95% of the time when a girl spurns your advances she will do it in the mildest possible way, to spare feelings and to avoid angering a potentially unstable man (hopefully you, tiger!). But once in a while a really nasty bitch will let slip the shroud of politeness, revealing the scalding acid of true cuntiness underneath, and shoot you down harshly. When this happens, it is important to have a canned retort ready to fire back, or to rely on your innate wits if you have them, and completely shatter her expectation of your reaction.
Doing so affords you the opportunity to walk away with your dignity intact while getting in a dig at her expense and making her look the fool, or even better to reverse her shitty attitude 180 degrees into attraction for you.
Here are some excellent retorts you can toss out in response to commonly used bitchy rejections. Note: These are actual approach rejections that I have either experienced myself over the years or overheard being used on my wingmen.
- “Ugh, Im not interested.”
“So you’re not going to buy me a drink?”
“So you’re not going to move out of the way so I can talk to that girl over there/get a drink/say hi to your friend?”
“So you don’t want to be on Girls Gone Wild?”
- “Really, that’s the best you can do?”
“For now.”
“For you, nothing but my second best.”
- “Go away.”
“Actually, I came over here to tell you that guy over there [point to ugliest/fattest guy in the room] thinks you’re cute.”
“Whoa, I was gonna see if you were interested in my lesbian friend.” [This works surprisingly well because she’ll wonder why you thought she was gay.]
“Does this mean the wedding’s off? That’s too bad. I’ve been dreaming about my wedding day since I was two.”
- “That’s the worst pickup line I’ve ever heard.”
“And like a bad but catchy tune, you’ll remember it for days and hate yourself for it.”
“Oh believe me, there’s a lot worse where that came from. Consider yourself lucky.”
- “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”
“I would but you broke the lens.” [Be careful with this one. Best to deliver it way over the top like a teasing child.]
- “Whatever you’re going to say, it won’t work.”
“So there’s no chance you’ll do my laundry?”
“Actually, it already has.” [Walk away.]
“Who brought their little sister to the bar?”
- “I don’t want to be bothered.”
“The library’s down the street.”
- “I’m out of your league.”
“Not with those shoes you’re not.”
“The league of brattiness? Yes.”
- “I’m busy with my friends.”
“Plotting to get into my pants? I just look easy.”
***
Like a good boy scout, always be prepared.
A friend of mine always walks around with a digital camera anyway, he loves taking pictures. When he gets the “Take a picture” line, he pulls out his camera and starts giving over the top modelling instructions like a fashion photographer a la Austin Powers. Seems to work for him.
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Most effective in my view:
“The way your hair looks, I thought you needed a friend. Sorry.”
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Don’t neglect snappy retorts to sincere compliments
I had this chick on top of me on Saturday night
Hot girl: You smell really good.
Me: I haven’t taken a shower in a week.
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Most of these make the guy look like an insecure dork, for an obvious reason:
Doing so affords you the opportunity to walk away with your dignity intact while getting in a dig at her expense and making her look the fool
That’s *your* feelings. Because it makes *you* feel better, it automatically reveals that rejection affected you: you would have no use for the validation of a snappy comeback otherwise. To borrow your own categories, a witty response to rejection is beta – the wittier, the worse.
On the other hand, Patrick above has it right: with compliments it’s the opposite. Your response to a compliment reveals your social rank vis-à-vis the complimenter: if it’s lower, you’ll be very pleased and surprised to receive praise and you’re likely to show it; if it’s higher, it’s just what you’d expect and you’ll shrug it off with a witty retort.
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jaakkeli,
admitting that it sucks to be rejected does not make you beta. it makes you honest. you can pump yourself up with all sorts of ‘i don’t car what anybody thinks of me’ bullshit, but the only people who really don’t care what people think of them are sociopaths.
it’s not the feelings you have, it’s what you do with those feelings. does being rejected make you shrivel up, either literally or figuratively, or does it embolden you even more? i think that’s what roissy is getting at.
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@4
On some occasions, rejections are merely quick tests of the initiator’s mettle. To have no response at all is beta. And few of us can think fast enough to come up with something good on the spot. That’s why having some retorts ready to go is useful.
