‘I Have A Boyfriend’ Responses

Since the question of how to respond to the ubiquitous “I have a boyfriend” female shit test comes up a lot here, I’ve decided to put together what I think are the best answers a man can give in return. These answers were gleaned from commenters, from pickup forums, and from my own posts on the subject.

• “I don’t care.”

One of my favorites. Best used on ultrafem girls who yearn to submit to a very psychologically dominant man. See: Asians, sorostitutes, blogger chicks.

• “That’s OK, I’m not the jealous type.”

Replies to “IHAB” fall into two major categories — qualifying and disqualifying. A disqualifying reply is one where you shame the girl for even bringing the subject up, since she has no chance with you anyhow. A disqualifier is ideally used on superflirts and other varieties of cockteasers, because it fucks with their expectations.

A qualifying reply is one where you brush off the boyfriend objection, but do so in a humorous way that implies she has met your conditions for being bang-worthy and that you would sleep with her given the chance. The line above is an example of a qualifying reply — you would have sex with her and she needn’t worry that you would judge her for that. A qualifier is ideally used on girls who are attracted to you and want to sleep with you, but either have a boyfriend for real they want to step out on, or don’t have a boyfriend but say so anyhow because they are feeling slutty or anxious that sex might actually happen. Sometimes girls just blurt IHABs without even thinking, like they often do with any kind of shit test.

Note: If the girl drops an IHAB from the moment you start talking to her, it is likely she is rejecting you. IHAB is very context and time dependent; don’t bother with any of these lines if she hits you with an IHAB soon after you introduce yourself. These IHAB killers are meant for girls who are receptive to your gaming or are otherwise actively flirting with you.

• Girl: “I have a boyfriend…..”
  Man: “Wow….amazing…seriously, that’s amazing!”
  Girl: “What? That I have a boyfriend?”
  Man: “No, that I’ve barely known you for 5 minutes and you’re already telling me your problems.”
  Girl: “lmao!”

The above line was cribbed from a commenter over at Roosh’s pickup forum. It’s a type of disqualifier; one I would happily use on attention whores who love men bowing and scraping before their almighty bloated egos.

• “Whoa, not so fast. We’re just talking here, ok? Don’t get the wrong idea.”

Another strong disqualifier. Flips the script. This is the line I should have used on Superflirt when she hit me with her repeated IHABs.

• “You really thought I was hitting on you?”

An even stronger disqualifier. The hotter the chick, the stronger her expectation that you are trying to bed her. Very powerful disqualifiers will often scare away or piss off lesser girls, but the hot babes lap it up like hungry kittens. Use with caution.

• “No worries. You’re not my type.”

Tamer version of above. Opens the door for further conversation.

• “So does my girlfriend.”

Short, sweet and funny. Categorized as a qualifying reply — you’re not dismissing her as a sex prospect. Hints at preselection. Use on girls who want to sleep with you already but have to rationalize their way to it. Don’t use on drunk girls; it’ll take them too long to get it. I tried this on Superflirt and she just tilted her head and stared blankly at me for a few seconds. Don’t use on evangelical church girls, either; they might take it at face value.

• Girl: “I have a boyfriend.”
  Man: “Hey, my dog can juggle.”
  Girl: “What?”
  Man: “I’m sorry, I thought we were talking about shit that didn’t matter.”

This is a qualifying IHAB killer. You are implying you have designs to bang her, and are mocking her IHAB for the adorable little whiny objection it is. (The hidden subtext is “Let’s get back to seducing each other.”) A bit too clever by half for my taste; could work well on hard-charging lawyer cunts with high Wordsum scores.

• “Annnnd… so?”

Same type as above, but shorter and easier to remember.

• “Good job!”

A variant of “I don’t care.” Some guys prefer to plow through an IHAB by either ignoring it or contemptuously dismissing it.

• “Your parents must be proud.”

Same as above.

• “Oh man, I’m so embarrassed. I thought you were a lesbian.”

HUGE disqualifying neg. Use on histrionic club sluts. Don’t expect this to work more than 20% of the time; just enjoy the smile it puts on your face.

• “Are you allowed to talk to other men without his permission?”

Puts the girl on the defensive. This is a risky line. Some girls may react poorly to it, while others immediately qualify themselves to you.

• Ignore the IHAB

Plow, baby, plow! Caveman game. She’s so cute when she’s disingenuously objecting to you conking her over the head and dragging her into the brush for a rogering.

You’ll notice a pattern here; I prefer short answers to IHAB rather than long-winded, witty replies. A rule of thumb: wordiness is beta, succinctness is alpha. This is a broad generalization with plenty of exceptions, so don’t get too hung up on it. Just try and keep your texts, phone messages, and parts of your early and end game on the laconic side. Rapport and DHVing obviously will require the use of more than a few pithy quips.

