Evidence That Peacocking Works

Peacocking — the art of wearing outrageous ensembles and eye-catching baubles — is much-maligned, both within and without the seduction community. Nowadays, when people hear the word “peacocking”, they scoff as their minds race to images of pickup artist Mystery and his gigantic furry hats, eye liner, jumbled bracelets, and Victorian long coats.

sure he looks ridiculous, but are you banging girls this hot?

CH is on record as agnostic on the effectiveness of peacocking, at least as the term is conventionally understood. My impression is that there is a high risk that an improperly balanced effort to peacock will more harm than help a man’s pickup cause.

But in point of fact, I do peacock, if not nearly to the extent that pre-fatherhood Mystery did. My clothes won’t make me an automatic focal point at social events, but neither does my style ape the drabness of herbwear. I prefer styling myself with hints and suggestions of a free spirit residing within.

Into the cacophony of ridicule hurled by naysayers at men dressing like fops comes scientific evidence, albeit indirect, that peacocking will make a man more attractive to women.

Recent research has found that people with so-called “dark” personality traits are more physically attractive than others. […]

Nicholas Holtzman and Michael Strube of Washington University in St. Louis were interested in looking at the relationship between physical attractiveness and people’s tendencies towards narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. They wanted to find out whether these three traits, referred to as the “dark triad,” are associated with a greater ability to successfully enhance one’s physical appearance.

To test this idea, they invited 111 college students (64 percent women) into their laboratory. Each student was photographed soon after they arrived.  Then, after taking this initial photograph, each student asked to change out of their own clothes and put on a pair of gray sweatpants and a t-shirt.  Women were instructed to remove any makeup, and anyone with long hair was asked to pull it back into a ponytail. The students were then photographed in this more natural state. Holtzman and Strube showed both sets of photographs to a group of strangers who rated them in terms of physical attractiveness. By comparing the attractiveness ratings of the dressed-down and dressed-up students, the researchers were able to determine how much each student was able to make themselves more appealing through flashy clothes, makeup, accessories, etc.

Next Holtzman and Strube assessed the students’ personalities and their tendencies towards narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. They asked the students to rate themselves and to provide email addresses for a few of their friends so that the researchers could ask them to provide ratings as well. This combination of self and peer ratings was used to calculate a final set personality scores for each student. Furthermore, the students’ ratings on narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism were combined into create a composite “dark triad” score.

The dark triad score was positively correlated with their “dressed-up” attractiveness – a finding that mirrors previous findings. However, the dark triad score was not related to ratings of physical attractiveness in the dressed-down photos. In other words, people with dark personality traits are not seen as more physically attractive than others when you take away their freedom to wear their own clothes and makeup. People with dark personalities seem to be better at making themselves physically appealing.

The findings reinforce previous research showing that narcissists are more popular than others, literally at first sight.

People who are best at making the most of what they’ve got — a talent which can be accurately described as peacocking when applied to physical presentation — are very attractive to the opposite sex. Take away their ability to peacock, and suddenly they are not so attractive anymore, at least as measured by the pre-interactive appearance they radiate during first impressions. And those people who possess the “dark triad” personality suite are the most skilled peacockers and manipulators of others’ perceptions of them.

Keep a few points in mind about this study.

1. The researchers examined the physical aspect of people with and without dark triad personalities. This study says nothing about the charismatic pull that dark triads have over others beyond their physical appearance; what might otherwise be called dark triad game. Other studies have found that dark triads exert great attractive influence on others based on the strength of their charm and narcissistic self-regard as well.

2. The facial good looks or lack thereof of the study participants were irrelevant to its conclusions. Those dark triad students were the same, as far as facial bone structure is concerned, in both their self-constructed and “natural” photos. So it was not their facial shape that made the difference in people’s opinions of their attractiveness between their peacocked and natural photos. It was how they chose to dress and present themselves that made the difference in perceptions. The “only looks matter” trolls will have to search elsewhere to find a tool to massage their prostates.

3. This study is good news for average-looking men: you can bump up your raw physical attractiveness to women by adopting a more avant-garde style of dress and comporting yourself with the mannerisms of a sociopathic megalomaniac. And my personal observations confirms this: I know a few gnarly-looking men who are catnip to women because they dress like creations from a fantasy novel aimed at women. Even my perception of their objective looks is fooled.

