Lucio's journal

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 29, 2020, 9:54 am

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 26, 2020, 12:06 pm

Saturday date:

.....

One more important thing I wanted to add:

Power dynamics of early escalation: watch out you're not framed as the pursuer

While she was struggling to open the wine, I move behind her, and kissed her neck.

And she said:

Her: Lucio, calm down

What's the power dynamics there?

It's her taking control of the interaction.

Framing me as sexually ravenous, and framing herself as the (sexual) relationship prize.

You can still get to sex with that frame, but it's risky if it starts too early on, or she might feel like she is out of your (sexual) league.

It's OK to be sexually ravenous and, at the right time, it's great.
But the right time is later on.
If you show all your sexual horniness too early, you give away too much power. The contrast is too big, and it communicates that maybe you like her a bit too much as compared to how much she finds you sexually attractive.

If she's not horny enough, which can happen relatively often with low sex drive women, she might decide she finally doesn't want you.

So save the sexual onslaught for when you're getting closer to sex or for when you're ready to go full-on without breaks.

That wasn't the time yet, so my reply was:

Me: (moves away, going back to the front of the table) I'm very calm actually. Are you sure that you are calm?

A power move.
I knew she wasn't sexually experienced, and in any case, even many sexually experienced women get nervous when sex is getting closer. So it was an easy call to guess she was at least somewhat nervous.

And her reply:

Her: yeah, maybe it's me who needs to calm down

Now I'm back in control of the interaction, neutralizing her sexual power move, and regaining the emotional leadership and social power (she is nervous, I'm cool).

Later on, in full escalation, I was sexually ravenous and in full pursuit. But at that point, it was OK. That early, not yet.

Quote from John Freeman on July 29, 2020, 4:28 pm

Brilliant. Thanks for sharing.

It's the congruent body language that cement this power move I believe.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 31, 2020, 7:40 am

Lessons learned from being low status, and shit at your job

I ended up acting in a Korean TV series.

They were urgently looking for a bald guy, and they asked a friend of mine who trains actors in English language.
He didn't have any bald guys, but... He knew me, so he probably said "try this guy here".

We got in touch at 8pm, we had our "casting" via phone at 10:46, and the guy confirmed at 1:18am.

It was a great experience.
And an emotionally challenging one, too.

I might have been the "best" of 3 random people, but I still have no acting experience (and no major innate skills for that, either). And, as well, I was heavily unprepared (and not a good fit) for the type of acting.
I prepared the script in the morning, and I considered that "I got it". But my way of "getting it" was to play "me", and with my willingly understated emotions, reactions, and facial expressions (it was both unprofessional of them not to explain, and short-sighted of me not to ask).
Instead, what they wanted was the type of TV drama acting with hyper-exaggerated reactions and facial expressions. It's the acting that is "hyper-acting", with expressions you don't really use in normal life. Plus, no curse words allowed, which made acting extreme emotions more unnatural for me. Just imagine saying "oh my goodness" instead of "what the fuck" to mimick extreme surprise or shock.

Some of the major lessons learned:

Lessons learned

• Mental power and social power are intertwined: no big whoops here, but they are more intertwined than most people think. And you realize it the most when you are not at your best, when you're not good at what you do, and when you do not have much status, because:
• Mental power supports social power especially when you're low status and/or not excellent at what you do: and that's exactly when mental power matters most.  because it's low-status people who are most likely to be abused and taken advantage of. There was one scenario where this hit me the hardest and where I failed to react properly. When you're low status:
• To enforce boundaries and act high-power when you're low status and shit at what you do, you need knowledge of what you need to do, and forcing yourself to follow the steps: it's relatively easy to be socially high-power when you are high status, high confidence, and are excellent at what you do. Big bonus points if you got high social intelligence because it means you know how to do it well. But when you are lower confidence and low status it will not come natural to assert your boundaries, stand up to assholes, and act high power. That's when it's useful to remind yourself of the basic mindset of PU: "nobody has the right to treat me disrespectfully". And then, to know exactly what you need to do, and then forcing yourself to just do it. The good thing is that you need to do it a couple of times only, and then you naturally acquire more power and confidence, plus people will know better to treat you with respect

