- Joined
- Oct 9, 2012
- Messages
- 6,352
Every now and again we have folks come on here to proselytize the dogma of their particular approach to attraction, seduction, or relationships.
It always follows the same trend:
Some of the major dogma eruptions we have dealt with over the years have been:
We've also had other minor dogma dustups, like guys aggressively proselytizing dating apps and going onto cold approach threads and claiming girls don't like cold approach and ordering the thread posters to stop cold approaching. Or the guys who were pushing sugar dating or "salt daddying" a little too hard. Most of these minor ones, fortunately, we nipped in the bud.
While occasionally we're able to get the lead prophet of whatever dogma to back down and stop trying to jam his dogma down everybody's throat, usually he will not, because it is not in his personality to be a compromising/group-oriented individual, and the dogmatist annoys everyone with his "my way or the highway" behavior and gets banned.
Had we NOT stopped dogmatists, this would not be the Skilled Seducer Forum of today, by the way.
Instead it would be the "brown guys going for green light blonde girls but refusing them monogamy because only open relationships will do" forum.
Pretty kinky! And VERY niche!
CALLING ALL PROPHETS: HERE'S WHAT YOU MUST UNDERSTAND
This is a big forum with a lot of different players on it.
Everyone has a different gaming style.
Everyone has different things he likes to do.
Everyone has a different niche!
Various styles optimize for various types of girls and situations. The approach that works best with American girls barhopping in Pacific Beach doesn't work quite as well with Romanian girls shopping in Lipscani or Japanese girls clubbing in Shibuya. Same deal for what to focus on in appearance. Same way in how to frame oneself as a man.
There are universal principles, yes. There are things that generally you need in place. But there are always caveats.
Likewise, various relationship frameworks optimize for various types of girls and relationships. The relationship framework that works best for an avoidant-attaching man dating avoidant-attaching women is very, very different from the one that works for a secure-attached man dating a secure-attached woman.
Even if you believe your approach hits at some universal principle, even if that might be TRUE, you are still not going to convert the whole forum by aggressively proselytizing it everywhere and scolding other members who aren't following it / dismissing other members not following it as using suboptimal approaches.
All that will accomplish is to wear out your welcome and get yourself warned, temp-banned, or perma-banned.
Nobody likes being LECTURED at, especially not in a forum like this, where we have many successful guys who have put in the work and are happy with where they're at, and are simply here to share, collaborate, and help out newer guys.
All you'll end up doing is winning a handful of converts, while turning the rest of the Boards against you.
Then getting BANNED.
PROPHETS AND COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
I will also point out, for other members reading this, that generally speaking the prophets of a dogma, when they are aggressive in pushing it and resort to condescending to other members, are nearly universally operating out of some level of cognitive dissonance.
The anti-monogamist guys had all failed at monogamy / been burned by girls they wanted to be monogamous with (typically girls they had chosen poorly) and to assuage their dissonance they had to win over more men to their "monogamy doesn't work!" perspective.
The brown guys (most of it was actually just a single one brown guy with a bunch of sock puppet accounts, bizarrely enough) had failed with their "dream girls" (bottle blondes) so needed to rant endlessly about how blonde girls don't want brown guys to make it an "everyone" problem rather than a "just them" problem.
The red-light-green-light guys were getting ignored/spurned by some girls ("red lights") so needed to get everyone else aboard this thinking that "look, some girls are just IMPOSSIBLE or just REALLY HARD to get and that's just life!" to feel like they weren't failed seducers who simply weren't able to get the girls they wanted (and to be sure, no matter how good you get you are never going to get every girl. But these guys had dissonance around that).
When people see you hammering everyone, insisting that everyone do things "your way", those with decent social intuition know it is out of some burning "need to be right." Such needs are always out of the desire for validation of one's ideas and to assuage one's own cognitive dissonance at seemingly seeing others who aren't doing the same thing one is doing.
This is another reason why prophets/dogmatists are so irritating.
Part of it is the scolding, lectures, condescension, dismissal, and trying to make people do what they don't want to do.