Remember that a man’s “looks” encompasses far more variables than does a woman’s looks. Women get significant boosts to their beauty rating from wearing makeup, an augmentation which directly alters their facial countenance, but men get boosts from an assortment of lifestyle changes, including dress, body language and facial expression. This is because women rate a man’s “appearance” using a more holistic algorithm than that used by men when they are rating a woman’s appearance.

Before any of you haters, trolls, or robotic spergs comment here, I suggest you read this post. If it is clear to me you have not read that linked post, you will be summarily cast into the hellfire of Mount Dork. You’d probably enjoy that, wouldn’t you?

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The Female Snarl And The Male Smirk

The female snarl has become a topic of conversation, which is not surprising because American women in general are becoming less feminine and more churlish. When in the past women would gently demur the solicitations of beta and omega males, today they prefer the unrefined art of snarling like a hyena over a fresh kill, the kill being their overworked vaginas. Meanwhile, alpha males witness them snarling ungenerously and think, “Marriage material? Nope. Pump and dump material? Yes!”

don’t bother me. i’m pooping a purple saguaro.

The author of the linked article posits that the frequency with which women snarl correlates to their age and the sexual market threat level of the targets of their disapproval.

A woman arguably snarls between five to twenty times a day. The frequency is directly related to maturity. The more immature, the more the snarl appears. High school, consistently snarling. College, frequently. Twenties, sporadically. Thirties, only when they see a younger woman. There have probably been a couple snarls while reading this.

Ha haa. I’d add that the snarl is increasing among all female age groups, though younger women do use it more profligately, and with good reason: there are more beta males lasciviously eyeing their goods for penile plunder. What’s a hot babe to do? She has to fend them off by the hundreds, and a fat cockblock won’t be there for her every time. So the snarl is unfurled like a banner of bitchiness.

Why do women overuse the snarl to such potent effect? Simple: they don’t get called out on it by their designated targets. Most beta males wilt like flowers in the high noon summer heat when they get blasted with the snarl shockwave. “Oh, sweet fancy moses, excuse me for so presumptuously intruding upon your oxygen supply. I shall slink away now and hope my penis has reemerged from under my pubic bone when I return hope to fap the night away.”

The thing is, the female snarl is exceedingly easy to call out without resorting to butthurt confrontation.

“Nice face.”

“Are you pooping?”

“Sniffing for grubs?”

“You look like my hamster! Wait, don’t stop doing that. It’s great!”

“Finally got a whiff of my sex panther cologne, eh?”

Or, you could answer the female snarl with the male equivalent:

i’m sorry, are you supposed to mean something to me?

Ah, the alpha male smirk. As penetrative of women’s self-entitled bitch shields as their snarl is of beta males’ self-confidence. The perfectly timed smirk is the best comeback plus more. It instantly patronizes, condescends and belittles, without so much as revealing an iota of spite or care that might be used by a woman to anchor another bitchy barrage.

A fantastically egregious bitch — let’s say, a chubster wearing too much makeup and muffin top who thinks every man wants her and deserves her worst shit tests — requires a bit more… encouragement… to reform her ill-suited attitude. In such circumstances, the smirk won’t pack the necessary wallop. You’ll need something edgier.

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Economic Game Theory Support For Male Relationship Coyness

A reader with an active mind sends along his proposition, based on the principles of economic game theory, that men should never pursue relationships, even if they ultimately want a relationship or benefit from a relationship.

Conclusion: a man should only pursue commitment-free sex, even if he benefits from a relationship. This is especially true if he approaches or chases.

The famous Pascal Wager suggests everyone should believe in God since atheism costs the same as faith, but only believers share in upside. Technically, this sort of approach is known as game theory, which is ironic since we’re talking about game. In economics and politics, game theory is used to make decisions with uncertain information.

In a simple world, a guy has a partner, or he doesn’t and he’s looking for commitment or he’s not. Therefore, he’s faced with decision A, B, C, or D. These decisions roughly correspond to what the seduction community calls frames.

Based on conventional wisdom, a woman should prefer a guy with decision A, over a guy with decision B, over a guy with decision C, over a guy with a decision D. Guy A is a single guy looking to be a family man, what more can women want? Guy B, C, D all seem like players, but at least guy B will give her the comfort of a relationship, or said differently, going from one alpha to another. There’s no apparent upside to guy D.

