Damn, everytime I think it's ok to shut the hell up & get back to reading, I come across something else from Meraki that I feel compelled to contribute to. I guess we're both trainees wrestling with similar issues at similar points in development. Anyways:
Do not expect women to bring things to the table, because they won't. What women bring to your table is not dependant on her, as much as it is dependant on you. You can leverage her into bringing things to the table.
I liked this point. Very interesting - can you give more advice on how to go about leveraging her? Or maybe an example?
I suspect that we do not really need to make too much effort to leverage women. (Actually, less effort probably leverages more effectively). I have had situations where a) a woman opens up & shows more depth than expected, once I let my guard down and give her a glimpse of my own depth (even if, prior to this, I had seen her engaged in a banal conversation), and b) an extremely cold, icy woman (to the point where others who had interacted with her before felt she had no personality or warmth to her soul, and was practically inhuman) totally warmed up to me. Epecially when I managed to isolate myself from the people I was out with. Also, c) where a woman is smart and beats all the other guys over their heads with her intellect, but seems to (INSTINCTIVELY) shut up and assume a very submissive attitude the minute I open my mouth. Sure I may be intelligent, but she had NO WAY OF KNOWING THIS (or did she?
) before I started talking. The more experienced guys can call me out if I am wrong, but I am really beginning to believe that while guys are fairly consistent in their behaviour, women adapt their behaviour to the individual they are interacting with AT THE TIME. And at the subconscious level.
I would go further to say that their behaviour can even adapt to changes in a man's unconscious intent in real time, MOMENT TO MOMENT. i.e. When I am real, so is she, but when my ego surfaces into my thoughts, her walls come up in immediate response.
And yes, I believe that guys do also respond in a similar way, but I mean that women do it in a far more fluid way.
Meraki, we complain that they (eg the girls in your example) are making no effort (I am with you on this - I feel the same way), but after I myself am involved in incidents like this, I sometimes wonder, especially in relation to my comments on their adaptability, if their aloofness was in response to mine.
I'm not saying to abandon all the progress we have made on this forum by becoming "approach monkeys" - hell no! But I am wondering: since I am still in the latter stages of post-red pill sexual apathy, if I see a woman who APPEARS to have potential, is there any harm in letting her know "hey listen, I am not looking for anything from you, and i'm about to leave anyway, but I wanted to say it's refreshing to see a woman in a gym who's actually there to work out." Now to me, your Woman #1 definitely does not warrant this, and maybe Woman #2, although more real, didn't warrant a compliment either (I do not know, I could only know for sure if I was there myself), but do you get where i'm coming from? Nothing wrong with a compliment PROVIDED IT COMES FROM THE RIGHT PLACE, AND WITHOUT AN EXPECTATION. I CANNOT STRESS THIS LAST PART ENOUGH. AND IT CAN ONLY BE DONE WITHOUT TRYING (i.e. only do this if this is how you feel in the moment). ANY OTHER WAY WILL THEN PRODUCE THE POSITION OF WEAKNESS THAT THIS FORUM WARNS AGAINST.
My feeling is that if I come across a woman who my gut tells me is more REAL than the average moron, and she is attracted to me, even if I am not interested in her, I should encourage her IN SOME WAY (not necessarily using compliments) to continue being REAL. Think about it - if she goes through her life without ever deriving a single benefit from being real, could she not "pack it in" and decide to be like all the other useless bitches? Could this be what is happening now?
Also, I very occasionally interact with a woman who is a total chatterbox (seriously, she once made me over an hour late to another engagement), and I find that although her conversation, while certainly not mundane, is not the deep spiritual or philosophical discourse that I normally enjoy, there was a kind of free, generous giving BEHIND her words (and totally unrelated to what she was saying) that was really soothing to me. 'Grinus is right - conversation is really more than the words. What provoked me to write this post is that even though I had no sexual intent towards this woman, not only did engaging her result in a wonderful experience for me, but even if she turned out to be a moron, I would still get to exercise the art of OBSERVATION (I can still remember what she was wearing, the flaws on the exposed parts of her skin, what excited and animated her, what made her look bored and distracted, etc.)
And since my pride and egoic expectation of "pimp tight" behaviour from myself prevented me from complimenting her on the beauty underneath her conversation, I am now left to wonder: if everyone in her life tells her to shut the hell up, that she talks too much, and she takes it to heart without having received any encouragement from me, when she becomes like all the other vacuous bitches out there, don't I have a share in the responsibility?
Not saying what I posted is right; just throwing this out there.
Having said that, I feel the need to reiterate - if it doesn't feel right: do not engage. And certainly do not compliment. YOU WILL BE EATEN FOR LUNCH.