Pickup Tech

Note from Chase: This is a guest post by my friend Mark Manson over at Postmasculine. Mark's just released an inventive new book titled Escape Plan: Ditch the Rat Race and Discover the World, and to mark the occasion he's put together a "dream trip contest" the likes of which you usually only see on well-funded TV gameshows, with him flying the winner out to a chosen dream destination and Mark footing the bill for flights and lodging. Details if you're interested on the Escape Plan page.

To promote his new book and the idea of ditching the rat race and escaping wherever you want in the world, Mark's assembled this post on his travels picking up women in foreign countries just for us here at Girls Chase. Onward.

I have been fortunate enough the past few years to not only travel all over the world, but to do it as a young, single man. I’ve spent more than my fair share of time pursuing the women of foreign countries. In fact, I can say that it’s become one of the most interesting and exciting ways to acquaint myself with a new culture.

When men back home hear my stories, a lot of them make the assumption that meeting and dating women in these cultures is easy. They figure I’m a young American and so women must throw themselves at me wherever I go. They think that just because I’m from a rich country and I’m white, that women throw themselves at me wherever I go.

Not the case.

The truth is that meeting women while traveling gets a bit complicated. It presents a set of extreme circumstances and there are a lot more variables to deal with.

There are language barriers, cultural barriers, racial stereotypes, logistical conundrums, and not to mention you’re in a totally unfamiliar place and don’t know a single person.

It’s not always easy. But it can be exciting as hell.

Here’s a brief breakdown of the major factors one needs to be aware of when traveling to a new country as a single man. It IS possible to have some amazing sexual experiences with foreign women, and in many cases, these experiences can be far more exciting or enjoyable than the ones you have with women back home.

But you have to know what you’re doing.

A reader writes in to ask about trying too hard:

“I haven't seen any posts yet by you about a particular subject--neediness and trying too hard.

In fact, I just read one of your posts "What regular men don't know" where you are a proponent of making yourself into an attractive man and getting better with women an obsession.

Personally I have had a few different people tell me lately that I'm "trying too hard." I don't know what this means. Without trying, I will get nowhere. At first I thought they were right, but now I'm thinking they were just jealous I was trying to change when they weren't.

Could you write a post on this inner game issue? What does it mean to "try too hard" and when does getting better with women become a bad thing? How do you make sure to keep consistently trying to get better without having people tell you you're trying too hard?

Or should I say screw 'em and keep on doin my own thing?”

I was speaking with a former student of mine about this a few weeks back. We'd talked about him tweaking a vibe he gives off, where it feels as though he's trying a bit too hard. He wasn't totally aware of it, but he'd heard it from multiple people and he asked me if I could put my finger on it and help him figure out why he was getting that kind of reaction from people and how to get around it.

Honestly, trying too hard is one of the most difficult things to explain to someone, and one of the most difficult things to stop.

But I myself was guilty of it for a long time once, and since there's some interest in the topic, let me take a crack at explaining what this is, and what you can do about it.

One of the themes that keeps coming up on this site is framing… and more specifically, sexual framing.

We've covered this topic before in posts like “Chase Framing” and my original post on the sexual frame, and I’m returning to it here to answer some of the questions guys had for me over on sexual frame post #1 and flesh out the how-to of sexual framing a bit more.

In terms of your fundamentals, it is really THE most important skill, because it determines the meaning of everything you say, and hence the impact of your words and therefore also the outcome of all your interactions!

Once you’re at ninja level with your verbal frame control skills, you can put any kind of “stamp” on any interaction with women… or with anyone else, really.

You can turn any conversation sexual, which also means that you can turn almost any relationship sexual.

By the same token, you can also turn any conversation into a monogamous relationship, if you so choose.

BUT here’s the problem:

If you DON’T understand framing… if you DON’T have this skill down PAT, you will STILL be setting frames, but without being aware of it... because every word out of your mouth comes with a frame.

