FR Playing to Win

[theemann31]

I read about playing to win in a GC article and found out through introspection that I don't play to win with girls, I just approach, or get into conversation but I go no deeper. So today I resolved to go all the way from opener to sex with girls and It shows in this field report (even though I only got to the number close).

So after a math quiz, I left class to see a well dressed girl with gorgeously styled black hair, so I contemplated whether to approach then followed her down the stairs and opened

ME: HEY SLOW DOWN (she turns around) (I smile) Your hairstyle is really cute
HER: Thanks (smiling)
ME:It's really nice, so... (playing to win I try to continue)What's your name?
HER: Mckenzie
ME: I'm Josh (I gently shake her hand) Where are you headed
HER: Right here (places her stuff down on a table)
ME: Well what are you working on?
HER: Work for an apartment complex
ME: So is it North or South Housing?
HER: Yes (non chalantly looks away at her laptop she is putting out)
ME:South? (puzzled look on face)
HER: Oh, sorry It's off campus, so what's your major
ME: Trans Design, Wha..
HER: ooooh I have no idea what that is
ME: We just design cars, what's your's?
HER: Arch Eng
ME: Well that's cool!(smiling) a guy who sits next to me in my math class is in architecture (I tried to reward her for opening up)
HER: OK..

Then I tried to deep dive her on what she's passionate about:

ME: So tell me Mckenzie, are you passionate about Arch Eng?
HER: Yeah, I guess... It's what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life and I'm studying it
ME: (trying to inspire her) Well those aren't good reasons to love something, just because your'e studying it
HER: I guess I do like it then.. (Pause)
ME: Well, what do you like about it?
HER: (I think at this point i was bugging her) Well, I enjoy architecture and buildings and engineering has always been fun to me so I thought I'd put them together
ME: That's cool! (smile) I'm the same way, I love drawing and designing cars and I put them together and got trans
HER: (smiles) well there you go

This thread ended here so I tried to transition to what else she does, and I found out she went to another college where she previously studied English

HER: I was an English Major,I wanted to write books
ME: ooh, books, what kind of books
HER: Anything really
ME: (Thoughtfully glance off and up) I can see you... writing romance novels... in Spain (trying to sex frame somehow)
HER: Well romance is important in any novel
ME: (I decide I want to touch her, so I slowly leaned off the chair I was leaning on then put my hand on her shoulder and she seemed receptive and the tension built up quite a bit)

I deep dove her a bit on her favorite kind of book, but I just couldn't extract that much out of her, it felt like pulling teeth to get anything out of her.Then a little while after this, she said she had work to do now, I took this as her trying to end the interaction so I decided I'd at least try to close out seeing I play to win:

ME: We should meet up again sometime and talk again McKenzie
HER: Yeah sure, we should sometime later
ME: So how about we trade contact info to make that happen (I gesture toward her phone, also my voice was a bit weak as I had to build up the courage inside me)
HER: I don't give out my number to guys I don't know
ME: (feeling defeated) Oh, that's okay... see you around McKenzie (then I slinked off to write this up)

Overall I felt I was bugging her a bit and not anything like the sexy suave man I envision myself being, getting her to open up about herself and comfortable with my touch and sex frames. But I guess the more I take action and fix mistakes, the faster I'll be laying girls like McKenzie. So tell me what you think

-Josh

 

[PinotNoir]

It's really not that bad, man. I think she just wasn't that interested.

As for more sexuality, pulling out the old "50 Shades of Grey" when the subject of books come up is always a good one.
"Ah so you want to write the next 50 Shades of Grey?"
"What's your favorite book? 50 Shades of Grey?"

This might be starting to get cliche at this point, but it still works for me.

HER: I don't give out my number to guys I don't know

I think you could have persisted more here. Even if she didn't end up agreeing, it would have given you experience with persisting.

YOU (pick one):
"Then let's go out and not be strangers anymore. "
"Then how can we be more than strangers if I can't call you for a meetup?"
"Then let's not be strangers. Let's go on a date and see if we got even more things in common."

HER: "I just don't think so...."

YOU (pick one):
"Oh come on, let's have an adventure. Do something spontaneous and fun. Let's run around the park and chase squirrels."
"Let's just keep it light then. We'll have a small coffee together, talk about shit, pretend to like each other's interests, and then say goodbye."
"We can either go back and forth for an hour, and I'll keep bending your ear with witty remarks, or you can just agree now and save us both some time. When are you free this week?"

