(3) Journeyman

Before stumbling into the world of pickup in late 2005, I'd never used the 1-to-10 scale. Maybe that's because I didn't really have friends; I wasn't comparing notes on girls. Or maybe it was because I wasn't trying to impress anyone by telling him I'd nailed a "total 10."

But in pickup, it seemed everyone used the 1-to-10 scale. Girls were 5s, 6s, 7s, 8s, 9s. Debate raged about whether a girl could ever really be a "perfect 10", or if true "10s" were naught but a myth.

Men would post photographs of the girls they slept with, and label a girl an "8", only for other men to chime in and ridicule them: "Dude, THAT girl is an 8? She's a 6, at best! Stop inflating your ratings!"

Then those same men doing the ridiculing would post pictures of girls that they were dating, and claim that these girls were "8s" or "9s"... and they wouldn't look any different from the women those men had just finished calling "5s" and "6s."

If all this seems silly, trite, and petty to you... it is. It's no better than other form of status jockeying and social ladder climbing, where guys try to seize bragging rights and "prove their worth", frequently by simply reporting the number rating of the girls they've gotten and trusting that everyone else knows what that means.

But not only is the 1-to-10 scale highly subjective and an absolutely terrible metric to use for comparing results across multiple individuals... but it destroys your ability to get truly beautiful women, too.

We've been seeing more comments from readers lately asking about situations like what Mike ran into the other day as remarked on the "How to Steal a Girl" article:

“Hey Chase,

I am 19 and I really appreciate all the insightful information you've made available for guys like me to read who aren't all that experienced.

I have a situation where I've been talking with a girl for a few months, and I finally got to see her for the first time two weekends ago(we live a state apart from each other) after texting, talking on the phone and FaceTiming daily before that.

She had been giving me slight hints that she liked me by little mannerisms and things that were made aware to me by reading your posts. Also, I flew up to see her and she dropped $250 on the hotel and drove me around all weekend, so I got her to invest. The first night I had a plan to have sex with her, and followed your suggestions that you had laid out to the tee.

The night started off great and I could tell she was into me so physical escalation was simple, but after quite a bit of foreplay I made a rookie mistake and left my condoms out of reach. And when I tried to make the move to get them, it took her out of seduction mode and allowed her to think, reminding herself about the internal moral belief she had told me previously about not having sex with guys she's not in a relationship with; therefore killing the vibe for the night.

This was on a Friday night and we spent the rest of the weekend hanging out since we made a special occasion due to the long distance situation. Nothing happened sexually on Saturday or Sunday and she was acting aloof and uninterested on Sunday so I could tell something was up.

I left for home unsure of what was on her mind and now, over a week later, in the time that has passed she has been short texting me with nearly zero emotion or ignoring my texts altogether. In addition, she turned down my offer to facetime, which she has never done before. So it is obvious that something is up, but when I resorted to going "alpha-male" and looking for a response she said she's "been busy?" and didn't respond to my next text asking about it.

Is this a sign of auto-rejection? Or is she testing me with the mixed signals BS? I am really in my head, beating myself up about things I may have done wrong because I know she likes me, but I'm not sure how things could have gone sour so quickly. I thought I had her chasing me and I know she was into me but now I'm afraid I'm getting close to chasing her. Once again, I'm really thankful for all the work you do. I'm aware that this is a lot and my situation is a unique one. I would greatly appreciate any advice and feedback you have for my situation!!

Thank you for your time,

Mike”

That is to say, situations where the guy takes things right up to the point of sex with a new girl... only for it to fall flat; she says 'no', and he walks away, figuring he can always try again later.

Except, after that single failure, there's almost never a "later."

Why do women vanish after you come right to the brink but don't go over - what's the psychology behind this, and what are the options you have to do anything about it?

Going to take a dip into a moral gray area today, but will talk a bit about "karma" as I do so, too. And not the spiritual sort - that's neither here nor there, as far as I'm concerned. I'm far more interested in the practical variety.

Anyway, we've had some discussion lately about snagging girls from directly under their boyfriends' noses - one of our forum members who's been racking up a number of new girls in bed lately, NarrowJ, shared a recent report about taking a girl to bed in the house she stayed in with her (rather controlling and abusive) boyfriend, and a reader named Aaron recently wrote in with this question:

“Hi Chase and friends at girlschase,

I was thinking an article on how to deal with the boyfriend himself in social situations would be great for an article, and would build on the shoulders of Chase's earlier article: "Girl Has a Boyfriend? 3 Things to Do, and 7 Things NOT to."

Imagine the following scenario: You know this girl from work or school. You like her. She likes you. You flirt with each other. The only problem? She has a long term boyfriend. Or alternatively, you meet a girl who has brought her boyfriend with her at a party.

Either way, a social situation arises in which she presents her boyfriend to you (for example at a party to test you, or out pure coincidence).