That said, if each guy adopts the above frame, what does it say about each man’s dating outlook?

• guy A: he’s offering commitment, which means he expects less attractive choices in the future (girl conclusion: he should aim lower than me)
• guy B: he is incapable of commitment
• guy C: he expects to at least date girls like me, yet it is uncertain if he can date anyone better than me
• guy D: he’s been preselected, and it is certain his current girl is better than me (girl conclusion: I’m not in his league)

Guy B is an interesting case, but I don’t rate him highly since guy B communicates to the woman he’s incapable of commitment, which I think reduces his long-term upside. Women want to extract commitment from a worthy man, but she knows she can’t get it from guy B. That said, he’s better than desperate guy A.

I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with chasing or approaching if the guy only has sex on his mind. It seems chasing becomes counter-productive when a relationship is the goal. It’s not clear what this framework says about direct vs indirect game, but it would seem guy D would naturally communicates via indirect game whereas guy C would have the option of direct or indirect game. I would also think guy D is limited to don’t chase game.

• guy C: indirect or direct game; chase or don’t chase game
• guy D: indirect only; don’t chase game only

If guy D is the highest value guy, the only way you’ll look like him is if you use a combination of indirect-don’t chase game. That said, guy C will have a higher notch count. Guy D will be able to do more with his girls than guy C will, physically and emotionally.

You can also simulate a “seek no commitment” outlook by treating the woman poorly.

An excellent analysis which backs up not only the personal observations and experiences of your humble Chateau hosts, but also the science which is slowly unraveling the mystery of why the most marketable chicks dig aloof jerks.

You could call this economic game theory analysis Relationship Coyness Game. The female analogue of male relationship coyness game is sexual coyness game. A man should be as insufferably, exquisitely coy about his relationship intentions as the typical woman is insufferably, exquisitely coy about her sexual intentions. A man who follows this protocol brings balance to the force; a man who jettisons his duty to answer female sexual coyness with equal relationship coyness is a feeble manboob who has made love more often to couch creases than to women.

If this game theoretic analysis has merit, then the indirect approach with muted intentions coupled with a studied aloofness to furthering the progress of any resulting relationship is the ideal strategy for most men who wish to make themselves as desirable as possible to the maximum number of high value (read: hot) women, given the constraints placed on them by their objective status or genetic endowment and the availability of any serious male competition.

And, in support of the game theory take on seduction, the women I have dated who have been the most exasperatingly, head over heels, obsessed with me have been those women I dragged my feet with the most. In contrast, the women I went out of my way to assure them of my relationship intentions were those women who perplexingly (to me, at the time) assumed the role of the foot-dragging man.

If you, as a man of stout penis, DO NOT seek a relationship, you gain nothing, and possibly hurt your chances, if you tell women that you are interested in a relationship, or if you behave as if your goal is a committed relationship. You are better off aligning your behavior with your true intentions.

If you, as a man of stout heart, DO seek a relationship, you STILL gain nothing, and possibly hurt your chances, if you act with the intention of committing long-term to the women you wish to bed. You are better off behaving exactly as the no-commitment-man above, and basically concealing your relationship intentions. This strategy will invoke a paradox of the female mind, wherein any relationship is more likely to develop under auspices of uncertainty and male coyness that are so thrilling to women’s senses and so fulfilling to women’s hypergamous desires for high(er) value mates.

Best case scenario for men who can’t help but fawn over women with promises of commitment and marriage is that their supplication will not push the girl away. But neither will it draw her much closer, at least not during the critical beginning stages of the dating trajectory. The most likely scenario is that she will come to devalue the man who readily promises the one treasure he has to offer at his disposal: male commitment. And once he is devalued in her mind, it’s a few short hamster rationalizations to suffering the indignity of getting his niceguy ass dumped for being “too nice”.

So far, so good. But… I think where this game theoretic analysis breaks down is at the extremes. For instance, a man who is much higher value than the woman he wishes to meet, or the woman he is already fucking, can afford to liberally promise vows of commitment. His revealed commitment intentions will allay a lower value woman’s feelings of inadequacy. Furthermore, a woman in such an arrangement feels no exigency to “chase” an aloof man as practical proof of his alpha male worth, because the higher status of her partner is so obvious to her. Of course, this just begs the question of why a high value man would bother settling for dating much lower value women. I guess some guys don’t mind lower quality sex if it means zero headaches and drama.

