Can I See Myself Saying That?

A girl buddy tells me some guy hit on her as she was leaving the gym that afternoon. She describes how he did it.

“So he comes up to me and asks me if I like horses. And then he starts talking about this girl he knew in fifth grade who ran around on a playground making horse noises? And I’m like, ooookay. He’s talking about horses and he’s all over the place. I can’t really figure out what he’s trying to say. Then he tells me I look like this girl. Weird, right?”

I ask, “Was there a love connection?”

“Haa, I don’t think so. I kept walking.”

I hear this, and it hits me: that’s Brad P’s horse opener. Hilarious. I wonder if the streets are filled with aspiring PUAs dropping routines, or if this was a rare occurrence. I didn’t mention to her that I knew about the horse routine.

The whole episode got me to thinking about pickup routines. A lot of the routines sparkle on paper (or on a monitor) but when you are out there in the real world, interacting like a human being, they sound clumsy and ridiculous coming out of your mouth.

Which brings me to a very simple formula I use for determining whether a pickup tactic would work. When I read about it, I think “Can I see myself saying that?” I imagine a real life scenario — let’s say, an approach at the supermarket by the deli meats — and I picture myself saying the exact words in a routine to a cute girl. If I can’t even imagine that happening without cringing a little on the inside, then I know it’s useless as an opener. But if I could picture myself saying it without losing any coolness points, I know it’s a winner.

No slight to Brad P, who is a smart guy and knows a lot about pickup and women, but the horse opener is one I could never see a normal man saying to a woman in most typical circumstances without looking and feeling weird, to both himself and to his target. I understand the goal of getting a girl’s interest by shocking her with something out of the ordinary, but the majority of men — normal guys who aren’t street magicians and who work 9-5 jobs — will not be able to talk about horses and playgrounds with a girl they just met without feeling like an idiot or a clown.

If an opener or routine doesn’t strike you as something you could hear a normal, cool man saying, then use it with caution. You have to be particularly talented, composed and articulate to attract a girl running a (relatively) long-winded routine like the horse opener. Most naturals who do well with women usually keep their first, introductory words short and sweet. The shorter and more normal-sounding an opener (without being banal), the likelier the average guy will succeed with it.

This is not to say that Brad P’s horse opener can’t work. In special circumstances, say at a bar or event where you have a quasi-captive audience who can sit through a lengthy routine without scuttling away for the bus or a taxi, the horse opener can shine. And, in Brad P’s defense, I could tell the girl in the above conversation was kind of intrigued by the guy, even though there was no number exchange. What probably killed his chances was his delivery, which sounded atrocious if the girl’s retelling was accurate.

This is the crux of why short and sweet openers are the way to go. If you’re new to the game, it’ll be a lot less intimidating to approach girls if you have a stock two or three openers no longer than a handful of words in length each. Memorizing long, complicated routines that require precision comedic timing is going to dishearten newbies when girls react to them with confusion, and eventually turn them into spiteful haters who write anti-PUA sites.

A good example of the kind of short n’ sweet n’ normal-sounding opener I’m talking about is one of Roosh’s day game openers, which, paraphrasing, goes something like “Where’s the nearest pet store?” It’s kind of an interesting question to ask a girl, because most single men aren’t looking for a pet store, especially if they live in the city. She’ll answer, and then you have your window of opportunity to jump into a funny routine about your cat Fluffy needing gourmet food, or something. And, more importantly, there’s little chance that even an aspie nerd will stutter or mumble while saying this opener.

Here is a list of the key ingredients of a solid opener, in descending order of importance:

1. Can you see yourself saying it? If yes, go to (2). If no, ask yourself if it would work in specific scenarios, and try it out.

2. Is it short and grammatically simple enough to memorize without struggling to remember the words in the heat of the moment? If yes, go to (3). If no, ask yourself if you are sufficiently verbally fluent and mentally dextrous to pull it off, then try it out.

