“Singles in Singapore”: Live TV Appearance on Dating in Singapore
September 4, 2010
I was invited as the “dating expert” by Channel NewsAsia (the premier news channel in the region) and their online presence, BlogTV, to be on a panel on live TV. The topic was the Singapore government’s recent call for proposals to increase dating among Singapore singles, which is part of their broader dating campaign and attempt to raise marriage and birth rates among the higher socio-economic status (SES) groups in the country.
It was a lot of fun, and the extra adrenaline rush from doing a LIVE TV show was exciting. The hosts were excellent at keeping everyone engaged, and the producers were very professional. The set was also huge, much bigger than it looks on the screen, as it was housed in a cavernous warehouse. The show aired from 8:15-9:15PM on BlogTV, and Channel NewsAsia picked it up from 8:30-9PM live on prime time television.
Here are a few clips. They’re from the online version, which was filmed using a different set of cameras from the Channel NewsAsia TV show, so it’s mainly static, with very little zooming, unlike the TV show. Thanks are due to LL for editing and uploading.
Cheers, David.
Top 5 Tips for Singaporean Men Who Want to Attract Beautiful Women
August 22, 2010
The premier news channel in Singapore, Channel News Asia, asked me to put together a list of the top five tips for Singaporean men who want to attract beautiful Singaporean women. You can find my article here!
Unfortunately, it seems the formatting was all lost in the conversion, so all the bold text is gone, but I’m sure you can figure it out. Check it out here for yourself!
Would love to hear your thoughts. You can contact me at: david@asianrake.com
Cheers!
Top 10 Tips for Success
June 5, 2010
Quick announcement regarding the Master Your Social Power program next weekend (June 12-13), for which 100% of the profits are going to charity: We have only a couple openings left before we close registration for this program, so if you’re interested, get in touch with us ASAP at: admin “at” asianrake.com
Those who’ve already registered will be receiving their preparation materials in just a few days. You can find more info about the program here.
Top 10 Tips for Success
Over the past several years, I’ve noticed strikingly similar patterns among men who get very good with women very fast. These high performance achievers and their success stories present a stark contrast to the numerous guys all over the world who keep going out every night trying to practice “sarging” and only meet with continual disappointment and discouragement and then give up. I’ve become acquainted with some of these demoralized men in person and over email, and I hope that this article can point out a few things they haven’t done yet, which can help lift them out of their valley of defeat.
In very diverse parts of my life, I’ve also noticed certain commonalities on my way to the successes that I’ve had. If you reflect on your own successes, I’m sure you will notice the same patterns.
I’ve been fortunate in my 33 years on this earth to have had the opportunity, luxury, and resources to pursue various goals and excel at them. I still have many other goals that I am still working towards, and I am looking forward to tackling them one by one.
These top 10 tips for success can be applied across a great diversity of activities, goals, and fields. In my own experience, these same principles were responsible for my excellence in areas as various as academic achievement, music performance, martial arts, fitness and athletics, lifestyle design, and the social arts. So here they are, in no particular order. I originally wrote this to a musician friend.
1. Fundamentals First
This is all about the 80-20 rule (aka., The Pareto Principle).
My saxophone teacher called the fundamentals to sax playing The Three T’s (tone, tonguing, technique). For about 5 years, I spent the first 15-20 minutes of practice time just going over the Three T’s.
In the attraction arts, it’s attitude (inner states), body language, tonality, and eye contact. These alone account for over 90% of getting attraction.
It’s easy to find the fundamentals in every skillful activity. Focus on and master the fundamentals first and foremost.
2. Aim to reach the Critical Mass Point.
I used to think the key was to practice daily, that it was better to work in brief daily sessions than in longer sessions spaced out over time. But I no longer believe that.
Instead, it’s best to wait until you have enough time and energy to devote to building momentum (caveat: though of course it’s better to do even just a little bit every day than wait a month or more before you can set aside a lot of time). The point is to reach the Critical Mass Point, which is the point at which you attain Flow (in the Csikszentmihalyi sense of the term; see his classic book, Flow). It’s like a tipping point or critical mass.
Each kind of activity will have a different Critical Mass Point. For instance, it’s pointless to work out just 10 minutes a day if you’re trying to lose fat (although this is still much better than nothing) because by the time you’ve warmed up, you have to stop, and you haven’t been able to burn any calories.
You can also look at this as the Warm Up. This is obvious in sports and music, but studies have also shown that the brain needs to be warmed up too, for about the same amount of time (10 minutes or so). Warm up for writing can be simply typing out the last page that you already wrote. Or better yet, finish your previous session early without completely finishing off the point, so that in your next session, you can pick up where you left off and just finish the point (i.e., just making the conclusion) before having to embark on developing a whole new point. One important part of this is that in the first 10-15 minutes, expect to go slower and gradually work yourself up to a good pace. Don’t just rush right in.
The same goes for the social arts. Set aside some time at the beginning to get yourself in a social mood. Before you head out the door, review your notes, remind yourself of the sticking points you want to work on, watch some exemplars on DVDs, listen to some tunes to get you in the right state. Then when once you’re out the door, make solid eye contact with friendly looking people and start mini-conversations wherever you go. Chat with the taxi driver, the bellman, the clerk at the 7-11, the people waiting in line with you, the bouncer, and the bartender. Ask innocuous questions of strangers on the street for the time or directions. And then do 2-3 “warm up” interactions just to get your socializing muscles warmed up. Expect to set aside this preparation time to get yourself in the rhythm and build momentum.
3. Get a Private Teacher/Trainer/Coach/Mentor, even if no one else has one.
This made a big difference for me in junior high and high school in music. Even though I went to a high school for the performing arts, surprisingly few of the music students had private, one-on-one teachers. It was mainly because it was relatively expensive and not every family could afford it. I can easily attribute a great deal of my success in music performance to the fact that I had private instruction from the ages of 5-14 in piano and of 12-17 in saxophone.
