The Benefit Of Losing Your Cool (Sometimes)

A reader asks:

I got mad at my girlfriend of a year earlier today for something she did, and after I was cooled off I talked to her about it and everything’s good now, but at one point she said “this is why you’re scary sometimes…these rash reactions and the leaping to conclusions…” and I’m not sure if that’s to be taken as a good thing or a bad thing? Could you give your opinion on this?

A good thing. Unpredictability and volatility are male attractiveness traits, in measured doses. (Too much of either and she’ll begin to devalue you as someone who has no state control.) Losing your cool — as long as you do it infrequently — will keep a woman on her toes and her hamster at full throttle, which translates to long-lasting desire for your attention and love. And rumblestick.

Women’s greatest horniness lies in anxiety.

Is America A Vector Of Evil?

Over at Mangan’s blog in a post about how the U.S. State Department (a den of transnationalist vipers) is betraying oppressed (yes, genuinely oppressed) Christians living in the Middle East, the commenter WLW writes (and links to Peter Frost, another good blog):

[Re:] how we are stabbing not only our own people but people of our own faith.

Peter Frost on his blog “Evo and Proud” writes this:
“South Korea has entered what may be called ‘late’ or ‘mature’ capitalism. The business community has emancipated itself from the nation state and is now willing to enrich itself at the expense of its host society, notably by outsourcing employment to lower-wage countries and by “insourcing” lower-wage labor. To this end, its political spokesmen borrow leftwing discourse to create an artificial Left-Right consensus.”

From South Korea abolishes itself

What he records about what is happening in South Korea, is what is happening in this country. Nationalism is evil. They have the Koreans abolishing themselves? What a wicked title but true. And he points out that it was America that did it. America is the seat of World Revolution. It is now the seat of Marxism.

South Korea needs to sever their “special relationship” with the U.S., before it’s too late. Unfortunately, it seems the mind virus — the most powerful mind virus ever created in human history — that has so wholly consumed the body politic of America is rapidly metastasizing in South Korea.

America, exporting:

obesity
feminism
multicult
ethnomasochism
wage gutting insourcing/outsourcing
parasitic oligarchism and
self-abnegating national suicide

since circa 1965 (date of the passage of the law which was the beginning of the end of the historic United States).

If karma exists (and no, it doesn’t, but let’s play hypothetical), then there will soon come a day when these traitorous puppetmasters will hang, twisting on the gallows under a bright midday sun. And the men will spit on their bodies, and the women will rejoice, and the children will squeal with glee.

Now, personally, I feel a great sadness having to declare the nation of my birth a messenger of evil. The last thing I want to do is give foreign enemies of the U.S. an excuse to kill fellow Americans who have no connection with the filthy in-house elites driving policy and discourse. If a real revolution is to come, I don’t want it to come at the hands of Hin Jao or Ibn Muhammed. I want it to come from within, by the people who are truly aggrieved and have a stake in seeing a return to greatness of the country they once loved, and the country which deserved their love.

If you thought WWII was the last time American mettle was tested, well, you might be surprised what the next decade or two offers. A wind rustles through the falling leaves, whispers of omen…

Spot The Alpha

It’s not often we get a photo with two super alphas — representing different male factions — squaring off in friendly admiration rather than combative distrust. But here we have it with Putin and the leader of a Russian motorcycle gang whose name is too long for me to bother spelling out, swapping war stories.

“Comrade leader, I incapacitated five Chechyans last week utilizing nothing but a half-full bottle of wuuudka and a babushka’s hairpin. You would have loved to been there.”

“Alexander, my old friend, we have shared many a ride across the Siberian tundra, have we not? Then you know there is no need for me to tell you that the great shame is the wuuudka you spilled on behalf of the Motherland. Could you not have done the same with some of that Polska shit?”

“Haha, da da, good point, my dear friend!”

“Maybe next time I show you what makes great bear of Russian brother — a polonium tipped umbrella and a 20 year old gymnast!”

