I was speaking with a woman of considerable savviness in matters of male-female socializing. I wanted to know how to deal with a situation that required tip-toeing the line between candor and deceit. This is the advice she gave me.
ME: So this girl that I think is cute asks me if the girl she saw me with is my girlfriend. I don’t want to say yes and risk blowing my chances out of the water. I don’t want to say no, either, because I know women are more attracted to men when those men are getting love from other women. And a “no” would have been a lie, anyhow. So I was thinking about saying something close to the truth that also leaves the door open for continued flirting and possible future hooking up. Something along the lines of, “Well, we’re going through a rough patch now. Hard to say how it will turn out. We’re discussing a trial separation.”
GIRL BUDDY: Ugh, no.
ME: Why?
GIRL BUDDY: Too much explaining. By the time you’re finished with that I’m thinking “Wow, sorry I asked!”
ME: You got something better?
GIRL BUDDY: Just say, “It’s complicated.”
ME: “It’s complicated.” And that’s it?
GIRL BUDDY: That’s all you need. When a girl hears “it’s complicated”, she gets inside her head guessing about what you mean. That’s the place you want her to be if you want a shot with her.
ME: What if she follows up by asking me what I mean?
GIRL BUDDY: She won’t. Most girls understand that “it’s complicated” is code for “don’t ask me any more questions about it”. And you know girls love mystery, so they’re not going to ruin a good mystery by trying to solve it.
~~~
So there you go gentlemen. “It’s complicated.” Commit it to memory and deploy liberally. With some field practice, I’ve discovered that “it’s complicated” can serve as a useful stand-in for all sorts of scenarios you may find yourself in with a girl. It’s a go-to answer for all kinds of questions, not just the ones pertaining to your relationship status.
I’ve analyzed a lot of game scenes from classic movies, so how about a good game scene from a modern movie? Check out Javier Bardem’s character running uber direct game on Scarlett Johansson and some other chick simulating an American lawyer cunt.
Ok, there are a few key moments during this interaction that set the alpha tempo for Juan Antonio and enable him to get away with everything else that he says. When you go in strong and let a girl know right away that you are the prize, she will be much more forgiving of any “crazy” stuff you may decide to say later. Call it the Alpha Absolution Theory of courtship.
At 0:46, Juan walks behind a plant and is momentarily obstructed from the girls’ view. A minor coincidence, yes, but one that heightens the tension the girls are undoubtedly feeling. I wonder if Woody Allen knew this when he directed the shot? You may think this silly, but temporarily disappearing from a girl’s line of sight is a subconscious trick on her psyche that triggers in her a “threat of loss” anxiety. Knowing this, try walking behind something on your next approach; say, behind a large column or a group of people, then reappearing close by her.
0:46 – 0:55 Juan’s body language is half his game. His gait is steady and slow, his face expressionless except for the flash of a slight wry smile. When he approaches, he takes his sweet time getting there. Also notice how he lets his gaze deliberately linger on the less attractive/less playful Vicky first, and then switches looking at Cristina. He knows, before he’s even said one word, who the potential cockblock is and how the process of disarming her takes precedence before anything else. Always address the less attractive/more anal retentive girls in a group first, unless it’s a mixed group of men and women, in which case address the men first.
0:57 “American?” Perfect opener. The girls are expecting him to say something typical, like “What’s your name?”. Instead, he opens with a one word question. With openers, laconic often beats loquacious for leaving a sharp impression. Furthermore, he avoids overgaming by opening in a manner that is bolder than normal, yet not spastically “creative”.
1:02 When a girl offers you her name, the gentlemanly thing to do is give your name in return. Which is why you shouldn’t do it. Juan replies to Cristina with a question about the color of her eyes instead. Totally out of left field, and that is why she squirms a little in her panties.
1:10 – 1:19 He gets right to the point. Obviously, this isn’t going to work in most situations, but the take-home lesson is that women are attracted to men who lead, command, and direct. Women want to be marionettes, dangling languorously from the hands of a skilled puppeteer.
1:25 – 1:30 When Cristina asks “What’s in Oviedo?”, Juan replies that he wants to see a sculpture that is “very inspiring to him”. This part is important. Juan does not qualify himself by attempting to appease or impress the girls by describing entertaining things in Oviedo that await *them*. Instead, he explains he’s going for his own selfish reasons. Only after does he then say they would enjoy it as well.
