Everyone sizes up everyone that meet in a split second. While the
most open-minded and enlightened people let their views of others
evolve, everything we see gets factored into decision making.

If you’re having problems with a negative stereotype about you, the
problem is that that stereotype is providing more information about
you than any other source.

I have clients of all races. Have had clients from every continent,
and very many countries. And I’ve noticed something time and time
again: Students who succeed have positive characteristics that
dominate your first impression of them.

Students who don’t are bland, which leaves people’s split second
judges of them to chance.

Overdomination:

A characteristic is said to “dominate” another when it gets
factored before that characteristic. For instance, clothing
dominates race - what you’re wearing gets factored into how people
judge each other before your skin color. Put this way - if you see
a Brazilian guy in an Armani suit, you say -

“Rich Brazilian guy”, not “Brazilian rich guy”.

But the fact that he’s rich doesn’t make you forget that he’s a
Brazilian gentleman - so you’re going to factor in your past
experiences with people from Brazil when you size him up instantly.

So here’s the crux of it - if some characteristics about you aren’t
great for the area you’re in, or you don’t believe it works well
for you, you want to get other characteristics that dominate those
traits. Even if your stereotypical characteristics are advantageous
to you - tall, square-jawed Brazilian guy - you can still evolve
past that. If people’s SECOND impression of you is that you’re a
tall, square-jawed Brazilian, then you’re in really great shape.

Now the real deal - what if you’re the “wrong” type for whatever
you want to do? What if you’re applying for a job in a racist
country, what if you’re shorter than everyone around you in a place
that values height, what if you don’t have the same “pedigree” that
is expected of someone to enter a certain social circle?

The key is - overdomination.

Traits that dominate get consideration first, and then other traits
are looked at.

Traits that OVERDOMINATE are traits that make you forget about the
other characteristics of the person. The other traits become
irrelevant in light of such a large, dominating trait.

Power.

Power is a classical overdominating trait. If you see a very
powerful guy, it makes largely irrelevant what the rest of him is.
You see powerful men of all types. Even an ardent racist is going
to respect Samuel L. Jackson.

Charisma.

Charisma is a classical overdominating trait. If you see a very
charismatic guy, it makes largely irrelevant what the rest of him
is. Even though he’s only 5′6, Tom Cruise absolutely glows.

In the last month, I’ve had a mix of very interesting clients. One
was a gentleman who was truly insightful - he’s a world traveller,
a scholar, enlightened and brilliant and charming. He’s got wild
stories of his travels through North America and the Orient, and he
talks with rapture about dangerous attempts of criminals to trying
to rob or extort him. He laughs at the time that he got scammed
twice in the same night, and laughs with a sense of dignity - he
learned the lesson, and the anecdote was worth the few dollars.
He’ll make more money, and if he doesn’t, money won’t be an issue.
A renaissance man, if you will, that is knowledgeable about history
and art but dresses in sharp, tailored high fashion.

Oh yeah, and he’s a medium-built Chinese-Canadian guy that’s
average height and with a so-so physique.

It’s the last thing you notice - when he’s on, he combines power
and charm, and they overdominate his other characteristics. If you
met him, you’d like him.

I hear men worry about their height, race, nationality, accent,
age, and all sorts of other traits frequently.

I’ll tell you when you’re in trouble - when the first thing someone
notices about you is that you’re short, or that you’re young, or
that you’re a particular race. That happens to people who have no
characteristics more interesting than those traits.

Now, those traits will still stereotype you to people as a “second
impression” if you get some traits that dominate them. For
instance, looking “corporate” will get noticed before your
ethnicity. Your race will still be factored, but you’ll get all the
stereotypes about being corporate (doesn’t care about the
environment, really damn busy, resents poor people, is extremely
good in bed) before you get the ones about your race.

And if you really put yourself together extremely well, eventually
you come to stand for an idea, and an ideal. One of the most
successful clients I’ve ever had the blessing to teach was an
extremely successful professional who, without a college degree,
moved through various entrepreneurial endeavors and then worked his
way up the chain in the construction industry until he’s now making
piles of money.

He’s a short guy, with an unexceptional physique. His clothes
aren’t extremely high end, either - he usually wears Levi’s. But
he’s “got it” - characteristics that overdominate.

