Today we’re going to talk about fashion. Personally, I used to avoid it like the plague. My uniform was basically a bland, oversized t-shirt, ill-fitting jeans, and ratty sneakers. I’d say, “Clothing is such a stupid thing to spend your time on. I’m not one of those shallow posers. I don’t care what I look like - what matters is who I am on the inside.” I see now that this was a cover born of fear. Fashion seemed complex, challenging, above my head - throwing my hat in the ring by giving a crap would bring the possibility of failure, and I decided to spare myself by telling myself that fashion was stupid anyway. It’s “The Fox and the Grapes:” the grapes are high up, probably beyond my reach… eh, whatever, they’re probably sour anyway. I don’t want them.

Time to dispense with these childish excuses. Fashion makes a difference, like it or not, and it’s time to man up instead of avoiding it. Fashion says something about who you are, and beyond that there’s simply a visceral power to it that’s undeniable. For instance, I am absolutely captivated by hipster chicks. I don’t understand it, but there it is. Something about their look drives me insane in the best possible way. That’s the power of fashion - let’s harness it.

Lesson with Sebastian Drake: Fashion, Part 1

Let’s keep it simple - we want to look good, but this isn’t about making fashion our life. Sebastian broke fashion down to two main points: fit and detail.

Fit

Fit is important and independent of the type of clothes you wear - its style, quality, price, whatever. Here’s the point to remember: tight is right.

With shirts, you want: tight/clinging at the bicep, tight in the shoulders, a little tight in the chest, no extra material at the stomach. The bottom of the shirt should fall no lower than one belt-width below your belt, and ideally it should hit right at the middle of your belt. This means that if you raise your arms above your head, you’ll show a little skin - that’s good. Don’t be afraid to show some flesh, you little sexpot, you.

With t-shirts, it’s almost all about fit (as opposed to detail, which we’ll discuss next post). Sebastian suggests you ignore what’s on the shirt, no matter how stupid the design or image - if it fits well (according to the criteria above), buy it.

Wear your shirts small. I repeat: tight is right. I’m about 5′11″, 165 pounds - Sebastian suggests that I buy “small” and never buy larger than a “medium.” I bought a few 50/50 t-shirts from American Apparel in a “small,” and they look great. Obviously, bigger guys might need bigger sizes, but keep it tight. Wear a shirt that’s way too big for you, and you lose all sex appeal. Togas haven’t been hot in a while.

For long-sleeved shirts, Sebastian thinks that a little less material at the wrists is a good thing. It’s a cool, modern look, plus it lets you discreetly check your watch when necessary. Slightly shorter sleeves on suit and sport coats are cool too, and they let you floss your cuff links. Also, rolling up your shirt sleeves can look cool - I have some shirts that I wear almost exclusively with the sleeves rolled up.

With trousers and jeans, you want: tight in the waist and thighs. Below the knee, tightness isn’t necessary; you can go boot cut or whatever, and that’s fine. Just make sure it’s decently tight in the areas above the knee. Slightly shorter pant legs are ok if you’ve got fly socks or shoes that you want to floss. Again, slightly short is a sexy, modern look.

Heavier guys: this stuff apples to you too. Tight is right, no excuses. If you’ve got a little more to love, so be it - show it off. Sebastian asked me: “What kind of chubby girls get attention at the club?” The answer is: the ones who dress as if they’re not chubby. It’s the bigger girls in knee-high boots, short skirts, push-up bras, tight tank tops, etc, who make it crack in the club, not the ones who dress as if they’re ashamed of their weight, with poofy dresses or those big belts right across their middles or whatever. The same applies to us - within reason, tight is right, irregardless of body type.

Sebastian ended the lesson on fit by saying, “Clark, your clothes are cool, but they could be tighter.” Does that apply to you too? If so, do what I did: don’t throw out your favorite threads, but go pick up a couple cheap new items with a tighter fit and see how you feel. I’m a fan.

Next: Detail.

Evening, dearies, and happy holidays! I had a great experience yesterday, one that provided some insights I’d like to share with y’all. Every few weeks, some of the more senior guys in the Boston pickup community hold an event where they take newer guys out for a few hours to do daytime approaches. The more experienced guys each take a group of two or three newbies and push them into interactions, give them feedback, and do some demo approaches themselves. Yesterday, the event was held at a local mall. One of the more advanced guys had to cancel at the last minute, so I was given a group to take around instead of being assigned a sensei myself.

The guys in my group were awesome - eager to learn, receptive to feedback, and (for the most part) willing to approach when I said “approach.” This is no easy feat, especially if you’re new, and I wasn’t exactly merciful with the little missions I sent them on. I started by having my boys deliberately blow themselves out with women, so they could realize that rejection doesn’t have any real consequences and learn to shrug it off. To that end, they spent a few minutes approaching random women with lines like, “I’m in love with you. Do you want to date?” and other winners. After that, we went into full approach-machine mode, and I didn’t spare them the toughies. I had my boys chasing women into Victoria’s Secret to approach, stopping girls who were talking on their cellphones, and approaching large groups of intimidatingly beautiful women. They didn’t get a zillion numbers or dates, but they did get a few, and anyway that wasn’t the point. Any success following the approach was secondary; the main point was to approach, period. On that ground, they exceeded expectations. So if you’re reading this - Paul, Allen, Rob, Nick - nice one, fellas. As for me… well, I did ok.

It was interesting taking inexperienced guys out and watching them encounter, battle, and sometimes overcome unexpected sticking points. It actually clarified a few points for me and called my attention to issues that I’d thought about briefly but not fully.

Pacing

The idea here is simple: if it isn’t weird, don’t make it weird. If it is weird, acknowledge it and move on.

Let’s flesh that out. Approaching a woman on the street, in a mall, at a bar, or wherever isn’t a weird thing. There’s nothing wrong with it, and it doesn’t transgress social norms about acceptable behavior. It’s not weird, so don’t make it weird. Don’t approach with, “Excuse me…” or “Sorry to bother you, but…” or “Hey, can I talk to you for a second?” That gives the impression that you think you’re doing a weird thing, and they’ll tend to agree with you. Just do your thing; approach with confidence and without apology.

That being said, sometimes the approach will encroach on social norms a bit. Say she’s talking on her cell phone. Interrupting her to introduce yourself and start an interaction… well, that actually is a little unusual. When the situation is weird, acknowledge it and move on. Just preface your opener with what Sebastian calls a pace, a short phrase that acknowledges the oddness of the situation. Pacing is quick and easy, and it’s not a big deal, but it helps to throw some in when the situation calls for it: “Hi, I see you’re on your cell phone, but I saw you sitting here…” and you’re off. No muss, no fuss.