Just whatever. Keep persisting

EDIT: Overall, I think you did a good job. I just wanted to say this. No reason to be down about this one.

 

[theemann31]

Yeah thanks Pinot, I read another GC article that says girls are far warmer and give more leeway to guys who are sexy with them, so I'm definitely going to just pause and spread a smile at her from time to time, request she come closer when she's opening up and touch her on the elbow, change my voice to sound like we're getting intimate to get her to mirror that back later on in the interaction, triangle gaze at her. I've noticed I can get away with these as long as my fundies are tight and she's invested.

I'm probably , making things harder on myself by not sexing up the interaction, if doing that would get her warmer with me.

A funny thing is my college is tiny in population, with 6 guys to every 1 girl, and most guys aren't that sexy with the girls, even the few fine ones. So two kinda interesting things are gonna happen:

I'm gonna be sexy with close to all the girls I meet, some it'll be subtle and plausible deniability can bail me out if they aren't used to it and others it will be as well executed as possible to let me stand out from the other guys.

Second, I've noticed I'm starting to develop a small army of the finest girls on campus being friends with me because I cold approach them. For instance, sometimes I head to the cafeteria alone, grab some food and sit at a table with the FINEST girls in the cafeteria even though I don't know them. I'll just use cold approach skills and say "hey threre! You girls look like a lot of fun, mind if I join you?" My fundies are tighter than all the other guys so they'll oblige and I can practice my skills and look good to everyone around. Social Proof is stiring up and some of my friends are taking notice.

I just see myself turning into the male equivalent of a sexy beautiful woman, you know the kind that guys scramble to do favors for, lose their shit around, give the most leeway to, never argue at, fight for attention... the list goes on. I'm a freshman, so if I can hone my skills before I complete my first semester, things might get epic if I can be sexy with every girl I meet and turn on most of the girls on campus. I'm lol-ing right now just imagining it. I'll be so rare

What Do You Think about My plan?

 

[Chase]

Josh-

Nice going on the mindset shift and new resolve. Seems like you're taking things further than you normally do, which is vital - that's how you learn, and how you get good.

Some feedback on the conversation and why it got boring:

ME: HEY SLOW DOWN (she turns around) (I smile) Your hairstyle is really cute
HER: Thanks (smiling)
ME:It's really nice, so... (playing to win I try to continue)What's your name?
HER: Mckenzie
ME: I'm Josh (I gently shake her hand) Where are you headed
HER: Right here (places her stuff down on a table)

Everything's fine up through here. You can tweak the opener with somewhat better wording and a more genuine / nuanced compliment, and that'll evoke a stronger positive response from her - e.g., compare:

• Your hairstyle is really cute
• You have [pause a moment and crack a bigger smile] the most excellent curls I've seen all day

... but just getting her opened up is the most important part, and this is more an evolutionary improvement than a revolutionary one.

On the rest of the conversation:

ME: Well what are you working on?
HER: Work for an apartment complex
ME: So is it North or South Housing?
HER: Yes (non chalantly looks away at her laptop she is putting out)
ME:South? (puzzled look on face)
HER: Oh, sorry It's off campus, so what's your major

Check out this article: Don't Get Hung Up on Topics.

Main thing here is if a topic's clearly not clicking, you want to drop it fast and change the subject.

Not doing so in this case made things awkward, and she politely took the lead and changed the subject to banish some of that awkwardness... of course, when she needs to take the lead this early on, unless she's going to drive it toward intimacy it's usually not a good thing, so better if you are the one who does this.

ME: Trans Design, Wha..
HER: ooooh I have no idea what that is
ME: We just design cars, what's your's?

Perfect opportunity here to use baiting and really get her investing to know more about you.

Like so:

• You: Trans Design, Wha..
  
  HER: ooooh I have no idea what that is
  
  You: Well, are you an artistic person?
  
  HER: I guess. Somewhat.
  
  You: What kind of art do you do?
  
  HER: I draw sometimes.
  
  You: We do that in trans design too. And a whole lot of other things. You might like it.
  
  HER: So what is it for, exactly?
  
  You: We design the devices that move people from Point A to Point B. And how about you, what do you major in?

Something like that. Really draw her in.

If that's too much to go through at this point, you can just add a little bit in to spice things up, like:

• You: Trans Design, Wha..
  
