Going Stag: Your Guide to Going Out By Yourself

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!

Going Out By Yourself

In the original post on going out by yourself, Jay posted the following comment:

“Hey Ricardus, your posts have been a useful addition to an already excellent site and this is another good one. A couple of questions though. I have tried going out alone a couple of times and staying out after my mates have left a few times too. When I've been questioned by girls as to why I'm out alone I've always come up with a lie like 'I was meeting my mate but he just text to say he can't make it because' then some more lies, or in a club that I've lost my mate, is this what you recommend doing or just be honest?”

Great question… I actually still remember the day I first started researching this topic myself.

Here’s the thing… I had noticed a pattern: All the guys who got really, really good at meeting and dating women would go stag when they went out… some of them even preferred it to being out with a friend, because it forced them to approach, and it gave them more opportunities to meet people. Every minute that you’re chatting with your buddies, you’re not approaching… and every time you fear the approach, you have an excuse not to go: you’re in a conversation already.

Some of my friends who are the best with women I’ve ever seen would go out seven nights a week… and as you can imagine, on four or five of these nights, there was simply nobody around to join them. It really paid off for them though, as they got very good very quickly… faster than anybody who wasn’t in the habit of going stag from time to time, including me.

And so I decided to create that habit myself as well – and it was one of the hardest parts of getting good with women. I wrote about my first few times on the town alone before, and described how much of a struggle it was for me… I wasn’t even able to ask women for the time because I had psyched myself out so much. I finally solved that problem once and for all though, and in that article I also discuss the two most important strategies you can use to overcome this fear.

Security Blanket…?

The biggest problem is that it’s a lot more difficult to stay in state when you’re out alone than if you have someone to chat with to keep your own social momentum going… and there are two ways to solve this problem. The first one is to develop state independence, and the second is to develop state control (see: “How to Pick Up Girls: The Success Factor”).

There is, however, another problem that guys face when they start leaving the “security blanket” of a wingman behind… it can feel a little bit weird to be the guy who came to the club alone. Most people are there with friends after all, and when you’re new to going out by yourself it feels for all the world like everyone at the club knows that YOU are the dork who came alone… and they’re all watching you, wondering why you don’t have any friends to go out with…?

Well, the truth is that this is not something you need to worry about at all... and here is why:

1. First of all, nobody is observing you. People are WAY too caught up in their own conversations and their own night out to even notice, leave alone observe anybody else. Here’s a little exercise you can do the next time you’re out alone: Just stand in a corner for a while, or sit down on a sofa and step out of the matrix for a couple of minutes. You be the one to watch… and you will realize that you are pretty much invisible to everyone else.

   You might even learn a thing or two about what NOT to do from watching the chaos of neediness going on around you… or you might spot a real player whose game you can model.

2. The second point is that even if people *were* observing you, which they are not, they still don’t have any reason to assume that you’re alone. People walk around a club alone all the time, as they’re going to get drinks for their group, or while they’re on the way to the bathroom. And if day game is your thing, then being out alone is definitely common… guys don’t usually go shopping in groups like girls often do.

3. Finally, even if people knew you were alone, it’s still no big deal. Why do you think everybody goes out in groups? It’s because almost everybody has the same fear about being out alone that we’re talking about here. Sure, they are out with their friends because they want to spend an evening with them, that’s a factor… but if they had the social skills and the confidence to go to a club alone, make a bunch of new friends and go home with a hot girl that night… they’d probably prefer that.

   In other words, people actually really admire the courage it takes to go out alone, and especially to chat up groups of strangers alone… so long as your approach is solid, of course. But we’ve got you covered there with this site and these programs.
   

Girls Are Not the KGB!

Another thing that strikes me in Jay’s comment is the wording… he has “been questioned” by girls. A lot of newer guys get an emotion when this happens that is similar to when a cop questions them, or even a judge, or some superior or authority figure. I’d suggest you reframe this as “girls asked me,” rather than “questioned me.” Small detail, but a bunch of small details together make up big deals.

If you interpret a girl’s question as her interrogating you, your response will automatically be different than if you interpret it as her merely being curious, or if you even interpret it as her trying to make conversation with you because she’s so much into you that she wants to keep the ball rolling. No matter which of the two was her actual intention, if you respond as if it was the latter, you will always get better results.

