Plowing is one of the most damaging PUA concepts

In the comments section of my recent article Hubris as the basis of the PUA scam, I had a discussion with Alek Novy about the existing social norms regarding approaching women, and what they imply for men.  In this article, I'm going to expand on it, and will eventually point out the overly harmful consequences of what PUAs call "plowing".

First, let's just recapitulate how Western society works: In order to spare women the negative consequences of feeling rejection, it's the task of the man to approach her. However, the woman can't be too blatant about her interest, so you normally get mixed signals. This is all to allow for plausible deniability on her part. Let's say Jill Average gets wet for Joe Buff and sees him at the college bar. Joe is there as well, and looks for some new chick to bang. Jill thinks that now her time has come and makes a "move", but Joe ignores her. Then, she can still say to herself, "Oh, no, I wasn't flicking my long hair to get the attention of Joe Buff. He just happened to walk past when I did it, and of course I did it with no reason at all."

Let's say Janet Stunner does the same and happens to be Joe's type. Janet flicks her hair, Joe sees this and realizes that Janet is looking for dick. He takes her home, and they have sex. However, by merely sending out a signal as apposed to approaching the guy, Janet can keep telling herself that she isn't just some slut who is willing to any fit guy. Again, plausible deniability protects the female psyche.


However, because women normally don't approach you, you've got to make a move yourself. You hardly ever get a concrete signal. Well, it's just not particularly common, outside porn, that some hot chick would walk up to you in the club and grab your crotch. So what else are you supposed to do? Right, since you can't approach every woman in the place and hope that one will eventually take you, you have to be somewhat smart about the process.

One possible way, and the one I advocate, is to test the waters and see how it goes. If you get a bad vibe early on, just move on. I've talked about this elsewhere in great detail, so I'm not going to repeat myself. In sharp contrast, though, PUAs recommend "plowing", i.e. if the girl shows no interest, or maybe is even hostile towards you, you just keep spouting your PUA bullshit, hoping that something will stick. You don't know what "plowing" means? Don't worry, here's the definition from PUA Lingo, for comic effect:

Plowing is the idea of continuing to push through with a pickup, even if it doesn’t appear to be going well. Plowing is an important skill for PUAs to master because pick up attempts do not always go smoothly. Sometimes, the woman will be totally into the PUA and throwing IOIs left and right, but, more often than not, women who are being hit on will put up some initial resistance. Being able to plow through this resistance often marks the difference between a successful pickup and a failed one.

So, let's assume the woman isn't "throwing IOIs left and right" but instead looks away, turns away, immediately starts a conversation with her friend and cutting you off, or even tells you to go away. The right thing to do is to realize that she isn't just that into you. Don't waste more time and just move on. The stupid thing, though, would be to "plow", i.e. stick around, keep trying to start conversations, force yourself upon her, trying to befriend her friends, and all the other shit PUAs recommend.

There was another relevant comment to the "hubris" article:

Some nights I just approach whem getting signals, other nights I just socialize with everyone a little and others I "roll the dice" aggressive and dont give a fuck what they think. Why should I or everyone? Not my job to think about what they think. If it doesnt fit she isnt the right one.

There are good reasons to care, and you don't have to be spiritually inclined and believe in karma to see why such behavior is poisonous. Every PUA who "plows" fucks it up royally for all the other guys. First, girls don't like being harassed. They really don't. Sometimes, girls literally hide in the toilet with one of their girlfriends for ten minutes, hoping that the dude who kept pestering her will disappear in the meantime. This seriously ruins her mood, too. Just imagine some fat and ugly chick would keep harassing you and even if you told her to go away, she kept going back! How would you feel about that?

The girl the PUA was hitting on might have been in the mood to hook up with some dude, but not so much after a very unpleasant encounter. If I offered you filet mignon right after you finished throwing up, you probably wouldn't want to eat it either. Those guys who would have had a realistic chance to get with her will have to look elsewhere. There are even guys out there who completely lack "social calibration", and who even manage to make girls leave the venue --- without them, of course. You probably have witnessed this a few times as a bystander if you've got some female "friends". You bump into them as they are on the way out, and you say, "Geez, why are you leaving so soon?", and then she points out some creep to you ("There is that guy over there, but don't look directly at him..."), who may then walk up to her again and pester her some more. There are some real idiots out there, and the PUA scam increased their numbers considerably. We can thank "plowing" for that.

What's your opinion? Let me know in the comments below!