A lot of books claim they can change your life, and not to be pessimistic some can. I was remembering a few that had claimed such a statement (non PUA related ones) , analysing them. Asking questions of it such as, how could it? Has it changed anyone I know that’s read it? Stuff like that. There was one such novel that had the sub heading ‘Few novels can change your life. This one will’.
Some of you may know immediately that I’m referring to the semi-comedic novel ‘The Dice Man’. Now when the plot involves are antagonist committing rape and murder while breaking out psychiatric patriots and becoming the beginning of a cult as a bit of fun on the side. It may seem an odd Sub heading to have used.
For those who haven’t heard of the book, it revolves around a man who gradually relies more and more on the roll of dice to determine his actions until he becomes totally dependent on it. He therefore learns to detach himself from his actions and have no negative feelings or fear over what the result of those actions might be. The same way PUAs try to remove their Approach anxiety he removed his life anxiety.
So by bringing a similar psychology and exercise across to the approach, a PUA could hope benefit from the same results when it comes to AA. (Ideally without all things rape and murder related
)Before you approach, and as the AA hits you, inside you know that it is your decision whether you approach or not. Now if you could separate from this and take the decision out of your hands then, AA or not, you would approach if that was the decision made by this outside force. Ok Now to find an outside force that could take the decision out of your hand is inevitably, to me, impossible. As you still are the one making the approach and there is only so much affect an external force can have on your internal decisions. However, by following the decision of the external force you have yourself a scapegoat for your internal decisions.
Lets bring in a die as our external to be decision making force and scapegoat. For the sake of this lets conclude that on the roll of the die 1-3 signifies you don’t approach, 4 or a 5 is a standard approach, 6 you head in with a ridiculous opening line. Now before rolling the die you commit to following through on whatever number appears. This is easier than committing to the approach as 1,2 or 3 would result in you not approaching.
, you roll .
If now faced with a 4,5 or 6 you will have to once again make that internal decision on whether to approach or be beaten by the AA. Having already committed to the die pre roll it is less of a step to commit to it post roll. (imagine flipping a coin, heads you get out of bed , tails go back to sleep, but before flipping you don’t commit that you will so what the coin decides. When the coin lands you then decided whether to commit or not, ultimately you are now making a free choice as if the coin was never there. Hence the first committing step pre die roll.)
Now the die said approach (obviously not literally, though I’d love a talking dice). Anything goes wrong you know you can blame it on the die, that little cube is your scapegoat ( I have here assumed you are using a 6 sided one, if you want to spice things up with a D10 or D20 feel free , you wild thing you.). This can help to prevent and increase in AA from a failed approach.
Finally by responding to the roll of the die, you are detaching yourself from the decision in a similar way to that of a game, making the approach more like a game if suffering from heavy AA can help return the fun to the approach. Do it with some wings or friends actually make a game of it if that helps.
So any of you struggling with that Approach Anxiety, get that old scapegoat the dice out and give it a go.
