(2) Intermediate

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?

Welcome to the 24th Edition of the Carnival of Dating Advice. We're winding the carnival down; this is our second-to-last go-round bringing you the best latest articles in dating, relationships, psychology, and more from around the web.

Short carnival this time, with four articles included - ranging from the gentlemanly to the emotional to reflection on success and taking action.

Here we go...

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.

Welcome, friends, to the 23rd Edition of the Carnival of Dating Advice, bringing you some of the best latest articles in dating, relationships, psychology, and more from around the web.

Today you'll find articles served up on topics as varied as dealing with your own emotions - whether about success or a cheating partner; on figuring out how to get more results when it feels like you're doing everything you possibly can (and still not seeing any); and articles on busyness, uninhibited sex, and being a gentleman.

Without further ado...

Do you need to do things different when talking to a hot girl?

One of the most ridiculous things I see in the comments section of this website sometimes is this:

“This is stupid. It only works on average looking girls... it would NEVER work on a hot girl / a beautiful girl / a real 10.”

No qualification is given to the argument, or the experience level of the argument-maker.

There's no evidence to back the statement up.

There's no alternative solution offered.

It's just a random, unqualified wave-of-the-hand dismissal, hanging there in space, pooh-poohing 2,000+ words of case-making with what amounts to the esteemed argument of "Nope - you're wrong, I'm right, no proof necessary, I just know it! Case closed."

I see it on all kinds of articles. Everything from how to flirt with women, to how to hold a conversation with a girl, to how to handle logistics. It's indiscriminate... to believe these commenters is to believe that beautiful women live lives of celibacy, never interacting with those base creatures called "men," immune as they are to the charms of "men."

It's silliness.

But I understand where it comes from.

To the average man, hot and beautiful women really ARE like strange creatures from another world.

Mr. Regular Guy never interacts with them.

He never gets to know them.

To them, he does not exist, and to him, they exist merely as dreams... fantasies.

Is it really no different when you talk to a hot girl?

Or could it be there's something I'm not telling you?

One of our members on the discussion boards recently wrote about a girl he'd been out on a date with, who was very attracted to him, and with whom he'd made it all the way back to his place.

They reached his home, only for her to refuse coming upstairs with him. He persisted; she refused. He persisted; she refused. She then counter offered that he accompany her to a bar - he relented, then accepted. Once at the bar, they shared a few rounds of passionate kisses, then parted ways.

A few days later this girl who'd been previously very attracted to him - enough to accompany him all the way back to his home and to kiss him passionately at the bar texted him something very kind and considerate that concluded with her having realized they "didn't really have all that much in common after all." She was no longer interested in seeing him anymore.

He was surprised; she'd clearly been so attracted to him before. Why the sudden switch?

The reason why, I responded, was that he'd allowed her to take things backwards in the seduction; instead of moving ahead, things deescalated and retreated.

Going backwards in a seduction, as we will see in this article, does all kinds of bad things for you with precedent and attraction that you'll want to not have anything to do with... it's the seduction equivalent of the shady part of town you're better off steering clear of at all costs.

I'm going to take a bit of a tangent from the usual here to discuss the topic of time efficiency and ways that you can make your social life (and the rest of your life) much more efficient.

This article is in answer to K's comment here that asks:

“Hey Chase!

Thank you so much for this website. It is truthfully the only comprehensive "how to live life" site that takes a logical approach to everything. I especially enjoyed the "Are you smart post". The difference between hard working and smart is truly all important. It would be amazing if you could get a post up here about how to be incredibly time efficient, so that we can learn how to really maximize the effectiveness of our work.

Thanks again,

K”

K's referencing the article "Are You Smart? It Doesn't Much Matter Either Way," in which we examined some research done on children praised as "smart" compared to children praised as "hard working" from an early age. The findings were that the children praised as "smart" early on shied away from hard problems later in life out of fear of failing and proving themselves "not smart," while children praised as "hard working" early on dove into hard problems later in life in with zest to show how "hard working" they really were.

In this article, I want to turn the spotlight onto the topics of hard limits, autopilot, and also revisit some of what we discussed in the article on ego depletion - so we can talk about how one becomes truly time efficient.