3. Is it normal-sounding? If yes, use with impunity on all types of girls, including lawyers. If no, try it out on indie chicks with lots of tattoos.

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The Fake Drink Opener

A reader asks into the ether whether the following opening gambit is good enough to use regularly.

I saw on a buddy of mine’s facebook status a while ago “lol at girls who thought I bought them shots of vodka when it was actually water”. Apparently he “bought” some hot girls at a bar shots of water that they assumed was vodka. He said after doing the shots, they sort of half laughed and gave him the finger and he left pretty much after doing that because he had other places to go. Now I’m pretty sure this guy’s a natural (black, over 6 ft, does tango or some crap, and can probably bench press a car) so I doubt he even cared about their opinion of him and did it for his own amusement since he probably gets laid like a rockstar. I wasn’t there to see the girls’ reaction, so I was wondering if this would be a good opener? Completely unusable dick move? What do you think about it?

On paper, (and apparently in real life if this guy’s story about his friend is accurately retold), the fake drink opener seems like it would work very well, especially on hot girls with bitch shields in bars and clubs who will be expecting free drinks from suckers. Some of the best cocky teasing is the kind where you fool a girl into thinking you will meet her expectations of betatude, and then you pull the rug out from under her. She is left reeling in the warm juices of her arousal.

But in practice, I’m not sure this would be easy to pull off. Fake drinks have to be delivered in the same glasses that would hold real liquor for the trick to work. If you ask the bartender for a round of water shots (when the girl is far enough away from you that she can’t hear your order), the bartender will likely serve you the water in tall soda glasses, usually with a straw for added humiliation. Then the girl will know it’s not a vodka shot by the shape of the glass.

But that might be hair splitting. I’m sure you could get around that if you know the bartender and he’s happy to be in on your ruse. Or you could keep used shot glasses and fill them up with water, to hand out to any unsuspecting princess.

Regardless of the utility of this opener, props go to the reader for having the right frame of mind. That is half the battle in your quest for cheap sex.

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Another Game Concept Confirmed: The Allure Of Male Choice

Camelot007 writes:

I believe there is no better explanation of what women need than in this excerpt:

“And within a committed relationship, the crucial stimulus of being desired decreases considerably, not only because the woman’s partner loses a degree of interest but also, more important, because the woman feels that her partner is trapped, that a choice — the choosing of her — is no longer being carried out.”

It comes from an article titled “What Do Women Want” written by Daniel Bergner and is backed by research done at Queen’s University in Ontario Canada.

The stability of a long term relationship rests mostly on the happiness of the woman. Men in lackluster LTRs are perfectly happy keeping the thing sputtering along if they are getting their sexual needs met on the sly with mistresses. But women are a different beast entirely in this matter; if a woman feels turned off or egregiously neglected by her lover, she will prefer to jettison the relationship altogether and start fresh (as fresh as an aging woman can start) rather than share her intimacy with multiple men concurrently.

And so when a man loses interest in his partner the LTR or marriage is in less trouble than when the woman loses interest in her partner. Married men would be wise to recognize this insidious imbalance in the sexual force and behave accordingly if they don’t want to get the barrel end of the divorce theft industry pointed squarely at their nads. You may not like it, but under the restrictions imposed by the corrupt state of modern marriage the onus is on men to keep their wives happy, rather than the other way around. (Yet another reason to skip out on marriage in favor of LTRs or cohabitation.)

What this research implies is that if you want to sustain the hot sex in an LTR for longer than the first few months, and by extension reduce the odds that your girlfriend will cheat or generally behave like a bitch, you need to frequently qualify her. Qualifying a woman makes her feel like she has to continue working for your affection, and thus overcomes the naturally emergent impediment common to all LTRs of anhedonic emasculation. She wants to know she has earned your interest, for only when this final piece of the puzzle is in place will you remain the mortal god she yearns to idolize.

