This question has been coming up a lot lately, both with students and at lair talks. And it’s the question of environment. Typically, the guy will say one of the following:

“I usually do night game at clubs, but during the day a lot of women blow me out or flake on me.”
“I typically do day game, and when I go out at night girls ignore me or seem to find me boring.”

This is a REALLY common problem, and the reason is that the way you game changes based on WHERE you’re gaming. What usually happens is that guys learn to game in one setting — either day game or night game, and then once they get a little bit of experience, they branch out and try the other environments. But they don’t realize that it’s very different.

Think about it. During the day, your average woman is out walking around, not paying attention, pretty low energy, going about her day, probably out just to buy some milk and bread or something. And if you come flying in, grabbing her, yelling obscene jokes and teasing her about her shoes… it’s going to freak her out. Big time.

On the other hand, if you are in a loud night club, and you open a girl and immediately start trying to talk to her about where she’s from and what she likes to do… she’s going to get bored in about 3 seconds flat and walk away.

You need to match the energy of your environment.

In night clubs, it’s dark, it’s loud, it’s crazy, people are drunk, dancing and flirting left and right… so you need to be just as exciting and interesting to have a chance. The way I often describe club game to guys is, “you need to be the brightest and shiniest object in the room.” Not literally, but as far as your energy goes — you need to be more interesting and exciting than whatever she was doing before you opened her, or else you’re done.

Day game, on the contrary, is relaxed, chilled out and very, very, very casual. Anything you do that is too energetic during the day is going to shock her and make her feel weird. Imagine the energy level it takes to ask directions to Starbucks, that’s what the whole interaction should be like. Little to no touching, little to no teasing — just some smiling and some interesting conversation.

Clubs and day game are the two extremes… you’ll also find a lot of “in between” environments.

For instance, a lot of bars or lounges are going to be more casual than dance clubs, and dive bars and pubs are going to be even more casual. Opening a girl on the street at night will probably only be slightly more energetic than day game in many cases, and many social events and parties will fall into the same category.

Social circle situations (not counting parties) such as work, class, or meeting friends for lunch should be just as casual and low energy as day game if not moreso.

Calibrate your energy to the environment. Here are some principles to remember:

The Higher the Energy = the more kino, the more attraction game, the louder and more animated you should be, the harsher and edgier your humor, the better and more flamboyantly dressed.

The Lower the Energy = less kino, more comfort game, quieter, more relaxed and casual, little to no humor, dressed nicely but normally.

Hope this clears up a lot of issues for guys out there.

On Saturday night, the guys I was working with and I ran into Kosmo, winner of Season 1 of VH1 Pickup Artist. It was an amusing situation that involved us blowing him out, fat chicks, some empty threats and a lot of awkwardness. But after a bit, I actually insisted that we leave him alone because despite everything he seemed like a really nice guy — just really off. I mean, he was wearing his red medallion from the show in the club, how could we NOT fuck with him?

But while I’m here, I want to rant a bit about how shitty some nightclubs are getting. A lot of these “high end” night clubs (or what they’re starting to call “Ultra Lounges” — gag) are turning into money pits.

We were at a place called M2 (or the artist formerly known as Mansion) in west Manhattan. Now, I was at this place a year or two ago and it was kinda lame then. Well, it’s taken it to a whole new level… a new level that’s becoming way too common.

Basically these clubs are beginning to operate by cashing in on people’s insecurity. Every detail of the club is meticulously DESIGNED to make you not feel cool enough. And the only way to feel cool? If you’re a guy, spend a shit ton of money. If you’re a girl, hook up with a guy spending a shit ton of money.

Let me set the scene from M2 the other night:

- You had about two lines outside… one long and for people who are on a promoter’s list or “know someone,” and then another REALLY long for all the layperson who are basically just fucked. Just the fact that there’s a line a block long that gets to watch random people cut them all night gets the insecurity started.

- Then you get inside, if you happen to know a promoter, you only pay $20 instead of $50. You get in, and you’re now pushed into two rooms that may as well be sardine cans because you literally cannot move. Why? Because 75% of the floor space is taken up by the VIP tables in the middle of the room. And not only that, but the VIP tables have gogo dancers and sparklers every time they buy a bottle, so it’s impossible for everyone to NOT notice that they have a bottle and a table.