Another part though is the underlying demand for attention, validation-seeking, and desire for reassurance of the correctness of their views: "You're right, buddy. Don't worry. We all agree now. You were right all along! That [whatever XYZ they're opposed to] never really worked. Your way is the only right one!" Etc.
TO PROPHETS: WANT MORE ADHERENTS? SEDUCE!
To every would-be prophet with a dogma he'd like to push:
You're never going to succeed trying to jam it down people's throats.
While that might work in a public space that is unmoderated (because let's be honest, a lot of people are very susceptible to having shit jammed down their throats, all things being equal), it does not work here because this place is moderated and the men here are not simple sheep that are going to put up with an excess of throat-jamming.
You will just get yourself banned using unpleasant tactics like this.
If you want people to follow your method...
If you want adherents and subscribers to your cause...
If you want the warm, fuzzy feelings of people on the forum declaring "You're right!"...
There is only one way to do it:
You must SEDUCE.
Write good reports.
Share good tips.
Do NOT insist that everyone follow your dogma.
Do not CONDESCEND to people who are not using it.
Do not LECTURE those who don't wish to listen.
This is not your church and you won't be allowed on the pulpit if you're just going to fire-and-brimstone your ideological foes.
Be positive, be gracious, SHARE, be open-minded to alternative philosophies.
Live, and let live.
If you can do that, you may just find that, in time, you win more and more followers.
If you can't, well, I guess you're not just not a values-fit for a discussion forum (DISCUSSION, not PROSELYTIZATION) and would be better off in the YouTube comments section, where they will let you sing "The Way of [whatever dogma]" until you're blue in the face.
No matter how 'valuable' you think your dogma is, no one values something that is being crammed down his throat!!!!
Make your choice!
Chase Amante
It always follows the same trend:
- There is a key member serving as a "Prophet of the Way" for whatever dogma he is pushing
- He attracts a small cadre of inexperienced and impressionable or frustrated followers, attracted by the strength of his convictions
- He and his followers begin running rampant all across the forum, sticking their dogma everywhere, lecturing other members that what those other members are doing is not ideal because those members are not following the One True Path (i.e., the dogmatists' way)
- Senior members debate the dogmatics for a while, but if the dogmatics aren't checked they start to wear everyone out with their droning credos and inflexibility of views
Some of the major dogma eruptions we have dealt with over the years have been:
- "Monogamy does not work. Only open relationships are viable." (I addressed the anti-monogamists in 2014 in this post)
- "Blonde girls do not want brown guys." (I addressed the blonde-chasing brown guys, also in 2014, in this post)
- "Everyone should be focused on picking up 'green light' girls." (I addressed the traffic light system in 2020 in this post)
We've also had other minor dogma dustups, like guys aggressively proselytizing dating apps and going onto cold approach threads and claiming girls don't like cold approach and ordering the thread posters to stop cold approaching. Or the guys who were pushing sugar dating or "salt daddying" a little too hard. Most of these minor ones, fortunately, we nipped in the bud.
While occasionally we're able to get the lead prophet of whatever dogma to back down and stop trying to jam his dogma down everybody's throat, usually he will not, because it is not in his personality to be a compromising/group-oriented individual, and the dogmatist annoys everyone with his "my way or the highway" behavior and gets banned.
Had we NOT stopped dogmatists, this would not be the Skilled Seducer Forum of today, by the way.
Instead it would be the "brown guys going for green light blonde girls but refusing them monogamy because only open relationships will do" forum.
Pretty kinky! And VERY niche!
CALLING ALL PROPHETS: HERE'S WHAT YOU MUST UNDERSTAND
This is a big forum with a lot of different players on it.
Everyone has a different gaming style.
Everyone has different things he likes to do.
Everyone has a different niche!
Various styles optimize for various types of girls and situations. The approach that works best with American girls barhopping in Pacific Beach doesn't work quite as well with Romanian girls shopping in Lipscani or Japanese girls clubbing in Shibuya. Same deal for what to focus on in appearance. Same way in how to frame oneself as a man.
There are universal principles, yes. There are things that generally you need in place. But there are always caveats.
