Maintaining power-derived value through the opening

[Marty]

Hey guys, so I want to bring up an important subject here that has been touched on quite a lot recently, in the forums, on the main site, and, as it happens, in my own life.

That subject is how you retain attraction and value that were created through authority and respect, across the threshold point of showing your interest... what we call "opening" a woman.

For me, the foundation of how to manage this—the go-to reference for it, if you will—is Chase's article Get Girls Chasing: Give a Little to Get a Lot. This started me off thinking about it in the right way, and was revolutionary to my perspective.

Recently, on the boards, this question was brought up again by a user who goes by the handle of "zqw 10k". In his post Smart idea or did I fail on setting up something good, describing his position of authority as a teacher of English, he writes:

But.. Yeah, I sacrificed a bit of my power to have make this happen, although I think it was a good choice, I would like that you guys give me your opinion about it.
Should I have said no, seen what would happen while my power grows slightly every time but could have missed an escalation window?
Or should I have said yes as I did, having sacrificed a bit of my power to make it possible to be alone with her so I can try to make it happen?

Oh... I feel your pain, zqw 10k, I really do.

At my place of employment I hold a Director position. I've had:

• 
  - A girl ask me for Microsoft Excel lessons, completely unsolicited, then tell me her husband normally helped her, without explaining why she was asking me instead of him this time; following the "lesson", when I proposed a little get-together outside the office, just the two of us, no questions asked, she ignored me;
  
  - A girl do everything in her power to get noticed by me, then agree to a conspiratorially-arranged date, only to reject me at the end of the date itself
  
  - A girl act thrilled and flirty in the office after I accidentally cold-approached her in the street without recognizing her, then decline to meet outside the office on grounds of not wishing to mix business and personal life;
  
  - Another married girl agree to a lunch-date with me, just the two of us, giving extensive compliance to touch and moving, then act all shocked when I tried to escalate to an evening date, pretending she'd thought it was purely a business lunch
  
  - A girl chase me down as I left the office after my very first day of employment and ask me to tell her all about myself, then act bratty when I decline to join her "fan club" like all her male orbiters;
  
  - A foxy Vice-President flirt heavily with me and agree to a drink-date, then suddenly go cold.

And all that in the last six months!

Chase recently wrote a terrific reminder article that contains some brilliant insights on this question. In It's Not Your Investment in Her; It's Hers in You, Chase writes:

When I've held positions of authority over women in school as a teaching assistant or later in the workplace, I've watched some pretty rapid attraction develop toward me from women who were "under" me - attraction that, in many cases, evaporated quite quickly if the authority position was forfeit. Just about any man who's held authority over a woman at some point or another can attest to this phenomenon - call it the "man in a uniform" phenomenon.

To women, these two things - attraction and respect - are interchangeable.

Later in the same article, he writes:

Yes, it is necessary for him to give her some amount of investment before she becomes his, falls in love with him, or does anything else with him.

However... it's not this investment itself that unlocks those emotions.

Rather, this investment what he does to give her just enough that she feels safe investing with him.

This "some amount of investment", as Chase puts it, or "sacrifice of a bit of power", as zqw 10k wrote, is an awfully hard thing to judge. Particularly for someone at a relatively early stage of his learning process, like me.

Right now I have yet another opportunity to attempt a power-based interaction and learn something. The girl with the "fan club" I described earlier is actually the boss of the girl who didn't want to mix business and pleasure, the one I accidentally chased down on the street. Well, as luck would have it, the fan club girl has just hired yet another blonde cutie to work in her team. (That makes three of them.) Now with this one, I'm doing things different.

On her first day, I practically ignore her. That's always a safe start, I find. Why would a powerful man be overly concerned with an underling?

On her third day, I am in a hurry to get a cup of tea before a morning meeting I have to lead. I run into her in the kitchen. "You're new here; what's your name?" I take her hand and stare deep into her eyes. Then I turn away: "We'll chat later; I have to prepare for a meeting."

