Start of a good evening…more to come

So far today, I have had two attractive women call me to find out if I was going to be at a happy hour this evening, I found a shirt I’ve been looking for for a while, and now I can wear that shirt to the happy hour with the two attractive women who desire my company.  I sincerely hope this is not the last post I make about this evening. Cheers

Juggler’s 90-10 Rule and Avoiding Entertainer Mode

As I’m sure I’ve said a thousand times before, my success in the game has come almost entirely from social circle interactions.  House parties, friends of friends, co-workers, these types of situations.  There are two reasons for the discrepancy between my success in that environment and my relative lack of success in cold approach situations.

In a social circle interaction, there is assumed comfort.  You know some of the same people, maybe you have seen each other before in a non-sexual situation, maybe they know a lot from someone else about your background and personality without even having met you.  If you’re real lucky, maybe you even have someone they respect and care about that’s vouching for you and trying to make something happen.  Anyw ay you look it, there are built in supports there to make good things happen.  I would say if you’re having trouble in this area, your problems are probably inner game and kino escalation issues, as these are the two main elements at play in a social circle pick-up.

Outside the social circle, the game changes.  Everything from above is still in play, but now you have to make it through an open, a transition, and a much more significant comfort building phase, as well as the same attraction and seduction process.  I will fully admit, I do not open enough sets.  I see targets, I smile, and I do nothing about it.  Some of this is, I think, a remnant of starting in the game through the Mystery Method and opinion openers, which are not nearly as versatile as developing a more direct style.  Part of it is just me being a chicken shit sometimes.

When I do open, I have found that my conversations tend to flounder early on.  It’s an interesting contrast for me, because when I fail in social circle situations, I think the issue is the opposite.  In cold approach situations, I’m not ready to provide the 90% demanded, as stated in Juggler’s 9-10 rule.  In a social circle setting, I so invest myself in owning the environment that I switch gears into entertainer mode and go over the top with the energy level required by the situation.  I want to take a look at both of these issues and what I might be able to do to get over them.

First, you have to know your environment.  A bar or a club often takes a very high energy vibe to be successful.  You want to be willing to dance, to keep moving, to talk loudly, to have superficial fun with no real depth of conversation.  All these things are great because these are the things women go out to find.  They want to find the guy that will make their night the most fun it can be, and that is not the guy that wants to find a quiet place to talk (at least if by “talk”, you really mean “talk”).

In those type of environments, I don’t often feel dominant enough to try to control the scene with people I don’t know.  I don’t go very direct with new sets, I don’t entertain from minute one, and I don’t often hold anything longer than a couple of minutes.

Juggler offers his 90-10 rule as one explanation.  He says that a serious problem men have is that they open sets expecting a typical 50-50 conversation to ensue, when in fact, the women is not ready to offer more than 10% of the conversation until she gets a sense that you’re worth offering more.  An opening and transition based on traditional conversational rules will, of course, flounder because you offer 50, she offers 10, and a 60% conversation is not interesting enough for either of you to hang out in.  He suggests that, instead, you ask open-ended, interesting questions, and be prepared for her not to answer.

“You: What did you want to be when you were ten years old?

Her: What? I don’t remember.

You: Well that is too bad because it is useful to remember. If we can get in touch with our passions we had at that time we can learn a lot about what gets us excited today. For instance, when I was ten I knew exactly what I wanted to be.

Her: What did you want to be?

You: I wanted to be an astronaut. I even had this great way of training. I had a globe in my room and I would spin it and then quickly climb up onto my bunk bed and lean over like this and pretend I was floating around the Earth. (Pause) When my sister would come in the door she would be the space alien. (Zap zap)” (from The Juggler Method compiled by Charisma Sciences).

You have to be prepared to be the entertainer, to keep things going, to get her laughing and enjoying herself when all she’s ready to give you is “Uh…I don’t know.”  There are lots of ways to do it.  Funny answers to Juggler’s type of questions, bringing in a group of fun people to mingle with hers, generally being the life of the party (which I can never pull off at a bar).  90% of the energy needs to come from you, whether it’s conversational energy or just partying, good time energy.  If you can’t pull off the party energy, like I am admittedly incapable of most of the time, find more low key venues and focus on providing the conversational energy.

In a social circle situation, entertainer mode needs to be avoided at all costs.  I can remember distinct instances in my past where I tried to take the energy level of a venue to a higher level (usually with alcohol contributing to my energy level) which just made me that guy that people blow off to continue their conversations.  Success in a more low key setting involves a few things.  First, own the group.  Let other people suggest things, and then make sure you take over the direction things go from there.  Too many suggestions are risks of being shot down, but if you own other people’s leads, you become the leader of the pack without the significant risk.  Be a little bit louder than everyone else, just making clear that everyone should hear you and that you will not be drowned out by anyone else.  Don’t go crazy here, just make sure everyone else stops when you talk.  Pick your target, build attraction and kino escalation.  No canned opener necessary.  Even if you don’t know each other, you know enough to just introduce yourself.  Comfort is basically built since she either already knows you or you mutually know somebody which is the definition of social proof.  At this point it’s all about attraction and seduction.

