Over the years, I’ve seen countless amount of guys complain that only guys who are good-looking get hot girls. Or that you have to make a ton of money. Or that you have to have an awesome job. Or that so-and-so is in a rock band, so that doesn’t count.

They never take into account the fact that that guy who is good-looking and in amazing shape, he spent the last eight years in the gym, and an hour in the bathroom grooming himself before he goes out. What were you doing?

Or the guy who is rich and buys tables at clubs, that he worked 80 hours a week for seven years and busted his ass to make that kind of money. Or the guy in the rock band practiced guitar for three hours a day since he was 15. That guy who is so charismatic and natural with women? He’s been taking public speaking courses for six years and majored in PR in college. That amazing dancer has been studying salsa, merengue, and swing for 12 years.

I could go on and on.

The point is, with the exception of height, just about any so-called “advantage” can be (and is) earned through hard work and dedication. There is nothing that is attractive to women that is not earned. Whether it be a nice six-pack, a sharp sense of humor, or an ability to be boldly aggressive with women, these only happen when a man stops for a second and makes a conscious decision, “I’m going to do this,” and then he does it.

The men who have a lot of trouble with women and never seem to improve are the ones who have a large separation between saying, “I’m going to do this,” and actually doing it. They analyze, strategize, write down goals, consult advisers and then never actually take action. Men who do improve their ability with women quickly (or improve at anything quickly) are able to say, “I’m going to do this,” and then immediately do it, without any separation. No procrastination. No over-thinking. They just decide and get it done.

That lack of space between deciding and doing is self-discipline. Everything that attracts a woman comes back to it. It’s pure action and little pontification.

If you’ve read about the concepts of masculinity, self-discipline is the epitome of it. What can be more attractive to a woman than a man who immediately acts on his decisions and is completely bound to his word, his goals and his path? It implies he’s dependable, that he’s strong-willed, and that he’ll inevitably become successful at whatever he does.

Self-discipline can be practiced and it should be. Begin small, and work up. Train it like a muscle. Begin with smaller and easier habits, such as waking up early each morning, not eating junk food, or hitting the gym three times a week. Then start working it up. Inch by inch, eliminate procrastination and waste from your life. Be consciously aware of the moment you choose to do something and the moment you actually do it. How much space is there in between it?

If there’s a lot, then how can you ever be successful with women? You choose to approach her and then let hours go by. You’re on a date and it’s time to kiss her, but it takes you forever to muster up the courage. She wants you to take her home and ravage her, but you’re caught in your head and it’s days later when you finally realize, “I should have done it then and there.”

Self-discipline leads to an attractive lifestyle. It also leads to attractive and aggressive behavior around women. It’s the root of everything that can be attractive in a man.

My question is about a girl I’m trying to hook up with but I haven’t really dealt with this type of girl before and Im kinda lost.  She seems pretty prudish, definitely was a tom boy when she was younger (couldn’t tell that at all by looking at her) and still kinda has that mentality about her, and is also very smart.  Its the prudishness and tomboy-ness I don’t really know how to tackle… I also get the feeling like Im over gaming much of the time, whats a sure fire way of knowing if your over gaming a girl??

There are two questions in one here, and I’ll deal with them one at a time. The first is a great one, “How do I know if I’m overgaming a girl?” and the second has to do with personality types of women.

First, we have to define what “over-gaming” means. Over-gaming is basically when you are still hitting on a girl when she already likes you and it backfires.

For instance, the classic case of overgaming happens on dates. Guys will spend a lot of time and effort building attraction when they meet a woman and over the phone. Finally, they get there and the woman shows up on a date, but instead of moving things forward by escalating or entering into deeper rapport, they continue to try and tease/neg/disqualify/whatever-your-favorite-pua-tactic-is-today.

This ends up backfiring, as the girl is ready to move things forward, but is confused that you just keep flirting with her without doing anything else.

Women respond to this in a very ambivalent way… they’ll still flirt back with you (because they DO like you), but they’ll also become a bit frustrated by the whole situation, so they’ll pull back at times as well.

This ends up confusing a lot of lesser experienced guys because all the sudden it seems like this chick that was into them is getting annoyed by them.

Some here’s a checklist to know if you’re overgaming a girl:
1. You’ve been flirting with her for a long time and she’s flirted back, showing interest.
2. You have not escalated beyond very basic touching.
3. She’s suddenly giving you mixed signals — i.e., not returning calls, flaking on you when she didn’t used to, not flirting back like she used to.

The other part of your question that’s interesting has to do with the fact that she’s a bit of a “tomboy.”

