Increasing social value vs. abandoning social hierarchies: Contradiction?

[The Byronic Man]

The articles here advocate increasing your social value (so you can front-load them)...while abandoning social hierarchies. Isn't this a contradiction? How can you abandon social hierarchies if you acknowledge the importance of increasing your social value? I need to understand this intellectual before I can have any conviction of this path.

 

[Estate]

My best interpretation of this is that YOU need to let go of social hierarchies... others will always see them.

But by letting go of them yourself, it allows you interact and befriend people who you might have otherwise considered "above" you... by doing this, it does in turn make others see you as higher value.

But the main point is that you should always act the same with someone who is perceived as higher, lower or equal in value to you.
I feel people who are very good socially do this.

For example, think of the popular guy in school... He seemed to be loved by everyone. But why?
Well, the nerdy guys maybe only hung out with the nerdy guys, they never saw themselves on the same wavelength as the jocks or whoever.
The jocks are jocks, they perceive themselves to be on a higher level and are douches to people "below" them.

Then their is just the most popular guy... I've also noticed this guy gets all the good grades too without ever being perceived as a nerd.
The reason is... he has let go of the hierarchy!

He gets along with teachers because he can actually speak to them on an equal level without seeing them as the top of the chain or someone to fight against.
He gets along with the jocks because he get involved in sports and can have a conversation on their interests... sports, girls, whatever.
He gets along with the nerds because he is an intelligent guy and can be friendly to them and hold an intelligent conversation, they see him as a smart guy but never a dick about it.
He can get along with everyone in between because he can speak to them on THEIR level and never percieve himself as higher or lower.

He let go of the hierarchy and I can think of 1 or 2 guys in my own school days like this. The others will always see the hierarchy but because he can connect with anyone on THEIR level it puts him higher up the chain in THEIR view, thus making him more popular.

Does that make sense? Hope so

 

[Franco]

Estate sums this up pretty nicely for you here, Byronic. =)

- Franco

 

[LucidityComeBackToMe]

I like the concept of the popular guy Estate describes. It is true that there are not too many characters like this in the real world. People in all levels of the social hierarchy are often limited by their own belief systems and believe they know what their place in society is. These beliefs are often very strong and unyielding. I would even speculate that there most likely is a correlation between having a strong sense of belief in social hierarchies and being more likely to possess higher feelings of victim mentality. Many people are "popular" due to circumstance, attractiveness, and connections but are not on the same level as the well rounded and free of social hierarchy belief systems popular guy. These people often have a wake up call after they graduate high school or college and lose touch with their cool groups. After that they have to concentrate on developing their personality and connecting with many different types of people to remain popular.

The guy that does not believe in the rigid constraints of social hierarchies is able to meet and converse with anyone he chooses (including attractive women). He is realizing the mindset of abundance by the flexibility he affords himself with the ability to talk to ANYONE without fear that the other thinks he is above or beneath him. A person like this also develops an outcome independent mindset since they are not worried about whether the other person will judge them as being above or beneath them. If the person is not receptive towards them, they will brush it off and move on since there are many more interesting people to meet. Overall these types of traits would be really attractive to women and guys like this are rare. I also knew of 1 guy like this in high school. He would always make an effort to talk to me even though I was the selectively mute shy guy that doesn't talk in class type.

 

[The Byronic Man]

Thanks guys. That makes sense.

I have found that I at some point I have stopped letting the social hierarchy affect the way I treat high value guys (I infrequently still get nervous though). But I think a lot of it is coming from me thinking I could do that as well given enough time and resources. So it's a confidence thing. Looking at it from the realization that social hierarchies are relative and arbitrary is quite good. I'm not sure if I don't already have this way of thinking, but I'll consciously start incorporating it.

My social value sucks though. Reading these articles made me realize I have above average social skills in most social situations, but now I know that is not enough if I want to be top-tier. I actually used to have good social value because I DJed weekly in the downtown bar/club scene, but I was incredibly lucky because I was able to provide value to those who gave me those gigs because I had exclusive access to a practice DJ booth with no noise constraints, and I invited these guys there weekly to practice. I was so clueless back then how this all worked (to give you an idea, I had quite a few women throw themselves at me, but I didn't have the foggiest what to do), and when I lost access, I also slowly lost my DJ friends (because I was so socially awkward). Actually, when I bumped into them several times, they invited me to hang out, but I had such low self-esteem at the time and was so focused on bettering myself and did not even want to pursue friendships at the time. That will need to change, but I think I'll be spending a few years to pump my value back up (1st year to get my degree and advance my career). It's going to suck, but at least I know what path to take and that it will work. There's no uncertainty now; just a matter of doing it.

My only concern is how I'll maintain my PUA and social skills; it will be difficult since both are so tied to social value. I've done a lot of introspection, and have come to realize there are only 3 types of people I'm interested:

1. People that can provide good social value
2. People who are really intelligent
3. Beautiful women

#2 is easy for me. Unfortunately, building social skills requires a variety of people. And it's hard to find beautiful women who don't care about social value, so I usually try to hide my lack of social value, but that is so frustrating when I want to be open.

