Honesty

In seduction, honesty is not the best policy.  A man learns from experience to conceal some of what he is thinking because no matter how much a woman says she wants to know his true feelings, she would rather not.

Hiding my opinions from a woman I am trying to bed is a tactical maneuver, not a fear-based beta instinct.  There is a difference between bending your opinions to appease the girl and refraining from excessive candor so as not to unnecessarily drive her away.  If I think a girl’s hobbies suck, what good does it do me to tell her that?  It is not alpha to be so cavalier in your opinions that you shit all over the things she cherishes most.

Women don’t operate like men.  A misplaced word or criticism can turn them off instantly.  A woman may want to have sex with you after the first fifteen minutes, but her horniness can be easily reversed if you sever the connection with disagreements that go to the heart of how she sees herself.  Unless you are a low-testosterone man who won’t mind the long stretches of celibacy resulting from sticking by your principled honesty, deep-seated differences in opinion should only be shared after sex when the possibility of a long term relationship is evident.

Now I don’t advocate lying.  There is a middle ground between complete candor and bald-faced lies.  Massaging the truth is the best way to describe it.  Some may call this manipulation.  Is it manipulation if I speak honestly but say it in such a way that my chances of success are maximized?  And if that is manipulation, is it wrong?

The fact is, there would be very little hooking up at all if men decided en masse to be totally honest with women.  I think men could handle women telling them they only like them for their high status job or their swagger, but could women handle being told by men that dinner was on them only because they think this will buy them a titty fuck?  Or that all they can think about when she is blathering on about crystal therapy or her non-profit job is what she looks like naked and what it would be like to make love to her all night long?

Let’s be honest.  Honesty falls in the category of those values we all say we want from others, but really don’t.

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Dealing with Other Guys During Pickup

When you are out in the field, many times the girl you are interested in will be in a mixed group of men and women.  I used to not even bother with approaching girls who were in the company of men, assuming that my efforts would be an exercise in futility if one of them was the boyfriend, or figuring that the guys would know what I was up to and act to block my progress.

Overthinking leads to a point where your mind hobbles your actions with worst-case scenarios, but once you break out of that mental habit and start approaching mixed sets you’ll learn that the reality is usually quite different.

Fact: Most guys in mixed sets are NOT the boyfriend.  They may be interested in their girl buddies, but that is irrelevant.

Fact: If you introduce yourself in a friendly manner to the guys first or address the group as a whole and don’t make it obvious that you are there to steal their girls, the guys will amicably open up to you.

The best way to find out if a boyfriend is present in a mixed group is to ask the question “So, how do you guys know each other?”  This line is standard operating procedure so don’t be cautious about throwing it out there.  People will be happy to tell you the answer.  Just don’t ask it right away; that makes you look like you are trying too hard to ingratiate yourself.

If your game is tight and the girls are enjoying your company, what will normally happen is that the guys will pick up on the girls’ signals and follow suit, accepting you into the group and stepping aside (or even helping you) when you begin to focus your attention on the girl you like.  Winning over the group also serves the dual purpose of raising your social value in the eyes of your target.  Holding court with a group of strangers and keeping them engaged will trigger attraction in a girl.

The guys in a mixed group will not always be neutral entities like Switzerland.  Occasionally, they will be competitors.  You must be prepared for this as well.  The important thing to know is that direct competition with other guys in the field VERY RARELY leads to belligerence.  Even less likely will a physical altercation break out, especially here in DC, land of the overeducated Herbs who fold like cheap lawn chairs in the face of real danger.

Competitors come in three main varieties:

The Boyfriend
If one of the guys is seeing the girl you want, ask them a question about their relationship, like how long they’ve known each other or how they met.  While these questions seem innocuous, they are designed to elicit an emotional flashback in the woman that will clue you in to her level of commitment to the boyfriend.  If he does all the answering and starts putting his arm around her while she looks around the room with a bland expression you can be sure she is open to testing the waters with a new man.  If she likes you, she’ll find a way to get out from under her boyfriend’s watchful eye later in the night to slip you her number.  If she answers enthusiastically, write her off.