Oh, and bonus tech from Sebastian: after you approach phone-lady with your Genuine Interest opener (and get a response), suggest with a smile that maybe she can call whoever it is back. Trust me, this isn’t too forward - very often, they go with it.

The “Tree Disguise”

Ever see a cartoon where one character wants to sneak up on another, and he hides behind a fake tree or something and scoots along in short, furtive bursts? It’s usually accompanied by whimsical, “someone’s up to no good” music played in time with the scooting. Maybe the other character glances backward, sees that a tree has suspiciously relocated itself a few feet, then shakes his head and looks away - at which point the “tree” scoots a little further. You know what I’m talking about.

Yesterday, I realized that our fear of approaching a woman - approach anxiety, as the kids call it - uses legitimate reasons for not approaching as a “tree disguise,” a way to sneak up on us unnoticed. I would point at a woman some distance away and tell one of my boys, “Go! Approach!” He’d tense as if about to spring, then stall out and let her float away. He’d then turn to me and say, “She was too far away!” or “She was too young for me!” or “Come on, man, that girl? She was ugly!” or “She was working at that store, I didn’t want to bother her!” or “She was on her phone!” The list goes on. Here’s the thing… some of their excuses (not all of them) were actually legitimate - for instance, one guy pointed out, “She was with an enormous, scary-looking dude!” But even then, it’s wrong to believe that the excuse was the only reason he didn’t approach. It was just the legitimate reason, the cover story. Hiding behind it was my boy’s approach anxiety, using the excuse as a “tree disguise” to sneak in and affect his behavior. On some level, we know this, but it’s easier and more comforting to just pretend “it’s a tree” - to point to our legitimate excuse and ignore the role that approach anxiety played in our failure to approach.

The moral of this story is simple: approach. Unless it’s going to actually hurt you (or someone you know) physically, professionally, etc, go for the approach. Any excuses, other than the most dire ones, are “tree disguises.” Don’t let your approach anxiety slip past and get the drop on you.

Word.

Anyway, that’s it for today. Enjoy the holidays, be safe, and remember - use mistletoe responsibly.

Cheers,
Clark

Oh snap, Clark in the heezy! I just finished a huge batch of work that took up a lot of my time these last few weeks - I feel like I just took off a backpack full of anvils, and it feels mm-mm good. Just popping in for a second to share a quick e-mail I shot to a buddy of mine. We met these two lingerie models last weekend at a show they were working, enjoyed some good conversation, and got their numbers.* My girl was a bit more outgoing and social than his, so I’ve been having an easier time texting, setting up the meet-up, etc. He asked for my thoughts on how to proceed with texting (we’re all about texting at theApproach; it hands-down beats calling right away, for like a zillion reasons). This is what I wrote back:

As for your sitch… hm. I know what Sebastian would say in this situation… although maybe there’s some of my own spin in there, dunno. Take it with a grain of salt, but anyway:

Send her occasional “no response required” texts basically giving her whimsical updates on your awesome life. “just saw spider fighting wasp in middle of its web, crazy discovery channel shit” or “hot cocoa greatest invention of all time thank u swiss miss” or whatever. Just to keep you in her thoughts in a fun, non-needy way until it’s time to strike (hell, mass text these to a bunch of girls - get some mileage out of them). When you have something awesome to do (preferably sooner rather than later, of course), invite her along, like: “friend hosting wine and games. most expensive board game in world must b good. he said i need a smart partner, thought of u.” When I feel like I’ve actually lost it with a girl these days, I just hold off on texting until I have something super awesome to do, then invite… it’s already brought a few back from the brink for me.

Looking forward to your glorious return to Boston. See you soon homie.

This gives some insight into Sebastian’s ideas on texting, which I’ll be posting more about in the future. Real quick, let’s briefly note a couple things.

The “whimsical update” texts (my moronic term, please don’t blame Sebastian for that) don’t require or even really invite a response. If she wants to reply, she absolutely can, but there’s no pressure or expectation that she will. If she doesn’t, it doesn’t hurt you. This type of text is money. If there are a few women that you want to share your “whimsical updates” with, well… the “mass text” feature is a beautiful thing. S’all I’m saying.

Of course, it can’t be all “ooh spider vs. wasp” and “yum hot cocoa” nonsense all the time. Eventually you do have to… gulp… actually invite her to come do something. But even then, avoid asking questions and demanding responses if you can, at least on the initial text. Once you guys are texting back and forth or talking on the phone, feel free to ask questions and do whatever you’d do in a normal conversation.

Keep your texts short when you can. The examples I whipped up in the e-mail are probably at the long end of “acceptable.” Abbreviate when it actually saves you time. Don’t worry much about punctuation and neatness. In fact, a text that looks like it went through a professional editing process comes off as a bit try-hard and weird.

*Not something that would have happened to me just a few months ago, when my social skills were fine but unspectacular - certainly not a few years ago, when girls truly scared the crap out of me. I wish I could send a telegram back through time and tell my college-freshman self that everything’s going to be ok. Kinda reminds me of this badass old milk commercial. “Hi Clark… I’m waiting.” Heh.

Hey guys, today we’re gonna cover my lesson with Sebastian on keeping conversations flowing on good topics. This one was really cool. I’m super-busy for the next few days and have to keep this post short, but I’ve got a lot more to share with you guys that this entry doesn’t cover. That includes more lessons with Sebastian, as well as some crazy nights I’ve had out in the bars and clubs. Keep an eye out over the next week or so.

Lesson with Sebastian Drake: Threadcutting

Threadcutting

Threadcutting is the technique of taking one word or theme from a sentence and spinning it into a new, situationally relevant conversational thread. Once you lock this down, you’ll never find yourself “stranded” in conversation, even if you’re feeling out of state. Threadcutting lets you continue a conversation even with someone who’s not giving you much to work with. To show this, let’s look at a sample sentence. Imagine you ask a woman, “So, what did you do today?” and she responds with:

“I had a low-key day - I chilled out, watched some TV, and had a beer.”

That is some weak sauce, man. Not much to work with at all. But we can use threadcutting to make something out of it and keep the conversation flowing.

Threadcutting with Words

Ok, let’s pull all the significant words out of that sentence.

• Low-key
• Day
• Chilled
• TV
• Beer

For threadcutting, all you do is pick one of those words and use it to form a new sentence that kicks off a new thread of conversation. It can be on a similar topic or a completely different one; for whatever reason, using a word from the original sentence as a jump-off makes the second sentence seem sitrel, no matter what it’s about. For example:

Low-key: “Aw man, I wanted to have a low-key evening last night, but my friends dragged me out to a bar - fun times, though.”