Power.
Leadership.
Charm.
“Gets shit done”.

These characteristics can be built over time. A good place to start
is with your nonverbals - right now, we’re going to work on it.
From behind your monitor, indulge me for five minutes.

Push your shoulders as far back as you can, so that they’re even
tense.
Push your chest as far out as you can.
Suck your stomach in.
Tilt your head upwards - your chin should be slightly above
parallel to the ground.
Now take a deep breath… hold it…
…now exhale, and let your muscles relax and be not tense. Keep
your shoulders “back and broad”, your chest pushed out, stomach in,
and head up.

(The to remember this quickly and fix your bodylanguage in a
nightclub is to go through this order -

Back and broad, out, in, up, breathe - which stands for shoulders
back and broad, chest out, stomach in, head up, breathe)

When you make eye contact with people, look from your right eye to
their right eye, or to the bridge of their nose which makes you
look like you’re looking into both their eyes simultaneously.

When you walk, go S-Squared as instructor Morgan puts it.
S-Squared: Smooth and Slow. All your actions should be smooth and
slow, which entains thinking about everything before you do it. Be
the observed, not the observer.

That’s the start of developing some “power” about you.

If your first impression is excellent and unique, your “second
impression” - the stuff you can’t change - becomes less important.

And when you seem extremely powerful to random people who meet you,
or extremely charming, completely stylish, or like an amazing
leader - then secondary characteristics about you won’t even factor.

Sebastian

Social accountability is when a girl is held socially accountable
for her actions. In the workplace and in her social circle, there
are social ramifications for what she does. In those places, she is
far less likely to engage in wanton, random, or potentially
disrespectful behavior. Her decisions will be more calculated and
less arbitrary. She’ll be less whimsical, and less spontaneous, and
err on the cautious side when making decisions that could put her
reputation in jeopardy.

PROS:

The girl is less likely to flake.
The girl is less likely to disrespect you.
The girl is less likely to act random.
Less mood swings.
Better treatment overall.

CONS:

She’ll have more fear of being judged.
She’ll be less quick and less likely to engage in casual liaisons.
She’ll be less forthcoming and open about what she really thinks
about things.
She’ll act more conservatively.

Social anonymity is when a girl is not held socially accountable
for her actions. When she meets a guy randomly in a bar, club, or
on the streets and has no binding connection with him, her actions
are socially anonymous. Her behavior will be more ruled by her
moods and whims, which can work for or against you. When you are
socially anonymous to a girl’s social circle, she is more likely to
flake, engage in whimsical behavior, or act disrespectfully - but
also more likely to do “taboo” things she’d be afraid of being
judged for in her main social circle, like extremely quick flings,
threesomes, and other such behavior.

PROS:

Less fear of being judged.
She’ll open up more.
She’s likely to “roll with it” when crazy stuff comes up.
More honest, less calculated conversations and interactions.
Greater possibility of very quick interactions and escalations.

CONS:

More likely to flake.
More whimsical behavior.
More potential for disrespect.
More likely to “vent”, “flip out”, or just unload all her emotional
baggage about men.

You could plot these on a scale, ranging from

Completely Anonymous <---> Completely Accountable

Completely Anonymous: No one besides her knows or has any chance of
knowing you exist. When you or her are traveling, and none of her
friends are around, and you meet by random chance, you are
completely socially anonymous.

Completely Accountable: Almost everyone significant to her knows
about you and your character. Her friends, family, and coworkers
know you, and have an opinion of you.

The vast majority of interactions we get into, we’re somewhere in
between.

—> This is usually a mistake.

“Playing the extremes” here is VERY viable, because her behavior
gets extremely polarized at either end of the spectrum, making it
extremely easy to make judgments about what to do. The basic
formula I recommend is:

Either become an important part of her life, or be a complete
fantasy diversion from her life.

If you want to be socially anonymous, the formula is easy: Look for
girls out by themselves (99% of the time they’re looking for a guy
that night), don’t introduce her to people, keep it extremely fun
and high energy, and escalate quickly. Realize that getting phone
numbers from girls without social accountability require LOTS more
compliance and she’s still likely to flake. She needs to be
invested if you’re going to get a number, so try to get her doing
favors or spending money on you quickly.

