Pick Up Frames: What's your mindset?

An interesting post on what mindsets we have when we go out and sarge..

Pick Up Frames

Contributed by setarcos
Saturday, 27 August 2005
Written by Cramias
Monday, 31 January 2005

I gave a long presentation on the concept of frames and how they affect you as you progress up the learning curve at the last Tucson lair meeting. I got a few PMs that this was a useful thing for people, so I am posting a general outline of what I talked about. I don't have a great deal of time so this is not very well organized. If parts of this post are confusing, just point them out and I will attempt to clarify. I'd also be interested in hearing anyone's thoughts or feedback about this stuff, even if it is on the negative side.

Background-Around April of this year, I hit a "wall" of sorts and stopped going out entirely for 3-4 weeks. Prior to this, I was out in the field frequently, and was breaking through barriers that had kept me stuck for years. So this was an extremely frustrating obstacle to run into. One day I took the time to analyze why I had stopped, and break down in my journal what the difference was between the times I was rocking with the PUA material, and the times when I was experiencing a lot of frustration and deadends. What emerged from this was a delineation of different seduction frames. Since I started thinking along these lines, I have found it much easier to keep myself motivated, and spring back quickly from setbacks. I have made an absolutely unbelievable amount of progress in the last 3 months, and I attribute it partially to my understanding of frames.

Framing is not a new concept, of course. However, most of what has been written about frames with regards to seduction revolves around the frames you set with the girl you are interacting with. What I am referring to in this specific post is the frame you set between you and the science of seduction. The attitude and approach you take towards learning the Venusian Arts. It makes things massively easier and FASTER if you take a useful frame towards seduction, and more importantly, avoid "trap frames." What I've found is that when I've had an off night, I can almost always boil it down into having fallen into one of the trap frames. Even more usefully, when I am having an off night, I can sometimes take a few minutes to figure out which unuseful frame I've fallen into, and often reset from the trap frame to the right frame in the field. It is a very helpful tool in my experience.

So following are the notes that I used to make my presentation to the lair. I don't claim to be any sort of expert, this is just stuff that I've noticed within my own field experience, and that I find useful in dealing with my own inner game issues. The trap frames come first, followed at the end by what I believe to be the most useful frame.RESULTS FRAME
"I'm going to go out and get 5 numbers/make out with a girl/get laid tonight."

Leads to skipping skill building steps (ie, so focused on getting a kiss that you fail to lay proper groundwork that will actually lead to a kiss, and instead creep a girl out by phaseshifting too soon)
Leads to inflexibility (what happens if you go out with a goal of getting phone numbers, and meet a girl who wants a fuck that night?)
Count yourself out of opportunities for practice, that might even lead to something worthwhile (ie "she's a bitch" "she's too ugly" "she's with that guy, its her BF")
If you have a basic, low-percentage skillset, say PUing girls from the dancefloor, you may fall into the trap of just reusing it over and over (because it does get SOME results, and you are focused on results), instead of taking the time to develop a more complex and ultimately more complete skillset
Can be extremely frustrating and demoralizing if you are setting goals that are unrealistic given your current skills


FUN FRAME
"I'm going to go out and have fun, and maybe something will happen" -Very common AFC frame for going to bars, because it is socially acceptable and requires no thought

Noniniative, require the girls or circumstance to make things happen
Gives the selection power to the girls
Ultimately spend majority of time talking to your social circle friends and on "death row" (death row = look around typical bar, and you will see many males standing around with their drinks in the defensive position. All of these guys are thinking "maybe if I stand here long enough, something will happen.")
Usually I drink too much when I find myself falling into this frame
If you want results, you MUST make things happen
This is a chick frame, and one that there is a lot of social programming for men to accept (ie just be yourself). Men are expected to initiate, so girls can pull this frame off. It doesn't work for guys.


EXTERNAL VALIDATION FRAME
"If other people think I am a PUA, then I am a PUA."