Some players advocate gaming a girl right in front of the boyfriend as if he were a non-factor.  If you can generate attraction easily and the girl is really into you, go for it, but in my experience most of the time the boyfriend will bristle knowing what you are up to and physically insert himself between you and her, making for a very uncomfortable situation.

The Interloper
These are the guys who crash your party and join groups you have already opened.  They are usually players or natural alphas because only those types of men have the balls to enter a mixed set.  They will test your state control.  The absolute worst thing you could do would be to appear defensive.  If you clam up, or ask what their deal is, or make it obvious that you are ignoring them and focus all your attention on the girls, you will get blown out.

There are two ways to deal with an interloper.  One way is the power play.  One time I was talking to two girls in a lounge when two guys they didn’t know approached and said hi to them without acknowledging me.  One of the guys was clearly the alpha, tall and good-looking with strong posture, so I addressed my comments to him knowing that if I could get him to scuttle, the beta wingman would follow.

I turned toward him, maintained eye contact, and said “Hey, man, we were just talking about how long you would wait to come over and hit on these girls.  We could totally see it in the way you walked over that you meant business!  But she was just telling me how you may have waited a little too long and how your shirt is just a little too striped.  They are a tough crowd, I can attest.”  I look at the girls and wink.  “Girls in this city will not give a guy a break!  But, you know, you should still go for it, this one over here has a secret crush on you.”

I did not give the guys a chance to get a word in edgewise.  The verbal barrage left them staring at me befuddled about what to do next, while the girls laughed and insisted they did not have a crush on anyone.  After a second, I moved in between with my back to them and asked the girls if they would like to learn something about themselves.  They looked horny from the dominance display that had just gone down.  As the girls talked to me, the guys disappeared.

This type of balls-out tactic is high risk, high reward.  It’s not something I do often or recommend doing because sometimes you will meet your intellectual, physical, or sociopathic match and things can get out of hand fast.  You have to feel completely confident in your abilities to disarm gatecrashers.  Showing hesitation or uncertainty will embolden your foes. They have to think you are a little bit crazy and won’t mind a fight.  Which is why I prefer option two.  Engage the interlopers with a series of logical questions.  Do not give them time to game your target.  A guy’s logical brain is his worst enemy in the fluid environment of pickup where on-the-fly emotional intelligence is needed.  Ask them questions about their jobs, sports, hobbies, where they live, etc and you’ll notice that they are almost impelled to answer your questions straight.  It’s like asking a girl about her feelings — the same unstoppable mental processes are set in motion.

Logical banter will lower their value instantly.  Eventually, they will seem boring and pedestrian and this is when you switch gears to playfully undercutting them.  If they ask you questions about your life, you can say “Hey, what’s with the 21 questions? I’m not on the market guys!”  Including them in the conversation and demonstrating your social prowess at their expense with a friendly vibe without escalating the interaction to code yellow will be a big turn-on for the women.  The girls will then devote more of their attention to you and the guys will give up and leave.

The Incumbent
If you approach a group that already has a guy in it working the magic with the girls (as opposed to guys they came with), then you are dealing with an incumbent.  Since most incumbents are average guys with no game trying to impress the girls with drinks or manufacture a connection with boring interviewer questions, it is a simple matter to subvert them.

When he is out of earshot, ask the girls how they know the guy and they will usually say “Oh, we just met him tonight.  He bought us drinks.”  Once armed with this information, you can segue into an incumbent-unseating routine: “Oh I bet you really like him if you let him buy you drinks.  You know, come to think of it, you two almost look alike.  Jeez, you’d make the perfect couple!”  She will, of course, protest, and in the act of verbalizing her protests negative feelings will get anchored to him.

If the guy is part of the conversational flow, just like with the interloper pepper him with logical questions.  Once you’ve become part of the group dynamic, steer it in the direction you want.  If you and he are gaming the same girl, call him out on his motives:

“Hey man, how’s the pickup going?  Are these girls friendly or are they giving you the bitch shield?  I need to know so I can adjust accordingly.”  This will slightly embarrass him into denying that he was trying to game the girls. Once that happens it’s game, set, match in your favor.

