Being a leader as opposed to being "the prize"

It's been a pretty consistent theme for me, and I wrote a post about it some months ago, about resolving the issue between being the prize and still making sex happen without having to leave it up to the girl to do everything. The chase vs. chased issue.

In my head there is a dichotomy. Girls have it engrained in their minds that there is a social order. They are passive and have to have everything happen to them. Guys ask them for their phone number (or even if they give their number to the guy, they are still putting him in that frame of pursuit), guys take them on dates, guys win them over, and they give guys sex. They are the prize in their minds, and in my mind, and I see the prize as something that doesn't do anything, and yet in order to be successful in dating, a man almost always has to do SOMETHING. So how can a man be the prize and still make it happen?

I haven't understood how to wrap my mind around this crucial concept so that it makes sense to me. How can I be the prize, be the one she is chasing, without doing any chasing of my own, when I'm not good enough or money enough yet to have her (most of the hers at least) lapping at my heels. If she doesn't ask for my number and I have to get hers, I am chasing. If I call her and ask her to come hang out, I am chasing. How does a guy who has so many options and doesn't give two shits about any one of them over another justify pursuing behavior? and once you start pursuing, how do you keep from over pursuing to the point where the dichotomy switches from her chasing you, back to you chasing her?

I was reading Brad P's planning the perfect date and I've come up with a way to frame it in my head that makes sense and I'll be thinking about for awhile to see what happens.

I must think of myself, not in the terms of the prize who has to be chased, or the one chasing the prize, or even the prize who has to chase a little bit so that the girl notices.

I must think of myself as a leader.

This is a huge shift from thinking of pursuing behaviors as exactly that. The idea of pursuis puts the image of one behind another, and pins by language the idea of leadership (command and control) in the hands of the one not doing the pursuing. One cannot be the prize and pursue, however one can be the prize and LEAD.

I like this image. I was reading over some of my old posts, and SassyFrass had this habit of texting me in a way that said she wanted to get fucked, but wasn't going to do anything about it. She was just tossing the idea into the air and seeing if the wind would catch it. So it's like this. She's walking around in a dark room, chatting up the air saying "man I'd sure like to get fucked" but she is either unable or unwilling to walk through the door above which hangs a sign "Come inside for sex." Now, the pure prize would stand in the middle and wait, to see if she can manage to blunder her way over to him and accidentally cause sex to happen. I'm too impatient for that by nature (which is something else I should talk about entirely and must work on), and don't have the abundance to make it happen. That same prize, in the same room with a hundred girls blundering around saying the same thing, will get laid pretty consistently.

What I've been doing, is acting the prize, but pursuing, which is essentially, blundering around in the dark room saying the same thing as the girl (sassyfrass in the example) "man i would also like to get fucked, if only some girl would grab my hand and lead me through the sex doorway" which works occasionally, but begs leadership from the girl. In real life terms, things like playing hard to get hoping she will pursue so hard that failure is impossible, texting her with vague statements hoping that she will suggest a meetup, hoping that she will escalate to remove the burden from me. Same room, hundreds of girls, only the really horny ones or generally lower quality ones are going to end up grasping the hand of this guy and leading him through the sex doorway.

Now, same situation, but this time a leader-prize comes in. The girl is blundering around in the dark, chatting up the air, not taking responsibility for her urges or desires. She's putting it out there, some more subtly than others. The leader has his night vision goggles on and can see the situation, he takes her by the hand and commands her to follow him, "but wait, I don't know, you don't have to come over" the prize-pursuer would try to mask his intentions, because he believes that if she doesn't give a massive sign, it is not on enough for him to "pursue." He is murky. The leader-prize silences her and continues to lead. He is not being stripper walked through the door. He is taking control of the situation. He recognizes that she is not stupid, and when she understands where she is going she will do something to get out of it if she is truly not interested. He's not thinking about rejection, he is unafraid to find out if she doesn't like him.

I may have gone a little out there with my metaphor and examples, some of it gets a little confusing, the biggest message to take from this whole deal is:

I no longer pursue. I lead.

Something important to keep in mind. Reframing behavior is often the first step toward trapward rationalization. I can't keep doing the same shit I've done and say "I'm leading!" I have to actually take the mindset of a leader.

My BigBear LR is a perfect example of leading vs. pursuing. I was the prize, but I didn't see my behaviors as pursuit because I wasn't even thinking about making anything happen until she was already at my house. I just led the interaction to a point where sex happened. I didn't game her and try and sit back and make her ask to come inside. I didn't try to push the envelope and make a move on her in the car where further logistics of getting inside would complicate things. I just lead it to a point where it would have been logistically infeasable to not have sex.