“Day Bang” Review (Plus Day Game Thoughts)

I have a question for the men reading this post right now. How much time did you spend in a bar or nightclub this past week? Answer honestly to yourselves. One hour? Five hours? Ten? Or no time at all? Now, ask yourselves, how much time did you spend everywhere else — the supermarket, the gas station, the bookstore, the office, the bus stop, at a restaurant, the coffee shop, the sidewalk, a music festival, the mall, the park, the beach, the train, the pool, etc?

You should see where I’m going with this. Most of the girls you cross paths with will be outside of bars and nightclubs. The largest reservoir of pickup opportunity is everywhere that isn’t a bar or nightclub. PUAs call this day game, for short. If maximizing your efficiency at meeting and bedding women (and maybe a future girlfriend or wife) is your goal, then you need to learn the art of the day game pickup.

Day Bang, a guide to daytime pickup, is Roosh’s latest offering, and it stacks up well to Bang, his first game book. Technically, the writing is sharper and clearer than his first book, minus a few grammatical typos. It is also blessedly free of well-worn community jargon, so you get the impression that you’re reading a cool guy talking to another cool guy in a natural setting, instead of a reformed geek giving a seminar in a hotel conference room. The book is a breeze to read and stresses practical advice as much as theory, which is to be commended. There is enough game theory in circulation, and while having a theoretical underpinning for the reasons why game works is critical to building your inner game and strengthening your resolve, ultimately it’s the field-tested tools of the trade that are going to motivate you to get out there and put it all to work.

Roosh is a proponent of indirect game, where you don’t state your intentions up front like you would do with direct game. He is especially adamant that direct game is a poor strategy for daytime pickup, for sensible reasons he outlines in his book. As he writes:

The bottom line is that there are girls who will reject your direct game that would have eventually fucked you had you gone indirect, but not the other way around.

I’ve read good arguments for and against direct and indirect game, so I can’t definitively tell you that one is better than the other in any given circumstance. (For instance, some PUAs say that direct game is more suitable for girls walking down the sidewalk because you only have less than a minute to make your pitch. Roosh does acknowledge that situations similar to this might call for direct game, but he also points out, correctly in my opinion, that number closes from direct approaches tend to result in more flaking than those from indirect approaches.)

All I will say on this hot-button issue is that I agree with Roosh’s perspective because indirect approaches better match my personality and vibe, and as a result not more than 5% of all my pickup attempts have been direct. So I don’t have a wealth of direct game experience to make a reliable comparison. If you’re new to the game, you should focus on indirect game. Direct game is simple to learn, but hard to master, and you have to be comfortable with lots of outright rejection. Although the time and energy investment with indirect game is greater than direct game, in the end you will achieve more consistent dating results with the indirect approach.

Fundamentally, day game is not much different than night game. You still have to approach, intrigue a girl, play a bit of hard to get, raise your value, and close with a number or continue the conversation with a venue bounce (aka “insta-date”). But there are some subtle, yet important, differences in how you should approach a girl during the daytime versus the nighttime.

Roosh explains these differences in his day game model. Quote:

My model has three main components. The first is the opener. It will be something basic, disarming, and natural enough that it doesn’t scare away the cat. I think you’ll be both amused and pleased at how simple they are. The second component is rambling, where we build attraction by being interesting instead of cocky. Using juicy pieces of bait, we’re going to display our value in a casual way that intrigues her and makes her want to learn more. The last component is Galnuc, a system that personalizes the interaction and helps you get the number (or more).

Two points to make about day game. As Roosh says, girls are more skittish during the day. You simply cannot approach the majority of girls with the same flirtatious gusto during the day that you do at night and expect equally good results. Second, the cocky/funny banter and negs that work so well to lower bitch shields in a nightclub are going to strike a girl as weird or insulting when she’s browsing through a discount table of cookbooks or hurrying to catch a bus. (Not that there isn’t room or need to be cocky/funny in a daytime setting; the caveat is that it’s better to deploy the big neg guns after you’ve eased her into a fruitful conversation.) A more refined, oblique approach is needed for day game, where your flirting and cockiness is toned down and your plausible deniability is ratcheted up. You must master the art of the “slow boil”, as he calls it.

Roosh gets into the exact types of daytime openers to use on girls in specific situations, and they are crafted to sound almost boring, yet maximize the odds that she will be open to continuing the conversation. For example:

She’s writing something in beautiful cursive on pages that have floral borders. She’s using what seems to be an expensive ballpoint pen. What’s the elderly opener? In this case there are two possibilities. Your instinct may be to ask, “What are you writing?” but remember, that’s personal in nature and not likely to get a warm response. She may think of you as a nosy man trying to gain access to her closet of secrets. The best elderly opener from this situation is, “Excuse me, is that a good pen?” You’ll then inquire about the brand, the color of the ink, its width, and if it’s comfortable to hold for long periods of time, all with a serious expression on your face. Almost pretend you’re a pen salesman on the first day of the job, doing research in order to eventually sell it to other people with a long-term goal of having a successful pen career.

Good stuff. And proof that you can productively talk about almost anything with a girl as long as you say it with confidence.

What about segueing from the opener? Roosh covers that, too.

I have a good idea of one way I’d segue out of pen conversation: I’d make a brief comment about how it’s important to have a suitable pen for “my career.” If I did a proper job with the chat and she was open, she’d either ask about my job or respond with how pens are important to her, which would allow us to start talking about something else.

