(1) Beginner

A guy walks up to a girl.

He starts a conversation. She's from out of town.

They exchange pleasantries, chat a little bit, have a bit of back and forth.

He's not feeling it though; she isn't really into him, and he can tell.

She invites him to swing by her town sometime. He knows this is a polite brushoff.

He smiles, tells her he appreciates it, says he's going to do a little more circulating, gives her a wink, and leaves.

That guy's cool... isn't he?

Actually, the correct way of describing him would be "outcome independent."

This isn't the comprehensive "how to be cool" post that some folks have asked me to write... that one will require a large block of uninterrupted time for me to sit down and put together. But I do want to talk about one of the elements of being cool: that thing known as outcome independence.

I thought this would be a fun article to write.

If you haven't spent much time learning body language and expressions from the very sexy and attractive women you meet, you've been missing out on a valuable source of highly applicable lessons in being sexy, seductive, and downright charming. Pretty women might seem like an odd place to learn about men's body language, but they are, in fact, one of your most invaluable sources of preciously good information.

In "How Much Do Looks Matter for Romantic Success?" I mentioned learning how to do well with girls mostly from guys who were seemingly naturally good with women. One of the biggest differences between these guys and other guys, I feel like, is that these guys usually have game that mimics that of women.

They get good by essentially taking what women do with them, and doing it right back toward women.

Many of the things on this site that constitute some of my bigger contributions to "game tech" (e.g., deep diving, pre-opening, Law of Least Effort, etc.) are partly or wholly drawn from adapting things I've watched women do with me and others.

I won't review the larger items here I've already covered in detail in other articles on the site - instead, this article will be focused on small little things you can do, that you might not have been aware of, that women do to you all the time and that are just as effective when you do them back. I've broken them down here into two classes: the physical, and facial expressions.

Lately, a friend of mine has been bringing up a recently acquired belief that looks are everything, and everything else is nothing, when it comes to meeting and picking up women. I've avoided being drawn into the debate as best I can, but any time I mention anything women-related, I've been hearing it from him: “Oh, I don't even listen to that, because the only thing that matters is looks.”

Disagreeing with him gets one told one is in denial, and he cites a few examples of very good looking friends of his who get better results with women than anybody else he knows as evidence that only good looking guys can get good looking girls.

I've refrained from weighing in too much on this until now, because I understand why he's thinking this way and why he's trying to convince everyone that looks are all that matters. But I felt like the topic is a good one, and that it'd make for good article fodder and be something worth addressing here. The topic being:

Do looks matter to women, and if so how much?

And the answer I've got for you here will almost certainly surprise you, no matter which side of the fence you fell on prior to reading this.

Guys have been asking for a while on here for a piece on fashion for men. So I guess that makes this one a long time coming.

Fashion's important. How important? It's pretty important. It's not make or break always... but you know the saying: clothes make the man.

What you wear doesn't just define you as cool, sexy, or stylish. It also subconsciously affects how other people feel toward you.

Wear clothes that make you look amazing, and people will feel like you're amazing. Wear clothes that make you look different, and people will view you as different (good or bad as that may be).

Wear clothes that make you look ordinary, on the other hand, and people will view you as just that: ordinary. Boring. Not particularly noteworthy.

They'll hardly even notice you.

And thus, we have our focus on fashion: getting noticed, in a positive way. But not like what we discussed in the article on peacocking... the truly fashionable man picks clothes that fit him so well people don't even see the individual clothing items all that much.

Instead, they just look at the man himself and say "wow."

A reader writes in on the article "Staying Out of Auto-Rejection," about asking himself the question of "Are we just friends?" and giving up on a girl he was pursuing - only to have her pull him back in with an expression of her feelings:

“I wrote off a girl (well have tried to anyway with great difficulty) I felt strongly for about a year ago due to the fact that although she expressed strong interested in me, she moved onto another guy due to me moving too slow, being aloof etc.

Since then, as part of bringing closure to the whole episode, I read all these theories about escalation-windows and auto-rejection, and concluded that this was most likely what happened in my case, and thus put the whole thing to rest, reaching acceptance that anything we had was over (well at least trying my best with these steps), and resolving not to make these 'mistakes' again with the next someone special who comes along.

Lately I've been noticing a fair amount of guys discussing difficulty approaching women while looking smooth and effortless. Some of the time, they're ending up not approaching girls they like at all, because they can't find the "right angle" or they're waiting for the "right moment," and that moment never comes.

Approaching girls is a bit of an art, but how to approach a girl is not - that you can boil down to distinct bits, pieces, and learnable, repeatable steps.

However, it's also a topic that's shrouded in a lot of general, generic advice and scads of "Just do this [hard-sounding thing] and the girl is yours!"

Before we get into the mechanics on how to approach a girl, a few articles to recommend checking out if you haven't already done so (or, are in need of a refresher):

• Overcoming Approach Anxiety (combatting nervousness prior to approaching)

• Move Faster (a basic but under-discussed tenet of good game)

• Reactions vs. Results (a mistake loads of men make - confusing reactions from women for results with women)

• How to Get Girls: The Last Post You'll Ever Need (a broad overview of the mentality you'll need to have and the situations you'll run into in the modern dating environment)

• The Law of Least Effort and Sprezzatura (the big impact that the appearance of effort has on how attractive you are to women and the kind of results you get)

We'll be using and referring to these principles here - if you're vague or unfamiliar with any of them, make sure you give these a look.

That in mind, let's get you armed up with a process for approaching that takes advantage of the situation and the environment and has you meeting girls as easily as possible, as smoothly as possible, and with the best end point possible (the girls you meet wanting to meet up with you again and exchanging contact details with you - or better).

And we'll do all that with the 4 big mistakes that men make when approaching - and the 10 steps to take to have a near-perfect approach.

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.