A lot of times, women who have always had a lot of male friends or hung out with a lot of guys are hard to read. They kind of act like a guy in a lot of ways, so what would be considered flirting from a typical girl is just kind of a tomboy’s way of hanging out.

I’ve found that you typically need to be more aggressive and direct with these girls, as they’re not quite as savvy to the whole flirting and escalation thing. If you really like them, you need to make a strong move and usually they’ll get nervous (as they’re not used to being in such a feminine role) and either completely melt under you, or try to divert your advancements.

One of the main areas of female psychology that the pick up community hasn’t really touched is that of “personality types” and how it fits into how you should game a girl.

Over the years, living in Boston, I’ve bumped into Vin DiCarlo and his coaches here and there. And he’s actually spent the better part of the last year dedicated to this idea of personality types.

I’ve always been a big champion of the idea that no two guys are the same, so no two guys should game the exact same way.

Well, Vin has been coming at it from another angle: that no two WOMEN are the same, and so you can’t game them all the same. He’s come up with some brand new material, released just this week, based on the personality types of various women.

Check it out here

And if you think about it, we’re constantly talking about how “this girl is this type of girl, that girl is that type of girl, etc.” but no one’s ever taken the time to hone in on the exact psychological factors that go into these psychological factors.

A shy girl is not the same as the bubbly club girl is not the same as the intellectual girl at the library, etc.

I’ll be writing up another article soon elaborating on my thoughts about this. But if you want to check out some of Vin’s material on the subject (which you should), he’s giving away a free new ebook (only requires your email), which you can check it out here:

Vin DiCarlo’s New Female Psychological Profiles

Of course, as usual, I felt obliged to step in and crush everyone’s dreams.

But seriously, I felt a lot of these guys were getting mixed up so I posted the following:

–

I don’t want to take anything away from your realization, it’s an important one. A lot of guys get the impression from this stuff that you basically always start at zero and have to build attraction from scratch, when that’s not true at all.

But going the other way and claiming attraction is “instant” isn’t correct either.

Attraction is always changing. Coming and going. It’s not static and it’s not an all or nothing deal.

All sorts of things can cause a woman to be attracted to you. Your clothes. Your posture. Your clever jokes. Your interesting stories. The way you touch her. Your haircut. The time of the month. Your job. Your passions and hobbies. Your confidence and self-awareness. The way you laugh. Your beliefs. The way you look into her eyes…

You get the point… I could go on forever…

Some of these things are “instant.” For instance, if you’re 6′3″ and built like Drago from Rocky IV, that’s pretty instant attraction. But if you have brilliant, yet ironic humor, a Ph.D in Physics and used to save starving kids in Sudan in your spare time — well, that’s also attractive, but there’s nothing instant about it. She finds out about it as your identity unfolds throughout the interaction.

In seminars, I refer to these things as “passive” attraction and “active” attraction. A concept that’s actually spread quite a bit in the past two years.

Attraction comes and goes. Sometimes it’s there immediately and you lose it over time (minutes, months, years). Other times it’s not there to begin with, but you slowly build it over time (again, minutes, months, years). But as people in this thread have pointed out… the sooner you build it, the more permanent it seems to be.

1) The laws of passive/active attraction. This has been discussed ad nauseum on this blog in the last two months: here, here, and here. The cliff’s notes? Basically if a woman perceives you to ALREADY have more value than her, than you have to DLV yourself, compliment her and act “chodey” to get her. I just explained this in my calibration post and even provided examples! For anyone who thinks this guy is a “chode,” please go back and read all of those articles.

With that said, this guy is a BILLIONAIRE, well-connected, good-looking for his age (59), educated and probably smart as hell. His passive attraction is through the goddamn roof. Also, this woman most likely met him through a social circle and was probably already attracted to him. For this guy to do ANYTHING but write a sweet, emotional letter professing his feelings for her would be a mis-step.

2) For those of you who have listened to my audio course (downloadable from the front page), I make the point that attraction = value. Basically, we’re all attracted to what we find value in — this is true for men and women. For instance, if we value petty sex, we’ll be attracted to care-free party girls who are really hot. If we value emotional connection and a relationship, we’ll be more attracted to girls with character and personality. Aside from his billion dollars and his baseball team, this guy is demonstrating that he’s romantic, passionate and courageous (as she even points out). How many 30-year-old single women out there are looking for a rich man who’s romantic, passionate and successful? Uhh… practically all of them.

3) I tried to emphasize the point that at no point did he “give up his power” as Tyler Durden would say. This is a HUGE point for guys to understand about emotional connection, because most guys who get good at this automatically assume that anything that makes you emotionally vulnerable = chodey and needy. Not true. Pussies use their emotional vulnerability to because they’re putting the woman on a pedestal. This guy isn’t. He even says, “you don’t need to respond, I just wanted to let you know.” From an inner game perspective, he’s not being needy in the slightest, what he’s conveying is complete genuine interest — which, as we know, is one of the biggest turn-ons in a woman.

