Socializing

A fellow named Estate - one of our forum members - has been meeting women in bars and nightclubs, and recently expressed some frustration that opening scenarios are rarely as "clean" as how you'll find them described in most articles on opening new conversations, like these:

• Pre-Opening

• Opening Body Language

• Easy Opening with Indirect Direct

• Book Excerpts: The Direct Opener

• Game Openers That'll Get You Girls

• Are You Single? Why to Always Ask Girls This

• When to Use Direct Openers Versus Situational Openers

Specifically, Estate lists out scenarios he's run into that don't seem to fit the simpler mold you'll see in how-to articles:

“Some situations I come across:

• Girl in circle of friends (as described above), she's cut off from a direct approach without moving her friends or engaging them. I guess the only answer, like you say is to simply engage them and work the group. Not to be lazy here but it feels like you are exerting a lot more time and effort here when potential for reward is probably smaller since you are essentially competing for her attention and taking time to navigate the group who will naturally be protective (especially if her group includes guys clearly into her as above). Working your way through the group no matter how smooth, I don't think anyone is fooled by it.

• Girls who are too "flighty"... the social butterfly perhaps but she is just bouncing around from place to place, bar, dance floor, upstairs, downstairs... getting her attention, calming her down to allow her to be isolated for any length of time.

• Girls who give off all the "IOI"s. For example a cute Brazilian girl I met Friday, she kept hovering around me, looking at me, brushing off and bumping into me, even "unknowingly" dancing up against me even though there was plenty space.... yet when I open, she acts almost un-interested... this girl actually bored me as I expected her to be somewhat chatty or friendly and I moved on, only to have her return to do the same!?!?

• Girls who isolate themselves in groups to a corner, a booth, a table... perhaps these girls just don't want to be approached thus move out of the limelight. I guess just plowing through and engaging the group would be the only answer here.

• Language barriers... lots of foreign students in this town. (Even if I'm foreign myself, haha).

• It's literally too loud to actually converse, even pulling her to another area is just too loud (I know, switch venues, but we all have those nights where you hit the club with friends and there is just this one girl we have to meet). Changes the game up, I like the "low key" relaxed, chill, sexy guy approach personally. Probably just need to switch venue or go high energy here.”

What do you do when there's no easy path to meeting that beautiful girl?

In "How to Talk About Yourself on Dates," a commenter named Al asked about an article on frame control - examples and advanced/detailed technique:

“One future article I would love to see is a more advanced and detailed article on frame control. I have read a forum thread by you on advanced frame control which was beneficial and your frame control article on here but I feel I need more real life examples of adroit frame control to be able to master it myself.

To put it in to context this last month I have just been focused on reading conversation articles on here as this has been my little "month of conversation" (convenient you slip this article in before the end of the month!) and I found the most valuable article of yours was the annotated example of a conversation you would have. Personally, i find learning by imitating helps initially for all game-related things before i stamp my own persona on how these are used so such an article would be fantastic.

Thanks again,
Al”

Frame control's a neat topic, and an important one - persuasion and communication is a central point of human existence, and if you want to stay in control and have things go your way, you've got to be good at it - not just at winning debates, but at getting people to see things your way.

That's what frame control really is - it's painting the picture in a way that not only speaks to you, but to everyone who's looking at it... your "opponent" included.

Here, we'll be taking a deeper look at frame control than we have before, and it's a look chock full of examples to get you thinking about things in the most intuitive way possible.

One of the most annoying, horrible, and downright irritating situations you'll ever run into socially is someone suddenly inveighing against you with emotionally-charged, finger-pointing, judgmental arguments.

These attacks are usually unexpected when you run into them, and they'll frequently catch you off guard. They can be confusing to know how to respond to if you're more accustomed to calm, cool-headed debates about the merits and drawbacks of a specific subject - then suddenly here's someone sandblasting you with hatred and unadulterated emotion. I'm sure you've experienced it at some point or another:

“People like you are the lowest kinds of people there are! You think you can just take whatever you want and not have to suffer the consequences! You think of no one but yourself!”

Suddenly, you're so deeply on the defensive trying to prove these accusations levied against you are untrue, that you end up effectively putting your hands up and saying, "Whoa, hey, stop, that's not true at all!"

Morality attacks also usually have a powerful communal effect, with any bystanders to the argument usually feeling either a) swept up in the argument and equally enraged and emboldened, or b) so afraid of being castigated themselves that they either just agree out of fear, or they remain quiet and let things unfold, not wanting to get in the way of an onrushing freight train.

That means that when someone starts hitting you with moral superiority, you need to be quick on your feet to not get quickly cast out as whatever you're being labeled as - and the way to do that, of course, is fighting fire with fire: you must use moral superiority right back.