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“I’m out of your league.”
“Not with those shoes you’re not.”
This is my favorite and probably the most effective of all of them on so many levels. The hair comment would definitely work too! the possibilities are endless.
I bet if you walked away after saying this, an hour later you’d feel a tap on your shoulder, turn around, and find an indignant girl who would start her sentence off with, “YOU KNOW WHAT? blahblahblah…” brilliant.
being playfully critical of a girl’s style or fashion sense can work in so many situations, and it’s golden, especially if you know a little about womens fashion. even just a little. going shopping with girls, while unpleasant, can have major payouts in the future.
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A guy I used to know, Tommy, was in a bar with me and a few of my buddies. He was extremely shy with women and quite insecure. In the spirit of wanting him to overcome his greatest fear — cold-approaching a hot woman way out of his league — we encouraged him to go up to this girl.
Imagine his petrification and the shriveled remnants of his ego when she looked him up and down, and nearly burst out laughing as she said this to him, while the music stopped dead and everyone looked at them:
Oh my God, you little geek.
Get away before I freak.
I’m a babe and you are not
You can’t handle what I’ve got.
Why would I go out with you?
You’re not fit to lick my shoe.
So ha ha ha, don’t make me laugh
I want a whole man, not a half!
But something always told me I’ve been reading Tommy wrong. Smashed as he was with this devastating rebuff, he quickly regained his composure, and asked just as loudly:
“So I guess a quick b.j. in the parking lot is out of the question?”
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It seems like a lot of effort to memorize a bunch of responses to specific situations. Better to go with a standard retort for all that hits her where it hurts the most: Her weight. Heavier girls will know it’s true, and thin girls will worry it is.
Of course, that’s if you’re vindictive. If you’re just out having fun, try going for a high five when you get rejected. It doesn’t do shit in terms of attraction, but it is amusing.
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How about “I only wanted to fuck you so it’s no big deal”?
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8 PA
‘So ha ha ha, don’t make me laugh
I want a whole man, not a half!’
“So I guess a quick b.j. in the parking lot is out of the question?”
Okay. That was clever, but too annoyingly passive aggressive. Something much better–I would applaud this–if he had said something along the lines of, “Yes, well I want a woman, not witch.” And loudly, so all the men and women who are in fact thinking the bitch needs to to check her ego, can applaud. Geeks rule! In my household they do anyway.
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My friends told me you looked like a prude; I should have listened. Have a good evening.
I’m normally used to hitting on skinny girls, not more solid ones like yourself. Can you give me any advice on a better approach?
You girls from are all the same. I should have known better.
(Depending on your approach): You thought I was coming on to you? That’s so cute!
This happens every time I hit on an older woman. My apologies.
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12 Pope,
“My friends told me you looked like a prude; I should have listened. Have a good evening.
I’m normally used to hitting on skinny girls, not more solid ones like yourself. Can you give me any advice on a better approach?
You girls from are all the same. I should have known better.
(Depending on your approach): You thought I was coming on to you? That’s so cute!
This happens every time I hit on an older woman. My apologies.”
Your daily psych quiz. These responses are:
A. Assertive
B. Passive Aggressive
C. Aggressive
D. Passive
If you guessed B, you’re a genius.
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Before all the usual suspects get on here and start yammering about womens feelings and these comments making men beta I’d first like to point out that these are supposed to be used when encountering a shitty attitude.
No one is advocating that you be a dick to every girl who isn’t interested in you but rather you be a dick back to some girl who’s being over the top bitchy and working on setting her self up to be a cat lady.
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#8 PA
Imagine his petrification and the shriveled remnants of his ego when she looked him up and down, and nearly burst out laughing as she said this to him, while the music stopped dead and everyone looked at them:
Was there a dramatic record scratch just as this happened? And was the girl played by, say, Cameron Diaz? And was this actually from a movie you saw?
It just sounds fantastically unlikely. If it really happened, I’d probably move out of whatever area of the country encourages women to shoot down guys in trochaic tetrameter.
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sara the harpy
“Your daily psych quiz. These responses are:
A. Assertive
B. Passive Aggressive
C. Aggressive
D. Passive
If you guessed B, you’re a genius.”