4) We need to remove the words “Chode” and “AFC” from our vocabulary. If there’s one point I’ve been constantly hammering home the last few months, it’s that “chodey” and “AFC” behavior works better than any PUA material if it’s used in the right situation and for the right reasons. There’s a reason 95% of the population uses it. I was recorded in-field by DJFuji last fall. I made out with a girl and pulled her and he commented the next day, “Dude, I don’t even know what you did. You barely said anything after you opened her. You like complimented her, bought her a drink and then took her home and fucked her.” It’s because if you have the right frame and aren’t needy, a lot of this “chodey” shit works like a charm. You just have to know when to use it.

Hopefully this makes more sense. I threw this up because this is an example contrary to typical PUA pick ups in a lot of ways. It’s good because it gets us thinking “outside the box.” And not only that, but if we’re going to have any theories about attraction and pick up, they need to be consistent in all situations, not just club skanks and college girls.

John Henry:

Dear Linda,
A man needs a muse. Well, he doesn’t really. He doesn’t need nearly as much as he generally thinks he does. A man is greedy. Greedy for what he doesn’t think he has and what he thinks he wants. We probably wouldn’t have wandered far beyond the basic necessities without that pushing us. Progress is one of its most important byproducts.

So you will ask, “Why are you writing this?” Because a brief encounter-and-a-half with you gave a cool spin to this little blue planet from my vantage point.

We feted the Celtics tonight and the skies opened. The sun emerged and created a giant rainbow between the city and the park. We were transfixed. You only saw it if you were in the right place. I was in the right place when I noticed you.

I barely know you. I don’t have any illusions about capturing your heart. But the world is brighter, better, lighter and warmer when a man imbues a woman he knows — even tabula rasa — with the attributes that I believe reside in you. It’s the small things that ultimately matter, the subtle things.

I am honest. I don’t play games. And I see no reason not to say that I’ve been smitten by you and you’ve done me a great service.
You’ve very innocently made my world brighter, better, lighter and warmer.

So thanks.

No response is necessary because a man doesn’t need nearly as much as he thinks he does.

Wow… Well, if anything, he’s definitely poetic and a good writer. But did this work? She does end up with him. Here’s her response:

A man may not need as much as he thinks he does, but courage and honesty should be acknowledged. I am not so naive as to believe I actually possess the qualities you attribute to me. But thank you.

Before we jump into this, there are a few things to keep in mind: 1) They’re older, 59 and 30, 2) They’re both probably looking for long-term relationships, 3) They’re both obviously very educated and have had serious relationships (or marriages) in the past.

So let’s look at this in terms of the Seven Immutable Laws of Pickup because as you guys know, the only “model” that I subscribe to is whether a certain guy is offering value to a certain girl — negs, bantering, teasing, etc., etc., is incidental.

1. Rejection – He’s obviously completely resigned and immune to her rejection. An email like this out of the blew says, “I’m putting myself out there” more than almost anything you could do.
2. Lifestyle – Billionaire. Owns the Red Sox. Check.
3. Aggression – Again, he’s sending this email out of the blue stating his interest in her. He’s pushing the issue, he’s not sitting idly and hoping she becomes interested in him.
4. Sub-Communication – This is huge because sub-communication is always determining where the attraction comes from. What does Henry’s letter sub-communicate to her? He’s poetic, that sub-communicates a depth of emotion and passion. Very attractive. He’s intelligent and well-spoken (who says “tabula rasa?”). He states his interest intently, and THEN — and this is the most important part of the letter — he says, “no response is necessary because a man doesn’t need nearly as much as he think he does.” A bit over the top, but this just bleeds of genuinity and sincerity. There’s no pressure on her. He’s shared his emotions beautifully and intelligently and she has no pressure to respond or return it. Not only that, but his interest was light. He didn’t say, “OMG, I LOVE YOU,” or that she’s the love of his life. He simply says, “you make things lighter, warmer,” etc.
5. Connection – he’s sharing his emotions wonderfully. Apparently she resonates with them, although she’s a bit coy. What’s interesting is her humility which indicates a lot of flattery.
6. Relationships – He’s indicating that he’s interested in an emotional connection and commitment. She can take it or leave it.
7. Inertia – Doesn’t apply to a single situation.