Strictly speaking, and in broad terms, Putin is undoubtedly the bigger alpha here. Putin ostensibly runs a country; Alexander the Biker runs a bike gang.

But alpha is often context dependent. Should he so choose, Putin has the fame and power and mystique to clean up with the ladies pretty much wherever he goes, but there are probably some biker bars where Alex is king of the hill and the girls will encircle him as aggressively or moreso than they will Putin. In the cramped quarters of a bar or street gathering, away from the media and cameras, these two men will be judged on more immediate male attractiveness criteria than their ability to pull off power moves in the Politburo.

With that in mind, this moment in time caught in a photo offers a rare glimpse of two fairly equal alphas in a pose-off. Putin, the shorter one, has a clear physical disadvantage in size that deflates some of his alpha allure. But Putin’s solid alpha body language — his ramrod posture, devious grin and straightforward gaze that avoids a betafying crane of the neck upward at the taller Alex — neutralizes his lesser stature.

Meanwhile, Alex’s posture and BL are just as alpha, and his face, too, is etched with a self-satisfied smirk. Interestingly, if you look closely at his eyes, it seems as if Alex is attempting a higher status coup over Putin — or is he offering a small gesture of respect to him? — by refraining from bending his head downward to look at Putin. Only his eyes travel downward to the direction of Putin’s eyes. The impression Alex gives is one of haughtiness.

The other bikers are focused on their leader, although that could just be because he is the one talking at the moment the picture was snapped. It could also be that these men, having been through more crazy shit with Alex, know the depth of his alphaness. Putin’s alphaness they know only from digesting media reports, and from his automatic status as a world leader.

It is that intimacy with Alex’s character that earns their deeper loyalty and admiration. There’s a lesson there.

The Importance Of Male Style

If you follow the conventional wisdom closely, (or just leave your apartment once in a while), you’ll come under the impression that a good sense of style is more beneficial to women than it is to men. Women are the ones who lacquer themselves in lotions potions liners and rouges, spend exhorbitant amounts of green on fashionable attire, and coif their hair to perfection down to the last flyaway strand.

Men, in contrast, are the ones who throw on a pair of jeans and an ill-fitting button-down.

Now, the CW makes some sense, at least in the big picture. Women, being the sex whose primary attractiveness derives from their looks, would want to focus on maximizing the display of those looks. Men, whose primary attractiveness derives from status and attitude, don’t get as much SMV bang for the buck from ken dolling themselves up. But I’m here to tell you that for some men, particularly ugly men, style can play a huge role in boosting their perceived attractiveness.

Maxim #77: The role of style in diverting attention from male ugliness is severely underplayed by most ugly men.

I was at a party and noticed down at the other end of a long hall a small congregation of girls swirling around one man. I stepped closer to check out the scene, and if any of the girls were ones I knew. I didn’t know anyone, but I did notice the guy, and he was one ugly-ass mofo. Bug eyes, big ears, blotchy skin, beak nose, and horrible teeth, some of which were snaggletooths jutting out at angles like broken glass.

Now I’ve been around long enough that the sight of an ugly man holding court with one or more hot babes is nothing surprising to me. I know a man’s can-bang attitude can compensate for poor facial structure genes. But I also know it can only compensate so much. There has to be something else that distracts girls from the ugliness. And in his case, it was his flashy style.

He was decked out in what looked like Italian shoes, a fitted metallic gray suit, red socks, vest, blood red tie with some sort of iridescent pattern, and big tortoise shell designer sunglasses. He sported a very minor fauxhawk, and was well-tanned. He was a skinny white guy, average height. He smiled like he knew he was the go-to guy at that party. I could have sworn he had a gold cap on one of his miserable teeth.

No homo here, but I have to tell you, the combined sight of the girls swarming around him like he was a maypole (manpole?) plus his impeccable dress played with my powers of observation. The ugliness that assaulted me at first began to dissipate, and suddenly I was looking at a guy who left me with little doubt he knew how to seduce women. Now imagine that perception-warping power quadrupled when used against women, who are after all the sex with the more easily manipulable acumen.

