts do not always go smoothly. Sometimes, the woman will be totally into the PUA and throwing IOIs left and right, but, more often than not, women who are being hit on will put up some initial resistance. Being able to plow through this resistance often marks the difference between a successful pickup and a failed one.
So, let's assume the woman isn't "throwing IOIs left and right" but instead looks away, turns away, immediately starts a conversation with her friend and cutting you off, or even tells you to go away. The right thing to do is to realize that she isn't just that into you. Don't waste more time and just move on. The stupid thing, though, would be to "plow", i.e. stick around, keep trying to start conversations, force yourself upon her, trying to befriend her friends, and all the other shit PUAs recommend.

There was another relevant comment to the "hubris" article:
Some nights I just approach whem getting signals, other nights I just socialize with everyone a little and others I "roll the dice" aggressive and dont give a fuck what they think. Why should I or everyone? Not my job to think about what they think. If it doesnt fit she isnt the right one.
There are good reasons to care, and you don't have to be spiritually inclined and believe in karma to see why such behavior is poisonous. Every PUA who "plows" fucks it up royally for all the other guys. First, girls don't like being harassed. They really don't. Sometimes, girls literally hide in the toilet with one of their girlfriends for ten minutes, hoping that the dude who kept pestering her will disappear in the meantime. This seriously ruins her mood, too. Just imagine some fat and ugly chick would keep harassing you and even if you told her to go away, she kept going back! How would you feel about that?

The girl the PUA was hitting on might have been in the mood to hook up with some dude, but not so much after a very unpleasant encounter. If I offered you filet mignon right after you finished throwing up, you probably wouldn't want to eat it either. Those guys who would have had a realistic chance to get with her will have to look elsewhere. There are even guys out there who completely lack "social calibration", and who even manage to make girls leave the venue --- without them, of course. You probably have witnessed this a few times as a bystander if you've got some female "friends". You bump into them as they are on the way out, and you say, "Geez, why are you leaving so soon?", and then she points out some creep to you ("There is that guy over there, but don't look directly at him..."), who may then walk up to her again and pester her some more. There are some real idiots out there, and the PUA scam increased their numbers considerably. We can thank "plowing" for that.

What's your opinion? Let me know in the comments below!

24 comments:

  1. Repost from comment on the other post:

    @Aaron, about plowing, yeah, agree all the way. It's probably the most harmful anti-male thing ever taught by the community. Guys engaging in plowing are ruing it for everyone.

    I think minimal game does a good job of explaining the screening process (telling a woman's interest for deeper and deeper levels of intimacy quickly), as did 60 (too bad his marketing is scammy, coz his actual books are good).

    " Once you make your approach, you get a lot of feedback, and you know whether she's appreciative of your advances or not. At this point, all the vagueness disappears as well since there is a hell of a difference between a woman who isn't interested in you at all, and one who enjoys flirting. "

    Sure, but unless a man has read minimal game and understands screening/testing, it's still a guess how and what kind of advance she's open to. You get better with experience at guessing what the feedback means, but every new move you make has a "chance" "roll the dice" aspect to it.

    Literally the only "100% clear" signal you can get is "I'm open to talking to you" if she hasn't turned her back to you. That's it. That's the only 100% clear and unambiguous feedback. And since most men have not read minimal game (or 60/gll), they don't know how to test/check for this stuff.

    Now screening (as you, gll, 60 explain it), solves this issue well, by simply testing her openness to each new level of intimacy, and that's a very intelligent way of moving forward, too bad 99% of the male population isn't taught that.

    Basically, I think the problem we have in society was best summarized by "unknown" above... "the logical choice for a man is to ignore any female reistance below a certain threshold of forcefulness"

    The vast majority of the male population are lied and taught to only wait for super-duper obvious "OMG I AM SO IN LOVE with u and want you to take my number and ask me out right now!!!" type responses.