The basis for this thread was, Captain Obvious. We’re just having fun. The humor IS that it is passive aggressive. Now that you’re caught up, perhaps everyone can move on.
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Lady This or That, to Winston Churchill: “Sir, if you were my husband, I’d poison your tea.”
Churchill: “Madam, if you were my wife, I’d drink it.”
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I think the convenient rhyme scheme along with the commenter’s perfect recollection of it all were good clues that it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously as fact!
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#8
I think something like:
“That’s really good. I know you didn’t memorize that, but I can’t even see the cue cards you’re reading from.”
or some variant thereof might work even better.
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5, 6:
you can pump yourself up with all sorts of ‘i don’t car what anybody thinks of me’ bullshit,
I don’t do that. In fact, I’m prone to do what I preach against. Unfortunately I often come up with lines on the spot and when you’re good at something it’s hard not to try to use it for validation even when everyone can see through you.
Sure, if you can plausibly reframe the approach you can turn the tables, but you very rarely see that happen and few of these lines can do it. Instead, you usually see guys digging themselves deeper, throwing something like the second line when it’s obvious that they were genuinely approaching.
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If some girl throws rhyme at you, just tell her you wanted a ho, not a rapper.
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Reggie, what can I say. I took care of Tommy, ’cause he was my brother’s son. This is why I remember the scene in such vivid detail. Yes, the dramatic record-scratch did happen. I meant to mention that too.
What happened is that twenty years of crawling was bottled up inside him, and at that pivotal moment, when faced with the Cameron Diaz look-alike (how did you know!?), Tommy was holding nothing back, he let her have it all.
By “have it all,” I mean that he had kept his cool, ignored her gratuitous abuse, smirked, and with faux-naivete said what he said.
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Hey, Number Whatever, I for one am a Usual Suspect who has no complaint about any of these responses. Rudeness begets rudeness. I never saw any reason to be nasty to a man merely for indicating an interest in me, and I agree that women who do this can be verbally taken down a peg or two.
Clio
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this is a lot of ammunition in one go. what would happen if it falls into the mouth of a terrorist?
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“So there’s no chance you’ll do my laundry?”
I liked that one.
you can pump yourself up with all sorts of ‘i don’t car what anybody thinks of me’ bullshit, but the only people who really don’t care what people think of them are sociopaths.
Dude, you have been reading my shit.
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@9 and 10 (Sara!)
Great advice.
How about this all-inclusive comment?
“Your hair-style makes you look fat in those hideous shoes.”
Clio @23
Right on.
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Or:
“Your hair-style makes you look fat in those hideous shoes, and no big deal because all I wanted to do was fuck you anyway.”
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15: Reggie is the hottest guy on here for effortlessly busting out “trochaic tetrameter”.
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You simply have to ask yourself, “What would James Bond say?”
I doubt he’d say something like “all I wanted to do was fcuk you anyway.” He’s a professional. Vulgarity is for amateurs.
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22 – PA
Was he also the coward of the county?
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Everyone considered him one.
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Re @ 29: “You simply have to ask yourself, “What would James Bond say?”
I doubt he’d say something like “all I wanted to do was fcuk you anyway.” He’s a professional. Vulgarity is for amateurs.”
To quote Clio @ 23: “Rudeness begets rudeness”.
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Yes, rudeness begets rudeness, but you don’t want to soil yourself in the muck. There are ways of being rude that don’t make people wonder if you’re drunk.
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“Hey, want to leave this club and go somewhere else together?”
“Not with you, creep!”
“That’s okay, no problem. I have to take a dump anyway.”
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What about a response to the ever popular “Nice try, buddy”?
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Hmm, maybe I don’t understand what the word ‘begets’ means…..
I was thinking: “To cause to exist or occur.”
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29 PA
“You simply have to ask yourself, “What would James Bond say?”
I don’t know, but Rhett Butler would say, “Frankly, my dear, I don’ t give a damn.”