Even group classes or 2-on-1 won’t cut it. You can learn a lot on your own, just from accessing the internet, DVDs, books, and your peers. But unless you were already naturally gifted to begin with, you will very likely reach a ceiling that no one else you know can get you through. Your teachers and coaches in your team, band, club, or class cannot help you. And this is because at the higher levels, we all have unique sticking points. Probably only less than 1% of people would have that problem. And unless you get individualized, customized, one-on-one feedback from an experienced expert and specialist, you will have an impossible time finding the solution.
For example, I had risen to become one of the best saxophonists in my grade level after just a year and a half of playing on my own and learning from books and from my music class teacher, who was an award-winning and gifted teacher. But then for some strange reason, about 3 out of 10 times, my high D note would just pop up an octave or more, and it would sound like a horrible squeak. I had to play a solo in one of our performances that called for a very loud high D, but I couldn’t nail it because of this bizarre squeaking. I asked everybody I knew and even sought out a private sax teacher at a small music school in the neighborhood, but no one could figure out the problem. This went on for months. It wasn’t until my parents took me to the top music conservatory in the country and to their top saxophone teacher that in literally ten seconds he solved the problem FOREVER. He had me play the note twice, and he immediately diagnosed the problem. It was a mechanical problem that plagued maybe only about 1% of saxophones, and it was easy to fix; you just needed to have an expert eye to diagnose the problem. You better bet I begged my parents to let me take weekly lessons with that guy, even though his rates were the highest in the city. His coaching was instrumental in making me into the best saxophonist of my grade from day one in the performing arts high school, and the best in the entire school by the second year, and arguably one of the top in the country in my age range by the time I graduated from high school.
And it explains a lot of my problems in team sports in junior high and high school. My needs were so unique in soccer and basketball, etc., because of my martial arts background. I did kung-fu since the age of 5 and Tae Kwon-do from the age of 11. I often excelled in activities that others did not, whereas I sucked at certain skills that others took for granted. For example, I made it to the final cut on the junior high soccer team as the goalie, but I kept trying to kick the ball like I was doing Tae Kwondo, haha. And no one ever taught me how to kick a soccer ball properly. I just showed up for try-outs and got through to the final cut purely on my athleticism. Only later, when I was benched basically permane
ntly did I realize that I needed to contact the ball at its lowest point (in other words, drop kick it). This was so simple, and everybody else took this for granted or didn’t every think about it, but I just needed someone to tell me.
In the social arts, it took me about a year and a half of stumbling around trying lots of different styles and getting tons of conflicting advice and information until finally a really gifted coach pointed out how I could best utilize my current personality strengths (cultured, traveled scholar) to craft an attraction style and then work from there. I eventually came to adopt his pedagogical method of customizing the client’s attraction style to his natural strengths.
And I shouldn’t even have to mention the mountain of materials on the importance of mentorships in business and leadership.
Getting personalized, individualized feedback from an expert mentor, coach, or teacher is crucial to mastering any skillful activity.
4. Read/Listen/Watch widely and often to examples of the kind of thing you want to do.
Inundate your mind. Train yourself to see the possibilities and reality differently.
This was especially crucial in music. Whenever I talked to a lot of the top jazz musicians in Toronto, one of their first questions to me was, “What are you listening to nowadays?” This was even before they knew anything else about me. It was crucial to be listening all the time to good examples of the sort of music you wanted to play. Those who listened the most, improved the most.
In social arts, this means watching exemplars in movies, TV, DVDs, etc. See my earlier post on Movies. Also important is reading about the lives and inner worlds of your exemplars. In literature, Robert Greene’s Art of Seduction is a good place to start, as he quotes a lot of the relevant literary works.
5. Small Chunking.
Focus on improving one or two things at a time.
Don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to do too much at one time. Like in music, isolate the few bars that are giving you trouble. Practice those over and over and over until you can nail them perfectly five times in a row. Then move on to the next few bars. Eventually, you can piece everything together and then work on the piece as a whole.
This is the same with everything in life. Divide the task into manageable chunks, and tackle them one by one.
In the social arts, even if your list of sticking points is twenty points long, prioritize them, and then work on them systematically in manageable units. Otherwise, you will become overwhelmed and not master anything.
Also, like Will Smith has said, “I have no idea how people can do more than one thing at a time.” That’s from Will Smith, of all people! This means that if you’re spreading your energies too thinly, you won’t end up mastering or even completing any of them. The most effective route is to focus 90%+ of your energies on just one major goal at a time.
I often have at most three projects running at one time. I have one project that is coming to an end, and I just need to see it through its final stages. I have a second project that I am right in the middle of that is my main focus. And I have a third project that is at a conceptual stage, which I have in the back of my mind as my next main focus. That’s about all my brain can handle at one time and still do a high quality job.
6. Surround Yourself with the Best, even if that means your competition.
Surround yourself with the best. Always seek out advice from those ahead of you. Network fearlessly.
This is the importance of a Mastermind group, which also links up to the tip on getting mentors.
Plenty of academic research in psychology and neuroscience has shown that most human beings are basically programmed by all the stimuli around them, especially what we see, hear, and experience others doing. We literally become like the people we surround ourselves with.
Want to know much a person makes a year? Find their five closest friends and average their incomes. That’s the answer.
Want to know how healthy and fit someone is? Find their five closest friends and average their fitness levels.
Want to know what a person’s aspirations are? Find their five closest friends and…
You get the idea. Of course, this isn’t always literally true. Sometimes you need to average their ten or fifteen closest friends, ha.
Sometimes, you find (or are) an outlier. But notice that if you are way beyond your friends in any major area, you are probably going to feel very lonely and “on your own” in that regard. Outliers often become social loners unless they can find a peer group that challenges them. Much more often the case, though, is that the potential outlier gets dragged down to the average of the group.