Be comfortable in your own skin here, and things will go your way.  Don’t react to every other person around you; make them react to you.  Don’t try to provide 90% of the conversation; give her hoops to jump through and reward her with conversation when she jumps through them.  Finally, kino, kino, kino, because with comfort already built for you, every minute you’re not kinoing is a minute you’re backsliding into the friend zone.

Be mindful of your environment, match the energy level, and give people whatever type of enjoyment they came out to find, and you can guarantee significant success.

Day2 Report: LMR and Just Being Good At What You Do

I think Cyndi Lauper might have been on to something when she said “Girls just want to have fun.”  Really, it should just say, “People just want to have fun.”  The reason a song about “girls” became a huge hit and you’ll never hear a song titled, “Men just want to have fun,” is quite simply because everyone knows that men just want to have fun.  There is no revelation in that statement.  It is perfectly acceptable for men in our society to pursue their basest pleasures, to drink, to chase women, to do stupid things just for the adrenaline rush, and that’s just “Boys being boys.”  To say that girls just want to have fun is to reveal that they don’t really want to be the proper young ladies that their elders and their social groups and society in general have impressed upon them that they should be.  Women are not ultimately so different from men in their internal wiring that they don’t want to pursue those base pleasures just as much as men do.  This is a good thing.

I had a day2 last night with a girl I met last Friday night.  I haven’t had a legit Day2 date in a really long time.  Mostly that’s because I’m still running on my college assumptions about game which generally meant that day2’s weren’t necessary, but that’s a subject for another post.  So yesterday I invite this girl over and I’m gonna cook her dinner.  She’s a vegetarian, so this makes cooking somewhat more of a challenge.  I had to find a recipe for something with tofu.  I just got my keys yesterday for a new house that I’m about to move into, so I take her to this empty house with no electricity on yet, we eat dinner outside by the pool and then go for a swim.  Even though the food was a moderate disaster, everything is going well.

To back track a little to last Friday, this girl, I’ll call her Tofu, wanted to make out with me at the bar on Friday.  I went with the “I don’t make out in bars,” route which clearly had the desired effect.  It creates a challenge for her to overcome, while telegraphing that you don’t need to jump at every opportunity you get to make out. If you explain it as a public spectacle problem, then you also telegraph that you’re not the kind of person who is going to hook up with her and want the whole world to know about it.

Back to last night, we’re swimming and we start kissing in the pool, and she says, “I’m sorry I don’t make out in pools.”  She didn’t mean it, she was just trying to jab back at me for letting her down in the bar.  This is exactly what you want from the “I don’t make out in bars,” scenario.  She’s just a little hurt, because she’s not used to guys saying no.  Since you’re the guy that did say no, now instead of her, you are the prize to be won, and you are asking her to work for it by meeting you for a day2 in a more private place, which obviously Tofu was okay with.  How many girls after just talking for a few minutes would agree to wear a swimsuit and be taken to an empty house alone with a guy they barely know?  Well, if you have created that desire to pursue the prize that is you, then most of them.  Remember, girls just want to have fun.

Later in the night, we’re out of the pool, we’re fooling around on the carpet inside the house, and she starts with the “I really should be getting back soon,” stuff.  Now, we all know this as Last Minute Resistance.  Even though girls just want to have fun, they’re told that they shouldn’t.  You don’t do certain things on the first date, you don’t do certain things until you’re in a serious relationship, and you don’t do certain things at all.  Like I said before, I rarely pursue day2’s.  I very much like to find my targets from within my social circle where comfort is already higher and make a one night game of it.  So, you can imagine that means I hit a lot of last minute resistance.  If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard, “I hardly even know you,” or, “I just met you,” or, “Do you even know my name?” (watch out for that one it’s deadly).  Ultimately though these attitudes haven’t been a problem for me.

Women enjoy their sexuality just as much as men do.  This means it’s just as hard for a woman to walk away from a situation where she’s really turned on as it is for a guy to do the same.  They will walk away for one of two reasons.  First, she sees long term potential for the relationship and doesn’t want it to be about sex too soon.  This is the fatal blunder of day2’s.  A day2 becomes a day3 becomes a day4, and before you know it you’ve been a lot of dates with the girl without closing the deal.  Your image is obviously too safe, too asexual and comfortable and soft.  Develop some aggressiveness in your game and in your attitudes in general and you’ll see the pick ups turn into hook ups a lot more quickly.  Most of the time, I don’t want women to want to date me.  Occasionally, I meet a woman who is worthy of that consideration, but normally I just want to have fun.  I live my life as a sexual being, women pick up on that, and they don’t want to date me either.  They assume since I have such a sexual aura about me, I must be good at what I do, and they want to take it for a test drive.

