Pickup Tech

Women nearly universally display a social behavior with men they like that's often referred to as "testing." Testing is what women do when they're looking to see if a man is strong and congruent with himself; in other words, if he really is all the man he's presenting himself to be.

Asking a man to do something for her, or teasing him with sexual suggestions to see if he jumps at the opportunity or gets overexcited, or dropping hints with regards to her own promiscuity or relationship status to see if he gets defeated and walks away – all those are "tests," and there are many other varieties.

Testing often gets a bad rap with men. It gets called annoying, frustrating, or petty – but still, all but the absolute most innocent, trusting, inexperienced women – the ones who don't know men any better yet – do it. But why do women test men, and how do you act in testing situations? That's the subject of this post: what to do when women test you.

The other day I got told I was a very good flirt. And, I suppose, I am. Of course, I wasn't always a good flirt... well, perhaps I was always at least a little bit of a flirt.

What's it matter if you know how to flirt with a girl or not? In fact, it matters a good deal. Flirting is how you arouse a girl's interest and make her start imagining the two of you getting together. And once you've gotten her thinking about it – and gotten her thinking about it in a fun, suggestive way – you're a lot closer to taking it out of her and your imagination and into the real world.

In this post, we're going to focus on what most men do wrong when it comes to flirting with women, what the right mindsets are for a man who's a successful flirt, and what talented flirts do. So purse your lips and lower your eyelids a smidge; we're going to get flirty.

Most men who've been studying the social arts a little while come to realize, either consciously or instinctually, that coming out and telling women things about themselves unasked is an inferior means of conversing than first being asked for things before telling them. People start to come to understand the laws of effort and investment intuitively, and they recognize that another person putting in effort to learn something about them is better than another person putting in no effort and learning something about them regardless.

Even then, though, this rule – a very important social rule – often flies under the radar of most men, and they continue seeking to build rapport with women (or even attempting to force rapport, you might say) by sharing as much free, unasked for information about themselves as they can.

I call this "trading information," and view it as one of the vilest, most heinous social crimes you can commit. It does two things that are positively detrimental to your efforts to be charming and engaging and delightful and seductive with women, and, after an example of what many guys do and you ought not to do, I'll explain both of those below. Then, I'm going to introduce a concept some of you may be familiar with but many are not: baiting, and how you as a conversationalist can use it to get women vastly more invested in you and your conversations with them.

A good, if somewhat disreputable, buddy of mine in Southern California who'd bedded a significant number of women he'd met primarily at dive bars once summed up his philosophy of getting girls to me like this: "Just get 'em drunk, bring 'em home, get 'em more drunk, and have sex!" Ah, the age-old combination of sex and alcohol.

People've been doing it that way since the Ancient Greeks were sporting togas and spears. Sex and alcohol have gone hand-in-hand in human society for a long, long time. Stands to good reason there ought to be some good reasons for it, then, too.

Everyone knows why the two make such good bedfellows: alcohol lowers inhibitions, and sex is something we tend to have a lot more when our inhibitions are in said lowered condition. Alcohol also serves as a social lubricant – liquid courage, if you will – making men more bold and women more willing. But it goes deeper than that – and if you truly want to master the seductive arts, you're going to need to be willing to loosen your grip on the bottle, too.

Several nights ago, I was out with a friend in a nightclub, and I noticed a cute platinum blonde German girl standing next to him not doing anything while the two friends she was with, a girl and a guy, flirted back and forth. "You should talk to that girl," I suggested. So he did, and she happily engaged.

At one point though, he turned to me and said, "Chase, where did you say you were from again?" and then introduced the girl to me and told her where I was from. She quickly jumped off of him and rotated around to my side, away from him, and began chatting me up. I flirted with her, pinched her arm a bit, had her tell me why she was in China if she disliked it so much. My buddy eventually roped her back in again, and I withdrew. She peeled off and left a short time later.

After she left, I asked my friend a question: "Why did you introduce her to me? Did you run out of conversation with her?" He said that no, things had just been slowing down, so he thought perhaps adding another interesting person to the mix might spice the interaction up a bit.

"Dude," I said, "you broke circle. Never be the first to break circle when you're talking to a girl." He didn't know what I meant, so I explained.

In the seductions of every man, there comes a time when his woman begins to object. “What are you doing?” she’ll say. “I don’t think we should be doing this.” “We can’t do this, it’s too soon.” “We can’t do this, we’re friends.”

Most of the time, this stops men cold, freezing them in their tracks with no recourse and no idea what to say or do. “Crap,” the guy thinks. “She’s protesting. What do I do now??” So, rather than take uncertain action with uncertain effects, he does nothing, and nothing happens, and the girl leaves. The seduction is forfeit, and he has lost his girl.

But objections don’t have to mark the end of a seduction. In fact, you can actually use objections to make a girl want you more, and make her more certain that you’re the man for her. And it all ties back to some psychological basics to understand why.

A couple of weeks ago while I visiting Southern California, my ex-girlfriend there told me the story of some colleagues of hers. One was a tall, slender, elegantly beautiful, but slightly older-looking woman over whom everyone in the office took much interest, but who rather kept to herself and was none too talkative about her background. The other was a mid-20ish player kind of guy who was constantly chatting up all the cute girls in the office and regaling his coworkers with tales of his conquests.

The 20-something player frequently made small talk with the beautiful, elegant woman in the office, and tried to make some headway with her, though he never could. Then, one night out at the bar for a happy hour, in a group discussion, the elegant woman happened to mention her age, perhaps emboldened by alcohol: she was 50. According to my ex, she looked so good she could easily pass for early- to mid-30s, and that’s probably what everyone assumed she was until she said it.

Upon hearing her age, the player guy who’d previously been so interested in her recoiled with horror: “Oh my God,” he said, “you’re fifty? Don’t you think you should tell people that? Oh my God.”

You can imagine how this gal must’ve felt. None too good, I’d wager. This is just one of the reasons why older women – even those only a few years older – so often get weird around younger men.