Grow Your Game

If it walks like a duck, and it talks like a duck, than it probably is a duck.

Makes sense right? Well this idea applies hugely to pick-up – allow me to explain.

Have you ever noticed that it’s hard to be unhappy when you smile? Or that you immediately feel looser the instant you take that first sip of your cocktail? What’s happening here is that you’re associating these behaviors with the way you typically feel when engaging them. Your mind is backwards rationalizing – saying “oh, I’m smiling, I smile when I’m happy, therefore I must be happy” or “ah, I’m drinking a cocktail, I’m looser and more relaxed when I drink, therefore I’ll loosen up and relax”.

Well, between our natural instincts and our societal preprogramming, both males and females have similar triggers with regards to feeling attraction and wanting sex. Take for instance a male talking to an attractive female. Odds are he’s going to try to:

1) Establish commonalities with her. Most likely this will take the form of asking a ton of mundane questions until he hits one he can relate to, i.e. “what kind of music do you like? … Oh cool! I love Pearl Jam”.

2) Qualify himself to her. In the beginning he’ll talk about his job, how he makes good money and lives a fun lifestyle. He’ll also avoid disagreement at all costs and even hedge previous statements. For instance:

Guy: I love hamburgers.
Girl: Oh, I’m a vegetarian.
Guy: Oh really? I’ve been wanting to do that. I’m trying to eat healthy so I’ve slowly been cutting meat out of my diet.

3) Establish physical closeness or contact. Depending on how socially competent he is, the degree to which he does this will vary.

So then, in a given interaction, if you see these 3 things taking place it’s a safe bet to assume the guy is seeking to align with the girl who he perceives as having high value – most likely her attractiveness and sex value.

Interestingly enough, girls do the same things with a few minor twists.

For instance, rather than telling about their professional accomplishments, a girl will tell a man she likes about how she loves to cook, went to the gym, or is ‘a cool, drama-free girl’ – basically obvious things girls perceive as being valuable to guys.

So then, in a pick-up something of immense importance is getting the girl to “walk like a duck” – getting her to exhibit the same behaviors she would when trying to attract a guy she really likes. If you can make it LOOK and FEEL like she’s the one chatting you up, you’re creating a self-fulfilling prophecy and greatly increasing your chances of closing.

So then, what are some of these behaviors?

Physical positioning

When a girl flirts with a guy she likes, he’s usually the relaxed ‘anchored’ one and she’s the one “talking in”. Meaning, he’s leaning against the wall while she’s standing facing him. Or he’s reclined and she’s sitting next to him with her legs turned towards him. Well, this can be pretty easily simulated by making sure that you are at all times at least as physically comfortable as the girl, if not more so. This means, if she’s standing, you’re leaning against something. If she’s leaning, you’re sitting. And if she’s sitting, you’re reclining. When you open, as you stand “on the outside” your value drops, you need to create the visual effect that she’s the one chatting to you ASAP. Usually you can just grab her by her arms, and move her a few feet so that you’re leaning against the bar/wall and she’s facing you.

It’s impossible to list out all the logistic ways this applies, but bottom line it should look like she’s hitting on you.

Also, have you ever noticed when you really spike a girl’s attraction, her head tilts down and her eyes look up at you? Again, you can easily simulate this by simply keeping your head positioned above hers – certainly don’t feel like you need to engage her at eye level.

Another cool little thing- sometimes girls go into these little rant-like monologues. When they do, try letting your eyes wander around the room like you’re losing interest just like girls do when guys start telling them about their job. It will look to everyone there like she’s trying to impress you with some story and you’re less than interested; she’ll pick up on this as well after all, it’s the same thing she does when chodes start qualifying to her.

Dialogue

When girls flirt with guys, they A) seek rapport via asking questions. B) Seek to highlight commonalities. C) Talk about the traits that they think the man will value. With a little bit of conversational savvy, you can pretty easily get the girl harping on all 3 of these. Firstly, don’t ask lame questions. The time to exchange life details (job, residence, etc) will come – don’t be the one to initiate it. Also, when she asks you questions, prolong the sequence by giving less forthcoming than she’d expect. Example:

Her: Where are you from?
You: Give it a guess.
Her: Umm, Los Angeles?
You: Haha, terrible guess!
Her: Hahahha, I don’t know! Where?
You: Haha, no worries, I’m from the East Coast. Have you spent much time in Europe?
Her: Yeah, I was in Italy last spring – wait a minute – where on the East Coast?
You: Oh awesome, I grew up in New York, how long were you there for?