You’ll also notice which IHAB replies are conspicuously missing from the list. I don’t like classic PUA IHAB destroyers such as

“Hey, no problem, you can bring him along on our date.”

or

“Cool, he can buy the first round.”

I’ve never liked these. They make the man sound like he’s forcing the issue. And they’re cheesy.

Perhaps a better way to handle the IHAB is to avoid it altogether. Preempt it by not giving the girl any reason to bring it up in the first place. An example of a preemptive IHAB blaster is “Are you single?” Upside: very effective neutralizing and filtering tactic. Downside: she might not have been planning to mention a boyfriend at all.

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Alpha Assessment: Ain’t No Thing Edition

David writes:

So on my way to achieving my maximum alpha-dom, I’ve discovered more and more that R is 110% right on everything. I’m sorta-kinda involved with a really nice 7/10 girl, but she has an 8 friend. So I start this conversation with her friend and she says:

“she likes you. shes my bestfriend. she has never & wouldnt ever do it to me. i can’t do it to her.”

I respond

“1 – we aint a thing
2 – what happens in vegas…”

After going through a pretty repetitive circle (I was slightly buzzed when I typed this and still am), she agreed to come over before work tomorrow and ‘test my seduction skills against her resistance skills,’ which is whore for ‘you fuck me senseless and I’ll pretend like it wasn’t supposed to go down like that.’ Point is, I got this after the rapport circle:

“None of this gets back to [name of 7].”

Sure thing? I think so.

“we ain’t a thing” — Major disqualification. Chicks dig the moving target.

“what happens in vegas” — Breaching her anti-slut defense. Assurance of privacy granted.

The 7 friend — Preselection. Getting hotter women is easier when you can pivot off slightly less hot women. Pivot off a 7 to get an 8, off an 8 to get a 9. Doesn’t work if the pivot is much uglier than the target, so don’t think you can date cigstache and trampoline off her enormous tobacco-stained gut into the sexy bosom of a 10.

Challenge level: 1 (on a 0 to 5 scale, zero being a cokehead offering a hummer for your dimebag and five being the supermodel newlywed of a famous actor.)

Alpha level: 3 (on a 0 to 5 scale, zero being an example of the bare minimum to cross the threshold from beta to alpha and five being an example of the kind of alpha game a man merged with the DNA of Jack Nicholson, Tommy Lee and Silvio Berlusconi would run.)

Summary judgment: A well-executed alpha attack on a chick who was looking to fuck. But this is end game stuff when the fornication line is in sight.

******

walawala writes:

Here’s my exchange with HB8 I met at our Latin dance night 2 weeks ago. We hit it off, lots of kino, IOI’s rapport, she qualified herself.

We met up a few days later on consecutive days spent the entire class hanging out, dancing. I purposely never number closed that time to see whether there was interest. I didn’t see her for two weeks so sent her an email on Facebook:

ME: NICKNAME I CREATED. Caiprinhas, we’re on…you’re buying the first round. LEAVE PHONE NUMBER.

Day and a half later, I get this response:

HER: NICKNAME SHE CREATED! hahaha how did you find me? i know i have been absent from the dance scene these couple of weeks. i just started a summer internship plus the world cup has been keeping my nights occupied 😛 how are things with you?

ME: NICKNAME…life is good, …World Cup, yah…except when North Korea plays Ivory Coast…nail-biter. Slovenia, is that really a country? Isn’t it just Croatia Junior?

Well NICKNAME one more chance to redeem yourself: Next Monday let’s meet up for class, followed of course by drinks, you can help me celebrate Fourth of July.

Haven’t received a response, but her friendly but figured her rather lukewarm reply to my initial outreach was worth one more shot. She never did leave her contact number. I haven’t yet received a reply but….Alpha enough and on the right track with this approach to asking out?

You’ve got self-awareness, but you sound like you’re trying too hard. First, hunting her down on Facebook is always going to seem stalkerish, no matter your intentions, and even if she gave you her full name. That was your first mistake; you are now the chaser. It would have been better to number close her the first night you danced together, while the iron — or in this case, the gina — was hot.

Always Be Escalating.

Don’t hesitate “to see whether there was interest”. That’s the sort of thing betas and brooding poets do.

Your emails then were doomed to sound like a guy trying to recapture an alpha frame that never really was. You needed to be less wordy, even curt to the point of assholery, to put her on her heels in the defensive crouch. For example:

YOU: [forget the cutesy nicknames. she is not yet worth your labored creativity] what are you doing on facebook? I thought you were different.

HER: NICKNAME SHE CREATED! hahaha how did you find me? i know i have been absent from the dance scene these couple of weeks. i just started a summer internship plus the world cup has been keeping my nights occupied 😛 how are things with you?