I wonder what mood-affiliated economist Cheap Chalupas thinks of all this? And then I wonder why I love taunting that guy so much.

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Pope Paul VI On Birth Control Externalities

Courtesy of commenter “max from australia”, a juicy quote from a former Pope which accords with Chateau Heartiste analysis of the deleterious blowback from the availability of widespread, cheap contraceptives (of the sort never before experienced by humanity until relatively recently):

Predictions from a wise Celibate bloke in a dress, Pope Paul VI, 1968 Humanae Vitae (Latin, “Human Life”)

“Not much experience is needed in order to know human weakness, and to understand that men—especially the young, ….. growing used to the employment of anti-conceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion” (HV 17).

Pope Paul VI was close to the mark, but he forgot to mention the distaff side the equation; specifically, that as cheap contraceptives silently and subtly move men toward devaluing women, so too does the technology move women toward devaluing beta males, those bitter losers in the sexual market (note: I did not say marriage market or child market) for whom contraceptives, coupled with female economic self-sufficiency, have rendered them practically superfluous as primetime sexual partners.

The mass-produced condom and the Pill have freed men from feeling obligation for women as much as they have freed women to regularly and blithely pursue what was historically risky sex with caddish alpha males on the make.

The contraceptive is, in practice, a female hypergamy facilitator.

It’s funny for me to write this, because contraceptives have, in fact, been very very good to me. I did a back of the envelope calculation and figured that my aggregate sex life would have been truncated by 90% if contraceptives were prohibitively expensive, unreliable and hard to get. A world in which women had to grapple with real, palpable fears of STDs, pregnancy and subsequent abandonment is, not to put too fine a point on it, a really shitty world for womanizers and serial monogamists and uncomplicated lovers of the art of seduction itself. I imagine I’d have to *gasp* start promising marriage or some such claptrap to any woman I wanted to bang, just to loosen her up enough to unhook her bra.

I am on record as predicting that the Six Sirens of the Sexual Apocalypse will be the cultural and technological juggernaut that hastens, if it is not the sole cause of, the death of Western civilization.

Is this revelation, this knowledge, supposed to turn me from my wicked ways? Here I am, standing at the edge of the abyss, pointing into its bowels like a histrionic jester, leading the ignorant and the deluded to peer into the void and imploring them — no, more precisely taunting them — to heed my warning of their desolate future…

and still I cavort insouciantly along its lip, secretly relieved that no one will seriously weigh my prophecies.

Pope Paul VI, apparently, was as far-seeing as I. Yet his vision of the good world, the civilized world — a vision with which I find no quarrel — would, if it were fully realized, necessarily mean a lot less fun for me. And that’s a reality I can’t abide; my own private delusion.

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Mixing Signals To Dazzle Women

Mixing your signals — aka obfuscating your intentions — is a powerful holistic technique to arouse interest in women, the class of beings who strangely desire more that which gives the least interest in satisfying their desires.

The status signals (and, really, are there any other kind of signals that matter in the least bit when a man is interacting with a woman?) that men display can be broadly categorized into body language and verbal communication.

Body language comprises a host of nonverbal mannerisms and displays, from the way a man walks, to his dress, his facial expressions, to how he moves his limbs, and even to how he stands or holds a glass. Verbal communication is the words that come out of a man’s mouth, and the way in which he says them, in hopes of creating a desirous spark in an attractive woman.

Most men focus on the words they say, because the impact of a man’s body language on women’s senses is both poorly understood and intangible relative to the impact that he thinks his words carry. Body language is therefore relegated to acting in concert with subconscious feelings of self-worth; for this reason, body language can be a man’s worst enemy if he is unaware how his mannerisms betray his hidden emotional state.

Verbal communication is thus overrated and body language underrated by men. The upshot to this formula is that men can chill a bit on the pressure to say the right thing, if they work to adjust their body language so that it does most of the talking for them.

Mixing signals is the art of telling/showing a woman one thing, while showing/telling her another. There are four permutations of body language and speech that are possible when approaching women, only two of which involve mixed signals.

1. Direct Body Language (DBL) + Direct Verbal Communication (DVC)

You make a bold statement of intention with both your body motions and your words. Example:

Walking slowly toward a woman, holding eye contact the whole way, stopping in front of her, pausing for effect, and with a low, deliberate tone of voice, saying, “I’d regret it forever if I didn’t come over and see if you are the type of woman I want to get to know better.”