2:00 – 2:09 If you’re going to do direct game, you’ll have to be prepared for hardcore rejections. It comes with the territory. How you handle them can mean the difference between an embarrassing exit and a momentum change in your favor. Juan answers Vicky’s rejection with a poetic rebuke to, basically, seize their inner sluts.
2:11 Two minutes into the conversation and he finally gives his name. Well played. Make the girls work for your identity. Note, too, how it was the sphincterly pinched Vicky who demanded he show his papers. Cristina would’ve spent a week with him before thinking to ask his name.
2:17 – 2:20 He purposefully mixes up their names. “Or is it the other way around?” Nice neg. It subtly drives a wedge between the two girls. I’ll have to remember that one.
2:27 – 2:49 After Vicky acts like a bitch, Juan remains unfazed, complimenting the both of them for being “so lovely and beautiful”. Then he addresses Cristina directly about her friend’s ability to “squeeze the charm” out of life. Classic “let’s you and her meow”. If he had been approaching Vicky alone, this tactic might not work. But with Cristina there, he’s able to inspire competition between the two for who is the more romantic and adventurous woman.
3:06 Vicky’s bitch shield is down. She invites him to join them for drinks. Why does she do this? Because, one, she’s attracted to Juan’s brazen alphatude and two, she sees that Cristina is into him, so she doesn’t want to appear the spoilsport of the bunch.
3:18 “What offended you about the offer?” It’s never a good idea to argue with a cockblock, but in this case Juan manages to press Vicky with a probing question that is followed up immediately by a reiteration of his earlier compliment that they are both beautiful. Also, if you will confront a recalcitrant bitch, the only way to pull it off is with preternatural grace under pressure.
3:45 – 3:55 Juan evades Vicky’s bitching and turns his attention to Cristina. Textbook backturn takeaway. And the “When I saw you across the room, I noticed you have” line is straight out of the direct game playbook.
4:02 – 4:28 Direct game takes balls, and it also takes a willingness to absorb rejection without flinching. Never let ’em see you sweat. Juan makes his pitch, allows a moment for it to sink in, and prepares his exit, admonishing the girls to “think it over”. Calm throughout. It helps that the plane is a major DHV.
***
Look, this is an extreme form of direct game. Most men will not be able to pull this off credibly, as the skill level involved is very high. Plus, the context has to be working in your favor. The girls are in Spain, and are already in a frame of mind where they are expecting to be swept off their feet by a swarthy Latin Lothario hypnotizing them with the verbal equivalent of romantic glow sticks. If you’re a pasty Northwest European white man in a beach town club in New Jersey approaching pasty NW European girls sucking down Miller Lights, this sort of headily seductive direct game may not go over as well. But it is another arrow in your quiver of game techniques, and shouldn’t be ignored just because it won’t work in every situation. Direct game can be a powerful adjunct to your regular routine. Like, say, when you’re a NW European pasty white male approaching two Russian girls in your country on vacation, and they find your ethnicity and command of the local environs alluringly exotic.
“First I saw the two barking rats, then I saw the guy walking them. Talk about an odd pairing! The dude had tattoos on his skull, and looked tough. Not like the herb or homo I thought he would be. And there he is, with two runty toy dogs. One of the dogs walked like it had a cucumber up its ass.”
This is an excellent example of someone defying expectations. Does anyone doubt this dude gets laid like gangbusters? I bet his idea of a brothel is the local dog park. And he pays in cloyingly cute toy poodle dollars.
I’ve written before about how important contrast is to your game. Contrast, like its social dynamics cousins vulnerability game and being unpredictable, is a status signal of alphaness. When women see a man defy convention, or wantonly fuck around with societal expectation, they think “Oh, he must be an alpha, because only an alpha could risk stepping out of line like that.” Or when they hear a man reveal a potentially status damaging vulnerability at odds with his image of strength, they think “He must be really alpha to confess his fear of parrots.”
No, seriously, that’s the way women think. Subconsciously, at least.
