Imagine this. You are having a conversation with a girl you just met at a bar. She is describing a recent trip to Spain—to the same city you had visited some years ago. She tells a story when she discovered an abandoned cathedral near the beach. The conversation suddenly came to a point where you both say the exact same thing at the same time. She smiles, and without missing a beat, you say “wait, did we just have a moment?” She replies “uh-huh.” You fist-bump her.
By acknowledging a reaction out loud, you’ve just made the interaction meta for just a brief moment. This small and jovial act demonstrates a special ability few people have. Though simple in practice, it comes from a position of inner strength and years of social attunement. In this post, I will explain what being meta is, and how to use it to create attraction. First, I’ll let the pros show you how they do it:
“Eddie Izzard calling the audience out for hissing. He then writes on his imaginary notebook after a joke fails at the 4:00 mark.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFwBH2fb2E0&start=140
“Louis CK calling the audience out for a moment of discomfort.”
Being meta is an acknowledgement, verbally or non-verbally, of a subtle quirky moment in an interaction. It’s when you take the interaction to another level of awareness. This acknowledgement not only takes away the natural tension caused by those moments, it also enhances the conversation. Simply put, being meta is talking about how we talk to each other. However, these signs of personal power cannot be overstated:
1. An acute awareness of your own personal communication style and abilities.
2. A broad situational awareness of your environment, social events, and their paces.
3. A sense of humor that comes from an internal ease of tension.
4. The dynamic outcome independence when expressing yourself.
5. A willingness to be vulnerable and responsible about what you say and how it’s perceived.
6. An uncanny ability to refine and clarify your intentions.
How does something seemingly innocuous like stating out loud your observations have such a deep effect? It comes down to the layers of your awareness and what you subcommunicate through your words and actions. The more aware you are of your own honest communications, the more in touch you are with your intentions and how you subcommunicate it to others.
Types of Meta
- Meta-Awesomeness (as discussed by Mark Manson). Example: “Look, I’m a bit of a headache when it comes to commitment, and I only get like this because I like you so much.”
- Meta-Humor, where you make fun of something in your conversations or people’s reactions. Example: “Note to self: never bring up that topic again.”
- Meta-Correction, where you clarify what you want to communicate. Example: “Shit, that’s not how I wanted it to sound, let me say it another way.”
- Meta-Flirting, or breaking rapport or instructing. Example (breaking rapport): “Ohh, only you can get away with saying something like that cause you’re so cute.” Example (instructing): “Hey, say what you just said again, it was really cute.”
How to be Meta
Becoming meta is a fairly advanced social interaction technique. It comes from years of social attunement. However, the more you practice, the faster you will pick it up. It might seem weird at first, but once you’re comfortable with it, it will seem like a part of your personality.
Meta-ness, or self-referencing, comes from your power of observations. This means you can start practicing your observational skills without even a thought of acting upon them. Then gradually, allow your expression style to push these observations to the surface.
1. Be more aware of yourself
When you say or do something, become more predictive about how it comes across to other people.
This takes a fair bit of mental exercise, ease of social anxiety, and reception to feedback (verbal and non-verbal). Once you’ve achieved a good amount of self-awareness, you can express yourself fully while recognizing their congruence. If you sense an incongruence in your communications, address it out loud. It’s perfectly okay to say “can I try that again” or “could I say it in another way?”
2. Be more aware of your environment and other people
Note external observations to sharpen your ability to get outside of yourself.
When there is a pause or an awkward moment, there’s your opportunity to be meta. Do it so that the conversation rolls on or takes another direction. In a reaction to something weird someone just said, you can say “well, I don’t know where to go with that, let’s just turn around.”
3. Be more at ease with yourself and more outcome independent
When you are meta, you show the ability to laugh at yourself or the situation, no matter how tense.
This shows that you are enjoying the conversation and the process of making it flow. Your expression is not tied to some outcome. The conversation doesn’t have to go anywhere and you are okay with that. When you are at ease, you observe more and think less.
4. Don’t be afraid to show vulnerability and responsibility
Saying things like “oh yeah that was weak, I’ll just have to do better” shows that you are comfortable putting yourself out there to be judged, and you can take responsibility for what you say or do.
It means that you have to take a number of risks in a conversation to polarize people. Don’t do it for their reaction, but do it because that’s what you truly think. Be okay with being wrong or offensive.
Take responsibility for your words and actions. Be humorous and laid-back when you go meta. However, in some cases, it’s more appropriate to be serious: “actually, that wasn’t a joke, I do want to know more about your artistic aspirations.”
5. Continually evaluate your intentions, they matter
Express, not impress. Being meta is a form of self-referencing expression, not to show off how quickly you can point out flaws.
