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William_S comments on Open Thread, Jun. 22 - Jun. 28, 2015 - Less Wrong
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Recommendations for in person training around the Bay Area would be useful (as I'm likely to end up there).
California is a good place. A lot of personal development framework come from California. It very likely that there are good things available in California that are not known outside of it. Asking locals at LW meetups for recommendations.
There seem to be regular Authentic Relating/Circling event in Berkeley: https://www.facebook.com/ARCircling We had a workshop in that paradigm at our European LW Community Event and it was well liked. I also attended another workshop in that framework in Berlin. Describing the practice isn't easy but it's goal is about having deep conversations with other people that produce the feeling of having a relationship with them.
I have spent multiple years in Toastmasters and wouldn't recommend it if your goal isn't being on stage. Toastmasters Meetings usually have 20+ people in a room and only one person speaking at a time. That means relatively little speaking time per person.
Toastmasters is also very structured. The ability to give a good 2 minute Table Topic speech for me didn't create the ability to tell a funny story in a corresponding way in a small talk context. Toastmasters have a nice and fun atmosphere but it feels a bit artificial in a way that Circling isn't. Trying to cut the number of "Ahm" in a speech by focusing on the "Ahm" instead of focusing on the underlying emotional layer is from my perspective suboptimal.
Bryan-san also gave the recommendation of attending PUA groups. It's hard to really know the relevant outcomes. There are people who do have some success via that framework but it also makes some people more awkward. If you do PUA cold approaching you might get feedback from another PUA but you usually don't get honest feedback from the actual woman with whom you are interacting. Authentic Relating on the other hand provides a framework that isn't antagonistic.
PUA success varies by region and local culture. In some urban areas, anecdotally, women have started judging men's PUA "game".
I think it pattern-matches on a "correct" behavior, but is self-defeating; it pattern-matches on the idea that women, like men, want to have casual sex. The "correct" behaviors, are indeed, being something of a jerk, but is self-defeating because it assumes rudeness is the desired quality, rather than a signal of a desired quality: Jerks aren't likely to pester you for follow-up dates, which is to say, they are actually interested in strictly casual sex.
It's self-defeating, because as soon as men who are interested in more meaningful relationships start utilizing the technique of being a jerk, being a jerk stops being a useful signal of -not- being interested in more meaningful relationships. (Being -very good- at being a jerk, on the other hand, probably -does- pattern-match pretty well with interest in strictly casual sex, hence the anecdotal accounts of women judging PUA "game".)
The whole thing gets messier on account of individual differences. Some women want to be hit on, some don't, some want one approach, some want another, some are receptive to the idea of longer-term relationships, some aren't - in short, women are people, too. No single "framework" is going to accommodate everybody's desires, and those who push a monoculture ideal are being narrow-minded. And dating signaling is, frankly, terrible, and often abused, intentionally or unintentionally. (Women signaling desire for casual sex to get free drinks, men signaling desire for long-term relationships to get casual sex, for two of the common complaints.)
Getting outside that, my personal practice is to strike up random conversations with strangers; small talk is the grease the gets conversation going. Treat small talk as a skill with a toolbox of techniques. Your toolbox should contain a list of standard questions for strangers; what do you do for a living, who are you rooting for in (current sports competition), where were you born, how did you end up in this hellhole, etc. The more you do it, the better you get, or at least the more comfortable. Small talk with other smokers while smoking helped my conversational abilities immensely, although for obvious reasons I wouldn't necessarily advocate that.
The problem is not only about the woman but about the man. Quite many man who go into PUA never end up in a state where they are comfortable striking up random conversations with strangers.
Recently I went to a local "get out of your comfort zone" meetup in Berlin lead by someone who authored a book on comfort zone expansion and who has a decade in the personal development industry. Surprisingly we didn't went out to start conversations with strangers. His main argument against going down that road was that it often makes people without previous experience often experience those exercises in a disassociated way instead of in an associated way.
PUA quite often leads to people trying to influence the woman instead of paying attention to their own emotions and dealing with those emotions in a constructive fashion.
It's certainly possible to have toolbox smalltalk and do okay with it. Developing genuine curiosity for the other person and letting that curiosity guide your questions is both more fun and more likely to create a connection.
I'm not advocating monoculture. I also don't think nobody should do PUA. It's just worth noting that PUA doesn't deliver for many people who buy into it.
The toolbox gives you a starting point; it's not meant to be the entirety of the conversation, but rather starting points. It's relatively easy to maintain a conversation, harder to start one. Curiosity doesn't begin until you have something to be curious about in the first place.
I agree that PUA doesn't give people what they're looking for, most of my comment was intended to explain why. (Short summary: It's about sex, not conversation.)
When standing at a bus stop are you asking a stranger: "What do you do for a living?" To me that doesn't seem like a good conversation starter.
"Do you know in many minutes the bus will arrive" can be a curiosity based question, that's socially acceptable to ask. I'm standing next to a stranger and that question comes into my mind, I notice that I have a question were I'm interested in the answer. I can either look at my phone and look at the bus timetable to figure out the answer or I can ask the other person.
There are many instances like that were you can choose the social way to deal with the situation.
I think even for people who think they want sex, it often doesn't deliver on it's promise.
The reason women who want causal sex are attracted to Jerks isn't because they aren't likely want follow up dates, it's because if getting the father to help raise the kids id out of the question, you want the best possible sperm. Granted today the women is likely to use a condom or abort because she doesn't want children, but that's adaptation execution for you.
Are you an evolutionary strategy? Do your preferences all reduce down to evolutionary strategies?
My preferences are shaped by my genes (which were shaped by evolution), and my experiences as interpreted by the systems built by my genes.