Great style — the kind of style that says you are confident enough to outshine other men and that you have exquisite taste for the finer things in life — is ugliness-reducing. If you are an ugly man, you WILL become less ugly to women if you dress like you’re a leading man. Coupled with game and a totally un-self-conscious attitude, girls will not even notice they are falling for a troll.

NOTE: Does not work for women. Ugly women can maybe… MAYBE… add a quarter point to their rank with good style, but unfortunately for them men are so piercingly attuned to women’s facial features and body that not even the best tailored fashion can alter the trajectory of their target designators. Ugly men have options that ugly women do not.

If you are an average-looking man, the right style will help, but you won’t see as much of a benefit from it as the ugly man. There are diminishing returns to dressing to excess. If you are a good-looking man, you are almost better off *downscaling* your style, so that you don’t intimidate girls into thinking you’re unattainable. Very good-looking men with game who also dress with flash should focus on 9s and 10s, because those will be the only types of girls who won’t give such a man undue grief for making them feel like he is out of their league.

I later learned the ugly guy worked for Prada, and he was wearing one of their suits. I also learned something which only one other person knew at that party: he was bi. Those girls smitten by his style and charm were in for disappointment, unless they like to share.

The Business Of Game

There’s an interesting article on Yahoo of all places, about the ways in which people are susceptible to subtle advertising and product placement manipulation. The author of a new book “Brandwashed”, uses Whole Foods as an example of the myriad ways you fall under the spell of clever retail strategies. While reading about Whole Foods’ devious treachery, I couldn’t help but notice parallels between retail practices and game.

Let’s take for example Whole Foods, a market chain priding itself on selling the highest quality, freshest, and most environmentally sound produce. No one could argue that their selection of organic food and take-away meals are whole, hearty, and totally delicious. But how much thought have you given to how they’re actually presenting their wares? Have you considered the careful planning that goes into every detail that meets the eye?

Game Parallel: Tight game means the girl will never be consciously aware that she’s being gamed, nor will she ever become cognizant of the amount of effort you, as the man, put into your presentation. Instead, you want her to think it will all seem to “just happen” and “it was magic”. She doesn’t need to be concerned with the messy details of seduction; she only needs to feel those good feelings.

Let’s pay a visit to Whole Foods’ splendid Columbus Circle store in New York City. As you descend the escalator you enter the realm of a freshly cut flowers. These are what advertisers call “symbolics” — unconscious suggestions. In this case, letting us know that what’s before us is bursting with freshness.

Flowers, as everyone knows, are among the freshest, most perishable objects on earth. Which is why fresh flowers are placed right up front — to “prime” us to think of freshness the moment we enter the store. Consider the opposite — what if we entered the store and were greeted with stacks of canned tuna and plastic flowers? Having been primed at the outset, we continue to carry that association, albeit subconsciously, with us as we shop.

Game Parallel: Your first impression has to be good. You are presenting yourself as “fresh, bursting manhood”, not a plastic beta cut-out. Your “symbolics” are your style, your walk, your alpha posture, your body language, your vocal tone and cadence, and any shiny accoutrements you wear to attract the child-like attention of the woman. Having primed a woman at the outset, she will be more willing to hear the rest of your pitch.

The prices for the flowers, as for all the fresh fruits and vegetables, are scrawled in chalk on fragments of black slate — a tradition of outdoor European marketplaces. It’s as if the farmer pulled up in front of Whole Foods just this morning, unloaded his produce, then hopped back in his flatbed truck to drive back upstate to his country farm. The dashed-off scrawl also suggests the price changes daily, just as it might at a roadside farm stand or local market. But in fact, most of the produce was flown in days ago, its price set at the Whole Foods corporate headquarters in Texas. Not only do the prices stay fixed, but what might look like chalk on the board is actually indelible; the signs have been mass-produced in a factory.