Turns out her boss (the fan club one) has decided they both need to attend that meeting; a meeting that I run and am in charge of. An easy opportunity to demonstrate high value. I am relaxed, unhurried, in charge. The department Vice-President sits on one side of me; occasionally I make everyone else wait while I chat briefly with him in a friendly, collegiate vibe, or toss a sardonic joke his way. I give the fan-club girl direct commands in front of her lovely underling. I couch the whole meeting in a no-nonsense, "let's not waste anyone's time", brisk manner.

For the ensuing week, the new girl is making BIG eyes at me. Every time she walks past my office, she tries to catch my eye. Most of the time I demur, affecting to concentrate on my work. But, being in leadership position, I obviously don't actually do most of the work myself, so just occasionally I am leaning back relaxing, and I smile at her in return, or give her a wink.

Then, yesterday morning, I decide to push things forward. She is wearing green ass-hugging jeans and looks delectable. I hear her doing some menial job in the copy-room. I have to print something for another meeting; I walk across the copy-room to staple it. "Hello," she says in an expressive voice.

"Well hello, you're looking very pretty today." (The social-circle equivalent of going direct, delayed a couple weeks to take account of the context! Smiles, eyelid-fluttering from the girl.) "Why is it I always meet you when I'm rushing off to a meeting?" (Contrasting words with nonverbal manner: totally unhurried and relaxed. Of course. I'm the boss.)

"I'm going to be here for a while, I'm..." (doing such-and-such repetitive task).

"Sure, we should chat sometime." Change of manner: brisk. I walk off without waiting for an answer.

Later that day... she walks past my office again with "big eyes". I hear her in the kitchen.

I go there on a pretext. "So how long do you plan to stay with us for?"

We shoot the breeze a couple minutes about her university study, ambitions etc. Then:

Marty: "So... you must have a boyfriend? Husband?" (I already know the answer.)

Girl: "Fiancé."

Marty: "Fiancé!" (Expressive voice.) "Almost a husband, right?"

Girl: "Yes haha!"

Marty: "Unless he gets away first, huh?"

Girl: (gives me a dirty look)

That last line, I hope, does a few things for me. It sets me up as a "bad boy"; shows I am aware of female insecurities; shows I am not afraid to challenge her (and discuss private issues); and shows I am unruffled by discovering her relationship status. After all, I don't want to DATE her, right?

Later that afternoon, I am chatting with a female colleague at the elevator as we head for a meeting. The girl shows up, on her way out... she works part-time. I return her "look" and continue my conversation coolly as if nothing had happened. Then, in a calibrated manner, I break off and ask the girl her normal schedule. She tells me. My colleague and I leave the elevator at the second floor while the girl continues down. As I wish her a good evening, she gives me HUGE eyes. Looks like attraction has spiked through the roof.

I may have the opportunity in the next few days to do something with this. I am not greatly confident about my ability to do so, but I feel I have a much clearer take on things now than a few months ago, thanks to the support of others on these boards and obviously thanks to the excellent website.

 

[girlsfollow]

I like how you described this - good account and good result!

What happened?

 

[Marty]

GirlsFollow,

Thanks for your interest.

This was a month or two ago now, and the continuation is described here:

FR: TightJeansGirl

Do you have any view on the questions I posed above, before the account of the specific interaction commences? Specifically, on how to maintain the edge in terms of power and value, while "giving" enough to show interest on the opener.

Hope you enjoy the sequel! Sadly, it doesn't have a happy ending, but hey, I'm still learning! )

-Marty

 

[Chase]

Marty-

This is one of the toughest things to gauge with women you meet socially. Because she has a lot of conflicting desires with you, things get a lot more complicated than they do in cold approach (which you will still get this to some extent, but nowhere near as much), ESPECIALLY when they're women for work. With women you work with, you get a combination of sexual desire + romantic desire + desire to have you help support her career + desire to make sure you just not someone who's going to impede her career or get in her way.