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some of you guys are missing the point. this isn’t about personal validation. you don’t say these retorts in anger or with a hurt look on your face. you say them with a smile. remember: AMUSED MASTERY.
the way i see it, when a chick reveals her inner cunt to you with a harsh rejection you have one of three options:
1. say nothing or say “have a nice day” and walk away.
this is fine for not making yourself look worse but it won’t gain you anything. sometimes walking away in silence after getting verbally shredded often looks more beta than saying something.
2. lash out.
bad move. if you curse or act indignant, she’ll know she got to you.
3. be clever/teasing.
busting on her in a condescending fashion at least offers you the chance to turn around the dynamic. you may surprise her so much that she might start feeling attraction for you. at the very least, you’ve scored a point on her, and there’s nothing beta about giving yourself pleasure.
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How about, “I’d love to discuss this more with you. Why don’t you meet me at the corner of walk and don’t walk, the second Tuesday of next week and we can talk about it?”
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“Actually, it already has.” [Walk away.]
awesome. this would work. it actually has a quasi-menacing tone, like ledger’s joker.
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@ 3
Bateman – your posts are usually very good and I agree with this one.
I get “you smell great” (followed usually by nuzzling/sniffing in the sternum area) a lot cause I wear this awesome musky cologne that most women seem to love.
My usual responses:
(jokingly) “yep that’s my natural man musk”
or again jokingly “yeah I just wrestled a grizzly bear”
a joke in response to a compliment is more alpha than simply saying “thanks” as if you needed the validation (beta).
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The ONLY way I would say “Your hair-style makes you look fat in those hideous shoes, and no big deal because all I wanted to do was fuck you anyway” is with a smile on my face!
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My bad, I thought by the way you were dressed $40 dollars would have gotten me at least an hour.
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Here’s one of my favorites:
“Why be picky? I obviously wasn’t.”
It acknowledges you were making a move, but validates your status to the girl by making it look like you’re “slumming”.
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29 PA “You simply have to ask yourself, ‘What would James Bond say?’”
Debonair point taken, but did Bond ever have a babe deflect him with her bitch shield? I’m no buff, but I don’t recall ever seeing that. Repartee of course, but not rudeness.
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Out of the commenter suggestions this was probably my favorite because it’s really short and to the point and therefore easy to get out before the girl can turn away or cut you off. Plus it requires no thinking to get.
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LoL@the responses, gotta say tho, insulting a girls shoes/hair/weight exposes the man as a raving and superficial metrosexual… but, I guess that’s the trend these days?
*thumbs down*
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If I had a million dollars I’d buy a dam brewery and turn the planet into alchoholics. M&M
Make a mil and just chill and hope every girl is on the pill. Her retorts will be hollow in the arms of the 99 who inspire more than just desire but a new way to be in the earths hellfire.
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“LoL@the responses, gotta say tho, insulting a girls shoes/hair/weight exposes the man as a raving and superficial metrosexual… but, I guess that’s the trend these days?”
it’s a 1 on 1 conversation with a girl. she wont be concerned with a guy’s metrosexuality because she’ll be too busy feeling insecure about her shoes. you’re missing the point. she’ll spend all night thinking about it and eventually come over and “tell you” or “show you” that you’re wrong. see how that works? it’s in her mind, she thinks about it all night, and she comes over and tells you.
your friends will think it’s “raving and superficial metrosexual” until they see how well it works. and it does.
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Several years ago, I became interested in a bartender at a pub I frequently visited. Nursing an overwhelming crush, and after having had maybe two or three casual conversations with her, I expressed my interest by saying (prepare to permanently cringe in vicarious embarassment), “I think you’re really beautiful.”
She let me down easy. A little too easy, in fact. Instead of responding with coldness or a cutting insult, a look of pure pity crept over her face, and she began her rejection spiel with: “I think you’re a really nice guy, but…” She capped off her mercy killing by tenderly patting my arm.
I appreciated her kindness, and I do still. By today’s standards, she was under no obligation to have concern for my feelings, let alone to attempt to physically comfort me. Yet while her intentions were pure, that she thought pity appropriate was an insult in itself, however accidental. She unmistakably revealed her low opinion of my market value. In thinking about the incident the next day, I almost wished she had been brutal, and in so doing implied that she thought me a worthy opponent, instead of a wretch.
