How Bad Advice Can Kill Your Game
๐ช๐ต๐ ๐ผ๐ป๐น๐ถ๐ป๐ฒ ๐ฑ๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ถ๐ ๐ฏ๐ผ๐๐ต ๐ฎ ๐ฏ๐น๐ฒ๐๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐ฎ ๐ฐ๐๐ฟ๐๐ฒ ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐๐ต๐ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ต๐ฎ๐๐ฒ ๐๐ผ ๐ฏ๐ฒ ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ณ๐๐น ๐๐ต๐ผ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐น๐ถ๐๐๐ฒ๐ป ๐๐ผ
I've been in & around the online dating spheres since when I first found them in 2008. Since that time I've seen a lot of names appear and disappear. I've read and implemented a lot of advice and I've learned a lot from it. Good... and bad.
So I know what I'm talking about here.
People get into online dating because they have major dating issues. Usually it's either because they got rejected, dumped or are too scared to even approach a woman. Very few "naturals" ever go online for tips. There simply is no need for them.
Same with the people giving out dating advice. Almost always they used to suck at dating, then found online dating, learned and then started teaching other men.
No hating here, I used to suck at dating as well back when I first found the sphere, it's just what it is. Online dating advice can be an absolute blessing. Plenty of guys that were totally trapped in life can find a way out. They can learn why their dating lives sucked so bad and what they can do to fix it.
However.... Online dating advice can also be a total curse holding you back.
Because the main problem of online dating advice is that there is no way to verify the gurus. Anyone can make an account, claim they get laid tons and then start peddling advice. I could tell you right now I fuck 100 women a year & have a 10 woman harem. No way for you to verify.
One thing all dating gurus, coaches & wannabes have, is they rarely share any of their personal lives online. And for good reasons. Throwing out your personal life online can have serious consequences and I for one never do it.
But I know that does make it impossible to verify me. I could be a larping virgin loser and thatโs a risk that you have to keep into account.
So why am I saying all these things before I get to my point? Well itโs because you need to understand that there are a lot of "bad actors out there". And I'm not even saying they're purposely trying to mislead you (even though some are) It's just that they don't know what they're talking about.
See, men don't just come online to get better at dating. Almost always when a guy goes online to learn how to get laid, his problems don't stop there. Because let's be real. Most guys that are naturally social & successful will never go online to learn from anons.
Most guys that go online to learn about dating are lonely. They're not popular. They don't have many friends. So when they find this online community where there are all these cool guys that seem to have their life together, they want to be one of them. They want to be seen as one of the cool guys.ย
And what's the only way to be seen as a cool guy? It's by making it look like you've got your life on lock and you know how to get women. So many start giving dating advice, even though their own life is still in shambles.
In fact, I've seen cases where people get so caught up in their cool online persona with 1000โs of followers, that their real life starts to suffer. Their dating account becomes their video games. Why go out on a Friday night if you can stay in & post instead?
But here's the problemโฆ
If you're a new inexperienced guy going online for the first time to get dating advice. How do you know who's walking the walk?... And who's merely talking out of their ass. If you have no real life experience to reference to, then how do you know if what is being said is true? Because make no mistake, most dating gurus are just parroting things forward.
Guys will read a book on how to get women and then rehash that book into tweets. You get ridiculous situations where guys write a book based on blogs they've read and then other guys write tweets based on that book.
You get 15th hand information with no way to verify if itโs true.
And who's to say that the original guy that first wrote down the piece of advice knew what he was talking about? There's only one way to find out if a piece of advice is solid, and that's by field testing it extensively.
Often nobody parroting forward โwisdomโ has done the field testing themselves, and even if they have, they havenโt done it enough. Theyโll read something about being cocky and funny. Maybe try it out once and then spread the message forward with 100% conviction. So when you're an inexperienced guy seeing all these accounts that are lauded as playboys and gurus telling you things with total conviction; It's easy to blindly accept their message as truth, even if it's bullcrap.
Information is like cocaine. If you can get it straight from a good source. Youโll get 100% pure stuff thatโs very valuable. If you get it 5th hand from a local dealer; Itโs going to be cut up junk. If youโre lucky youโll get 30% pure stuff with 70% fluff. If youโre unlucky, youโre going to get fentanyl laced cocaine that will hurt you. Or even worse. You might not even get cocaine at all. Couple years back some amateur dealer got his hands on pure white heroin. Didnโt know what he had and sold it as cocaine. 17 people got injured and 3 died. All because they got their cocaine from an unreliable 5th hand source.
Now youโre probably not going to die from bad online dating advice. But it might kill off your dating life.
Online dating advice spheres are very cult-like. On one hand you have a lot of desperate and lonely guys. On the other hand you have guys that spread their gospel with total conviction. You end up having tons of followers that will defend the message at all cost. Simply because these desperate guys need the message to be true.