Like Bang, Day Bang is filled with this sort of readily accessible and easily adapted pickup advice, some of which Roosh gleaned from his time with students taking his pickup workshops. But be warned: if you haven’t read Bang, you are likely going to be somewhat lost reading Day Bang. Consider Day Bang more of an adjunct to Bang, a continuation of the series, rather than a standalone book for newbies. You’ll want to get the first book under your belt before you tackle Day Bang.

There’s much more covered in Day Bang, in generous detail (conversations are often replayed exactly as they occurred in real life), including how to respond to or initiate eye contact, coffeeshop and public transit logistics (with helpful diagrams), street pickup, clothing store pickup, bookstore pickup, pre-openers, optimal facial expression, voice tonality, calculated pauses, body positioning (you should never face the entrance of a venue because you want arriving girls to settle in before you hit on them, and you want to be able to see them leaving), baiting the girl to ask you questions, “going personal”, fitting your style and vibe to your target demographic, the value of ambiguity, the art of rambling, closing, and his GALNUC system (GermanAgeLocationNameUsuallyCool), among others.

I thought the book was excellent on openers, logistics and rambling but maybe not quite as comprehensive on closing and follow-up dates (this is where having read Bang will help you). Nonetheless, while the game theory isn’t groundbreaking or heretical in Day Bang (female nature hasn’t changed in ten years), Roosh’s presentation of the theory, and practical application of it, is. In my opinion, it’s not a stretch to consider Bang and Day Bang worthy entries to the canonical game literature, right up there with Mystery Method and Magic Bullets. You read Roosh’s advice, and you can actually see yourself saying it.

More information on Day Bang here.

PS: Roosh’s stories about his time with his younger 14 year old brother were heartwarming. I wish there were more of them. It must be a great feeling to properly guide a young man to understanding the nuttiness psychology of women.

PPS: It’s inevitable that you will eventually tire of the nightclub scene. Nightclub enthusiasm tends to peak for men in their early 20s, and gradually wane after that. If you plan on living a fulfilling, exciting life sharing the company of beautiful women, it is in your interest to see the light on day game and learn it well. Life is full of change. Embrace it.

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Why Chicks Dig Egotistic Men, &c.

You can judge who’s nice and who’s a dick simply by looking at them. We humans have tells, and some of those tells are outside of our conscious control, like the shape of our faces. Other tells, such as smiles, are difficult to fake convincingly without willful effort.

Further analyses of Oda et al.’s data show that the key to detecting altruists is genuine smile, which is under involuntary control and is therefore difficult to fake. Altruists genuinely smile more frequently than egoists during natural conversations.

And this is where game comes in. We all know by now, thanks in part to the illumination provided by this blog, that women are sexually attracted to men who are self-centered egotists; in layman’s nomenclature: assholes, dicks, douchebags, pricks and masters of the universe. The kinds of men women swoon for possess the “dark triad” of personality traits: narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. It stands to reason that women would be drawn to egoists, and that, at least according to the science, one way in which a man feeds the perception that he is an egoist is by smiling less frequently than niceguys would smile during natural conversations. Which leads to…

Maxim #39: Stop smiling so much! Girls will think you’re ingratiating. Girls prefer men they can ingratiate themselves to.

So you have another weapon to add to your arsenal of seduction. Work on suppressing the smile instinct when you talk to a girl. Be especially wary when she flatters you or flirts with you; that’s when you’ll be under the least amount of voluntary control over your smiling reflex. A smile should be tamed to a barely perceptible upturned mouth corner, and limited in its dispensation so as to maximize the effect it has when it is deployed.

Note for the recently lobotomized: During the non-ovulatory phase of their cycle, women do feel some attraction for altruistic, beta providers. It should go without saying that the best seducers balance the asshole with the altruist. Within that balance is the key to unlocking a fountain of women’s love.

***

Women remember your words better if you speak them in a deep voice.

[T]he authors found that women had a strong preference for the low pitch male voice and remembered objects more accurately when they have been introduced by the deep male voice.

Smith concludes: “Our findings demonstrate that women’s memory is enhanced with lower pitch male voices, compared with the less attractive raised pitch male voices. Our two experiments indicate for the first time that signals from the opposite-sex that are important for mate choice also affect the accuracy of women’s memory.”

This confirms a lesser known game concept that men who speak slowly and deliberately are more attractive to women. When you speak slowly, your voice pitch lowers, which raises your attractiveness. Try it sometime. If you want a girl to remember something you consider helpful to your goal of getting her to sex, be sure to deliberately lower your voice when you say it.

***

I was right about cutters. They do it to because it distracts them from their worries and alleviates stress and depression.

The majority of people involved in self-injury do it to deal with anxiety or emotional pain, Adler said. It “self-soothes” and gives people a sense of control. And it helps many people get over a rough patch in their lives.

I contend that cutters are probably the fastest lays you will encounter. If you catch sight of the telltale stigmata, push for a same night lay.

***

File under: No duh! A lack of a father in the home is bad for children’s future prospects.