Personal lessons learned

1. I have taken huge steps when it comes to antifragile ego: I was able to have terrible performances and then totally reset for the next one, as if nothing happened. And sometimes even performing relatively well. That's power.
   I was also able to crack jokes in what would have been relatively difficult social situations. At past 1am and still filming, I was fucking up a scene several times in a row, meaning that 20 people or so were all doing more work and staying longer for my incompetence (and many were making their frustrations very clear). And I was still able to laugh and place a power move with a loud joke ("don't worry guys... We'll get there. Eventually (laughs)"
2. But I have a long way to go to improve my antifragile ego and personal resilience: still, seeing the people around shaking their head, laughing, or complaining (director included sometimes, both unprofessional of her, and ineffective to get the job done) when I was fucking up scenes, did have a stronger impact than I wanted. Not nearly as bad as it used to be, but still a relatively strong impact. I also had to actively rebuild myself up after fuck-ups to increase confidence and act more in line with the status and persona I wanted. Eventually, I want that any negative hit leaves no mark whatsoever and that I remain high confidence and high self-esteem no matter what happens

A good power move from low status

Towards the end there was a scene outside, and the director was calling me from the center of the action.

She butchered my name though, and then turned around to the interpreter for the correct name.

I was nearby, and walked towards her shaking my head, smiling, and pointing at her as if to say "tsk, tsk, look at this girl, all these hours, still can't pronounce my name".
Now that's the acting I do better 🙂
She laughed in a submissive way, and said "sorry" twice. Good way of turning a potential loss into a major win (getting the person with the most status to apologize and act submissive in front of everyone is always a huge boost, of course).

Power dynamics: acquiring some status from no status

It was also great to interact with people and personalities that you don't always meet so often.

And doing so from a position of low status, while training myself to increase my status and social power.

In this case, I was dealing with second and third-tier models and actors (no offense intended here, just rational analysis: first-tier actors don't do low-budget TV dramas).

And you can probably expect second and third-tier folks to be more haughty than first-tier ones. You are a bigger threat to them since it's not that difficult to join their ranks, so they are naturally more afraid of potential competition.
Also, their needs for personal validation is not as easily met as with first-tier stars, so they need to social climb and push others low to feel validated (see a definition of social-peg). And of course, we know that this line of work attracts lots of narcissists.

One of the actresses and blue-eyed models was acting particularly superior towards me the whole day.
Then we had dinner all together, and I was looking forward to this small social event.

When I went to take the potato pumpkin pancake she complained that she couldn't eat meat, and with a haughty attitude implied that it was out of order for me to take it. I said, "so what's this, you are calling dibs on the pancakes"? Implying that it was her who was unfairly asking to hog all the food.
To which she replied:

Her:"well, considering that you can eat meat and I can't".

Slightly covertly-aggressive, but nice move.
Now she put me in a position that if I take it, I am unfairly taking what should be fairly hers. So I said "alright, I'll let you have it", which somewhat limited my loss.

Overall, she was avoiding eye contact, and never addressed me directly.
When people act superior to you, never try to win them over. If you do, you give in to their judge power by seeking their approval. Even if you win their approval, you are still within their frame of reference where they are above you and you had to win them over.

Instead, you must ignore them back.
And increase your social power with the rest of the group. Any question you might receive, anything you can say, it's an opportunity to gain status and power.
Speak loud enough, with good voice, and with confidence.
Share some stories, start a new conversational thread, and drop some intrigue about your life and what you do.

If you do it well, then they will come to you first.

By the end of the dinner, she was looking at me, and addressing me directly. And she even looked for more of those pumpkin pancakes from the table next to us, saying that "it was for me".
Still not a positive person in my book, but it goes to show that with someone personalities more than others, it's either you got status and power, or you're a nobody to be snubbed and ignored.

 

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on August 6, 2020, 6:10 am

Isolating a bad individual from the group: but I might have gone too far

This happened at a Meetup event, on a table of 4.
3 guys, and 1 girl, which gave the girl lots of social power.
Plus, she was part of the organization, which gave her even more power.

1. Taking too much air-time, being socially awkward

We make a round of introductions to briefly say who we are, and one of the guys already shows to be clueless and like a social burden. Let's call him Burden.

One of the guys says he's in "logistics", but Burden is confused between logics and logistics, so he keeps asking what it means, with the whole table trying to explain.
We tried to move on more than once, but he still keeps going back to logics and what that means.
Again more people chime in, by this point everyone is thinking "what hell, this guy".

He still doesn't get it, so he takes out a dictionary to translate the word. But he is not typing in silence, he expects that we must all listen to him while he types and searches the word.

The problem is, he is taking too much of the group's time with his issue. An issue nobody cares about.

That could be a high-power behavior, since it's high power not to be afraid of talking more and expecting to understand... Up to a certain point.
But once you cross a certain threshold, it's not high power, and it's just insensitive and overburdening. Plus, he comes across as unable to understand basic concepts, and he is adding no value whatsoever.