Beer: “Yeah? The weirdest thing with beer - my parents were so anti-drinking when I was a teenager, but last night I was talking to my dad and I mentioned I was having a little trouble sleeping, and he told me to just down a beer before bed. So weird to hear that from my Dad, but I gave it a try and I slept like a log.”

Threadcutting with Themes

You can do the exact same thing by pulling out themes from a sentence, instead of words, and using those to start new threads. From the same sentence, “I had a low-key day - I chilled out, watched some TV, and had a beer,” we can get these themes:

• Relaxation
• Entertainment
• “Mind rot” entertainment
• Alcohol
• Intoxicants
• The media
• Stress-free experiences
• Food and drink

This works just the way it does when you threadcut using words. Examples:

Entertainment: “Yeah, TV’s great when I’m in need of some entertainment. I actually saw this great play the other day - it was so fun and entertaining, even though I’m not usually a theater person.”

Alcohol: “Wow, it’s been a while since I had a drink. I stopped drinking a few weeks ago, just to see temporarily what it’s like to go out at night without the social lubricant. Such a weird experience at first, but I’m really starting to like it.”

Tips on Threadcutting

Don’t be stilted in your language or long-winded. You’re not giving a speech; you’re just chatting.

Don’t try to be super-clever. This is the main mistake that smart people make with this, according to Sebastian. Don’t bother trying for “daredevil threadcuts” where you flip the meanings of words or whatever. “I had a fantastic day.” “Well, I saw the ‘Fantastic Four’ movie.” That doesn’t really work; don’t do that.

Pulling out every word or theme of a sentence was just for the sake of explaining the concept. You don’t need to do that in conversation. You only need to pull one thing from a sentence to threadcut - one word or one theme - so there’s no need to concentrate or analyze or do anything weird during conversation. Threadcutting is fairly easy.

Use of Threadcutting

Get the idea down, drill it a little (see below), and that alone will boost your conversational abilities overall. You’ll be caught less often with nothing to say - instead, you’ll instinctively pull one thing out of her last sentence and spin it into a new thread.

You don’t need to threadcut from every sentence. That’s not how normal conversations go – hopping constantly from thread to thread. When a conversational thread is going well, there’s no need to cut away from it. Just converse.

You only bring threadcutting to the conscious level when you want to slide away from a stale, boring, or otherwise undesirable topic. Threadcut until you find a conversational “oasis,” a topic that’s enjoyable and engaging, somewhere you want to stay awhile. Chill in the oasis and chat normally, until you get the feeling that the topic is going to go stale. Don’t wait until it does stale and the conversation dips into a low point - threadcut away first. And onward to the next oasis.

Drilling Threadcutting

Practice threadcutting a little bit before taking it “into the field.” To use Sebastian’s analogy, don’t wait until the battle to fire a gun for the first time. One way to practice is to threadcut during conversations with people that you don’t really need to threadcut with, people you’re already very friendly and comfortable with.

Another way to practice threadcutting is to drill with a partner. Trade sentences with your partner, threadcutting back and forth. Don’t ask questions; only make statements. You can also do this with more than two people, going in a circle.

Try threadcutting out and see what it does for you. I’ve been having a lot of fun with this stuff.

Cheers,
Clark

Hey guys. Welcome back to my little corner of theApproach. We’re going to continue with Sebastian’s method of behavior modification, which he’s teaching me in several installments. After that, I’m going to share some thoughts from a recent night out socializing that didn’t go so well for me. I think it’s important to share my speed bumps and hang-ups with you guys, not just my successes. This stuff ain’t easy, and I don’t want to gloss over that. But from a certain perspective, even rough nights are valuable, positive experiences that we can feel good about. Kumbaya, y’all.

Lesson 9 with Sebastian Drake: Behavior Modification – Screening Questions

In the last lesson, Sebastian went over screening statements. This time, he taught me a subtler tool: screening questions. Just like screening statements, these can be used as the first step in Sebastian’s “intention mapping” method of behavior modification.

The Two Competing Purposes of Screening

There are two competing purposes of screening: finding out what a person is actually like, and modifying the person’s behavior to better reflect what you like. When screening someone, you have to decide which purpose you care about more, because dialing up one necessarily dials back the other.

Weighted Questions for Behavior Modification; Unweighted for Neutral Assessment

When you weight a screening question, you deliberately encourage one response and discourage the other. The more you weight a screening question, the more it operates to modify behavior. A completely unweighted question wouldn’t modify behavior at all – it would just reveal how someone actually is.

Here’s an example of a relatively unweighted question: “On a Sunday night, are you more likely to stay in and relax or go out and party?” Neither choice is deliberately made more appealing than the other.

Here are some weighted versions of the same question.

“On a Sunday night, are you more the type to stay in, relax, and enjoy yourself, or do you have to get out again no matter what?” This question is weighted in favor of staying in; it frames staying in as pleasant and going out as irritating, maybe even a sign of insecurity. A person answering this question will probably go with the “staying in” response. There, you just encouraged her to say that she has the trait you want – the first step in Sebastian’s intention map.

“On a Sunday night, are you more the type to just stay in and… not do much, or are you more the type to head out again for another good time with friends?” This question offers the same choice but is weighted in favor of going out. Dig?

Whether you should weight a screening question or not depends on your intention. If you want to meet a woman who already actively possesses the traits you like, then ask unweighted questions. If you’ve already decided that you’re going to pursue a woman – if, say, she’s ridiculously hot, or if she possesses some traits that you really value but lacks other important ones – then ask weighted questions and draw out the qualities in her that you like.

Phrasing Your Screening Question

Here are several formats for screening questions:

-Are you more X or Y? (this is the format used in the examples above)

-I like X. Are you X? (this is naturally weighted)

-I like X. Do you consider yourself to be X? (a variation on the above, good for subjective traits like spontaneity, independence, loyalty, etc)

-I don’t like Y. You’re not Y, right? (slightly more hardcore)

-I need X in the people in my life. Are you X? (extremely weighted)

If you’re going to weight a question, don’t half-ass it. Put some friggin’ mustard on it! Go to extremes – frame your desired trait as wonderful and the opposing trait as god-awful. Initially, my weighted questions were wimpy, like (to emphasize spontaneity over structure) “Would you say that you’re more into being spontaneous and doing fun things on the fly, or are you more into planning a little more before you make decisions?” That’s barely weighted at all. Better would be, “Are you into being fun and spontaneous, going where the moment takes you and having adventures, or are you into, like, sitting and thinking and planning for an hour before you do anything?”