    Anyone who's had more than 1 girl per-decade can attest to the success ratio of such a high-treshold...

    I guess "plowing" is a new opposite extreme invented by internet virgins over-compensating for society's mainstream oprah promoted extreme "wait for super-duper-begging-you GO signs before ANY move of any kind"...

    As I said, you in minimal game explain an way to tell with certainty whether a chick is open to deeper and deeper levels of intimacy very quickly. Too bad most men will never learn it. Most men will be stuck with the extremes

    - "wait for 'omg make a move on me NOW john' signs from women"
    or
    - plowing

    Both equally stupid, but for opposite reasons. Though I'd say plowing is obviosly a lot more damaging and makes the dating field worse for everyone.

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  2. Your quoted comment of myself didnt mean I plow around when "rolling the dice". It's more I approach direct wait a little if she is open to what I wanna say (if not I eject), tell her I thought she is cute/attractive and introduce myself.

    While shaking hands I do the 60 Years Of Challenge hand curassing thing. If it doesn't work or I can see in her eyes she has no interest I left in a polite way and move on.

    No plowing bullshit ever. Sometimes it seems you quote things just to put them into wrong perspective and miscredit people to seem the only one who get it all. Not cool.

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    1. Thanks for clarifying this! I did get the wrong impression from your statement then. However, I do hope that we can agree that the sentences I quoted were worded somewhat unfortunately. To me at least they seem to clearly imply "plowing". I'm sorry that there has been a misunderstanding.

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  3. I agree on this point, plowing is waste of time. When you know the girl is not interested why bother carrying on.

    I understanding the idea behind it, "never giving up", which is a good idea and trait to have. But I think the PUAs messed that whole concept up.

    If you want a girl, and the first one is not interested (even if you approached and she being "nice" in her rejection) then don't go on with the girl, find another girl. Or to think of it another way, don't give up. When you receive that next prolonged glance from a girl, make a move.

    It is a shame, how men have to do all the work, and women expect us men to do figure shit out from small to non existent cues. And the joke is, when we dont notice these clues (IOIs/approach invitations) she will get mad at you.

    The only time girls are really obvious in the approach signals is either they are drunk or really horny or really self confident, and you happen to be in the vicinity and you tick their boxes (she is attracted to you). This naturally happens at clubs/bars/parties.

    I think that the majority of guys just don't get social interactions, they don't learn from it, they don't experience enough, and worse, they dont have enough experience with women, especially in a relationship.

    For example, you can screw up so much with girl you were certain of have a 100% shag with, just cause you said something that reminded her of something bad, and she cant stop thinking of it and she is not horny anymore (or it takes a long time to get her wet again). Sometimes it is something out of your control.

    Cani

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    1. And the joke is, when we dont notice these clues (IOIs/approach invitations) she will get mad at you.

      My best friend (19 year old hottie) often gets furious, stops-talking to and badmouths guys who don't make a move quickly enough on her.

      She literally develops visceral hate towards guys and deems them arrogant aholes if they don't make a move on her within a certain window. The window ranges from days to months, based on how hot the guy is.

      And when I ASK HER, ok, so how did you let these guys know you were interested, she lists all these super-duper-subtle-and-ambigious "signals" she gave the guy. It's mind-blowing to me really.

      I literally sit there listening to her "logic" about how she "clearly" let the guy know she wants to be laid/kissed/asked out and I'm shaking my head violently, women can't be this clueless can they?

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    2. It's actually really easy for me to interpret when a female is interested, even from the corner of my eye or just using my ears. Though I've never actually capitalized on such scenarioes too much because of fear and other calibration issues. I believe I'm just gifted when it comes to reading people and the most subtle of signs, however most of my friends do seem to be missing out on these cues. Or they at least talk themselves out of the approach or ignore the signs because of any other factor.