So assuming the following things, he’s hitting it on all cylinders: she’s interested in an emotional connection and commitment, she’s intelligent and romantic, she’s not turned off by an older man worth billions of dollars, this is going to hit her in exactly the right ways. I realize this goes against a lot of classic PUA community dogma, but if you haven’t figured it out yet by reading this blog, a lot of PUA community dogma is plain wrong.

Kudos, Mr. Henry and congratulations.

If you remember, I described four scenarios in which you can end up and how to calibrate to each one:

I have a simple process that I apply when I’m in set: Once I hook the set, I’ll throw out a very light tease to the girl and see how she responds.

- If she laughs and responds positively, it means my value is equal or slightly higher to hers and I’ll keep teasing until I stop getting a positive reaction.
- If she responds negatively and seems offended, it means I’m OVERVALUED and I stop. I will compliment her, state my interest or DLV myself (buy her a drink) to bring myself closer to her. This is to make me “attainable” in her eyes. You’ll have to do this often with shy or reserved girls.
- If she responds negatively and is cold and bored, it means I’m extremely undervalued and I need to tease her even harder. Girls who react this way, you’re not even on their radar screen yet, so you have to say something really bold and outlandish to wake them up to you.
- If she shit-tests me back in a playful way, it means she values herself slightly more than me, in which I keep teasing until I get a negative response.

Once I know where my value is relative to hers, I follow this blueprint:
- If I’m OVERVALUED, I will compliment her, state my interest in her and even DLV myself.
- If I’m UNDERVALUED, I tease and neg her harder until I get a more positive reaction or she blows me out.
- If I’m around her value, I keep teasing at the same level and being escalating.

After a while, this will all become second nature to you.

Situation 1: Responds positively, keep teasing until she stops responding positively

Me: (Arbitrary opener)
Her: Blah blah blah
Me: You don’t look like a Boston girl.
Her: Nope, born and raised in Boston. But I’m half Irish, half French.Me: How the hell does that work?
Her: Haha, I don’t know. It’s quite a mix.
Me: Does that mean you get drunk and start fights and then immediately give up?
Her: *laughing hysterically* OMG!
Me: I’m afraid to drink with you, I don’t know what will come out, your inner asshole or your inner wuss.
Her: Hahaha… neither! I’m a nice drunk.
Me: That’s cool, me too. I’m the type of drunk…. blah, blah, blah, comfort story.
(Few minutes, few teases later)
Me: Look, we obviously have communication problems, this will never work.
Her: Aww, no I was listening, the music was just too loud.
Me: I was just saying blah, blah, blah. Throw in a compliment here.

This is your classic PUA situation. The idea that you’re coming in slightly below her value, you need to tease/neg/banter to raise your value relative to hers and then you qualify her/compliment her as you move into more comfort.

Basically, I just throw teases between my comfort stories until she gets a bit defensive. This means that she’s feeling a bit self-conscious around me and is now pretty invested in the interaction and my opinion. I want to SUPPORT this by complimenting her and validating her. Keep in mind, I will bring teases back every now and again to keep things fresh, but not nearly with the same frequency.

Situation 2: She responds negatively and seems offended

Me: (Arbitrary opener)
Her: Blah blah blah
Me: You don’t look like a Boston girl.
Her: Nope, born and raised in Boston. But I’m half Irish, half French.
Me: How the hell does that work?
Her: What do you mean? (looks offended)
Me: That’s just a really unique combination. It’s cool though. Did your parents grow up in America or overseas?

In this situation, as soon as she seems offended, I take that as a cue that I’m overvalued and I need to be nice to her and even “chodey” to make myself more attainable to her. This is a girl who for whatever reason thinks she doesn’t have a shot with a guy like me, so I need to make it as easy as possible.

Also, I’d like to note that there’s a minority of girls out there who just really don’t like to be teased at all, by anyone. They’re rare, but they do exist. When you come across them, you may have to continue to build attraction but just not by teasing.

Situation 3: She acts bored or indifferent.

Me: (Arbitrary opener)
Her: Blah blah blah
Me: You don’t look like a Boston girl.
Her: No, I am.
Me: That’s cool. I’m actually from Texas originally.
Her: Oh.
Me: You seem like the serious type, like your friends have to drag you out here to make you have fun.
Her: Not really. I mean, I guess, I do work a lot.
Me: All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl.
Her: Yeah, I guess.
Me: You ever run after someone with an ax?
Her: What?!
Me: You ever try to kill someone with an ax.
Her: Haha, no. What the hell?
Me: All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl. Haven’t you seen The Shining?
Her: No, I haven’t.
Me: Jesus, you DO work too much. Get out a little.
Her: Haha… I haven’t really watched many movies lately.
Me: It’s a classic. Stanley Kubrick. Made in the 70’s. You’re missing out. What kind of movies do you typically watch? (Qualify)
Her: (Answers)
Me: That’s cool, (comfort story)