For everyone else who doesn't fit into these 3, I feel like are a waste of my time. It's also why I abandoned most of my friends. I COULD try to be friends with average people, but I'd feel like I'd be pretending. Whenever I get stuck hanging around average people, I get irritated. Their obsession with meaningless crap like sports and drinking makes me nauseous. But then I'm missing so many opportunities to socialize. It's a frustrating seeming Catch-22.

 

[Estate]

Byronic,

One tip from my last year. I was starting from scratch in terms of social circle and by proxy social value, even if I was social enough, I didn't really have an outlet.

At the beginning, I think I had it all wrong. I'd be looking for places where I'd meet nothing but "high value" people that could offer me something.... i.e. guys with connections and hot girls.
This was a big mistake in the long run. There really is nowhere where EVERYONE is top of the chain and just willing to let you hop on board. And by trying to do this from that start you are really only there to TAKE value from them because, without a foundation, what are you offering them? Or at least that's how I saw it. And it wasn't working obviously.

After that I began making new friends because I began meeting everyone. By doing that you begin to make friendships, some people are more open than others and often it's not those at the top of the chain right away.
My first few friends were a couple of geeky but fun guys... also a few girls who were fun but not exactly anyone I'd want to date. But since meeting them, I've been invited to so may more things and in return I've brought friends from one group to meet the others and in that way provide THEM with new friends. It's like a form of networking I guess....

But the more I did this, the more things I got invited to... I literally went from sitting hopelessly at home on a Saturday evening to having to turn down plans as there was too much going on. (A good thing but also don't neglect friends, if you can't meet them on one night be sure to involve them next time).
This naturally leads to going out more and meeting MORE people!

Some of the geeky guys had friends into sports, which got me playing more this summer, I'm a big sports guy but can do the geeky thing due to my job. Some of the girls, even if I wouldn't date them, inevitably had other girl friends who were hotter and even all that aside, the very fact that I know have lots of plans and things to attend on a Saturday night means I am out there, I am in a social mood because I'm with friends and girls we don't know around us have been WAY more open to talking when they see I know lots of people and am very social with them all...

I think this is important. At the beginning I just wanted results... fast... so I didn't want to waste time on people who weren't giving me the value I needed but I had a change of heart and it's paid off.

See, if you don't just click and connect with EVERYONE, you don't know what it can and can't lead to. But if you are not interested in those who you believe are not providing you with value then you're still not really letting go of the hierarchy. All you are doing is trying to position yourself higher up on a level with those with more perceived value.

What you must remember is that the whole reason for letting GO of the hierarchy idea is that it is all just in our minds. Some people at the "top" that I have met have been total d-bags. They really didn't provide value to anyone, they were there due to some status they had not because they were cool people. Same goes for some "lower down". I didn't see at first they could provide me with value but since they appreciated my friendship, they made more of an effort. Of course the inverse is true too.... in the end you want to meet people who ACTUALLY have high value and offer something but you only meet those by meeting everyone!

Even in a hierarchy, there are sub-trees... for example... do all the Jocks think they are above the Nerds? Sure, let's just say so for the sake of this argument.
But within the group of jocks... are they ALL high value? Probably not!
There is probably the leader, the team captain or whatever... then there are the back-ups who probably get picked on a lot within that hierarchy... yet because of their status, are still perceived as higher than the geeks OUTSIDE of that sub-hierarchy.... but where does that leave you?
It means that ONLY trying to break some "higher" circle leaves you very much at the bottom of it to start and it's no better than being king of the nerds.

So to sum up... letting go, means REALLY letting go. Befriend everyone you can and that alone builds you value in everyone's eyes.

 

[The Byronic Man]

Estate, thanks for your input! That really opened my eyes--I will do exactly just that!

 

[Estate]

Good stuff man!

Remember... everything is not about game. Making friends and building social circle can give you many outlets to practice your game with women in the long run but if you REALLY want to build this up it's important to stop thinking of everything in terms of game.

I'd have days where I'd meet new friends who were doing something and I knew it wasn't an oppertunity to talk to lots of hot girls but what it did help me was build the foundations of new good friendships.
Thats what I wanted personally so it was important for me to stop saying "Well, I can't game hot girls there, that's lame!" and just spend THAT day working on my social circle. But in the long run those friendships have helped me build lots of outlets to meet the women I'd like instead of completely relying on going solo and cold approaching in the street (which you can do also but obviously social circle builds foundations for warm approaches).


Best of luck!

 

[The Byronic Man]

Any advice with women when your social value sucks? I can get first dates, but my low social value is a nagging insecurity that I is affecting my "game."

 

[The Byronic Man]

Been thinking a lot about this. Social hierarchies should be abandoned because they're arbitrary and relative. They only exist if you believe in them.

Social value, however, does exist...to the person who has identified a need it fulfills (philosophically speaking, this is indeed what a value is). Value is not intrinsic, but relational.

So someone who has high social value is someone who provides a lot of benefit to you. So social hierarchy is also relational. Your hierarchy will be different from others. So chasing a hierarchy is indeed silly because it presupposes that everyone shares the same values.

Agree/disagree?