YOU: [screw the nicknames] stupendous. gotta go.  i’ll see you at the next dance class. wear something twirly.

This exchange is ambiguous enough that she’s not sure if you’re interested or not, so it robs her of the satisfying ego glow she would get from knowing she is being chased by a suitor during the week between the emails and the next class. This way, she shows up to the class just a little bit nervous, instead of overconfident in her sexual power. Now you have regained hand, and hand is the foreplay of the mind.

Challenge level: 3 (she’s basically a cold lead.)

Alpha level: 0 (the alpha force is weak in you, son.)

Summary judgment: You’d better hit on other girls in full view of her during the next dance class if you want to spark her attraction again. Practice your One Word Game.

******

Matt writes:

So Friday night I met this girl who just moved back to my country and when we let we both laughed because we had heard about each other (I don’t know what she has heard about me).
We hung out for the rest of the night. She and I would flirt a bit and I would neg her and she would punch me on the arm or give me little IoI’s.
Then at the most random time during us talking she just says

Her: Oh by the way I’m not going to fuck you.
Me: (confused look) Well you’re not really my time anyway.

And the conversation continues but she said it like three times that night.
She also gave me her business card.
I ended up sleeping over at her house with everyone from our group. But not with her.

The next day my Wing tells me every guy pretty much loves her. Great i’m just another AFC.

Today I see her in the park and chat with her for a few minutes nothing special really.

I’ve added her on facebook and now I’m wondering how do I get together with her if I can only message or email her? (Her phone number on her card isn’t from my country)
Do I even still have a chance with her?

A girl punching your arm is the metaphorical subconscious blurt of a clit flick. She wants it. You have only to refrain from sabotaging yourself at that point. But also note that there is a risk you are dealing with a superflirt. I don’t have enough context from your description to gauge whether she is nothing but a cockteasing attention whore.

When a girl wants it badly, her anti-slut defense will kick in autonomically, often at the most inopportune or random times. The “I’m not going to fuck you” line is a classic slut tell. The mere verbalization of the thought is evidence she most certainly is thinking about fucking you.

There are probably a number of ways to handle the preemptive fuck denial (PFD), but one that almost never fails is stone cold disqualification.

HER: oh by the way, i’m not going to fuck you.

YOU: [no confused look] phew! that’s a relief.

If she repeats herself again the same night, you can up the psychological ante.

HER: no , really, i’m not going to fuck you.

YOU: my girlfriend will be relieved you aren’t going to jump my bones.

Finally, you can call her bluff.

HER: i’m not going to fuck you tonight.

YOU: you know, if i didn’t know any better, i’d think you were dying to fuck me. try not to make it so obvious.

Or, if you think her buying temp is high, you could try this:

HER: i’m not going to fuck you tonight.

YOU: no, but you will kiss me. [lean in and go for it]

Despite the above suggestions, I think if you are getting a lot of PFDs from a chick, it is either evidence that she is an incorrigible and crude flirt, or she has the emotional development of a Twilight obsessed teen girl who can’t handle the arousal inflaming her labia. You’ll have to judge the difference, because dealing with a superflirt is radically different than dealing with a girl who actually wants to fuck you.

Challenge level: 2 (brass ring. so close.)

Alpha level: 3 (you nearly connected with your alpha chakra, but let transcendence slip through your grasp in the park.)

Summary judgment: Since your quarry was either a taunting superflirt or a wet and wild emotionally stunted slut, you had your hands full trying to navigate this female landscape. Props for the meager effort.

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Why You Should Leave After Sex

Because it will signal your high male mate status:

Chapter 5, “Green-Eyed Desire: From Guarding a Mate to Trading Up,” deals with other economic constraints relating to the human mating market. Women appear to use sex to help guard male mates by keeping them satisfied, reminding men what they stand to lose should they defect—or as many women in the study put it, “keep[ing] his mind off other women.” Women also seem to be motivated to sometimes have sex with other men as a way of gaining information about their mate value or to obtain a better partner—i.e., to “trade-up” in the mating market. Attracting a high-quality mate can allow a woman to enhance and evaluate her mate value, and many women cited this as a reason to have sex. The authors refer to research showing that women do this more often around ovulation.

So what does this have to do with leaving a woman’s company soon after sex? Much can be inferred from the study results in the quote above. For instance, if women use sex to keep a mate satisfied and his mind off chasing other women, then a hasty post-coitus skedaddle undermines her mate guarding efforts; she will be compelled to try even harder in the sack next time. And as I’ve noted before, a solid, healthy relationship rests on a foundation of the woman chasing the man. The day your woman succeeds at guarding you is the day you begin the slide into betahood, infrequent sex, cuckoldry, and eventual breakup.