The other reason you might not be closing the deal is that she was never really turned on in the first place.  Here’s a test, how many times does a girl say something like, “I really need to go,” before she actually goes?  If it’s 1-2, you’re not doing much for her.  The only reason she’s saying that is because she has decided already that you’re sexually inept and is ready to run for the door.  If this is the case, you might consider finding yourself a good female friend, even one you’re not remotely attracted to, just to get some tips.  Give your friend a brutally honest and specific play by play and let them tell you what you’re missing.  As a counter-example, Tofu must have said she needed to be leaving at least 6-8 times and those were spread out among long stretches where she forgot that she “needed to be getting back.”  And she actually does have a job that gets her up before 5 in the morning so there was no question I would eventually taking her home.

Ultimately, if you can become good at what you do, not just pick-up, but sex and sexuality, everything will improve.  If you develop a sexual attitude that girls can pick up on, girls will want more.  If you’re a good kisser, girls will want more.  If you’re good with your hands, girls will want more.  If you’re good at what you do, then you know that all that other stuff that we call Last Minute Resistance is not her, it’s everyone else inside her head telling her what she should and shouldn’t be doing.  But if she’s having fun, that “should” doesn’t really matter so much. Remember, girls just want to have fun.

Gay Bars and Game

Okay, odd topic, I know.  I think there is something here worth examining.  I went out to a gay dance club with a couple of friends of mine who are gay men.  I, hopefully obviously, am not gay, so this was an interesting experience.  Here’s my breakdown of the pros and cons:

Pros – 1) Bitch shields are down.  Women who go out to gay bars are not expecting to get hit on like they would be expecting it in other places.  This is good for us (mostly, see below for more).  It leads to the fact that 2) approaching is easier.  The rules are just different.  Much more so than at other clubs, you can just walk up to a girl and start dancing and she’ll totally roll with out without a word needing to be exchanged.  Gay men are generally very friendly and outgoing, and talking to strangers in gay bars is way more expected and free of complication.  3) Buying temperature can be seriously pumped.  Women spend all night at gay bars grinding all over men that don’t find them attractive.  There is often a lot of touching and sweat being exchanged, and only a few good men who are willing to do something about it.  This is implied by the previous sentence but I think it warrants mention on its own; 4) competition is slim.  Most of the men at a gay bar are not going after the women, so if you find the right club with a good concentration of women, the odds are in your favor.  5) Being a straight guy at a gay club subcommunicates some confidence and comfortableness with your sexuality.  You’re just out to have a good time and you can do that just as easily dancing at a gay bar as going out to any other place.

Cons – 1) Obviously, women can be harder to find.  If you go to the wrong gay club at the wrong time, the crowd will be exclusively male, or men and lesbians.  Places with dancing on a weekend night are usually a safe bet to find some women, but it’s not a sure thing the way it would be at other bars. 2) Women can assume you’re gay.  If you have some style and some moves on the dance floor, which hopefully you do if you’re going to visit a gay bar, it can telegraph the obvious assumption that since you’re there, you must be gay.  As mentioned above, this can be good because it keeps bitch shields down, but it can also lead to false IOI’s.  Women will get really handsy with a guy they assume is gay, and then you can lose that comfort when you move for any kind of close.  Obviously, if you’re talking to a girl, it’s easy to weave things into your conversation that makes your orientation apparent, but when you’re dancing it’s harder to do. 3) Women go to gay bars specifically not to get hit on.  You have to be disqualifying to the max sometimes to avoid some instant turn-off when they find out you’re straight.  4) If you’re not comfortable being there, it’s gonna show.  These places are very high energy and open and if you’re gonna be a wallflower and avoid contact with others you’re not doing yourself any favors, and you’re not going to get to experience the pros.

I’m sure there are more ways to look at both sides of this, but that’s what I’m thinking after my Friday night out the gay club.  I definitely had a good time because I like dancing regardless of where I’m doing it, and I did open some girls with some of the pros and some of the cons definitely in play.  One of the guys I went out with is going to be my roommate soon, so I’m sure there will be some more gay bar field reports down the line, and ideally some gay bar LR’s to go with them.

