AM Journal

[Sean]

It was partly a joke to say that about it being a letdown, because when you find the right woman, the majority of the value and attraction isn't from physical features. But if you have dated the most physically attractive woman in the world... your standards rise to meet your circumstances... and at that point, you expect to be dating only 10's. 6-7-8-9 probably isn't going to be quite good enough, if you're as particular as you seem to be... I know I am significantly less responsive to 8's now than I used to be.

[emphasis mine]

If you're referring to me being particular, what gave you that impression? I'm not in the least bit offended, just curious.

[Shannon]

Any time politics gets involved, you find things are not as they should be.

[Shannon]

It was partly a joke to say that about it being a letdown, because when you find the right woman, the majority of the value and attraction isn't from physical features. But if you have dated the most physically attractive woman in the world... your standards rise to meet your circumstances... and at that point, you expect to be dating only 10's. 6-7-8-9 probably isn't going to be quite good enough, if you're as particular as you seem to be... I know I am significantly less responsive to 8's now than I used to be.

[emphasis mine]

If you're referring to me being particular, what gave you that impression? I'm not in the least bit offended, just curious.

The things you answer, what your answers are, and how accurate your answers usually are. Your statement that you are a perfectionist. The cognitive skills you bring to bear. These are the marks of a very particular person.

[Sean]

Thanks for sharing that, Shannon.

[Benjamin]

Do you remember which part of it made you uncomfortable?

There are a bunch of experiences that I've had in the recent past, with women, that brought me to a place of understanding that was already in line with what the book talks about. So I sort of took to it like a fish takes to water.

Also his description of what an Alpha Male is and the difference between a fake Alpha and a real Alpha rang spot on true to me based on my own experiences and what I have seen in the real world. To be honest I was blown away by this guys insight.

Sorry I meant to reply to this but forgot to.

I guess the main thing that made me uncomfortable was simply being vulnerable. I can talk all kinds of shit to women, tease them etc, but when it comes to being vulnerable like actually telling them i'm attracted to them, then I really am scared to do so. It even extends to when it is time to stop teasing and talk to them and connect that I find it hard sometimes because it could show them my attraction. It's weird isn't it. :Z

But thanks to your post i'm going to revisit it again. I've been reading a bit of his blog today.

-Ben

[FunkeyMonkey]

Yea I used to struggle with the same thing. And still do sometimes. But the type of vulnerability he's talking about is not wearing one's feelings on the sleeve, it's simply being genuine as to who you are without doing it to get something in return. Because that in itself shows confidence - but a natural confidence - not a forced confidence.

The deeper vulnerabilities come later in a relationship and have no place being at the start anyway. Especially when she hasn't proven herself in anyway.

[Sean]

Oh HELL man, you don't tell them that! Generally, women are much better at knowing when someone is attracted to them than males. In other words, if you're attracted, she knows, and verbalizing this is about as tingle-generating as telling her the sky is blue. An alpha man takes action. Lead the relationship by making moves, and not caring about the results. GO for the kiss when it feels right. Don't ask, don't warn, don't mess about. Plant one on her and see where it goes.

[FunkeyMonkey]

You're spot on..... But I was talking about when you first meet them.

You try kissing a girl as soon as you meet her and you are going to be in for a rude awakening.

[FunkeyMonkey]

Although I like the way you worded that.

"GO for the kiss when it feels right. Don't ask, don't warn, don't mess about. Plant one on her and see where it goes."

[Sean]

HAHAHA! Yeah, when kissing an unknown woman works, chances are she's not the kind of woman you want to keep! It was implied that you should do this at an appropriate moment.

[Javier Gerardo]

In his book Outliers

I loved that book man.

It's good to see positive changes are being made on your part.

[FunkeyMonkey]

Thanks, although it's not always clear to me, I do believe I am making progress.

[FunkeyMonkey]

It's been a while since I've posted on my Journal and I want to finish what I started.

I finished AM 5 around Mid December. I think the last stage I talked about was stage three and my last post was in the middle of stage 4.

The below will probably have some typos and run-ons because I typed it fairly quickly.

RUN DOWN:

STAGE 1
Increased feelings of confidence and self worth, mainly related to work, not at all related to women or socially. I think this is the stage where I started becoming very irritated with many of my friends and I had to stop hanging out with a lot of them. I didn't end the friendships, I just avoided going out.