Game Parallel: Scripted routines and stories that demonstrate high value. The DHV story is your chalkboard price. She thinks you just rolled up with your high value fresh eggplant and kiwis falling off the truck; little does she know your story is rehearsed and was practiced on multitudes of women before her.

Ever notice that there’s ice everywhere in this store? Why? Does hummus really need to be kept so cold? What about cucumber-and-yogurt dip? No and no. This ice is another symbolic. Similarly, for years now supermarkets have been sprinkling select vegetables with regular drops of water — a trend that began in Denmark. Why? Like ice displays, those sprinkled drops serve as a symbolic, albeit a bogus one, of freshness and purity. Ironically, that same dewy mist makes the vegetables rot more quickly than they would otherwise. So much for perception versus reality.

Game Parallel: Rings, tight t-shirts, bracelets and props. The usual titillating tools of the trade. Also, negs. Negs are the crushed ice of conversation; a helpful reminder that the produce (you) that she’s checking out lays atop a cooling foundation of freshness-preserving amused mastery.

Speaking of fruit, you may think a banana is just a banana, but it’s not. Dole and other banana growers have turned the creation of a banana into a science, in part to manipulate perceptions of freshness. In fact, they’ve issued a banana guide to greengrocers, illustrating the various color stages a banana can attain during its life cycle. Each color represents the sales potential for the banana in question. For example, sales records show that bananas with Pantone color 13-0858 (otherwise known as Vibrant Yellow) are less likely to sell than bananas with Pantone color 12-0752 (also called Buttercup), which is one grade warmer, visually, and seems to imply a riper, fresher fruit.

Game Parallel: Preselection. Chicks dig the buttercup cock. You are convincing her your cock is the perfect Pantone color, at peak ripeness. Quickest way to do this is to be seen with other women, or insinuate that you get plenty of attention from other women.

And as for apples? Believe it or not, my research found that while it may look fresh, the average apple you see in the supermarket is actually 14 months old.

Game Parallel: Non-neediness. You mouthstuffed 14 girls on the walk through the parking lot to the club using the same schtick on them that you are now using on her. But she thinks she just plucked you and she’s the center of your universe.

Then there’s those cardboard boxes with anywhere from eight to ten fresh cantaloupes packed inside each one. These boxes could have been unpacked easily by any one of Whole Foods’ employees, but they’re left that way on purpose. Why? For that rustic, aw-shucks touch. In other words, it’s a symbolic to reinforce the idea of old-time simplicity.

Game Parallel: Strategic vulnerability. Temper your cockiness with brief flashes of empathy. It makes you seem more attainable.

But wait, something about these boxes looks off. Upon close inspection, this stack of crates looks like one giant cardboard box. It can’t be, can it? It is. In fact, it’s one humongous cardboard box with fissures cut carefully down the side that faces consumers (most likely by some industrial machinery at a factory in China) to make it appear as though this one giant cardboard box is made up of multiple stacked boxes. It’s ingenious in its ability to evoke the image of Grapes of Wrath-era laborers piling box after box of fresh fruit into the store.

Game Parallel: Beta provider game. If you’re good, you can plausibly promise marriage and white picket fences for years before she catches on that you’re just one giant box of erect penis.

So the next time you happen to grab your wallet to go shopping, don’t be fooled: retailers for better or for worse, are the masters of seduction and priming — brandwashing us to believe in perception rather than reality.

Game Parallel: The alteration of perception to achieve the ultimate seduction. Game is certainly about altering a girl’s perception of you, but when you do it enough times, the perception becomes reality. It is a reality the girl herself has co-conspired to create.

Whole Foods is in the business of selling produce and expensive cheeses. Whole Game is the business of selling yourself. Why wouldn’t you use every sales technique at your disposal? If you don’t out of some misplaced moral compunction, you will soon be put out of business by the competition.

