Comment by alexpotato

I liked this post for three reasons:

1. Smart person faces problem, observes what's going on, thinks about it and finds solution

I mention this b/c a lot of folks feel like "I'm me and I know something is wrong in what I'm doing but I don't know what" and stop there.

But a lot of life is just learning new skills. That can be from books, videos, friends, or just opening your eyes and seeing what other people are doing and then modeling that behavior.

2. The pieces you need are already in you

I used to be TERRIBLE at dating. e.g. I would go on dates with smart, funny and attractive women (mostly met online). The date would start out great and then something would happen halfway through and I could tell the energy went away. It go so bad that I almost wanted friends to sit near me and then point out what I was doing wrong.

After reading some dating books, I realized what it was:

There were a LOT of women in my extended family (mostly female cousins, strong personality outgoing aunts etc). I though "dating" == "hanging out with women like my family". The books pointed out that "dating" is has a large component of "playful teasing, being cocky funny".

I already knew how to do that but didn't realize it applied to dating!

3. Work with what you have

Some other commenters have pointed out that some of what he mentions is "being fake" or "being someone else"

I make this analogy:

- You are a certain height

- That is tough to change

- BUT you can work out, get a haircut, get dental work etc

- aka there are MANY small things you can do to improve your physical appearance even if you can't change your height.

The same is true of personality: you have a core set of values and beliefs. That being said, you choose which stories you tell, how you tell them, when to let the other person speak instead of you speaking for longer etc.