Hey guys –

It’s been almost a year since I started working with my good friend Chase (wow, time flies) – and it has been an incredibly busy year. And while I’ve dropped about 150,000 words of 10 years’ experience in picking up women on the blog, I haven’t always had time to get back to everyone who wrote in with questions or comments.

It’s time to remedy that… I really appreciate all your feedback, it lets me know how we can bring more value to you and it’s also great to know that our work is really helping people out – so thanks for all the comments, even and especially the ones who just stopped by to let us know how much this blog has helped them out. That’s fantastic and part of what makes this work so incredibly gratifying.

Now, I just went back over all the comments you have left on my posts, and I am going to get all the questions answered that I think every reader will be able to benefit from. That means I won’t be answering questions about “this one special girl,” unless my advice in the situation is broadly applicable and will be useful to other readers as well. But there have been a lot of very smart questions that I thought were very interesting and worth having a closer look at for everyone.

We’re starting off the series with a follow-up to the post on going out alone, with more on going stag and going out by yourself. This is one of the best ways to meet new women, but it’s also a scary and unusual one for most newer guys - it’s a worthy place to kick off this new series, in other words.

Furthermore, I will be answering comments on this series – either directly, or if the questions are very involved, in future blog posts – so now is the time to let me know what you’re struggling with. Of course I won’t be able to go into the same depth as we do in our phone coaching program, but if we can get some of the more pressing problems solved for ya and take your dating life to the next level right here and right now, then I’ll say we’ll have achieved our goal! So feel free to hit reply and post your question.

Onwards!

I’ve had a few guys ask me recently about the instant date, one of which is a comment I address further on down in this post.

And the point I’ve been making here repeatedly is… instant dates are good where applicable.

But you don’t need them to pick up girls.

Let me start at the beginning though.

Remember the post on getting your sexy vibe, where on the day I had a date with the virgin, but she had to leave early because her brother needed a ride?

Well, the good thing about dating multiple women is that you’re never empty-handed… no matter what happens.

And after the first girl had left, I found myself alone in my apartment, and not yet ready for my evening to be over… chatting to some of my girls on Facebook, to see who would be up for some spontaneous naughtiness.

A reader writes in:

“Hey man been a LONG time since I've emailed you! But I've been keeping up with the site and I love both you and Ricardus advice just awesome all around. The one thing that has INFINITELY thrown me off about the site is the sort of serious tone.

You guys understand pickup so well its scary sometimes lol! But one thing I realized yesterday was how important a bit of playfulness and humor is in pickup.

...

Maybe a post on how to inject playfulness into an interaction, because that is one thing I think that has really helped supercharge my interactions in the past. The ones that I had a playful attitude about were the ones where my success was higher. Whereas when I had this "I'm coming to pick you up" vibe it kind of scared some girls off because they weren't used to that level of directness but I believe if I had that playful side I could have saved the interaction.”

He raises a good point.

I've actually stayed away from talking about how to be playful on here for a long time because being playful is one of those things most guys who are new to learning about getting girls place way too much focus on and overdo.

If you've been through this site, you know there's a strong emphasis here on actively avoiding trying to get yourself making girls laugh all the time and on showing why fun is overrated for making headway with the women you like.

And all this might lead you to believe you ought to be Mister Serious in all of your interactions with women.

But if THAT's the impression you've got, then we've got a little reconditioning to do.

Today I wanted to share a few more of my dating tales - this post is more a grab bag of experiences and tips and stories, but I wanted to talk about a girl I met from a long time before, a simple hand-test I love doing with women that tells both them and you a lot about each other, and a friend of mine who let obsession take him too far.

I was standing at the subway station, waiting for Sandra* to arrive… she was to be my date for the evening.

*Names and places changed to “protect the guilty.”

Suddenly, a beautiful girl left the train and headed towards me, smiling… and it’s not the Sandra I was expecting.

I must have gotten my Sandras confused…

But who in the world was this girl?!