A person who is always self-correcting or pointing out nuances of how other people talk can be seen as annoying at best, or needy at worst.
6. Emulate others
Comedians as Eddie Izzard and Louis C.K. can go meta on stage on a whim. Izzard is great at saying things like “never put those two things together again” (while pretending to write on his hand) or “that’s a good laugh right there, I enjoyed it.” Louis C.K. will go on and on about the fucked-up thoughts in his head.
As experienced world-famous comedians, they have reached a new level of meta self-awareness that is not only hilarious, but also extremely enlightening for their audiences.
You can be the same with the people you interact with, if only on a micro-level. Check out some more Youtube clips that illustrate my point:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FdEUADYTfU
“Jim Jefferies acknowledges the tension of the audience. He also comments on the timeliness of his second beer at the 2:45 mark.”
“Eddie Izzard once again points out an audience member’s laugh.”
7. Adjust and re-adjust
Observe how deep you can go meta and how often you do it. Too often and too deep, and you will seem like a try-hard. Not deep enough, or too sparse, and you seem insecure and able to think only about yourself.
At the right level, it’d seem like nothing can escape your power of observations. You can make something exciting out of the simplest actions.
Conclusion
So there you have it. Why is being meta so seductive? Because it shows awareness—one of the pillars of a highly confident individual (or alpha, as some call it). It also shows assertiveness, the courage to speak one’s minds, and the responsibility in doing so. When you are meta, you aren’t invested in what other people think about you, only in how you think.
Meta-ness, of course, is your observations through your own subjective lenses. By pushing it to the surface, you say it as if it was a fact. That influences people to take your point of view and go along with wherever you are leading them. A seductive trait indeed!
Read More: “I Want” Is Not Good Enough
Meta is one letter away from beta..
Which in turn is only 11 letters from non-sequitur
Masta-beta
It’s also one letter away from METAL!
Which, if it’s heavy, is the law.
Clowns are not metal. Did you know that?
I beg to differ sir!
Oh pshaw
Haha !
Good article.
I’ve never been much higher than a 7 on the looks scale but I have a fucking mammoth library of general knowledge. When I snapped out of my beta-chump stage at aged 20, I discovered the true power of using my years of accumulated data to create such moments with girls. I discovered my strength. My “vibe”
It’s basically a cocktail of balls, intelligence, emotional intelligence, and timing. Completely sell them your entire world view in a few short snippets. Your world view is whatever they need to hear there and then, with a few nonsense pearls of wisdom thrown in. But deliver with casual arrogance, you’re not Stephen Hawking remember. And make “the solution” her and you getting close. 10 minutes in you’ll find your mouth talking in auto pilot. The beauty of this approach is that it works on 9s as well if not somehow better than on 6s.That feeling when you knew for sure you had her hooked on you was priceless.
Happy days indeed
yeah, people say be yourself, but it’s more like let go of yourself… just fucking let go….. old people mooch about with no self consciousness and are happy to talk to anyone, and that’s because in time we all have to let go….. navy seals go into battle already dead…. best way to be…. everything after that is a bonus….
Yep.
Be yourself should really mean “cut loose and be whoever the fuck you want”
What if “yourself” is a shelf stacker with a hardon for train spotting? Should you be condemned to a fuck every other leap year?
Vibe vibe vibe. I love it. All about vibe.
“The Barfly Philosopher with Game”.
Great article, great advice if received properly. I have had much success with the methods described, such as acknowledging weird quirks throughout a conversation and carefully executed self-depreciating humor. It implies you have a non-judgmental attitude, and makes you seem like a down-to-earth, “have-nothing-to-hide” type of a person which can have a highly disarming effect on some people.
It’s a skill that needs honing just like any other aspect of game, which requires you to consciously listen to yourself speak (as if someone else is speaking your words to you, so you can accurately judge your dialogue with as little bias possible, making mental notes along the way). When practiced it enough, you will develop a subconscious “program” that gauges the flow of the situation and prepares a palette of meta-remarks that can be added to the conversation, un-formalizing the interaction, allowing for a stronger social bonding effect. Getting the ball rolling is definitely the hardest part, but learning the skill of meta-awareness pays great dividends like anything else worth doing.
The only thing I’d add is that this method leans on an environment that lends the right atmosphere. A dark club with atom bomb level decibels pumping and everyone fucked on coke won’t do. A wine bar type place with live music is optimum.
Also, you need a good quality of girl to work with. One who preferably knows the capital of her own country and that “Queen” and The Queen aren’t one and the same thing.
It does depend on certain conditions being met and a disciplined aloofness and arrogance still being practiced. Such is the necessity
I figured if the reader doesn’t realize a loud club isn’t the place to apply this method, they will certainly have no idea how to apply the method correctly anyhow. A wine bar, group get together, or any setting that is laid-back and where the focus is on casual rapport-building conversation will work.