Despite the widespread assumption that paternal investment is substantial in our species, previous studies have shown mixed results in relation to the impact of fathers on both offspring survival and reproductive outcomes. Using data from a large representative sample of British men, we tested whether father absence is associated with the timing of reproduction-related events among boys, while controlling for various cues denoting early childhood adversity. We further tested whether the loss of the father at different childhood stages matters, so as to assess whether early life is the most important period or if effects can be seen during later childhood. The results show that father absence before age seven is associated with early reproduction, while father absence between ages 11 and 16 only is associated with delayed voice-breaking (a proxy for puberty), even after adjusting for other factors denoting childhood adversity. We conclude that fathers do exert an influence on male reproductive outcomes, independently of other childhood adversities and that these effects are sensitive to the timing of father absence.

You kind of have to read between the lines in this study to get to the meat of the issue: if you like living in a prosperous, civilized nation, you want boys to reach sexual maturity later in life, as such late bloomers are a sign that more parental investment into learning and developing is taking place. K-selection strategy, in other words. If you want to live in a shithole, you can’t go wrong in a place where boys are sprouting pube grass and wolf whistling by age 9. The scourge of single momhood in the USA and other Western nations is an early warning sign that our once great nations are headed down the path of shitholeitude.

***

If you want a quick and effortless path to sex, you should focus on gaming girls when they are alone and away from their peers.

Peer pressure? It’s hardwired into our brains.

A new USC study explains why people take stupid chances when all of their friends are watching that they would never take by themselves. According to the study, the human brain places more value on winning in a social setting than it does on winning when you’re alone. […]

The researchers found that the striatum, a part of the brain associated with rewards, showed higher activity when a participant beat a peer in the lottery, as opposed to when the participant won while alone. The medial prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain associated with social reasoning, was more activated as well. Those participants who won in a social setting also tended to engage in more risky and competitive behavior in subsequent lotteries.

“These findings suggest that the brain is equipped with the ability to detect and encode social signals, make social signals salient, and then, use these signals to optimize future behavior,” Coricelli said.

As Coricelli explained, in private environments, losing can more easily be life-threatening. With no social support network in place, a bad gamble can spell doom.

In group environments, on the other hand, rewards tend to be winner-takes-all. Nowhere is this more clear than in sexual competition, where — to borrow a phrase from racing legend Dale Earnhardt, Sr. — second place is just first loser.

What does this have to do with women and ease of sex? Well, peer pressure acts on adult women too, (it’s not just a teen skaterboi phenomenon), and is particularly relevant when the woman is surrounded by her clucking hens in a mixed group environment where men are hitting on her. Taking risks to impress friends and potential mates manifests differently in men than it does in women. A man will engage in derring-do in front of a crowd to boost his status; a woman will look good to try to capture the interest of an alpha male to boost her social status.

A woman is going to feel more pressure to snag the top dog when her friends are watching, so she will have a bigger bitch shield (to more effectively screen out the betas) than she would if she were sitting alone when you approached her. Ergo, you probably have an easier path to sex if you game her when there are none of her peers around. And this tends to confirm my real life experience. Women are especially keen to avoid the slut label when friends are watching.

But I can imagine some readers reaching a contrary conclusion (and there are enough personal examples to support an opposing conclusion). A woman alone risks more if she winds up sleeping with a cad; as the study mentioned, she has no support network to ameliorate any bad decision she might make. You might, therefore, have a better shot at sex if you can successfully capitalize on her genetically wired need for social approval by instilling the fear of loss in her through jealously plotlines; for example, by disqualifying her with negs while you flirt with her friends.

The “woman alone” vs “woman in group” theory needs some more fleshing out by field testers and theorists alike. My take is this: Women alone are better same night lay prospects, especially if you’re strong in the comfort stage, but women in groups offer more opportunity (via social dynamic pathways) to raise your value and build attraction in the early stages of pickup.

And if you keep getting blown out by cockblocks, well, a woman by herself won’t have that problem. Which brings us to day game…

but that is a topic for another time.

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A Test Of Your Game: The Judging

It’s time to revisit the last “Test of Your Game” and see how the commenters responded to the challenge. How would you handle an outdoor pickup attempt under the gaze of a beautiful setting sun over the ocean, briefly interrupted by a potential cockblock?

Anonymous wrote:

FIRST!!!!! :))))

I like the assumed sale. But the excitability sounds too eager.

Grade: E for effort

The G Manifesto wrote:

“The Pacific sun glared off the sand”

Being that you are on The Wessyde, spark up a Chronic jay and say:

“Stick around for a while, you don’t want to miss the sunset. It is going to be a “green flash”.

To which she will respond:

“What is a “green flash?”

Maneuver as usual from there. Final destination: your bedroom.

An excellent segue, if she isn’t a local. Actually, this is a decent topic even if she knows what you’re talking about. If she says “I’ve seen it already”, you could say “Yeah, but not with my color commentary.”

Grade: B+

DiamondEyes wrote:

“Does David know you try to pick up strange men at the beach?”

whatever she says, cut her off with –

“Your friend is kind of cute.”

There is no need to mention David at all. That’s taking the focus off you and putting it on some other dude. We don’t know if David is a BF, an ex, a herbly friend, a brother, a roommate or none of the above. Plus, this abrupt conversational change doesn’t flow well from her last words to you as she was packing to go. As for the driving arrangements hinted at by the girl friend, well, it could be a girls’ night out, so no boyfriend presence required. Otherwise, I like the flirty nature and the disqualification of this segue, and a girl who was feeling you might pick up and run with this.

