Grow Your Game

In the book ‘The Game’, Style talks about how he number closes a Playboy Playmate. Standing on his great shoulders, I’m pleased to report that I was able to take things one step further – and I’m going to share that story with you today.

I was running a The Mystery Method workshop in LA a few months back. We were about to start teaching Day 2, when Carlos taps me on the shoulder and points out this chick in the hotel lobby.

Carlos has some pretty high standards, and if he points out a girl, it’s worth taking a second look. This chick was smoking – even in her gym clothes, you could see she was a 10 out of 10 … or as close to it as a real woman can get!

The lift doors open, and it’s time to get in, but if experience has taught me anything, it’s that there’s always 500 excuses not to approach – and 1 very good reason to approach. Even though I’ve done this a million and one times, I still get a bit of anxiety about approaching girls – I’m good, but I’m also human. At the end of the day, you’re a man of your actions, not your words, so I walk on over.

As I go in, my training and experience start to kick in – I’ve done this quite literally 1,000 times. I’m considering the best approach, but I’m strangely zen-like calm. The closer I get, the more I realise this chick is even hotter up close than I’d realised. She’s getting hotter and hotter with each step – long blonde hair, beautiful figure, and exquisite features. Oh, and, the workshop starts in 5 minutes!

Logistically, how do you approach a super-hot girl during the day? Full credit to London Soul for recently showing me you can go in direct, but my experience is: if the girl is super-hot, with lots of social value, you can get more consistent results from going in slightly more indirect.

I don’t want to open the target directly, but luckily there’s a concierge, and he HAS to be nice to me. If I can open him, and demonstrate high value (DHV) quickly, I’m in without looking try-hard. And if I give a little thought to my opener, I can transfer it over to her.

Luckily, I think fast. Prior preparation and planning prevent poor performance and all that…

Mr M: ‘Hey buddy… do you know if there’s a place around here where I can get some quick food?’

Simple, functional, and just loud enough for her to hear too. All I need from him at this point is some acknowledgement of my question. I don’t need to wait for him to come up with twenty options – I’m bringing the party, not waiting for them to bring the party to me!

GUY: ‘Hmm…’

Mr M: ‘I’ve got to lead a seminar downstairs in 5 minutes but I’m starved but there was something wrong with the meat in this burger [pointing to fast food paper bag in my hand]. I think I might get mad cow disease from it or something’.

Simple little demonstrator of value, in terms of leading a seminar (being a leader of men is one of the important attraction switches), a bit of humour thrown in for good measure, and I even added a time constraint in to take the pressure out of the situation. Out of the corner of my eye, I see that she smiles. That’s the hook point I need.

I’m genuinely on a tight timeframe here, so I open her with the same functional opener straight.

Mr M: You know where I can get healthy beef burger?

Let’s be honest. This isn’t the best chatup line in the world. There’s limited places for it to go, and it’s not that funny or cool. But the point of the opener isn’t magical chatup lines. It’s not to find one or two phrases that’ll make her magically drop her panties. It’s about getting in to a conversation, and then switching to a new topic:

Playmate: There’s a burger shop down the road.

Mr M: Do they have good burgers?

Playmate: I think so.

Mr M: Made from healthy cows?

Playmate: [Laughs]

Mr M: Thanks

OK, so that’s our opener done. Rather than start asking her lots of questions about herself like every other guy, I’m bringing the party to her, not asking her to be the party (this is a consistent theme!) I don’t want to let the pressure build up on her, and she knows that she’s not done anything yet to earn my attention other than look pretty. So I turn as if I was going to move away, and then back to her as if I’ve just thought of something important – this is called ‘body rocking’.

Mr M: You know, you remind me of a friend of mine that I used to hang out with while I travelled Australia. She was cool, funny and fun – they don’t make that type of girl much anymore. Her name was Brenda but we used to call her Bertha. I don’t know your name so I’m just gonna call you Bertha. Thanks Bertha [Hold hand out to shake her hand]

Playmate: [Laughs] I really don’t like that name. [shakes my hand].

Mr M: Jesus, I’ve only known you for like 2 seconds and we’re already not getting along.