2. Indirect Body Language (IBL) + Indirect Verbal Communication (IVC)

You engage a girl with a seemingly innocuous statement about some peculiarity in your shared environment, and comport yourself like you have another place to be and she just happens to be there to listen to you. Example:

Looking over your shoulder at the girl, turning your body to partially face her, one foot pointed in another direction, rocking back on your heels as you speak, glancing once or twice at some faraway object, and with a neutral tone of voice, saying “If the bookstore weren’t so full of poseurs, we might have a chance to get a book within the next hour.”

3. DBL + IVC

You make a bold statement of romantic intention with your body and facial expressions, while speaking neutrally so as to suggest you are not interested in hitting on her. Example:

Directly facing the woman, positioning yourself so that eye contact is unavoidable and escape is limited, occupying her personal space, you ask in an unthreatening, bland tone of voice, after a mood-heightening silent pause, if she can direct you to the nearest toy shop so you can buy a gift for your niece.

4. IBL + DVC

You verbally communicate your romantic interest while your body language bespeaks disinterest. Example:

Body rocking, feet positioned as if you are about to walk off, approaching at an angle with shoulders turned halfway outward, eyes surveying your environment, you open her directly with a strong sexual vibe that belies your mannerisms.

Which of these styles of interaction is best? That’s hard to say, because the style that works best depends in some measure on the skill of the womanizer. A sexually needy man who experiences bouts of nerves when cute girls are near stands a good chance of being perceived as incongruent in his words and behavior if he tries to directly open a girl while comporting himself as if he’s too cool for school. Similarly, an experienced player with rock solid confident body language who masks his intentions under a flurry of misdirecting banalities may strike a girl as a coward who is too skittish to say what’s on his mind.

However, this contextual problem aside, I believe a useful generalization about the effectiveness of the different approach styles can be made.

Eric Disco comments:

This is essentially what most guys do when they attempt to be indirect, they are indirect with their words (“How do you get to Starbucks?”) but then they are very direct with their body language–mainly eye contact and body orientation. They face her and give her lots of eye contact, looking at her continuously, as if they’ve just spotted a rare bird. From my experience, instead of combining the best of both worlds, this combines the worst.

When you’re direct, it shows balls. The drawback is that you are betraying a lot of interest, which lowers your value and makes you seem like less of a challenge. When you combine an indirect verbal opener with direct body language, you betray interest but don’t show any balls at all.

Once you’re in the interaction with her, you can start to show more interest physically, once she’s earned it. You can be more sexual with your eye contact, etc. But if you’re going to open indirect, then be indirect. Don’t betray too much interest. Act like she just happened to be there and so you said something to her. If you’re going to walk across a room/park just to talk to her, then show some balls. Go direct.

Eric is onto something. The DBL + IVC style is probably the riskiest strategy for the average man to pull off. It’s too easy to come across like a suave dude who can’t go the extra distance and just ask the girl out. I bet a lot of you good-looking guys who read this blog have this problem.

Any kind of situation which necessarily calls for a direct approach — say, walking across a park or large room in full view of your target so that she is under no illusion why you are moving in on her — would benefit from a direct style verbal opener. You can still go indirect in these circumstances, but you had better be a master at manipulating women’s expectations so that your value remains at a constant high level compared to them.

Men new to the stealthy art of seduction are best served learning pickup by employing the IBL + IVC style. This is, in fact, what most pickup artists teach their acolytes. The typical woman prefers the indirect approach from the typical man, and the inexperienced man is not going to possess the degree of self-amused state control that is required to successfully pull off direct approaches. The newb will need gradual indicators of interest from women to build up his confidence levels to a point where he is comfortable risking more on direct openers and interactions of powerful sexual intention.

Then, too, the newb can get a better grasp of gauging a woman’s “buying temperature” by adjusting his body language from indirect to direct and back to indirect, as opposed to the more difficult route of direct to indirect back to direct. It’s easier to maintain plausible deniability with the former than with the latter.

So, I’d say IBL + IVC is optimal for younger men and less experienced men. This is not a mixed signal strategy at the outset, but it can be farther along in the process when it is simpler to incorporate different verbal and nonverbal tactics.

