Pickup

Direct game (where you never conceal your interest in a girl) gets a good wrap in men's circles. Yet it never works nearly as well as its proponents advertise…

Hey guys. Welcome back.

Last week, I attempted to debunk the perceived inequality between the sexes and their power on the dating market. It is easy for men to perceive women as more powerful because they get more attention, and therefore are more in control.

After all, men chase women for sex; they can say “yes” or “no” to their requests. Demand is high when it comes to sex with beautiful women.

Although both men and women seek validation, male and female sex drives differ in the source of validation.

Men get validation through sex, and women receive it through attention—more precisely, sexual attention—knowing that men find them desirable.

Both can enjoy sex and desire sex equally on a PHYSICAL and even EMOTIONAL level.

However, men are not only led by their drive toward sexual satisfaction but by their ego—their feeling of power and attractiveness from “conquering” a woman through sex.

Hence, men have two motivations to seek sexual encounters:

• Their sex drive, which they share with women

• Their ego drive

Females get satisfaction by having someone desiring them, which does not involve a need to put out.

We know that “putting out” and having sex left and right with men can lead to social consequences for women. Women fear the slut label, so they have fewer incentives to put out.

Women will resist you and object to what you say. Yet you must be able to escalate things with them anyway. Once you can, success with girls gets simpler.

I've been seeing a bit more lately of guys scratching their heads and asking, "How do I do XYZ thing?" and not really getting it.

So I wanted to start an ongoing series (like Tactics Tuesdays and Secrets to Getting Girls) that gives basic advice on how to develop uncommon-but-useful skills and abilities.

Today the focus is on moving things along (escalating) despite women's objections.

If a woman objects to things you say you want her to come do with you, will you still find a way to do them, or will you give up?

Backing off, redirecting, or biding your time can be an okay strategy sometimes. But other times, it's a seduction death knell.

A good seducer knows when to push as well as when to back off and let the woman come to him.

And right now, we'll take a close look at the former.

After 30, is it time to hang up your dating spurs? Not quite (well, unless you're married). In fact, if you're a guy, your thirties are the best time to date you'll get.

Dating in your thirties: if you learn cold approach and seduction, it’s absolutely the best time you’ll have in your dating life.

That’s considering you’re still single and not married with kids yet.

If you are, I’m sorry. ;)

Many of my clients in their late thirties are already divorced. They’ve spent a good chunk of their life in a monogamous relationship, and now they’re single again, lacking that skill that most young men develop: game.

Every time I go to a men’s forum, a pickup or seduction group, or Reddit, some dude is asking if it’s “too late” for him.

“I’m 27, is it too late to learn game?”

“I’m 25, is it over?”

“I’m 32, am I done?”

Let me share an anecdote about age.

All through my teens and twenties, I was horribly shy around women. I wanted to have a hot girlfriend, but if I managed to weasel my way sideways into a conversation with one, I’d have a panic attack.

I don’t mean a little bit of shyness or nerves. I’d have a full-blown, huff and puff, blow my house down, panic attack. It was absurd, embarrassing, and I hated it.

Anyone who suffers from social anxiety knows it’s not a logical process. Being told to “just be confident” or “just be yourself” doesn’t work, not when the mere thought of talking to a girl sends your heart racing. Yeah, I’ll just be myself, a quaking mess that can’t form vowels and consonants.

Another technique to break past "no"s when girls give them. And not just break past them… but make it seem like you're the one who gave the "no"!

Otherwise known as 'no busters'.

What do you do when you ask a girl to do something and she gives a firm 'no'?

Well, you can just give up and move on completely. And sometimes that's the right call.

What's the best way to pick up girls? Is it tactic A or tactic B? Is Method M superior to Methods S and C? Here's the true exposé on what works best and why.

Wanna know one thing that will definitely never help you do better with girls?

Boasting about how your way to get girls is better than other guys' ways to get girls.

There was an old mASF discussion, back in '04 or '05, where the tired old, "What works better, indirect or direct?" debate got dredged up from the crypt and infused with new life.

I recall reading it in the archives.

Two of the participants were Style (Neil Strauss), the guy who wrote the best seller pick up artist book The Game, and Dimitri (Sebastian Drake), founder of the pick up artist training company theApproach, and a guy who served in a mentor role for me for many years.

Style's point was that you could not ever pick up a girl who was an "8 or better" with direct game. You could only use indirect for this.

Dimitri's point was that he had the most luck picking up girls who were "8s or better" with direct game.

I've never rolled with Style, but I spent a fair bit of time rolling with Dimitri, and I watched him pick up some of the most beautiful women I've witnessed any guy I've rolled with pick up, in the single fastest pickups I've seen guys I've rolled with pull off. A stunning young French stewardess he same-day laid off the beach right after we'd swum the Mediterranean (turned out we'd accidentally switched hotel keys, so he shagged her in my room and used my condoms. I had to call the cleaning service after, my room was so destroyed...). A pair of beautiful, flashy, and shapely Japanese girls we picked up off the street outside an L.A. club. Many others. All with direct openers.

I was a pure indirect guy at the beginning (more because I lacked the balls to go direct then, than that I didn't know how to do it). Dimitri urged me to try direct, so I did. And I found it worked very well for me.

I also found it worked better in some situations than in others. Some of the most beautiful, incredible girls I've been with I picked up I picked up with direct. Others of them I picked up with indirect.

I say all this to preface this post, which is not about direct vs. indirect, but instead something else: getting into stupid debates where you tell other guys that stuff they do that is working for them DOESN'T work is stupid.

Ask a girl to do something, and she'll think about it. Sometimes she decides for you; sometimes not. Yet if she's about to decide "not", you MAY be able to intercept that…

In sales, you learn early on to make a proposal, then shut up and let the prospect decide.

"Whoever talks first loses," is the way my old boss and sales trainer taught me.

Well... talks first once you've proposed something and the prospect's deliberating, that is.

However, there's one exception to this rule, and that exception is this: when you can tell the prospect is talking himself out of it.

This is a bit of a nuanced thing to catch.

Therefore, this article is really only intended for intermediate and up students of the game. It'll be most useful for men who are already at least somewhat advanced with women, and will be able to attune to the signals we'll talk about here a lot more easily.

If you're a beginner, you can ignore this article for now and hew to "whoever talks first loses (after you've made a proposal)", and it'll server you well the majority of the time.

But if you're farther along than 'beginner', it's time to take a more nuanced view.