If you ask someone a screening question in the “Are you more X or Y?” format, it shouldn’t be possible to answer, “Both.” That’s no good. Phrase it to force a choice. Phrasing X and Y as distant extremes, like we just talked about, should do the trick.

Don’t be too wordy. Usually this happens because you’re a little nervous about throwing out a harsh screening question and are dancing around your points, but you have to just man up and do it. Learn to laugh at the tension, and the interaction will go better for you and her both. Be fairly concise, so that each word you use has significance.

Be sitrel with your screening questions. Sebastian is going to teach me how in some future lesson. In the meantime, he said, it’s fine for me to just drop them into the conversation with an un-sitrel thud. So maybe I get blown out, no biggie. One somewhat better way to do it is to build a context into the screening question. Bring up a short story or conversational thread about something that happened to you recently (recent events are automatically sitrel, Sebastian says), and use that to lead into the screening question. Here’s an example: “Yikes… I just watched a friend of mine get out of a relationship with a super clingy girl. What a slow motion trainwreck… wait, that’s not you, right?”

Rewarding Someone for Passing Your Screen

“That’s cool, you do seem (positive trait). I like that.”

“… I dig that.”

“… I approve.” (with a big smile)

So there you have it – screening questions. Use your new powers wisely.

Sebastian gave me a mission as follow-up for this lesson: screen the crap out of people, to the point of triggering responses nearing auto-rejection.* Examples: “Wow, you ask a lot of questions,” or “You’re picky, huh?” Sebastian asked me to get three near-auto-rejects. Give this a try if you like; it’s interesting to see how much it takes to trigger this response.

“Bleh” Nights and Crappy Nights

Friday night, I went with some friends to a popular bar and dance club. The night was… ok. It wasn’t particularly awful, and I actually had some tangible success, but things never really clicked. I’m sure you’ve had nights like that, nights that are just “bleh.” I definitely have these now and then, and worse, I have absolutely crappy nights sometimes.

The thing is, I try to see those nights as their own kind of victory. There’s a victory in hanging in there, putting in the time so that my unconscious social calibration can improve. There’s a victory in making the best of these difficult nights and going home with a smile on my face. There’s a victory in learning lessons that will benefit my social skills down the line. If I can truly adopt this mindset, then the prospect of a “bleh” night – or even a crappy night – can’t scare me away from going out and socializing. I can welcome whatever the night brings, because I know that victory lies ahead no matter what.

Ajahn Brahmavamso, the abbot of a Buddhist monastery in Australia, said something wonderful in a talk he gave on meditation. He said:

The first meditation teacher I had told me something which then sounded quite strange. He said that there is no such thing as a bad meditation! He was right. All those meditations which you called bad, frustrating and not meeting your expectations, all those meditations are where you do the hard work for your “pay cheque.”

…

It is like a person who goes to work all day Monday and gets no money at the end of the day. “What am I doing this for?” he thinks. He works all day Tuesday and still gets nothing. Another bad day. All day Wednesday, all day Thursday, and still nothing to show for all the hard work. That’s four bad days in a row. Then along comes Friday, he does exactly the same work as before and at the end of the day the boss gives him a pay cheque. “Wow! Why can’t every day be a pay-day?!”

…

It is in the difficult meditations that you build up your credit, you build up the causes for success… Then when there’s enough credit of good qualities, the mind goes into a good meditation and it feels like “pay-day”. It is in the bad meditations that you do the work.

Anyway, you get the idea. “Bleh” nights, crappy nights, it’s all good. Now let’s see if I can’t review the rough patches of the night and squeeze some value out of them.

Ok, thinking back, here’s the main problem I had Friday night: I was radiating high status to the women around me, but I didn’t own it and that came through in my interactions. I didn’t truly believe, in my gut, that I was on the level of the gorgeous women around me. Intellectually, I knew that I had what it takes – hell, I’ve had great interactions with beautiful women before – but emotionally I just wasn’t in that place.

I definitely came packing my passive value that night. I’m not a super-hot model dude, but I clean up well, and I was dressed fly and groomed well. I also rocked the powerful body language Sebastian taught me. I could feel that super-saiyan aura of social power as I moved through the bar. Women were giving me glances and lingering looks, and when I waded through the dance floor to reach the coat check, several women did that thing where they sorta half-turn toward you and dance “at you” instead of getting out of your way.

But here’s the thing: I may have felt like a mack when walking around – making smoldering eye contact, getting girls to turn toward me and smile as I walked by – but when it came time to actually approach, I turned into a plate of jiggly flan. I was scared. I felt as if, as soon as I opened my mouth, the illusion would shatter and they’d realize that I wasn’t one of them, that I didn’t belong. They’d see right through my clothes and my body language, and they’d realize what I really was: a chode in a cool-guy suit, playing way out of my depth. I didn’t consciously think this, but it was how I felt in the pit of my stomach as I approached or even thought about approaching.

Of course, since that’s how I felt, that’s exactly how I came off. Women were receptive when I approached, but I quickly burned through whatever initial goodwill I’d earned with my appearance and body language. Boring conversation, a lack of dominance, no self-assurance in my voice – I can’t pinpoint all the specifics, but it was just an overall wimp vibe and lack of confidence. Don’t get the wrong idea – I wasn’t absolutely terrible. I was certainly better than I’d been in my old days of social mediocrity, maybe even more attractive than most of the guys that had talked to them that night. My rough nights now are better than my rough nights once upon a time. Still, it wasn’t a great night.

So what do I do about this? Well, there are a few things I can think of.

I should review my lesson with Sebastian about beliefs and reinforce to myself that I am high-status. I truly am, so this isn’t something I have to trick myself into believing. I just need to recognize it and really own it.

I should take away a lesson about the importance of command presence – there was a slight meekness and timidity to my approaches, and if I’d remembered to “approach like she dropped her wallet,” I would have done much better. Even if I’m not really feeling confident and assertive at first, I should “fake it til I make it,” and eventually I’ll shift into the right mindset.

I should care less about the outcomes of my interactions, be less attached to success and focus more on just enjoying the process. Usually I’m pretty good with this, but it was an off night – fair enough. To prevent this in future, I could start my night off with a bunch of friendly “warm-up” interactions, saying hi and chatting with people with no expectations whatsoever (although, ideally, I should never have set expectations).

Above all, I think I have to just shrug it off and keep getting out there. I can do all the things I mentioned above, but I’ll still have off nights once in a while, and I doubt that’s going to change. The best solution I have is to just keep at it, and to not let them faze me or discourage me from going out and socializing.

