How to meet a woman

The below is some advice I found on a thread on the Reddit sex feed. The excellent advice was posted by an older guy named Prolapsed Pinealin response to some poor dude calling himself  libidothrowaway73, who is still a virgin at 23. He is considering just posting on a hook-up site to get that big V off his back.  

23, m, virgin, I don't think I'm that bad looking, but if I lost a little more weight I'd be just fine in the dating world, but I haven't really had any luck. I'd prefer to lose it to someone I can feel comfortable with, but if I can't get anywhere near the end of the year I'll probably hit up a site like Fling/AFF/craigslist and just get it over with so I start feeling a little more comfortable with sex in general.
ProlapsedPineal

Son, if you're 23 I have some words of wisdom for you. I'm almost old enough to be your dad and my boy and I talk pretty regularly about how the world works so I hope you don't take offense to my tone, it's meant to be helpful.

You need very few things at your age to meet a wonderful woman, but it's a quest. Think of it that way. You're Link, or Luke, or some other hero of the story.

First you must unlock the mystery of self confidence. This is like pulling the sword out of the stone. Only the one true king can do it, but you just didn't know that was you the whole time because you were afraid to try.

Read. Good. Books. Not that PUA shit, things that actually make you a better person, not a manipulative jackass. I highly recommend Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People as well as a book called The Magic of Thinking Big. It's been a while, but I remember those as being very helpful to me in life.

Why? Because most people are not socialized well and they are taught to believe they deserve things they don't without effort. You need to know how to be comfortable talking to people. Be genuine. Learn how to not over share. Relax in your own skin. Be genuinely interested in what someone else has to say.

Now that you know how to communicate and you believe you can be awesome, start being awesome.

If you have problems with having a conversation with a woman, maybe you're just fucking boring. Fix that. Change your life. Have some hobbies and passions. Work out for God's sake, make your body look good. Do you like being with attractive women? Well, make yourself attractive. Even if your face is a mess, if you take care of yourself it tells someone else "this is a guy that takes care of himself". It will help you.

Now that you're a good communicator, have healthy self esteem, and have become more physically active we need to talk about your career.

I've had a strong six figure job and a self esteem that was shit and couldn't get a date. I've also been a struggling artist and had to almost literally fight dates off. The big difference was passion. It was all what was going on in my head. If you hate your job reconsider it, maybe you're in survival mode for money but whatever it is you choose to do, you choose it, and you make it something you can be enthusiastic about.

Mind, body, and soul is important, but the impressions are very, very important. Dress well for fucks sake. Everyone in a first world country can clean up. Have at least one outfit that makes you feel good. Polish your shoes, or at least clean your sneakers if that's your thing.

If you're a punk with a mohawk then there's a different but similar thing going on, it boils down to making yourself feel good about you first. If you feel good about yourself you will emanate something that is attractive. You'll be more confident, and that will lead to....

Talk to women in real life. I'm not saying that it's a catch all solution to your problem, but if your goal when talking to women online is to eventually meet them in real life, you could always cheat the system and practice talking to them in the real world too.

Consider this. If you setup an okcupid or whatever account you're saying hi to a woman who has probably been hit on 30 times in the past day. If you go to a nice club, with a haircut and clean clothes and approach a woman, she may have only been talked to by a few guys in the past hour.

The real world is where it's at. Use dating sites to practice having conversations, but its a sucker's game. Go get scared, screw up, grow some confidence, and meet people in the world.

I wish you the best young man, treat her respectfully and go make the old guard proud.

Edit:

If you're a virgin you're body is going to be so excited to have sex the first time you're going to be rubbish. You can't expect to be an expert at something you're just trying for the first time. Make sure you go down on her first. Don't watch porn to learn how to do this, read some of the great posts here about it. Have lots of foreplay. Practice kegel exercises. Be a repeat performer. You'll get the hang of it, but make her pleasure important to you.
ProlapsedPineal