In the turbulent bazaar of the sexual market, perception is everything. No matter how deftly a wife or long term girlfriend is able to logically convince herself that her partner’s SMV is no lower than when they first met, her altered perception of his value that accompanies LTR confinement and complacency will inevitably corrode her feelings of lust. Game can remedy this dissolution by instilling in her a renewed appreciation for her man’s desirability. A healthy reminder, if you will.

A woman loves to feel that the man she is with has illimitable choice among competitor women. A man with sexual choice is a desirable man, for he is preselected by women and will pass on his preselected genes to her sons. A man without choice in women — and, however wrongly, such can seem the case to a woman hitched to a man in a familiarizing and deballing monogamous LTR — is an undesirable man, for why should she love a man whom no other woman would deign to love? She begins to question not only whether he still finds her attractive, but more importantly whether he is himself still attractive to other women and is choosing her among a smorgasbord of pussy options. The disenchantment spiral unwinds.

A man “trapped” in an LTR can avoid, or at least temper, the disenchantment spiral by employing various game methods designed to validate his woman’s hypergamous need to be with a higher status man than herself:

1. He can instill dread.

For example, kill complacency dead by calling her from a location where girls’ screeching voices can be heard in the background.

2. He can screen her like he did when they first met.

“It’s important to me that a woman knows how to do the reverse spider monkey hanging from a pull-up bar.”

3. He can provoke competition anxiety.

“Your friend Carrie looks like she’s been hitting the yoga classes a lot. A man can tell.”

4. He can helpfully remind her of his options.

To wit: Don’t look away in misguided appeasement when that sexy waitress tosses you a flirtatious glance under your GF’s/wife’s nose. Instead, revel in the moment. Grin and wink back at her. Make it obvious that you could get a new woman in a day if your lover was to leave you.

5. He can cheat.

This is the trepanation of reviving a flagging relationship. Use with caution. Fact is, when you cheat on a woman her perception of your sexual market value skyrockets.

A woman will fight with the last fiber of her being against the encroaching discomfort that she is being settled for by a man with a lack of options. Every marriage and LTR, left to their own inertial devices, encourages this encroachment. Do her, and yourself, a favor: game the shit out of her til death, or the wall, do you part.

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A Valid Criticism Of The Mystery Method?

The Shocker writes:

one of the common criticisms with the Mystery Method is that it takes an adversarial approach to game- like two lawyers in a courtroom. You’re trying to come up with rebuttals based on what she says and what she does. It’s good for beginners since they can detach their identity from their performance (and suffer no ego consequences when they fail), but it’s really not that great of an approach to social interaction overall. Rock solid inner game always wins because you aren’t making assumptions about your target, you’re more agile and dynamic since it’s authentic, and ultimately is the image you’re trying to impress through Mystery’s scripts anyways. Women can tell the difference. [Ed: More precisely, women can *feel* the difference between bad game and good game.]

Chateau Heartiste is popular with inner-game types because it looks at the rules of attraction from a very high level. We’re not really looking for techniques here because we don’t need them – just a deeper understanding of the laws and strategies at play. It’s the difference between practicing chess openings from a book versus reading about game theory. Yale vs ITT Tech.

All seduction is, in a sense, adversarial. It has to be, considering that men’s and women’s reproductive goals are at odds. But it is the adversarial nature of courtship that electrifies women’s libidos. A budding seduction that lacks this tension will wither on the vine. It’s evolutionarily preordained that women will swoon for sharply charged flirty exchanges, and crumple into boredom under an onslaught of dull agreeableness.

That said, it’s true that game greenhorns too easily fall into a lawyerly pattern of badgering the witness and courtroom objections. This isn’t a fault of the specific game tactics so much as it is a problem of overthinking one’s next move at the expense of free-form conversational adaptability. Men who first take on the learning of game tend to think in rigid blocks of discrete information — must do this now, then follow up with this — instead of the better mode of thinking in fluid cascades of themes: i’ll do this, unless this other move is better. What results from thinking like the former is a man who fumbles when a woman, for example, shit tests at the “wrong” time, and he flails in his misguided effort to steer the conversation back to where he was in control.

