When Cleverness Is A Liability

Steve Sailer noted that Trump’s tweets aren’t very clever, but they don’t need to be, and in fact cleverness might obstruct the lethal precision of Trump’s shivs.

My guess is that Trump will never, ever use “Picohontas.” This has a double utility to Trump. By not using it, Trump doesn’t alienate the vast percentage of voters who don’t know that “pico” means “one-trillionth.” (I personally guessed it meant one-billionth, but that of course would be “Gigahontas.”)

But also, because Trump doesn’t use a supremely clever insult he lures in the Establishment Media to insutlt as a low brow and thus keep the controversiy alive on Trump’s terms; that Senator Warren isn very Indian.

gregor provides additional logic for Trump’s aversion to cleverness when he’s trying to go around the Chaimstream Media and report directly to the people through his Twatter account,

Right. Trump has the right instincts on this. For one thing, these clever portmanteaus work a lot better in writing than in speech. To a writer like Steve the more clever term is irresistible. But a TV guy like Trump knows that you want the spoken phrase to hit immediately. You don’t your audience confused even for a second about why you’re mispronouncing Pocahontas.

The other part of it is that Trump isn’t a nerd.

Cleverness comes across better in writing, that’s true. And better in movies, which are scripted and edited to ensure clever lines aren’t lost like they are in the normal raucousness of real life casual conversation, or drowned out by background interruption.

I like cleverness, and I indulge it, but I tend to steer clear of it offline, unless I know my audience will appreciate it. I particularly avoid it when seducing girls, unless the girl is a type I’ve learned from experience will cherish my whimsical quips (artsy, smart, dressed in odd yet feminine clothing (pixie chic)).

I’ve similarly noted that cleverness can be an obstacle to a proper seduction. If you’re too clever, you’re liable to be perceived as too try-hard, which is the kiss of death for a pickup. Plus, you run a high risk of flubbing your delivery, or straining to locate the verbiage, or messing up the timing (because an AMOG rudely interrupted your moment in the sun with a shoulder punch), any of which will repulse the girl because now she thinks you desperately want to make an impression on her (but are failing at it)……which only reinforces the “male chaser-female chasee” script, that you should be flipping if you want to negate the natural advantage girls have in the early stages of courtship.

You don’t need to be witty to have Game:

…if you are all wit and no frame, you are an entertainment monkey who arouses women’s brains but leaves their pussies dry. In contrast, if you are all frame and no wit, you are a sexy beast women can’t help but find alluring, even as they gripe about your curt assholery to their friends.

Now, it should go without saying (though this blog does attract its share of stupids and ego-invested contrarians who need it said over and over) that it’s better to have frame AND wit, rather than frame alone. Hank Moody wit is a killer weapon to have in the field, even more potent than having top 10% looks. But, if you had to choose, frame is the better of the two. So banish from your thoughts doubts that your lack of wit consigns you to involuntary celibacy. I’ve witnessed too many overconfident lunkheads without a clever word to say but teeming with the right attitude effortlessly swoop babes to believe otherwise.

Maxim #55: Less talking is always sexier than more talking. If you struggle to find something witty to say to a girl, stop trying. Flailing for the “right” words is approval-seeking beta behavior that women can sniff from across a room.

Corollary to Maxim #55: A grunt or aloof gesture trumps a try-hard, strained, verbose comeback.

When this subject comes up in real life, I like to tell my guy friends to recall those times they were challenged or annoyed by their sisters or some female friends they didn’t find attractive. I ask them to remember how they felt, how they acted, and what they said. Invariably, they all say they remember being cool as cucumbers, dismissive, and even rude. They were careless with their words and cared even less what their sisters or unattractive female friends thought of them. They remember feeling like one might feel if a mosquito was buzzing around one’s head; they just wanted to shoo it away, or tell it to go find the nearest bug zapper. They certainly did not try to impress them with Shakespearean wit.

“Good,” I say. “Now that’s the way you should act when you talk to ATTRACTIVE girls.”

Frame before wit. Get the basics right first and the mentally scripted fluff will sound more authentic later.

Indirect vs Direct vs Clever Openers:

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”.

Again, cleverness has limited applicability in the realm of pickup. Use it sparingly, and targeted to girls who will admire it.

If you are a clever man, you won’t want to surrender an SMV advantage. Would a tall man willingly give up a foot of height? I understand that men will want to use every tool at their disposal to outcompete other men and fat cockblocks for the poosy prize, but cleverness is a double-edged sword that can swing against you if it’s unsheathed too frequently. The best compromise is to pair your cleverness with aloof body language and attitude, so that you seem less like you’re impressing the girl than you are amusing yourself.

Instead of cleverness, think more in terms of “power words“:

The ideal verbal approach is to coax an accelerated camaraderie with the use of “power words” — which are usually mono- or bisyllabic — that girls promptly jack into via emotional pathways that electrify fastest when lubed by simpler, stronger words than by nuanced Oxfordian words stuffed with exquisite connotations. This will be your conversational base, over which you will furnish the occasional five-dollar words and ambiguous subtext, because no pickup attempt went to the bedroom without first rubbing her rationalization hamster against the grain.

We’ve all known that ladykiller Chad who struts into conversations and drops 10 cent monosyllabic words like nukes, drawing female attention to himself, blowing up male competition, and, like Trump, opening a fruitful path for further flirtation (or media amplification).

Cleverness should be a supplement, not your main lingual course. Picohontas? The mensa crowd claps. Pocohontas? The lady vaj flaps. Find that balance and pickup will become a joy instead of a chore.