Overall I agree with your comment, but you can say “it depends on certain conditions being met” about any practical advice, I didn’t feel it necessary to throw that asterisk in there. Maybe I am expecting too much of the reader, but I hope not.
That’s fair enough. I was more commenting on past mistakes I’d made. Yep, trying to find conversation at a MDMA rave, yep done that.
But good article, I appreciate your angle. I consider this exact subject a hard science
I don’t know if this is what the article is getting at but it really blew my mind when I first found the redpill and to have people talking about relationship dynamics in such a frank and curt manner. It hit me really hard when I recognized that I had never really thought about my relationships beyond an exceptionally shallow or almost instinctual way. I think this is true for most men, they go through to motions, they don’t really understand what’s going on, and they just keep doing it over and over and over. Often times with failure, heartbreak, and even suicide. This is one reason it can be extremely frustrating as a beta male in the dating game, why you’re like a fish out of water everywhere, because you have no idea of the actual dynamics going on.
Some might say that the redpill completely ruined relationships for them and my only response to that is that if honesty ruins your relationships, maybe they weren’t meant to be. I know now information that is so valuable I wouldn’t trade it unless I got millions of dollars and even then I would have to think about it. What I learned from relationships came from watching my passive dad and watching dorky dudes on the tv growing up. It would have grossly simplified the dating process for me if I had some more masculine figures in my life, but I digress. In the end though most men will only accept as much truth as they can handle, that’s why I avoid converting men anymore, there’s no point. Because if they were at that point where you are, they would have found out about theredpill already, and they are most certainly not ready to be unplugged from the matrix.
“This is one reason it can be extremely frustrating as a beta male in the dating game, why you’re like a fish out of water everywhere, because you have no idea of the actual dynamics going on.”
I’m completely averse to all conspiracy theories, and when I read about the red pill/blue pill divide I rejected it wholly.
Then I carefully reviewed my entire life in the red pill context and it all added up. It was finding an ugly truth, and it hurt.
But now, I have great fun with it. It’s given me a new lease of life. I think I digested the red pill unknowing at 20 but now I have it nailed down. I love it and use it like a tool.
But yeah, the betas in the dating game. Canon fodder. Without inherited wealth or unusual good looks, they stand no chance
Yea it’s true, it’s not a conspiracy, it’s reality, I’m surprised, the redpill is the social dynamic equivalent of the code breakers during WWII. At first it was tough to rap my mind around it but when I really broke down all of my life, painstakingly, it make perfect sense. It’s as if someone has a reflecting pool and was able to look at my life and find and address the problems immediately. I love life now. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“THIS IS SO STUPID AND LAME. WHO REALLY READS THIS SHIT? ITS NOT HARD TO GET PUSSY”
This is what my friends reaction would of been years back had sites like these had been available to see. I, admittedly would of went along with them as well and laughed it off while (hopefully) secretly keeping the website information to myself. But, more than likely I would of forgot it and continued to allow others to dictate what I should and should not think about. Peer pressure now seems silly but, back then I felt it, and allowed the wave of not wanting to be away from the “in crowd” control how I feel.
I am glad that a incident occurred to me that I now truly believed woke me up, and made me understand a new way of looking at life that quite frankly I truly doubt I would of found on my own somedays. I lost “friends” but gained insight through struggle and killing ignorance.
By having a chick friend zone me and sleep with my family, two other dudes from high school, and have a boyfriend back home, I got a jolt of reality and a cannon blast shot away from Santa Clause, Easter Bunny, Fairytales, and whatever bullshit nursery rhyme like Disney horseshit you can think of. I was out the box and felt like Neo above looking around at everybody else feeling almost alien like. She, in a sense helped me in ways she, and many other women are oblivious too. I once was angry at her for doing what she did but, as my path towards this truth and reconnecting with my inner self happened, I actually found appreciation for her nature. I was in a new head space and putting the pieces together.
Being Meta is something I have always had a knack for while being the class clown but just could never figure out exactly what I was doing. I would just notice real life situations and poke fun at them. I always appreciate that style of Comedy. Its why Patrice O’neal has made it to my top 5. Just look at this video here when you get a chance and you can just see the meta and authenticity of his style float with ease towards this interviewer, and in the process have the interviewer feeling different about the world without Patrice trying to force it down his throats preaching to him. Its a long one so, store it in the “watch later” box if you want to see a great interview that taught me a lot about myself.