Go just a little too far to one side of the line and you're in auto-rejection or friend-zone-workplace-ally land. The only women who don't seem to follow this quite so much are women who are only planning to be in that workplace for a short while - e.g., consultants - so who are less concerned with long-term implications.

Work's generally a tough place to run hook up game, unless you are or the girl is just passing through. Otherwise, it can be good conditioning, but even if you're pretty good with women elsewhere it can be quite maddening. I've had plenty of women from workplaces in the past who were decidedly less attractive than the women I was pulling via cold approach who ALSO had professional jobs who gave me the run around, almost certainly due entirely to needing to be on their tiptoes because we were colleagues. Most of the time I ended up just not bothering with women at work except for flirting practice, or unless I was leaving or passing through (or they were)... your time is simply better spent elsewhere.

THAT SAID, no nut is uncrackable, and I've had a few friends who were very good at consistently sleeping with lots of women at work in stable corporate office environments. So it can be done... you'll just have to get good at walking that line perfectly enough that you don't give away so much of your power that you lose appeal of a sexual option and only remain a "workplace ally", but still give away enough that women at work will be interested and pursue you.

Chase

 

[robertnyc]

Hey Marty -

I've had a couple of work place romances over the last few years with attractive girls, one of which happened when I was 2 levels up from one of the girls in question but not directly in her supervisory chain. These both occurred when I worked at a large company with a pretty conservative office environment.

I've found that girls at work really want a guy to be extra discreet when it comes to fooling around because of the impact it can have on their reputation at work if it gets out that she is hooking up with a more senior guy. Given your more senior status I think it is highly risky from a harassment point of view to tell women they are pretty at work or to be in your office alone with them during work hours with the door closed. I think this can create huge amounts of uncomfortable pressure for women also, which is counter productive from a seduction point of view. Plus when they do things that you want them to do, like go to lunch, you don't know if they are doing it because they are interested in you or because they feel some work related pressure because of your position.

For these reasons I think seducing women you work with has to be done very differently from your standard social circle game where you can be more forward with your intentions. So my first suggestion is to not equate work with social circle game. Work is actually one step before social circle game. Therefore I think the immediate challenge with women you work with is to see if you can advance it to the next step, which is social circle game. For this I would see if you could invite the woman you are interested in to a happy hour where other work colleagues will be, or maybe there is a company sponsored sporting event like a softball team or 5k run that you could invite them to. Once you are in a work related happy hour environment you still have to be discreet but you can then flirt a bit more without making them uncomfortable. Also, there is nothing wrong with doing 2 or 3 happy hour social type of events where you gradually ramp up your flirting over the course of a couple of weeks.

Then at the happy hour when the time is right you can then invite her to join you for a drink at another place for just the two of you. This is a much better judge of compliance because the implications are much clearer about what you would like to see happen.

I'm going to write up a post on how to know when you are in a social circle game environment and when you are not. I've found that guys often know what they should do when they run social circle game but they actually don't know when they are in a social circle and when they are not - except for obvious examples like night clubs or house parties. I actually got a good deal of these insights when I was at a function some time back when a girl number closed me in a group environment in a way that was not socially awkward at all.

 

[Marty]

Hey Robert,

Flattered that you choose your very first post on this forum to address my question which was ignored for weeks, and then resurrected by GirlsFollow and ultimately—thrillingly—commented upon by Chase!

Given your more senior status I think it is highly risky from a harassment point of view to tell women they are pretty at work or to be in your office alone with them during work hours with the door closed. I think this can create huge amounts of uncomfortable pressure for women also, which is counter productive from a seduction point of view.

It's probably a fair point. Personally, I never intended things to get that far out of hand. I'm not sure how clearly it comes across from the written descriptions I've given, but the real issue is that she started it. I'd never have contemplated taking things down that road if I hadn't been bombarded with massive signals that were as far as I am concerned entirely unprovoked and on her own initiative.

Happens to me all the time, it's like I've got "can be teased by younger women" written across my forehead. It's really annoying, actually! ;-)

-Marty