Since learning how to talk to women, using much of the same advice Roissy promotes, I have been turned down, but not been so blatantly the recipient of pity.
Pity has its place in social relations, but those one pities should not be made aware that their prospects are deemed so wretched. In turning men down, I wish women would do what I do to girls in whom I am uninterested. I tell them I have a significant other even when I don’t. I don’t trade in further explanation of my lack of attraction or in insincere, qualified praise. She doesn’t have to be convinced; what matters is that you show her you respect her enough to not patronize her.
I once did to another girl what the barmaid did to me. I think I told the former, “I think you’re a great person, but…” She hated me afterwards. After experiencing the barmaid’s pity, I understood why.
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Here’s one of my favorites:
“Why be picky? I obviously wasn’t.”
It acknowledges you were making a move, but validates your status to the girl by making it look like you’re “slumming”.
As such things go, this is very good. It could be rendered shorter, pithier, and, I think, more effective, by dropping the past tense and the “obviously”.
Like this: “Why be picky? I’m not.”
It sounds less wounded and sulky without the “obviously”. and it packs even more of a punch, esp. since it may take your opponent a split-second to understand that she/he has been insulted.
Clio
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What would be the possible goals to such comebacks?
1) To dazzle the girl and break through her reflexive rejection aura,
2) To salvage your dignity and esteem to go on to the next one,
3) To knock her down good so the next guy can walk over her.
Anything else?
If you’re going for #1, you can probably get away with insulting her shoes, but calling her a cheap whore probably is not the way to go about it. A lot of girls immediately reject any guy they approach (have fun with the cats, ladies) and casually brushing off that rejection routinely shows them the confidence they’re looking for.
#2 and #3 are for petulant betas. (If you believe a total stranger’s insult can scratch your pride, you think far too little of yourself.)
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If a girl is not going to be a part of your life in any way, why put an extra ounce of energy into her? I like her to think she won, that she rejected me. Because in 15 years when she is single and alone with her cats, guess who will have the last laugh!
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32: To quote Clio @ 23: “Rudeness begets rudeness”.
Then again, two wrongs don’t make a right.
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Clio — in using the past tense, I only say that I was not picky in this one instance: I felt like slumming it. Using “I’m not” says that I am habitually not picky, which is typical of lower-value males.
Dropping “obviously” isn’t a bad idea though.
“Why be picky? [pause] I wasn’t.”
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@anon#49
So wait let me get this straight… you actually want the insecure, feeble-minded woman that cares so much about her own shoes/hair/looks, that she cares what YOU, a stranger, says he thinks of her shoes/hair/looks?
Wow. LoL. birds of a feather, I guess? have fun with that!
I still maintain that that type of insult marks the man, well, a lesser man… you’re talking about accessories when a simple “Fuck you then bitch” would do. lmao.
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Was that “Fab” response you, Agnostic? I see what you’re getting at, but I’m not sure you’re right. The self-deprecating aura in “why be picky, I’m not” isn’t, to my mind, beta-ish; it’s the mark of a man who doesn’t take himself too seriously. Which is not beta-ish.
clio
p.s. I agree with PA: vulgarity is for amateurs. Don’t get crude in these situations, or you’ll come off sounding petulant.
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@50
Feel for you. Been there, done that.
Remember The Rule Above All Rules: Select from the pool of women that already like you.
Trying to create attraction in a women that gave zero buying signals is like trying to make a hole in the ocean with just your hands.
Exception: Over the years I have experimented with The Honesty Approach (for lack of a better descriptor). But voice, demeanor and body language have to support a total non-gaming open-ness where the true compliment is the point thrust that requires a true connection to be made with the woman. Some women DO respond to this in a very positive way… YMMV™
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@5 – In defense of sociopaths everywhere, I don’t care enough about what you said to bother.
@58 – Honesty works best when, honestly, you’re a superior specimen. When you can paint yourself in a strong light while admitting your flaws by being honest, it works. The trick is just making yourself into that.
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Roissy made it pretty clear that the retorts are for overtop bitchy rejections. So I think guys can respond anyway that makes them happy.
