What happened to Project Mayhem?

As I put together the charter for a new project, one tentatively named Project Magellan, I want to say a few words about Project Mayhem.  When I market the new project, I'm sure a few will wonder what happened to the old.

Project Mayhem was fully active for about eight weeks.  In that time, about 35-40 people were in it with almost two-thirds filing required Field Reports (FRs) weekly.  Not only was I an admin for the Project, I was also in charge of maintaining a tally to check who was submitting their FRs.

About seven weeks into the Project, I took a trip to Asia and wasn’t able to log onto Facebook to maintain the FR tally.  Upon returning, I discovered only 8-9 people filed their FRs in my absence.  In other words, when nobody kept score, a vast majority didn't do it.

That led me to rethink the Project.  I concluded only a few people in the Project were hardcore, natural PUAs.  The rest (like me) joined to learn the cold approach but weren’t naturals.  Once nobody was walking around with a clipboard, they stopped approaching.  I suspect most members hated approaching because it was being forced under threat of expulsion, not the fun pleasurable activity it’s supposed to be.

It seems there needs to be a "softer" approach, once that focuses less on opening, and more on making members happier and more fulfilled.  That is the intended philosophy behind Project Magellan.  It’s meant to be a “holistic” approach to improving our social lives.

I do not consider Project Mayhem a failure.  There are really good guys in it and, for the brief time it was active, the camaraderie exceeded my wildest expectations.  But I believe most were downright naïve in thinking we can just go out and become approach robots and not have it become a draining, stressful and negative influence on our emotional health.  Ironically, placing so much focus on pursuing sex and women, the point of being a PUA, is also the very thing that leads to misery.

I would have preferred to modify Project Mayhem instead of creating a new project.  But I didn’t think the survivors of Project Mayhem, those who are hardcore types, would go along with my softcore approach.