Grade: Gentleman’s C

Miley Cyrax wrote:

Hesitate like a deer in the headlights, until the sight of her walking away spurs you into action. Yell “wait!,” while getting up to chase after her, before tripping over your beach chair and falling on your face.

She turns around.

Trying to DHV as you pick yourself up (flexing the triceps as you push yourself off the ground), you sheepishly ask “has anyone told you that you have a C-shaped smile?”

Neil Strauss wept.

Grade: A+ for slapstick humor

E wrote:

“How long have you and her been dating?”, completely straight faced.

Assuming she’s not actually dating that girl, she’ll probably start qualifying. If she is dating that girl, you can ask if they’ve ever shared a man.

Man, this is an ingenious neg/disqualification. But for it to work you have to say it with sincere naïveté. Any smirking will convince her you’re a douchebag. This is a line that could function in any situation where a cockblock is present.

Grade: B for balls

Marc wrote:

Flirt with the pale girl, says I. Make magazine girl, who probably already thinks she’s the shit, wonder if you might actually like her friend better. Plus y’know, if you’re in with her group, it’s less awkward to try to get her to peel away.

It’s always advisable to flirt with other girls (an alpha male is always “on”), but if you aren’t ambiguous about your intentions, or you overdo it, she might really think you want her less attractive friend and try to set you two up. But I get that this is a classic disqualification maneuver used on hot babes to make them doubt your attraction for them, and thus to slightly lower their status relative to yours. I’m just not sure that the “I like your friend” red herring tactic won’t backfire as often as it works as intended.

Grade: C-

Anonymous wrote:

A classic close I learned from this blog:

Double middle finger in the face of all. Stunner. Stunner. Stunner.

Walk away to the sound of breaking glass.

Bonus: and whistling the “Battle Hymm of the Republic.”

Double Bonus: steal her wallet. spend her money at the strip club.

Are some of you guys looking to pick up chicks or audition for the new Game movie?

Grade: Hell yeah!

Marx wrote:

As the perceptive charmer different from the rest of the pack, I can smell the moisture tingling her ‘gina. She *wants* to be late; she *wants* to dismiss David; and she *wants* to showcase her sass (and ass).

Response: eradicate that sense of urgency, prolong her stay at the beach, keep teasing, get her to jump in the water, and take the rest from there.

Me: “So you came to the beach to read a magazine? Come on… you’re more fun than that.”

Magazine girl: “No, I was tanning too. But I gotta go now.”

Me: “Yeah, I noticed the tan lines. Seriously, what’s the urgency for? Beautiful day, beautiful sand, beautiful sharks.”

M-G: “I gotta get ready for that dinner.”

Me: “Do you also have trouble telling time? You have hours before dinner. Come on. Do you know how to swim?”

M-G: “Yes.”

Me: “I don’t believe you. Show me.”

M-G: “…..”

**More witty banter to expunge that urge to leave**

Me: “I’m jumping in. Tag along.”

**I grab her gently by the hand and pull her into the water**

Commenter Ben Runkle had a good reply to this commenter’s suggestion, so I’ll just post that:

“I like this because it seems like you’re going for the same day lay, by keeping her around and moving to another spot (the water). That said, I feel like this would work better at night, after she’s already out, maybe at a bar on the beach. The thing that sucks about day game is it’s a lot harder to isolate (without coming off as creepy or pushy) due to the fact that the girl may just have a legitimate excuse for leaving. other than timing, this is solid.”

Yup, day game is a different beast than night game.

Grade: B

(Another) Anonymous wrote:

“Well, I’ve gotta go. It was nice talking about invisible sharks with you.”

This is a shit test. Agree & amplify, and get her contact info with a single retort, with a simple, efficient phrase:

“Yeah, we should do it again sometime, over drinks.”

Clean and clear and relevant to her departing salvo. Remember, MagGirl is getting up to leave. There just isn’t time or context for continuing along a conversational path that requires a lot of flirty banter. A lot of commenters wanted to press on with the shark theme, but that would sound forced. One, you’re trying to pump life into an overworked subject matter, and two, you’re forcing her to banter when she’s given the unspoken signal that a change in topic is appropriate.

Grade: B (Not the best game, but doesn’t pussyfoot around, either.)

John Ryder wrote:

“Well hold it now, I’ve got all kinds of dangerous animals to show you… not all of them invisible…”

Sexual innuendo always comes across better on paper or in the movies than it does in real life.

Grade: D for dadgam horndog!

Maya wrote:

my piece of advice.

Ignore her shit test, don’t say anything, just look at her and make a smirk. When, in the next second, she’s about to go, I’d say “Do take the cold shower at your friend’s place” (or something like that, I can’t really make lines in English, but the important fact is that she’s just met a super hot alpha guy and she needs to cool down)
Her: “Why?”
You: “You’ll cool down.”
Her: “I don’t need to … I’m not upset at all”
You: “Try it. You’ll feel the difference”
Her: “I think you’re the one who should take a cold shower, you’re seeing the sharks where there are none … this is worrisome”
Now you can change the subject of the conversation abruptly again.

It’s always interesting to hear a girl’s perspective on pickup, if only to learn what not to do. Occasionally, though, a girl’s advice isn’t horrible. This example is a little overwrought, but the catch-her-off-guard line of “Yeah, you’d probably want to take that cold shower” is pretty good if you wanted to go direct and assume that she’s into you. A risky gambit, to be sure.