So you end up with hundreds of people, who can’t move, can’t dance, who everywhere they look they’re forced to look at people who CAN move around and are drinking happily with fireworks and gogo dancers. You can’t talk because the music’s so loud. So what do they do? The majority of them just stand there. Why? Because they all just paid $50 and waited for two hours so they don’t want to leave. Hundreds of people just stand there and watch nothing in particular all night.

- And then you get INTO the VIP section and you’d think it would change right? No, not really. We had a hook-up with a table. And in the VIP section what did I see? A bunch of guys sitting around doing nothing, looking bored. Why? Because they had dropped the $500 or $1,000 or whatever to get a table, all 6-8 of them split it, but now they’re sitting there in the VIP section and every other table is full of 6-8 dudes who split a table. There aren’t any girls anywhere, and the few that there are, most of these guys won’t ever approach. It’s too loud to talk to their friends, so they just sit there and get wasted.

Sarging-wise, these places are so-so. You can pull from them pretty quickly, but it’s almost all non-verbal game and a lot of blow-outs. The caliber of women is often deceiving as the 10 hottest girls there are paid by the promoters to show up and stand around (promoters refer to them as the “A-Team”), and most of the other girls are either trashy or nothing special, or even worse… trashy AND nothing special.

The bottom line is, these places attract people with some sort of obsession with “being seen” or “being cool.” And as a result, you get a lot of shallow, vain people — who are sometimes hot, sometimes not — who are willing to go through this same charade, week after week, in some desperate attempt to feel “almost famous” for a fleeting moment.

I can’t help but feel that it’s pathetic. And the fact that these clubs have become so good at preying on people’s insecurity and poor self-image’s usually disgusts me. On top of that, you can find girls of just as high quality at cooler places, you just have to look harder.

I love good nightclubs, but I’ve had enough of these places. Luckily, you really only run into them in NYC, Miami, Hollywood, and Vegas. Other large cities like Chicago and Boston have them to lesser extents. But unfortunately, they seem to be on the rise because they bring in MASSIVE amounts of cash.

Whatever you do, don’t be hard on yourself. The minute you start beating yourself up saying, “damnit, I suck, what’s wrong with me?” your night’s over. It’s all downhill from there. No matter how ugly things get, no matter how awkward and pathetic you are, DON’T let yourself beat yourself up. Nothing good comes out of it. I try to make kind of a, “we’ll deal with this later” deal with myself. You know how like when you were a kid and you were getting in trouble in public and your mom/dad was like, “We’re going to deal with this when we get home,” because they didn’t want to make a huge scene in public and make things worse? It’s kind of like that. I just hold off all self-criticism and pitying until I get home.

Don’t blame the girls, the night, the venue, blah, blah, blah. Look. Some nights just suck. Some logistics just suck. Some venues just suck. We all know that. Sometimes girls are just bitches and you get the bad luck of the draw. But there’s no reason to look for excuses. If you could be doing better, you could be doing better and that’s all that matters. BUT don’t beat yourself up about it until you get home.

When in doubt, do whatever helps you have fun. What kills you on nights like this is that you’ll have a couple sets that don’t go too well and then you start getting annoyed/upset/frustrated which makes the next sets go even worse, and so on and so on. When you feel yourself getting frustrated and annoyed, take a time out for 30 minutes. Do something that you enjoy. Last night, I did 4-5 sets, none of which went very far and a couple of them I thought I ran horribly (by my standards). I was getting a little pissed, so what’d I do? I sat down at the bar, ordered a beer and watched the basketball game for about 30 minutes. I chilled out, let it all go, quit caring. After about 20 minutes or so, a real cute blonde came and sat next to me. I casually opened her and it ended up being my best set of the night. Take the pressure off, relax and always make sure the fun’s there. If the fun’s not there, nothing will be.

Learn from your mistakes and move on. I like to debrief myself the next day. I find that “sleeping it off” whether a great night or a bad night helps me be objective. The night of, when you get home, regardless of how things went, you’re still on an emotional high/low, you may be a bit drunk, you’re probably tired. It’s hard to be objective in those situations. I like to wait until I wake up the next day to analyze myself. I make note of what I did well and what I didn’t, and once I’ve made a mental note of what I should change I immediately discard the night and let go of it. It’s in the past. Over the next day or two, if feelings of resentment or regret start creeping up, I immediately let them go and move on. There’s no point in dwelling, no matter how bad you fuck up.