Giving girls stupid names is a great tool. It diffuses any weird ‘trying to look cool’ tension, makes her look a bit silly, and puts you in control. When she says she doesn’t like it, rather than apologise, I push her away a bit jokingly. Having these little barriers is what creates sexual tension – and most men are always trying to knock them down, not put them up!

The interaction continues. Rather than using memorised lines, I’m just using certain principles that I know build attraction. I’m talking about the other women in my life (but there’s an art to doing this – you don’t want to seem like you’re boasting!), talk about travelling, but at the same time teasing her more and creating more little barriers between us.

I am now very conscious that Carlos and I need to get to seminar. It’s been like 10 – 15 minutes. We’re getting late. Also, he’s watching and waiting near the lift. I now have a student watching too. Plus, the guy I originally asked about the burger is starting to stare. I’ve got an audience … time to get out of there.

I’ve demonstrated enough value. Any other girl would have been putty in my hands already so I close using a standard, but solid, number close: ‘It was cool meeting you. Lets catch up tonight at Bar X. What’s the best way of getting into contact with you?’ Simple, effective, and I stole if from Adam Lyons!

She pulls out a card from her purse, gets a pen and writes her number on it. I take the card. It says, ‘[Name], Playboy Playmate, FHM model, Cover Girl on [a bunch of magazines], TV appearances on [about 20 programs including MTV soulmates, NBC, E! etc etc]’. And it has a half naked centerfold picture of her on it.

I tease her for being a poster girl, say goodbye, smile warmly, walk away and get into the lift. I hand Carlos the card. He looks at me sheepishly. We both start to laugh. Poor guy says it was a turning point for him not to hesitate as it should’ve been him!

Continued in Picking Up a Playmate – Part 2

Many guys seem to spend their life in one of two states: being with a girl they don’t like and desperately trying to get over the last girl they were with. Neither’s a great place to be, and this site is full of advice on meeting new women. But how do you get over your ex?

Stop Stroking The Sausage

You have to stop jerking off thinking about her. This is huge. Every time you fumble the firkin while fantasizing about her, you’re just strengthening the connection in your brain to her. Even if she keeps popping up, you’ve got to replace this image with someone else.

Diversify Your Mind

Get busy, and keep busy. Start new hobbies and experience new things that aren’t related to her. Breathe some new life in to your social life. If you’ve not got much going on, your brain will keep going back to thoughts that get an emotional reaction from you … such as the fact that you’re feeling heart-broken. Start talking to as many women as you can – you’d be amazed what kissing a new girl can do.

Set Boundaries

One of the biggest kickers in being dumped is the sudden feeling of lack of control. Maybe you send her a message, and don’t get a reply, and then you feel even more lonely? Stop that shit. If you must keep in contact, do it on your terms. Promise yourself that you’ll only reply to her messages once a day, and that you won’t speak on the phone. Refuse to get drawn in to any discussions about:

• The possibility of you getting back together
• How you still mean so much to her as a friend
• Her feelings for you
• Your feelings for her

You guys are finished. If she wants to get back together, she can be explicit about it. Even though you split up, she’s still going to get a nice little validation shot from knowing you’re still in to her – and the above topics will all lead to that. Take control back!

It’s Not About Her

However amazing this chick was, she’s just a chick. And even if she sucked, your brain is going to play a mean trick on you: it’ll make you think that this one girl was The One True Girl For You. She isn’t. You have a girl-shaped hole in your emotions, and you’re getting that confused with a her-shaped hole. Yes you liked her for reasons x, y, and z. But you’re coming up with logical reasons here for a very emotional reaction to losing someone, and the more you recognize that, the better.

Stop Caring How She Feels About You

Guys obsess about girls when they’re not sure how the girl feels about them. If the girl would just say it, they could move on, but that never seems to happen. If she dumped you, she doesn’t want to be with you. If you’ve asked her out on a date, and she’s said no, she doesn’t want to be with you. If you’ve made your move, and she didn’t go along with it, she doesn’t want to be with you. Stop trying to find out if there’s a part of her that likes you – whether there is or isn’t, the overall part doesn’t want the two of you together. Be firm with yourself, and accept this!

Conclusion

Like getting over an addiction, your brain will try and create all sorts of rationalizations for your feeling of loss. Just because your brain tells you something, doesn’t mean it’s real.