More importantly, since women sometimes use sex with new men to enhance and evaluate their own mate value, a calculated quick departure after sex will disrupt her self-evaluative process, leading her to conclude that she isn’t as hot as she thought (which is exactly what you want her to think). While landing a charming SOB like yourself for sex will boost a girl’s ego, persuading you to linger afterward to cuddle will send her ego straight into the stratosphere. Since American women’s egos are already in the stratosphere, theirs will get propelled into distant galaxies. It’s critical that you keep a woman’s ego in check if you want to enjoy years of blissful love and sexual release.

This study, and its implications, confirms my everyday experiences. I have noticed that when I leave a chick right after sex — either directly by walking out or indirectly by nudging her out — she will text or call like a woman in love the very next day, or even later that night. The post-coitus premature exit (PCPE) is especially powerful when executed at two in the morning.

If you are at her place, many times a girl will invite you to stay for the night. She’ll couch it in plausibly deniable terms, such as “You’re welcome to stay if it’s too late for you to grab a taxi now.” If you need an excuse to drop a PCPE, just tell her you have to get up early for a business trip. If you and her are at your place instead, assume the PCPE by announcing soon after sex that you’ll be happy to walk her to her car or her home, and that she must be looking forward to sleeping in her own bed.

Whatever you do, avoid the post-coitus cuddle with a new girl who is above the average quality of girls you normally get. If you’ve had the good fortune, or expertise, to bag yourself the female equivalent of a 12 point buck, you don’t want to ruin your established high mate value and budding relationship momentum by snuggling and squeezing her tight as if she were your childhood security blanket. Post-sex cuddling is like a chemical reaction which drains your testosterone by the minute. Intimate cuddling will convince a girl to give herself high marks on her self-evaluation, and once she’s done this the odds she will see you as a worthy mate for the long haul — sexual or otherwise – drop precipitously. It’s all done on the subconscious level of course, but that’s the level that is most dangerous, since it operates by flying under the radar of our conscious perimeter defenses.

Looking at all my flings, one night stands, and relationships, the ones where I rolled over after sex and gave the girl my back, or where I got out of bed and put on my clothes to go home, were the ones I was in complete command of the direction of the romance. I never had to initiate texts or phone calls, or come up with date ideas, with those girls; they did all the legwork.

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She’s A Superflirt

“Yo man, let’s go next door.”

“Why? It’s good here. And the bathroom is only ten feet away. Very convenient.”

“There’s a new club next door. It caters to the international crowd. Last time I was there it was filled with Russian women. And I know how you are about Russians.”

“How is it I haven’t heard of this magical land before?”

“You’re out of the loop. Time to pack up and move to the burbs.”

We left to check out club eurotrash. It was as advertised; hot foreign-looking women everywhere. I heard three different languages spoken as soon as I walked in the door, two vaguely Slavic and one Spanish. My buddy and I sat at a two seater table near the bar. The bartenders were women. The only men working here were the DJ and doorman.

We had barely settled in when a pretty blonde flitted up to us, smiling broadly. She had a delicate feminine jaw and chin, and high cheekbones. Very slender with nice sized tits. She was a hard 8.5. Later I would discover she was American, but spoke with a funny generic euro accent that she said she picked up from all her foreign friends.

She put her hand on my knee. “You’re cute. Where you guys from?”

Before I could answer she continued. She craned her head slightly upward as she spoke.

“Let’s dance! Come on, get up! It’s my birthday this week.” (Are girls now celebrating week-long birthdays? Isn’t there enough female entitlement?) She had grabbed both my hands and was guiding me up off my seat, her hips in a perpetual wriggle.

I knew this type well. The superflirt. Not drunk, but buzzed. Exraverted. Superficially confident. Used to getting her way with men. Weaponized femininity. A classic eternal ingenue. Likely had a boyfriend somewhere else and a couple of mother hens in attendance to supervise her.

The superflirt’s frame is all-powerful. Few men can resist getting sucked into it. But resist you must. I had three choices before me.

1. Brush her off.
2. Refuse to dance but attempt to get her to join us in conversation.
3. Dance with her.

Number one is fine if you want her to leave. But don’t expect to pull a superflirt out of her euphoric frame with aloofness and indifference. She’ll just waltz to the next guy willing to entertain her machinations.

Number two is a battle of the frames. Can you convince a hyper happy chick to focus on you for more than a second? All her energy is pulling her onto the dance floor, into the embrace of an envious or horny audience. You have no value to her other than your looks, and that’s weak sauce to a cute girl. She has approached you, thus stripping you of the momentum and careful planning of a male-initiated approach, and she has thrown out a hoop for you to jump through which is rigged to ensure failure. You jump, you lower your value. You refuse to jump, you look like a stick in the mud.

