This happens to me all the time in social events.
What I usually do is put my arm around them too and try to boost their confidence.
Only takes a small compliment:
"Hey, that's a nice shirt man, nice pick..."
Like showing: "you don't need this shit, you are also cool on your own"
After they get their boost, they usually disengage and move on.
This is a double tap, because it shows how cool I'm dealing with annoying strangers.
Of course I'm talking about social....night is another dynamic.
Good responses.
But you are mistaken on one thing. You are not "boosting them". You make them believe you are boosting them, but in reality, you are tooling them.
The "nice shirt man" is THE MOST standard AMOG technique and was TylerDurden's favourite lines. He even used to have infield vids where he would tool guys and that line always came up.
This is AMOGING. Your response is AMOGING.
Why?
Well AMOGING is a frame control technique, and frames are subtle - it is after all the underlying meaning of the interaction.
By saying "nice shirt" you are asserting dominance, since you are the one challenging, the one judging, the one ASSUMING the position of power. The same underlying frame comes with "Like showing:
"you don't need this shit, you are also cool on your own". What is your frame, and what does your expression of such frame end up framing him as? These are the questions you should be asking.
Again it is all about the subtle underlying meaning - it is all about frames. And back in the days, everybody would focus on that, but it seems the overall interest in frames, framing and frame control is close to non-existant nowadays as most guys seem to fail to see things through the lens of frames.
It is all about frames. Has always been and will always be.
Here is one of Tyler's old post (that has been reposted).
Whenever me or my wings (like
@Pelusita) would peacock (e.g. sequin jackets, floral prints, fur coats) and dudes would come up to us (so many dudes come up to us, we concluded that it is some instinctual response to peacocking - they see it as a threat - men go nuts whenever a guy is peacocked) and they would start complimenting us, we would just give them a quick "thanks" or a simple quick nod and walk away. Funnily, sometimes the guy would start following us to keep complimenting and touch our clothes and comment on them. We know EXACTLY what they are doing, and we usually tell them politely "thank you for your compliment, but we are a bit busy/we would like some privacy/we are in a conversation". Interestingly, whenever you do that, they guy expresses this feeling of "failure" ("I failed to tool them"). You can totally see it in their face. It is quite hilarious. If you don't "protect yourself", you become the flashy guy who gets tooled.
This is for example why peacocking is easier said than done (aside from finding the right clothes, and have the required fashion expertise for looking cool without looking like a clown or a gay guy as there is a fine line that splits them apart) as you need to know how to wear those clothes and accessories, but more importantly, have pristine frame control because you will receive 1 million amogs on your ass.
-Teevster