Seek out and then surround yourself with the best.
7. Make it a Habit.
Schedule it in. Be consistent. Often just showing up is good enough to get the ball rolling.
With habits, it’s always hardest at the beginning, when you’re still establishing the habit. Once you’ve made the practice a habit, the positive momentum generally carries you along to completion.
8. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition.
Drill and rehearse at home and in your mind. Even visualizing practice over and over is far better than nothing and, in cases of vivid visualization, can be as effective as real-life practice.
Practice in an environment or context as similar as possible to the one in which you expect to perform. This means that if you will be writing your exam on a fold out desk-chair in room 815, study for your exam on a fold out desk-chair in room 815. Simulate the conditions as closely as possible.
This also touches on Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule.
9. Get Wide Exposure to Diverse Reference Experiences.
In the social arts, get experience socializing with different types of people. It’s natural for us to get along with those very similar to us, but try winning over people from diverse walks of life with backgrounds very different from yours. Try different venues and contexts.
Travel widely and get broader viewpoints on people and life. These fresh perspectives are often what trigger originality.
10. Focus on the process as much as the goal.
Lose yourself in the moment, in the activity. This is related to achieving Flow. When practicing a passage of music, don’t think about how the whole ten-minute piece will sound, just focus on getting the passage right. When approaching the basket, don’t think about winning the game, just focus on your shot and that particular play. When writing, just focus on the process (what you’re writing right then) without thinking about what the whole thirty-page paper will read like. When socializing, quit wondering whether people like you or not, and instead focus on enjoying yourself and making other people have fun.
Feedback appreciated!
Play on, David
My Appearance on AXN’s The Duke
August 25, 2009
This was from a few months ago, when I was featured in an episode of AXN Asia’s The Duke. The filming took place in the winter. It was all sort of tongue-in-cheek, and we had a lot of good laughs.
The show’s hosts–Rovilson, Marc, and Eunice–were tremendous fun, totally laidback, professional, and down to earth, without any airs. And the after party was off the hook.
Thanks are due to LL for helping me burn the DVD and edit it into this clip. Enjoy!
Required Reading
February 10, 2009
This was originally an article for Amped Asia that they posted on their website almost a month ago. I’ve just been too busy to cross-post it here until now.
The Reading List
Since the explosion of media coverage following the 2005 release of Neil Strauss’s New York Times bestseller, The Game, as well as the VH1 reality show starring pickup artists Mystery and Matador, which has just finished its second season, the secret society of pickup artists has been thoroughly exposed and forced into the mainstream in America.
Yet even with the plethora of resources the secret society produces–ebooks, paperbacks, audio courses, DVD series, television shows–I find it utterly astounding that some adult American males still don’t know how to go about answering such simple questions as, “Should I pay for dinner?” or “Should I be her friend first?”
I guess this is a good thing for those who have already taken advantage of the secret society’s knowledge. Less competition.
But, c’mon! If you haven’t yet given the resources of the attraction community a fair reading, do yourself a favor, and go check them out before you waste your time reinventing the wheel.
Perhaps the sheer amount of information available is too overwhelming. This I understand. Every month, another breakthrough product or 10-DVD series is being released. Who has that much time to go through everything?
Well, this is where one’s skills as a Ph.D. student, having learned to read a hundred books a month for one’s qualifying examinations, will certainly come in handy, LOL. But seriously, it’s amazing how many guys have supposedly read the same pages and paragraphs I have, yet have only garnered a small fraction of the rich knowledge contained therein. The erosion of critical reading and listening skills among the general population is disheartening, especially for a university professor.
I could recommend the excellent and free video resources available on the website of The Social Man, as well as their upcoming The Social Man Method. I could tout the latest Venusian Arts ebook, Revelation, as currently, the most comprehensive general resource on attraction science currently available. I could suggest the Infield Insider monthly subscription DVD series featuring hours of infield video footage and frame-by-frame analysis by Mehow and his guest pickup artist. Those are all outstanding resources among the hundreds out there.
Even though it is the best overall attraction arts e-book on the market at the moment, Revelation tops out at a very dense 322 pages. If a guy didn’t get through his first-year philosophy textbook, he probably won’t get through this one. If he doesn’t already have considerable field experience, he will likely be unable to appreciate the subtleties revealed in the footage in the Infield Insider, even after it’s broken down for him. A lot of it will go over his head. There is a reason most guys just “don’t get it”: They are blind to social dynamics, and until they train their instincts and develop their emotional and social intelligence, they will have a very hard time discerning what’s going on.
So instead of applying the mental discipline to go through such material, our hapless fellow turns to the vapid Doc Love columns of magazines and periodicals or the “pickup-lite” blogs dispensing feel-good dating advice.
Don’t despair. There are resources out there that are suitable for beginners and those who just want to get their feet wet.
A good starting point before turning to any of the more advanced resources is my Dating 101 audio course available on my website. It has a 100% no questions asked two-month refund policy, so you have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain!
If you are an Asian man sick of people telling you that Asian men are unattractive or unsexy or whatever negative stereotype you’ve encountered, then sign up for my mailing list, and be among the first to get access to the upcoming The Power of Being Asian, which will be the best resource for Asian men in harnessing their Asian identity to become powerfully attractive to women of all races and cultures. Instead of seeing your Asian identity and all its associated negative connotations as holding you back, and instead of making race and ethnicity disappear as important factors, you will learn how to make these stereotypes work for you and give you an edge over the majority non-Asian race or ethnicity. You can sign up at the top right corner of my website.
Perhaps it is gauche to recommend one’s own work, so I’ll stop there.
For those who want an even broader, more general introduction to the social arts, then look into the foundational books that formed the inspiration for almost all the advancements in the attraction arts community for the past ten years.