Number three is jumping through the hoop, but with an eye on the long game. That’s what I did.

I got up and we all danced languidly around the bar, her leading the way. (I had tried to maneuver myself in front but obstacles prevented a smooth transition.) She introduced me and my buddy to her two friends, a sausage-shaped older, short Latina and a tall, big-boobed, meaty girl. The mother hens. I tried to preemptively neutralize any future mother hennery by asking the tall girl if she was responsible for babysitting Superflirt while she had all the fun.

“No way. She can take care of herself.”

Bullseye.

I danced with Superflirt on and off for fifteen minutes. Every few seconds she would saunter away to harass the DJ, dance on the bar, or drink a free shot, courtesy of the gawking older men gathering around us. She would return and put her hands on my stomach, exclaiming with delight how hard it was, or she would tickle me. A few times she leaned in and rested her cheek on my cheek, whispering in my ear. She smelled like concentrated estrogen. Then she would recoil in mock indignation, and, without my prompting, announce she had a boyfriend.

“I have a boyfriend, just to let you know. No, really, I have a boyfriend.”

I’ll admit I was enjoying the spectacle, regardless if it led anywhere or not. Of course, I would do my best to lead it somewhere, but the superflirt is normally quarry best left to shot-buying chumps who can convince themselves they’re going home happy having danced with a cute chick for a minute.

“That’s great. So does my girlfriend.”

She cocked her head and stared at me quizzically, then giggled. “I reeeeeeeally have a boyfriend. I’m supposed to go to his place later.”

I ignored her. She hopped up on the bar again. I figured at this point she was teetering close to the edge of outright drunkenness, so if I was to make a bold move, I had to execute quickly.

There are two ways to handle a superflirt. One, nuclear negs followed by a bold sexual move that shocks her out of her attention whore programming. Two, jealousy plotlines that flip the script so she is chasing you. I wanted to do the first option, but she had stopped clambering into my lap in between dance moves. All I could accomplish was a few negs.

“Hey, stop tickling me. Do I look like a piece of meat?”

“Yes!”

“Sexual harassment! Is this how you hit on men? It’s not working.”

She twirled. I tried to keep her focused.

“How would you like it if I did that to you?” I tickled her middle and she shrieked joyously like a little girl so loudly I though my ears would bleed.

This was going nowhere. She was in full-on attention whore mode. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied a leggy woman of exquisite beauty wearing a miniskirt that climbed past mid-thigh. Her makeup was expertly applied, and she didn’t smile. An expression of disdain swept across her purse-lipped face.

Had to be Russian.

I sidled closer to her table where she was standing with a couple girls and some men, and listened in; yep, Russians. She glanced in my direction. I realized why. Preselection. She had front row seats to me getting pawed by Superflirt. A man can go up as much as five points simply by being seen in the company of a hot babe.

This was one last opportunity to break Superflirt’s frame. If I could be seen by her chatting up the Russian, she might reengage and be open to a proper seduction. All her earlier boyfriend chatter suggested to me she was subconsciously looking for an excuse to step out with a new man. And nothing works like jealousy on an eternal ingenue. She has to feel a competitive threat from equally pretty women.

Unfortunately, this story does not have a good ending. I opened the Russian, asking her why she wasn’t embarrassing herself like the other girls by dancing on the bar, because it’s what all American women do. As we talked I would steal a glance at Superflirt to see if she was watching us, but she had fallen on her ass next to a bar stool, drunk as sin, and one shot away from puking. Three men rushed in to help her up. I didn’t budge. When I turned back to continue my conversation with the Russian, the doorman was saying something to her and she clopped in three inch high heels toward the door to make a phone call outside.

It was near closing time. Superflirt stumbled past me on the way to the door. She stopped to drape her arms over my shoulders, and I told her to give me her number. It was a last ditch effort that I knew had a low chance of succeeding. She was barely cognizant. But she stuck to her boyfriend script.

“Can’t. No I really can’t. I’m going to my boyfriend’s place right now! He lives nearby.”

Admiring her tight ass and perfect 0.7 waist-hip ratio as she wobbled out into the street, I figured her boyfriend either had very strong pimp hand to feel comfortable letting her get drunk by herself in his own hood, or they were heading for a dramatic breakup within the month. What a fucking headache it is dating a superflirt. Best way to keep them in line is to date two or more of them at the same time.

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Feminists Still Not Getting It, Never Will

McArdle has a follow-up post to her contention that the men women love are girly.

Incidentally, I’m being accused in the comments of engaging in some sort of conspiracy to keep the Beta Man down.

These things are never conspiracies. They’re more like hindbrain blurts.

More on primate theory later, but for now let me point out that as a married woman in her thirties, I have very little possible interest in the behavior of the PUAs; I’m not their target, and they’re sure not mine.