Wrapped Around His Finger

We talk a lot about alpha males here, and their mysterious pull on women. We discuss their attributes, their attitude and their game, and how and why it works to vibrate vaginas all across the land. But sometimes the weight of theory can deaden the senses, and it helps to have a real-life, flesh and blood exemplar of alphaness staring you in the face to bring that theory down to solid earth, where you can see and hear it all from your personal first-person view. In that spirit, I will relay a moment in time from my life so that you can feel like you’re stepping in my shoes and witnessing it yourself.

I was at a large social event (the more astute readers will be able to figure out the type of event from details in this post) and was seated at a table with mostly women — all in their mid to late 20s — and a couple of men. As a keen observer of sexual dynamics, the rapport between one of the men and his girlfriend was especially entertaining to me.

She was completely enamored of him, leaning against him, smiling at him (and when she wasn’t smiling she was “smizing” at him  — smiling with her eyes), touching him on his hands and arms and shoulders and thighs, blushing periodically when he deigned to smirk at her (which wasn’t often), flattering him, imperceptibly nudging her chair closer to his, nuzzling into his man-nook where pec meets armpit, gazing up at his face (and I do mean UP, as she would deliberately arch her back and neck so that her body was compressed in the vertical and he was looming over the top of her head), defending him when her girl friends were challenging him on something he said, and, best of all, apologizing profusely for imagined slights that she believed she had accidentally committed against him. When she spoke, either to him or to others in his company, she sounded, not to put too fine a point on it, like a ditz. Yes, she was doing all this in front of about ten people, some total strangers to her.

For his part, he was behaving and speaking in almost the exact opposite manner as his girlfriend. He would sit straight, neither leaning away nor into her, would speak in a heavy and deep monotone, would rarely smile (and when he did it was always a half-assed “yeah i’m the douchebag you wish you were” effort), would only touch her when he was reaching around to grab her ass for a makeout, seemed oblivious to her cloying flattery, effected an air of imperturbable indifference, showed little outward signs of affection for her except for the one time I caught sight of them absconding to what they thought was a private location, occasionally spoke ill of her even to the point of insulting her, never complimented her, looked straight ahead in the middle distance when she complimented him, never said “thank you” or “excuse me”, never excused or “forgave” her when she was excessively apologizing to him (in fact, he seemed to relish her clumsy supplication), would sometimes insult her friends right in front of her, would often command (not ask) her to get him a drink, and, best of all, flirted with other hot girls at the table.

There was a telling moment of the nature of their relationship early in the night. She was giddy and excitable as she laughed with her girlfriends and some new arrivals, when it suddenly dawned on her that she had neglected to promptly introduce her boyfriend to everyone. (And by promptly, I mean not more than three seconds had passed before she caught herself in this supposed irredeemable faux pas.) Red-faced, she humbly corrected herself.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” she pleaded as she looked at him. “I’m so sorry! So sorry! I forgot to introduce you to everyone! Everyone, this is [name], my boyfriend.” Now semi-whispering to him, “Sorry, baby! Sorry.”

His facial expression remained unmoved. A powerful pause heightened the awkwardness before he answered. “Don’t worry about it. I got it.” He then nods in the direction of the others.

His vocal tone and expression are important here. It was not consolingly beta, where the pitch rises on “worry” and descends to a loving shoulder rub on an elongated “I got it”, as his eyes crinkle at the corners in reassurance. Nope, it was more like a staccato, Draper-esque, punch to the face, flatly delivered, emotionless except for a hint of contempt, which was noticeable in the way he commandeered the drama by addressing the table himself and refusing to glance at her as she effused with apologia.

I watched admiringly. The other man at the table glanced at his feet nervously. The girls were a mix of hatred and arousal.

This guy was the flawless encapsulation of the jerk. The dick. The narcissistic prick. All together now…

The Asshole Hot Chicks Love.

And she? She was the hot chick who loves an asshole. Every mannerism, word and body shift — right down to the tiniest facial tic — telegraphed her absolute devotion — her ADDICTION — to her jerk boyfriend.