The Top Ten
First Category: Required Reading
1. The first book in this category is Dale Carnegie’s classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People. This was originally published in 1937. Almost every social skills book afterwards is a derivative of some sort. The guys in the seduction community who don’t see the value of this book are usually the really creepy ones with major psychological problems. No, I don’t mean you.
The insights contained in this book are so foundational that if you can’t apply these, you have no business looking into the headier stuff. For instance, Carnegie’s principle, “You Can’t Win an Argument,” was huge for me, an aspiring philosopher. I still to this day have lawyer and engineer clients who start intellectual debates with women and me, even in bars. They don’t realize how important it is to give up their egoistic need to be right or to have everyone know that they are right. It’s far more attractive to be unreactive, internally referenced, and completely confident in your own judgment, even if the majority disagrees with you.
Carnegie’s frequent admonition to “Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise,” is what drives Qualification as an attraction technique. His humorous, “Give a Dog a Good Name,” explains much of the effectiveness of Intention Mapping. Many of his other principles illustrate “Alpha Nice” strategies.
If you want to learn social circle game and entourage game, the teachings in this book are necessary to master. You will need to learn how to befriend not just random hot girls, but more importantly, alpha males, high status people, and well-connected men and women. And if you can’t even apply Carnegie’s principles, you have no business running more advanced game.
A good supplement to Carnegie, which avoids the archaic prose and endless examples, is Leil Lowndes’s How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships. While Lowndes’s tips are fantastic, they are a little parochial and will go out of date and lose their effectiveness if they haven’t already. That’s what separates classics that stand the test of time like Carnegie’s.
Another very good book that I recently discovered is David Lieberman’s Get Anyone To Do Anything. Only the first section of the book is specifically about romantic relationships, but just about all of Lieberman’s strategies can be applied to male-female interactions.
2. This is probably a big surprise to newbies, but it’s no secret to the insider circle that Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich is a favorite among the top social artists and inspired a lot of its breakthroughs in inner game. Like Carnegie’s, this is another 1937 classic that has stood the test of time. His chapters on sex transmutation and auto-suggestion are must-reads for any man aspiring to mastery in a specialized field. My own program of affirmations and visualizations were first inspired by Hill’s recommendations. I still get a lot of inquiries about what I do for affirmations and visualizations. Do yourself a favor. Get this little book. Read it several times, a chapter a day until the lessons really sink in. Oh yeah, and you might get rich too!
3. For all the attention that Strauss’s The Game has brought to the community, his first book on the secret society is best taken as an entertaining read, NOT as a manual or blueprint for getting better with girls.
His more recent Rules of the Game, however, is a good how-to guide and presents a well-balanced perspective on attraction, with a proper amount of attention paid to lifestyle and identity. Out of all the attraction manuals you would find in your local bookstore, this is by far your best bet.
And it’s a good introduction to the most popular style of social arts and perhaps the method best suited to absolute beginners: Indirect game using scripted routines.
4. The most thorough step-by-step guide to the seductive arts is still Robert Greene’s The Art of Seduction. Perhaps it’s biggest fault is that it is too thorough. Most lair guys don’t have the patience, motivation, or critical reading facility to get through the whole thing.
Greene draws on a lot of historical case studies, which I consider a real strength. If there is anything to the insights of the attraction community, then they should be found among the writings of exemplars in times past.
His character portraits are the most valuable part of the book. The true masters have thought long and hard about the different styles of social artistry, and many of them track the character types Greene lays out. It’s helped guide my own decisions about which attraction community teachings to adopt and which to lay aside.
His detailed description of the seductive process is skewed to indirect methods, but he also takes into account the strengths of the direct approach. The process he lays out is a meticulous breakdown of the steps in a typical seduction.
As with all the books in this must-read section, this book should be slowly absorbed and frequently re-read. A chapter or two a day is ideal.
5. This fifth book is my new Bible. I’ve been reading at least a chapter a day for over a year. Well, okay, I’ve lapsed recently, but I’m getting back to it. I credit this book for the most profound changes in my mindset toward my career, relationships, and my life as a whole. It’s given me the courage to make the hardest decisions I’ve ever faced.
David Deida’s The Way of the Superior Man is one of those books that will probably go over the heads of most guys starting out. But once you get to an intermediate level, this must-read will become the single most important book you could own. It holds the keys to real mastery. Incidentally, understanding of the teachings in this book can also be used to gauge a man’s current level of development.
Second Category: Highly Recommended
1. As a scientific account of what’s behind social dynamics and why some people are more attuned to social dynamics, this is likely the most accessible book available. Daniel Goleman’s Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships shows how advances in neuroscience, psychology, and various other fields have already unearthed a lot of the reasons for why community material actually works. Unlike the community ebooks, Goleman does not depend on facile appeals to evolutionary accounts. He doesn’t have to. Goleman’s classic Emotional Intelligence is also quite good, though not as directly applicable to social dynamics as his more recent work.
2. Cited repeatedly in Mystery’s Venusian Arts Handbook back in 2004, Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion has spawned a whole industry. This has become a classic in the attraction community. Cialdini is currently a Distinguished Graduate Research Professor at Arizona State University.
The six principles he elucidates in his book are all major concepts in the social arts: Reciprocation, Commitment and Consistency, Social Proof, Liking, Authority, and Scarcity. His book not only helped advance thinking in social dynamics, it also changed the way I saw myself, my relationships, my career, and my research in such fields as philosophy and religious studies.
In the realm of social psychology, neuroscience, and especially behavioral economics, there has been a veritable explosion of paradigm-changing research published over the last several years. Very accessible introductions to this work can be found in the work of Dan Ariely, the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University, cross-appointed to the Business School, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Economics, and School of Medicine. See his fascinating Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality.