Every night’s a new night. The best way to get over a bad night is to have a great night. Go out again the next night if you can. Even if it’s not a great night, having fun and having a couple sets go all right sure beats the hell out of sitting at home and dwelling on your fuck ups. Even better, go out with some friends and just goof off. You’ll be over it in no time.

Well congratulations, if you’re going for same night lays, that’s about 50% of the battle.

(If you don’t care about same night lays, that’s aout 80% of it, the rest is follow-up/phone game.)

Logistics is the other half. And if you aren’t prepared for it, logistics will FUCK YOU UP!

Check for good logistics EARLY: There are a handful of questions that you need to take care of pretty early in the set. Find out how your girl knows whoever she’s with. Find out their relationships (if she’s got family members with her, chances go way down). Find out where she lives and how she got there. Mentally note this and compare it to where you live and how you got there relative to the venue. It IS possible to get a girl to drive you to her place (or yours), but it’s not as likely. Basically, the ideal situation is for her to be out with a mixed group of people, not all of which she’s friends with and she lives close to you and/or the venue (or you live close to her and/or the venue). The worst-case-scenario is it’s her sister’s bachelorette party, her mom and two sisters are there, she lives in another city and engaged. You get the idea.

These questions (i.e., “How do you know your friends?” “Where do you live?” etc.) should be thrown out early but sporadically. It’s pretty easy to work them into your comfort game. Just ask, get a quick answer and keep moving on. You should have a pretty clear idea of the girl’s logistical situation within 10 minutes of talking to her. If you’ve got her isolated and have even made out with her, then you have NO excuse to find out everything you need to know about her logistical situation.

You MUST win over the friends: This is actually usually easier than it sounds. But it’s true. All it takes is one bitchy friend to ruin your entire night’s party plans (you know, the party in your pants). When I say, “win them over,” you don’t necessarily have to be the coolest guy on the planet when you talk to them (although that never hurts). They basically have to just get a good impression of you — like you enough to give the implicit “OK.” Typically, this is more of a matter of not fucking yourself up rather than actually winning anyone over. Guys are the easiest as well. All you have to do is be respectful to them, shake their hand, acknowledge them and they’re happy. If the guy is an orbiter, then she probably doesn’t respect his opinion anyway, so whatever.

If in the off-chance you do get a friend who’s being really bitchy, then you may need to engage her one on one and win her over. Just run straight up comfort game on them. Let them know that you’re a really nice guy and find out some about them. Tell them that you like their friend and tell them why. Be genuine and you’ll usually be set.

Plan an escape route: OK, so your girl is all over your shit. Her friends are cool with you. And her logistics are decent. It’s time to come up with an escape plan. Unfortunately, there’s no definite formula for this — it always changes based on the situation. Ideally, bringing her to your place if you have a car is ideal. But sometimes, she lives far away, or you live far away or she has a car too or you don’t have a car, etc. My only advice here is to do what is most practical — take the path with least resistance.

Having an excuse to bring her over helps sometimes as well, although I think guys overplay its usefulness. It’s really useful her friends are coming to and your wingmen is as well, the so-called “afterparty” excuse if you will. But typically, for one on one, she knows what’s up, so just saying something generic like, “I need to show you my fish,” or whatever the hell you have back home is excuse enough.

Number closing: If for whatever reason she has really bad logistics, her friend is cockblocking you or she has to go home or something, just go for the number close. The sooner you can figure this out, the better because you can move on to more sets. Another strategy that’s good to use is to build up 3-4 sets of girls, get them all interested, then try and pull the one with best logistics and take the numbers of the other ones.

Expect the unexpected: As I wrote in my post about logistics a few months ago, the number one rule of logistics is that they’re RANDOM. Shit happens. CRAZY shit happens actually, and 90% of the time it’s completely out of your control. Everything from your girl puking in the cab to someone getting shot in the club to her ex-boyfriend following you to her place, crazy shit happens in night game, so it’s best to remember to be flexible and go with things. At the end of the day, as with game in general, night game is a numbers game, and some times you just get very unlucky.