2. Nosy questions

Then it's the German girl's turn to introduce herself.

Burden asks "how old are you", which is common to ask in Korea but it again shows a lack of understanding of international social conventions.

When it turns really bad though is when he asks:

Burden: do you have a boyfriend?
Girl: (visibly annoyed, rolling her eyes up, exhaling) No.. (dragging out the no, as if to say "why would you even ask that, dumbass)

Her reaction is too much, even for a very nosy question.
So I am thinking that she might have spoken and dealt with this guy before, and that he had already caused some social pains.

At this point, it's either we let this guy be a social nuisance, and ruin the social dynamics for all, or we work together to isolate him.
I decide to join the girl to help isolate him and take control of the social dynamics.

So I also add "yeah, that was a bit inappropriate to ask". Then to help carry the group out of the confrontation and bad mood, I launch in a story of traveling through Indonesia and being one of the few white guys in social groups, with everyone always asking me if I had a girlfriend. I confirm it feels awkward being asked that publicly.

Girl takes the opportunity to "socially assault" Burden even more, and socially disempower him.

3. Grilling Burden: the payback

Now it's Burden's turn to introduce himself.

Once he's done, I ask "do you have a girlfriend?". The table laughs. When he says "no", I ask "why not". The table laughs again. He says  "because I'm short", to which I reply "Oh, you're telling me that?", which might be interpreted as if to say "don't make excuses, pal". The table laughs again.

However, I feel this is going too far.
So I reach out, lightly grab his arm and say "I'm just joking man".

4. Where it's going too far

I feel that at this point it should be enough.

But the German girl keeps on piling up against Burden. She turns around to other people, pointing at him and shaking her head with an expression of "look at this idiot".

The girl and burden were sitting on the same bench next to each other, and apparently Burden must have rubbed against her. In an angry and haughty tone she says "don't touch me".
That seemed very harsh, I hadn't even noticed any touch. Women do these kinds of power moves usually, men don't.

We stayed there maybe 45 minutes, and Burden hasn't said a single word.
The social front to isolate him had been very successful, but I had to wonder if it didn't go too far.

5. Missing an opportunity

Personally, I think I did a poor job.

I sided with her without knowing for sure if Burden was just a social burden, or if he was a true problematic individual. Going by her reactions, I treated him as the latter, but I had to make sure instead.

Also, we could have taught him some better ways of socializing, instead of just chastising.
After the facts, I actually felt bad for Burden, and feel personally responsible for it.

What I Would Change: Providing Guidance

I think that a great way of taking lessons learned is to ask yourself "if I could do this over again, what would I change"?

Well, I would probably explain Burden what was awkward with his behavior.

I'd tell him that stopping the group's conversation for too long for what he did not understand was value-subtracting to a group level, that he was coming off as overpowering and annoying, and that he should have let that one go.
And asking a woman in a group of guys "how old is she" and "if she has a boyfriend" is socially insensitive because it's too personal, and puts her on the spot.

Maybe he still wouldn't have understood. But maybe he could have.

I stopped at only half the job: isolating the problem and preserving the group.
But the other half was missing.
It was not good leadership from my side.

An important lesson learned: always give people at least the opportunity to understand and fix themselves.

 

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on August 8, 2020, 7:28 am

Easy date: logistics, sexual frames, and highly-sexed women

Judging by the speed of her replies and her vulnerable enthusiasm with exclamation marks and "looking forward to meeting", I considered this date more likely to be consumed than not.

A few quick notes on it:

1. Risky change of plans

The original idea was:

1. Wine bar
2. (assess our chemistry) and either home or restaurant
3. If restaurant
4. (assess our chemistry), then either home or park
5. if park, then seek to go home
6. if not home, walk her back and go for it on a second date

But I had eaten just a banana and apple and was quite hungry.
So I proposed to eat something right away.

Now the small hiccup was that on the way to the restaurant she told me she had to wake up early the day after. Since it was Friday, I was counting she could sleep as long as she wanted.

That leaves me with an important choice to make: push for home right after the restaurant with the risk of pushing too much / too early, or going somewhere else after the restaurant, but risk it will get too late for her and she'd need to go home.

The restaurant goes well, we sexualize the conversation quite a bit, and she openly talks of her one night stands after her last break up where "she didn't even remember if it happened or not" (fuck, Korean girls do drink a lot! :S)".

Well, anyway, after that... I'm definitely going to push for home :).