Also, I don’t want to exaggerate the bad aspects of the night. Some good stuff happened too, and I should give those things their due. In no particular order:

I rolled up on a cute girl on the dance floor without hesitation and started dancing with her, which is something I’m usually pretty scared to do. In the few times I tried this back in the old days, my nervousness would usually come through as awkwardness or creepiness, and the poor girl would dance away or signal her friends to save her (totally understandable). Not this time. For whatever reason, I felt confident and fearless in that moment, and she opened right up and started dancing with me.

I had a good time with my friends. Actually, if I’d focused more on just enjoying myself with my buddies, I’d probably have been more successful with women that night. But I did have a good time, and that’s something.

I screened my friggin’ face off, just like Sebastian asked me to. I’m embarrassed to say that I failed to get three near-auto-rejects (I only got one, but it was priceless: “What is this, Match.com?”), but not for lack of trying. I guess people are just cool with a ton of screening. I suppose I could have gotten ridiculous with it, just firing off screening question after screening question, without taking a breath, to the point of serious social impropriety – maybe it’s my bad for not doing that. I did screen a lot with almost everyone I talked to, though.

Anyway, there you have it. A bumpy night for Clarkles. No biggie – it had its good moments, I hopefully learned something from it, and my social calibration is that much better for having been through it. I guess it can’t be all Playboy bunnies and reality TV starlets 24/7.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers,
Clark

*Auto-Rejection: A person’s response to something they believe to be truly unattainable is usually one of auto-rejection, the rationalization that the thing they can’t have is undesirable anyway. Think of the fable of the Fox and the Grapes. The fox can’t reach the high-hanging bunch of grapes, no matter how hard he tries. After trying and failing for some time, he walks off, telling himself that they’re probably sour anyway.

Hey guys, it’s time for a quick rewind. Last post, we started talking about Sebastian’s method of behavior modification, called intention mapping. It involves three steps: screening, qualification, and sex/afterglow. Sebastian and I skipped over screening because I was headed to my folks’ place for Thanksgiving vacation, where I wouldn’t have much opportunity to meet (or screen) new people. Well, I’m back in the concrete jungle now and ready to lay it down, so we backtracked and went over screening during our last session. I’m not one to mince words – well, I’m not tonight, since I’m about to head out and need to be quick – so without further preamble, here we go.

Lesson 8 with Sebastian Drake: Behavior Modification – Screening

Having standards that people have to meet before they can become part of your life is a very powerful thing. Obviously, it ensures that you’re surrounded by people who make you happy and enrich your world. It also conveys a number of things about you – that you are accustomed to having women in your life and can afford to be choosy, that you know what you want, that you expect and feel entitled to the best in your life, etc. Additionally, it makes you seem like a challenge, which can be attractive, and it encourages her to invest in the interaction by asking her to put in a little bit of work. People don’t value something that’s super-easy to get.

Interestingly, because people are malleable (as we talked about last post), screening does more than just weed people out who don’t meet your standards. It inspires people to step their game up and meet your standards. Screening modifies behavior.

The way that you screen to modify behavior is: first you screen for a quality, which will often encourage the woman to step up and claim that she has that quality (whether or not that’s usually true for her); then you tell her that you like that about her (similar to the qualification stage, which we discussed last post and which comes later). Remember, screening is the first part of Sebastian’s intention mapping method, which altogether involves: screening - getting a girl to say that she has a quality, then rewarding that; qualification - later telling a girl that she has the quality, then rewarding that; sex/afterglow - reinforcing it in the bedroom. Now let’s talk about how to actually screen.

One obvious way of screening is to simply ask a woman if she has a certain trait. Examples would be “Are you adventurous?” “Can you cook?” and the (pretty blunt) “What do you have going for you besides your looks?” Sebastian taught me another way, the screening statement.

Screening statements can actually be pretty blunt too. You just toss something out there, like “I like the people in my life to be independent, to have their own thing going on and rely on themselves instead of on other people.” Don’t be over-harsh with it, but don’t use weakening words like “It sorta matters to me that someone is…” Link it explicitly to yourself; it shouldn’t be, “It’s good for people to be independent,” but rather “It’s important to me that people be…” or “I like people who are…” Be blunt about this; it feels a little confrontational at first, and this will make you uncomfortable, but learn to own it.

Once you put the statement out there, you just let it hang. Don’t say anything, and absolutely don’t back down from your statement or hedge on it; just calmly look at her and give her the chance to respond. Often she’ll respond by qualifying herself, stating that she is whatever trait you mentioned. Seriously; you’ll be surprised how often it goes down just like this. When she does that, let her know that you think that’s cool about her. “That’s great that you see things that way too, I like that,” or “I think it’s cool that independence matters to you too,” or whatever.

But how to make these bad boys situationally relevant? Well, the good news is that you don’t have to do much. If it stems from her negatively mentioning a trait that you like - let’s say that you’re into independence, and she tells a story about how she didn’t bother going for a run because her jogging partner canceled for the day – you can just say “Hm…” or “Interesting…” then pause, then just drop your screening statement.

It’s that simple. If it’s absolutely unconnected to the conversation altogether, you can still just drop the statement with no apologies. The way to do that is to pause for a second, like something just occurred to you, then break out the statement in a thoughtful way.

This is pretty simple stuff. The key is to avoid being too aggressive with these statements – you don’t want to seem like you’re challenging them or getting in their faces – while still letting them rip with full commitment and no wavering or hedging.

Ok, I gotta run, I’m flinging myself out into the night to try this out some more. I’ll report back with the good stuff. Play nice!

Cheers,
Clark

Hey guys, it’s time to dive back into those glimmering pools of sublime wisdom that are my lessons with Sebastian Drake. I’m going to use this post to cover our last two sessions – they were basically two parts of a single lesson, and it makes more sense and improves the flow to present them together. The topic was behavior modification: inspiring people to behave around you in a way that you like.

Lessons 6 and 7 with Sebastian Drake: Behavior Modification

The basic premise behind Sebastian’s style of behavior modification is that people are malleable; they behave differently in different situations and around different people. I seem like a very different guy when I’m having a beer with my buddies than when I’m sipping a malted milkshake with my grandparents. We’re all complex, multifaceted beings, and the different contexts we find ourselves in bring out different aspects of who we are. According to Sebastian, we can use this inherent malleability to draw out particular aspects of people when they’re around us, so that they act in a way that we like. Let’s get to it.