I will note though that the more attracted a girl is to you and the more connected she feels to you, the less and less logistical problems matter. I’ve had girls blow off their friends, buy me shots and pay for cabs because they were so into me. So I suppose the best way to beat logistics is to never have to worry about them.

Ideally, the purpose of this series is to condense the massive amounts of theory out there into one easy-to-follow roadmap. The idea here is efficiency and simplicity.

With that said, a lot has been written about physical escalation (or what’s commonly referred to as ‘kino’). It’s a universal skill that every guy needs to become successful with women.

Unlike day game, in night game you should always be touching. You should touch lightly on the opener, touch the girl as you flirt with her, push her away when you tease, pull her back in when you compliment her, etc. These days there are a few “models” or school that have included an “escalation ladder.” The idea is, as you go up the ladder, you do each kino move until she reciprocates or accepts it, and then you try the next one. They typically go like this:

- Lightly touch shoulder or arm
- Hand on back, light hug, push/pull
- Arm around her
- Kiss her
- Grab ass, kiss neck
- Grab tits, rub pussy through pants

From there you can probably figure the rest out. If at any time she stops you or doesn’t reciprocate, you go back one step and build some more attraction and/or comfort.

Isolating her is a key move as far as building compliance and getting her more comfortable with you. For most girls, it’s bad form to make out or be all over a random guy in front of their friends. So typically, if I get to step two on the escalation ladder and she’s responding positively, I’ll isolate her then and keep going. Good places to isolate: to the bar, to a couch or table, outside to smoke a cigarette, etc.

When to kiss? Generally, if I’ve isolated a girl and I’ve escalated to having my arm somewhat around her and she’s not moving away or she’s leaning into me, I go for the kiss. I don’t have any fancy lines or triple-lux backflip I do. Sometimes I’ll even interrupt her mid-sentence and say, “Hold on one second,” and kiss her then. Other times I’ll just look her straight in the eye and say, “I really want to kiss you.” If she blushes or gets embarrassed, I just go for it. Girls who don’t want to kiss you will take a step back.

A lot of guys get confused to how kino fits into the whole picture along with building attraction/comfort, etc. Again, just as I mentioned attraction and comfort should be going on at the same time, physical escalation should as well. In fact, they’re all kind of different sides of the same coin, so to speak. For instance, as the set goes on:

Attraction: Your jokes and bantering should be getting more and more sexual in nature. (Verbal escalation)
Comfort: Your conversation topics should be getting deeper and more personal. (Emotional escalation)
Physical: You should be physically be getting closer and more intimate. (Physical escalation)

If I was lame, I’d do an audio course on my “three-pronged escalation model” or something else dumb. But instead, I’ll just put it here because there’s not much else to say. Your jokes should be getting more sexual, your conversations should be getting deeper, your bodies should get closer, all at once. It’s all happening at once.

Ideally, once you’ve been kissing and making out for awhile, and maybe you’ve even gotten a nice ass or tit grab, if the attraction is still high, if she feels really comfortable around you, she’ll be ready to go home with you (or you with her), which will be the topic of the last insallment: logistics and closing.

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.

Opening

There are three different ways to open: direct, indirect and situational (which is another form of indirect usually). I’d say I tend to go situational 50% of the time, direct 40% of the time and indirect 10%.

When it’s best to go direct: When there’s a good logistical situation. For instance, if it’s a two or three-set, the girl looks like she’s looking for a guy (remember the people reading skills from part one), and her friends are distracted. Also, if there aren’t any guys around, although 90% of guys will back down and STFU if you have the balls to go direct in front of them. The only other situations I do direct is when I *REALLY* like a girl — i.e., she looks very intriguing to me as well as beautiful (really hot nerdy girls are a good example).

My direct is usually low-key because I’m a big guy and if I get too aggressive, I throw girls off. “Hi, I wanted to come meet you, I’m Mark” is probably at least half of my direct opens. Sinn’s “You guys look cool, are you friendly,” almost always hooks, etc. If you’re a smaller or shorter guy, I’d recommend coming in with more aggression and energy, something like, “You’re really sexy, I had to come meet you,” while kino’ing hard.