But, they might want to consider how their reaction plays on the women witnessing the “scalding acid” attack.
Personally, I’d probably avoid any guy who’s weak enough to get sucked into a verbal sparring match.
But the guy whose face shows a bit of surprise and “whoa she’s a psycho”; who then says something politely simple like “So sorry to interrupt your conversation”; and who then walks away, would impress me. Juxtaposed against the bitchy foil, he would look classy and self-controlled while she would look pathetic and vile.
Of course, I’m just one type of woman. I’m sure there are others who would thrive on the altercation and love to go out with the retortee. The question is, are there more women like me then there are of them? Which choice will improve your odds of scoring that night?
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Clio — no, that was someone else. I guess it depends on what reaction you want from her — if you’re trying to overcome her defenses, “I’m not” is self-deprecating and can build attraction. But “I wasn’t” stings her more, so if the guy is just looking to walk away the clear winner, that’s better.
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@60 Anonymous
“But the guy whose face shows a bit of surprise and “whoa she’s a psycho”; who then says something politely simple like “So sorry to interrupt your conversation”; and who then walks away, would impress me.”
Saying sorry for no valid cause = beta
Accepting a verbal thrashing, without giving back kills him with other females who observe the even.
I sincerely doubt you would let him under your panties, no matter how ” classy and self-controlled he looked”.
And for the practitioners of game/students etc. here, thats all that really matters.
Everyone would see him slide down in social value after a one-sided exchange.
Girls dig jerks, and assholes and give it up to badboys, a hell of a lot faster to them. They will marry a beta-nice guy.
In my past, I have been known to toss a drink, while saying:
“Cool Off” or “Chill Beyotch” at a highly acidic shrieking harpy.
After all if equality is what is found wanting… and girls can toss drinks, Males certainly can do the same.
Personal experiences highlight:
Once, at a sorority party where I was DJ ‘n, Between sets, I was given a riot act by an acidic verbal nutjob (21yo Type 8) and let fly with a plastic cupful of Heineken and a cocky smiling “cool off”.
Her response was to escalate with a slap, which I returned.
She slapped me again. I escalated with a kiss, and another slap, while she was stunned from the kiss. She got away with two slaps before I grabbed a hank of her tresses, and tossed her in the nearby coat closet…
A violent petting session and a B.J. later, I was mixing my final set. (With her glaring dirty looks the whole time)
We dated for two weeks before I met a stunning Brazilian.
Some girls need their castles stormed by shock and awe, because they have been princesses their whole lives and don’t know how to be real.
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*Smiley face edit*
Once, at a sorority party where I was DJ ‘n, Between sets, I was given a riot act by an acidic verbal nutjob
(type 8 who was 21yo) and let fly with a plastic cupful of Heineken and a cocky smiling “cool off”
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S.A.M. @62
That one’s priceless.
Trading blows. Wow.
The most aggressive I ever had to be was hair-grab with “Oh, Shut The Fuck Up.” followed by a kiss, the slap, me:”Are You Done?”, followed by another kiss… and later the usual outcome of unadulterated unrestrained sex.
Makes me wonder what I could have gotten away with in retrospect… oh well…
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@64 El Guapo
Once they open the door with slapping, have at it… it does get them into pure emotion… They become very sexual creatures.
The slapping gets into their baser self, anger is a powerful gateway into the bedroom. They love violence just as much as men, but are very restrained and repressed in exploring and expressing it.
Younger girls will let that carefully composed mask slip more frequently then older wiser ones. Add alcohol or coke found at frat/sor parties… and you get disinhibitation.
Dis-inhibit-ation: the deliberate, willful act of getting her consent.
All the empty protestations against fornication (with you) cease when you provide them with privacy.
I have long since retired from finding the need to employ
such behavior, I now-a-days prefer sex given within True Love.
But returning to the nature of the Thread/Topic, I observed canned counters to be un-natural and forced. Yet necessary for betas to use, if they are to transit up.
I have always just been myself and intuitively acted in the moment. Some girls do not want you, but you have to feel the vibe (its a sexless fear of males one, more commonly found in femme lesbians) You can tell if she is flirting shamelessly with males, and otherwise cavorting that its all good.