Situation 4: Positive Response, she banters back

Me: (Arbitrary opener)
Her: Blah blah blah
Me: You don’t look like a Boston girl.
Her: Fuck yeah I am. You obviously thought wrong.
Me: Well, you sure as hell act like a Boston girl.
Her: How’s that?
Me: You’re an asshole yet charming.
Her: Yeah, I get that a lot.
Me: (banter)
Her: (banter)
Me: (banter)
Her: (banter
Me: Look, this obviously isn’t working out, you know what? We’re broken up. I can’t do this anymore.
Her: Good! You sucked in bed anyway.
Me: How would you know? You were too drunk to feel what I was doing.
Her: Hahaha…
Me: You know what, I’m going to give you another chance. Tell me something about yourself.
Her: What? I don’t know. What do you want to know?
Me: I think you’re a cool girl, I want to actually get to know you.
Her: Sorry, you had your chance, we’re broken up.
Me: Yeah, yeah, but really, what are you most passionate about?
Her: (more evasion)
Me: (more direct interest)

Girls like this give newer guys the most trouble. Newer guys either can’t keep up with their wits or they get caught in the cycle of constant banter with them, which leads no where. The way to break out of this cycle with these girls is by stating direct interest repeatedly. But there are two caveats to this: 1) you have to prove that you can keep up with them banter/teasing-wise first. These types of girls don’t settle for pushovers or pussies. They want real men who will put them in their place, that’s why they cause so much trouble. And 2) she’s going to reject you at first and try to keep bantering with you. Again, you have to be unphased and continue to show interest.

These types of girls can be the most fun as well as the most frustrating. When you finally do get through to them, they can also be the most passionate and intense girls to date. They can also be a huge pain and the ass and absolutely psycho. Tread with caution.

So if you’ve read parts 1 through 3 of the night game model, you basically now know: who and when to open, how to open and transition, how to cycle teasing and comfort stories. Getting good at these things will enable you to open sets and hold them as long as necessary and build attraction. But there’s still a CRUCIALLY important concept that I need to go over: and that’s calibration.

Calibration is absolutely fundamental and for a simple reason as well: not every girl is the same. Some women like to be teased, some don’t. Some are looking for a guy, some aren’t. Some are going to like you immediately, some aren’t. As my friend Smallville once said, “The only rule  is calibration, everything else is just a recommendation.”

With that said, before we jump into this, it’s very important that you’re familiar with my concepts of passive/active attraction and how they work. You can read the brief overview on the concepts here: http://www.entropypua.com/blog/personalizing-pickup-natural-advantagesdisadvantages

The two main things to remember going forward: 1) that attraction is based on value and 2) every woman’s perception of value (what they find attractive) is different.

For instance, what you consider an HB10 could have terrible self-esteem or be unaware of her own value, whereas she may find you naturally “her type.” But you, thinking, “She’s an HB10, I have to tease her hard,” will overvalue yourself and get blown out.

This is why calibration is so important. There’s no single thing you can do that works in every interaction.

Also, sometimes you run into girls who are HB6’s or HB7’s who THINK that they’re hot shit and when you approach think to themselves, “great, another jackass trying to get laid.” In your mind, she’s just an HB6, so you don’t really try to game her, but she actually perceives herself to be of much higher value so she blows you off.

This is why HB10’s are often some of the nicest girls and HB6’s can be the meanest.

The laws of passive and active attraction say that you want just enough attraction so that she perceives your value to be equal or above hers.
A lot of times guys don’t realize their own passive value and so they’ll immediately be higher value than a girl as soon as they talk to her and mistakenly try to create active attraction. This is the biggest and one of the most common mistakes a guy can make.

So how do we know where we are in regards to her? What’s her perception of us?

I have a simple process that I apply when I’m in set: Once I hook the set, I’ll throw out a very light tease to the girl and see how she responds.

- If she laughs and responds positively, it means my value is equal or slightly higher to hers and I’ll keep teasing until I stop getting a positive reaction.
- If she responds negatively and seems offended, it means I’m OVERVALUED and I stop. I will compliment her, state my interest or DLV myself (buy her a drink) to bring myself closer to her. This is to make me “attainable” in her eyes. You’ll have to do this often with shy or reserved girls.
- If she responds negatively and is cold and bored, it means I’m extremely undervalued and I need to tease her even harder. Girls who react this way, you’re not even on their radar screen yet, so you have to say something really bold and outlandish to wake them up to you.
- If she shit-tests me back in a playful way, it means she values herself slightly more than me, in which I keep teasing until I get a negative response.

