…and we’re back. It’s Clark, your friendly neighborhood theApproach intern, continuing to blog my personal training with Sebastian Drake, my boss and imperial overlord of theApproach. My fifth session with Sebastian concluded our lesson on openers, having already covered Genuine Interest, Implicit Direct, and Situational openers last time. That leaves two types of openers from Sebastian’s list of five: Indirect and Playful/Nonverbal. Let’s get to it.

Lesson 5 with Sebastian Drake: Openers, Part 2

Indirect Openers

Wait, no, just kidding. We didn’t actually go over Indirect openers, mainly because Sebastian doesn’t really use them. I’ll give you a very quick rundown anyway, for the sake of completeness. The purpose of indirect openers is to initiate an interaction while concealing your interest in the woman, giving the impression that you’re speaking to her merely because you had something on your mind, and she just happened to be the person you asked about it. Again, Sebastian doesn’t really use or teach this.

The most commonly used form of indirect opener is the opinion opener, developed by old-school pickup pioneers Erik “Mystery” von Markovik and Neil “Style” Strauss. This is a pre-scripted, or “canned,” request for a woman’s (or a group’s) opinion on some interesting but neutral topic. You deliver the opener as if the question struck you spontaneously or arose from a conversation you were having with your friends. You accompany it with disinterested body language and maybe toss in a “false time constraint,” such as “I have to rejoin my friends in a second, but…” One classic example of an opinion opener is the venerable “Hey guys, who lies more, men or women?” That one’s so worn out that I used to break it out at the beginning of the night to amuse myself and get into a playful mood. I couldn’t help but laugh at myself internally as I said it.

Indirect openers are premised on certain assumptions that Sebastian rejects. The main one is that you begin an interaction with comparatively low value in a woman’s eyes, and you need to raise that value before you convey your interest in her or she’ll blow you out. We say thee nay. If you load up on passive value, you can be high-status right from the starting pistol. This isn’t just me parroting Sebastian’s ideas here; by now, I’ve tried this stuff out a decent amount. I’ve been out in the streets and stores during the day, hitting the bars and clubs at night. I can say with confidence that indirect is not the only way to go. Also, speaking for myself personally, I’d rather not be deceptive with women. I like being genuine in my interactions, and if I don’t have to feign disinterest, then why would I?

Playful/Nonverbal Openers

Of all the openers we’ve mentioned, playful/nonverbal openers are the most fun to use. They’re not necessarily the most effective in terms of hooking* interactions – they can come off as a little player-ish – but they’re great for getting into a playful, positive state. If you’re trapped in your head, in a bad mood, or feeling a little antisocial, break out the playful/nonverbal openers and watch your mood turn around fast. If you want, walk around the venue and fire playful/nonverbal openers at everyone you pass. Entertain yourself – it’s fun to be a little ridiculous. As long as you’re not being obnoxious or rude, there’s nothing wrong with messing around for your own amusement. It gets you warmed up and ready to socialize. As I said earlier, I used to do this by opening with cheesy, absurdly played-out opinion openers like “who lies more,” but Sebastian says that nothing beats playful/nonverbal openers for getting into a good state. A great example is Sebastian’s demented “It’s sausage time!” opener. Running up to a woman with a big, basket-case grin and yelling, “It’s sausage time!” won’t hook… well, actually, it might hook sometimes, but that’s not the point. It’ll get you feeling loose, outgoing, and ready to socialize.

Oh, and just so you know: Sebastian warns that playful/nonverbal openers go over better at night, in social venues like bars and clubs.

There are countless possible playful/nonverbal openers you can use, and Sebastian taught me a few good ones. They’re tough to describe in text – it took me an hour of in-person demonstrations and repeated drilling to get the gist. I’ll pick one of them and try to explain it as best I can. I call this one the “puzzled look” opener. Basically, you approach with command presence (”approach as if she dropped her wallet,” remember?), stop about three feet away from her, and look at her like you’re puzzled by something. Don’t look her up and down, but just look her in the face with a quizzical expression. To get the facial expression right, imagine that you think you might recognize her, but you’re not sure if you do and you can’t remember where you know her from. Hold the look and let the tension mount, until she eventually cracks and says something like, “What? What?!” Hold the look for a second longer… hold it… then give her a big smile and laughingly say, “I’m just fucking with you. I’m [your name].” That release of tension feels so good that she might crack a grin herself when you introduce yourself.

When it comes to these playful/nonverbal openers, you can’t be nervous about the tension you’re creating. And you are creating tension, very deliberately; this creates a charged environment, and it’s that much more powerful when you finally break the tension and introduce yourself. It can feel uncomfortable being in the midst of all this tension, but you have to transcend that and become completely unaffected by it. If you wield this tension correctly, it can be devastating; but if you cave to it, your perceived value drops like an anvil.

You can learn to own the tension you create and remain unaffected by it - it’s just a matter of practice and building good habits. Don’t rush through your opener in order to avoid discomfort; slow down, learn to laugh at the tension. You’re the maestro of tension, building, directing, and releasing it at will. Speak slowly and pause at appropriate points. You have no problem stretching the tension out and letting it hang; you’ll only break it when the moment is precisely right. When in doubt, let the tension hang another second. You’ll get the hang of this fairly quickly if you actually go out and approach.

I know that I wasn’t able to convey every nuance of the playful/nonverbal opener in this post. That’s why I train with Sebastian in person. But you get the overall idea: be playful, approach with command presence as always, and don’t be afraid to build some tension if that’s what’s called for.

Field Report

I went out and did a bunch of approaches using playful/nonverbal openers, and I honestly expected to get a lot of very harsh “Go away!”- or “What the hell are you doing?”-type blowouts. Didn’t happen. People just tended to be a little confused until I broke the tension and introduced myself, at which point they usually grinned and engaged me in a friendly way. Using these openers was a lot of fun, both for me and for the person I was talking with. It led to some very enjoyable conversations, often with a slightly sillier tone than normal. It might be that using playful/nonverbal openers with people makes them feel like they have a license to be a little wacky, since I’ve breached that territory first. On the other hand, maybe it’s just me being in a wacky mood after using the opener. I really don’t know.

I used these openers in all climes and conditions, folks - during the day and at night, in the street, in bars, in a store, and in a subway car. I used these openers in a box; I used these openers with a fox. Et cetera. I know Sebastian said that they go over better at night and in a social venue, but they seemed to work at least decently pretty much anywhere. One thing that I can imagine being a problem: I didn’t test this, but I can see these playful/nonverbal openers going over less-than-spectacularly with groups.

The playful/nonverbal openers are also limited in that they’re appropriate mainly for women who are standing still and not so great for women who are walking. This made it hard for me to rack up my playful/nonverbal approaches. If a woman was walking in the same direction as me, I’d use Genuine Interest or Situational; if she was walking in the opposite direction, I’d stop her and stick to Genuine Interest; and if she was standing still, I’d take the opportunity to try out Playful/Nonverbal. That didn’t provide me with a lot of opportunities to use Playful/Nonverbal on the go, since the people I encountered were usually on the go themselves. I can see how it would be better suited to a social venue like a bar, where people actually hold still sometimes. Next time I’m in a bar, I’m going to blitz the place with playful/nonverbal and see if I get that state boost Sebastian was talking about. And screw my earlier comment about not using it with groups; I’ll use it on everybody, including people in groups. The point isn’t necessarily to hook. It’s just to have a crazy fun time, and I think I have it in me to make that happen.

Cheers,
Clark

 

 

 

*Hooking: reaching a point in an interaction, the “hook point,” where the people you’re speaking with actively want you to stick around. Neil Strauss’ term.