Do I really need to compete?

[Ben Macdui]

Hi, I'm 28, living in London and have been working for a while, and have a number of friends from my old student days and former jobs.

 

I would like to think that I have quite an interesting life, and have a good range of activities such as playing a bit of music, climbing and hillwalking in Scotland, and a bit of travelling around Britain and Europe.

 

However, many of my friends from university and former jobs are very successful (often in things like financial services, IT, banking etc.) and like to recall their activities in places like the Far East, Dubai, India, the United States etc. , South Africa etc. and it puts my climbing in Scotland and Wales to a mere irrelevance.

 

I can't afford (either in time or money) to compete with them on these things. Also, when I'm with them, I'm embarrassed to speak to women as I feel that I can't possibly compete for attention against the world-wide backpacking/travelling stories of my friends (one of whom spends much time studying pick-up-artist/seduction community material and does everything to "Demonstrate Higher Value" in front of women). Sometimes I end up leaving early because I'm sick of hearing it. Braggards they may be, but the fact remains that I am single for long periods of time and they are not (some with multiple women on the go). It reminds me of George Bernard Shaw's famous quote that "women would much rather share a successful man than exclusively be with a poor man".

 

It is starting to make me really angry, and I don't see how to get round it. I don't have loads of friends in London and can't just chop and change friends all the time.

[Suiyobi]

Dude, I completely understand you. Afraid that I might be seen as boring, I've been trying up on various things as well. But in the end, I've realized that you have to do these activities because you enjoy them and because you want to, not because you are in need of impressing girls. What you really want to do is recount all the experiences you've had and try to elaborate and bring out the excitement from those experiences when talking to the ladies. And it also helps if you don't tell them everything all at once that way they'll see you as a mysterious person and would eventually like to know more about you. As for the whole pick-up/seduction thing, the only things that I found really important there are self-improvement and learning how to interact with women, but in the end you still have to be yourself. Nothing worse than a guy trying too hard...

[JohnnyBlaze]

I don't think the main thing is the specifics of where you've been or what you've done, it's that you do something. From what I've found, women like a man with drive. It's all about the fact that you want to do something in life, that you're not going to be content sitting on your butt for the rest of your life, drinking beer and watching reruns of Superbowl XXIX.