If you want her to be socially accountable, the formula is a little
trickier but easy to implement none-the-less: You want to meet and
strike good impressions with as many people in her life as are
significant as possible. Meet her girlfriends, even talk to her
parents if possible.

Socially anonymous is easy - don’t meet anyone. Here’s some social
accountability tech -

1. Ask her about all her friends, get their names, and then ask
individually about each friend every now and then. Doing so makes
her more likely to bring you up in conversation to that friend.

2. Wish those friends well, or ask concernedly if they’re going
through tough times. Tell her you’re pulling for her friends.

3. Go out with her social circle whenever possible.

4. Introduce her to your social circle.

5. Interact with her in places where she’s a “regular” - at her
university cafe, office cafeteria, or favorite bar would be examples.

6. Encourage her to invite her friends out with you and your
friends. Invites to parties where you highly encourage her to
invite her friends are likely to get her friends out.

7. (my favorite) If she still lives with her parents (as many girls
into their 20’s do now), have her ask her parents for permission to
go out with you. Tell her to say, “Mom, I met a guy that’s a good
guy that I like, and he said he’d like you to approve him taking me
out Thursday. Can I go out with him?” Have her ask when she’s on
the phone with you. The parents will be damn impressed and love
you, and it’ll also get her having to deal with, “So…. who is
he… is he cute?” She’ll roll her eyes, and go, “Mommmmm!”

The effects:

Social accountability is more precise and will have a higher
success rate overall, but will take longer. It’s more likely to
default towards societally normal relationships, though you can
always intention map some life into them.

Social accountability is a bit more “playing the numbers game” even
with masterful command of VAC, but it leads to extremely quick and
crazy interactions. This is the stuff that gets girls in your bed
in 30 minutes, but also leads to more flaking.

Factors on choosing whether to use Social Accountability or Social
Anonymity:

Both are powerful. Anonymity lends to more variance, but quicker
escalations and more hedonism-based relationships. Accountability
is slower and leads to mainstream relationships more often, but is
more precise and consistent.

Have fun, & keep playin’,

Sebastian

There is no doubt that having standards and holding women to them
is good for both value and compliance. It shows you have value in
that you can afford to have standards and think well of yourself,
that you deserve a quality woman. It’s good for compliance when you
hold her to your standards and she tries to meet them.

On top of all that, after she meets one of your standards, you can
reward her for it and show her that that qualifies her to be with
you - which increases attainability.

Screening is, in short, a good thing. But a lot of times, guys have
a hard time making screening questions Situationally Relevant. They
aren’t able to create the context necessary to screen.

What you can do in place of screening questions is use
statement-based screening. It’s screening in a way that doesn’t ask
her if she meets your standards, but instead puts your standards
out there and offers her the opportunity to show she meets them.
This begins to work once you’ve base compliance and she’s started
to initially get attracted to you.

What you do, quite simply, is put out a statement as to what you
like or don’t like. If the girl likes you, she’ll want to show she
meets that standard.

Example:

Screening question: “Can you cook?”
Screening statement: “I like girls that can cook.”

This also has great application for screening in response to a
story she had, where a question might be very verbose.

For instance, a great thing to screen women on is having female
friends in addition to male friends. Trust me on this one, you
don’t want a girlfriend that can’t get along with other girls.

So if the girl is talking about how she doesn’t like most girls and
doesn’t get along with them, you can drop a screening statement: “I
hear you, girls can be tough. I think it’s really important to have
friends that are guys and girls though.” -> This is almost
guaranteed to get her backpedalling and trying to impress upon and
to you that she has female friends too.

The great thing about screening statements is that they’re actually
more compliance than passing a screening question. While there’s a
social obligation to answer a reasonable question you’re asked, it
feels to her like she’s just volunteering that she’s up to your
standards when you make a statement. And on the flipside, you’re
putting less effort in - so she’s giving you more effort after
you’ve put in less. A good formula.

Now, realize one last cool piece of the puzzle. Girls - especially
very beautiful girls with great social skills - often use
screening-based statements on men. They’ll mention in passing that
they value something or other, and most men will jump to say
they’re that.

Instead, a good answer is to just smile and agree with her, perhaps
saying the word, “Cool.”