As for specific things to say in answer to this question - there are all kinds of clever answers you can give a girl if she asks you why you’re out alone. Remember my friend who’s amazing at making girls laugh? When women ask him why he’s out alone, he’ll say something like… “Well, I went out with a friend, but he fell in a hole.” Girls always crack up, but if you’ve read the article, you also remember that he doesn’t usually get a lot of love with this act. Forget clever.

If you have strong frame control, you can simply tell her the truth:

“My friends already left, but I wasn’t ready for my evening to be over yet.”

Or, if you went out alone from the get go, you might say something like: “My buddy and I decided to split up tonight because we already know all of each other’s stories… and so we’d rather make some new friends tonight and hear some new stories.” Notice the friendship frame – it’s a nice little gambit to keep her guessing.

Bottom line – just tell the truth; it’s only a big deal if you think it’s a big deal.

If you present it right, many girls will merely think: “Wow, I wish I had the confidence and self-sufficiency to go out alone.” – They, too, get stuck at home with soap opera reruns when their friends are being lame and don’t want to leave the house!

Get Her Alone!

“ Secondly a problem I keep coming up against is when you get chatting to two girls how do you get the one you like away from her mate? So many times I've had girls say 'I'd like to stay with you but I'm staying at my friends' or 'I've got to make sure my friend gets home ok' etc.  etc. I get their number but end up going home alone, have you got any advice on what I can do here so the friend goes home alone instead?!”

Yeah, this one is tricky – you need to be alone with a girl if you want to make something happen, and the constellation of two girls is often the most difficult one to break up. This will depend on a couple of factors though:

• Older girls (say, in their late 20s) often go out specifically to get laid. They have a lot of experience under their belt, they’ve already had a couple of relationships behind them and aren’t naïve about dating anymore, and oftentimes they know exactly what they want and don’t feel bad about going for it, the same way a guy would. The only reason they take a female friend along is to keep them company until they find a guy to go home with – in this case, cockblocking won’t be much of a problem.

• If the girls are a lot younger or less experienced, however, they often don’t realize that they’re shooting themselves in the foot by making it hard on guys to make something happen. Same goes for girls who go out with their guy friends hoping to meet someone, never realizing that most guys are too shy to approach mixed groups. These girls usually go home disappointed and wondering what’s wrong with them and why no guys came up to approach them – which should encourage you to approach mixed groups by the way, they’re actually easier.

• It’s also cultural – Caucasian girls often cockblock each other, whereas I’ve often seen Latinas help each other get laid. It’s a quite interesting phenomenon. Cockblocking is almost always a sign of jealousy by the way, not protectiveness.

Sometimes you can solve the problem by getting your girl herself to deal with the situation… if she’s into you and you can frame the situation right, she may handle her friend – whereas other times, her objection is nothing but an excuse and she will only tell you that she has to stay with her friend as an easy way of rejecting you.

Her body language will tell you which of the two it is more than her words will.

Final words of advice: either do bring a “wingman” with you who can occupy your girl’s friend, or simply steer clear of difficult situations – chances are there is another girl just as attractive who has better logistics that night.

If you want to make sure you’ll get laid TONIGHT, you should approach about five or six girls you like over the course of your evening, have a 15-20 minute conversation with each of them and then determine which one is most responsive and has the best logistics for going home together that evening.

Then go back to that one and drive the ball across the finish line.

Going Stag: Just Do It

In summation, going out by yourself really isn’t a big deal, and it’s mostly a psychological challenge.

• Practice your state independence

• Practice your state control

• Take baby steps, just go out to observe other people and get comfortable being out alone

• Realize that nobody’s watching you, nobody knows you’re out alone… and if they did know, they’d be jealous of the courage it takes

• Don’t feel that you owe anyone an explanation – but if you must explain it, the truth works fine, so long as you come from a confident frame

• Talk to several different groups over the course of the night (or day) to find out which one has the best logistics

Remember, going out alone is the best way for you to learn how to pick up a girl fast, and the best way to get results once you know what you’re doing, period.

So don’t worry if it’s a little scary - that scary side of it is all in your head!

Onward and upward,

Ricardus