3. Like Cialdini, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced like “chick sent me high”) is another renowned professor who has turned his research into an entire industry. His Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience explains what is behind the whole “being in state” teaching. I read about his work in a philosophy class before encountering it in some of David DeAngelo’s DVD products.
This will help you understand why “being in state” is so powerful and the prime driver behind natural game, which has recently become such a contested term in the community, with Real Social Dynamics, PUA Training, Charisma Arts, and just about everyone else trying to lay claim to it, bereaving it of any significant meaning. Most have lost sight of the fact that Vin DiCarlo and Sebastian Drake were the first to come out with “natural game.” Csikszentmihalyi does a better job of explaining “being in state” than does neuro-linguistic programming.
But more importantly, Flow will explain how the experts achieve flow on a consistent basis, as well as the personality types of those most prone to flow experiences. He also draws on literature and data from a wide variety of cultures, periods, and societies, including Daoist and Buddhist teachings.
Interestingly, his son is a well-established scholar of early Chinese philosophy.
If you can maximize your flow experiences, you will be a happier, more successful, and more fulfilled human being. What better reason do you need to pick this up? On the subject of happiness and what it takes to get it, the relatively new field of positive psychology pioneered by professors at Penn, Harvard, and elsewhere, has a lot of great things to say, and the best introduction to this field is Jonathan Haidt’s The Happiness Hypothesis
4. This list would be incomplete without some mention of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). The best general introduction I’ve found is Introducing NLP: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People by Joseph O’Connor and John Seymour. The writing can be dry and pedantic in places, but the knowledge is invaluable. If you’re interested in NLP, save up a couple thousand dollars and take a course in it.
I prefer the more accessible NLP of Anthony Robbins. His Ultimate Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement helped take my inner game to the next level. You might also want to check out his Awaken the Giant Within, which covers the same material but in a different format.
5. And finally, I would be remiss if I left out some literature on evolutionary accounts of sex and relationships. Most attraction community ebooks appeal to this exclusively for their academic understanding of social dynamics. I find this one-sidedness disappointing. As bemoaned by many academics, evolutionary accounts are too ad hoc. You can pretty much come up with an evolutionary explanation for almost any perspective on social phenomena. Despite this, it is good to know the research. The best book on this subject is The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley. Robin Baker’s Sperm Wars: Infidelity, Sexual Conflict and Other Bedroom Battles is also quite good. For treatments that are more academic, see David Buss’s The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating, as well as the classic The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. Both are rigorous academically but also quite readable.
So there you have it. The Top Ten books that will change your life. I recommend you go through them in the order I’ve laid out. The first five deserve slow and steady study, as well as repeated readings.
Play on, The Asian Rake.
Singapore Pick Up Weirdos
October 6, 2008
So the new column is out. The link should be working for about a week.
Once that’s expired, you’ll have to read the text below. I would’ve gone into more detail, especially on the workplace romance topic, but I had a word limit to adhere to.
[UPDATE: The latest column got added to another news aggregator.]
HOW can you protect yourself from players?
My younger sister, who is living in New York, asked me recently about the social scene in Singapore. We got to talking about the guys I’ve been meeting in the clubs and bars and what I’ve heard my female friends say about them.
I’ll let you in on a little secret - Singapore has a lot of players.
Most of them have atrocious ‘game’ but are nonetheless doing very well with the ladies.
A surprising number of young Singaporean women don’t seem to realise they’re being played until it’s too late.
To educate and inoculate young people from such malevolent advances, I shall apprise you of one prominent aspect of their ‘game’: The Booty Call Text.
Here’s the general rule.
If a man sends you a late night text that reads something like, ‘Hey, whatcha up to?’ or ‘Hey, where are you?’ or ‘What are you doing now?’ or ‘Wanna meet up?’ or ‘Let’s meet’, then this constitutes a booty call text. He’s texting you to get your ‘booty’.
This is a transparent ploy to get into your pants with minimal effort or time.
If you do not want to sleep with this person, then do NOT respond.
This is not an innocent question asked over text message at one in the morning.
Any kind of response at all will only encourage the player. Especially if you respond politely or flirtatiously, you will only get more such texts later in the week, if not later that very night.
If you are an attractive female, you should become accustomed to receiving and promptly ignoring inappropriate texts like these.The Booty Call Text. Beware.
Learn more about relationship expert Dr Date at his website: www.powerofbeingasian.com
DEAR DR DATE,
I met this girl at my work place and got attracted to her. We have never spoken to each other before.
Because we are in different departments, there is little chance for us to communicate.
What can I do?
- Desmond
Dear Desmond,
Ah, workplace romances. There’s an old saying, ‘Don’t piss in the pool.’
Stop and think. There’s the potential of lawsuits, termination of employment, and a black mark on your resume. Whenever romantic feelings are involved, things tend to get messy.
I know, though, that no matter how much I try to deter you, you’re going to try it anyway. So here’s how to do it.
Be the guy who is friendly and talkative with everyone, who organises and invites people for social gatherings, group lunches, happy hour drinks.
Then, include this girl in your invitations. The next time you see her, say to her casually, ‘Hey, I’ve noticed you around here. But we’ve never met. My name is Desmond.’
And then mention that you’re getting some people together for lunch and that she should come along. Mention the friends you’re lunching with, how interesting they are, and how they would like her. Rave about the delicious food at the restaurant you’ve picked.
Soon, other people will be inviting this girl to YOUR outings: ‘Hey, we’re going with Desmond for happy hour drinks. You should come along.’
She will see you as the leader and the cool guy.
Notice that your reason for getting her number or chat address is to send her invitations to future outings.
Get her in group social settings, and then relax and have a good time. Be positive and fun.
You can give her a little more attention and time, but don’t invest too much in her yet. After all, she’s just another pretty face so far. Get to know her better first. Give her the chance to win you over.