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clio:
re: “why be picky? i obviously wasn’t.”
As such things go, this is very good. It could be rendered shorter, pithier, and, I think, more effective, by dropping the past tense and the “obviously”.
Like this: “Why be picky? I’m not.”
clio, you have perfectly emasculated the semantical spirit of this commenter’s excellent retort. this is a great example of why men should never heed a woman’s advice in matters of dating, love, or the pursuit of sex. regardless of how well-meaing they are (and i believe reports of their well-meaningness are overblown), women will dispense advice to men that is completely at odds with what actually works to a man’s advantage, and yet will do so in plausibly-enough sounding terms that the effect is one of sabotage for those unsuspectingly naive men who can’t discern the falsity of it.
perhaps natural selection designed it this way, so that men who are able to breach not only women’s gatekeeper defenses, but their counterproductive and insipid “dating advice” as well, have proven themselves truly worthy ALPHAS. women after all need a system for weeding in the winners.
to the baleful facts of clio’s watered down and utterly feminized version of the original retort:
“I’m not” is a world away linguistically from “I obviously wasn’t” or even just “I wasn’t”. the former tells the intended target that the man is low status because he does not discriminate amongst who he tries to bed and therefore must be a desperate loser, allowing her to rationalize away the pseudo-insult as the bleatings of a bitter beta.
the latter avoids the stench of ill-timed self-deprecation while it tells her he considers ONLY HER, at least at that moment, to be beneath his station and worth not much more than a random hookup attempt in a bar. this one will sting a lot more while implying the man’s higher status and maintaining enough veneer of clever humor to seed confusion and self-doubt, both wonderful emotions for greasing the gears of a female’s attraction mechanism.
come to think of it, that’s why you didn’t like it.
i would drop the “obviously”, though. it’s overkill.
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el guapo & s.a.m. 62+
right on.
slapping is a form of kino, and, if correctly interpreted that way, a very potent form indeed.
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i prefer to dispense with the linguistic rigmarole altogether and just use implication instead:
“come on, you could lower your standards, too.”
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Roissy, the trouble with “WBP/I wasn’t” is that it’s got a built-in ambiguity. “Wasn’t? When?” is what would go through my mind if I heard something like that. “WBP/I’m not” makes it clear that you are referring to the person in front of you at the moment, making the implicit insult so startlingly plain that the person on the receiving end may well take a second or two to be certain she’s heard it.
That’s all I meant. I could be wrong – I’m not completely certain about it. You are reading too much into my change of tense and emphasis.
clio
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roissy @66 did an excellent job explaining why clio’s changes to my retort weakened it. “Obviously” is optional, as it is indeed overkill. “Why be picky. I wasn’t.” is short, sweet, and it works.
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“Why be picky? I’m not” does have an appeal – deliver it with a grin, and the woman might think you were being merely self-deprecating. And then – a double-take later – she realises that she’s the one being slighted. That’s its strength. But I agree that from some men it might sound weak. I could imagine a very tall and handsome man delivering it with crushing charm.
clio
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Are those real retorts? The hair and shoes stuff will make you sound GAY, I’m sorry but it’s the truth. Loserzz… are those retorts a joke? Please watch any episode of “Momma” and/or BET Comic View for some better material.
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How about saying something like this in a compassionate voice, after she shoots you down.
“Wow, you seem unhappy, I hope things look up for you.”
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[…] you aren’t prepared to brush off the bitchiest rejections like so much gossamer femsnark, you aren’t ready to play this […]
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“Is she always like that, or is she just trying to impress me?”
“Are you always bitchy, or are you just trying to impress me”
“Is she always like that, or only when I’m around?”
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[…] is no risk that she’ll immediately scrunch up her face with disgust or tell him to “take a picture, it’ll last longer.” Perhaps they get a momentary thrill at play-acting this juvenile and emotionally stunted […]
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[…] is no risk that she’ll immediately scrunch up her face with disgust or tell him to “take a picture, it’ll last longer.” Perhaps they get a momentary thrill at play-acting this juvenile and emotionally stunted […]
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