Actually I'll be honest and say I think I hit some sort of four part strange loop here, or maybe it's more like finite recursion. Let's start with "I want to improve my romantic success" and, in addition, I'd like to write a message I can't find that said "I read this classic, and it was good. Then I read the criticism, and I was amazed I never thought of that, then I read another criticism, and the cycle repeats".
Now, starting with the first quote we go to [romantic help site 1], that could be Heartiste or anyone else. Then you go to some other site that could be the "opposite" in their approach. Then you go to another site who presents another approach, and then another, and so you recurse until satisfied.
Basic wisdom seem to be distributed identically between these sites, like the whole self-confidence thing. Everything else is, at this point to me, experimental material.
I've reached some sort of nexus that I can take all kinds of wisdom - apply it, and see how it works. The conclusion is that "Try shit, there's too many variables and in the end nothing is predisposed to success and nothing is predisposed to failure." Maaybe some things are universally bad but once they're discovered they could be trivially dealt with.
In simplier terms: Approach: possibility of something happening No approach: nothing happens (for the majority of time. I've been approached by girls but only a few times, and I'm not particularly attractive nor unattractive)
One idea: have a system for meeting the kind of women you want to meet on a regular basis (ex: a particular dating site, a particular set of bars with a particular friend, going to dog parks with your dog, going to yoga classes, etc.) and try to meet lots of women through that system. Volume gets you two things: first you can habituate yourself to rejection because as it happens repeatedly it hurts less, and second your brain will start to notice & catch on to patterns in your interactions if they occur close to one another. By sticking to a particul...
Previous thread: http://lesswrong.com/lw/mnq/instrumental_rationality_questions_thread/
This thread is for asking the rationalist community for practical advice. It's inspired by the stupid questions series, but with an explicit focus on instrumental rationality.
Questions ranging from easy ("this is probably trivial for half the people on this site") to hard ("maybe someone here has a good answer, but probably not") are welcome. However, please stick to problems that you actually face or anticipate facing soon, not hypotheticals.
As with the stupid questions thread, don't be shy, everyone has holes in their knowledge, though the fewer and the smaller we can make them, the better, and please be respectful of other people's admitting ignorance and don't mock them for it, as they're doing a noble thing.
(See also the Boring Advice Repository)