How do you handle the boyfriend? How do you demonstrate that you are a more dominant, superior, better man, and that she would be better off with you?

Hope you consider this!

Aaron"”

Is this possible to do? Sure. Is it something you can consistently pull off? ... well, let's just say take whatever your normal consistency is at picking up, and reduce that a fair bit because now you're trying to outcompete the girl's boyfriend; however, if you can pull this off with a girl who wants you to steal her from her man (we'll talk about these girls and why they want this in a bit), in this case you can actually achieve a higher degree of consistency at pulling... assuming you handle logistics properly.

But before we discuss doing this, let's talk a little about the scenario itself, and any potential moral implications... because I don't get my kicks making good people sob, and I hope you don't either.

In my recent article 'Scare Tactics and the Illusion of Control', reader Yink wanted to know how he could reconcile not using 'scare tactics' and still have his girl believe that he has options and that he can and will leave her if she doesn't act right:

“Because Chase once wrote that you need to make her feel that you have other options and can leave at anytime if she is not treating you well. So should we use the scare tactic when we feel like she is slipping away in order to make her buckle up? Thanks.”

The solution lies in having the right overall mental attitude instead of relying on individual techniques, thus the title of the article - mindsets vs. techniques.

First off, let's have a look at the definitions of each, as a lot can be gleaned from them (definitions here from TheFreeDictionary.com):

• Mindset: a habitual or characteristic mental attitude that determines how you will interpret and respond to situations

• Technique: a practical method or art applied to some particular task

One has far-reaching implications for many behaviours and situations, and the other is simply one solitary method to carry out a single function.

So pitting mindset vs. techniques may look as if it's a battle between an over-arching concept of behaviour and single instances of behaviour, but in fact, it's actually a battle between two meta-mindsets: the mentality-seeking mindset and the technique-using mindset.

In my article "Why I Quit Dating Girls Who Club, Party, or Drink", Balla asks the following questions about spotting a crazy girl (so that he might stay far, far away):

“How do you know if a girl is crazy before its too late? What early signs do girls show you?

How do you know you if a girl is lying to you about not being a club girl? Say if you met her during the day?

Don't club girls run around during the day too? How do you know you're not picking up a club girl during the day?”

Now, that's not to say that all girls who head to nightclubs every so often are crazy (although... most of them are at least somewhat more narcissistic women).

What we're talking about here when we say a girl is a "crazy girl" is that she is a woman who's more likely to be unstable in a relationship. That's it. She may function perfectly in every aspect of her life besides romantic / sexual relationships, but that's unimportant to us here for our purposes - this website is about selecting women as lovers and long-term partners, and we're most concerned with how those women are going to serve in those roles, how they'll affect us, and how stable (or not) they're going to be in that position.

To make some of these red flags easier to spot, I'm going to break them down into different red flags across three distinct categories, which may or may not be controversial for some people... and if so, well, them's the ropes. We're simply looking for the most useful tool here for making general predictions about the effects a given woman is going to have on your sanity as a man down the line in a relationship of any variety with her.

It occurs to me that there is a certain percentage of the readership here that has been reading Girls Chase for a fairly long time but not taking much or any action.

Some guys work on their fundamentals enough to get more attraction, but have difficulty ever talking to new women.

Some guys view all this self-improvement hoopla as something of a curiosity to be read about, enjoyed, and perhaps considered, but not something to be done, at least not right now.

Some guys meet women in their social circles, but not really in the way that Peter discusses in his series on social circle; more in a just freeform, unguided, I'll-meet-women-whenever-they-meet-me kind of way, that doesn't lead to a whole bunch of outstanding results but does lend itself nicely to ending up fixated on one or two women you just can't seem to get.

For those readers - all the guys who'd like to start, someday maybe, or even right now but just can't seem to get past their approach anxiety no matter how much they read or how much they do, I'd like to suggest something that's been a boon to me in skill building of all types, classes, and varieties: something I call the 100 hour rule.

A little while back, in the article on bitter women, JD asked a great question about the proper way to break up:

“[G]irls easily fall in love with me, and I'm not really considerate towards their feelings. Last time I broke up with someone it almost caused everyone to hate me... Obviously that's not something I'd like to happen. So how do you break up? How do you leave women thinking; 'wow, he was awesome, too bad he's moved on'?”

Breaking up is a wrenching affair much of the time, especially for the partner who's trying to hold on while the other lets go. Break ups are rarely mutual... far more often, they're one-sided, with one partner giving the other the boot, while the booted party feels hurt, shocked, injured, and helpless.

Especially if you've had a longer relationship (6+ months or so), you're usually going to be in for a bumpy road, emotionally.

How do you deal with all these emotions, and how do you figure out how to break up with a girl in a way that's fair to both people involved and doesn't leave a lot of smashed, hurt, broken feelings?