If he’s interested in a different girl, then let the conversation progress naturally until he is acting like a de facto wingman and the two of you are gaming your own targets.

Very occasionally, you will run across an incumbent who is a seasoned veteran of the field.  Real players who know their stuff will not fall for the traps I’ve outlined above.  They will banter right back with you until a point is reached where the two of you are in your own world playing out a high drama of verbal volley and counter-volley.  While this is entertaining for the girls, it will not move you closer to sealing the deal.  It’s best to tip your hat to a worthy opponent and recruit him as a wingman.

If you can master opening mixed sets then those times where you are approaching girls-only sets will seem like a breeze.

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Bailing on Dates

I don’t use tricks during dates like having my cell phone ring with an “emergency” call, saying I’m going to the bathroom and then escaping through the window, or telling my date “I think I’m falling in love with you” to give me an out in case it’s not going well.  It’s incompatible with being a man who doesn’t make excuses for his actions.  If a date is bombing I smile warmly and simply tell her “It was a pleasure meeting you.  Good luck with everything.”  No need to wait around hoping for sexual attraction to magically appear.  Walking off like this can even make a girl suddenly hot for you.  Don’t be surprised if you get a conciliatory call from her the next day.

Dating a lot of women gives you a sixth sense to know within minutes whether the girl is connecting with you.  If she’s not, cut the cord — time saved is time earned toward gaming new women.  I once walked away from a bad date and number closed another woman on the walk home.  There is no worse thing a man can do than to continue buying drinks and yapping for hours with a girl who is not warming up to him physically.

When a date is going particularly badly, or the girl is someone of especially poor character, I’ll get a dig in before walking off.  It’s petty, true, but it gives me pleasure to inflict cruelty on a deserving victim.  On a first date with a Desi girl she talked (unprompted) non-stop about her Indian ex-boyfriend and how her father didn’t like him and how he was overly ambitious in his career and yada yada.  After she finally came up for air I asked her a series of seemingly innocent questions about her values and her past relationships.  I then began to psychologically deconstruct her, picking apart her psyche and painting a picture of her personality.  I leaned back and waited for her reaction.  Offended, she snapped “I really don’t like you drawing conclusions about me.”
Pay dirt.
“But you make it so easy.”

Since single girls, like guys, act to hide their personality flaws when out on the town looking to hook up, and since it is hard to discern all of a person’s unsavory traits in fifteen minutes over gin and tonics in a dark lounge, I always try to insta-date the first night I meet a girl.  Bouncing with her from the club to the bar down the street to the pizza place or pool hall gives me a better opportunity to learn about her without putting in the extra effort to arrange a future date at a specified location.  This ultimately saves time and feels more natural.  Plus, same night multiple venue changing operates on the principle of time distortion, where you two feel like you’ve shared more time together getting to know each other in different environments than you actually have.

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Big Fat Phony Smile

If the eyes are the window to the soul, the smile is the neon vacancy sign outside the motel.

I don’t *feel* high maintenance.

Girls love to smile, whether it’s justified or not.  A broad smile illuminates the face and makes the world notice her.  There is probably some Freudian oral delights aspect to it as well.  The next time you are walking outside, try counting the number of people you see smiling or who smile at you as you pass.  It’s usually no one.  For a girl during her peak beauty years, every waking minute is a good reason to smile and advertise her exalted place within humanity.

There can be too much of a good thing.  The smile’s impact wanes when it becomes a fixture on the face, like the nose.  It loses any meaning and begins to suggest mental vacuity.  So many American girls (European girls seem to be immune to this affliction) have such inflated self-esteems that they flash insincere smiles constantly lest anyone forget to be entranced by them.  The impossibly wide phony smile is the tool in trade of the attention whore.  Now when I see a girl like the one in the photo above smiling like a prom queen I conclude she is a vapid girl with a non-existent inner world who will need to be gamed high-energy style.  The problem with dating girls who smile obsessively is that if you ever give them a reason to drop the smile they will hate you for life.

True sexiness is a lost art.  A woman is incredibly sexy when she balances her time smiling with the detached expression of a relaxed mouth.  She lets her eyes pick up the slack left by the smile.  When I’m talking to a girl whose eyes do most of the subcommunication I get the sense the hamster has not fallen off the wheel in her head.