FR: J-Dog and Stripper Game

So yesterday’s plan started as: Go to the mall to meet up with a new guy that Dusty, my usual Phoenix wing, met on some forum, run some day game, and see where things go from there.  To begin with, we got stuck behind this accident on the way out to Tempe and got there an hour and a half after we had wanted to.  This meant that we had missed the midday rush at the mall and were early for the evening rush, so the sets were slim pickings. Also, the new guy was really new, as in he’s read half of The Game and that’s it.  The Game is not a manual and is not nearly enough to really learn to pick-up with any efficiency, so he also kind of dragged down our vibe.  Three guys at a mall together is kind of awkward anyway, and every time I would try to isolate myself at a store to get in position to open something, I felt like they were following me around.  So we spent a couple hours there, I got some new shirts, a book, and one beer at this cantina that was the only place with any life, and Dusty and I split to go to Mill Ave, which is Tempe’s main bar district.

On the way down the street, before we have even entered a bar we get handed these flyers for the anniversary party at some strip club a little west of there.  We go into one bar, I have one beer, and chat with the cute hostess a little bit, and then we split to try out our stripper game.

This is where the night gets interesting and exciting.  We’re walking down the street and I notice J-dog, Mystery disciple and star of VH1’s The Pick-Up Artist, standing on the street talking to another dude.  Me and Dusty double-back up the street to introduce ourselves.  I was really impressed with him.  Very warm with us, not at all annoyed by our fanboy approach.  I was kind of a dick and broke a rule I would never break in set with chicks because I didn’t introduce myself to the other guy right away.  I think maybe I was able to proof myself a little by telling him I was at the first night of the Pick-up Artist filming, I dropped some names of the guys I knew in Austin, and we were able to talk about the town, which we both love.  I didn’t get to the part of the story where I leave the bar on that fateful Tuesday night only to get arrested for DUI on one of the most sober drives home I have ever taken. Okay, back on track.  We mentioned to J-dog and his wing that we were gonna try out our stripper game.  J-dog says his attitude on strip clubs is that it’s perfectly okay to just go out and pay to have some tits in your face from time to time without worrying about running your game.  Pretty funny dude.  He also turned around to this cute girl sitting on the bench behind us and said “You’re not listening to this conversation are you? Good,” and he turned back around without waiting for a response.  She leaned in toward us and said “No, but now I want to know.”  In another situation, he had her hooked just with that and could have kept that attraction alive, but for the time being he turned back around and kept talking to us

There is one take-away that I want to share from the conversation that I think everyone can appreciate and use as motivation.  J-dog told me that filming The Pick-up Artist was actually really nerve racking, even for the gurus.  When the producers said on that first night of filming, “Alright, we’re gonna take the contestants out and you guys are gonna roll in and show them how it’s done,” this was a challenging task.  Even these guys who are so good at seduction that they got their own tv show were on edge knowing that they had one shot to get it right.  Think about that the next time you go out.  I may not make it happen tonight.  Even the pros don’t make it happen every night.  Once I understand that, I can take rejection a lot more calmly, and move on to the next set.  Every set is an opportunity, some pan out and some don’t, but it doesn’t mean anything if you go home alone on any given night.  Hopefully, you opened some sets, you learned a thing or two, calibrated your game each time making it better, and the next time you can try again.

J-dog told me he’s holding a bootcamp soon in the Phoenix area, and now that is definitely on my to-do list.  I’m sure the President would be proud to find out how I plan to spend my stimulus check, learning to seduce hot women.  You can, hopefully, look forward to some field reports from that and a general review of the experience.

On to stripper game.  I haven’t been to strip club in a while, and it was way more fun than I remembered.  I have had some crazy times in strip clubs (New Orleans: Larry Flynt’s Barely Legal), but most of my experiences have been fairly tame because I don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars (I think I paid the rent at Barely Legal).  Fortunately, since I went in with a game mindset, I knew the plan all along was not to spend a lot of money.  First rule of stripper game, don’t buy lap dances.  Make it clear that you’re not going to open your wallet and the dancer will decide on her own whether she wants to continue spending time with you or not.  In this case, I made eye contact with a girl that I liked, she was standing nearby and not approaching anybody, which I think was likely intentional on her part, so I motioned her over to sit on my lap.  She asked if I wanted a dance, I said I don’t do lap dances, she asked why, and I said something like, “I prefer for girls to get to know me as more than a wallet.”  It was pretty good delivery, but it could have been better.  She still sat with me for a while and I had my hand on her back caressing a little bit, and she didn’t go tell the bouncer to throw me out or anything.  Rule number 2 of stripper game: you can touch strippers.  If a stripper likes you, and she’s sitting and talking to you, you can escalate kino pretty much like normal, and you’ll be fine.  Don’t touch the hot spots, which I should hope you’re not doing in a club setting anyway, and you’ll be fine.

Dusty did this great thing I have to relay.  This off-duty stripper walks by him and kind of trips over his foot, he takes the opportunity to poke fun at her a little bit, and she puts her hand up for a high five.  High-fiving is a complete compliance test, and most guys right here would give her the five.  Dusty puts his hand up in front of hers, makes her move toward him to finish the five, and then slowly backs his hand away to make it more difficult.  When they finally finish the five, they wrap fingers, they’re laughing, and she has moved closer to him because she had to in order to reach his hand.  He took a situation where most men would have let the girl control the reality by complying with her high five, and he turned it where she was complying and laughing.  Props, bro.