Contrast game is also a variety of handicap game, a powerful technique for subcommunicating genetic superiority. Like bright, heavy plumage on a peacock, tattoos signal that a man is so genetically fit (and symmetrical) that he can afford the risk to his health and looks that getting inked with needles will mean for him. Skull tattoo dude in the above photo actually has a double handicap whammy advertising his alpha genetic fitness — he’s enduring both the disfigurement of tattoos *and* the public humiliation of walking two gay ass pooches. (I bet he’s telling the other dude to be careful where he steps.)
How powerful a psychological mindfuck is contrast? Two words:
Susan Boyle.
That ugly broad got on stage and, in the teeth of a hostile, pitying audience, sang the shit out of “I Dreamed A Dream”. Result? Standing ovation, tears flowing like a river, and eight million copies of her debut album sold in the first six weeks. For a more recent example of the contrast phenomenon, check out this video of Janey Cutler, the 80 year old singer who elicits the same reaction from an audience expecting something entirely different.
That, my friends, is the awesome power of contrast. Now imagine what it can do for your notch count.
So, you ask, how do I translate this theme of contrast into practical game advice? I can offer a few suggestions.
If you’re meeting a girl for a dinner after work, and you’re in a business suit, take her to your favorite dive bar or hipster joint after the dinner. She’ll be pleasantly surprised that a professional such as yourself feels just at home in a dump as in a fancy restaurant. (Note: You really shouldn’t be taking girls you haven’t fucked to fancy restaurants.)
Does she think your political views are antiquated? Good. Now take her out to a progressive-oriented art show filled with pseudointellectual revolutionary crackpots. She’ll start to wonder what else about you she doesn’t know.
Speak streetwise, but occasionally drop a big word in your conversation. Intellectual dominance is to smart chicks like physical dominance is to prole chicks.
If you’re a very masculine man, peacock with a feminine accessory, like an ornate bracelet or an earring. If you’re naturally foppish, try wearing masculine accessories, like a big honking watch or combat boots.
Approach a girl like a typical beta, asking her innocuous questions about how she likes living in the city. Once you have lulled her into an anhedonic stupor, hit her with a neg. Consider her look of surprise a step closer to intimacy.
Did you meet a girl online and tell her about your starched shirt job? Then show up to the date wearing something boldly stylish. Her mind will race with thoughts of a secret life you’re hiding from her.
Similarly, if you’re a suit-wearing type of guy, a well-placed tattoo on the inner forearm can do wonders to stir excitement. Just manufacture an excuse to roll up your sleeves, and watch her eyes light up.
Regale her with adventure stories that are completely at odds with her image of you. For instance, if you’re an accountant, mention the time you spent in the Congo with the little-known aid group Accountants Without Borders, and how you budgeted the goats for the local village.
Talk about how you voted for George Bush, then give a buck to a homeless bum you happen to pass by while walking with her. (Alternatively, you could reverse this sequence if you want to crush the girl’s hopes. After sucking up to her no-doubt SWPLian worldview, offhandedly announce after sex how you recently joined the NRA “to get some shootin’ practice for the big game animals you like to hunt”.)
Contrast is the reason why ugly guys can sometimes do better with women than handsome guys. A handsome man is expected to have his act together in all other ways; in comparison, nothing much is expected of ugly men. So an ugly man who spits tight game will pleasantly surprise a woman while a good looking man with game will simply confirm what she already believed to be true. And when it comes to making an impression on women, which man do you think she’ll remember more? That’s right, the man who surprised her out of her lazy thinking.
All humans want to be fascinated. Kurt Cobain had it right — here we are now, entertain us. Men are entertained by tits, ass and face. Women are entertained by male charisma and psychosocial savviness. They want to be kept on their toes, forever wondering what kind of man you are. Defying a woman’s expectations is the equivalent of a big-boobed woman taking off her sweater and shoving her cleavage in a man’s face. Her fond memory of you will linger well into the next day.
Note: what I’m about to write here is not meant for game newbies. Utilize at your own risk.
Takeaways are a very valuable psychological ploy contributing to a player’s seduction prowess. You can read a definition of takeaways here. In short, a takeaway is the act of feigning disinterest in a woman for the purpose of increasing her attraction for you, and thus your likelihood of bedding her. This fake disinterest can be as simple as a backturn, or an unannounced abrupt exit from a conversation. Takeaways are the Swiss Army knives of seduction, as they can be used at almost any point during the pickup, with equal effectiveness. For instance, a takeaway can set the right tempo early on by making a girl chase you for conversation instead of the other way around, or a takeaway can be employed during foreplay to get a girl to drop her last minute resistance to sex.