Marriage is no plenury indulgence from the soul ripping cenobite chains of the sexual market. You are being judged always and forevermore, and you are always wishing to be judged in the best light possible, even though you may not have practical reasons for feeling so. Lest you think I’m kidding, tell me what happens to the glowing love your hubby lavishes on you if you bloat up 70 pounds in the next year. Similarly, let’s see how much love — sexually and otherwise — you feel for your husband should he find himself unemployed for years on end and devoting himself to herb gardening. The attentions of the PUA (or, as I like to call them, the freelance seducer) is just a single infidelity away. Don’t tempt disaster by thinking that dropping out of the fuck market is an acceptable lifestyle choice.

To a person with a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail, and to a person with a sociobiology theory, everything starts to look like some primeval competition for resources on the veldt.

The dismissiveness of the anti-reductionist (complicationist? squid inkist?) never ceases to amuse. All your extravagant and high-minded appeals to human rationality, individualism, and exceptionalism are but a coat of desperately hopeful rhetoric concealing the animal motives below. To those with the eyes to see, the veldt is everywhere. Indeed, the veldt is written into the machine code of your brain. The average American woman has a hippo grazing in her brain.

But it’s misleading to claim theory as a sole teacher. Years of messy real world experience and observation endorse sociobiological theory, while the theory offers guidelines to men looking for answers and a plan of attack. Game is, if nothing else, field tested and motherfucker approved. And that’s what gives it credibility, as opposed to the lofty academic discussions that waft like a stale fart across women’s studies departments. Once a tactic stops working, it is jettisoned in favor of something that does work. If a tactic is proven ineffective, it hardly lasts more than a few approaches before being discarded. And with the zoom zoom of the internet, proven tactics are uncovered and disseminated very quickly.

This tendency should be strenuously resisted; not everything fits into a neat primate model, whether your Preferred Primates are bonobos or silverback gorillas.

Human nature can be observed and analyzed to form a working generalizable sociosexual theory without resort to knowledge of the habits of our ape cousins. The fact that there exist those precious special snowflake exceptions that hearten rationalists and equalists alike does not disprove the rules.

My off the cuff observation was a genuine one; this whole thing sounds like what girls used to do.

Yeah, because we all know how much girls try to figure out how to pick up women. And “used to do” — what, have girls suddenly changed their nature in the last few years?

McArdle is conflating the learning process with the execution. For example, a PUA teaches himself how to walk and stand and motion such that he signals nonverbal alpha dominance which is universally attractive to women, and this process may sound odd to women accustomed to imaging courtship as something magical that “just happens”. But once the PUA is “in set” and executing his game plan it will all seem natural and unforced to the woman if he is doing it right. She won’t be thinking “oh how girly he is”; instead, she’ll be thinking “wow, this guy is kinda cute and really cool”. (“Cute” being the internationally accepted girl code for describing any man — cute or otherwise — they are attracted to but unable to verbalize exactly why they are attracted.)

And in fact, at some level the PUAs have to know that it’s not really particularly manly.

Men use many tactics to attract women. It’s just the socially approved ones that transfer wealth from men to women, like slaving away in a corporate hellhole and buying dinner at expensive restaurants, that don’t raise the shaming hackles of banal, unreconstructed feminists like McArdle. It happens to be the fact that game is successful because it co-opts a woman’s tools of the seduction trade to use against her. Qualifying? Negging? Teasing? Takeaways? Push-pull? Aloofness? All are tactics that women use naturally in their dealings with male suitors. That perhaps is why game strikes older women as girly; there are indeed elements of femininity in seduction, and it is well known that this is highly attractive to women. The classics of literature abound with examples. The best seducer must get into the mind of his quarry, and to do this requires a level of empathy that is almost transmutative.

In the final analysis, though, I doubt many men getting their dicks wet are gonna fret that they might be perceived as girly by a scornful married feminist.

Why do I think this?

Because you’re a masculine woman? nttawwt.

Because if your girlfriend (however temporary) caught you mimicking Tom Cruise in front of the mirror, or spending your spare time trolling message boards for magic tricks to impress women with . . . well, would she be more enamored, or would she slither out of bed in disgust and start looking for her clothes?

The mirror thing is a red herring. No freelance seducer spends his waking hours posing in front of a mirror to get his stance right. That’s the domain of bodybuilders. Dominant body language can be learned by observing alpha males in the field. As for reading online seduction material, I was once discovered by a girlfriend to be reading one of those forums. Looking over my shoulder, she asked me what it was about, and I explained it exactly as it was, describing the science of human social dynamics and male female psychological differences. I didn’t cringe in embarrassment or apology like some weaker betaboys would have. I was matter of fact. She became intrigued and read along with me. The only slithering that night was her receiving my meaty intrusion.