Basically, it is looking to gain other's validation for your skills, rather than measuring your skills by the responses and results you get, and by the progress you make through your sticking points.
Leads to being bold instead of confident (can say something really bold and it will impress a guy, but won't get you shit for results with the girl)
Also, can lead to not following through on prospects after the first night
How to tell if you are falling into this frame: find yourself qualifying yourself to wings, if you do approaches because the set is in front of others, if you get off on AFCs complimenting your PU skills or get nervous when you are around a PUA who you perceive as more skilled than you, if you use the phrases "I'm tired, this bar sucks, I never do well at X-Bar, I'm drunk, I'm not on tonight, I'm not feeling it tonight"


SELF-VALIDATION FRAME
"I'm good at this"

Ego Protection mechanism.
Once you've reached a certain level of competence, you will most likely have an image of yourself as being good with women. This is useful for generating confidence, but it can also lead to a rather subtle trap.
I find that when I am feeling really arrogant and confident about my skills, I will often go out and do VERY FEW approaches. This baffled me when I first ran into it. Eventually, I figured out that the self-image I had was over-important to me, and I was concerned about putting that image on the line and possibly having a set that destroyed that image (and destroyed my confidence by proxy)
This is also the frame that keeps people stuck in keyboard jockey-dom. They read all this brilliant shit online, and say "now that I know all of this, I will do amazingly well with girls." Then they get out in the field and are unwilling to try anything cause they don't want to jeapordize their new self-image.
This is also the frame that leads to SPs-getting stuck at the same point in your game over and over. Relate to self-current biggest SP is kino. I've realized that I keep getting stuck here because I hate the idea of destroying attraction/creeping a girl out because my kino skills are not yet smooth. I have good verbal skills, and it feels validating that I can generate attraction so quickly (especially given my background of scarcity/poverty with women). I am reluctant to give up the validation that I am getting by rolling out a new skillset that is not polished yet.
Easiest way out of this frame is to realize that 1-You have to be bad before you can be good (videogame metaphor), and 2-Confidence really comes from the belief that you are DESERVING of the PUA lifestyle, even if your skills are not yet that polished. Even a flawed diamond is a precious thing. Eradicate the competence = confidence meme from your head.


SAFETY FRAME
"I'll try this stuff, but I'm only going to do techniques that feel 'safe' to me."

Failure to expand comfort zone
Leads to different behaviors depending on your skill level- Only doing social circle sarging; only doing "normal" approaches like "Hi how are you?"; Using the AFC Questions Routine (what do you do, where you from, etc) to try to make the girl do the work for you; not doing approaches in front of people you know or old sets; Only approaching Bs or UGs; not doing kino, feeling that you NEED a wing with you; avoiding the hi-stimulus venues in favor of smaller places; ejecting too early; Approaching only all-female sets; not doing the AMOG material
A larger pattern I've seen is that a lot of people, when they first start this stuff, will say that they are looking for techniques/routines/etc that "fit their style." The problem with this approach to seduction is that transformation and a change of identity is essentially the core of becoming a PUA. If you are not willing to experiment with unfamiliar styles, then you will see only incremental changes in your results rather than dramatic ones.
Reframe: When I read some technique that sound like it won't work, I get EXCITED. Because if the person who posted it is a good PUA, it generally means that they are operating on some level of awareness that is not yet on my radar. And I know that if I go out and try the technique (and give it a fair shake, not just do it once or twice and give up), I am very likely to reach some new level of understanding myself.


THE RIGHT FRAME

The right frame for me is the **LEARNING FRAME**
Focus on building your skillset...results will come as a byproduct of this mindset
Focus on getting outside of your comfort zone and learning NEW skills. What have you never tried to do? Go do it.
Have a willingness to experiment with things that sound a bit off. Realize that with each new skill, there will be a period of adjustment in which the results you get will be all over the map. Your game has to be sloppy before it can be tight.
Allows you to not attach much importance to any one outcome. A byproduct of this is that the process becomes REALLY fun. Its hard to get frustrated when you don't really care what happens, as long as you are trying.
This mindset completely eliminates the existence of failure. If your goal is to range one specific routine (for example), then as long as you have deployed the routine, you have succeeded, regardless of the response. You should still be paying attention to the response though. With the learning frame, every "rejection" is automatically reframed as a rejection of your use of your skillset in this particular instance, NOT a rejection of you as a person. The only way to fail is to not try.
One caveat. If you are correctly using the learning frame, you should be trying your level best with every single set. If you are giving less than 100% effort in a set, the feedback you get is going to be inaccurate. You will be unable to judge whether the poor response was due to an integral flaw in the techniques you were using, or due to the way you used them. If you are going to use the learning frame, you have to commit to putting forth your best possible effort every time.

Is it possible to have a better mindset more TUNED to You..personally than the mindsets that other people go out with.. your friends, wings and other PU gurus.