It will take you a few weeks or months to get over a girl. You will still think about her six months later. But here’s the thing: that doesn’t MEAN anything, other than your brain is working how everyone else’s does.

Take control of the situation, and take control of yourself.

Hey happy people,

Grow Your Game’s Top Links has been running since early June this year. In that time we’ve had about 1,200 stories submitted from 100 users, with almost 200 active users voting on those.

We get a lot of email from people asking us what the top stories of the year have been. We had to do a little bit of pruning to remove some stupidity (like us rating stories 100 when we wanted to make an announcement – not so smart!), account for the fact that our admins’ votes count for 2, not 1 (we have to keep the place in some order!), remove any votes we added artificially in our first month when we were trying to get momentum going, and set the limit for popular stories waaaay too high, and clean up the small amount of vote-stuffing that we didn’t catch earlier in the year (if your account has stopped working, that’ll be why…).

But we did it.

Best stories

Are you an “Agenda Guy”?

Sinn sounds off about guys who can’t just chill out when they meet him … and if they can’t chill out when they meet him, how will they do that when they meet beautiful chicks? For some reason, this short and simple article seemed to really resonate with you guys.

Live your life, enjoy women’s company, assume nothing

Shocking to find a TD article in this list, eh? More shocking still that the article boils down to: Just Be Yourself. Great if lengthy reading.

Sticking Point Analysis

Captain Jack (who I had the pleasure of getting totally wasted with earlier this year) gives a great system for how to get good. Something that polarizes people about The Mystery Method is that it’s so systematic – some guys love that, some guys hate that. If you fit in to the ‘love that’ crowd, this article is for you!

Best sources

Tyler’s Blog

No-one has been quite as prolific as TD this year. Lots of great material in his blog – truly, sharing is caring. Average score of 7.3, over 27 articles…

Oracle of Sweden

I hadn’t heard of them either. But you guys sure did love their articles. Average score of 7.0, over 8 articles…

Sinns of Attraction

Not just one of my favourite people, but also one of my favourite writers. He’s come out with three new products this year, all of which are golden – the PUA of 2007 in my (really not that) humble opinion. Average score of 5.5 over 44 (FOURTY FOUR) articles submitted.

We Love

NLU

Our tireless admin for Grow Your Game. Couldn’t have done it without him. Thanks for everything!

Tenmagnet

Helped me came up with the idea for Grow Your Game, pushed me to make it happen, and then supported me tirelessly on his website. Thanks buddy, see you in Vegas!

crl826

I know nothing about this guy, other than he uses Grow Your Game more than anyone else. He doesn’t vote favourites (although he seems to like the stuff that the various PU101 guys put out), he doesn’t spam, but he tirelessly contributes. Email me from the email address you signed up with – I have a Xmas present for you.

PickUp Podcast

I love these guys.

Mr M and Adam Lyons

My personal wingmen. Both have successfully gamed celebrities that you’ve heard of this year. Both have insane game. And they’re two of my closest friends in this world – Thanks guys!

The following story is taken (abridged) from the McAuslan series by George Macdonald Frasier – a set of short stories about a young Scottish army officer immediately after the Second World War. The character described in the paragraphs I’ve transcribed – Captain Errol – is remarkable in that he shows so many qualities of a naturally attractive guy – a real alpha male. He leads and dominates, he doesn’t care about getting social rules wrong (although if called on them, doesn’t get aggressive) and most importantly – refuses to compete or argue with people – just carries on on the path he’s chosen:

He had the same casual, self-assured swagger of the man who is well content with himself and doesn’t give a damn whether anyone knows it or not; when you have two strings of medals, starting with the M.C. and M.M. and including the Croix de Guerre and a couple of exotic Balkan gongs at the end, you don’t need to put on side. Which was just as well, for Errol had evidently been born with a double helping of self-esteem, advertised in the amused half-smile and lifted eyebrow with which he surveyed the world in general – and me in particular on the day he joined the battalion.

It was as I was turning to follow that I became aware of an elegant figure seated in a horse-ghari which had just drawn up at the gate. He was a Highlander, but his red tartan and white cockade were not of our regiment; then I noticed the three pips and threw him a salute, which he acknowledged with a nonchalant finger and a remarkable request spoken in the airy affected drawl which in Glasgow is called ‘Kelvinsaid’.