You won’t see guys smiling as much because the pursuit of women is serious business.  Or maybe they think a straight face looks tough, cool, and emotionally self-contained.  In the dating field, guys who smile just a bit too much are approval-seekers rather than approval-givers.  They want the girls to notice how good-natured and fun-loving they are.  In other aspects of life, men who smile too much are looked upon with suspicion.  In fact, there is a word for perpetually smiling guys — used car salesmen.

One thing the naturals do well is the friendly smile when approaching women.  This automatically sets them apart from most men.  But they drop the smile before it gets stale.  The smile alternates with the serious face and is punctuated with the occasional cocky smirk — it all plays into the girl’s desire for an unpredictable man.  If she’s smiling because of some deliberate action on my part, all is good.  If she’s smiling like a retarded billboard ad, I tell her she has a piece of food stuck in her teeth.

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Thought Experiment

Which male in the following list is more likely to be an absolute failure with women?:

• a felon
• a drug dealer
• a dumb meathead
• an unemployed DJ
• a jerk
• a computer programmer nerd

Don’t think too hard about this.  Go with your gut reaction, not the socially sanctioned, peer reviewed answer you want to be true.

What does your answer say to you?

*Update

Too easy.  Let’s raise the ante with a tougher comparison:

• convicted serial killers who have killed, dismembered, and refrigerated body parts and sexually violated the corpses
• a computer programming nerd who makes enough money to comfortably provide for a family of four in a leafy suburb

maybe they’d find love if they weren’t such social misfits…

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Where Guys Falter

The best way to do well with women over the long haul is to think like them, understand them, and put yourself in their shoes.  The man who can empathize with a woman’s frustrations will know better how to make her happy.  All the great seducers of history co-opted to some degree the psychology and the courting tactics of women.  They used women’s pyschological weapons against them.

This is why European men have a reputation for smoothness with the ladies — they spend more time than American men in the company of women, participating in activities and intellectual pursuits that appeal to women, learning about them.  American men bemoan their dating hardships, but spending all their free time watching sports, drinking beer, video gaming, and golfing, where no women are present, only to take a flailing Saturday night stab at getting laid in overheated bar environments, is not a good way to learn how to turn women on.

The inexperience of many guys around women shows in their ham-fisted come-ons.  They often act so counter-productively that it’s a wonder any girls give it up to them at all.  Verbally gang tackling a group of girls at a bar is one example.  Which guy, in a moment of reflection, really believes that approaching two girls with five of his buddies in phalanx formation and swarming them like vultures over a carcass will win their affections?  Guys who don’t have the sack to approach women on their own should not advertise their weakness by storming in with a giant cock posse for battlefield support.  Two guys maximum.  If necessary, hold off on waving the rest of the crew in until after the set has been warmed up in a non-threatening way.

Guys also do not listen.  Well, not in the way that women want to be listened to.  A guy should listen to a woman with the same intensity he listens to his buddies talk about football or German hookers.  The focus that a nerd brings to tackling a coding problem is the same focus that a guy should have when listening to an attractive woman speak.  The trick is to do it with the distracted aloofness of someone not hanging on her every word.  It’s very alluring to a girl when a guy off-handedly recalls some inconspicuous detail he picked up about her while she was talking without looking like he worked hard to remember it.  It subconsciously says to her “This guy is not desperate, but wow I must be making an impression because he remembers how I felt when I danced at my sister’s wedding.  We connect!”

This isn’t meant as mealy-mouthed John Gray relationship pap; listening intently to a woman will give him all the information he needs to successfully seduce her.  Women reveal so much about themselves in conversation — they can’t help it because they are self-obsessed creatures by nature — but they only do it in subtle read-between-the-lines ways, feminine ways, that to the uninitiated man will pass right under his radar.  It’s a double curse that boobs and pretty eyes cloud his efforts to stay engaged with her words.

To seduce women, you must seduce yourself first.  You are the guy who will be everything she needs.  How will you know what she needs?  Get inside her head.  Become her.

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