They need it to be true so that they too can become successful playboys. It becomes the blind leading the blind. Anyone who dares to call one of the gurus out gets attacked by the followers.
To make matters worse, the message somehow always seems to be that itโs a big scary world out there filled with alpha predators waiting for a chance to hypergamy steal you girl and the only way to prevent this from happening is by getting even more game advice from your gurus.
Many of you might not remember this, but around 2016-2017 you had a serious Red Pill cartel with a very dogmatic RP message that nobody dared to critique. These guys all worked together and had their loyal following that lapped it all up. Anybody that dared to critique them was hounded by dozens of daddy knighters defending their favorite gurus. @PatStedman was one of the first to critique them and I remember just how much flack heโd get for it.
And then in 2018 the bomb burst...
Many of those guys were exposed as losers, larpers and nerds. Some disappeared, others stayed but don't even hold 10% of the authority they once held. Many new faces came up in the aftermath of that ordeal (myself included) but often they weren't much better than the old guard.
I've had guys in my DM's asking me for dating help & two months later I see them bragging on the TL about how great they are at getting women (Not going to name names). The larp will never end, it's just too tempting to get the money & admiration from other men.
Now let's be real here, there is just as much information out there that can actively hurt your dating as there is that can help your dating.
I know this because Iโve also fallen for it in the past. I had a hardcore RP phase in 2012-2014 that actually completely killed my dating life. Had to unlearn a lot of bad stuff afterwards. I did what the online gurus told me I should do and it backfired horribly.
I learned to never blindly accept what anyone tells you and Iโm happy many of the gurus from those days are gone. Their dogmatic larping must have hurt hundreds of guys like me that didnโt have the experience to know what advice was good and what was rubbish.
So how can you make sure you don't fall for the wrong advice like I did?
A few things:
Never blindly trust dating gurus just because they sound confident
In fact, if someone sounds too absolute & too confident, it's usually a warning sign they're a poser.
Take the current Ukraine conflict as an example. A few days ago many gurus were 100% convinced Russia would never risk all out war. Now they're suddenly military experts that know 100% sure how the conflict will go and that China will invade Taiwan within 2 weeks.ย
Theyโre all talking out of their asses.
Now the Ukraine conflict is horrible, but it is also a beautiful example of how bad the constant grifting is. Because itโs something in the real world that you can verify.
If someone tells you that whenever they wear a pink spandex suit, they get laid a shitton, thereโs no way for you to verify. But if they tell you Russia will never invade Ukraine because blablabla and the next day Russian tanks are rolling towards Kiev. Now thereโs something you can verify.
If you scroll the timeline today, youโll see tons of people giving out very conflicting views on the whole Ukraine ordeal. All with 100% conviction theyโre right. When in reality none of them are in the Ukraine or Russia. Most of them never even have been there and theyโre all operating on publicly accessible information (which is shit). Yet somehow they know exactly what China will do next and what this means for the future of the US.
The same happens every day with dating advice, you just donโt realize it because thereโs no way to verify it. Thereโs tons of status to be gained and tons of money to be made. Plenty of guys with no morals will jump onto the opportunity.
They talk in vague concepts, platitudes & things that sound nice.
โJust be more alpha bro!โ. Letโs be real here, what the fuck does that even mean? Ask a 1000 guys what being alpha means and you get a 1000 different answers. These things are platitudes that donโt mean anything. When a guy tells you that you need to be more alpha to get women, what heโs really saying is he doesnโt have a clue how to get more women so he just throws out this meaningless word that everyone can agree with.
How do you get more women? Just be more awesome bro. Just be cooler bro. Just be more alpha bro. Just be more dominant bro.
How do you make more friends? Just be more awesome bro. Just be more social bro. Just be cooler bro.
Has any of that ever helped anyone? โOw shit all this time I was trying to be lame and beta and it turns out I should have done the opposite! Who could have guessed?โย
Avoid general sound bites that when dissected donโt mean anything. Giving vague advice to inexperienced men is just as likely to backfire as it is to help them. Even if itโs true that being more alpha will help them, how are they supposed to know what you need to do to be more alpha.
Iโve seen plenty of online & real life examples over the years of guys that tried to become more alpha but just became this weird caricature instead. Whereas before they were just regular guys that just needed a little nudge into the right direction.
Online is a dogmatic world, offline is a world of nuance
A lot of online dating advice is very dogmatic. โAll women want thisโฆโ โNever do thisโฆโ โAlways beโฆโ. And whilst this sounds really good on twitter where you need to grab attention (Iโll be honest Iโm guilty of this as well). Offline there are no absolutes. There is no one thing that always works on every girl. There are general things that usually work on women to some degree, but itโs never as absolute as dating gurus would want you to believe.