Once I know where my value is relative to hers, I follow this blueprint:
- If I’m OVERVALUED, I will compliment her, state my interest in her and even DLV myself.
- If I’m UNDERVALUED, I tease and neg her harder until I get a more positive reaction or she blows me out.
- If I’m around her value, I keep teasing at the same level and being escalating.

After a while, this will all become second nature to you.

The last comment I’ll make is that sometimes you run into girls who will get into frame battles with you – i.e., you tease them, they tease you back, you tease them more, they tease you back more, and you never are able to actually get anywhere. These girls like you, you just have to go SUPER AGGRESSIVE on them. A lot of times, they’ll reject your advances for no other reason than to tease you again, but just keep plowing. They like you, they’re just really sassy.

Calibration is mostly developed through doing hundreds and even thousands of sets.  After enough time you begin to just pick up which girls naturally like you a lot, which girls seem lonely, which ones seem happy that you’re opening them, etc.

After enough time, you begin to get really good at reading social cues as well, all of the little IOI’s or IOD’s she may give you. Calibration is something you have to constantly work on. Your game is only as good as your calibration. You can know every awesome technique and line in the world, but if you don’t know when to use them, you won’t get anywhere.

In the next installment, I’ll provide a few examples of each of these calibrations in action.

What I do at this point, is very similar to what I do in the day game model. In the day game model, I cycle qualification and comfort stories. At night, I do the same thing, except I just add teases to the cycle.

So for instance, in day game, a conversation will go something like this:

Me: “So what do you do when you’re not shopping for groceries?” (Qualification)
Her: “I work at X and do Y. I really like it because of Z.”
Me: “That’s cool. I had a friend who used to do Y, but they didn’t like Z.” (Comfort Story)

At night, it’d go something more like this:

Me: “So what do you do when you’re not out drinking appletini’s with your girlfriends?” (Qualification with a little tease)
Her: “I work. I do Y at X.”
Me: “Wow, aren’t we Ms. Professionalism.” (Tease)
Her: “I guess. People say I take my job too seriously.”
Me: “So that’s why you come and drink.” (Tease)
Her: “Exactly!”
Me: “That’s cool. I had a friend who did Y. He didn’t like it because of Z.” (Comfort)

Then repeat the cycle with another topic.

It’s the exact same conversation, just with teasing sprinkled in (and I’d be kino’ing but more on that in Part 5).

How much you should be teasing and when you should be teasing will be covered in Part 4, Calibration.

As far as teasing goes, it’s good to learn how to improvise teases on the spot. If you have trouble, you may look into taking a comedy or impov class. A good sense of humor and solid sense of timing when telling jokes is important, not just for women but for social skills in general.

But also, once you’ve done 500-1,000 sets, you’ll notice a lot of patterns in conversation and certain topics and questions that come up pretty frequently. You can develop stock teases/jokes.

For instance, almost every set it comes up where I’m from (Texas). I live in Boston. Probably about 50% of girls ALWAYS ask me, why I moved to Boston from Texas. I always respond the same way: I look at them as if they just asked me the most retarded question ever and say, “To get the fuck out of Texas… duh.” They always laugh. ALWAYS.

Another question I get all the time when this topic comes up is, “But you don’t have a southern accent.” I say, “Yeah, because I’m civilized.”

I have probably used both of these lines at least 1,000 times at this point, and the girl laughs (thus gaining attraction) at least 95% of the time. I still use them at least once a night.

Then there are the stock “routine” teases that come from the community. I have a couple that I use over and over. Whenever a girl has trouble understanding me, or isn’t listening to me, or can’t hear me, I always say, “Look X, we have communication issues, this isn’t going to work any more,” and I lightly push her away.

Another favorite is when a girl is feisty and pretends like she’s going to fight me or says she’ll kick my ass, I say, “Look, I haven’t hit a women in almost six months, don’t break the streak.” You really need to say this with a smile on your face so she knows you’re kidding, btw.

I also pull out the, “You’re so cute when you do that, I want to adopt you as my little sister,” every now and then, depending on the girl.

Finally, once in a blue moon, I pull out Style’s “5 Questions” game, which to this day I don’t think a single girl has won. I usually only use this routine if I know the girl is into me, but I’m seriously stalling out for some reason. It rarely fails me.

So right there, I have 2-3 stock lines for common topics of conversation, I have 2-3 stock “routine” teases, and then I have whatever teases I improvise in the middle of the set. That right there is more than enough to have in your arsenal.

Typically, most girls you only have to tease 2-4 times before you have enough attraction (depends on how well you tease and their personality), other girls may require a few more.

