The above is from my first ever post here and was one of the reasons I joined this site. This is still an issue for me and I really don't know what to do about it. I resent hanging out with my 3 closest friends because of it. In fact I would go so far as to say I now actively dislike hanging out with these friends and try to avoid doing so. It's really fucked up!

Let me tell you a bit about my Friday:

I met up with my 3 friends I mentioned. We went to Secret Cinema, which is a cool themed night where you dress up and do missions and things in a hidden venue in London. The theme is always a film and you watch the film at the end.

Anyway the moment I met my friends I felt lame and unsociable. It is getting worse and worse when I meet them as they know I am avoiding them and mentioned it several times.

The whole night I barely talked to anyone, which is unlike me. To make me feel worse 1 of my mates is being charming as hell to very bird he speaks to and they are all digging him, which made me very aware I wasn't.

It got to the point where I was talking to a girl (heaven forbid!). She wasn't all that to be honest, but at least I was being sociable and she was digging me. Then my mates came to join me and I just clammed up and stopped talking. I just felt unbelievably self-conscious! This continued throughout the night and I felt lame as hell.

The same thing happened in a clothes store recently when I opened a girl and was with 1 of these mates and just couldn't think of anything to say to the girl, because I was too self conscious around him.

Does anyone else get this?

I'm never going to be the genuine authentic person I want to be if my personality is changing around different people!

Anyway, these appear to be my options:

1) Stop hanging out with my friends - seems extreme and silly!

2) Do nothing and accept the fact I'm going to be lame around them.

3) Talk to my friends - they will probably find this odd.

4) I think I am scared of looking like I am crap with women around them. In fact it has got a lot worse since I told 2 of them about PUA. Perhaps if I just went out and got myself rejected in front of them and learnt its no big deal I would be fine!

5) Just man the fuck up and stop crying about a weird thing that doesn't exist - I do recognise this, but psychology is a weird thing and even if you're aware of something doesn't always mean you know how to fix it.

Bit of a strange one I know, but feel it's a real monkey on my back right now!

I think two things are at work here.

1: Anchoring, you've anchored your old behaviour to you friends so when you are with them all the thought and feelings come back.

So lets say for instance when you're out with them you think of your best pickups and thus anchoring those thoughts and emotions to your mates.

2: you're going in there thinking I gotta be this big pimp, and this is like when you do something cool but when you try to show someone it fucks up. chill out so what if they don't think you a massive pimp.

check this thread I read the other day when looking through the old threads.

http://www.puaforum.co.uk/psychology...ht-effect.html

To what extent do your friends know about the PUA side of your life? I read all your 5 a day stuff by the way and I was impressed! I'm sure your friends would be too. If they haven't already seen it it might be an idea to let them, if they knew about all your successes AND rejections you wouldn't feel that same pressure to perform in front of them.

On a side note. After I read your 5 a day stuff it inspired me to take similar action and approach like crazy, it got me laid! So er......thanks!

You are stifled and failing to be your "best self" in a consistent manner which stems from assuming that you are in the presence of people with more value than yourself.

OK OK thats straight out of Tyler Durdens "blueprint" but seems to apply here. Its something I sometimes suffer from myself at work in the presence of very high powered people. Id suggest checking out "blueprint" if you havn't already.

The pecking order has already been established

Your friends perceive you however they always have perceived you

You now perceive yourself different

Its difficult to change the current perception they have towards you as all future perception of you are based on their old perception of you.

TO change their perception of you and your perception of yourself around them it would take small gradual change.

There is no easy solution to this, fight every step of the way, fight the emotion inside and try to overcome it. You could always try teaching them pickup, then you can establish your expertise in that area.

As for not steppin up to the mark everytime, i have exactly the same issue sometimes, its when your out of your comfort zone and may feel extra unwanted pressure that trigures your brain to think "shit i carnt fuck this up" which in turn makes you fuck it up

But if all fails find new friends!

AJay

Our new perception of someones actions are based on that of our old perceptions of thier previous actions.

If somebody with low social value and low confidence picksup a HB10, then we would percieve that to be lucky. If a confident high value man who gets woman all the time gets rejected by a HB7 we would percieve it to be unlucky.

You see our perception of people is massively bias on previous perceptions of that person.

The way i see it, if your not feeling good around your friends then its time to get new friends which you do feel good around. Afterall what are friends for???

AJay

Your personalty (act) is designed to change and adapt to different settings that best help your survival. It doesnt mean your not you and unauthentic! I act different around family members to how i act towards friends. I act different toward people i dont like to people i do like. I act differently if im picking up sophisticated woman to that of a more common simple woman. Life is an act.... I always find acting up to a role alot easier than actually becoming that role, plus you can switch it up and be whoever you want when you want, rather than being stuck to one personality (act).

AJay

How would you act, if you were with family members AND friends at the same time?

I have a twin brother and when we've gone out socially I do not like to approach women it just feels weird with him there! Of course I sitll go out with him and another friend but do it much less now. My mate also said I was ignoring him. I just want to approach women and I know I can't do it in that group. I wouldn't get too hung up on it, Ajay hit the nail on the head ...

this thread reminds me of this one time when I was with some old friends who I purposefully stopped hanging out with cos they're dicks.

I was talking to one of them and he expected me to be seeking his approval and I just let the conversation stop and didn't say anything to restart it just sat there. He got really confused didn't get it. I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd fainted.