“Hullo, laddie,” said he. “Your platoon? You might get a couple of them give me a hand with my kit, will you?”

It was said so affably that the effrontery of it didn’t dawn for a second – you don’t ask a perfect stranger to detach two of his marching men to be your porters, not without preamble or introduction. I started at the man, taking in the splendid bearing, the medal ribbons, and the pleasant expectant smile while he put a fresh cigarette in his holder.

“Eh? I beg your pardon,” I said stiffly, “but they’re on parade at the moment.” For some reason I didn’t add ’sir’.

It didn’t faze him a bit. “Oh, that’s a shame. Still not to panic. We ought to be able to manage between us. All right, Abdul,” he addressed the Arab coachman, “let’s get the cargo on the dock.”

He swung down lightly from the ghari – not the easiest thing to do, with decorum, in a kilt – and it was typical of the man that I found myself with a valise in one hand and a set of golf-clubs in the other before I realised that he was evidently expecting me to tote his damned dunnage for him. My platoon had vanished from sight, fortunately, but Sergeant Telfer had stopped and was staring back, goggle-eyed. Before I could speak the newcomer was addressing me again:

“Got fifty lire, old man? ‘Fraid all I have is Egyptian ackers, and the coachman won’t look at them. See him right, will you, and we’ll settle up anon. Okay?”

That, as they say, did it. “Laddie” I could just about absorb, and even his outrageous assumption that my private and personal platoon were his to flunkify, and that I would caddy for him and pay his blasted transport bills – but not that careless “Okay?” and the easy, patronising air which was all the worse for being so infernally amiable. Captian or no captain, I put his clubs and valise carefully back in the ghari and spoke, with masterly restraint:

“I’m afraid I haven’t fifty lire on me sir, but if you care to climb back in, the ghari can take you to the Paymaster’s Office in HQ Company; they’ll change your ackers and see to your kit.” And just to round off the civilities I added: “My name’s MacNeill, by the way, and I’m a platoon commander, not a bloody dragoman.”

Which was insubordination, but if you’d seen that sardonic eyebrow and God-like profile you’d have said it too. Again, it didn’t faze him; he actually chuckled.

“I stand rebuked. MacNeill, eh?” He glanced at my campaign ribbon. “What were you in Burma?”

“Other rank”

“Well, obviously, since you’re only a second-lieutenant now. What kind of other rank?”

“Well … sniper-scout, Black Cat Division. Later on I was a section leader. Why … sir?”

“Black Cats, eh? God’s Almighty Own. Were you at Imphal?”

“Not in the Boxes. Irrawaddy Crossing, Meiktila, Sittang Bend -”

“And you haven’t got a measly fifty lire for a poor broken-down old soldier? Well, the hell with you, young MacNeill.” said this astonishing fellow, and seated himself in the ghari again. “I’d heap coal of fire on you by offering you a lift, but your platoon are probably waiting for you to stop their motor. Bash on, MacNeill, before they seize up! Officers’ mess, Abdul!” And he drove off with an airy wave.

The battalion’s opinion was formed before Captain Errol had been with us twenty-four hours. He had driven straight to the mess, which was empty of customers at that time of day, smooth-talked the mess sergeant into paying the gharri out of bar receipts, made free with the Whisky unofficially reserved for the Medical Officer, parked himself unerringly in the second-in-command’s favourite chair, and whiled away the golden afternoon with the Scottish Field. Discovered and gently rebuked by the Adjutant for not reporting his arrival in the proper form, he had laughed apologetically and asked what time dinner was, and before the Adjutant, an earnest young Englishman, could wax properly indignant he had found himself, by some inexplicable process, buying Errol a gin and tonic.

As he had begun, with the Adjutant and me, so he went on, causing ripples on our placid regimental surface which eventually turned into larger waves. One of the former, for example, occurred on his first night in the mess when, within half an hour of their first acquaintance, he addressed the Colonel as ’skipper’. It caused a brief silence which Errol himself didn’t seem to notice; officially, you see, there are no ranks in the mess, but junior officers normally call the head man ’sir’, especially when he is such a redoubtable bald eagle as our Colonel was. ‘Skipper’ was close to the edge of impertinence – but was said so easily and naturally that he got away with it. In fact, I think the Colonel rather liked it.