Looking back, this was the most positive and powerful stage, mainly in the area of increased self worth related to work. (Confidence with women actually descreased)

STAGE 2
The irritation with friends intensified. I started going up to the mountains (I have a house up there) and spending all of my time there, working on the house and taking care of things I thought were important. I was having increased thoughts of wanting to get away from the city (my main place is in a large north eastern city) and I considered moving up to the mountains full time. I spent a couple weeks up there at one point but the lack of stimulation proved to be too much for me. But I did spend all of my weekends up there for the whole summer. My friends were wondering what had happened to me.

The social scene up there is really dead too. There are women around but there's just not a lot to do and it doesn't seem like it's easy to meet people but I have a feeling that when you do meet them you stick with them because there is not that much choice otherwise.

My general attitude of not taking shit increased in this stage. It mainly showed itself when people would cut in front of me in line and stupid small things like that. A couple times while I was out in stores people looked very afraid of me LOL.

One time this guy cut in front of me in line and I immediately said something in a fairly aggressive way. The guy was really shaken up about it and it looked like I scared the shit out of him.

The most significant result of this attitude was a meeting I had with my boss, where he was trying to manipulate me, while also tell me that he didn't think I was performing to my potential. I ended up asking him is he had the same expectations of other members of my team who being paid a lot more. He really didn't know what to say but after that he stopped bothering me. I almost went to HR about it and I was pretty pissed off.

Looking back I'm not sure I played that situation in the best way politically, but at least I had the balls to stick up for myself rather than getting trampled. I don't think my manager was a bully or a bad guy but I think he lacked leadership skills and wasn't sure how to manage people.

STAGE 3:
In this stage I mellowed out a bit and I wasn't as edgy.

One thing that did start to happen (I'm not sure if it was this stage or the stage before where it started) was that I started to become very aware of the world as things not being that important on a micro level. This actually developed into thinking that I can only describe as other-worldly. I won't get into all of that right now, but maybe I'll post about it on another another time because I'm not sure it really applies here. Bottom line is my view of the world seemed to be changing, and I do feel that it was a result of the subs, but where it ended up going is probably more something in me.

STAGE 4:
This stage flew by with little awareness on my part as to what was happening. I literally felt nothing. I don't really have any specific comments about this stage other then that.

STAGE 5:
During this stage I felt a sense of physical anxiety while I was sleeping as well as during the day. It wasn't too much anxiety that I couldn't function, I was fine with every day functioning, it was just a sort of consistent feeling of physical nervousness but it never became overwhelming for me.

STAGE 6:
I'm not exactly sure what to say about this stage. I didn't notice too much on this one either. But there was this impending feeling of sadness that seemed to creep up during this stage.

I think it was during this stage that I started to become depressed, although the depression didn't really kick in until I was done. It's been a long time since I have felt anything that resembles true depression but it started right after the end of the program. It wasn't bad enough to need medication or go into the hospital (IMO) but it was pretty obvious that something was wrong with my general outlook.

I have been working to get rid of the depressed feeling over the last month or so and I think I'll be fine in the long run. Mainly I am just working out and trying to live as healthy as possible.

SUMMARY:
It seems to me that the first three stages were doing something and I was generally excited about the program and had high hopes of where it was going. The last three stages seemed to take a dive and I really didn't notice anything other than a sadness at the end.

THE HUMAN VACUUM:
I think my depression came from being very anti-social for pretty much the whole program and as a result my whole social life change. It went away. My social circle dwindled down to almost nothing and by the time the program was over with I was basically alone, wondering what the fuck had happened. My friends were far from perfect, but who is perfect? No one.

There seems to be a really strong "I am an island" vibe to the whole program. While I was going through it I felt like I was doing the right thing by spending all of this time alone, but now that I look back I can't say it really did help me. It's not biologically or emotionally healthy to be like that. It works in the movies when it's James Bond or Clint Eastwood (The self dependent loner) but in real life it's just lonely and sad and it sucks.

WOMEN:
My Mojo with women literally went away on this program. There was a very distinct sort of DRY non-sexual feeling throughout the program. It seemed like my sexiness had decreased significantly and women stopped being as aware of me, or possibly me of them as well. When I would talk to women I could tell that they had no attraction to me whatsoever and it was this very dry energy feeling. Sort of like my energy was saying, "yea I'm a solid guy but I have no sexy energy about me at all." and the women seemed to really pick up on this automatically. Before the program, very often, women were attracted to me, not all women, but it was pretty consistent that they were.