 

Picking a Role and Listing Traits

 

First, Sebastian had me pick one role that I’d like a woman to play in my life. What sort of relationship would I like to have with a woman right now? For instance, it could be an exclusive relationship, an open relationship, a friends-with-benefits situation, or anything in between.

 

Once I’d picked a type of relationship, Sebastian had me make a list of all the traits I’d want in a woman with whom I had that type of relationship. I made a long list, which Sebastian and I then narrowed down to the major ones (eliminating some cool but nonessential traits like “has seen and liked the original Star Wars trilogy,” “drinks whisky,” and “can spot Jelly Belly flavors based on color and pattern of the bean”). Once I had my list condensed and ready, we moved on to a discussion of Sebastian’s behavior modification method, which he calls intention mapping.

 

Intention Mapping

 

Intention mapping involves three steps:

1) Screening: by screening for certain traits, you get her to say that she’s what you want.

2) Qualification: you tell her that she’s what you want, and that this is why you like her.

3) Sex/Afterglow: you reinforce it by telling her again in the bedroom.

 

Sebastian and I didn’t talk very much about screening, because it’s done when you first meet someone, and I was on my way home to spend Thanksgiving weekend with my family – not a situation where I was likely to meet a ton of new people. We talked about it just a little bit and focused instead on qualification.

Screening (partial)

 

Sebastian did briefly teach me one thing about screening before we moved on to qualification. He looked at my final, condensed list and pointed out that there was only one real deal-breaker on it, one trait was absolutely non-negotiable for me. That trait was “tolerance and open-mindedness.” I absolutely will not spend time with an intolerant or bigoted person, but all the other traits were at least slightly negotiable. For instance, if a woman’s not extremely independent, that’s a bummer, but I might let it slide if she’s very fun and vivacious, or kind, or adventurous, or creative, or whatever. Tolerance was my only absolute no-budging, must-have requirement.

 

Sebastian pointed out that, ironically, we’re very calm and understated when discussing our non-negotiable stuff, while we tend to yell and kick up a fuss about the things that we care less about. This is because with our deal-breaker traits, we know exactly where we stand. With things that are more negotiable, we’re worried that we might cave, and so we put up a show of force. This just reveals our weak position. People act weak when strong and strong when weak.

 

The takeaway from this was: be calm, relaxed, and nonchalant when discussing traits that you seek in other people. Never declare that something is non-negotiable. Doing so just shows your fear that you’re going to give in and negotiate.

 

That was just one tidbit of info on screening. Sebastian’s going to cover the topic at greater length sometime soon.

 

Qualification

 

After you’ve screened her, hopefully causing her to claim that she has the trait you’re looking for, the next stage is qualifying her on that trait – telling her that she has the trait and that you like that about her. If she actually does behave in the way that you’re qualifying her for, then this is a form of positive reinforcement. If she doesn’t quite behave in this way (or only does so rarely), then by praising her, you encourage her to live up to your praise by altering her behavior. Sebastian taught me to ways to carry out this qualification.

Offhand Compliments

The first is through offhand compliments. This is pretty straightforward – just give her a compliment about a trait or behavior, letting her know as well that this trait or behavior makes you feel good. Sebastian gave an example: “It’s so cool that you always cook dinner for us. It’s always so delicious, and it always makes me happy.” Use this when she actually is acting in a way that you like. This is the positive reinforcement bit I was talking about.

Using Rewards to Stop Bad Behavior

The second is a method of altering bad behavior. When someone is acting in a way that you don’t like, you use praise so that they change their behavior to live up to your praise.

 

You can’t really persuade people to change their behaviors by pointing out how bad things are. Ever try to persuade a friend or loved one to quit smoking by telling them how awful it is – how it makes them smell and yellows their teeth, how it’s peeling years off their life? How’d that go? Yeah, thought so.

 

That sort of thing only works when the person has truly hit rock bottom. Otherwise, all you do is encourage them to ask themselves why they’re persisting in their bad behavior if it’s so terrible for them. They’ll backwards-rationalize that they must really like it if they’re doing it in spite of all these serious downsides.

 

Instead of starkly pointing out the negatives, try changing bad behavior by emphasizing and complimenting them on the positives. The example Sebastian gave was an imaginary nephew of mine who’s behaving like a delinquent, abusing drugs and skipping school and not taking advice from anyone. He suggested saying something like, “You know, [imaginary nephew’s name], I think it’s really cool that you always give a listen to what I have to say. Maybe we don’t always see eye to eye, but you hear me out even if it’s not something you’d normally pay attention to. I appreciate that.” People don’t like to contradict the praise they receive, and they’ll try to live up to it. Imaginary nephew is probably going to start listening.

 

Sebastian gave me a couple additional details about using this “carrot, not stick” approach to stopping bad behavior:

 

This isn’t used to correct very serious bad behavior, and it’s not a quick fix to correct bad behavior as it’s going on. It’s for modifying general traits and habitual behaviors.

 

Include negatives (like the “maybe we don’t always see eye to eye, but…” bit in our example) only if necessary to make the compliment seem credible. If you don’t need them for that purpose, leave them out. Don’t be negative-centric. If you do have to include them, deemphasize them by speaking quickly and softly through them, and definitely phrase your statement so that you express a positive first. Maybe even use hyperbole with the negatives. Instead of saying, “Maybe you don’t always have great self-control,” you could say something like, “Maybe you don’t always have Bruce Lee self-control, snatching flies out of the air and stuff, but…”

 

Use “me” statements, not just “you” statements. Remember to mention at some point that the trait you’re complimenting them on makes you happy in some way, instead of just focusing on what they do and how they act. Sebastian suggests not going more than two “you” statements in a row without breaking it up with a “me” statement.

If there’s a pretty significant problem and you can’t credibly say that things are good (for example, if someone’s smoking, you can’t credibly compliment them on quitting or being healthy), you still shouldn’t point out that things are bad. Everyone wants to feel that they’re in control and that they take action when they see things are bad. Pointing out that they know things are bad and aren’t making a change just makes them feel disempowered. Instead, tell them that you know they’re strong and that when things reach a point where it’s clearly time for a change, you know they’ll make that change.

My Thoughts

 

Sebastian had me try out both types of behavior-mod qualifiers on various friends and family, and I learned a few things from the experience.

 

A compliment almost always goes over well. Everyone responded positively, most people enthusiastically too. You might feel like you’re about to get called out for being full of it or obnoxious when you compliment someone on a trait that they don’t quite have, but you probably won’t. I didn’t, and some of my compliments were pretty serious stretches. People want to accept compliments – why would they contradict you when you say something nice about them? If it’s anything short of a barefaced lie that’s obvious to both of you, they’ll probably go with it.

