Social circle status: Dealing with competition

[Black]

New here. . .

I have a recurrent problem. . .
In almost every social group I have one guy who seems downright hellbent on kicking me out - as if his life depended on cockblocking me. This puts me in a situation where I feel I'm stooping if I deal with him but that I run the risk of being left out - and miss on opportunities to meet girls - if I don't. It also means having to deal with constant put downs, challenges, interruptions, potshots and all kinds of bullshit instead of having fun.


I'm not skilled at picking up girls, so I think I shouldn't be seen as a threat.
Basically everything this site addresses is exactly what I have been doing wrong for over a decade - to the point that the few girlfriends I ever had were those who made it obvious and easy for me and even escalated themselves. . .
I only have one thing going on for me which is looks. I train almost everyday, weightlifting and combat sports, and choose my clothes well. I'm in my early 30s but I look 10 to 5 years younger to most people.
This causes girls to approach me but I think this is also what causes guys to get competitive; as they (those that do) often seem to have a lot of questions/issues/opinions about my body.

Most recent example:

I'm back to uni full time for a year or two - so I'm getting to meet a lot of girls; who often approach me (verbally or otherwise).
This semester I've been having a really easy time in a class where I'm the only non-asian guy and the girls outnumber the guys and are great looking at that. I quickly started hanging out with a group of girls (not just for entertainment but as a platform for other things and preselection - the later, which I think it's working great).

Eventually this guy appeared and asked me "permission" to join me for lunch with these (girl) friends I had.
I welcomed him - then the following weekend he invited them to hang out with him and left me out.
This did not get either of us excluded from the group but instead started a protracted "toxic" situation that is getting us both nowhere.

I (deliberatedly) sit near the front and have my friends compliment me and offer me snacks; then I notice this guy glaring at me from the back of the room. Then, at some party, if I leave him with my group (three/four girls all for him alone!) and go talk to other girls (better looking and with preselection on my side), he follows me and wants to get their contact info too. Sometimes he's happy for a day or two , then back to being moody and glaring at me. Then some other day, after staring at me angrily over lunch for a minute or so. . . calls out my name, so everyone shuts up to hear what the hell is up with him. . . and turns out he wants to know how much does my gym cost per month cause "he too wants to go". Then, some other time, comes to where I am, bringing snacks for each and every of the people around me. . . He could at least be cool and relaxed about whatever he's trying to pull off - but he seems utterly pissed and childish.
. . .and so on, over the course of days, weeks, months.

Sometimes I wish one of these girls actually had sex with him so that he stops breaking my balls - but it doesn't look like it's going to happen; as he chases them, contacts them, tells them they are beautiful and complains to them that he can't get any girls. . . and he will never succeed in completely ostracizing me, I'm really flirting with way too many girls that he can keep track of (but he tries). This is an international environment and because I speak more languages than him (and do more activities) I also have a lot of social ramifications inaccessible to him.

Anyway. . . In the past, I've encountered guys that unfortunatedly were much smoother, much more bolder, much more focussed, in smaller groups where I couldn't just talk to 5 other girls and/or switch languages, trying to do the same thing - and I had a very hard time dealing with them. So now I'm laughing at this clown but I know it won't always be this easy.

Also, my problem seems to be twofold: because I suck with women for missing escalation windows and whatnot - and added to that, I have competition from guys like these who just see my biceps and seem to think that I'm going to have sex with all the girls if they don't stop me.

So, how does a smooth guy deal with this? Any specific tips? Law of least effort and everything. . .
Being friendly to these guys has not worked as they are just rude to me in front of others - going to the other extreme and beating them up, like someone once suggested to me, is obviously out of question. Getting into a verbal fight also seems very stupid.

 

[Talmadge]

Start off by reading Chase's article in dealing with disruptive men. Also, I could be completely wrong here, but it seems like you are spending a lot if time flirting with them, but not necessarily capitalizing. Try moving them somewhere away and more privately. Not only does this help you escape the cock blocker, but it also gets you investment. If he keeps talking to girls and he lacks any kind of game, let him be his own worst enemy. If what I'm hearing about him is true, he is going to fuck up on his own accord. This can also put you in a situation where you can play the hero and have a reason to pull her away. As for escalation, you're going to have to really start trying. I know you miss escalation windows, but we all do. Just learn how to more clearly determine when the time's right. If you're still uncertain, try it regardless. I guarantee you'll be surprised. Hope I could help, and if you have questions, drop me a line!

 

[Black]

Absolutely! Thank you.

Will have to re-read that article.
I actually applied something small from it, like a month ago, when a guy broke circle and it worked nicely - just a detail though. . .
We (about 20 classmates) were sitting for beers and I was talking to this European girl everyone wants to f*ck - not sure she wants me but whatever. . .
This Japanese guy shows up behind us, interrupts, wanting us to get up and go with him see what's on the grill.
We tell him we don't want to eat anything which was true and the guy gets impatient, then gives up.
I immediately say to her (with a smile - warm and confident) "sorry about that" - for some reason she absolutely loved me doing that.
The guy looked furious thou. . .