Takeaways are a very powerful game tactic, for the reason that they are a high risk gamble. (Generally, and as with most things in life, the riskier the game tactic, the higher the reward.) The risk comes in the fact that a girl may very well call your takeaway bluff.
PLAYER: You’re really cool and all. Maybe we should just be friends.
GIRL: Ok.
But when a takeaway works, and the girl bites, you will be amazed at how quickly the status dynamics of the courtship will change. Flipping the script, properly executed, can make gaming a girl seem like outrunning a morbidly obese American woman. You can practically walk to the finish line.
Here’s an especially devious takeaway that I’ve used many times to great effect. Use this on later dates just before the momentum is carrying you both to sexual closure, and only use on girls who are engaging in stalling tactics. In other words, use on “good girls”. (There is a minor subclass of bad girls who will also respond well to this takeaway, which I will explain below.) Basically, what you will be doing is stealing the woman’s prerogative to delay coital finality in the interest of “wanting everything to feel right”.
UNWITTING GIRL: I’m having a really good time.
DEVIOUS YOU: Me too. I’d like to have a drink with you back at my place, but…
UNWITTING GIRL: What?
DEVIOUS YOU: I dunno. I’m trying to turn over a new leaf. I think it means a lot more when things aren’t rushed. Maybe wait a little. You’re the kind of girl I want to take it slow with. Call me crazy, but that’s how I see it now.
Now after this, most likely she will say “Aw that’s so nice” and agree with you. Then you will be left asking yourself, “Hey, I thought this was supposed to work as advertised? She just called my bluff!” Settle down, Anakin. This takeaway works it’s magic on a delayed cycle. Continue the date as usual, and invite her over to your place anyhow. You won’t need an excuse because you’ve already told her nothing will happen. What you’ll notice instead is an increase in her compliance that you would not normally have gotten. Though you “confessed” only hours earlier, in so many words, that you wanted to wait for sex, she will find herself inexplicably moving things faster in the direction of your hidden agenda. The phony virtue takeaway has preemptively disarmed her anti-slut defense. She will rationalize that you are not forcing her to do anything because you’re “not that kind of guy”, and your road to sex will suffer fewer impediments.
Why did I write above that this takeaway is not meant for newbs? Because you need to be banging other girls before attempting such a high risk maneuver. If you are hard-up, your mind, body, and emotions will be incongruent with your spoken words. She will sense something is off about your claimed phony virtue, and she will not only call your bluff, but also lose respect for your now-waning masculinity for trying an end-run around her sexual reticence *and* your own sexual desire.
In addition, some newbs may mistakenly use this takeaway on girls who are already good to go. That’s called overkill. If she genuinely wants it, you won’t need any more mental games. All you’ll need at that point is the balls to lead her where she wants to be.
As I mentioned above, the subclass of girls this takeaway would work on are the badgirl sluts who are practically dragging you to the bedroom. Be careful of the overtly sexual girls; oftentimes their lewdness and blunt physical sexuality are a ruse designed to entrap less alpha men who lack control over their horniness. If you bite too soon or too eagerly, she may lose her desire. If you do manage to bed a badgirl slut on the first date, she is more likely than the typical girl — thanks to the male-like contours of her brain — to lose interest the next morning. For these girls, the phony virtue takeaway is perfect for (re)establishing that she is the one chasing you, and not the other way around. Plus, by stroking her egotistic need to not be noticed for her sluttiness, it will make her feel more special than she really is. Phony virtue game, delivered as sincerely as your acting skills can summon, can turn a one night stand with a slut into a three month fling.
Thursday left a link in the comments to this study showing that couples who do fun and exciting things together have happier marriages.