 

Some people in the “pickup” community discourage giving praise, calling it a form of supplication. That’s not what it felt like to me at all. Actually, giving someone a compliment made me feel more powerful. I think the principle at work is that I must be a high-value person of some authority if I’m in a position to assess and reward the behavior of others. If I’m in a place where I can raise other people up, then I must be pretty high up myself. I once had a friend point out to me that I was being very complimentary to a girlfriend of mine when the three of us were out eating together. He actually took me aside and said, “Dude, you’re kind of supplicating her a lot.” My response was, “I’ll supplicate the hell out of her if I want. I like her and she likes me. This is how we treat each other.”

 

It feels genuinely good to give compliments, especially very sincere compliments about good qualities the person truly does have (as opposed to the ones used to modify bad behavior). People light up when someone they care about acknowledges their positive attributes and behaviors, and everyone ends up feeling uplifted.

 

Cheers,

Clark

Earlier today, I spoke on the phone with a grad student who’s doing a project on the “seduction community” for her master’s degree in sociology. What started out as an interview evolved into a fun, frank, and open dialog. She had a lot of interesting things to say and questions to ask, and the back-and-forth of the conversation jostled some new ideas out of my head too. A number of interesting points came up, and one in particular deserves mention here.

Elite Men, Elite Ethics

I feel a stronger responsibility to behave ethically toward women now, as a “pickup artist” (for lack of a better term), than I did before I got started with this stuff. This surprised my interviewer when I said it, and maybe it’s not the norm in the community, but it’s how I feel these days. I think more about how my actions impact others, and take greater care to avoid hurting people, than I ever have before. It feels good. And I attribute that shift 100% to my involvement in pickup.

Uncle Ben (Parker, not the rice dude) said it best: “With great power comes great responsibility.” The fact is, I can do a lot more damage now than I could once upon a time. There are more women in my life now, and the way I act toward them has a stronger emotional impact on them. When you’re attracted to someone, that person has the power to make you feel wonderful, as well as the power to make you suffer – from the dull, constant ache of being led on and used, to the devastation of being disdainfully rebuffed and humiliated.

I’ve been through that emotional punishment and felt every ounce of pain, and now I’m in a position where I might accidentally do it to others if I don’t watch myself. If I act callously or carelessly, I could hurt women I care about, women who deserve my respect. I guess some guys could see this newfound power as an opportunity for symbolic retribution against women who’ve wronged them in the past. Please don’t do that. Be the man you are now, not the avenger of the man you were then.

If we truly want to be elite men, we need elite ethics to match our social abilities. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard than the average guy. That doesn’t mean that it’s wrong to pursue anything besides a committed, exclusive, loving relationship. Oh hell no. I can go out and meet women – hell, I can go out and chase chicks – without hurting or disrespecting anyone, and that’s what I aim to do. I don’t have to get super-serious or give up the lifestyle that I want right now, and I get to feel great about myself and the way I move through the world. Everyone wins.

Developing our social skills gives us real power. Let’s use it like real men. Let’s be a positive force in this world: powerful, ethical, the masters of our own lives. Onward and upward, gents.

Cheers,
Clark

…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.

Hey guys,

Clark here. Before we get into my fourth lesson with Sebastian, let’s do a quick rundown of what we’ve covered so far. Up to this point, we’ve focused on loading me up with massive amounts of passive value – that’s value that conveys itself through my presence alone, without my needing to actively demonstrate it. We’ve done this by training in:

• Taking up space in a dominant way
• High-value body language
• Adjusting my beliefs to acknowledge the high value I already possess
• Approaching with a commanding presence, rather than being weak and tentative
• Using nonverbals to make a point as simply and powerfully as possible, specifically:
  • -Nonverbal communication through eye contact
  • -Nonverbally deterring unpleasant or inappropriate behavior

We’re aiming for full internalization of these behaviors, so that I do them unconsciously and with effortless skill. That’s just a matter of practice, and hopefully I’ll have them internalized and running on autopilot before too long. I guess I’m far enough along that Sebastian feels ready to move on to the actual nitty-gritty of social interactions. We’re starting at the beginning, with openers. An opener is whatever you say or do to initiate an interaction. “Hi” is an opener. “What’s your sign?” is an opener, although not a great one.

What you say in your opener does matter a little, but it’s insignificant compared to your body language, pacing, vocal tonality, facial expression, etc. From what I understand, the extremely socially powerful guys can open with absolutely anything. Even I’ve experienced this on nights when I felt really on – one night, my main opener was “Hey guys, do I have anything in my teeth? [Clark bares teeth]” and it worked fine. Still, we’re going for best-practices behaviors, so we might as well make our openers tight. Plus, when you’re pretty new to this stuff (like me) and don’t yet have George Clooney nonverbals, saying something money might make all the difference.

Ok, enough chitchat. Happy fun learning time begin NOW!

Lesson 4 with Sebastian Drake: Situational Relevance; Openers, Part 1

Situational Relevance

Situational Relevance is pretty self-explanatory; it basically refers to whether a statement makes sense given the situation in which you say it. Saying something that isn’t situationally relevant, or sitrel, often gets responses like “What?” “Why are you asking me this?” or “That was random.” When we talk about openers, it’s important to remember that they should be sitrel.

At a dance club, saying “Hey, I can’t believe they’re playing this song! This song was like the anthem for my whole summer!” is sitrel. Saying “Hey, who lies more, men or women?” at a dance club is usually not sitrel. Approaching a woman in a bookstore and telling her, in a soft but confident voice, that you think she’s absolutely radiant is sitrel. Approaching a woman in a bookstore and yelling “Dude, you’re hot!” is not. You probably get the idea, but let’s break it down into something we can really work with.

According to Sebastian, situational relevance has three components: context, comprehension level, and energy level.

Context

Context is the main part of situational relevance, and it’s also pretty self-explanatory. Does what you’re saying make sense given the context of the interaction, or does it seem to come out of nowhere? There are two ways to be contextually relevant: through environmental context and through conversational context.

If the statement is an observation about something in the actual environment around you, or if it’s something that makes sense to say within that environment, then it’s relevant to the environmental context. Examples include talking about interesting décor, music, people in the vicinity, and stuff like that.

A statement that doesn’t riff off of the environment can still be contextually relevant if it flows from the thread of conversation. For example, you start by talking about the music, move to discuss the crazy summer adventures for which the song provided the soundtrack, and eventually end up sharing childhood memories. The first topic was relevant to the environmental context, but the other two weren’t. That’s fine, because they were relevant to the conversational context.