MY APPROACH:
If I do another 6 month program it will be using the silent version and done in a way where there is the least conscious effort possible. I got into this thing where I was relying on the program and looking back that was a big mistake. I feel that it is very important for it to be in the background and not a main source of self improvement. Doing other things in my life that will help me no matter what I am doing in the background it really important. Putting all eggs into one basket is a very bad thing.


PETER PAN SYNDROME
I think it is safe to say that when I started this program I had a fair degree of Peter Pan. This is when guy does not want to grow up and continues to live as if he is 10 or twenty years younger. This program literally eliminated my Peter Pan Syndrome.

And you know what I realized? Peter Pan Syndrome is awesome.

If you would have asked me a year ago what I though about PPS I probably would have said, "yea its not good, its immature blah, blah, blah." But that's because I probably had a negative view of it from society, even though I had it myself.

But what I now see is that I was a really fun guy and women loved it. I'm not very fun anymore and women do not find that attractive in the least. Women might complain about guys who don't want to grow up - but that's because those women are ready to have a family and are looking for a guy who will be that dependable father figure. Once they are done with the father figure guy I've dated women who were married for years to the boring provider and were really really desperate for legit fun because their lives had become drab to the point of hell. They loved loved loved me. I brought fun back into their lives big time, but at the time I didn't think of it that way I was just being me at that time. Ummm yea women are attracted to the Peter Pan guy. I can personally vouch for that.

When I started I was having a lot of fun but not too much deeper satisfaction. Now I'm having any fun at all and I am wishing I was back to where I was before.


INCREASED FEELINGS OF WANTING TO GET MARRIED
I now have thoughts of wanting to get married. I think that feeling has come, at least in part, from this program. I feel that I have that desire for the wrong reasons - loneliness. My life has become pretty drab and I am more lonely than I have been in a long time. I think this desire comes from losing Peter Pan and just feeling older as a result. The problem with this new desire is that there are no women to choose from. If I had this feeling when I was having a lot of fun before starting the program I could have found a good one and gotten married, but now I'm just sort of the boring, yet take no shit, lonely guy with little choices. It's a catch 22.


THE BAD:
Women pretty much disappeared from life with the exception of two short flings. One was with an older woman, over the summer (I normally date younger Attractive ones) although I have to say she was fun for a very short period of time before she started getting weird. I had another one with a fairly desperate, but decent, women. I had to end it with her because her vibe was so unattractive and boring that I just couldn't take it anymore. But she is a decent person, I must say.

I became anti-social, not in a social anxiety type of way, but in a deciding not to be around people type of way.

My playful sexual vibe was muted to the point of non existence. (For a married guy this might be okay, for a single guy this sucks)

Social circle decreased and I don't seem to have motivation to go out and meet people and have fun.

Became somewhat depressed because of lack of social fun and much lower attraction from women.

THE GOOD
Increased confidence at work.
Increased motivation to do well at work, pride etc.
Not willing to take shit (this decreased toward the end of the program somewhat)
I feel a little more down to Earth, grounded, maybe a little more solid at a base level.


To put things in perspective, I was obviously a fairly social person who had some pretty good success with women before I started this - I wasn't starting from a base level like a lot of guys do and I was not suffering from social anxiety. Although I wouldn't describe myself as super socially confident either. I had some low self esteem off days for sure. I would say I was in the middle somewhere, with probably doing a little better in the woman department than the average guy - but would not call myself a player or ladies man - just a guy who had some high points here and there.

I feel like I've lost something that I need to get back and I honestly think that If I don't get it back I am in some serious trouble.

I get the distinct feeling that this program is really good for a married guy with kids, but not at all good at all for a single guy, unless it's followed up with something that is really going to blast you out of the rut and into a more fun social place.

Overall I feel like I am not in a better place, but to be fair, I'm probably in a bit of a better place with my job, but my social life is looking very grim ATM.

[SexyMofo]

Hey FM! As I browsed through your experience of Alpha, I somehow saw myself in your first three stages and a little bit in your later stages. Especially the "Im an island vibe". I might have to disagree with you with regards AM being a great program for those who are married. Many in the forum are single and are also doing Alpha. I am one of those single guys who are running alpha for the second time, and this time I'm pretty much enjoying it. Things are rough during your first run, but the subsequent runs will be a lot better.

I would suggest that you try using Extreme Self Esteem for a month or three. I found that sub very useful in making me more socially confident (not in an egotistical way) as well as a few other minor effects(check the script). Hoping to see you more success with these subs.