Grade: Lady’s B- (so conscientious, so workmanlike, but where’s the genius?)

Killer Instinct wrote:

This is an interesting case, and the PUA is presented essentially with two sets of options: disqualification or qualification. The first decision that needs to be made is which direction to go in. Given the fact that the girl is quite hot (8-9?) and that up to that point she is relatively uninterested, disqualification tactics are the best bet. Add the fact that she is ready to leave, disqualification presents a kind of higher-risk, higher-reward method: if it works, instant attraction can be triggered. So, how to go about disqualifying? Neg can work, but needs to be very calibrated—not too strong as to piss her off, and not to soft as to prevent attraction. My tactic would be something like this:
“hey, before you go, any chance you can introduce me to your cute friend?”

This is a good middle ground that is very likely to get a response, put her in a qualifying frame, and lay the foundational seeds of attraction.

Traditional game theory does support Killer Instinct’s advice to pursue a disqualification strategy. The success of this technique hinges on, as KI mentioned, the hotness of the target and her interest level. She was hot, but how interested was she? I got the sense there was incipient attraction because she didn’t try to escape our conversation before her pale friend showed up. There was momentum. Would a qualifying number close work better? Maybe it comes down to personal preference; a lower-risk but low-backfire rate method could appeal more to guys who style themselves aloof seducers.

Grade: B+

YaReally wrote:

Jesus, it’s like Game circa 2004 in here.

1. Why did she come sit down in the first place if she were only going to stay 5-10 minutes?

Because she wants his cock. She sits by him but won’t open him because she’s a hot alpha chick and she’s giving him a chance to have the balls to open her.

2. The friend leaves, and then slightly later, magazinegirl goes to leave. If she were going to leave her stuff at her friend’s apt, wouldn’t she have left with the friend?

Because she wants his cock. She stayed behind so he could at the least grab her number.

3. Who would this David be that Maggirl would 1) see him before going to her friend’s house but 2) not leave her stuff there and 3) not invite him along to dinner?

Who the fuck cares who David is? Maggirl clearly doesn’t. He’s the guy that’s totally irrelevant. Her friend tried to toss a “remember your boyfriend” cockblock in to fuck with him but Maggirl herself blew it off. Because she wants his cock.

4. The “don’t wait up if I’m late” is a little strange since Maggirl doesn’t know where the dinner is going to be. You would think she would ask her friend where if only out of politeness so that she could have said, “ok, and I’ll try to catch up with you there if I’m late” or something like that.

That’s because they were having a girl-code conversation. Cockblock was saying “Here’s your chance to come with me to escape this guy if he’s creepy” and Maggirl was saying “It’s cool, I want this guy’s cock and I’m giving him a chance, go on ahead without me” and Cockblock threw in a last “Just don’t forget about your boyfriend!” because she knows Maggirl does what she wants and all she can do is try to guilt her a bit and make it awkward for the guy.

Anyway, in response to what to do: There’s not enough comfort for a kiss at this point since she’s all alpha and still testing you, but there’s enough for a number for sure, and possibly a small insta-date (she probably won’t blow her friends off entirely, but she’ll give you some time to build more comfort with her).

If you want the number, you just tell her “So give me your number and we’ll go shark hunting by moonlight after your dinner.” as you pull out your phone. Text her flirty but not too sexual during her dinner so she’ll meet up without feeling like she’s admitting she wants sex, and escalate in person. David and the cockblock chick might fuck it up though, so an insta-date would be better.

For an insta-date just tell her you’ll walk her to her car so she doesn’t get eaten by the invisible sharks. Once her shit is tossed in the car so she doesn’t have to lug it around and you’ve built a little more comfort, push for the insta-date and make her late for dinner.

Easy peasy.

I like YaReally’s frame (it’s good for your game to assume girls want to interact with you), but just to clarify, there weren’t that many open chairs, so she likely sat where she did out of necessity. Points (2) and (3) are well taken, and honestly ones I hadn’t thought of at the time. There’s a lot going on that’s easy to miss when your brain is revving to get a girl’s contact info with the clock ticking.

Anyhow, YaReally’s analysis and prescription sounds spot on, even in hindsight. (YaReally also has some other comments in that thread you’ll want to check out.) The only quibble I have is walking her to her car to help carry her stuff as part of an insta-date to build comfort. I was reclined in a chair with my feet propped up as she was packing to leave. I imagine it would have looked try-hard for me to get up and offer assistance, unless I offered a plausible excuse for why I had to leave as well. But hey, no guts no glory, right?

Grade: A

***

What I did

MagGirl had begun collecting her stuff and shoving it into a gargantuan canvas bag. She glanced sidelong at me for a second, full of sass and flourish, signifying everything.

She smiled, or maybe smirked. “Well, I’ve gotta go. It was nice talking about invisible sharks with you.”

I hesitated before replying, watching her pack for a full five seconds. It was a hesitation that likely cost me a number close.

Finally words jumped out of my mouth. “Hey, you learn something new every day. Before we’re done…”

My sentence was interrupted when her phone buzzed in her hand. She checked a text message and her perky face drooped sullenly. Did her mom just die in a car accident?

She quickly jerked her head around at me, and muttered “Bye”, taking off in a rush, her sandals clapping loudly along the ground with each rapid stride.