If you truly are the social man, she’ll make an effort to get to know you better. She’ll stay behind after everyone else leaves. Then, you can go together to another lounge or eatery to continue getting acquainted.
Singapore Pick Up Weirdo and Lairs…
September 14, 2008
I guess when you stand up, you’ll get noticed, and others will try to chop you down.
For those who don’t know, there are online forums of random guys who share tips and thoughts on getting better with women.
These forums are called “lairs.” There are at least three lairs in Singapore alone. These lairs organize meetings for these guys to meet other aspiring “pickup artists.”
My experience with lairs in several different countries has been largely disappointing. Over 90% of the lair members are downright creepy and have major psychological issues. Pickup weirdos.
This past weekend, I got sucker-punched by a new pickup weirdo who introduced himself to me outside a club. He was with a big gang of lair guys, a few of whom I know and count as friends.
When a friend introduces me to another guy, I’ll treat the guy like a friend. I’m friendly. I let my guard down. I let you into my circle. I’ll even introduce you to my girls.
The last thing you should do is to try to AMOG me (trying to assert your alpha-ness and social authority) in front of one of my girls.
Even while it’s happening, I give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this is just the way you are. Maybe you’re new to the scene. Maybe you don’t know that you’re stepping on toes. Maybe you’re incredibly insecure and need to pee on the tree to feel like a man. So I throw you a bone.
But no. The air of superiority, and the naked assertion of ego is unmistakeable.
So you win the little AMOG battle. You pump up my girl’s buying temperature. She gets giddy, subconsciously feeling that two men are fighting over her. I learned something very important about this girl.
But more significantly, that pickup weirdo just lost a potential friend… for now, anyway.
Choose your battles wisely. Especially when there isn’t even a war.
Peace and love, The Asian Rake.
Is it Easier or Tougher for Foreign Guys in Asia?
April 10, 2008
This is going to be a fun and possibly controversial post.
But before we get to that, I’ve got two quick plugs to make. Remember to check out The Truth About College Game, which is a must-read for any guy still in college.
Also, check out this great blog that regularly explores and invites different perspectives on controversial topics and offers a balanced perspective of their own.
Now, let’s get to it.
Ask the Rake Mailbag time!
I’ve gotten many emails that ask me whether the rumors are really true about how easy Asian girls in Asia are. Here’s one from Max.
“…My friend went to China and said it was SOOO easy approaching there in the club. He said the girls had already chosen him and were attracted to him immediately upon seeing him. All he had to do was say hi and the girls were all over him. I also read somewhere on the internet, ‘Chinese girls are easy.’ So when I moved to China, I was really pumped.
“But I have been here for months, and I can say that they are not easy at all. Back in the UK, I dated lots of girls, and was able to have sex with them after one or two dates. Here in China, getting phone numbers is easy. But I cannot hardly get them to meet up. Or when we do go out on dates, all they want to do is sit and practice English. I haven’t even had one kiss-close after twenty dates with ten different women. Maybe I’ve been approaching the wrong women. I need your advice…”
I also just read a very similar post on the China lair.
Well, Max and all you other foreign guys in Asia wondering why it’s so much harder than you thought, here’s my take on this.
Let’s get the necessary preamble out of the way first.
For those of you aren’t up on the lingo yet, ABC (American-Born Chinese) means an American citizen of Chinese descent who grew up in America. CBC means a Canadian citizen of Chinese descent who grew up in Canada. You can guess what BBC means. I’m not a CBC, but I am a CRC (Canadian-Raised Chinese).
FOB (Fresh Off the Boat) refers to someone who just recently arrived in the host country and who has not adjusted or is still adjusting to the culture and language of the new country. Ironically, the vasty majority of Westerners in China are still FOBs, though most Westerners give me a puzzled expression when I call them FOBs, just as the old Chinese FOBs get offended when I refer to them as “waiguoren” (foreigners) while they’re in Canada. Ha! All good, geeky fun 
In this post, I talk mainly about what it’s like for foreign guys in China, though I’m confident in claiming that much of what I say also applies to Taiwan and Hong Kong and to a lesser extent in Singapore. Also, while my recent experiences have been mainly with women in China, I have had extensive experience with Korean girls and some experience with Japanese women. My ex-wife was Korean-Canadian from a very conservative Korean family. Four of my long-term relationships have been with Korean girls, from international student FOBs to the most Americanized of Korean-Americans. I’ve also had a few short-term flings with other Koreans. And armed with years of (otherwise unused) formal training in Japanese studies and language, I’ve had a handful of Japanese FOBs, though I’ve never had a long-term relationship with one. This being said, while some of what I say here applies also to Korean and Japanese women, my post is meant to speak first and foremost to the situation in China, which is unique among the East Asian countries in its socio-economic-political environment.
For ease of discussion, “foreigners” here means primarily citizens from developed Western countries, including but not limited to the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and Western Europe. I divide “foreigners” into “white” and “Asian.” “White” means, well, Caucasian, for lack of a better term. I trust everyone knows what I mean. “Asian” here stands for East Asia and most of Singapore (a clarification that is too rarely made). I use “Asian foreigner” to mean someone who is or looks East Asian and is a citizen of a Western country, including the above-mentioned Western countries. I do not claim to speak for citizens of other East Asian countries, though to a lesser extent, simply being from a developed country, such as Korea, Japan, or Singapore, brings similar advantages.
If you are a foreigner in China, you have the following advantages when trying to meet women:
1. You are exotic. You have been to places and have lived lifestyles that most Chinese only see in movies. You also bring fresh perspectives and ways of thinking and reasoning. This could also work against you, but generally speaking, it is your greatest strength. While it is relatively easy now for a Chinese citizen to obtain a tourist visa to visit most foreign countries, most Chinese have to save up a long time to be able to afford a trip to a Western country. East Asia and Southeast Asia are much easier to reach, so if you’re from one of those countries, your “exotic” factor is lower.