I left my number for the girl I spent some time with, but I got pretty drunk and I think I was kinda sloppy at the end of the night so I doubt she’ll call.  Either way it was a positive experience I haven’t had in a while, and I’m sure will lead me to try it again soon.  Between meeting J-dog and having a good time at the club, overall, one of the better nights out I have had in some time.

Just For Your Entertainment

No real explanation necessary. I promise you’re not getting Rick Rolled or anything sneaky like that. It’s a worthy and entertaining read. Just read and enjoy.

A Sensitive Lover

In case the story actually mentions any of your moves, and in case by some freak incident there is confusion on this point, it’s tongue-in-cheek. If you see any of yourself in this story, consider reexamining your life.

Pheromones: Are they real?

So I don’t remember where I heard it, but I heard a suggestion not that long ago regarding pheromones. The idea was that if you shower right before you go out, that you’re washing away all of the natural attractive pheromones that your body produces and replacing them with the artificial scents of soaps and shampoos, etc. If, instead, you allow yourself to maintain your natural scent when you go out, that women will respond on a subconscious, animalistic level to your scent.

First of all, here’s what this doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean go play basketball or work out or mow the lawn and then go out without showering. That would be disgusting and repulsive to women regardless of whether you believe that showering washes away your pheromones. We’re talking about after an average day where you smell natural, not bad. Like if you have an indoor type of job and you shower in the morning before you go to work, you don’t need to shower again if you’re gonna go out at night. Just change your clothes and put on some cologne and you’re good to go. Which takes me to the second point, this theory also doesn’t mean not to wear cologne or any other product that changes your smell. Consciously, you want women to think, “He smells nice,” as I have women tell me on a regular basis because I know that so much of attraction is based on smell. The part of the attraction of smell that you’re trying to harness is the subconscious part, the part that women won’t know they’re responding to but will still be in the air around you.

Now to the pheromone debate. According to Wikipedia, which, let’s be honest, is the all-knowing scholar on all things, “no pheromonal substance has ever been demonstrated to directly influence human behavior in a peer reviewed study.” Now, this refers to substances that have tried to harness human pheromones and market them as aphrodisiacs or attraction enhancers. This does not mean that humans don’t have pheromones, only that we don’t know how to use them consciously to our benefit.

The existence and uses of pheromones in animals, particularly in insects but also in larger animals, have been well-documented and definitively proven. In humans, pheromones and scent cues and believed to play a part in the synchronization women’s menstrual cycles, in selecting mates that are genetically divergent from ourselves, and possibly in the genetic underpinnings of homosexuality. The one were concerned about in our line of work is androstadienone, a chemical in male sweat that increases levels of cortisol in women. Cortisol is the chemical that we produce when responding to stress; it increases blood pressure, combines with adrenaline to create short-term flashbulb memories of emotional events, and can be responsible for inducing a mild state of euphoria. Basically, at an animal level, if she smells you, she’ll get all hot and bothered.

The evidence for the presence and uses of pheromones seems strong enough, even without peer reviewed studies to prove their effectiveness at changing behavior. Seems to me like any edge you can give yourself is worth trying, and since not showering twice in one day is not a particularly challenging task to achieve, I see no reason not to go with the logic that it may help. If anyone has ideas about how to actually gauge the effects of the practice, let me know, but until then I’m going to assume it works. Here’s part of the reason why.

I went out with a girl last night on what was not understood to be a date, just a friendly evening out. I didn’t shower beforehand, just put on my bar clothes and some cologne and rolled out, after work and walking my dog and the non-strenuous activities of daily life. I did my best to turn the night into a date, but no luck. We’re not really that compatible at all. In fact, I think dating her would making me pull all my hair out, but she used to be a cheerleading captain in college and she’s got a smoking body. I think she’s knows we’re not compatible for anything long term and that’s why I can’t build any sexual tension with her. Either way, we ran into some friends at a bar after seeing a movie and she ended up bailing to go home. So, I roll with this other guy that we ran into to another bar where we know we have some friends hanging out, and this time it was on. I walked in and just immediately owned the room. I know the bartender at this particular bar, a chick who is maybe a 7 but with spectacular boobs, and she said hello to me by name when I came in. I was moving around talking to the different small groups I knew without stalling or lingering. And it wasn’t long before I had attraction from a blonde, who is training to be a personal trainer (read as: great abs, my number one weakness.) We’re playing pool, which I’m good at, and I’m teaching her some things that she’s really into. She makes a few bank shots after I’ve showed her the physics. Another guy in the group tried to come in and offer his two cents and I just took the conversation right back from him and backed out. It’s amazing what you can do if you just plow through other people conversationally. After a few games, her friends are ready to go and she convinces them to leave her with me. I use my hookah as the impetus to come back to my apartment, as I almost always do, and things go well from there.