The exigencies of game. It rarely goes as smoothly as you think it will in your imagination. If you aren’t prepared to deal with the possible failure of any one pickup attempt, you aren’t cut out for this game.

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Overgaming, Part 2

A reader asks:

Is it possible to win back an ex after overgaming?  My cocky/funny became cocky.  The only time I was beta was at the three week mark when I tried to ger her back – I cried.  Is there a more long-term strategy to win an ex back?

Have you ever been with a girl who was incredibly sarcastic? Where every word out of her mouth was some sort of cutting riposte, usually of the annoying “exaggerate for effect” kind of sarcasm, her sneer permanently plastered to her face? What did you think of her? You probably thought she was amusing at first, but then, after a full night listening to her bitter ironies, you became irritated by her company. She was obnoxious, and, more importantly, less feminine than when you knew her before she opened her mouth.

Girls feel the same thing when they meet a man who is too cocky. They are attracted at first (who is this guy who dares speak with such insolence!), then, as it becomes clear that cockiness is the only gear he knows, he loses his alpha allure. Finally, the girl will want to get away from him and his arrogant posturing.

Cockiness that isn’t leavened with knowing humor or calculated flashes of vulnerability can quickly burden a man with the perception that he is an arrogant, insecure prick. Or worse, a weak, insecure try-hard. These things are anathema to women’s attraction triggers. A woman is likely to think an overly cocky man to be compensating for some shortcoming. An overly cocky man reveals his flaws just as surely as a supplicating man does; approval seeking is at the heart of all insecure behavior. Whereas the supplicating man’s “tell” is obvious, the cocky man’s tell is discernible through the thick smokescreen of caustic one-liners he belches up around himself.

If you watch the great alpha male characters on TV (Don Draper comes to mind, atm), ask yourself how often they are verbally cocky? The answer is not often. (Nonverbal cockiness, otoh, is a trait that should wear on you like a custom-tailored suit wherever you are.) They will intersperse their cockiness with, in turns, humor, sincerity, wit, genuine anger and laconic bemusement. In general, per screen minute, they speak less than other male characters, but when they do speak their words carry weight. They are not dancing monkeys or butthurt douchebags, which are impressions the perpetually cocky man usually brings upon himself.

This reader has problems with his frame of neediness that go way beyond excessive cockiness. A man who cries to a girl three weeks after a breakup is a man who is far too emotionally invested and clingy to effectively imbue himself with the proper tingle-generating mentality of pussy abundance. No amount of tactical game will help him with his ex. He needs to rebuild from the ground up.

Once he’s mastered the correct frame (or masculine psychological balance, in more explanatory words), he’ll find it effortless, and natural, to tinge his cockiness with humor, to approach women, including his ex, from a place of emotional distance, and to set the stage for a reconciliation should one be possible.

In his case, I do not think one is possible. He needs to extract his ex from his life at once, and begin the journey away from her and toward other women. How will a man know when he’s got the right frame? Here’s a simple test: One hour after a breakup, are you able to go outside, meet a new woman, smile at her and have a conversation with her like a normal cool dude? And after that conversation, do you mentally rewind to yourself “Boy, I wish my ex could’ve seen me with her”, or do you say to yourself “Cool chick. I should have gone for the number close.”

Get the answers to the above right, and you’ll be in the winning headspace.

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Goading Girls Into Testing You

The shit test — primarily used by women, as so few men shit test women — is much maligned by aspiring seducers and beta chumps. Players have devised countless tactics for recognizing and neutralizing shit tests so that they are not blown out of approaches. But what if I told you shit testing from women is ESSENTIAL to building attraction with them? That, in fact, a pickup attempt that is missing any shit testing from the girl is likely to fail.

Think of shit tests as female indicators of interest. A girl who is sweet and nice and cordial with you is a girl who doesn’t find you charismatic enough to sleep with. To her, you are just another pleasant herb in a sea of herbs who deserves nothing more than her tritest courtesies. Only a fledgling sexual attraction or curiosity can inspire a girl to shit test you, and once she is shit testing and experiencing the thrill of your acumen at passing her shit tests, her attraction begins to liquefy her panties.

Knowing this, you should regard shit tests as a peculiarly female predilection you WANT to provoke, rather than an annoyance you want to avoid. Once you start a girl shit testing, the end game of sex will materialize on the not-too-distant time horizon. It’s yours to lose once she begins her attempts to push your buttons.

Naturally, you may wonder how the average man is supposed to provoke a girl into shit testing him. There are many ways to do this, including outrageous dress, cocky demeanor, flashy jewelry, douchey accoutrements, offensive comments, jealousy plotlines, stupefying openers (see: Horse Girl) and mixed set merges. A simple way to goad a shit test is to be an average-looking guy hitting on a hot babe. After her surprise wears off (she’s not used to it), her instinct will be to test the average-looking guy for traces of the alphaness that he tacitly implies with his bold, uncommon approach. And so for her, because in general a man’s looks don’t factor as much in a woman’s measure of his sex appeal, it becomes of paramount urgency that she tease out his alpha status by fucking with his frame and subconsciously analyzing his reaction.

If you pass her tests, she opens the doors for you to move on to the next phase of her seduction.

Sift through the debris of the comment section and you’ll come across gems like this one from YaReally:

An alpha and a beta walk into a bar wearing ridiculous fuzzy hats. People make fun of both of them to their faces.

The beta feels dumb and makes excuses for wearing his hat and ends up taking it off later in the night because he’s embarrassed.