Likewise, various relationship frameworks optimize for various types of girls and relationships. The relationship framework that works best for an avoidant-attaching man dating avoidant-attaching women is very, very different from the one that works for a secure-attached man dating a secure-attached woman.
Even if you believe your approach hits at some universal principle, even if that might be TRUE, you are still not going to convert the whole forum by aggressively proselytizing it everywhere and scolding other members who aren't following it / dismissing other members not following it as using suboptimal approaches.
All that will accomplish is to wear out your welcome and get yourself warned, temp-banned, or perma-banned.
Nobody likes being LECTURED at, especially not in a forum like this, where we have many successful guys who have put in the work and are happy with where they're at, and are simply here to share, collaborate, and help out newer guys.
All you'll end up doing is winning a handful of converts, while turning the rest of the Boards against you.
Then getting BANNED.
PROPHETS AND COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
I will also point out, for other members reading this, that generally speaking the prophets of a dogma, when they are aggressive in pushing it and resort to condescending to other members, are nearly universally operating out of some level of cognitive dissonance.
The anti-monogamist guys had all failed at monogamy / been burned by girls they wanted to be monogamous with (typically girls they had chosen poorly) and to assuage their dissonance they had to win over more men to their "monogamy doesn't work!" perspective.
The brown guys (most of it was actually just a single one brown guy with a bunch of sock puppet accounts, bizarrely enough) had failed with their "dream girls" (bottle blondes) so needed to rant endlessly about how blonde girls don't want brown guys to make it an "everyone" problem rather than a "just them" problem.
The red-light-green-light guys were getting ignored/spurned by some girls ("red lights") so needed to get everyone else aboard this thinking that "look, some girls are just IMPOSSIBLE or just REALLY HARD to get and that's just life!" to feel like they weren't failed seducers who simply weren't able to get the girls they wanted (and to be sure, no matter how good you get you are never going to get every girl. But these guys had dissonance around that).
When people see you hammering everyone, insisting that everyone do things "your way", those with decent social intuition know it is out of some burning "need to be right." Such needs are always out of the desire for validation of one's ideas and to assuage one's own cognitive dissonance at seemingly seeing others who aren't doing the same thing one is doing.
This is another reason why prophets/dogmatists are so irritating.
Part of it is the scolding, lectures, condescension, dismissal, and trying to make people do what they don't want to do.
Another part though is the underlying demand for attention, validation-seeking, and desire for reassurance of the correctness of their views: "You're right, buddy. Don't worry. We all agree now. You were right all along! That [whatever XYZ they're opposed to] never really worked. Your way is the only right one!" Etc.
TO PROPHETS: WANT MORE ADHERENTS? SEDUCE!
To every would-be prophet with a dogma he'd like to push:
You're never going to succeed trying to jam it down people's throats.
While that might work in a public space that is unmoderated (because let's be honest, a lot of people are very susceptible to having shit jammed down their throats, all things being equal), it does not work here because this place is moderated and the men here are not simple sheep that are going to put up with an excess of throat-jamming.
You will just get yourself banned using unpleasant tactics like this.
If you want people to follow your method...
If you want adherents and subscribers to your cause...
If you want the warm, fuzzy feelings of people on the forum declaring "You're right!"...
There is only one way to do it:
You must SEDUCE.
Write good reports.
Share good tips.
Do NOT insist that everyone follow your dogma.
Do not CONDESCEND to people who are not using it.
Do not LECTURE those who don't wish to listen.
This is not your church and you won't be allowed on the pulpit if you're just going to fire-and-brimstone your ideological foes.
Be positive, be gracious, SHARE, be open-minded to alternative philosophies.
Live, and let live.
If you can do that, you may just find that, in time, you win more and more followers.
If you can't, well, I guess you're not just not a values-fit for a discussion forum (DISCUSSION, not PROSELYTIZATION) and would be better off in the YouTube comments section, where they will let you sing "The Way of [whatever dogma]" until you're blue in the face.
No matter how 'valuable' you think your dogma is, no one values something that is being crammed down his throat!!!!
Make your choice!
Chase Amante
), engage in this discussion?
