Discussion of Natural Advantages

For those of you who missed it, an interesting debate about height came up in the comments to my post about My Personal PUA Journey.

It began with an Anonymous comment from a guy claiming that any guy who is tall and doesn’t have any major emotional issues is destined to become very good. He gave some anecdotal evidence.

What I want to do is present the discussion and then post some awesome points readers have sent to me about the subject, and then wrap it up with my final comments on the subject.

Anonymous:

However, I have to say this, I cannot see how a tall and decent looking guy without any serious mental hangups or possible addictions could not become a successful PUA quickly with diligent work. Lets be honest here. Your natural tools give you a quantum leap over a shorter guy who is not as attractive in the eyes of women. Women look at height as a top attractive attribute.

I then responded:

I agree with you to an extent. My natural advantages will always make things easier for me as opposed to a guy like say, Doc, who is 5′5″.

…

You raise good points, but I think you over-estimate the height-advantage. I’ll tell you this, the two best guys I’ve ever seen in field (both naturals) were 5′7″ and 5′10″ — average height. Both those guys are better than I am.


Anonymous responded:

So I still stand by my words. Height is very important. If you are a taller guy without any major hangups or weights around your neck, then you can do really well. The percentages are really in your favor as opposed to a shorter guy and try to refute that – one cannot sweep that under the rug.

The rest of the comment basically says that from an evolutionary standpoint, a taller guy is always going to signify higher reproductive value, and therefore will always appear to have more vale and be considered attractive. He also cites anecdotal evidence of women in clubs not liking him because of his height and the fact that people like me, BradP, and Savoy are all very tall guys.

Next, a reader named Eric commented. I recommend that ANY guy with limiting beliefs about their height read this comment in it’s entirety. I’ll only post part of it here.

Eric:
I am a shorter guy as well. I’m 5′6″ infact. At this point I have only been with 10 women. I have had 3 girlfriends. Every single girl I have been with has been my height or taller. As tall as 6′ in some cases. What is it about me that allows that to happen?


I think this all comes down to your core beliefs. Do you think you deserve these tall girls? Are you intimidated by their height? I never act like height is a big deal – until I have their ankles above my shoulders

I understand where you are coming from, but you gotta play the hand you’ve been dealt. No excuses. You talk of Entropys natural advantages. What are your natural advantages?

Did you know that since you are a shorter dude you can pretty much maul women with kino and she will accept it much more easily than a big tall dude like entropy. You can actually escalate easier. If I see a hot girl on the street sometimes I run down the street after her, approach from behind while grabbing her on the outside of her arm and spinning her around to stop her completely. Because of my size I can approach very aggressively and wont scare girls off while projecting confidence. Hows that for an advantage?

A student of mine then sent me this email:

I was reading the “Anonymous” comment on your journey post, from the short guy who thinks tall guys/puas have an edge over shorter ones.

My first reaction is that this is a limiting belief manifesting itself in this kind of comparison to other guys and justifying their results that way.

On the other hand, there’s a definite edge to being taller and good looking and when you look at the more successful people in the community they are usually the better looking guys …

In fact, I’ve had this same limiting belief (about my weight, to be precise) manifest itself this way in comparisons to other people’s results … gradually over time as I’ve begun to consider myself better looking this has become less of an issue, but it still doesn’t get all the way to “looks don’t matter too much.”

So where does the truth lie? And more importantly, how does one properly channel or resolve this mental debate into the context of one’s own life and development? Obviously it’s pointless to worry about other people, but at the same time it’s hard not to because there’s no real definitive answer and so one’s mind can keep churning on it.


First, I attempted to cover this subject in my post a few weeks ago: Personalizing Pickup: Natural Advantages/Disadvantages. But obviously, I didn’t go into enough detail.

My readers all brought up excellent points, and I’m going to take them one by one here.

1. First of all. YES! HEIGHT IS AN ADVANTAGE! BEING GOOD LOOKING IS AN ADVANTAGE! I don’t know how many times I have to say this. For some reason, I always get lumped in everyone else’s retarded marketing in this industry that tells you a 5′1″, 400 pound man fucks strippers regularly. No. As far as I know, with the exception of Sinn, I’m the only one who repeatedly admits that height, looks and money are advantages.

BUT! And this is a huge BUT! They don’t DETERMINE your results. Like I said in my first response. The best guy I’ve ever seen in field — and I mean this guy would WIPE THE FLOOR with any PUA coach I’ve ever met — was 5′7″, in his 30’s and not good looking. Captain Jack is regularly described as “fat and old” and is regarded by Sinn as the best PUA there’s ever been when he was in his prime.

So yes, in short, being tall, handsome, etc. WILL make things easier, but they don’t limit your potential. For instance, don’t look at natural advantages as your top speed, but more of how fast you accelerate. My natural friend regularly gets better results than I do, but I have the advantage in every set I open. So if you’re short, you have to work harder. Get used to it.

2. Eric is 100% right about his point on kino. Long-time readers will remember that I used to coach with a guy named Saffron last year. Saffron was 5′4″ and Asian, and he regularly kept up with me when we went out together. In fact, some nights he did better than I did. How? By doing exactly what Eric is talking about.

Saffron’s favorite opener was to grab a girl’s arm, look her in the eye and say, “You’re sexy as fuck, come with me.” Girls usually would. The two times I tried to do it, both girls looked at me like I was about to rape them and were horrified. Why? Because I was a 6′2″, 200 pound white guy — just like every other meathead in the club who tries to rape and molest these girls every weekend. I got blown out HARD.

More sets would blow wide open for Saffron because he came off so non-threatening. But at the same time, he would get AMOG’d more. This is the point I tried to make in the “Personalizing Pickup” post, is that your game is ALTERED by your physical appearance rather than DETERMINED by it.

So yes, Anonymous, if you’re running game that BradP runs (he’s 6′5″ and looks like a rock star), then you’re going to be at a HUGE disadvantage. But if you run game that guys like Doc and Saffron run (5′5″ and 5′4″ respectively), you’ll cater to YOUR own advantages.

3. Finally, in response to my student’s email. There seems to be a bit of a paradox here. These ARE limiting beliefs, but at the same time, there’s TRUTH to them. How do we reconcile this?

I’ll be answering this question tomorrow… and I think it’s an answer that hasn’t really been talked about before.