Shoot First, Ask Questions Later

By now you know I'm a big proponent of moving fast and playing to win. I consider these vital traits to succeeding with women in today's day and age, where we live in urban environments literally flooded with both millions of viable female options for you to end up with – and millions of viable male options for every woman you meet to end up with. Men who dally around get scraps. Or, quite often, nothing at all.

One of the main mentalities I deem absolutely necessary to nurture in yourself is "shoot first, ask questions later." Action over inaction. Staying constantly in motion, and ensuring that that constant motion is pointed always in the direction in which victory lies. Getting sidetracked in a seduction is, quite often, a kiss of death, so you must stay focused.

Shoot from the Hip

As I noted a few months back in "When in Doubt, Forge Ahead," most women you don't push forward with you lose and never see again.

Don't think that's true? Okay, answer me this: how many new women have you met over the past month or two?

Got that number? Good. Now, how many of those gals did you bed? Got that one too? Okay. Forget about the girls you took to bed now. I'm betting, unless you're on some ungodly lucky streak, that in fact the majority of women you met didn't end up in your bed. In fact, maybe the majority of them you're not even in contact with. That's normal, and that's how it is for most men.

Now let me ask you this: of those women you met but didn't bed, and maybe have even lost touch with, or maybe even never got contact details for in the first place – is there anything else you could possibly have done when you met them to try to move things forward?

I'm betting that, with most of them, if you're being completely honest, the answer is yes: there's something you could've at least tried to push things forward a bit. Most guys don't do everything they could have though, usually because they hesitate, even if ever-so-slightly; they think, "Oh, I don't know if that'll work," and then the moment has passed, or they think, "Maybe better to call it a day now and see what I can get going on with this girl later," and then they let her go, presumably to follow up with her later.

And then, she disappears, and they never see her again.

They blinked; they hesitated. And the opportunity was gone. Just like a gunslinger in the Old West – blink and you're dead. You need to be the one who's quick to draw, and you need to be prepared to draw at all times. You need to shoot first and ask questions later.

Shooting First with Women

But all this is very metaphorical. What am I talking about, shooting first and asking questions later? Well, I certainly don't mean you ought to go out and buy a gun and start popping girls in the back of the head; that's not going to get you any dates other than quite possibly one in court.

When I say "shoot first, ask questions later," I mean you need to focus on silencing that little voice of dissent in the back of your head that rather prefers you take it slow, and instead get used to springing immediately into action at the first opportunity.

The first cold approach of my life – in January of 2005 – I did at a bar when I spotted three girls standing and staring at me. I'd written down the goal a month earlier that I was going to talk to three random women, and that was my first effort to accomplish that goal.

I had no idea what I'd say, and not much hope it'd go well, but I figured if I wanted to start figuring women out, I was going to need to start meeting them sooner or later. When I spied those girls checking me out, I felt a great deal of apprehension; yet, nevertheless, I started my feet moving toward them, without having any idea what I was going to say when I got there.

That's shooting first. A guy who asked questions first would stand there thinking, "Hmm, what should I go say to those girls? I probably ought to talk to the one in the middle, she seems the most interested in me. But, oh... her friends on both sides are kind of boxing me out. Maybe I'll wait for a better opportunity to go in. That's it, I'll just wait. Okay, they're changing position now. But – oh, right, what do I say? Oh man, I'm not really sure." At that rate, he'll never get himself approaching, and he certainly won't be taking women home to bed.

Shooting first means leaping to action the moment the opportunity calls for it. In some things, careful deliberation wins out over bold action. Most of the time with women though, careful deliberation leads to the untimely demise of one's opportunities. While one man deliberates, another man takes bold action, and snatches up the girl the carefully deliberating man was laying out his plan to snag.

The deliberative man gets the door prize perhaps of being just friends – not exactly what he had in mind by any stretch of the imagination.

Making Shooting First a Habit

If you're like most folks, you probably don't realize the thought processes you have running through your head most of the time. But, every now and again it's important to pop the hood and run a diagnostic on what you have going on underneath.

What happens is, most people – the vast majority of them, I'd say – get into the habit of asking questions first, and then, only once those questions have sufficient enough answers, do they take aim and fire. Most folks asks questions first, and then maybe later, if they figure out an answer they're happy with, shoot.

That's why most folks end up mired in mediocre lives with mediocre options with the opposite sex working mediocre jobs and set their dreams quietly aside. Too much thinking; not enough acting. Acting's what changes the world around you. Thinking doesn't change anything.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think blind, random decisions are good; deliberation is a valuable thing for considering long-term options and strategies. But when you're there in the moment, you don't have time to deliberate. You only have time to act.

Take a look at your own habits and thought processes. Do you tend to act fast and jump on opportunities, or do you find yourself hemming and hawing and trying to figure out the perfect opener, or follow-up conversation, or story to tell, before doing anything?

If the latter, then recognize your progress will always be sluggish until you change your focus over to shooting first. Start your feet moving when you see a pretty girl, even if you don't know exactly what you're going to say.

Like all habits, the more you shoot first, the more you're going to tend to shoot first, and the more this becomes an ingrained habit in you. One of the best things I did for myself early on was training myself to be a lot more decisive; instead of dilly-dallying when faced with opportunities, like I would've done in the past, I forced myself to step up.

Any time you're learning a new habit, you're going to go through a period of having to force yourself to do it. Once you've forced yourself a few times though, it gets easier. Then easier. Then eventually you wouldn't even call it "forcing yourself" anymore; now it's just something you feel okay doing. Then it becomes something you do automatically without much thought. Then, it becomes something you actually enjoy doing, and perhaps even look forward to.

So, don't ask questions when you see that cute girl by the bar or in the bookstore or waiting for the train. Just go talk to her.

And don't ask questions when she clearly likes talking to you but you start getting that feeling like it's time to take action. Stand up and tell her the two of you are getting out of there.

And don't ask questions when she's back at home sitting on your couch next to you. Put your finger on her chin and bring her in for a kiss.

Take action. Take bold action. And always remember to shoot first. And, if you must ask questions, ask them later. But hey – if your shots hit... maybe you won't even need to.

Chase Amante