I am not against people attempting to upgrade their social skills, nor am I horrified at the thought that “beta” males will somehow sneak into the gene pool; after all, I live in the city often called “Hollywood for Nerds”.

Beta is a state of mind that can be found anywhere. It is anhedonic. Game is the cure.

But the combination of artificiality, superficiality, and manipulation in the PUA manifestos makes it really hard not to snicker.

Ok. So her beef with game can be best summed up in this:

Artificiality — makeup, zit medicine, pushup bras, high heels, wrinkle creams, nail polish, botox, bikini wax.

Superficiality — Lavish adherence to fashion and culture trends, consumption of celebrity gossip, fascination with the supernatural and occult, upholders of PC shibboleths, ingrained sexual preference for tall men, lantern jawed men, and high social status men.

Manipulation — Making a guy wait for sex, wearing sexy clothes and pretending to be offended when he notices, flaking on dates, coyness, not picking up the phone on the first or second ring, expecting paid-for drinks on dates, shit testing.

I wonder if McArdle is aware she has indicted her own gender?

By the way, the manipulation criticism is one I hear all the time from detractors of the crimson arts. It’s a tawdry conceit. All goal-oriented communication — verbal or nonverbal — is a form of manipulation. When a woman advertises her cleavage she is manipulating men to do her favors or otherwise impress her. When a man works hard at his job to buy a nice car and house he is manipulating women’s attraction mechanisms. When both refrain from picking their noses or farting in public they are manipulating people’s impressions of them. McArdle and her ilk need to get over this manipulation mental roadblock they construct to assuage their feelings of lost power. If seduction is manipulation, then women don’t want guileless entreaties. The spread pussy speaks louder than the snickering blog post.

A reframe: if soccer is the beautiful sport, seduction is the beautiful manipulation. The herculean efforts required of the vast majority of men to seduce women that strike McArdle as unseemly and calculating when compared to the relatively easy go of it women in their prime years have when setting about to seduce men is just a reflection of the biological inequality between the sexes in their value on the sexual market. Sperm is cheap, eggs are expensive, and all that. McArdle is mistaken to assume this disparity in degree of mating effort caused by intrinsic sex differences is proof of men’s venality or women’s nobility.

(We will return to our regularly scheduled programming of learning about actual game, rather than jawboning about its cultural significance, tomorrow.)

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Telling Girls You Were Once Engaged

If you are a man such as myself with a long and storied relationship history, it will start to worry new girls that you meet why you have decided to remain “single”, i.e. unmarried. You see, a former marriage, no matter how spectacular its failing, is a mark of success on a man; it says to a prospective mate he was able at one time to attract a woman the traditional way and bind her in the facsimile of a long term commitment. This is another one of those intractable and intrinsic gender double standards that whiners will just have to learn to accept with dignity — divorced men suffer less of a blow to their dating market value than do divorced women. The same is true of divorced men with kids, or single dads; they do not suffer nearly the same market value penalty that single moms do.

It all comes down to the biologically induced disparity in how men and women respond to the phenomenon of preselection. Men, being nearly 100% visually oriented in their attractions to women, couldn’t care less what kind of man is on her arm, or what kind of men used to be on her arm. They see, they like. Simple equation. All they care about is that she is unencumbered (or unskewered) by dicks present, and to a lesser extent, by dicks past. Women, on the other hand, rely heavily on preselection (when it is available as a tool to judge mate quality) in their attractions to men. They see he is liked, they like.

And so it goes with divorcées. Divorced men can see a boost in their attractiveness to women (as long as they avoid bringing up the ex-wife in reverent tones during pickups), while divorced women see no boost, or even a negative hit, in their attractiveness to men. Consequently, my advice to divorced men is to mention your divorcée status early in a conversation. My advice for divorced women would be just the opposite — refrain from bringing it up, and if he asks, lie. This double standard is so entrenched that even *married* men will see an increase in their pickup success.

This is why I have discovered that a man telling girls he was once engaged works to stimulate their curiosity. And female curiosity is the catalyst that speeds the chemical reaction leading to tingles. Why engaged? Because former finacée sounds sexier than ex-wife. It is pregnant with romantic and tragic possibility. She sees this man, once engaged but no longer, and her mind reels with fantasy of what went wrong. Was it irreconcilable differences? Did he cheat on her? Did she move away? Did he make demands she couldn’t meet? Did she die in a horrible car accident? Was there a vast cultural gulf? Did her family sabotage their love? What did she look like?