One of the biggest problems I see in guys is they tease WAY TOO MUCH. They’ll tease and banter and tease and banter like 15 minutes into the set, and now they’ve gone from the random guy approaching to the hot guy with attitude to the dancing monkey who’s getting a little played out.

Here’s an example of a typical set where I would need to tease a few times to move on:

Me: “Hey, what’s up? I’m Mark. I wanted to come meet you.” (Direct Opener)
Her: “Hi. I’m Betty Boop.”
Me: “Cool. You don’t come across like most of the girls here. You don’t seem as superficial as most girls you meet in clubs.” (Cold Read Transition)
Her: “Hah, well thanks. I don’t usually come to places like this. It’s my friend’s birthday tonight.”
Me: “Cool. How do you know the birthday girl?” (Testing for Logistics — more in part 6)
Her: “We went to college together, we don’t get to see each other that often anymore.”
Me: “I see. Did you guys go to school around here? You don’t seem like you’re from around here. ” (Cold Read)
Her: “Yeah, we did. But I’m from Illinois. How did you know?”
Me: “You’re not an asshole. Haha.”
Her: “What about you? Where are you from?”
Me: “I’m from Texas originally.”
Her: “Texas? Why did you come up here?”
Me: “Uhh… to get the hell out of Texas!” (Tease 1)
Her: *laughs*
Me: But “I’m from Austin, it’s kind of like an oasis of free-thought and liberalism in the middle of the Bible Belt.” (comfort story)
Her: “Really? I’ve never been.”
Me: “Well, you’re missing out Betty. Get your shit together.” (Tease 2)
Her: “I’ll get right on it.”
Me: “That’s the spirit. So what do you like to do when you’re not talking to Texans in Boston bars?”
Her: “Oh, I don’t know.”
Me: “You don’t know? What do you mean you don’t know? You have to like something.”
Her: “I’m a bit of a homebody.”
Me: “So?”
Her: “So I don’t get out much.”
Me: “Yeah, but you must do something at home.”
Her: “I guess I like to read.”
Me: “Sorry, I don’t talk to girls who read. I prefer my women illiterate.” (Tease 3)
Her: *laughs*
Me: “I’m Texan, remember?” (Tease 4)
Her: *laughs*Me: “Actually, I read a lot too.”
Her: “Really?”
Me: (Comfort story about reading.)

And that would be 90% of the teasing I would need for that set. By that point, she’d be attracted, and I could just build comfort and escalate from there.

I’ll be back next time to talk about calibration, knowing when to tease and banter, and knowing when to just stick to comfort stories. Part 5 will cover escalation. And finally, Part 6 will cover figuring out logistics. Then that should cover it.

I totally agree with you that being physically imposing can be a big drawback once it comes to kino’ing. Being 6′, 220 lbs. at only 5% bodyfat, I get lots of looks and compliments from girls, and well honestly, gay guys and bisexuals too, on how I dress or how I look, but I have trouble escalating on sets that I open myself (as opposed to the ones who come to me) for the reasons you described. Do you have any tips on how to escalate as someone whose advantages are always getting in his way?

- Anonymous

OK, everyone all together now, “Aww, you’re too good looking, YOU POOR MOTHERFUCKER!”

There, now that we got that out of the way. The answer to your question is easy, based on the rules of passive/active attraction (which I lay out in the “Personalizing Pickup” series).

You’re overvalued. You’re trying to build attraction and get sexual when your look is already attractive and sexual. Therefore you come across as if you’re compensating for something.

What I recommend is to run 90% comfort game. Compliment girls more. Tell them you find them sexy. They’re assuming that you hook up with girls constantly, so they need to feel special or unique before they fuck you (or at least most of them will).

Hey Entropy,

I’m having a problem attracting women that I don’t find attractive. I’m in my late 30’s, pretty good-looking for my age and very successful. The women I attract tend to also be in their thirty’s and honestly, they’ve kind of let themselves go. What should I do?

- Jason

Date younger women. If you don’t want a committed relationship and want women who are in great shape, why the hell are you dating women in their 30’s? My guess is you have some sort of limiting belief concerning your age. I have a friend who is 49 and dates women in their mid to late 20’s. It should be no problem for you if what you say is true.

Time to ditch the hotel bars and hit the night clubs.

Is 5 supposed to represent the median girl, or the average one? Because the ugliest girls are far ugly than the hottest ones are hot. So that would mean the median girl must be significantly hotter than the average.

- Aaron

This is what I never understood about the 1-10 scale. For the vast majority it breaks down like this: 10 = ungodly hot, 9 = really hot, 8 = I’d do her, 7 = I’d do her, but I wouldn’t be proud, 6 = only if I’m really drunk and desparate, 5 and below = ugly with varying degrees.

