@raiden,
Good thoughts here. I hope it's helpful.
One point:
Well, I still don't know why my results with women are so awful but I'm reasonably convinced that lack of approach invitations isn't it.
This is one of those verbal brain / math brain disconnections here... let me put on my math brain hat:
- The point is not only about approach invitations. Approach invitations are the primary example of a larger, overarching theme.
- The overarching theme is missing signals in general and assuming they do not exist, leading to a "women aren't interested" perception.
- Women's signals are a ubiquitous, foundational aspect of both romantic courtship and relational maintenance, including:
- Women's signals to approach (approach invitations)
- Women's signals of interest ("keep going" signals)
- Women's signals to escalate ("move forward" signals)
- Women's signals to pause or back off ("hold your horses" signals)
- Women's signals to communicate subtext or thoughts about the environment
- Women's signals about their relationships with other people present or not present
- Women's signals about their true (as opposed to expressed) desires in a relationship
- Women's signals regarding their unmet needs and emotional state in a relationship
- Women's signals indicating the amount of time one has left with them in a relationship before the "lease period" is up and they can no longer tolerate lack of sufficient forward progress in the relationship
It's probably fair to say that the vast majority of female communication is nonverbal/subtextual.
The better able a man is to read these nonverbal signals and respond to them correctly, the more calibrated he is, the more women feel like he 'gets' them, the better he performs in both seduction and relationships, and the more opportunities he will both observe and receive from women (women, following general operant conditioning rules, being more encouraged to give signals when they feel like their prior signals to a man have been understood / reinforced).
Much of success in seduction and in relationships really comes down to how able a man is to read and respond to women's signals, with men who are highly successful having a very strong intuition for these, able to see them everywhere in the environment all around them, and read them loud and clear in their own interactions with women, versus men who don't see these well and are not as responsive to them (such men will tend to either be spam approachers if they do cold approach or to heavily rely on dating apps, often without much success, or else go chasing after girls who don't want them in social circle, or they will retreat into celibacy convinced that women don't want them. Many guys with enough spam approaches start to notice women's signals and can refine their approaches, but the most heavily male-brained guys often don't even with tons of exposure unless/until they mechanically train themselves to look for and learn to recognize and correctly interpret these signals).
Recall that Hector, before he learned any game or social dynamics, and back when he was just a video game guy, had a female orbiter who wanted him as a boyfriend. Most guys fitting Hector's old description will have no female attention and, for such a guy, any approach he does make will effectively result in a "thanks, gotta go" from the woman.
From having coached a variety of men like this, one of the primary problems they have is a signal responsiveness one:
- Such guys will occasionally have social circle girls express interest in them, but they don't recognize it as such and the girl soon gives up.
- Such guys will end up in conversations where they miss repeated signals from girls, at which point girls feel like something is weird or off because they are not being responded to, and make a hasty, awkward exit from an awkward situation.
I have had guys mic'ed up on in-fields and listened to them talk to girls, heard or saw the girls drop several signals to the guy to flirt or move things forward, the guy did nothing but continue to talk the way he was talking, the girl got awkward, then left. Then the guys returned telling me, "See, that's what always happens, the girl's not interested," and I say, "Wait, why didn't you move things forward when she was signaling to you to?" and the guy goes, "Huh?" And I say, "When she uncrossed her arms and tossed her hair at you and moved a little closer and laughed, you needed to move closer to her and reciprocate that interest and openness she just showed you with a touch, or a qualification, or some other reward for that good behavior. If you just stand there like you did she is going to feel like her offering to you was rejected, which is a very awkward feeling. That's why she left."
The easy solution for guys who are missing signals a lot is "just mirror whatever she does" until you really get the hang of it. Pay close attention and mirror. This is good advice for anyone who's learning, really...
But yes, time and again, when I watch guys in-field who claim women aren't interested in them, the big problem they consistently have is that they do not respond to women's signals, which makes things awkward for the girl, who then leaves (feeling like something is wrong or that she was rejected by the guy).
(it's not the only problem. They can have big fundamentals problems too, which you think might be your problem. But even with big fundamentals problems you will still be able to find SOME girls who like a guy... if a guy is finding none at all, it's a sign he is having problems with signal awareness/responsiveness)
Chase