I was also looking for an article which showed how to reply to a guy trying to bring you down a peg status-wise; which is what I get all the time.
It even had an example about gym progress which also suits my case.
Lately I've been thinking that if girls made as much a fuss about my body as guys do, I wouldn't be here right now asking questions. . .

_

I know I shouldn't be replying to my own questions but I think that if I had my "game" (which game? where?) right all this wouldn't matter.
While these guys are nothing special -for some reason, that I think a woman would have to help me point out, I'm still behind the curve.

That same gathering I described before, later venue, I make sure I sit besides this 30 yr old Korean girl what-I'd-do-to-her-in-bed-doesn't-have-a-name-yet. . .
Very slowly, as she's very coy and we don't normally speak with each other, I manage to get something significant going between me and her. . .
Her (girl) friends leave, I ask her whether she's leaving too, she flirts and stays.
I miss some opportunities to propose this or that and the conversation falls into her saying she has flavored vodka in her appartment and me saying I love it - "just tell me and I go". For some reason, maybe she got nervous, maybe she saw the two people to my right were glaring at us (European girl and the Korean guy I expected her to decoy as he was into her before), maybe because we were a bit drunk, this part of the conversation actually looped 3 times with her eventually adding - the last time; ". . . IF we all together go to my (her) her appartment".
So I decided to ease on the accelerator for a bit, went back to the girl to my right and teased her for staring like that, joked with everyone in general.
We all go out. . . and walk. . . somewhere.
Korean girl calls my name. . . asks me all sheepish and sweet like a little girl. . . "such-and-such, where do you want to go (now)?"
I teased her implying ulterior motivations on he part (DUH!), touched her a bit while she giggled. . .
. . .then (cause I think she even insisted! ffs) I added something PATHETIC like "aaaaah don't know. . . wherever everyone wants to go".

We were actually going to go to a club - but then the European girl jumped ship and the Korean guy (who had heard my convo) said "let's call it a night".
Also, the Korean girl I want to bang lives in the same appartment building as said Korean guy. . .
*facepalm*

What happens now? The Korean guy and the Japanese guy (yes, the one who fell on his ass trying to break circle) keep organizing these nights out, with these girls if possible, and make sure I don't even hear about it. Can I talk to her outside these parties? No, she's too coy; for some reason she decided I don't exist if she doesn't have the make-up on. . .
Can I make friends with the two guys? Nope, they weren't cooperative even before. . .

All I this wouldn't be if I had done what I was supposed to do when the time was right. . .

 

[Anonymous]

Made an account to post about this.

The absolutely best way to deal with dudes who try to cockblock you is to fucking ignore them. When they behave in ways that you approve of, you talk to them. When they don't, you ignore them and talk to the group about what you want to.

Now there are two types of ignoring:
Actively ignoring: This is bad. This is when you devote your brainpower to not paying attention to him which is similar to "not thinking about the pink elephant"-your brain doesn't work that way.
Passively ignoring: The good kind. This is where you think of the guy as such low status that he literally doesn't even register in your brain. He has no value to you. He could literally come up and talk to you and you wouldn't notice it or wouldn't react to it. He will eventually see that he isn't even a blip on your radar and it will make him want to get your attention even more. At this point, you reward good behavior and punish bad behavior.

 

[Black]

That's quite good advice actually! Thank you!

I really need to take it easy and stop worrying about what losers do. . .

 

[Black]

My lifelong frustration with some of these situations is. . . what about the guys - in social circle - who have more leverage than I?
. . .that have some real power to give or take opportunities to meet girls?

Guys (or even some girls) who dig themselves deep in friend roles and play as gatekeepers.

Guys who could be doing everything wrong in terms of pick-up but still work very hard and succeed to occupy a certain social space.

For example at university I had a very fat classmate openly chasing every girl and backstabbing and badmouthing everyone else - then those girls would eventually reject him and hook up with someone else - but he controlled who got to go to this or that party.

At some gym group there was this skinny guy. . . probably closet-gay. . . chasing our coach, everyone made fun of him all the time (because he did do ridiculous things). However he shared his appartment for the group to party at and went as far as buying the booze. One night when we were all drunk, he got into an argument with our coach "for ignoring him and talking to girls" and suddenly pinched him in a fit of rage (yes, pinched him). Fep up with all the screaming, I said "dude, why don't you just go pinch some girls instead".
Next thing I knew is that I had been permanently banished from whatever pre-gaming session he organized. There were some efforts by other people to get me back into the group but it was useless - he even went as far as organizing various pre-gaming sessions in a row to make sure I didn't get to go (lest the venue was another guy's house and I got invited). The guy might have been a clown but I lost access to a lot of girls who went there to meet the rest of us.

Anyway, you get the idea. . . these may not exactly be the Alpha-male bad boys all girls want but I'm posed by the choice of either bending over backwards to be in good terms with these characters so that they don't use their leverage against me. . . or just let sh*t hit the fan and forsake the group altogether (which tends to happen each time my short temper gets the best of me). Building social circle around them seems to be one answer but it's a lot of time and effort I might as well spend out there cold-approaching.