It is easy to describe yourself as confident when nothing important is being tested. Then a woman you really like says no, your friend gets the result you wanted, or a relationship ends, and a different version of you appears.
Game reveals your character. That is the argument behind this episode's ten horrors of manhood. It exposes how you deal with uncertainty, frustration, comparison and the possibility that your preferred story about yourself is incomplete.
I have found it psychologically difficult. That is part of the reason I talk about it. Pretending the process is a series of effortless victories leaves men badly prepared for what learning can actually feel like.
The comparison begins before the approach
The first two pressures in the episode were comparison and old humiliation. You see another man with a woman you find attractive and start making judgements about your own worth. Or a new interaction brings back the feeling of being laughed at when you were younger.
Now the woman in front of you is carrying the weight of experiences she had nothing to do with. Her response becomes an imagined verdict on your entire history.
That is a lot to load onto a conversation with a stranger. Notice when you are doing it. Another man's relationship does not tell you the full story of his life, and somebody's lack of interest does not establish your value as a person.
The next pressures are rejection and working for months without the improvement you expected. These can be hard enough separately. Together, they can make you question whether the whole effort is pointless.
Progress does not arrive in a straight line
A fifth difficulty is regression after an encouraging period. You thought something had clicked. Then the next sessions go badly and you feel as though the improvement has vanished.
Social outcomes contain uncertainty. One good result does not prove mastery; one bad stretch does not automatically erase what you learned. You need to examine your behaviour over time instead of accepting whichever interpretation your mood supplies.
The sixth pressure is more embarrassing because it involves what you did not do. You talked about game, watched material and went out with a wingman, but barely approached anyone. You were near the work without doing much of it.
The seventh, going somewhere unfamiliar alone, removes another layer of support. In the episode I described why that challenged me. The broader point applies without travelling: can you act when the familiar person or setting that usually carries your confidence is absent?
Getting what you want creates new questions
The last three situations concern success and loss. You meet somebody attractive and consider stopping, even though the relationship does not actually fit what you want. You have a brief experience with someone you consider your dream girl and she does not want to continue. Or a longer relationship eventually falls apart.
None of those situations is solved by declaring that you should feel nothing. I described them because they can hurt, and because the fear of that hurt can start making your decisions for you.
There is a difference between choosing a relationship you want and clinging to one because you doubt you could ever meet anybody else. There is also a difference between being attracted to someone and being compatible with her. Looks cannot answer every question about a shared life.
The Close discusses the beliefs behind my approach. The practical question here is whether you can look honestly at your own response. Are you learning, avoiding, comparing or clinging? You cannot work on the answer while pretending none of these things affects you.