So, above we have a totally natural sequence of dialogue, which even if the girl isn’t interested in the guy she’ll still go along with. At the same time though, the way she is almost forced to prod for the exact location is identical to the way she’d prod a guy she really likes for information.

With regards to B) getting her to highlight commonalities, this can also be verbally orchestrated. For example:

You: I love ice cream, how about you?
Her: Oh me too.
You: Cool, I like mint chocolate chip, what’s your favorite flavor?
Her: I like strawberry.
You: Oh man, those two are like polar opposites, haha, I bet we have complete different taste in food.
Her: No they’re not, they’re both sweet and they are both ice cream. Besides, I don’t always eat strawberry, I like mint chocolate chip too.

Ok, so ice cream is a lame example, but fact is, as a hot girl who’s not yet attracted to you she’s not likely to initiate seeking a commonality with you. So what you did is created a commonality (everyone loves ice cream), then took it away (different flavors). Her natural reaction is going to be to re-create that connection by convincing you of the commonality. Just like she would used to try to convince the captain of the football team they liked the same music.

Physical Contact/Kino

Girls are very touchy/feely with guys they like. Again, this can be simulated. We’re all familiar with The Almighty Claw, in all it’s glory. When you claw (arm around shoulder), what does it look like? It looks like you’re a confident guy who’s comfortable with physical contact and also feels a closeness with the girl. This is a great start, but take it one step further – next time you claw, reach behind your own back and guide her to put her arm around your waist. Now you look like a couple…you’re “together”.

Don’t be shy about guiding her to reciprocate kino – if they’re ok with you’re touching them, they’ll most often be fine with touching you in the same way.

We all know what female-to-male attraction looks like- heck we’re bombarded with it everyday in mainstream media. So next time you’re interacting with a girl, think about how things would “look” to an outsider, and align as much of that as you can with how it would look if she were desperately trying to flirt with you. Physical positioning, dialogue, and kino are just a few easily adjusted elements that can greatly change the appearance of an interaction and trigger in her mind “Well, I’m leaning into him, trying to create commonalities, and touching him- I must really like him”.

Clothing

I’m not going to make this section long, because by now, you should know how to dress decently. But what I will say, is that the way you dress should be the similar to the types of women you want to attract.

If you want classy women, then dress classy. If you want rocker chicks, then dress like a rocker. And if you want doped up crack heads? Then shit, you better jump in honey and go roll around in crack rocks.

However, take it a step further, outdo your competition by kicking it up a notch. Although I have no idea of how you’re going to top a guy with crack all over his body, you
can out-dress your competition by wearing one or two items
from another culture.

For instance, although I primarily go to classy bars, I
wear a labret piercing that is primarily seen in punk
culture. Or I sometimes wear a jacket I purchased that has
rainbow stitching and edges all worn out with strings
hanging. Another rocker/punkish item.

The purpose isn’t to make a woman say “Why is this guy
wearing a space suit to a swimming pool?”, but “that’s an
interesting combination.”. There’s a difference between a
two-year old’s Halloween costume, and actually wearing
something that has artistic expression.

In general, when it comes to looks, you want to look clean,
wear the best shoes you can afford, and wear clean clothes. It isn’t rocket science.

Location

The very first mistake that can fuck up your entire night
and kill any chance of getting laid? The place you decide
to go. Yes, it matters that much.

I pick up women in some of the most difficult bars in my
city. In order to get these women, you need status, lots
and lots of status. Fortunately for me, status is what I
have.

And fortunately for all of us, we get to choose the place
we go to pick up women. When you’re looking at location,
you need to ask yourself three things. What are these women looking for? What types of men do they want? And do I meet
these criteria?

For instance, at Brother’s, a bar downtown, there are a lot
of bachelorette parties full of married women. However,
these married women are probably just out to have fun. And
the chances of one of them going home with you are slim.

But at Azuri, an age 25+ crowd up north, the married women
there are promiscuous and are probably looking for a good
fuck. In other words, it’s a completely different bar
culture.

As for types of guys, it’s pretty self-explanatory. Women
will go to clubs that have the highest ratio of men they’d
like to fuck. Being an urban guy that can dance, I’d have a
better chance of getting laid at a club that plays hip-hop
music where women like to dance, than I would at a country
western sports bar.

