“What are your rules for talking about RP concepts?”

In response to “Warning about falling into the girl’s frame,” on Reddit this guy asked:

What are your rules for dispensing knowledge? (RP and non. RP)…. Who/When/Why. Seems there are a lot of stupid people and thus many opportunities are presented.

While there are no hard and fast rules, most of the time a guy shouldn’t talk about RP stuff at all… to the extent I do, I talk with women I’ve already been sleeping with for a while and who are thus in my frame already. Like that warning post: I’ve been sleeping with Bike Girl for a while. It’s possible to drop RP hints here and there as teases, but I don’t recommend going into full professor mode, probably ever. But there are a few principles for when you do talk…

1) Never use any of the jargon. Many people intuitively understand the ideas, but the jargon will repel them.

2) Must be done in a playful, cheeky way. This goes back to the idea of teasing. In addition, playful and cheeky can be plausibly denied later or as needed.

3) Should be done either 1:1 or in small groups. In large groups you don’t want standard BP conditioning to take over.

4) Less is more. Don’t address someone’s entire worldview or ideology. Don’t be a priest. In the example linked above, I didn’t shit on feminism or make huge pronouncements on all aspects of men versus women. The point was constrained to one facet of male-female dynamics and centered on the friend’s real experience.

5) Be ready to back down. This may not read as “alpha” to typical guys online, but social circumstances aren’t an academic debate. You’re chatting with people and it’s not worth blowing up good social vibes for some issue most people don’t give a shit about. This is related to point 2. If someone gets huffy, just say, “Whatever, live your life” and move on. The smile or smirk are key. Amused mastery is better than being “right,” except sometimes at work where being right matters more. Social context matters for everything. If you are an engineer or doctor, then being factually correct is very important. If you are chatting with your friends, being cool is more important than being right (or being seen as being right).

6) The real knowledge comes not from what you say but how you live. Your life is the best example. Pretty much no one cares about what you say (sorry, but it’s true). People admire or dislike you for how you live and what you do. People listen to high-status people they admire, not some blowhard with an average or below-average life, even if that blowhard is technically “right” about whatever. Like I said above, in an engineering meeting, being right matters, and in most other human social endeavors it does not. Many celebrities who you and I are think are dumb have more influence than you or me because they’re widely admired. Socially admired people have influence and weirdo outsiders spouting strange theories of human behavior do not.

This is another way of saying, status/coolness FIRST, then talk about whatever the thing is. Do you take advice from the bottom people in your field? No you don’t. You listen to the top people. If you’re not a top person, no one is going to listen to you. Get the life first. People listen to Ray Dalio about investing, not the poor joe on the street who just leased a car he can’t afford because he thinks the monthly payments are so low. That poor joe can’t do math. He’s not building assets and he’s risking bankruptcy for no good reason.

7) While most guys don’t want to hear this, Red Pill and pickup attracts a disproportionate number of social idiots. One sign of being a social idiot is not knowing that you are one. If you are a social idiot, the first thing you need to do is learn not to be one, because you are going to have an even worse time trying to teach other people than a normal guy would. Being socially deaf, however, means you’re unable to perceive yourself to be socially deaf, so you have limited ability to incorporate proper real-world feedback.

I’m sure there are other principles, but those come to mind. When in doubt, shut up. Seriously. Shutting up is underrated. Most people like to hear themselves talk and talk about themselves. Let them. A little encouragement goes a long way. No one cares if you’re right.

I’ve slept with far more girls through shutting up at the right time than I have through talking or being “right.” Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends and Influence People is still a great book. It’s not clear from the original post I wrote, but in that conversation I talked far less than I listened, and I listened for a long time to the friend. This may read as “beta” to less experienced guys, but, again, most people like to broadcast and don’t care about the objective reality of a situation or how to improve their life. People who really want to improve their lives are the exceptions. Look at the fatties all around you: most would like to not be fat, but they can’t be bothered to improve their lives.

If you are dealing with normal humans in normal social situations, perception matters more than being “right.” What is “right” is not even clear or obvious in most situations. Save being right for your math and physics classes.

These things are hard to do and require social savvy, and that’s why most RP people say, “Don’t talk about RP.” That’s easy and less likely to lead to errors. A delicate touch is necessary. Most online RP people seem to be angry and not socially savvy, so it is not a surprise that they get burned when they attempt to tell others about the Red Pill without first improving themselves.