In a representative sample of long-term married couples in the United States (see Orbuch et al., 2002, for General Social Survey data comparisons), present boredom is positively correlated with a decrease in satisfaction 9 years in the future, an effect that appears to be due to boredom undermining closeness, which in turn undermines satisfaction. The effect size (b 5 .26) is quite dramatic considering that it predicted regressed change over 9 years and the sample includes only couples still together at year 16. (The 38 couples tested at year 7 who divorced by year 16 were nonsignificantly more bored at year 7 than the 123 couples who remained married.) Furthermore, all results were inde- pendent of relationship tension and conflicts. Previous cross- sectional surveys, hour-to-hour experience-sampling studies, and short-term experiments suggested such a pattern, but this is the first time it has been shown over a significant period of time and in a representative sample.
Mediation by closeness, which had not been directly tested before, integrates central aspects of the self-expansion model. Specifically, it suggests that excitement in relationships facili- tates or makes salient closeness, which in turn promotes satis- faction in the long term. Indeed, closeness may promote satisfaction via other mechanisms known to be associated with promoting satisfaction over time, such as perceived partner re- sponsiveness, transformation of motivation, commitment, com- munal norms, positive illusions, and trust.
Regarding application, these findings show directly, for the first time, that not only conflicts, but also simple boredom, can shape relationships over the long term. Given that short-term experiments demonstrate that couples can reduce boredom with shared exciting activities, the present findings suggest that benefits may be substantial and long lasting, for both husbands and wives and across racial groups—pointing to easy-to-im- plement potential additions to educational, marital preparation, and enrichment programs, and a possible supplementary tool for marital counselors. Thus, as has been found in many other do- mains, increasing rewards may matter as much or more than reducing costs; or, in more contemporary terms, it may be im- portant to focus not just on eliminating negatives, but also on enhancing positives.
This study simply confirms what game practitioners already know: curiosity is a leading indicator of alphaness. Women are drawn to the curious man. Semantically substitute “passion ” for “curiosity” and it becomes clearer why. A man satisfied with his little corner of the world is a boring man. Forget what women say about short men, or ugly men, or old men — the true tingle killer is boredom. A short, ugly, old man with genuine curiosity about the world and people around him can hit well out of his league.
Like most other personality traits, the distribution of curiosity is Gaussian. At one extreme are men like Roosh who are so curious about their place in the world they are willing to leave their homeland and careers to spend years in foreign countries with strange people who speak a strange language. At the other extreme are the semi-vegetative zombies and autisitic cases who need an unchanging daily routine just to function. In the vast middle lie the average everyday incurious Joes… happy with their lives, content to clock in their eight hours, come home to a cold brew, a warm dinner and a kiss from the wife, and occasionally take the family sightseeing in the countryside. Oh, and once in a while go crazy and try a new brand of beer.
Curiosity can exist along many metrics. Travel isn’t the only sign of a curious mind. A man who reads voraciously from all sorts of genres is more curious than the average man. And a well-read man, like a well-traveled man, will have a leg up on the competition when building rapport with a woman.
A lot of so-called alpha haters come to this board to bitch about how “true alphas” wouldn’t go out of their way to learn how to attract women. The common refrain is usually “A real alpha doesn’t worry what women think. He does his own thing.” But the fact is, we are all working hard to satisfy the requirements of the opposite sex, whether or not we consciously acknowledge it or are even aware of what we are doing. A “natural” is simply a man who has been following the precepts of game from an earlier age than most men, and therefore it is a deeper component of his psychology. Likewise, a naturally curious man who has never known what it is like to be incurious will do better with women than less curious men.
People who neglect to shape themselves into the ideal attractiveness archetype demanded by the opposite sex soon lose out to competitors who do. A wife who lets herself go is demonstrating by her actions that she doesn’t care about her husband’s desires. He will soon look elsewhere for pleasure and love. Similarly, and apropos the above study, a husband who stops taking his wife on interesting adventures demonstrates he doesn’t care about her desires. She, too, will then be inclined to wander. Naturally, not every man can reach Rooshian levels of curiosity; or at least, they can’t reach it without significant discomfort to their psyches. To expect otherwise is to assume the average man can alter his personality wholesale for the length of his life. Game requires no such psychological contortions from men. A simple and minor adjustment in the typical man’s curiosity quotient is usually enough to increase his attractiveness to women tenfold.
My advice to the naturally incurious man is as follows:
Find an equally incurious girl (there are more incurious girls than there are incurious men as sociosexuality science would predict, so this shouldn’t be too hard). A woman whose basal inertia level is lackadaisically low will not demand more than a token sign of inquisitiveness from her man. She will be satisfied with small changes to her routine.