When I go situational: If you’re good at improvising lines based on the environment around you, situational is often the best way to go. It hooks just about every time and comes across as very genuine and spontaneous. I try to do it as much as possible.

Some stock situational lines I use: girl sitting by herself, I say, “Are you in time out?” If the bar is crowded, sometimes I bet the girl next to me a drink that I get served first. If some girls look really bored, I come over and say, “Look, this is a ‘fun-only’ zone, we need to fix this.”

Indirect: I save indirect openers (opinion openers, anything you’d find in the Routines Manual) for larger groups or mixed sets. “Drunk I Love You’s” opens groups of 4+ sufficiently 90% of the time. Google it if you don’t know what it is. It’s basically the new, “Who lies more?”

Transitioning and Cold Reading

Just as in the day game model, I ALWAYS transition with a cold read.

If I went direct, I’ll transition with a basic cold read about the group. If I noticed something interesting about them before I opened (again, people-reading, pre-selecting… see part 1), I comment on that. These cold reads usually range from neutral to hit the nail on the head. When you hit the nail on the head with your cold read, combined with the direct, you have pretty much instant attraction. A few months ago, I opened this really tall brunette direct, and cold read her job perfectly my very next line (”You look like a closet nerd, I bet you’re an engineer or something.”) I was right and she FREAKED the fuck out. The attraction was immediately through the roof and the rest of the set was a matter of escalating.

If I don’t have anything to cold read on the specific set, I use one of a couple stock cold reads: “You don’t look like you’re from X,” “You guys look like you’ve been friends forever,” etc.

This will always get the conversation started down a general thread. As I’ll focus on later, you want every conversation to be about one of two things: you or her. I don’t really fuck around with routines, games or gimmicks. I want to know about her ASAP and want to share myself ASAP, so these cold-reads get that started pretty quickly. On top of that, they eliminate the annoying “interview question” habit and that percentage of the time when you cold read them right, you get a nice boost of attraction.

Note: Often, just by cold reading them correctly and going direct, I’ll already have more than enough attraction to get laid by this point. Let me say that again. By simply going direct, having great non-verbals, and cold reading well, I’ll often have enough attraction to get laid. The rest is a matter of escalating well. The biggest tip off for this is if she immediately starts asking YOU interview questions.

For instance, I have sets that go like this sometimes:

Me: “Hi, excuse me, I thought you were cute and wanted to meet you. I’m Mark.”
Her: “Oh wow, thank you.”
Me: “I got a really cool vibe from you, you seem more artistic than most of the other girls here.”
Her: “Oh… wow, I’m a photographer, how did you know that? That’s amazing.”
Me: “I just had a feeling, that’s why I wanted to meet you.”
Her: “Cool. So where are you from?”

BAM! As soon as that, “where are you from?” comes out, in my mind, the game’s over. Unless I majorly fuck up my escalation or comfort, she and I are going to get together.

A lot of guys fight against girls giving them interview questions, and this has never made sense to me. If a girl is asking you questions, she’s conveying nothing but interest. Why you would ever punish her for that is beyond me.

Cold reading off of indirect openers: Same concepts apply. The only difference is if we get into a conversation based on my opener, I’ll adjust my cold read for the conversation. For instance, let’s say I use, “Drunk, I love you’s:”

Me: “Hey guys, quick question, do drunk I love’s you count?”
Them: “What are those?”
Me: “See, my buddy Jack got drunk last night and texted this girl that he loved her. But he doesn’t remember doing it and now she thinks they’re a couple. What should he do?”
Them: Blah, blah, blah (they usually say he can’t take it back.)
Me: “Well, I’m sure you’ve done some stupid shit when you’ve been drunk.”
Her: “OMG, you have no idea.”
Me: (Go into crazy drunk story)

This will get you about 30-60 seconds into the conversation. In part 3, I’m going to through how I cycle attraction and comfort. Again, similar to the day game model where you cycle qualification and comfort, at night, I usually cycle teasing and comfort. We’ll talk about that next time.

Here’s my attempt to do so. Same deal: I have no idea how long this series will go, but I’m going to go until I get all pertinent information out, nothing more, nothing less.

This is how 90% of my sets in night game go, and all of the mental processes that I go through with each set. Just like the day game model, following this at this point has become redundant, I don’t even really think about it anymore.