2. You are of above-average economic means, implying that you can introduce them to a lifestyle that is outside their means. The GDP of developed countries is much higher than that of China. The Chinese know this. Automatically, they assume you’re used to a higher standard of living. It also costs a lot to travel here. You could undercut their positive presumption by using the word “student” (even if you preface “student” with Ph.D., it still takes extra effort to explain that not all students are poor) to describe yourself, as in “international student,” “exchange student,” “student studying Chinese.” If you’re a student, or an English teacher (to a lesser extent, the stigma applies to “teachers” too), I suggest you find another way to answer the “What are you doing in China?” question. Don’t lie. Just tell them some other facet of your personality or interests, e.g., “I’m a snowboarder from Canada and am checking out the snowboarding scene in Beijing… Oh yeah, I live near Beijing University and take some courses during the day.”
3. You are traveled. Simply by virtue of the fact that you’ve traveled a long way from home to come to China implies that you travel. Moreover, the presumption will be that you travel often. Even if this is your first-ever trip out of your home country, people will assume that you travel often.
4. You are adventurous. Most Chinese consider a trip to a Western country halfway across the world (Australia, though closer, is often put in this category) as a big adventure. The fact that you’ve come to a country on the other side of the planet whose culture is about as different from your own as it can get implies that you are adventurous. Again, this is a positive presumption.
5. You are open-minded and socially liberal. This can also work against you, as I will explain later. But in general, this helps with getting women fast for guilt-free hook ups. Since most Chinese form their first, and sometimes only, opinions about Western culture from Hollywood and MTV, they assume that all Westerners, including Western women, have lots of casual sex with anyone they feel like. For better or worse, they assume you and your friends regularly have one-night stands and even fuck-buddies.
This results in the extremes of social behavior you see in China. At the extreme are the girls who worship all things Western and want to become what they perceive as Western, including adopting a liberal “Hollywood and MTV” attitude to sex, and they pretty much fuck a new guy every week, partly just because they think that’s what Westerners do. My advice: Stay away from these chicks! They’re psycho! Think “MTV’s The Real World,” which strangely enough, they get on TV here in China. Imagine a girl who thinks “The Real World” depicts the normal life of a 20-something Westerner! This can really work against you when a girl is looking for an LTR or a husband, but it’s a positive presumption when you’re gaming for quick lays. As everyone in the community knows, it’s much easier to go from lover to provider than the other way around, so I consider this a definite advantage.
Beyond these five, there are two prominent and pernicious assumptions of value that I’ve heard floating about and that are both false:
i. Westerners have desirable passports. This sentence in itself is true, just as the following is true: Canadians have a superior passport, travel-wise, than Americans Had to get that in there, haha. But gone are the days when you could get a really beautiful Chinese woman in a major city by tempting her with marriage and a green card. The passport-tempting trick can work in the smaller cities and towns, but not with the most beautiful women in Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou. Many of the Chinese women I’ve had in Beijing make more than US$50,000 a year. A few of them were US$ millionaires or married to one.
Considering the lifestyle US$50K could get you in Beijing versus in LA or NYC, why on earth would a Chinese person want to move to a foreign country where the cost of living is far more expensive, the food tastes awful (most Chinese think Westerners eat pizza, KFC, burgers, or steak every day), the crime rates are astronomically higher (okay, this only applies to the US, haha), the culture is completely different, the language is foreign, and you are as far away from family and friends as you can get? Yes, times are different now. China changes fast.
Moreover, the most beautiful women in the big cities have a myriad of options for advancing up the socio-economic ladder, including getting a rich Chinese boyfriend or orbiter, so that they do not need to marry a Westerner just to improve their standard of living. There are plenty of young, rich Chinese guys who are more than willing to finance their lifestyles. The biggest clubs in Beijing and Shanghai are full of them. They book 99% of the tables in the big clubs like Babyface. These guys (and the rare Europeans who have game) are my stiffest competition here. This is another topic entirely.
ii. White guys have bigger penises. I’ve read studies that say there is a 0.1-0.2 inch variation in the average erect penis sizes of white, black, Latino, and Asian men. The variation is much higher between individuals regardless of race than between whole races. Its hardly worth bragging about. Among the small minority of Western-worshiping girls, this myth is certainly an advantage. Just as with any niche value, like girls who go absolutely crazy over goth guys who wear spiked boots and have lip-piercings, there will be some small subset of girls who will do anything for a white dick. But the curiosity of most Chinese girls is more than satiated by simply seeing a white penis on a porno website. In fact, this misconception can really work against you as many Chinese girls, especially the ones in the adult industry here, don’t want a guy who is too long because they think it will hurt (in a bad way). In any case, this myth is mainly perpetrated by white men and is almost entirely absent from Chinese popular culture. Obviously, this only applies to white foreigners.
Despite i. and ii., foreigners still have 1.-5. working for them. They are assumed to be exotic, above-average earners, well traveled, adventurous, and open-minded.
On this alone, foreigners can attract with relative ease the average Chinese girl in a big city. The average girl is, by definition, an HB5. I mean by “relative” in comparison to their ease in attracting an HB5 in their home country. For examples of what I mean by an HB5 or less, I use my second favorite medium on the blog, photos, which I’ve taken from Stylites, a cool fashion blog by a Westerner in Beijing. Here are examples of fashionably dressed HB5s or less (keeping in mind that their fashionable dress may bump them up a rating or two for some guys and keeping in mind that the rating is based purely on first impressions formed on the basis of their physical appearances):
However, the five advantages will generally not be enough to get high-status girls in China, such as rich girls and models. Why?
1. The high-status girls will generally have plenty of Chinese-speaking Western friends and acquaintances. As one girl put it to me, “Foreigners are everywhere now. Being foreign is not so special in Beijing.” You are not all that exotic to them.
