Tactics Tuesdays: Be Friendly

Here's a deceptively simple tactic:

Be friendly to every person you encounter.

Just yesterday we talked about conflict escalation and the dog-eat-dog world inside the prison system.

The good news is, you're a free man, and you're not in that kind of world. In this world, unless you venture into a bad part of town, you can and should be friendly to everybody.

Any time I've felt some rust or a renewed sense of approach anxiety, "be friendly to people" is the primary tactic I use to shake that off. Alek followed this same advice recently when he sought to warm up his social momentum after over a year of almost uninterrupted citywide lockdowns. It's simple, basic advice but it really works.

"Be friendly" has a ton of upsides for getting yourself approaching more easily with a lot less fear.

If you've only been doing targeted approaching -- where the only people you approach are sufficiently good-looking girls -- you may well find this alternate tactic a breath of fresh air.

 

Being Friendly Is Letting Go

I spent my teens not talking to anyone, instead always waiting for people to approach me.

So when I entered seduction, I came with this elitist mindset that everyone should have to approach me. I did not want to do any approaching. However, I deigned to approach some women... if they were attractive enough. Just because I had to get my reps up.

When I first weighed the "be talkative and friendly with everyone" tactic it felt bad to me. If I just talk to anyone, won't I end up in conversations with some lame people? What if people think I'm with that lame guy or that unattractive girl? I don't want them glomming onto me either.

I had to let go of ego to a certain degree to do it.

And when you're being friendly and outgoing, yes, sure, you will talk to people you wouldn't normally pick for your 'cool people team', if you were picking people like it's a grade school PE class.

But what you realize is experience socializing breeds aptitude socializing. You don't get stuck with people, because you know how to converse well, then at a certain point break things off and move on. Then talk to someone else.

You also learn certain things, like how to visibly differentiate yourself from someone you're talking with. For example, if I end up talking with a very weird/nerdy guy, and he starts visibly signaling great enjoyment in the conversation with me (e.g., he gets really animated or what have you) and I want to make sure nobody thinks we're best buds or anything, then as I'm leaving I can clap him on the shoulder in a friendly way while smiling a bit but not really looking at him (I am already moving on), and anyone observing will take that as a sign I was just chatting with him because I am friendly and not because we're close.

Why does that work? Because it's a display of dominance that establishes rank. It's not something you'd normally do with someone you're close with. Is it mean to do that to that guy? Not in my experience. Because guess what? Even though it presents you as higher rank, it is a cool thing to do, and it still conveys some approval on the guy. It is as if you're saying, "This guy's all right." It conveys more social rank on him than probably anything else anybody else will do with him that day or night.

You learn a lot of little things like this as you go around being friendly: ways to build up other people in your environment that also signal you as being higher status too. Little win-wins. You will pick them up as people do them to you, and you will realize you can start doing them to people yourself.

'Being friendly' is letting go of the fears you will have that people will associate you with other people.

Instead, it is an embracing of that -- embracing of the idea that you want people to associate you with other people, just that it won't just be one or two people, but you are going to go around talking to a variety of different people.

You want the people around you to say, "That guy sure is friendly. And cool!"

 

Be Friendly to Unlock Closed Women

More and more guys these days are scared of women reacting poorly to them on approach.

Women in general have grown brusquer in how they deal with men. This is most on-display on social media and in recent consumer media (movies, shows, etc.), where it's grossly exaggerated. However, women are getting coarser. But then again, working class women have always been coarse -- they just have microphones in front of their dirty pirate mouths now!

In fact, did you know in the 1930s, when Nancy Drew was originally written, she was a brash, independent feminist-type heroine? So much so that in the 1950s, a time when women were more domestic and feminine than at any recent time before or since (for reasons I cover in that article I just linked), the books were rewritten to tone her down and make her demurer and less of a 1930s girl-power flapper.

So yes, working class women (that's most women) are coarse. Lower middle class women, not far removed from their working class peers, are too. It is usually this way, in most places, at most times, unless women really need men, or they're well-to-do enough it becomes sensible to cultivate femininity again.

Are women rejecting men more than they did in the past? Are they rejecting them more harshly?

There are some of them who catch the "speech to me is harassment!" bug. But not very many. Most women, like most people in general, remain polite in public, and do not want to cause scenes, even if they don't like you. So long as you aren't plowing when women signal their disinterest, and you end things if she isn't hooking or interested after a minute or two, you are fine.

However, here's another wrinkle to keep in mind, and another reason why 'be friendly' helps you out:

People in general feel more emboldened to be rude or closed off to people who are unknown strangers. But they feel a lot less comfortable being rude/closed off if someone appears to be someone important, who has status in the area, and many allies. Would you be rude to someone you knew was liked by everyone in the room? Girls won't either. They don't want to shoot their own social statuses in the foot.