Notes About Night Game

Before we begin, some things should be noted about night game:

- Night game is very random. Aside from logistics, crazy shit is happening at night: people are drunk, fights break out, everyone is with a lot of friends, people come and go, places get crowded, etc.

This has two effects on how we approach night game: one is we have to be far more flexible than day game, the other is that we have to be prepared to do more. Put succinctly, night game has a wider range of results (anything from a ONS to a girlfriend to a fist in your face), and therefore it has a wider range of skills and variables. Whereas day game, you really only need to be able to fluff, build some comfort and get a number, the skills required at night run the gamut.

- Night game venues vary widely in difficulty and type. Popular dance clubs, high-end clubs, dive bars, gay bars, strip clubs, lounge, hotel bars, college bars, etc., etc. — all of these environments operate slightly differently and therefore you’ll have to learn how to calibrate to your environment.

In general, the more energetic the environment (crazy lights, loud music, dancing, alcohol), the more energetic you need to be. The more laid back the environment, the more laid back you need to be. Also, play to your audience. You should act differently in a college bar as you do at an upscale night club. (This topic is a whole article unto itself).

- You have to deal with competition in night game. If you open a woman at the grocery store, chances are slim some other guy is going to walk by and try to fuck you up. But at night, you’ll get guys doing just that quite often.

Once again, this has two obvious effects: one is that you have to be prepared to deal with other guys, and two women are going to be a lot more jaded and have their guard up at night.

Pre-Screening

Now that we have that out of the way, you’re in a venue, there are tons of people there, what are you doing next?

Pre-screening sets is an important step that almost nobody talks about (because it goes completely against the classic three-second rule). When I get to a venue, I like to take a lap around the venue and check out what’s going on, what kind of people are there, how many hot girls are there, what the logistical situation is like and if there are any “easy pickens” to start out with.

You do this by looking at two things when you walk around: people’s logistics and people’s body languages, or what I like to call, “What’s their story?”

1) Logistics is easy. Hot girl with three guys = poor logistics. Three hot girls by themselves at the bar laughing a lot = good logistics. Large groups sitting down = hard set. Two girls dancing with each other having a good time = easy set.

2) “What’s their story?” takes a lot more skill. You need to be able to read body language and read people well (which is a vastly underrated skill). For instance, if I spot a three-set, two girls and a guy, watching them for 10 seconds can reveal a lot about them. Are either the girls “with” him? Are they blowing him off? Does he look chodey? Do they look like they’re having fun, or are they there because they feel like they have to?

Figuring this shit out beforehand can be absolutely huge if you open them and cold-read them (more on that later). For instance, if I observe a set for 15 seconds and then walk up and one minute into the interaction say, “you guys seem like you’ve been friends forever but don’t get to see each other often,” it’s not a shot in the dark. I’m saying it because they seem to really like each other but also seem a bit nervous/awkward around one another (you know that awkwardness you get when you hang out with an old friend you haven’t seen in years? Yeah… that). Anyway, you hit that nail on the head and bam, your value is through the roof.

More on cold-reading later.

Basically, what I do is after I check the specs for all of these things in each group of people, I make some decisions: which girls do I want to talk to? Which sets would be easy? Which would be hard? Which people seem interesting to me? Which women seem like they’d naturally be into me? I take all of these factors into account and then prioritize the sets I want to open. Generally, I’ll start with whichever set has the combination of best logistics/hottest girls/most inviting vibe and go down the list.

Quick note: to everyone who says, “But isn’t walking around a bar looking at everybody make you seem like an AFC? Shouldn’t you get into set right away so that EVERYONE knows you’re such a social, cool, alpha, pimpdaddy?”

I’ve never bought into this. Why? Because people really don’t give a shit, especially girls. Think back to the last night you were out and talking to a bunch of people — I mean, the last time you had a really great time with some friends (or in set) for a good hour or two. How many people do you notice walking around by themselves? If you even noticed any, did you care? Did you make a mental note: “OMG, that guy’s by himself, what a fuck chode!”

No, you probably assumed he was walking to the bathroom/bar/door or looking for someone.

No one cares. As long as you don’t sit there and stare like a goddamn creeper, it doesn’t matter.

I’ll be back with part two in a couple days going over opening, transitions, cold-reads and continuing to screen.