Comprehension Level

Comprehension level refers to how sophisticated you can be in what you say. In high-comp venues, you can engage people at a higher intellectual level, meaning you should feel somewhat freer to discuss subtle ideas and employ sophisticated language. In low-comp venues, keep it simple. Short sentences and short words; basic ideas; no frills.

As Sebastian defines it, comprehension level is venue-specific. It’s inversely proportional to the level of stimulus in the venue. The level of stimulus rises (and the comprehension level falls) with factors like how loud the music is, how crazy and flashy the strobe lights are, how dim the regular lights are, how crowded it is, whether there’s booze or drugs, etc. The spectrum stretches from “library” to “rave.” According to Sebastian, the absolute #1 suppressant of comprehension level is the presence of alcohol.

Energy Level

While comprehension level is defined as venue-specific, Sebastian defines energy level as person-specific. Someone can be at a crazy, drug-fueled rave and still be low-energy herself, maybe leaning against a wall or sitting somewhere quietly. The rule of thumb is: come in at or near the energy level of the person you’re approaching. Slightly above and slightly below are both fine.

Openers

Sebastian said that all openers can be sorted using five categories: Genuine Interest, Implicit Direct, Situational, Indirect, and Playful/Nonverbal.

Genuine Interest

A Genuine Interest opener involves walking up to a woman you find attractive and telling her so, warmly and confidently conveying your interest in getting to know her better. I referred to this in an earlier post as “going direct,” but Sebastian likes the term “Genuine Interest opener” better. I hear and obey.

Genuine Interest openers are pretty bold. Traditional “pickup” wisdom tends to frown on this sort of directness, suggesting instead that you open while somehow feigning disinterest. This is based on the idea that you shouldn’t convey interest in a woman until she has become interested in you. We don’t really subscribe to this approach. For one thing, directly expressing interest in a confident way is ballsy enough that it alone can earn you some interest. For another thing, if you’ve stocked up on passive value, there’s an excellent chance that you’ll already have some interest from the woman before you even open your mouth. This is why we’re such fans of passive value here at theApproach - it lets us get off to a running start with our interactions instead of tiptoeing around and hiding our intentions.

The basic format that Sebastian recommends for Genuine Interest openers is “I saw you ______________, and I had to say _________________.” The first blank is whatever she was doing when you saw her; sitting, standing, or walking cover just about everything. Sebastian calls this little preface “pacing.” For whatever reason, coming right out and laying the compliment on a woman usually doesn’t go so well. It’s a little jarring, I guess. Also, Sebastian says that linking your approach to whatever you saw her doing right at that moment somehow makes it feel more spontaneous (which it hopefully is – hovering is bad). The second blank is either the first thing you noticed about her or the thing you like most about her. Are her stiletto boots just deadly-looking? Tell her so. Did the sheen of her hair catch your eye, or the glow of her complexion? You can go with that too. By the way, remember that these are all just guidelines, not hard-and-fast rules.

Once again: “I saw you [whatever she was doing – usu. sitting there/standing there/walking by], and I had to say [compliment on either the first thing you noticed or the thing you like most].”

Some pointers on Genuine Interest openers: for one thing, don’t be cliché. There’s a concept called precedence that suggests that people get used to responding to a certain stimulus in a certain way. If a woman is used to blowing out guys who approach her with “Hi, what’s your name?” then saying that to her will probably trigger that old association and earn you a quick blowout as well. On the other hand, good precedence is something that you can benefit from. We’ll talk about that later. For now, just remember to avoid bad precedence – don’t say the cliché crap she associates with the guys she’s blown out, or she’ll associate you with those guys.

Also, if you’re going to complement her on something she’s wearing rather than just her beauty or vibe in general, make sure that you link it to some quality of hers that you like. If you like her boots, don’t say, “I like your boots.” For all she knows, you’re admiring them because you want to buy a pair like them for your girlfriend. You haven’t conveyed your interest in her, just her boots. Instead, tell her that the boots look amazing on her, or comment on her great fashion sense in wearing something as sexy and edgy as those boots. Make sure it’s about her, not the item.

The reason we love Genuine Interest openers is that they’re both simple and always contextually relevant. The woman herself provides the context.

Implicit Direct

With Implicit Direct openers, you don’t overtly state your interest, but it’s still pretty clear why you’re talking to her. This includes openers like “What’s up?” “How’s it going?” and Sebastian’s favorite, “Is this seat taken?” He likes that one because it has a built-in contingency; if, when you sit down, she says something like “Oh, I thought you just wanted to take the chair,” you respond, “No, you just seemed interesting and I wanted to meet you. I’m [your name].” Pretty sneaky, sis.

You don’t want to be cliché with these either – in fact, that’s pretty much true for everything you say. According to Sebastian, “What’s happening?” and “What’s good?” are better than “What’s up?” or “How’s it going?” even though they’re pretty much the same thing, simply because fewer people say them, and there’s less negative precedence associated with them. Even better is that mighty god-king of Implicit Direct openers, the shining Excalibur that Sebastian bequeathed unto me with great solemnity: “Hey, are you guys having a good time?” Oh, the power. This one is awesome in a bar or club because, instead of simply avoiding bad precedence, it taps into good precedence. At a bar or club, who typically says things like “Hey, are you guys having a good time?” DJs. Promoters. Managers. Owners. When you open with “Hey, are you guys having a good time?” you’re saying something to which people are used to responding very positively.

Situational

Situational openers use a simple concept – opening about something in the environment around you. The easiest way to do this is to simply point out something interesting or strange that you see. Sebastian uses what he calls the “nudge and point.” See something beautiful, funny, or bizarre? Nudge and point. Say something about it if you want, but it’s not necessary for the opener (although it usually is if you’re opening someone when the two of you are walking). The mindset you want for this is that you just saw something amazing and simply want to share it with another human being. That’s a nice thing to do anyway.

Situational openers require that you be perceptive and think on your feet. After all, you need to have actually seen something in the environment worth talking about. Sebastian gave me an exercise to help train my perceptiveness and ability to pick things out of the environment: whenever I’m walking anywhere, I pick a color and try to spot every instance where that color appears in my surroundings. So as I walk along, I’m basically thinking to myself, “Blue, blue, blue, blue, blue…” picking out everything blue in my field of vision: cars, signs, spray-paint on walls, people’s jeans, etc. This is a lot of fun, by the way – definitely do this, if only to amuse yourself on your way to wherever it is you’re going.

Coming up:

-Part 2 of Sebastian’s lesson on openers

-Clark’s adventures trying out these openers (with REAL women!)

Don’t touch that dial!

Cheers,
Clark