2. Sexual Frames at the restaurant

A few interesting sexualizing exchanges:

Her: (...) so my friends said that Italians are super romantic. When you wake up in the morning they say things like "your eyes are... (bla bla bla)" . I don't know, you're the first Italian I meet outside of work
Me: (pause, looking in her eyes) Well, then... You'll have to find that out (smiles, holds eye contact)

And an interesting sexual frame exchange / testing:

Me: (...) so then they went to a DVD place (a time-hotel where people without their place go to hook-up)
Her: but you can only stay there two hours. Is two hours enough? (looks at me with that "I'm putting you on the spot" expression)

I smile to that and touch her as if to say "got ya", but don't reply.

If I say "yes, it's enough", I negatively frame myself.
If I say "two hours is not enough", I positively jump through her hoops (but still jumping through her hoops).

And if I go off on a tangent, I am investing too much.

Much better to leave it at that, which is already positively sexual, and vibe with it as if to say "I got you".

3. Pushing for home right after restaurant, a small risk

After a few of those sexual exchanges at the restaurant, plus noticing how generally open and trusting she was, I considered pushing for home to be the best decision, and a relatively small risk.

When I proposed to "stop at home a few minutes" she pushed back saying that "we could go straight to the park" (which is in the other direction").
To which I reply something like "yeah sure, we will go there, let's just go there one minute for a drink, and then we'll go there".

This is the beginning frame domination and a possible risky power showdown. So you will notice the initial "yeah, sure", which helps keep rapport and presents it as a frame negotiation.

To which she replies "ok, I follow you". Good girl :).

It was a bit of an early pull, so I had to go against quite some last-minute resistance, which leads to an important lesson learned:

4. Timing the sexual escalation right is crucial with low sex drive women

This woman was emotionally open, sexually open, vulnerable, and generally trusting.

With trusting women and women high in sex drive, it's relatively easy to overcome doubts and sexual resistance.

But when you are dealing with women low on sex drive and trustworthiness, you will likely destroy the interaction if you push for the sexual escalation too early.

This is an important distinction.

In this case, she was very high in sex drive.
So despite the initial resistance, with dry humping and fingering, we eventually got there. She resisted more than I expected, actually. After fingering her for a while, when I moved to get a condom, she still made to leave the bed. So I had to back and work the way up -or inside, in this case- again.

On orgasmic women who rhythmically move their pelvis

Anyway, maybe because she was into it, or because of the beefsteak we had, I was particularly inspired.

It was a memorable session.
She also lost an earring, and I found the stopper this morning under the pillow.

She was one of those quite rare women who are very in touch with their sexuality, plus being highly vaginally sensitive.

These women will move their pelvis even when they are at the bottom in missionary. You could as well stay put and you'd still get that thrusting motion just with their pelvis movement.
I remembered a similar woman I was dating, it was the only woman with whom.. Alright, I'm gonna keep a few things personal :).

Then we went to a rooftop cafe, when I had a wine and... Some terrible fish snacks.
Still a breathtaking view though, and a nice talk to cap off a wonderful Friday night.

 

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on August 8, 2020, 7:46 am

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on August 8, 2020, 7:28 am

....

On girls not removing bra (or layers of clothes)

One more important note I wanted to add.

Some women will not want to remove their bra (or their skirt) even if they are having sex.

I remember some authors saying that it was because women are shy about their body or breast.
And while that's true in some cases, it's also a BS as a generalization.

In some cases, like in this case -and in most cases when sex happens quick or within a lover frame-, the woman feels that sex is happening too quickly and too early as compared to the level of emotional intimacy / rapport / investment levels onto each other.

That's why some women don't remove some items of clothes, and I respect that.
She also had a nice big rack, so one more incentive for meeting her again 🙂

 

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on August 14, 2020, 7:54 am

Alright, back journaling, lots of novelties.

Very eventful night yesterday both from a dating and group/friendships power dynamics as well.

A friend in need is a friend indeed: supporting a friend at a personal (emotional) cost

Today it's already in the past and I've already moved on.

But some moments of yesterday night, they were painful.

There was a lady who seemed very much into me.
Well, to be honest, she was drunk and seemed very much into a few guys.
Yet, from the very first moment our group merged, she was chasing me somewhat harder, and our eye contacts and conversations had that spark of heavier chemistry.