      I personally am just not very comfortable talking to women I'm attracted to, which I'll deal with. I've definitely missed out on boatloads of potential lays not from cluelessness, but from shyness. It isn't an issue for me to talk up random strangers and my social skills are adequate. I just feel overwhelming anxiety in the heat of the momeny, mostly due to some sort of self-esteem issue...like I almost can't believe such a cute/hot girl would want me to make a move. But that's another story.

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    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. And I can add and agree: a) Not interested girls cannot be swayed by "game" techniques. Maybe 1 in 100 but this isn't worth the effort, b) it's better to hit the clubs early. The later it is the more girls are left and social uncalibrated "plowing" drunk guys hit on the rest and most women aget annoyed to be approached by another guy they don't know and your chances drop. All this is more fucked up in mainstream clubs and less in alternative ones where it's harder to get in and male-female ratio is balanced.

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  5. On an unrelated note, I think that vague signals like the hair flick are really meant to be "safe, saving-face signals" as opposed to self-deluding moves --- these IOIs are vague enough that if the man doesn't respond, she can save face at having been "rejected" since it gives her plausible deniability ("Oh, my head was itchy" or "Oh, my hair was in my eyes.")

    Of course, if the man is oblivious, it really wasn't a rejection at all.

    Anyway, girls' egos are very sensitive. I think a woman's worst nightmare is to be embarrassed in front of her friends.

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  6. Aaron, I assume you're aware of all the pearl-clutching going on over that Reddit dude and his PUA Kickstarter.

    His main crime is being too visible. His stuff doesn't begin to approach the creep factor of what RSD and some others (though I think RSD is the worst) have been pushing for years. So much of their shit seems specifically geared toward making everyone around you uncomfortable for no good reason, if not outright sexual assault.

    There are too many women around to keep "plowing" and end up with rape charges. With the number of hardcore alcoholics in RSD, it seems like it should a legit concern for them.

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    1. Yes, I'm aware of it, and I will cover this in an upcoming article. Speaking of RSD and rape charges, there have been "field reports" on RSD Nation that describe basically raping girls. I've written about one such example some time ago:
      http://aaronsleazy.blogspot.com/2011/03/rsd-cool-with-date-rape.html

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  7. Sleazy - what a coincidence. I wrote a post on this same topic on Sunday. Let me know what you think about my post if you have a chance. I still need to reply back to your last email, will do soon. Hope all is well.

    http://www.tobealpha.com/reading-the-signs/

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    1. Hey James,

      good to hear from you! I just had a look at that post, and think it's solid. Good job! I especially liked the comparison between an approach that goes nowhere and a presentation at work that wastes everyone's time (and opportunities). In fact, the importance of time cannot be overestimated. I always roll my eyes when some shill says something like, "what's wrong with approaching a lot of women if you've got the time". Well, I think there is something wrong with people who think they've got time to waste. There are a million things I could think of that are more fun than hitting on 1,000 random (!) chicks, only to get laid once:
      http://www.aaronsleazy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=824

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  8. I have something for ya. Not that long ago I asked Sinn PUA on his blog about attraction and possibility of creating it out of thin air. I told him that in my experience receptive girls were into me right from the get go and I probably never turned around uninterested ones to be sexually receptive. He never answered my question nor he published it, but lately he wrote this:

    "Most girls know if they're into you or not within the first 30-60 seconds. This has been proven thousands of times in scientific studies but you don't even need to read those. Instead just think of all the times a girl has not been instantly into you on a cold approach and you got her anyway.

    Need some time to think about that?

    It's cool I'll wait.

    It's NEVER happened has it?

    I know because it's happened to me like 3 times and I've approached exponentially more girls than you the reader has or ever will."

    Finaly we hear the truth from the guy that approached thousands of women and was amongs the most famous PUA coaches in the golden era of this shady industry. Not that long ago he wrote that all of those elaborate techniques he taught to set up a date are no more useful than asking her to meet for a coffe, thus he dropped them.

