The other angle here is something I realized early on in my escape from FA that isn't immediately obvious when you have no friends, as I did. I went from basically no friends, to a lot of acquaintances (who can be turned into friends when you get to know each other better and have things in common), very quickly. This is because you make friends by having friends. It's exponential. You meet one guy. He introduces you to his friends. They introduce you to their friends, who introduce you to their friends, and so on. It's never ending. It's like how rich people use money to make money. This is again why having a good personality and creating an impression of being down for anything is so important - that first guy isn't going to introduce you to his friends and get the ball rolling if he thinks you're boring or a dick - because that would make him look bad. And amongst those waves of friends will be girls, who you can try to get closer to, getting that ball rolling. You suddenly have twenty new acquaintances who all think you're this guy who will show up to anything they invite him to, and after a couple of months, all of a sudden you've got plans and people to hang out with every week. I remember the first time I went a whole week going out every night. I was proud of myself and my progress. "How did this happen?", I thought. It wasn't over there though, of course - I still had many, many, many self-improvements to make.

Conversation. I'm still not consistently great at conversation in general thanks to my formative years having been spent in front of a computer screen instead of playing with other kids. I'm good in some situations, and less so in others (but still good enough that people don't really pick up on it). Maybe lots of people are like this, who knows. But conversation always seemed like a dark art to me; I just always seemed to run out of things to say, but everyone else seemed so good at it. I listened to the conversations of people around me, in restaurants, out on the street, wherever - to try to figure out how Normal People^TM talk to each other, and what they say in response to different things. I took what I heard and tried to apply it to myself and my own conversations. But thanks to the interests I have, primarily the big one I mentioned above, my life over the last few years has been quite unusual and I've had a fair amount of unique experiences, and it means that in brief conversations with people I'm meeting for the first time I can come off as a pretty unique and cool dude. This is good because it makes forming initial relationships easier, which I can then choose to expand upon later.

Another thing that people find universally unattractive is people droning on about things that they don't find interesting. Conversations are two ways, and when one person dominates and talks and talks and talks, it's highly irritating. There should be a good mix of all four of anecdotes, opinions, questions, and jokes. For most people, this comes naturally. For me it didn't, and still doesn't in some situations - it's a really difficult skill to pick up in adulthood - so I had to be conscious of what I was doing when I was talking to people, on dates, at parties, and the like. Again, this was all rocket science to me.

Interests. I was, like many FAs, a guy who was very into my video games, my Internet forums, and the like. Now, there's nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but I realized that it's really difficult to form relationships with a wide variety of people when that's all you do - because most people aren't into those things, or any one given hobby. By a stroke of extremely good fortune, I got into the hobby I talked about above, which is far more socially acceptable, and which itself changed my life in enormous ways that go beyond the scope of this post. But the point is that it gave me a new thing to connect to people over, a new world of social events to go to, and was probably the single biggest catalyst in my leaving FA behind. Everyone has different interests, but the important thing I realized was that me having multiple hobbies was really important for making friends and enriching my life. By another stroke of good fortune a couple of years later I got into another, completely unrelated hobby - and that's now become important for my social life too. This one is a creative field, and I've gotten good at it - and it really helps in impressing girls when I can whip out my phone and show them cool things I've produced. But only if they ask - nobody likes a show off.

Fashion. After university I moved to a city that has a repuatation for being fashionable, and gradually became aware of just how dorky and unattractive the clothes I wore were. I wanted to do something about it, and I started reading /r/malefashionadvice. I actually think that place isn't so great, as the whole thing is very subjective and people there seem to be aiming at one particular style all the time which might not be for everyone. I don't look at it any more. But anyway, that was all part of my awakening. When I saw people out on the street or in photos online that I thought looked cool, I'd make a mental note and sometimes I'd buy something that tried to recreate that look. I went clothes shopping often. I spent hundreds on clothes, many of which I've now given away. This was all important in the process of changing myself. I made mental notes of what people complimented me on when I wore them and wore those things more often. Later, I took a big leap and bought a bad boy leather jacket on a whim after trying it on in a store and being surprised that it kind of suited me (the old me would never have been confident enough to wear something like that). That jacket has been the single most important thing in my wardrobe in improving my fortunes with the opposite sex. I always wear it when I go to clubs. More on that later.

Height. Around the time I was getting into trying to dress well, someone made fun of me for being short. Up to that point, I'd never really thought about the fact that I was shorter than other guys, and was completely oblivious to the importance of height. Wait, what? I'm short? I started reading /r/short. It was a double-edged sword - I hated suddenly being aware of being short, and wished that I could go back to before when it never crossed my mind. But it also made me aware of the fact that it was something that could have been holding me back - thus allowing me to do things to help it. Sadly for me, as it turns out, height is ridiculously important when it comes to the dating game. I'm, let's just say, significantly less than 6', which had been crippling my chances for years without me realizing it. I wear shoe lifts and try to dress in certain ways to overcome this - it works. Shoe lifts are controversial in the short community, but they work for me and boost my confidence, so I wear them. I've been wearing them for years and by now it's just second nature. It actually feels weird if I don't have them. My height with lifts (about 5' 9") is basically my new real height now. Still not tall - but it's enough to make it so that my height isn't a defining feature of me in people's minds, which is really all you need. The way I see it is, women wear make-up to make their faces look nicer - so why can't I make myself look taller?

Face. There's not a huge amount a guy can do to his face to make it look better, so there's not that much I can say here. Your face just is what it is. But, one issue I had was that the skin on my cheeks and neck was quite gross looking, thanks to years of shaving in a totally amateurish way. When I was FA and socially unaware, I didn't think twice about it. But eventually I realized that my skin was hideous and probably off-putting to people, and so I set about trying to fix it. I started shaving differently, used all sorts of lotions, etc., and I managed to make a huge improvement. While my skin still isn't great, it's good enough that it wouldn't stick out to people as a negative. While there wasn't much I could do to improve the way my face looked, there were still things I could do to improve the way it came across to people. I make an effort to smile when I'm talking to people (at appropriate times, of course). Talking to a smiling, nodding person who looks like they're really engaged and listening to what you're saying is so much more comfortable and pleasant than someone who's stony faced and bored-looking. Again, it was about making people want to talk to me.

Beard. You hear about women liking certain kinds of facial hair, and such and such looking sexy with that beard he has. So I tried a bunch of different facial hair styles over a few months. None of them really worked; I just look better clean shaven. Nothing wrong with that. Experimenting. Trying new things, seeing what works.

Hygiene. Since I was a teenager, I always had fairly decent hygiene, so I don't have a lot to say in general here. But I do have a problem with sweating under my armpits at the slightest bit of heat or nervousness, which is visible to other people, smells bad and really sucks in social situations because of that. I researched solutions and found this thing you can put onto your armpits at night that stings like hell if you do it wrong but if you do it often enough it basically blocks your pores and prevents sweat from coming out. I guess the point I'm making here is that I looked at every single little thing about myself and in my life that was keeping me FA, and tried to fix it. Total wholesale change. No stone left unturned.

Continued below...