  HER: ooooh I have no idea what that is
  
  You: We design the devices that move people from Point A to Point B. And how about you, what do you major in?

... and it's still more interesting and alluring than just handing her the facts and saying, "We design cars," which sounds kind of uninteresting and kills any future question threads she could open up on it.

HER: Arch Eng
ME: Well that's cool!(smiling) a guy who sits next to me in my math class is in architecture (I tried to reward her for opening up)
HER: OK..

This is less of a reward and more of a gap created here, actually - kinda like if you told her you were in Trans Design and she said, "Oh, no way! There some girl in my Philosophy class who majors in Interior Design, I think!"

Generally, people are sensitive to whether you are actually relating to them, or are pandering to them and trying to relate to them but failing. If you aren't familiar with something or don't have any reference points around it, it's better to ask something about it than to grasp at straws. Like so:

• Her: Arch Eng
  
  You: You design buildings, basically.
  
  Her: Right.
  
  You: Like, skyscrapers or top secret military bases or industrial landfills or what sorts of buildings?

If you just know vaguely and generally what something is, you can often do a, "Like X and Y or what?" type statement that will be interesting and a little humorous if you throw some really far-off, unrelated things in there (usually you want to go for one impressive, high prestige one and one unimpressive, low prestige one - e.g., if you and I met and you told me you were in trans design and I knew nothing else about it, maybe I'd say, "You mean like you design future model Aston Martins, or is it more like those $500 3-wheeled cars they have in third world nations, or what's your specialty?").

Then I tried to deep dive her on what she's passionate about:

ME: So tell me Mckenzie, are you passionate about Arch Eng?
HER: Yeah, I guess... It's what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life and I'm studying it
ME: (trying to inspire her) Well those aren't good reasons to love something, just because your'e studying it
HER: I guess I do like it then.. (Pause)

Good start. The shift into passion is a bit abrupt here and doesn't flow so much from the conversation. Smoother would be:

• You: So why'd you pick Arch Eng?
  
  Her: Why..?
  
  You: Yeah. Why not botany, or black history?

HER: I was an English Major,I wanted to write books
ME: ooh, books, what kind of books

Ack!

You missed a REALLY great thread here. This is the penultimate example of jumping from topic to topic vs. deep diving... getting really deep into her - her dreams, motivations, why she does what she does.

What you want to have happen here is for that light to go off in your head where you say, "Aha! She WANTED to write books, but now she's an architectural engineer-in-training. WHY?" and then ask her that. You'll get to some really good material real fast that way.

Anyway, the very fact that you dredged up these various pieces of information that you could've tied together into a great deep dive is evidence that you're doing an acceptable enough job getting stuff to work with, and that's no small feat when you're starting out.

ME: ooh, books, what kind of books
HER: Anything really
ME: (Thoughtfully glance off and up) I can see you... writing romance novels... in Spain (trying to sex frame somehow)
HER: Well romance is important in any novel

This is not bad. Her reaction here isn't great, but it might just be because she's young and inexperienced and doesn't know how to properly flirt and banter with an attractive guy seeding sexual frames with her (or it might be that the interaction has been too flat to this point and she just doesn't want to encourage it any further - happens sometimes).

I'd actually recommend the dreamy suggestive response like what you have here for interactions where it's clearly going well and you're getting a lot of investment out of her. At that point, she'll be much more likely to go along with it or gently guide your suggestion in a different direction if it isn't completely accurate to her, because she wants to continue to help propel the interaction along.

In this case, since the interaction had been more stutter-step and she's seeming rather less cooperative, I'd suggest another:

• You: what kind of books
  
  Her: Anything really
  
  You: Well, either you're the dreamy romance sort, or you're the horror slasher thriller sort, I can't quite get a bead on it.
  
  Her: [laughs] Why do you think I'm the slasher sort?
  
  You: Hard to say - maybe it's that beady look in your eyes?

With a flagging interaction, you generally want to get some humor to try and inject life back into things, and a little subtle busting on her can be in order. Basically, if she's growing bored with you, she's viewing you as overly attainable and underly valuable; by busting her stones a bit, you can raise value while lowering attainability, and get things moving in the right direction again.