2. The high-status girls usually make as much or more than you do, or they have orbiters or boyfriends who do. That’s part of being high-status. Almost half of the past 20 girls I’ve had in China have made over US$30K and some of them were millionaires. Some of them owned Benzes. Many of them had guy friends or orbiters who made six to seven figure US$ salaries. Since you probably cannot introduce them to a lifestyle outside their own means or reach, your simply being an above-average earner will not attract them.
3. Many of these girls have traveled extensively for work and even for leisure. I dated a 24 year old executive of a French company who spoke passable English and French and who flew to Europe once a month for work. She also spent a month each year backpacking through Europe. Her social circle was full of French people. I met her in a jazz club while she was with four French guys. She had also vacationed in Thailand and Australia. She was certainly as well-traveled as I, or even more so.
4. Some of these girls have sky-dived, scuba-dived, bungee-jumped, backpacked through some of the highest mountain ranges in the world, and have the photos to prove it. Or, more commonly, they have Chinese or Western guy friends who have done so and who are constantly inviting them along (and offering to foot the bill) to join in these adventurous activities. So it’s going to be a lot harder to stand out as Mr. Adventurous Guy in their social circles.
5. The high-status social circles in China are often more liberal (”kaifang”) than the average Western party people. Think the wildest frat and sorority scenes. It is common for guys in this scene to be sleeping around, partying four nights a week, and doing blow. The girls in these circles are inured to this whole thing. So being a guy who is open-minded, while still a good trait overall, will not help you stand out very much in these circles.
So the five advantages of the foreign male in China are neutralized when it comes to the most desirable women. I have in mind girls that look like the girls in my sidebar. Or, you can look at the following. These girls are at least 8s to me, based solely on looks. These are all Chinese girls who are either living or have lived in China:
If neither the girls in my sidebar nor these three girls do it for you, I’m happy to say we have a distinct difference in taste, and what I say in the rest of this post probably doesn’t apply to you.
To get a high-status girl (note: high-status is not necessarily the same thing as high-value or high-quality) in China, you’ve got to bring more to the table. This is where being a high-quality guy and having “game” makes a big difference.
The problem is, when playing at the higher levels, foreign guys also have to overcome the following negative biases.
A. Your Western culture is too liberal, too foreign. The Chinese are fiercely proud of their three thousand year-old culture, as many an old Chinese man will remind you. This is where advantages #1 and #5 can work against you. You want to seem exotic, but not too exotic. You want to seem open-minded, but not too open-minded. To do this, you should show some knowledge and a keen interest in Chinese culture. This is related to the next point.
B. You Westerners are unadjusted to Chinese culture. This can be a major problem. Basically, you are still stuck in culture shock. You should want to try new Chinese foods, experience new aspects of Chinese culture, visit new places in China. This will go a long way to alleviating any suspicions about your excessive foreignness. A highly desirable Chinese woman would rather get the socio-economic benefits from a rich, young, hot Chinese guy rather than have to deal with “the foreigner.”
C. You Westerners have a superiority complex. This is a major sticking point because on the one hand, you do have distinct advantages. You’re traveled, above-average economically, and probably more educated. On the other hand, you can’t let them think that you think of yourself as superior because of these points.
Moreover, I’ve seen too many Westerners openly complain about China all the time to the Chinese people, including to their Chinese dates. Granted, there are plenty of things to complain about—the pollution, the traffic, the spitting, poor service in the average restaurant, the high degree of graft and bureaucratic red tape. But don’t you think the hot Chinese girl you’re talking to hates the same things about her own country? You don’t need to vent in front of her.
You also don’t need to rub it in her face that you find things here so cheap. “OMG, this is only five US dollars! Quit bargaining with the vendor!” This is actually a major Verbalization of Lower Value (VLV). She is well aware of the higher cost of living in the West; you don’t need to remind her. Besides, if you frequent the higher social echelons where the hottest girls are, you’ll quickly realize why Beijing and Shanghai are rated among the twenty most expensive places to live in the world and are close to New York City in cost of living for expats.
D. White men are excessively hairy. Little to moderate body hair is good. It’s better than no body hair at all, as is the case with a small minority of Chinese men. But thick mounds of hair on the back tend to freak out most Chinese women. Wax that shit off.
E. White men have noxious body odor and sweat profusely. This is probably related to D. I get asked all the time how I can possibly breathe in the locker rooms back in America. I find this one pretty funny, especially since it’s usually the locals whose garlic-infused body odors make me almost faint on the buses and subways.
F. And obviously, the biggest impediment of all: If you cannot speak Chinese or any language that she speaks, then you will have an extremely difficult time getting anywhere with her, especially if she is high-status. Many of the hottest Chinese girls speak little or no English. This is because they don’t have to. They have everything handed to them on a silver platter. On the rare occasion, you may get lucky with just that kind of girl who is in just the right mood and at just that time in her life when she is looking to have anonymous sex with someone she knows nothing about, and you are very good at pumping buying temperature through sexy dancing and the like. I have seen this work effectively on the average Chinese cutie, especially the type who has had few foreign friends. But with the hottest Chinese girls, this is a little like playing the lottery. Someone’s going to win, but it’s probably not you
Foreigners of Chinese (and East Asian) descent, especially ABCs and CBCs, obviously do not have to deal with D or E and depending on how acculturated they are to Chinese culture, A-C and F may also not be an issue. This is mainly why ABCs and CBCs can have the best of both worlds in China.
Overall, I think that advantages #1-5 outweigh disadvantages A-E, though not F, so that in the final balance, foreigners who have their shit together and know some Chinese have a little edge over their local counterparts, especially in getting the average Chinese girl. Still, getting the most desirable women in China is just as tough as back home. So get your life together and hone those social skills. Oh yeah, and learn Chinese ☺
Now onto a rockin’ weekend!
Happy playin’, The Asian Rake.
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