Don’t worry if you were never engaged. Lie. It is the sort of lie that is nearly impossible to detect, or accidentally expose. And it is the sort of lie women crave from men, and would not disrupt with arid investigative pursuit. Your job, as a man with a keen grasp of female psychology, is to lie and let her overworked hamster fill in the missing narrative. The best way to do this is to say you were once engaged to a French girl, for American women bristle from the imagined competitive threat of French girls. (When American women ask me who my favorite actresses are, I always mention Marion Cotillard and Audrey Tautou. Then I watch with satisfaction their faces flash a hint of sexually lubricative insecurity.)

HER: Were you always single?

THE DEVIL WHO REMAKES U IN HIS IMAGE: No, I was once engaged.

HER: Really!

THE DEVIL WHO REMAKES U IN HIS IMAGE: Yes. [Turn away, look pensively at the horizon] She was a French girl. We were in love.

HER: What happened?

THE DEVIL WHO REMAKES U IN HIS IMAGE: It’s complicated.

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Common Pickup Mistakes Men Make

Complain

Those two guys from the Independence Day post were swapping complaints about the ratio of girls at the venue. Little did they know, the two women they would eventually approach overheard their bitching. “Let’s get out of here. There’s nothing going on. There are no chicks.” Then, on a dime, they switched on their happy faces when they noticed the girls and decided to hit on them.

There are two problems with this seemingly innocuous behavior. One, bitching and moaning will infect the positive attitude you need to properly seduce women. Even if you are a pro at altering your demeanor to suit your company, the simple act of verbalizing a negative feeling can subtly influence your facial openness and attitude. Highly feminine and intuitive girls can pick up on that.

Two, and more importantly, you don’t want women you’ve yet to meet getting ringside seats to your dr. jekyll mr. hyde facade. File this under incongruency. When a woman overhears you complaining about the ratio (and more women can hear what you say in their proximity than you might imagine), and then gets introduced to your smiley, good times self, she’s going to register the disconnect. Why start a pickup attempt unnecessarily handicapped?

I suppose PUA gurus would call this “being in state”.

Argue

Men get argumentative. “Why would you root for Uruguay and against your own country?” This is often a fatal error. Women do not like to argue (barring the exceptions that loiter this internet outpost). Women like to win arguments; they just don’t like the process of arguing to achieve the satisfying win. Men argue because it is a natural part of our being — as natural as farting loudly and laughing in triumph. So men tend to project their comfort with arguing onto the women with whom they interact. Remember, projection is a cognitive bias of both sexes, (though a more frequent failing of women.)

Men may think that by arguing with women they are demonstrating alpha characteristics like masculinity, boldness, and assertiveness, but what women usually think of argumentative men is that they are annoying, bitter, and tingle-killing. Save the arguing for ugly or otherwise unavailable bitches you aren’t trying to bed.

Confuse Aggressiveness for Cockiness

Similar to the above, men have a bad habit of confusing male-centric aggression for female-centric appreciation of cocky indifference. This is commonly referred to as the overplayed neg, and happens when one has crossed the threshold from seductive backhanded compliment to vaj-shriveling awkward insult. The two men who accused the women of being “anti-American” are good examples of men who fell victim to this typically male foible. They probably thought they were being edgily attractive, but instead their edginess thudded heavily like a lead weight.

The overplayed neg is the bane of game acolytes everywhere, and it is why so many newbies give up and turn against the only solution that can give them hope. Once the neg is mastered, though, a whole world of delights opens up. A better way to neg the anti-American women and display superiority without off-putting hubris is by leavening the insult with charm. For instance:

WOMAN 2: I wouldn’t have rooted for America.

THE DEVIL IN UR DREAMS: That’s weird. Are you a Uruguayan spy?

WOMAN 2: Haha, I just think America isn’t as good at soccer. They don’t really deserve to win.

THE DEVIL IN UR DREAMS: Uruguay does not deserve a spy as amateur as you.

When I was applying myself to learning game material, David DeAngelo’s Cocky/Funny series had a big impact on me. As he stressed, you can’t have the cocky without the funny. The two go together to form a perfect union of seductive prowess. Cockiness alone conveys arrogance, the stink of the man trying too hard to impress or dominate. Funny alone is the province of the class clown, the entertainment monkey. But fuse them, and you have an attitude that is irresistible to women. Add a 10″ cock and it’s game over, maaan, game oveeer!

Leave in a Huff

What’s worse than getting rejected? Getting rejected and giving the girl the satisfaction of knowing her rejection got to you. I can’t tell you how many men I’ve observed get blown out and then leave the scene of the accident with a parting insult or a noticeable sulk in their body language. Why would you treat some random chick worth no more than a humid summer day’s condensation on a single short and curly to the pleasure of your petty meltdown? The best response to a rejection is no response. Say goodbye as if you were parting company with a gas station attendant.

Maxim #45: Before sex, no girl you are attracted to is important enough to merit an emotional reaction should the pickup attempt turn bad.

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