Examples:

Girl: “I really think what car a guy drives says a lot about him.”
You: “Cool.”

Girl: “I expect my boyfriends to take me out to really nice places.”
You: “Cool.”

It dismisses the screen from her without being combative. You
smile, and say something like, “Cool.” Very high value stuff.

Keep playin’,

Sebastian

After you get a girl’s number, you’re going to want to take her
out. But calling and trying to set up a traditional date a few days
in advance is often a losing proposition when the girl flakes, and
you’re left… wondering.

Yesterday, we talked about social backup planning. Girls often
accept plans with a “yes” when they really mean “if it’s the best
thing going on at the time, then yes” - guys who are used to
honoring their commitments or have busy social lives often don’t
understand it.

Today, here’s a few techniques to short circuit the bidding
process. These are far superior to the held-over-from-1923 “give
her 3 days notice before a date because it’s gentlemanly” nonsense
that can prompt flaking.

Get her out:

1) The “something just got cancelled, where are you right now”?
2) “What a ridiculously fun night”
3) The Awesome Two Weeks Later Plan

1) Call her up, greet her, ask what’s up as normal, and then go on
with, “My [xxx] class just got cancelled, so I’ve got a few hours
free. Where are you right now?” Note the wording - “Where are you
right now?”, NOT “Are you free?” If you get where she is, you can
come to judgements about how free she is and where you two could
potentially go. After she lets you know where she’s at, go ahead
with, “Cool, I can come by there and we can hang for a bit.” If she
asks what you’re doing, either come up with a plan, or let her know
something along the lines of: “The company is more important than
the event - we’ll hang, chat, have a good time… we can grab
coffee or food or whatever.”

This creates a sense of urgency. Note you should be in
communication at least in the last two weeks before you call her
abruptly… this works best if she perceives you as having a busy
schedule. I say outright, “I don’t have much random free time, but
I just freed up and would love to see you.” - of course, being busy
is hard to fake. Much better to actually be busy. Another
derivative - “I thought I’d be working late, but I had to come in
earlier and wrapped up earlier…” - the idea is that you’re
offering a spontaneous get-together, and there’s urgency on the
decision. If she’s in the middle of something pressing, she’ll tell
you when you ask where she is, or just not answer her phone.
Bidding process short-circuited.

2) Ever want a girl after clubs close on a weekend night? Of course
you have! Text this: “what a ridiculously fun night” in a mass text
to every girl in the local area that you regularly text. Whoever
texts back, “what did u do?” or something along those lines - you
immediately call. She’ll answer most of the time - now go ahead
with, “Wow! Tonight’s been a blast… I don’t want it to end. Where
you at right now?” After she says, say, “Cool, I’ll hop in a cab.
On my way. What a blast” - talk on the phone the entire drive or
cab ride if possible - you don’t want to get off the phone for this
one.

The score: It can be social suicide to call girls at 03:00 and ask
what’s up and try to chat. It screams, “I didn’t get any” if she
doesn’t answer. Of course, if she does answer, you’re in… the
best of both worlds? The text. The girls awake and bored WILL text
back, and then you suck them into a whirlwind of fun. Tried,
tested, and theApproach approved.

3) And one of my personal favorites - plan a really, really cool,
really, really fun exclusive date for two weeks or more in advance.
Sound like the opposite of all the other advice you’ve gotten so
far? Check this out:

Plan something just utterly fantastic together, like going to an
awesome concert, or otherwise a completely amazing time. Then, call
her and chat with her in the weeks leading up to the date. One of
those calls, suggest doing something right then and there, or in
another day or two (but still significantly before the major
awesome event). There’s a very minimal chance of flaking when an
awesome event is planned in for the future. Where did this get
discovered? From talking with guys who took girls to “prom”, a
formal American dance in high school. It’s hyped that people sleep
together during prom, but that’s not what actually happens. Most
times, if the couple sleeps together the first time during “prom
season”, it’s because they went out to hang out and get to know
each other better BEFORE prom.

Now, I’m not going to say actually going to the awesome event is
optional after bedding her, but y’know…

Keep playin’,

Sebastian
–
theApproach: The Science of Social Chemistry for the Modern Gentleman