Make an effort to push yourself out of your incurious comfort zone. This means focusing your mind on doing something out of the ordinary once in a while. For instance, instead of taking your girl out to dinner next Saturday like every other herbling, go indoor rock climbing with her. The ensuing rush (kept in check by safety ropes and belays) is nature’s perfect vaginal lube.
Learn to LISTEN. Women LOVE LOVE LOVE men who actually listen to them. Listening intently to a woman will make you seem like a curious man, and is especially worthwhile as it gives you valuable information to tailor your game. Note that listening is not quite the same thing as paying strict attention. It’s perfectly acceptable to nod your head and mutter a few uh huhs while she speaks as your mind drifts to wondering about the size of her areolae, as long as you commit to memory at least a couple of her points. You only need to remember a few key words with which to feed back to a girl to wow her as a man who “gets it”.
Do new things if for no other reason than that it will give you material to use during a pickup. Having trouble telling engaging stories to girls? That’s your subconscious telling you that you need a vacation to a place you haven’t yet visited.
Be unpredictable. Unpredictability can make a day trip to the beach seem like a fantastic getaway to a remote fantasy island. A surprise trip once every couple of months will be enough to keep the average vagina tingly and loyal.
Curiosity is win-win for men. You do fun, exciting things, and women become more attracted to you because of it. All it takes is a push off the couch. Given that most men can’t even manage that (“Game’s on, baby. Not now.”), a push off the couch automatically puts you ahead of the vast swath of men who secretly bore their girlfriends and wives.
But there is a downside. Women who are searching for a monogamous relationship should know that highly curious men are also curious about the opposite sex. Like most attractiveness traits that a woman admires in a man, her strongest desire is for that which can potentially hurt her.
Let us all be aware our sinister enemies who lurk about, skulking in the distance.
Are feminist calls to embrace our inner girl just a giant, society-wide shit test to brand the betas with a big red B so they can be more easily identified, and thus sexually ostracized? Because any man who takes up the call to “embrace his inner girl” will disqualify himself as a sexual interest to not only normal, healthy women, but to feminists as well.
Speaking of ultimate shit tests, here’s one I had the pleasure of receiving recently:
“Could you do me a favor and hold my drink for me while I call my friend?”
The worst shit tests are never the obvious ones; they are sneaky like thieves in the night, pickpocketing your balls without you even realizing it. Beware the “could you do me a favor” expression. It is designed to entrap even the most vigilant men. It will require an absolutely rock solid belief in your value as a high quality man to resist the temptation to answer the siren call of “do me a favor”. After all, a man would have to be a low down dirty scoundrel to not do a favor for a girl, right?
Now that she’s breached your defenses by asking for a favor, she can land the killing blow to your balls with the beta bait request. I don’t care how sweetly she asks or how harmless you think your accommodation, DO NOT EVER hold a girl’s drink for her on the first night you meet her. The act of holding her drink so she can make a call/go to the bathroom/rifle through her purse for lipstick, no matter the innocent intentions behind the asking of it, will register in her hindbrain as the humiliating posture of a beta chump. She may consciously respect your chivalry, but underneath, her id is playing word association by scratching your name next to a picture of a tiny, limp dick on the walls of her nerve center.
Remember, the worst/best shit tests are those that FOOL THE GIRL herself. If she doesn’t even know what she’s doing, how will *you* know when she’s weighing your stones? The “hold my drink” shit test frequently falls into this category of “subliminal but deadly”. She may honestly need you to hold her drink. But you still shouldn’t do it.
So how to respond to the SBD shit test? I’ve found that edgy humor works well.
“Whoa, it’s usually a good idea to wait until the second date before asking a guy to be your personal assistant.”
A cool girl will laugh at this and find a place to put down her drink, or forget about calling her friend to focus on talking with you. An uncool girl will make a face, or double down on asking you to hold her drink. Don’t break. Hold your ground. Capitulating to a shit test is bad enough; capitulating to a shit test you had called out is worse.
Luckily, most girls know better than to ask a man who isn’t a boyfriend to hold a drink. And of those girls who don’t know better, and who give you grief for not cooperating, well… why would you want to be with a conceited bitch like that?