This rule doesn’t just cater to bars. It works everywhere.
I only attempt to get women at places that are going to
have women with some of the same interests as me.

MSN messenger pick-up game seems to be a common topic these days. With the increased popularity of social networking and online dating over clubs and social circles as venues to meet women, MSN and other chat skills are becoming more important for the single male.

Where most men fail is that they go into MSN without an objective. Make no mistake, there is one and only one objective to chatting- get her on a date. Not on the phone. Not for a second round of MSN. Not back to email. A date! If you can create a connection with her where she’s comfortable with you, there is no real reason why you can’t.

Now let’s look at the plan that will get you there. There are certain steps along the way, you aren’t going to get her out just by being funny! Done correctly, the following will create a solid connection with her:

Be playful – tease, flirt, and get her attention fast!
Be interested – don’t fake it, actually care about her and her life.
Ask questions – she needs to see that you are interested in her, and how else are you going to decide if she’s really worthy of your time on a date?
Relate your experiences to her answers – don’t just answer “me too!” but actually relate stuff from your life to hers in order to create commonalities.
Tease her – teasing gets an emotional response, which you need to build attraction. It also displays confidence. Be funny, not mean.
Ask her new questions about her old answers – delve deeper into her world, find out who she really is.
Be playful – tease, flirt, keep her attention (it is both first and last on this list on purpose).

Repeat this process until you’ve generated enough connection with her that she is interested enough in you to start asking you questions back.

Wrapping It Up

The time to end the conversation is when the energy starts to wind down just a little. She might be getting distracted by phone calls or something good on TV, or just might be getting tired of typing. This is the time for you to end the conversation. By ending it first, you keep the upper hand in the weird little power struggle of social dynamics by maintaining the image of having other more important stuff to do.

If things have gone well, this is the perfect time to ask her to meet in real life. You can and should have a reason, and even use it to ask her out.
“Look, it was fun chatting, but I’ve got to walk the dog, he’s staring at me. He’d love to meet you, why don’t you join us?”

You can also do it without giving her a reason, and create some mystery.
“Holy crap look at the time, you’ve totally made me late (not saying it wasn’t worth it), but I have to get out of here. Ciao!”

If things haven’t gone well, or she hasn’t displayed much interest in you (by asking you questions about yourself), then wrap up the conversation while it still has some energy and take another shot later. Worst case, tell her you will see her back in email, as you aren’t sure if you will be online again for a while. Desirable men don’t sit around on MSN all day waiting for women!

The Downside Of MSN

There are a few big drawbacks to MSN. For starters, it isn’t time efficient and can actually kill your interaction with her. If you are in a position where you are chatting with her on the phone, skip it and stay with the phone. If you are emailing her, try to move right to the phone, or even better, a date.

The problem is that people are lazy, and once they have hooked up with your MSN, it is a much easier solution to just wait for you to be online, rather than picking up the phone or banging out a thoughtful email to get in touch.

This leads to the biggest problem: once you’ve moved to a chat/Messenger based relationship, you’ve got to be online waiting for her to be online in order to have any contact with her. This definitely doesn’t work for you, because you will be out having fun with other women (RIGHT?). Since you do have a life, I hope, and she is hopefully cool enough to have a life as well, it can take days or weeks before you chat with her again. By that point, most of the fire between you will have died out.

This brings us full circle to our goal… the only purpose of MSN is to transition her into a date, always keep that in mind. If it doesn’t look like it is going that way, transition her into a more controllable media, like phone or email.

There are numerous ways to learn how to improve your ability to meet and seduce women. We have the forums, we have ebooks, bootcamp programs, and probably most importantly, we have ourselves – going out day after day to meet women, pushing your boundaries, and f*cking things up is the ultimate way to learn game.

But I’ve been learning from other sources too. I’ve learnt a lot from watching TV and film characters: Vince Chase in Entourage, Christian Troy in Nip/Tuck, even Shane (raging lesbian player) in The L Word. Talking with and watching other guys – often, naturals – has also helped me massively. There’s one guy in particular, a work colleague, that has had a phenomenal influence on my game in the last few months, and resulted in me blowing open more sets super-directly than ever before.

The final way that I have been learning game, is by talking to girls about guys they’ve slept with. It’s crazy how much useful information a girl can give you when she says what she likes/dislikes about a guy she’s dating and how he approached her.