Being meta and breaking the tension when it comes to women will have you stand out and let her know that “Oh. He gets it”. Women from what I can tell love that shit. They know how awkward shit can be and, they need a man to just ease that tension out and let it be known how awkward it is. BUT, its all about HOW you approach it. The tone, seriousness, word choice, etc. If you say it nervously, you are going to make her feel the vibe of “Oh. This dude doesn’t is lame and scary”. With women, its the little details they catch that will break you down in 3 minutes and have them deciding if your worth having their pussy thrown at you. Meta can’t also be your one trick pony. Then, it will become some sort of stand up comedy act in whcih you and your dick will be placed in the “Entertainment section” in her head instead of someone serious. Its all about balance and no balance it makes sense.
All in all, what you do with this fantastic post and many others on here its on you, but never forget that the truth will always be here regardless of how you use it. You want to ignore it? Cool. Truth remains. Want to use it but sprinkle blue pill seasoning? Cool, the food will still have a red pill taste that the woman wont ignore. Point is, the truth is at your disposal. Use it but don’t let it make you into a robot like number 5 shows. Never forget who you are or run the risk of becoming a voicemail recoder. Women can spot that a mile away and seek something that feels more honest. Always shoot for stepping out the box to kill the tension and smarten your brain as well beyond just pussy. Just don’t forget who you are and what you stand for.
http://associationofchronos.com/2015/01/18/responsibility/
“I, admittedly would of went along with them as well and laughed it off while (hopefully) secretly keeping the website information to myself”
Loser friends is serious problem for many men.
They want to get on in life, but they know that by doing so they’ll be going it alone.
Misery loves company. And losers hate people who try make a difference.
“Loser friends is serious problem for many men. They want to get on in life, but they know that by doing so they’ll be going it alone. ”
Very true.
I had to break away from this dynamic in my early twenties, i could see the destructive toxicity of associating with people that had no ambition in life and were comfortable with the cyclic rut of their existence. They will keep you down, and have zero tolerance for thoughts or actions of self-improvement because it directly address’s the insecurities they continually bury through substance use and vicarious pleasure.
You will be alone, until you can find other ambitious people who are focused on self-improvement in all aspects of life. Finding those people isn’t easy though.. but who you associate with in life has such a massive impact on your attitude and outlook.
Agreed. I’d say it’s the single biggest factor, especially in your impressionable youth.
Unfortunately one group of friends I had in my teens were such losers I allowed them to drag me close to the brink of destruction.
You know the types, smoke weed all day in their bedroom at their parents’ house. Have no ambition to work. A thoroughly anti-intellectual attitude, moan that they have no luck with women and then attempt to take anyone down who either
a) attempts to get a girl but fails; or
b) gets a girl who is anything less than a 9, under the mistaken assumption that they could do better
This loser archetype is like a feminist in many ways. A massively inflated sense of self-worth completely unjustified given their lack of achievements.
It’s funny, because these housebound, peter pan syndrome, pot smoking dweebs nearly all end up getting hitched to local girls whose past conquests are touching 4 figures.
Can this be taught? I could see how this works on some but not all women.
Interesting that links to comedians are used. I knew a struggling comedian with low self esteem who was an insecure mess around women.
I think it comes naturally to certain personality types more than others.
Struggling ANYTHINGS usually have low-self esteem.
Never knew this had a name, good read.
1. Don’t take life so seriously
2. If a wild experience comes your way, take it
3. Say what you mean
Combine these three ‘tools’ – or, as I like to call them, ‘not-being-a-fucking-loser-isms’ – with a good sense of humour, average looks and not being socially retarded…. and wait for the females to form a single file line.
This is the first article on ROK I’ve enjoyed here in a while. I like your angle.
Good trio of advice there, revelation.
The Michael Carbonaro Effect show is good proof of this concept. You can literally direct and influence someone’s perception of reality based on your mannerisms and what you say in a convincing matter.
That’s cool. It’s just a way of showing that you are light hearted and don’t take things too seriously. If you say something lame and then recognise it, and comment on it, it takes away the negative that people might be thinking of you. I’m reminded of Eminem in the rap battle in 8 mile, where he takes every loser thing the other dude was planning on dissing him about, owns it, and then the other dude has nothing
Hey guys, i know its out of the topic. But do you keep any data of your approachs with a convert/success% rate?
Example: In a week.
10 approaches
6 Numbers
3 Dates
1 Sex
10% Convert Rate
Pro tip: Seinfeld in his show was a good example of “being Meta”.
This is the second article iv’e read today from Rok where comments and the article were both insightful ,came in full circle . Thanks guys ! You can puke now . Oh is this kinda like being meta ? … The other article I read was ( a tip from a girl that improved my process with women) by unjaded pretty cool
I remember in grad school my professor always wanted us to think of:
Meta COGNITION
when conducting research or writing case studies.
It was basically the idea of being AWARE of all factors that could have been or will happen in a particular circumstance; pointing out confounding and extraneous variables.
Cool article.