That it soon became plain, was Errol’s secret. Like his notorious namesake, he had great charm and immense style; partly it was his appearance but most of it was just personality. He was casual, cocky, even insolent, but with a gift of disarmament, and even those who found his conceit and familiarity irritating seemed almost flattered when he gave them his attention. When he was snubbed, he didn’t seem to notice; the eyebrow would give an amused flicker, no more.

The youngest subalterns thought him a hell of a fellow, of course, not least because he had no side with them; rank meant nothing to Errol, up or down. On balance, he was not over-popular with the troops, or the officers, but even they held him in a certain grudging respect. None of which seemed to matter to Errol in the least.

Download Paul Janka’s new book Attraction Formula, in it Paul unloads his system for sleeping with 230+ women… and counting!

I made a spreadsheet a couple of weeks ago, because I was curious about dinners.

My buddy Jeff and I have long-since known dinner is the death-knell for getting laid, but I had never taken a statistical look at the stuff. Out of about 30 girls I could think of off the top of my head, I only had sex with 2 or so. Really shitty hit rate. Dinner is a terrible approach if you want to get laid, and I will explain later why. It’s fine in a relationship, or after you’ve had sex, or with a girlfriend, etc., but never initially, and never if your goal is to get the girl naked. On the other hand, drinks at a sexy lounge after 10pm is always the right move.

Lounges are ideal for a number of reasons, and when I look at my hit rate there, it’s significant. Of the roughly 40 girls I’ve brought to my favorite spot on the Upper East Side, about 30 have come home with me and about 25 of those have banged. That’s a much better hit rate than dinner, and yet I am always amazed to walk down the street on a given night, especially Friday night, and see all these eager guys sitting across from a smirking woman. The usual end game there, in my experience, is a fat bill, a bloated stomach, some yawns and a peck on the cheek, with the guy standing foolishly by as the girl steps into a cab waving good-bye. Home to porno.

Why? Because women know how to play the game better than men do. Think about all the time they spend reading dating and relationship magazines, and books – you think they don’t know more about the playing field than men? Come on. The idea for this book has been on my mind for some time, and grew directly out of my experience hustling in New York. I wouldn’t call my game dating, really, because often I just have a single goal. I often meet women I like, and it may develop into something akin to dating, but I still (at 30) enjoy the hustle.

A girl I used to sleep with thought it would be fun to write a relationship and dating book with me but that never got off the ground; another girl (whom I’ve slept with) asked me and some other bachelor friends to write an essay or short piece on bachelorhood in New York. I don’t know if they got around to it; I didn’t. But I’ve always been interesting in gender politics and the battle of the sexes and how to get laid, etc. I come from a divorced home, and was raised mostly by my mother. We are very close and I’m sure that contributed to my fascination with and understanding of women.

Anyhow, I’ve always thought it was interesting but never got around to writing anything. Recently, however, several friends have encouraged me to write a book about getting laid, because I do it well, and it seems to be the one thing that holds my interest, and to which I devote considerable time and effort. They say write what you know. I know how to get laid in Gotham on the cheap.

What I write here is what I’ve found to work and what I do in my own life. None of this material is hypothetical. I just had sex with my 100th women; I should have made a t-shirt for her. I keep a spreadsheet of these girls, just as a record, with an “X” if they let me bang them in the ass. I’m 30, and most of these women have been screwed since I moved to NYC 3 years ago – about 70 of them. That’s more than 20 girls a year, and I had a girlfriend for a spell. Also, although there are some rough ones in there, most of the girls are good-looking (7’s or 8’s) and several are 9’s and 10’s, including 3 super-hot models.

And I don’t have any money.

Download Paul Janka’s new book Attraction Formula, in it Paul unloads his system for bedding 230+ women… and counting!

Read the rest of Paul Janka’s Guide to Getting Laid in NYC (free)

[digg-me]OK player, so you got game. You can walk into a bar, open a set, make out with a few girls, and pull one back to your place. You can pick up a chick. But can you keep her?

Commitment is a critical part of any relationship. I don’t mean the ‘C’ word in the normal way that women use it to express how we’re all ultimately afraid to get into a monogamous relationship with one woman. Forget that – this has nothing to do with monogamy.