Further, bonus points: as a man builds social proof, it makes him more attractive to women as well.

Thus, you get a double benefit by being friendly with everyone:

1. When it appears everyone knows and likes you, women are a lot more hesitant to be dismissive toward you (because otherwise they risk alienating themselves from everyone else, who all appear to be your friends/allies and, they have to assume, will dislike them if they behave rude to you or uninterested in cultivating your friendship)

2. When it appears everyone knows and likes you, women feel more attraction to you as well, because women are attracted to sociable, well-liked, high status men. This is one of the most attractive qualities to women -- women love leaders and men with any kind of authority, which, if you're going around interacting with people in a proactive, sociable, reasonably dominant way, it will appear you have

'Be friendly', while simple advice, has big ripple effects on your ability to unlock women you might otherwise have struggled to unlock.

 

You Need a Lot Fewer Tactics When You're Friendly

Think about these two guys:

• Guy A approaches you to talk to you. You haven't noticed this guy before and suddenly there he is communicating with you. He probably needs to be pretty cool and say and do something pretty interesting if he has any hope of getting a decent start with you, right?

• Guy B approaches you to talk to you. However, you've seen Guy B circulating around the room, having animated discussions with people, being friendly, and it seems obvious this guy is well-liked. You have a vague impression this guy might be someone important. Even if he only approaches you with, "Hey guys, how's it going tonight?" and even if he might not necessarily be the type of guy you'd normally talk to, you probably are going to still be cordial with him anyway, because who knows who this guy even is? He looks like he has clout

Opening is way easier and the pressure on you to be 'perfect' on approach is far reduced when you're coming in trailing a tail of social proof you've built up by just being the friendly guy.

It's not hard to get started being friendly at zero either. You just chat up the people around you. Most people are sociable and will talk to you even if you don't have clout yet. But as you talk to them, you build up clout.

I have numerous times been in venues where it was the first time I'd ever set foot in that venue, and I was rolling solo and knew no one, yet by being friendly I'd met tons of people there.

At some point, often after I've just taken a number from some good-looking girl who didn't seem warm enough for me to pull that night, or just left some other group of cool-looking guys, I end up talking to some group of two or three people who seem chill but are just sitting around the bar observing everyone. And I have them say things to me like:

"It must be cool to be so well known here. I'm only here a couple times a month. You must come here a lot."

Sometimes I tell them the truth ("Nah, I'm just social. Never been here before"), but that can make you look a little weird to people. What, this guy is just talking to people? I thought he was connected or something!

So more often I just uphold their illusions: "Yeah man, I love it here. The people in this joint are the best. Hey, enjoy yourself, I've gotta go scout things out more."

When you're coming in the friendly, seemingly-high status guy, you don't need to be perfect.

All you need to be is sociable.

 

Being Friendly Builds Your Momentum

Alek just discussed this in his piece on warming up social momentum.

So I don't think there's too much need to repeat.

However, as you go around in a friendly way, chatting up the various people you see, it builds momentum.

You get used to approaching, comfortable with it, and develop a winner mentality around it. It gets easier and easier to approach, you start to really feel like that cool guy who knows everybody (because by a certain point you are him), and approaching the women you want feels quite natural at that point too.

The only risk at this point is you slip into social butterflying, where you leave and come back, leave and come back, and can't get any substantial interactions going with anyone. That's bad for seduction.

The solution for that is the "only allowed to leave once" rule I outlined in my forum post Prevention for Social Butterflying. Follow that rule, and you'll avoid becoming too much a butterfly, and can use your momentum well.

 

Be Friendly Is the Most Fluid Sort of Game

Sniper game, where you conserve your energy and make only targeted approaches on women, is great.

Assuming you are sharp enough, it's a very efficient style of game and gets terrific results.

Mass approaching, where you make a lot of approaches but focus only on approaching women, can be effective as well, and is a more focused approach style than general be-friendly socializing.

However, if you want the most natural, cozy, unassuming style of game, it's 'be friendly'.

You don't even look like you're out to hit on girls when you're being friendly. You're just being friendly.

The risks are rock-bottom low, the odds you run into negative situations are rock bottom, and you will build up a raft of positive experiences, momentum, and in-venue status.

Further, 'be friendly' is the bedrock of the kinds of approaching you'll see practiced by most guys who are naturally good with girls.

READ MORE: How Naturals Meet Girls and Get Laid

If you combine 'be friendly' with 'be cool' and 'be dominant', you are the cool, friendly, dominant guy almost everybody wants to be on the good side of.

It makes socializing simple.

And it makes meeting the women you want to meet even simpler still.

Chase