For the beginner, it’s almost more effective to think actively about what *not to do*, than what to do. Avoiding common beta pitfalls will get you farther as a newbie than trying to perfectly apply all the little details of the Attraction-Comfort-Seduction sequence to targets of interest. As you progress, you can start to think more in terms of tightening your game instead of avoiding anti-game missteps, because at that stage you should have enough experience with women under your belt (heh) that you can, one, predict with uncanny accuracy how a woman will react to a given scenario and, two, shift on the fly.

Mystery did the world a service by breaking down the trajectory of a successful seduction and female attraction mechanisms into their component parts. The nature of making a (relatively) complex subject understandable for the masses naturally ensures that imitators and acolytes will miss the nuance. Nuance comes with practice, so don’t sweat it at first. The Mystery Method blueprint is just that — a blueprint around which to erect a work of pickup art. Don’t try to jam every preposition or unexpected riposte into its framework. Exigency happens.

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The Reluctant Cockblock

I noticed her immediately. The hottest girl in the room weaved through the crowd, walking in my direction. As she neared at a quick pace, I saw her right arm extended behind her. The awkward positioning seemed odd to me. She passed, and a fat homely girl, attached to the bombshell’s right hand, was being dragged behind like a circus elephant. Fatso was a good foot shorter than the hot babe leading her around the sweaty drinkers, and, conservatively, 4 points lower on the looks scale. She wore a miserable expression; she clearly didn’t want to be there. She was literally walking in the shadow of a superior specimen of womanhood.

While the hot-ugly friend pair is not common, you do see this social female arrangement every so often, especially in meat markets. (A group of women of varied looks, some hot and some not, is more common.) Always the hottie looks like she’s having the time of her life and her unattractive friend looks irritated, wishing she were anywhere else.

Approach these bifurcated two-sets with caution. The ugly friend won’t actively cockblock you, (she’s too subservient to her hot friend’s prerogative), but you’ll have to deal with an even bigger obstacle: the hot chick has brought her along because she intends to either

a. find the warpig a man, or

b. launch the flaming warpig from a trebuchet at any man who lingers too long.

If (a), you’ll know right away; she’ll quickly introduce the fug before you can get a word in edgewise, encourage a dance circle of the three of you, then lean into fug’s ear, say something, and skip away to the bar, leaving you and the consolation prize alone. Niceguys will generally stick around for a few minutes (or hours), thinking that is the virtuous thing to do, and hoping the hot chick will come back and shower love on them for being genial with her ugly friend. Of course, that last part never happens. Meaner guys (ahem) will bolt, raining down blows upon an already clobbered homely girl’s ego.

If (b), you’ll know by watching for any nonverbal signals the hot girl telegraphs to her ugly friend. She’ll enjoy your flirting for a little while, but then the fug, as if on cue and reading from a script, will monotonously declare she has to get up early, or somesuch excuse. Having imbibed a sufficient quotient of your attentions to achieve orbital velocity validation, the hot girl will shrug her shoulders and trot off.

How do you handle the hot girl-ugly girl two-set? The game literature is clear: you open the ugly girl first and drop a neg on the hot girl, building a faux camaraderie with the potential cockblock, thus neutralizing any compulsion she may harbor to menstruate all over your game. But the ugly girl in the two-set is usually a reluctant cockblock; she’s not interested in rescuing her friend or being a noxious cunt. She agreed to go out because she likes to inhale the second hand seduction from all the action her hot friend gets. It’s vicarious thrills. But now she’s regretting her decision. (She can’t help it; hot girls have stronger powers of persuasion than ugly girls.)