This never made sense to me. This is another reason I recommend guys raising their standards, to have 2/3 of the scale dedicated to girls you’re not interested in seems silly. What ends up happening is you get guys debating with themselves whether she’s an 8.5 or an 8.75.

Here’s my scale:
10 = doesn’t exist except for on magazine covers and in Photoshop.
9 = A model.
8 = Super hot, the hottest girl in a nice club on any given Friday night.
7 = Hot, hottest girl in a regular bar on any given Friday night.
6 = Attractive, but not going to cause any car accidents just by walking down the street. You’ll see maybe a dozen of these on any given Friday night out.
5 = Cute, but nothing you’d be too proud of.
4 = Have to be really drunk.
3 = Ugly-but-has-potential
2 = Ugly-but-no-potential
1 = Vomit-inducing

And a side-note for all the self-righteous “You shouldn’t rate girls” assholes. I don’t care if you have a binary scale, a 1-4 scale, or a 1-52 scale, it’s all arbitrary. Answer the following question: are some women more physically attractive than others? YES! Then whether we distinguish that with a 10-point scale or a 2-point scale is completely arbitrary and not even worth arguing.

And no, just because we rate women’s attractiveness (something that every man on the planet has been doing since adolescence) doesn’t mean we’re “de-valuing” her in some way. My girlfriend is a 6.5 on my scale (8.5 on most guys’ scales) but that doesn’t mean I treat her as a 6.5. Some of the hottest girls I’ve ever gotten with were shitty people. Were they still 9’s? Hell yeah, they were.

OK, end rant.

Hey Entropy,

Can you escalate too quickly if your goal is an LTR?

- Skulder

Great question! I teach in my relationship management seminars that you ideally want to have sex with a woman AS SOON AS POSSIBLE because it gives you the widest available options as far as where to take the relationship. So you would assume the answer is “no.”

Well, surprisingly, the answer is “yes,” but to escalate too quickly you have to escalate at lightning fucking speed.

If I had to estimate, having sex with a girl in under an hour of meeting her will nix you from her “long-term” potential. Anything under 30 minutes, no question. I don’t know what it is, but when you hook up with a girl exceedingly fast, it’s like she almost doesn’t even feel like you’re real. I noticed this last year when I was getting a bunch of 30-second make-outs, the kissing would end and then there’d just be this awkward moment where the girl felt like she was in a dream or something and we had nothing to say to each other. It’s the same for fast bathroom pulls… afterward is just a horribly awkward experience.

I suppose theoretically it’s possible, but in general, the slower you escalate, the more you sub-communicate LTR expectations, the faster you escalate the less you do. In my experience, the cut off would be around an 30-60 minutes.

I hate the feeling of sleeping with/hooking up with girls that I am not that attracted to. I always feel shitty after the fact and while I might enjoy the experience I pray not to bump into that person again after. A lot of that could be due to immaturity and shallowness in general (i.e. thinking that a girls looks define how successful you are). However, I am sure that this is something that must comes up a lot in guys developments. Its not as if I am sleeping with anyone now so I always think that I should push myself to just sleep with as many girls as possible. However, I came into this to find girls that I could really like a lot not to put up numbers.

I know having standards that are too high is just a dumb copout. Intellectually that makes total sense. But there just feels something peverse about forcing yourself to hookup.

What are your thoughts on this?

This is a question I get a lot and it’s tough because my answer varies depending on the guy asking it and why he’s asking it.

Here are the two arguments:

1. The argument for hooking up with girls you’re not that attracted to is the “practice” argument. Basically, it gets you used to escalating, to getting physical and sexual, to reading signals from a girl who likes you, etc.

2. The argument AGAINST hooking up with girls you’re not into is, well… it’s that it’s not that fun.

I’ve always fallen into the second camp myself. I know some guys don’t mind sleeping with a fat chick now and then, but if I don’t find a girl attractive, I literally am not enjoying myself… I’d rather be masturbating.

So the answer here has more to do with priorities and what exactly a guy is struggling with. Doc used to regularly recommend guys with little or no sexual experience to lower their standards to get over a lot of their fears and anxieties surrounding women and being sexual. On many points, I agree with him.

But at the same time, if you don’t really have any sexual hang-ups, if you have some experience in the past, if you’ve been with attractive women before, there’s really NO acceptable reason to slum it other than to pad your stats.

Sleeping with a slew of mediocre girls is a validation trap, and in the end, it won’t get the moderately experienced guy any better with girls he’s ACTUALLY attracted to.