Obviously, I can’t isolate the effect of my scent and the possible pheromones in this event. This is a girl I knew already, and I am money in my social circle. I was in a good mood and just did everything right. At the same time, it is at least possible that when I stood behind her to show her something at the pool table or just grazed past her moving around to set up a shot that she smelled me and attraction was created subconsciously. Obviously, smell is not enough on its own, but if she’s already thinking nice things and I walk by and create a slight euphoria in her body, I would say that’s a good indicator that her body wants more where that came from.

Clothes and Booze

My philosophy is that it’s always better to be a little overdressed than a little underdressed. I also think it’s better to be a little overdressed than to be dressed just right. Ultimately, if you’re dressed just right, meaning that you are wearing exactly what social norms would prescribe for your setting, that probably also means that you’re dressed a lot like everyone else around you in the given location. Whether it’s a store, or a bar, the airport, or just out on the street, if you dress exactly like you are expected to, you will be very easy to ignore.

Being overdressed or underdressed will both get you noticed, but only one will get you noticed in a positive way. Not dressing to the expected standard will cause people to immediately label you as not having a sense of social etiquette, as someone who doesn’t get out much, as someone who doesn’t have friends, particularly female friends, who could tell you when your attire does not match the expectations of the venue. Alternately, being overdressed, and I’m talking slightly, not going everywhere in your tuxedo Bond James Bond, will get you noticed, but without the negative stigmas attached. In fact, being overdressed may telegraph things like wealth, class, style, and self-confidence, which obviously are not bad signs to be throwing out there.

Last night I was out at a couple of fairly standard yuppie pubs with Beta. I had come from another event for which I was wearing black slacks and a nice shirt. When I go to bars, I almost always wear a nice pair of jeans and a button down. I won’t wear a t-shirt to a bar unless I’m wearing a blazer over it, and I try to make the shirt one notch nicer than is standard for that bar. I was able to stop a girl on her way in to the bar and number-close her after just asking directions to a new bar. I attribute at least part of her willingness to comply with my request to how I was dressed. I looked stylish, confident, and together. Would the situation have been the same had I been wearing jeans and a t-shirt? Maybe, but still I think you put yourself on a good starting track by dressing to get noticed in the best possible way.

The second topic of today’s post: booze. I got absolutely hammered yesterday. I started drinking at happy hour, kept right on through dinner and into the night. By the time I was at these pubs, I was sloshed. I opened more sets than I have opened in a single night in a long time. I got a couple to hook pretty solidly, and like I said, I got at least one number close. Still, I think booze can really take things in a bad direction.

First, when you have a night like I had last night, you are tempted to attribute your confidence and success to the booze. It is not okay to go out the next time and say, “I’ll start opening sets after I get a couple drinks in me, a little social lubrication, a little liquid confidence.” The booze may lower some of the normal social barriers, but all it did was cause me to put myself out there in a more forward and direct way than normally I might. The next time I go out, instead of focusing on the drinking as the source of success, I have to focus on the confidence and openness and the fun attitude as the source of my success. That way, without the crutch of drinking, I understand what needs to be done to create similar success.

Also, I never called the girl back whose number I got. She said she had to go do something with her friends, and she told me to call her in about half an hour. I had pretty much forgotten that interaction with seconds of it happening. I was on to more shots, more opens, new excitement and it caused me to miss what might have been a golden opportunity. I have rarely been able to close when I’ve been drinking. I will feel like I’m doing great because I’ll open anything in sight and a lot of times I can hook and create some attraction. The subtleties required to move from attraction to comfort and into seduction are far too much for a drunk to handle. If you like to go out and have a great time, but then go home alone at the end of it, make copious alcohol part of your routine. If you really want to be sensible enough to understand the game and connect with women you meet and set yourself up to get laid, take it easy.

Forcing yourself on her, in the best possible way

 So I was listening to the radio tonight and I ran into this awesome show called The Sex Files (Maxim Radio on Sirius, if you’re interested). Basically, it’s two female hosts talking about sex, but it’s on a guy oriented station so it’s not ridiculous sex tricks for women (Cosmo: 50 ways to please your man, again) or chick minded romance talk.  This is guys better listen because women are talking and they’re being straight with us.  The guest this particular show was a love coach, who apparently works with mostly women.  This seems to be the female counterpart to having a pick-up guru that you know personally.  She actually referenced Mystery and Style with respect for their ideas and used some of the lingo (IOI for instance) which gave her some credibility in my eyes.