No, the real cockblock in this two-set is the hot girl. She’s tough enough to game when she’s with a group of friends, but when she’s with one ugly friend, you have got your work cut out. I’d advise avoiding these “couples” in favor of cute girls who have equally cute girl friends. Then you can rev up jealously plotlines to your heart’s content.

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“What are you thinking about?”

It’s impossible to date a girl for any significant length of time and not hear this plaintive inquiry from her. In fact, if she likes you, you will sometimes hear it on a first date. A reader offers a quick escape:

Answer with “thoughts are sacred” and change the subject so it doesn’t seem like you’re trying to be profound. I stole that from a Fellini film. Have used it on a few different types of girls and it works like a charm. I enjoy the blog man.

Not bad. Another good reply (if she’s got enough brains to catch the wit): “My burdensome masculinity.” Or: “A ham sandwich.”

Any move to evade the question, or to answer it in a way she could never have predicted, is the correct move. The key is to understand that in matters of romance, women don’t want to be taken seriously. They want you to, with a wink and a smirk, patronize them like the be-boobed and be-hipped children they are. The worst possible answer to these seemingly innocuous female questions (which, in reality, are actually subtle shit tests) is the candid answer. For example… BAD: “I was just thinking about how much I like you.” You, with your feeble beta brain, thinks she wants to hear that, (because why would she ask?) but she doesn’t. What she wants to hear, or rather what her vagina wants to hear, is “A ham sandwich.”

Now of course there will be times when the sincere response is the right one. A long term girlfriend asks because she is A) worried you’re withdrawing from her, or B) genuinely interested in what’s on your mind. In those cases, you may, but only occasionally!, stroke her inquisitive feelers til she’s purring like a kitten.

I can hear the chorus of betaaches now. “When should we be sincere and when should we be cocky?”

Don’t sweat the small stuff. A good rule of thumb is the 3:1 cocky-to-sincere ratio. A sincere reply should be bookended by at least three cocky ripostes. This can play out over a few minutes of an energetic first meet or over a few languid days, depending on your level of intimacy with the girl. This gives her hamster juuuuuuuust enough pellets to keep him shitting regularly. Too many pellets and the overworked bugger gets the runs, his rationalizations spinning out of control into a turgid drama fest. Too few pellets and he gets constipated, backed up with negative emotion. A regular hamster is a happy hamster. And a horny hamster.

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The Mainstream Media Is Beginning To Accept The Truth Of Game

Yahoo, one of the most MSM-y of the MSM outlets, has a dating advice column that lifts techniques straight from the game literature. In order to stay ahead of the PC police, the author couches it in terms of attracting either men or women, but the reality well-known to those who are actually out there mud-deep in the scrum of the sexual market is that these courtship tactics are more effective when used on women. (Ladies, the only techniques you need to attract men for sex are the following: look hot. To attract men for love, you’ll need more than a young pretty face, but that is a discussion for another day.)

Flattery strategy #1: Get specific with your praise
Since daters often feel like they’re just one amongst a parade of people having coffee with you, demonstrate some genuine interest in the next one you meet to help erase that fear. “We studied the relationship between reciprocity and romance and found that if someone thinks you’re attracted to him or her, it increases that person’s attraction to you,” says Eli Finkel, Ph.D., a psychology professor at Northwestern University. [Ed: This is misleading. The studies on reciprocity clearly indicate that while women are attracted to men they think are attracted to them, women are *more* attracted to men for whom they are uncertain about the men’s attraction to them.] On the other hand, “If someone’s attracted to you but getting the sense that you’re attracted to lots of other people, he or she will tend to dislike you.” The upshot? Prove you’re picky (and that this person fits your high criteria). Then you’re well on your way to making this potential amour pick you, too. Reread his or her profile right before you meet up and tell your date exactly why it stood out from the rest and what you noticed first. And nix any mentions of past bad dates or other negative experiences, which can make it inadvertently seem like you’ll give anyone the time of day.

Game concept stolen: Qualification.