For example, me by the bar, she almost runs beside me -credit card in her hand, paying for her drink, so not looking for a free drink which is always a risk when a girl comes to you by the bar-:

Me: hey, how's your night going
Her: not good
Me: what's missing to make it good (notice how quickly it moves towards emotional intimacy and, potentially, to sexualization and/or man to woman convesation)
Her: I didn't meet anybody
(I notice my friend behind us)
Me: what are you looking for
Her: I'm looking for my future husband
Me: (strong eye contact) we need to talk about that more later (gets his drink, walks away)

Behind the words, it was the whole eye contact and noverbals that said a lot.
My friend was right behind us, so he could have gotten the hint by that point.

But those hints can be difficult to get when the woman is drunk and flirting with everyone who goes after her.
She was also dancing with him my friend, and when that happens, most guys fail to see that a woman might be just dancing sexy, but not necessarily interested in getting sexual.

Since we were both liking her, it was either I put my interests first, or I support my friend.

I put my friend's interests first, and I struggle to find lessons learned for me, since I'd do the exact same things over.
This friend is one of the best, most good-hearted, most sensitive guy I've ever met. And he needed it far more than I did. It was his first day out of quarantine, he was struggling financially, and he was just breaking up from a several years-long relationships.

From the moment I decided I wasn't going to pursue the girl, all my interactions with the girl were with my friend in mind first.

It was a bit painful for me when the girl came looking for me, since I also liked her. And when I'd build my friend up, the girl would openly tell me she's not into him. That made it all the more difficult, since it felt like it was an invitation to make a move. In some realms of life, I'm a highly sensitive guy. When I feel a romance should happen but does not happen, it always pains me a bit.

Cockblocking power moves: total success

There was also a third guy, not from our group, chasing the girl.

By my own reckoning, the girl was liking me first, second this intruder, and was not vibing my friend.

The challenge was that, since I wasn' making any real moves on her, that she'd grow closer and closer to the intruder, and leave with him.
I could see my friend looking at the girl and the intruder when dancing together with a pained expression. I know how much that can hurt.

So my best power moves of the night were in removing the girl from the intruder (ie.: cockblocking).

For example, when she was dancing with the intruder, I'd sit or "park" near the dancing area, try to look cool or make eye contact, and move her towards me.
That worked more than once, and on one occasion the girl left the intruder so cold alone, that he just walked away.

When she was dancing with the intruder and left for the bathroom, I'd sometimes "happen" to be on the way to the bathroom and stop her from returning to him.
That happened several times, and it was very useful to break the momentum of the intruder.

I was also making friends with her less attractive girlfriends, which was helpful to make her come to us. And since I wasn't engaging the intruder and both of her girlfriends were there talking to me, our group was off-limits for him.

Another time, one of the girl's girlfriends was telling to my friend that she was cheering for him.
Instead of listening to that BS passively, which to me was almost offensive, I told her "yes, you're right, our friend is much better, go tell her and bring her here".
Her girlfriend went to the girl, and again broke momentum for the intruder.

This was "recruiting a cockblocker".

All these shenanigans were useful to prevent the girl from growing too close and/or leaving with the intruder.
But since she wasn't enough into my friend, ultimately she went home with her girlfriends.

Lesson learned from his side: let someone else try when you're not succeeding

In this case, I think the lesson learned should be more on my friend's side.

In an ideal world, when a guy realizes a girl is not into him, he should let his friend go for her.
Or, at least, he should call himself out of the "race", and tell his guy friend that he can have his shot.

Then the guy friend will decide, depending on the situation and the friendship, how he will behave.
In this case, I would still not gone for the girl, I think.

But I wouldn't have felt like my friend was being a burden in that specific situation -otherwise, overall still a super awesome, top guy-.

Anyway, except of that, all in all, it was a great night.

Edit: Yes, we need good friends and social circles

Well, actually, there is a very important lesson learned here.

After months of flying solo, and after quite some adventures and romances, some of my happiest days are with this newly formed social circle and newly formed friendships.

That further highlights for me the importance of friendships and social circles in a well balanced, good life.

And from a work perspective, it reminds me that yes, I need to work on a module on friendships and social circles.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on August 14, 2020, 7:57 am

Power dynamics in male groups and friendships

Note:

I'm going to write a post on friendship power dynamics soon.

Specifically, on the behavior of value-adding friends and friendship, and value-subtracting social-inflaters/social scalpers, together with social strategies on how to handle them.

But since the post concerns contemporary events and personality analyses, I will move this journal in the subscribers' section of the forum.
I will then move it back here later on when the events are more in the past.

So keep an eye for it, there will be some good group and friendships power dynamics.

 

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on August 18, 2020, 9:56 am

Since it came out quite long, I decided to make a separate post for it:

• Group and friendship power dynamics: personality analyses and strategies