What really caught my attention about the chat these three women were having was this: Women suck at letting guys know that they’re interested.  This was their whole-hearted admission about most women and the way they interact around new men.  Women, they said, are not often going to break down the wall between themselves and a stranger.  Remember, guys, the world is a different place for women and men.  If you open and girl and she turns out to be a psycho, you leave her and don’t talk to her anymore.  Maybe if you’ve gotten in deep you may have to deal with some annoying phone calls or unexpected visits, but unless she brings a weapon in to things, you are probably never in any real danger.  It’s different for women.  If a woman makes a connection with a guy, she talks to him in an elevator, or at the gym, or the airport, or whatever, and then they are at any point after that alone, she could be in danger.  If the guy is a head case, she could get raped, kidnapped, even killed.  The stakes are much higher for women when dealing with strangers.

Now, that doesn’t mean that she assumes you are going to be that person.  The possibility is simply out there, and that possibility combined with the social programming we all know women have to deal with will lead most women to hang back and wait for a guy to approach them.  Maybe they bat the eyelashes a little bit or smile at you or look away in that cute way women do, but for most men, these things will be far too subtle to be noticed.  You will just be that cute guy she saw in the elevator earlier, instead of her potential lover.  This leads me to two conclusions.

The first conclusion was actually spelled out explicitly in this radio show.  If an attractive woman approaches you in any way, it’s on.  If she compliments something you’re wearing or something you’re doing, you are a potential lover.  If she creates proximity in a situation where she doesn’t have to, you are a potential lover.  Those subtle things I talked about, and add to them things like stroking the hair back from her ear, sliding her shoe off a little bit, whatever it may be, could be conscious or subconscious.  They are great IOI’s don’t get me wrong, but they are not fool-proof because her body maybe saying “yes” to something her brain is saying “no” to.  If she approaches you to talk or be near you, this is a conscious decision to create a vulnerable situation for her because she sees there may a great reward out of it, and that reward is you.  All you have to do is not screw it up.  You have keep the interaction going in a positive direction by starting or continuing good conversation and doing all the things a PUA should know how to do and she is yours.

The second conclusion is even more critical because it applies so much more often. Rarely is a woman going to approach you with the overt interest I talked about before.  You may not be able to spot the subtle IOI’s very often, partly because they’re subtle, and partly because they too can be rare.  Overall, we need to understand that a lack of IOI’s does not mean a lack of interest.  It simply means that she is controlling her reaction to you, or has not yet had a reaction to you.  It is our job as men to make her have a reaction.  We have to make ourselves noticed and memorable by putting ourselves out there and forcing her to react.  We have to be the ones to break down that wall.  We are not vulnerable.  We are not timid.  We are not controlled by societal expectations.  If you talk to every pretty woman you see, you are simply showing those women that you are not the creep of her worst nightmares and that she should feel free to express her interest.  Now you can start looking for those IOI’s.

If you wait for IOI’s to approach, you will not approach nearly enough sets to really put yourself on the track to a consistently positive sex life.  If you create IOI’s by overcoming that initial skepticism that women have built in, then you will be happier with yourself and women will be happy with you for trying to be more than just that cute guy she saw in the elevator earlier.

The sexuality triangle and why I’m back

I really can’t even imagine why the host site would keep up a blog that had been inactive for this long., but I’m glad they did. I am so ready to get back to writing and reflecting and offering my thoughts and questions to whatever small segment of the PUA world actually keeps up. Let me begin by offering a very brief apology to those who were keeping up. I notice now that right when I bowed out seemed to be when the traffic to the blog really started to pick up, and it’s a shame I let that slip away. It think it’s pretty telling that my last sensible reply was asking about whether there was anything new coming. I got a little over-involved gaming within a new social circle in a new city with a new job, and the art of cold approach game kinda slid by the wayside. This last week I spent some time in Austin with my old wing, Flip, and he encouraged me to get back to writing and most importantly back to sarging.

During that initial “so what have you been up to/any recent success stories” conversation, we uncovered a concept that I think might be really beneficial to keep in mind during many aspects of the seduction. It’s what I’m calling for now the Physicality Triangle. I originally spouted off this concept when talking about escalating physicality in an isolated situation, but the more it developed in the conversation, the more I decided that it has a broader application throughout the pick-up.

The concept is this: at any point during a pick-up you are building one of three things that together create a zero-sum situation. Those three things are sexuality, sexual tension, and awkwardness.

When I say sexuality, I mean real physical contact that is overtly sexual. This can start with something as simple as holding hands, as long as you are holding her hand in a way that you both know is sexual, not during a palm reading or some other game that is basically a trick to hold her hand. Later in the interaction, this is easier to define. It’s kissing and sexual touching.