It’s with all this information I’ve absorbed in the last 6 months or so that I’ve come to the following conclusions:

Looks are important
Status and wealth are important

Looks

I’m sure a thousand guys will tell me, “Man, you don’t need to be good looking to meet women! Look at me, I’m an ugly f*cker and I pull like a rock star.” But the logical argument here is this: you don’t NEED to be good looking to meet woman, but it sure as hell is gonna help.

I believe one of the issues is that often guys think they are born with their looks and that’s that. Bullshit. It’s a limiting belief, just like the same one that makes you think you can never be good with women, that some guys are born with it and others aren’t.

There are fashion magazines, makeovers, gyms, diets, hair stylists, and plastic surgeons in this wonderful world of ours – it is all there available to help us become better looking people. All we need to do is apply the same commitment and mentality that we do to improving our personalities.

When I was 18, I was seriously insecure about my ears which stuck out from my head. I had plastic surgery to have them pinned back. I realise now that it was a serious milestone in my life and marked the beginning of a journey of self-improvement and becoming the person I wanted to be.

Six years on, I am still working hard on my looks. I’m not a model, but I’ve come a long way from where I was. When I was in school, I hated the way I looked and wished to be as good looking as other boys. Today, I have girls tell me that they like my hair, they love the feel of my arms, and that I look really hot in my coat. It makes all the difference – to my success with women, and to how I feel inside.

I’ve got a hundred examples of where looks have helped guys to get the girl. A girl I’m dating right now showed me a picture of a guy she met on the Tube – the guy is seriously good looking (and actually got picked up by a modelling agency for a shoot). This guy picked her up by doing very little – all he did was establish a bit of eye contact on the platform and she was hooked. She is constantly talking about him saying how hot he is. I don’t blame her, if I was a woman, I would.

I met a lovely girl in Barcelona on the street one afternoon. When I was inside her later that night, she said to me, “When I met you today I thought you were so beautiful.” She then expressed surprised at how old I was and said I was the best dressed 24-year old she had ever met. Finally, she held onto my arms, and said I was a lot bigger than I looked with my clothes on.

I know guys that are ugly, and get laid. I know guys that look like supermodels, and don’t get laid. But, guys that look like supermodels and have player personalities, get laid A LOT.

Status and Wealth

The same logical argument as above applies for status and wealth. You don’t need high status and great wealth to get laid, but it will most definitely help.

Girls delight in telling me (especially the superhot girls) about guys they’ve hooked up with who took them to a VIP lounge in a club, an expensive restaurant, or back to their penthouse apartment in Central London. Girls will gladly talk to and later go home with guys who are decent looking, have good chat, and have been plying them with drinks all night. Now I’m not saying to supplicate and buy a girl drinks in the hopes that if you buy her enough, she will sleep with you. But, if you have a strong personality, high value, and you show a girl that you can do the provider thing, you’re in good stead. I don’t let girls take advantage of me, but if I like them I’ll treat them like I would my mates – that can mean getting a few drinks in.

All other game factors still come into play. I know plenty of guys who are rich and have no game. But again, the guys that are rich and are able to learn some basic game, sleep with seriously hot girls regularly.

This shit is important for all the obvious evolutionary reasons. Girls want a provider, someone who is leader of the tribe, someone with ambition etc. etc. Having great wealth reflects all of that, and that is why you should be working on that area of your life as well.

Summary

It’s true you don’t need to be super good looking or rich to get laid. You can be fat, bald, ugly, poor and unemployed and still get laid. But why make it harder for yourself?

I’m working on all aspects of my life: how I look, how much money I have, and how strong my personality is. It all inter-relates. As a quick example, women are attraction to ambition, which is a part of your personality but reflected by your wealth and status.

My ultimate goal is to be a superstar playboy. I want to be Hugh Heffner. I want to sleep with beautiful women every day, and walk around in a silk robe in the middle of the afternoon. I want to be Vincent Chase and Christian Troy. To get there, I’m gonna need looks, money, and a killer personality.

A lot of men I meet have developed an open hosility towards women. Their resentment and pain always has a source, and I try to reframe their situation so that they can benefit from it instead of wallowing in self-pity and hate. The misogyny that some men display helps no one and will take you down a path of existential misery if you choose to follow it.