Where it gets interesting is the IBL + DVC strategy. This can potentially be the most powerful approach technique wielded in the right hands. Such a man is perceived as having the conviction of his words, but simultaneously sending barely perceptible signals that his interest level is waning, or that he’s hard to keep engaged. Naturals tend to this style, and the classic archetype is the devil-may-care badboy who speaks of lustful things to a girl while his eyes wander around the room scanning for fresh meat.

Generally, though, mixing signals is a technique best left for experts. The risk of mood-killing incongruence is very high, and I’ve seen far too many enthusiastic men muck it up when they couldn’t sufficiently manage the inherent discrepancy between their words and their mannerisms.

YaReally makes the inarguable point that, once a certain level of inner confidence is achieved, it doesn’t really matter what kind of approach style a man uses.

The PUA community used to think you needed solid indirect openers to open. Then we found out you could go direct. […]

Now we understand that you can open with anything, as long as what you open with comes from a place of self-amusement and congruency.

When you think “How should I open this girl?” you’re essentially thinking “What can I say/do to earn this girl’s validation?” and you’re already coming from a frame of having lower value than her.

When you think “What I’m saying is gold, of course she’ll love me, I’m so awesome!” you’re essentially screening her for “Is she cool enough for me to let her hang with me?” and you’re coming from a frame of having higher value than her.

Girls generally pick up on this subconsciously, because they’ve spent their lives having to learn to quickly assess “is this person being genuine/honest with me or are they trying to get something from me?”

A lot of why “Who lies more?” worked so well was because the guys learning it felt like they found the secret invincible formula, so when they approached with it they were approaching from that “This is going to blow her mind, of course she’s going to love me” frame.

Direct worked because the guys who tried it were sick of going indirect and beating around the bush and wanted to just get their intentions out in the open so they were just saying “HEY. You’re cute, I’d kick myself if I didn’t come say hi.” and expecting it to work, so it did.

Some of you may be asking, “Doesn’t YaReally’s advice contradict the study you just posted about how indirect, innocuous openers are best?”

Good question! Superficially, yes. But you’ve got to understand that most of the men involved in these studies have no game, have never heard of game, and likely wouldn’t understand the concept of congruence if you whacked them over the head with it. These studies examine the responses of women to the behavior of the *average, no-game-having* man, and in that context, indirect is best. Since that context is most contexts, it is good advice to follow for most men. Men who have been exposed to a new way of thinking about women and seduction are better equipped to pursue different approach strategies that streamline the process and maximize their lay rates.

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Indirect Vs Direct Vs Clever Openers: Which Is Best?

A reader sent along a link to a study which attempted to clarify which kinds of approach “openers” (pickup lines or greetings) worked best on women. The science, while far from conclusive (results were based on women’s self-reported preferences, so usual caveats apply), is finally having a say in this eternal debate between direct and indirect game advocates. Funny enough, the actual study was done in the ’80s. A lot of great, illuminating stuff about human nature gets forgotten, especially when the zeitgeist is so suffocatingly PC.

Women prefer innocuous opening lines vs direct or clever lines.

Men prefer women to be direct.

Via Scott Barry Kaufman:

In the ’80s, Chris Kleinke and colleagues analyzed the effectiveness of 100  pick-up lines across a number of different settings, including bars, supermarkets, restaurants, laundromats, and beaches. They found three main categories of openers: direct gambits, which are honest and get right to the point (e.g, “I’m sort of shy, but I’d like to get to know you“), innocuous gambits, which hide a person’s true intentions (“e.g., “What do you think of this band?“), and cute/flippant gambits, which involve humor, but often in a cheesy, canned way (e.g., ”Do you have any raisins? No? Well then, how about a date?“.)* 

Both men and women agreed that cute/flippant pick-up lines were the least attractive. Women, however, preferred innocuous lines and had a greater aversion to cute/flippant lines than men, while men had a greater preference for direct opening gambits than women. This basic pattern has been found over and over again in a variety of settings, including singles bars .

Eric Barker, the guy who runs that fantastic repository of helpful science, notes that mentally tired people are less receptive to clever pickup lines. If you’re churning through garbage hour and hitting on tired girls, keep it simple. A brief comment about something in your shared environment is all it will take.