Take something as simple as teasing. All girls want to be teased right? Well no. Iโve known girls that experienced bullying when they were younger. Theyโd react very sensitively if you tried to tease them. Sure maybe by nature they liked it, but because of their past experiences they hated it. There simply are no absolutes.
โIf she doesnโt post pictures of you two together on her instagram then she thinks youโre beta!โ. But what if her last boyfriend unexpectedly dumped her and sheโs become scared of publicly announcing her new relationship too soon? There are always exceptions and scenarios where the truth isnโt that obvious.
How do they respond to critique?
Now this is a tricky one because a lot of critique online is ridiculous. I get daily comments by people who donโt even follow me (or who never interacted with me) who attack me in bad faith. Obviously I block all of them without even responding.
However, if you build up a bond with someone. If you actively like their material often and have commented positively on some of their posts before. And this one thing they post you donโt agree with. You should be able to give constructive criticism. They donโt have to agree with you, but they should be able to take it.
Confident & knowledgeable โgurusโ know that everyone has different experiences in the real world and that there can be different truths. Larpers need to always be right and will feel personally attacked by any form of criticism.
If you offer a decent perspective and get blocked or bashed in return. Know youโre dealing with a larper. Their online status is all they have. Anyone questioning it.
Do your real life experiences match with what the advice says?
Good example: Online gurus will tell you to be stoic and always be in control. You can never let her see you have insecurities or weaknesses. But is that true in the real world? Some of the best ladies men Iโve known didnโt operate like that at all. They do show their vulnerable sides to women. They do have emotional outbursts. Sometimes positive happy ones, other times more negative & angry ones.ย
In real life women go for the exciting actor or the thug with a heart of gold. They donโt go for the rational accountant or the control freak. Women like men who show emotions and passion. Meanwhile thereโs a whole load of guys turning themselves into mr. Roboto because some anon playboy with a statue as a profile pic told them to.
Look around you and see what real life successful men are doing. Also see how different successful men can be from each other. Now go read through a bunch of online advice. What advice will help you become more like those guys and what advice doesnโt?
Does it help you or does it help you feel good?
Letโs be real here. We all want to be a cool action movie hero. Be James Bond and fuck all the hot girls without ever catching any feelings. Why? Because itโs a fantasy, and fantasies offer you all the upsides and no downsides.
Many online gurus do the same thing. They offer you a fantasy. Become the stoic alpha and all the girls will want to suck your dick. Become a dominant man and all women will submit. Theyโre fantasies that guys cling onto. Hoping that if they listen well enough to mr guru-san, one day theyโll be that guy.
Reality is that dating is a lot about taking risks and being vulnerable. A real life James Bond would get rejected tons and would spend many nights alone with his dick in his hand. There is no such thing as become X and all women will do Y.
These kinds of advice are like that little devil on your shoulder whispering you false promises. You get addicted to them but they will actively hinder you achieving actual happiness.
The โBecome a stoic alphaโ advice is a great example of this. It sounds like it might be good advice, but what is it really saying?
Itโs telling you that itโs good for you to hide your emotions. Itโs good for you not to deal with your emotions. You shouldnโt be vulnerable around women. These are all things men hate to do anyway. Men suck at dealing with their emotions. The advice is merely an excuse to avoid the hard parts of relationships.
Itโs like me telling you that not doing chores makes you a better man. Ow great, now you have an excuse not to do things that you hated anyhow. 3 months later your entire house is a swine dump and all your clothes are crusty. Well oopsโฆ
Real advice is often painful. Making you realize what your weaknesses are and what you have to work on. Telling you to do the things that you donโt really want to do.
Fake advice just makes you feel good. Itโs the male dating equivalent of commercials telling people being fat is healthy and being sarcastic and combative is sexy. Being an emotionally stunted man gets you all the girls bro!
I mean I get it, the truth hurts and pretty lies sell. If I wanted to make as much money as possible via twitter, Iโd start peddling feel good nonsense as well.
Itโs not all bad though
There is plenty of gold in between the dirt online. Plenty of men that know their stuff and who have helped tons of other guys throughout the years. You just have to be careful and not trust people blindly just because they have a large audience or sound self-assured.
Stay critical and follow the guidelines I wrote down in this article. Is it really good advice or are they just soundbites? Is it true or do you just want it to be true? Will it help you or will it just give you an excuse not to do the hard work to become a better man?
Stay critical. Even if you are inexperienced. Itโs better to take no advice than to take bad advice.
Now if you want to stop getting low grade, cut up crap and go straight to the source to get 100% pure cocaiโฆ I mean dating advice, hit me up and weโll see if Iโd be a good coach for you: https://nielsknk.com/coaching-with-niels/ย
Use your own discretion whether Iโd give you good or bad advice ;).
Till next time,
Niels