Many guys complain that they bought a girl drinks all night and then she left with another guy. They whine about how they took her to one expensive dinner after another, took her out clubbing, shopping, paid off her credit card bill and then she tells them ‘Let’s just be friends’. These guys don’t get their phone calls returned by women consistently and they assume that there must be something wrong with women.

To help them get some perspective I frequently tell them this metaphor to reframe their experiences.

The Fishing Line

I like to go fishing. Every so often I’ll go out to a beautiful, deep freshwater lake where the water is completely clear. You can see right down to the bottom, and the lake is full of spectacular fish. I’ll go there with my simple rod, settle in for a few hours and pull in some really impressive catches!

There are some people who go out to the same place I do hoping to get the same results- only they’ve spent a fortune on the latest gear. They’ve got expensive Teflon rods, LED-augmented lures, pheromonally-scented worms, the whole deal.

They’ll set up about 40 feet away from me and I’ll watch them toss out their lines into the water. Like I said, the water is completely clear so you can watch everything as the fish swim right up to their line, sniff around for a moment and then swim away.

Sometimes you’ll see the fish swim up to their line and nibble on the bait, and as the fish are nibbling, the guys will get really excited, because they can see the fish too. They’ll sit there and watch as the fish nibble until there’s no bait left and then simply swim away.

Sometimes a really beautiful fish will come by and grab their line, and you’ll see the guys get into position as the fish starts to swim away with the hook, only to watch in depression as the fish breaks the line and disappears with their bait.

I’ll watch their frustration and angst, as they go about setting their gear up again, precisely the same way as before – and their angry distress at having exactly the same results – time and again.

When any of these guys are there, I KNOW they’ll have been watching me, as I’m making great pulls with ease, and I can see in their eyes that their stares are filled with daggers. So I’ll go up to these guys, in a friendly and supportive way and ask, ‘Wow, lousy day, huh?’

They’ll reply, hotly: “Oh, those STUPID, EVIL FISH! They’re so manipulative, they’re out to get me, they hate me! They just want my bait, but they know I’ll keep putting more worms out there as long as it looks like I might get lucky!”

The reality is that they’re fish – and they are doing what’s in their nature- and they don’t hate us; but they are certainly wary of us, and cautious around us… because they don’t want to become anyone’s trophy!

So I say to these guys, ‘Hey guys! You’ve got the right equipment; you’ve got the right bait… but you’re not pulling any fish out of this lake?

IN THAT CASE, THE PROBLEM IS YOU! The fish are here! They’ve been biting all day – it’s what you are doing that isn’t working.

Stop looking at the fish like they’re wicked, nasty, evil fish. They aren’t.
They aren’t manipulative, they’re not scandalous – and there’s absolutely no justification to be angry with them.

If you’d been doing things in the way the fish ACTUALLY WANTED, rather than in the ways that you presuppose fish would want, you’d have no-room left in your boat from all the fish!

So take a step back and say ‘Gee, why don’t I see whether or not what I’m doing is the reason I’m not succeeding?’ and stop blaming the objects of your desire for your own inability to pull them in.

This week the Grow Your Game staff has searched every pick-up forum on the web to find the best forum threads. Forums are a great place for sharing ideas and these are some cool threads that will kick-start your game.

The first thread we’ve picked this week is an advanced look at lifestyle. There will come a point when you should spend less time sarging. Once you improve your social skills enough, you’ll want to start working on your entire lifestyle. This is pretty heavy, but this thread will give you some direction so that you can become Lord Rockstar and no longer Mr. Fail.

Do you ever feel crappy on a night out? This thread from the infamous Dallas PUA Forum has some great techniques for getting into the party mindset when you feel like rolling over on your couch and dying. We’ve all been there, and this advice will help you wake up and smell the glory.

Johnny Soporno shares his views on inner game. This thread is pure gold. A lot of guys get sucked into the marketing of commercial pick-up. Johnny sets the record straight so you can become mentally healthy again.

This is a great sob story thread from RSD Nation. Members post up their sob stories to begin the process of moving on. Worth reading for the inspiration, and if you feel like a hug post up your story too.

“You look familiar, have we had sex?” This is the Mystery Method saga of banter lines. Basically it’s a bunch of funny shit to say. Read it and learn. This thread will show you the right mindset and help you understand how fun pick-up is supposed to be. Really entertaining.

http://www.theattractionforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10581