Now some of you will parry with the usual gripes. But before you do, know the following:

She graduated from a top-tier Ivy. Her degree is in a numbers-related field. She is hot, a hard 8.5. Her body is worthy of a sacrificial fuckening. According to my sources, when she isn’t with her alpha-squared asshole boyfriend, she is one of the smartest, most put-together and confident girls in a room. The ditz act, apparently, only blossoms in his presence. Her girl friends are jealous of her even though they hate what she becomes when she’s with him. And the blow that I know will sting beta males the worst? She COULD have almost any man she wanted — good men, solid company men, respectable men of their communities — but she chooses to be with an arrogant renegade.

And him? Decent looking. Easy on the eyes, I suppose most women would say. Certainly not Hollywood looks. Not a big or muscular guy. Lean to the point of skinny. Edgy, downscale style. (She showed up at this event poured into an exquisite cocktail dress. He arrived late with her, wearing frayed designer jeans and an untucked tight flannel shirt over a white Hanes wifebeater that was showing through the top. Most of the other men were wearing suits.) He was short. Yes, he might have been a half inch shorter than his gf. Unemployed.

You read that right. He lost his [redacted] industry job six months ago and was living off her earnings. He has money, but he doesn’t spend it because, as he explained to me, he’s saving it for a few years of fun-time travel. Whether he intends her to go with him or not is left to interpretation.

None of this is new to me. I’ve met guys like him before. I’ve *been* that guy plenty of times, when the mood strikes. I’m intimately familiar with the adoring love copping such a grotesque asshole alpha attitude inspires in women. There is no escaping that this is a reality of female sexual nature, a powerfully harsh reality that sends shockwaves of disbelief and disillusion through the more tenderhearted of the inexperienced idealists. Some learn from what they see behind the curtain; others cocoon further into self-medicating platitudes.

And what about the spectators? What did the men and women in attendance think of him, both those who knew and knew of him? From what I could glean, the men were largely neutral. Some hated him (usually the biggest betas with overbearing girlfriends), some liked him (maybe not surprising, the alphas and the omegas were affable toward him), and most were willing to throw him under the bus in furtive conversation at the behest of their gossipy girlfriends.

More pertinently, how did the women — all of them well-educated urbanite professionals — feel about him? In his company, they were girlish and borderline shy, or self-conscious. Behind his back, they were disparaging, complaining bitterly of the way he treats his girlfriend (bitterness was correlated with their closeness to her), and constantly — I mean CONSTANTLY — working to install his ouster. I saw one girl drag her away so that she could introduce her to a man who, unknown to her at the time, was a handsome gay man.

If you held any doubts that girl friends will not conspire against you should they find you unacceptable boyfriend material for their friend, well… you can put those doubts to rest now.

Of course, none of their efforts worked in the least. He had been dating his girlfriend for many years, during which time he has cheated on her for months at a stretch with more than one woman. His cheating, his aloof treatment of her, her friends’ dispproval… none of it seemed to have dampened her love for him. Or her loyalty to him, for as I learned from a trusted source, she never, not once in the sumptuous prime of her life when she had every excuse and rationale to do so, cheated on him.

Remember that the next time you hear of some whiny ho cheating on her beta boyfriend, and rationalizing it by blaming it all on him.

The professed hate the girls had for this asshole boyfriend of one of their friends, and the wet glower in their eyes when they spoke of him, belied a primitive attraction. It was not the impassioned hate a man has for another man who has humiliated him, or the withering hate a woman has for a weak ex-lover who now repulses her. When I heard them talk about him, their words ostensibly carried a payload of anger and disgust, but it was a gossamer veneer; to a hardened pro of female codespeak like myself, the dulcet harmonies of untamed curiosity sent their words aloft on a stanza of gina tingles. Listen closely, and you can hear the subliminal poetry asserting itself — “ode to why oh why do i hate this guy but feel like i do?”