So cute (aka douchebag) lines are the worst. No surprise there. Those kinds of lines are spit more for the entertainment of a guy’s buddies watching nearby than they are for the purpose of attracting a girl.

Clever lines you aspiring William F. Buckleys might be tempted to use are wasted on tired girls, and likely on any girl with an IQ under 120, which is most of them.

Direct openers aren’t as bad as cutesy openers, but girls still prefer the indirect strategy from men.

The abiding truth that game practitioners keep coming back to (and that science often confirms) is that girls don’t want the nuts and bolts of their seduction revealed to them; they want men to just *know* what they like and give them the *feelings* of being successfully seduced, and that means men must maintain plausible deniability about their sexual intentions, even if feminists shriek that such a mating strategy amounts to “manipulation”.

[Editor: Chicks dig being manipulated!]

Direct openers may work in some niche situations, and on certain types of women, but for most women the direct approach robs them of that feeling they love of being swept up in a romantic moment that ostensibly began as a “ships passing in the night(club)” fortuitous, random meeting.

Or it could simply be that direct openers automatically and instantaneously, by transparently communicating a man’s desire, lower his value vis-á-vis the girl he is hitting on, because she knows exactly how much he values her, and this knowledge gives her all the hand in the interaction. And girls don’t really crave the having of hand in budding romantic situations, despite their claims to the contrary. If the nature of woman is to love the thrill of winning over and eventually surrendering to an aloof, dominant man, then it makes sense they would prefer their seductions are blurred with a gauzy filter of mystery, ambiguity and uncertainty.

This study would seem to validate the efficacy of Roosh’s “elderly opener” tactic, but as the CH reader averred, direct openers should be part of your arsenal even if they aren’t the most broadly effective, because there will be times when indirect openers are ridiculous and self-defeating.

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Girls Asking Generalissimo Heartiste To Rate Their Looks

This commune of cosseted corporeal delights gets its fair share of female readers emailing the proprietors with requests (nay, more like demands) to rank them on a 1 to 10 beauty scale. Photos are included, along with promises that all info will be kept private (naturally). The proprietors abide the second request, but rarely the first, because it is quite obvious that what these women seek they already know, and are simply fishing for a little of the ol’ ultrastroking of their egos by the lead pack animal with fur of woven gold and claws stained with mortal triumph.

A recent example of the genre appeared in the Inbox of Consummation, and, as is usual in these cases, the woman in the photo is quite fetching, a solid 8. She too, asked for privacy, so I will not reveal any details here, except to say she is younger than lawyercunt age and was eager to leverage her looks for a family and babies before it was too late, evidencing a feeling of deadly urgency not often observed in women so young which she acquired, so she says, through reading this blog. She valued the opinion of the Rectory’s Grandmaster, and wished to know if a “lesser alpha” was within her purview.

Yes, you slinky pantherette, you can get a lesser alpha if you put your heart to it.

The overwhelming majority of these “rank me” emails feature women sitting comfortably above the 7 and above looks rating. I can only remember two who were otherwise; one girl was a 6 and the other was frolicking dangerously close to the soul-burning fires of a 4 or 5 rating. A lopsided number of them are 8s and higher.

Why would only good-looking women email for reassurances of their good looks? If women were really oblivious to their sexual market values, you’d expect to see a more even distribution from women at all points of the looks scale searching for unbiased third party opinions.

The premise is, of course, all wrong. Women are VERY AWARE of their SMVs, both absolute and relative, and that is why ugly women rarely ask for opinions on their looks: even the nicest niceboi would be hard-pressed to sufficiently conceal his discomfort at having to gently fib to a mastodon that she really looks like a Venus. And women are quite skilled at picking up subtexts and subcommunications and subsubmeanings within submeanings telegraphed through body language and quivering supplicating voice.

The same reason fugs avoid tempting the sizzling light of judgment is the reason hot babes welcome it: the latter love reminding themselves how hot they are by provoking reactions from men (betas) eager to feed their womanly need. Unless you are running an online presence and don’t go out of your way to meet such women IRL, you’d best follow the hallowed prescription to avoid giving attractive women the ego boosts they crave if you don’t want to be chucked into the boring manboob discount bin.

The other interesting angle to all this is the question of why, when the world is full of men with nearly universal tastes in women, do some hot women feel compelled to coax unnecessary flattery from an ASCII ghost? The answer to that, I leave as an exercise for the reader.

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