    It is painful that all this shit is suddenly unecessary when you accept reality and have some real pride in yourself to go only after interested ones...

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    1. Wow! Apparently hell does freeze over on rare occasions. I guess it only took him 10,000 approaches to figure that out for himself. But should the consequence of this sudden insight be to withdraw his bullshit products from the market? Or delete 4/5 of his blog? Or feel really embarrassed that he was ever involved with Love Systems (or was it Venusian Arts)?

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    2. Maybe this was the impulse to let go since he got back to college and there was no longer need to lie to himself about importance of what he was doing. I hope he will man up and repays his dues by telling guys how much shit community realy is.

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  9. "...Let's say Janet Stunner does the same and happens to be Joe's type. Janet flicks her hair, Joe sees this and realizes that Janet is looking for dick...Janet can keep telling herself that she isn't just some slut who is willing to any fit guy. Again, plausible deniability protects the female psyche..."

    See now, I don't classify Janet Stunner as a slut. If some men screen women by watching for "IOIs", then some women screen men by how they act as an indicator of their "sexual performance". During my 'younger days' many women would actually approach me...and many would even make outright crude comments, these women were almost always average looking or behaved masculine in some way. Decent girls would approach me too, but much less, HOWEVER they would always mask their approach by speaking about something seemingly irrelevant and if I didn't respond (which I often didn't) they would eventually WALK AWAY.

    I wasn't confident and they took this as me being a poor lover, they DIDN'T CARE whether I was handsome or not.

    Do any of you know of a shy guy who doesn't know how to speak to women being renown as decent in bed? I don't either.

    There is a difference between a slut and a woman and not all women are sluts. Let me explain:

    Slut

    A slut is a female who purposely roams for SEX. Now many men (many of whom are afraid of women) would say "but women like sex just as much as men". Yes, this is true but women like sex in a DIFFERENT WAY to men. Sluts don't, they view sex the same way a man does...she doesn't care too much about the man (as long as he's "cute"), she primarily cares about the penis. She will actively pursue It, as it gives her worth.

    In my experience girls like this tend to be the only daughter in a family of sons'. I believe the origins of Feminism came from such women. They were basically brought up with mostly boys and behaved like one, they physically challenged boys, competed with them and had the same rights (at least in the family) ...until they grow up and start developing hormones and then their ultimate realisation. They are not a man , and are RIGHTLY not treated like one because they have a pussy ...and this HURTS.

    Woman

    A woman is a female who is looking for a man, technically it still comes down to sex, BUT a woman isn't attracted to BOYS. She knows her role and isn't fueled with testosterone, so she merely signals (yes it IS cowardly...but women ARE cowards) knowing a MAN will respond. She will talk but she won't do much sexually, she knows a MAN will stop her in her tracks. Again, she is a coward and a MAN would know this, she doesn't want to take, she wants to be taken.

    Such women are always HOT and are use to males who appear to be men, only to see her and reveal themselves as BOYS.

    CONT'D

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  10. CONT'D

    "...So, let's assume the woman isn't "throwing IOIs left and right" but instead looks away, turns away, immediately starts a conversation with her friend and cutting you off, or even tells you to go away. The right thing to do is to realize that she isn't just that into you. Don't waste more time and just move on..."

    This is true, but consider WHY she isn't into you (assuming you look "normal").

    Here's a story:

    Almost ten years ago, when I was in college I remember vividly there was this VERY attractive girl in my class. Every time I saw her, I noticed she would never look at me. There would be times when we would walk past each other in a empty corridor...NOBODY ELSE was there...and the corridors were bland...yet, still she refused to look me in the eye. She usually held a folder across her chest in the sign of an "X".

    I thought to myself: "why won't she look at me? Maybe, due to her hotness, she'd been approached by so many duds that she is now resorting to no longer looking at them."

    This continued to happen, but I noticed other things. Sometimes she would brush past me and I would smell a delightful fragrance, sometimes she would randomly speak to a guy that sat close to her that I often talked to (the guy was kinda gay, but still), it was "out of character" because she hardly spoke to ANYONE.