Sexual tension is something related to but different from sexuality. These are things you do more covertly or verbally that make her want more physicality without ever actually giving it to her. The range here is pretty endless. This starts with just having a strong frame and seeming like a desirable man. This goes into DHV, initial kino, sexual banter. This one isn’t all about push. There has to be some pull to balance it out. You have to create that air of preselectedness. So this category includes making disqualifying statements and not responding immediately to her sexual advances. Once some strong sexuality has been initiated, you create tension by slowing things down and not seeming too needy.

Then, there’s awkwardness. This is the devil of the three. This is the place where many guys start, because their non-verbals convey a lack of self-confidence and challenge, and a place that many guys can’t move out of. If you don’t have a strong frame all the time, then at first glance, your body language will betray you as an awkward guy. When you try to approach, you will already by labeled even before you feel like you’ve made contact. This is the natural breeding ground for approach anxiety, and admittedly a sticking point of mine on my off nights. I didn’t set out to write about the area where I’m not strong, and there are just so many resources out there about building your inner game and getting over that approach anxiety, so I’m going to ignore that aspect of the awkwardness corner for now. Instead I’m going to assume that you have created some kind of initial attraction, and I’m gonna talk about how to avoid backsliding into the awkwardness zone.

Most seduction begins by initiating sexual tension. You go out looking good, you go out with a group that looks good and looks like they’re having fun together, and you have begun to build that aspect because people around you will be intrigued about you. Open a girl or a set with a strong frame and you’ve broken into that corner as well. Like I said earlier, DHV, sexual banter, verbal push-pull dynamics all lead to a stronger position in the sexual tension aspect. These are good things, but not necessarily where you want to stay.

Obviously, the goal in the long term is not to build sexual tension but to get laid. Maybe your goal is a long-term relationship, but even then, I would hope you want to get laid within that. The triangle model works for those looking for one night stands all the way to those using pick-up to meet Miss Right. The timing is a little different; the movement within the model is the same. This is where you want to start moving along what I call the Positive Pendulum. If you’re looking for a one night stand, you want to start moving toward overt sexuality more quickly, if you want to exchange info and get together later, then move more slowly. Still, the movement should be a swinging back and forth between overt physicality and tension building. Obviously, you don’t want to swing from a solid open straight to sex (if you can do this, and some can, you don’t need to be reading this). Instead, thinking about the movement more like running a suicide on a basketball court. You swing across a little with some overtly sexual touch, then you take it away and swing back to tension. Once the tension is building again you can swing a little farther to a kiss on the cheek or a touch in a more sexual place. Then, as always, take it away. Go back to talking, maybe not even talking to her the whole time, engage the group, take the lead, build more tension. Over time, swing further and further across.

When does this swinging start sliding toward the awkwardness zone? If you hang out too long in the tension zone, that will start the slide. If she’s ready to be more sexual, especially if you have her isolated, then not moving toward sexuality will signal a lack of social awareness or a timidness about sexuality, which are both attraction killers. They tell a girl that you probably haven’t been with many women and being with you will probably not be that good. When a woman agrees to come back to my place or invites me to her place for an isolated situation, I know that it’s time. Whether the pretext was a movie or smoking hookah, I’m using that as a fall back to focus on when I’m in those swings into tension, but I’m actively moving toward greater sexuality. If you fail at that movement, as the model shows, you will fall into the friend zone. You will be that great non-sexual guy. She’s probably not even useful as a female friend to hook you up because she will tell her friends how awkward you were and she will not see you as a sexual being for her or her friends. You will likely find yourself doing tedious favors for her very soon.

At the same time, you can slide from the sexuality zone into the awkwardness zone as well. Now, this is doubly true if you are not a good kisser or not comfortable with sexuality, but it can happen for lots of reasons. This is why I encourage the pendulum/suicide run method instead of a full on sprint from tension to sexuality. If you go full force from tension to sex, you have shattered the image of yourself as not needing the sex. Challenge is critical and if you allow tension to build in place of sexuality early on, you create a positive sense of yourself as a sexual challenge. If you then turn around and rush for sex when there’s a window later on, you have lost that vibe. That is an instant ticket to last minute resistance. If instead you keep the pendulum swinging back and forth between tension and sex, you resist the slide into awkwardness and LMR, you keep a sense of challenge, and you get laid.

Now don’t read this as you should try to swing back once the sex is happening. That would be a straight shot into awkwardness. My general rule would be once any clothes have come off, you don’t swing all the back on the tension side. Never leave her sitting there partially clothed as she will hate you and all you stand for, as this is the most awkward position you could ever put a girl in. There can still be momentum shifts and tension building within the way you use sexuality. I don’t want to get too graphic here, but if you don’t understand how you would do this, shoot me an email and I’ll fill you in.

Okay, that is enough for the first post back. I look forward to hearing some critique/questions/comments so that I can elaborate more, but that’s all for now. It’s good to be back.