Flattery strategy #2: Create insider info between the two of you
You don’t have to be old friends to cultivate a comfortable rapport with someone. “Make references to things you’ve discussed or emailed about,” says dating coach Annie Dennison, Ph.D. “It creates a sense of intimacy and shows your date you’re really listening.” To really drive home that you find your date fascinating, ask for more information on details he or she mentioned in passing (“I know you like Jay-Z. Which album of his do you think I should download?”). Or tie together stories (yours or your date’s) with a follow-up line like, “Wow, that reminds me of what you were telling me about your trip to Costa Rica/your overbearing boss/football obsession.”

Game concept stolen: Secret world. (Most of the attendant advice in this paragraph is shitty, but the core concept is spot on.)

Flattery strategy #3: Congratulate your date
If you want your sweetie to really beam, show you’re impressed by a feat that he or she is especially proud of. “We did a study and found that when people told others about something good that happened to them and the person responded positively, it improved the whole experience,” Shelly Gable, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. So don’t just say “Cool!” when your date mentions a win like getting into grad school, finishing a 10K, or just getting an amazing deal at an outlet store. Get into it and ask what he felt when he got the news, how she reacted, which person he told first, or how long she’d been hoping for it to happen. Answering the questions will let your date relive some of the excitement — and associate you with an unexpectedly happy buzz.

Game concept stolen: Emotional connection. (Ignore the part about congratulating her. Just ask leading questions that get her emotions traveling in the right, i.e. sexual, direction.)

Flattery strategy #4: Compliment qualities that are unrelated to [her] looks
When you admire a not-so-obvious trait that your date has, it makes you seem super-insightful. An easy place to start is by connecting his or her job to a quality you appreciate. Tell an accountant that you’re always especially envious of detail-oriented people; tell a teacher you’re in awe of those who can motivate others. If you like what your date is wearing or how this person decorated his or her home, “don’t compliment the ‘thing’ — anyone can buy a thing — but call out what it says about him or her,” says Susan Rabin, author of Lucky in Love. Instead of the tie itself, praise the person’s individual style; instead of muttering “nice couch,” say you’re wowed by people who have an eye for color and design.

Game concept stolen: Ignore her beauty. Women want to think you are an exceptional man because you notice things about them most men don’t. A more cynical explanation: a man who isn’t affected by a woman’s looks is an alpha male who likely has lots of experience bedding women. And chicks dig preselected men.

Flattery Strategy #5: Emphasize your date’s name in your verbal responses

Game concept stolen: N/A. This advice only matters within context. Don’t blurt out a girl’s name until she has earned your recognition by asking you for your name first, and using it within a sentence.

Flattery strategy #6: Playfully tease your date
If you saw The Departed, you probably remember the scene when Matt Damon asks his date something like: “What makes you think I want a second date with you?” — then bursts out laughing. It turns out those childhood playground tormentors (“Ewww, you have cooties!”) were onto something. “Thinking someone is attracted to you is great, but our research also suggests that not being sure about it actually heightens the excitement,” says grad student Paul Eastwick, Finkel’s research partner at the Northwestern Relationships Lab. Hearing that kind of rejection can spike feelings of anxiety — then fill you with relief when you realize it was a gag. So if you’re sure your date has a good sense of humor, give him or her a little ribbing first: “Oh no, you’re an Aquarius? Shoot, I have a rule about that.” Not only do you get to have an instant inside joke, it sends a subtle message that you’re into your date enough to be comfortable joking about it. Just make sure you don’t tease about something the person’s sensitive about — that’s not flirting; that’s an insult.

Game concept stolen: The neg.

Welcome aboard, MSM! Glad to see you are reading sites like this blog and imbibing its wisdom. Who knows what you’re capable of now! Perhaps an honest look at the negative externalities of mass third world migration. Or tough, no-nonsense reporting about innate sex differences in athletic program participation and upper management representation. The world is your oyster.

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