The alpha laughs and feels bad for anyone who makes fun of his hat because they obviously don’t understand how awesome it is, the poor fuckers.

Peacocking, negs, Horse Girl openers, etc. are all just ways of goading girls into shit-testing you so you can demonstrate that their shit-tests don’t phase you, which is what builds attraction (if you don’t fail her shit-test, you probably don’t fail the rest of the world’s shit-tests). If you’re a nice guy, you don’t get shit-tested, so you don’t get to demonstrate whether they’ll fluster you or not, so you don’t build attraction and stand there wondering why the asshole keeps getting the girl.

Once you fully understand this concept, pickup becomes a lot less complicated. …and a lot more fun. […]

Horse Girl builds way more attraction than most openers because it actively goads the girl into shit-testing him and lets him display his alphaness. There are a lot of deep concepts fused into that opener that most guys reading can’t see because they’re still reading the surface level words and don’t really understand how attraction works…yet. 🙂

This is the proper way to think of the old school PUA advice to stand out from the crowd. Extra tight tees, magic tricks, negs, teasing, pebbles, crazy openers, props and even assholery are best thought of not as a status boosting signal among men, but as a springboard off which women can flirt with you and test your grace under pressure. This is the key to building attraction from nothing.

Men look at hot women and we want. Women look at men and they want to know if they want. Give them the excuse they need to explore your desirability.

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Alpha Delivery

In this post, I chided (chid?) a PUA newbie for unsuccessfully using a difficult and ponderous Brad P opener on a girl buddy I know, and by association criticized the opener as well. Thinking on it, I may have been a little unfair to Brad P and his game techniques. There is more — much more — to a good opener than the words that come out of your mouth.

YaReally offers up some detail:

[The Horse Opener] works for BradP because he delivers it well. He talks slow and deep and captures the chick’s attention, uses massive pauses in his delivery to build suspense, etc. But most guys who read it online just spit it out as fast as they can because they’re worried the girl will leave if they don’t get to the punchline as fast as possible, which sounds to the girl like he’s “all over the place”.

BradP does it in a challenging, accusing (breaking rapport) way. Guys trying to copy just based off his text do it in an approval seeking, needy way.

You can hear his delivery in his “The Underground Dating Seminar” which is one of the better “no fuzzy hats and black nailpolish” PUA products out there in my opinion. He actually sounds like a cool chill guy when he talks and you can see why the things he says work for him. One of his students asks “What if she calls you out on it?” “Doesn’t matter. If you’re like “Hey do you like horses?” and she goes “Isn’t that that BradP line–” “No shut up. DO you like horses?”” He expects them to fall in line, and that’s why it works for him.

Women don’t walk away when you have your subcommunications down and exude alpha behavior (like the vibe that you EXPECT them to listen to you and answer you). You can command “HEY! Come here.” from across a room and just stare the girl down like you expect her to come over, and she will. Same time you can run a 5 minute opener and blab away like Russell Brand. When your subcommunications are down you can do pretty much anything you want.

Don’t get caught up in “canned” VS “improvised” Hang around for long periods of time with any of the naturally social people you know and you’ll find they all repeat their same stories to people (sometimes even to you, forgetting that they’ve told you before) with the same wording, emphasis, etc. ie – canned routines. It’s not a bad thing. The trick is understanding that the routine isn’t magical, it’s what you’re displaying during the routine that affects things.

All good points. I haven’t seen video of BradP in action, but from what YaReally writes, I can easily picture the horse opener working very well for him. His delivery sounds alpha: slow, steady and deep with requisite pauses to build suspense and eradicate the girl’s initial impulse to pigeonhole him as just another low value beta. Newbies take note: merely mouthing the words isn’t nearly enough. Parroting an opener won’t even get you 10% of the way to successfully sparking attraction. You’ve got to work on the whole presentation, from style to posture to voice tone to alpha body language mimicry to the all-important take-it-or-leave-it attitude. Only when you’ve nailed the entire delivery can you truthfully judge which openers suck and which don’t.

The Chateau spends a lot of time discussing body language and voice tonality because the fact of the matter is that the nonverbal improvements in your game will redound to your pickup success a lot more than improvements to the actual words you spit. Like YaReally says, if your total game is tight, you can accost a girl with just about any silly line and she’ll come alive with interest.

But my issue with the Horse Opener had more to do with the idea of foisting it on unready newbs in unwelcoming circumstances. A (relatively) complex opener that requires rock-solid frame and nonverbal cues should not be the first thing with which neophytes engage the field, particularly the day game field where women are on the move. It’s setting them up for failure. What BradP can do with horses and negs, the majority of newbs cannot. It’d be best to teach these guys the right nonverbal cues with a much simpler opener that won’t have them straining to recall all the details or rushing to get the words out and then crashing and burning in DLV dorkhell.

A guy with little pickup (or female) experience will feel weird talking about horses with a random girl on the street. This is not the case for experienced womanizers, who have the self-confidence and comfortable familiarity with their skills that they don’t feel strange talking about things that would rattle mere mortals just trying hard not to sound like a social pariah.

YaReally continues:

You’re missing everything that’s going on in those “Simple Pickup” videos. (http://www.youtube.com/user/SimplePickup ) Those guys have studied pickup and use a ton of PUA concepts and routines.