It’s about how willing you are to invest in a relationship, and how the other person is to invest in you.

Have you ever slept with a girl a few times, then called her a few weeks later only to have her ignore your calls or not want to see you anymore? Chances are that she wanted you to invest in her more than just sexually, and you didn’t.

Have you ever had a girl ask you to join her and her friends for dinner, and you turned her down and she was pissed? She wanted you to invest time in her social circle. And you didn’t, you bad boy.

What I’ve realised is that there seems to be a very stable “investment equilibrium” at the basis of any good relationship. One person might invest more in the other person at any one moment in time, but ultimately if their investment is not reciprocated then the relationship is almost certain to break down. That investment might involve time, money, emotional or mental energy, but whatever it is, it needs to be reciprocated one way or another.

How is this relevant to developing your skills with women? If you already have great relationship skills, then you’re probably willing to invest in your girlfriend and she invests in you – you reach a stable (but dynamic) equilibrium with her. If you don’t, then why not?

One thing I see with a LOT of guys that start getting good is that they concentrate heavily on generating attraction. If you haven’t got your attraction sorted, you need to read Magic Bullets right now. Once you can generate attraction without even thinking about it, you learn how to make a real emotional connection with a girl – at The Mystery Method we call this comfort and it’s fully explained in Magic Bullets too. Finally, you learn to escalate and seduce a women, and boom, you get laid.

But after attraction, comfort and seduction, after you’ve fucked her a few times and you want to continue seeing her, what it comes down to is this: your chick wants to see that you give a shit about her. She wants to see you laugh when she cracks a joke, she wants you to text her at 3am in the morning when you miss her like crazy, and she wants you to make special surprise plans for her birthday.

It’s easy for people to talk about a relationship as if it were a pick up, making suggestions which are based more on approaching and closing, rather than on “continuing” the pick up. Guess what? If you want to get into a relationship with someone, you need to be able to show them a real side of yourself. That’s investment – it’s being willing to spend time with them show them who you are, and to figure out who they are.

Here are some ways that you can demonstrate real investment in a girl:

• Make time for her. Don’t just fit her into your schedule, if she means that much to you, then (on occasion) move things around just so that you can be with her
• Give her little surprises. Cooking her favourite meal or buying her a small gift (it doesn’t have to be expensive, it should just show that you know her and what she likes) are great ideas
• Tell her how much she means to you and why you like her so much
• When she’s dressed up to meet you for a night out, realise that she’s invested her time and money to do so and make her feel GOOD for it: tell her she looks absolutely beautiful tonight!

I say all these with the strong caveat that she should be into you already, and ideally you should have fucked her. If not, investment equilibrium still applies, but make sure you’ve mastered attraction and comfort first – otherwise she won’t want you to be investing so much in her. If you’re having trouble recognising IOIs and when a girl is into you, you can find a bunch of useful information in the free Mystery Method forum.

So next time you’re trying to date a girl and you feel like you’ve done everything correctly but for reason the relationship isn’t as strong as you want it to be, ask yourself if you’ve shown a genuine interest in dating her (or even fucking her, if that’s the type of relationship you want with her) and whether this has been apparent with how you’ve tried to build your relationship with her. As an example, after you slept with her, did you:

1. Text her a week later inviting her around for another shag?
2. Call her to tell her you had great time with her, and that you hope she has a good week?
3. Invite her out with you and your mates at the weekend to get drunk and party?

There’s a whole spectrum of investment strategy there. There’s no right answer, but realise that which option you go for will affect which sort of relationship you might have with her. At the end of the day, whether she meets you on that ground depends on what she wants and what she’s willing to invest in you. The road runs both ways – she might want option c), but maybe that’s not what you want.

Investment equilibrium is something that seems completely obvious, but I think it’s something that all too easily forgotten when you’re learning seduction skills. At the end of the day, no one is going to have a happy relationship with someone that isn’t willing to invest in it as much as they are. This isn’t just about romantic or sexual relationships, it’s about friendships and business relationships too. There needs to be an equilibrium for the relationship to work.

So next time you’re chilling with your girl under the duvet in the crisp cold of a Winter morning, don’t worry about saying something cool, interesting, funny or attractive, just look her in the eye and tell her you fucking love being with her. Invest in her.