Interestingly, there was one girl, a looker in every way and smart as tacks to boot, whose loathing for the asshole boyfriend of her best friend seemed the most genuine. I say “seemed”, because it may merely be the case that she was best at concealing her shameful intrigue. Whatever the true motivation, I found her responses to him the most cutting. She was clearly aiming for the throat, and her eyes pierced like laser beams, her voice cold and still as sheet ice. Lesser men would have suffered a grievous wound from her attacks, for her barbs were sharp and subtle enough to avoid triggering a hen phalanx of social diplomacy. But the asshole deflected her thrusts without breaking a sweat. In the smarts department, he was outclassed, but in the attitude department he had her number.

Why did I find this dynamic the most interesting? Background helps. She was dating a considerably older man who was not present at this event, an alpha male in his own right, for many years. Perhaps, intimate familiarity with her own alpha braces her for the abyss that always looms ominously to eternally capture a woman’s heart should she become completely unguarded. She sees in the asshole boyfriend of her friend the power the alpha male has over all female sense and reason, and she wants to put him on notice. It is her redemption.

More interesting, she alone among all the girl friends never consoled her smitten friend, never attempted to introduce her to new men, and never assuaged her ego by telling her she could do better. She was smart enough to know those kinds of interventions have no effect and, worse, usually result in the opposite of what was intended. There’s an unwritten rule among very high-value women who date alpha males — the hate is for show. No woman would seriously give up the pleasure she gets from dating the alpha jerks she loves. They’d all poach each other’s boyfriends given half the chance, and they know it.

A Test Of Your Game: The Group Approach

Sidewinder writes:

In-the-field game question:

In an informal bar setting, lots of people standing and talking within their own social groups-

When approaching or opening (whether the target girl or her friend), a form of bitch shield goes immediately up. Not a rude bitch shield, but a short, indifferent “I-don’t-know-you-and-i’m-going-to-be-polite-for-5-seconds-before-I-stop-talking-to-you” vibe. They provide no opening to DHV. While polite, they seem as if I interrupted their discussion. I believe it to be geniune disinterest and not some form of shit test.

As an average looking man of average height and weight, I completely understand their polite indifference. But I don’t even get a chance to game them. Any tips on how to hook them into a convo?

This sounds like a problem of game fundamentals. Are you opening with a false time constraint? “Hey, guys, I only have a second, but my friend and I were wondering…”. Something along those lines. FTCs are a psychological ploy that put strangers at ease that you aren’t a weirdo who will loiter uncomfortably around their group seeking social validation. It also causes a listener to invest more attention into what you are about to say, since you won’t be around for long. It’s similar in principle to the sales technique of product or price constraint (“This model going fast!” “These rock bottom prices won’t last!”).

Also, are you approaching from an angle, looking at the group from over your shoulder? Body position is critical to approach success. A guy striding into a group head-on will trigger shields faster than a cool dude glancing over his shoulder. Try finding a spot next to the bar so that you can stand facing outward. It makes opening adjacent sets much easier.

Another thought: you might be blowing yourself out with bad body language or poor style. Either of those things can cause a group to immediately shut you out, but particularly the first. (Poor style can be compensated for with confident BL.)

I’d need to know more specifics to give you advice suited to your problem, such as what it is exactly you are saying or doing as you approach. In the meantime, I’ll toss this test-of-your-game discussion to the studio audience to hash out for your benefit (or their amusement).

UPDATE

Anonymous writes:

While looking like you’re writing a text, ask the group if anyone speaks Spanish (or another language one of them is likely to speak and you’re not likely to know as well).

The hottest woman will assume that someone other than she has your thoughts (the person you’re writing to mainly and the volunteer translator secondarily). It’s an open ended question as well, but be prepared to have an amusing sentence to translate, or a mysterious one, or one that confers status without it being obvious what you’re doing. Or all three.

Often you’ll get the translation and sit back down at your spot while they go about their conversation. That’s OK. You’re now an old friend to them or at least a known quantity. Your status is higher as a result. You can reopen with a different sentence to translate or open with something else. You’ve got good guy cred at that point.

Cell phones are now one of the best props ever.

Excellent DQ/DHV all in one. Might as well use technology to your maximum benefit. For even better results, ask girl(s) if anyone speaks Russian.