What they have isn’t “pure bluster and confidence” and above average looks. There are a dozen subtle subcommunications going on in how they approach women that allow the random/offensive stuff they say to not just work but build attraction.

I won’t get into it all, study pickup literature, go out and approach girls, observe naturals, etc. like the rest of us had to but here are a few things to watch for in their vids:

– congruency. If a girl tests them, they stick to their story and turn things around on the girl like SHE’S the one being weird.

– misinterpretation. They misinterpret everything sexually, that’s why they can be talking about masturbation and 3-ways with girls they’ve only just met, they direct the conversation to a sexual topic in a smooth/funny way.

– frame control. After they say something super offensive, they’ll just stand there and stare the girl down like “ya, I said that.” totally unapologetic and unashamed. A PUA concept is “what you feel, she feels”, so she pings off him to see if he’s embarrassed or apologetic about what he said and when he’s not, she feels like it must be okay. This is why when you go up with an opener you don’t think will work, it won’t work, and when you think it will work, it works.

– breaking rapport. Their voice tonality is loud, clear, and authoritative. They make statements and accusations and don’t sound like they’re seeking the girl’s approval.

– body language. They stand up straight and don’t fidget around nervously and hold eye-contact etc.

There’s a ton of other stuff going on that you’ll see if you study pickup in-depth.

It has nothing to do with their looks, as long as you think that way you’re in the wrong headspace.

Based on YaReally’s checklist, I can easily imagine how the aspiring PUA in the failed Horse Opener attempt blew his shot.

Congruency —  Once she asked him a question about what he was getting at, he backed away from his initial boldness, and tried to explain himself. I bet he even sounded apologetic.

Misinterpretation — If anything, she was misinterpreting him.

Frame Control — As soon as she tossed that first “are you a weirdo?” look his way, I bet he got nervous and thought about bailing, thus ensuring that the remainder of his opener would come off even worse. (Once you’re committed to an opener, it’s surprisingly hard to break cadence for more fruitful pursuits. Call it the curse of the male mind.)

Breaking Rapport — She broke his rapport because his voice tonality was meek and trepidatious. If a girl is making statements and accusations, you know your game is failing. You want her to bounce off your statements and answer your accusations. From whence is love born!

Body Language — I bet he had his hands stuffed in his pockets, driving them deeper in his jeans when the opener began stinking.

I won’t bother putting looks in this list. Unless the guy was repulsively ugly, his looks or lack thereof had little to do with his failure. (The girl who relayed the story to me said nothing negative about his looks when I asked, which made me doubt it was anything more than his delivery which cost him a number close.) Men need to get it through their heads that women simply don’t react to a man’s physical attractiveness with the same urgency or lustfulness that men react to female beauty. A man with the right attitude and pickup technique will run rings around a socially clumsy or approval-seeking good-looking guy.

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Feigning Disapproval

A dirty little secret of chronic seduction is that girls want you to disapprove of them. Not all the time, or for everything, of course. But once in a while, women like to hear that you disapprove of something about them or something they’ve done. It comforts them to know that you have the stones to risk their indignation and possible retaliation. Why? Because a man willing to risk an unhappy woman is a man who likely has what it takes to secure a replacement woman. This knowledge is like the male version of T&A to a woman’s limbic lust lobe.

But what do you do if the girl you are seeing is pretty much all around great? Well, you rap her for minor offenses. Feign disproportionate disapproval for any petty infraction she commits. If you want a healthy relationship with a lifespan measured in months or years instead of nights, you have to set some time aside to express dissatisfaction with her. Planned drama, you could call it. If you have the talent, you should always premeditate your drama; that way, you control its intensity and resolution instead of allowing yourself to be buffeted by surprise drama.

For example, a girl I used to date once confided to me that years ago, before we met, she had had a one night stand with a dude she met while on vacation, on the advice of her girl friends who were ostensibly helping her get over a breakup. (Another reminder to never trust your girlfriend’s friends.)

In truth, I didn’t care about her off-night of sluttiness. It happened years ago, and it didn’t bother me. But that’s not how I played it.

Me, acting mildly disgusted: “You… YOU, of all people… had a dirty one night stand with some… dude?”

Her, starting to sound nervous: “Whaaaat?! It was a long time ago! I was trying to get over a bad breakup!”

Crossing my arms, looking away: “You think you know a girl.”

“I can ‘t believe you’re reacting this way. How many girls have you slept with?! It’s no contest!”

“No comparison. It’s worse when a girl screws around. I don’t know if I’ll ever see you in the same way again. Who have I been dating? You feel like a stranger to me.”

“Oh my god. Really?! This? Really???”

“Could you just sit over there on the couch. Fuck, I need some space.”

Now she’s sounding sheepish. “Is this really bothering you? If this is bothering you, can we talk about it?”

Shit, I worried that I went too far. The last thing I wanted was a “talk”. But I couldn’t stop. I was power tripping. “I thought you were different than all the other girls.”

It went back and forth like this for ten minutes, her getting progressively more agitated and regretful, me finding it harder to contain my burgeoning smirk. Finally, I relented, a little.

“Well, since it was a long time ago, I guess I’ll get over it.”

She collapsed into my arms. “You know it was nothing. I’ve never loved anyone as much as you.”

Feigning disapproval. Gentlemen and scholar seducers, this is how you stoke a woman’s love flame.

And sometimes you won’t even have to feign.

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