Then a little while after this, she said she had work to do now, I took this as her trying to end the interaction so I decided I'd at least try to close out seeing I play to win:

ME: We should meet up again sometime and talk again McKenzie
HER: Yeah sure, we should sometime later
ME: So how about we trade contact info to make that happen (I gesture toward her phone, also my voice was a bit weak as I had to build up the courage inside me)
HER: I don't give out my number to guys I don't know
ME: (feeling defeated) Oh, that's okay... see you around McKenzie (then I slinked off to write this up)

First off: major props for going for the close despite the lack of a clear window. I hope you won't let the brush off here discourage you.

Secondly, it was already in not-so-grand shape by this stage, however, some critiques:

• If you can tell it's really not going well, try to get contact details before she feels compelled to end things first. If she has to tell you to buzz off, it's almost never salvageable after that; however, occasionally, you can get digits from a girl who was ABOUT to tell you to buzz off, but if you preempted this and got her number before she did, she may have a change of heart later / your social awareness at the end can intrigue her enough to give you another shot.

• When going for the close, be specific - invite her for food or a drink or something else casual but specific, rather than to just hang out and talk, which sounds vague and ambiguously high pressure-ish (we're going to just hang out and talk? About what? The same not-going-anywhere stuff we've been talking about already? Sounds exciting...) - if it's food or a drink, then even if she's not that into YOU, she can say to herself, "You know what? It's been a while since a guy's taken me out to grab some good food - what the heck, why not").

Overall I felt I was bugging her a bit and not anything like the sexy suave man I envision myself being, getting her to open up about herself and comfortable with my touch and sex frames. But I guess the more I take action and fix mistakes, the faster I'll be laying girls like McKenzie. So tell me what you think

-Josh

I got the same read, and it's wonderful you realize this. You'll improve so long as you keep at it. The only thing I'd be worried about would be if you DIDN'T pick up on that; the fact that you did means you're able to recognize where something is off, which is immensely useful in being able to sit down and pick apart what that something is, and address it.

I'm probably , making things harder on myself by not sexing up the interaction, if doing that would get her warmer with me.

I'd focus more on getting the fundamentals of a good interaction down first - good conversation, a little humor, a little more insightful / on point comments. Don't worry too much about sexing things up until then. Get the basics handled, and then you can move to the slightly more advanced stuff.

Also, sexy in and of itself won't get you laid. It's a nice enhancer, but the basic steps of taking a girl through an interaction with good guidance, conversation, and escalation is what you really need to be racking up girls. You can get laid being unsexy but taking all the right steps; you will almost never get laid being very sexy but not having the steps down correctly. I'd almost recommend against focusing on sexiness too early, because if you're getting great receptions from women that can make you more gun shy about not wanting to mess up these great views they have of you when you know you don't know what to do with them yet.

Structure first, window dressing after.

I just see myself turning into the male equivalent of a sexy beautiful woman, you know the kind that guys scramble to do favors for, lose their shit around, give the most leeway to, never argue at, fight for attention... the list goes on. I'm a freshman, so if I can hone my skills before I complete my first semester, things might get epic if I can be sexy with every girl I meet and turn on most of the girls on campus. I'm lol-ing right now just imagining it. I'll be so rare

What Do You Think about My plan?

This sounds like what you really want is attention - which you can certainly do if you're going to focus mainly on appearances.

However, I will tell you, because I spent most of junior high, high school, and university doing exactly this, that it's an absolutely horrible place to be.

Set the desire for attention aside and focus on getting results with women first:

Reactions from Women or Results with Women?

Then, once you know what you're doing and can close things out, you can focus on building up an image of yourself if you want... though you may find that a big image can be as much of a prison as it is a source of new and interesting things. There's a lot of freedom in anonymity, including the freedom to learn and grow by trying new and crazy and non-guaranteed things... something that those with images to uphold typically cannot afford to do, lest their images be shattered.

Chase

 

[theemann31]

Thanks Chase, you've given me alot to work on. I have a ton of holes in my conversational game and it's gonna take months to become proficient and confident with Baiting and being intriguing, relating, rewarding, getting her to invest and so on.

I'm not gonna spend time being sexy with girls and that whole plan, now that I think of it, it's a dumb idea, thanks for pointing that out.

I've got my work cut out and I'll have fun working to improve

But quick question, I asked her if she's a creative person and she said no, I continued to ask if she doodles or plays an instrument and she said no and that her life is completely boring. All I could do is mumble out that can't be so... then I moved on. What would you suggest? This is a common problem

-Josh