In "How to Talk About Yourself on Dates," a reader writes in to ask about dealing with male competition:

“Hi Chase,

Awesome site and truly amazing articles. There was one particular topic I was searching for but couldn’t find it. It's dealing with experience. Since the days before I came across this site I was pretty bad with girls, I have had problems dealing with competition. As soon as there is competition from guys with slightly better game I am rather clueless what to do. It's like I lose all the energy and confidence and hand it over to the other guy. Since in a normal scenario (college or university pretty girls are mostly hounded with tons of guys) this is most likely to happen everywhere and you'll keep losing girls if you don't sort it out. I know the obvious choice would be to ignore the guy and just follow the ways explained on the site. But if there’s a guy with naturally good game aiming of the same girl in front of you I find it impossible to ignore the same. There has to be a way to get around it!!Would be great if you could help me with the same...”

Dealing with other men competing with you in the dating arena can be a big headache. I certainly went through it during my learning curve - it's no fun to lose, but it's a whole lot less fun when not only do you lose, but some girl you liked clearly picks another man over you. In fact, it can be one of the most painful events you’ll experience.

So how do you deal with male competition - especially with men more experienced with women than you are? That's a tough nut to crack... and it's going to depend as much on your calm and your baseline fundamentals as it will on your "game."

In the post on indirect game, Dave asked the following about flirting at work and in other non-anonymous social situations where romance may not be the focus of the gathering at hand:

“Hello Chase,
there's something about indirect rapport I'm not sure you've covered and it might be interesting. Very often and especially with girls whom you're likely to meet again - colleagues, fellow students etc. - it seems to me going true indirect could make sense (while still being sexy that is, but not saying "I'm kidding, I just thought you were cute" which is in fact direct but just delayed 3 seconds) because it allows the girl to pretend she didn't know you were seducing her. She can then tell herself (or her friends) that she's completely innocent and didn't help you or make it easy for you. On the other hand, directness and indirect direct polarize reactions so it can easily become awkward if you have to see them on a regular basis afterwards. Maybe you could add a few words on this.
Dave”

It's a tight rope to walk - how do you express interest and flirt with colleagues and coworkers without being so obvious about it that you risk an ugly rejection or a (decidedly non-professional) label as the office flirt?

I'm going to focus mostly on work situations here, largely because we've already covered the classroom (see: "Cute Girls in Class? Stop Flirting and Start DATING"). As with that article, the topic here is going to be not just how you can flirt with (a modicum of) subtlety, but also how you can actually make something happen.

Because, while flirting is undeniably fun in its own right, taking that coworker you've been flirting with for months for a hot date or a roll in the hay is a lot more fun.

In "Guy Talk: Here's How to Kick Butt at Talking to Other Men," JFav (a commenter singlehandedly responsible for perhaps 20% of the "a reader writes in" type articles I've written here) writes in asking about how to make female friends:

“Hey Chase,

Was reading through this article again and it's great stuff! Can't believe I haven't been using it all this time. Though as I was reading though a thought popped into my head, could there be a companion article to this concerning women?

I'm not sure if what I'm asking isn't already covered on here but I thought I'd ask anyways. I've always been fascinated with those guys that just get women and can instantly turn them into a friend or ally. Much like the way you said you can turn any man into an ally I'm sure you can do that with a woman too.

So, I was wondering if you could a write up on this kind of thing. You talked about this subject briefly in Girls Chase ebook where you compared the female and male conversational style.

I'm asking about this because I'm in a spot in my life where being active in pick up difficult for me so having some female companionship in terms of having invites to parties or clubs is my best bet right now.”

And just the other day, Ryan had a similar question in the latest Carnival of Dating Advice:

“Hey Chase,
I was wondering if you could write an article about what to do if you want to be good friends with a girl. All your articles have been really helpful but i'm not sure how to apply the techniques to a girl whom seducing would be inappropriate, but you still want her to admire and respect you as a good friend. Could you write something about this please? Thank you :)”

JFav and Ryan are right - there isn't an article on Girls Chase yet about turning women into friends - so let's correct that situation.

content="Black and white thinking is a potent tool for decision making and influencing – but it has a dark side you need to be aware of as well.">

In "Your Mental Model is Flawed," Lu asks a great question:

“Chase, I like your analysis of how there is no black and white between what is good and what is evil, because both are seen in different lights by separate cultures, societies, and individuals.

However, do you think having this "black and white" mentality is good for other areas, such as leadership? I feel like in moving your interactions forward with women, or in business, you're either going to do something, or you aren't. A gray area when it comes to leading, I believe, would be a sign of indecisiveness.

A response on how you have become a leader, not just with women but in all areas would be greatly appreciated. Keep up the good work!”

Black and white thinking's a fascinating topic. The psychological tool of black/white thinking is extremely powerful, though it rests normally on an incomplete view of the world. However, it's somewhat essential at some degree to progress and motivation in anyone.

Understanding something like black and white thinking, the question really does become, "How deep down the rabbit hole do you want to go?"

Particularly if you really want to wrap your head around why people do it and why it has such a powerful hold on people's minds, you'll find the rabbit hole on this one goes rather deep.

And the truth with black and white thinking is, even the most fair-minded of individuals employes it to some degree to get anything in his life accomplished other than simply lie in bed.