    Being the fool I was, I thought she liked me but I still had my doubts.

    However, one day something dawned upon me. EVERYBODY deserves to be treated normally UNLESS they do something strange. I never spoke to her and yet she was behaving strange.

    To her, her body language was showing me she wasn't interested.

    To me, it was OTT, if she wasn't interested she would behave NORMALLY, as everyone else does.

    So, to me, if she...

    "...looks away, turns away, immediately starts a conversation with her friend and cutting you off, or even tells you to go away...".

    It's because you wasn't communicating sexually in subtext. And instead using lines such "Your hot, what's your name?" (whilst staring at her like a hound) or "What's your name? My name is..." and then start talking about boring nonsensical things.

    i.e. either being too forward (desperate) or doing nothing at all (boring her to death).

    Because, today. I rarely ever get girls doing this to me...

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  11. I'm going to defend plowing here, out of all the absolute bullshit I've heard from people advocating game, this is actually the one and only thing I've found helpful.

    Now, I'm going to preface this by admitting the possibility that this is unique to me. It is my nature overall to be pessimistic and melancholic, and I'm just in general very easily discouraged (not just with women), and given to assume the worst. Like you say, almost all the time you're getting ''mixed signals'', which means you're getting both positive and negative signals right? In the past, I would simply leave as soon as I recieved the first negative signal, it's been a night and day difference since I stopped doing that. As far as I am aware, and I admit I don't know nearly as much about what game advocates say as you, people don't say you should plow through when you have clear and unambiguous signs that she just doesn't like you. However if signals are going to be mixed even when she likes you, then you need to be able to plow past some of them. Obviously we'd all like to have telepathy so we could know exactly which signals are genuine, but since we don't we just have to make the best guesses that we can. My philosophy is while I'm obviously not going to continue trying with a girl being clear about her disinterest, if ever I'm not sure (which is loads of the time) I'll err on the side of being more aggressive rather than less.

    You seem to assume that every guy is as socially savvy as you, you talk about ''just knowing'' when she actually likes you as if it's that simple and easy. Like you take it as given although, yes, she gives mixed signals, but obviously you REALLY know which ones she means, right?. Really? Do you? I can't even concieve of being able to do this. I know I'm not the only one, so what do you do when her intentionally ambiguous signals have the obvious and desired effect of confusing you as to her feelings towards you? Well, maybe just ignore low level resistance, assume the best and go forward. Take it from me, it's a MUCH more effective stratgey than always taking her at her word and giving up.

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    1. The problem with plowing is that PUAs persist when the reaction of the woman is clearly (!) negative. RSD is a good example of this, and so are the bizarre videos Vince Kelvin released.

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    2. To know when "no" usually means "no" you must expirience it, so it is good to plow early on, when you are learning to separate token resistance and insecurity from disintrest, but plowing while women outright rejects you is insane.

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  12. Yeah, and watch how you "plow". Staying there to talk or coming back later is okay (though I read some feminists consider that talking without consent is like sex without consent, because they both are without consent, so if you say hello to a chick, you're already raping her lol). Trying to make a move or touch her everywhere like RSD idiots dude is dangerous for you both physically and legally.

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  13. So Alek Novy praises the post by GLL recommending to be a creep and make women uncomfortable... and now on this post by Aaron Sleazy he (Alek Novy) defends the exact opposite... what am I not getting?

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  14. The worst part is pickup companies that run bootcamps, especially RSD, force their students to plow. They want you to "burn interactions to the ground" making you think that as long as the girl doesn't leave, she's into you. They chew out students who don't plow and/or force their students to re-approach girls who just rejected them. One of the RSD instructors even said he goes as far as forcing his students to keep talking to a girl until she either a) Threatens physical violence or b) Threatens to get you kicked out of the club.

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